Nick and Toby - mid-Masquerade

[om_changeling]

Toby tries to explain a few of the realities of life to Nick, while simultaneously attempting to teach him to dance. Neither goes particularly well.



It was a heck of a night to be, well, him. Even his intention of being attention-getting with his Gaston costume had flopped. He had no date, he had no intention of dancing with anyone, and even his sort-of-mentor Toby had been paying attention to someone else the entire night.

She'd even danced with the guy, who Nick had to admit was handsome as hell. Toby would've never danced with a wolf-boy. He'd been relatively certain that he could've just said she would have never danced ever, but obviously there were exceptions.

Still, the guy had finally stopped hanging around her, probably gone to the bathroom or something, so Nick poured her a drink and headed over to Toby, offering it to her, along with possibly the most passive-aggressive thing he'd ever said to her. "You look like you're having a good time."

It wasn't what Nick said so much as the way he said it that cued Toby that something was off, but her eyebrows rose as she accepted the drink. "Isn't that the whole point of a party? How come you're not out there dancing?"

"I... don't know how," Nick muttered. And even if he did, he didn't really have anyone he was interested in dancing with. Anymore. He'd thought he'd killed the childish fantasy about Toby having deeper feelings for him than what was apparent, but he hadn't. He'd seen Toby and that other boy dancing. That was borderline magical if Nick had ever seen it.

"Your costume's nice," he added, gesturing to her. Not that he knew what it was.

"Liar." Toby smiled crookedly. "I told you I'd come. I didn't say I was going to spend a fortune on it." She gestured at his and grinned. "I like yours, though. Great statement."

"I-is it?" he asked. That was kind of the like, exact opposite of the sentiment he was kind of going for; he figured it was kind of ironic, but maybe she got it? He wasn't sure what to make of the comment. "I just thought it was funny," Nick mumbled.

"It is. He was the funniest character in that movie." Toby's grin softened to a smile. "Seriously, why not? Own it." Maybe it wasn't what he'd actually been going for, but she figured it was still legit advice. She gestured to herself and her smile tilted. "Hence the elf look. Might as well work with what you've got."

"I-I thought so too," Nick murmured. "I like the elf look, though," Nick added. "And it's a bit punk-rock with the pants. Which is kind of awesome, too." He figured that's what Jay would call it. A punk-rock look. "But if i was going with what I've really got, then I would've come as the Beast," Nick pointed out. Which is what he figured everyone was expecting.

Toby rolled her eyes and fixed Nick with a look. "Why? You're more than that. Also, I've seen the muscles. You've got them to spare." She grinned a little as she referenced the song, but let it fade. "You seriously need to quit defining yourself by how other people see you. How do you see you?"

He wasn't going to depress her with the answer to that question. "I'll think about it," he said, quietly. "I guess I have been bulking up a bit, lately," he murmured, giving one of his biceps a look and a squeeze. "It's hard to see through all the fur, sometimes, though."

"Yeeaaah, y'know what? I've met Wagner. Trust me. I noticed the muscle through the blue fur." Toby shrugged and smiled as she took a sip of her drink. "So, what've you been doing while I was rendering Tybalt incapable of walking for the next week?"

"You dance better than you think," Nick said, frankly. Which almost made him bite his own tongue, because that just meant that he'd been staring. "M-mostly just, y'know. People watching. Everyone seems like they're having a good time," he added hastily.

Toby laughed and waved it aside. "Hey, if I were you? I'd have been watching me too, just to see how long it'd take me to fall on my ass." She leaned in a little to confide, "Which I nearly have, twice. Luckily Tybalt haul me back up." She straightened up and eyed him curiously. "What about you? Having any fun? I haven't seen you on the dance floor yet."

"Honestly, I'm just happy the sun's down," Nick murmured. He wasn't having a good time, and he wasn't going to ruin Toby's night by saying that. Potentially. He figured she'd care, but it probably wouldn't run things. Maybe. He didn't want to risk it. "The snacks are nice," he said. Of course he wasn't going to go out on the dance floor. People would watch and judge him, there, he figured.

"Yeah? I haven't tried them." Toby shrugged. "I sort of stayed glued to my tree until Cat-boy dragged me out on the floor, kicking and screaming. I haven't been able to lose him since."

"You don't seem to have put forth much effort," Nick said, the statement coming out not quite as jovial as he'd intended. "And you also seemed to enjoy dancing a good bit," he pointed out. "Once, y'know. You were doing it."

"Well, it didn't totally suck," she allowed. Her eyebrows rose, though, and she met Nick's eyes seriously. "Want to tell me what your problem is, really? Because you can not tell me you're being all snotty just because Tybalt decided to act like a human being for once."

