A Night For Romance! (Closed to Ray)

It was a quiet evening in the House of Cards, Vincent had made sure of that. Everyone had their assignments, all off doing minor missions and clerical work. Nothing dangerous or lifethreatening, just enough to HOPEFULLY keep them out of the House of Cards for one night.

You see, he had a date.

It wasn’t often Vincent got a chance to bust out his romantic playbook, but tonight was one of those few rare times. He’d spent the last few hours preparing a fancy meal, straight from the instructions of the fanciest gourmet’s in all of Althanas’ history. The kitchen was a disaster zone, but his plates were perfection. He’d gone to Corone and gotten his hair trimmed and styled by the most famous Radasanthian barber. He’d gotten the finest Fallerian cologne money could buy…

You get the point.

Tonight was special, and his date meant the world to him, so he wanted it to be perfection incarnate. Which is why as he sat at the dinner table covered with a wonderful silken tablecloth and looked over the perfect table arrangements, the fine china, the origami hand towls, it stuck him.

“Oh god, Ray is going to hate this…”

He bought her a dress.

Vincent Cain, the Emperor of the Tarot Hierarchy. Most magically-inclined individual she had ever met. Decently good looking, once you looked past the unruly mop of blonde hair. Childish, and not always in a way that was endearing. Excitable, and occasionally awkward, though he tried his hardest to hide it. Motivated by adventure, and those he cared about. Homesick, though he'd never admit it. A good heart. She figured she'd had her best friend figured out pretty well.

Then that son of a bitch went and bough her a goddamned dress.

Rayleigh stared down at it, her hands on her hips, her face screwed up in an expression mixed parts confusion and exasperation.

"What do I do with it?" she heard herself ask.

It did not take much imagination to what Vincent's reply would have been. He would have told her to wear it, rolling those ice blue eyes as if she could not have asked a stupider question. But she had not seen the scholar since finding the dress on her bed, a small hand-written note laid delicately on the pillow. "See you tonight," it had read.

What kind of cryptic shit was he trying to pull? Ray chewed on her bottom lip as she regarded the note, and the dress. It really was beautiful, delicate folds of chiffon that she knew would match her eyes. It would probably feel amazing to wear, so light and airy, and entirely unlike the constricting Alerarian garb she was raised on...

She blinked, startled by her own train of thought. Was she really considering wearing the thing?

In his haste to figure everything out, to make it all perfect, Vincent had forgotten the most important thing. Rayleigh was not the type to be moved by all this nonsense. She didn’t give a flying fuck about fancy meals, or cologne, or even nice...dresses.

“FUCK” The word left his mouth in a hiss as he bolted from his seat. “VINCENT CAIN, FOR ONE OF THE WORLD’S SMARTEST MEN YOU CAN BE A DUMBASS SOMETIMES” he growled to himself as he burst out the mess hall to the main hallways of the first floor. Maybe there was hope, he could sneak into Ray’s room, snatch the dress and note, and hopefully make some tacos and turn the whole thing into a significantly more low key affair.

He crept quietly on his tip toes as he slunk around the hall, turning a corner and pausing in front of Rays door. He thought about just barging in, but years of ROM-COM anime had taught him that was a recipe for possible accidental disaster. Instead he gave a simple knock…praying Ray was missing.

“Uh…Ray?” He silently hoped she was off taking a bath or something; the last thing he needed her to see was him in this silly formal attire looking like an asshole.

She pulled the door open, the bright light from the hallway spilling into her room. Ray preferred darkness to the blinding lights of the hall, her room lit by the Alererian bulbs that so fascinated her. Something about being surrounded by her technology, even in her sleep, brought her comfort. Her space was far from cozy. In fact, some might call it industrial, looking more like a garage than a bedroom. There were not many difference between it and the workroom across the hall, save for the addition of a bed. If she was within a few steps of something to tinker with, she was happiest.

As such, the light that pooled in her doorway seemed to cast a sort of spotlight on the woman. Truth be told, the dress she wore deserved nothing less. It fit her like a glove, one layer clinging to her body while miles of loose fabric draped atop it. She had no real curves to speak of, a fact that Tobias Stalt had reminded her of on various occasions, but the dress seemed to accent what was there. It fell mid-calf, and though the strappy sandals Ray wore paled in comparison, they were all that she had. Besides, anyone who was looking anywhere but the shimmering emerald gown was crazy.

