This was inspired by Voodoo by Street Corner Symphony. I recommend giving it a listen or six first. This doesn't belong in the universe of any other story. ...Yet.
Rhythmic footsteps scuffed dry over glossy floorboards, a counterpoint to soft wet kisses. The Captain and his angel rolled on the balls of their feet while blue lightning crawled the amber glass transoms in warning thunderstorm flashes. Every kiss, every step stolen out of time, every second a second that belonged to other places and other people. The Tallon Ballroom in the French Quarter was a nexus of intersecting timelines, a place where Things Happened, and every now and again they met here. Heavy red velvet curtains collected moonlight in their folds. Windows reflected dusky violet sky, below it the golden glimmer of New Orleans - the New Orleans of now, where neither they nor their dance space belonged. But here and now was yet quietly theirs.
Castiel's coat splattered out in a halo at his hips when he spun to the end of Jack's fingertips. He was smiling - he always smiled here and rarely elsewhere. Jack reeled him in only to push him out, deft and easy, his body a springboard. He made the eye of hurricane joy, so wayward and strong that soon the smiles rolled into deep laughter. Jack dipped under Castiel's arm, grinning over the quick fingertips hissing across his shoulders. He bent his knees, stalking low and predatory while he lured the angel again.
Echoed trumpet squeals, faint drumbeats, minor-key moans; snatches of the music filtered into the bistro and its amaretto trifle townhouses - the reality that occupied the building any other day. The Tallon Ballroom belonged in the past, but it had a mercurial nature and existed anyhow, crowding the other things in the building like too many apples in a burlap bag. When it was accessible, it occupied a few broom closets, an ancient brown polished stairwell, and a wine cellar - giving the building a reputation for hauntings.
There were claims of flapper girls manifesting on the stairs, of transparent riverboat gamblers with cut-ruby eyes and hands full of cards. Even a painted voodoo priestess, teeth like stars, necklace of bones. The more perceptive heard a blue (and sometimes green) sonic whirr; caught a pearl-handled Taurus discharge and smelled the char of gasoline fire. But nobody - nobody - saw the blue lightning of two beings breaking the rules and dancing out of time. Nor did they heed the deep, hoarse iterations of one man's name, escalating across the humid southern night.
But they did hear the music.
Music - like love - is universal.
