Thirsty Dancing
A Chicago's Grimm tale inspired by The Avaricious Blacksmith
Dalen wraps an arm around Tyler’s waist. It’s hard to say who is holding who up as they weave home. This particular sales rep likes to take them to mid-level bars, and it is impossible to say no to drinks you’re not paying for. Tonight, they’d gone all out, rolling from dinner to drinks without a care in the world, and the bite of lime from a caipirinha lingers between Dalen’s teeth. Tyler had looked too queasy for a car ride home, so it had made sense to walk back to their place.
Sober, it’s twentyish minutes to their apartment complex, but Dalen will admit they’re a little distracted. The dim sum had been amazing, and after a few drinks the conversation had turned to spilling the tea on older office gossip, sharing stories about coworkers present and past.
“Still think it was Sharon who caught Shawn,” Tyler mutters. “There’s no way she’d stay in her position if she didn’t have some sort of blackmail.”
“Mmhmm,” Dalen hums. He doesn’t care about parsing out people involved in a rumor of someone walking in on their CIO having an affair and getting a ‘be-quiet’ package five years ago. He’s trying to remember if he has french fries in his freezer. Fries sound so good right now.
Dalen stirs them toward Women’s Park, aiming to cut across the dead grass. Tyler follows the guidance easily, still chatting. The park is dark, but Dalen can hear faint music. It’s tinny, like the speaker is both bad and tiny. Tyler starts bobbing his head to it, and Dalen admits there’s something catchy about the tune. He knows it and doesn’t, and can’t resist softly adding a beatboxing layer.
As they approach the center of the park, the music gets louder. There are childish giggles and the sound of water. There shouldn’t be kids out this late, it’s near midnight, and the fountain hadn’t been open for the season yet.
“Dude,” Tyler says, hitting Dalen with the back of his hand. “Look at the fountain.”
He doesn’t see it at first, the fountain is surrounded by short brick walls that create a broken circle around the feature, but then he notices lights near the ground.
They look like fireflies, but it’s too early, and lightning bugs don’t stay lit like that or move so fast. The yellow lights flow through the breaks in the fountain wall, some ambling along, others moving like skipped stones, still more zip by so fast there’s a streak in the air, leaving behind the fainter lights that float like dandelion fluff.
Dalen lets his beatboxing fade as they walk closer.
“It’s like a bunch of tinkerbells,” Tyler whispers.
His words are a spell. No longer are they tracking lights circling the fountain; they’re watching small, thin figures leap and dance. Their skin is dark, but their clothes glow yellow, orange, and white with enough force to highlight the edges of hands and feet. The fountain is flowing, water shooting higher than Dalen has ever seen, and the music changes in time with the jets of water. It takes Dalen a moment to realize the fountain is the instrument, building a soft but steady rhythm of drum beats and chimes.
Circling the fountain is a man who has to be drunk. His whole body is knobby, from his elbows to his knees to his knuckles. He dances around the fountain, arms waving wildly in the air. When he catches Tyler and Dalen watching, he beckons them with a hand.
“Come join the circle!”
Before Dalen can do anything, Tyler slips out of Dalen’s grip. Dalen scrambles to follow him, not sure what to expect, but when they step through the brick wall into the dance circle, nothing happens. Dark fairies still twirl around the fountain, the water still churns out a tune.
The only thing that’s changed in the knobby guy now has a dance partner.
Tyler and the guy hold hands and spin like two kids at a park exploring centrifugal force, feet together as they lean out. They laugh like they’re ten, and Dalen feels a little jealous.
“Don’t forget about me!” He cuts in, linking hands to widen the circle.
It’s like he’s drunk, or a kid with no care in the world. The world spins: grinning faces of his fellow dancers, lights from the fairy dresses, circles of brick under his feet, the occasional gong of a big burst of water falling back into the iron basin, but never overflowing. The music builds, sometimes it’s the knobby man singing random notes, or Dalen’s beatboxing, or Tyler’s laughter, or reedy instruments the faeries play. There is nothing more important than this party. Well, maybe the way Tyler laughs with not just his face but his shoulders too.
Dalen’s feet slow when he notices a bit of pale blue in the sky. Sunrise on its way. Shit.
Tyler bumps into him. “D, what?”
“Ah, time to go home,” the man says. “But first.”
From nowhere, he pulls up two empty thermos. He dunks them into the fountain, whose water jets are shrinking as it finally spills over, water soaking into the brick below. The dancing dark faeries are mere lights again, slowly winking out.
