complaininginthedark:

Someone is sad????? I want to help oh gosh I hope she feels better. Here, take my attempt at these two and maybe it can add some fluff and sweetness into things. Also, I am going to have to look for more with these two that is an interesting dynamic to consider. 

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Weddings are, in most cases, joyful affairs. They are also long and make your feet hurt from dancing and standing and walking from the buffet table to your seat and back to the buffet table. 

As the happy couple dance, their foreheads pressed together (and Madi is sure they’re both crying; Thomas cries at every wedding no matter who’s it is, and James just cries when Thomas cries) she nibbles on a cracker and sways to the soft music she’s never heard before. The service was beautiful and the reception was just as beautiful if more so because of the laughter and joy it brought. 

“They’re going to be doing that all night, aren’t they?” A gruff voice says from the chair next to her. 

She hums in agreement and turns, seeing a long haired man with sharp features sitting in a chair completely the wrong way. He looks far too comfortable in that position for her to say anything so she looks back at the happy couple (currently rubbing their noses together – and how is it possible to be that in love?). 

“If they weren’t such good people I’d be making gagging noises,” the man continues and Madi can’t help the laugh that tumbles from her lips. 

“You know them well?” She asks, curious about this sharp white man and his ridiculously tight shirt open far too wide to be proper. 

He nods and gestures to the grooms with a tilt of his head. There’s a light jingle as beads knock together somewhere in his dark mane. “James and I are related on paper – his father knew my uncle before he died, took me in when we were kids. We hated each other on sight but…. well, thick as thieves now. You?”

She took a moment to take in the words, imaging young James and this man tussling on the expensive hardwood floor of some London townhouse. Somehow it didn’t fit. 

“I work with Thomas teaching Politics, though I focus more on post colonial Africa and the impact of abolition on cultural interactions than Left Wing and Right Wing.”

He blinks and nods once, his striking eyes squinting as he takes in the words. “I’m a personal trainer with a criminal record. No wonder we haven’t met.”

It shocks another laugh out of her and the smile it brings to his lips is wolfish but more than a little attractive. “We don’t exactly run in the same circles,” she says with a quirk of her lips. 

His smile becomes a grin and he holds out his hand. “I’m Charles; Charles Vane.”

“Madi Scott;” she takes his hand and holds back the gasp as he raises the hand to his mouth and kisses the back delicately. His lips are surprisingly soft, his breath warm. 

Her hand is warm when he releases it and their attention drifts back to the dance floor where more people are starting to dance. 

“Wanna dance?” Charles asks suddenly, his long legs moving impossibly to extricate him from the chair. She shocks herself by standing and moving out to the dance floor, turning to raise an eyebrow when he doesn’t catch up fast enough. 

They spend the next two hours dancing, talking, losing themselves in one another’s company. Madi doesn’t feel all that surprised when he slips his number scrawled hastily onto a stray name tag into her hand at dawn. 

She calls him a few days later and asks him on a date. He says yes.