Dance Time! Excerpt from TfT
Honestly, this was some of my favorite writing (I loved all of it so it’s kind of all ‘my favorite’ for different reasons, I loved it in different ways, if you get what I mean) for this book because it just felt so fun. This is from the middle of Chapter 4 of the fanfic novel Tumbling for Togetherness:
“Why don’t I offer you a dance, dear? Teach me that lovely Detrona shuffle of yours.” My smile was small, hand extended as far as I could reach in Greenlight’s direction, not enough to reach, but the point was the gesture.
“I’d love to, sweetspark, oh my dear Lug, how I’ve missed you,” Greenlight’s hand reached mine, and then let go. The two of us got up, circled around the table to hold hands again, and walked onto the dance floor, as our friends and partners staying at the table for a little longer.
We found a somewhat empty spot down the middle.
“So, here’s how it goes…” Greenlight fingers left mine as she sidled around to face me. “You can either do it facing the same direction, kind of like you and Anode’s adorable Tetracaprian tap, or facing each other. You move your lower arms from side to side in a swing traditionally, but, it’s really free form if you want, and side to side can be read broadly, for example” keeping their upper arms parallel to their torso, she moved her forearms to angle to the right of her, and circled with them from right to left and back again.
“Tempo varies on the song!” She beamed, and I listened to the current one, a viverial one, with bioelectric amplified sounds from plants and fungi, along with a steady beat of magnetaurine hooves in a jog.
“This one right now is approximately at a bit of a clip in its baseline, so for simplicity’s sake, being a viverial song and all, I’ll go with that as we add in moving hips alongside or opposite the arm swings,” she started to swing those pocket-belt armored squarish at the top sleek around the bottom hips of theirs, adding in slow side steps bringing their feet apart, and back together. I let out a little meep, enamored with the sight of someone I adored being so comfortable in sensual movement, and she brandished a grin with drooped optics, seemingly pleased with my reaction.
“And then you add in some foot play, and one can hold hands doing this. When a song is fast, it feels very peppy to do, when it’s slow, ethereal, perfect for gazing with someone.” Her optics squared on mine. “You give it a go, love.”
I started to zig zag my arms with the beat, smirking from doing so, and got a great deal of joy swinging my belt angled and rectangular leg socket hips and upper legs, clonking around as I took steps widening and narrowing my stance, and I laughed in excitement as the song changed to a proximity song, singing about sharing with a friend the odds and ends of gimmicks, stories, and bolts. The beat was faster, so Greenlight and I sped up.
“You got it love!” she exclaimed, and we settled into looking at each other, and they extended hands to me, which I grabbed onto, fingers lacing, and we swung our arms up and down in a curve as we moved. My spark warmed, and my casing churned. When the song ended, I stepped closer, and leaned into a kiss, as we continued to dance smacking lips, as a farlove song came on, slow and steady about keeping memories close to soul forever and looking forward to sharing old age together. When our mouths parted, I took in the sight behind me of Vertex and Aileron close by, doing an Iaconian jig, skipping around each other, hands over chest and extended towards one another. And I saw Arcee and Anode, heading in our direction, doing the Velocitronian entanglement, a sashay of sweeping in front of each other, turn in turn, in a flurry of steps, as if half-orbit by half-orbit between freely moving astronomical bodies, only interested and heeding each other’s gravity for the moment. Both sights were lovely, and I caught a glimpse of our other friends dancing too in variety of styles. My gaze came back to Greenlight, and we danced a little longer, until the four behind us came up to us, along with Ratchet and Fractyl.
“Suppose people want to dance with us, yeah?” I asked.
“That’d be correct,” Arcee ran a hand around my right upper arm, passing over my three biolight stubs on the side of my shoulder. “I think I’m going to invite folks to a dialogue embellish, Aileron inflamingly expressed wanting some one-on-one time with you, so I wish you both happy dancing.” Her optics gleamed as Aileron’s face perked up. with an agape mouth.
