Saturday, November 24th, 2012
Because I am slow and got way behind. :<


Word Count: 1425

Hands on his shoulders, lips on his neck.

Saturday night. Lights, camera flashes, music. Marble and sparkling crystal. A limousine. Rich people living even richer lives.

It was a completely different world here. On the surface, Boston wasn’t any different from Destiny City. Paris expected most cities had their similarities; if you’d seen one, you’d seen them all. The sites were different, of course. The history behind it was never the same. But people never changed. Humans were the same everywhere, in every corner of the world—capable of indescribable evil, and the most astounding acts of good.

Yet he could not help but feel different here. A little less confined, a little more free. Destiny City had come to represent so many horrible things to him—war, death, loss, struggle—all the things he wanted to escape but could never succeed in putting behind him. It felt so far away, so distant, when it was usually so present, in his face, in his thoughts, trapping him to a place and a circumstance he didn’t always like, and when he was there it didn’t matter how far or how hard he ran. It always came after him, dragged him back, and reminded him of his place amidst it all.

Boston wasn’t like that. Not even a little.

“Come dance with me.”

A whisper in his ear. Warm breath ghosting across his skin and curling through his hair.

Paris had never had any reason to wear a gown before. Skirts, dresses, tights, heels—all were familiar to him in one way or another. He knew how to present himself in nearly any crowd, could dress down for casual affairs as easily as he could dress up for formal ones, knew what looked best, what flattered his shape, his coloring, what could make him look striking or help him blend into the crowd. He could choose the right jewelry, brush on the right makeup, style his hair for a day of class or a special event. Classy or classless, he had a face for every occasion.

But a sophisticated soiree like this, a room full of the city’s wealthiest—doctors, lawyers, politicians, old money, new money, all different levels of money—was an alien experience, almost old-fashioned in its presentations, fairytale-like in a world that had succumbed so far to reality. The hotel ballroom was immaculate, the people in their tuxes and gowns nearly foreign in their affluence, and Paris could not weave so freely among them, could only sit at the table with its pristine white tablecloth, polished silver and glittering crystal and take it all in, remind himself that this was real, that people and places like this existed.

And, more importantly, that he was not one of them.

“What?”

“Come dance with me.”

Another whisper. Lips pressed beneath his ear. The hands that skimmed lightly down his bare arms made him squirm.

He felt drunk off of everything and he hadn’t even consumed any alcohol—couldn’t with this many people around, when his age was a well-known fact to the group he’d accompanied. The experience was enough, the new faces, the laughter, the very atmosphere, everything about it left him slightly delirious. He didn’t trust his feet to support him. He didn’t trust his voice to speak, or his mouth to form the right words if he tried. All he could do was sit and stare, watch the couples on the dance floor, attempt and soon fail to understand the conversations taking place all around him.

Equally perplexing was Chris’s behavior. Unusual, out of character, it confused him as much as it thrilled him, set him on edge when he didn’t know what to expect, and couldn’t predict when the next subtle or drastic change would occur.

Chris’s hands touched him, grabbed him, pulled him close, held him, caressed him, and never, never drew away. All night he’d felt them, on his arm, his shoulder, his thigh, his back, his waist—everywhere it would be appropriate to touch in public and some places it wouldn’t be, always light and gentle, just enough that he always noticed, but not so much as to seem out of place to the rest of their company. It left him breathless, anxiously waiting, longing for more.

“Alright,” he said, and those hands helped him from his chair, ushered him out onto the dance-floor, and guided him into a slow, slow dance.

He wore deep purple silk, hanging from one shoulder and nearly backless, ruched to his bottom, loosening over his thighs and calves, and trailing in a short, elegant train behind him. His makeup was light, all smoky eyes and pink lips, and the jewelry had been provided for him by Chris’s grandmother, dangling diamond earrings and a diamond cuff to match the glimmering silver heels hidden beneath his gown. Chris’s hands roamed over the silk, or rose to touch his hair, pinned loosely up and back, fingers grazing along the side of his neck, tucking a strand behind his ear.

“You look beautiful.”

Words he’d heard countless times, repeatedly from Chris, but tonight, this weekend, throughout this entire trip, they somehow took on more meaning.

“I feel like an overdressed poodle.”

“You look beautiful.”

“You seem to like repeating yourself tonight.”

“Because you’re not listening,” Chris said.

How as he not listening? What was there beneath the common phrase?

Chris looked almost gallant and debonair in his tuxedo, stylish as it was, set apart only by the shaggy look of his hair. Everyone else was neatly trimmed, formal and cultured and severe where Chris looked young and loose and a little less than refined, still something of a boy among old men. But he moved with a new sort of ease, less stiff than he usually was when Paris would coax him to dance, and he talked to these people with a sort of confidence he didn’t always show back home, where he was too friendly to be rude but too self-conscious to really be himself. Here, around more people like him, with families like his family, he seemed to blend in and stand out at the same time.

He leaned down. Paris obliged and tipped his head into position, and their lips met in the sort of kiss that left him wishing they were alone.

And something was… not wrong, but not right either. He’d sensed it before, their first day here, at the museum by the models of the planets, when Chris had fumbled and seemed full of an intention Paris had not expected but looked for now every time he looked into his eyes.

Paris was sure he was going crazy.

The promise ring sat as conspicuous as ever on his finger, drawing the eye of nearly everyone they encountered and putting to mind all the things he never would have thought to consider for himself. It scared him and yet for some reason he craved it, wondered what Chris thought of it, if it would ever become more than it was, if he was reading too far into things and jumping to conclusions because now he was expecting it, assuming what would follow because to nearly everyone else it seemed like a logical next step, the perfect ending to something that had never really been perfect.

And Paris was going crazy, waiting and not waiting, hoping and not hoping, afraid and unafraid, too conflicted to make a decision but too sure of himself to vacillate for long.

But when he dropped hints, he got nothing.

When he opened himself up, let Chris think he was ready, there was no progress.

Just this, the touching and the whispers and the kissing, and the nagging voice in the back of his mind that told him to go slow, don’t jump in, take the time to enjoy the present, ignore the past and don’t look too far into the future.

A hand on his back, trailing down, down, down. Lips moving from his mouth, to his cheek, to his ear, to his neck.

“Let’s get a room,” mumbled against his skin.

“Alright,” he wheezed, clinging tight.

This wasn’t what he’d wanted two years ago, when he’d been young and foolish and looking for all the wrong things in all the wrong places. This had never been the sort of life he thought was meant for him.

He was still young and foolish—still looking, close as he was to the answer these days.

Why should this be what he wanted, what was meant for him now?