` ` Dancing ` `

Her dress twirls in mesmerizing circles around her laced boots, skirt layers blending together into a blur of black that makes him feel motion sick if he stares long enough- which, luckily, it's a bit hard to do that when she is tugging him along like this, his eyes forced to raise to her level to keep up.

"Show off." Machiavelli says, but it is nothing but fond amusement as music and the thrum of shoes against hardwood fill his ears. Her laugh joins the melody, a pleasant soprano.

At the raise of her eyebrow at that, he finds himself grinning and darting around her, his hand reaching and yanking hers along. He spins her again and again, watching the way every piece of her glides- before he abruptly ends it in a way that makes her stumble, only to be caught back in his arms. With practiced ease, he lifts her by the waist, raising her high in a motion that has her mouth agape before he lets her down, a laugh already bubbling out of him as she scoffs.

"Now who's the show off?" She rattles off, fully good-natured; he knows the difference by now.

The music behind them blends and eases into something continuously upbeat; it is some foreign song the radio decided to spit out tonight, the lyrics in a language neither of them know. The static is apparent and threads through the whole track, a lovely buzz of noise that guides their silly steps. Machiavelli is not sure who initiated it this time: all he knows is that they're dancing, swinging in practiced moves around one another like they're in the bar again, uncaring and unburdened.

And then she is already reaching for his hands again, tugging both of them along with her into the next verse of the song, only causing him to stumble lightly as she laughs and laughs and laughs, large glasses reflecting the moonlight that shines through the curtains of their home. His eyes focus on the freckles over her cheeks, the bounce of her tied-up hair, the joyful tilt to her smile that she deserves so much. He cannot remember the last time she laughed so much.

It causes his next step to miss, and he fumbles a bit, a laugh of his own escaping him as her hands keep him upright. He lets her guide him back into the rhyme; the music is beginning to succumb to the shotty signal too much for him to keep up with it anyways.

He looks down at his feet to make sure they're going to cooperate before looking back up at her- and translucent fabric brushes into his face. Machiavelli cocks a brow, mouth tilting as she spins him next.

"What do you need that thing for?" He snorts as he double steps away, one of their hands joined still. She only wears it out in the sun- something about protecting her eyes. "We're in the house."

She tugs him back over, joining both of their hands again. He can see her still smiling a bit beneath the veil. "Same reason you're still wearing yours, stupid head."

The nickname makes him roll his eyes affectionately- but she is right: he is still wearing his. He hadn't even noticed. When he tries to tug a hand away to touch the white fabric, she simply spins the both of them around again, her hand tightening in his, dizzying.

He has to try and just follow her now, the music fading in and out a bit too much to follow along. Damn cheap radio.

"It's good to see you smiling." He finds himself murmuring as she begins to slow down into simple back-and-forth steps with him. He can feel her skirts brushing against the bottom of his boots, trying to get caught. Even her longest dresses rarely touched the ground.

Her voice is a bit hard to hear over the static. "Yeah?"

"You don't do it enough."

He misses another step. She doesn't correct it this time, and he steps on linen, it having been trailing along the floor.

"I don't." She agrees. He wants to push his own veil out of the way to see her face better, to see that smile, but her hands stay firmly in his gloved ones, keeping them full.

When she speaks again, he can barely hear it. "You know why."

The static is too loud.

"Yeah." Machiavelli swallows. He stares through opaque shrouds, watching both of them float with the breeze. It's just dark around, the walls a faded nothingness, the world a blur through his white.

He feels his hands tighten around nothing. His voice is tight, quiet, but clear as a bullet shot through fog. "Do you hate me for it?"

Silence.

His own voice, his own steps, they have no trouble being heard over the oppressive background, but he cannot hear hers anymore. His ears strain to catch it, to catch the faint mumble he swears was there, the answer he needed- but it fades into the background, into the blank, black veil floating before him.

He tries to rip his hands back.

Out from deep in his throat comes a name that doesn't belong to him. It never did.

The static burns through his ears, through his body, all around him and encompassing. All he can see is linen, floating, unbound and vagile, burial cloth without a body.

Mesmerizing circles.

He tries to yank himself forward. The night wraps around his hands, hiding the stains, keeping him locked in his indecision while he stares at the shroud. The house around them is gone.

It's just him and burial cloth.

Just himself.

He tries to yank himself forward. To escape. To chase. To do something.

He tries to yank himself-

He tries-

(He has tried so much.)

He yanks himself upright.

The room around him is dark.

His hands fist in blankets around himself, legs twisting as he sits, hair strewn around him in tangled waves.

Around him, it sounds like... night. He hears faint snoring from somewhere and the general ambience of the desert's dark.

No music.

No breeze.

No laughter.

He stares at the blankets for a long moment, still and unmoving where they are wrapped. Very carefully, he tugs them off, leaving his legs free to curl up.

Silent, he reaches over to where instinct tells him he left his gloves. Familiar as always, he slips them on, the clinking of a bracelet hitting against its own beads catching his sensitive ears.

And with a soft sigh, he lets his neck fall, hands catching his head as he sinks.