don't it beat a slow dance to death?

[gentle_puck]

The club is new, but the interior is the same as any other--lighting too dark, music too loud, drinks too expensive. Robin is pleased enough to be out of the Cat Scratch for an evening that he doesn't give a shit about all the irritations, and the way the bass pounds against the floor, vibrating through the soles of his shoes and sinking straight into his bones, gives the entire experience a kind of exhilarating headiness. After the wet chill of the weather outdoors, the inside of the club is like an oven. That only adds to the surreality of the atmosphere. So does Peaseblossom's dress, catching the intermittent flash of the lights in a thousand brilliant pinpricks when she leans in to shout into his ear. It's dazzling in a way that makes him regret sequins coming back into fashion.

"Getting another drink!"

She snags Cobweb by the wrist, both of them shoving their way back in the general direction of the bar, so he flashes them a thumbs-up that doesn't require screaming over the music. Right now, that music consists of some kind of Elton John song remixed by a hip-hop artist, so the term is debatable. It's still peppy enough to dance to, so even the complaints inside his own head don't have a lot of momentum. Moth is off to his left, bouncing on the balls of his feet in a shy and stilted dance, and Robin grabs him by one hand and spins toward him and then away again, a kind of messy three-step turn that jostles into other people on the dance floor and leaves them both laughing. They don't often get to go out all together like this; at least one or two of them are always working when the others are off.

Robin could almost wish the furnace at the Scratch was even less reliable than it usually is, if he didn't need the money. The unexpected break is still welcome.

The music shifts into something less regimented, with a messier beat that lets him use the full range of his body with a constant sway of the hips. He lets himself get lost in it, eyes sliding mostly closed and thoughts easing away under the friction of the rhythm. He likes dancing for an audience. The appreciation of a crowd never entirely loses its thrill. But there's a kind of magic to dancing just for yourself, too, without obsessing over the lines and the extensions and the picture your body makes for the consumption of someone else.

Comments

[monsterbytrade]

The music is awful.

Not that it stops Jaskier from bobbing in the crowd, his unruly mop of hair popping up occasionally here and there, hand jabbing into the air to wave and motion Geralt into the mass of bodies again and, again when Geralt doesn't move from his spot on the low couch, disappear back into the fray. It's happened a handful of times. It always takes Jaskier too long to give up.

He doesn't want to dance, not like this, not with Jaskier, but the liquor fizzes at the edges of his nerves and he knows he'll get up eventually. This is not his scene in the slightest but sometimes a night spent letting his limbs forget how French tastes isn't totally wasted. Movement for its own sake sometimes feels like a luxury.

Geralt finishes another overpriced drink and hangs his head back for a moment to stare at the ceiling; it pulse with color, strobing, and he has to pull himself back up and wait to clear the swimming edges of his vision. He focuses on the seething mass of the crowd, singling bodies out until his vision steadies and he's following the movement of one person in particular at the edges of the dance floor.

Long dark hair lank with damp, his eyes are closed as he moves. There's no one dancing with him but Geralt can see how the people closet physically respond anyway, pulled into his rhythm. He moves like a wraith and both his clothes and the music stick to him. It's gorgeous in all the wrong ways because it's here and it's this fucking music but all of Geralt's edges are softened by vodka and so he leans forward to watch, wiping the palms of his hands across black-demin thighs before resting elbows to knees. People get close to the dancer but either fall away again or are brushed aside.

It's memorizing.

[gentle_puck]

Dancing in a crowd is a bit of an art. Too much movement and you risk being annoying, too little movement and what's the point? No grand gestures, so it's more about the flow. Robin feels the weight of eyes on him, but that isn't exactly unusual--not even when he isn't alone under a spotlight, not even when he isn't trying to earn anybody's attention. The pressure of general observation is different, however, than the sensation of a focused gaze. One song has blended more or less seamlessly into another before that particular kind of awareness makes a prickling brush along the length of his neck. The fine hairs lift. It's a thrill and a bit of a warning, too, so he turns along with the rhythm and lets his eyes slit open and fuck.

The occasional shifts to blacklight make the man's hair glow white, pale as moonlight, stark against the otherwise nondescript black fabric stretched across those broad, broad shoulders. Forget the shoulders; he has the biceps to match. The hands, long-fingered and powerful, complete the trifecta, but the full set is probably hidden by the shadows of the club. Robin's mouth goes dry and then just as suddenly wet.

He's been the subject of plenty of varieties of predatory gaze. He's rarely felt the effects of one like a punch straight to the gut.

That is...not the sort of man Robin would approach uninvited, because experience suggests that a man who looks as though he doesn't belong is a man who might have unpleasant motives. But this one is already looking, and Robin has either had far too much to drink or far too little. He's already reacting, putting a little more flair into the sway of his hips and finishing by spinning on the ball of one foot until he faces the other man fully. He keeps moving, but it's subdued, because he doesn't want the movement to get in the way of the message. He flashes his teeth in a grin and meets the man's eyes.

"Are you just here to watch?" He has to shout over the music.

[monsterbytrade]

There's a soft hiss across nerves when those dark eyes open and catch him watching. The accompanying shift of hips and giving over of attention only spill oil on the fire and Geralt doesn't answer the question yelled in his direction; his legs are moving with or without permission and he's standing because Geralt doesn't want to dance in this but he wants to dance with that.

The other man's motions make him loom on the dance floor but up close he's much shorter than Geralt. It's not unattractive; he clearly knows how to use the body he has, willowy with a certain crass grace. Geralt doesn't stand and leer-- he knows how to use his body too, even in the name of such electronic butchery. He moves into the man's rhythm as a seamless counterpoint, close enough to get the smell of shampoo and sweat, to see the shimmer of lipgloss, without touching. There's something even less substantial about him up close, as if he might turn and disappear into the haze of the club, just some thing made of the throb of bass and held together by the flashing lights. Geralt doesn't try to take the lead of the dance away from him, doesn't try to touch even though every new motion of the body in front of him makes him want to.

In a way it's a game they're playing. A constantly shifting puzzle that doesn't exist in choreography.

Geralt shouldn't like it half as much as he does.

[gentle_puck]

Up close--up very close--the man looms a full head over him and the faintest shiver of apprehension runs up the length of Robin's spine. He can't make out the color of those eyes thanks to the uneven lights of the club, but they're pale, too, and the shine of them reads faintly feline. Nothing about that intent gaze softens with proximity. That's another subtle thrill that sends an unsettled sluice of heat through Robin's gut. Whatever he expects, it isn't the way they immediately sync together without more than a couple seconds' pause.

The gulf between them is clear, in that they make use of their bodies in entirely different ways and with thoroughly different strengths, but the shift of muscle and movement of limbs creates something strange and pure that strikes like lightning at the base of Robin's spine. It's the sort of synergy that might not come even after years of practice with a single partner. The ease of it leaves him breathless.

He spins, putting his back to the man's chest without quite touching. This is the kind of game he likes best, all temptation and self-control without heavy consequences, and the way his breath catches at the heat of the body behind him is probably too obvious. No use dissembling, anyway. The electric pulse of the rhythm between them isn't something he's imagining. Even if that's destined to remain nothing but anticipation, just this moment between two strangers without the follow-through, he wants to grasp it with both hands and hold onto it for as long they can make it last.

Arms lifting above his head, he arches just a little further back with each liquid sway of his hips, pushing the fine line of the boundary between them until fabric brushes and drags.