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I'm not dead. Really, I'm not. It's just day 11 and I only have 6,000 or so words. Awkieprowieproiwp0oirwo03ir. Help.
But I have a dancing scene, that I wrote out of order of the rest, and that has enough sexual tension to leave you dying --dying, I say!-- in pieces on the floor. Or, at least, that's my reaction. I'll post chapter two when I finish it. Geez. I may have to extend this to National Novel Writing Year. Or Holiday Season.
Basic Plot Synopsis so far: Joseph, our angsty nobleman, has recruited Adam, our lovely stableboy, to become his sister's suitor (to fight off the others, who we obviously have to hate, because they're rich). So, they set off on a very My Fair Lady scheme where he starts to teach him proper manners and such. And ballroom dancing. Hence the following scene.
Warning note: I don't know what kind of dancing this is either. I might have made it up.
"Won't I have to learn how to lead?" Adam asks, a little reproachfully. Joseph winces, a groan breaking through, but he relents. He wonders if he always will.
"I suppose you're right." he says, grudgingly. "Well, then. You put an arm around the waist. No, no, your right arm." He corrects himself, suddenly flustered. "Sorry, I'm not used to being the woman." Adam nods and carefully slips his arm around his waist, circling it warmly. It takes Joseph a moment to realize what is wrong, but he finds it. The boy is still young, almost too small to lead properly, but he doesn't say anything.
"Like this?" Adam asks, watching him nervously. Joseph smiles.
"Yes." he replies, softly, "Like that." He shows him how to lace their free hands in the air to start, turning in a fluid motion together and starting the dance. They move awkwardly at first, treading on each other’s feet but not having to apologize for it. Joseph tries to fight the urge to lead, letting Adam pull him along in the jerky motion of unpracticed dancers. Eventually, they begin to form a rhythm, moving in quiet gentle circles until Adam finally trips over his own feet and falls, accidentally dragging them both to the floor, dissolved in helpless laughter.
"I don’t think. . ." Joseph starts, trying to untangle himself and failing, falling back until his head rests on the straw strewn floor, "I don’t think that Rose will appreciate this happening. She’s hardly an amateur."
"I wouldn’t think she was." Adam replies brightly, smiling at the ceiling. "You’re a lot different then her, aren’t you?" Joseph moves, leaning on his elbow to look down at him, mock scrutiny in his eyes.
"Was that supposed to be an insult to my dancing?" he asks, casually, and the boy rolls his eyes.
"No. It might’ve been a compliment, though. Different can be a good thing, ‘specially when it comes to people like you." He sits up, sliding his leg out from where it had been previously trapped beneath Joseph’s, and draws his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them loosely. "I’ve told you this before, I think, but you’re truly the first noble I’ve met that could even look at me with half as much respect as they would anyone else." Joseph sits up himself, crossing his long legs awkwardly and looking at him.
"I understand that. Oh, dear, do I. I just wish other people would." He draws a pattern in the dirt, experimentally, with the tip of his finger. "I just wish Rose would."
"You can’t win everybody." Adam points out, and adds his own pattern next to it, a crisscrossing section of vines. Joseph draws a flower and frowns.
"No. Just you." he murmurs. Abruptly, he wipes away the growing picture with the heel of his hand and stands, offering a hand. Adam takes it, a questioning look crossing over his face. Wordlessly, Joseph sets them both in the right position.
"We should keep practicing." he says, waiting expectantly, and Adam makes the smallest of sighs. He starts the dance with more ease this time, and they get farther than they did before, Joseph leading in his own way with small touches on his arm to show what they should do and how quickly they should do it. When they reach the part where the woman should spin, Adam starts it hesitatingly, and Joseph ends up stumbling backwards and falling against the wall in a burst of dust.
"Oh!" Adam cries, starting forward. Joseph laughs reassuringly, gasping for breath from where it had been knocked out of him.
"I think I’m all right." he says, grinning. "Let’s mark that down as something you should not do on the dance floor."
"Right." Adam murmurs, blushing scarlet. "Maybe. . .maybe we’ve had enough dancing, eh? For today, at least. I’d hate to hurt you anymore than I already have." He watches with pained eyes as he dusts himself off and nods in agreement. He wipes a bit of straw from his shoulder, aimlessly.
"It’s not long until they start the celebrations, is it?" Joseph asks.
"Mmm. They’ve already started, in the city." he replies. "It’s early, but they take all the fun they can still get. There’s a bonfire in the square tonight." He raises his eyes more, inquiringly. "Would you like to go?" Joseph stills, one hand resting on a growing bruise on his back that he knows he will keep to himself.
"Yes, actually." he says, surprised. He wasn’t even aware himself before that this was true, but he knows it now. He just hadn’t expected an offer.
"If you can go, I wouldn’t mind showin’ you about." Adam smiles crookedly. "It wouldn’t be safe for you to go alone."
and that's where that ended. I think they're adorable. They just. . .oh. Adorable. I want to hug them both.