Dance With Me (Jace)

[MACKENZIE OAKLEY KING]

Dancing was the only thing that Oakley felt comfortable about showing her true emotions, because nobody knew they were real. In dancing or any kind of art form really, they channel the emotions through their art from an emotion box or chest or whatever. They were supposed to pick out memories and relieve all those emotions they felt. Oakley never did any of that. She acted on her current emotions.

Once she had them all written down in her journal, she felt like it still wasn’t enough. She accidently came across the news about the legal proceedings of making her legally dead. She saw pictures of her parents, who still looked the same after seven years, but her mother might have gotten a little bit of Botox. However, the one thing that ticked Oakley off was the picture of her little sister. She was six now, almost seven and she probably didn’t have a clue what kind of world she was brought into. But the thing that struck Oakley the most was how Savannah, that’s what they named her sister, looked so much like her with the blonde hair and blue eyes. They really did replace her.

So she clicked off the news a little too forcefully before she stormed off to the training buildings where she was currently dancing. It was a rarity to see the rooms this empty and to see dancing in them. It was mostly running or fighting or whatever suited their fancy. But it had a giant padded floor out in the middle and it was perfect for gymnastics or, in Oakley’s case, interpretive dancing. Now, this dance wasn’t as free and flowy as people thought it would be. It was harsh, it was intense, and it was rock music.

Oakley was on her knees as she rolled around on the floor and slammed her fists into the ground. She was clearly pissed by the expression on her face. She grabbed her hair with both hands and flung her head to side to side before slamming her palms on the ground and getting up. Then it became a series of jumps and turns. She always pushed herself, always feeling a little bit better after a hard dance workout. So what if they replaced her? They had someone else to not pay attention to now.

[JACINTO RAFAEL del RIO]

I'LL GET THE GLORY WE'LL WIN THE FIGHT THEY'LL TELL THE STORY OF HOW WE TOOK TONIGHT
AND I WILL SHOW YOU THAT I'LL WEAR THE CROWN I THOUGHT

Jace didn't think about his family. He wouldn't do it to himself. His family was all dead and gone, but the things that they had done still haunted him, since he'd found out. Jace was of the mindset that, if he didn't think about it, it wasn't happening. It hadn't happened. It wouldn't happen, in some cases. He thought that his will power was both the strongest and weakest thing in the world. There were some moments when it got him through things, and there were some times that it failed him so strongly that he almost, and at times did, feel betrayed. The only thing that helped him to get past things, to deal, was exercise. It cleared his head in a way that nothing else could. Running, specifically, worked best. He didn't exactly like treadmills, hated them really, but it was raining, and he'd just gotten over a cold. Therefore, he'd deal. He needed to clear his head a bit, just because of a few ops that had been going on lately that he wasn't directly involved, but kept hearing about. The botching of ops wasn't a joke to anyone in Fordham, and it made his skin itch just a little bit.

There was loud music coming from a room down the hall, and Jace raised an eyebrow. That wasn't normal. He went to continue in the direction he had been, but he paused, and followed the sound of the music. He didn't usually stick his nose where it didn't belong. Really, no one here did. It was something that they learned quickly when he'd joined Fordham, that their place was everything. You did what you were supposed to do. You kept in line. You did this because you didn't want to be sent somewhere in a body bag. There were certain things that just came along with the basics of Fordham Survival 101. That was one of them. He peeked into the room to see a blonde girl on the mat - dancing? That was a new one. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He wondered what was bothering Oakley to the point that she'd dance in one of the training rooms, but he didn't want to interrupt her to talk, or pry and ask why.

T A G G E D ? ! oakley
W O R D C O U N T ? ! four hundred
M U S E ? ! not here lol
N O T E S ? ! noonee xD
C R E D I T ? ! graphic credit goes to `MRS. BARNEY STINSON of caution two point oh. lyric credit goes to timeflies with the song turn it up.