"I..." Nick hadn't expected her to be so direct about it. But that was just him being stupid again. It was Toby, after all. Direct seemed to be all she knew, and he'd liked that about her. "I just... I guess I'm just a bit jealous," he confided. "You got some guy giving you all the attention you could ever want. And I'm stuck over there looking like a guard dog for the snack table."

Toby blinked. And blinked again. Nick was...jealous? What the...

Oh fuck.

"Look...Nick, we're friends. I mean, you're a great kid and all, but...this wasn't a date," Toby said quietly. "You asked me to come along for moral support."

"Yeah, I..." He sighed. "I know." Now, more certainly than before. "And I meant... I meant what I said when I asked you. I just..." He crossed his arms and looked away, glowering, more at himself than anything. "I'm just more of a kid than I thought I was, I guess." And he freaking hated it. He sighed. "I'm sorry. I'll... leave you and Tybalt alone. I should probably go back to the snack bar."

"Oh no." Toby shook her head emphatically. "We're not done talking, and Tybalt will wait, even assuming he comes back. Which he may not, because he's got the attention span of a gnat." She gave him a look, then sighed. "Y'know, I'm not sure if I'm more pissed about the whole passive aggressive thing or the fact you're calling yourself a guard dog, but both are fucked up. In totally different ways."

"Look, I..." He hung his head. Wasn't she supposed to be the one feeling bad for him? No, that was him being a freaking child, again. "I said I was sorry, okay?" Couldn't she just let him go be ashamed of himself somewhere private?

"Yeah, that takes care of the first one. But not the second." Toby sighed and shrugged, but kept looking at him levelly. "Look. I just spent the last half hour being followed around by a guy who turns into a cat and who keeps the eyes and hair when he isn't. I went on a date with a guy with scars all over who turns into a bird and a feathered horse. Pretty sure the only one thinking of you as a guard dog is you, Nick. Is that honestly what you want to be?"

Nick couldn't meet her eyes. "No," he murmured, feeling thoroughly scolded.

Yeah, that was effective. Fuck, she sucked at this shit. "Well, knock it off - no." She shook her head and reached out to grab hold of his hand. "Come on. Enough is enough." She started tugging him towards the dance floor. "If you get your feet trampled, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever."

That honestly surprised him, and Nick gaped just a bit at her as she tugged at him. "T-Toby, stop. I'm... I'm just gonna make a fool out of myself." More than he already had. "I-it's okay. I'll be fine."

"You're not going to look any dumber than I am. And no. I don't think you'll be fine." She fixed him with a look. "Besides, you're the one who insisted I come. I'm getting a dance out of it." She shrugged, mock-innocently, and smirked. "It's either that, or I track down that blonde who works at that record store and tell her you want to dance with her. Pretty sure I saw her around dressed up as some Disney princess?"

Nick's jaw about hit the floor. He knew Toby was a hard teacher, but he didn't think she could be this downright cruel. "F-fine," he said, quietly, and not quite as defiantly as he'd been hoping for. "I-I'll dance with you. A-and I'm sorry if I make a total fool out of both of us." Figured he'd get that out there in advance.

Toby shrugged. "I've been making a total fool of myself since Tybalt dragged me out there. It's a party. No one cares." They got to the dance floor, and she turned towards him and grinned. "So, near as I can tell? The name of the game is jump up and down a lot, or go side to side."

Well, Nick wasn't really certain that he could be really good at that. "I-I guess I can try?" He was overthinking it, probably. Should he match her movements? Do the opposite? He felt like this was one of those awkward quick-time events in a video game where he'd missed the command prompt. Or maybe it was more like a beat-matching game without any kind of visual cues? Jeez, this was going to be awful...

"Pretty sure you can bounce with the best of them," she observed, but just then the song slowed a little. "Okay, side to side, then," she corrected, glancing over at the other dancers for confirmation. "This can't be that hard." She linked her arms loosely around his neck. *Just put yours on my back and sway."

"I-I'll try." Never mind that Nick wasn't used to putting hands on Toby outside of training. But he tried his best anyway, and certainly kept his hands higher on her back than she might have expected, then decided maybe just a bit lower, and then maybe just a bit higher. God this is so awkward, Nick thought with a cringe. He'd wanted this, but how it had come about was just so, so wrong.

"Relax. It's just me." Okay, maybe that wouldn't help, considering he'd been doing the jealous thing, but honestly, she figured that was just because he didn't like sharing the attention. "Lower back, I think," she whispered after a quick glance at other couples on the floor suggested as much. "You're doing fine."

Part of him felt like she was trying to talk him through landing a plane. It almost felt like that, but he complied. He kept time okay, which was good, since he kind of needed to in order to learn the guitar, so maybe that had paid off, or maybe he was just naturally okay. He was also at the very least coordinated enough that he wasn't trampling on her feet as they swayed. "Saying... it's just you... doesn't really make this easier," Nick mumbled. He didn't sound mad, at least. Just upset.

