‘Cause we could use a victory

Cinder’s hands were trembling on the dance floor. She kept her head down, unable to look Nick in the eye. Nick’s hand was still extended to her, hanging awkwardly in the air. Sensing impending dread and concern, he let it fall to his side.

A ****, oppressive cloud hung in the air over Nick as he stood before her, trying to move the night forward but knowing that if he reached out to her in the wrong way, it would turn Cinder hostile again, and that was the last thing anybody wanted.

“Cinder…

“What?!” Cinder snapped, gnashing her teeth at him. “I’m preparing myself, okay!? Can I do that!? Can I please do that?! Can you leave me alone so I can do that!?”

Nick flinched and took a step back out of reflex. He knew that Cinder’s hostility was a problem, and one that would be hard to deal with. He just didn’t know what he should do at this point.

Cinder took a few deep breaths and balled up her hands into fists. She raised her head and fixed Nick with a furious glare.

“Okay,” she finally spat out. “What the fuck do I do?”

It took Nick a second to process that. “What do you-”

“To dance! How do I do it?! Tell me already, damn it!” She practically screamed at him. She looked about two steps away from pulling out her hair.

Nick really didn’t know how to answer her.

“Cinder…”

“I… I’ve never done this before…” Cinder looked down, her face flushed with shame. She seethed with embarrassment as she found it impossible to meet Nick’s gaze for a moment longer before looking up at him again.

For a second, Nick thought he saw a flash of Ella in her expression. The pleading look in her amber eyes was so **** and so **** that he wasn’t sure he could mistake it for anything else. Taking the initiative, he nodded, and held out a hand to her.

“I’ve done this before, but that doesn’t mean I’m the best at it either,” he confessed. The few times he had danced before tonight had ended in misery, as Dawn certainly remembered. And his previous dance with Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had been more akin to trying to hold on for dear life than any mutual performance that required his skill.

So as much as he wanted to help Cinder, he had no idea if he could.

And that clearly wasn’t what the other girl wanted to hear.

“So you’re looking judgmentally at me, and you don’t even know how to do this yourself?!” She exploded.

“What?! No, I’m not looking down on you at all!” Nick exclaimed. “I-I actually think it’s really admirable that you’re going through with this and dancing with me, even though you don’t know how to dance and you despise me!”

Wait… had he just said that out loud?

Nick had been taking great care to not make mention of Cinder’s obvious animosity towards him, because it raised all sorts of complicated questions about her feelings and Ella’s that he wasn’t ready to discuss. And the look on Cinder’s face made him think that was the right decision on his part.

Her brow furrowed and her eyes fumed, and she looked like she wanted to unleash her frustration all over his face.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she did something Nick never would have expected from Cinder.

She held back. She took a deep breath and exhaled, and then slowly opened her fists. Calm stretched across her face for a moment as she shut her eyes tight, and when her expression relaxed Nick almost expected to see Ella staring back at him this time.

But when she opened her eyes, he still saw Cinder.

“Let’s just get this over with.” The bitter resignation in her tone wasn’t great, but it was better than anger and hostility as far as Nick was concerned. He tried not to look too relieved by her attempted ceasefire.

“Okay,” he said with a nod.

“Well, good, that’s what we want to hear.”

Dakota’s interruption caused them both to jump. The host held up her wrist, displaying a cartoonishly-oversized watch, which she began to tap with her finger.

“There are other girls who are waiting their turns on the dance floor, you know,” she reminded them testily.

Nick nodded, shaken out of his stupor by Dakota’s statement. He turned back to Cinder and held his hand out to her, and to his relief, she took it.

Her palms were clammy with sweat, and her skin was hot to the touch. He guessed that his probably felt the same.

“Is it okay if I-”

“Just get it over with!” Cinder hissed. After Dakota’s interruption she became keenly aware of the piercing stares of all the other women, and like Ella she wasn’t a fan of them. She wanted to get this over with as fast as possible so she swallowed her frustrations and pushed forward, intent on resolving this stupid dance.

At the very least, Nick knew how to hold her properly. Even if he wasn’t sure how he should go about moving with the music, he could at least rest his hands on the right places, and guide Cinder’s in the right places as well. He didn’t see her VP scores change, so even with his minimal amount of contact with Cinder and Ella up until this point, apparently this didn’t change anything.

Then again, there was enough space between the two of them to drive a car through, so it wouldn’t exactly trigger the hug criteria, and handholding still wasn’t worth any points in spite of Mary’s insistence.

Dancing with a woman who clearly wanted to be anywhere else was one of the most uncomfortable things Nick had done yet on this show, and that was saying a lot. He found himself unable to even breathe properly in fear of rubbing Cinder the wrong way. And she must have picked up on that, because she was looking pretty irritated herself.

Finally, the song ended. Cinder couldn’t break away from him fast enough, and she was practically halfway across the ballroom before the music stopped.

“This doesn’t change anything!” She snarled, fleeing from the hall.

“Can… can she leave like that?” Mary asked uneasily. “Doesn’t she have to stay for the scoring?”