“Ha, a facsimile of discussion by flourishing body movement? You’re on, champion of the Rites of Stanix,” Ratchet chuckled, “I’ve got some cranky expressions yet to show off,” xey put on a stiff lip, wobbling fin crest, and gesticulating as if piecing a puzzle cube together, while taking a step that swung their aft.
We all guffawed together, Ratchet the loudest, optics forming hill-like shapes with their smile.
“Oh dear, Arcee, thinking of me and how I wanted to get sensual, are you?” Aileron turned her head to the side as a smirk slid across her face. “Someone’s in for some lovely hours after this.”
We snorted, as my mind rushed with imaginings of the five of us in love cuddling and pleasuring each other.
“I could say the same, my sweet,” Arcee replied. “Now go on, do your thing.”
“Dear?” Aileron extended a hand to me. “I’ve been wanting to do a Caminusian fire pulse dance with you again for the last forty orbits, what do you say?”
“I say aye!” I clasped her hand, and we stepped apart from the group, as I blew a kiss to Anode, who replied in kind.
Aileron and I faced each other, just as a circuitousity song came on in happy coincidence. It rang with almost playful horns and strumming, matching singing about how cool it was to share working on a book together, and to swim in each other’s lives.
Her hands reached for mine, and we clasped each other’s, which in my evoked wanting mood bringing a surge of memories of hand holding across millennia. My lips trembled with a tiny sound, and she osculated there for a moment, before stepping back. We started to push and pull arms back and forth, as we slowly stepped further from each other, circling one another. My left hand let go of her right, and I stepped closer, aiding their spin with my lifted arm, as she sidled up back facing me, central back wing fitting snugly under my chest, but still unable to lean on me the way we were standing due to its length. I nonetheless let go of her other hand and stuck my hands under her two larger now sidelong wings, to grasp her hips, and we stepped in a crisscross until they spun back around, to grab my hand and twirl me, bringing my back to her chest, arms finding my waist, as we started to step in a flame pictogram imitating pattern, creasing up and down three ridges, and coming around the circular bottom, as the song continued at length. I cooed from sensation, from closeness, from wanting. My casing fired off electricity in a spectacular internal display within my circuits across my body, like fireworks.
Then she sauntered around me, wrapped arms to hold my back, and we mirthfully made out for a while.
In a focused memory heightened daze with a very warm spark, I eventually opened my optics from our kissing, and spoke: “I love you so much, all of you.”
She grinned helm brow heightened. “Love you too.”
I saw Anode’s hand pass over Aileron’s shoulder, and Arcee to mine, finding a hold as my Conjunx stepped alongside us. “Hey, loves, I’m itching to share the Vos turbulence with Greenlight and you, Aileron. Arcee wanted to do the cut of temporality with Lug, how you feel about that?”
“Oooh, count me in on twisting and turning,” Aileron’s hand brushed over Anode’s waist. “You two have fun!”
“That I certainly will,” I faced the one holding me, and started the dance with a snuggle, my head under her chest, as I hummed along to a resemblal song of light string pluckings and singing of the excitement to learn about each other and the world. We stepped slowly, their hands rubbing my back, as she hummed with me. Then I stood apart from her, moving my feet to walk in place, and leaped, to transform into her arms. I looked at her through my visual microsensors across my backpack form, focusing on her delighted face, as she cradled me, stroking the length of my alt-mode, caressing displays, latches, and dials as she slowly sauntered, before she let me back down, and I transformed back, arm and legs unfolding and head popping back out again, forward storage space lifting back up to inside my chest. She transformed in front of me, into her convertible car form, and spun slowly around me, as I turned with her, hands rubbing her forward armor within reach, until she came to a stop. I circled around, a skip in my step, matching touches with the soft blue flashes of light from her wheels. They transformed once more, coming to a kneel in front of me, which I matched, thigh alongside thigh, and we leaned in to kiss each other. I felt my circuits and thoughts tingle all over me at the act and closeness, as I would with any of the four.
You can find this novel (which is an 18+ read) by searching Tumbling for Togetherness on ao3!