"Yeah well, you can practice on me," Toby retorted practically. It wasn't like she had any skill at this either. "Then move on to someone who counts."

"Why wouldn't you count?" Nick asked, sounding just a bit hurt.

Toby sighed. Fuck. She'd been wrong; it was a crush, after all. "Because I'm two years older than you, and I'm not looking for a relationship, period." She offered a smile. "Besides, relationships come and go, but good sparring partners are hard to come by."

"Y-yeah. I... I get it," Nick mumbled. "And I... I appreciate everything you've done for me. Really. I probably don't deserve someone as nice as you are to even give me the time of day."

"Nick..." Toby stopped dancing, moved her hands to his shoulders, and gave him a little shake. "Stop that. I mean it. Look, I suck at this shit, and the closest thing I've had to a relationship lasted four years and still never actually was one. You can do better than that. You should do better than that."

He sighed and stopped dancing when she did, his body moving a bit with her shake. "I'm sorry. I just... I don't even know where to start, you know? This is the first public...ish... school I've been in for... years. Y'know? I lived like a freaking monk, only ever around my parents and literally nobody else for like six or seven years, Toby. I don't even know if I... if I can make up for lost time, y'know?" Weren't kids his age supposed to be dating and making out with girls on the regular? That's what he'd seen in movies, at least.

"Yeah, okay, I get it." Toby offered a faint, crooked smile, then shrugged. "I'm not exactly an expert on this crap either, y'know. My first real date was about a month ago. But I can tell you what I'm doing. I'm not worrying about lost time, just saying fuck it and moving forward. Beats worrying about what I did or didn't do before."

His brow furrowed a little bit. "You don't have to worry about the actual mechanics on how to kiss someone, though," Nick pointed out. Dog lips were a problem with that kind of thing; they didn't work quite the same way. And he wasn't going to mention his sometimes overpowering urge to lick as a sign of affection. "But... fine, I get it. I'll... try not to worry so much..."

"I just - you seriously need to stop defining yourself by the way you look, Nick. You're not an animal. You're a fifteen year old kid, and there's a shitload of fifteen year old kids who've never dated, no matter what they look like. You convince yourself, everyone else'll fall in line." Toby grinned a little and moved her hands back behind his neck. "And then you can figure out the mechanics of kissing. Or you'll skip it and do other shit. Whichever. It'll all work out."

It would be a lot easier to think that if his parents hadn't been killed just because of him. And it would have been even easier still if they hadn't come after him with hunting rifles. The kind of gun you kill an animal with. The more he'd learned about the night his parents had been killed, the more horrified he'd been with both himself and the killers.

"I-I guess I should trust you, being the voice of experience and all," Nick replied, lamely. He wasn't really buying it. Maybe she could hang around a kid like him, but she wasn't going to date him. Nick wasn't ready to be convinced that part of that didn't have to do with how he looked. You'd hang around your dog, sure. You'd love your dog, even. But not a lot of people would date their dog.

Toby fought yet another urge to roll her eyes, and settled for swaying more or less with the music. Nick would either figure it out for himself, or he wouldn't - the middle of a party wasn't really the time to keep lecturing him. Or to smack him over the head, which was even more tempting. "So, you said the snacks weren't half bad? What've they got?"

"Just... y'know. General party stuff. Cookies and punch and little cake bites and stuff like that," Nick figured, swaying with her, keeping a bit better time than she was, but not wanting to throw off her own rhythm.

"Mmmm. Cookies don't sound bad. I'll have to check it out." Punch? Apparently Nick hadn't found his way to the more "adult" beverages, which Toby supposed was just as well. Unless that was the punch, but she seriously doubted the Headmasters would be quite that okay with underage drinking, so she figured Tybalt had managed to dig up the other. "Do anything else?" She stepped on his toes and hopped backwards a little. "Fuck, sorry."

"It's fine, I barely felt it," he chuckled. "And... no. Just kinda... stood around. Watching. I was late getting here, anyway. Had to lint roller myself about ten times over to get all the fur off of my costume so that it was half-presentable."

Toby chuckled and gave Nick a fond look, relieved that he seemed to be relaxed about admitting that, at least. "Pretty sure that's one of those comments that only sounds normal at Mutant High. You should ask Kurt if he's got any solutions; he's gotta have the same problem."

"Maybe. His doesn't seem quite as long, and it's darker than mine. Might not be as big of an issue, unless he's like, wearing a white shirt," Nick mumbled. "But I guess I can ask. Even though that seems like an awkward question to ask someone."

"Actually, I think he'd be cool with it. He seems like a really nice guy."