“Here.” The man thrusts one thermos at Dalen, another at Tyler. “Thank you gifts. You were good dancers, good musicians. But more importantly, it made me happy that you thought nothing of spending an evening with a stranger.”
“Thanks,” Dalen stammers.
“Oh, sweet, I’m thirsty.”
The knobby man stops Tyler from drinking. “Save it. Go home first. We all need a bit of rest.”
With a wave, he steps out of the small brick circle around the fountain. It immediately dries up, the rest of the moving lights disappear, and Dalen’s senses slam into him. He’s chilled, his feet hurt, his stomach wants a greasy breakfast sandwich, and his mind is ten minutes from shut down.
Tyler sways. Dalen catches him by the shoulder. “Let’s go. If we get back soon enough, we can nap before work.”
“Oh god,” Tyler says, starting toward their apartment building. “I feel like I’m drunk, hungover, and just ran a marathon all at the same time. Why is it Thursday? I wouldn’t have to work if it was Saturday.”
Dalen slaps his friend’s back. “Lock in. I can see our building.”
As they step away from the fountain, exhaustion climbs into Dalen’s bones. Tyler must feel the same, because he leans heavily against him in the elevator and when the doors open for the third floor, Tyler doesn’t move. Doors open on the fifth and Dalen pushes himself away from the elevator wall, dragging Tyler with him.
It’s not the first time they’ve crashed at each other’s apartment. Dalen made a show last night as they were leaving the restaurant of playing dad, promising to get Tyler home and hydrated. He could deal with the comments at the office today, but he’d rather not. Besides, he likes taking care of the other man and he doesn’t often get the chance.
6:15 in the morning, his microwave cheerily informs him. He shoves a glass of water at Tyler, he does not trust the gifted fountain water to be drinkable, and messes with his alarms to allow them an hour nap. Dalen downs his own glass of water, helps himself to half a stack of Ritz crackers, then prods Tyler toward the bedroom.
The queen is big enough for both of them.
“Sixty minutes,” Dalen mutters, “then we gotta go to work.”
“Ninty.” Tyler falls face-first into a pillow, clothes still on.
“Not if you want a shower,” Dalen says.
Tyler doesn’t answer, already asleep. Dalen follows as quickly.
⛲⛲⛲⛲⛲
The alarm is painful, but Dalen forces himself up. It’s like all-nighters at school, he tells himself. You can sleep later.
He shoves at Tyler’s shoulder, the dude doesn’t move, and Dalen lets him snag an extra ten minutes while Dalen quickly readies for the day. His locs don’t need attention, but his teeth a hundred percent do. A quick shower, a fresh change of clothes, and then he gently sits on the edge of his bed so he can brush his teeth with one hand and shake Tyler awake with the other.
When Tyler turns to look at him, the only thing that stops Dalen from wincing is the toothbrush in his mouth. Tyler looks rough, but then again, so does Dalen. He wants to call into work, but he can imagine the rumors. Tyler and Dalen both left the restaurant when they’d been in that hazy space between tipsy and super drunk. The whole last hour of dinner had been sharing work sex scandals and gossip, Dalen didn’t want him and Tyler to become one at this agency.
When Tyler does nothing more than blink sleepy eyes at him, Dalen gives his face a harsh pat.
“Up,” he manages to say, and then goes to spit.
Tyler pushes into the bathroom as Dalen dabs his face dry and they switch, Dalen sliding into the bedroom while Tyler takes care of business surrounded by tile. It strikes him, staring at the closed bathroom door, that he doesn’t know what Tyler will use for a toothbrush or razor or towel. Is it weird that he’d be okay if Tyler used his?
Dalen shakes his head and gets himself a glass of water. He barely got an hour of sleep and his body is heavy. Water, painkiller, and a caffeine pill go down his throat. The pill will hit him slower than a cup of coffee, unfortunately, but it’ll be a bigger jolt. He will still be drowning in coffee today.
He sets up a similar medicinal package for Tyler, and then stares at the two thermos on his kitchen table. He’d forgotten about the fountain water gift. Dalen’s not sure what to do with it, but he’s not about to drink it. The whole night is a blur aside from snapshots of perfectly clear details. He doesn’t know what he did, or how, for hours, but he remembers the top of a jet of water against the sky, the reflective glow of a suit on a faerie, the man’s knobby hands, Tyler’s outstretched arms and his laugh.
Well, at least they can reuse the thermoses.
Dalen unscrews the top of one of them, ready to pour it down the sink, and pauses. It’s filled to the top with gold coins. Quickly, he grabs a mixing bowl. He dumps both thermoses into it and is still staring at the pile of gold when Tyler walks into the kitchen, yawning.
