Work Text:
They danced, for the first time, at a Madrigal gala in a room weighed down by orchids in humid Houston, crowded by bare-shouldered women and men in black tie. There was no flourish, no swing to it; Gus danced with a strict economy of movement and a keen awareness of space, a steadying hand at Lydia's waist as he guided her through the steps.
They have an understanding. He is careful with her, but not excessively, not fearfully. He does not treat her as if she were made of glass, rather as if she were something subtle and finely tuned and humming with electricity, as if she must be grounded to be made safe.
He is always calm. He breathes so very slowly that it fascinates her. When crowded or cornered, Lydia gets dizzy and breathless and her heart beats like a wounded bird's. "Try to breathe from here," he said once, hand poised above his solar plexus. It made her light-headed but she tried.
What does she give him? She facilitates; she negotiates. She does any number of things in the smoked-glass vocabulary she has learned from years of men in boardrooms. (Rich men, whose suits fit them exactly, who speak of meetings in St Andrews and St. Moritz, who know how to help her into her coat, into her cab, in the same way Gus knows how to extricate her from a crowd so as to spare her the indignity of a public panic attack.) She understands it all in the purest, most abstract terms. She understands quantities of methylamine and its product as sides of equations to balance, and does so trusting that Gus will take care of the other quantities, the hidden forces she cannot account for, the shadows darting in the warehouse at night.
Lydia thinks if she ever were to marry - it could never happen, of course, but it would make sense. Gus could not love her as his wife, and she is not sure how she would love a husband, unless this is it. Once, she glances at him playing with Kiira and finds herself smiling so hard it aches.
His death wounds her in a way she calls regret, smooths over with kid-glove formality, because she cannot dwell on it without thinking of blood and knives and broken glass. In the moments before sleep, she catches herself thinking of Gus as missing more than dead. She tells Kiira that he died, though, that he's not coming back, and agrees with the poor uncomprehending child that it's very sad, and in this honesty allows herself to cry.
In a bright room with glass walls, they danced to a Chopin waltz with a skittish, fluttering melody until Lydia felt herself moving and breathing with borrowed grace. Gus drew her through turn after turn and she spun neatly on the balls of her feet and was only disoriented when the music slowed, swaying reflexively as he stilled.
"Close your eyes," he said, and led her through the last measure as gentle as flying.