A/N: I finally got around to finishing. Allow me to just put down my glass of sangria and bowl of pitted date fruits...how I pamper myself...
Here is a quote I used to help establish an unspoken mood for my readers. Also because quotes iz vurry, vurry classy.
--
I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter 2: Get into Position by Facing your Partner
Unlike the graceful shower of crystalline snowflakes, dancing in jolly swirls to the gymnasium floor, Reggie was stiff and overwrought with stress.
Above all else he was very very stressed. This showed significantly when the large gym door slammed behind him, causing him to visibly flinch at the ear-shattering bang. The teasing flurries ceased in their numbers, then vanished entirely.
Though only in his Junior year of High School, the lycan had been making lucrative steadfast actions towards finding a good college upon his graduation. Presumably most top schools had strict rules against educating monsters (What a large pile of rejection letters had described as "Inability to house wildlife". However he wasn't willing to spin around towards home and simply attend the local recluse community college, hidden well from the fearful human world.
No. He wasn't about to doom himself as another alumni of Dark Enchanted Woods U.
Not without a fight...well, not without resistance...not without a well thought out and thrice edited letter of grievance. Oh-ho, no indeed.
Of course, being the well-to-do student Reggie was, when entering the classroom setting, he remembered to press, fold and tuck away his future plans and worries, and prepared for the present. Then again, at the present moment, his ragged and tired body language begged to differ.
"Mr. Schneider, please let me ju-"
"It's fine Reggie, Gill told me you'd be late." Max reassured the wolfish youth. "aaand no, this will not mar your permanent record." he added, cutting Reggie off before he could prod further questions and gratuitously beg for mercy. The teacher had a keen sixth-sense for predicting what his students would comment on or ask. The wolf-teen, for example, would most likely begin to reiterate his dire fear of an imperfection on his college application. Or whether the weekly (e and i) learning experience would be on the next exam.
Reggie huffed a sigh of relief, un-knotting his scarf from his neck and shoulders. Unlike the other students of Max's class, not only was he was endowed with a very gifted mind, but a coat of fur and a resistance to the cold weather. In fact, the only article of clothing he wore against the harsh winter elements, besides a scarf, was a royal blue sweater vest and a pair of hunter green corduroys.
As of last year he had stopped strictly wearing the clothes his mother had sent him. Though he never cared for fashion sense, a...social experiment, if you will, in apparel transformation within an adolescent setting fascinated him. Also, a formal tie, adorning a formal shirt and vest seemed less jejune (and pathetic) than a pocket protector and bow around his neck.
He fumbled with the flannel scarf, tenderly placing it on a nearby chair, still recovering from his run to the gym, and fear of consequence for his lack of punctuality. He didn't want to begin hyperventilating in front of everyone or succumbing to one of his past panic-attacks.
Especially not in front of Vinnie.
The vampire teen had once found him in the boy's bathroom, inhaling and exhaling into a paper bag, after he had misplaced a mid-term paper.
Reggie fondly remembered how he wasn't able to see much past the expanding and deflating brown sack, but he could just make out the approach of the raven-headed widow's peak and the pair of dramatized eyebrows, knit with concern against the alabaster forehead.
Never had he felt such an elemental collision of adolescent self-consciousness and saccharine happiness. Caught under the dry spotlight in such an agitated state and yet drowning in his shallow bliss that someone was there to catch him for once.
He remembered this distinctive feeling strengthen, when he felt a hand coaxingly move up and down the vertebra of his back. The bag's purpose was lost, as he crumbled the paper in his hands, and thanked his friend.
For some reason, after that day Reggie dropped the unnecessary 'Madam' or 'Sir' when addressing adults or authority figures.
"Schneeeeeider there's something going on with these plugs."
"Wrong outlet Frankentyke-WRONGOUTLETWAIT-"
The crackling jolt of electricity congregating with faulty wiring and Mr. Schneider hollering, sent perceptions back to the external world. However the hand from Reggie's memory remained in it's place on his back's middle, solidifying from fantasy.
Reggie half turned to meet a pair of enlightened vampire eyes.
"May I be so rude to ask what I've missed?" he enquired, making no effort to move away from Vinnie hand.
He looked around to see the majority of his class mates paired into groups of two and dispersed around the heart of the gym. The chairs, stationary in their orbit, were pushed off, away from the center.
"Ugh we're being tortured." J.P. rasped, half-scared of discourteously insulting Blanche, half-terrified of how she would react. Thankfully all she did was give his ear a sharp tug, but in doing so, pulled off the decayed thing entirely. Un-phased, she began daintily whispering harsh and threatening slurs into the wealthy boy's ear, her southern breeding preventing her from creating a lover's quarrel.
