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After the first (slightly awkward night), Charles found Max to be a rather pleasant housemate. He was quiet, but not too awkward, and stayed out of the way for his lessons. Max was (unfortunately) a terrible cook, but he made up for it in ordering brunch for them from I-Hop. Mostly. Charles still wasn’t quite ready to forgive Max for what he had done to his favorite frying pan yet, though pancakes were a good place to start. 

Charles had just started eating his pancakes (soaked in completely reasonable amounts of butter and surprisingly mediocre syrup) when he received a text from an unknown number. 

<<Hello. 

Charles stared down at his phone. Who the fuck was texting him at this hour? It was 10am. But that was still too early to be getting weird texts from unknown strangers.

<<Sorry, this is George. I should have led with that. Max gave me your number to contact you. Would you and Max be available at any time for the studio mandated presentation? 

Ah. George. How nice.

“George texted me about his presentation thingy.” Charles said through a mouthful of pancake. “What do I say?”

“Oh! Well, you should take him up on that. He’s very thorough.” Max nodded, voice just a bit too soft for the way he was aggressively trying to stab a piece of scrambled egg onto his fork. He was unsuccessful. “He’s very good at what he does. Seriously.”

That was not the answer Charles had expected. “You like his presentation?”

“I think it’s fun. He can’t know that though or he’ll start asking me questions and bothering me and shit. All these ifs and buts…seriously I do not know why he doesn’t take up journalism if he really likes being this nosy.”

“Will he ask me things?”

“Oh, absolutely. But he’s very nice. If you have any complaints about working at the studio, go to him. He’s our union guy.”

“You all have a union?”

Max shrugged. “I was told that if I wanted to dance here, I had to join the union. I don’t know much beyond that. But George does a lot of stuff and is sort of our go-between with the big union or whatever. I don’t care how it works, I just know we have a group chat and I do as I’m told. He’s a nice guy though, takes everything seriously no matter how silly you think it is.”

“I see. So I should tell him he can come over and give his presentation or whatever?”

“Yeah. Make sure he brings his projector because you don’t have a tv.”

A projector? How insane was this presentation going to be?

<<Hi

<<Yeah sounds like fun

<<Max says to bring your projector I don’t have a tv

>>Fantastic! Do you have a time and an address for me?

<<Come over whenever I’ve already done my lessons for the day. 

<<Here’s my address: XXXXXXXXXX

>>Alrighty! I’ll be there shortly!

True to his word, George was knocking on the floor not even twenty minutes later. He was wearing a backpack- which Charles assumed had the projector- and a very oversized white puffy jacket. It clashed horribly with his white corduroy pants. And black socks. And loafers.

“Good morning!” George greeted, standing awkwardly at the door. There was snow on his shoes. He was shivering. “Where would you like me to put my shoes?”

“Just by the door, um, come on in. Sit wherever you’d like, just don’t break my piano.”

“Alrighty, so I guess that ruins my plan of throwing snowballs at it, but anyway-” George took off his shoes, carefully putting them on Charles’ shoe rack. Charles did not miss how George wavered, face pale, as he stood back up and leaned a hand against the wall to support himself. “Thank you for letting me come over with such short notice.”

“Of course, thank you for being willing to catch me up on everything.” Charles responded, hoping he sounded genuine. He really was appreciative that George was putting an effort in making him feel included in the company, even if George was a bit awkward about it. “Max is at the table, as well as pancakes. Would you like any?”

George shook his head and followed Charles to the table. “No, but thank you. I’m on a pretty strict diet so I’m fasting today.”

George said it like it was a normal thing to do, but based on how relaxed Max was as he ate his pancakes and how he did see the various other dancers eating snacks before class, Charles didn’t exactly buy it. It wasn’t any of his business though, so against his better judgment, he stayed silent. 

Even if George was staring down at the pancakes as though they were going to start attacking him.

Max sighed. “We can put the food away if you want us to.” 

“No, no, eat your food. Don’t worry about it.” 

Charles shot Max a concerned look as George looked around. Max shrugged and took another bite of pancake. 