Dakota waved her hand dismissively. “Unless you’re all planning to stab her in the back, I don’t see why she has to. This is the last event of the night, after all. And besides, our dear little princess needs to go before her carriage turns back into a pumpkin.”

Laughing at her own private little joke, Dakota turned to the next girl on the roster, pushing past the awkward atmosphere in the air. “Kim? It’s your turn now.”

Kim stepped forward and gave Nick an awkward look. He moved to approach her, assuming that she would be choosing him as well, especially after last night. But she shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said, giving him a lopsided look. “I want to dance with you, I do, but… I don’t think that’ll be such a good idea.”

“Oh… uh, okay then,” Nick said, trying not to sound too disappointed. His confusion helped with that.

“It’s not about you!” She clarified. “It, um, it’s about my transformation.”

Nick blinked. “Oh, you mean your 100% Completion one? How would-”

“No, the… the other one.” Kim shook her head, her cheeks turning a light pink as she looked shiftily around the room. “I have more than one transformation affecting my behavior, remember?”

It took Nick a second to register it. Then he remembered what happened at the last party, and his eyes widened. “Ah-!”

Kim nodded quickly. “Yeah. Quarterly Review. I got to avoid the effects of it last time with Sick Day when we were together, but… I think dancing is probably considered an ‘intimate act’ and with everyone here…”

Her eyes landed on Octavia specifically. “…Somehow I doubt my nonexistent dancing skills will ever earn me a passing grade here, so…”

“Well, if it helps, your Quarterly Review transformation doesn’t trigger off of bystanders, only the other women in Nick’s harem,” Dakota helpfully volunteered.

Kim blinked. “…Well, can you tell me if dancing is an intimate act, then? If not we can just move right ahead then.”

Dakota tilted her head to the side and smirked, touching her finger to her cheek. “…I wonder…?”

How helpful of her.

Kim knit her brow in frustration. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. Yeah no way was she gonna risk being here all night, not when more than half the harem were still waiting their turns.

“Next time,” she promised Nick, and turned to Octavia. “I’m a very fast learner,” she assured the butler. “You said you would be willing to help us learn?”

Octavia held her hand over her chest and nodded. “Of course,” she agreed.

After two back to back dances of incredible intensity, Nick was relieved to finally have a moment’s rest. He took a step back and let the two women take the floor, admiring Octavia as she guided Kim with far more skill than he had done with Cinder.

And impressively, Kim hadn’t been bragging for nothing. She really was quite a fast learner as her performance demonstrated. By the end of the song, her skills had improved considerably.

She wasn’t the only one to take Octavia up on her offer, either. Dani was next, and she approached the butler as well, her face hot.

“Me… me too,” she said, blushing. “You can help teach me how to dance too, right?”

Octavia blinked. “If you ask politely, of course,” she said pointedly, and Dani blushed.

“…Right, yeah, that’s fair,” the tomboy agreed. She hastily glanced over to Carly. “Um… if you would please… I’ve never learned how to dance formally like this, so… could you please teach me?”

“Of course,” Octavia agreed without hesitation. Like everyone else, she could see Dani’s underlying motive in learning, and was quite amenable to it.

Dani was even better than Kim, even though she wasn’t as comfortable. Her years of training her body had give her a strong foundation to work from, something Octavia was happy to comment on when they finished.

“You are quite coordinated,” she judged. “But try to be lighter on your feet. Stepping on your partner…”

“I-I’m sorry, I was nervous,” Dani stammered, looking down sheepishly.

Octavia shook her head slightly. “There should not be a reason to be.”

Carly stepped up as the two finished discussing Dani’s performance. She looked hopefully at the butler next.

“Can… can you help me, too, please?” She asked, glancing over at Dani. “I’d really like to learn, so…”

Octavia nodded again. She helped Carly learn the dance as well, while Dani watched admiringly from the sidelines.

Marley came up to her sister’s girlfriend with a contemplative look on her face. “Are you going to dance with her next?” She asked.

“Eh!?” Dani’s cheeks flushed.

“I’m only asking because it looks like Octavia’s teaching both of you the women’s part of the dance,” she observed. “Maybe that isn’t for the best.”

Dani mumbled and looked away. “…Next time,” she told the other girl. “When I’m better, we can dance then.”

Hopefully, Octavia’s offer to give dance lessons wasn’t a one-time thing for tonight. Dani just hoped she wouldn’t have to negotiate the contract with Vivian, she expected the heiress to be quite a shark in that regard.

When Octavia finished dancing with Carly, she walked over to Dani and Marley wearing a sheepish smile on her face.

“Well… I finished it,” she giggled. “It wasn’t that bad, when you get used to it. What about you, sis? Octavia’s pretty good.”

“…Yeah,” Marley said, nodding after a brief pause. She stepped forward and placed a hand over her chest to quell her pounding heart. “But I didn’t come tonight to dance with her.”

To Nick’s surprise, she approached him instead.

“You sure?” He asked. “I thought I scared everyone off with my performance with Cinder.

Marley chuckled softly and shook her head. “I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “You’re the one I want to dance with tonight, Nick.”

Nick’s cheeks reddened and he nodded, accepting her offer.