Reggie glanced at the chalkboard, beckoning the five-letter word 'Waltz' scratched on it's surface. He breathed a ghostly whisper of understanding.
"Oh boy."
The hand on his back slid up towards the nape of his neck, as he forced himself to turn and face it's owner.
"And I," Vinnie began as he snatched the wolf-boy paw, guiding him into a pirouetted spin. "Am about to show you some moves no book has ever gone before."
Arm outstretched, the only thing keeping him from collapsing was Vinnie's hand. Reggie's heart skipped a beat as he stared in a longingly apprehensive daze at the board.
"...Ummm actually," he said with a nervous grin, the room still spinning somewhat. "m-most books are quite...proficient and informa...tive...in...I can't dance."
"Welcome to the other giant per-cen-tile of the class." Vinnie said with a chuckle, linking arm and elbow with Reggie, ushering the lycanthrope to the middle floor. However Reggie gently pulled away, forcing himself to a practical distance.
"-I mean it. I REALLY can't dance." Reggie lightly reasoned, trying his best not to draw attention to himself, as the zombified southern bell had with her beau.
A poet would have compared their push and pull to the dissonant driving force of the tides, a fantastical performance of the earth's magnitude; erratic and infallible all at once. Wave and motion, enduring long before any romantic or theoretical acknowledgements; destined to hold fast to its eminence long after the fall of humanity, be it civilized or savage.
Duzer, casually looking on like any other envious teenage girl, thought Reggie was being totally wishy-washy. And why the heck didn't Vinnie go to such smooth lengths to get her on the dance floor? Oh yeah, I'm teaching too she reminded herself. Still, she mentally persisted the idea that she would have been more forward than Fluffy over there. She'd pull along any guy with such bravado and force, that their legs would sail behind them. Like a kite on a string.
She sighed, forcing herself to look away and toward Gill's webbed hand he so sweetly offered.
She couldn't stay upset with either of the two. Not even for a quiet and selfish moment. Reggie was, after all, like an innocent little brother. She remembered the day he asked her for help in reforming his style.
She also remembered the speed and length at which she accompanied him to the nearest mall with the Blanche, Cleo and Sid (Sid insisted on joining them, as he commented on the specific styles Reggie tried on, much like a runway model commentator with a fake British accent. The girls had offered Sid help too, as social law dictated all men should wear pants, but the invisible youth didn't see much point in it for obvious reasons.).
Anyone could see that Reggie had taken a step in emerging from the authoritative rock he secured himself under. He broke away from the my-mom-dresses-me fashion, to a more sophisticated, young adult look. Kind of preppy in Duzer's opinion, but anything was an improvement over the pocket-protector.
"Okay Gill, saddle up." She exclaimed, satisfied to take up the swamp monster's hand and pointed to an empty spot for him to properly stand.
Call it woman's intuition (Often foretold by her middle hair-snake quivering excitedly), but she just knew Vinnie would eventually get that 'were-wuss' to dance. They had...a way with each other...something like that. Vinnie was...well VINNIE STOKER after all. He always encouraged Reggie, or at least made his day a bit less dreary. In return, Reggie provided his own innate sense of loyalty and vast sea of knowledge...often, as it seemed, reserved especially for the vampire.
It was no secret. Out of all the people she would never admit that she had grown to love and care for in Schneider's class, those two had come to rely on each in more ways than anyone could imagine.
"So..." Reggie drew on, motioning away to safety alongside the vortex that was the edge of the gym floor. "-I'm just going to...ahem..." Peeling a segment of a nervous grin, a feigned laugh barely escaping his teeth, he thought to himself I have a feeling I'm not going to get out of this with my dignity intact
Vinnie appeared to be absorbing the other teen thoughts, as Reggie stumbled through his supposedly liable protesting. The ghastly greaser nodded, chin nestled in the crutch of his palm, moving into classic contrapposto stance. His expression inert. Passive. Serious.
Wait. Too serious.
Taking up an old habit, Reggie began to massage his middle knuckle-bone between his clawed fingertips, as he turned from the imposing vampire. Before he could take flight, a voice imprisoned the werewolf in mid-step.
"Uh-uh-uh, Reg... Reggie-STAY. Staaaay..."
Whether the voice had harkened instincts of loyalty, deep within the recesses of his animal consciousness, or some enchantment this Prince of the Night cast over his sorry soul was to blame, Reggie could do nothing but slump his shoulders and sigh in defeat.
