This chapter was inspired by the song 'Stolen Dance' by Milky Chance. It has been stuck in my head for days. It seems that I found another song with a cheerful tune and desperate lyrics.
Stolen Dance
Gilbert fiddled with his hat as the nurse led him through the corridors of the psychiatric hospital. She listed rules and regulations, ticking them off on her fingers as she went, but he had heard it a thousand times before.
He nodded and signed the forms she thrust at him without reading them.
She promised that he had an hour, that she would wait outside, as she unlocked the last set of metal doors with a tight, sympathetic expression. Gilbert waved his hand impatiently as the keys clinked and scraped. He ghosted past her as soon as it clicked open.
And then he saw him.
Matthew.
He was thinner than he had been on his last visit, with prominent wrists and ankles, and pale enough that his veins flashed blue and spread underneath his skin like cracked ice. There were bruises on his forearms. His feet were bare.
He was still attractive, though. Achingly fragile, and haunting, and unforgettable. Beautiful.
Matthew looked up as Gilbert stepped through the doorway. He cocked his head to the side and smiled serenely. His eyes were glassy.
"I must know you," he said softly, standing up. The lock turned behind Gilbert.
"Why do you say that?" Gilbert asked as he slipped out of his suit jacket and dropped it on the tiles. He tossed his hat on the pile.
He walked forward and met Matthew in the centre of his concrete prison. He tried to ignore the rusting drain between them.
Matthew reached out and touched his face with gentle fingertips. He mapped the contours of his cheekbones, the slope of his nose, the curves of his ears. Gilbert leaned into his ministrations.
"You look too sad to be a stranger," he said simply.
And Gilbert could have cried, could have collapsed at his feet and sobbed, but he laughed instead. It came out broken and warped.
He could cry when he was alone, and he would, but he had less than an hour with Matthew.
He shrugged hopelessly.
"We've met before."
He did not notice when they started swaying but they always did. He wrapped his arms around his waist. Matthew pressed against his chest.
They moved slowly at first, half remembered and half dreamed; one step forward and two steps back. Matthew hummed under his breath. Gilbert mouthed the lyrics. His illness and treatment had stolen so much from him but it could not touch their favourite song. It echoed in the empty cell.
Gilbert pulled him closer.
They danced faster.
"I think I must have loved you," Matthew admitted as they twirled. Gilbert swallowed the past tense. He dipped him.
He tried to take comfort in the fact that even if Matthew had forgotten him, even if he was drugged and burning from the inside out, he had not forgotten how to dance.
They were dancing to the same song.
He remembered all of the steps.
Gilbert would always love Matthew and he had more than enough love for both of them. He could handle the doctors and nurses and the blank, staring patients as long as Matthew continued to dance. He could handle the loneliness and the vacant house. He could do it.
He could be there for Matthew as long as he remembered all of the steps.
They danced even faster. He kissed him and he tasted like medication. He kissed him again.
And when the nurse knocked on the metal door, tentatively, and then more insistently, they ignored her.