sweetdevil | 69th ♫

Shut Up and Dance
Natalie Joly

She took my arm
I don't know how it happened

We took the floor and she said
Oh don't you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you're holding back
She said shut up and dance with me

[ Just so we're all on the same page: Erina doesn't dance. To be clear, she totally could if she wanted to and she would kill it, but that's beside the point. She busted her ass at Estrella learning how to fight, not how to dance and there's not much opportunity for crossover in that skillset. But still. She's here at this... prom, or whatever, for some godforsaken reason. Parker had been the one to put it together and Erina had every intention of flaking before Shion had insisted everyone attend and, well, Erina's seen the look that girl gets in her fucking eye sometimes and she's not stupid, so. Here she is. She's even managed to look semi-presentable too, mostly because she knows she'd never live it down otherwise. ]

Is this really what prom is like? [ That's muttered as an aside to Penny as she scoops more food from the buffet table onto her plate. ] I was expecting more... uh, just more, I guess.

[Penny can, in theory, dance. Has she ever actually danced WITH anyone? No. But has she danced under any kind of attention or scrutiny from her peers? Also no. But dancing is a thing Normal Flesh Teenagers do on at least something resembling a regular basis, especially when judged by the metric of Penny's personal research of teenaged magazines and musical cinema. So she had studied, intensely.]

[It had been good enough for one out of two armed chaperones-slash-bodyguards-slash-handlers, at least.]

Hm. Mostly? Sometimes there's a break-in somewhere else while the prom is happening, but I don't think that's usual.

Edited 2023-02-06 02:59 (UTC)

[ ... a thoughtful pause, with some sort of Fried Meat On A Stick snack halfway to her mouth. ]

What, for student enrichment or something? Like, is the break in organized by the school to keep everyone on their toes? Or is it a different, unrelated freak breaking into the school?

[ She goes back to her food, ripping some of the meat off her skewer with a little more gusto than is really called for. ]

It's what they'd probably do at my school.

[Penny brightens up.]

Oh, that actually would have been a FANTASTIC surprise training exercise!

[She thinks for a second.]

But no, this was an unrelated break-in. ...I'm almost certain. Surely Mister Ironwood would have-

[dot dot dot]

Oh my gosh it might have been part of the event. I guess having to fight even in formalwear IS an important eventuality to prepare for.

[ Around yet another mouthful of meat skewer, because nobody is physically preventing her from taking them yet and at this point that is what it will take; ] Uh-huh. Exactly. Imagine if you were at some fancy dance and you had to kick ass in all your finery and got killed because you had no practice?

[ She chomps down hard on her foot as if to emphasize that particular point. ]

... not that it matters to me, I guess. I won't be going to any dances if I can help it.

[erina has so much gusto for life and good food, why would anyone ever stop her]

Dying in fancy dress would be beautiful but even more tragic than usual.

[Maybe there's a weird poetry to that.]

[Or maybe it would just be sad. Sad and uncomfortably dressed. And also dead.]

...oh, are you going to be too busy to take time off? That's so sad.

Yeah, but imagine what you'd save on funeral costs. If you're already all dressed up, they don't have to fancy you up to put you in the ground.

[ Gruesome to consider!! It's also unclear whether or not this is an off-the-cuff idea or something she's thought about a lot, both of which are equally unpleasant possibilities. That's our Erina! ]

Anyway. It's less a case of can't and more a won't. I don't dance. I just turned up at this one because I knew Shion would kill me with her mind if I didn't.

You'd save the mortician so much time!

[laughtrack.wav]

[But then she gets a little quiet, hands folded and eyes downcast. Considering something.]

[Which is normally at least potentially dangerous on its own, but almost certainly so when factoring in an agent of chaos like Erina.]

Are you not having fun?

[Just to confirm.]

...Would you like to leave? Sneak out. To avoid the brain killings.

[ Erina pauses. She chews over the question (as well as another mouthful of food) then responds with a resounding: ]

Eh.

[ go girl, give us nothing! ]

Don't get me wrong. Parties like this are absolutely not my thing. But... s'not the worst thing in the world. I mean, look–

[ She gestures to the hustle and bustle with the remains of her skewer. It's noisy and a little chaotic but even the members of their weird little interdimensional group that are usually a bunch of grumpy assholes seem to be begrudgingly enjoying themselves. ]

– how often do you see that? Our big group of dumbasses all hanging out and having a good time in the same room. Just because it's not one hundred percent my thing doesn't mean I'm not enjoying the vibes.

[ She gives Penny a little nudge. ]

What about you, though? I figured this was totally your kind of party and you'd be tearing up the dance floor.

Oh, absolutely!

[She kind of- packs an entire solo dance routine into that one exclamation? Metaphorically. It's a tone of voice thing Erina is presumably familiar with at this point, not an actual three-second dance number.]

But I thought you didn't want to dance?

[There's a logical disconnect in play which is obvious to only one of them.]

[ See Erina. See Erina slow blink and set down her skewer. See Erina positively, definitively, Not Get It. ]

Yeah, that's right. But, uh... you want to dance, so...

[ She makes a vague gesture towards the dance floor. ]

Go get 'em, tiger. Or whatever you're supposed to say.

69th ♫ | nice lol

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