Ficlet: Entrechat Cinquante: football
Jan. 22nd, 2009 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
splixTitle: Entrechat Cinquante: football
Pairing: VigBean
Rating: PG-13
Author: Alex
Warning: AU
Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
seans_50 challenge.
Beta: the most excellent![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kimberlite.
Disclaimer: Utterly untrue.
Additional note: I was asked by an LJ link-gatherer to give the ballet series a title for easier linking, so I've decided to call it Entrechat Cinquante, which very, very loosely translates to fifty interwoven steps.
Prompt: Football
*
For three full months Sean wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision. The promise and thrill of the most exciting city in the world, the beating heart of ballet, waned quickly. In all that time, his life was a boomerang journey from his tiny roach-ridden apartment on 112th to Lincoln Center and back again, with nightly stops at a rathole of an Irish pub where, because official rehearsals didn’t begin until September, he tended bar and talked football with a few hard-bitten sons of Erin, lifelong New Yorkers who accepted him because he didn’t have a posh English accent. Strangely enough, the ballet trappings didn’t appear to bother them.
The days were harder. Sometimes it seemed as if he were the only one in the company who ripped a toenail or pulled a tendon, or had to sit, gasping for breath, after every rehearsal or class. They demanded more at Metropolitan. The repertory was larger, the choreographers harsher. Even class was a madhouse. The ballet master shouted mile-long combinations at them, and woe if they failed to repeat them exactly. Nothing was ignored; there were chastisements for unkempt clothing, hair in the face, thirty seconds’ lateness, profanity, gum-chewing, incorrectly spaced fingers.
Rehearsal space and time was limited, coveted, fought over, the master schedule a triumph of disorganization. Sean ran like a rat in a maze from Studio Four, where a three-minute section from the Wedding Scene of La Sylphide was run again and again until Sean wanted to punch a hole in the wall, to Studio Eleven, where Sean and a soloist named Billy, (who looked so much like an American farm boy that Sean thought the only thing lacking was a piece of hay between the teeth) spun and jetéed their way through the Nutcracker Trepak, to Studio Two, where a guest choreographer, Istvan Szekely, vaguely sketched out a few steps from the plotless Philip Glass piece that was due to premiere in seven weeks. “Do your own treatment,” he would murmur through clouds of smoke. The dancers and their substitutes exchanged glances of sheer terror, and clustered together at breaks for coffee, cigarettes, bee pollen, and commiseration.
“He wants us to wing it?”
“Make shit up, more like. Why doesn’t he just say it? ‘Make shit up, boys and girls.’”
“I fucking hate Philip Glass.”
“Because he turned you down at Bianca’s party, girlfriend?”
“Fuck you, bitch. I didn’t know he was straight.”
“Who says he is?”
Sean wasn’t jocular and quick-tongued like the other gay boys, but he worked hard to overcome his shyness, and harder still to improve his technique. While the rest of the company went home to dinner, to spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends or cats, Sean stayed at the studio, working to the tinny accompaniment of a cheap tape recorder, sweat pouring from his body, his feet raw and red with blisters and bunions. He was rewarded in class by the ballet master, who simply nodded and smiled at his barrel turns and multiple pirouettes. The other dancers took to him after they realized his quietness didn’t mask snobbery, and his work ethic didn’t mask overweening superiority. He was polite and friendly, and kept his ambitions to himself.
Slowly, it got better. He liked the ease of manner among the gay boys. They were less uptight in New York than in London, and he felt his own tensions lessening, even if he didn’t have time for casual liaisons the way the other boys did. He liked the camaraderie all the dancers shared, and though everyone knew everyone else’s secrets (Alphonse had a drinking problem – vodka in the veggie juice; Giovanna slept, ate, and fucked in cling-wrap to keep her weight down; Lori puked every meal up – easier, but her breath always smelled and she was losing her hair; Stan and Victor were on the outs because Stan’s wife was coming back home at Christmastime; Leo had made a pass at Kit and still hadn’t been cast as the Sugar Plum cavalier) eventually it began to feel good, in a crazy way, like a family – quarrelling, contentious, explosive, but a family nonetheless.
At last, at long last, came the first performance – a gala Nutcracker. New sets, new staging, new costumes. Sean and Billy waited for their cue in the wings, warmed up and flexing nervously on half-pointe – up, down, up, down. They wore red tunics and baggy gold trousers tucked into red boots. Their eyes were fiercely made up, their lips and cheeks reddened.
“They’re playing too fast,” Billy complained. “Aren’t they, Sean? Listen. Son of a bitch!”
Sean listened, then blanched. “Fucking hell,” he muttered.
“Hello.”
Sean turned at the voice with its heavy Russian L, and froze at the sight of Pavel Menshikov, sweating and beautiful in his Nutcracker Prince costume. “Hello,” Sean replied, but his greeting emerged raspy and awkward. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello, Mr. Menshikov.”
Menshikov grinned. “Pasha. I saw you at yesterday’s rehearsal. Nice elevation. Very nice.”
Sean blushed as scarlet as his boots. “Thank you.”
