A/N: This grew from a drabble request made by Chemicalchrush - so if this chapter sounds familiar, it's because you probably read it as a drabble. This does reflect a few changes, however.
A/N #2: Thanks to Ro for being an amazing beta, and to Maeve, for beta-reading and always being so encouraging.
Warnings: language, angst, smut
Pairings: 2x3xR, 3x5, 1x4, 1x6, DxC others will be added as necessary
Pas de Trois
This was the absolute last time I would ever go out on a blind date that my sister set up. And this time, unlike the five other times I had made the same promise to myself, I meant it.
It was almost as if Cathy was trying to find awful men to set me up with - first the school teacher who hated children, then the Marine who still hadn't actually come out to anyone except somehow my sister, the stock broker who thought it was sexy to talk about mutual funds while he tried to play footsie with me under the table, the food critic who spent our entire date sounding like a pompous asshole as he critiqued everything from the napkins to the overwhelming amount of fish on the menu of a restaurant with Ocean in its very name, and the actor who had been so self-absorbed that I wasn't sure he ever bothered to even learn my name.
Ever since my breakup with Wufei and, I could admit now, my awful coping method of fucking my way out of loneliness, dating had seemed like a complete waste of time. And while I appreciated Cathy, appreciated that she loved me and was only trying to make things better, I did not appreciate the string of blind dates over the past month that had left me almost paranoid about dating at all, ever again.
Tonight - this date - was even worse.
It was worse, so much worse than all the others, because I could see why Cathy had thought to set me up with this guy in the first place.
Treize Khushrenada. A man several years older than me, his features perfect and just a little cold, dark blond hair in artful disarray on his forehead and clothes immaculate and perfectly fitted to his tall, lean form.
I'd heard of him, had seen his work, but I had never met him - had certainly never thought I would end up on a date with him.
He was a choreographer, an absolutely brilliant one just back in New York after his great success with the Kirov last season, and I had dreamed of dancing with the companies he worked with since I was a child. Had dreamed of dancing for him ever since I saw his The Sleeping Beauty five years ago when I first started dancing with ABT.
Treize was brilliant and he knew it.
I didn't mind that - his arrogance wasn't at all off-putting to me. Nor was the cool way his eyes assessed me as I walked up to him at the bar to introduce myself. I was used to eyes on me; I was used to eyes judging me.
What I wasn't used to was someone sneering at me after looking over my body. It made me feel like I should haul out a barre and start practicing.
He was actually taller than me, which hardly ever happened, and he put his hand on the small of my back as he propelled me towards our waiting table.
It felt like we were in the rehearsal hall, like he was moving me into the position he preferred, and I found it unexpectedly irritating.
Wufei had been bossy as hell - in bed and out, and I hadn't minded. I had loved it, probably too much based on some of the things he had said during our last fight - but he had never made me feel like just a dancer, like a marionette that wasn't quite up to snuff.
The ensuing conversation was as harsh, as judgemental, as the looks Treize was giving me.
He had merely lifted an eyebrow when I told him of my promotion from the corps to soloist at ABT. Had asked why I wasn't dancing Prince Ivan in the upcoming production of The Firebird, and had chuckled and shaken his head when I told him that I had been cast as Koschei.
He had arched another eyebrow when I ordered a draft beer instead of a glass of wine or just water.
When the waiter returned and started to list the specials, Treize waved him off.
"I'm not interested," he said in a tone that would have had me looking down and praying I hadn't made a mistake.
Not the waiter.
He cleared his throat, and when he next spoke he sounded almost combative.
"Of course not," he said, "but maybe your date is?"
I looked up then, away from my menu and Treize's glacial eyes, and into the unexpectedly handsome face of the man in front of us.
He was probably my age, with long, messy brown bangs and bright, sharp blue eyes that were almost violet. His features were strong, his lips wide, and his eyebrows were raised in question.
I shrugged one shoulder. Having someone intercede on my behalf was… unsettling.
The waiter nodded.
"Alright. No problem. I'll give you two a few more minutes to look over the menus?"
"Thanks," I said before Treize could speak up, and the waiter offered me the slightest of smirks before turning and walking away from our table.
It was only then that I saw his long braid of hair, swinging across his back, the longest of the tendrils brushing over his ass.
We were silent as we looked over the menus again, and when the waiter returned he arched an eyebrow at me, and I swear it looked like he was asking me if I was okay.
