AN: I'm not sure if anyone's going to be interested in this because it's like… really, really AU, (we all know Fitz can't dance to save his life) but hopefully it's not too out of character? I'm not sure if I'm going to leave this as it is or turn it into a collection of drabbles and oneshots, but I wanted to post it anyway because I'd love to know what you guys think. I hope everyone is having a great evening/morning/afternoon/whatever time it is when you happen to be reading this! : )
If anyone is curious about what the scene they dance together really looks like, the version I'm going with here is on youtube if you search for Maria Kochetkova and Joaquín De Luz performing the Wedding Pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty. So, without further ado, have some Fitz and Liv (who I don't claim to own the rights to) as professional ballet dancers…
"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."
- Jane Austen
Olivia is perfect; the music moves through her like oxygen, as if her bones are made from basslines, her muscles from the string section, and the tips of her fingers and toes the conductors batons, commanding the rest of the stage with grace and ease and no unnecessary melodrama – demanding that they follow her without ever even breathing a word. She is breathtaking, utterly captivating, and Fitz absent mindedly wonders how many people have noticed that he can't seem to take his eyes off her.
Ballard on the other hand, playing the Prince Désiré to Liv's Princess Aurora, whilst not a terrible dancer – is simply nowhere near her level. Truth be told, few are, but this is a professional ballet company. This is The New York City Ballet - a company of professional ballet dancers and one of the most renowned of them in the world. Though most of them don't share her rare gift, that doesn't make them entirely incapable of keeping up with her; performances would be a disaster if that were true. She simply outshines him, out-dances him every moment they're side by side, and it is a fact obvious to even the most untrained eye. He is perpetually a half second behind her, trying his hardest but never quite keeping up. It grates on Fitz, if he's being honest; Ballard is only holding her back, and she deserves better than that.
"Stop." He calls finally, when Jake's far too tight grip on her waist causes her to lose too much momentum for finish her pirouette, raising a hand over his head to signal for the music to be stopped also, and when they stop, she takes a step away from her partner. Whilst Olivia looks at Fitz, waiting for his comment intently - though surely she must know that he's not about to call her technique into question - Ballard looks at her, like he thinks it's her fault that they've been rehearsing the same scene for five hours. "That was sloppy, Jake." He tells him as he stands up from his seat and moves into the aisle so that they can see him instead of just hearing his voice behind the bright stage lights shining down on them, "When you're performing pirouettes pas de deux, your hands need to be just touching her waist, not clutching at it. And you're consistently slightly behind her which throws the whole piece out of sync. Do it again, and this time I want you to focus on being connected to Liv rather than making yourself look good. This is a Pas de Deux, not a solo."
He gestures to Chambers to restart the music from the sound booth, but he doesn't sit back down. He folds his arms and he watches, making himself concentrate on Ballard rather than on the new principal ballerina who has so thoroughly captured his attention and his thoughts since she arrived here a month ago, on loan from The Washington Ballet in DC for this season. He's already trying to think of ways to convince her to stay here with the New York City Ballet though he knows she loves DC, so it won't be an easy task. They move through the first minute of the piece, and Fitz can see the frustration, the urge to argue, drawn into every line of Jake's body as he virtually ignores everything Fitz had just said in favor of doing it how he'd done it before.
"This is ridiculous," He mutters, mostly to himself, before he once again raises a hand to Chambers, and says loudly, "Enough. Once again, you're not listening to me – some of this scene is one of the simplest pas de deux a male lead can be asked to perform! How you are not getting this is beyond me."
Liv straightens up from the attitude derrière en penché, immediately stepping out of Jake's hands (he can't deny that he likes that), as he turns to face Fitz, "I'm doing it right!" He insists to him, and anyone in the theatre who was whispering to each other, waiting for their turn to rehearse, falls silent. The tension in the room is instantly palpable as they all wait to see what's going to happen next. No one talks back to the Balletmaster in chief, not ever, especially not someone with a reputation like Fitz'.
Fitz is the first to recover, not altogether surprised by Ballard's serious lack of respect. He's twenty nine but everyone knows he's probably only going to last for one more season after this one, tops, partly because of his skillset, but largely because of his piss poor attitude. He's spent his career almost exclusively relegated to the corps de ballet with the occasional understudy role here and there for the same reason. The only reason he has the chance to dance a role like this in the first place is because he'd been cast as the understudy and their leading man, James Novak, had called in sick this morning – an absolute no-no in the world of professional ballet, but Cyrus had mysteriously okay'd it before the news had reached him, and Fitz had chosen to turn a blind eye this once, knowing that everyone gets sick occasionally - plus the last thing he needs is someone contagious showing up to rehearsals and infecting everyone else. They don't have time for that kind of set back, not if they intend to open to the public a month from tomorrow.
"No, you're not." Fitz tells him flatly, walking the rest of the way down the aisle and using his upper body strength to haul himself up onto the stage. If he didn't have everyone's attention before, he sure as hell does now. "Go and sit a few rows back and I will show you what this scene is supposed to look like."