A swagger in his gliding step, Vinnie rounded the reluctant werewolf, bending softly to look him in the face at eye level, again taking up the stance of the famed statue of David.
Picturing him naked won't help.
He waited till Reggie's eyes met his, only to break composure into a teasingly jagged grin, hands at his hips-Oh no, he doing the eyebrow thing. Reggie's mind yelped.
"Good boy." Vinnie finally spoke, as he gave the now docile werewolf a scruffy stroke on the head, his fingers entwining in Reggie's flame-orange locks. The werewolf, the shorter of the two looked away, then back with a wry grin as a black varnished thumb nail traced over his frames, brushing aside any ginger fringes, once obscuring his vision. He'd be upset and embarrassed if the weight of the vamp's hand on the head didn't feel so coaxing
He looked up to meet the vampire's deep black eyes, within which, Reggie swore, flickered an eternally dying, yet existent red flame.
"C'mon Reg, if you don't help me out, you won't be the only one stuck with a chair," the vampire foretold, un-knitting his fingers from Reggie hair, waving a hand dramatically. "Or worse, Frankentyke..."
"Vinnie," he began boldly enough, almost standing to full height "It's not that I don't WANT to...I'm just..." he trailed. Truth be told, he saw nothing terrible about 'the idea' of dancing with 'The Almighty Vinnie Stoker'. In fact he had seen nothing wrong with they're entire friendship. However the fact remained that he was reggie-the-small-meek-and-rigid. Dancing wouldn't change, but only strengthen this fact.
Damn Organisational Cynicism. Why he had ever formed those philosophical clubs was beyond his notion. As well as other indeterminable questions...
Why Vinnie preferred to be around him more often than their peers, despite his immense popularity? Why he would call Reggie's name out in public place to chat, or sit with him, sometimes without anything in particular to talk about, were mysteries Reggie couldn't decipher.
Why was he NOW questioning this? Just what is thi-Earth to Reggie! BACK TO THE PRESENT!
He did have one answer, a perfectly good excuse in his own opinion, as to why he wasn't able to dance.
"Ihavepersonalspaceissues." The wolfish boy said in one flat breath, removing his glasses, to polish their lenses of any smudges, in a very no-nonsense-this-conversation-has-ended manner.
"Oh really..." a unexpected voice from behind whispered, warming the shell of Reggie's pointed ear. In less than a single beat of his drumming pulse, the vampire had shadowed behind him, causing him to jostle his thick glasses, as if they had a life of their own. The soft downy fur on his neck and shoulders bristled as a hand wrapped around his torso and pulled him toward the solid frame behind him.
Vinnie never made it his absolute intention to scare the edgy werewolf, or make him uncomfortable in any manner. The very beginning of their friendship they barely made eye contact or spoke, unless it was to fulfil an end to an academic means.
Yet they had grown past that strained teenage self-centeredness, and somehow found another person standing there.
(It was Reggie who had fallen asleep over a heap of library books, while helping the un-dead teen research the basics of teleportation. A very difficult power in itself to master at such a young age. Mere parlor tricks now, thanks to his scholarly wolf boy...not that Reggie was his to claim for himself or nothin'...but...)
The fledgling blood sucker could not defy his need to try a hand at...liberating his friend from his own self-shaped formalities, every now and then.
In other words playfully mess with Reggie, who needed to lighten up a tad bit.
For example: Vinnie had innocently slunk behind Reggie, taken a hold of his captive friend's claw, and pulled him into a tight embrace from behind.
"Hey, personal space I'm Vinnie." He politely introduced himself, cooing into the stunned Reggie's ear. "Nice weather, eh?"
To Reggie, the universe suddenly became an impressionist painting, if not for a small breathless moment. Not because of his obscured vision, as he was without his glasses, or because the vampire's hand was compressing Reggie's slight frame to his (Though the latter silently contributed).
But rather it was because of that odd, wonderful and dizzying feeling, one would often derive from the aesthetic beauty of all things once merely imagined. Even after placing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose.
"Ugh I think we're FINALLY ready guys." Their teacher declared, covered in a layer of black soot, caused by the wild electrical currents. Frankentyke, who had a found ingenuity with electrical devices, a trait he picked up from his father, had substituted the partially fried extension cord, with some gum, tape, and copper wire he found in his matted wig. When the day came that Frankentyke could correctly turn an object on, without causing property damage of any form, the instructor would deem him a mechanical wiz.
"Please Reg?" Vinnie pleaded, releasing the werewolf, who felt his cheeks cool, and then simmer again as the vampire looked him directly in the eye.
"Well..."
