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Jean hates attending the sort of parties that the great families of Mondstadt so love to throw. Formal receptions and other affairs of state she understands as part of her role as a ranking Knight, and public festivals are a chance to watch the people of Mondstadt enjoy themselves and therefore worthwhile despite all the work of preparation. These parties, though, semi-private and rigidly formal, are too political. She is, in theory, invited as a private citizen, but she and everyone else there know that she's really there as the Acting Grand Master.
So she has to watch herself ten times as carefully as usual, performing with the grace expected of the great families (not aristocrats, none of them that except the Gunnhildrs themselves, for Mondstadt will permit no others to claim nobility--so these affectations are now spoken of as merely displays of wealth, though Sir Eula would recognize them well) while careful not to show any sign of favor or disfavor that her interlocutors or their enemies can parlay into advantage. Part of that is attending all of them that she's invited to, for to refuse would be to seem to scorn her host. Even if the true reason for her refusal might be three days straight of emergencies and a perfectly reasonable desire for her bed.
At least this time her invitation had been for herself and one companion, so she's able to bear a shield against all of that petty civilian maneuvering. A shield, moreover, who has the rare ability to dance with her without stepping on her toes. Jean hates the sort of dancing that happens at these affairs as much as she hates the parties themselves. Having to press up against near-strangers as they clutch at her waist with sweaty hands or grope lower in feigned clumsiness, while trying to follow their lead and take the tiny, mincing steps needed not to start dragging them, unable to easily look behind herself as she's steered....
With Kaeya, though, it's easier. He has the same battle-trained spacial sense she does, to start with, so he's keeping her a good comfortable distance from all the other dancers instead of steering her into them like half her usual partners do. His hand is dry and cool and politely positioned at the small of her back, the other laced lightly with hers instead of squeezing tight. And while it still itches at her not to be in control of her own movements, she's used to taking Kaeya's cues. He's telegraphing every step for her benefit.
She smiles up at him as the music changes and they shift, together, into the starting position for the upcoming dance. He looks down from scanning the ballroom to smile back, then up again in silent search. There's a reason Jean had picked Kaeya to accompany her, and it wasn't because of his dance skills. That's just a perk.
Despite his surveillance, he moves as expertly through this dance as he had through the last, guiding Jean with a gentle hand and letting her tug or move him now and then as her own sense of the ballroom around them requires. She's particularly unfond of the rotations of this dance; Kaeya's focus shifts entirely to her for a moment as he lets go of her waist and stretches his arm out over her head, supporting her through a twirl. Her skirt flares around her, lifting up with a breath of wind, then wraps tight and confining around her legs as she finishes the movement. She tenses at the feeling of constraint. It's impossible to understand how Lisa puts up with that in battle.
Kaeya reels her in, presses his hand to her back to pull her close, and, as they continue through the steps, leans in to whisper in her ear. "The young man with the red hair and the blue velvet jacket. I'd know that hair anywhere. We're about to turn, if you can catch a look."
True to his word, he raises her hand high in his own and spins her about, a slower, closer rotation this time, his foot landing between her own with every step. Jean looks over his shoulder, sweeping her gaze over the ballroom behind him as they slowly pivot around an invisible centerpoint. There's a handful of redheads here amid the brunettes and blonds, but only one has a blue jacket, shimmering the way brushed velvet does under this kind of light. He's teased a strand of his hair out into a sidelock like Diluc's, quite possibly in imitation, but it doesn't have the same curl or volume and just falls limply along the side of his neck.
"Karl Schnell," she whispers back to Kaeya as the turn takes her back out of sight again.
"I don't know that name."
"The Schnells aren't a very powerful family, but his older sisters have made some good investments in the past few years, so they're gaining influence. He hasn't seemed to share their business ambitions." Marriage ambitions, maybe, though she's not sure he's even quite that ambitious or if the frequent requests to dance with her at these affairs and the 'accidental' handsiness are just opportunism. Her skin crawls, but she nonetheless adds, "If we need to get him alone, I'm sure he'd let me invite him someplace more private."
"Is that so?" Kaeya murmurs, his eye narrowing at her involuntary shiver, then shakes his head. "No, I think it's too early for that. We should investigate his sisters first, and we don't want to tip our hand. Now that I have a name and family connection to go with our suspicious activity, we can finish out this dance and go explore the buffet."
