Work Text:
The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.
Charles Baudelaire
They don't film the initial meeting, or much of the first six weeks of rehearsals.
"Who're you hoping for?" Oberyn asks while they're all milling about. He's wearing the most fantastic red leggings with a velvet finish, and a billowing black silk shirt, and looks like some kind of pirate. "I wouldn't mind getting my hands on Malora Hightower - they say she's an absolute tiger, bonkers reputation aside."
"You're disgusting," Sansa assures him, wondering if her own powder blue ballet cardigan and sensible charcoal grey leggings are a little understated, a little drab - everyone else, even Shireen, seems to have put in some serious effort this morning, but she was worried there would be cameras later on today, and so she decided to focus more on her wig than her outfit. "And I don't really mind, so long as whoever it is knows how to keep time. I can work with that."
The others really did make an effort, and Sansa is worried that her new partner is going to think she's a wet blanket now. The judges are clustered over in one corner, Cersei in a slinky gold thing that doesn't cover quite enough, given that Cersei is in her fifties and it’s starting to show on her back. Stannis in a sensible but beautifully cut black suit, Daario in one of his... Interesting velvet numbers, and Bellegere is in an absolutely fantastic shade of hot pink, all asymmetric and eye-catching. Cersei is giving her the sort of once-over that she used to reserve for the fancy dinners and parties Sansa had to attend, as an in-law to the Lannisters.
That's all over now, she supposes - this is a new beginning. Everything is new now, from her just barely broken in shoes to the weight of her wig on her head, and that's all that matters.
"I think your options are fairly limited this year, actually," Oberyn says thoughtfully. "You know they'll never pair you with someone smaller than you, so-"
"Willas Tyrell," she says, rolling her eyes, "or Perros Blackmont. I know - your options are quite limited too, you know. You know they'll never pair you with anyone taller than you, so-"
Oberyn glowers up at her, and then grins.
"Frankly," he says, "I'm assuming you're going to get Tyrell, since between the Lannisters' vendetta against you and the showing you and Umber gave last year, they're going to want you as far from the final as possible."
"Shireen ought to make a good showing this year, if she has Perros Blackmont," Sansa agrees, because she's seen Perros Blackmont on the West End - he's got a natural sort of rhythm and grace that will suit Shireen's choreography down to the ground, but most people won’t be expecting it, since he’s better known for that awful early evening soap he died in late last year. "And I don't mind bowing out early this year - I'll even go easy on him, just so no one can accuse me of further damaging a national treasure, alright?"
Whatever impossibly filthy comment Oberyn is about to pass is lost to the sands of time and the slam of the doors at the far end of the studio being thrown open - there are studio execs in suits outside, and studio flunkies holding back the doors, and Sansa wishes to God that she had agreed not to come back this year. Just the din of the “celebrities” outside is making her head ring, and she can feel the cold sweat gathering on the back of her neck.
“Hey,” Shireen says, warm hand pressing between Sansa’s shoulder blades, “you know we’re not going to let anything go wrong this year, don’t you?”
She manages a smile just as they’re told to line up, because she knows that Shireen means that - she just isn’t sure she can trust it. In the moment she spends lost in panic, everyone arranges themselves to suit the execs, and she finds herself standing between Oberyn and Shireen, opposite Rickard fucking Karstark, Dad’s former constituency partner and a raging arsehole to boot.
And taller than her.
She can feel Oberyn’s arm shaking with barely suppresed laughter, and knows that he’s realised it too - the bastard. Ellaria, on Oberyn’s far side, stamps on his foot heel-first, and that shuts him up. Ellaria is taller than Oberyn by three or four inches, and together they’re the senior-most professionals on the show, both in terms of time spent on the show and in competitive glory.
“We’ll be going in reverse alphabetical order this year, just for shits and giggles,” Robin says, his headset hanging precariously from his belt and the sleeves of his t-shirt rolled right up to the shoulders to show off the delicate flock of sparrows tattooed in flying spirals from his elbows up to his shoulders. He would have been a dancer had his health allowed it, and he’s her cousin besides, so he spares her a flash of a smile. “So, Tyrell, Willas, step up.”