I wish I had paid attention when he first walked up to our table and introduced himself before taking our drink orders.
"I will have the salmon," Treize said, carelessly shoving the menu into the waiter's face.
He blinked and then narrowed his eyes before seeming to shake himself, and then turned to me.
"And you?" he asked, and offered me a smirk that did curious things to my pulse.
"The lamb."
"The lamb? Don't you have a performance tomorrow?" Treize seemed as horrified as he was shocked.
Ballet was one of those sports where people - audiences, choreographers, even other dancers - expected athletes who were capable of amazing feats of strength and stamina but still wanted you to look fragile and willowy. It was harder for women - I knew that. Cathy, older than me by five years, had suffered so much for her career that in the end she had given it up. But it wasn't easy for men. I could still remember being eleven and having one of the older dancers teach me how to force myself to throw up a too-heavy meal.
I was naturally on the thin side, despite my broad shoulders, and I had never had a problem burning more calories than I ate. I had never been one of those called into the artistic director's office and given the nutrition speech that was really just code for 'stop eating and get better at starving yourself'. I had never had a choreographer look at me with the same critical, disappointed eyes that Treize now regarded me with.
And I had definitely never had a potential lover look at me like that. This had been one of Wufei's favorite things to pick a fight over - except he was on the other side of it. He was convinced I was going to kill myself, that I was too thin and that I was the most unhealthy healthy person he had ever met. He had been right - he almost always was - but that didn't make his interference any more welcome.
"The lamb is excellent," the waiter said in a tight voice. "Killer yoghurt marinade." He took the menu from my hand, the tips of our fingers brushing, and I looked up to see him wink at me.
I let go of the menu and took a long sip of my beer while he walked away, and I refused to watch him go.
Treize, however, was definitely watching me.
"How many calories is the lamb?" he asked.
As if I knew. It wasn't published in the menu and it wasn't as if this place, where one meal was the same as what I paid for food for an entire week, could be bothered to care about anything other than flavor and presentation.
I shrugged, and he snorted and then chuckled, low and cruel.
"Of course. You'll take care of it later."
I flushed at his words, his knowing look.
He took another sip of his wine, tilting the glass towards me in a mock toast that made my hands clench into fists.
"I'm sure you've heard that I will be choreographing Le Spectre de la Rose for the fall gala."
I had not, in fact, heard that, and I couldn't hide the way my eyes widened.
It wasn't a remarkable ballet - it was short, with only two roles, the perfect piece for a gala benefit for ABT's wealthiest patrons - but it was one of the more notorious ones for male dancers. The Spectre was a great - if brief - role. It required incredible strength, and it was a role I had dreamed about ever since I saw Nureyev dance it on a staticky VHS recording of the 1979 performance for the Joffrey Ballet. As soon as the piece had been announced for the gala I had been working my ass off - showing up early to every practice, taking extra barre classes, working out more, doing my damnedest to make sure that any leap I did for any choreography was as powerful and high as I could make it.
Treize laughed at my expression, and he leaned back in his chair and chuckled again.
"I danced it, you know, when I was your age."
I did know. I had seen a recording of that too. Like most choreographers, Treize had started out as a dancer and only later moved into the fine art of abusing dancers into composition when he had grown too old or his body too brittle.
"You were breathtaking," I said, the truth. He wasn't Nureyev - no one was. Hell, even Nureyev wasn't Nijinsky. But Treize had still been very, very good.
It was the wrong thing to say, however, and Treize merely lifted an eyebrow and seemed bored.
I found myself wondering how the hell Cathy had even arranged this date in the first place.
Her new position, teaching for the Joffrey Ballet, kept her in Chicago - which I had foolishly assumed was far enough away not to interfere in my life any more, until she had proven, with this string of blind dates, that that was absolutely not the case - and meant that she was still in the ballet world. But Treize didn't work with the Joffrey - he had famously quarrelled with three of their artistic directors and been banned from ever working there again.
"What are you working on before that?" I asked, because the silence was growing oppressive and fiddling with the hem of the tablecloth was a ridiculous pastime for a twenty-five year old man on a date.
"A new piece with the City ballet. A little too avant garde for my tastes," he shrugged again and offered up a thin smirk, "but Lincoln Center is practically home for me."
I don't know if I had ever heard a more arrogant remark, delivered in such an offhand way. It startled me into a laugh, and Treize arched an eyebrow in question.
I shook my head and took another sip of beer. It was nearly empty, and I wondered if Treize would have a fit if I ordered another.