“You want to go for a drink after the show?”
Sean hesitated. It was no secret that Menshikov was an unabashed cocksman, plowing both sexes with boundless enthusiasm. He’d left a trail of broken hearts, so it was said, grinding his toes in them as if they were boxes of rosin. It was the last thing Sean needed, or wanted. Then again, he was gorgeous – all waving honey-blond hair, huge blue eyes, and tight arse. But still, all those stories....
He wasn’t ready to have his heart broken. But a one-night stand…or a two-week stand...why not?
“Why don’t you just come back to mine tonight?” Sean said, fluidly bending to rest his palms on the floor.
Menshikov – Pasha – looked at him with interest and amusement. He folded his arms over the glittering white satin that formed the top half of his costume. “Okay. Sounds good. I see you after?”
Sean tilted his head and grinned. “Aye. After.”
Billy, who had been watching in open-mouthed curiosity, jabbed Sean in the side as the Spanish dancers came streaming into the wings. “Jesus, Sean – cue! Cue!”
Pasha leaned against a dusty black velvet wing leg. “Merde, Sean.”
The orchestra was too fast and the lights too hot, but it didn’t matter. Sean felt strength propel him higher, faster, far more gracefully than the uncomfortable studio run-throughs or dress rehearsals. A double pirouette came out triple, his soutenus ripped sharp and swift from his body. A ripple of applause met his ears. He blazed across the stage, taking risks, driving his own hesitation out with power, grace, and speed.
He saw Billy lagging behind the music, but it was too late to choose between Billy and the orchestra. He spun into his final pirouette and landed on one knee. Before Billy had landed, Sean heard bravos and thunderous applause, and the unmistakable sound of the audience rising to its feet. Flushed and breathless, he sprang up and headed for the wings with only a brief bow.
Billy was weeping. “I danced for shit.”
“They played too fast,” Sean said, rubbing a consoling hand over Billy’s wet back. “You were right.”
Billy twisted from beneath Sean’s touch and disappeared, slipping through ranks of gathered dancers. Sean started after him, but a hand on his arm brought him up short. It was Pasha, shaking his head. “Leave him be. Listen.” He cocked his head toward the stage.
Applause was still rolling in from the house, and now a dozen other hands pushed him back out. “Go, Sean. Go.”
The lights blinded him, but he smiled and bowed. First curtain call, he thought, and bowed again.
Could be he hadn’t made a mistake after all.
*
Nutcracker Trepak [Russian Dance]: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U7S4AAAJ
govi20 has also created a video for it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BDL8ycZz28
My table is here
Pairing: VigBean
Rating: PG-13
Author: Alex
Warning: AU
Written for the
seans_50 challenge.Beta: the most excellent
kimberlite.Disclaimer: Utterly untrue.
Additional note: I was asked by an LJ link-gatherer to give the ballet series a title for easier linking, so I've decided to call it Entrechat Cinquante, which very, very loosely translates to fifty interwoven steps.
Prompt: Football
*
For three full months Sean wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision. The promise and thrill of the most exciting city in the world, the beating heart of ballet, waned quickly. In all that time, his life was a boomerang journey from his tiny roach-ridden apartment on 112th to Lincoln Center and back again, with nightly stops at a rathole of an Irish pub where, because official rehearsals didn’t begin until September, he tended bar and talked football with a few hard-bitten sons of Erin, lifelong New Yorkers who accepted him because he didn’t have a posh English accent. Strangely enough, the ballet trappings didn’t appear to bother them.
The days were harder. Sometimes it seemed as if he were the only one in the company who ripped a toenail or pulled a tendon, or had to sit, gasping for breath, after every rehearsal or class. They demanded more at Metropolitan. The repertory was larger, the choreographers harsher. Even class was a madhouse. The ballet master shouted mile-long combinations at them, and woe if they failed to repeat them exactly. Nothing was ignored; there were chastisements for unkempt clothing, hair in the face, thirty seconds’ lateness, profanity, gum-chewing, incorrectly spaced fingers.
Rehearsal space and time was limited, coveted, fought over, the master schedule a triumph of disorganization. Sean ran like a rat in a maze from Studio Four, where a three-minute section from the Wedding Scene of La Sylphide was run again and again until Sean wanted to punch a hole in the wall, to Studio Eleven, where Sean and a soloist named Billy, (who looked so much like an American farm boy that Sean thought the only thing lacking was a piece of hay between the teeth) spun and jetéed their way through the Nutcracker Trepak, to Studio Two, where a guest choreographer, Istvan Szekely, vaguely sketched out a few steps from the plotless Philip Glass piece that was due to premiere in seven weeks. “Do your own treatment,” he would murmur through clouds of smoke. The dancers and their substitutes exchanged glances of sheer terror, and clustered together at breaks for coffee, cigarettes, bee pollen, and commiseration.
“He wants us to wing it?”
“Make shit up, more like. Why doesn’t he just say it? ‘Make shit up, boys and girls.’”
“I fucking hate Philip Glass.”
“Because he turned you down at Bianca’s party, girlfriend?”