He’s skipped a shave. Dalen likes that. He’s also wearing one of Dalen’s hoodies. He really likes that.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Our fountain water turned into gold coins.”
“No shit.”
Tyler picks one up and bites like pirates do. Dalen’s not sure what’s supposed to happen, but he also doesn’t think the knobby man is tricking them. He’d called the water a gift.
Dalen’s phone beeps. Time to go.
He snags the coin from Tyler’s hand, plops it back in the bowl, and starts pushing him out the door. “Let’s go, before we’re the scandal at the next vendor outing.”
Tyler laughs. “The bags under my eyes are huge, dude. We’re gonna get teased anyway.”
While they wait at the bus stop, Dalen preorders four breakfast sandwiches from a place near the office. With a little sleep and water in him, he’s very aware that he never satisfied his drunk cravings last night nor replenished the calories from a night of dancing.
The bus is its normal crowd of people. Dalen takes the opportunity to doze against Tyler, the other man’s head on his. It’s nice how they’ve gone through the morning together. Not for the first time, he wonders if it’s worth taking a leap of faith and asking Tyler out. He’s not sure the guy is bi, but Dalen is certifiably gay.
The extra twenty minutes of rest on the bus makes Dalen feel better than he expected, and he does a good job at hiding his exhaustion as he picks up breakfast and coffee. It’s a comfortable shuffle of food, drinks, and key cards that gets Dalen and Tyler into the office, and then it’s all about gritting his teeth to get through the day.
If people do think things about Tyler showing up in half the same clothes as he had yesterday, just trading his shirt for one of Dalen’s favorites, well, they don’t tell Dalen. Or he’s too tired to pick up on it. Writing emails takes more effort than it should, and Dalen books two fake meetings during the day to sneak away for a nap in a frosted phone booth.
Like any normal workday, Tyler swings by Dalen’s desk to pick him up after 5 pm. It makes sense - they live in the same building, they share a commute - but Dalen can’t help but overlay the way Tyler walked toward him that morning from the bedroom to the kitchen.
Tired brain + close proximity + recent memories in his own apartment = messing not with Dalen’s head and his heartbeat.
Dalen smiles up at Tyler.
His friend hides a yawn behind his hand. “Ready to go?”
Dalen slams his laptop closed and shoves it in his bag. “Yeah. My bed is calling me.”
“Mmm.”
The bus is too crowded for them to get seats. They stand in the aisle way, shoulders brushing, and Dalen’s mouth goes dry as he imagines asking Tyler to nap on his bed. He thinks about it as Tyler rests his head on Dalen’s shoulder again. As they walk from the bus stop. As they get in the elevator. As Tyler pushes the button for Dalen’s floor.
Maybe he doesn’t even have to ask. It feels natural to have Tyler follow him. But once in the door, Dalen veers toward the bedroom and Tyler heads toward the kitchen. There, on the counter, is the bowl of fairy gold.
Dalen had completely forgotten about it.
“We could go out for a fancy dinner?” Dalen suggests, but even as he says it, he’s not sure. Does that sound too much like a date? What restaurant even accepts gold coins as payment? They should sell them. Turn the coins into cash.
“I just want to go to sleep,” Tyler says, dumping the bowl on the counter and starting to parse it into two piles.
Dalen watches as Tyler makes sure they’re equal, then swipes one pile off the counter into a dish towel and ties it into a pouch.
It’s on the tip of his tongue to invite Tyler to sleep here, but the other guy is already out the door. Dalen is left with gold on the counter, disappointment in his bones, and exhaustion heavy on his shoulders.
If anything good came out of today, he supposes it’s that he’s finally made up his mind that his feelings for Tyler are deep enough to want to ask him out.
Dalen strips as he heads to bed, not wasting the time to put on PJs before crawling under the covers. His far pillow smells like Tyler and Dalen wastes no time in pulling it toward him, the scent pulling him to sleep.
In no time at all, someone is shaking him awake. Tyler is over him, white teeth bright in the dark room. Did he come to join Dalen in bed?
Dalen tries to pull Tyler onto the mattress, but Tyler pulls back. It takes Dalen a moment to realize Tyler is talking.
“Okay. So I haven’t stopped thinking about it and I think we should go back.”
“Back?” Dalen pushes himself up. His smartwatch reads 8 pm; he’s slept a little over two hours. Tyler doesn’t look like he’s slept at all, though he’s changed clothes and shaved.
“To the fountain. The gold we got? It’s worth enough for two months’ rent. And that dude just gave it to us because we danced with him! We should go back. I bet he gives us more. We could be rich in no time.”
