"Oh thank God!" Elijah sighed in relief and carefully looped an arm around him as he pulled him and the chair up to right him. "Do you need water or something? I did not mean for you to faint! I was just questioning.. I am sorry. Perhaps Zechariah was right and I shouldn't be working tonight."

He gave an incredulous laugh and said, "You who have never been in love, telling me how it's suppose to be. Tell me, when was the last time you even appreciated full bosoms in the morning light? You who cast stones while living in a glass house. You think you know it all, Zech, but you don't know. Go ahead, judge me from that lofty perch of yours while you drink that wine that isn't kosher and mutter explicits when you think nobody can hear. Come down to my level for once and be realistic with me." He was standing up for himself in a way he never had before.

"The truth is, I don't want to please mother and find some girl and marry her just because she came from a family we know. I love Katherine and nothing you say or do will change my mind of that! When you find yourself in love with someone, come talk to me... because maybe then you'd understand."

He was about to leave it at that when the sound of a crash found his ears, and he said, "You'd better check your wet house guest. I'm sure you'll have a lecture in store for him as well on matters you don't get."

Bill felt the constable pull him back upright, and he pulled the robe around himself again.

"I don't need water, but thank you, officer," he said, confused. Why was the constable treating him with kid gloves now just because he'd passed out? This made no sense to him.

Uriel laughed, and Zechariah clenched his fists. Here he was trying to save Uriel from his own idiocy, and this was the thanks he got!

“Oh my!” he snarled... probably loud enough for those within his home to hear. “Look at you, learning so much hiding under Muter’s skirt your whole damned life! One woman bats her eyes at you and now it is love!”

He whirled to fully face him … but his dramatic monologue was cut short by a coughing fit. He glared, tossed his hands in the air in exasperation, and stormed back into the summer home.

Next thing he knew, Crane had the vagrant on him. That robe was entirely too small on him.

Too bad.

“The captain, gentlemen,” he gritted out with a nod to the door.

He had half a mind to strangle the captain himself if they found him – imagining Uriel’s face on him.

Yiddish:

Muter = Mother

"What... what are you doing?" Bill said. Still disoriented, he stood up automatically, and the robe fell open a third time before he clutched it around himself.

If this was the only way he could get out of this house to see if John and Robert were safe, he would have to go along with the investigation, he decided. The constable was awfully soft; maybe Bill could get away with what he'd done. He hadn't tried to investigate anything until the owner of the house... Zechariah? pressed him on it.

"It's Captain Richard Smith," he blurted out. "The boat's the Zephyr. He's staying at the Pier Inn. But please, sir, could I go to see if my friends are all right?"

Crane was relieved that the man seemed fine. He nearly jumped when Zechariah returned, afraid he would think he'd struck the man to send him to the ground, though anyone who knew Elijah knew he wasn't a violent man, far from it. But the demand to go see the captain had him relax and nod. "Are these men at the same place?" He asked the stranger but was already heading towards the door.

Uriel snorted, "You think I am blind enough I can't see what you do on my own, hmm? I have eyes, you turd. You were too busy ignoring me to see me trying to hang on YOUR coat tails like a stupid little brother who idolizes his older brother! Oh! And I didn't ask Katherine to marry me just on some whim, I spent time with her and got to know her first. But you wouldn't know that, would you?! No! Because you're too busy faking your way through life to notice important things!" He yelled all of this after his brother who was storming back into the house, then he muttered things under his breath. He followed Zech eventually and got an eyefull of flesh. That was it for him, he was about to smash his fist into a face and the berobed one would do quite nicely if he didn't hide his goods. "Goodnight, Zechariah, have fun with this one." And he was going to attempt to leave even if it killed him.

[CW: completely unnecessary sexual description.]

Content to think he got the last word, Zechariah stormed off with an eyeroll that would have made even his sixteen-year-old self groan in embarrassment.

He looked over with a glare when he heard movement, only for his eyes to land on less fabric than a Michelangelo painting. His brow furrowed, gaze dropping to the half-drowned man’s crotch.

It was as though he gazed into a pouched abyss, and the slit gazed unerringly back.

He stepped in beside Crane, as though it would take two men to handle any trouble that one exposed circumcised cock might bring.

Angry and newly sanctified in his self-imposed abstinence, his temper only flared as Uriel caught up for one last sentence at him. He gestured widely in a silent taunt at his brother, and accidentally elbowed Crane in the process.

Uriel elbowed his brother back and barked out, "I'll wallop you." Then he was storming toward the front door and away from the fiasco, clearly pissed off beyond reason by that point and needing comfort from Kitty. He grumbled the whole way, muttering something under his breath about his brother being a closeted homosexual and needing to get off his high horse with the judgment. Of course, Uriel did not know how true his comment was, he had only assumed.