Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

[scaredywombat]

Chase had shown up late to rehearsal, again. "Late" by dancer standards, at least, which meant right under the wire, still pulling his hair back and only just starting his warmups when the director walked in, clapping her hands and calling everyone to attention and to take their places. They were about a month out from their production of Swan Lake, which was the ballet that was considered by dance critics to be their company's strongest production. The company director was trying to make this performance better than the years before, while still trying to finish securing the details of their next run. It was chaotic, and Chase thrived on it. Even as busy as he was with college, he wouldn't give this up for the world. In the studio, he was far more alive than he was in the classroom, even if he was taking it seriously. Medicine. Becoming a doctor. Not what he wanted to do with his life, but he couldn't afford Julliard teaching five year olds how to plie, even if he wishes that he could. His classes and rehearsals run rather tight together, and he knows that a number of the other dancers judge him for it, but Robert pretends not to notice.

Or it's the fact that he's slept with more than a couple of his coworkers. People get so jumpy about sex, about who's having it and who isn't. Chase likes sex, and he's never seen it as a bad thing, never really had the desire to hide his interest. Other people just lie about it.

Rehearsal isn't particularly remarkable, at least not in matters of routine. They start off in pairs, running through movements and lifts, contact and extensions, to the often repeated instructions of grace and evoking simplicity in movement. They work their way in broad strokes through the third act with their instructor tweaking arms and pulling legs and saying hold. The same as the past two weeks. They take a break, she pulls out a notepad and they start back on Act I, Scene I, reviewing sections she had marked in green pen. What was remarkable, at least to Chase, was seeing Greg in those black tights. He stared, not quite shamelessly. He looked away when the older dancer would look his way, watched him through his blond eyelashes. He had a boyfriend, more or less. There were very good reasons not to be looking. But he couldn't help himself, he never could, because there was just something about him, about the way that he looked, the way that he moved, and it caught his breath half the time, and it always made his pulse race. Chase was a little more awkward, a little distracted when he wasn't dancing. He walked into someone during a break when he went for his water bottle.

He tried not to be obvious, but that was one thing that the young blond was not very good at. Much like how at the end of rehearsal, when Greg went off to one of the smaller studios, Chase couldn't help following. Everyone else either wasn't interested or knew better. Either was likely. Chase was terrible at knowing better. He was young, impulsive, and pretty scant on self-control. So there he was,  leaning in the doorway, watching, his things still left behind in the other room. House usually wore loose pants, and the man was gorgeous. Older than most, but he made Chase have to struggle to try and not get a hard-on in the middle of rehearsal.

It didn't always work. He wanted to say something, but he didn't want to interrupt, so he just waited, watched. Quietly lingering while he stared.

Comments

[the_house_rules]

House knows that he’s easily the oldest dancer in the company outside of the instructor and one other man who he can’t quite accurately gauge age on, but he doesn’t care. This isn’t his whole life, it’s just something to keep him busy, something outside of medicine and the puzzles. In college, he’d had lacrosse, and for a while that had been enough - school and lacrosse occupying his mind and body. But it stopped being enough, his competitive side (or addictive side) wanted to dial it up to eleven and he’d started dancing to get better on the field. It had worked, but more than that, he’d really gotten into dancing in its own right. He’d never have guessed, if you’d asked him before, that he’d get into ballet let alone miss it after he graduated. For the first few years after med school, being a doctor was enough. Or maybe it wasn’t, because almost from the start he’d been pushing too much, jumping from job to job when hospitals couldn’t handle him. He hadn’t been at Princeton less than six months before Wilson, in a desperate bid to keep House from losing this job, suggested that House pick up a hobby. Something that’ll tire him out enough that he won’t have enough energy for the bullshit chaos he usually causes in the hospital. Wilson had meant upping his usual runs to something like joining a local doctors’ sports team or something, but House had decided to pick ballet up again.

That had been almost five years ago now. Wilson’s suggestion had worked, more or less. He hadn’t lost this job, but he also hadn’t stopped pulling truly asinine shit at the hospital. If anything, it seemed like being twice as busy gave House twice as much energy.

Today’s rehearsal isn’t very different than any other day’s rehearsal. This aspect of it, the routine, makes one wonder what House gets out of it. House, who thrives on things being always different, always needing to be worked out and relearned. There’s another aspect to his personality, though, a perfectionism that needs an outlet, needs something to focus through, to work at again and again until it’s perfect. Music had been that for a long time, but it’s a mix of practiced perfection and something to unwind with. Ballet is that for him now, something to work through again and again until he’s got a move down, a routine down, perfect, better than the last time, better than the next dancer. It’s a way to push himself, push his body to be better, more responsive, to give him exactly what he wants when he wants it.

It’d be a lie to say he wasn’t also in it for the butts. Young dancer butts were better than any porn he could get his hands on. House isn’t a stranger to sleeping with fellow dancers - he’s done it before - but nowhere near as much as some. He keeps an ear to the ground on gossip, knows who’s fucking who and who’s cheating on who. Rumors are entertaining, and more than once he’s pushed false information through the rumor mill just to watch chaos ensue. Despite the bullshit that he obviously pulls in the company as well as at the hospital, he’s more well liked than he strictly should be. Well, maybe that’s not quite accurate. He’s tolerated because he’s good. Really good. Tolerated and sought after for help in smaller, private practice sessions, but he very rarely if ever lets anyone in. Just enough that the directors feel that he’s working well enough within the company, but not so much that it intrudes on his need for solitude.

He leaves the practice, his bag thrown over a shoulder and a towel draped around the back of his neck, and he’s downing a bottle of water as he heads off for the room that he knows will be empty for him. He’s setting his things down, plugging his iPod into the stereo there, and begins to stretch again when he catches Chase’s reflection in the mirrored wall. He’s got one leg up on the barre and he’s stretching towards it, eyes locked on Chase’s in the mirror. Chase is a ridiculously pretty new dancer, built arguably more like the young women than the young men, slender and lean rather than overly muscular. And that ass… he had, in House’s opinion, the best ass in the company, beating out several of the female dancers. Speaking of asses, House is quite aware that from their positions, Chase is almost invariably staring at his ass, which he’s objectively ranked in the top ten. Why pretend no one’s looking? Everyone’s looking at everyone. Especially on days that the men who usually wear loose pants choose to wear tights.

“Can I help you?” he asks, not bothering to turn.