#this post could be so much bigger but i dont want to shove a million concepts into this lol

[tworedplants]

More of them from the past couple weeks

[zoemurph]

blistering feet, ch1: improvisation

on ao3

'hey tea are you ever going to write something thats not a dance au' no.

welcome! i dont know why im posting this OR why i started it!!! i only have 2 chapters written and i just started college and i have no outline. so.

fingers crossed (please dont expect a lot from me)

shoutout to all my friends for encouraging this. thank you for being bad influences.

also please!!! read chapter notes!!!! ill be putting any sort of specific trigger warnings in the beginning notes. let me know if i ever need more. in the END NOTES ON AO3 ill be putting videos and links to any dance terms/references that i use in the chapter. let do this

tw: references to self harm

Connor clenches his fists, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. He’s shaking, his brain is screaming a million things at him, and he feels like he’s drowning in his thoughts.

He can hear his mother’s voice in his head telling him about breathing exercises.

Fuck breathing exercises.

Before he does something he regrets — even though summer is coming to a close, it’s still too warm to suffer the fate of long sleeves — Connor throws his hair up into a ponytail. He changes out of his jeans and into old sweats, his jeans are old and soft but not stretchy enough, and hauls his bag onto his shoulder. He grabs his phone as he passes it on his desk and resists the urge to slam his bedroom door behind him as he leaves.

He’s already going to get shit from Larry, he doesn’t need more.

Connor huffs out a breath before knocking on Zoe’s door. She opens the door quickly, a questioning eyebrow raised. She gives him a once over before closing the door again. Connor crosses his arms and taps his foot impatiently as he waits. He finds himself tapping out an old rhythm that his body has somehow remembered despite the years and leans into the beat.

A few minutes later, Zoe leaves her bedroom. She has a bag on each arm and is wearing sweats and a loose top. “I’m choosing the music,” she says, twisting her hair up into a messy bun and kicking the door shut with her foot.

Connor Murphy started dancing when he was five years old.

His mother signed him up for a tap class when Zoe refused to go on her own. Connor hadn’t wanted to go, but he was the older sibling, he was supposed to be the example, he was supposed to be there for his sister. So despite all his complaining and all of Zoe’s tears, Cynthia packed them into the car and drove them to the dance studio.

Connor was immediately put off by the amount of pink— pink was Zoe’s color, she had a monopoly over it. Zoe hated all the people, all the parents that were much bigger than her and all the other dancers who she had never met. She hid behind Connor and held onto the sleeve of his hoodie.

Connor decided he hated dance.

But he didn’t mind the way the shoes clicked on the floor.

They stood in line and the teacher talked and Connor stopped listening. But then the teacher turned on the music and showed them how to hit the floor with the toe of their shoe just right. The studio filled with the sounds of stomping.

Connor decided he liked dance.

Connor grits his teeth as Zoe plugs the aux cord into her phone. She hums to herself as she scrolls through her music, pursing her lips before settling on a playlist.

Connor focuses on the road, even though he knows this route well enough by now that he could probably drive it in his sleep. Not that Zoe would let him.

Zoe leans forward and turns up the music, guitar notes floating through the speakers. Surprisingly, it’s not a song that Connor recognizes. Probably some indie band that Zoe found and has decided to obsess over for a few weeks.

He doesn’t know how many songs have passed when he pulls into the parking lot.

“You’re lucky Heather likes us,” Zoe says as she hops out of the car.

Connor rolls his eyes and turns off the engine. He grips the steering wheel one last time before grabbing his bag from the back.

Melinda looks up from where she’s working behind the desk when Zoe pulls open the door of the dance studio. Melinda smiles and asks Zoe how she’s doing, her eyes flicking over the Connor briefly. Connor can practically feel the worry dripping off of Melinda and elects to ignore it. Whatever.

“Is Studio C open?” he asks, kicking off his shoes.

“Always is!” Melinda says cheerfully. He doesn’t care enough right now to decide if the tone is forced.

Zoe thanks Melinda as Connor climbs the steps to the storage room for the competitive dancers. He dumps his shoes and sweatshirt in his usual cubby and glances to his bag for a moment before deciding just to take all of it. He passes Zoe as he leaves the room and she holds out a water bottle to him. He takes it without a word.

Studio C is cold like it alway is. The heating in this particular studio isn’t very good, especially since it’s in the older part of the building. Him and Zoe moved to this studio when he was eight and his mother wanted them to start taking dance more seriously. When they were ten, the studio expanded into the building next to it for more studio space. Now, this studio in particular, with its dented wood floors and small size, is usually left open for anyone wanting practice space.

Two years ago, Connor claimed it as his own.

