FIC: all the same.

[surquelpied]

The gym is deserted when he gets there, twenty minutes past lunch. People are still hanging out in the cafeteria, munching on their salads and apples and spicy pecan crumbles. Claude hasn’t eaten since the breakfast he and Vincent shared in his kitchenette, halfway out the door already, but he’s at that state of the run where he’s building up to the next big thing, all muscle, yet still feeding off the energies of the current which, fortunately, comes calorie-free. Stay in the now, his teacher from Marseille taught him during those first years. Precious lesson, really.

He’s still learning.

Fixing up his usual weight, 50 kilos, and a couple of smaller barbells, Claude turns on the TV above the door and starts lifting, focusing on keeping the push-up in his legs rather than his back. Unlike Vincent’s long, lean cyclist thighs, he needs the muscle strength without actively bulking up, so keeping the kilo count down is essential. He doesn’t lift like a weightlifter, after all, he lifts like an artist, his physical therapist would phrase it.

It's the news in the distinctive Luxembourgish-French that he’s getting used to, if only out of necessity. A live feature takes over from the news anchors after a few minutes of back-and-forth discussion, showing the publicity rooms at Parliament, Jean Louis Girard sitting flanked by an all-male line-up at a long table covered with a green tablecloth and a whole row of mikes.

Claude piques up, but keeps his movements steady, strong. Oh, he knows what this means, right? He knows exactly –

At the very back, almost like an additional shadow, he spots Vincent, glaring out over the turn-up of journalists, looking tall and looming, like a dark tower. He isn’t dressed in the same clothes he left Claude’s apartment in, but rather a bright white shirt and a dark vest, black tie, jacket. He looks spotless. A little bit scary, if we’re honest here and Claude tries to be. Tries to be very honest with himself.

Which is the only reason he acknowledges the flutter in his chest.

Beneath the TV, a flock of his colleagues enter the gym through the open door, laughing loudly, one of them glancing up at the screen above his head. Heidi goes straight for Claude’s lined-up barbells and picks one up, toying with it for a moment while she also registers what’s on.

“Want to change the channel,” she asks Claude who’s tossed the remote near his left foot.

“Yeah, I don’t wanna do pilates to the view of Girard’s ugly mug,” Herbert agrees, despite the fact that he’s already started. Claude scoffs and is about to drop his weight to bend down and change to MTV, their usual common choice of entertainment, but at that exact moment, the camera pans back to Vincent who barks out the name of some journalist, now allowed to pose his question, if he so dares.

Herbert turns to Heidi and says in a Luxembourgish that’s fortunately simple enough that even Claude can follow along, “never mind Girard, I’m gonna get a regular injury if I work out to the sight of that media dictator.”

Shaking her head, Heidi counters in a German that’s only slightly more difficult to understand, “I think Luxembourg has a different definition of ‘free press’ than Germany does.”

“Isn’t that why we love it here,” Larissa says from her seat on the nearest cable machine, her own English-laden French registering more easily than the German dialects Claude’s had to deal with so far. However, you get used to all four languages spoken interchangeably in these parts, Luxembourgish, German, French and English – especially the first three, of course. Claude smiles and picks up the remote, holding it out for Heidi to take and decide. Whether they’re actually well-entertained enough, bitching about Luxembourgish politics. She takes it and gestures to Larissa inquiringly.

“I don’t have an opinion one way or the other,” the soloist shrugs. “At least Liberté doesn’t care enough about the arts to harass us with bad reviews, right?”

They all laugh, except Claude who wordlessly goes back to lifting his weight, hoisting it over his shoulders, legs far apart. Heidi is the first to remember and fall quiet. The other two follow suit within seconds.

“Sorry, Claude,” Herbert says in French, his fellow principal sitting on all fours, elbows in the mat and hands folded beneath his chin. He’s turning 38 this year, he’s dancing his last everythings these days. Claude is kind of thankful that he can’t shrug with the weight balancing across his shoulders.

It doesn’t feel shrug-worthy, this.

Heidi puts the barbell down and runs one hand softly down his sweaty side before changing the channel, mid-closeup of Vincent, MTV blaring out some French-language dance number. It’s Stromae, though. Not French, Belgian.

Theme and variations, today, huh?

Taking a deep breath, Claude tells Herbert, all good, it hasn’t exactly followed me here, has it, before sinking into work mode, feeling how the other three copy him, one after the other. Sometimes ballet dancers aren’t more than one body, regardless of how many limbs you can count in the room.

In his mind, there’s a brief glimpse of thigh and flowers growing up the lengths of it. Briefs, half a buttock.

Even the limbs outside of the room count for something now, though. Evidently. Familiar limbs. Familiar powers.

Different journalists, but journalists all the same.