Archive of Our Own ^beta

«Le théâtre est le seul endroit au monde où un geste, pour être vrai, doit être faux.»
—Antonin Artaud, Le Théâtre et son Double 

“The theater is the only place in the world where a gesture must be false to be true.”
—Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double 

Jack had been in the job only three weeks before Cheyenne Toussaint made her entrance. 

Not an entrance in the usual sense. No announcement. No press call. No pleasant handshake before rehearsal. Just a sudden arrival, a long stare, and an expression that said she’d sized up the whole building and found it lacking. 

She was supposed to arrive at noon for private coaching. She showed up at 11:15. The company was deep into a run of Les Sylphides in the rehearsal studio — corps looking half-dead, the soloist mid-run, sweat flying off her wrists. The pianist was struggling to keep up. The choreographer was starting to fray. 

Cheyenne didn’t knock. She walked in, dropped her bag by the wall, and started watching. No greeting. No explanation. Just leaned against the mirror and watched like she was judging an open call. Hair scraped up, cheekbones sharp, wearing a black leotard like armor. 

Jack had been standing by the door with Nicholas, flipping through casting notes. He looked up when she breezed past them. 

She didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on the corps. 

“Is she early?” he asked Nicholas. 

“Technically,” Nicholas said. “She’s not in this ballet.” 

The soloist missed a step. Cheyenne clicked her tongue. Quiet, but not quiet enough. 

A few dancers glanced over. One of them whispered her name like it was a slur. 

The choreographer stopped the music. “Miss Toussaint, you weren’t called for this rehearsal.” 

She shrugged. “I heard the Chopin and I was curious.” 

“This isn’t your cast.” 

“I know.” She didn’t move. “That is why I’m watching.” 

Jack leaned against the doorframe and said nothing, half-wanting to see where this would go. 

Nicholas—still clinging to the idea that Cheyenne was here as a diplomatic favor—muttered something about Paris being very different and went back to the notes. Jack didn’t buy it. He’d seen what Paris said about her in the press release: imprévisible, géniale, ingérable. Translated: she’s your problem now. 

He’d been forwarded emails from half the French company warning him what she was like. Geneviève had just laughed and said, oh, mon pauvre. You’ll either fire her or fall in love with her. There’s no middle road. 

The choreographer rubbed his forehead, looking like he was deeply regretting his career choices. “If you can’t watch silently, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” 

The room stilled. 

Jack stood up straight. “Miss Toussaint,” he said, voice even, “if you’re here for coaching, Studio C is prepped. You’re early.” 

She turned to him. 

He’d expected to catch her off-guard. He didn’t. 

Instead, she looked at him like she’d already had this argument in her head, won it, and moved on. 

“You’re the new director.” 

“Executive director.” 

She looked him over. “Ah. The budget guy with opinions.” 

Jack crossed his arms. “Do you plan to treat every rehearsal like you’re doing us a favor just by showing up?” 

“I’m French,” she said. “We assume that’s understood.” 

“You’re a guest here. Try acting like one.” 

“You should be thanking me for being here, no? That arabesque was criminal.” 

The soloist blanched. The corps murmured. A silence settled in the room like fog. 

Then Nicholas coughed and said, gently, “Maybe we take five.” 

No one moved. 

Cheyenne turned to the pianist. “Can we run it again?” 

Jack stepped toward her. “You don’t get to walk in and take over.” 

Cheyenne gave Jack one long, unreadable look, then turned toward the mirror. 

The pianist looked to the choreographer. The choreographer looked to Jack. Jack looked at Cheyenne. 

He remembered the first time he saw her dance. A sticky afternoon in Berlin, at a stripped-back showcase at Radialsystem V. It was off-season, barely twenty people in the audience. No sets, no curtain, just concrete walls, hard light, and Cheyenne dancing La Bayadère like she didn’t care if the audience left bruised. He hadn’t forgotten it. He remembered the way her body held each line just past breaking point, the fury in her upper body, the refusal to be merely beautiful and technically perfect. He remembered thinking she was too much, too raw. Then going back a second night. 

