A/N Hello lovely fangirls/boys! So I understand I caused some distress with the last chapter and I'm kinda sorry ;-)
So this chapter idea, was sent to me by my dear friend Abnegation Ravenclaw (She has a story like this, but it's Percy Jackson so y'all should go read it) and I really liked it.
Please enjoy!
*Tris POV*
*Imagine person A of your OTP is a ballet dancer and person B is an art student observing A's rehearsals to sketch the dancers for an assignment.
One day, B leaves their sketchbook in the studio, and A looks through it before returning it,
and notices that B has drawn A almost exclusively in a beautifully flattering way*
*Btw I am a fairly experienced pointe dancer so I'm going to be using some French terminology but you can find the meaning in a ballet dictionary*
"Alright ladies, gather around." Miss Victoria instructs. I close my water bottle and join the circle around my teacher. "An art student from the school down the street has been assigned to draw you guys during practice for some project or something. Starting tonight he's going to be coming every day and staying for the full practice. Just pretend he's not there and Christina," Victoria gives a pointed look to my friend. "Don't show off."
"Oh please, when do I ever show off?" Christina asks sarcastically
"Okay back to the barre ladies." Victoria gestures to the barres nailed to the wall and we continue practice.
I rub my sore feet fresh out of my pointe shoes, sighing in relief.
"Why did my Mom force me into dance?" I complain.
"I thought you forced her to take you to dance." Myra laughs, wrapping her ankle in KT tape. I stick my tongue out at her and put my toe pad back on. "Is that the new art student?" Myra points the man walking into the studio then grins. "Good Lord he's hot." I tear my eyes away from him and finish lacing my pointe shoes.
"He's alright," I lie. When I look back at him, his dark blue eyes are trained on me but flick away back to Victoria. "I wonder what kind of assignment makes him sit in a hot room with a bunch of ballerinas practicing the same thing like twenty times."
"Oh shut up Clara," Christina shoves my arm, using my characters name. "At least you're not in the corp."
"Hey you were Gisselle last year." I retort.
"Yeah, but I dressed up as Clara for halloween for like six years in a row." I roll my eyes and tucks the ends of the ribbons into my shoe. Victoria calls us around again, this time to introduce us to the new art student.
"So this lovely man here is Tobias Eaton. He's currently studying down at Glen Earwoods down the street and was instructed to draw some pictures of our annual performance. Everyone say hello," various versions of greetings get thrown around, Tobias only waving a little in return. "Okay girls, let's start from Snowflakes." I go to my spot on stage left and wait for my cue. Molly begins her solo as Snow Queen but without Drew -the Snow King- because he's out sick. I'm paying such close attention to Tobias that I nearly miss my entrance, earning a glare from my teacher. I try to avoid look at myself in the mirror but every time I do, I notice that I'm severely slacking. "Pick it up, Prior!"
Stop thinking of Tobias. Think of the moves.
Piqué, chaîné, piqué chaîné, chassé, grand jeté, chassé grand jeté. I run down stage and meet Molly at the front. Échappé, échappé, possé, possé. Repeat. We both step into arabesques the chassé and tor-jeté in both directions. Molly turns and runs to the center of a forming circle while I take the center. Okay tendú out, back, now hit, hit, hit. Keep spotting! I make sure I'm turned out while I fouetté. Everytime my turning foot goes up onto the tip of my box a dart of pain courses through my leg. I'm always so relived once the turns are done. Tombé pas du bourre, glissade, pas de chat, developé now off.
I don't go back on stage for the remainder of the routine so I take this time to drink a little bit of water and fix some loose hairs from the knot on my head. I notice as I'm walking to put my bottle down, an intense pain in my left foot. I roll it around a few times hoping it's just a cramp. When the ache in my foot doesn't disappear, I pull out my omnipresent container of Aspirin and take two of the pills.
"Foot still bothering you?" Christina asks me, slightly out of breath.
"Yeah, just a little. I think I've just overworked it recently." I tell her. She nods slowly.
"Mmmhmm." she looks amusingly at me. "Why don't you just see the doctor about it?"
