Music slammed into him like a punch to his gut. It was dark, that darkness pierced by flashes of colored lights reflecting on shimmering bodies coated in soft glitter. The dance floor was packed, people writhing against each other, and it was three deep at the bar.

And he needed a drink, he thought, suddenly, if he was going to get through this.

Fifteen minutes later and he’d acquired some sort of blue concoction which tasted like coconut and orange. He tried to take small sips, pacing himself, and then he noticed—

Oh. Most of the people on the dance floor were men.

Very attractive men.

He drank half his cocktail at once.

Hard, lean muscle skimmed and slipped, hands dipping into the backs of trousers. Tousled hair brushed against arched necks as bodies were embraced from behind. All that glitter—eyes lined with midnight blue shadow seemed to speak of promises, intent. Some of what he saw could be called dancing, and it was—it was almost carefully coordinated, like the ballet, like war, and it was filthy like fucking, and Jack cursed as his mouth remembered the taste of purple gelatin, and his jeans felt even tighter.

No, no. Please, he thought, this was not—not what I was looking for.

He finished his drink.

And then he saw him.

Theo was, of course, in the middle of the press of bodies, and he shone brighter than anyone there. If the other dancers were like ballet, he was like flying. The soft fall of his hair was disheveled—Jack had never seen it like this, because his hair had always been so meticulously styled—and brushing over his eyes. His long limbs wrapped around the neck of a shorter brunet in front of him; muscled arms twined around him, from behind, as another man grinded against his back. And he was breathing, heavy, the way Jack had started to breathe—Jack’s exhale was Theo’s inhale, and Jack wanted to feel that breath on the soft skin below his jaw, and exchange something with him, blows, barbs, something more, something he had never let himself think about.

Something he had felt when he had glared at Theo on the lacrosse field, or watched him twirling his pen between long fingers in class, or when staring through shadows at a pained and hungry face, and—

Something he had tried to lock in his bedroom as he left, those summers home from school when he couldn’t sleep and he shoved his hand down and bit his left knuckles and—

Theo was turning toward him.

Jack ran.

He pushed through more muscled bodies and ran to the toilets, blessedly empty. He leaned over the sink and breathed, breathed, tried to screw up his eyes against what he had already seen.

Get it together, Jack. Stop. Just—