Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

[concierge]

The annual Nexus New Year's Eve gala began at 8 in the evening. Too grand to be contained by the lobby or dining hall, the gardens at the front of the hotel were employed, with long strings of white lights forming a twinkling canopy from the front doors all the way to the hedge maze. The weather was temperate and calm, and the night perfectly clear.

Drinks were served at various bars set up throughout the gardens and lobby, with champagne cocktails being the specialty of the night. Wheeling through the crowd was a bartender with golden cart providing warm drinks on the go: Tom and Jerrys, rum punch, negus, and Irish coffee.

Crisply-dressed wait staff wove through the collected guests with an abundance of hors d'oeuvres for all different tastes. The Bistro remained open with a limited selection of items for those who were wanting something more substantial.

Above the front doors was hung a large, gold-rimmed clock counting down the last hours, minutes, and seconds of the current year.

Comments

[armedagainstlove]

"There's at least one man here quite impressed," Athos promises, his fingers splaying a touch wider on her skin as he keeps his distance close. He doesn't think that she would stray from him tonight, but this physical grasp helps him to secure himself in such knowledge.

"You look lovely, Anne," he says, offering her sincerity, now.

[aspecialkindofwoman]

No, tonight - and even here in this hotel - Anne is Athos's. She has no idea what waits for either of them if she heads back to Paris - if she's even in Paris. So, here, she shall be as selfish as she wants to be. She even leans into his hand even more, so that their bodies are almost touching.

"You look handsome as always. If a bit tired," she tells him.

[armedagainstlove]

He feels weary, but he isn't sure how to explain to her why. Beyond the captaincy he bears at home, now he holds the responsibility of the other musketeers on his shoulders, not to mention the guilt of his actions, and the memory of what he'd done. That scar on her neck, the memory in his mind. "It's my advanced age," he replies. "I always look this tired now."

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"Ah, yes," she deadpans, "you are terribly old. I shall have to wheel you up to to your rooms soon, old man. Help you out of your clothes and put you to bed with a hot tea."

She's teasing, especially about the tea, but the offer to take him to bed is legitimate, should he wish to take her up on it.

[armedagainstlove]

"What if we were to remove the hot tea from the equation?" Athos suggests calmly, though he wonders if he will be able to remove her from her own vestments without a knife (though he does imagine that she would have a knife to his throat sooner, for having ruined such a dress).

"I'm very weary and my old bones could use the rest," he deadpans.

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"How can you be a viable captain so old, mm? How did Treville do it." Anne laces her fingers between the buttons of his doublet, deepening the connection between them. (Interestingly enough, there is something called a 'zipper' tightening her dress. Very intriguing development.)

"I would assume, sans tea, you would want wine."

[armedagainstlove]

"I doubt Treville ever had someone so cunning and clever to help take him apart," Athos remarks, and if their old Captain did have someone like that on the side, they had never found out because he had remained a paragon of privacy. "I believe that you might be able to distract me away from all beverages," he concedes. "Shall we try?"

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"Mmm, I don't know," she hums, a coy smile playing over her lips, turning to take in the festivities. "I think I might like to dance." After all, the odds of her getting invited to another ball wherever she is beyond the doors is ... well, at least relatively slim. Not entirely impossible.

[armedagainstlove]

"You know I'm a poor dancer, especially in public," Athos remarks, which had been true ever before his descent into the bottle. He's coordinated plenty, but the graceful movements of dancing are something he's done very few times in his life and he cannot see himself doing much more. "Perhaps in private, though..."

[aspecialkindofwoman]

But as a comte, Athos had to go to more than his share of balls, surely.

"Let's try," she says, taking his hand. For some reason, dancing with him in public would mean something. Show something. Wouldn't it?

[armedagainstlove]

Athos sighs as he condones the suggestion with a nod. He had always been lucky to avoid dancing by having a fiancé and using the excuse of conversation to escape. The odd dance here and there had been necessary, though trudged through. He holds her in his arms and takes her hand with a bow. "Perhaps something we both know?"

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"Just a waltz," she concedes, leading him to the dance floor. There, she can face him, shifting how they are holding hands so that her other hand can now rest on his shoulder. The song is at least moderately compatible to such a rhythm and with a small nod and amused smile, she nods so they can start moving at the same time.

Perhaps she hopes that they look good together - that others perhaps envy them, not, of course, knowing what all hovers beneath the surface.

[armedagainstlove]

"You know, for many, the waltz is considered quite the daring dance," he reminds Anne, given that their proximity is rather a risky thing, but they both have been much closer than this, of course. Their relationship has never been about propriety. He curls his fingers in against her body, holding her close.

His wife.

He closes his eyes and drifts into the miasma of her bearing and being, exhaling as he sinks in towards her.

[aspecialkindofwoman]

Even as Anne keeps her eyes open, aware, as always, of their surroundings, she holds Athos more tightly, leaning her temple against his cheek.

She'd meant it when she said that they were bound together. She loves him, so much so that it's dangerous. But she can't help it and more than that, she doesn't want to.

[armedagainstlove]

He's protective and possessive of her, though he knows he has no right or need to be. She is here by choice and in his arms. "Is this a suitable dance, milady?" he asks, ever open to being teased by her. "I'm sure I could be convinced to something else if it was not to your liking."

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"I quite like it," Anne tells him, smiling just that little bit. "Though it is good to know that I could convince you of more if I needed to."

It is terrifying how she could grow accustomed to this.

[armedagainstlove]

"I suppose I've begun to take our vows rather seriously," he notes, even though he thinks perhaps they need new ones because 'until death do us part' hadn't worked so properly the first time. As the music dies down, he steps back to bow to her properly. "Was that suitable, dear?"

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"It was," she says, curtsying as well, despite the seeming tightness of her gown (Cinna is something of a magician with clothing, it seems).

She reaches for his hand though, to be escorted off the dance floor. She holds her head high, something she would do regardless, but now, with good reason. "Thank you."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos holds out his hand to her once more, but this time, he isn't asking her for a dance. "Perhaps you'd like to show me what you've done with your room," he says calmly, as if his heart isn't racing and trying to nearly strike him down with the anxiety of such a moment.

[aspecialkindofwoman]

Anne's expression is knowing and yes, wanting too. "Very well. Though I'd like to have some cake to take with us." She does like the occasional sweet.

[armedagainstlove]

"I'll wait by the door," Athos says, taking great pains not to grasp one of the bottles of wine, but he manages to stay his hand without taking any of them while he awaits Anne's presence in joining him. Perhaps this is a small measure of progress as he works to knit his life back together.

[aspecialkindofwoman]

Anne had taken two quite generous slices of cake on a plate. She'd taken cutlery as well, and napkins. She walks out brazenly with it as if daring someone to stop her.

No one does and she is smiling as she sees Athos at his door. She opens the door and lets him follow her inside. "The cake is ridiculously sweet," she says, "and yet I cannot refuse it."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos tips his head to the side to give her a mildly stern look, tempered with amusement. "You were always very keen to nudge us towards our vices," he says, thinking more of the sex they had shared in public and certainly without much decorum, not that he had ever been averse to it.

[aspecialkindofwoman]

"I do not remember hearing you complain," she tells him, her smile small and wry as she holds the plate again, offering him a fork. "Shall we indulge?"

[armedagainstlove]

"I think you know that I'm prone to indulgence," Athos replies wryly, given his predilection for alcohol and how it's shaped his life in the last few years. He takes the fork and cuts a piece of it, offering it out to her, first.