"There won't be anything substantial there," Jean warns him. "The Haumanns never serve anything but their own cheeses. That's why I told you to eat before you came."
"And I did as my Acting Grand Master ordered." Kaeya smiles down at her again, warm, this time, and with the quirk at the corner that means he's genuinely amused. "But it's a good excuse to stop dancing. You're stiff as a board, and your shoulders are up around your ears."
"It's not you," Jean is suddenly far too aware of her own shoulders, bare and unguarded in her sleeveless white dress. "You're a better partner than most I've had at these affairs. I simply don't care for these dances."
"I can tell." Kaeya lets go of her waist to spin her out in one last twirl, then pulls her close as the music fades down to the song's end, waiting a few beats after the last note to let go of her hand, step back, and bow. "Shall we go investigate the Haumann cheeses, Lady Gunnhildr?"
"Please don't call me that."
"Acting Grand Master, then." Kaeya's smile widens, and he holds out an arm.
Taking it, Jean starts for the buffet. She realizes after a few steps that she's unintentionally taken the lead. Kaeya doesn't seem to mind, though, following along without complaint. When she tries to slow down, he does too, taking a half-step to stay slightly behind her. Jean gives in and guides him through the crowd.
As she'd predicted, the buffet is made up of cheese on crackers, cheese on sticks, cheese melted over tiny sausages, small cubes of cheesecake.... It's not that she minds cheese, but the ubiquitousness is overwhelming. She has to let go of Kaeya's arm to make her selections, and somehow in the time it takes to fill one of the tiny porcelain plates provided for diners they're separated by the tides of the crowd. She's forced to make polite, friendly, unequivocal smalltalk with three different people all maneuvering for something from the Ordo before she finds him again.
He's trapped in conversation with another of Mondstadt's rich financiers. As Jean approaches, she fights not to wrinkle her nose at the cloud of perfume billowing off the woman. Any one of the four floral scents she's wearing might be tolerable, in smaller amounts, but the medley is noxious. Jean puts a hand on Kaeya's arm and smiles, dipping in a slight bow towards the woman and only remembering as she straightens that she should have curtseyed, in the dress.
"Pardon me for interrupting, Ms. Kohler, but I have to steal Sir Kaeya away."
"Of course," Dahlia Kohler says airly, waving a hand in the air. "You should bring him to more of these events, Lady Gunnhildr. He's a fascinating conversationalist."
"I may." Still smiling, Jean leads Kaeya quickly away from the woman. Some of her perfume lingers in Jean's nose, fading only slowly. "Let's step outside and get some air."
"Please," Kaeya says, low-voiced but heartfelt.
The Haumann house doesn't have much in the way of gardens, being on the middle tier of Mondstadt, where space is at a premium. What space it does have, though, is masterfully landscaped, with trellises arching overhead, thick with vines, and two semi-circles of bushes and flowerbeds framing a small fountain in the center. Out here in the cool night air, Jean breathes in the scent of flowing water and green growing things and banishes the stench of overdone perfume from her nose.
"I appreciate the rescue," Kaeya says, taking a few deep breaths himself and then picking up a cracker and nibbling experimentally on the edge. "I felt like I was being sized up for a meal."
"Close enough. She's a widow with several adult children and a very successful business, so she's often... on the hunt at these affairs. I suppose I should have warned you, but I hadn't considered that danger." Jean contemplates her own plate, then pops a cheese stick into her mouth.
"Awww, you didn't think I'd show myself off well enough for it to matter? I'm hurt."
Jean glances over at Kaeya just to be sure he's joking, reassured by his teasing smile. Then she lets her eyes linger, her attention called to his outfit. The dark blues look black in the dim half-light, but the glow of the garden's single lantern shines off the gold embroidery on the jacket and the mirror polish on his tall boots. It's a significantly less flamboyant outfit than his custom uniform, restrained in the way that's currently considered tasteful, embroidery aside.
It's an adult version of the outfits that he and Diluc used to wear as children at exactly these kinds of parties, back when they were too young to understand all the political undercurrents and spent their time raiding the buffet and running around the back rooms and dancing clumsily together. The dresses hadn't been so taxing then, sturdy enough for an active child and with no weight of expectation dragging down the practical skirts. She hadn't minded half as much when Diluc and Kaeya spun her around in the formal dances, even though they'd stomped profligately all over her toes.
