notfaking_it

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gathering

May 4

When their roles are posted, Lily smiles knowingly at Nina across the small crowd of mostly disappointed dancers, then crosses over to her and tells her they're going to have a party to celebrate. She tells Nina to invite whoever she wants, says she'll host it, it'll happen this weekend, then she disappears to make plans. She leaves Nina without time to protest on purpose.

On the night of the party, she has drinks and food set out in her kitchen. She's invited most of the people she knows and even a few she doesn't -- dancers, mostly, because she doesn't want to leave them out -- and there's already music playing even before anyone has arrived. The intention is to be casual, relaxed, but there are pills in Lily's pocket, for anyone who knows her well enough to ask, for anyone she thinks might need to relax a little.

Nina's doing better now, but Lily has no problem helping her come out of her shell if it comes to that. And she has no problem helping anyone else either.

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Delta still wasn't entirely sure what to do at parties, and now and then he would still get flashes of that awful New Year's, though more and more it receded and didn't make itself felt. But there was still that lingering awkwardness, that feeling of being physically too big for the space he was in.

But Lily had invited him and even if he hadn't wanted to say yes - and he had wanted to say yes - it would have seemed rude to refuse. So he was there, and he actually had a drink in his hand, and even if he felt awkward he was determined to not let it get in the way of a good time.

When she had invited him, she was sure he would come, even if he wasn't interested. It was presumptuous, maybe, but she'd still been sure, and there he was, a drink in hand. Smiling, Lily crossed the room to where he stood, laying her hand on his arm and then rising up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. She'd greeted others the same way, she was affectionate with her friends, but seeing Delta was different, even if she wasn't entirely ready to acknowledge that.

"Hi," she said, smiling at him. "I'm glad you came."

He wasn't surprised at the kiss, not this time, and enjoyed it simply for what it was, smiling. "Thank you for inviting me." He looked around the room, mostly full of faces he didn't know, but that was all right too. "I don't go to many parties. I'm glad I came, too."

Even though the primary reason why was standing right in front of him.

"I don't go to as many parties as I used to," Lily said with a laugh, because that was certainly true, even though she still went to a fair number of parties. "In New York, we had to go to a lot of galas and things like that for the investors of the company. It could be very... dry."

She prefers clubs or parties like this, a place where the atmosphere is relaxed, where she doesn't have to be watching herself to make sure she doesn't accidentally insult someone who pays a good portion of her salary. Not that she's ever been particularly good at holding back.

"This doesn't feel dry." He wasn't even entirely sure he knew what she meant - except he did, somehow. More in the feel of the word than anything else. And her face when she said it. "And you look happy." He paused, feeling his way through the idea. Strange how some things still gave him pause like this. "And... beautiful."

"I feel good," she answered, trying to ignore the way her chest felt at the compliment, but she was smiling anyway and it was difficult to ignore. It was far from the first time she'd been told she looked beautiful, but it was different coming from him and she liked it. She reached up, fingertips brushing along his jaw briefly. "And I hope it doesn't feel dry," she added, laughing a little. "I'd hate to think of a party I threw as stuffy or uncomfortable."

Although, despite her best efforts, she knew a few people in attendance weren't completely comfortable, which was probably obvious in the way they were hanging at the outskirts, watching the party instead of involving themselves in it.

He shook his head. "The only thing is that I hardly know anyone here." He smiled again, fainter. "But that is hardly your fault. Who are all these people?"

"Mostly other dancers," Lily said, turning to stand beside him so she could look out at her apartment. It was strange, even as she said it, she found herself feeling weirdly possessive. She knew what the women she worked with could be like and she'd already caught one or two of them glancing at Delta. "That big guy over there is Kaine and his girlfriend Cass is around here somewhere. And Nina..." She trailed off, looking for her, then pointed through the crowd. "She'll be dancing the Prince's role in this show."

"Nina..." He followed Lily's pointing and made a note to say hello to her later if the chance arose - and then looked back at Lily again, one eyebrow raised. "The Prince? But she's a woman." He paused, then let out a slightly awkward laugh. Of course this was a world he still mostly didn't understand. "I'm sorry, I think maybe that was a silly thing to say."

