physical prompt meme – dance: sender invites receiver to slow dance
Though the night is cool, the city remembers the summer-day heat. It oozes up from asphalt and cobblestone, settling between the tall buildings that line the street like a cloud of memory. Hannibal can scent it on the flock gathered below—the tang of perspiration, the mustiness of humidity. Lingering curls of sugar and vanillin cast by the garrapiñada toasted on every street corner. Though it is impossible to avoid the fog of smells entirely, their apartment is positioned high enough in the building that their balcony surmounts the brunt of it, hanging out over the haze of heat and scent like a mountain peak piercing a blanket of clouds. In the winter, the weather will likely be cool enough to fend it off entirely.
It is a trifling price to pay. Every city has a singular and identifiable redolence, and Hannibal finds that of Buenos Aires charming in its own right. At his side, Will seems equally unbothered—the lines of his body are loose and untethered, his carriage grounded as he takes in the crowd below. Hannibal regards him with undisguised appreciation; his gaze roves indulgently over Will’s figure, drinking in the shape his body cuts against the evening dark. He is limned in the furred blue-and-yellow glow of the temporary artificial lights planted below, standing close enough to the balcony rail that they bleed up around him like a commoner’s halo. His shirtsleeves are rolled neatly just below his elbows, and the top buttons of his shirt have been undone, revealing a sun-warmed vee of skin that gleams with the specter of perspiration.
Will is aware of Hannibal’s attention, but he does not acknowledge it beyond a pleased curl of his lips, an adjustment of his posture. Hannibal does not expect him to. Anything more would be superfluous, considering the tenor they have set for the evening. Garish. Neither of them are interested in that manner of display, nor will they insult the other by considering it either palatable or necessary. Instead, Will’s movement is subtle, the shift of fabric slight—just enough to accentuate the seat of his pants, the line of his hamstrings. It is more than enough to draw Hannibal’s focus, and his gaze flits down with evident appreciation.
Will delights in the unspoken sway he holds over Hannibal, and Hannibal delights in it, too.
On the street below, the small orchestra has begun to re-tune; strings cry in the night, singing over the tidal texture of the crowd’s conversation. The instrumentalists are by no means exceptional, but Hannibal has been pleasantly surprised by their skill. He had not known what level of competence to expect from la Gran Milonga Nacional—for as notable as the festival is, it is celebrated by both locals and tourists, artists and amateurs. It could have easily catered to those who did not know any better—a celebration for celebration’s sake, rather than an estimable commemoration of a celebrated art form. In truth, it seems to be a little of both, but Hannibal finds it hard to begrudge the performance anything when it has provided the backdrop for such a magnificent night.
Beside him, Will turns his head toward Hannibal and arches his brow. His curls flutter in the light breeze, which kisses away the last of the sweat clinging to his hairline. In response to the unspoken prompt, Hannibal smiles—an expression worn more on his cheekbones than his lips—and steps backward, extending his hand to Will with his palm upturned.
Will takes it, as he always has. As he always will, in the end. It is one radiant constant in the ever-shifting sands of their existence.
They plunge once more into the lingering heat of their apartment just as the orchestra lapses into silence. Like the inhalation before the storm or the drawing back of a bowstring, a tense quiet unfurls as Hannibal leads Will into the heart of the room that sprawls out just beyond the threshold. It has been painstakingly cleared of all obstacles, the hardwood newly polished, and Hannibal comes to stop in the center of the floor as though drawing Will to the middle of a ballroom. He twines his arm around Will’s back, hand settling on the far side of Will’s upper waist in the abrazo cerrado style, and Will adopts the follower’s position, his palm on Hannibal’s far shoulder blade.
As the orchestra strikes up the first passionate notes of the tango, contrary to the expectation inherent in their posture, Hannibal drags his right leg backward, urging Will to step forward in the leader’s place. As Hannibal had hoped, he meets the unspoken challenge with ease and falls effortlessly into step, steering Hannibal around the room with grounded, incisive movements. In this particular style of embrace, they are close enough that Hannibal could claim Will’s lips in a kiss with no more than a slight tilt of his head. The tension of withholding is a gratification in itself. He does not think he imagines the wryly amused lift of Will’s brow, and he meets the expression with a closed-mouth smile and a mischievous glint in his eye.
The Argentine tango was born as a dance of sorrow—a representation of human fatality and frustrated love. Hannibal finds a beautiful poetry in their subversion of this particular trope. They have proceeded beyond mortality and heartbreak and emerged on the other side, have breached the surface of a world crafted from the careful hands of hedonism and instinct. They dance the tango now as two who have conquered it; each passionate step, each sensual tangle of limbs and warbling cry of strings is an homage to battles hard-won, deeds and misdeeds that have neither been forgiven nor forgotten.
From the open balcony doors, the music of the night bleeds in, echoing and distorted. There is no reality save the one between them. Will’s leg drags against Hannibal’s with every long step; they pick up speed, gliding across the room, and Will turns them in a media luna, their legs pressing and crossing as Hannibal swivels around Will’s axis—another inevitability he has long since accepted. He closes his eyes, leaning his forehead against Will’s temple, and lets the music pulse through him. Each caricia, each lustrada and toque, each change between sistema paralelo and sistema cruzado seems pulled from the very depths of their souls, an improvisation that is more discovery than creation. Will’s heart pounds strong and fast against him, and with each exhale, Hannibal’s breath catches on Will’s jaw.
When daylight comes, they will once more don their sheep's clothing. They will venture beyond their little tower and weave themselves back into the fabric of society, their threads indistinguishable from the rest. The promise of their future stretches out before them, a gleaming paradise that neither law nor man can touch.
Tonight, in this time apart from time, this reality that is both reality and not, they dance.
