what if. golden rings AU grian and jimmy or tango and impulse <3 pls I need the boys so badly
wow! another request filled!! this is crazyyy wowoww
anyway. have some Golden Rings Tango and Impulse. it's... very self-indulgent, i am so sorry.
thanks for the request, theooooo. <3
(for a note: this isn't spoilers! so even if you haven't read golden rings/aren't caught up, you'll be fine! just a fun one-shot, somewhere in time in the golden rings AU!<3)
~
“Well, don’t you look official.”
Swiftly turning around, Impulse removes his hard gaze on the bedroom door, spinning around slowly to the new figure in the room. Backed by warm lantern light, the silhouetted, lithe figure’s shoulders shake with a soft laugh.
“Didn’t even hear you come in,” Tango says, smirking, “Did I scare you?”
Impulse shakes his head. “You’ll have to try a little harder than that.”
With a snort, Tango moves over to the vanity in the corner of the room. “You jumped. I saw it.”
Scanning over the prince, he focuses on the attire—clearly prepared for the evening’s events, but.. lacking. He grunts, noting the missing jewelry, lack of crown...
“Aren’t you ready, your majesty?” Impulse asks, voice low, “I’m tasked with escorting you to the ball within the next few minutes.”
“Your majesty?” Tango asks, clearly taken aback. He turns around on the tiny, tufted stool and his mouth gapes. “We’re usin’ titles now?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
The prince dodges the inquiry. “What happened to Tango, huh? Get caught slipping?”
“No, sir. Just getting back into habit. It’s an important night.”
Impulse moves further into the room. He takes post at a wall like usual, leaning against the perfect spot, that of which allows him to see Tango’s bedroom door in the reflection of the vanity but allows him to keep an eye on the prince too.
“I guess.” Tango shrugs, turning back around and facing himself in the mirror. He fiddles with a box, cracking it open and revealing a bright bunch of golden bits and bobs within. Digging his claws in, Tango pulls a couple indistinct pieces of jewelry and sets them down. It’s all very slow, Impulse notices, far too methodical for Tango who is..usually rather decisive regarding these things.
“Your highness,” he says again, like a warning.
“I know, I know. Late. ” Tango rolls his eyes, both hands working to fasten an earring, “Late to a bunch of chatter.”
“It’s important to your father.”
“Yeah, but why do I have to go dance with a bunch of strangers? It’s his party.”
At that notion, Tango’s eyes suddenly flick up in the mirror, meeting Impulse as he fastens in the other earring. There is a quick smile, and he’s turned around again, to which Impulse wants to groan in irritation. Here we go.
“Hey, Impy.”
“Yes?”
“Do you ever dance at parties?”
With a sigh, Impulse shakes his head. For the moment, he feels his knightly exterior slipping into the casual conversation the two commonly shared. He tries to hold steady.
“Is this really the time? My liege-”
Tango pats at his thighs eagerly. “Come on! I’m curious.”
Offering a heavy eye roll, Impulse leans his back against the wall.
“Not often, no. Now, will you please get ready?”
“Do any knights know how to dance?” Tango teases, “Aren’t you taught that in your training?”
He’s standing now. That familiar, memorized shape of his charge’s body slinking towards him. The darkly colored fabric of Tango’s skirt consumes the greater, lower half of him and makes him look a little like a ghost, if not for the bright and lively eyes. If not for the dazzling smile. Had Impulse been a braver man, he would’ve told Tango how lovely he looked—only for the idea to make his mouth go dry.
“My job isn’t to dance, your highness.”
“Well, ya can’t go to a ball without knowing how to dance, can you, Sir Impulse? Since we’re using titles now..”
His title, sitting so playfully on Tango’s tongue, sends Impulse’s heart into a stampede. Impulse tries his best not to gulp, swallowing a mouthful of words. He knows his task, and yet, the prince always did so well at weakening his backbone.
Tango, now very close, stares up at Impulse. Unsure if it’s a trick of the light, or if there is actually something to cause the effect, Impulse can almost see a shimmer across Tango’s face. They often had moments in this dimness, when the lanterns go from simulating a sense of daylight and are turned down to something more representative of the night: lower, quieter, warmer. Something in the spare firelight makes the prince glow, and it makes Impulse feel particularly reverent.
But his brain gets the better of him, and Impulse just stares right back with a more insistent look. One that says please your father is absolutely going to kill me if we don’t go and come on and Tango, but he feels Tango’s hand brushing at his and his face feels like it’s gotten a hundred degrees hotter.
“Come on,” Tango says, pulling Impulse from the wall.
Something inside lets him move. He weakens, unable to say no.
“No music,” he mumbles awkwardly, one last ditch effort to stop the whole affair.