“Do you want to sit? I can bring you my piano bench.”

“Um. Whatever you want to do is okay, but I am okay standing.” 

George looked like he was on the verge of falling over. How could he dance like this? It didn’t make sense to Charles, but really, did he know enough about diets to judge? Charles concluded the answer was no, and that George was probably fine. He really hoped he was, anyway. He dragged the piano bench over to the table, and George quickly sat down. He cautioned another look at Max who just ignored him. 

He’d ask later, he decided.

“So, what do you know about the company thus far? I don’t think you would have had the chance to quite meet everyone right?” George asked, breaking Charles out of his thoughts. 

“I don’t know. All I’ve done is the men’s class. I also googled the company.”

“Right. I will give you an overview then. At some point, you’ll meet Susie. She does a lot of the women’s classes and everything. You’ll probably meet her once we start doing rehearsals, though I guess it depends on the show. It being October, we’ve just started Nutcracker rehearsals as I’m sure Max has told you-” Max had not mentioned that at all- “and I know Lewis is planning to ask you to help with music for that once we get into the swing of things. Anyway, beyond that, you’ll meet more people as we get closer to the show. But for all you need to know, there’s a few trainees who’ll be showing up soon named Ollie and Kimi, and Doriane occasionally comes in- she’s our snow queen and she wants to take men’s class to work on jumps because she’s a go-getter and also I, as snow cavalier, have influenced her terribly.” George paused. “Unrelated, but is there anywhere I can put my jacket?”

That was a lot of information. Charles decided to start by answering George’s question before he unpacked all of that. 

“You can put your coat on one of the hangers in the hall closet by the door.”

“Alrighty, and please don’t take this the wrong way. But blimey, mate, do you really have no furniture?” 

God. George was that flavor of British. What was he going to ask next? If Charles had tea? Or crumpets? Or like, had the queen’s coffin hidden in a closet somewhere?

“I didn’t move in too long ago, and I don’t have a lot of people coming over other than students.” Charles responded, trying to keep his tone polite.

“Hm. Well, if you’re interested my boyfriend just moved in with me and we were wondering where his old couch should go. We’d be happy to give it to you free of charge.” George slowly stood up, looking a bit pale, and hung his jacket up where Charles told him too. He was wearing a sweater underneath the jacket. Charles briefly wondered how George wasn’t roasting his ass off. 

“Charles?” George asked. 

Oh yeah, he had been offered free furniture. Great!

Charles raised an eyebrow. “It’s totally free?”

“Completely. You’d be doing both of us a favor. It should be clean, of course, but we’ll get it washed for you as well. Please don’t worry about it. It’s also a pull out, but it is an absolutely hideous shade of yellow, just to warn you in advance.”

If Charles was getting a free pull out couch, he really didn’t give a damn about the color. It wasn’t like his interior decorating was any good, so it didn’t matter much.

“Well. Thank you, I guess.” Charles took a deep breath, and cautioned a look at Max, who was scrolling through twitter again. He didn’t seem alarmed at all by George’s couch offer. Maybe George did this often. He seemed like a weird guy, so maybe he just did couch giveaways like it was nothing. “You said there was a presentation thing?”

“Yes! Right. Let me just set this up, you know, I’m stoked that you agreed to this because usually Alex and I have to lock people in a room and force them to watch, but really, it’s been so useful to have something like this ever since there was the whole Esteban and Pierre situation a few years ago, and that was such a drag. Besides, it’s my job to make sure everyone sticks together and it’s very difficult to do that when you have interpersonal drama. Not to-”

“George likes to pretend he’s been involved in no drama whatsoever.” Max cut in, putting his phone down. “But he’s the one keeping everyone’s business in a slideshow.”

“Well sue me for being well organized. Besides, don’t act like you aren’t invested in the ongoing spat between Esteban and Pierre as well.” 

“What can I say?” Max said, completely deadpan. “They started arguing in rehearsal. It was annoying and unprofessional.”