[MACKENZIE OAKLEY KING]

Adrenaline pumped through Oakley’s veins as her head started to clear up a bit more. She never got that from ballet. It was always too clean, crisp, and pristine and Oakley didn’t care for it during times like now. She could never do ballet to force out the emotions she had bottling up in her right now. There was no such thing as angry ballet. Actually, this was the only form of dancing she could be angry in that only involved herself from what she learned when she was getting her dancing degree. She could be doing a very angry Paso Doble, but that required a partner which she didn’t have handy at that moment. Then again, she was pretty sure that none of the guys at Fordham would have the guts to dance with her. Or, if they did, they would trip and fall on their faces in an attempt to be kind or impress her. Only the males at her dance classes at NYU would have had the guts, especially since most of them were dance majors too.

She continued dancing along in the room to her angry rock song. She did a lot of spins and jumps, just something to push herself and to make her feel better. They replaced her; she knew that after a year of her running away turned disappearance. However, she didn’t expect them to totally and completely replace her with the miniature version of herself. They were probably making the nanny drag her to dance class and piano lessons with that god-awful piano teacher. That she didn’t miss at all. Let her have the piano teacher with the horrible moods. Oakley couldn’t care less.

Once her song was ending, Oakley ended her dance with a twirl and a post with both of her hands up in the air. Her breathing was heavy and she was feeling a lot better. She caught a glimpse at the door and smiled widely. “Hey, Jace,” she said as she brought her hands down and walked across the mat to her bag and radio. “What brings you here?” She grabbed a towel out of her bag to wipe the sweat off of her forehead as she grabbed her water bottle. She took a nice long swing of it to quench her thirst.

[JACINTO RAFAEL del RIO]

I'LL GET THE GLORY WE'LL WIN THE FIGHT THEY'LL TELL THE STORY OF HOW WE TOOK TONIGHT
AND I WILL SHOW YOU THAT I'LL WEAR THE CROWN I THOUGHT

He knew how it felt to depend on adrenaline for a clear head. He wondered if anyone but people that exercised for more than health knew what that felt like that. It was that feeling to get moving, to not think, that's what made him think in the end. Adrenaline gave him a clear mind, but that just left time for the thoughts to invade. However, when your body was working, your mind was able to process things better. At least, that's the way he worked. He knew that if he kept himself moving, his blood pumping, he'd be okay. Running was his thing because even if he knew he was on a track, even if he knew he was running in a confined area on the same space around and around again, he felt like he was getting away from things. That didn't necessarily have to be his problems, what he was getting away from, just everything in general. He needed to separate himself to be able to think things out properly and clearly. Maybe his discovery of this had been what had kept him alive so far, because he knew what he had to do to keep his mind functioning. It was helpful, to say the least.

"Oakley," he said in greeting. "Was heading up to the treadmills to get some running done, but I heard music, and decided to follow it - and found you." He said lightly. "Feeling a bit better?" He asked. He wasn't the type to dig into other people, and pry about their problems. Fordham agents weren't stupid. They weren't open books. They didn't just leave themselves out on display like that, because doing that was dangerous, and it could be the thing that cost you your life. James, the person he was closest to in Fordham, didn't know everything about him. He didn't even know half of what there was to know about him, really. His boyfriend knew him the best, the most out of everyone in his life at the moment, and he didn't even know that he was part of Fordham. But he didn't think about that, not with the blonde standing right in front of him. That would be leaving himself open, something he never did, something he didn't allow himself to do - just the same as Oakley.

T A G G E D ? ! oakley
W O R D C O U N T ? ! four oh one
M U S E ? ! at the bottom of the ocean trying to help dory and marlin find nemo
N O T E S ? ! got a bit rambley there but eh~
C R E D I T ? ! graphic credit goes to `MRS. BARNEY STINSON of caution two point oh. lyric credit goes to timeflies with the song turn it up.

