It was unclear when exactly Aubrey had started to shimmy and shake in line at Coffee Me Better. She never danced this early in the morning (if at all), much less before a hearty cup of coffee with obscene amounts of fattening extras and a nice pastry. But here she was, doing her best to tapdance with heavy boots on. Well, not really tapdance per se, but something like it. And she had tried to stop herself, especially because she was in line at a public place and kept elbowing people or getting weird looks. But she couldn’t stop. At least the song was good. Peter was no stranger to dancing in public. After all, he’d challenged a galactic super villain to a dance off for the fate of the universe. This was different though, he hadn’t randomly decided to dance but he was dancing anyway and he noticed the girl in front of him was doing the same thing, so when she turned around he grabbed her hand and grinned. “Hey, I’m Peter. Looks like the dancing bug has hit you too.” Aubrey’s first instinct upon having a stranger grab her hand was to invoke flames on her other hand, but as soon as the reflex passed and she realized he was only trying to dance with her, she extinguished them and grinned. “Hey! Um, yeah I guess so. I mean not that I don’t like dancing, I really do, just usually not in public and not this early and not to…” She paused, narrowing her eyes as if to hear better what song was on the speakers. “Whatever this is. I don’t even know.”
She twirled once in place before adding, “oh I’m Aubrey. I forgot, sorry.” “Peter,” he said, “nice to meet you. And I love to dance, sometimes without being possessed by whatever is doing this but you’re right about it not being this early. I have to wake up first.” And he wasn’t that awake yet but a pretty girl, music, dancing, it seemed like the day was going to be okay after all if this was they way it was starting. Choosing to ignore that this man had told her his name twice - maybe people forgot it a lot, or he did? - Aubrey continued to smile, and dance, with him. “Hopefully it’s not like that dance plague in France. That took a turn. People died.” She explained, wide-eyed. Then, she glanced at the counter.
“I hope they add lids and straws for me because I don’t think I’ll like to try and drink my coffee while dancing without any kind of protection. But between getting it and putting the lid on it a lot of sloshing around is gonna happen.” Peter hadn’t even noticed that he’d told her his name more than once. He usually just opened his mouth and let whatever came out, come out. Which had gotten him into a lot of trouble over the years. “A dance plague? That sounds awful. Well, fun at first but people dying, that’s awful.” He couldn’t imagine a plague where people dancing until they died but you never knew.
“I hope they do too. And have have really strong lids if we’re going to be doing this all day.” They probably would be. Not much on Atlantis lasted less than twenty four hours. “Yeah. People theorize it’s a mass hysteria type thing? But knowing what I know now maybe it was some kind of weird magic you know?” Aubrey replied. “It was like the 1500s in France too so there weren’t any fun bops or anything. Unless someone was shredding on the lute real good.”
Changing to a two-step with arms that might make it look a little too much like The Carlton from Fresh Prince, Aubrey got closer to the counter as she thought on the possibility of this lasting all day. “We’re gonna be exhausted. Better carb-load, right?”
The barista looked at her weird, of course, but Aubrey ignored that in favor of rhythmically ordering the sweetest most outrageous cappuccino and emphasizing the need for lids and a straw. “Yeah we need to do that, we’ll be tired by the end of the day if we don’t.” He ordered a similar drink to Aubrey’s and glanced out the window as they stepped over to wait. “Well we’re not alone in the dance fever thing. Look outside.” There were several people who were dancing around and even a couple who appeared to be waltzing to wherever they were going. “I’m really amazed that stuff gets done around here with all the freaky shit that goes on.” Aubrey let out a few very amused giggles at what was going on outside. “It’s good not to be alone.” She sighed, seeming to be doing a particularly complicated level of Dance Dance Revolution, and wiped some sweat off her brow. “Yeah, honestly? Last life or death fate-of-the-worlds conflict I was in wasn’t this...animated.” Peter laughed. “Neither was mine although I do admit to dancing but that’s kind of what I do,” he spun around and found that having more than once straw was actually fun. He might have to do this again sometime just for the hell of it. “Maybe they’ll send his home from work today since it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting much done because we can’t sit still.” “I can’t…” Aubrey spoke between attempts to drink. “...fucking…” It wasn’t going well. “Aaaah!”
She stopped trying and refocused on just tapping her foot. “Okay okay okay.” Taking a big gulp of her coffee, Aubrey repeated the mantra that “fire cannot kill a dragon” in her mind for how unexpectedly piping hot the drink was. In hindsight she should have expected this. When she next spoke, her tongue was a little numb and she sounded funny. “You’re right I’m gonna text the PD and tell them to put me on call but I’m gonna go to Trocution and just fucking dance. You’re invited!”
Aubrey dance-walked out of the coffee place and off to Trocution, trusting that Peter was shimmying right behind her.