“Max, I have seen you kick people on purpose during Grande Allegro-” God that pronunciation was horrid “-I don’t think you should be one to talk. Anyway,” George said, plugging in the projector. “Now, let me set up the presentation.”

George plugged in his computer and his home screen- an artsy tumblr-esque picture of him kissing some blond guy at a beach- popped up. Max snorted in laughter. George’s ears turned red, and he swiped his screen to the presentation. 

“Ignore my homescreen,” George said, as if that didn’t make Charles want to ask more questions. “Let’s get into it. Firstly, I want to note that everything here has been said to me and that unless stated otherwise these are purely rumors. I have not made any of this up out of nowhere, I just report the news. Understood?”

“Yeah?” 

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

Charles kind of missed High School Musical now. At least he didn’t have to pay attention to that trainwreck.

“Max, feel free to add your own suspicions, I know you have many theories.”

“As I’ve said before, my theories are my own, and as long as you leave me be, I won’t tell everyone your drama.”

Hm. At least Max sounded vaguely entertained. He was staring at the screen looking unimpressed, arms crossed as he balanced the frozen corn on his ankle. He looked unfairly good. His arms were quite impressive. So were his calves. Charles looked back to the screen before George noticed. He didn’t want to end up in the slide presentation as like, a weirdo freak who was into calves or something. 

“So, I’m just going to begin with everyone who is together now, alright? I’m also using the ship names that Alex and I came up with, so please ask for clarification if I forget to be clear. But the only people in solid relationships are ‘yukierre’ which is Yuki and Pierre, ‘sebson’, which is Seb and Jenson, and ‘viffany’, which is Valtteri and his partner Tiffany. Any questions?”

“Who’s Jenson?”

“He runs the box office. He used to dance, but doesn’t anymore. He throws all the post-show parties. I’m sure you’ll be invited.” Max replied. “He and Seb have a weird relationship but that’s not really my problem. I met him once when he was coked off his tits.”

“I see.” Charles did not see. Did people in ballet just like, do cocaine like it was nothing?

Actually? Charles had seen some of the jumps. Cocaine probably was more reasonable than spinning like sixteen times in the air and landing it like some kind of God.

“Yes, well, moving on. The rumored relationships are all on the board, it should be fairly obvious who everyone is, with the exceptions of anything with Seb, Nico, Fernando, or Mick.”

“Haven’t I met Nico already?” Charles asked. “He’s in the men’s class.”

“Oh! You haven’t met Britney!” Max laughed. “Oh, you’ll love Britney.”

What.

George rolled his eyes. “Nico is a dance journalist who used to dance with Lewis at the Royal Ballet. They had a bit of a falling out, but I’m so sure they’ve gotten together and I just need-”

“George.” Max interrupted again. “Presentation. Slides. Charles does not need to know your convoluted theory about why you think Nico and Lewis are together.”

Well. Now Charles was curious. Maybe he’d ask him another time.

“Why do you call him Britney?”

“It was an old nickname. He’s very very blond, and according to Jenson, was very pretty in the 2000’s.”

George rolled his eyes. “I thought you were banning me from talking about Nico, Max. Anyway, Fernando used to dance with the company and has retired about four different times, he’s probably Lance’s sugar daddy despite Lance being a bajillionaire, and Mick is one of our tech guys. He comes in probably weekly to fix the wifi. Now, if Max stops interrupting me, I’ll move on with everything.”

“Sorry George, continue on with your presentation.” Max didn’t sound sorry at all. He was still scrolling through cat videos on twitter.

George brought up the first slide. It had a picture of the two arguing Frenchmen- Esteban and Pierre- on it. George clicked the space bar. The picture spun. Charles couldn’t help but question how long George had spent on this if there were animations and everything on it. And then George started speaking, and Charles quickly realized the answer to his question: George had spent way too long on this.

Concerning long. 

As in, Charles hadn’t even known there were that many different animation options in Powerpoint until now.