"Yeah. I know. It's just, y'know. Still a bit awkward, though." On his end of things, at least. "Just go up and ask someone point blank about that? I mean, seems like it might even be kinda rude, maybe," Nick mumbled. It wasn't like he had much experience in the area of asking for advice regarding his mutation from someone who wasn't Doc MacTaggart. And that was only because she'd been helping out since he was a kid and had first manifested.

"Hey, I asked him about going in to Salem Center without an inducer. He was really nice about it." Toby shrugged and grinned a little. "Gotta admit, it'd be kind of weird to ask, but hey. Bonding? Furred mutant solidarity? Something."

Nick made a face. "Furred mutant solidarity sounds... particularly weird," Nick pointed out. "I don't think there's many of us, anyway. At least, not around the school."

"Well, there's not a lot of fairy tale creatures, but Diaval started a club," Toby observed, grinning a little more. "Only takes two."

"I don't guess werewolves count as fairy tale creatures," Nick assumed. Diaval, huh? That grin looked like it was about Diaval... which only made Nick a bit more jealous about it. But he needed to stop thinking like such a child about Toby. She'd been clear. No way, no how. Friends was as far as it went. "So that's probably a club I can't join."

"Dunno. I mean, there's wolves in fairy tales." Toby considered it. "I think werewolves pretty much got taken over by the paranormal genre, though. Kind of like vampires and zombies." She grinned a little. "Anyway, pretty sure it was a pick up line. There haven't been meetings."

"Yeah, I guess so," Nick said, not realizing that it had been a pick-up line. He'd seen the post on the boards. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind. Was he really this hopeless? Maybe he should talk to Diaval, he wondered. Might be able to learn a thing or two from the guy... How many pick-up lines had he missed from anyone else? Or was that just something that wasn't going to ever really be in his future? The barrage of thoughts laden with self-doubt threw him off-rhythm slightly, but he managed to not step on either of Toby's feet. "S-sorry," he mumbled.

"For what?" Toby asked. Her forehead furrowed, as she genuinely hadn't noticed his misstep. The song came to an end, though, and she let go of his neck and grinned crookedly. "There. First dance, and I didn't quite manage to kill you." She glanced off to the side of the dance floor, and caught sight of Tybalt holding two glasses of what she very much suspected wasn't punch, looking even more smug than usual. Her grin softened just a little, almost fondly, and turned back to Nick and shrugged. "Looks like Tybalt maybe found the alcohol. You want some?"

Reluctantly, Nick released his hands from her back, but at her offer of alcohol, his jaw went a bit slack. "A-are you for real?" he asked, wondering whether or not that was even okay. Well, of course it wasn't okay. Maybe it was a test? But the offer seemed so genuine. And it really was tempting... Still, he reminded himself that he wanted to be in control. Alcohol was something... that could wait. "M-Maybe not. Maybe some other time," he said, quickly, making up his mind before she could possibly end up doing so for him.

"Fair enough." Toby smiled, at least partially at Nick's nervousness - what, did he think she was going to dump it down his throat? "Don't go hide by the buffet? I mean, not that I can talk," after all, she'd spent half the evening leaning against a tree, "but it's a party. At least try and have some fun."

It seemed easy for her to say, to him, with Tybalt lurking nearby with something for her to enjoy other than his company, but he promised himself not to hold it against her. It was good advice, and he was among people more or less like himself, here, after all. It was just hard to remember that. "I'll try. Hope you enjoy the rest of the night," Nick told her, genuinely, giving her a bit of a smile.

"Yeah, I'll probably stab Tybalt before the evening's over," she admitted, only half joking. "But y'know, he's being almost human. Might as well take advantage of it while I try to figure out what he wants this time." She smiled, then made a shooing gesture. "Go. Ogle cute girls or something. I'm gonna go hang out by my tree with whatever it is he got me to drink and make fun of people's costumes."

Nick chuckled just a bit. Like he needed to be told to go ogle. He did it practically out of instinct, and couldn't really help himself. "Hopefully it's nothing too bad," he said, vaguely either referring to the drink, what Tybalt wanted, or possibly both. "Have fun," he said, as he padded off, making his way around the dance floor. He'd set up opposite of where Toby was haunting. That way if he suddenly had a bad time, he wouldn't have to subject her to it again.

Toby smiled, but let it fade as she watched Nick wander off in the opposite direction, almost definitely so he wouldn't get lectured or dragged on the dance floor again. Somehow, she had the feeling that everything she'd said had gone in one ear and out the other, but fuck. At least she'd said it. Maybe some of it would settle in later. With that hope in mind, she turned and headed back over to Tybalt. Maybe he'd want to hang out with her by her tree. If not, she was at least collecting the drink. She'd earned it.