"Another?"
It was the waiter, appearing silently beside us and gesturing to the nearly-empty glass in my hand, as though my thoughts had summoned him.
"Yes. Thank you."
The waiter smiled, and our fingers touched again as he took the glass.
Treize scowled.
I wondered if it was because of all of the calories in two glasses of draft beer or if it was because he had seen the way the waiter and I had touched, had seen the way I flushed at the contact.
Doubtful. It had to be the calories.
The waiter returned with my beer only a moment later, despite how busy the restaurant was, and I had to restrain myself from taking it out of his hand, from trying to touch him again.
I was, after all, on a date with another man. A terrible date, to be sure, but still.
"Your food will be right out," the waiter assured us.
"Thank you," I said, but Treize barely even acknowledged the existence of the other man.
"How do you know my sister?" I finally asked, so very done with the silence and the judgement, and unable to figure it out myself.
"I don't. My cousin is Dorothy."
Oh. Oh shit.
I had had no idea the two of them were related.
Dorothy Catalonia, a principal dancer with the Joffrey and the woman my sister had married last year. A woman who, frankly, terrified me. She had joked, at the wedding, that I should move out to Chicago and dance with her. I had heard horror stories from other men who had danced with her, of her snide remarks and universal loathing for men.
Treize hadn't been at the wedding, but then, he didn't strike me as being very family-orientated. And the more that I thought about it, I wasn't even surprised that Dorothy hadn't mentioned being related to him. I wondered if anyone, outside of Cathy, even knew. Dorothy was fiercely independent, and would likely castrate anyone who dared to suggest she had had a step up in the industry just by being related to Treize.
"I see."
Treize gave me a thin smile.
"I'm not sure you do. Dorothy's mother is my father's favorite sister. And Dorothy is the reason why I am no longer welcome at the Joffrey. Or at the family home in Marseilles."
I had to arch an eyebrow.
I was pretty sure Treize was no longer welcome at the Joffrey because he had stopped a dress rehearsal dead by calling the principal a fat cow and suggesting she should stop bending over for the artistic director because taking his soft dick up her ass was clearly ruining her technique.
"Dorothy doesn't like you?" I guessed, only managing to sound a little sympathetic.
"Dorothy doesn't like anyone. Except, perhaps, for your sister."
"Perhaps." I had seen them together a few times, before the wedding, and it always amazed me that Dorothy, such a notorious bitch, doted on Cathy and looked at her with complete adoration.
"She's a petty girl, and she has let childhood conflicts cloud her judgement," Treize said with an irritated sigh and an unconcerned shrug. "It hardly matters."
I was saved from further comment when the food arrived. The waiter laid it out and smirked with pride, as though he had made it himself.
"I had them put a little extra yoghurt on yours. Trust me, it really makes the meal," he said to me, and winked again.
I found myself smiling back, amused and touched. The waiter was an amazing contrast to the cold egomaniac across the table from me.
I had had maybe five bites of the lamb - and it was amazing - when Treize looked up from his salmon and gave me a considering look.
"Don't eat too much of that."
I glared and decided enough was enough, Le Spectre be damned. I lived on a shoestring - between my paltry salary from ABT, the cost of living in the city, and the fact that I never indulged in food. This night was clearly a disaster, and if nothing else, I was going to enjoy the damn lamb.
I opened my mouth to say just that, but then I felt Treize's warm, hard thigh against mine under the table.
"I hate fucking boys when they're bloated," Treize said, his voice as smooth and unconcerned as it had been when he ordered his glass of wine at the beginning of the meal.
My face drained of all color, and I looked away from his cold gaze.
It had happened before. Of course it had. When I had been an apprentice with the company, I had had several soloists and principals - even a few choreographers - offer me meals or gifts or something for a rough, unsatisfying fuck. When I had danced with the Paris Ballet last year, there had even been a patron who felt that, since he was sponsoring my stay for the season, he had the right to treat me like his personal whore.
And this was a date. There was no reason to think that sex would be out of the question. But also no reason for him to assume that it was a given, for him to act like this was all just a tedious prologue before he got to bend me over.
There was no way Cathy had done this to me, not on purpose. Not knowingly. Not after having to listen to her go on and on for the past month about how meaningless sex was going to leave me lonely and probably riddled with STDs. Not after the tangent she had gone on about syphilis ruining my ability to dance.
