Dance first. Think later. Its the natural order.

[gabriel-severin-blog]

Just Keep Dancing

Who: Gabriel Séverin and Chloe Sanders Where: Opéra National de Paris What: Auditions for Paquita

If Gabriel had to guess, he couldn’t count how manyauditions he and Chloe had done for the leads in a performance since theystarted dancing together more than a decade before. And every time Chloe would get so excited, and swear that they would get it that time. It hadn’t happened yet. This time though, Gabriel had a good feeling about it. Instead of using previously learned choreography, or something for the performance that they were auditioning for, they came up with something original. Gabriel’s mothers had helped them with the choreography, and they had been rehearsing for months.

After the excitement that would last for weeks before the audition though, Chloe would always get nervous on the big day. So when Chloe’s hands started shaking as she sat in front of the mirror trying to pull her hair back into a bun, Gabriel pushed her hands away and started brushing her hair back. “Relax, Chloe. You’re going to be fantastic.”

“You have to say that, you’re my partner. If I screw up, it costs you the role too,” Chloe said with a mock pout, dropping her hands uselessly to her sides and letting Gabriel fix her hair into a neat bun. It was one of her favorite performances, he knew. She had danced in the corps during Paquita two years ago, and had always wanted to dance the lead. The actual performance wouldn’t be for several months, but he knew she would miserable for the entirety of the time if she was stuck in the corps again.

“You’re not going to screw up. We’ve rehearsed this a thousand times.”

“Maybe we should’ve rehearsed a thousand and one.”

Gabriel just smiled and reached around her to the vanity, grabbing one of her favorite jeweled hairpins to put in for her. “Then consider this rehearsal number one thousand and one. Just keep your eyes on me. You’re not on a stage, we’re in my moms’ studio after hours, just rehearsing one last time.”

He dropped a kiss to the top of her head before pulling back, putting his own hair into a tiny bun. For an actual performance, he would normally use gel to keep the shorter hairs from falling freely in his face, but he never did for rehearsals, and rarely for auditions. From stage, he heard the polite applause that signaled the ending of the audition before theirs and held a hand out to Chloe. “Shall we, my lady?” he asked teasingly. It at least made her smile and relax a bit as she took his hand, so he counted that as a win.

The dance lasted for both the longest and shortest three and a half minutes of Gabriel’s life. As he gracefully lowered Chloe down, her foot touching the stage just as the last note of the song ended, he couldn’t help the smile and relieved breath that he let out. They had nailed every step, every jump, turn and lift. In every dance there was always room for improvement, but if they had ever gotten close to a perfect performance, it was that one.  At the polite applause, Chloe took a delicate bow, Gabriel standing a step behind and diagonal to her, taking a shorter bow.

The second they were off the stage, Gabriel had his arms full of an excited brunette. “We did it. Gabe, we actually did it. We might- We could’ve gotten the parts. That was amazing!”

Gabriel laughed and hugged her tight until she started to let go, and he set her back on the ground again. “You were spectacular.”

“We were,” Chloe corrected him with an excited giggle. After a few words of encouragement and congratulations on the audition from fellow dancers, mostly fake but that just made Gabriel feel better about how well they had done, all of the dancers were called back to the stage, and told that the cast list would be posted in an hour. Gabriel wasn’t sure if it was to keep his own nerves down or Chloe’s when he suggested that they go get coffee and walk around downtown for a while until the list was posted.

Fifteen minutes later, coffees in hand and one of Chloe’s arms linked with his, Gabriel led the way through the crowded downtown street, filled with people rushing by on their lunch breaks, or on shopping trips.

“There’s this wonderful guy I know. Met him in a bookstore, I think. I don’t know, met him last year sometime. But I still have his number, so I’m thinking for next week’s rendezvous, I could give him a call.”

