somehow the touch of their hands is more electric to him than james’ hand on his back, than the weight of a hip brushing a hip when they both step first on the same foot and collide, tense and chuckling. because it will be easier for the james this way, he thinks, thomas acquiesces the lead without even a margin of care and follows james’ step.  it is something of a reversal, isn’t it?  warmth, like heat, floods him at that awareness, and he must look away from the intensity of his partner’s eyes. this, too, is a reversal. this warmth is love  —  thomas has been acutely aware of its name for many weeks now, though he is not yet aware of its return.

    he feels james’ bemused smile before he looks back to see it, and it stirs a smile in him as well. he had imagined it might be very hard, this  —  somehow it is easy, simple, a single cream colour rising with their blood against the taupe backdrop of the empty cafe.

    nearly empty  ;  miranda and peter have settled quietly at their corner table, their own dance finished as if in some silent communion to what has happened, is happening, to the awareness of it. they are watching, wordless. there is a feeling of divine tension, thomas thinks, as though the gods had drawn open the ceiling, parted the vast lilac clouds, and were looking now directly at them. at him and james. at him and james, together.

    james’ fingers flex nervously, as though he is struggling to keep them still, and the faint flicker of movement fills thomas with such love for him that it is difficult to swallow his answering inhale. he bows his head a little so that the lines of their cheeks are parallel  ;  parallel but parted by a cushion of shared breath. they could be cheek to cheek. who, looking, would know that they were not?

    it feels so terribly important  …  and yet it is easy, isn’t it? some tremendous parting moment in his life that he has not earned, that he is perhaps unprepared for. he does not feel unprepared at this moment. james’ arm tightens a little around his back, tensile, somehow possessive, and thomas knows that, soon, he will kiss him. he will have to kiss him. it feels profoundly inevitable, and thomas is flooded with the breathless urgency to beg for love as he has never done before. their eyes meet. james looks vaguely frightened, and so thomas offers him a small smile. nothing else. nothing else tonight.

    he longs to tell him that all will be well, it will be all right, as thomas knows that it will be. he translates that reassurance into something easier for them both  :  “you dance beautifully, james.”

    as he always does when thomas uses the stark familiarity of his first name, james reacts minutely beneath his steeled expression. just a flicker. as though he longs to ask thomas to please refrain or beg him to say it again. it makes thomas bold and, to hide his smile lest james think it at his expense, thomas turns his head to rest his cheek not on james’ cheek as he had been tempted but on the bend of his shoulder. as he does, miranda catches his eye. there is something in her face that he cannot name.  pleasure, apprehension, pride.  she’s a fearless woman, and thomas has faith in her, just as he has faith in the man who is holding him.

    they both tend to overlook too much joy out of fear of it, or in the desperation to keep it. it is beautifully human. when tethered to james’ exacting fierceness, it is remarkably and absolutely disarming.