Happy birthday, Mags!

Prompts: glass wings don't fly, dancer!AU

Also used: prompts 53 and 14

WC: 990

It was a pitiful morning, and Scorpius had not even finished his cup of coffee.

"Why is there no coffee left?" he muttered. "Coffee is a basic human right." With a sigh, he called into the adjacent room. "Melanie, would you be a dear and tell me what appointments I have today?"

Melanie hastened into his office and stood at the door with her hands tucked primly around a folder. "You just have the two classes and the rehearsal for Manon, the first pas de deux."

Scorpius sipped some more of his cold coffee with tight lips. "Well, I'm in a bit of a foul mood right now, so if you could, could you, hm, get someone to fill in for me on the first class?"

Melanie tried to smile. "Well, I suppose I could try, but you know that most of the activities occur on the weekends, especially for the classes for the children."

"Thank you for your honesty," Scorpius said, though he did not seem thankful in the slightest. "Could I see my schedule, please?"

Melanie gave him his schedule with a curt nod and left the room when he waved his hand. There were a few things that Scorpius disliked about his job, but he definitely did not dislike his having a secretary. It was one of the perks of being one of the senior teachers at the company. Even though he was only a bit older as most of the principals, he had risen through the ranks surprisingly quickly.

Scorpius pursed his lips and ran his finger down the page that he was holding in front of his face. He looked at a label on the page that indicated that most of the company would be attending that class, all packed into one huge room, and immediately decided he had to go.

After all, his muses would be attending.

"And plie," said the instructor as the pianist played a piece to the warm-up. Scorpius sat on a fold-able chair to the side of the long mirrors, crossing his arms and looking very surly.

Now that he was listening to classical music and looking at all those beautiful lines and hands that the ballerinas were making, he was not as grumpy as he was in the morning, but he had appearances to keep up, dammit.

He raked his eyes over the classroom, taking note of the turnout and posture in the corp ballet dancers. They were doing excellently, as expected. His eyes stopped on one man in particular, a principal with wild hair and definitely not the typical Balanchine style. Scorpius narrowed his eyes as the man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Did he not take the class seriously enough to wear the contacts he wore at rehearsal?

Scorpius sighed, relenting this once. This was the principal who had inspired some of the choreography in his newest piece, a short one fashioned after the myth of Apollo and Hyacinth. It was rather cliche of him to repurpose Greek Mythology, but Scorpius was just having fun, he told himself. And he definitely did not just enjoy the idea of a spritely, gay Greek god. It was definitely more than that. Or so he told himself.

When the class ended, Scorpius had realized he spent more time agonizing over Albus Potter's glasses and unruly hair than actually doing anything worthwhile. He huffed and picked up his bag to go to the lounge, where he planned to think about choreography for the next hour until the Manon rehearsal. Hopefully, Potter would put in some contacts before then. The pas de deux required some dramatic movement.

When Scorpius got to the rehearsal, he felt very relaxed, contrary to how he had felt just a few hours ago. Perhaps it was because he always felt it was a treat to rehearse the most talented principals in the company.

"So, let's just go from the beginning," he said with a smile for both the dancers and the pianist.

The scene being danced depicted the bedroom pas de deux after the lovers' first night together, the mood sweet.

The music started its simple melody, and Scorpius began to take mental notes on the interpretations the dancers had of the piece. Ellie, dancing Manon, pranced towards Albus, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She touched the back of her neck and the base of her hair, smiling shyly. She flitted away from Albus, who was writing as his desk, and he soon followed, having fallen to the teasing.

She looked entirely comfortable near him, fitting into the crook of his arm like she weighed nothing, and Scorpius almost forgot it was acting. When she began to turn on one foot, and Albus handed her his hand to hold, their weights balanced each other just right.

And when the music began to slow again, and Ellie lay on the floor, stretched out and trusting and maybe even seductive, Scorpius saw the two fall in love again, and... he was impressed. Even though his attention was largely on Manon, Albus was appropriately strong, appropriately gentle.

Scorpius was more than impressed - he was intrigued.

"Very good," Scorpius said. "I do have a few things. Ellie, during the..." he moved his arms in a concave to convex position to signal what segment he was talking about, "your arms must be heavy. They look so rigid, like glass. Glass wings don't fly. And Albus, when you turn around during that portion, if you put less force into it, Ellie will have an easier time grabbing your hand."

As he rambled on about fixes to make for the next rehearsal, Scorpius delighted in their attentive eyes and appreciative nods. And, well, looking at a certain principal's smile and seeing his face flicker between descending upon the girl enticingly there or picking her up to embrace had given him a few new ideas for a Hyacinth solo.