“-So, any questions?” George asked, finishing it all with a final bibliography slide. It seemed as though George had cataloged every conversation relating to each topic. Charles was beginning to think he was a little insane. And then he remembered how George looked at the pancakes, how he was wearing like four different jackets, and fucking loafers in the snow, and Charles realized that George was definitely more than just a little insane. 

He did have one question though.

“Yeah, I have one. Why aren’t you on there at all?”

“Ah. Well, there’s a great deal of money on who I’m dating, and if I put anything on the presentation relating to myself, I know someone will figure it out.”

Well. Charles appreciated the effort, but he had a feeling that whoever the guy was on George’s lockscreen was the elusive boyfriend. He assumed it had to be one of the guys that he hadn’t met yet. It probably wasn’t Fernando, given that he had apparently retired many times and therefore would probably not look so young (and was also probably sugar daddy-ing Lance, and George struck Charles as a monogamous sorta guy), and Seb was kind of dating that guy Jenson, so Charles assumed that must be the tech guy. 

“What’s the tech guy’s name again?”

George bit his lip nervously and looked at him. “Mick?”

“What’s Mick look like, George?” Charles asked, ignoring Max’s muffled laughter. It was actually quite cute, but Charles chose to ignore that. He didn’t have time to unpack why he thought Max’s laughter was cute, especially when he needed to torture George first.

“My word, Charles. Why do you ask?” 

“Just curious.” Charles tried to present himself as a picture of innocence. He wasn’t sure it was working. “I want to make sure I can properly greet him if I ever see him around.”

“Well, he doesn’t often work at the studio unless you are having IT issues, so-”

“Just in case? I want to make sure I know everyone the best I can.” 

George sighed. “He has blond hair. Blue eyes. Short.”

“I see. Anything else about him that’s important? You know, that I might recognize him with? Any other way you’d describe him?”

Max was practically falling out of his chair. 

George’s face was bright red. “Um.”

“Yes?” 

“He’s- um- well, blimey, I really don’t know what you want from me?”

Charles raised his eyebrows at him. 

“Well, he’s- he’s very pretty?” George’s eyes widened comically as he realized what he had just said. His face flushed considerably. 

That was about all Charles could take before he too joined Max in laughter.  

“Shit, um, listen, Charles-”

“Yes-?” Charles cackled, feeling terribly out of breath. “Is Mick, perhaps the boyfriend no one can know about?”

“Maybe? Please don’t tell anyone. You both and Alex are the only ones who know.” 

“If he is such a secret, why the fuck is he your screensaver?”

“I-” George exhaled slowly, still looking a bit panicked. “I love him? I like to look at him whenever I see my computer? I don’t know, why wouldn’t I make him it? I don’t usually have people looking at my lock screen. Besides, everyone at the studio thinks I’m fucking Alex or Lance for some reason.”

“Sugar baby millionaire Lance?”

“Yes! Fernando’s supposed sugar baby who is also a millionaire. That Lance.” George shrugged. “He’s not even my type. I don’t know why people think we’re fucking.”

“I can tell you why people think you and Alex are fucking, if that helps.” Max cut in. 

“Yes! Why is it? Alex and I are both confused.”

“You both showed up, post sharing a hotel room, with matching throat ‘infections’-” Max said the final word with air quotes- “It was pretty suspicious.”

“We didn’t fuck! I had the flu!”

“And you pushed your beds together?”

“We’re both tall!”

Max groaned. “Do you understand now?”

Charles definitely saw the vision, even though it was pretty fucking obvious that George was head-over-heels for this Mick guy. Still he nodded, much to Max’s apparent pleasure and George’s annoyance. 

“Just, don’t tell anyone about me and Mick,” George said again. “I like to keep people guessing.” 

Charles nodded. It wasn’t really his place to tell anyone about someone else’s love life anyway. 

“Is that it?” Charles asked. “No more weird lore I need to know about?” 

George shook his head. “Not unless you want to hear about my theories about Lewis and Nico.” 

Max groaned loudly as he repositioned his ice pack. “No one wants to hear about that.” 

“Charles?” 

