xp_logs | Jan and Tommy - Dancing the Night Away (backdated)

Backdated to Tommy's birthday. Jan decides Tommy needs to have some fun. Tommy disagrees, but Jan doesn't take no for an answer.

Hey, Tommy!" Jan greeted Tommy with a big smile when he opened the door. "Doing anything interesting?"

Tommy raised an eyebrow at her, book in one hand with it's place marked by a gloved finger. "Why?" He asked, not even bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice.

"Because I'm bored," Jan explained, "and if you're not doing anything important at the moment, you get to help me get unbored!"

He rolled his eyes at her. "Oh joy. Lucky me." He said in a flat voice. "If you're so bored why don't you go home?" He hoped for once Jan would be practical.

"Uh-uh." Jan shook her head. "You! You need to get out more! Since you won't do it on your own, and no one else is willing to help you out, it falls upon me to do this kind of stuff for you. You'd just stay in this room for the rest of your life with little smoke breaks if nobody does anything. Well, I'm going to do something! So let's go!"

Tommy blinked. "Yeah uh huh Jan, whatever." He made to close the door and go back to reading.

As Tommy closed the door, Jan shrank down to one-inch size and zipped inside the room.

With a small sigh, he went back to lie down in the nest of pillows he'd created on his bed for reading. He settled in and then opened his book to his place and continued to read.

Jan looked down at the unsuspecting Tommy and snickered. She flew behind his book and grabbed it, dropping it on the floor before returning to full-size. "Tommy, come on! Get some fresh air! Ever been to Silver? It'll be fun! Please?" She turned a pleading look on him.

He would never admit that he jumped when she appeared full size on his bed. The fact that one of his pillows was now drenched in some liquid element Tommy had transformed his right glove into was admittance enough. "Silver?" He said calmly, though in his mind he held some trepidation. "The night club?" He shook his head as he got off the bed and looked for another pair of gloves. "No."

"Give me one good reason why not," Jan said, following right behind Tommy.

"Because," There would be too many people and Tommy wasn't in the mood to freak out tonight, even as much as he wanted to please Janet. "I said so."

Jan rolled her eyes. "'Because I said so'? Come on Tommy, if I let you you'd always say that. Do I need to get someone superstrong to pick you up and carry you away from the school? Nothing bad's going to happen! At worst, you'll find out that you can actually have fun! Wouldn't that be amazing?"

Tommy rolled his eyes as he finally pulled out another pair of gloves and replaced the ones he'd ruined, adding the left glove to the growing pile of pairless singles in the corner. "I can have fun..." He sighed as he realized how pathetic that sounded. "Oh alright fine, just this once." He could handle it for one night. He hoped.

Jan threw her arms around Tommy and hugged him. "We'll have a great time, you'll see!

There were very few people Tommy would let hug him, even after all this time. Jan was one of them. He sighed in resignation. "I hope so."

----

Silver was loud and full of people and definately not somewhere Tommy wanted to be. All these mutants in one room...he couldn't help a shudder. Old habits died hard. He didn't mind so much...it just was uncomfortable in general. He still couldn't believe he'd let Jan talk him into this. He thought maybe if he mentioned it was his birthday she'd let him out of it...until he remembered who he was dealing with and she'd only no doubt make a bigger deal of it. So he'd been good and followed along.

After they'd been there a total of five minutes, he leaned down to say in Jan's ear, "Alright, we've been here...can we go now?" It was worth a shot.

"Can we go now?" Jan repeated in shock. "What do you mean go? We just got here! C'mon, let's go dance, and don't tell me you can't dance because yeah you can." She pointed over at a couple. "They? Can't dance. But you danced with me at prom and you're going to dance with me now!"

Tommy sighed. Of course he could dance, he had no doubt about that. He was good at it even. Now, he just didn't really want to around all these people. Before he'd manifested he wouldn't have had had a problem. The problem now was...Jan knew that. At least with the others at the mansion he could get away with it. She knew better. "All right fine. One dance." He could try couldn't he?

"Come on, Tommy, have some fun! How many times do I have to tell you it's ok to have fun?" Jan grinned again as they found a spot on the dance floor, making sure Tommy couldn't make a dash for the door should he unwisely choose to attempt to escape. He was quite lucky that she hadn't decided to invite other people from the mansion, Jan thought. Only Terry's out-of-the-countryness had kept Jan from throwing a party for Tommy. If two or more people had planned a party, Tommy wouldn't know who to kill, right?

Tommy wouldn't try to escape, he wasn't that desperate. He'd just continue to convince Jan they should leave. But right now he was resigned to his fate of dancing. Before, he wouldn't have minded all the looks that were coming in their direction as they moved through the crowd of people, but now he was a bit self-conscious. Just a bit, but he didn't let it show. He stuck with slightly annoyed.

And he was glad that she hadn't thrown him a party. It was just his birthday, no big deal.

"Tommy!" Jan scolded lightly as she danced close to him, noticing how uncomfortable he seemed. "Nobody's watching us. Well, maybe they're looking at me" she flicked her wings a couple of times and grinned. "People like the wings, you know, even if they are buggy wings. They're wings."

Tommy clenched his fists slightly as he took a deep breath and began to make himself relax. "Sorry,. Old Habits." She'd know exactly what he was talking about but he was trying. He was fine at the various rallys he'd been too lately...but being in this enclosed space with all these mutants just didn't sit right with his old instincts. But he /was/trying and that was important right?

"Just be glad I can't pick you up and fly you around the room," Jan laughed. "Maybe with more training I'll be able to." She stretched out her wings. She wasn't quite sure if it was better to remind Tommy that she was a mutant or not, but maybe if she did he'd focus more on her, and she was ok, right? and not so much on the other mutants in the room.

It wasn't so much they were mutants anymore...just so many all together. It set off alarms that hadn't completely turned off yet. Still...he took a deep breath and made himself relax. He just concentrated on the music and Jan and yeah...he could do this. He began to move slowly with the music, letting it distract him. He gave her a small smile. "Thank god for small miracles." He said, harking back to his ole sarcastic charm a little.

Jan just grinned as she continued dancing.