You And Me - A Collection of Les Twins One Shots

Rules

Taunting was an important part of any dance battle.

It was almost as important as the dancing itself.

Just because it was not your turn, didn't mean you couldn't turn the attention of the audience onto you. In fact, you could win a lot of sympathy from the crowd using the time on that stage to your advantage while your opponent was the one currently dancing.

First thing was trying to spot a weakness in your adversary. Was he small? Pudgy? Sloppy with the moves? Slightly off rhythm? When a dancer lost his footing on stage, they mocked him, pretending the floor was slippery and tumbling to the ground. When someone missed a beat, they pointed at their ears, when someone didn't actually dance, they tapped their watches, signaling the end of the turn and so on... Sometimes the taunts were more subtle, sometimes a little more cruel. Depending on how strong the other dancer was, they had to be creative in their mockery. The intent was to distract or demoralize their opponent to a point where their attention slipped or where they felt embarrassed. It was kinda like a battle-cry, the universal sign for ‚come and get me' in the world of dance. And quite frankly, it was fun. They had a lot of playful elements in their style anyway, so it was a fun and creative way to get a rise out of each other without causing any serious damage.

Laurent had the patience of a saint, he did. With the kind of life they had led, growing up in a with nine siblings, with a dead-beat father and a mother who was so busy that she was rarely home, living in a shady hood, getting made fun of and having to prove over and over and over again that dance was his life. He had to learn from an early age on to not let anything get to him. To drown out the voice of the haters and let himself be guided only by passion. So it didn't bother him when someone made fun of him. If someone made a crude remark about his dance style not being ‚hip hop' enough, he just smiled. If someone thought his moves were too feminine, he winked at them flirtily, laying it on extra thick. Haters didn't have a chance with him. Unless they knew where to apply pressure.

As far as dance duos went, they were difficult to go up against, so most dancers spent some time analyzing their previous battles, trying to find a loophole or weakness in their performances before actually facing them.

Diablo didn't have to do that. He was becoming more and more well known in the scene, even on an international level. But they'd known him back when he was still a breaker. When he was still a nobody. They had tried to take him under their wings, but he'd only stayed for a little while before growing a pair of wings of his own. They had lost the Juste Debout against him, which was something they were bitter about because he had won it unfairly by wasting over 20 seconds on that stage. But there was more than just the whole ‚not dancing' part that had pissed them off about that particular battle.

Now Laurent wasn't stupid.

And he knew the kid.

Even worse, Diablo knew them.

He's been targeting Laurent during the Juste Debout last year, making threatening moves toward him when he was on the ground or whenever his back was turned. It had worked. Not so much on Laurent as on his twin, just like Diablo had probably expected. Larry's protective instinct had flared and he'd allowed himself to get distracted, anger sparking at the mere sight of someone making a threatening move toward his brother.

Laurent had full-on expected Diablo to come back to this battle with the same attitude he'd had during their last battle. But instead of going after Laurent again, Diablo made a grave mistake and turned his attention onto Larry.

The first time they did it was lightning-fact, just there-and-gone-again. While it was Laurent's turn and he was in the middle of killing his first round, Diablo loaded a fake-shotgun from across the stage and pointed somewhere off to Laurent's right. It took him a second or two to realize that the aim was on Larry. Diablo smiled at him. He fucking smiled at Laurent and pumped once, twice before ‚firing' a loadful of fake ammunition into his brother's face. Now that was a taunt if Laurent had ever seen one and it sure as hell worked.