Dee didn't have much to offer in response, aside from a few nods of acknowledgement. He was already drifting. He didn't seem to notice any more of Will's preparations for bed. Not the taking away of the tea and it's accompaniment that had led to this condition, nor the loss of light to a mere dim glow somewhere around the corner of the kitchen doorway. As the main lights went off, the colors of the fire tinted the surroundings in shifting gold and orange and red. Shadows folded themselves into the living painting, emerging and disappearing in an entrancing dance with the hearthlight. This, along with the lulling smell of woodsmoke, drew his already unresistant self into sleep like a gentle tide.
Body stilled and eyes closed, the older doctor remained as he had first arranged himself on the couch, slumbering quietly as the hours ticked past. But in the deep of the night, he began to stir. Not physically, but mentally. He had slipped through the other stages of rest until he eased into that one that every mind must traverse.
The last images of his waking hours transferred themselves from his recent memory onto the walls of his subconscious. Undefined darkness gave way to warm colors that somehow radiated heat. A familiar, comforting scent haunted the air. He drew in a deep breath through his thin nostrils. He thought of fire and wood and snow. Laughter and drinks. A song he could half remember, something scratchy and old and without words, like an ancient gramophone recording. It streamed gently from his mind into the space around him, so that he no longer heard it in his thoughts but from outside himself.
He turned in place, trying to locate from where the music came, his shoes scuffing softly on the hard floor. Perhaps if he could find the source, he could remember the name of the song. His gaze finally came to light on an old jukebox. Though it was well-kept for what it was, a relic fished out of the waters of the biggest fall, he knew it worked intermittently and couldn't recall this particular record being available on it.
Before he could puzzle over it more or even think to check the choice labels to see if they might offer an answer, something else pulled his attention away. Not far from the jukebox, a shadow dipped in and out of the wavering colors of the wall. It was too far away to be cast from the device itself, if such an occurrence would even make sense, and yet there were no other sources for such a deep break in the illumination that came from everywhere and nowhere.
The shadow continued to swim in and out of the light, broken up rather than in one piece, teasingly close yet so indistinct. Dee watched the enigma in fascination. Curiosity built inside him until he could contain it no longer. He reached out. But so far was he from the wall, that his fingertips merely grazed the air. It would take several steps upon several steps for him to actually touch the strange form.
Still, his action provoked a reaction. The wobbling darkness came forward again and, this time, did not retreat. It pressed against the film of barrier. Coallescing out of the wavering light, it took on a more recognizable state. It drew unto itself the fiery colors as it stepped forth. The whites, the golds, the reds, the oranges. The black settled into concrete shapes. Sharp lines and angles. The shine of black leather shoes, hard soles that mimicked his own. A smart vest, neatly tied bowtie, a glint of glass, and the crisp white shirt. He stared as this newly born form came toward him, trailing wisps that fluttered in unfelt currents.
The name shot a pang through his SOUL: Grillby.
However, his friend didn't simply walk toward him. No, something else was happening. Something he couldn't quite grasp. Grillby seemed to be... dancing.
But the dance made no sense. Dee couldn't track the path those feet took. It was like watching an old, ill-preserved film in some ways. There were skips and gaps. He couldn't predict where his friend would be from one movement to the next. It was surreal and disconcerting, yet somehow ethereal and beautiful. As much as he tried to understand it, he couldn't. And it frustrated him because he didn't know where to go to meet him.
So it was with a start of surprise that Dee found his friend already standing before him. As if he had been waiting there all along. He felt warm hands curl around his own, the feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced before. How could one describe the texture and give of living fire? He vaguely recalled having felt it once or twice.
A quiet voice, warm as the feeling that rolled off the elemental in waves, tickled his mind with a seemingly simple request. Dance with me.
Dee felt his expression fall. He looked blankly at his friend. "I... I can't. I..." His words trailed off as he glanced around in a faint panic, searching for something that could remedy his lack of knowledge and ability. To the side, he noticed that two others had joined them in the flame-painted room. Will, his translucent flesh reflecting the cozy hues, and a skeleton - Roman, his own thoughts seemed to whisper to him - whose white bones did the same in a more muted way. The pair seemed oblivious to their audience as they moved, smiling and happy and glitching about in those same skipping steps.
Dee found he could no more follow them than he had been able to follow Grillby. No matter how hard he stared, he couldn't decipher the pattern. Finally, he turned his gaze back to his friend and admitted in defeat, "I don't know how. I don't understand this dance."
He fully expected Grillby to leave him in disappointment, to dance again on his own.
Instead, he felt more than saw the smile his friend directed at him. He heard the quiet voice again as Grillby's face tilted just a little closer. Then teach me how you dance.
Dee blinked in surprise. He... hadn't expected for that to be suggested. Could he even do so? More importantly, though, "There are others who understand this dance. It isn't that I wouldn't dance with you, but it wouldn't be the dance you wanted."
He felt the grip on his hands tighten in a very gentle manner. Dee... Grillby's face came a little closer, almost touching forehead to forehead. The steps don't matter. All that's important is that I'm dancing with you.
Dee stood for a moment absorbing that statement. It was powerful. Empowering. The more it seeped into him, the less room he had for doubt. Grillby didn't care about what the dance was, as long as they were dancing together. It didn't matter if he couldn't do what Will and Roman were. What Grillby could do on his own. His long hands shifted in those fiery ones. He took a step to find his friend matched him near perfectly.
Another step they took. Another and another. Soon stringing them together in a coherent path. So quick and adept Grillby was at mirroring and complimenting, almost as if he had already spent hours upon hours observing Dee do this dance before, memorizing the steps for the day he could take them himself. He didn't really need teaching and Dee didn't really mind. All he did was send an amused, mock scolding thought toward his friend, who accepted it with a hidden grin.
They traced their own path about the room. Now they were the ones oblivious to whether the other pair still danced along in the same space. All they knew was the contentment, the joy, the companionship of their own steps, the way Dee led in this part and Grillby led in another, following and guiding each other along the way. They made their own pattern, incorporating what each of them knew and what the other could come to understand, until they had something uniquely their own.
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