Outed! (Michael/Dare)

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael started at the question, his mind having been focused more on watching Dare than the actual dance. "Do I really have to answer that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Though it did feel strange when he considered that usually Dare was in control. "I promise you can be the guy when I know you won't step on my toes," he added in a teasing tone, his eyes sparkling softly.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare chuckled at Michael's assurance, only then drawing his gaze upward. His eyes took their time, and though he'd only meant to look at Michael, he found himself observing the way he moved, the way he held himself, straight-backed and near floating above the floor. Dare was slouched so much that they were eye-level with one another. Dare automatically tried to alter his posture. "Am I standing right?" he asked, suddenly as aware of the class difference between them as he was of Michael's body.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael raised an eyebrow and pulled his head back slightly to look at Dare. "Straighten up," he said, letting his eyes trail down Dare's frame. "Pull your shoulders back, be proud." Words he had heard plenty of times, that didn't sound like his voice to his ears, but soft and feminine, his mother's voice. Another tip came to his mind, one he had heard even more often, about keeping his eyes up from the floor, but it wasn't one that needed to be said to Dare.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

The words sounded strange coming from Michael somehow, and yet, somehow, they also sounded right. Dare looked over Michael's posture again as he straightened, mimicking as best he could. It felt strange, and though he accomplished it, his lips quirked, and he found himself chuckling. Dare had to look down his nose at Michael to see more than his forehead now, but he kept his head up. "There's no laughing in the waltz, is there?" he asked teasingly, his lips spreading into a grin.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"You would be surprised," Michael said, his own lips turning up in a smile. "Of course, the adults would get angry if we didn't take it seriously enough, but there were always some of us willing to have fun with it." He had gotten plenty of stern looks from his father for not taking the dances as seriously as he thought Michael should have, but he had needed some way to get through the long nights.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare's grin broadened. "Good thing there's no adults here," he said. So maybe Michael was technically an adult, but Dare tended to forget that. It was easier to see now, with Michael's posture so rigid, feeling the casually assured grace as they moved, but that smile did wonders. It helped ease Dare's mind, though he still paid strict attention to his own posture. "So how do you have fun with a waltz?" he asked Michael, realizing as he said it what a dangerous question it was. He could imagine that Michael had danced with people--girls--who'd known exactly how to waltz. That must have made it easier.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael shrugged, "The dance itself is fun enough when the tempo picks up." Then his eyes flashed in humor and his smile widened as a particular memory came to the surface. "Once Mano used-" he stopped and backtracked from that particular fact of the story, "He convinced," he edited before moving on. "The man over the music to speed it up in the middle of a dance while the parents were the ones dancing. They...tried to keep up," he said, his mind replaying the looks on their faces as the music had sped up impossibly fast.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare's brows arched, his posture fading a moment as the implication hit him. He looked down at Michael, then, all at once, he straightened himself again. Be proud. Dare let the implication go without comment, focusing instead on the idea of a practical joke on a dance floor full of such impossible snobs that they'd been unable to acknowledge something was amiss. It was an amusing picture. "Mano was another of your friends?" he asked. He wanted to know more about Michael's life beyond Hogwarts, even if it was surreal imagining Michael that way.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael had looked away from Dare at the look in his eyes when he had obviously seen right through Michael's last minute edit, and shook his head, watching over Dare's shoulder until he was comfortable enough to look back up into his eyes. "Not really, him and Emilian were..." he stopped, searching for a word. Close? No, that didn't feel right, though it was true. Friends? That was farther from the truth than close. "I guess you could say they were friends, for lack of any other word to use," he finally said, after discarding a few more options.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare arched an eyebrow again. Judging by the delicate way Michael had phrased it, Dare could only assume things he'd rather not think about. So he tried not to. But still, his mind slid off to Emilian when he'd first met him in the cafe. Knowing him better now, if that was harmless teasing, what in the world was Emilian like at full power? Dare blinked, his mind jerked away from that topic at the sudden realization that he'd been waltzing without thinking about waltzing. Dare's grin returned at the thought. He looked back down at Michael, eyes gleaming. "So how am I doing?" he asked, hoping Michael was okay with him changing the topic.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

"Hm?" Michael had almost forgot that he was technically teaching Dare, then he shrugged and grinned. "You're doing good, of course, we're going so slow," he teased, then willed the music to speed up as his eyes sparkled in challenge. At faster tempos, posture and grace were much more important, it was so easy to get tied up in thinking too hard, or losing balance, that it added another element to the dance.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare was caught off guard for just a moment, and his posture slipped as he grinned down at Michael. That slight change was enough to make him stumble, but even as his eyes widened, he corrected his posture again. Perhaps a bit too much, as he felt like he had a steel rod down his back, but wasn't that the way he was supposed to do it? Dare chuckled at his mistake. "I'm blaming that on you," he teased, lips quirking as he glanced down his nose at Michael's eyes. "You're just so distracting."

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael smirked at that, "I could always blindfold you." His eyes trailed down Dare's body, nodding slightly in approval as he didn't find what he was looking for, an old cheat that nearly everyone he knew had done before the habit of good posture had been ingrained in them. It was a sort of odd collapse back of their upper back which gave the impression of keeping good posture, but really was only a reverse slouch.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare grinned broadly, so many comments and ideas coming to mind that he couldn't choose one to say. There was that long look Michael had given him, as casually appraising as it might have been, Michael's wordless approval, and of course, his words. Dare brought his eyes back up to Michael's forehead. "You could talk me into it," he said in a low voice. Heat pooled low in his body, uncaring that Michael was just talking about dancing. Dare looked back down at Michael, wondering at his reaction.

[Michael Blackwood-Hardt]

Michael looked up at Dare, for the first time truly noticing the difference in height, even if it was only a couple of inches. "I bet I could," he said, resisting the urge to add talk you into anything to the end of it, because he knew that Dare could probably talk him in to just about anything. The music gradually sped up, that slight challenge staying in his eyes. "Maybe I'll try sometime," he said as he raised an eyebrow and his lips curved.