AN: This is from back in the old days. There was a prompt game going around for drabbles (I think it was supposed to be 500 words, probably - there was always some limitation, which I was very bad at keeping to) and somebody sent me “Indecent”. So far Harry and Ellis haven’t proven very popular to the folks reading here, but I like them, so: Here’s the story
Harry laughed, toppling out of the alley and into the stink of the street. It was raining- raining like the dickens, and standing up made a veritable bath of it. He wiped a dilute trail of blood out from under his nose and turned to see where Ellis was in the pattering, splashing fog of ricochet raindrops.
Ellis had his fun, coming out dark and soaked, wearing a coat that until a second ago hadn’t been his. He was blowing on his knuckles, though the rain had already made them look spotless. His laugh sounded low and rumbling, but Harry heard it like the crack of lightening. Stumbling forward, he grabbed Ellis’ bruised fist and brought the knuckles to his lips. Ellis grabbed the back of his head and pulled him close. They kissed, both like to drown, and parted laughing.
“I never...”
They wouldn’t have heard if it wasn’t meant to be heard- a mustachioed man making an enormous mistake, clad in rum-caster and oil coat, with a stick to help hold up his dignity. Harry could hear the rumble in Ellis’ chest, the growing growl he usually reserved, for on nights less merry, Harry didn’t like to make a spectacle of them, of them together.
In the heat of the rain and the thumping blows it game them, there was a certain encouragement. Harry squeezed Ellis to him- a deep breath, a hip-to-hip touch, hands roving in admiration of so strong and virile a back- and hissing like the snake of Eve, he admired his lover.
“Indecent,” came the muttering man, eyes wide as shock and wisdom battled, shock winning out.
Ellis, like any man would, grew under the attentions of an admiring lover. Laughter rumbling deep in his chest as thunder, he squeezed Harry’s shoulders.
“I’ll show you ‘decent’...” Ellis laughed.
A man with a decent coat and beaver hat, in the rain, on the street, ought to be more cautious, but then, so ought they all, all chickens and pigs and rats, washing drowned down the streets as if to attest to the fact. Tripping on the wet pavement as Ellis started after him, no doubt the fancy man thought so, but the warning had not come in the howling of wolves or the sound of pistol shot (gunpowder would be useless in this downpour, anyway), but instead in deceptive laughter, and the kiss of lovers. If, perhaps, the kiss of lovers had been as strong to the fancy man’s mind as wolf-howls and gunshots, then perhaps it wouldn’t have happened at all- Ellis had his coat, they were still full of drink, and food, and had, even a little late-gathered coin to go on, and surely, surely there was enough heat for even so wet a night. But no, the fancy-man didn’t- and men, unlike wolves, do not make a distinction between hungry and full, or, at least, have appetites enough, that there is always a hunger to go around.
Harry left the next alley with a coat of his own, and Ellis fixed a fine beaver hat on his head, making him taller still. The stick was broken and useless, and so left them, flooding down the hill and towards the river with the ferries of pigs and chickens and rats and cats, all drowned in the rising stink of the city trying to beat itself clean. This time, they both emerged with spotless hands, laughter merged like thunderheads, the fine warmth of a gentleman’s waterproofing softening the din of blows that rained from all sides, except the side to which the other kept near.
Unlike the last, Harry didn’t even remember whether they left him facing down or up to drown.