Tristan offered an alternative idea and that made Chéri smile “You are right! Although I can imagine there won’t be much to do till morning, right?” Apparently the lifting was not in question, at least from Chéri perspective.

Chéri looked somewhere else. Honestly embarrassed, he gulped and said “I can’t write either.” His small omission immediately made apparent. He picked the drink. It wasn’t going to fill his stomach very much, but it was better than nothing and he could drink his embarrassment away. Chéri sighed.

But right then, he noticed another man was looking at them. Hoping he could have heard his plea, ignoring -purposefully or not- the potential change in expression happening on the doctor’s face and offered another of his charming smiles to Zechariah. Any plan that other strager might have for him was probably better than he currently had.

Tristan met his eyes, and Zechariah smiled outright. He liked the man well enough, but he was still a frat boy at heart.

While his understood French had allowed him to follow along easily enough, the person’s gaze landing on him meant inevitably talking in it.

“Parlez vous Allemand?” he asked immediately. “Tchèque? Espagnol?”

Translation:

“Do you speak German?”
“Czech? Spanish?”

Who invited him into the conversation?

He glanced at the young man and knew the answer.

Performer... Tristan quietly put his glass to his lips and eyed the intruder.

The unknown man asked Chéri if he spoke a few other languages. While Chéri ha potentially barely heard of Czech, he shook his head regarding the other two and gave another bizarre answer “Euskara.” The man spoke at least four languages, who was him to take for granted Basque wasn’t in his skills? Needless to say, Chéri was entirely unaware of its uniqueness.

Tristan looked at him and Chéri answered with a questioning smile. He wasn’t going to spare his smile “I think this man doesn’t speak much French but wants to talk to me, would you mind translating?” After all, he had heard the bare minimum from a few people, but none of them actually spoke French.

He almost prepared to answer in French, only for this young thing to give him the most exquisite excuse.

Zechariah shrugged ‘helplessly’ and looked to Tristan.

He would mind, actually. But once again, Tristan found himself cornered by the laws of civility. A nod was all they got from him.

Either he was blatantly unaware of whatever was going on between Tristan and Zechariah, or he had chosen to ignore it for his own benefit. Either was, he answered again to Tristan with an emotional “Thank you, kind sir.” Then batted his lashes to the new comer and, with a saccarine tone, asked “What can I do for you kind sir?”

There was the most infinitesimal raise of Zechariah’s brow at the flirty tone this androgynous creature took on. Was this thing a man? A boy? The voice was lower than he would have guessed for a woman, but then only sopranos existed in the opera houses.

“Excusez-moi?” he asked, looking to Tristan.

"He's asking what he can do for you," Tristan translated, growing more uncomfortable by the second. He took a long drink. He wished the kid would stop.... doing whatever it was he was doing.

This person was, without the shadow of a doubt, a tumtum. The rest was anyone’s guess. Sure as hell, though, with that voice they could sing Rigoletto without particular difficulties. He turned to Tristan, expectantly.

Tristan translated and Chéri granted him a grateful nod, with another bright smile, drinking their drink dutifully, while they looked from a man to another.