Geneviève had laughed at him. T oujours les trop-intenses. They get under your skin and rot there. 

Now here she was. Live, uncut, stomping onto the scene like the Metropolitan Ballet was hers to raze. 

He thought he knew what to expect: someone cool, sculpted, untouchable. But in person, she was less composed. There was something immediate and unguarded about her that felt unintentional. Her hair was already falling apart, the straps of her leotard twisted like she got ready in a whirlwind and hadn’t stopped moving since. Her mouth held a natural downturn, which made everything she did look like a challenge. 

“If you’re going to dance,” he said, “you’d better be perfect.” 

She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled, just a little. “I’m never anything else.” 

She danced like she had nothing to prove and no interest in being admired. 

Every line was immaculate—of course it was. Jack had been going to the ballet since he was old enough to sit still. He’d seen perfect. But this was something else. The instinct. The force. The refusal to be watched the way people wanted to watch her. It was beautiful, raw, complicated. She danced like she didn’t care what anyone wanted from her. Like the technique was just scaffolding for something she wasn’t going to explain. 

When the variation ended, she didn’t wait for corrections. Didn’t bow. 

She just stopped and left. 

Walked straight out of the studio, sweat blooming through the back of her leotard, hair falling from its pins. The choreographer stood slack-jawed. The male lead sat down on the floor. Jack didn’t move. 

“Is she always like that?” he asked Nicholas. 

A sigh. “You hired her.” 

“I thought we did that together.” 

“Then let’s call it a shared delusion.” 

Jack didn’t say: I saw her a few years ago in Berlin. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week. I still have the program. 

He didn’t say: Geneviève told me she was trouble, and I ignored her, like I always do. 

He just watched the door swing shut behind her. 

And thought: fuck. 

By 9pm, the building had mostly emptied. Rehearsals wrapped. Staff filtered out. 

Jack stayed longer than he meant to. 

Technically, his job began and ended with logistics—budgets, board members, press releases with phrases like timeless reinterpretation and visceral reimagining . But he hadn’t gone home. Maybe out of principle. Maybe to write a memo. Maybe waiting to hear that she’d set something else on fire today—the only thing worse than watching her work was not knowing what she might do next. 

They’d brought her in for Juliet. Something urgent, something new. Nicholas had said magnetism a lot. The board had nearly swallowed their pearls— isn’t she the one who slapped her partner at curtain call? Didn’t she walk out of Sleeping Beauty during tech?— but Nicholas assured them she’d behave. For six months, at least. 

Jack didn’t believe in good behavior. He believed in outcomes. 

And today’s outcome: she’d derailed two rehearsals, humiliated half the corps, pissed off the ballet master, danced the balcony pas de deux like it was an act of revenge, refused every correction, then disappeared. 

He sat at his desk, an untouched email open in front of him. Something about a donor event. He let the screen go black. 

He’d spent his entire life here—this building, this company. Velvet curtains, rows of seats, a man with a clipboard calling places, please. His grandmother’s name was on one of the theaters. He learned to read casting sheets before he learned cursive. 

And still. 

He could not stop thinking about the way her rib cage moved. The way she stood still. The moment before she started—like the music had to catch up to her. 

He dug his knuckles into his eyes until he saw stars, then stood. Something had to give. Might as well be him. 

On his way out, he heard it—faint but clear: piano. 

Not live, something thinner. A stereo. Prokofiev.

He stopped. 

It could’ve been a tech run. A cue test. But no one was scheduled. He was paid to know these things. 

He followed the sound. Down the back hall. Past the greenroom. The side door to the stage was propped open an inch, just enough to catch the music and the soft, sure rhythm of feet against the marley.

Someone was dancing.

He knew he should keep walking. He had emails to write, staff to reassure, a wife expecting him to call. 

But he opened the door anyway.

There she was. 