Never when she was leading, though. They hadn't had to be so formal, hiding away in backrooms with plates of stolen buffet food and the music only faintly audible through the floor. With three of them, it had only seemed reasonable to trade off, each of them taking one position or the other depending on what they'd done last. The adults had laughed at them when they dared venture out into the ballroom, but such foolishness was permissible in children. And then she'd become a knight in uniform, and dresses had come to mean political affairs, and dancing with strangers, and always taking the more restrained role.
Blinking hard, Jean looks back down at her plate and tries to convince herself that she wants to force something down. There's a lump in her throat that isn't doing much for her already nonexistent appetite.
"Hey," Kaeya says softly, stepping over, and tugs gently on her plate. Jean looks up at him. "I know how to handle a middle-aged admirer, and it's hardly your fault I'm irresistible. Don't worry about it."
"It's not that." Jean sighs and lets him pull her plate from her hand and set it aside on the edge of the fountain. "I used to like dancing. Do you remember? Before my parents... when my father used to bring me to events at the Ragnvindr mansion."
"We had a lot of fun. I seem to recall we were also under a lot less pressure." Kaeya cocks his head. "Can I talk you into a dance out here? I want to try something."
"Of course." Jean reaches up to grasp his shoulder.
He catches her hand in his own and tugs it out into the air on the wrong side. Then he takes her other hand and tugs it down to rest against his side, letting go of it to reach up and take her shoulder, instead. He shifts his feet so that his heels are together, the starting position for the last dance they'd joined, but not for the one leading.
As always, his cues are easy for her to read. Jean steps in to put one foot between his, the other outside with her hip slightly canted, and slides her hand around to the small of his back. She squeezes his hand, briefly, as she stretches her arm out straight, and then she steps in again, nudging him backward, into the first steps of the dance.
It's easier like this, so much easier, just like it had been when they were young. She keeps a sharp eye on the fountain and the flowerbeds, keenly aware of the narrow space in which they have to work, but while she's always aware of where they are on the strip of pavers around the fountain she doesn't have to worry about tripping along the edges as she maneuvers Kaeya in a circling path around. She knows the first twirl is coming up and makes sure that they're past the flowerbeds and back in the open space between the back doors and the garden before she steps back and holds her hand up and out for him to swirl under. He has to duck slightly under her arm, but she tugs gently to counterbalance as he comes back up straight, and is able to pull him back into her arms again without a hitch.
Kaeya comes to her smiling, openly pleased and a little smug as they start back into the rocking sideways advance that will take them around the fountain again. It's a forgivable smugness, Jean decides, spacing her steps so that they'll be at the back side of the semi-circle, with a bit more leeway all around, for the pivot. She smiles back.
Her skirt wraps around her legs still at the turn, the lead's movements large enough to make them swish, but she recovers quickly and brings Kaeya back around the fountain again for the final twirl. He catches his toe on his own heel this time and trips; she yanks him back to her before he can fall, holding him up and letting him steady himself on her shoulder. He giggles into her hair. Jean realizes she's giggling too, her heart beating fast as they come to a stop in front of the fountain.
"Ah, there we go," Kaeya says, straightening up and looking down at her. "That was more fun than we had inside, I hope."
"It was."
"Good. I thought it might help to be the one in charge. You're always controlling the battlefield, as our Acting Grand Master, so it must be galling to have someone else dictating your movements. And I remembered that back then you always liked to lead."
"Thank you," Jean says, the lump in her throat swelling anew. She smiles at Kaeya through it, ignoring the dampness in her eyes. "I'd forgotten that could be so much fun. Though we're the wrong heights for so much twirling."
"I've danced with people taller than me who can pull it off. It's just a matter of practice, on both ends." Kaeya tugs his hand free of hers and takes the other from her shoulder, stepping back to bow to her with deliberately exaggerated formality, like some of the more obnoxious fops in the ballroom behind her. "Which I'd be willing to help with if you wanted."
"I'd enjoy the practice, but not for this dance, in this dress." Jean sighs. "I was practically tangled in it at the pivot. And the twirl loses some of its effect in trousers."
"You don't think I could carry off the skirt?"
