"Well," Claude replies after a few slow inhalations, a few carefully placed moves forward - once Vincent brushes up against his side once more, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not. He won't make the judgment now, not in the wake of their given subject matter, however veiled it may be. "You are very special. I've been a lonesome diner for the past couple of years." The sentence begins in his usual tone of voice, if a note or two gentler than the unceremonious directness that otherwise characterises him. However, once it has moved into the heavily mined territory of -- history, his voice breaks ever so slightly. Nothing embarrassing, nothing too emotional. Rather, it's a fall of pitch and he clears his throat in the aftermath, jumbling the sudden flood of words about.

Since Pavel died, there has been nobody. Certainly, he hasn't deprived his body of its basic needs... As it is, he's a very physical sort of person, isn't he? He relies on his body enough that it matters with what exactly he stuffs his mouth or how tense he allows his system to become. Ganyméde is a safe place to take care of the basic urges, but when he doesn't eat alone, he eats with other dancers and at this point, the Opera has become forbidden territory in any matters of the heart. If he can't risk it there, it has felt utterly useless to risk it anywhere else.

Jaw tight, he kicks aside a pebble mostly without thinking about it. Such a childlike gesture, of course, but feelings are something he reserves for the stage. Beyond it, he strives for balance. When balance fails him, he can pretend and pretends with enough gusto for the levels to resettle themselves. They always resettle, at times you simply have to wait longer than you'd thought.