Chapter Text
It was a beauty that came from behind closed curtains and between metallic bars. Always the presumptions; a vicious cycle of stereotypes coming from people who knew nothing of the pain he endures on a daily, the splintering ache he suffers through in silence on stage. The months he spends in utter agony. “A girl’s sport”, they say, “Must be gay—that boy”, they whisper. Still, he ploughs through. From day to day, year to year, second to second—he ploughs through it all. Because by the end of it, behind those heavy curtains, he’s content. Exuberant. There is nothing quite as satisfying as a successful performance; one which he danced through on bloodied toes and weakened ankles.
Ballet had always been Lance’s favorite thing in the world. After his family, perhaps, but his favorite thing, nonetheless. Because it was just that; his thing. Something belonging to him. Something which made him unique in a group of a hundred. Something which sparked interest in his chest and sent a flow of happy chemicals coursing through his head like tidal waves lapping against the cliffs of shore back home in Cuba. There was nothing quite like it, he liked to argue.
And so, there he was. The car stopped a way down the block where his new studio stood high and proud, glistening like a sore eye among the grey, vandalized buildings on this end of town. It was a pristine, baby-blue building. A few floors high at most with a rather sleek, spotless, minimalistic exterior. Above the entrance hung a heavy yellow sign that simply read Altea Studios in fancy cursive. It hurt to look at under the blistering sun, and yet it made every nerve in Lance’s body alight with fervor. His mother was speaking to him from the passenger seat, her hair a mess much like the nest of a bird—all tangled, brown locks sticking up every which way. Her big blue eyes were intently locked on the road ahead as her hands moved frantically in front of the steering wheel, desperately drawing and counting it out for Lance to understand. He agreed to be home in good time, promised to stay safe and— “Yes, mama. Thank you. I’ll try to make friends, yes, that’s the idea,”.
He took a deep breath and felt the stretch of his lungs and limbs as he exited the car, a happy bounce in his steps. He waved his mother goodbye, watched her drive off to where they’d come from, and only then turned back towards the high-end construction a way ahead.
As he slowly got to approaching the building, he threw a look at the surrounding environment and noticed an old, worn skate-park right across the street from the studio. It was a ragged thing; worn and tattered in a way only childish stubbornness and consistent wheels-on-anything could accomplish. Graffiti covered every single clean surface from top to bottom. Some left him wondering who or what you’d have to be to succeed in reaching that, much less graffitiing it. Tags, love-notes, artworks and doodles were all crammed tightly together on the many walls and ramps, currently occupied by a group of individuals all doing crazy tricks. Some flailed and stumbled, others landed flawlessly every time.
He stopped his lazy trek towards the studio the second he laid his eyes on him. Coming down from a trick perfectly capable of rendering Lance immobile, he swept sweaty, black hair off his forehead and tugged twice at the ponytail behind to tighten it. From where Lance stood, he could only barely make out the sharp edges of his face and shoulders, the pinch between thick brows, and the stern line of his mouth—contorted into a scowl. Must have been a bad jump, he recognized in the skater across from him; something only the dedicated could recognize in those comparable to them in their passion. Lance could tell the guy wasn’t there simply for fun’s sake. He saw the spark, the intensity in his every move. He saw himself straining long legs, stretching, reaching, pulling himself taut; bleeding for perfection in his moves onstage. So, he recognized it.
At that thought, as though he’d heard him, the skater looked up and his eyes met Lance’s. All he could see from where he stood was a pair of big, curious eyes, widening a fraction. Lance tried for a smile, hoping to God that it seemed as easy and gentle as he’d intended it to, and then watched the guy from across the street look around himself a few times—as if he were uncertain that Lance’s smile had, in fact, been directed at him—before meeting his gaze again. He smiled back, albeit a little wobbly and uncertain, before turning and walking back to the herd of rowdy teenagers.
Lance’s thoughts returned to the present, and he remembered in alarm that he’d been on his way to something very important: his first class in a new studio.