Jean catches the smile on his face hardening from genuine amusement to an insincere smirk as he says it, a preemptive guard against her laughter. She chokes it back; it's not funny if he's not enjoying the joke. If it's not actually a joke.
"I think you'd carry it off splendidly," she says instead, softer than she'd meant to, and realizes as she says it that it's true.
The smirk slides off Kaeya's face, and he stares at her for a long moment, his face very still. He swallows hard before he answers, just as soft. "Thank you."
Something insubstantial hangs in the air between them, seeming to seep into Jean's lungs until she can't draw a breath. She's aware all over again of how vulnerable she feels in this dress, back and shoulders bare, open air beneath a skirt that will trip her up if she needs to react quickly, no pockets or belt in the whole ensemble. It's not unbearable for one night, is almost made bearable by Kaeya's presence, but tomorrow she'll still be relieved to put on trousers and a jacket again and have it go unremarked, whether or not she's in uniform.
"Come home with me tonight," she says, looking up at Kaeya, who can't go home and put that outfit aside for anything but more of the same. "After the party."
"I'm not sure that's safe for your reputation. I might not move in the same circles you do, but I know the game doesn't stop when you leave the room. They'll notice us leaving in the same direction."
He's right. Jean bites her lip and looks back down at his clothing. He has enough room in that outfit to run and jump and probably fight, though it might need some repair after. "Go down the second alley on the left once you get down the stairs from here, and if you go to the corner and up the wall you'll be in my back garden. There's a loose brick on the wall to the left of the back door, about four feet up, with a key behind it."
"That's a terrible place to hide a key. Any decent thief is going to check for loose bricks right after they look under all the flowerpots."
"I didn't put it there, and no one's broken in yet. Will you come?"
"As my Acting Grand Master commands." Kaeya smiles again, then, and steps up beside her, holding out his arm. "I'm sure they're wondering where we are by now."
"Probably." Jean takes his arm and marches towards the garden doors. "The Schnell sisters won't have been dancing, but with so many merchants attending, it seems likely they'll be here somewhere. Let's circulate and see if we can find them. It will help if you know what they look like."
***
The party dies down two hours later, and Jean and Kaeya are finally able to take their leave. Jean thanks the Haumanns, bids good night to a last few citizens who flag her down between the ballroom and the door, and escapes into the night air, now even cooler, with Kaeya at her heels. She's less sweaty than she usually is coming from these affairs, given her dance partner, but there's still enough perspiration on her skin that she shivers on the way down the steps.
"Cold?" Kaeya asks. "You're welcome to borrow my jacket."
"Thank you, but that's not necessary." Jean pauses at the bottom of the steps to smile over at him. "I'll see you later?"
"As arranged," Kaeya assures her, and then turns left when she goes right, temporarily parting ways.
Jean had left the lantern over the front door lit, which is a great help as she fumbles to find the key. She hasn't been able to avoid some wine tonight, though she's always careful about her drinking at these events; as the evening goes on everyone always wants to propose toasts, and even tiny sips add up. Still, it's more her tired nerves than the alcohol that makes the key rattle in the lock as she slips inside.
As always, as soon as she locks the door behind her, the exhaustion hits all at once. Jean slumps back against the door and sighs, then pushes herself up with her elbows. The foyer is dimly lit, the flickering candelabra on the table on the landing making the shadows dance in its empty corners, but Jean is too familiar with her family's mansion by now to be afraid of them the way she was as a child. She almost doesn't light the lamp in the upstairs hallway as she passes. Then she remembers that Kaeya will be coming and turns back for a candle for it and the lamp in her room.
She returns the candle to the candelabra and heads back to her room, already reaching back to untie the laces of her dress. It falls away easily as soon as she undoes the knot at the back of her neck, sliding down off her hips to puddle at her feet. Jean resists the urge to kick it, carefully lifting her feet free and stepping over the fabric before she picks it up. She unfastens her Vision from where it had been pinned below one shoulder-strap and sets it on her bedside table.
Leaving the dress draped over the end of her bed, she opens her wardrobe and contemplates how dressed she needs to be in her own house at this hour of the night, given her guest. The creak of the back door opening cuts that contemplation short. She grabs her longest robe and wraps it around herself for now.