It was lucky, then, that Ray had no jewelry to accent her look. Her ears were unpierced, and necklaces generally only got in the way of her work. But the dress. All she had to do was slip into it, and she was ready. In a moment of indecision, she had twisted her mop of brown hair into a pile on top of her head. Without a mirror in her room (she was never one for vanity), she had no idea how she looked. Her gaze searched his face for some sort of sign.

Vince stood stunned for just a second. He’d spent weeks mulling over dresses that would complement her style, things that would work with her figure, her personal tastes, basically everything. He’d enlisted the help of others, notably Nicolette who had an eye for this sort of thing. He would have to thank her later, because they’d picked a winner.

“You look fantastic.” He breathed running a hand nervously through his hair. He opened his mouth to say more, but his lips just kinda stammered silently through inferior compliments. His own outfit was more…conservative than some of his day to day attire but all the more formal. Silken trousers fastened with some exotic leather belt, an ivory white shirt paired with a violet silken vest. His hair even looked like it had met a brush for once!

“So…dinner?”

"Thanks," Rayleigh answered, a large smile blossoming across her face. For so long, she had seen Vincent Cain as a best friend, treating him as she might a fellow mechanic in the shop. Yet the past few months had changed something between them, and she was having a difficult time keeping up with the strange new emotions. Six months ago, she probably would have told him he was beautiful too, in a singsong voice that would end in a fit of ridiculously inappropriate jokes. Or she would have mocked him for staring, and maybe punched him for doing so. But lately, his compliments had only warmed her, and she had occasionally struggled to find a comeback. How? She had always been the master of witty remarks, and Vincent had been her absolute favorite target. Whatever was happening, she hated it more often than enjoyed it. In that moment, however, her dislike of all things sentimental ebbed when she looked him up and down.

"Purple, huh?" she asked him, eyeing his colorful vest. When he remained silent, and she watched the flash of panic cross his face, she placed her hand reassuringly on his arm. "It looks nice," came her gentle confirmation. He still said nothing, quite unusual for the chatty Vincent Cain, so she nudged him along. Stepping into the brightly lit hallway, and pulling the door closed behind her with her free hand, she said, "Tell me more about this dinner."

“Purple, huh?”

The two words hit Vince like a suckerpunch from John Cromwell. Red lights flashed in his head as a fucking cacophony of sirens went off in his head. Fucking hell Vince, you should have gone green! It would have matched her dress, it would compliment you eyes! Purple was too gaudy! How could you possibly think to pull a stupid stunt like wearing purple to an important fucking da-

“It looks nice.”

Vince froze for half a second and let out a gentle sigh of relief. Bullet dodged, so far so good! She liked the dress, she liked the vest, everything was going to be A-OK.

“Tell me more about this dinner.”

FUCK.

It was like her every question was a landmine that one wrong answer would firmly plant his boot on, and no matter how quick to recover the whole thing was going to blow up in his face. His heart fluttered with her every word she spoke.

“Dinner.” The word left his mouth quickly. “Yes, uh dinner! I decided to try something new for once you know? Tacos and pizza are fantastic, but I wouldn’t want to serve you tacos in a dress that nice so I decided to try something…fancier.”

He took a brief mental pause and walked with her to the dining hall of the Tarot. Vincent silently cursed the rather compact and efficient layout of the secret base, as it didn’t really give him a ridiculous amount of time to really explain. He opened the door, revealing a lone table covered in a silken table cloth. The rest, normally spread out cafeteria style, had been pushed inelegantly to the back, some of the massive tables even stacked on top of each other if needed for space. Several candles sat mounted on some sort of fancy holder, filling the room with a soft light as they flickered. Each plate was served a portion of some steaming pasta dish that had some unnecessarily long name, tenderly cooked portions of sliced chicken precariously placed on the top. Twin wine glasses sat empty next to an extraordinarily expensive bottle of wine that was nestled in a silver bucket filled to the brim with ice.

Vince sucked in a sharp breath, nervously looking to her. “I know it’s a bit much…”