“Chloe, no more,” Gabriel groaned. It had become something of a morbidly entertaining tradition over the past two years. Once a month, they would go on a blind double date, choosing each other’s dates for the evenings. Chloe always tended to chose attractive guys to set Gabriel up with, though their personalities varied from quiet and bookish to loud and likely insane. Gabriel alternated between setting Chloe up with guys or girls, depending on who was available. And that’s really all it came down to. Both of them didn’t have much in the way of social lives outside of dance, and they each knew the others’ friends in dance. After Gabriel once unknowingly set Chloe up with a girl that had beaten her out for a minor role in Giselle a few years before, they had agreed on no more blind dates from the dancing world.

In any case, of all the blind dates, only one had ended in something close to a relationship. Really though, if he were being honest, the ‘relationship’ was more just Chloe having a permanent fan boy that still showed up to most of her shows, even though she had so gently let him down almost a year ago. So Gabriel was very much over the entire deal. It was usually fun, though he and Chloe had stopped taking the dates seriously at some point and just ended the night walking to either of their apartment, giggling and joking over how odd one or both of their dates had been. Still, he didn’t have quite the energy level that Chloe did, and he was always drained after the long blind date nights of trying to impress someone that he didn’t quite like, or pretend to be interested in him at the very least.

“Oh come on, Gabe. They’re fun,” she whined, tugging at his arm. Gabriel pointedly did not look at her, knowing the sad eyes she would be giving him if he did.

“Chloe, do we really have time to set out for these dates? Or even to find them? I haven’t got a clue who I’d set you up with next. We’ve spent every waking moment rehearsing, or in class. And you know I can’t stop teaching at my mums’ studio.” It wasn’t that he really thought logic would work with her. He just kind of hoped. “Besides, we did amazing at that audition. And when we get the leads we’ll be practicing so often, we won’t have time.”

He didn’t have to turn to look at Chloe to know that her sad eyes had turned bright again at the mention of the audition. “I suppose that’s a fair point. So, if we get the parts, we’ll put our blind double dates on hold until performances are over.”

“We can have this conversation again. I’m not making any promises,” Gabriel said, but wasn’t sure Chloe heard him. She was tugging at his arm, half-skipping, half-walking down the sidewalk, stepping in time to the tune she was humming under her breath. “The studio will still be open for us after hours if you’d rather go there for the extra rehearsals.”

“Only if ta maman makes those crepes I love,” Chloe teased. Gabriel rolled his eyes with an amused smile. He never quite understood it, why Chloe preferred cooking with his maman than with her own mother. Then again, they had each been unofficially adopted by the other’s parents, so it all felt like the same family sometimes, especially when their parents and aunts and uncles got together.

“You’re difficult to compromise, but I’m sure she’ll agree,” Gabriel teased. He finished his coffee and tossed the empty cup into a trash bin. “Should get back to the studio. They’ve probably posted the list by now.”

Sure enough, when they got back everyone was gathered in the hall outside of the main studio, some looking dejected, other curious if they hadn’t reached the front of the group yet, and some talking excitedly about whichever roles they had gotten. Gabriel found himself bouncing on the heels of his feet as he tried to peer over people’s heads to see the list, but he still couldn’t make out the words until they had managed to get to the front of the queue. Which, in retrospect was surprisingly easy, and likely due to the fact that everyone near the front of the crowd had seen the names at the top of the list, and were watching him and Chloe carefully.

It took him a second to be sure of what he was seeing. The first two names on the list:

Chloe Sanders

Gabriel Séverin

It still didn’t quite hit him until he felt a solid mass jump onto his back with excited squeal of triumph. Gabriel laughed in disbelief, stumbling out of the crowd while trying to keep a squirming Chloe from falling off his back. When they were safely away from the crowd, Chloe slid down to the floor and Gabriel reached an arm behind him to swing her around in front of him, spinning her and then grabbing her into a hug. He was sure they both looked completely insane, laughing and hugging and biting off incoherent words of disbelief. But hell if he cared at all. They had gotten their first lead roles, together, and it was the best kind of high.

“Told you we’d make it,” Gabriel muttered against Chloe’s hair. He pulled back, his wide grin matching hers.

“Together,” Chloe added brightly, then promptly started giggling again and buried her face against his chest.

Gabriel grinned and wrapped his arms tight around her. “Of course, Chlo. Always together.”

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