Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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Even after the Ball ended, he didn’t go back to his room.
He couldn’t explain it, because there was nothing to explain, but the air felt heavy. Cold and thick, in the way it only did when one was extraordinarily tired, the kind of tired that lined lungs and filled them with cotton, the kind that made every breath slow and deep and prickling. He sat in the doorway of the billiard room, watching the Ball-goers filter away to their rooms — stumbling, laughing, too bleary to speak. The look on Bacchuspaw’s face was uncommonly tempered, relaxed — not in the way it usually was, with the too-practiced disinterest that felt nasty in its dismissiveness, but in a way that was easy. He was drunk on exhaustion, his eyes heavy and hooded and dark, his ears softened from the usually stiff way he held them; a faint smile — however sardonic as he watched the cats trip and stumble, however harmlessly cruel as he imagined, with hazy, drifting amusement behind tired eyes, how sick they’d be the next day — made his face more gentle. More than anything, more than the come-down of revelry that smelled like stale drinks and cold air, he was in a good mood, a good mood only amplified and swirled by the intoxicating stillness, the sleeplessness, of the early morning.
It was a tangerine-gold dawn and the birds were just starting to sing. The light just beginning to fade in from the dark filtered through the tall, many-paned windows and painted itself across the floor of the hall, criss-crossing it with shadows and warmth. And still Bacchuspaw lingered. As the Minister drifted past. As the Commissioner left. As Wickedpaw, as the other Mothers went to bed, or to after-party secrets. He just sat there, watching them all go until he was alone, until even the Estate itself was quiet. No creaking, no settling. Only faint birdsong.
Because, when one came down to the truth drifting along the tired air currents, he knew he wasn’t really alone. One other cat hadn’t gone to bed yet either. He didn’t know why he had lingered. He didn’t know why he himself had. But, of course, that, too, was a lie. Neither wanted to leave the other’s company yet — and so, still denying it to themselves, to each other, to everyone else, they had found excuses to stay. Stay just a while longer. Stay until the hall was empty. Stay until there was nothing but cold and dust motes and silence. Stay until there was some drifting of anticipation, of inevitability, through the still, incense-sweet air, a drifting that both turned their minds from but that both felt. And so, finally, Bacchuspaw turned his head to look over his shoulder from where he’d been gazing out at the empty hall for what could have been close to an hour. There was a smile on his face, in his features, and it was so openly lazy, so unburdened, so groggily relaxed. “Well, Orrerypaw,” he greeted the other tom, and even his voice was changed, so much more languid; the smile was in it too, and it had made an ocean of it. His whole being was buzzing with exhaustion, with a deep contentment, with a waiting. For what, he didn’t know. Except that was a lie, too. He knew. Deep down, he knew. There was no other reason he would have stayed. “Time for bed, isn’t it? The little lord must have a lengthy night-time routine,” his dark, hooded eyes drifted to the golden dawn light washing in through the dusty windows; there was no guilt in them, only a knowing that was a secret even from him, only that heavy, drunken air in his lungs, only we knew what we were doing when we stayed; we knew the hour; we both wanted this, “… though I think you’ve rather missed your chance.”
They both knew. The future was hazy, but the room was thick with the feel of it.
It was almost funny how much a truth there was to that statement, as joking as it was. Orrerypaw was rigid, he was scheduled — he did have a bed time at the exact hour every night on the hour, and a bed time routine, and a pre-bedtime routine, and while he had been more than happy to be a good little host for a ball he'd never been asked to host, it had thrown everything off. And there had been a thrill in that, the cheap, childish thrill of breaking a rule that just for one night had been permitted, encouraged really, to be broken. But now, in the hazy gold of dawn flowing in through the window, the effects of breaking such a constant and consistent schedule could be seen, could be felt. The world was blurry with the haze of exhaustion, it was like a distant, soft thing. And normally at that point — long before that point, Orrerypaw would have gone off to bed, would have done anything to preserve that unflappable, perfect image (or what he liked to think was an unflappable, perfect image; though if the ball prior had proved anything it was that it was fake and imaginary to most everyone else as well) and not show a note of weakness or weariness. As if he was always at the peak of his performance, as if he was always watching and observing and aware of all.
But as the night grew on those boundaries had slipped. First with the turbulence of the night: the high of the grandeur of it all that had fallen to petty annoyance, then newfound curiosity and zeal, then bitter frustration, and then intrigue excitement again with the second wave of news and gossip. But time moved past, and soon all that became a dull memory to the growing exhaustion, to lingering and waiting for what seemed like ages for something, something. Somewhere subconsciously he knew what that something was, the same way that Bacchuspaw did. But in the same way he would have never put a word to it, never dare held the introspection to point to the feelings that possessed him, the thoughts that lived below thoughts that guided his actions. And so there were any number of obvious answers he created for why he stayed. Because it would be rude to leave the party before half the guests left, because it would be rude to leave before one-third did, because good hosts stayed until everyone had left. And then it was just him and Bacchuspaw, and because he was the last person left, the thought then became that someone had to clean up whatever mess that was left over. Never mind that any other moment he would have seen it immensely below him, never mind that he scoffed at the very idea while he was bothering with piling off dirty moss even as he was half-aware he was doing it, half tumbling over his own paws as he did so. It was a reason to stay, a reason to linger, and so he did it in spite of the drudgery of it all.