He plugs his phone into the speaker system and turns the music up as loud as he can without getting yelled at by Heather to lower the volume or get out. He can feel the beat in his bones as he sits on the floor and laces up his tap shoes, easy and familiar.

He stands and closes his eyes, facing the mirror but not wanting to see himself.

That’s the worst part about dance studios. There are so many mirrors. All of your mistakes, everything you are that you don’t want to be, projected for what seems like the entire world to see.

Connor does a few cramp rolls. His mind starts to calm as he soaks in the music.

He’s really supposed to warm up. It’s important to do, even for tap. He’s supposed to warm up his ankles.

He’s not really in the mood to be safe.

The song ends and the intro to another starts up. He always leaves his phone on shuffle when he improvs so it can be a surprise. He recognizes the song after the first few notes, smiling a little to himself.

Connor counts himself in and he starts with a simple flap ball change. And then he dances.

—«·»—

Zoe is sitting on a bench outside the studio scrolling on her phone when Connor has finished, his muscles sore and his heart racing. She barely gives him a second glance when he drops his bag on the bench next to her and sits down.

He leans over to check the time on her screen. Zoe pushes him away.

“It’s almost three,” she says. “And you smell.”

Connor rolls his eyes and pulls the hair tie out of his hair. “Do you want to grab something to eat before rehearsal?”

Zoe is already standing. “God I thought you’d never ask.” Connor follows her into the storage room as she complains about their mother’s cooking. “—which isn’t bad but, we dance twenty three hours a week, we need more carbs than that.” Zoe shoves her bag into one of the cubbies and puts on her shoes. Connor fishes the car keys out of his bag and does the same.

“McDonald’s?” he asks as they get into the car. The car has already gotten warm since they went into the studio and Connor remembers that he really fucking hates summer and heat.

Zoe is already reaching for the aux cord. “Depression fries?”

“Fuck you,” Connor says flatly. He shifts the gear into drive and tries not to speed out of the parking lot. If Heather so much as suspects that he was speeding in the area, he’ll get an earful at rehearsal tonight.

“I’m not judging,” Zoe says as she chooses a song. “I want chicken nuggets.”

Maybe fast food isn’t the best idea before rehearsal, but Connor stopped caring about what was healthy a long time ago. He spends hours in the studio without eating or drinking and sleeps less than five hours a night. If his plan was to live a long life, he’d be failing. But luckily that’s not his plan.

If he spends enough time in the dance studio, the rest of the world stops for a while. Or at least he stops paying attention to the rest of the world for long enough that it’s a little less shitty.

That’s the problem with school starting up again. Less studio time. More time in a hellhole where no one would care if he died, where half the school thinks he’s about to snap and go on a shooting spree, where all anyone knows him for is throwing a printer in the second grade.

Yeah. High school definitely is the best four years of his life.

Connor doesn’t even realize he’s made it to the drive through until Zoe is leaning over him and rolling down his window. He really has to stop doing that when he drives, even if he knows the route well. One of these days he’s going to get into an accident and kill himself (not a bad thing) and Zoe (a bad thing).

Zoe orders quickly, getting him a drink along with his trademarked depression fries, and then sits back down in her seat and buckles in, motioning him to drive forward. It’s sort of weird how Zoe just goes along with stuff like this without question, but it’s better than being at home and getting yelled at for it.  

They sit in the McDonald’s parking lot for a while and eat because Connor’s fries would get cold in the drive back to the studio and McDonald’s fries have this magical ability to get really fucking gross when they’re cold. Zoe cranks her weird music louder as she eats her chicken nuggets, clicking through emails and updating Connor on studio events.

Connor takes a sip of her drink before his own, mostly to annoy her, partially to see what she got because he’s already forgotten what she ordered. “Do you think Erin is going to try more party pop jazz?”

Zoe shudders. “I hope not. That was…”

“Fucking awful?” he asks, and she nods eagerly in agreement. Lauren liked trying new things. Trying a different style of jazz, with a lot more pop music and jumping and neon, had not worked out in her favor. Connor had tried to drop the dance and Zoe had yelled at him.

“Do you think you’ll get a solo this year?” Zoe asks lightly.

Connor raises an eyebrow at her. “Do you think you will?”

They stare at each other for a long moment before Zoe snorts and grabs her drink from the cup holder. “Erika would lose her shit if they didn’t let you have your solo.”

Connor smirks. “That’d be something to see. Maybe I should refuse it.”

Zoe whacks his arm. “ Drive , asshole. Heather will have your head if we’re late.”

“What about your head?” He puts down the empty fries container and backs out of the parking space.

“I’m too pretty for that,” Zoe says haughtily. “Besides, I’m actually good at ballet.”

“I’ll throw you out of this car,” Connor threatens.

Zoe just changes the song and blasts the music louder.