I Wanna Dance With Somebody Danny pouted at his husband over his morning coffee.
“Last weekend of freedom. Last day of freedom. Do you really have to go to school tomorrow?” he sulked.
“Yes,” Tarquin smiled, taking a sip of tea. They were having breakfast in the kitchen, the wireless tuned to ‘Muggle Mix - a show promoting the best of non-magical music from all eras,’ as was their Sunday routine. “But I’ll come back again.” The stint as Sonora’s librarian had originally been meant to be temporary but it was starting to seem semi-permanent. However, he had negotiated his hours so that he didn’t have to live on campus. The library monitors, whom at first he hadn’t been at all sure about, had been very useful in that regard. He took two afternoon sessions, to check over books that needed ordering or returning, or stock issues, and then staffed the library during the times that students were most likely to be using it, i.e lunchtimes, evenings and weekends. It meant that his and Danny’s life had had to adjust slightly - they ate at odd times, and had their weekends on Mondays and Tuesdays, but Danny was self-employed and flexible enough to accommodate this. The one downside to his husband mostly working from home was that he seemed to notice his absence more than if they’d both been out. For all that, when they had both been home, they had spent much of the day in separate rooms of the house, Danny just didn’t like knowing he was by himself.
“But you’ll be gone all day,.” he complained.
“Do you want me to get you a cat?” This was a threat and not an offer. For a long time, their lives had been dominated by Oscar - a cat that Danny had bought for Tarquin, but who had harboured resentment at being treated as a commodity. He had adored Tarquin but always been decidedly antagonistic to Danny.
“What’s your special midsummer thingy this year?” Danny asked, deciding that his sulk was leading into dangerous territory and that a change of subject might be wise.
“A ball, I believe.”
“Ooooh, fun!”
“You know I can’t dance,” he glared.
“No, I know you can dance but refuse to if anyone’s watching,” he corrected. He weighed up his husband’s remark for a second, wondering why Tarq had been so keen to dismiss the idea of dancing. It wasn’t like he’d even have to face that issue unless… “Wait, does that mean I’m invited?” he asked. He knew families got to go to the school concerts because they’d been when their own children were in them. He hadn’t thought about whether staff families got to go to things too.
“Staff partners are usually allowed. But really… You want to come to some teenage ball, and stand around the edge all night? You’ll expect me to dance with you, and then sulk when I won’t, even though you’ve known me…. How long? More than thirty years,” he waved his wand, sending their empty mugs over to the sink and putting the washing up in motion.
“If I promise to be good? I like spending time at the school. You and the kids have spent half your lives there.”
“If you like,” he agreed, though he’d believe the part about good behaviour when he saw it. He opened his newspaper, and had a couple of minutes peaceful reading before Danny began humming along to the radio. Tarquin ignored him at first. He could tune out the radio to read, so he could tune out Danny. In fact, much as he loved him, occasionally tuning out his husband or just retreating into a different room was a vital skill in the continued survival of their marriage. Danny was a classic extrovert - loud, exuberant, constantly attention seeking… Speaking of which, his husband had turned the radio up a notch or two.
“Ahh, the eighties…. ,” Danny mused, in a tone quite obviously intended to get a reaction. “Quite possibly the pinnacle of our musical achievements. So long as one makes space for certain nineties boy bands, of course.”
“Never too late to divorce you,” Tarquin muttered, deliberately loud enough to be heard, without looking up from the paper. However, even he couldn’t keep his focus as his husband began to sing and dance around the kitchen.
”Clock strikes upon the hour, And the sun begins to fade. Still enough time to figure out, How to chase my blues away.
Tarquin still tried to pretend to read the paper, spread across the table, but this became impossible when - having failed to get more of a reaction - his husband sat on it, singing and shimmying.
“Darling,” Tarquin said, with a mock air of patience and surprise, but a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Is it possible that you want my attention?”
He hadn’t tuned in enough to recognise the song. And he had walked right into that one.
”Oh, I wanna dance with somebody,”, Danny sang, holding his arms out.
“No.”
“I wanna feel the heat with somebody,” he took Tarquin’s hands.
“No,”
”Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody,” he slid off the table, pulling Tarquin’s arms with him. Tarquin swivelled in his seat but did not stand up. ”With somebody who loves me. Come on…. There’s no one here but us,” he pleaded, staring beseechingly.
“Someone your age should not be able to work the puppydog stare that well,” Tarquin grumbled, standing up, putting one hand on Danny’s waist and taking his hand with the other. Although he was a couple of inches taller, he always let his more dance-confident husband lead. “Will it ever sink in for you that we don’t actually live in a musical?”
“Oh, but wouldn’t be fabulous if we did?” Danny grinned happily, which got an eyeroll from Tarquin.
“You’re insufferably gay sometimes.”
“I think our marriage might struggle if I wasn’t,” Danny quipped, gently swaying his husband around the kitchen to the more mellow verse of the song. Leaning into his ear, he gently sang, "I need a man who’ll take a chance on a love that burns hot enough to last,” sliding his hand from Tarquin’s shoulder to his waist and pulling him into a kiss.