High School AU: The Ballroom (First Floor)

Emily doesn't react to Daniel's outburst, and continues dancing until Daniel's outstreched palm brushes against her forehead. As the robin nibbles at Daniel's fingers, Emilys wide eyes open, staring up into those of the older boy. Emily breaks into a delighted smile, and her cheeks flush a brilliant scarlet, until they match the plumage of the bird on her head.

Daniel has a general habit of smiling at awkward people. Not when he's in a crush-all-people mood. But, when he's participating in a civil conversation, he tends to work out who's overly quiet, or looking left out, and to smile at them - just to indicate that he hasn't forgotten that they're there.

It is with more or less this sort of intention that he beams right back at Emily. "Careful."

Then Max chimes in, and things slide inexorably towards crush-all-people. He turns, moving so he's adjacent to Emily, but still slightly in front of her. "And why exactly is that any of your business?" To Mia, arbiter of all disputes, student councillor of justice: "Well?"

(He will remain utterly nonchalant, should the robin decide to perch on his fingers. Or his head. Such things have ceased to bother him.)

Incredibly, Emily blushes even redder at Daniel's single word, her elfin eyes growing impossibly wide as they gaze up into his. The robin also stares transfixed, its beady attention contrasting sharply with the dreamy stare of its perch. Emily opens her tiny mouth as if to speak, and then closes it again with a little squeak. She is saved from another attempt at words, first by Max and then by Mia. She steps back slightly, letting the conversation flow past her, almost as if she is waiting for permission to speak, though whether that permission is sought from those around her or from her own floundering imagination is hard to tell.

Mia gives him a long, searching look. "That is entirely dependent on what Max is about to say." A beat; a longsuffering glance in her associate's direction. "Assuming he's willing to take the time off from equivocating in order to say it."

Even as Emily tries, and fails, to muster up the courage to actually speak to Daniel, the robin perched on her ponytail becomes extremely agitated. Emily reacts instinctively, and scampers back the way she came before anyone can even begin to wonder what just happened.

{continues here}