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Chapter Text

1991, New York City

Princess Odette stops as her shoe soaks with cold, murky water. She’s run so far she’s gotten to the edge of the lake.

She draws back, skirt damp to her shins, trembling with panic now that she can’t keep running. Should she jump in the water and swim? The lake is so wide she can’t see the other side, and she has trouble keeping her head above water on days she hasn’t been chased across the countryside–

“Nowhere left to run, my princess.”

A shiver goes up the back of her neck. Gripping her skirt on either side, she turns. Von Rothbart, the wicked sorcerer, stands only six feet away.

He squelches his boots in the damp grass, smile eerie under the bright light of the full moon. “Stay, Odette. And I will make you a queen.”

She turns from him, looking down at the lake again. The clouds have parted enough that now the moonlight shines directly upon her, and she can make out her reflection in the water. She’s pale beneath her long, thick blonde hair, the color almost white under the moon.

“I… I can’t,” she trembles. Can’t run, can’t stay, she simply—

Von Rothbart has cast the spell before she can say another word. The white light of the moon is inside her, and she feels her body begin to change, morphing and twisting, limbs contorting, feathers—

Feathers.

She screams but it comes out as a honk. She collapses onto the bank again, in the puddle of her gorgeous, ruined gown.

“Now, you will stay, forever,” Von Rothbart laughs.

Odette leans her long neck forward, horrified to look down into the lake and see, not her own face, but that of a swan. A bird. An animal.

Gone is her beauty, gone is her grace, she’s ugly, bestial—

Oh, what an evil curse, Von Rothbart really outdid himself. Ash thunks his head back against the mirrored wall, crouched frog-like on the ground as he stretches his limbs. Poor, poor Odette, how terrible to not be pretty.

Dancers are actors, or at least, that’s what Ash has learned. The difference between a good technical performance and the je ne sais quoi that sets Ash apart from the rabble is feeling the story. Ash has to get inside the character, has to be them.

He stands, bouncing on his slippers to check if they’re tightened enough, before stretching out on the bar, reaching his hand back to touch his toe, pulling his leg as high over his head as he can.

This is a problem, though. Odette, the Swan Queen, is a fucking problem.

“Uh-oh.” Thunk goes Shorter’s sports bag on the dance floor. Looking in the mirror, Ash watches Shorter walk in, purple hair styled, sunglasses on hours before sunrise, CD player in hand. “Did the prima donna get her beauty rest?”

Ash holds his pose a little longer.

“You look royally pissed off, man,” Shorter drones, adjusting his earbuds and pulling off his sweatpants.

Ash knows–he’s the one staring at himself in the house of mirrors that is the dance studio. His scrunched mouth and nose and piercing green eyes scream bitch .

He’s not good at controlling his expressions when he’s worked up or thinking too much about something. Slipping into a character is supposed to let him disconnect and treat his body like a pair of dance shoes, breaking it in and molding it to get a job done.

Day to day, the job is to smile.

But he can’t, because his muse is Odette, and she’s a fucking idiot.

You’re a bird. You have wings. Why didn’t you fly away by the end of Act I?

“How are you feeling about the new choreography?” Shorter was doing jumping jacks, shaking out his muscles, still holding his CD player. Ash could almost make out just how virginal Madonna felt from across the length of the dance studio. “That Russian asshole definitely has more faith in me than I do. Three more fucking lifts….”

Ash drops his right leg at last, and, after shifting his weight, raises the left. “What would you do, if you were turned into a swan?”

Ash watches Shorter in the mirror as he keeps on bouncing in the background. “I dunno. Peck out Rothbart’s eyes? Maybe just follow him around, all the time, honking.”

“Is that any different from what you do now?” Ash mutters.

Shorter starts laughing, hard. Then he keeps on bitching about Blanca’s choreography and how they only have two weeks left of rehearsals and it’s for charity, anyway. “Not that I think it’s ok to slack off, but like, it’s not like this is the performance of our careers, right?”

In the mirror, Ash watches someone else shuffle into the studio. 

It’s five in the morning, rehearsal isn’t till six, but they have access to the space 24/7, thanks to Blanca pulling some strings. Until this morning, Shorter hasn’t taken advantage of that.

Shorter whistles as Yut-Lung enters, hair in the world’s tidiest bun, wearing one of his numerous expensive leotards, shoes laced up his ankles to perfection.

“Look who the cat dragged in,” Shorter teases, “Someone sleep in this morning?”

Yut-Lung doesn’t answer, dropping his bag by the door, going straight into position, no warm-up or stretches. Meaning he’d probably done them on his way into the room.

Shorter laughs at his own joke. “At least you look better rested than some people , Yue.”

Yut-Lung’s closer to Ash, so Ash can see the smudges of his eyeliner, the poorly blended, retouched concealer. Shorter had probably never noticed that Yut-Lung wore makeup.

Ash wonders if the kid went home last night. There are some closets in here with gear that could almost work as a bed.

“He’s chattier than you, too, Ash,” Shorter says, turning up the volume of his CD player–now Ash can definitely hear Whitney Houston finding someone to dance with. “Am I gonna have to carry the whole interview this afternoon?

“You’re going to blow out your eardrums,” Yut-Lung says, balancing on the bar that’s perpendicular to Ash.

“What?” Shorter shouts, miming to his earbuds.

Yut-Lung drops back to the ground like a feather, almost floats across the dance floor, and gracelessly yanks the CD player out of Shorter’s hand. The headphones pop out of the jack, and the buds snap out of Shorter’s ears.

“Ow!” Shorter yelps, “fuck, man!”

Yut-Lung waves the CD player at Shorter’s nose. “If your ears blow out, you can’t hear the music. You can’t hear the music, you miss your cue. You miss your cue, you drop me, and I break my neck, or worse, an ankle .” 

If Yut-Lung’s mile-long hair was loose, it would have slapped Shorter in the face as he spun about, walking the CD player over to Shorter’s bag and aggressively shoving it in an open pocket.

Ash turns from the mirror to watch as Yut-Lung slides over to his personal jukebox, which had been sitting in the corner when Ash rolled in around four. Yup. Yut-Lung definitely slept here.

Yut-Lung clicks some buttons, and Tchaikovsky starts playing–not Swan Lake, the Nutcracker. “Ash,” he snaps, making eye-contact with him for the first time, “work on that bitch face. Blanca already told you, it’s unprofessional.”

“Teacher’s pet,” Shorter sneers, still rubbing out his ear.

Yut-Lung cracks his neck, waits for the music, and begins dancing to “Tea” as a warmup.

If Yut-Lung was made a real swan, Ash didn’t think he’d change a damn thing. He’d just adapt, training to be the best swan he could be. He would fight for the privilege of being Queen of the Swans.

It still doesn’t give Ash any insight into Odette, dancing in circles around a lake, waiting for the impossible–true love, a rescue, a return to normalcy. Why choose to die at the end when she could have kept on living as a swan?

It’s a victim mentality , he decides. Odette lets herself be a fucking victim.

Ash looks in the mirror to find that his bitch face is worse.

Dino might get what he’s hoping for. This charity ballet may be the death of Ash’s career.

~ ~ ~

“Don’t run out of film,” Ibe-san scolds, lightly, in Japanese. “We’re going to have to take more pictures than you think.”

Eiji nods, eyebrows brushing against the viewfinder as he brings the lens into focus. He’s squatting in the theater aisle, tongue stretching frog like out his mouth as he steadies his shot, the flash startling him as he snaps the photo of the stage.

It feels weird, taking a photo in a theater. But the lights are all on, and there isn’t a show. The set is still being set up, crew members actively working, painting fake moons and hammering blocks of wood together. Between the chemical smells and the rapid-fire English of the crew, Eiji had found himself entranced. Now, he fiddles with the tripod he’d set up for Ibe-san, lining up a shot of the stage.

This photo probably wouldn’t make it into the official press release they were working on, but Eiji thinks he’ll process it anyway, for his own scrapbook. There’s beauty in incompleteness, and the half-finished, magical lake where the Swan Queen lives, loves, and dies is going to be on his mind for a while.

He’ll be disappointed to see the finished product.

“Want as much press as we can get,” says Lobo-san–no, Mr. Lobo–no, “just Max.” The tall, bubbly, light-haired American is coming out of the stage wings with two men behind him, all in a row like ducklings. “Need this theater packed from the mezzanine to the balcony come opening night!”

Eiji looks up and around the theater; red velvet seats rise up in rows, gilded gold patterns cling to the walls, and cherubs wave at him on the edge of the balcony seats. Ibe-san had told him that there were better theaters on Broadway street. They were off-broadway.

Anything that wasn’t Broadway street was “off-broadway”, but this theater was only the difference of five blocks. Eiji felt they were close enough, and this place was more than fantastic.

Were Broadway shows only for singing shows, not just dancing ones? He’d been in New York two days, and already he was feeling dizzy by it.

“Are the dancers here yet, Ibe-san?” Max asks, jumping down the stage steps to join Ibe-san and Eiji in the aisle.

“Not yet,” Ibe-san says–and just then, the door from the lobby opens behind them.

Eiji, fiddling with the camera again, looks over his shoulder to see what must be some of the principal dancers–three young men, walking down the left aisle. The tallest one, Asian, with bright purple hair, stops in the doorway to throw his arm around another one’s shoulder. The third one, also Asian, skirts around, looking peeved, talking into a cellphone he had propped against his shoulder in rapid… well, not Japanese or English, the two languages Eiji knows.

All right, knows and knows well-enough.

Eiji turns the camera on the tripod, adjust the lens, and aims for a candid shot–that was the theme of this first interview, meant to get the word out about the show– candid . He misses the third boy, sailing past, getting angrier on his phone call, and snaps the photo just as the second dancer, blonde haired and white, shakes off the purple-haired one.

Seconds before the flash, the dancer notices Eiji, looking dead down the lens.

As the flash goes off, bright green eyes etch into Eiji’s viewfinder.

“Eiji, that’s not a toy,” Ibe-san scolds again, in English this time.

Eiji bows in Ibe-san’s direction, but he doesn’t feel very sorry, imagining what that photo would look like when he processes it.

Max has gathered up the men from backstage and the dancers to sit on the very edge of the stage–downstage, apparently. It was far enough away from the tech crew to not bother them as they make the set, and would apparently give Ibe a good angle to take some promotional headshots of the cast.

Eiji smiles at the half-finished set. Looks like the rest of New York would get to see what Eiji does.

“Thanks, everyone,” Max claps his hands, standing alongside Ibe-san and Eiji, “for joining me today–”

“Let’s make this quick, yeah?” One of the show’s sponsors, Mr. Hua-Lung Lee, snatches the phone away from the third dancer–Yut-Lung Lee–ending the call. “Yut-Lung has an audition this afternoon for Sleeping Beauty .”

Max tightens his lips and tries to smile. “Right. Well, Mr. Ibe here will be running the interview while his assistant takes some pictures.”

“Oh? I thought someone else was running today’s interview.” The green-eyed dancer, blonde as honey and smiling like he was about to bite, raises his eyebrows at Max.

He must be the one Ibe-san and Max kept talking about. Ash Lynx, a prodigy, one of the most impressive young dancers of his generation.

All that talent, shows upon shows under his belt, and he was only seventeen.

He looks seventeen, smirking like that.

Max flusters a little, straightening out his shirt. “Jessica had other pieces to run.”

“Sure,” Ash Lynx drawls.

Eiji frowns, knowing only what Ibe-san had told him. “While we’re in town, we have time between projects to help out my old friend, Max. He’s helping sponsor an all-male version of Swan Lake, an old Russian ballet.”

“Oh. Why?”

“He and his wife, Jessica, aren’t seeing eye to eye at the moment, and she was supposed to help him with the story.”

“No,” Eiji had shaken his head, “why is Max-san doing an all boys Swan Lake?”

“Oh. Charity event. Max is helping raise money for AIDS research and awareness.”

Eiji doesn’t know much about AIDS, but he knows it’s serious. And this is his first photography job with Ibe-san. So even though there are other photography jobs they’ll be working on in the coming weeks, Eiji will take this seriously .

Yet blonde-haired, green-eyed, prodigy dancer Ash Lynx is making jokes and smiling a big fake smile. Why? Did Americans not take serious things seriously?

Ibe bows to the dancers and sponsors, thanking them again for their time, and asks a few basic questions to lay the groundwork. Max is one of the main organizers, but not the main funder–that goes to the charity Max is partnered with, and a few private donors, like Mr. Lee. 

Business-like and in a nice suit, the Chinese-American answers about the “why” of the show sound pre-packaged; “Giving back to the community,” and “raising awareness,” and “this is a rare opportunity for Yut-Lung. How many male dancers can say they’ve performed as Odile?”

The director and choreographer Mr. Blanca, imposingly large but sitting relaxed on the edge of the stage,  has a little more care. “Swan Lake is an old favorite of mine. My breakthrough role, back when I was in the Russian Ballet, was as Prince Siegfried.”

“How does it feel, then,” Ibe-san asks, “passing the baton to Mr. Wong?”

The purple haired Chinese-American, playing Prince Siegfried, is wearing sunglasses indoors. At Ibe-san’s question, he lets the glasses drop down his nose, looking directly down Eiji’s lens, grinning.

Eiji grins back, snapping a photo before he looks away.

The flash makes Yut-Lung, on “Mr. Wong’s” right, and Ash, on his left, pull back.

“Kevin Wong is a talented young dancer,” Mr. Blanca nods, but his eyes drift over the dancer’s purple hair to the tuft of blonde. “But I chose Swan Lake for the event for the sake of Ash Lynx.”

“Shorter Wong,” Shorter Wong corrects as Ibe-san starts taking notes.

As Eiji bends back to the viewfinder, he sees that he’s being watched, now, by Ash Lynx, this production’s Swan Queen.

His eyes are so green, they’re almost see through.

Eiji doesn’t snap a second photo of them.

“Of course,” Ibe-san almost chuckles, like he expected attention to pivot straight back to Ash. 

Eiji tries to wrack his brains around what else was said about the upcoming show, and Ash Lynx.

“Looks like your ‘prima ballerina’ is a real big-shot, Max,” Ibe-san had said, doing his research. “How were you able to convince him to do a charity show for someone like you?”

“Someone like me?” Max had huffed.

“Have you become artistic since last we met?”

Ibe-san phrases the question differently to Ash Lynx’s face, asking if he’s excited for the role. “The Swan Queen is one of the more challenging roles in ballet. Does this take you outside your comfort zone, Mr. Lynx?”

Ash shrugs. “Blanca knows how to put together a show.”

It’s not quite a diva answer. Eiji takes in Ash, perched on the edge of the stage with such grace and balance.

It’s hard not to feel awed, knowing what a rare talent he has. Some of the reviews that Ibe-san had read out loud for Ash’s previous shows said he moves like he’s weightless, like he’s an angel, has skills that you only see once in a lifetime–or if you sell your soul to the devil.

“Of course, the real spotlight is the charity,” Max says, tapping his finger on Ibe’s notepad. “All ticket sales are going directly into the foundation’s pockets.”