"But-"
"Go; now!" His voice raises, sharpens, and Jake clearly senses that he's gone too far and will likely be looking for other employment should he chose to continue arguing at this particular moment. He clenches his jaw and he heads off the stage, huffing frustratedly as he throws himself into a seat in the stalls.
"Sorry about him." Fitz offers with a half smile, lowering his voice back down to slightly lower than normal volume, and Liv returns it shyly as they turn and move to the back of the stage. "This isn't at all for your benefit by the way, you're…" he pauses, attempting to filter his thoughts before he says something inappropriate, "…perfect." Is what eventually comes out, (a valid observation of course, but his tone of voice is a world away from the professionalism he should be exhibiting right about now, warm and intimate and just a little bit breathless) and she ducks her head slightly, embarrassed, before raising her chin proudly.
"I've worked too hard for this not to be." She tells him as he takes her hand, grinning at her marbled mix of genuine humility and well deserved self confidence, and gestures to Chambers. He breaks eye contact with her, and is suddenly hyper aware that every eye in the room is focused on them – on him - waiting for him to be anything less than completely faultless, the way he was when he retired as a principal dancer ten years ago - on this very stage, in fact.
Deep breaths, he thinks to himself, finding himself glad that he's kept himself in shape since then and often goes through his old warm up routine before rehearsal as he had done today. No pressure.
The music begins as he takes a step away from her and raises their joined hands before leading them slowly forward. He meets her eye line as they release their grip and slowly turn inwards to face each other, and his nerves melt away like they were never there in the first place.
The assorted members of the company – mostly the Corps de Ballet, but there are a few soloists here today and a handful of the Coryphée, also – watch, enraptured by the chance to see Fitzgerald Grant III performing the famous Grand Pas de Deux from Act III of Sleeping Beauty when it was generally assumed that he didn't dance at all any longer.
They move through the steps like they've danced together for a lifetime, so in sync that even their breathing is perfectly lined up together. Cyrus would bet that if you took each of their pulse right now, that would be more or less the same too. He's been the Director of Photography with the company for decades, ever since he'd injured his knee at nineteen and had to relinquish hopes of dancing on that stage professionally, and over the last thirty-some years that he's known Fitz, he's never seen him dance this way with anyone. Fitz is a technical marvel – faultless to the point of almost mathematical – and Liv is a perfectionist of a dancer if ever there was one, but together they are sublime, and entirely mesmerizing to watch because suddenly, along with their individually exemplary technique, there is a galaxy of emotions – of the sensation that you are not watching a performance by two artists but a real wedding between soulmates who have waited a hundred years to meet and now finally, finally, can be together, free of the curse which both kept them apart and allowed them to meet in the first place.
"Holy shit." Cyrus says under his breath, picking up his camera.
"What?" Mellie asks from her seat to his left, as she looks up from the spreadsheet of ticket sales open on her iPad, following his eye line to see what he's staring at so intently having not been paying attention to the rehearsal (as usual; she's the business brain behind the scenes, as long as ticket sales are good she no longer cares what happens on stage). Her mouth drops open slightly, an involuntary reaction to what she's looking at. Fitz turns Olivia in the half circle of one arm, the other holding one of her hands raised high above her head as she executes a faultless finger turn before slowing to a stop in a perfect arabesque.
They repeat the same sequence again and again as they move closer to the front edge of the stage; Fitz catches her hand with an outstretched arm as Olivia moves to him, Fitz' hands form a circle around her waist as she pirouettes flawlessly, her gaze finding his unflinchingly every time her head snaps back around, before he lifts her easily and dips her across his body in a deep and graceful fish dive, then raises her back up into an attitude devant. They move away from one another in large arcs between each repetition, always finding their way back to one another unerringly.
Cyrus moves past Mellie, climbing over the seat in front and moving between two dancers from the corps to get into a better position to capture more of the marvel before him, knowing that in all likelihood the magic he's watching will never happen again. Fitz doesn't dance any more, he's made that very clear, making these photos that Cyrus is shooting almost literally a once in a lifetime chance to take. They move serenely through the spins and the lifts, focused completely on each other, and finish perfectly in time with the music, with Fitz low on one knee, reaching for her waist, as Liv reaches for him in turn with a final arabesque penché.
There is a pause of silence, broken only by the barely audible click of Cyrus' camera, as everyone in the room waits, holding their breath, to see what will happen next. Then Fitz breaks into a grin as he stands, Liv straightening up to stand back flat on her feet as their captive audience break out into raucous applause littered with whoops and whistles. He walks her forwards to take a bow, and though their exalting audience can't hear them, through the zoom lens on his camera (through which he's still ceaselessly shooting them both unrepentantly), Cyrus catches her lips form the words, your turn, with a radiant smile, and Fitz rolls his eyes and joins her in a second bow; this time, together. With the rest of the company still applauding them, and one arm still around her waist as if unconsciously, Fitz raises a hand to shield his eyes from the spotlights so that he can see into the audience to find Jake Ballard - who's clearly sulking and obviously jealous, and says calmly (if a little smugly), "Any questions?"