“I don’t know, man.” Sure, dancing with the fairies had been fun, but there’s no guarantee they’d be there tonight. No guarantee they’d be safe on this night. The supernatural is as fickle as a cat; it’s impossible to know when it will purr, hiss, or scratch your eye out.
“It’s Friday, we can sleep all day tomorrow. Please, Dalen?”
“We can try tomorrow night.”
“I want to try tonight. If you don’t want to come, I’ll go alone.”
“No, no. I’ll come.”
“Sweet. Put some clothes on. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Dalen grumbled, but threw off the covers. Sweatpants, a hoodie, thick socks. If they got caught up in the music again, his body wouldn’t feel the impact of the night air or hours of dancing while in the circle. He already ached from last night - the least he could do was make sure he wore good shoes and socks.
He walks in on Tyler shoving Dalen’s water bottles in a backpack, but he’s running on so little sleep he cannot bring himself to call him out on it. Instead, Dalen peeks through the kitchen window. He can see the edge of the park, but not the fountain in the center.
“Ready?” Tyler asks. He’s perky enough Dalen wonders if he had an energy shot. He wonders if he should ask for one himself. He doesn’t, simply slips on his shoes and opens the door, gesturing for Tyler to exit before him.
Dalen feels a little guilty for wishing the fairies and knobby dude are not dancing in a ring around the fountain, but sends a little prayer to the shadow of the first tree they pass. Not like the Christian God is gonna answer his prayers for this one.
As they approach the center of the park, the same sensation from yesterday flows over them. The extra dark shadows. The lack of expected city-night noises.
Tyler shoves Dalen’s shoulder in excitement, and Dalen gives him a small grin. As they approach the center of the park, tinny music reaches his ear and when the fountain comes into view, Dalen can see the flicker of yellow lights spinning around it.
“Come on, come on.” Tyler grabs Dalen’s hand, pulling him toward the boarded-up fountain as he skips backwards. “Let’s dance.”
Dalen laughs and speeds up until he and Tyler are trotting toward the fountain, eager to join the dance. For a second, Dalen lingers in the gap of the half wall, Chicago’s whisper network urges him to be careful, but Tyler doesn’t pause. He slips into the circle and disappears.
Panicked, Dalen follows him, bumping into Tyler and the knobby man spinning each other like children again.
“You came back!” the man crows. “People rarely enjoy the dance so much they come back. And so soon!”
Tyler grins, leaning back from their clasped hands, and the pair spins faster. “Dancing is great!”
It is easy to slip into the patterns. The fountain gurgles and sends up jets of water, their feet beat the ground, the fairies twirl around the fountain, but also get closer this night. Dalen watches one pirouette on Tyler’s hair, has to pivot around a couple that enjoy the close calls of Dalen’s feet, tries not to flinch at the brush of sensation against his cheek that could be wings or the trailing fabric of long sleeves.
The knobby man laughs, and Dalen laughs with him, the music infectious. The melody guides his feet, guides his hands, and Dalen finds himself reaching for Tyler’s dry palms in the dark. He spins Tyler in and out in a mock ballroom dance, but resists the urge to dip him. They’re not girls. Dalen might not be able to give up the feeling of Tyler’s waist in his arms.
When the knobby man winks at him, Dalen is grateful the night hides his blush. Is he that obvious?
As before, the night eventually ends. The fairies fade from distinct dancers to bobbing lights, the fountain’s high blasts of water calm down, the music softens. Dalen breathes, lungs catching up to hours of dancing.
“This was amazing,” he tells the knobby man. “Better than the first time.”
The knobby man laughs. “Tonight you really felt the music. Yesterday you were too focused on the newness, you paid less attention to your heart.”
Dalen ducks his gaze, feeling his face flush. Thankfully, Tyler isn’t looking his way.
“You danced the night away,” the knobby man says, “Let me get you some water-”
“Got it!” Tyler chirps. He’s at the edge of the fountain, filling one of Dalen’s water bottles. Dalen’s too thirsty though, and all thought of how dirty or contaminated the water might be can’t curb his desire for a drink. He holds his hands at the edge of the fountain, catching the last of the overflow and slurps it up.
“Now I know you really enjoyed the dancing,” the man says.
Dalen remembers the slide of his palm in Tyler’s. “Yeah. But two nights in a row is exhausting.”
A few steps away, Tyler puts the full water bottle in his backpack, and starts filling another.
“Thirsty?” the knobby man asks.
“Extremely,” Tyler answers.
“Take as much as you want.”