"Everyone in place?" Max amplified from across the gym, as he opened his copy of 'The Blue Danube & Many More Silly Waltzes'. "We'll be ready to start in approximately 10 seconds." Their teacher calculated, tossing the tape over his shoulder to Frankentyke.
Reggie adjusting his footing, squaring his shoulders to meet Vinnie's eyes, ravelling together his choice words. "Just, please be certain to say something if I step on your foot."
Vinnie, who was able to understand awkward-nervous-werewolf, translated this into 'Sure, lets cut a rug!' A fanged grin streaked across his face, as the rebellious vamp politely gestured his partner into position.
Max pressed play.
A ribbon of sweet horns and haunting strings floated through the air, as the classical Austrian composition began. The music held it's listeners for a moment. Dance teachers recalling their learned steps and captured a familiar beat. Light murmurs bubbled around the dancing pairs, as they began to shift, moving into slow and uncertain swirls around the gym.
"-First things first Le Goo- erm...Gill. Put your hand on my-"
"-hip, and absolutely no. Where. Else. We clear Sid? AND if your hand so much as-"
"-slides back, and then youh foot comes foh-ward. Oh mah! JP, why didn't you say you were so light on your-"
"-webbed toes, sorry! 'm, like, not used to boots yet. Heh, really only good for surfing the coasts of-"
"-an eclectic celebration of the dance Cleo! You do Fosse Fosse Fosse Fosse Fosse! You do Martha Graham Martha Graham Martha Graham, or-"
"-else I was going to have to find some other means of entertainment. Anyway my parents simply bought the island, inhabited it with the more...eh...incompetent help, and every holiday we hunt them down for sport."
With time and measure, the frigid anxiety that once froze the drafty gym's tundra, thawed from the permeating music of the two dynamic instrumental opposites.
"You've got to loosen up a little more Reg. Kindah...sway into it, yeah?"
"Mm-hm..."
Vinnie was a boy quite dexterous in motion, proving so as he playfully fumbled Reggie's cupped palm, while remaining in sync with the music. The press of fingers urged the wolf boy to look up from his feet, which he had, till then, been boring holes into, counting his steps.
He lost count when he looked his dance partner in the face.
It would have been one thing, accidently stomping on Vinnie's foot, but Reggie instead totally halted in place as his body met with the vampire's. Of course they weren't the only pair in the room to blunder their steps, nor were they supervised under the callous judgement of others. Cleo had been amplifying demerits towards her unseen dance partner, while J.P. could be overheard grumbling.
The werewolf had been distracting himself, busy with equating the force between two moving objects, and numbering steps. It was more than just reactions to noise in motion. And when one object would collide...press against another, even for a fraction of a second, logic seemed to dissolve...thus left a little vulnerable. One was reminded of the differences between objects and individuals, capable of responding to contact at unique free will. He had relied on logic alone until he meet Vinnie.
Reggie, quick to apologise with a "Pardo-erm...sorry..." distanced himself, his hand still folded within Vinnie's.
Vinnie only smiled warmly, which to a human, would appear rather frightful. "Another rule about dancing. You've gotta be a bit more creative y'know." he said as he pulled Reggie's waist toward himself in one secure tug. "Daring."
Reggie prepared himself to shrink sheepishly away, but then felt the settling comfort within his...their shared space and the gentle sway of motion.
Though Vinnie lacked the ability to generate body heat, Reggie could sense some tacit warmth lingering from him. Everyone knew the vampire would most often sip Red Cross pouches to sustain existence, while still sampling the grotesque cuisine all the monsters of Gravedale High regularly enjoyed. Only Reggie knew that whenever the urge to rose, Vinnie would feed on a human.
Perhaps it wasn't the life-force the vampire drained from some unfortunate mortal, now coursing through his body, that drew Reggie in. Rather it was the youth behind it, who had found console in Reggie, after occasionally sapping several abnormally healthy persons, within inches of their lives.
"Daring you say?" Reggie replied, lightly crinkling the bridge of his wolfen snout above a rare amused grin. He then not only surprised Vinnie, but himself by lacing the fingers of his clenched paw with the vampire's. Reggie felt much bolder as the music's slow and seductive tempo intensified. He was pleased to feel warmth between his knuckles.
Vinnie had witnessed, as the two grew closer in years, that Reggie had cast off his timid shroud every so often, laughing unashamed with Vinnie whenever rules needed...er...uncertified unofficial adjustments.
Like the time a certain gym coach (A decayed jerk long overdue for a pranking), entered his office, only to charge headlong into a cloud of perfume. The reeking stench of Vanilla and Violets took days for the administrator to sweat off. All the while, the sole evidence that the bull-headed Coach Cadaver retained was an oversized perfume mister lodged behind his door.
