Chapter Text
It wasn't an easy transition between Jack's audition and Bitty's. Like Jack, Bitty didn't want to tell anyone that he could be leaving. The show adjusted with Jack gone and ticket sales did not fall when Whiskey and Holster split the lead role. Several things needed to change, however, since Jack's face was on the cover of the Playbill and all of Nature's advertising. It didn't make sense to reprint programs halfway through the season, so Jack's face continued to appear until hiatus, when they would be printed with the updated cast.
Cirque's referral auditions took place during hiatus, which was fortunate as Bitty didn't need a formal excuse to miss multiple days of rehearsal; he simply said he was going to visit Jack and nobody questioned it, as almost everyone took time off during hiatus to visit family or take vacations. Bitty took an extra few days surrounding the audition to be with Jack, since the two had not actually seen each other since Jack left in July.
Bitty stared at the entrance from the car, at the glass doors embossed with the logo, and couldn't bring himself to go inside just yet. They had been idling there for over a minute now, Bitty just staring without moving. A hand on top of his drew his attention and he looked over at Jack, who sat behind the wheel of his father's car.
"You gonna go in?" Jack asked, a gentle smile on his face.
"Jack, I'm so nervous," said Bitty. Jack squeezed his hand.
"You're going to do great. You did everything perfectly yesterday."
"But that was yesterday."
"I've been talking you up a bit to George and some of the others. I don't have a say in who they pick but I know the people who do. I'm not worried."
"Yeah?" Bitty asked. "You didn't talk me up too much, did you? I don't want to disappoint anyone."
"George went to Boston and saw the show before I left," said Jack. "I don't think I even needed to say anything."
"Oh Lord, Jack, why doesn't that make me feel better?" asked Bitty. Jack pulled him as close as he could with the center console between them. Bitty rested his head on Jack's chest and felt Jack kiss the cowlick in his hair.
"You'll do great. Everything you do is great. I love you."
"I love you too, Jack." Bitty pulled up and kissed him, and then sat back in his seat. "Okay. Okay, let's do this."
"You've got this, Bits," said Jack. "I'll pick you up after." Bitty nodded once and then finally opened the car door. Jack waited for him to enter the building, so Bitty stopped at the door and waved before he opened it. Just as he crossed the threshold, he felt his phone buzz twice in his pocket. He pulled it out.
Coach
Good luck today, son!
Mama
Good luck! We love you!
He had yet to return to Georgia to see them, but knew that day would come when he would have to stop pushing it off. They'd been kind to him, Coach more than Bitty ever would have thought, and he was warming back up to his mother. There was work to be done there, and he would do it, but first this. First Cirque.
It took two more breaths and a self-affirming head nod before he opened the second door and stepped inside. The lobby was bustling with activity. People in various states of dress, all carrying a gym bag or suitcase, stood in lines to register at a table with four employees flipping through papers. Bitty joined the end of the short line marked "A - D."
"Eric Bittle," he said to a woman seated at the table. She returned to the front of her list and searched for his name, which she then checked off.
"Okay, Eric, you'll go through this door behind me and sit in room A with the other aerialists. Make sure your number is visible at all times — where is your number?" She flipped through a stack of numbers in front of her when Bitty realized what she was looking for.
"Oh, I have it already," he said and unzipped his hooded sweatshirt to reveal the number Jack had given him months ago.
"Oh, you're that Eric," she said and Bitty tried to hide his blush without being obvious about his attempt to calm himself down. She handed him a folder with his name on it. "This is your schedule for the next two days. There will be three cuts throughout the process, which are on the schedule. If you do not make the cut, you'll be asked to leave immediately. Sign these before you go in."
Bitty thanked her and signed several waivers before he walked around the table and into the studio. He was not the first one in the room, which wasn't a surprise given how long he dawdled outside before finally entering, but the vast number of athletes spread around the studio was terrifying. He could tell just from the way that they warmed up that some of these were dancers or balancers, who were not his direct competition, but his eyes settled on a group of a dozen men stretching exactly the same way he would.