[MACKENZIE OAKLEY KING]

“Ah… investigating the music. Got it. Nobody really plays music here when they’re working out, do they? I just hope you have common sense to run the other way if it was creepy music, like in the horror movies.” Oakley nodded her head as Jace explained his reason for being here as she smirked a little bit. “I thought I didn’t see you around the training buildings much.” She knew he ran and he ran a lot outside. She’d seen him a couple of times before and she was always a bit jealous of him. It was almost like he was running away from his problems, whatever they might be. She didn’t pry too much into the life of her fellow spies, knowing that she didn’t want them prying into her life. But she wished she could run away from her problems completely. She thought she did when she was sixteen, but they always seemed to be haunting her especially since her family was starting to become a household name.

“Yeah,” she said as she nodded her head before taking another swig of water. “I am. I always feel better after a workout, you know?” That wasn’t what he was asking and she knew it, but decided to avoid it. However, she did feel better, but she knew her problems were still out there and would continue being out there until her death certificate was signed. And even then, she wasn’t sure if that was the last of her worries. There was the chance that they would run specials on her or turn her life into a TV movie.

She hung her towel around her neck as she reached over to turn off the radio. It was going into a slower, sadder song that Oakley was in no mood to dance to. That was the kind of music she danced to when she got her heart broken or when she found out about someone’s death, not when she was pissed off at the world. “So how have you been, Jace?” she asked as she started throwing her stuff in her bag. She was down here and there was no reason for her to stick around longer than she had to be. “I haven’t seen you in around in forever.” Forever might have been an exaggeration, but she had been busy with ops and her ballet training that she practically never around the building to see her fellow agents.

[JACINTO RAFAEL del RIO]

I'LL GET THE GLORY WE'LL WIN THE FIGHT THEY'LL TELL THE STORY OF HOW WE TOOK TONIGHT
AND I WILL SHOW YOU THAT I'LL WEAR THE CROWN I THOUGHT

No one really had the guts to play music when they were working out. If they did, they had headphones, so that other people couldn't hear it. Causing disturbances wasn't exactly approved of by the higher ups, and he knew that he wasn't going to be one of the ones doing it. Oakley, however, was special. There were quite a few people that sort of walked a fine line, and if one of them was anyone he knew personally, it would be Oakley. He knew that he would prefer to run in silence, but everyone was different. He used his 'exercise' time to think, and for that, he needed quiet. He needed to hear his heart beat, his regulated breathing, his feet pounding against whatever he was running on, to get to that place where everything started to be worked out, to that place where he could make sense of the mess that was his life. Everyone, however, worked differently, he knew that. He and Oakley were prime examples - silence versus loud music. He wouldn't say any of that out loud, however. "Yeah, they usually don't. Not that I'm around here much to be of good in saying that as a fact," he said.

"I'm usually not, yeah. It's raining though, and I'm just getting over a bug, so I figured I better not test my luck." He shrugged. He nodded. "I'm the same way. Keeping in shape isn't optional. But when was it ever?" He said, issuing a light laugh. "I've been alright, as good as it gets." He wasn't the type to be detailed, but then again, who was nowadays? Really, no one wanted to give out anything too personal, or anything that could be used against them. After all, you weren't paranoid if someone was really out to get you, or so Fordham had taught them all, drilling it into their brains until it was stuck their for good. "How about you?" He asked. He nodded when she said that they hadn't seen each other in forever - a while, yes, that was true. He watched as she packed up her things absentmindedly. "It has been a while, hasn't it? I guess we were busy in two different directions." He said. That wasn't too uncommon, especially when they hadn't worked together in a while, and had other business to take care of outside the organization.

T A G G E D ? ! oakley
W O R D C O U N T ? ! four fifteen
M U S E ? ! anywhere but here
N O T E S ? ! sorry if this was total crap, and long overdue. sigh.
C R E D I T ? ! graphic credit goes to `MRS. BARNEY STINSON of caution two point oh. lyric credit goes to timeflies with the song turn it up.