The studio was relatively quiet. A few other dancers were scattered around working on their own pieces or limbering up for rehearsal. The sound of music from another room echoed down the hallway outside and filtered softly into the studio Rowan had situated himself in. It created a calming ambiance as he sat in a split on the floor, leaning forward and browsing facebook on his phone. Toes pointed and then flexed in timed intervals as he absently perused the internet to kill time.

Long grey leg warmers that covered from the top of his thighs and down past his heels helped him retain heat in the limbs. Unlike some other dancers, Rowan wasn’t much into donning the brightest of colors. At least not in the gaudy sense. Some around the theatre could be seen sporting neon greens, rainbow toned leg warmers that made their legs look like a unicorn had threw up on them, or even obnoxious striped patterns that sometimes played tricks on the eyes. No Rowan much liked his more neutral tones. Today was a black leotard, half sweater to keep his arms warm and the grey warmers. Nice, simple and elegant.

It had been a few weeks since the injury in his thigh. The wretched spider’s bite was nothing more than two pale marks now and the doctors had confirmed the marks would fade with time. Not that they were in a very conspicuous place anyway. Thankfully, his time off hadn’t afforded him too much of a drawback. A few days had been spent restrengthening and seeing what sort of damage was done, but he had gotten lucky. Within a few days he was back at rehearsal and thankfully not missing out on continuing his role in the Nutcracker.

His time at home had been...interesting to say the least. Hallucinations, both visual and auditory had plagued him for a few days. It had been a nightmare but there had been a single silver lining to the entire event; The youngest Yorke boy’s impromptu call and visit. The mere thought of the dark haired and eyed teen made Rowan smile to himself.

Finger flicked over the screen of his phone. Curiosity getting the better of him and need to see the boy again. Soon enough he had found what he had been looking for as Elex Yorke’s face appeared on the screen of his phone. The main photo was, of course, a well put together one and not like many who had ridiculous portraits to signify their profile. The one marked difference was hair length. Since the photo had been taken the youth must have decided to grow his hair out. Perhaps he was biased, but he much preferred the longer haired look.

Swiping through the profile he found his birth date, a list of hobbies and favorite books and...ah yes, there it was. Relationship status was marked single. Tension in his shoulders he hadn’t realized he had been holding eased a bit at that discovery. Why had that been so important? This is facebook for crying out loud. Not everything on the internet is true.

A few more flicks of fingers and the page rolled past. There. The last post by the Elex boy had been back in April. Nothing appeared after that as if the page had been discarded. If that was the case, which it was turning out to look like then what he found on the site was likely not all that useful.

Flicking back to the top he thumbed the photos option. Putting the phone down for a moment, Rowan shifted his weight forward then back and swung his legs in front of him. Grabbing the phone again he shook out his muscles as he browsed through the images. Most were well taken. Elex obviously was of the photographic sort. It made perusing the images all that more entertaining.

A photo of Elex in his school uniform pulled focus and Rowan clicked it open further. The boy stared back at him with those tantalizingly dark eyes. Hair was short, like in all the photos but Rowan paid it no more mind than a fleeting thought. Golden eyes traced the contours of the boy’s face, eyes, nose, cheek bones, ears...mouth.


Immediately he hit the lock button on his phone and huffed a deep breath as a hand swiped over his face. The last damn thing he needed was getting worked up in the studio. There was little way he could hide anything here and he needed to be on top of his game. Now was not a time to be getting distracted.

He tossed the phone into his bag nearby. Glancing around the room confirmed more people were meandering in. A class was going to begin soon and his time to limber up was going to be gone. Reaching forward to pointed toes, his head met his knees as he pulled himself forward and down trying to pull out any tight spots.

Sitting up again he gave a quick glance down to double check himself. No, nothing was obvious. Good. Giving his legs another good shake he climbed to his feet. He stopped to adjust his ballet shoes and pulled up the grey leg warmers that had slid a bit down his legs. He pulled the knit material up and off the heel of his foot and let the material slouch around his ankle. Rolling his foot forward and his toes under he stretched out and cracked the knuckle of his feet one foot at a time as more people filtered into the room.

A thought crossed his mind.

Grabbing his phone from his bag again he clicked open his text messages. Fingers danced across the screen with practiced ease as Rowan typed out a quick message. No sooner had he hit the send button did the instructor walk into the room clapping her hands loudly to demand the attention of everyone in the room.

“At the barre!” She called out. Tossing his phone back into the bag, heart racing a bit at the text he just sent, Rowan got up and found himself a place at the barre next to a lanky brunette already in her pointe shoes and a slightly stockier male corps dancer who, if Rowan remember correctly, was part of the nutcracker as well.

As the instructor began the warm-up exercises Rowan forced his mind from drifting away to that night of tantalizing kisses and instead focus on each precise movement his body was doing. Correcting himself where it needed and watching in the mirror.

If he was lucky enough though, and his text was well received, he wouldn’t have to imagine the Yorke boy for much longer.

wc: 1130