His ears only lightly perked, he himself only came to a slow pause, when he heard Bacchuspaw speak up. At first his gaze fell on Bacchuspaw, and then, as if he had to see the obvious for himself, as if only laying eyes on it would make it a reality, he turned his gaze towards one of the large windows, where streams of pale dawn light were coloring the room in golden-orange glow. It felt foreign, different, in the way that only vaguely familiar sights felt somehow very unique, very unusual, when you're drunk on exhaustion so thick it could practically be slice through with a knife. Normally, he would have bristled at the implication that he had a nighttime routine, that he was that extravagant — as true as it was, the fact it was true would have only made it worse, would have made a casual prod a near insult because it was so very accurate. But he didn't, because really, he was too tired to, and Bacchuspaw's words felt light on the air; almost pretty in a way, almost musical and mystical in the lopsided way the world seemed to exist right then. And so he just gave a quiet sigh that seemed almost like a meditative hum in response.
"It really is incredibly late." It was such a simple observation, but it was deceptively simple. Because in an unspoken was, it was an agreement. An acknowledgment. They had stayed up this long, there really was no going to bed now; and really, his tone said he had no plans to, and he knew — in some silent, rarely acknowledged intuition — Bacchuspaw didn't either.
It really is incredibly late. Bacchuspaw craned his neck to look over his shoulder again, giving Orrerypaw a grin that looked far more open, far more sinister, far more dangerous than his lazy, disdainful ones usually did; because it was uninhibited, unrestrained. Because it was so immorally genuine. Rising to his paws, he turned and padded towards him. “What would the Minister say—“ Over-tired, he tripped over his own paw and stumbled; it set off another beaming grin as he righted himself, his quiet, messy laughter falling over itself, “if he saw a Luminary cleaning up. Doing dishes.” Still grinning, he stopped in front of him; everything about him was slightly fumbling, both weighed down and freed, like he’d forgotten how to use his paws quite right, like he’d forgotten what lungs were supposed to do. “That’s what the lower classes are for. And you’re not that, are you?” Eyes still not leaving Orrerypaw’s, so sleep-drunk and yet inexplicably sharp, he reached out and, with a movement that was both forceful and so gentle, took the moss from him, laying it down upon the red, frayed rug with its edges so rolled up. And then he let out another burst of quick, rolling laughter, like the moss was such an inconsequential thing quickly forgotten as memories of the night came back and overwhelmed him so delightfully. “Those poor fledglings. I’m going to do such a terrible number on them — I hope you’ll help me.” He still had that wide grin on his face, like it was such a meaningless request, such an insignificant offer; and it would have been that, if he weren’t close enough to Orrerypaw to feel the Luminary’s warm breath on his face, if his eyes had left his for even a dawn-slowed heartbeat, if it didn’t sound like he was offering something else entirely.
And then, inexplicably, because he was just so drunk on exhaustion, more so than perhaps even Orrerypaw because he was used to these early hours of the morning making him loose and silly when he was with illicit company, Bacchuspaw was giggling again — and it truly was giggling, not precisely high but just ceaseless and undone and hazy as the air around them. “I just— I just keep imagining how terribly sad it’ll be for them.” He was still laughing, his words so messy and warm around it, his eyes so bright. “They’ll— they’ll start out so full of wonder and then they— won’t be.” The last words almost broke him; it was such a horrible thing to find funny, and at any other time of the day he might have done a better job of keeping it under wraps, but now, here, with Orrerypaw, it was just so funny.
In a deeply hidden part of himself, he could feel, in a too-warm, too-heavy way that felt far too akin to longing, that this was all he wanted. It was the far more vulnerable, far more sentimental part of him, the young part, the part that didn’t laugh at kits’ misery — or maybe the two weren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe the cruelty was just as inextricably branded, like gold, into those parts, and maybe both parts felt for Orrerypaw just the same. Felt what? Felt what? It was buried so deep that even his subconscious mind couldn’t turn the feeling of longing in his gut into words. The Luminary’s breath warm on his face, the way the gold light fell on his eyes, that uptight, immoveable neuroticism that everyone else rolled their eyes at but that he felt so inexplicably defensive of — that was all he knew. That was all he felt. And this dawn, all those feelings were dangerously close to the surface.
Flicking his head slightly towards the door, his eyes still snagged on Orrerypaw’s, that wry little smile that was both delicate and so drunkenly mocking still on his face, he drawled lowly, mouth hooked up slightly at one edge and voice a quiet, flippant rumble, “walk you to your room?” Like it was both a creeping confession and the most harmless, meaningless thing in the world.
