[ When he enters the club, the sound of music hits him like a wave. (Like another life. Like Vander and Felicia at the bar, smiles never far from their faces, warm in a way the rest of the Undercity never was. And what he forgets, in this moment, is that that happiness had been temporary.) There's a pause at the door, then the patter of movement. First to the bar to collect a couple of flutes (to check his reflection, fix his hair, his collar — the kind of thing he'd cared about for entirely different reasons, before — registering the faint glow that handsome, from her, leaves on his face); then to the door, knuckles gently rapping against the frame before he opens the door.
The set of his features is more open, though it takes a moment for the rest of his frame to follow suit — ice, frozen for eons, melting in the heat of her proximity — the line of his shoulders rounding as he crosses the room toward her, offering the glasses up to be poured. Then again, maybe it hardly matters when the way he looks at her is nothing if not an open book, as adoring of her laugh as he is of every other part of her. And it's adoration that colors his gaze first, even before desire or lasciviousness, when his eyes track down her frame, taking in the collar, the dress — the effort.
He'd find her beautiful no matter what — already does, a burst of untamed color flashing through his subconscious — but he likes this, too. The peek of her tattoos through the latticed sides of her dress, the way the bow bobs with her breath. For him. (That's the fantasy, in the end.) ]
There's my girl.
[ New phrasing, the shapes of the words unpracticed in the reedy timbre of his voice when he's only ever spoken them to her, and even then, only in the last few weeks. Just as new is the way he leans forward, his nose brushing hers in greeting while his hands remain occupied. Remnants of a kinder life, dug out from under decades of sediment under the auspice of safety, security. ]
I hope the board doesn't expect me to take minutes.
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The set of his features is more open, though it takes a moment for the rest of his frame to follow suit — ice, frozen for eons, melting in the heat of her proximity — the line of his shoulders rounding as he crosses the room toward her, offering the glasses up to be poured. Then again, maybe it hardly matters when the way he looks at her is nothing if not an open book, as adoring of her laugh as he is of every other part of her. And it's adoration that colors his gaze first, even before desire or lasciviousness, when his eyes track down her frame, taking in the collar, the dress — the effort.
He'd find her beautiful no matter what — already does, a burst of untamed color flashing through his subconscious — but he likes this, too. The peek of her tattoos through the latticed sides of her dress, the way the bow bobs with her breath. For him. (That's the fantasy, in the end.) ]
There's my girl.
[ New phrasing, the shapes of the words unpracticed in the reedy timbre of his voice when he's only ever spoken them to her, and even then, only in the last few weeks. Just as new is the way he leans forward, his nose brushing hers in greeting while his hands remain occupied. Remnants of a kinder life, dug out from under decades of sediment under the auspice of safety, security. ]
I hope the board doesn't expect me to take minutes.