Charles tore his gaze away from Max to look at George. He was wavering slightly on the piano stool, as if he couldn’t quite sit up straight. Charles usually paid attention to his piano playing in rehearsal, so he wasn’t sure if this was a Just Right Now thing or a Real And Worrying Thing about George. Either way, he was slightly worried. 

“Hm?” Charles asked. “Oh, about Lewis and Nico? Well I do not know who he is, so maybe not right now? I’ve already learned a lot about people today. Maybe another time though, I am invested. But you must introduce me to Mick as well. He seems like he deals with a lot.” 

“He does.” George nodded, though he did seem mildly disappointed. “But anyway, I should get this show on the road I think.”

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Charles asked again. “Tea or something?” 

George shook his head as he checked his phone. “No, I’m just peachy, thank you. Mick will be expecting me back soon anyway.” Then he looked at Max. “And you’re doing alright? No one is forcing you to come back to dancing too early? Cause you know the union will-”

“Mate, the only person forcing me to come back to dancing early is myself,” Max said dryly. 

George frowned. “That’s not good. You should be taking care of yourself.” 

Max looked like he was going to say something, but instead he just sighed. “I am,” Max sighed. “And that’s why I have Charles.” 

George looked over at Charles who tried to ignore the huge swell of feeling bubbling in his chest. What feeling it was, he had no idea.

“Hm,” George said. “Well on that note, I’d better go. This has already been a lot of excitement for Max for one day.” He gently placed his hands on the table and stood up slowly, taking time to get his balance before straightening up. 

Max muttered something in another language, probably about how George was being stupid. 

“Hmm?” George hummed.

“Be safe, George.” Max spoke, tone light but still serious. “Don’t be stupid.”

Charles stared down at his pancake. It stared back, in all its buttery goodness. There was a clattering sound, and Charles’ head shot up as he watched George nearly fall into the closet.

“Are you alright to drive back?” Charles asked. “I can drive you if you want.”

George looked like he was almost considering it before shaking his head. “No, as I said Mick is waiting for me and it’s not far. I will be fine. And I’ll be texting you about the couch.” 

Right the couch. Charles had almost forgotten about that. 

He watched as George put on his coat clumsily, waved, and then walked out with his laptop and projector. 

Well then. What a weird guy.

Charles looked over at Max. He was still sitting at the table. “Is George alright?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“He looked like he was going to topple over the whole time,” Charles said. “Do you think he’s sick? Is he always like that?” 

Max shrugged. “He seems to have something going on with food. Or at least that’s what I think ‘cause I have never seen him eat. But it's not my business to ask.” 

Charles sighed as he walked back towards the table. “I hope he’s okay. That can’t be safe. He is too tall to be going without eating for a day.” 

“It isn’t, and he is.” 

“Do you have….?” Charles asked slowly, praying the answer was no. “Sorry, that is personal.”

Max shook his head. “It is, but no. My fatal flaw comes from dancing through injuries that I shouldn’t.” 

“Like this one?” 

“Like this one.” 

Well. 

That was a lot. 

Wait a minute.

“Does he apply this to his work with the union? Like does he make you starve-”

Max shook his head quickly. “No. God no. He would not-” Max sighed. “This is an only him thing. It was better for a little while, but I think it is bad again. But I could not help him because he does not want my help, and it will only make it worse. Besides, we are closer than some of the others, but he is still just someone I dance with.”

“Is it not already bad? Surely it can’t get worse.”

“It can. Trust me, Charles. Do not mention it. It will only make it worse.”

“Can we make it better? Is there anything we can do?”

Max looked at him weirdly. “No, Charles. You are very kind to want to help, but there is nothing we can do. I know that Lewis knows, Alex knows, and Mick knows, but there is nothing the both of us can do to help because we are not close enough to him. And George is of course weird. If he is not in control, I do not know what will happen. As for now, he seems mostly in control, even if he does not seem well.”

“But he will be okay?”

“Again, Charles. I do not know. You are more observant than many of the people at the company. Many people do not know because I think he saves his energy for dancing. We cannot intervene if he does not want it, and right now, I don’t think he wants to get better. It is not our problem. Got it?”