"I've been dancing for twenty years dear Christina. I'm used to injuries okay? This is nothing new." I assure her.
"Okay then. I'll just go tell Tori real quick."
"No!" I exclaim, grabbing her arm to stop her. She gives me an accusing look. "She might make me take a break and the performance is in two months. I can afford to break. Got it?" she stares at me for a minute, then rolls her eyes in defeat.
"Ugh fine." I grin then give her a hug.
"You're the best."
"I know sweetheart, I know."
The week with Tobias is coming to close and I've only spoken ten words to him. He seems to relatively closed off, but still he's spoken to me the most next to Victoria. I try to push all thoughts of him from my mind and focus on the solo I'm practicing. I'm fairly good friends with the owner of the studio, and he let me use one of the rooms for tonight so I could get a little bit of extra practice in. As I'm lacing my pointe shoes I see a thick black leather book, resting in front of the mirror. I stand up and limp over to the book. On the bottom corner in neat gold script reads, 'Tobias Eaton'.
I know I shouldn't look at it as it's not mine and all but I can't help myself. The first few pages have some very interesting paintings. A couple are quite frightening, like a man with wolf teeth in place of human ones, but most are as mundane as landscapes and simple portraits. When I get to the page titled 'Ballet Project' interest courses through me while I continue to look through the collection. One recurring theme I notice is me.
It seems that on nearly every page I'm soloed out some how. Even whenever I'm in the middle of a group or on the barre. My face seems to be more...detailed than the rest and that confuses me as well as intrigues me.
"Excuse me?" says a deep voice from the doorway. I scream in shock and accidentally throw the book.
"Oh my God I am so sorry. I wasn't going to look in it but they were really pretty and I got super curious. I mean I'm always really curious and I'm really bad at art so you know I might as well looks at something good because the only art related thing I'm good at is like the glueing pasta to picture frame things and-" I cut off my own rambling at Tobias' laughing. "What?"
"You can look in it. I don't care." he picks up the leather case and waves it slightly in my direction. I don't make any move to grab it, still faming from embarrassment. He laughs again and puts the book into the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. "So, why are you here at nine at night?"
"The showcase is in seven weeks. I need as much practice as possible." I mumble.
"But isn't your foot hurt?" he asks, catching me off guard. I though Christina and I were being quiet.
"How'd you know that?" I stand up from the ground and lean against the wall. He scoffs with a smirk.
"Oh please. During Waltz Of The Flowers your A Là Seconds were all over the place. Plus you have KT tape around your foot and I smell Icy Hot which is commonly used in pulled muscles or sore joints. So it was really quite obvious." he says bluntly. I furrow my eyebrows and stare quizzically him.
"How the hell did you do that, Sherlock?" I question.
"I'm quite observant dear Beatrice." I must gain a whole new look of shock. "Your names' on your jacket." again with the embarrassment.
"It's actually called a-" I start.
"A warm-up. I know," he interrupts. "I don't know why you're so shocked. I literally live next door to a ballet school, I'm surrounded by ballerinas 24/7."
"I'm surprised you decided to retain the information and not shove it out of your asshole like most guys." I say plainly.
"That's pretty candid...and sexist." Tobias replies. "And for your information, I think ballet is pretty cool because I have felt pointe shoes before and they feel like they really hurt."
"Does this look like it hurts?" I ask rhetorically, showing him my are foot which is covered in band-aids and blisters.
"Just a bit," he chuckles. "Anyway, I should probably be going now. I need my sleep every now and then."
"Sleep? What kind of luxury is that?" I joke. Tobias smiles a bit.
"I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"Yeah," he gives me a curt wave and begins he way out. "Tobias," I blurt out, making him turn to me. "The pictures are really pretty, by the way."
"Guess you could say I had some pretty inspiration." he casts me a quick wink, then leaves without another word.
A/N Okay so this is kinda short but I think I like it. Now I really shouldn't be saying this, but I could potentially make this ^ particular one-shot into a short story but idk.
Like I said before you can Google the names of the moves I mentioned or you could probably find some on Youtube.
Please favorite, follow and review!
Ily and DFTBA!
Oh and don't forget to tell me any suggestions you have!