MOULIN ROUGE AU

[tensions]

COME WHAT MAY ( ensemble ) It's 1899. And the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

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[singinthestorm]

He blinks in something akin to awe, standing politely from his chair before closing both his hands around the proffered one as if taking hold of something precious and fragile, and bends in a bow to kiss the back, warm without being obsequious or unbecoming. He was expert enough in formal manners and graces, enough to blend in far above his station; when he happened to be dressed the part, it was nearly impossible to discern his true circumstances, dwelling in a drafty garret on the meager allowance brought in by selling sensationalist bits of writing on commission. There were good and bad weeks - writing as an income was never stable - but he was careful, and frugal, and self-possessed, seldom giving in to whim or indulgence, even when he could manage it, unused to softness or kindness from himself, when what he was used to was ruthless and unyielding discipline.

But discipline was something that seemed utterly antithetical to this current moment.

"I'm afraid the rest of your adoring public is far less so," he replies, keeping his fingers curled around the hand resting in his palm. "But I hope not to disappoint." He tilts his head with a confidence he has never felt, but has learned to pretend to, "Is there somewhere private where I can become better acquainted with you?"

[infringe]

His smile is perfect and unmoving on his face as he laces their fingers together. The crowd around them coos with jealousy and Alecto laughs. "Oh, I'm sure you'll surprise me, Mr. Archer. Your friends have told me quite a lot about you."

He leads the way, sauntering towards a suite at the very top, where they can barely hear the music below. "They say you made your fortune with your craft. You're a talented writer, no?"

The door opens to an elaborate room filled with candles and sumptuous rugs and draped silk. It was a cacophony of color and pattern and scent, one that Alecto - the true chameleon that he was here at the Moulin Rouge - could easily manipulate and transform against. Here, in this room, he could take the shape of any number of dreams and desires, for any range of tastes and expectations.

"Wait here just a moment, handsome," he says, tongue curling around the syllables, his hand pressing delicately but insistently against Josh's chest. "Let me slip into something a little more chic." He presses down, eyeing the armchair behind the man. "Sit."

Alecto disappears behind a trifold screen near the large bed with its elaborate heart-shaped headboard, his shadow a deliberate tease as it's cast long and slender across the ground. When he reappears, he's wearing a black, lacey number and a short translucent robe. "Much better, wouldn't you say?"

[singinthestorm]

A brief shadow flickers across his face at his words - was that what they had said? - but it clears up back into a more acceptable genteel calm. As he follows the beautiful courtesan up the stairs, he can feel anticipation and desire crowding out the darker, more pedestrian emotions he'd come in with, of inadequacy and failure and workaday anxiety.

Why shouldn't he indulge, just briefly? He wasn't truly Joshua Archer here within these walls, for the next two hours, wasn't a not-quite-starving, recognized but far from successful writer, who had a knack for making friends, but not customers or patrons.

He sits down obediently, takes a deep breath, inhaling the seemingly otherworldly scents of his surroundings, that feeling of truly being transported somewhere different. It was their stock in trade here at the Moulin Rouge, as so many things in this world were, everything carefully gilded and sparkling, a feast for the eyes and all other senses, so long as you didn't get too close, for too long.

He watches the shadows move on the ground, and feels a word drop into place in his mind like a wound, something to build around, layers of nacre spilled over and over.

"It seems a bit like gilding the lily," he replies, his gaze trailing up from stockinged legs and a trim waist, a plunging neckline and those dark, knowing eyes. He pushes himself up to his feet, takes a slow, deliberate step forward.