Charles sat down on the piano bench, stabbed a pancake with his fork and sighed. “I understand that, I just don’t-”

“That’s just dance, Charles. George wants to be the best, so he is doing everything in his power to be that way.”

“But isn’t it dangerous-”

Max thought for a moment. “Yes. But George has been trying to get to the principal level of the company for years. When he was given his first principal role despite still being soloist, he seemed to stop. Maybe he will get better when he gets principal, and then it will be okay. But I don’t know what George does or thinks, I just know what I see. I do not do it, but many other people do. Because that’s ballet. George just happens to take pride in it.”

“He’s proud of it?”

Max shrugged. “Probably. But who am I to guess? I am not him. I just hope he doesn’t collapse in class and make it other people’s problem. That he will not like.”

Charles thought about it. It made sense, but Charles really couldn’t stop thinking about it.

In fact, he was still thinking about it as he and Max walked into the studio the very next day. Max made a beeline straight to the bathroom, saying something about biofreeze and tights- nothing that made any sense to Charles- and Charles decided to wander around the studio for a little bit. He had plenty of time anyway, as Max insisted they get there forty-five minutes early so he could warm up or biofreeze or whatever the hell it was that he did. Charles also wasn’t confident Max should be taking class anyway, since he still couldn’t make it to his apartment and was still probably supposed to be using crutches, but Max had said that not taking care of injuries was his fatal flaw, so Charles wasn’t really sure if he could stop him. 

Charles was on his third lap of the studio when he walked straight into a short, aggressively blonde guy in questionably ugly sunglasses and an oversized, slightly asymmetrically knit sweater. The sweater looked homemade, and matched George’s leg warmers in class. Interesting.

“Mick?” Charles asked, hoping his suspicions were right.

Mick took a step back, looking a tad bit frazzled. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “Hello?”

“I am Charles. I know about you and George.”

Mick raised an eyebrow. “He told you?”

“I saw his lockscreen.”

Mick rolled his eyes. “I’ve been telling him to change that for months. I can’t believe you and Max are the only ones to notice. But anyway, it is nice to meet you. George told me about you. You play piano? Anyway, are you having issues with the wifi as well?”

“No? Well yes, I do play piano, but no to the wifi.”

“Oh.” Mick frowned. “Weird. It’s straight up not working for me.”

“Ah. Do you need to borrow my phone for something?”

“No, no. Just wanted to text Georgie, he’s been in a meeting with Lewis about something for a while and I wanted to make sure he’s okay.”

For someone hiding his relationship, Mick sure did talk openly about dating George. If his voice wasn’t so soft, Charles would have worried about everyone hearing them speak. 

“Oh, okay. You can use my phone if you want.” Charles offered again. “Also, thank you for the couch.”

George didn’t seem to be the type of person to check his phone during meetings, but who was Charles to argue with George’s literal boyfriend. 

“Oh! That won’t be necessary but thank you,” Mick’s face brightened, though he still looked exhausted. “You’re the one Georgie was talking about! Thank you so much for taking it off my hands, George won’t stop talking about how ugly it is and how he would never ‘put something so horrific in his living room’” Mick gestured with air quotes, accent slightly thickening as his voice rose in excitement, “Thank you so much for taking it. Georgie and I have some, um, personal things to attend to in the coming weeks, but once we’ve handled that we’ll bring it right over to you.”

Jesus, how ugly was this couch going to be?

Also, why they fuck was no one in the company American? How did they find so many non-Americans in fuckass no-where-ville New York?

“Uh, thanks. I am thankful you’re giving it to me.” Charles stuttered, trying to ignore Mick’s flickering gaze between him and Lewis’ door. “Also, where are you from?”

It was an awkward transition, but the way Mick’s gaze kept changing was really starting to freak Charles out. Also he was curious, because Mick did have a different accent to everyone else. 