Kaeya's footsteps are loud in the empty hallways downstairs. She knows the noise is a courtesy for her. The light in the foyer and hallway lead him unerringly up the stairs and to her room; his boots are quieter on the upstairs carpet, but Jean can still hear him in the doorway as she closes the wardrobe. She turns to smile at him.
He leans against the doorframe, smiling back, though she can see his gaze flick from her robe to the dress on the bed, then around her room. "I'm getting the impression this isn't a strategy meeting."
"No. Though we should have one tomorrow," Jean amends, because he's right--they need to work his next steps out together, with a wealthy family involved. "This was a personal invitation."
"Oh?" Kaeya probably doesn't mean to sound quite so wary.
Jean quickly picks up the dress, shaking it out before she holds it out to Kaeya. "I thought you might like to try it on. We could try the dance again with the skirt, if you wanted- that is-" She trips over her words, her face going red as she belatedly realizes just how much she might have presumed. Kaeya has pulled away from the door and straightened up, shoulders tense, looking at her with a guarded expression.
As she starts to pull the dress back to her chest, though, drawing breath for an apology, he steps forward into the room, and reaches for it. "Yeah," he says, soft and a little hoarse, then clears his throat. "If we're going to practice that twirl again, it may as well be the full experience."
Shoulders slumping in relief, Jean turns her back to him and steps away so that he has room to change. They've undressed like this before, camping in the field; in the brief window that they were both in Diluc's cavalry, it had once been all three of them in one tent, after they'd fallen in the same pond in the bitter cold of winter and dry clothes had mattered more than propriety. Doing it in her bedroom isn't as different as she might have thought. Not when it's Kaeya at her back.
There's a long stretch of clothing rustling, first the thick fabric of his outfit and then the quieter, scratchier rustle of her dress. He's audibly slower with it, moving carefully, but it doesn't sound like he's struggling. After a moment of relative silence he mutters something under his breath. Then, more loudly, "I may need help with this."
When Jean turns back around, he has his back to her and is holding the laces together at the back of his neck. She can see the problem immediately: he has the first knot in, but he's managed to tangle the bow, so it's not pulling properly. She puts her fingers over his own, and when he lets go, pulls the tangle apart and reties it, so that the long, broad ribbons of the laces spread out in a bow at the back of his neck. The ends trail down along his bared back to his waist, framing his spine. She can see each knob of bone in it all the way down. Kaeya is no longer the too-thin child she remembers, but he's never filled out fully.
"There," she says, smoothing one of the ribbons down, and steps back as he turns around.
A dress made for her figure can't fit him, exactly. Fabric blouses out at the chest and is looser than it should be at the waist. But the design of it means that his broader shoulders are bare, instead of straining against sleeves, and the skirt is loose enough to fall straight down around his legs without wrinkling at the hips. The sheer white fabric stands out against his dark skin. He has a faint smile hovering on his lips, but the look in his eye is still guarded, watching warily for her reaction.
"I was right," Jean tells him. "You do wear it splendidly."
His sigh is inaudible, but visible in the rise and fall of his chest, exposed as it is by the low-cut curve of the dress. The smile strengthens, some of the wariness falling away. "I am at the height of fashion in Mondstadt. But what about you? You're not dressed for dancing."
"I- I hadn't chosen an outfit."
"Well," Kaeya says, and sweeps a casual hand to her bed, where his abandoned clothing is scattered atop the quilt, "if you wanted to trade...."
Jean has plenty of clothing she finds comfortable in her own wardrobe, uniforms and uniform variants and even several sets of civilian clothing that fit her own taste. But the appeal of Kaeya's suggestion is unexpected and immediate. Everything she owns is made to fit her, tight around her hips, supporting her chest, emphasizing her figure. Tonight she wants... something else. A counterbalance.
"Thank you," she says, nodding to him. He nods back and turns away.
The sharply-creased trousers are tight around her hips, but she gets them up and fastened, then pulls on the shirt and jacket. The shirt is only moderately tight over her chest. She tugs on the jacket and finds that it does close, although Kaeya had worn it open, in the style Diluc has recently set, and the buttons do fasten. The final effect is tighter than the shirt alone, and while her chest isn't entirely flattened by it, she does think it's more subtle than usual, hidden beneath the heavy cloth. It helps that the front of the jacket falls straight instead of curving subtly as her uniforms do.