It was a long and awkward dance for the two of them. Nick obviously hadn’t improved since his dance with Cinder, and Marley wasn’t any better than the latina herself. But her gentle presence was soothing where Cinder had made him uncomfortable, which gave both of them the grace to at least move in synchronicity with one another, imperfect though it may have been.

Marley sighed as she leaned a little closer to Nick. It was starting to turn into more of an embrace than a slow dance.

“How many chances do you think we’ll have to do this?” She asked quietly.

Nick wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “Marley?”

“This is our first dance together,” she pointed out. A tinge of sadness touched her expression. “I don’t want it to be our last.”

Nick swallowed. “It… it doesn’t have to be.”

Of course it didn’t have to be. But that wasn’t the point, was it?

“Dakota might have given us a pass, but what about next time, when my sister has to be stay within 10 feet of us?” She whispered softly so Carly and Dani couldn’t hear. “That’s not the kind of close and intimate dance I’m hoping for.”

Nick nodded. True… that would raise a potential problem. Even though Carly’s transformation upgrade gave her the ability to pass Marley off to someone else so she could spend time with him or Dani as she wanted, Marley would always be connected to another person.

“I don’t like being alone,” the former slime girl murmured. “But this is one of those times I wish it could just be the two of us.”

Nick didn’t have an answer for her. As happy as he was to hold the other girl, he couldn’t deny the sadness in their dance together, and when they separated, a part of her smile looked like a lie.

“So I suppose it is my turn at last, then?”

As if sensing the somber atmosphere, in a rare display of reading the mood, Rose approached Nick with a gentle smile on her face. Her eyes sparkled and her lips stretched wider, and the soft hum in her voice as she placed a hand on the side of his arm dispelled the clouds hanging over Nick’s head like a gentle spring breeze.

“Ah, Rose, I knew I could count on you to choose me,” Nick said, trying to laugh it off like it wasn’t a big deal. But he was grateful that the actress was here for him, to distract him from the serious concerns Marley had raised about any prospective relationship between the two of them.

If you could count on Rose for anything it was being an exceptional distraction when you were feeling down.

The blonde tittered, and took Nick’s hands in hers.

“We deserve a dance together,” she said tenderly. “I could tell from your prior partners that you have not been practicing as you promised.”

The mischievous twinkle in her eye made Nick blush as he remembered their night together in Paris.

“I… I haven’t really had the chance to-”

“No excuses, mon compagnon,” she playfully chastised him. “Shall I insist on a standing appointment each day, then? Until your skills have improved?”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Nick smirked, sussing out her ulterior motives immediately.

“Oui, I think I would, yes,” Rose tittered, not even trying to hide it. “Now, shall we? Just like last time…”

Having Rose in his arms had been the only time Nick ever felt comfortable dancing. The attempt his stepmother had made to teach him had ended disastrously, and his night with Dawn hadn’t gone much better. But Rose knew what she was doing, and in a surprising contrast to her usual demeanor, she was incredibly patient with him, letting him move at his own pace.

Honestly, she probably had a very good chance of winning the whole event if they hadn’t decided on a draw. But as usual, in spite of her claims of ruthlessness and playing to win, she was still a big old softie at heart.

That was one of the things he liked most about her.

When the song finished, she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. She played it off as another flirtation for the benefit of the other girls, but they didn’t see the warmth pooled in her eyes. Nick blushed and nodded to her as she stepped away, leaving him awkwardly alone on the dance floor.

He scrambled away just in time for Morgana to step forward, and like the other girls who didn’t know what they were doing, she approached Octavia. She really wanted to dance with Nick like Rose and Marley, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She would make such a fool of herself! And step all over his feet! Just the thought of that made her want to pass out!

So as much as she wanted to seize the initiative like she had been all round and dance with him, her rational side won over and she knew she needed to get better.

Octavia seemed to sense that, because she was stricter with Morgana than she was with anyone else she’d danced with that night. Pointing out every time the goth girl made a mistake, and sternly admonishing her for getting flustered and messing up her footwork.

From the outside, it might even look like she was being cruel. But Morgana wanted to get better so she could look as beautiful dancing with Nick as Rose had, and she was under no illusion as to how much she needed to improve to reach that level.

“Thank you!” She blurted out, bowing repeatedly to Octavia when they were finished. “Thank you thank you thank you, this means so much to me, really, thank you!”

“…Of course,” Octavia said, slightly stunned by Morgana’s gushing words. She didn’t expect that much gratitude from the flustered ingénue. Half the time during the dance she’d been concerned Morgana would pass out in her arms.

“I suppose I’m next, then?” Dawn asked quietly, stepping forward. Her eyes slid to Nick, and stayed there. Neither one of them said a word, but they both had the same thought cross their minds.

Yeah. No. We’re not doing that again.

In fact, the cat girl actually laughed at the idea, that was how absurd it was. With a shake of her head and a flick of her tail, she turned to Octavia.

“I’m not usually one to ask for help,” she admitted to the butler. Her pride too often got in the way of that. “But would you please lend me a hand, as well?”

It was quite a busy night for Octavia, that was for sure.