Ash begins whispering something into Shorter’s ear. Shorter stifles a laugh, elbowing Ash.

Max and Ibe-san look on, confused, but continue the interview, because they didn’t hear what was said.

But Eiji did. “If Max had just donated the money he’d spent on me,” Ash had whispered, “ he could have saved AIDS three times by now.”

The interview goes on, all focused around Ash.

Eiji doesn’t care how talented Ash is, or how big of a deal he is in the New York ballet scene. It doesn’t give Ash the right to be a brat.

“Is this role much more challenging than others in the past?” Ibe-san asks the group.

Yut-Lung says it’s a privilege to be in the show and its an exciting way to test his skills–a non-answer. Shorter says for the years he’s been sharing a stage with Ash, he’s been dreaming of a chance to throw him. “The challenging part is remembering that even if he’s a little more sturdy than most ballerinas, it’s still not a good idea to let him drop.”

Ash leans back on his hands, huffing hair out of his face. “Nothing really challenging about it.”

Ibe-san presses, “The dancing isn’t challenging?”

“Not really. My career has been pretty easy.” Ash’s voice is like a sing-song, and he cups his jaw. “Thanks to the moneymaker.”

“Are you saying you book roles because of your looks?” Max raises an eyebrow, cutting off Ibe-san’s follow up. “What about your talent?”

“Talent? Since when do people care about talent?”

“Talent is one thing,” Yut-Lung says, looking over Shorter to Ash. He then throws back his head a little, talking slow so that Ibe-san has time to quote him, “But you can’t just be talented. You also have to work hard–”

Ash snorts. “Yue, don’t bore people with that. People don’t want to hear about our ‘hard work.’ People think ballet is easy.” Ash runs a hand through his choppy, styled hair. “ Girly . So no one respects it, and no one respects dancers like they’re athletes. There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into looking pretty on that stage, because people want to see something pretty so they can say ‘it’s easy’ and go on making jokes about fags in leotards.”

Eiji can imagine–and sympathize, a little. He’d known a few people back home who thought pole vaulting was silly, even a few who didn’t understand why it was hard.

What he doesn’t like is how Ash says it–shrugging his shoulders and popping his lips, like he also thinks that what he does–what people love him for–is silly.

“Well,” Ibe-san says, “thank you all. I think that should wrap–”

“Can we photo practice?”

All eyes snap to Eiji, hovering behind the camera. But he’s only looking at Ash.

“Ei-chan,” Ibe-san says, waving a hand at him.

“We can show people photo, let people see the blood, sweat, tears.” Eiji swallows, a little surprised that he’s talking to these bored professionals, broken English and all. “See ballet is sport, yes?”

In the background, he hears Max snap his fingers, “You know, that might be something…”

But Eiji isn’t looking at Max. He’s got his face set and is glaring at Ash, daring him to be flippant one more time.

Ash’s smile has begun to fade as he looks at Eiji, green eyes sparkling a little. He looks lost, one leg propped up on the stage, the other dangling beneath him.

When he smiles again, for the first time all interview, it looks real. “Fine by me.”

“Sounds fun!” Shorter says, “I never get to flex my muscles on stage–oh, I keep some dumbbells in the studio, wait till you can see how much I curl—”

A pager goes off, loud, and Mr. Lee grabs it off his belt. “That’s time,” he says, standing up and grabbing Yut-Lung by the arm without even looking. “Thank you for the interview,” he nods, curt and unconcerned.

Eiji makes room as they walk by. Yut-Lung lets himself be dragged along, like he’s a doll.

As they pass, Yut-Lung looks at Eiji, nose squinted, eyes narrow. Is that beauty and anger what a black swan is supposed to be?

Eiji feels better when Yut-Lung’s brother takes him away.

Ibe-san and Max are fussing over some details, asking some last minute questions to Blanca, who very patiently answers them, hands in his pocket.

During the interview, a lot of progress was made on the set. A piece of circular plywood is stark white. Eiji imagines they’ll add pockmarks and details once this layer of paint dries, but for now, the would-be moon is cartoonish, like some kind of giant white cookie.

Eiji leans over to take another photo.

Shorter’s purple hair drops in front of the lens. “Wow! Never seen someone talk to Ash like that, let alone a little photographer.”

Eiji pulls back from the camera, flushing as he realizes that Shorter has hopped down from the stage to talk to him. He fumbles, feeling like an idiot now for running his mouth. “I… I too rude to Ash?”

“Nah, Ash has thick skin.” Shorter scratches his nose, looking back at Ash like he’s not here. “But I never would have dreamed he’d just allow some stranger to snoop around rehearsals. Even if it’s just a little kid.”

Ash swings one leg, looking like a yellow cat as he hovers over Eiji. Is Eiji meant to be the mouse?

Eiji scowls, looking dead at Ash’s arrogant little face as he says, “I’m older than Ash anyway.”

Shorter laughs, “Could have fooled me—”

“If you got turned into a swan,” Ash says, tapping his fingers on the stage, “What would you do?”

Eiji steps back from the camera, reeling at the strange question. “Eh?”

Shorter explains that it’s about the ballet. “Von Rothbart curses Princess Odette, making her a swan by day, only letting her be human at night.” He leans back against the stage dramatically, almost in a faint, “and the only thing that can break the curse is a vow of eternal true love….”

“Oh. That really what it about?”

Ash snorts, his smile more vicious. “You’re running a story on a ballet you’ve never seen?”

Eiji guesses, if you’ve been a ballet dancer for as long as Ash, people not knowing the plots of ballets would seem weird. 

Ibe-san calls out that they’ll be leaving soon, so Eiji begins to take the camera apart. “I guess I ask Von Rothbart to change me back.” He pops the lens into the bag, and folds up the tripod. “It's not fair, being swan without my say.”

Ash stares at Eiji, eyes a little squinted. He pops his lip again, wet with a little spit. “You’re one weird kid. Are all Japanese kids like you?”

Eiji plants his hands on his hips. “Are all American boys so rude?”

“Ei-chan!” Ibe-san calls–hopefully out of earshot of their conversation. Eiji doesn’t think he’d get a pat on the back for mouthing off to the main talent, the star that the whole charity event was built around, apparently.

Ibe-san is waving him from down the aisle, though, so Eiji bows to Shorter and Ash in turn.

“Thank you for interview. And chance to photo you again.”

“Our next rehearsal is tomorrow morning,” Shorter says, “tell your boss!”

Eiji bows again, hefts the camera bag, and scurries after Ibe-san.

“Max is on board with us photographing rehearsals, and so was the director,” Ibe-san fills him in as they shuffle to the lobby door, “But try not to talk out of turn like that. This show means a lot to Max, ok?”

“Sorry, Ibe-san.” But Eiji’s only half paying attention, looking over his shoulder as he walks.

Ash Lynx is still sitting on the stage, still watching him.

The distance of the theater makes the dancer look a little less larger than life.

Chapter Text

“Somewhere you’re meant to be, little cat?”

Ash pulls his jacket on, messing with the lapels as he gives Blanca his best stink-eye. “Yeah.” He bops his head, down the direction of the street Shorter’s already walking down. “Lunch.”

Blanca hums, hovering under the awning of the theater. The interview’s over, today’s rehearsal’s been done for hours, and so Ash is, allegedly, free as a bird.

“Yo, Ash!” Shorter shouts, halfway down the block, spinning on his shoe to wave, “You coming?”

One hand holding his dance bag, Ash shoves the other five fingers into his pocket, looking back at tall but passive Blanca, some kind of gentle giant. Or so you might think if you hadn’t been in one of his ballet classes. 

When Ash was fourteen, he was made to run so many Grand Jetés, his feet began to bleed. It helped him that much more when he booked Hilarion in Giselle.

Blanca smiles at him, hefting his bag and heading to find his car. “Make sure you order a plate heavy with protein, little cat. You’re going to need your strength for the pas de deux. ”

Ash rolls his eyes, almost tempted to bitch that it wasn’t going to be that stressful. Blanca had already made the decision to split the parts of Odette and Odile between two dancers, so Ash had more breaks in the show than most prima ballerinas.

This was a charity event. A cakewalk.

He catches up to Shorter, who bumps shoulders with him. “What did Blanca want?”

Ash shrugs. “Who fucking cares.”

“Wait, didn’t you have an audition this afternoon, same as Yue? For that upcoming national tour?”

A possible national tour–that hadn’t yet been decided by the suits in charge. It was hard to go wrong with Sleeping Beauty , though.

And Ash is supposed to be dancing for Prince Charming.

That’s skin he can slip into–he’s danced plenty of similar lovey-dovey airhead parts in the past. Ash is familiar enough with the fawning motions of adoration, worship, devotion .

Odette’s like that too. So why….

“Man, I’m starving,” Shorter groans, “I should never have to wait for lunch till past two.”

“You’re the one who hasn’t picked someplace for us to ea–”

“Shorter!”

Ash spins around before Shorter does. A tiny person is moving through the crowd, waving his hand up in the air, and screaming Shorter’s name to make sure he’s drawing enough attention.

“Oy!” Shorter waves back, ushering the kid over. “Are you playing hooky? Thought you had dance class and rehearsal today.”

The kid’s wearing sweats with a leotard showing around his shoulders, and holding a dance bag as he runs, out of breath. “Class is over, and rehearsal’s not for like—”

He stops dead just as he reaches them, no longer looking at Shorter. The kid–Chinese, it seems, with swoopy black hair and eyebrows almost to his forehead–stares at Ash like Ash is some kind of alien.

Or celebrity.

“Oh, Sing, this is my friend Ash. Ash, my little cousin Sing.”

Sing’s mouth is falling open.

Shorter’s stomach grumbles.

Shorter groans, glancing down the chic, uptown, off-broadway eateries they’ve been strolling past. “Fuck it. The cafe.” And he marches towards a hippie looking breakfast and lunch place, pausing right before he puts his foot in the door. 

Shorter looks back to Ash, over the top of his sunglasses. “Don’t tell Nadia.”

Ash smiles at the idea that Nadia would give a shit about Shorter eating white people food, but holds out his hand, pinky out. “On my life.”

~ ~ ~

As Shorter’s coke, Sing’s chocolate milk, and Ash’s water come to the table, Ash tries to study the menu, anticipating the waitress’ return. Thank God, it was one of those health-conscious places that lists the calories next to each meal.

“The turkey burger looks good,” Shorter says, “for white people food.”

Sing flips to the back of the menu, bouncing with energy, “They have a lo mein, look!”

“If you eat that gentrified shit, I’m not gonna talk to you for a week.”

Ash crunches numbers.

At 7 a.m.,, during rehearsal, they’d been trying out their new lifts for the pas de deux between Odette and Prince Siegfried. At the first attempt, Shorter’s arm shook, and Ash slipped, avoiding a nasty fall by the skin of his teeth.

“Sorry, sorry! ” Shorter had shaken out his shoulders with a grimace, “Butterfingers.”

At 4 a.m., while he brushed his teeth, Ash had stepped on his scale to see he was 133 pounds. Four pounds down from last week, when rehearsals started, when Ash reasoned it would only be fair, for Shorter, for Ash to make himself as light as he could.

Four pounds in a week is almost pitiful. Three weeks now till showtime–by then, he could lose at least another ten easily, maybe push up to fifteen. Shorter will have gotten stronger, Ash will have gotten lighter, the show will be sunshine and roses.

Sing’s staring at him. He’s got a milk mustache, he’s squeezing the glass, and his big, brown eyes are unblinking.

“So,” Ash tries to break the tension, “you dance, Sing?”

Sing inhales like Ash just asked to kiss him on the mouth.

Shorter snorts, “I guess we haven’t had any group rehearsals yet–you’re looking at one of your swan maidens, Ash.”

“I’m just ensemble,” Sing corrects. He looks about twelve, but as they sat down, Shorter had dropped that he was fourteen. Ash wonders how long he’s been dancing professionally, since Sing doesn’t know that what he’s actually in is the corps de ballet not "ensemble."  “But I’m, um, in the cygnet dance.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that going?”

“It’s hard, standing in a line, bopping your head .” Sing demonstrates, arms crossed over his stomach and stretching to either side, vigorously nodding to non-existent music.

Shorter laughs. “They made you a cygnet because you’re teeny. Man, I’m starving.”

Sing slumps in the booth, annoyed with Shorter, and maybe embarrassed.

“That dance is challenging,” Ash nods, knowing the types of things you’re supposed to say to young dancers, and how to say them. “So take it seriously, and keep on practicing. Blanca knows what he’s doing.”

Sing’s eyes light up again, and Ash knows he’d sounded just sincere enough.

“How’s it going?” Waitress is back, smiley, ponytail bouncing along her neck as she looks at them all, pen poised. “Are we ready to order?”

Shorter gets his turkey burger, with normal fries, not the sweet potato. “A man has to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and mine is that if a sweet potato crosses my lips, you put me down like a dog.”

Sing orders a club sandwich.

“I’ll take the garden salad,” Ash decides. He didn’t even look at what was in it, just saw the price and the calories. Hopefully it’s big and he can bulk eat, stay full for a little longer. Snack for dinner or skip it.

“Any add-ons?” The waitress scribbles. “Egg, chicken, ham….”

Ash’s mouth is overly wet. He’s tempted to listen to Blanca, as much as he tries to never do that on principle.

When Blanca put in the hours as his private instructor between the years fourteen and fifteen, one of the biggest improvements to Ash’s performance was that his fainting on stage hiccups went away. These days, he’ll only sometimes faint in rehearsals.

But that had been thanks to Blanca making him eat protein, not Blanca himself.

“No,” he says, because his hands are starting to sweat, because he’s on the spot and can’t math out how many extra calories any of those options would add. “No, it’s fine.”

It’s exhausting, trying to eat just as little as he possibly can while not teetering over the line.

She keeps smiling, so cheery, so innocent. At least she’s ignorant about what she’s putting Ash through, and not getting off on it, like… some people. “How about dressing?”

Yes. Ranch. It’s got dairy, it’s some protein, and its baby calories. You can have your cake and Blanca’s too.

“Just some balsamic on the side,” he smiles back, knowing damn well he’s gonna choke it down dry.

The waitress leaves, Sing keeps complaining about footwork, but Shorter’s frowning. Ash’s just glad he’s got his sunglasses on indoors–otherwise, it might be hard to ignore his stare.

They met in The Nutcracker when Ash was fifteen and Shorter was going on eighteen. During the mouse king battle, where Shorter was a rat and Ash was a soldier, they’d been partnered to collide and dance fight.

In the hot studio, Ash had vomited, bile and water, bringing rehearsal to a halt, pissing off the choreographer to the point Ash thought she might break his ankle to get him out of her show.

“Dude, ” Shorter had sat down next to him, while Ash chewed on the cap of the water bottle he was sipping from, “that was like… impressive. Your vomit has mileage, man.”

It was that unflinchingness to Ash’s brand of fucked-up that had let Ash slip into a friendship. Usually, his relationship with his peers lasted only as long as the show did. He’d have tentative alliances with other dancers who adored him, or bitter feuds with dancers who had some pride.