The folder had a map of the facility along with the schedule and a FAQ sheet, which he glanced at before he searched the map for the locker room. He stopped there to drop off his belongings and shed his outer layer of clothing. He then returned to the room A and found an empty spot on the mat among the rest of the aerialists and began stretching.
The first day was Bitty's biggest concern. He knew he was better than most gymnasts at dance and wasn't worried about demonstrating those skills on day two, but it had been a long time since he was on rings, and he worried that years of time away would point out how rusty he'd become.
As he stretched on the mat, a man and a woman approached them and just their presence commanded attention. Bitty looked up, his nerves culminating in a rumble in his stomach. The man spoke first. "Gentlemen, my name is Tom. This is Georgia —"
"Call me George," said the woman. Bitty looked at her and immediately felt intimidated. She looked friendly, clearly an athlete herself, but the knowledge that she would directly judge him after she’d seen his show was terrifying.
"— and we'll be with you these next two days through your audition. We have both been with Cirque for over ten years and we are excited to see what you all bring to the table today. Cirque du Soleil is an exclusive company and although we're looking for four dozen people to bring with us to New York to develop our show, we are look for four dozen of the right people. We'll test you in a number of different ways these two days. If you don't have the style, the look, or the strength to withstand ten shows a week, we'll send you home."
"Today's audition will have two parts," said George. "First we'll test your gymnastics skills, we'll break for lunch and decide the first cuts, and then if you make it through we will move to the aerial skills this afternoon. You all should have prepared a floor routine and a ring routine. We'll go to the floor first."
Bitty's number was his order of audition; there were twenty of them in total. He had to wait for fourteen other men to complete a two-minute floor routine before he could begin his. It was disconcerting to watch; everyone else was nervous, many people missed their landings, and the fourteenth landed so awkwardly in his final pass that he couldn't walk back to his seat and was immediately cut. He had tears in his eyes unrelated to pain as he hobbled away with the support of one of the trainers.
The floor routine Bitty prepared was good, albeit safe. It was much different to tumble on the mat rather than on a trampoline, but he stuck his landings and never went out of bounds. The hardest part of his routine was the knowledge that George and Tom were grading his every move.
His ring routine was not as safe. This was much closer than what he would do as an aerialist, but the gymnastics side of rings was not at all the same as what he did on a daily basis back home in Boston. He could see his limbs quivering as he held poses, both his arms as he held a T-pose and his legs as he held them in front of him in pike position. He felt frustrated looking at them; he held himself up like this every day. He wasn't shaking from muscle strain; he was shaking from nerves. He hoped George and Tom couldn't see, or if they could, he hoped they would know the difference.
They must have, because out of the twenty he was one of fifteen moving on to the aerialist audition in the afternoon. He felt relief long enough to eat lunch, but then he remembered all that was in front of him and began to feel nervous again. He took several deep breaths as he stared at his lunch tray; the hardest part was over. If he could learn the Sprite's routine in three weeks, he could do anything. He could tell just from the floor routine that he was the best dancer of the group. He just needed to make it to day two.
Both Jack and Bitty agreed that the judges would recognize Jack's aerial routine if Bitty tried to use the same one, so over Skype they developed another routine that highlighted Bitty's best moves. According to Jack it was his pirouette and his belays, so Bitty added in a windmill at the end, which he enjoyed the most out of every one of the drops. It was difficult to know after Bitty's feet hit the floor if George and Tom enjoyed it, but someone back on the floor bumped his fist and said, "Great job," so at least one other person felt it went well.
By four o'clock he'd learned and successfully executed a new silk routine and was one of eleven moving on to day two. He met Jack outside, exhausted, and collapsed into the front seat of the car. Jack leaned over and kissed him.
"Do you want to know what they're saying about you or no?" Jack asked.