“Fuck you, bitch. I didn’t know he was straight.”
“Who says he is?”
Sean wasn’t jocular and quick-tongued like the other gay boys, but he worked hard to overcome his shyness, and harder still to improve his technique. While the rest of the company went home to dinner, to spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends or cats, Sean stayed at the studio, working to the tinny accompaniment of a cheap tape recorder, sweat pouring from his body, his feet raw and red with blisters and bunions. He was rewarded in class by the ballet master, who simply nodded and smiled at his barrel turns and multiple pirouettes. The other dancers took to him after they realized his quietness didn’t mask snobbery, and his work ethic didn’t mask overweening superiority. He was polite and friendly, and kept his ambitions to himself.
Slowly, it got better. He liked the ease of manner among the gay boys. They were less uptight in New York than in London, and he felt his own tensions lessening, even if he didn’t have time for casual liaisons the way the other boys did. He liked the camaraderie all the dancers shared, and though everyone knew everyone else’s secrets (Alphonse had a drinking problem – vodka in the veggie juice; Giovanna slept, ate, and fucked in cling-wrap to keep her weight down; Lori puked every meal up – easier, but her breath always smelled and she was losing her hair; Stan and Victor were on the outs because Stan’s wife was coming back home at Christmastime; Leo had made a pass at Kit and still hadn’t been cast as the Sugar Plum cavalier) eventually it began to feel good, in a crazy way, like a family – quarrelling, contentious, explosive, but a family nonetheless.
At last, at long last, came the first performance – a gala Nutcracker. New sets, new staging, new costumes. Sean and Billy waited for their cue in the wings, warmed up and flexing nervously on half-pointe – up, down, up, down. They wore red tunics and baggy gold trousers tucked into red boots. Their eyes were fiercely made up, their lips and cheeks reddened.
“They’re playing too fast,” Billy complained. “Aren’t they, Sean? Listen. Son of a bitch!”
Sean listened, then blanched. “Fucking hell,” he muttered.
“Hello.”
Sean turned at the voice with its heavy Russian L, and froze at the sight of Pavel Menshikov, sweating and beautiful in his Nutcracker Prince costume. “Hello,” Sean replied, but his greeting emerged raspy and awkward. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello, Mr. Menshikov.”
Menshikov grinned. “Pasha. I saw you at yesterday’s rehearsal. Nice elevation. Very nice.”
Sean blushed as scarlet as his boots. “Thank you.”
“You want to go for a drink after the show?”
Sean hesitated. It was no secret that Menshikov was an unabashed cocksman, plowing both sexes with boundless enthusiasm. He’d left a trail of broken hearts, so it was said, grinding his toes in them as if they were boxes of rosin. It was the last thing Sean needed, or wanted. Then again, he was gorgeous – all waving honey-blond hair, huge blue eyes, and tight arse. But still, all those stories....
He wasn’t ready to have his heart broken. But a one-night stand…or a two-week stand...why not?
“Why don’t you just come back to mine tonight?” Sean said, fluidly bending to rest his palms on the floor.
Menshikov – Pasha – looked at him with interest and amusement. He folded his arms over the glittering white satin that formed the top half of his costume. “Okay. Sounds good. I see you after?”
Sean tilted his head and grinned. “Aye. After.”
Billy, who had been watching in open-mouthed curiosity, jabbed Sean in the side as the Spanish dancers came streaming into the wings. “Jesus, Sean – cue! Cue!”
Pasha leaned against a dusty black velvet wing leg. “Merde, Sean.”
The orchestra was too fast and the lights too hot, but it didn’t matter. Sean felt strength propel him higher, faster, far more gracefully than the uncomfortable studio run-throughs or dress rehearsals. A double pirouette came out triple, his soutenus ripped sharp and swift from his body. A ripple of applause met his ears. He blazed across the stage, taking risks, driving his own hesitation out with power, grace, and speed.
He saw Billy lagging behind the music, but it was too late to choose between Billy and the orchestra. He spun into his final pirouette and landed on one knee. Before Billy had landed, Sean heard bravos and thunderous applause, and the unmistakable sound of the audience rising to its feet. Flushed and breathless, he sprang up and headed for the wings with only a brief bow.
Billy was weeping. “I danced for shit.”
“They played too fast,” Sean said, rubbing a consoling hand over Billy’s wet back. “You were right.”
Billy twisted from beneath Sean’s touch and disappeared, slipping through ranks of gathered dancers. Sean started after him, but a hand on his arm brought him up short. It was Pasha, shaking his head. “Leave him be. Listen.” He cocked his head toward the stage.
Applause was still rolling in from the house, and now a dozen other hands pushed him back out. “Go, Sean. Go.”
The lights blinded him, but he smiled and bowed. First curtain call, he thought, and bowed again.
Could be he hadn’t made a mistake after all.
*
Nutcracker Trepak [Russian Dance]: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U7S4AAAJ
govi20 has also created a video for it here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BDL8ycZz28
My table is here
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 10:44 am (UTC)Isn't that a great pic? I found it on a random image search for male ballet stuff. :)