But at The Nutcracker’s close, Shorter had written his landline number on Ash’s palm, and Ash had someone who could hear about his day and laugh. Shorter understands the bitch of callouses and sore muscles and shitty directors.

“Hey,” Shorter says, and Ash thinks it’s to him. Shorter hesitates, turns away, and lifts his sunglasses to look down at Sing. “Your milk’s getting warm.”

Ash breathes easy again.

Sing–who has been talking this whole time, somehow, the words blending into white noise–shuts up and immediately downs half his glass in one gulp.

“Down the hatch,” Shorter laughs, “support those bones.” And his eyes drift back to Ash.

Ash rolls his eyes. Their friendship isn’t new anymore, Shorter’s wisened up to the fact that Ash’s puking and lightheadedness isn’t random, but he’s had the grace never to bring it up. Ash knows he’s not going to start now, in front of Sing, but it puts him on edge all the same, this little dance around the emptiness of Ash’s stomach.

He’d almost been starting to feel the effects of skipping breakfast. But now he thinks he’ll have just enough spite to willingly pick at his salad, and dare Shorter to pity him as he does it.

Sing is, again, staring at Ash, leaning forward in his booth with a pained expression, like he was on the verge of exploding.

Ash tips his head. “Is your cousin short circuiting?”

Shorter laughs and Sing startles. The kid scrunches his nose, wipes his lip with his sleeve, and stares at the floor.

“Sing’s been on my case for ages about meeting you. What was it you wanted, Sing? Ash to sign your leotard?”

“Shut up ,” Sing hisses.

It just makes Shorter laugh more. He goes to mess with Sing’s hair and Sing shoves him off, calling Shorter an idiot and a pain and a liar.

The viciousness of Sing’s pubescent attitude should stamp out any nostalgia Ash is feeling. But the motions are all the same–a big, friendly hand on a little brother’s head.

Ash’s toes curl in his converse at the ghost touch of Griff’s arm around his shoulders. He almost thinks his legs are short and dangling off the booth.

“What flavor, Aslan?” Griff would ask, poring over the sundae menu for Ash’s post-dance class treat.

“Chocolate!”

Sing drinks more of his chocolate milk.

Ash asks him, “How long have you been dancing?”

Sing takes a second to realize what’s been asked. His eyes go a little starstruck. “Umm… forever, I think. I–I started with gymnastics but then I wanted to be a dancer cause—”

“Cause Sing has to do everything I do,” Shorter teases.

“Shut up !”

Ash taps the edge of his water glass.

He remembers being four or five and watching TV with Griffin and… and yeah, ballet had been on PBS and Ash had been glued to the screen, trying to do the moves himself.

He smiles, looking at Sing, who’s again trying to mime his choreography to Shorter.

It was Swan Lake on TV. He remembers bopping along to the cygnet dance, making Griffin watch.

So then, Griff had put him in gymnastics for a year to test his flexibility. Then, dance. Dance class was fun, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. In their small town, it had been Ash and a lot of girls, but everyone had been super nice. His teacher had loved him, she’d gushed on about how precocious Aslan was, how glad she was to have a boy in the class, how hard Aslan worked. 

So Griff had enrolled Ash into the ballet class, even when Jim said it was stupid, yelled at Griffin, “ It’s like you want Aslan to get the shit kicked out of him at school.”

“Oh because you know all about what Aslan’s school days are right, huh?”

“I’m not raising a faggot, you—”

“Newsflash, Dad , you already did!”

The waitress comes back. Burger for Shorter. Sandwich for Sing. Salad for Ash.

Ash can’t even think about eating. He feels like there are ten fingers wrapped around his throat.

“Are you going back to the studio today, Shorter?” Sing asks.

Shorter laughs, “Why would I? Already danced my ass off this morning.”

“I am. I gotta keep practicing.” Sing takes a vigorous bite of his sandwich. Ash feels like there’s gotta be at least seventy-five calories stuffed in his mouth alone. “‘’Tis if ma firsth big weague shoo.” Little bits of fatty bread and bacon fall onto his plate.

Ash picks at his lettuce, trying to measure out a decent bite to start with. “You think this is the big league?”

Sing swallows, tightening his posture. He chews… more quietly, body hunched, pink around the ears.

Shorter’s giving Ash another look, but Ash ignores it. It’s not his fault if Sing is too green to know a charity show wasn’t a big break.

It also isn’t his business to tell Sing that the big league was nothing worth striving for. It wouldn’t land, anyway.

When Ash was Sing’s age, he’d already been a principal child dancer for three years.

“Tomorrow’s going to be fun, though,” Shorter says, trying to lighten the mood–one of the few things Ash struggles with that most people around him don’t. “We got a photographer coming.”

That immediately draws Sing’s interest, and he listens to the whole story from Shorter.

It puts Ash on edge again. He thinks about the flash of the camera, the photographer kid’s petulance, and his pushback against Ash’s success hinging on his looks.

Kid barely speaks English. He’s probably never even heard of a casting couch.

He’d never even seen Swan Lake.

It’s a little funny, that Max fucked up his marriage bad enough that he needs to pull in help advertising his financial folly from colleagues overseas. At the same time, Ash almost feels… insulted by the Okumura boy feeling entitled to make the show into a bigger story.

Insulted isn’t the right word. It does feel… strange.

What’s in it for him? Why does he care?

Ash is chewing and swallowing dry spinach, romaine lettuce, carrot sticks, red onion, and his thoughts about the boy he’d made eye-contact with through a viewfinder when he glances out the window beside his seat. 

On the other side of the bustling Manhattan street, standing under the awning of a pricier restaurant, Marvin is chewing on a toothpick.

Marvin, in his crisp brown suit and expensive shades, isn’t enough to make Ash’s skin crawl these days. It’s the toothpick that does it.

When Marvin's not on-duty as a private driver, he smokes. He works through his oral fixation with whatever he has handy when he’s on the dime.

Which can only mean….

“Ash?” Shorter sees him staring out the window.

As Shorter turns his neck to try and figure out what’s what, Ash fishes out his wallet and blindly drops a fifty on the table. “Gotta split.”

Shorter stands up from the booth the same second Ash does. “Hey, Ash–”

Ash waves him goodbye, glancing back to smile.

Shorter’s tense but Sing’s mouth is full on another bite, only just processing the fifty dollar bill lying between Ash’s water and twelve dollar salad.

New York City isn’t a big place, so it never really surprises Ash when Dino finds him. Today, it must have been particularly easy. This diner isn’t too far from the theater Max managed to snag for the show. And Blanca had seen which direction Ash went.

Once upon a time, getting tattled on by Blanca might have pissed Ash off.

He’s matured.

Marvin only sees him coming when Ash is five feet away from where the Mercedes-Benz is idling on the curb. “Well, well, someone’s been a naughty boy, haven’t they, Ash?”

Ash glances at Marvin’s black dress shoes all the way up his brown suit. “Someone’s dressed like a douche, aren’t they, Marvin?”

Marvin twitches, grabbing Ash by the upper arm, pulling him towards the car. “You never learn to shut your–”

Ash tugs his arm free, as hard as he can, almost twisting Marvin’s wrist in the process. For a beat, they stand on the sidewalk, facing each other off. Marvin’s teeth are clenched and Ash is keeping himself solid.

It took until Ash hit his first growth spurt to figure out that, at his core, Marvin’s a little bitch. As soon as he was presented with the very real chance of getting his teeth knocked in, Marvin had begun to pick and choose when he wanted to touch Ash, let alone manhandle him. Let alone….

Anyway, today’s not a day Marvin’s willing to fight to prove a point. He mutters about Ash being a little shit before walking up to the side of the Benz and popping open the back seat door.

Ash doesn’t dignify Dino’s driver another glance before he slides into the seat, dumps his dance bag at his shoes, and musses up his hair.

Marvin slams the door after him, then stomps around till he clambers back into the driver’s seat, on the other side of a privacy window.

Ash stares into the tinted glass ahead of him, not acknowledging the man sitting beside him.

“Ash.” His name rumbles out of Dino’s throat like a sweet-nothing. “How fortunate this is, our paths crossing. It seems you’re running late to your audition.”

The Benz rolls into drive, slipping into traffic, heading uptown.

Tensing his nose, Ash glances out the corner of his eye. Looking down, he sees Dino’s wearing black slacks, holding his usual cane, and has his jade dress ring on his right ring finger.

“Was that today?” Ash coos, leaning his elbow on the window. “Must have slipped my mind.”

Dino pulls up the left sleeve of his suit–Armani–and checks his gold-plated watch. “Fifteen minutes past your call time. But I’m sure the director can be persuaded to leniency.”

Ash taps his fingers on the car lock. He’s half-tempted to do something crazy, like pop open the door and roll into traffic.

Wouldn’t do much; they’re stalled ten cars away from a red light. Gotta love New York.

“Friend of yours, is he?” Ash teases.

From Broadway singers to daytime TV actors, Dino Golzine’s agency represents every performer in NYC worth a damn. Hell, even the agency representing smaller players, like Shorter or Sing, were owned by Dino’s parent company.

There’s not a director in this town who wouldn’t give Dino a favor.

The idiocy of Dino lowering himself from his high rise office uptown to worry about one audition for one dancer he had under contract amuses Ash enough to finally smile. He wears it like armor as he turns his head and takes in Dino.

Dino’s watching him. His eyebrows are relaxed and his mustache is lying flat, not scrunched down. Dino’s a little amused himself.

That pisses Ash off, so he looks out the window again.

“You were requested to audition for this role. Or did you forget that too?”

Ash is starting to slouch, until the voice of dozens of instructors over the years correcting his posture puts a lead pipe in his spine. He keeps his breathing even as he stares ahead at the divider, hands at his sides, composed, unemotional.

But he wants to slouch, make himself small, pick at his fingernails and curl up as Dino continues to look him over. Like he’s eleven years old and buckled into one of Dino’s private cars for the first time.

He’s always eleven when he’s around Dino.

“I did try to warn you not to take on the charity show,” Dino says, ever-so-lightly tapping his cane on the floor of the car. “I knew it would leave you stretched too thin.”

I can’t stretch too thin. I’ve been able to pull my foot on my shoulder for forever.

A month ago, Ash was rotting in bed in “his” dinky little apartment downtown when the landline began ringing and ringing and ringing.

He didn’t remember giving Max Lobo his number after their meeting at a press junket for Giselle , but maybe he’d found Ash in a phonebook. After All, Ash has been living “independent” from Dino since last year. “I know it’s a lot to ask,” Max had said, “but, well, it’s for a good cause and…”

In ideal circumstances, Ash is allowed a rest period between starring in one ballet and preparing for the next, but Dino’s had Ash penciled in as Prince Charming for months. 

So, Sleeping Beauty audition while Swan Lake is still in pre-production, and princely rehearsals would come right after the third and final night of Max’s war on AIDS.

“That’s not it,” Ash mutters. And he’s not lying. He’s dealt with worse turnarounds for more demanding roles–the charity show has short rehearsals days and such low stakes that even Blanca (despite Shorter and Sing’s misconceptions) is going easy on his dancers.

In some ways, this favor for Max is like a vacation.

Maybe that’s what’s putting Ash on edge. He doesn’t have enough to distract him from Swan Lake , and so he’s getting caught up in the details, thinking about Odette and Griffin and Japanese photographers.

I’d ask Von Rothbart . The “older-than-him” photographer must have never met Rothbart’s type.

Maybe he never would.

“I’m just…” Ash doesn’t know how to answer. He doesn’t even quite know exactly why he decided to try and blow the audition, other than the obvious.

The audition is its own song and dance, a way to make it look like the role’s being cast without bias. Ash is going to be Prince Charming in Sleeping Beauty because Dino thinks he’ll knock it out of the park. No, Dino knows . 

So Ash will .

End of discussion.

They’ve made it to the theater. Marvin’s pulled to the cub and puts on the hazards to drop Ash off, and Ash puts his hand on the door.

“Ash.”

Ash’s palm sweats on the handle. He stares at his translucent reflection in the car window, watching Dino watch the back of his neck.

There’s those tight eyebrows and lips. There’s that pissed off face. “Whatever happened to that sweet little boy who used to cry from nerves before his auditions?”

You knocked out his first molar in the back of a Rolls Royce.

Ash still has his back to Dino, so it’s easy for Dino to snake a hand up and curl his fingers around Ash’s shoulder. He squeezes him, just tight enough for Ash to feel the man’s fingerprints through his shirt and into his muscle.

Ash needs muscle if he’s going to have any control over his arms, but it makes him sick when he takes off his shirt and can see biceps under his skin, sees a body that’s getting bigger, heavier, harder to maneuver.

“Don’t let your success be your downfall, Ash. You’ll squander your body in its prime.”

Ash pops open his door and spills out onto the sidewalk before Dino can say another word. He stands, lightheaded, really starting to feel the effects of no breakfast and two bites of salad by a quarter to three.

He waits for Dino to roll down the window, or pop out of the car, or grab Ash by the shirt, throw him into the backseat, and remind Ash just how precious his body is.

“I’ll be making a call to the executive producer–this will all be smoothed over.”

Ash flinches when he hears his door slam shut. Out of breath, he turns to watch the Benz merge into traffic and roll around the corner.

Ash still feels itchy–or at least, his shoulder does. Dino grabbing him by the shoulder shouldn’t have been able to rattle him like this.

But it’s been almost two months since Dino last touched him. Six months since he’s hit him.

Twenty-seven months since they’ve had sex.

~ ~ ~

Ash sits in some stiff, plastic chair amidst dozens of other dancers, who are all stretching and warming up.

Ash knows he shouldn’t go in cold, but the most he was able to do was change into the spare leotard he always keeps in his gym bag. And touch his toes. And pick at some of the cheese from the cheap little buffet.

You’re welcome, Blanca.

He’s getting looks from the other dancers. Some of it matches Sing’s awe, but most of its resentment. Ash can’t blame them; these dancers are all around Ash’s level of skill. Most of them are older than him ( we can’t all be teenage prodigies ) and know that the audition is a joke.

Ash Lynx is at an audition? He’s gonna get one of the leading roles. Forget Dino’s influence, Ash’s name alone looks better on the marquee.

Arthur’s eyes against his neck almost feel like knives, but Ash ignores him, just like he always does. It had been easier, back in the day, when Ash was a principal and Arthur was a random face in the corps de ballet . 

“...guess I thought you’d be auditioning for The Czar,” one of Arthur’s friends says, just within earshot of Ash. “You’re putting all your chips on Prince Charming? That’s some steep competition.”

Arthur grins, but it’s not the least bit charming. He’s still looking at Ash, and making sure Ash hears, he laughs. “Please. I have it in the bag.”

Ash knows he means it.

Through some actual blood, sweat, and tears–and kissing Dino’s shoes–Arthur was starting to catch up to Ash’s raw talent, meaning they kept ending up a little bit closer together on stage.

During Giselle , Ash had danced as Hilarion, but Arthur booked Albrecht. Arthur got to dance well after Ash died, he got Giselle’s undying love, he got the final scene.

Ash thinks that maybe that could have been the end of their rivalry. Arthur might have been able to believe he’d won over Ash if Ash had at least pretended he was jealous. 

