"Alright, yeah, um... Sit... Yeah, take a seat, and I'll take a seat, and then we'll both be uh... Sitting." Fuck that sounded dumb, anyways; Dante took a seat as he perched himself on the surface of one of the picnic tables as cleared his throat. He strummed a preparatory few strings as his calloused fingers moved over the familiar chords. It was still in tune, but he was kind of just killing time before it was going to be too apparent that he was uncharacteristically nervous.
Performance anxiety had stopped getting to Dante a few years ago, but there was something that happened when he performed. It was like storytelling; in those old myths, you could be Thor for a few measures, you could be the All-Father giving up his eye for wisdom, or the trickster giving birth to an eight-legged horse. When he sang he wasn't Anders's younger brother, he wasn't the runt of the Tana litter, he got to be someone else.
Dante strummed as he looked towards Kay, and then, just like that, he was back into his own skin. Nerves immediately settled as the lycan opened his mouth and began to sing, fingers habitually moving over the chords as he started the arrangement. "We found Wonderland. You and I got lost in it, and we pretended it could last forever."
Just over a year ago, Dante had been chasing after Kay in the woods, following after with the Red jokes, Mania Barbie, and the big bad wolf; something had happened that night, and maybe Dante wouldn't ever really understand it, but they were connected because of it. "We took a wrong turn and fell down a rabbit hole; you held on tight to me."
He'd been adamant from the start about what this was between them, a fling that wouldn't last because Dante wouldn't stick around. He wanted his brother to pack it in and go home so that Dante could fuck off to whatever came next. Anywhere but here, anywhere that meant he didn't have to put down roots. "Didn't they tell us 'don't rush into things'? Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds? Didn't it all seem new and exciting?"
Anders wasn't the problem, Kay wasn't the problem, and Dante could have spent the rest of his life blaming the pack for not accepting him or blaming his brother for getting sick. Blaming his father for dying before they could reconcile, but he'd ended up in this city for a reason, and Kay wasn't his -purpose- or whatever... But he was integral to it. "I felt your arms twistin' around me when you told me about Wonderland, how you and I got lost in it. You said our lives would never be worse but never better."
Dante had tried to set things straight, he'd tried to put space between them and tried to do the whole 'tough love' thing, but love wasn't meant to be tough. Kay was a disaster, but so was Dante, and just because someone didn't love themself didn't mean they didn't deserve to be loved right where they were. "So, you and I will go on our way, too in love to think straight, even when whispers turn to talkin', turn to screamin'. We could search the world for somethin' to make us feel like what we have, and in the end, in Wonderland, we can both go mad."
A few tears stained Dante's cheeks, embarrassing and not conducive to the image of an aloof musician, but here he was, making an absolute fucking fool out of himself. Committed to the bit. "We'll find Wonderland, you and I'll get lost in it, and we'll pretend it'll last forever. We'll find Wonderland, you and I'll get lost in it, and we'll never be worse but never better."
The strumming faded out as Dante cleared his throat, blue eyes made bluer by the water that had accrued at the sides. He sniffed and then smiled uncomfortably because he'd just- yeah, he'd really just done that. "I'm like... So crazy about you, I love you so much I just sang a Taylor Swift song at you in a public place. I know I didn't say it before, I just-" He shrugged, "I've got my shit too."