He never took the patience to appreciate the spring deploy of the device, launched upon the opening of the door, as Reggie later explained, fairly proud of his handy-work(And the fact that they got away with their prank Scott-free). After setting up the trap they spent the night soaking their hands in rotten tomato juice in order to snuff-out any trace scents of their crime.
It was worthwhile. Vinnie was happy to see his shining influence taking an effect on Reggie, and returned the lycanthrope's subtle challenge.
Vinnie wished he had a camera to capture the look on Reggie's face as he rotated his palm, creeping his fingertips along and gently bracing the werewolf's rear end.
This wide eyed shock was not meant to last, as Reggie was quite through with caution for one morning. He responded with a two-can-engage-at-this-activity smile.
You would have to be born yesterday to not see Reggie was both brilliant and a fast learner. Few knew he was also capable of enjoying himself as well.
His dormant hand, supported by Vinnie's shoulder, slide up toward the ivory column of his bare neck in one cheeky fell swoop. Vinnie internally shuddered as the padded palm, softened with warmth, just barely grazed his neck along the hem of his leather jacket. Reggie suddenly raised his and Vinnie's hand up high, as he broke their organized path with a side-step. He circled Vinnie like a maypole, the knuckles of his free hand tracing the vampire's back.
"We barely cover one lesson and your already improvi-zing." Vinnie chortled as the werewolf returned to his front. He hoped Reggie didn't catch the hint of his Transylvanian accent. It became somewhat diluted as he got older, but still managed to slip into his dialogue.
"You did instruct me to be more creative." he responded bracing Vinnie's hand tightly. Extending an arm, he pulled away, only to spin back again into the vampire's arms. Vinnie, firmly seizing Reggie about his back, gently lowered him into a dip.
"You guys call that dancing." called out Cleo from across the gym. Their flashes of exuberant movement had caught the attention of others."Watch a pro show you how it's done." She said, assertively rolling the bandages of her arms up and clasping her dance partner by his invisible forearms. "C'mere Sid."
Mustering her astonishing strength, she lifted and spun the surprised invisible lad up from his aching feet, well stomped on from one too many 'creative' moves he attempted on the mummified girl.
"My...Cleo's quite...competitive?" Reggie commented as he remained suspended three feet above the ground in mid-dip. Vinnie's face hovered above his own, looking off into the distance, haloed by the off-green Gym lights.
"If Cleo is the Fred Astaire of dance, then I'm the Marlon Brando." Sid cried out, while spun above Cleo's head, landing deftly with a Charleston jig. "Early years, of course..."
"Oh yeah? Well then I'm the John Travolta of dancin'." Vinnie shouted back. He met eyes with Reggie, pulling him up to his feet, swerving him into a paced glide. "C'mon lets go steppin'."
A spark had been ignited, as the students were no longer content with the simple shuffling of their learned and traditional dance style.
Soon enough, the entire class bounded into their own unorganized and individual movements, unique patterns and motions unconsciously reflecting the dynamic music's pace. Laughter fluttered and foot steps intensified, as the ghoulish teens twirled, stamped and jumped. Duzer and Gill darted by, cheek to cheek, each lead by an outstretched arm in Tango. Cleo gave Sid another herculean whirl, while he clicked his heels and tapped his feet.
Reggie and Vinnie waltzed the same way they had begun. Dizzy, uncertain and moving faster and faster.
Absolutely perfect.
Gripping both hands, Vinnie spun the werewolf around, crossing their arms across Reggie's frame.
"And you thought you couldn't dance." he purred into Reggie's ear, swaying their hips from side to side. Reggie didn't answer, but slowly slunk around to face Vinnie without unknotting from his embrace. He didn't mind how dangerously low the Vampire's hands were on his back.
"-um wait a second...Blanche that dip was clearly Latino. Guys I-this is not Salsa...and be CAREFUL with JP he only has so many bones. Hello?" Max called from the sidelines trying his best to intervene as his dancers went native. "Think promenade. Think European Aristocra- Gill this is not a Hoe-Down...guys?"
Max sighed scratching his head. He turned to see his DJ Frankentyke, free of concern, happily headbanging, and punching the air with every beat. He smiled, glad to see all of his students enjoying themselves.
He couldn't wait till the song ended to inform them that while they had been dancing, six feet of snow had piled up outside the Gym. Meaning they were all trapped for another couple of hours.
It's a good thing he was well prepared. After all, he had a copy of the soundtrack to 'The Time Warp and other Broadway Showtunes'.
The End
We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
Japanese Proverb