"No, you're right," Lily said, smiling up at him. "Most companies are still fairly traditional, so something like this is rare. We have to rework choreography because this casting makes lifts impossible and a lot of artistic directors like to stick with what they know. It's definitely unusual, but I'm excited for it." Her smile grows a little and she shrugs. "It's a challenge and I've always loved a challenge at work."

The longer he considered it, the more it did make a kind of sense. He had been here for long enough, had learned enough, that it was clear that a man and a woman wasn't the only kind of pairing possible. That being a man or being a woman weren't even necessarily the only options. So why not the same fluidity in a ballet?

He thought he liked it, actually.

"I can't wait to see it."

"I'll put tickets aside for you and Eleanor," she says, pausing for a moment on that. Though she's still not generally inclined to date, she likes Delta and she doesn't want to put an end to whatever they're doing, which she thinks might mean dating him. It doesn't immediately spark her usual thoughts of trying to ease out of it, but it is a little strange to think of dating a man with a daughter, even in this sense.

"Should I meet her?" she asks, pulling her hair over her shoulder. "I mean, I'd like to, but would you want me to?"

"Eleanor?" It was strange that he hadn't thought about it one way or the other - like the kind of thing that he might miss simply by virtue of not being used to thinking about it. But now that he did think about it...

"Yes. Yes, I would like that very much."

"Alright," she says, then smiles a little. "Maybe we can take her out for dinner after the show." Putting it off in the future like that makes it seem less like something she's committed to, which makes it a little more comfortable for her. She realizes this even as she's saying it and it makes her think of Sawyer, strangely, a thought she tries to chase away as soon as it's there.

"That would be nice." Eleanor should meet her, really. It was strange to not have the two of them meet. Given that one of them was intensely important, and the other...

"She knows about you. I've told her a little."

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After a brief refusal, Nina had taken the pill Lily had pressed into her palm, swallowing it with the last of her champagne. That had only been a few minutes ago, and she had maybe a half hour before it really hit, but she forced herself not to spend those thirty minutes hiding, however much she might've wanted to.

It was crowded in Lily's little apartment, and she'd collided with a broad shoulder in her attempt to squeeze through a narrow space between him and a bookcase.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," she said, smiling sheepishly. "Hi."

People bumping into him only made him feel larger, more awkward, and he was also looking faintly sheepish as he turned and returned her smile. "It's all right. There isn't a lot of room." Then he remembered her talking to Lily before, and she was familiar in some other way, though he didn't know who she was. And should probably fix that.

"I'm Delta," he added. "Hello."

"I'm Nina," she said, peering up at him, her cheeks flushed with more than just the alcohol and pills.

"You're... a friend of Lily's?"

In Nina's experience, most of the men around Lily were more than friends. At least, that was what she believed.

He nodded. The truth was he wasn't sure what he was, but friend probably worked as well as anything else. "I'm Delta. She told me about you. She said I should say hello."

"Really? Oh, yeah. It's... it's really great to meet you," she said, offering him her hand.

"I don't think I've ever heard the name Delta, before. Where are you from?"

It seemed a little odd, knowing so little about him, but it was always possible that Lily had mentioned, only to have those conversations forgotten, like all the other fractured moments of Nina's life that were lost.

He took her hand, shook it briefly. There was still something familiar about her, about her face, the shape of her nose and the line of her jaw. It was driving him crazy.

Then he got it.

"I'm... A place called Rapture," he said, stuttering just a bit. Suddenly it was harder to speak than it had been. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, you look like someone I knew."

That startled her, enough to cut through a little of the drug-haze, her brow furrowing with confusion.

"Who?" she asked, though it wasn't the first time she'd heard it. In Eduardo's world, she was an actress, and in another, a brilliant physicist. It shouldn't have shocked her, now, but in the moment, everything was a little difficult to process.

"An old friend of mine. She taught me how to speak." He paused, his gaze still moving over her face. It really wasn't the same. There wasn't the same tension, the same wariness, as if expecting the world to lash out at any minute and bite her.

"But she's gone now." He hesitated. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you, I didn't mean..."

"Oh, I'm... no, I'm sorry. I didn't--" she babbled, wincing as she tried to sort through her thoughts.

"She taught you how to speak?"

"When I arrived here, I didn't know how. She... helped me." He wasn't sure how to describe it, what it had meant, what it had been like. Recovering that part of himself, being guided toward it.

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