Or if maybe any of the reviews had cared about anything other than complimenting the inspiring performance by sixteen-going-on-seventeen Ash fucking Lynx.

"You're doing that Swan Lake thing, right?" someone else asks Arthur, scoffing a little. "The queer shit."

"Hey, it's for charity," Arthur defends lightly.

God forbid Dino sign off on Ash being in a project where he didn't have some control. Arthur's almost a better spy and snitch than he is dancer.

Maybe he'd gone into the wrong profession.

“Frederick Arthur?” The assistant director calls out.

Stretching his arms, Arthur flashes Ash one last vicious grin before strutting to his audition.

Ash stares at the ceiling, knowing that while Arthur might not deserve it more (his so-so technique and dickish attitude were heavy points against him), he definitely wants it more. Maybe Ash should sit back and hope that Arthur’s able to displace him a second time.

But do I really hate him that much?

~ ~ ~

“We’ll be sending out information about callbacks tomorrow,” the choreographer says, scribbling notes down at the table she sits at, in a line with the director and executive producer.

Ash quietly catches his breath, wishing he had a cup of water on hand. As much as he didn’t give a shit about the audition, he couldn’t bring himself to phone it in. Whether that’s a personal work ethic or something he’s chosen to believe is his own work ethic, well, it doesn’t really make a difference.

The choreographer is some former prima ballerina of the New York City ballet, and easily the most professional here–she’d been blunt with her direction and feedback, and Ash had complied.

The director, a man, had only asked Ash if he could smile more. And Ash, who was now a doe-eyed, lovey-dovey, idiot Prince Charming, had eagerly complied.

The executive producer–tall, thin, and with a hunger in his giant eyes that Ash knew well–speaks right as Ash is to be dismissed. “It was rather unprofessional, showing up after call time.”

The choreographer’s lips are thin, like maybe she agrees, but the director almost goes fish-belly white. He wants Ash in the show. Sees it as Ash doing him a favor.

Dino didn’t call the director–he said he was calling the producer.

“I–” the director starts.

“You’re right.” Ash tilts his weight from one foot to the other, rubbing at the back of his neck. “There’s no excuse for tardiness–not in show business.”

The producer’s eyes narrow.

Ash bites his lip.

“There are rumors, you know, that this is a bit of a pattern for you, Mr. Lynx .”

Rumors that were half-true—between the fainting spells when he was young and the occasional rebellious streak that possessed him now, Ash was lucky he was A) the favorite of a bigshot like Dino Golzine, B) absurdly talented, and C) beautiful under the stage lights.

Otherwise, he might still be rotting away on his aunt’s sofa bed in Philly.

“Well…” Ash puts a hand on his stomach, rubbing it towards his chest. Innocent enough on the surface, but the producer sees Ash grazing his nipple with his thumbnail. “It’s given me practice with apologies.”

The producer smiles, and Ash knows exactly what he and Dino talked about on the phone.

~ ~ ~

Ash takes the scenic route through the city as dawn begins to crest, zig-zagging down streets so that he can maintain a good view of the sky turning red against the city skyline. 

He’s wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes and some post-sex hair, but he doesn’t draw attention. There’s less shame in walking home at sunrise when you have no tits, like Ash. One of the many reasons he’s grateful not to be a girl.

He’s not in a hurry–both of the dirty leotards from his gym bag got cleaned by the producer’s help last night, so he doesn’t even have to drop by his apartment before strolling in for practice.

He even has black coffee in his stomach, courtesy of said producer. Which was nice, all things considered. And the least the dick could have done, when Ash woke up with a pounding headache from all the booze dropped down his throat last night to help loosen him up.

Ash had needed to be loosened. It’s been a while since he’s had to put out for a stranger. Eight months or so.

Dino must be downright furious at Ash. Not just for the audition, but Swan Lake. “You want people to talk about Ash Lynx and AIDS in the same sentence?” he’d scoffed, flipping through the paper.

And Ash had been so close to feigning shock and asking, “ They don’t already?” 

It would have felt like testing fate, challenging the grace that had helped him stay clean, and healthy, and alive.

Ash has to remind himself of the privileges he has by picturing bigger problems he's never had to suffer–like having AIDS, or being a girl.

If he was a girl, he’d have even more demanding roles–he’d have been made Odette on a national tour by now, stretched to the brink. He’d probably eat way less, too, cause no one would bother pointing out when he went past heroin chic and became an ugly pile of bones.

He might have gotten pregnant. And fat.

He might never have been a principal dancer at all. As a boy, his beauty was exceptional, but he’d just be one pretty face in a sea of others as a girl. They’d have dragged him into the casting couch and never let him out of it.

And if Dino had been sitting in the balcony of the Kimmel Center and saw a pretty, talented, eleven-year-old girl dancing circles around the other little fairies in A Midsummer's Night Dream, he wouldn’t have given two shits.

Where would Ash be then?

Ash lingers on a guardrail, giving him a view of the Hudson, and stops to linger in the early morning air, not really caring if he’s late to practice.

Geese honk overhead; he tilts his head back, and as he looks at the white birds, he imagines that they’re swans.

He stretches out his arms as he watches the sunrise. Imagines that the sunlight means he is now going to be covered in feathers, alone and crying by a lake.

He doesn’t get it.

Fuck it, he’s played romantic characters before, and, as a classically trained dancer, would until his feet fell off. But Odette isn’t just some girl with heart eyes. She has everything , and she’s ungrateful .

Today or tomorrow, Arthur’s about to find out that Ash showed up late and booked Prince Charming; Ash understands Arthur's rage a little more now. 

Ash thinks he really, truly hates Odette and everything she represents.

Ash would give up everything for a pair of wings and a body no one wants to fuck.

Chapter Text

Swan Lake is a long, long show with many different dances, Eiji discovers with wide eyes maybe forty-five minutes into rehearsal. The dance he’s observing takes place all the way in the third Act. 

There’s a big fancy party, and Prince Seigfried (that’s Shorter) is going to confess his love to the Swan Queen (that’s Ash), but instead, there’s an imposter (Yut-Lung) who disguises as Ash–well, the Swan Queen–and makes the prince swear his love to her (well, him, everyone’s a boy), which means that Swan Queen (who is on stage but a vision?) will die. Or always be a swan. Or…. Something.

“How you story all this by dance?” Eiji asks, tilting his head so he can be on eye-level with Shorter.

Hands on his knees, Shorter is catching his breath, clutching his water bottle. Despite the “blood, sweat, and tears,” he grins up at Eiji. “Well, the music tells the highs and lows, and then the costuming. Yut-Lung is gonna wear black and Ash will wear white, for symbols. And then Blanca’s choreography shows conflict, and then we gotta be expressive.”

Eiji blinks, holding the camera with one hand, holding the cap over the lens with the other during the first five-minute break of the morning.

Shorter laughs, “Plus, it’s a pretty old story by now; everyone who’s coming will already know the basics.”

In the center of the dance studio–an incredible room with light wood paneling on the floors and mirrors on every wall–Mr. Blanca claps his hands. He’s dressed in a tank top and loose pants, and despite demonstrating all the moves that he’s choreographed, he doesn’t look like he’s broken a sweat.

“All right, back from the top of the movement.”

Eiji takes his finger from the camera lens and snaps a photo of Mr. Blanca, standing in the center of the room, his reflection surrounding him on all sides. He looks like some kind of Greek statue, or an ancient samurai.

The hardest part of taking pictures in here is all the mirrors, though. By the time Eiji’s angled himself to avoid a reflection of the camera, Mr. Blanca’s posture has shifted, and he’s a little less marble.

“Prince Seigfried,” Mr. Blanca tells Shorter, calling all the dancers by their character names during practice, “down here, if you please.”

Shorter clicks his tongue at Eiji and then hops to, settling into place.

Mr. Blanca moves the dancers like dolls, positioning Shorter on the far right side of the stage, and then calling for “Odile” and “Von Rothbart” to enter on the left.

“Light as a feather, Odile,” Mr. Blanca nods, his soft voice crisp, “like a bird.”

Yut-Lung is as striking in the harsh lights of the studio as he was in the theater yesterday–but today he’s even paler, his dark hair a sharp contrast. Eiji can only imagine what he’ll look like when he’s wearing black, and not a peacock-blue leotard.

More than that, Eiji thinks if the boy’s steps are any lighter, he’ll actually be floating over the ground.

Von Rothbart, named Arthur, also steps lightly, but there’s a little more purpose to each step. He’s tall, and blonde, with sharp eyes that look around haughtily.

At first, when Shorter explained the plot, Eiji was a little confused by the casting. The prince might be a little nearsighted if he couldn’t tell Ash and Yut-Lung apart; why not have the other blonde boy be the black swan?

But Arthur moves like a man on a mission, with the cold, narrowed eyes of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to cast a wicked spell on someone.

Eiji tells himself Arthur’s just a good actor, but he chooses not to snap a photo.

“Prince Seigfried,” Blanca says, “show me that entrechat again.”

“How high?” Shorter asks, wiggling his eyebrows. He looks a little underdressed without his shades.

Blanca doesn’t answer, maybe not finding him funny. Shorter bounces on his heels then leaps in midair.

Eiji takes a photo a second too late–Shorter’s foot has already hit the ground when Eiji hears the picture process.

The side door opens, and in comes Ibe-san with the coffees. Normally, that would be Eiji’s job, but after they’d set up this morning, Ibe-san had volunteered to go out and let Eiji take some pictures on his own. “ It’ll be good for you to get some practice with action shots without me breathing down your neck,” he’d teased.

Eiji wasn’t looking forward to processing what he’d gotten so far on film; he didn’t think any of them would come out very good.

Ibe-san smiles at Eiji, glances at the ongoing rehearsal, and then takes one quick sweep of the room. He grimaces at the elephant–or maybe it’s the lack of an elephant–in the room and glances behind him, at Max.

Max follows in, a big clunky cellphone on his shoulder, glancing around frantically. “Shit,” he mutters.

Eiji fiddles with the camera as Shorter keeps jumping.

Still no sign of Ash.

“It’s ok, Max,” Ibe-san says, setting the coffees down and holding his hand out for the camera. “We can take shots of the rest of practice–didn’t get a chance to meet Frederick Arthur yet.”

Max is huffing and pacing, scratching the back of his head. He looks more out of his element in the dance studio than in the theater–why was Max funding a ballet anyway? “This isn’t like Ash. He’s not–”

“Unprofessional?” Arthur interrupts, on the other side of the dance studio. He’s laughing, hands on his hips. “Aren’t the press well-informed.”

Max sucks in his lips.

Eiji may be green to this world and the language, but sarcasm is international. He doesn’t remember any of Ibe-san’s research suggesting that Ash was anything other than perfect.

Ibe-san fixes the camera to the tripod, adjusting it for a steadier shot. He’d told Eiji this morning to leave it there, “It’ll be easier for you to avoid motion blur.”

“Von Rothbart,” Mr. Blanca says. His voice is smooth like butter. “From the top, if you please.”

Arthur scowls, and with his hair teased up in spikes, he looks like some kind of disgruntled porcupine.

Yut-Lung breaks position, feet still angled out as he asks, “Blanca, sir, I think I’m ready to move onto the new material. We could always backtrack to Odette’s solo–”

“Odette!” Shorter cries out, and he leaps toward Yut-Lung. 

Yut-Lung startles, then scowls at Shorter for being silly.

Following the choreography, Shorter drops down to one knee, holding his hand out to the black swan’s, “at last, you’ve arrived–”

The door snaps open. Eiji’s back behind the camera, and he grabs the tripod handle, turns the camera, and takes a photo.

In walks Ash Lynx himself.

Eiji already knows the photo’s going to be a waste; Ash looks terrible. Yut-Lung may as well have a summer tan next to Ash Lynx, and in just a day, some of that brightness in his green eyes have dulled out, everything weighed down by bags and sunken cheeks and, well….

He looks miserable.

“Odette, thank you for joining us,” Mr. Blanca says, smiling the same as ever. “Are you warmed up yet?”

Ash doesn’t answer. He drops his bag and begins stretching on the bar closest to him, holding his ballet shoe in his hand and pulling his foot over his head.

Eiji watches, jaw wide.

No on else is very impressed, and Eiji remembers that the dancers are all just as flexible, and Ash is, in fact, nearly an hour late.

Yut-Lung and Arthur look annoyed, but Shorter’s mouth is thin with worry. Mr. Blanca just claps his hands and has them run the same sequence again while they wait on Ash.

“Max,” Ibe-san is saying. Eiji glances to see that Max is crossing over to Ash’s corner of the studio.

Max leans over Ash on the bar. “Where were you? I couldn’t get ahold of you all morning–I even called last night to ask if—”

“Hey, old man.” With one hand on the bar still, Ash holds his nose, “you wouldn’t by any chance have a breath mint on you, huh?”

Max stops, checking his breath, then balks.

“Maybe spend more time worrying about yourself,” Ash hums, reaching down to touch his toes. “Or else, you might lose your hair on top of everything else.”

“I thought you said you were going to take this seriously.”

Ash bounces up on the balls of his feet, dropping down in what Eiji now knows is a plie. “I take everything seriously.”

A few minutes later, Ash bounds onto the floor with the other dancers. Eiji snaps a few photos as Ash follows Mr. Blanca’s choreography–he’s moving slow, so there’s less risk of motion blur.

“...Odette appears in Siegfried’s vision by leaping onto the stage,” Mr. Blanca says. And he demonstrates; this hulking, mass of a man flies into the air–and lands almost soundlessly.

Eiji’s hands freeze on the camera in surprise.

“Now you try, Little Cat.”

Ash rolls his eyes and his neck before taking a few steps, leaping forward, and—

Eiji snaps a photo.

Ash is flying.

Eiji looks over to Ibe-san to gush about the great shot he took, but he gets distracted. Max is in the furthest corner–out of the way–with his elbows on the bar. Like he’s sulking.

Curiosity draws Eiji and his camera deeper to that corner. He adjusts the tripod to get a wider angle, taking another photo of the assembled dancers; the full main cast.

“You know Ash well?” Eiji asks Max. He’s unable to take his eyes off the dance floor as Ash leaps even higher than before.

How could anyone say he was not an athlete? 

Max grunts. “Eh… I’ve been… acquainted with him for about three months now. We met at a press junket when he was in Giselle . And I got to see him perform. It put the seeds in my brain for this project.”

After his three jumps, Ash begins to spin, faster, faster, faster.

“Ibe-san said you don’t know much about ballet,” Eiji says.

“The more I work on this project, the more I realize he’s right Max sighs.

Ash stops spinning, stretching his arms out to either side, staring up at the ceiling. He has to be out of breath, but you can barely see his chest rise and fall.

Eiji’s finger hovers over the shutter release; this would make a perfect cover photo for the piece. Ash’s blonde hair eclipsed by the lights, the slightest layer of sweat making his pale skin glow, his arms swanlike, feet still poised, like one step and he’ll fly into the sky.

He remembers what Ibe-san had said, when he’d taken Eiji’s photo at the polevault meet, “It left me feeling hopeful.”

