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The hands on Kit’s hip are sure, firm and painfully distracting. Actually, everything about the person attached to them is distracting.
It’s ridiculous, unfair even, for Ty to manage to look this good at such a pompous event. Yet he blends in with the Black and Silver of the museum ballroom as surely as one of the decorations, grey eyes flickering like quicksilver across the guests. Scanning for clues? Threats? Secret demonic heritage? Kit can’t tell. The dark lines of his suit compliment his ink black hair to a degree that is almost insulting; he looks like one of the museum pieces, timeless and beautiful and with a touch of the past in his closed-off smile. Distance stretches between them, the pages of a history book Kit keeps cutting himself on.
Every little thing is a papercut. The snag that cuts through his chest at every turn of Ty’s head or quirk of his lips. A screaming reminder burning so brightly in Kit that he feels as though the words they prompt will burst from him. I’m sorry. I loved you and was afraid of you and I was afraid for you and I’m sorry. What we did was unforgivable.
And the worst of all. I’d do it all again if you’d just look at me like that again.
Because of there is one thing that Ty is being, it’s distant. Professional. Their brief encounter at Blackthorn hall had been a hot poker across the wound of their once-friendship. This new mission, the saving the world thing, is more a replacement limb. New and fake and aching with the phantom pain of what used to be. Even this dance is that distant professional tone. The only place they touch is where Ty’s hands sit high at Kit’s waist (he’s leading because no amount of being raised by Victorians is going to teach Kit to be any good at classical dances) and even then the contact is featherlight. It’s a good excuse to comb the room, searching every face for the Hawk’s eyes of their informant.
It’s also clearly overwhelming Ty. Perhaps once Kit could have helped with that. He could have reached over somehow and settled the buzzing anxiety swarming behind Ty’s eyes. His quicksilver darting becoming less analytical and more alarmed with every pass. Kit wonders if he even realises that their dance is gradually leading them to the balcony doors on the west entrance. With every step they take, tension seeps into Ty’s posture like poison.
Finally, when they’re close enough, Ty steps away. Even his shoes are quiet, Kit notes with a distant amusement, they barely click against the dark wood floor as he makes those few last steps. He wonders if Julian picked them out, and the thought makes his heart ache.
When the doors to the Balcony have swung shut again, Kit hesitates. Abandoned on the dance floor’s edge, he can just pick out Dru’s new hair (midnight, matching her brother’s. The change suits her) in the centre of the dance floor. She’s frowning at her dance partner, a boy with blonde hair who spins her with an easy grace. She’s fine, Kit decides, annoyed but fine. That means he’s got no excuse to not do what he wants to do.
When the balcony doors swing open, the blast of cold air hits Kit first. It smells like late November, pine and lake water, and he breathes in as he scans the balcony.
Ty is stood at the fence, staring out at the sunset sinking over the lake front. Red sunlight skims the surface and tangles in his hair, sinking into his eyes. Kit leans beside him, aiming for casual, even when just standing beside Ty like this makes his heart pound with want and love and anger and sorrow and probably a thousand things besides.
Ty says nothing, and so Kit follows his example for as long as he can take it, following Ty’s slow breaths, the rise and fall of chest and the glint of his silver Centurions pin. When the pressure against his teeth forces him to speak, what falls out is “You don’t have your headphones?”
“This sort of event isn’t right for them,” Even his voice is distant, Kit notes with some despair, the polite and neutral sort Ty reserves for strangers he isn’t sure of. So devoid of emotion it would be easy to assume he felt none, if Kit didn’t know how brightly it all burned in him.
“Fair, I guess. Can I help?”
“Can you make the world quieter?”
Kit doesn’t bother to answer that.
“Then no,” Ty sighs, there’s a weight in it that Kit wants to lift “why did you follow me?”
“Well we were mid dance,” Kit shrugs.
“I’m sorry,” Ty says, the words sound automatic.
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Kit says, he tilts his head back to stare at the first stars appearing in the night sky.
Ty purses his lips “About the dance.”
“About the dance,” Kit confirms. Faintly, music filters in from the building at their backs, a new song starting, slow and sweet.
“We could still dance,” Kit offers, hesitantly “out here, it’s not so loud, or so busy.”
The offer hangs between them, Kit wonders if the balcony will collapse beneath the weight of it. All of his focus goes to Ty’s hands, the way each of his fingers bounce one after another off the pad of his thumb for a minute before stilling as he nods. “I suppose I owe you a dance.”
Kit can’t help the smile that splits his face, and Ty smiles softly back, a small crescent.
They stand much closer to each other, this time, and Ty’s hold is firm and sure. His breath brushes Kit’s cheek, warm and rapid, and Kit is sure that Ty must be able to feel his heartbeat rise to match. Ty is taller than him now, especially in the neat dress shoes he wears, and Kit finds himself at a level just below Ty’s eyes, staring at the brush of red across his cheeks.
They turn is slow, careful circles. The dance is small, subtle, an intaken breath. Whenever they get closer, Kit finds his head tilting up, just slightly, until they inevitably fall away again. For the first time that night (the first time in years) Ty’s eyes find his, hesitating for a second before darting down his cheeks and settling in his lips. His pupils are dilated, black drowning silver-grey, and Kit feels his breath hitch. They step closer again, and Ty’s hands are suddenly on his wrists, running across the veins there.
Kit finds himself forced into several stumbling steps backwards, until his back hits the railing. Almost every line of their bodies are touching, and at every point of contact electricity crackles between them. Kit wants to close the final distance, to press his lips to the arch of Ty’s cupids bow. He wants to do the sorts of things he thinks would result in Julian Blackthorn putting a crossbow bolt in his shoulder.
The balcony doors bang open, and he does nothing to stop Ty from stepping backwards. Dru stands in the open doorway, her expression an image of frustration. “There you are,” harsh impatience sharpens her voice “I found our guy. Let’s go.” Livvy hovers off to her shoulder, a burning reminder of why what they had been about to do- what Kit had wanted to do so badly it had felt like hooks beneath his skin- will only end in pain.
He paints on his best ‘Herondale-charm’ smile for the three of them and claps his hands together “Let’s go then. Time to torture a hawk for information.”
Ty looks alarmed “He’s not actually a hawk.”
“And we’re not actually going to torture him,” Dru adds, sounding disappointed. Kit ignores them both and steps back into the party.