The other girls, only five of them total, turned out nicer than he’d thought. There was Acxa with her flowing adagio. There was Shay with her inexplainable strength. There was Ezor with her energetic, bouncy ballon. And there was Allura with her silken hair and effortless elegance. Her elasticity like a warm rubber band left to soften in the sun a bright summer day.
And then, lastly, there was Katie—or Pidge. The shortest dancer in their newly birthed group, but also the boldest. It was bonding at first sight—unadulterated friendship. They spent every minute they could—were allowed to—talking and getting to know each other. Some people are like that; you just click. There is no awkward fumbling, no desperate search for words, no one person constantly sweating to fill silences. Sometimes, those rare times, such things just flow as if it had always meant to be. As if they’d known each other in another life, another reality.
Lance knew the moment he’d stepped into the studio that he’d love every second there. Their coach—a twiggy woman in her mid-thirties with wispy hair and stern brown eyes—turned out warmer than he’d initially thought. Brutal, but warm and welcoming, something Lance deeply appreciates in his coaches; a sense of humanity hiding among blocks of finely cut professionalism. The perfect balance of sweet and salty.
They spend a good portion of the lesson messing around and getting to know one another through silly challenges and games. By the end of it all, when the girls slowly began to trickle out one by one, he was sufficiently worn to the bone. Despite the discomfort, he couldn’t find it in himself to leave, buzzing with rooted energy that had had all summer to fester and grow. An hour before closing time their coach left him and Pidge to clean up and stretch in their own time. Only after they’d promised to bear the responsibility of and if anything were to break and swearing dutifully that they would made sure to turn off all lights before leaving.
He continued dancing, too hyper to slow down, when Pidge approached him, bag slung over her shoulder and sneakers on her feet, “Aren’t you done already?”, she asked, her eyes slanted in emphatic discomfort at Lance’s masochistic need to further tear apart muscles and tendons, “Well, no,” he drawled between breaths, “Got too much pent-up energy, and I really like this place,” he said, leg out in an all-too-painful arabesque after all those brutal hours of half-dancing half-fooling around. Still, he didn’t let go of the bar—didn’t want to leave.
She shrugged her free shoulder and started wiping invisible dust off her glasses with the hem of her green T-shirt, “Suit yourself,” she mumbled to the floor, “But don’t overwork yourself, new boy.”, and with those parting words she turned and walked out, leaving Lance to his pitiful self.
There was nothing for him to go home to except yelling and yelling and fighting and more yelling. He was tired, so tired of it. If he closed his eyes for a moment he was transported there, to the cold marble floor of their kitchen, with his father’s burly frame hovering above him, “Why is he like this? Why are you like this?”, he heard him shout, an echo in his head.
His right ankle strained uncomfortably from the consistent torture and he focused all his attention on that. On the familiar burn in his muscles and lungs, on the stretch of his worn tendons and creaky joints. On the pull of his shoulders as he stretched his long, tan arms further and further, and on the twitch of his stomach as he fought the Earth to keep him steady.
In his mindless hunt for a comfort he’d long since forgotten, he lost track of time, and as the sun set below the skyscrapers beyond the full windows behind him, he didn’t even spare it so much as a measle glance. This was home, had always been home. The warm hue of his skin as the golden sun outside reflected on it and around the spotless room, all crammed with mirrors and glossy surfaces, was the one time and place he’d always called home. Long before the fighting got bad. Long before his parents knew of him.
From the door to his left came a voice, vibrating through the thick silence that had befallen the room, as shrill and deafening as a fire alarm in a desolate church.
“The studio closed two hours ago, time to leave boy,” said the blue-clad woman at the door. She carried with her the air of nonchalant power only bosses and owners wore as easily as a second skin, “What’s your name, boy?”, she asked.
“My name’s Lance, miss, and I’m with Balmera Ballet,” he answered, lowering and relaxing for once. He winced at the dull ache that spread with the action—his mind now finally back to the reality in which he really did overwork himself, “I’m sorry for staying so late, but would it be OK to remain a while longer?”.
He brought forward his best kicked-puppy eyes and pleaded with her to let him stay a little longer. After a moment’s convincing on his part, she finally yielded and told him he had to leave at ten tops.
He left at 11.
