Chapter 238: Chapter 238: Modern Art and Mortal Pain

By the time the overture slid into its first chaotic crescendo, Chris could already feel his soul attempting to evacuate his body.

The opera was more movement than music, more neon than narrative, and more screaming than any cultured production should reasonably contain. The dancers drifted across the stage like haunted wind chimes, while someone in the orchestra pit kept striking a metal sheet for “atmospheric effect.”

Chris took another slow sip of lemon water.

If this night had a lifeline, this was it.

Dax leaned slightly toward him without breaking posture. “Still alright?”

Chris kept his eyes forward. “I’m embracing the suffering with dignity.”

“You don’t have to suffer,” Dax murmured, his tone too soft for anyone but Chris to hear. “Say the word and we leave.”

Chris stiffened at the idea of standing. Leaving meant walking. Walking meant moving. Moving meant pain radiating from places he would rather not acknowledge in public.

“I’m fine,” he whispered. “I am a serene, cultured consort with absolutely no physical limitations.”

Dax’s brow rose, skeptical and amused. “You’re gripping the armrest again.”

“I’m participating in the emotional tension of the scene,” Chris muttered.

Another performer launched into a monologue while suspended upside-down. Chris felt his spine whimper in sympathy.

He shifted carefully, trying to relieve pressure without actually moving, the delicate strategy of a man pretending to be composed while his body wrote several formal complaints.

Dax noticed.

His hand slid subtly between their seats, knuckles brushing Chris’s in a quiet offer of support. Chris didn’t take it, that would require moving, but he didn’t pull away either.

“You should lean on me,” Dax said under his breath. “It will help.”

Chris wanted to. He really wanted to.

But leaning involved shifting his weight, which involved his hips, which involved pain he absolutely refused to show on camera. The national news did not need footage of the consort wincing like an eighty-year-old after a storm.

“I’m alright,” Chris murmured, sitting so still he was practically part of the upholstery.

Dax’s gaze softened in a way that made Chris want to either melt into the seat or yell at him for being too gentle. “Christopher, you don’t have to prove anything.”

“I’m not,” Chris whispered tightly. “I’m just… strategically motionless.”

A dancer flung himself across the stage in what Chris suspected was meant to represent the fall of democracy. The director, seated several rows ahead, turned eagerly to catch Dax’s reaction.

Dax had none.

Chris envied him deeply.

He sipped his lemon water again. It soothed his throat, settled his stomach, and prevented him from rising to his feet in protest of the avant-garde attack unfolding before him.

“How much longer is this?” he asked, barely moving his lips.

Dax checked the program. “Two hours.”

Chris considered death as an alternative.

Dax leaned closer. “If you’re in pain…”

“I am, but I would drop dead before the news would pick up on the damage of the heat.” Chris sighed. “Ask Killian for meds.”

Dax’s head tilted almost imperceptibly toward him. “You don’t need medication to endure a performance, my moon.”

“I don’t need medication for the opera,” Chris muttered. “I need medication so I don’t walk out of here like I survived a small car accident.”

Dax’s jaw tightened in a way that told Chris he was now thinking about the exact list of injuries he’d inflicted during the rut. Chris quickly sipped more lemon water before the king decided to go into a spiral of remorse.

“You can ask Killian,” Dax said quietly. “I won’t force you.”

Chris made a face. “I can’t ask him. He’ll give me that look.”

“What look?”

“The ’I am judging your life decisions while also respecting your privacy’ look,” Chris whispered. “I can’t deal with that look today.”

Dax’s lips twitched. It was barely there, but Chris felt it. A warmth, a shadow of humor, tucked under all that regal composure.

“I will ask him,” Dax murmured. “Discreetly.”

Chris exhaled in relief, then winced because even breathing too deeply made his ribs protest. “Thank you. And please tell him I don’t want the strong ones. The strong ones make me feel like my soul is floating three centimeters above my body.”

“I won’t,” Dax said, which was king-language for I absolutely will.

Chris glared weakly. “Dax.”

“My moon.”

“Don’t drug me on camera.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would.”

Dax did not deny it. Which was deeply concerning.

Onstage, the performers began a new sequence that involved interpretive flailing combined with operatic yelling. Chris watched, not because he understood it, but because anything else required turning his head and turning his head required moving and moving was currently off the table.

His lower back throbbed. His thighs protested their continued employment. His hips felt like someone had replaced the joints with poorly lubricated machinery.

At least his collar was high enough to hide the evidence of what, exactly, had caused the damage.

He took another long sip of lemon water.

“This is your fault,” he muttered.

“How is this my fault?” Dax asked softly.

“You made me walk today.”

“You insisted on walking.”

“I insist on many things,” Chris said, voice tight. “Not all of them are wise.”

Dax’s hand brushed his again, a quiet anchor hidden in the shadow between their seats. “Lean, Christopher.”

Chris hesitated.

Then, slowly, very slowly, with the careful poise of a man negotiating peace terms with his own muscles, he shifted just enough that his shoulder touched Dax’s.

It hurt. But less than everything else.

Dax stilled, like Chris had handed him something fragile.

“Better?” the king asked.

“No,” Chris whispered honestly. “But tolerable.”

Dax accepted that answer with a small nod.

“Two hours,” Chris repeated with a deadpan tone. “Why do you let these directors feel creative?”

“It keeps them from staging protests,” Dax replied.

“That sounds like a bribe.”

“It is.”

Chris huffed a quiet laugh.

The opera raged on, dissonant, neon, and emotionally violent in a way only modern productions dared attempt. But for the first time that night, Chris felt a little less like he was free-falling through a politically mandated fever dream.

“I can use pheromones to soothe you.” Dax said while raising a brow at a particularly odd part of the opera.

“No, there is no need; you are in the same state as me, just… a better liar.”

Dax shifted his gaze from the stage to him, faint amusement settling in his eyes. “I’m not lying.”

“You are,” Chris said, fighting the urge to sink three inches lower into his seat. “You walked normally this morning, which is suspicious. No man survives a week like that without consequences.”

“I have consequences,” Dax murmured. “I’m simply managing them better.”

“That,” Chris said, “is the definition of lying.”

Dax didn’t argue. He simply repositioned one knee, the subtle, measured adjustment of someone who was absolutely in pain but refusing to acknowledge it out loud.

Chris gave him a look.

Dax gave him the same look back.

“Fine,” Chris whispered. “We’re both disasters.”

“Matching disasters,” Dax corrected.

“Don’t make it romantic.”

“It already was.”

Chris drained the remaining lemon water before he could react to that.

Onstage, a performer wrapped in shimmering fabric began rotating painfully slowly in midair, chanting something that sounded like an academic thesis read backwards. The director in the front row visibly leaned forward, eyes shining with pride.

Chris leaned closer to Dax. “What is that supposed to represent?”

“Migration,” Dax replied without hesitation.

Chris squinted. “You don’t know that.”

“No.”

“Then why say it?”

“Because if I assign meaning to it, I suffer less.”

“That’s fair.”

Another clang of metal rang out. Chris winced despite himself. Dax’s hand twitched, but he kept it between the seats, offering silent support without drawing attention.

“You know,” Chris murmured, “it is entirely possible I will commit a diplomatic crime by the end of this.”

“I’ll pardon you.”

“What if I cause an international incident?”

“I’ll pardon you twice.”

Chris tilted his head just enough to give him a tired glare. “You cannot pardon someone twice.”

“I’m the king. I can.”

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