Desperate to look at anything that wasn't Treize, my gaze skittered across the restaurant and it met that of the waiter, just one table away, and I saw the fury in his eyes, the compression of his lips, the way his hand held a pitcher of water in a white-knuckled grip. I wondered what he was so pissed off about.
He walked over, determination and anger in every line of his body, and he very purposefully dumped the pitcher of water over Treize's head.
I gaped.
Treize shouted and jumped up from his seat, water flying, his salmon drowned, his wine spilled, his clothes soaked.
He hadn't seen the waiter approach, and when he turned to glare at him, the man adopted an expression of horror and apology.
"Sir. I am so, so sorry. You are completely soaked."
"I am well aware of that," Treize bit out.
If he had been looking at me like that, I would have known to back up my bag and start looking at the call boards to see if a company in Topeka was hiring. He looked ready to pick up a fork and start stabbing the man.
The waiter wiped at Treize's shoulders ineffectually.
"You might want to visit the restroom," he suggested, "and use a towel or something."
"I will," Treize growled. "And then I will speak to your manager."
He stalked off, and it was only then, as everyone recoiled from Treize while he stormed past, that I realized how much attention had been focused on us.
"Sorry about that," the waiter said to me once Treize was gone.
I arched an eyebrow.
"I mean. I'm sorry if you… liked him or whatever. But I seriously couldn't listen to him talk to you like that anymore. I mean - if this is your thing? If you two are in some kind of… Does he always treat you like shit?"
I had to laugh, and then I shook my head.
"Blind date. I've never met him before tonight."
The waiter closed his eyes and sighed in what looked like relief.
"Thank God. I was debating whether or not to do something, but-"
"You realize he's going to get you fired for this."
The waiter smirked, broad and unrepentant, and he went from being merely handsome to breathtaking.
"Well he can try, but my uncle owns the place and he's kind of a fan of mine."
I found myself returning his smirk and the waiter leaned in close.
"Listen, ah… if you're not interested, just say no and I'll fuck off - because the last thing you need after this shitty night is another unwelcome advance, but… you know, if you need like, a palate cleanser or something, I'm here."
I arched an eyebrow, completely at a loss. Was he seriously offering me a sorbet or something?
The waiter flushed and shoved his bangs out of his eyes.
"I mean, can I take you out? On a date? On a better one than this one?"
He looked sincere and unsure and- and he was nothing like the guys I normally went for. He was a waiter. He was my age. He was happy. He wasn't an asshole.
"Yes," I decided as I caught sight of a still furious, still wet Treize coming our way again.
"Yes. Yeah?" He grinned and he looked even younger, and his enthusiasm was infectious. He winked at me. "Okay. Cool. Let me go get Howie so he can pretend to be pissed at me, and ah, if you just hang out at the bar, my shift is over in an hour? Or-"
"That sounds good."
He grinned again, gave me a jaunty wave, and sauntered past Treize.
There was another scene, where Treize spoke sharply to Howard, the owner of the restaurant as well as the head chef, while the waiter - whose name, I learned during the scene, was Duo - stood at his side with a bowed head and failed to look the least bit somber or regretful.
Duo apologized, mumbling the words only when Howard elbowed him sharply, and Treize gave an angry huff, said he refused to pay for such a disaster of a dinner, and grabbed my arm as he started to leave.
I jerked free, surprising both of us, when we reached the door.
His eyes narrowed.
"It was nice to meet you," I lied, my voice as cold and empty as his had been for most of the night.
His lips twisted into a sneer that was already familiar.
"I do hope you didn't have your little heart set on dancing Le Spectre," he murmured.
I had. Which he knew. Had no doubt seen in my eyes when he first brought it up. But I would be damned if I bent over for this asshole.
I tilted my chin up and glared. "I'd rather dance it for someone who matters," I said.
The words, the forced bravado, were definitely a mistake, and I was sure they would have a negative effect on my career.
But then Treize chuckled, and he ran a possessive thumb over my lips. "Ah. So you do have a spine. I was beginning to wonder."
He looked me over again, and he shrugged. "I generally like my boys smaller than you... But we'll see how you do at the auditions."
And then he was gone.
I wasn't sure what had just happened - and I really didn't want to dwell on it, or him, anymore. So I went to the bar and I ordered another beer, even though I knew I would probably regret it later, when I was bent over my toilet and had bile burning my throat, and I waited for Duo.
And I hoped that he wasn't going to be another thing I regretted.
-o-
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