His Vision still hangs from his belt, and she takes it off and sets it carefully on her pillow before sliding the belt on and buckling it tight. She contemplates his high boots, their polished sheen only slightly scuffed by his climb up the wall into her garden, but rejects the idea of trying to get them on. They'd gone nearly to Kaeya's knees, which mean they'll cover hers and impair her mobility. Too much chance she'll trip. She turns back to Kaeya still barefoot. Which he is, too, so they complement each other.
"Shall we?" she offers, holding her arm out to him. There's a jittery excitement running through her, overpowering the exhaustion with the sense of having hit a second wind.
He smiles faintly and takes it. "Lead on- Jean," he says, audibly discarding her title.
Leading him back down the stairway into the foyer, Jean takes a candle from the candelabra on the landing again. After a moment's thought, she conducts Kaeya into the dining room, so rarely used when she doesn't have the time or energy to host anyone, and lights the candles on the sideboard there. She grabs the end of the dining table and drags it down to the end of the room, waving Kaeya off when he moves to help. With the chairs shoved after it, that clears a broad stretch of polished wooden floor. It's no ballroom, but there's more space than the Haumanns' garden had provided.
The candles on the sideboard are the only light in the room, and with the dark wood of the walls, it's still dimly-lit, the candlelight flickering. But there's enough to see by for this. Jean walks out into the center of the room and holds her hand out to Kaeya. In the dimness the dress looks even more radiant on him. He walks up to put his hand in hers.
Jean plants her toes between his and rests her hand at the small of his back, thumb just high enough to trace the lowest knob of his spine before it disappears under the fabric. He puts his hand on her shoulder, and she tugs him sideways into the first steps of the dance.
She can smell his sweat and her own, lingering on their skin, and the deep woodsy scent of the room's paneling. In the Haumanns' garden there had been music, if only very faint through the closed door, and the tinkling of the fountain, and the breeze amid the bushes and vines. Here there's no sound but the slap of their bare feet on the floor, the rustling of Kaeya's skirt as they move, and both their breathing. Jean doesn't need the music to keep time, measuring it instead by the thumping of her heart in her chest. Without other people or a paved path to be mindful of, she leads Kaeya in fanciful patterns around the dining room, drawing invisible loops on the floor.
They're at the center again when they reach the first twirl. Jean holds her arm up higher this time, arches it a little to give Kaeya more room, and he ducks beneath it with much more grace than before. Maybe it's the bare feet, instead of the high boots, or maybe it's that he's spinning to maximize the twirl, skirt flaring out wide around his legs before falling back to wrap close around them. Jean pulls him back in and smiles at him as she starts them through another round of the dining room.
"I see what you mean about tangling," he murmurs to her.
"Take small steps until it settles," Jean whispers, feeling the same urge that he must not to break the silence in which they're dancing with too loud a noise. She hits the pivot-point almost at the doorway and turns him about, three large sweeping steps for her and a half-dozen tiny mincing ones for him, then carries on back into the sidestep. "Otherwise you'll trip."
Kaeya nods attentively and follows her on through another loop around the dining room. Jean draws a few curlicues along the floor, staying well clear of the haphazard jumble of chairs at the far end and the sideboard with its candles, then brings him back to the center again for the second twirl. He ducks deeper under her arm, half-hanging from her hand as he spins about, then comes up and remembers just in time to take small steps as the skirt encircles him. It's falling flat as he closes back in with Jean again, hand back on her shoulder, hers at his waist, pulling him into her.
Without music to fall silent, Jean simply leads him a few more steps along, each one shorter, until they stop and fall still. Kaeya comes to a halt pressed up against her, hip-to-hip and chest-to-chest, head ducked down as if he means to whisper in her ear. But all she hears is his breathing, harsh and noisy after all the exertion. She brings their joined hands down level with their hips and squeezes gently before pulling her fingers free.
"Thank you for the practice," she tells him, lifting her hand away from his back.
He huffs in her ear, then straightens up. His hand lingers on her shoulder as he steps back, and he runs his fingertips down her arm, brushing along the sharp crease of the jacket sleeve from shoulder to elbow, before pulling away. She sees him make the motion to slide his hands into his pockets, then catch himself when he realizes there aren't any in the dress. Jean can't stop herself from giggling.