Alone. No lighting but the spill of amber from the hallway behind him. Barefoot, hair down, wearing only leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. 

It wasn’t a rehearsal. There was no structure to it. Just movement. Small shifts. A turn. A flick of her wrist. The ghost of Juliet, haunting the stage. 

She had to have heard him, but she didn’t stop. Just continued to let the movement unfurl, like her body had learned it before she had, like her chest was cracked open and the only way to close it was to keep going. 

As he watched, something hit him deep in his own chest. Quietly. With no warning at all.  

She halted mid-turn—one foot still lifted, ribs flared with breath. Then she let the shape fall away, lowered her leg, and turned to face him. Slow. Deliberate. She didn’t speak. Just stood there, bare feet pressed into the marley, eyes sharp and unreadable.

The first thing Jack noticed about her was her eyes. Other people seemed to brace against the glare, but it didn’t strike him as cold. Just too full. Like whatever she was holding in had nowhere else to go. 

He cleared his throat.

“You’re controlling the fall too much. It looks like choreography, not surrender.”

She tilted her head. “I don’t take notes from men who’ve never danced a day in their life, and still think they’re qualified to correct women they’d never survive five minutes next to.”

Jack didn’t falter. “This theater’s supposed to be locked. You shouldn’t be in here.”

She scoffed. “Please. I learned to pick locks before I could talk.”

A pause.

Then Jack said, “I’ve been told you don’t take notes from anyone, actually. That tracks. You burned through five partners in Paris, right?” 

She gave a small, sharp smile. “Six.” 

He didn’t back off. “Tell me again how it’s everyone else who’s the problem.” 

Her eyes flicked over him—flat, clinical, already halfway to bored. “I wouldn’t call you a problem. You’re background noise. Like the buzz in the walls when the room’s too quiet. Mildly irritating, but harmless.” 

He huffed a laugh. Bitter, but impressed. 

“Sure,” he said. “I’m just another guy with a desk job and a bloated sense of self-importance. But I didn’t invite you here so you could cause chaos.” 

“No,” she said, “That’s just a happy accident.” 

“You made quite the impression today.” 

“I always do.” 

She reached for the stereo to turn off the music.

“Earlier,” she said. “I realized we’ve met.” 

Jack looked over to her. 

She didn’t turn around. Just stood there, fidgeting with one of the dials on the speaker. “Paris. Le Carmen. Years ago. After Giselle. You were with Geneviève. You asked me for a light.” 

He blinked.

He didn’t remember her face. Just the flash of a bare shoulder, the line of her neck. A dancer—young, sharp, unreadable. He’d clocked her in the smoking area. She’d handed her lighter over without a word, looked at him like she knew exactly the kind of man he was and wasn’t the least bit impressed.

Pure indifference, cool and precise—but with something underneath it. A flicker of recognition, maybe. Or danger. Something he hadn’t known what to do with at the time.

It had been very dark. Streetlamps in the distance. Smoke curling in the cold.

He hadn’t realised it was her.

“I remember,” he said. 

She glanced over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “No you don’t.” 

“You must have still been studying, right? I remember that the only way I knew you were a dancer was the way you held yourself. You were wearing cargo pants. Your hair was short.” 

She turned then, slowly. “You didn’t say thank you. I thought you were an asshole.” 

He huffed a laugh. “Sounds about right.” 

“I thought you were someone’s bored husband,” she said. “You looked smug. Expensive. Tired.”

“I was all of those things.” 

“You didn’t look like someone who liked ballet.” 

“I’ve seen you perform many times,” he said. “Geneviève has tried to introduce us at least half a dozen. You always refuse.” 

“Well,” Cheyenne shrugged. “She always said, I want you to meet my American friend, Jack and I would think, he sounds like an asshole, no thank you. Turns out I did meet you, and I was right.”

“Ouch.” 

“You’re not a dancer,” she said. “Why do you go to rehearsals and stand hidden in the wings?”

She turned away, muttering just loud enough for him to hear, " Connard fantomatique flippant."