“I’m German, but yeah, Georgie kept-” Mick trailed off as Lewis’ office door opened, revealing a completely miserable looking George. He was wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Excuse me. I’ll talk to you another time, it was great meeting you. I’ll text you about the couch.”

Charles watched as George whispered something to Mick, shaking his head slightly. Mick seemed to deflate, wrapped an arm around George’s waist, and the two of them shouldered past Charles and out the front entrance without a word. 

Lewis stared after them, looking a bit like he was going to scream.

“Is everything okay?” Charles asked, unsure if he was intruding or not. 

Lewis swallowed. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. Now, I wanted to talk to you about working Nutcracker rehearsals-”

So George had been right about Lewis wanting to ask him to play for rehearsals. Fantastic. It was just four extra hours of work a week on Saturdays (though Lewis had said that the number would go up once they got closer to the show), and it would mean Charles could actually get to know more people. It sounded like fun and it would pay for him to not freeze to death in his apartment, so he agreed. 

“Great! It’s all party scene and overture rehearsal, so there will be a lot going on. There’s not too many of the guys in the class- though George will be in the party scene now so you’ll know him- but you’ll get to meet Chloe who’s our Clara and a few others so it should be a good crowd. In addition to that, we also partner with a nearby arts school and give the kids a chance to perform with us, so don’t be too surprised at the amount of kids running around in rehearsal. They know how to behave with a pianist so they won’t bother you. Rehearsals next week right after class, and…” Lewis frowned. “I think that’s it. Oh, also, our production is quite a bit different from other productions so don’t be too surprised.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Lewis nodded. “Now, if you’d excuse me I have some things to work out before class so…”

And then Lewis was closing the door behind him.

Weird.

This whole situation seemed so weird that Charles hadn’t even paid attention to the absolutely baffling outfit Lewis was probably wearing and pulling off. But he had other things to attend to, namely, looking over at the cast list and trying to learn what everyone was doing.

Hm.

Interesting.

The first person he looked for was Max and- huh .

The cast list clearly said Max was the military doll- whatever that meant- and rat king. Weird. Didn’t Lewis just say George was doing military doll, not snow cavalier or whatever the hell that was?

The rest of the cast list didn’t mean much to Charles as he really wasn’t that familiar with the Nutcracker, though he did notice that the cast list did have a lot of different named roles that Charles hadn’t seen in his wikipedia searches. But that was probably a good thing, because he had remembered thinking that some of the role names on google (and the controversies that had popped up in his recommended news tab) did have him questioning the morals behind them. But this seemed a lot less…offensive. 

Charles shrugged. He’d ask Max about the role later.

Right now? He had a class to torture. 

(As in, Charles had armed himself with Coldplay, Britney Spears, and Chopin. He was ready for anything.)

He was not ready for anything. 

He was not ready for Lewis to walk to the front of the dance studio, clap his hands once, and start speaking in a way that made it sound like someone was fucking dying.

“So, unfortunately due to some unforeseen problems we’ve had, I’m making a change to the cast list.”

About twenty heads- not including George who wasn’t there- snapped to attention. 

“This won’t affect most of you, but I just wanted to bring to everyone’s attention that Max will now be doing the part of snow cavalier- as he had been expected to do before his injury, unless he hurts it again- and George will once again be doing the part of military doll.” 

“Huh?” Lando asked, looking just about as confused as Charles felt. 

Lewis sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “As you know, George and Max switched roles when Max twisted his ankle. Because George was his understudy.”

“Yeah.”

“They have now switched back.”

“But Max is literally still wearing a cast, why can’t someone else get the role?”

Ah. Lando sounded jealous. Charles thanked his lucky stars that he was just the piano player and didn’t have to deal with whatever conflict resolution bullshit Lewis was about to do. 

“Because that’s not what Toto, Susie, and I have decided.”

Lando rolled his eyes. “But like, why does George get all these roles and no one else.”

“Dude, George doesn’t have the role, literally were you even listening?” Alex hissed, voice echoing through the studio. 

In the front of the room, Lewis looked profoundly tired. “The rest of the cast list is the same. Max, please try not to snap your ankle, we cannot afford to be down another dancer.”

