The Selection (Troyler AU)

♔Part XXXI♔

*le sigh* My second chapter with trigger warnings, including the following:

1) Homophobic language.
2) Homophobic treatment of a human being.
3) Hateful words.
4) Murder.

I'll have a not-very-detailed summary of what happened at the end of the chapter. I'll give you a signal when it starts (I'd say when it ends but it's basically the rest of the chapter from then).

Hope you enjoyed the slow dancing last chapter! :)

Tyler POV

Long after departing from the ballroom, and surely sometime after Troye himself went to bed, I went to the one place where I knew I could clear my thoughts undetected, without being watched too closely: the courtyard.

The frosty early morning air chilled me to the bone, but I hardly noticed it; every breath I took showed in front of me in airy white wisps. I'd requested the Guards keep their distance, and being who I am, they had no right to question me. There were two standing outside, however, their guns to their sides, on the off chance that we happened to get attacked at one in the morning. They stayed far enough away that I didn't even notice them, but I was still wary of doing anything that might worry them, since I was still being watched.

I stood facing away from them, facing a small flower bed of fenced in foxglove, gripping the top of the wooden post with my numbing hands. A sigh escaped my lips as I examined the flowers with a placid interest, going over the moments of the night one by one, mulling over them to myself.

Going over it all, it doesn't seem like a lot happened. I showed up at his door, brought him to the deserted ballroom to teach him how to dance - as promised - taught him the basic steps, then freely danced together, as if it were a slow dance. Of course, I could go deeper into detail, but on the surface, the night wasn't exactly eventful.

But when I think about all of it, the way I would, and not the way someone else would, if they were reviewing our time together, it feels like that hour or so we spent together was an era of its own.

I don't really know when the atmosphere changed; I just know that at one point, we were joking around, as I puzzled how to explain the waltz to him, and then the next, everything became so tense. The moment became a fragile, tangible thing, that was on the brink of shattering with every passing second, and I had no desire to break it. And I knew Troye felt it too - the way he was looking at me, and the careful, thought out responses he gave showed that much.

And then there was the slow dancing.

I'm still not sure if what he said, when he asked about the possibility of a slow song happening, was an invitation to teach him. The more I thought about it, it sounded like something that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. He could've meant it jokingly, he could've simply been curious, he could've meant the offer in the illegal way (though I highly doubt that), and I might never know. Either way, I was the one that offered to show him - even though I'm sure he could've figured it out well enough on its own - and he accepted the offer without a single question.

It was the type of thing that could cause a lot of questions.

I exhaled a tired breath, feeling the weight of the prior day catching up to me: from the sex talk with my parents, to dancing with Troye, to the fact that it was after midnight, I was exhausted. Though my thoughts and confusion over Troye plagued me - and would continue to plague me relentlessly, as far as I was concerned - I knew I had to get some sleep. I'd been told on numerous occasions by my mother that I don't get enough sleep as it is, but it's only now, as I trudged back towards the Palace, that I start to believe that she may be right.