"Absolutely not," said Bitty. "I don't want to talk about it at all. What did you do today?"
"Top secret show stuff," said Jack and Bitty groaned. "I'll tell you all about it when you're part of the cast." Bitty groaned again.
"Jack, sweetie, you're not helping," said Bitty.
"Okay, okay. Are you good though? Really?"
"I'm fine. Really. Just...still nervous. There are a lot of really good aerialists in there."
"And you're the best dancer out of all of them," said Jack before he pulled out of the lot and onto the road back toward his parents' house. "My mom wants to know if you want to go out for dinner or stay in."
"Ugh, stay in," said Bitty, worn just from the idea of having to leave the house for dinner.
"That's what I figured. My question for you is do you want to have dinner with my parents or do you want to be alone?" Jack asked, looking over at Bitty with a smirk on his lips. Bob and Alicia had been gracious hosts the past two days that Bitty had been in Montreal, but he had to admit that they'd been seeing far too much of each other. Bitty smirked back; he might have been exhausted, and he might have been nervous, but his and Jack's time alone had been very limited.
"Alone, please," Bitty said.
Jack moved his hand from the steering wheel and placed it on the inside of Bitty's thigh, which made Bitty squirm. His skin buzzed the rest of the ride to the Zimmermann house. After Jack parked in the garage, he looked over and said, "Go up the back stairs. I'll tell my parents you're beat and just want to go to bed. I'll be up in a minute."
Bitty nodded but before Jack could even remove his seat belt, Bitty vaulted over the the center console and into Jack's lap. Jack had enough time to let out a "Whoa!" before Bitty kissed him. Jack replied with equal vigor, his hands starting on Bitty's waist before quickly sliding south. A muted moan escaped Bitty's lips; he held Jack on either side of the face but wanted more, but the driver's side of Bob Zimmermann's car had no room. Bitty reluctantly pulled away.
"Hurry," said Bitty, and he gave Jack one more kiss before he exited the vehicle through Jack's door.
Bitty was face-down and thrumming on the bed when Jack entered just five minutes later. Bitty turned over and looked up at him, who closed the door but stayed next to it, his eyes gazing over Bitty in workout clothes. He'd showered after the audition but changed back into his compression tights and T-shirt before leaving the building. More than anything he wanted Jack to be the one to take them off his body, but Jack was very far away. The room was so large; Bitty had expected it to be, but he also expected it to hold more charm. It was clear Jack had not lived here in years.
"What are you doing all the way over there?" Bitty asked.
"Looking at you. It's been a long time."
Bitty smirked. "I've been here two days."
"And I barely got to look at you," said Jack. He took a step forward, then another, and then knelt in between Bitty's feet at the foot of the bed. "Before Camilla left, when you were still just a dancer, I'd fall out of my corkscrew in the second act and see you offstage waiting to come on. I'd just look at you, and sometimes I'd miss my cue. You were very distracting.”
"I thought you were mad at me," Bitty said as Jack leaned over him and then began to plant soft kisses on the exposed line of skin between the waist of his tights and the hem of his rucked-up T-shirt. Jack kissed him three times there, each winding up Bitty's breath until his whole body exploded in shivers. Jack crawled up Bitty's body to look him in the eyes.
"I wasn't mad at you. I loved you."
"Jack…" Bitty whimpered and Jack delicately kissed him.
"Let's get this off, okay?" Jack asked. Bitty vehemently nodded and let Jack remove his T-shirt first, followed by his tights. When Jack removed his own shirt, Bitty propped himself up on his elbows and understood why Jack stood at the door and just looked at him. Jack let Bitty look his fill, and then Bitty motioned him forward. They kissed again, the delicacy of their actions gone. Jack removed his pants and rested between Bitty's legs again, both of them aching with want, gripping each other's skin and kissing hard.
