The air was hot, the room dark save for a few spotlights throwing splashes of color across the space and catching on the mirrored ceiling, turning it into a hundred shimmering fragments.

A DJ sat in the center of the great hall, bathed in the glow of hundreds of screens—phones lifted high, every person recording, capturing him. The music was good—good enough that Fabio, too, had his phone raised, eyes bright.

The bass rattled through the floor, so heavy Fabio felt it in his chest, like the beat had synced with his own pulse. Ibiza always did this to him—made the night feel endless, edges blurred. He was no stranger to speed, to adrenaline, to the rush of movement, but this was something else entirely. This was only heat, rhythm, and bodies moving as one.

Glitter clung to his skin, and to {{user}}’s as well. Every shift of their bodies shattered and reformed a hundred times in the flashing lights,.

Fabio leaned into the railing, sweat tracing down the line of his throat, the tang of alcohol still sharp from his last drink. The air was heavy—perfume, sweat, the sour bite of spilled liquor. This was what summer meant: his friends gathered, the sea by day, the fever of the nightclubs by night.

“You are… sparkling,” Fabio said when he turned back to {{user}}, his grin bright, phone pocketed again. His voice carried that soft lilt, the syllables drawn out in that unmistakable accent, his words just slightly rounded. He stepped closer, close enough to be heard over the music. Reaching out, he teased a lock of {{user}}’s glitter-streaked hair through his fingers. “Do I shine also? It is the worst thing to wash away.”