[The dancing is fine - tolerable, functional - until it isn't. Gepard step, step turns, and his eyes meet Sampo's, and Gepard's filled with sharp, pure-
Sure, let's call it anger. He's filled with a lot of anger and he angrily wants to take it out on Sampo or have Sampo take it out on him. (Shut up.) Lots of white-hot anger. Anger which he wants Sampo to beat out of him, or he takes it out on Sampo. (Shut up.) He wants to run after Sampo, tackle him to the ground, but only if Sampo's into that, and-
He can't do any of that. What he does instead is draw upon his polite captain facade (which isn't a facade, but also is - these things are complicated) and dance the dance to the end, and he smiles and says something polite (don't ask Gepard what he said, he just has a set of a dozen stock phrases he uses for occasions like this) and leaves.
He, more specifically, leaves through the side entrance to the hall, the most obvious entrance a Landau would take, and encounters some hired help who asks and Gepard says that he's going to get a breath of fresh air, and then he slips around the side - a corridor that only a Landau would think to take, and then heads up the back stairwell. No one would look for him here.
Hopefully.
And then he finds somewhere quiet and waits, half-hidden.
It's an obvious trap for Sampo, and Gepard doesn't expect Sampo will fall for it so much as play along with it, but also, a lot of luring Sampo out really involved doing something that he'd play along with, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Isn't that really what had been happening all along? And then-
And he's not sure what. And then he'll do something. He needs to get even for the forced waltzes.]
no subject
Sure, let's call it anger. He's filled with a lot of anger and he angrily wants to take it out on Sampo or have Sampo take it out on him. (Shut up.) Lots of white-hot anger. Anger which he wants Sampo to beat out of him, or he takes it out on Sampo. (Shut up.) He wants to run after Sampo, tackle him to the ground, but only if Sampo's into that, and-
He can't do any of that. What he does instead is draw upon his polite captain facade (which isn't a facade, but also is - these things are complicated) and dance the dance to the end, and he smiles and says something polite (don't ask Gepard what he said, he just has a set of a dozen stock phrases he uses for occasions like this) and leaves.
He, more specifically, leaves through the side entrance to the hall, the most obvious entrance a Landau would take, and encounters some hired help who asks and Gepard says that he's going to get a breath of fresh air, and then he slips around the side - a corridor that only a Landau would think to take, and then heads up the back stairwell. No one would look for him here.
Hopefully.
And then he finds somewhere quiet and waits, half-hidden.
It's an obvious trap for Sampo, and Gepard doesn't expect Sampo will fall for it so much as play along with it, but also, a lot of luring Sampo out really involved doing something that he'd play along with, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Isn't that really what had been happening all along? And then-
And he's not sure what. And then he'll do something. He needs to get even for the forced waltzes.]