TW: Internalized homophobia

Ibrahim

Chapter 65

The Kiss

I wanted so very badly to flirt with Raoul. He was the only one I wanted to flirt with.

But, surrounded by people, he lost the familiarity he'd gained with me. He was so...formal. Friendly, yes - but he didn't keep my gaze too long. If our arms brushed, he stepped quickly away. If he found that I was the only one he was talking to, he made quick work of talking to someone else. Keeping up appearances, I realized. I knew this act well. I'd done it for years.

It made me...frustrated.

And I was drunk. Not to the point of losing memory and slurring speech, but...enough.

A combination to ensure stupidity.

When that music started, and his eyes widened before he turned away from me, I felt something like a physical pain. I needed to dance with, to touch, someone. And though I wanted it to be with the vicomte, anyone else would do.

So I asked the prettiest girl I could find to dance. She took one look at me and accepted. And though I had no idea what I was doing, it was fun. She was beautiful, patient, and had a sense of humor. Perhaps, had my feelings for Raoul not existed...

Raoul.

I stopped dancing, then, and looked around for him, dismayed to find him gone. I frowned.

"Excuse me, Mademoiselle," I said to the girl. "Please forgive my rudeness."

She pouted a bit to hear I was leaving her stranded, but when I flourished a bow and spoke of how her beauty would be missed, she smiled and quickly forgave me.

I searched the large room. He was nowhere to be found. Had he gone somewhere else? Why would he not inform me? My alcohol-addled brain couldn't understand, couldn't think of a reason.

I only knew a few rooms in this estate. The ballroom, obviously, the dining room, the parlor, and the library. I'd search the dining room. I started for the doors.

No, wait. No, that made no sense. Why would he go to the dining room?

The parlor, then. There were comfortable chairs there. And he was a quiet sort. Perhaps he merely needed a moment alone from the noise and people.

I made my way through the double doors, to find Erik and Christine walking quickly through the halls, toward me. He had his hand wrapped tightly around hers. She looked mildly distressed, and I knew Erik's eyes well enough by now to recognize anger.

"My friends," I said, "where have you been? What has happened?"

"We are leaving, Ibrahim." Erik stopped in front of me. "Good God, the comte. Tricking me into leaving Christine's side, then..." He practically growled. "We are leaving. I'm informing Gustave. Are you coming?"

"I... What-"

"Comte de Chagny," he hissed, ignoring the stares of the servants, "forced her to dance, then threatened her, after fooling me into walking across the damn estate. Are you coming home with us or not?"

"I...no, I need to find Raoul." I tried to keep up, but my mind was a few steps behind. "Sorry, say again-"

"I'll speak to you when you're sober. And if you're not out at the coach in the next ten minutes, ask the vicomte to send you home in a coach of his own."

He started to walk past, so I called, "Where is Raoul?"

Christine answered, looking back, "He said he needed some peace and quiet in the library." And at that, Erik pulled her back into the ballroom.

The library.

I remembered how to get there, even now. I practically sprinted. I found the familiar doors, opened them, and stepped inside. Indeed, Raoul was seated in a red armchair in front of one of the book-lined walls, a light illuminating the novel he had open in his lap. When I closed the door behind me, he looked up, though kept the pages open.

He looked miserable. Sick.

"Vicomte?" I said. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." He looked back down. "Just fine."

"Are you ill?"

"No." He sounded annoyed. Bored. "I said I am fine. What happened to your dance partner, Egyptian? You don't want to leave her waiting, do you?"

I laughed. "She'll be fine. She's pretty enough - I'm sure someone else will ask her to dance."

He grimaced at the word 'pretty'.

I blinked.

Ah.

I was an idiot.

"Victome, I - I am drunk."

"I can see that. You'll have more fun in the ballroom than in here."

"I doubt that. You're in here, after all. I have the most fun when I am with you."

Raoul made a noise between a cough and a laugh. He closed his book, put it on the table next to him, and stood. "Is that so?"

"It is so."

He took a step toward me. "Then...then, why did you leave my side to go and dance with some...some..."

"Woman?"

He reddened. "Yes."

"I...wanted to dance, Vicomte."

"Well...well, so did I!"

"Then why didn't you?" This time, I took a step toward him. And another. "Why? You're handsome, and I'm sure there are plenty of girls here who'd be thrilled to be asked to dance by you."

The blush reached his ears. "I...because."

"Because?"

"Because the person I want to dance with..."

"Yes?"

"I can't..."

"Can't?"

"Dance with."

I closed the gap between us slowly. He watched my feet. Watched every step. "What is her name, then?"

He cringed.

"Hm? She does have a name, yes?"

His eyes rose to meet mine. I lifted his chin with my forefinger, which made him shiver. I grinned.

"Who did you want to dance with, Vicomte? Because I know who I wanted to dance with, and it wasn't that girl."

He didn't respond with words. But he did answer me.

He rose to his toes and met my mouth with his, one hand going to my shoulder and one to the back of my neck.

Perhaps I was in shock, or perhaps the alcohol was simply slowing my reflexes, but I didn't react for several seconds. But when it hit me that Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny, the person who I had been looking forward to spending time with every day and who was rapidly helping me forget Izad, was kissing me, the realization electrified my body. It brought me to life. I felt a tingling from the top of my head to the very tips of my fingers and toes. I let out a small moan at the pleasure and deepened the kiss.

Only when I did that he pulled back. Suddenly and forcefully. He looked even sicker now than he had before.

"Vicomte-" I started.

"I can't be doing this," he breathed. "I can't." He brought his hands to his hair, gripped the strands between his fingers. "Oh. God. I can't."

"You don't want to?" I asked. I felt as though I were falling from a great height, every part of me was crashing down.

"I do want to." He made a face of pain. "That's the problem. I want you. So badly. But...I can't."

"Why? I want you, too-"

"No!" He held up a hand, backed away further. Eyes wild and full of terror. "Don't...don't. I can't. No, I can't."

"Why?" I begged.

"Because Philippe is right. I'm sick. I'm perverse. Queer. I'm...going to burn if I do this, if I...choose to..."

"Love me?"

He made a strangled noise and looked away. He hugged himself. "I can't. I can't do this." A pause, as I watched his eyes fill with tears. "I will be alone forever. I will be an eternal bachelor. But I can't do this."

He took one more anguished look at me, and then pushed past me to the door. He opened it. I followed. I watched as he stopped a passing male servant and said, "Please let my brother know that I am feeling unwell, and am retiring to bed."

"Yes, my lord."

"And please ensure that M. Ali is sent home safely in one of our carriages."

"Yes, my lord. I will."

I could only stand, dumbfounded and cold to my core, as Raoul chose not to look back. Chose not to even say goodnight, as he made his way swiftly down the hall and passed through another set of closed doors. I listened as those doors closed.

They likely clicked shut cleanly, smoothly, softly.

But the sound was horrendously loud to my ears.