Jack's hips thrust forward and Bitty felt Jack's erection slide against his own. He moaned into Jack's mouth before they continued kissing. They'd discussed this on the phone, voices low and breath stuttered, what they planned to do when they were finally together. They both agreed it would be a bad idea to attempt penetrative sex before or during the audition; Bitty had two very difficult days where he needed his body, and any soreness that would inevitably occur, regardless of how careful they were, would not be worth the risk. However while Jack rubbed their hips together, Bitty wanted desperately for Jack to be inside of him. What Jack did to him felt wonderful, it set his nerves on fire, and he was happy, but he wanted more, and just wanted his audition to be over so he could come back here, look into Jack's eyes as they connected their bodies and expressed to each in more than words that they were so in love.
Jack's hand reached between their bodies and took hold of them, pumping fast, both nearing completion. It was only a dozen or so strokes before Bitty's back arched, he bit his lip hard, and started to come. Jack wasn't far behind, his orgasm reaching him just as Bitty's finished, and then they looked into each other's eyes and grinned widely.
"Better?" Jack asked.
"So much better," said Bitty. Jack gently kissed him before he sat up, his hands on Bitty's hips.
"You hungry?"
"Oh Lord, I am starving," said Bitty. Jack smiled.
***
The following day was more nerve-wracking that the first, which was more than Bitty expected it to be. Dancing would be easy and he knew he could do well at it, but there was just one more cut and he carried the weight of it with him throughout the day. The routine took two hours to learn. Bitty had it down in ninety minutes but there were people, after they took a break for water, who still had difficulty with some of the steps, and he opted to stay on the floor to work them through it rather than take a break. The routine itself was just three minutes long, and after the break they'd perform it, and after the the performance they would know their outcome.
"Like this. Circle your hand around your head while you bend your left knee to the floor," explained Bitty to an exasperated boy with sweat pouring out of his temples. Out of anyone this boy needed to rehydrate the most, but he hadn't stopped redoing the routine since they called for a break. Bitty watched as he pulled his fist around his head out of sync with his knee lowering to the ground. "Count it out in your head. On three your knee should be on the ground. One, two, three — knee on the ground." It didn't work, no matter what approach Bitty tried, and it wasn't at all surprising at eleven-thirty when the overly sweaty boy was sent home and only eight of them were asked to join a group of women on the main floor for the final cut.
Bitty sat on the mat with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees as George, Tom, and two others from the women's group stood at the front of the mat.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to Montreal and participating in the first auditions for our new show debuting next year," George said. "For those of you I haven't gotten to meet yet, I'm Georgia Martin, creative director for this project. If you haven't noticed, we've been very selective in not only who we invited to this audition, but in the cuts we've made along the way. We're looking for an elite group of athletes to develop this program before we move it to New York, and we can only take a few with us down that road.
"You've all shown grit and resilience to make it this far, but we do need to make one more cut. We'll separate you into two groups. One group will stay here in Montreal and develop the show. The other will join our pool and may have the opportunity to join us once we move to New York, or we may keep you in mind for one of our existing shows. Either way, I want to be the first to welcome you all to the Cirque du Soleil family."
Bitty let out an "Oh my God," as the rest of the athletes on the mat broke into gasps, laughter, and applause. He knew being part of the pool was something to celebrate, and he accepted a hug from the person next to him, but he didn't want to just be part of the pool, waiting in the wings to be called some day in the future. He wanted to stay in Montreal with Jack.
George separated them into groups without designating the outcome of each. Bitty was called to the side with just one other man and three women, which was terrifying. He'd seen the talent by his side over the past two days. If it were up to him, every person left would get a role. He stood with the other four, his breath picking up, and waited for direction. George nodded to his group first.
"You can head down the hall to the first room on the left," she said. Bitty took in a sharp breath and held it as he followed the others out of the room. As he passed George, she offered him a wink, and he let out his breath all at once. Her ensuing smile didn't help calm his nerves and he headed down the hall, hoping Jack was on the other side.