-
There was something so bizarre about a boy made of mostly leg walking out and around in nothing but shorts and a tank-top in the dead of night. Keith knew he was new. In a town as small as theirs, everyone knew everyone, and the skaters across the preppy ballerinas certainly kept track of everything and everyone who walked in and out of the studio.
He couldn’t stand the itching worry under his skin, so he approached him.
-
Of all things, Lance had not expected to be met face to face with the skater boy across the street first thing after leaving the air-conditioned glossiness of the studio. Despite the warm late-summer air, the wind blew coldly against his sweat-slick skin. It made him shiver.
But what made him shiver more was the intensity with which those eyes caught his. This close, directly under the streetlight and studio-glow, what had first appeared as black sparkled dimly in violet shades so mesmerizing he forgot to speak when spoken to.
“Huh…?”, he stumbled, jaw slack.
The skater sighed and rubbed his neck, his board firmly set underneath his arm, “You’re new in town, right?”, he asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Lance choked, “That obvious, huh?”
The other shrugged, indifferent, “Well, yeah, but that’s a given,” he said, “I just thought it might do you good to warn you about walking around like that alone this time of night. Especially around these parts.”, he warmed, a nervous twitch in his left brow.
Lance chuckled lowly, “Why? Will I get attacked?”, he slurred and stepped closer, right into his space, “Who would want to ravish a pretty thing like me? Do you, perhaps, know them?”, he whispered, eyes traveling the fine lines of his lips and nose, all the way up to a pair of beautiful, wide eyes. A heavenly flush quickly spread through pale cheeks and he dropped his gaze, the twitch in his brow only getting more intense until—finally—those bushy things succumbed into a full-on frown.
“No, I—”, he started, but sighed instead of finishing, “Nevermind,” he mumbled, and tore himself away from Lance, turned, and walked off.
Huh?
He stood there, a stiff board in the moving wind, with his hand still outstretched, and stared at the spot in which he’d stood.
I didn’t even get your name.
…
And you weaken your love
And you hold it above your head
Success is a song of the heart
Not a song of your bed
…
When Lance is dropped off the next day by a very bristling mother, stressed to the roots, he’s surprised to see the girls right outside—a block or so from the studio—talking loudly with each other.
“Lance!”, they erupt in various degrees of delight and tackle him with cheery greetings the second the door closes. He throws a glance at his mother’s contorted expression before turning back to the group.
“Shall we?”, he asks, feigning normality and gesticulating exaggeratedly like a fine gentleman from the early twenties. They giggle and take the lead, keeping their pace deliberately slow to prolong their time of chatter and informality. Ezor eyed him from where she’d fallen back with him, “Why’d she drop you off down here and not in front of the studio?”, came the dreaded question. Lance looked around frantically, desperately, for an escape. Pretending he didn’t hear her. When he found his escape on the other side of the road, skateboard in arm and a black snapback on his head, he waved happily, making sure to stretch high and spread his smile to flaunt a set of bright teeth. The skater boy from yesterday fumbled in nervousness for a moment and looked around quickly before hastily raising his palm in a quick salute.
He grinned stupidly at the dumb gesture for a moment, transfixed on the curious thing so close yet so far from him, before he was pulled back into a pond of perfume and silk, roughly and remorselessly.
“What are you doing?!”, Ezor hissed from between clenched teeth, “You can’t! Not him! Not them,” she sneered and cast the group across a nasty glare.
“Those people are insufferable and terrible,” Allura agreed, her hair as white as the blinding center of the sun. It shone nicely in daylight, but all Lance could do in that moment was frown at her, “What? Why?”, he asked.
“You just can’t! Skaters are off bounds. Kick it or hit it!”, Ezor barked, face red with anger, “Those losers are not worthy of your attention. C’mon! Let’s go.”, she said and grabbed him firmly by the arm, dragging insistently before he was reluctantly pulled along and into the air-condition of the pristine studio.
Outside he spotted the skater, still standing by one of the ramps, looking like a void in the bright of day—all dressed in black despite the heat.
He sighed, “Ok,” he said to no one, “Got it.”