When Albus does speak to Gellert, it is only what is earned. He sighs, but the noise is dismissive rather than soft. “If you think I have not been leaving it, I have to wonder what you do think I’ve been doing these last months. I may be old in foolish, but not so foolish as to sit around twiddling my thumbs and assuming you have reformed.”
But they said, oh yes, they all said he must have come to repent his actions in his time alone locked away in Nurmengard. Albus thinks he knows Gellert better than that; he didn’t have to see the blood on his hands to know.
In the right light, Albus supposes, Gellert’s cause could be just. Particularly now. It’s blood for blood, eat or be eaten. And without Albus to stop him, he supposes there is little option but for Gellert to emerge the victor, however his motivations twist.
Albus will not stop him. For the Greater Good, if there ever was such a cause. Albus’s thoughts taste bitter, these days. He watches Gellert move in the mirror above the sink, never really looks at him, and shies away preemptively from a touch that never comes. He has done this before, the summer of 1899, June when he couldn’t figure out what he wanted or how he wanted it. He had shied away from Gellert’s interest then, too, but if he had weaponized it then it was without intention of doing so. Easier to feign disinterest and a lack of comfort, then come back and take advantage with his own ill intentions.
Gellert had been so very eager. Albus had disliked that at the time, wanted to be in full control of their situation. He still does. He’s better at it now than he was when he held Gellert down in that bedroom eighty some years ago and kissed him.
He watches Charlot’s pale face in the mirror and pulls he flask out from under Gellert’s hand. The fondness is uncomfortable, it makes him itch under the skin. “If you would like to talk, Gellert,” and his voice is sharp and cold. Albus tries to be impenetrable, smooth and cool like glass. Impossible to gain purchase on. “I don’t see how much of a difference it makes what face I wear, as long as my words are my own.”
He doesn’t take kindly to the almost-order, either. It was never his role to play.
“And–forgive me–if your interests encompass that beyond talking, I suppose it would be wise for me to remain as Charlot.” As you don’t want to fuck him. Albus tries to bite back these words. They are cruel. Albus tries, very hard, not to be cruel. Still, it’s impossible not to notice, how very eager Gellert still is. How he has expressed more interest in Albus as Charlot when he is wearing Mattias’s face. It’s alright, if we aren’t ourselves, Albus almost catches himself thinking on the worst nights, then sobers up. He hasn’t touched Gellert since 1899. “Considering that you don’t express nearly as much interest in taking him to bed.“
He drinks the potion. It slides down his throat, slimy and foul-tasting, but he manages not to be sick with it, manages to remain composed, though he’s certain his face is still waxy and flushed from illness.
“I am dying.“ It’s softer, kinder, than anything else he has said to Gellert in the months of their reunion. They don’t talk about it, they simply don’t talk. He hasn’t stated it before, not so plainly. “Allow me my paranoia, and my vices.”
Dying he says, as though it is nothing. “I’m just dying.” Albus’ kindness burns, as it always does. Gellert has never wanted his kindess, the soft look in his eyes that says “pity” and “I’m sorry”. Dying he says, and Gellert is not surprised, but a quiet sort of bitterness comes with it. All men are mortal after all, it seems, even the ones who should not be.
(Would that they could live forever, he once thought so long ago. Would that they could have all the time in the world to play out this little game of theirs, stretched out through the centuries. Allow the mortals and petty things to blur out around them, what do human things matter when you can live forever, when you walk as gods among men? How beautiful would it be to not be held down by the attachments of this world? He wonders if Albus has ever longed for such a thing, just a taste.)
So calm he is, in face of his own death. ”Allow me my paranoia, and vices.” Of course he is. He is Albus Dumbledore, ever the unflappable, the unafraid. How sensible. Gellert is not afraid either, he has no grief to give (yet). Albus is not dead yet.
(He will not die at all, if Gellert has anything to say about it, and he does.)
"Reformed?" Gellert says like he is amused, like he hasn’t heard anything else Albus has said. He tucks his hand onto the back of Albus' neck, a possessive gesture, proprietary. He digs his nails into the back of Albus’ neck and brings them lovingly into intimate proximity. Charlot’s face may be unwanted, but it is not unappealing. (Not when he feels their deadline looming. Not when he will take what he can get.) "No never, but I can be good. For you I can be very good."
He smiles, a teasing thing, full of promises and secrets for two. “We both know how much you like it when I’m good.” Obedient. Gellert has not felt obedient in a long time.
Gellert kisses him then, because he can, and more to the point Albus can’t stop him. Charlot’s lips are full in a way he doesn’t remember Albus’ being, and it is a closed lip, prefunctatory thing, dry and unpleasant; it is their first kiss in 80 years. It is rapture.
(Gellert decides that if Albus must die than it will not be by whatever mysterious wound or illness that has befallen him. Should he fail so completely that he cannot fix this, Albus’ life will be his for the taking. If he cannot have Albus in life than he will surely have him in death.)
“Have you resigned yourself to your mortality, old friend?” Gellert asks in a whisper against Albus’ ear when he is done. They are chest to chest in the shallow light of the bathroom, with the lingering scent of blood hanging around them. “Do you really believe I will let you go that easily?”
“Let me be good for you.” He entreats while he soothes the small, crescent shaped hurts his nails have caused on the back of Albus’ neck. “Let me be your tool. We will fix this, together.”
He pulls back then, so that he may see Albus’ eyes. They are not Albus’ in truth, but here is perhaps the one thing that Charlot and Albus have in common. There is no mad smile on Gellert’s face, no teasing to his voice. “Tell me what it is.”