Jack didn’t miss a beat. 

"Garde ça pour mon enterrement. Ça claquerait plus."

She looked him over–his jacket, the way he stood, the trace of amusement that he couldn’t completely keep from his eyes. “Tu parles français, toi ?” 

“Évidemment.” 

She tilted her head. “You speak French like an asshole who grew up yelling at his Filipina nanny, and thinks speaking with a terrible but confident accent is charming.” 

“Ça fait trois fois que tu me traites de connard. Je suis désolé de pas t’avoir remerciée pour le briquet.” 

“Why are you here?” she asked again. “You are new to this, no?” 

Jack folded his arms. “No. I’ve been with this company since I was twenty-one.” 

“And still—no turnout, too much shoulder tension, brand-new shoes. A donor’s grandson?” 

Jack smiled, tight. “You got me. Grandson of the woman whose name is on the theater. I’ve loved ballet my whole life.” 

Cheyenne made a face—mocking, almost soft. Like he’d just said something heartbreakingly sincere and she didn’t know what to do with it. “C’est relou. Je dois te décevoir. Insupportable à regarder, hein?”

Jack shook his head. “I’m indifferent.” 

“So that’s why you’re here after dark?” 

“I only came in because someone broke in.” 

“Tant pis.”

He looked at her. Really looked. The curve of her neck. The sweat-dark hem of her sweatshirt. The raw, red line across the top of her foot from hours in pointe shoes. 

She didn’t fidget. She didn’t soften. She stood like she could take whatever he was going to say and double it back at him with interest. 

“You can’t treat every stage like it’s yours,” he said, quiet. 

“It usually is.” 

“Not this one.” 

She tilted her head. “No?”

“This one’s mine.” 

A pause. 

Then: “And what will you do, monsieur le directeur? Punish me?” 

He didn’t answer. 

She stepped closer. “You dragged me here because your last Romeo and Juliet was terrible and boring. Because I’m difficult and unpredictable and people will come to see what I do with it. Because you think if you can get me to behave myself, smile at the donors, do the pliés like a good girl, you will look very clever and important to the board.” 

“I’m not asking you to behave.”  

“Good,” she said. “Because I won’t.”

“Why are you here, then? Why did you agree to it?” 

She looked past him for a moment, toward the wings. Then back at him. Her expression changed slightly, like she was deciding how much to give away.

“Je voulais disparaître un peu,” she said.

Then: “Not disappear. Just… I don't know how to say it...être avalée. By a city. Be somewhere bigger than me. Where people don’t think they already know what I am.”

Jack let out a breath. “I think you’ll swallow New York before New York swallows you.”

She didn’t answer.

They were standing close. Closer than made sense. 

She tilted her chin slightly. Her eyes were steady. 

“You’re going to cause problems for me,” she said

“That’s rich.” 

“I don’t think you’re indifferent at all.” 

A pause. 

Then, quieter—like she was just stating a fact. “That’s the problem. Tu ne me dirais pas non.” 

You wouldn’t say no to me. 

They didn’t move. The silence felt heavier now. Something flickered between them. Not heat. Something worse. The slow, difficult realization that the distance between them was a lit fuse. 

He shifted his weight. “I should go.”

“You won’t.” 

She’d already decided. It wasn’t a challenge, just a fact. 

“Anyway,” she added, turning back towards the speaker, “Someone has to lock up.” 

He glanced at the propped door. “You seem perfectly qualified.” 

“You cannot pick a lock closed, asshole,” she said. “Only open.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Go find the janitor.” 

“Maybe I’ll steal a key from him. Then I can lock up myself next time.” 

“Or,” Jack said. “You could just book a rehearsal slot like everyone else.” 

She didn’t respond. Just turned, pressed play and started again. 

Of course he stayed. 

Until the recording ended. Until she stopped moving and lay flat on the stage, breath ragged and legs trembling, staring up at the ceiling, silent, too much of everything.