Archive of Our Own

they are electric.

the lights go up, the music starts. and they stand and stare, hearts pounding and mouths dry, eyes wide at the sight before them. an audience stretching back beyond the reach of the floodlights from the stage; a sea of glowsticks, bobbing gently to the rhythms they know so well because they have practiced and practiced and practiced and yet nothing could have prepared them for the rush they feel standing before the crowd they’ve only seen before in a community count- real people, real smiles and cheers and its hard to remember how they got here but they remember setting up a camera in their homes, their local parks, their favorite bridge and just dancing and that’s all they can do here, now, on a stage bigger than any they’ve been on before is just dance. and they do— they dance to the songs they’ve found and loved and the choreographies they’ve created that they have no idea will become iconic, that will still be danced by the odorite who come after them years and years later. the crowd screams to see them onstage, when they solo, when they take their bows at the end and they are electric with the urgency and the honesty that comes with one shot, one take, one chance to get it right.

and they will never be this way again.

the years will fly by like the comments streaming live across a video and they will go on to become professionals, to form groups and leave groups and to become DJs and idols and put out singles and albums and merch and sometimes they will even go on to grow tired of this world of dance and anonymity that they helped to create and they will retire but no matter how good they get or where it leads them they will never be this young again, they will never again dance in front of their audience for the first time but for this first time they are electric.