Willas Tyrell is beautiful, of course, with shiny dark hair cut short and neat - thank God - and a shy sort of smile. Sansa watches carefully as he steps up, alert to any sign of limp or grimace on his infamously bad leg, and is relieved when she doesn’t see anything obvious. His reputation is going to guarantee that whoever he’s dancing with has at least a six week run, no matter how bad he is, and it’d be a nightmare if every dance had to be choreographed to accommodate a bum leg.
“Your partner is… Sansa Stark.”
Oh. Because of course it is.
She slaps on her best starry smile and crosses the gulf between dancers and celebs, and catches him by surprise when she gives him a firm handshake instead of whatever he was expecting.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she assures him, “and now, we’ve to stand over here until everyone else is paired off, and then we’ll be given our first dance.”
“A cha-cha-cha was mentioned” he says uncertainly. “I’m not really sure what that involves.”
“We’re almost definitely going to have a cha cha,” she agrees, “because I opened with a salsa last year. Don’t worry. We’ll not have to worry about salsa until at least week two.”
“If I make it that far,” he says, shy smile folding into an absolute stormcloud of gloom. “Things haven’t been going so well lately, truth be told.”
Sansa very unkindly thinks join the fucking club, but keeps her smile in place. It’s an art, and she’s better at that than she is even at dancing.
“We’ll see,” she says. “I’m very good.”
Oberyn, the absolute bastard, is dancing with Daenerys Targaryen.
No one is entirely sure how they snagged her in the first place - she’s a real A-Lister, an actress-turned-MEP-turned-activist who made a huge name for herself as the bright young face of the Loony Left in Brussels, then left politics and became an ambassador for Oxfam before setting up on her own, and she’s enormously popular at home. She’s a dead cert for the glitterball unless she falls flat on her face or turns out to be an absolute bitch away from the political microphone, and Sansa could just about spit with jealousy both at Oberyn and at Shireen, who of course has Perros Blackmont.
Sansa has Willas Leyton Tyrell, twelve-time Olympic medalist, two-time Tour de France champion, whose career was brought to an inglorious end when some prick off of Team USA collided with him fifty-three yards from the finish line, stealing away what would have been his thirteenth Olympic medal and leaving him with an awful lot of titanium in place of his left knee.
He’s done nothing but charity work in the three years since, even using his much-publicised rehab time to bring attention to the difficulties faced by kids aspiring to become paralympians, a revelation brought on by his own newly reduced circumstances. There have been whispers of an OBE, maybe even a CBE, but nothing material yet.
He is also an absolute twit.
PRE-SERIES REHEARSALS
“I understand that this is more or less opposite to what you’re used to,” she says, as patiently as she can after their fourth mandatory four hour rehearsal. The first three were spent training him in the absolute basics, including how to walk in dancing shoes - sounds ridiculous, but you’d be amazed. “I understand that even before your accident, your body was not wired for dancing, but my God , surely cycling requires rhythm?”
“It’s a very different kind of rhythm,” he says, all defensive and hunched over. “And there’s no tiddly pop music playing in the background, either!”
It’s been a week. They’re doing a cha cha, to an excellent song, which is R’n’B instead of pop, thank you very much. It’s a perfectly nice dance, nothing extravagant, just enough to ease him in and test his mettle.
Well, alright. There are a few jumps. But nothing too over the top.
“You signed up for this,” she says, teeth gritted. “You fucking volunteered.”
Sansa doesn’t like cursing. It has been a very long week, and he has been very uncooperative.
And… Maybe she can understand. Nothing he’s done since his fall has been quite so physical, as far as she can tell, and this is very physical. She isn’t a cruel person, and she has noticed the heavy brace he wears around his knee, so maybe it’s unfair of her to push him quite so hard quite so fast, but she isn’t going to allow herself to be embarrassed, not after last year. He has to be better than this. He has to be tougher than this. He’s a fucking Olympian!
“I can’t learn the dances in the mirror,” he says after a long, simmering silence, arms folded tight across his broad chest, looking hard at the floor. “I can’t understand it - it feels backwards.”
“The whole point of the mirror is that it isn’t backwards,” she points out, for the twelfth time in four days. “Would it help if I showed you what you’ll look like moving across the floor?”
