[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/fp2QHJH.png[/img]
[color=#4C93C2]Location:[/color] Grand Ballroom
[color=#4C93C2]Time:[/color] Evening
[color=#4C93C2]Interactions:[/color] Charlotte [@princess]
[color=#4C93C2]Mentions:[/color] Nolan [@Remram]
[color=#4C93C2]Outfit:[/color] [url=https://i.imgur.com/Mr1xTEl.png]Bro Be Looking SO DAMN GOOD oh maw gawd[/url][/center]

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[color=silver]

Cassius found himself utterly lost in her the moment she looked at him [i]like that.[/i] 

The entire ballroom simply disappeared into obscurity, as well as all those within it, as he took in the sight of her eyes on him in a way he never knew he would ever get see. She had looked at him fondly before. She had looked at him with care before. BUT this… That look was something new. That look came from a place that scared him, but that made him whole all the same. 

He was stunned by it, completely caught off guard as he felt the power of that gaze wash over him. Little did he know, he was looking back at her exactly the same way. Little did he know that his eyes would never look at her another way again.  

[color=D0B4EC]“I was right about you… You know.”[/color] She had said. [color=D0B4EC]“About what I said in Rosegate…”[/color]

His mind cast him back into the moments they shared there. Pieces of that memory were spectacular; others were stained with the mistake of him not knowing about his old friend’s ties to the Black Rose. Little moments, peppered throughout that night, had been perfect in every way despite the complications that came later. The comment she was referring to had been the most perfect of them all. 

She had called him [i]kind[/i]. 

Cassius smiled at her, the same way he did that very night. Charlotte had a way of seeing him differently than the others around them. She had a way of looking behind his curtains and finding her way to his very core. He hated it sometimes but loved it ALL the time. 

Emotions are complicated things, after all. 

His hand rose to cover one of hers pressed against his cheek, those handsome eyes of his dropping to the curve of her lips. The gravitational force between them had begun pulling him closer before he even realized, as though the collision of his lips and hers was as inevitable as a setting sun or a rising moon. 

Inch by inch, the slow approach as Cassius leaned closer to Lottie found him yearning for that kiss increasingly the closer he got until desperation began to rise in him. 

A desperation that would not be rectified.

It was then that another voice rang out between them. 

[color=#8FBC8B]”Seems like you’re in good hands...Are you okay?”[/color]

Cassius could have killed the man as he watched Lottie pull away, filled with excitement to go and embrace this interrupter. He ached at the loss of contact, his body begging for the touch of Charlotte’s hands upon his face once again. The warmth of her disappeared so quickly as she moved away, and yet nothing in him was as cold as it was before she came into his life. 

He turned to see who the man was that she had so eagerly embraced. It was immediately clear that this man mattered to her. She hugged him so closely, but not like a lover, more like family. Whatever selfish thing inside his chest brought with it resentment towards the man who had stolen the moment away from him vanished as he assessed how much the reunion of the two clearly meant to his Lottie. Thankfully, that allowed Cassius to remember to breathe. 

Watching the two of them have their moment to catch up, Cassius looked down at the table where Charlotte’s drink sat a little too close to the edge, and so he carefully moved it back a few inches. He could see the stain on the glass where her lips had pressed against its surface as she drank. His own lips still ached for her, especially as he watched the kiss that belonged to him get planted atop this fellow’s head, and yet all he could do was smile at the ridiculous nature of the moment as his eyes returned to her again. 

She looked happy. [b]Truly happy.[/b] And he cared more about that than he could about his own desires. His smile grew as he watched Charlotte and the man she affectionately called Nolan relish in their own perfect little moment. As much as he wanted her all to himself, Cassius was learning that sometimes caring about someone means making room for the other things in their life. He could be a selfish man by nature and nurture alike, but his want for her to never have to stop smiling like that was perhaps the most selfless thing about him. 

[i]Gods she was beautiful.[/i]

Cassius did not interrupt, he simply watched and waited for her to return and allowed himself to bask in the delight she clearly felt seeing an old friend. [/color]