Eiji remembers staring at that photo for hours, grateful that it’d been taken, but clueless as to how Ibe-san had seen that in it.

Ash’s green eyes are dry and red, the skin around them gray and wrinkled.

He’s beautiful and he’s ugly and Eiji doesn’t know what the two of them combined means.

Mr. Blanca claps his hands together, and before Eiji can decide if he wants to save this image, he orders, “Again.”

Eiji finally pulls his attention back to Max, who’s leaning his bodyweight on the bar as they stay cluttered in the corner. “Why ballet, then? Why Ash?”

Max swishes his cheeks around, like he doesn’t want to answer. “Off the record,” he taps his finger on the metal of the bar, “I… I knew Ash’s brother.”

“Oh. I didn’t know he has a brother.”

“He and I served together in Lebanon for two tours.” Lazily, he reaches under his shirt collar, and flashes a set of dog tags. “You form tight bonds in that kind of hell.”

Eiji’s fingers feel clammy and he pulls his hands away from the camera. “Oh,” he repeats. “That must have been hard.”

Max handwaves it away, “Eh, it’s in the past now–almost ten years ago. I managed to make it out without more than a few scratches. But Griffin lost the use of both his legs, came back stateside in pretty rough shape.”

Ash did his leaps again while Eiji wasn’t looking, and now he’s spinning, mouth in a straight line.

Eiji’s hit with images of his father, bound to his hospital bed, and shudders. “I’m so sorry. Ash must have been very young.”

“I think he would have been nine when Griffin made it home. Eleven, when….” Max sucks his lips together.

Eiji looks back to Max, mouth dry, realizing that Max used past tense about Ash’s brother.” “Did Griffin die?”

Max pops his lips. He almost looks like he’s smiling, but Eiji’s seen it before, on his mother, or in the mirror. It’s the face you make when you think you might get very angry or very sad. “Two tours in a thankless war, two injured legs, and some pitiful disability checks, and can you guess what killed this fearless veteran?”

Max doesn’t have to say, gripping the bar white-knuckled. The pieces are all falling into place now.

Max wanted a ballet so that Ash could be involved, so that Ash could help Max raise money in Griffin’s memory, to fight AIDS.

“Eiji.” Ibe-san comes back over, the second camera still dangling around his neck, “are you taking any pictures or are you chatting?”

“Sorry, Ibe-san–”

Max slaps his hand on the metal bar, and it clangs.

The dancers are looking over now, too. Ash has again finished his move, and looks not at the ceiling, but over to Max in the corner.

Max wrings out his hand, looking a little sheepish to have drawn attention. He puts on a bigger smile, makes an excuse of having forgotten something in the other room, and ducks out before Ibe-san can ask if he missed something.

Ash watches him leave, nose high. Yesterday, Eiji would have found him snobby.

Now, he doesn’t know what to think.

Mr. Blanca claps. “Again.”

~ ~ ~

April in New York means that while yesterday was a balmy 22 degrees, today it’s dropped all the way down to 15. So, when Eiji steps out for a breath of air, Ibe-san reminds him to take his jacket.

Eiji zips it up when he steps into the alley and gets hit with a quick gust of wind. The alley behind the studio is reds and grays–red brick of the buildings around them, gray gravel below them, chipped red on the handrail leading down from the theater, gray trashcans piled in the corner.

He’s carrying the handheld camera with him like a baby blanket, so when he notices that the trashcan on the gravel has a red-brick backdrop with the splash of guard rail on the side, he pauses to take a picture.

He’s taken a few shots when he hears a laugh. “Guess they don’t have trash cans in Shanghai, huh?”

Arthur is leaned up against an alley wall, cigarette in hand, watching Eiji.

“I from Japan,” Eiji tests the waters.

Unfortunately, Arthur laughs again. “I no can tell,” he mimics, changing the pitch of his voice. “Fuck me .” He takes a long drag. “I should never have let my agent talk me into this shit.”

“You could always drop out.”

Eiji turns to the stairs. Ash stands at the top, leaning on the red guardrail; Eiji can almost see up his nostrils.

“Or you could drop dead,” Arthur says, spitting into the alley.

Ash just shrugs, like he’s considering the offer, bouncing down the steps. “Is he bothering you?”

It takes Eiji a second to realize he means him . “I…” he hesitates. “No, he just little cranky.”

Arthur’s laughing again. “What was that? I don’t speak Samurai.”

Ash lands at the bottom of the steps, an arms breadth from Eiji. As Ash clutches the rail, it’s almost like he’s reaching out to shield him. “Fuck off, Arthur.”

The blonde American boys have a standoff, like cowboys in a movie.

Arthur keeps on smoking his cigarette while Ash glares daggers, until eventually, Arthur straightens up and strolls back their way.

Ash steps to the side–in front of Eiji–so that Arthur can get to the stairs and back into the studio.

Arthur blows smoke directly into Ash’s face. “You two faggots have fun, now,” he winks. “But not too much fun.”

Instinct moves Eiji’s eyes down to Ash’s hand. He watches Ash’s slender fingers flex, then curl into a fist, and then—

“Ash!” Eiji shouts, grabbing Ash’s arm just as he goes to swing at Arthur.

Arthur flinches, a little, when he realizes what nearly happened. Then he laughs again, grinning like he struck gold, “Listen to your boyfriend, Princess.”

Ash hisses at Arthur, like a cat, but Arthur’s already bounding up the stairs and stepping back into the studio.

After the door falls shut, and they’re alone in the alley, Ash makes one jerking movement and shakes off Eiji’s grip.

Eiji had almost forgotten he was holding onto Ash’s arm.

“Sorry,” Eiji says, backing up a little more in the alley. “I just… I no want to make you to fight your friend. Not for me.”

He knows “friend” can’t be the right word, but he’s a bit too flustered to think of what it would be–at least in English. It’s frustrating; he picked up on the language quickly, but while he can hear it spoken and comprehend, sometimes, his tongue can’t keep up.

Ash snorts a little, but doesn’t comment on his choice of word. “It would have been for me , too.”

“Sorry.”

Ash shrugs out his shoulders. He’s not wearing a jacket, despite the nippy air, and in his leotard, his arms are naked. “Don’t sweat it–you probably did me a favor. Fighting with Arthur’s more fucking trouble than its worth.”

“Oh. Do you… fight much?”

“Not recently. Can’t afford to–my manager expects me on my best behavior for this show.”

“Well,” Eiji steps out of the corner he’s backed into, coming around so he can look Ash in the eye, “If you do want to punch Arthur, I won’t tattle.”

Ash smiles, playing with his blonde hair. “Yeah? He sure as hell would. We’re from the same agency–Arthur’s only here to be a little rat and keep tabs on me. He’s waiting for some dirt he can use to knock me down a peg.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Ash’s nose squints, breath fogging between them. “Is that your favorite word?”

“Hmm?”

“Or do they just apologize every thirty seconds in Japan or something?”

Eiji feels like his cheeks are going pink. “Oh. No, sorry–”

He goes beet red.

Ash laughs, but not like Arthur had. There’s a little light in his eyes–light that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago, during rehearsal.

Here in the alley, Ash seems salt-of-the-earth, a whole different person from the Swan Queen. At most, Eiji had been hoping to find out that Ash wasn’t fully bratty.

He hadn’t considered that Ash was likeable.

More than that, he’s kind. He wasn’t supposed to be picking fights with Arthur, and yet he stuck out his neck for Eiji. A total stranger.

Ash’s skin is going goosebumpy with the cold, April wind.

“Do you no have jacket?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m not cold. Worked up a real sweat in there.”

“That means you’ll get colder faster,” Eiji scolds. “I know. I athlete too.”

Ash raises an eyebrow.

Not waiting for an answer, Eiji shrugs off his jacket. Unlike Ash, he has a long-sleeve shirt underneath.

Ash huffs. “I don’t–”

Eiji holds out the jacket, insistent and scowling.

Ash rolls his eyes, taking the jacket and shrugging it over his shoulders, “Fine, Mom.”

“Please. I only two years older than you.”

“Fine, oh wise, old one.”

“Senpai is fine,” Eiji grins.

Ash considers him, holding the jacket at the lapels, clearly not knowing the word. But he smiles. “How about ‘bossy photographer?’ Or ‘senior citizen?’ Or–”

“You could also call my name.”

Ash raises an eyebrow, and after a beat, Eiji realizes that they were never actually introduced.

“Oh God.” Eiji bows in greeting, then again in apology. “I so sorry. My name is Okumara Eiji.”

Ash snorts, “Sorry, sorry…” He sticks out his hand. “Ash Lynx.”

Eiji takes his hand, and lets Ash lead him through a shake. “Is that common American name?”

“It’s my stage name; my real name’s a little harder to put in a playbill.”

“Oh. I see. I sorry.”

Ash laughs again, but Eiji does feel bad. He wonders if he did something wrong, that Ash thinks he should be using his stage name. Eiji had thought they might be becoming… friendly.

“Take any good pictures today?” Ash is pointing at Eiji’s camera.

“Oh. Maybe? Hard to say–it film so we won’t see till dark room.”

“Make sure you publish the angles from my good side,” Ash preens.

Eiji raises an eyebrow. “Which side? You look same all around.”

“Good grief,” Ash rolls his eyes.

“You’ll have to show me,” Eiji says, with the same unearned, knee-jerk confidence that had led him to ask to come to rehearsals. “Or pick the right photos yourself.”

It takes Ash a second to put together the offer. “What, like, you want me to look over the negatives with you?”

“Why not? Your picture, your show. Why not have you approval?”

His English is getting worse. He’s getting nervous.

He really wants Ash to say yes. He doesn’t want this moment with the ethereal Ash Lynx made human to end.

For a second, he thinks Ash will decline. That Ash will put on another fake smile, walk back into the studio, and keep on dancing without even looking at anyone–so far above everyone, let alone an outsider like Eiji.

“Maybe,” Ash shrugs, face flat. “Could be fun.”

Eiji beams, ready to take this inch and stretch it a mile. “You can come with me after rehearsal!”

“Oh, I–maybe not today—”

Eiji fiddles in his pockets and pulls out a pen. “Then I give you my phone number?”

“I don’t got any paper–hey!”

Eiji’s already writing the landline number for his and Ibe-san’s apartment on Ash’s palm.

Ash lets him, tapping his foot, but patiently keeping his hand open. “Are all Japanese kids this weird, or is it just you?”

“I no know. I might be weirdest.”

The stage door bursts open. “Yo, Ash!” Shorter shouts, “Get your ass back in here! Blanca wants to do the whole thing again.”

Eiji caps the pen, and Ash shakes out his hand, blowing on his palm to dry the ink.

“No rest for the wicked.” Ash winks, hopping up the stairs, “Later!”

Shorter shouts a quick “Hi!” to Eiji before trundling back in with Ash–Mr. Blanca must really be antsy–but Eiji lingers out in the cold.

A little dazed, he decides to try and take that picture of the trash can again. But with the memory of Ash winking at him, he just can’t quite seem to get the lens to focus.

Chapter Text

“Yup,” Ash pops the ‘P,’ leaning his elbows on the desk as he talks into the landline of the dance studio’s office. “I heard you–callbacks tomorrow afternoon, three o’clock on the dot.”

There’s a grunt or maybe a grinding of teeth on the other end of the line–hard to tell through the connection–but Ash smiles regardless. He was worried that a twenty second phone call wouldn’t be enough time to get under Dino’s skin. “Two o’clock, sweetheart.”

“Oh really?” Ash laughs, twirling the hair by his ear. “Pardon, you know me; blonde bimbo.”

“Do you need me to have Marvin come pick you up again?” Dino’s voice has an edge to it; not in the mood for games. “Make sure you’re on time?”

Ash huffs, clicking his fingernails against the receiver. He’s bitten them down to the nub. “No, Papa.”

“Good boy. I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow night.” And the line goes dead.

Sometimes, Ash doesn’t know why he bothers pushing back on Dino. It’s like he’s a glutton for punishment or something.

When Ash first “moved out,” he and Dino had dinner dates twice a week, and Ash stayed at the mansion on the weekends. Then Ash was a good boy, and by the time he turned seventeen (seven months ago) dinner was only on Saturday nights.

This will be the second impromptu summons Ash has had this month.

A couple of years ago, Ash would have known exactly what to do to get Dino off his back… but lately, Dino doesn’t seem to want Ash lying on his back anymore.

He ruffles a hand through his hair, looking at his distorted reflection in the office window. Is he less pretty now, creeping towards eighteen, then he was at twelve? Is he too old ? Or—

Blanca opens the office door without knocking. Fair enough, it’s not like it’s Ash’s private room, but it’s not Blanca’s either. They’re just renting this dance studio till Swan Lake opens. “All finished up?”

Ash still has the receiver in hand, tuning out the dial tone. He puts the phone back in place on the desk. “Got a callback for Prince Charming.”

“Why don’t you have a cellphone? I thought Monsieur Golzine bought you one months ago.”

“It mysteriously got hacked into pieces by a hammer,” Ash says, brushing by Blanca and out the office, “a real tragedy.”

Like fuck Ash was going to let Dino be able to reach him anytime, anyplace. He might as well walk around with a collar and a little bell.

Blanca stops Ash, one thick hand lightly on his forearm. For half a second, Ash tenses. In fight or flight, Ash calculates, like he’s fourteen and Marvin’s between him and the door, he’s eight and the gun’s still in his pants pocket—

“I hope you remembered your manners at least, little cat.” Blanca’s so large, his breath goes right over Ash’s head, ruffling up his hair. “Starring in a national tour is a great opportunity for your future. Think of all the connections you might make.”

Ash can still almost taste the producer in his mouth.

“Gee whiz,” he says, flat, ducking out of the office.

In the short hallway, Arthur’s got a pager in hand and is rushing to presumably use the phone and call back Dino himself. He bumps past Ash, knocking their shoulders again.

And that takes Ash back out to the alley, and the fucking way Arthur started picking on Eiji for shits and giggles.

“Callback’s at two,” Ash says. He wouldn’t have said anything, normally, but he didn’t get to knock Arthur’s teeth in earlier. It’s the least he can do. “Providing you got one, right?”

Arthur turns on his heel, eyes like bullets, but Ash is already off again.

Pissing off Dino and Arthur… what’s your fucking problem, Lynx?

It wasn’t that this wasn’t like Ash, but usually, he had to have some kind of reason. He didn’t start shit for the sake of it.

He goes to scratch at his hair and pauses, looking again at his palm.

Eiji’s phone number has started to smudge.

Ash commits the ten digits to memory before they become illegible.

~ ~ ~

Back in the studio, Yut-Lung’s on the phone. Ash only knows a little conversational cantonese, osmosis from hanging around Shorter, but mostly phrases like “hi” and “bye” and “pass the duck sauce.”

Within the little bit of time they’d been working on Swan Lake , Ash’s language horizons have broadened courtesy of the baby Lee prodigy.

Yut-Lung’s on the phone with his “big brother.” The Lees are bigshots, bigger than Dino in the grand scheme of things, but in other entertainment fields, like sports teams and pop stars, not so much the classical arts or dance. 

