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The alcohol is still burning ever so slightly at the back of your throat, and pushing her is easy enough. Just a nudge between the shoulder blades, in the – right – direction. And if she was smiling a moment ago and is nothing but blunt confusion now you don’t see it, and either way – it doesn’t matter.
You grab Beauregard’s hand. She complains and you smile. You watch Jester tell Fjord just where to place his hands because he – doesn’t even know how to waltz – and you smile. Or you don’t, because – you’re not watching, and it doesn’t concern you anymore, or – you do, because you deserve the dull, thorny pain in your chest. And, anyways –
You push that aside. This is not time for such things. A pained grin is starting to pull at your face, and it’s rather rude to your rather lovely partner.
You smile at Beau. You talk to her. You dance. It’s easy and, comparatively, painless. Never mind that blue and green are spinning in tandem on the other side of the room. She steps on your toes a few times, but – her mistakes are endearing, and you love her, and you have more than enough practice to make up for it. You talk of home and betterment, of hope, and it’s fine that you’ve needed to vomit for the past hour, that you’ve only had to shut off a part of you and there’s that easy smile – because she seems to want to fix it. Fix everything. With you. It’s nice to forget, for a moment. To feel weightless for a change.
You spin along to the four-piece band, make your way around the bend and over Beauregard’s many misplaced feet to the other side of the room. It’s pleasant, and nostalgic, and entirely new and home again.
It also smells like shit.
“What the…” Beau frowns in front of you, neck arching back as if her head alone can escape the smell, and, oh – the serving boy is retching in the corner and the bassist is suddenly very off key and there is someone snickering extremely inappropriately over Beau’s shoulder on the other side of the room, and it can only be – it’s –
You shouldn’t look –
Jester is grinning at you, bitten lips and bright eyes and grand, glittering reveal over Fjord’s shoulder. Your eyebrows raise on their own before you have time to think – at you. She cackles. Fjord is cursing. You want to dance with her.
You’re also smiling, idiotically, which won’t do. You bring your attention back to Beauregard, and guide her seamlessly to the other side of the room.
The smell isn’t that bad when you’re in the opposite corner, anyway, and the band eventually finds its way back to its jovial tempo. Beauregard has learned in the space of a few minutes how to step on your toes a little less, and manages to carry half a conversation without looking straight down to her feet. Yasha has her nose hidden in the top seam of her cloak, mid conversation with Caduceus. You smile. Fjord is holding a small porcelain unicorn in his hands, presenting it to Jester, her face lit up like the sun, and you –
smile –
back to Beauregard, like you’ve been burned, and you focus on a spot just above her eyes, and you smile because this is fine, this is what you want, gritting your teeth at that, this what you have planned and planned for –
she takes it in her hands, so gently, like he’s given her a tiny piece of the world, and she laughs, and the smile softens and sweetens and she looks up at him, at him, and –
The pain is horrible, spark fanned into a flame that’s raging, and your chest is crumbling in and burning up, and it is – righteous, and it is deserved, and it is – unbearable –
But you can do this. Beauregard is an arm’s length away, laughing at her own joke. You try, and try – and you smile. You can do this. Freckled cheeks are smiling on the other side of the room, feet stilled from a waltz because she is happy, and you can do this. Wars are ending and power is shifting hands and gods are falling to their knees – and she is happy, so you can do this. For her.
She places a hand on his arm and kisses his cheek.
You can’t.
You have more than enough experience for the both of you, so waltzing Beauregard to the other side of the room in the matter of two measures is easy enough. And it is easy to send her off into a horribly awkward spin, and it is easy to quickly grab onto green hands and spin – away, easy enough to –
Ignore the drop of a smile as she’s left standing there, blue clumsily finding their way to brown –
You grimace at Fjord, and hope it passes for a smile. You joke. You suggest leaving as soon as you can. Fjord blinks before agreeing, trying to hide bafflement, and you find yourself feeling rather the same. You aren’t very much one for throwing plans out the window – especially not yours, especially not ones that are calculated this painfully so.
Pain, you think. Strange. You planned for pain, counted on it, made sure of it.
You didn’t plan for a fight against it, to not want it anymore. To love her more than you want to be punished.
The thought scares you. Fjord makes a joke, and you smile, and you laugh, and you are absolutely terrified, because what else has there been to define you but – pain, but punishment, for so long –
Caduceus and Yasha stand up from the bar, and, agnostic as you are, thank the gods for it. You politely drop Fjord’s hands. There are bigger things to discuss, to do, at this point, and you –
Look over to Jester, and she catches your eye, and she smiles. Wiggles her eyebrows. Your heart is caught between smoke and char and – flowers, peaking ever so slowly up from the ash. You breathe deep and it smells like home, for just a moment.
You smile back.