She’ll look like an idiot, in hold position but not in hold, but if it helps him learn-
“I’m more concerned that I’m going to put my feet where yours should be,” he says, looking at her over the top of his steel-rim glasses, and all the fight goes out of them both. He so obviously wants to be good at this, for his own sake but also for hers, but it just isn’t working.
Unless…
“Give me half an hour,” she says. “Go, stretch your leg, and be sure to ice your knee - I can see the way you’re carrying it.”
He hesitates, but then he slinks off, stooping to grab his water bottle and his towel on the way to the door.
Sansa grabs her phone as soon as the door is closed.
“How bad is he?”
“Not as bad as I worried,” Sansa says, settling against the bar and wondering if this is a stupid idea. Probably. “The wigs are twice as bad as I feared, but I’m going with it anyway.”
“It’s your scalp,” Arya says, which makes Sansa smile. “What do you need?”
“Can you come in? He’s having a problem with figuring out what he should be doing from the mirror-”
“You can’t have me coming in every time,” Arya warns her, “You’ll be disqualified.”
“I’ll bring you to that absolute shithole you love in Camden for drinks if you do this for me,” Sansa begs. “Please, please, pretty please, Arya-”
“I’ll be with you in half an hour.”
“It makes sense now!” he laughs, watching Sansa’s very, very long legs kick up the way she’d been trying to explain he ought to kick. It’s the hips that are killing him, though - he can’t understand how he’s supposed to just roll like that, all smooth and firm and perfectly in time. “Well, mostly.”
“Give it a go, then,” Sansa’s sister says, sliding down to sit beside him against the mirror. “Go on, up you get.”
He’s blushing by the time he gets into position, and that makes him pause, too.
“Did you two say I’m going to have to run down those bloody stairs in time to the music?” he asks over his shoulder, which makes Sansa’s sister - Arya, wasn’t it? - laugh.
“Don’t worry about that,” she says. “That’s what dress rehearsals are for.”
Sansa is in position, the tiny remote for the stereo in her hand, and she’s smiling just a little. He can see it in the mirror.
“Eyes forward, Mr Tyrell,” she chides, but without any of her earlier venom. “And one, two, three-”
She hits play. He does the- the thing with his hips, and manages to keep in time. He does the jump off the platform, he does the leap onto the other platform, and he-
“Oops,” Arya Stark says, jumping to her feet when Willas mistimes a roll of his hips and bucks right against Sansa. Well. He’ll have to address that particular awkwardness sooner rather than later, since there’s an awful lot of closeness involved in ballroom dancing.
“Oops indeed,” Sansa says, rolling her eyes. “From the top, since proximity to my vagina seems to have bamboozled you, Willas.”
“I- well, that is-”
She’s smiling. That’s good, isn’t it? It means she doesn’t think he’s a massive creep or a dirty old letch. He feels like a creep, but it’s been a long time since he’s been this close to any woman, particularly such a pretty woman as Sansa,
“Arya,” she says, “go away. You’re making him nervous.”
“No, she’s- it’s fine! It is!”
“I’m gone,” Arya assures them. “Call me, San.”
“Bye, brat.”
The doors of the studio clap shut, and Willas thinks Perhaps I ought to remove my hips from Sansa’s.
It’s going to be a very long few weeks.
“I can’t wear this!”
Sansa blinks in surprise, tugging back the screen to see what it is that Willas is finding so objectionable about his costume - and just barely stopping herself from laughing.
“It’s a shirt,” she points out reasonably, and the laughter escapes when he pouts. “Willas, it’s not that bad-”
“First of all, call me Will,” he says, still pouting. “Only my grandmother calls me Willas. Second of all, you can see my nipples!”
He’s not wrong - his nipples are plainly visible through the sheer black satin, but so are the hard lines of his chest and stomach and the smooth stretch of his back. He looks good.
“Put it this way,” she says, stepping around so he can see her costume. “At least no one is going to see your underpants at all, alright?”
He’s giving her a very thorough once-over, and she’d blush if that weren’t normal. She’s perfectly aware of how long her legs are, after all.
“You look lovely,” he says, which is a little surprising.