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Jacob Brent is a dancer, first and foremost, and he should be used to this by now. It should be nothing; it shouldn't come with angry, ugly tears and shaking hands that make it nearly impossible to pull the bandage taut, but he can't help it. This is the biggest opportunity of his life, and it could all fall away because he forgot he wasn't at his studio and the floor has a different spring, a different feel.
He can't afford to rest it until the swelling goes down and the tightness goes away, not even for one day. If this were his studio, if he were teaching, he could rest it without anyone knowing just by focusing on corrie and technique, spending the week cleaning up routines and stretching just a minute longer each class. It's not, though, and he's reminded of that yet again by the banging of the door against the wall. John is loud like that; everything is so big, so much larger, that even in the dressing room Jacob feels like John's space creeps a bit more into his every day. Right now, it feels like more than that, because he knows what John must see.
"Looks worse than I'd have thought, from a fall like that," John says, and Jacob is surprised. John's hands are warm on his, and they make the shaking stop, just like that. "Bit of shock there, too."
"I can't miss, I can't," Jacob says, and even his words don't come out right; he meant to have a full sentence there but his brain froze and, what must John think?
"You won't." John says. The gentle touch is replaced by an insistent one, as John presses on the swelling and then up Jacob's leg, inspecting the bruise from where he landed on his side. The shaking comes back, but it's not as bad. John makes sounds, like a doctor does when he thinks something bad but doesn't want to say anything. It makes Jacob nervous; John has always respected his space before, and this is, to say the least, unprecedented, like the big brother John plays on stage is here and not the brash and effusive actor he's growing used to.
"Tape it up, put something on that bruise, and they won't even know. Here," John says, and a bottle of half-warm Coke is dangled in front of Jacob's face. "The sugar helps."
Jacob goes along with it, because he's not sure what would happen if he didn't, and it's nice (but weirdly intense) to have John's attention just on him for once, and he really isn't looking forward to going back to trying to wrap his ankle by himself. His mind clears a bit as the sugar kicks in, and he wipes his face with the back of his hand.
"You're so good at this," he says, and John smiles from over at his bag.
"I have experience," John says, and there's something about the way he says it that Jacob can't quite parse out, a rough quality in his voice and a tiny pause in the middle, like John was trying to find the right word for something else. Then John comes back over, kneels back down next to Jacob's chair, and his hands are high up on Jacob's thigh. "This will make it go away faster," John says; the creamy blue gel is cold only for a second as it's rubbed into the bruise. It's still painful, but more like a warmth that's trying to get in under his skin than the sharp ache trying to get out that's been hounding him since he fell, ankle turning one way and his body another.
He had been rather annoyed at himself for choosing shorts today, since dance pants might have at least taken the worst of it, but now he's not so sure; it would be more embarrassing to sit here in his undies, the way things are going. John doesn't seem to notice, or he's being uncharacteristically polite about it, so Jacob has another drink and waits for it to be over.
When it is, he feels strangely bereft.
There's a knock on the door and John yells out before whoever's on the other side can say a thing.
"Ten minutes," he calls, but there's a muffled noise and the door handle starts to turn. John gets up and strides across the room, and small though it is, he covers it with three steps, each one as graceful and as deadly as a tiger. He blocks the doorway and Jacob can't even see who it is. "Ten minutes, I've got it," John says again, and closes the door.
He doesn't say anything when he pulls up the other chair, just pats his knee, and Jacob swings his leg over from the table into the space between John's legs. He expects the gel again, but John pulls out a first aid kit from God-knows-where in the cabinet. Jacob had turned it upside down, before he had to sit down, and hadn't been able to find it.
"Did you hide that?" he asks, and then slaps his forehead. John just smiles.
"No, it was just at the back." He has a roll of sports tape and his hands are cool on Jacob's ankle as he winds it around in a figure eight, lifting as he needs. "Now the bandage," he says, when the tape is exhausted and Jacob is starting to think he's going to be the Mummy Cat. The bandage goes over the tape and Jacob flexes his ankle, experimenting to find that it no longer hurts.
"Thank you," he says, and the moment that hangs in the air like a well-timed jeté comes crashing down when there's another knock on the door.
"Ready to dance?" John says, and Jacob nods. His jazz shoe is a bit tight over the bandage, but otherwise, he feels as if nothing happened.
Except it did, and it shows as John almost seems to orient himself around him as they work on adjusting the blocking for the stationary film stage. There isn't much room in his brain to notice much more than that, since he has to focus on the corrie, but still, it's something almost electric, and it almost makes him feel like he really can fly, though there's a twinge when he lands from that last jump.
John follows him to their room when rehearsal is finally called over for the day, as if there wasn't a question about it. He normally stays in the studio warming down and chatting, and Jacob prizes the alone time it gives him to pull his head out of the role and back into the real world. Today, he's all over the place, but now that rehearsal's over he's looking forward to the ibuprofen he keeps in his dance bag for emergencies and a good night's sleep, though he doubts he'll get it the way he keeps being distracted by thoughts of John. It's like being touched by him, being reliant on him, has shaken something loose and it's really him that's being drawn towards John, like there was nowhere better to be than at his side.
He sits down and John picks up his foot, and almost like an exact reversal from before, John slides the shoe off, then the bandage. He cuts the tape with a pocketknife, and Jacob can't help the shiver that it sends up his body. John holds his ankle still enough that it doesn't do anything but attract a quick glance up once the blade is put aside and John is peeling the tape away.
"Ice it again when you get home," John says, once the bandage is back on and Jacob is left to himself as John pulls a jumper over his head and gets his street shoes out of his bag.
"You're not coming with me?" Jacob says. It slips out as John turns away, before Jacob realised he wanted it, and he apologises almost as quickly as he spoke, because the way John's eyes narrow and his shoulders tense are enough to make him wonder if he pushed too far, even if he didn't mean to say it.
"I don't do that unless it means something." John says, and that roughness, the sense of just missing something is back. "You want it to mean something?"
"Yes," Jacob breathes it out like John is pulling the word from his chest along with the heat rising to his cheeks and the almost-familiar dizziness.
The kiss is searing, brutal and unexpected. It makes Jacob breathless even before John pulls away. He feels small and big at the same time, and even forgets the ache that's started to make itself known once more.
"Then hurry up," John says. "We're going to mine."
Jacob has to wonder what he's gotten himself into now.