In the world of ballet, Yut-Lung might be their only skin in the game.

“Got a callback, Yue?” Shorter asks, stretching in the corner, winding down for the day now that practice is done.

Eiji’s boss left half an hour ago, but Eiji is still here, squatted on the ground, trying to take a photo of Shorter stretching. “Shorter,” he complains, “stop smiling into the camera.”

Shorter flashes the peace sign at the lens.

“No,” Yut-Lung answers, snapping his obnoxious cell phone shut. He brings his leg up on the bar as he cools down, aloof. “I booked the part.”

That draws Ash’s attention. Even Eiji looks up from his lens, maybe picking up on Ash and Shorter’s confusion.

“You’re Prince Charming?” Shorter whistles. “Congrats–”

“I didn’t audition for Prince Charming,” Yut-Lung sticks up his nose, swapping legs. He bends over like he’s made of rubber. “I auditioned for the Bluebird. And booked it.”

Ash settles back against the bar. That adds up; it’s a bit of a more androgynous role, and Yut-Lung’s still kind of young, like Ash was when he played Ariel in The Tempest .

“Ah, gotcha. Still a principal role!” Shorter holds his hand up for a high-five.

Except he and Yut-Lung are about five feet apart in the studio. And Yut-Lung’s staring at the high five like it's a cow pie.

“Tough crowd,” Shorter shakes out his hand, chuckling to himself.

Eiji snaps a photo.

Ash jolts a little from the flash and–

And so does Yue.

Yue’s dark, almost black eyes flick up, meeting his.

Ash feels like he’s looking in the mirror. And he looks like shit.

“Heading home, Shorter?” Ash asks, picking up his bag, letting it flop against his shoulder.

“To Chang Dai.” Shorter slings his own bag up on his shoulder and snaps on his shades. “Promised Nadia I’d help with the dinner rush. Wanna drop by?”

Ash’s mouth twists, feeling bad as ever for forgetting that Shorter, unlike him, Yue, Arthur, and most other dancers in their league, is… well… flat fucking broke. 

Shorter deserves to be able to focus just on his dancing, not worry about booking gigs to help pay the bills, or having to work up to fifty hours a week sometimes while still having a full calendar of dance practices.

If Shorter had had half the opportunities Ash did, he could probably dance circles around him.

“Sorry,” Ash says, not just because if he came and Shorter was working, he’d want to help, and Shorter would tell Ash to sit down, and it’d be the same old awkward song and dance between Shorter’s pride and Ash’s guilt.

If he went, Nadia would look him up and down and start trying to feed him. And he’s still got a few pounds to shed off his hips.

He catches his reflection in the mirror. He’s not too tall, he’s not too thin. Staring hard enough at his leggings, he can see some pudge on his legs, arms.

“Well, you’re free to come by any time,” Shorter says, around the time Ash realizes he never gave an actual excuse.

There isn’t one he can give. Shorter knows Ash either has nothing to do or plans made for him.

Ash huffs his cheeks. “Sure.”

There’s another camera flash. Yut-Lung, messing with his hair and the tangles of his bun, goes  from cursing under his breath to shouting, “Take one more photo .”

Yut-Lung aims one finger at the camera lens like the barrel of a gun. Eiji startles, and pulls the camera to his chest, pointing it towards the floor.

Given the jolt in Eiji’s shoulder when the camera flashes again, Eiji’s finger slipped.

As Yut-Lung goes tomato red, Shorter howls in laughter.

Ash flings his bag over his shoulder, swallowing down a wince as Yut-Lung packs in a huff, staring down Eiji like he’s a bug.

Compared to Yut-Lung, with his money and connections and power, maybe Eiji is a bug.

Eiji bows out his apologies while Shorter follows on Yut-Lung’s heel, cracking dry jokes about their resident diva. But when Eiji looks up and meets Ash’s eye, there isn’t a hint of intimidation.

Eiji wears an awkward smile, shrugging his shoulders, as if to say, “What can you do?”

Ash taps his shoulder on his gym bag. What indeed.

~ ~ ~

“Ash-u!”

Ash stops, digging the toe of his converse into the cracked alley pavement. He turns, bag bouncing on his shoulder. Behind him, waving his hand high in the sky while lugging a camera bag half his body weight, Eiji ran at him. “Ash-u!” he repeated.

“Bless you,” Ash calls back. The joke–a little mean–goes over Eiji’s head. He catches up to Ash with a big smile plastered from one ear to the next. “What’s up?”

Eiji glances up a second, catching his breath. Then the idiom seems to click. “Oh! Shorter told me to see restaurant, but I forgot to ask where is. You show me, please?”

Ash wrinkles his nose, squinting back in the direction of the studio. “Can’t you catch up to Shorter? He should be heading there right away.”

“He had errand to run,” Eiji says, hefting his camera bag and rocking back on his heels, excited and breezy. Like Ash accepting is a foregone conclusion.

Fucking Shorter. He wouldn’t have invited Eiji to a place, forget to give him directions, and then leave on an “errand.”

Ash rubs a hand through his hair, wishing he actually did have somewhere to be, just to stick it to Shorter. Or maybe to Eiji’s happy puppy eyes. “Stick close; I know a shortcut.”

“Mmmhmm!” Eiji hums.

Ash scoffs. “No need to jump for joy.”

“You’re the one who jumps,” Eiji says, stepping alongside Ash as they walk around the corner beyond a chain link fence. “Like a bird! Thought you were going to leap right over Shorter’s head.”

“No one can jump over something that big.”

Eiji laughs–giggles?–balancing the weight of the camera bag some more. Ash is half-tempted to offer to lend a hand. “I could.”

“Oh yeah? Where you hiding your feathers?”

“No feathers. I used to vault. Pole vault.” Eiji lifts a hand to mime the motion.

Ash bends his eyebrows, remembering Eiji talking a little about being an athlete. “Oh yeah? How high of a vault?”

Eiji scrunches his nose, glancing up at the alley walls on either side of them. “Higher than the brick, I think.”

Ash whistles. “And you called me the jumper.”

“Well…” Eiji bit his lip, breaking some of the dry skin there. Ash would have pegged Eiji as the kind of kid who never forgot his chapstick, so he finds himself focused on the soft skin, worried that he’s about to see a drop of blood. “I no jump now.”

Ah. He meant “could have .”

Eiji hunches hsi shoulders a little, smaller, like he’s waiting for Ash to ask more.

Ash isn’t nosy, though. Keeping to yourself is how you keep people from sticking their nose in your business.

They walk without talking, for maybe a minute, and its… peaceful. The gray New York alleys seem a little more colorful, as Eiji quietly relaxes, lifting his head higher, watching Ash as they go.

“So,” Eiji says. Ash wishes he actually had timed it, just to see how long Eiji could physically go without speaking. “Is Shorter food good? I only eaten Chinese food a few times.”

“Shorter’s not much of a cook, so thankfully–”

Ash pauses, grinding the heel of his converse in a small patch of broken pavement.

It was quiet around them, half a block out from the street with the cars and people, past apartments and towards rundown buildings, half-gutted and abandoned halfway through renovations.

But New York should never be this quiet.

“Thankfully what?”

Ash steps forward, putting his arm out behind him to block Eiji in towards the alley wall. His eyes flick about their surroundings, taking in graffiti, chipped brick, and the turns in the alley, a hundred feet ahead on the left and a hundred feet behind on the right.

He listens, ears tense like a hawk. In the silence, he hears a pebble drop, someone’s foot shifting gravel around the bend.

Ash flares his nostril. “Lost, Arthur?”

Another beat. Eiji’s very still behind him, his breath almost against his neck.

From ahead of them, Arthur strolls out from hiding, hands in his pocket, smirking as he brushes up his hair to even douchier heights. “Didn’t expect to see the domesticated Lynx this far on the rough side of town. There’s no silver spoons out here, rich boy.”

Wookie stands at Arthur’s elbow, head tilted on its axis. Wookie’s not in ballet, but he is represented by Dino’s agency, and one of Arthur’s best bootlickers.

Footsteps crunch the gravel behind them. Eiji tightens a fist in the back of Ash’s jacket, but Ash doesn’t turn around. By their footsteps, he can count two of them.

Four against one was far from fair, but Arthur doesn’t have that word in his lexicon.

Four against two , Ash realizes, Eiji tugging on his jacket like a nervous kid.

Ash kicks at a rusted trash can, watching it skid into the brick wall. “There’s plenty of room for trash, isn’t there, Arthur?”

Arthur smirks, but he’s gritting his teeth. His crew start whistling, egging Arthur on, eager for the smackdown. “Somedays, when I see you strutting around with that fucking smirk, I think ‘he’s just begging for someone to beat the shit out of him.’”

“Are you gonna punish me, Daddy?” Ash bats his lashes.

The guys jeer, Arthur hesitates for half-a-second, letting slip a grimace of actual disgust for Ash’s faggotry.

Eiji tightens his grip on Ash’s sleeve, and Ash’s stomach drops with both shame and fear.

Arthur keeps walking closer, and Ash pivots, blocking Eiji behind him, wedging the kid between his body and the wall.

“The photographer’s got nothing to do with this,” Ash says. “Let him through, hmm?”

Arthur sneers. “What’s the matter, Princess? Don’t want your boyfriend to see you cry?”

“You want an audience that bad?” It’s a weak excuse; Eiji’s already seen enough to snitch. And with his little sweater and wide, innocent eyes, Eiji may as well have “snitch” written on his forehead.

If Ash doesn’t get them out of here, it’s not just his ass on the line.

Arthur’s close enough to touch. He reaches out his right hand, grabbing Ash by the scruff of his shirt. “It’s so easy for you, always center stage. Not all of us have the privilege to sleep our way to the top.”

Ash bites down his back teeth, wishing Eiji wasn’t standing just behind him.

“For some of us, we have to actually put in some work.” Arthur’s teeth are showing, stark white, pristine as a pair of unbroken shoes. “And work involves getting your hands dir–”

Ash swings his dance bag just at the moment Arthur loosens his fist just a fraction.

He takes Arthur off-guard, getting him straight in the stomach, winding him. Arthur’s guys immediately charge in, snarling, but Ash is already swinging, dragging Eiji behind him.

“Ash-u–” Eiji gasps.

“ Don’t let go ,” Ash orders, his focus on Wookie, aiming a kick high into the guy’s stomach.

Another asshole winded, Ash doesn’t wait to hear Wookie fall into the gravel before he takes off with Eiji at a run.

Arthur picked a bad spot to jump him; Ash knows this strip of alley like the back of his hand, bobbing and weaving Eiji down twists and turns, wordless as he concentrates on controlling his breathing.

“Ash-u!” Eiji pants behind him, sounding winded, but Ash can’t let up his pace, and he can’t loosen his grip on Eiji’s arm. 

God, he hopes he doesn’t dislocate Eiji’s shoulder, yanking him around like this.

Sounds like the kind of rescue job Ash could do. Was it a rescue, though, when you walk an innocent bystander into the line of fire? This poor fucking kid.

He glances over his shoulder, just a little, to check on Eiji. The Japanese kid is panting for breath, red in the face, eyes wider than saucers. He began to dig in his heels, and screams, “Ash-u, the fence!”

Ash looks where he was going just in time. He comes to a skidding halt, looking up at a wooden fence blocking their way. Was that new? How long since you last came to Chang-Dai?

No, the fence is familiar; it’s just always open. Someone’s closed it and locked it. Arthur? The alley owner?

Doesn’t matter. Ash tugs and fiddles on the metal clasp. It’s just a simple latch, but the lock is on the other side, and out of reach, given that the fence was taller than either of them with no place to climb up.

“Fuck,” Ash says, slamming his body into the fence, smacking his palm flat. “ Fuck. ”

Running his hands through his hair, Ash scrambles to think what to do. He can almost hear Blanca’s voice in his head, but he’s at a deadend with Eiji and no way to save himself, let alone this random ass kid.

“Eiji–” Ash stops, eyes bent, as he sees Eiji crouched on the ground. “What are you doing?”

Eiji has found some old piping laid out on the ground. He’s hefting a piece up, feeling its flex, holding it up to check its height.

It clicks together. Pole vaulter . “Don’t you even think about it.”

“It’s not been too very long,” Eiji says, toneless. He’s thinking this over.

Methodically, Eiji starts digging a divot into the dirt; a launching point.

“This isn’t a sporting meet!” Ash shouts. You know there are no fucking mats on the other side–”

Eiji slams his pole down harder and spins back to Ash. “Yes I know there no fucking mats on other side!” he spat.

Ash wonders if Eiji even knew what “fuck” meant. He might just be parroting back for the sake of facing him head on.

He’s surprised to realize that Eiji is not scared. He looks pissed at Ash, but, maybe just for talking back. “I’m not just gonna stand around and wait for Arthur.”

Shouting behind them; familiar, unwanted voices. Ash turns to the noise, just in time to miss Eiji back up.

Ash watches Eiji hefting the pipe, heart in his throat. He wants to tell Eiji not to, or to at least wait, but something about Eiji standing there, wind in his hair, soft face now hard with determination… it takes the breath from him.

Eiji starts running, legs up to his waist, hands on the pipe tight, and then he sinks the metal down into the ground, winding up his body–

And then, just like a swan, Eiji flies.

He arcs through the air, arms outstretched, and Ash is caught in the downwind, feeling like he’s going to be knocked to his knees by the sheer majesty.

For a moment, Eiji is suspended overhead, and Ash’s world narrows to his flight.

Then, the thud. No spectacular crash, but some muffling, a small, “Oof!” from Eiji, like he tripped on his shoelaces.

A harsh scream. “Ash!”

Ash spins around on his heels, seeing Arthur’s ugly mug as the dick brigade come charging around the corner.

He hears the fence’s lock snap open. Ash has barely glanced back again when Eiji has the fence open, has grabbed Ash by the shirt, and yanked him through.

Chapter Text

Shorter’s laughing so hard, the coco-cola he’s guzzling is close to coming back out his nose. Sing, his younger cousin, is pounding the table.

Eiji holds Chang Dai’s menu by the corners. He thought of his little sister, rolling her eyes at him on the train, “They’re laughing at you, Eiji, not with you .” He knew the difference, or he thought he did. After his injury, after he realized how many of his friendships were surface-deep, it felt harder and harder.

At their little square table in the corner of the brightly colored Chinese-styled restaurant (“ The tackier the place, the better the food,” Ash had said, under his breath when Eiji was marveling ), Eiji jumps when he hears the chair next to him move.

Ash is back from the bathroom. His face is bright pink, and his hair is damp. Was he washing his face? He gives no explanation, squinting at Shorter and Sing, and asks Eiji, “What the fuck happened?”

Eiji brings his knees together, not certain if Ash is annoyed or not. It's hard to believe how calm Ash is, already, when they escaped from a “beat down” (more of Ash’s phrasing) only a quarter of an hour ago. “I was just ask them,” and he shows Ash the menu, “who General Tso is.”

Sing falls to the floor as he laughs. Shorter wipes an imaginary tear from his eye.

Eiji gives them the stinkeye, “He must be im-in-imported-big deal, they named dish after him.”

