💋 (does this even make any fucking sense at all I have no idea yolo)
(THIS BECAME LONG I HOPE ITS OK @emilyplaysgames)
Elliot balances a champagne flute before him and sweeps between chatting ballroom guests. He’s chasing a tumble of black lace and diamonds, and, less earnestly, the woman garbed in them. He swings around an ivory pillar and finally meets her back, watching her shoulders for surprise. “Pardon me, miss.”
A Funeral Miss only missing her veil. Her back’s open like a taunt, but her look’s what kills.
He offers his free hand, silver rings climbing across lithe fingers. “Do you have a moment?”
Alyx turns to him, regal in a familiar rough way. Her eyes dart green below her amber bangs. “Yes, I’m free.” There’s a challenge in those words that said, ‘now, and always now.’
Elliot gives an imperceptible nod and says, “I suppose we have the same favorite color. I want to debate.”
Alyx puts a hand against the tight curve of her hip. Her fingers dig there, obsidian nails on lace, and she wonders if this is some trick. She became used to the snow and the cold looks– but parlor games? Ball games? That took time, and time was for playing mundane savior or trading bloody papers for Centurio seals. “Let’s go at it, then. I’ve bickered with Sylphs– color with you can’t compare to what is and isn’t humor with them.”
Oh. She likes purple, he’s sure now. A lesser color, not a bad one or the best. But the music started, and he was on the floor of this conversation now. He says, “The question–” and pauses, blinks, gravely finishes, “is blue. Is it premier on this star as lightning or as ice?”
“Lightning, undoubtedly.”
“But ice and lightning make the same noise, and only the former can be housed for display.”
Alyx touches the string of pearls around her neck. “This really is nonsense.” She laughs. At him? Impressions are too fickle.
Elliot pouts. “One should talk serious only while drunk. Are you– yet?”
“Oh, good. Not yet tipsy either. Pardon me, then.” He takes up her wrist – the one free of gold bangles – and guides it towards his hip. He stoops and waits, face close to her ear, eyelashes felt on her hair as his eyes close. He’s looking for permission, but something in him is too shy to ask, so he takes the weight of her hand on his embroidered side pocket as a yes. His lips press to her cheek. The kiss skims across her scar like rain, somehow cold. Reverence is in his lingering. His breath does not frost on her freckles, and the fluidity of his smile does not crack his skin. Oh, failure of ice!
He pulls away and speaks in that same glib way as before: “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve kissed drunk women and three bells later I have four poems scrawled out on fans and napkins from them. More spelling errors than rhymes. Misunderstandings. Would you believe poetry born from a caprice is so unfeeling? Of course you do. ‘Tis more agonizing than even devotion.” He smiles a little deviously and holds out his champagne glass for Alyx to tap hers against. “To blue, then, and to you.”