His face is as friendly as it’s always been, and the fairies around them don’t show fangs and swarm them, but the fountain quickly dies. Tyler is left to fill the bottles from the basin. The water is unnaturally still; Dalen can’t see a flow of water into the containers, though he can see the water line rise through the clear plastic.
Eventually, all five bottles Tyler brought are full, including the two they’d been gifted last night.
“Enjoy the day,” the knobby man says as he turns to step out of the circle. Dalen pulls Tyler into the park quickly, not wanting to be the last ones in the ring.
Dawn breaks over Woman’s Park. Dalen feels as tired as he did yesterday, with an added layer of dread. The dancing was fine, but Tyler-
Tyler is grinning at the backpack heavy with water bottles. He’s healthy, happy, and noticeably not cursed. “I’m gonna be set for the rest of the year,” he crows.
“Uh-huh,” Dalen mutters.
It’s an exhausting shuffle to their building, and Dalen can’t find himself to mind too much when Tyler goes back to his own apartment with the backpack. He wants to sleep, and he thinks it’s safe to do so.
Nothing too terrible can happen, right? If they were going to be gruesomely punished, if the dark corners of Chicago were going to claim them, they would have already been gobbled instead of sent home with a souvenir and a smile.
Dalen sleeps for a solid ten hours, waking to the sound of his stomach demanding dinner. Maybe…maybe he should invite Tyler to a nice restaurant. Surely it’s not too late to get a table somewhere. No, it’s Saturday night. A Sunday brunch date? With a tower of pancakes. It’s not uncommon to go the weekend without seeing Tyler, Dalen doesn’t need to hang with him three nights in a row.
He wants to though.
Groaning, Dalen drags himself into the shower, puts on lounge clothes that are nice but not too nice, and heads up to Tyler’s apartment. He can hear Tyler talking through the door, so he knocks. Knocks again when Tyler doesn’t answer. Thinking he’s on the phone with his mom, Dalen puts Tyler’s code in the keypad and lets himself in.
Tyler is staring deep into a soup pot, tears on his face. “No. No, no, no.”
“Did you mess up making soup?”
Tyler jerks up, and Dalen can see tears in the corner of his eye. “It’s just water.”
“What?”
Tyler gestured to the pot. “It’s just water! It didn’t turn to gold!”
Dalen notices the collection of water bottles on the other side of the soup pot, on their side and empty. He didn’t even look at his own pile of gold in his kitchen - or was it just a puddle now, evaporating on his kitchen floor?
“I’m sorry-”
“It’s supposed to be gold! We danced. I took the water from the same fountain. Two of these are the thermoses the man gave us! Even my first pile of gold is gone.” Tyler ran a hand through his hair, staring at the very ordinary water. “I’m supposed to be rich,” he whispers.
Dalen shifts his weight, but bites his tongue. He’s not sure where Tyler went wrong last night - helping himself? getting greedy? - but having a brand new pile of gold sublimate into water is not the grimmest punishment Dalen can imagine.
“Hey.” Dalen slides into the space next to Tyler, looping his arm around him. “You’re not worse off than you were two days ago. You’re exactly in the same spot.”
“The things I could have bought, D.”
“Like what?”
“New clothes. A bunch of spider plants. A vinyl record player.”
“You don’t like music that much.”
“No, but, you do. I wanted to buy you a bunch of stuff.” Tyler ducks his head and turns away, voice getting softer as he starts talking into his opposite shoulder.
“I don’t need a bunch of stuff.” Dalen squeezed Tyler’s bicep. “But if you want, you can buy me dinner?”
Tyler’s head jerks up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re…” Dalen swallows around his dry mouth. He could make a joke about Tyler owning him for breakfast Friday morning. Or dragging him out last night. But he’s too focused on the line of Tyler’s neck, on the memory of it cast in fairy light as he threw his head back to the sky on their first night dancing.
“You’re beautiful.”
He’s blushing, but Tyler is too. So that’s okay.
Tyler leans forward and their noses brush. “You’re prettier.”
“Debatable.”
It’s a soft kiss. Dalen’s heart soars. Who cared about the fairy gold he may or may not have - Tyler’s affection was worth so much more.
“So, dinner?” Tyler whispered. “Some place with candles?”
“Sounds good.”
They might be the couple people talk about at the next vendor event, but Dalen doesn’t mind. He might even give them something specific to talk about.
Chicago’s Grimm is a collection of urban fantasy stories inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales set in Chicago. Subscribe to make sure you get every story and if you liked it consider getting me a Ko-Fi ☕or picking up one of my short story collections.