“Ash,” Shorter says, flinging an arm around Eiji’s shoulder, “we gotta protect this kid.”

Ash chews his water straw. “Do we?”

“With our lives ,” Shorter enunciates, shades dropping down his nose.

The moment would feel tense, if Sing wasn’t still trying to catch his breath.

Ash looks at Eiji, and Eiji gets lost in a pool of jade that exactly matches the shade of the semi-authentic lamps hanging around. “Noted,” Ash says, giving the straw some respite as he begins to sip water.

As far as Eiji knows, Ash hasn’t told Shorter about the near beat down. Or Eiji pole-vaulting. Or running with Ash like a madman down the street until Ash pulled them to a stop, and Eiji found out he’d taken them three blocks past Chang Dai.

“I am sorry!” Eiji had gasped, bent double, trying to take in breath.

Ash had bent over, looking Eiji in the eye. “For fucking what ?” When Eiji didn’t answer, he touched his shoulder. “Are you okay? That sounded like a hard fall.”

Eiji’s ass was sore, but nothing felt out of place. “I have big bruise in the morning.”

Standing in an alley, alone, catching their breath, Ash had laughed, like the tinkling of bells, or the classical music played in his dance rehearsals.

“You,” Ash covered his mouth, cutting Eiji off from the beauty of his smile. “You flew like a damn bird.”

Eiji looks away from Ash–or more accurately, the straw clinging to his bottom lip–and blurts to Shorter, “Is the General chicken good?”

“Don’t order General Tso,” Ash says.

“Don’t tell Eiji what to do,” Shorter spits back.

“Don’t leave Sing on the floor.”

Sing is still on the floor, and Shorter hauls him up by the collar of his shirt, and Sing complains that he’d found a “cool-ass-looking-bug” and then Shorter’s swearing and running to the back to grab the broom before Nadia “forces us to clean this place balls deep again!”

Sing scoops the bug into his palms, screaming that he was going to keep Mr. Green alive with his dying breaths.

While Eiji takes in the chaos, Ash slips the menu out from Eiji’s hand with one, clean flick of his wrist. The cat comparison makes more and more sense by the minute. “You don’t need a menu. All Chinese restaurants have the same stuff.”

Nadia, Shorter’s sister, is a tall, pretty girl; sharp jaw suited for her pixie cut. She comes to take their order without an introduction, asking Ash, “Weren’t Shorter and Sing here?”

“Nadia, can we have some egg rolls, shrimp fried rice, and chicken for the table?”

She scribbles it on a pen pad, looking at Eiji out of the corner of her eye, before leaving the mostly empty restaurant for the kitchen. Maybe she’s used to Shorter and Ash coming here with different people.

They’re alone at the table again. Eiji squeezes his hands between his legs, sitting right next to Ash, as he takes slow sips of water. There’s a rhythm to it; one, two, three sips, then chew one, two, three, then sip one, two, three. Everything is a dance.

“What’s the matter? Jealous of my straw?”

Eiji’s been caught staring. He feels his cheeks burn, and he looks away from the straw, and up Ash’s face. “I…” But what can he say?

Ash is grinning, teeth tight around his straw, “Careful; stare long enough, I’ll have to charge.” And he winks, a green eye coming and going.

Laughing with him, not at him.

“By the hour or by the stare?”

Ash laughs out loud this time. “Doesn’t matter; my rate’s outside your budget.”

“No fair. I am press, I get discount rate.”

Shorter’s back with his broom, ducking under the table to look for the bug that Sing took off with already. “Rates?”

Ash wiggles his eyebrows. “Eiji’s trying to take my ass for a ride. Hard bargainer, this one.”

Ok, now laughed at . Scrunching his face, Eiji says, “I save that ass, I should get stares for free.”

Shorter’s head hits the bottom of the table with a thud . His mohawk pops up a second later. “Who saved what now?”

Ash chews his straw one, two, three, four, five times, fast and hard. Did Eiji break the rhythm? “Arthur was just being his usual self.”

Shorter frowns, palms on the table. “Ash, are you getting into fights again? I thought you’d given that shit up.”

“Sorry, Mommy,” Ash pouts, batting his eyelashes. They’re as blond as the hair on his head, almost translucent. “I’ve been a baaad little boy, huh?”

“Jesus Christ,” Shorter mutters, sitting back down again. “Just don’t try going it alone, ok? Dumbass.”

Ash doesn’t answer, his sips long. One. Two. Threeeee. One. Two. Threeeeee.

Sing comes back with a different bug, one that he found in the alley, Shorter waves around the broom, and Nadia comes out with their food before anyone asks Eiji another question.

Sing wants to know more about Eiji and Ibe’s work, and how he’s liking the city, and America as a whole.

His answers are monosyllabic; “Fun; Nice; Big.” He’s a bit too distracted to entertain.

His eyes keep drifting to Ash, leaning back in the booth, only picking at the food he’d ordered for all of them. He thinks about Arthur calling him names. Ash not wanting Shorter to know. Shorter saying again .

Once he’s back at Ibe’s, and after Ibe has scolded him for being out so late, Eiji’s put to work to edit some photos on the computer; one of Eiji’s few advantages in the industry is that he grew up with digital tech.

He gets through one or two photos of Ash jumping through the sky until he’s dialing up the internet and typing: “ASH LYNX (BALLET)”.

Ash has a lot of internet pages about him. Some of them are snippets from newspapers, reviews from critics. All the good things he’d heard before now, about Ash’s talent, and his raw skill.

Once or twice, he comes across a controversial opinion, like a think piece for a ballet magazine about how Ash is talented for his age, but people only think he’s the best because he’s young. “In ten years time, when the Little Lynx is twenty-five ,” the thought piece says, “And there is some other fifteen-year-old who can do a perfect tour en l'air, the community will start to see that for all the form, there’s no passion. And if all we care about is form, if Lynx is the pinnacle of what a dancer can achieve, we might as well code robots how to dance, and marvel at the purest, most perfect technical execution possible. Then at last we’d be freed of the biggest drawback any talented prodigy has to offer: ego.”

The article is two years old, so Eiji gives the writer a little grace. Maybe, when Ashe was fifteen, he wasn’t the dancer he was today. Maybe then, his eyes didn’t have the sparkle they did now. Or his eyebrows didn’t have the same quirk.

“Ego” draws Eiji’s attention. That opinion he can’t give as much grace too; anyone who’d talked with Ash for more than five minutes knows that if anything, he’s too hard on himself.

He exchanges “EGO” for “BALLET” in his search.

The first result is from last year. The headline reads “TEMPEST AFTER THE BALLET: ‘ARIEL’ ALLEGED ARREST”.

Allegedly, on a Saturday night after a production of the Tempest, Ash Lynx was arrested for underage drinking after a fight broke out at a dive bar. Heart in his stomach when he scrolls down to see a blurry photo that definitely looks like Ash–hair a little longer with curled bangs, glitter on his face and a bruise or eyeshadow on his left eye–being hauled kicking and screaming into a cop car has Eiji clicking on every similar article.

What he can tell from the updates is that both the ballet’s director and Ash’s manager gave statements to the press about how there are no charges on Ash Lynx, the upcoming productions are continuing as scheduled, and they request privacy for the fifteen-year-old star.

Reading through the different articles, there’s nothing that says whether or not Ash didn’t get arrested or in a fight, just that there were no charges . The incident didn’t look like it rocked the boat much, one reporter hinting that it may have increased ticket sales, scolding it for being a cheap marketing ploy. “Nothing stirs people up more than a good kid gone bad.”

The “ASH LYNX ARREST” results tell a different story about “a good kid.”

He was (allegedly) arrested right when he turned sixteen, something in the articles about an (alleged) drunk driving accident. It’s not clear if Ash was driving or in the car, or if it even was an accident or just a traffic stop. Radio silence from his press team for two weeks, until his manager, a name Eiji recognizes from the previous articles, released a statement that Ash was not involved in any criminal investigations. 

Ash was then seen driving himself to the opening night of Giselle in a flashy sports car, swinging his keys around his finger as he smiled at the awaiting press.

Some people called this one a publicity stunt as well, while others said that the press will do anything to try and make something out of nothing, and Ash’s team is just doing what they can to clear rumors.

Eiji stares hard at the Ash in the photo; someone got a good shot, Ash in the center of the frame, his sports car behind him, headlights flashing. He’s smiling wide, waving like a politician.

When he zooms in the photo, Ash’s eyes look robotic.

He doesn’t find any other (alleged) arrest reports, thank God. But there are some unfortunate articles. Someone taking a photo of what looks to be Ash partying hard in a 21+ venue, Ash storming out from some pro photoshoot, cursing out everyone, Ash flipping the bird at fans waiting in the alley outside his dressing room.

He’s staring hard at one particular article, and the featured photo, when Ibe knocks on the door. Eiji nearly jumps clean out of his skin.

“Eiji? Are you on the internet? I’m trying to call Max.”

“Sorry!” Eiji blurts, closing out all his tabs.

He lingers on the last one he found for a little while. It’s the oldest, back when Ash was really emerging on the art scene and gaining attention. 

1988, Ash is fourteen, and there’s going to be a televised production of the Nutcracker . In a bold move, they’ve decided to cast a child Clara and Prince, and Eiji found several articles discussing the two of them. The actress for Clara was on some daytime TV show about dancing, while Ash is talked about like a “real” dancer who takes it “seriously.”

The tone shifts at the article that really caught Eiji’s eye. “YOUNG LOVE FOR CHRISTMAS.”

Ash and the actress for Clara, Samantha Robins, are in Central Park, holding hands. The cameraman must have ambushed them, because in the first they’re looking at each other, and in the second photo they’re looking down the camera lens, startled.

“Ash Lynx and Samantha Robins are staying cozy this winter by taking a stroll down lovers’ lane. The two stars of the upcoming ABC’s ‘The Nutcracker’ have been spotted on a date less than a week before the live show, and fans all over the country are waiting with baited breath to see them sleigh ride into the sunset.”

Ash is much shorter as a young teenager, but he still looks like himself. More like himself, really. Holding Sam’s hand and looking into her eyes, he’s almost glowing.

Eiji closes down the tab and is met with his photo editing again. It’s a picture he was supposed to delete, because Ash is looking straight down the camera lens on accident.

Perfect form, but that nasty reporter was right; his eyes are robotic.

What happened to the Ash with Sam?

Eiji makes one last search before he disconnects from the internet. “SAM ROBBINS BALLET” has fewer results. He doesn’t even see anything about her after 1988 and the Nutcracker.

Ibe knocks on the door again. “Eiji?”

“Sorry!”

He disconnects from the internet, and to his surprise, turns off the monitor. Not quickly enough; he’s forced to look at Ash’s sad, empty eyes again.

Why couldn’t he look at the camera like he looked at Sam Robbins ?

Eiji’s cheeks go red. Redder then at Chang Dai, when Ash caught him staring. It’s a bit more embarrassing, to be sitting here alone, and wanting to stare. Humiliating to have spent close to an hour obsessing over the past, getting jealous of a fourteen-year-old girl who held Ash’s hand once.

Eiji tenses his fingers, remembering grabbing Ash’s hand and running as they escaped Arthur. Ash’s laugh. Ash’s smile. The sparkle in his eyes.

Oh.

Eiji wants to be the young love for Christmas. Eiji wants to be Sam Robbins, holding Ash’s hand and smiling at him like they’re equal.

Eiji has a crush.

Chapter Text

Damn, this wine’s strong , Max thinks. His nerves are so shot, he’s close to saying it out loud. He hasn’t been this out of his element since the day he set foot on American soil after kissing the military good-fucking-bye.

“I’m glad you enjoy the vintage, Mr. Lobo,” says his host.

Max hadn’t said shit about liking the vintage, but he was on his second glass. He’d drunk it so quickly, in lieu of any other coping mechanisms in the middle of a ballroom- like dining area, that the waiter, butler, whatever, had already refilled it.

Max smiles back awkwardly, raising his glass. A little bit of the red sloshes up the inside, leaving a tacky, purply residue. “Mmm.”

He’s not drunk, not yet. If he doesn’t pace himself with this glass, he will be. Already, the light of the mansion’s crystal chandelier is burning into the back of his eyes, the click of silverware on pristine china deafening with the mostly empty room’s acoustics.

A table set for a king, and only three diners.

At the head of his table, Dino Golzine has the bearings of a king. Max knew he was one of the most influential men in the city’s entertainment industry, but had definitely underestimated the scope of Dino’s empire until after accepting an invitation to the man’s house.

If your salary could pay half of Golzine’s mortgage, Jess would never have left.

Max almost downs his wine, but remembers to take a sip.

“I’m pleased, Mr. Lobo,” Golzine says, sounding more pleased than he looks. 

“What’s the vintage?”

Golzine inclines his head away from Max, two seats from Golzine’s left. Golzine extends his hand, touching the tablecloth inches from his right, where Ash sits. “Ash. Could you tell our guest what the vintage is?”

Instead of looking at the bottle, Ash raises his wine glass. The kid was seventeen, but after Max’s (perhaps loud) joke about underage drinking was met by crickets and dull stares from Golzine and his protege, Max had decided to keep his nose to itself.

Ash cleaned up well. Not that he ever looked sloppy, even in his sweats after a long practice, but somehow , he got more polished. Like someone had set factory reset and made him a doll straight out of the box. His hair was slicked, his suit was crisp, and he was practically shiny.

As elegant as he dances, Ash raises the glass under his nose and takes two, subtle sniffs. “‘67 Romange-Conti.”

“Bravo!” Golzine praises, smiling ear to ear. It almost startles Max to see this imposing, powerful man looking… human.

Ash cuts off a small bite of food, not ignoring Dino. Not acknowledging him.

Max hasn’t known Griff’s kid brother very long. The kid he thought he knew, through stories Griffin would tell for hours about this doe-eyed precocious squirt had either been through rose-lenses or just never existed. He wasn’t who Max found, most of a decade later.

Ash Lynx, bowing on stage as roses fell at his feet, had some of the innocence that Max had expected. Ash Lynx, stretching in the dance studio and flawlessly correcting Max’s French or suggesting choreography to Blanca, had some of the brains.

Where Ash’s attitude came from, well, definitely hadn’t been the humble beginnings of working class Cape Cod. Not from the affectionate brother who’d practically raised him.

Golzine is watching Max, he notices. Not even out the corner of his eye; just full on staring at Max as he sips his wine.

If this dinner was an excuse for Golzine to size up the nobody who’d gone and booked the most sought after dancer in the industry, under the nose of his ever-caring agent, why wait until they were almost halfway through rehearsals?

“Looks like Ash has a lot of talents,” Max blurts out about Ash’s connoisseur abilities, laughing as he raises his own wine in a toast.

Neither of them laugh back, both the old man and teenage boy mirrors of stoicism.

Fucking perfect.

Max wasn’t made for snobville.

“You’re a reporter, yes, Mr. Lobo?” Golzine asks. Then, to Ash, “He wrote that little piece about your performance in Giselle ?”

Ash nods, crossing his cutlery on his half-full plate, and it occurs to Max that Ash hasn’t spoken beyond the wine review.

