It has to be a secret. Angel isn’t sure why. He wears the crown and all, but he still finds himself slinking around county fairs, straw in his shoes, alternately fascinated and appalled by the bright lights that dot tents throughout the night sky. It’s late enough in the summer that the nights are cool. He doesn’t think on it too much until he spots Lindsey.

A white cloud of breath escapes Lindsey’s lips as he pulls a worn jean jacket around his shoulders. He never looks the part of the lawyer when they meet like this. Angel’s grateful, doesn’t need the slap in the face added to the sense that this is wrong. Not wrong on a level most people understand, this isn’t like throwing your plastic bags in the trash and driving a car you know leaks oil. This is the kind of wrong where you know that you are not only fucking the enemy, you are helping him relax enough each night to go to work the next day and forget the evil he does from nine to five.

He knows all of this, but Angel still watches for him, anticipating every nod of his head, sway of hips as he walks towards him, arms moving in a sort of rhythm with the music that blasts from fiddles and guitars on some far off stage. It fascinates Angel to watch him, so calm, sure of himself in a way that after nearly three hundred years Angel can hardly match. He has to reach out, touch hands trembling from the cold. Angel can’t help but laugh when Lindsey slides an arm around his waist, a mockery of dancing, a few onlookers raise eyebrows, but this is California. It isn’t long before they are just two more people in the crowd, here to enjoy the show, maybe see a prize winning pig, win a stuffed bear, show off muscles and skill.

They don’t come for the privacy, this is about being seen by anyone that isn’t likely to care. A thousand faces that think of them as nothing more than the fags at the fair. There are no heroes within these gates. Heroes don’t dance to country music in the straw, sneaking kisses on the Ferris wheel, but then maybe that’s why they come. Inside the hotel, the firm, the office they hold power, people bring them coffee and do what they are told, here they are just two people in search of something human, casual, even carnal.

Maybe it is the dance they come for, Angel isn’t sure. He knows someday it will end, there will be a time when a hot shower won’t wash off enough of the shit stuck in their shoes. When Lindsey’s assurances that he hates the firm and is just biding his time won’t mean a thing. Angel knows that day is out there, but for now he’s content to hold hands, slip under the bleachers like horny teenagers, take the lead in their favorite dance, and pretend that the rest only matters to those who have never had to love in secret.

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