"That's the worst thing about that dress," she says, turning to head out of the dining room. At her beckoning gesture, he follows, blowing out the candles on the sideboard as he goes. "I can't even fit a handkerchief into the bodice."
"Is this why you have to hide keys behind bricks?"
"Only at the back door. At the front door it's under the eaves of the portico, and I only put it there on occasions like tonight, when I won't be able to carry it."
"Someday, Jean, you're going to come home and walk in the door and find you've been robbed blind," Kaeya says in a tone somewhere between horror and glee. "If you don't want the Ordo to face the embarrassment of having their own Acting Grand Master fall victim to criminals, you'd better sort that situation out."
"Anyone bold enough to break into the house of the Acting Grand Master would be quite likely to break the windows if they couldn't find a key," Jean points out as they step back into her room.
"That's hardly a reason to make it easy for them."
Unable to dispute that, Jean smiles to herself and starts to unbutton the jacket, her back to Kaeya. She takes longer to wriggle out of his clothing than he does to step out of hers; she tosses his over to the other end of the bed and turns her back again before he can turn around, wrapping the robe around herself once more.
Once she's heard him shove his feet back into his boots she finally looks back. The dress is laid out over her bedspread, pulled out straight without any wrinkles aside from the natural fall of the skirt. Kaeya is buttoning up his jacket, though the way it pulls across his chest and shoulders suggests it wasn't tailored to be fastened closed on him. He looks over when she picks up the dress, folding it over her arm to go into the laundry bin.
"You know, if you want to dress in this style for more formal occasions," he says, fastening the last button and patting the breast of his jacket, "you should ask Lisa along whenever you're allowed a guest. Wear something like this next to her, and no one will give you a second look. And if they do," he adds, smirking conspiratorially, "Lisa will electrocute them for it."
"That's a very tempting thought," Jean says, then raises her hand to cover a yawn. She'll blame the frankness of that admission on her sleepiness. The jittery excitement is fading, the exhaustion seeping back again in full measure.
"Consider it. Lisa would be happy to let you lead." Kaeya shifts his weight, then pauses. She can tell he's holding something back by the agreeably neutral look on his face. His eye flickers to the dress dangling over her arm, then very quickly away.
She's suffused with the urge to offer it to him, but she knows he wouldn't accept. This is the sort of vulnerability Kaeya wouldn't want to risk, even hidden away in a drawer or closet. He doesn't seem to consider his home a sanctuary the same way she does, if he thinks of his apartment as a home at all. He prefers changeable masquerades to solid shelters.
The right words come to her more slowly than they should, her tired mind fogged over and slow. "If I do that, I'll need more dance practice," Jean says. "When we can both find the time. You know the back way in now, if you don't want people to know you're visiting, but you're always welcome."
"We wouldn't want the Acting Grand Master to make a poor showing in the ballroom," Kaeya agrees, a flicker of relief crossing his face. "On one condition. Let me arrange a better hiding place for that key. I could see that loose brick from halfway across the garden."
Jean smiles at him. "I'd appreciate your expertise on the matter."
He nods, then starts for the bedroom door. "Goodnight, Jean. I'll see you in the morning."
"Meet me in my office after morning assembly for our strategy meeting," Jean calls after him.
Acknowledging that with a wave, Kaeya heads out of her bedroom and down the hall. The glow of the lamp vanishes, and then the fainter, distant flicker of the candelabra after it. Jean waits and listens until she hears the last deliberately loud tap of a boot on the back stoop, and the door closing, and, straining her ears, the faint click of a key in the lock.
Then she drops the dress into the laundry basket, far more gently than she's usually inclined to treat it after such an exhausting evening, and opens her wardrobe again. As she hangs her robe back up on the hook inside the door and starts digging through the drawers for nightclothes, she glances up at the array of outfits hanging from the bar at the top. That civilian set is formal enough to wear at most of these parties, or that one.... And Kaeya's right. As long as she brings along Lisa as her dance partner, no one will dare to complain. Lisa would be delighted to ensure that for her.
Bringing him along as her dance partner was a good idea, too. Jean wouldn't mind doing it again if the circumstances require. But she looks forward more, as she puts out the candle and climbs into bed, to their next private practice. Dancing is more comfortable when the only other person in the room is a friend.