“Eh, who needs it?”
The two find themselves in the middle of the room. Prince Tango’s eyes roam over the knight’s demeanor, leaving what feel like tangible, burning lines that melt through Impulse’s armor.
"Usually it’s...”
“Sir Impulse, you really don’t want to dance with me, do you?”
“That’s not what I said,” Impulse says, “it’s just that you’re expected downstairs and..”
Pushing closer, Tango enters Impulse’s space fully now, sending Impulse’s words off into the ether. His defenses shatter. Gently taking Impulse’s hand away from the hilt of his sword, which he’d found himself holding tightly, Tango presses the gloved hand to his waist. Impulse feels jitters crawl up the arm, hand twitching.
For the first time, Impulse’s composure cracks, breath hitching. He hopes Tango doesn’t notice, the prince now taking his other hand. When he finally looks at Impulse, the knight straightens his back out of habit, and Tango smirks. Impulse feels his breath brush across his face, tickling his skin. There is a heavy feeling settling all over, and it makes him want to either tuck tail and run or just plain melt. He can’t decide which.
“Perfect,” Tango hums, “You just keep your hand there, alright?”
“This is.. very against my oaths to your father,” Impulse says, gesturing to their clasped hands, “You realize that, right?”
“Of course I do.” Tango grins. He takes a step, leading Impulse into the beginnings of a very slow, clunky waltz. “Don’t worry, you won’t be smote. I won’t blab if you won’t.”
“He’s going to ask where we’ve been.”
“And? I’m the prince, I can do what I want.”
“...To an extent.”
“Are you questioning my power?”
“I think you deserve it, your highness,” Impulse says, letting a smile slip.
Tango makes a face, screwed up in playful frustration. A laugh bubbles up in Impulse’s throat, flowing out in a hefty, rasped chuckle. When Tango smiles, it’s overwhelmingly fond, sending a chill down Impulse’s spine.
The two slowly move around the empty space, making messy shapes with their path. Impulse finds that he can’t quite get the hand on Tango’s waist to relax. The fingers dangle, his palm hovers, the side of the prince only brushing against the inside of his glove when certain movements allow it. There is something that prevents it, and if not for the fact that Tango laced their fingers together, the other hand would likely be the same way.
“You know, you can touch me,” Tango suddenly says, noticing the hesitance.
He removes his hand from Impulse’s shoulder without skipping a step, bringing it down and pressing Impulse’s hand into his waist. His fingers instinctively wrap around, digging into soft muscle and slipping towards his back.
When the desire to pull Tango in makes itself apparent—when it slips through the broken defenses, he lets it. He listens, using the hand to pull Tango closer. It feels so much like second nature that Impulse swears he has never acted in a way that felt more correct.
Tango lets out a breath, like he meant to laugh, but it comes out as more of a delicate gasp. Impulse doesn’t know what to say, all the words caught in the back of his throat. The room feels smaller, narrowing to how it feels to have Tango this close, in his grip. The walls blur around him, his focus landing on the prince before him, staring slightly wide-eyed. Instead of shock, it looks more like bewilderment—a pleasant surprise, he hopes, to be held this way.
Impulse feels something well up in his chest, something he can’t quite put a name to. It was warm, and fuzzy, and making itself at home in the very deepest corners of his heart. It’s distracting, it’s overwhelming.
So much so, that he isn’t quite sure when they stopped moving.
When Impulse meets his eyes, Tango immediately looks away. He sees the skin of his glowing face grow pinker. They stand still, locked in what now feels like an embrace.
“...You’re not half-bad,” Tango says, his voice barely above a whisper, “And you said you don’t dance.”
“I said I don’t do it often.”
Regaining his composure—or, attempting to, Impulse clears his throat. When he lets go of Tango, his hands drag. He almost wishes, for a moment, it was his skin: ungloved, unobstructed touch. It’s painfully slow, as if savoring every centimeter, before he steps away.
“Well,” he says, “Now that you’ve sufficiently distracted me..”
Tango doesn’t respond for a moment, hands lightly wringing in front of him as he looks down at the floor. Impulse’s hand rests back on the hilt of his sword, and he makes for the door, posting up near it.
He tries his best to ignore how everything inside him burns, offering a glance to Tango once more.
Impulse can’t help how, when he speaks, his voice feels so full. His throat feels tight, heart pounding.
“Are you ready, my prince?”
(And what if I said “my prince” but actually meant-)
“..Um. Yeah, yes, of course,” Tango says, “We should go. Late enough as is.”
And when Tango lightly touches Impulse’s arm as he passes him on the way out, muttering something that sounds like a “thank you” under his breath, the grip on his hilt tightens.
He tries not to fall to pieces.
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