“How long have you been in the field of the arts, Mr. Lobo?”

Dinner passes quickly as Max tries to bullshit his way through an explanation of why he’d made a hard switch from war journalism to local drivel–or as Golzine calls it, the arts . None of the true answers (“Oh, it was triggering my PTSD too bad, and my wife said I either had to get my head out of the past or she’d leave me. Still left my ass, haha!” to “I stalked Ash like a creep when I realized who he was–I knew his brother–and that might be why my wife left, to be honest, because she just wants me to let Griffin rest in his grave”) were appropriate dinner conversations.

He’s cut off, one or two sentences of fluff in, as Golzine begins to complain about the arts. Particularly, the arts in America. Ash’s talents are pearls before swine, here, apparently. In Europe he’d actually have a chance for excellence or something.

Even when dinner ends, and they move from the dining room to the parlor or fucking whatever (much of the same; open space, uncomfortable chairs, ugly furniture), Golzine’s still complaining about how ballet is diminished on the American stage.

“How long did you dance then, Mr. Golzine?” Max asks. He’s got another full glass of brandy now to sip at, and it’s gone right to his head.

The very wrong question. Golzine goes quiet, face stony.

Their party has been added to, Blanca having arrived to join them for drinks and cigars. The tall, bulking dance instructor almost laughs around a puff of smoke, hiding it with a cough.

Ash, sitting on his lonesome, is staring at his shoes, hands empty on his lap. Brandy and smokes might be crossing whatever line Golzine had drawn in the sand for his mentee. His ward?

“Dancing is an art to be enjoyed, Mr. Lobo,” Golzine says, leaning back as his righthand man lit the cuban for him. “Observed. Ballet especially.”

Blanca, who Max knew had been in the Russian ballet, did not look a lick offended. Ash might not have been in the room.

Max laughed again. “The peasants do the dancing while the fat cats get to watch, huh?”

He’s not trying to be on his best behavior anymore; if Golzine was going to stop Ash from doing Swan Lake , it would have been much sooner. Max doesn’t need approval from a rich old asshat like this. The point of freelance reporting is to say what he wanted and when.

Golzine doesn’t take offense to being called a rich bastard. “In Victorian times, they called ballerinas ‘rats’, Mr. Lobo. Dirty little girls, moving obscenely on the stage and off. The lucky ones had a patron; the rest were on their knees in the theater alleys.”

The brandy glass sweats in Max’s hand. The lush parlor’s so quiet, the slow drags of Blanca on his cigar are like an elephant’s cry, the tap of Ash’s finger on the arm of his chair thunder claps.

“Yet, for all its filth,” Glozine drawls, “there’s something so strangely beautiful in the obscene.”

Max is staring dead at Ash, who props his head on his hand, bored and beautiful.

“I’ve never thought of ballet as obscene, Mr. Golzine,” Max manages, the tension in the room making his stomach churn.

“Obscene may be the wrong word.” Golzine tilts his head, taking a long drag. His eyes shift, hovering on Ash. “Maybe erotic?”

“I’m putting on a charity show,” Max says, leaning forward in his chair. Golzine is still looking at Ash, lips slightly parted under his moustache. “It’s as clean as it gets.”

Golzine takes one more drag, then drops his quarter smoked cigar, worth maybe Max’s rent, who fucking knew, into the ash tray. “Would you agree, Blanca?”

Blanca hums to himself, and Max looks at him, eyes bugged. “It’s an all-male cast, and a romance, so a little homoerotic—”

“Christ’s sake, most of my cast can’t even vote,” Max spits, unable to comprehend how the conversation went this direction. “Let alone drink.”

Golzine sits up in his chair, snapping his fingers. “Let’s see it.”

Max is about to snap again, put his foot in his mouth in this room of pretentious assholes, but he’s drawn short as Ash hops to his feet, like someone pulled him up by a string.

Blanca stands, shrugging, and settles himself at the grand piano in the room’s corner. “Odette’s solo from Act II?”

Golzine laughs. “We call him Odette still? Very well, the swan song.”

Ash pulls off his suit jacket, leaving him in shirt sleeves, a crisp vest, a tie. He bounces on his feet for a second, then toes out of his dress shoes, silky white socks on the carpet instead.

Max turns in his seat to get a better view as Ash steps out into the clearing, stone faced. “He–wait, Mr. Golzine—”

Blanca starts playing, fingers moving lightning fast along the ivories. Knowing Golzine, the piano might really be made from elephant tusk.

Before Max can protest, Ash is dancing. He’s spinning and tiptoeing, pointing his arms and doing the jumps–everything Max has seen in rehearsal. In a suit and tie, he’s as fluid as ever.

Max half stands, then settles back in his seat, too overwhelmed to say anything. Is dinner here always like this, he wonders?

He still knows so little about Ash. He’s been trying, since they met, to get the kid to open up, talk about his life. But Max has mostly just wanted to know about Griffin.

After Griffin was discharged, he and Max lost touch. The passion that had felt so real in the midst of battle faded when he was alone, and Max felt like he was waking up, coming back to reality. When Max made it stateside, he decided he’d pretend it’d never happened. Go back to dating girls like normal, marrying Jessica admittedly too quickly.

He couldn’t help but mull over the what ifs. What if he’d followed that other side of himself. What if he’d been braver, willing to take a leap for the unconventional. What if he’d been able to keep Griffin safe, away from the partner or needle that had done him in?

What if Max had ended up with HIV in his blood, too? What if he’d given it to Jessica, to Michael?

Golzine claps his hands together, jumping into fluid French as he barks an order. Ash interprets it by jumping higher .

Max’s shoulders sag, ashamed that he was still stuck on Griffin, even in times when he was with his brother.

If Ash is anything, he’s smart. He knows Max only cared about one thing (had that been what Jessica said, when she took Michael in her arms, and told Max not to run after her this time?) and unlike Max, he clearly was not about living in the past.

With the dead look in his eyes as he dances around like a perfect monkey, Max wonders if Ash was much for living period .

Stomach thick with the heavy meal and too much wine and brandy, Max looks back to Golzine. The old man is leaning forward in his chair, fists on his cane and under his chin. He’s leering , teeth gleaming through his mustache.

He gets what the man meant by obscene .

“That’s enough,” Max snaps, standing up.

Blanca stops, hitting an off-note on the keys. Ash, in the middle of a spin, keeps going in silence for a second, before dropping down, flushed and startled.

Golzine scoffs, and it's sick, making Max’s blood boil. “Not much for the arts , are we, Mr. Lobo? I suppose I was misled by your charity.”

The brandy glass is still in Max’s hand. Max only notices it when he turns to face Dino, and half of the booze ends up down Max’s sleeve and shirt. “You fucking–”

A hand’s pulling back on his elbow. Max looks back, seeing Ash, digging his hand into his arm. “Sit down, pops. You’re drunk.”

Golzine’s smiling. “You’ve brought back some unruly strays in your time, wildcat, but Mr. Lobo’s an interesting one.”

“I’m not–”

Ash grabs his brandy glass, pulling it clean out of his hand. Max tries to hold on, and what’s left of the drink falls into the carpet.

Max puts a hand on Ash’s arm. “Is this creep always–”

Ash chucks the glass into the carpet, and it shatters in a hundred little pieces.

That looked fucking expensive.

Max, taking in a breath, looks Ash in his green eyes. He sees that Ash isn’t just flushed from dancing around for Golzine. He’s burning up with anger, looking like he wants to claw Max’s eyes out or yank out his tongue.

Blanca’s left the piano, and is ordering the lackey–Gregory or something–to have the driver bring around Max’s car.

Some valet bringing around Max’s ‘83 Camaro like it’s some kind of luxury sports car almost breaks the tension. For Max, at least.

But Ash has let him go, looking as disgusted with him as Max is by Golzine.

And fine. Maybe it’s none of Max’s business. Maybe he’s got no right to butt his nose into the kid’s life, fucked as it might be. And maybe a–sober or not–outburt is not the right way to de-escalate a situation like this.

Max doesn’t even know what the situation is.

“No longer able to captivate the room, Ash?” Golzine chuckles. “You may be more out of practice than I thought.”

Ash turns the stink eye to his manager. Without a word, without accompaniment, he goes back into his spins.

Max steps back, before the kid’s arm can whack him. “Ash–”

Ash maneuvers himself back, to where there’s more room.

He leaps, socks landing right in the glass.

“Ash!”

Ash doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even flinch. He balances on one foot, breaking for a pose before spinning like a top again. He’s out of breath, his hair is bouncing on his face, and his arms reach for the heavens. He’s like a bird about to take flight.

When Max sees drops of blood on the carpet, he’s had enough. He dashes over, crunching glass with his dress shoes, and grabs a hold of Ash.

The kid won’t stop spinning, flailing and trying to push off Max, but Max is bigger, stronger. He’s able to shove Ash back, dumping him onto the sofa.

Ash starts swinging, so Max kneels on the sofa with him, holding either fist. 

“Fuck–you–fucking–asshole–mother–fucker—”

“Ash, your feet —”

A hand yanks on Max’s collar, and he lets up. Blanca elbows between the two of them, and he presses a hand to Ash’s forehead, and somehow, that’s enough to make the kid heel .

“Thank you, Mr. Lobo. I think it’s best you leave now.”

Max’s shaky, fingers a little numb. Ash is sprawled on the couch, arms over his face, each breath rattling his body. Little pieces of glass are stuck to the fibers of his socks, damp spots of blood patterning them and the sofa.

Queasy and helpless, like looking at a dying animal, all Max can do is step back. Avoid Dino’s eyes when he leaves the room.

Five minutes later, he sits in his car, keys in the ignition, and tries not to cry at the wheel.

~ ~ ~

Ash bites the heel of his hand as Blanca pulls off his right sock, both of his feet now naked above the towel that Blanca had brought in. He stays limp as Blanca positions his bulk on the edge of the couch, holding Ash’s foot in one hand and the tweezers in the other.

He wonders why Blanca didn’t just carry him to the supplies. He could lift him like a feather when he was fourteen, and he didn’t weigh much more now.

Maybe he hadn’t wanted to go through the hassle of asking Dino’s permission to move his property.

“As crass as any friend of yours ever is, Ash.” Dino’s in the room again, or maybe he never left. Ash is staring at the ceiling, losing himself in the swirling pattern that someone painted by hand. “Rubbing off on you it seems.”

Blanca pulls out the first piece of glass and Ash cringes, biting his hand a smidge harder. Not enough to taste blood.

Two pieces of glass later, he feels Dino’s cool fingers on his wrist, and his hand is pulled out of his mouth. He tilts his head, taking in Dino from flat on his back. It’s not an unfamiliar angle. “I think I ought to wash your mouth out with soap after that outburst.”

Ash smiles, batting his eyes. “Sorry. Don’t mean to be a dirty little rat, Papa.”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

A piece of glass comes out of his sole. Ash hiccups, and Dino’s hand moves up, cupping the back of his cheek.

He keeps himself still, waiting for it to turn into a backhand. Or worse.

Ash wishes he hadn’t wasted that brandy. He should have taken the glass from Max and downed it one go. Something to numb out this humiliation.

Bad enough for Dino to tease Ash in front of Max. But the fucking oaf had to take the bait, dance for Dino like a bug on a string.

“The way you’re acting, I wonder if you even want to be doing that silly little charity show.” Dino’s hand squishes his face. “A little late to back out, now that you’ve gone and done publicity for the event.”

“Can I have a drink, Papa?”

Blanca puts down Ash’s right foot, and starts working on his left.

Dino’s thumb pats the tip of his nose. “Pain is one of the most reliable teachers we have. Even if it can’t teach sense, it seems.”

Ash hisses, despite himself. It feels like Blanca’s being rough on purpose, pissed off that Ash would bust up his feet knowing rehearsals for this dumb little show were heating up.

“Did you like the preview? Think you’ll come see the show?” Ash taunts. He has no idea if Dino would want to show public approval for Ash or if he’d dare be caught dead in a low-class corner of town for a stupid local project.

Dino pauses, letting go of Ash’s face. He continues to tower over him, as large as the first day Ash found himself sprawled out on his back, Dino standing, explaining his bedroom expectations. “Wild and unpredictable; one of these days, I think you’ll find that gets old.”

Blanca’s bandaging up Ash’s feet. Without a word, the man is gathering up the supplies, leaving the room.

Ash laughs, eyes only for Dino. “Maybe by then I’ll have broken my ankles. Guess that won’t be too much of a loss for you, Papa.”

The scared little boy, lying flat on his back as Coach Carter looms over him, the boy that always lives in a corner of his mind, is whispering for Ash to stop. Why is he poking the bear, why is he inviting the worst?

He hates that the kid has to keep watching this, but Ash isn’t him anymore, and he can’t protect him either. “After all,” and he arches his back, spreading his arms over his head. “I’ll still be up for your favorite stuff, hmm?”

Dino bends over, one hand on the couch, the other on Ash’s hip.

Ash’s blood goes cold. The little kid sobs into his baseball cap.

“Of course, sweetheart.” His whiskers ghost the edge of Ash’s ear, and a chill goes up Ash’s spine. “This body of yours is only the paper and string; your real prize is right here.”

A finger taps Ash’s temple.

“One of these days, when you’re finally done using so much brainpower on being the best tease, you’ll put your real talents to use.”

Ah. Ash the smartypants, not Ash the wind-up doll. 

Dino’s been making conflicting plans for a while; take Ash to Europe to get him on a real stage, pull Ash offstage and tie him to the bedframe, or even put Ash behind a desk, sucking the souls of young talent with diabolical contracts.

Every future is etched in sand, and Ash blinks and feels the tide wash it over, start it fresh. He doesn’t know whose fault it is that things are so uncertain; Dino’s changing moods or Ash’s own apathy.

Dino peels away, like a second skin. Ash feels naked as he sags into the sofa, watching Dino watch him.

The man has a hold of Ash’s shirt collar before he can think, and Ash shudders, gasping when Dino uses one arm to yank him. Like a feather, Ash finds himself off the couch, and on his feet.

Ash cringes, knees buckling.

Dino digs his fingernails into Ash’s collarbone. “Up. First position.”

He lets go of Ash’s collar, and all of Ash’s weight is on his bandaged feet. They sting like crazy, like the glass is still there, but Ash blinks hard, pushing the pain to the back of his mind. He tries to push it into a corner away from the little boy, the victim, but that little brat is taking up so much room right now.

Ash turns his ankles, pointing out his toes, heels flat on the ground. He bites his lip, arches his spine, and positions his hands at his waist, holding his breath.

For a second, and just a second, the pain is so sharp, it feels heavenly.

Dino watches. Then, he pokes Ash in the stomach, and with a wheeze, Ash tumbles, landing on his ass on the sofa.

Dino steps close enough to block out all the light from the room. He takes up Ash’s suit jacket, and leaves the room, turning off the light as he goes.

Ash lingers in the dark, feet sore, gasping on the sofa. He’s dripping in sweat and his pulse is rabbit quick.

The dance between him and Dino changes so much so quickly, he doesn’t think he’ll ever learn all the steps.