He wouldn’t have fallen, of course. His legs are too long and the steps too short. All the same, when Claude’s hand closes around his upper arm, he very nearly topples over anyway, his body freezing on the spot. It’s just a matter of seconds but to his treacherous mind, time means little. Eyes widening, he stands perfectly still, his skin tingling beneath layers of formal wear, as formal as it ever gets with him. Claude’s hand feels strong. Strong enough to keep them both upright in the darkness, should a crisis befall them. A different sort than the one Vincent’s currently experiencing, that is, trying to breathe and trying not to fall simultaneously.

Then, Claude lets go, leaving him to sway very slightly from foot to foot, not unlike grass quivering in the breeze. When he was seven, his parents took him to the coast during summer – he’d never seen the sea before (or after) and though most children would be enamoured with the water and the waves, he always remembers first the slender, yielding dune vegetation. It had felt coarse and strange beneath his feet compared to the warmer sand, two different states of solidity. Contrasts, then and now. This is not quite the same but the parallel lingers, regardless. As so many other things.

“I’d predict a soft landing on my part, if nothing else.” Spoken with a raised eyebrow, the expression lost amidst the shadows. It’s a wry kind of humour, just a little bit sarcastic. But with his back turned away and Claude reduced to a presence, a voice and another set of footsteps in the quiet, he doesn’t feel quite as terrible as he might have, standing face to face. The smile on his face emerges before he can truly think about it and seeps right into his words, mostly uninvited. “Don’t worry, I can keep myself upright.”