Max nodded. He looked entirely unphased by all of this. Charles was beginning to realize he just had the most severe case of resting-bitch-face he’d ever seen. And before Lando- or anyone else for that matter- could start arguing, class began.

Nothing was too unusual about the class other than that. 

He and Max drove home together, listening to some weird fuckass Dutch club music that Charles couldn’t tell if he loved or hated, and stayed quiet. They stayed quiet even as Charles made a pot of Annie’s mac n’ cheese. 

Charles set a bowl in front of Max. He was icing his ankle again.

Charles took a bite of the mac n’ cheese. It tasted fine. He took a deep breath. “So, snow cavalier?”

Max nodded. “Fourth year in the row.”

“Cool. Is it fun?”

Max shrugged. “I guess. It’s about the best I can get considering Lewis is never going to take Bottas out of the nutcracker role, but it is what it is.”

“I see.” Charles did not see. George had been positively elated about the role, but now Max seemed…well… unenthused. “Do you not like it?”

“I do, it’s just there is few principal roles for men in the Nutcracker. And I am bored of playing this one when there’s no reason for me to fight for the nutcracker role. But considering Lando is probably considering killing me for it, there’s probably worse places to be, yes?”

“Sure. I thought George said he was-”

Max snorted. “George was my understudy and was given the role because I fucked my ankle. It seems like he did something to make Lewis question his ability, so I get to do it again.”

“He was talking to Lewis before class today. He looked unhappy.”

Max hummed, “well, that’s tough luck for him. Maybe he’s not ready to be a principal yet. My guess is he was being Princess George again and forgot his place. I do not know. But that’s too bad for him.”

“Isn’t that a bit mean?”

“No.” Max adjusted the frozen corn on his ankle. “It is just ballet. If he is not ready, he does not deserve the role.”

“But his health-”

“If he was ready to be principal, he’d have his health under control, yes?”

“But aren’t you literally dancing with a sprained ankle?’

Max shrugged. “Wouldn’t you still play piano with a broken finger if it meant that you wouldn’t get replaced immediately?”

Yes.  

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t understand. If George really wants the part, he needs to get over it and not drop out of production with barely a month left of rehearsals. He is lucky I already know the part and am therefore not having to learn everything in a day. Now, do you have anything else to suggest to me about my career or are you finished.”

Charles put his fork down. “Well, I’m just saying that you of all people shouldn’t be talking about working through things when you’re literally using my frozen corn to ice your ankle.”

“Yes, because I’m healing it outside of class, like George should be doing.”

Well, yesterday you said that George was fine and that I shouldn’t worry or say anything, but today you are saying he is unprofessional. So which is it?”

“Why do you care so much about George?”

Because it seems like you’re using George as a thinly veiled metaphor for your own issues ! Charles wanted to yell, but thankfully he wasn’t angry enough to burn that many bridges. Instead he just rolled his eyes. “Because you don’t seem to be very consistent on what makes someone professional.”

“George is professional until he loses control. I told you this yesterday. When he loses control, he makes it everyone else’s problem, which is probably why he skipped class. Which by the way, is very unprofessional. I would never skip class like that. It’s rude and unprof-”

“Not sure why you keep talking yourself up, but sure. If you’re so good and professional, why didn’t you jump in class?’

“Because I’m not stupid enough to reinjure myself? Once again, you are being silly. Do you not understand that you know nothing about this world? Being a dancer means you work. You must be professional at all times, show up when you’re supposed to, and above all, not drop out of performances and fuck everyone over. Or you lose your part. And that’s what happened. He very much deserves whatever he gets for this.”

“But he hasn’t even dropped out of the-”

“Not yet. But I’m sure he will. Anyway, Charles. I appreciate you letting me stay here for a while, but I’m done here.”

With that, Max hauled himself off the dining room chair, grabbed his clothes from Charles’ room, and left. He slammed the door behind him. 

Charles let him go. 

Clearly, he had his own issues to work out.