Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nico was getting impatient.

Sure, with his ADHD, he was always impatient, but this was different.

He’d auditioned for his high school’s production of Spring Awakening over a week ago, and the cast list still hadn’t been posted.

“Stop worrying,” his friend Piper said as he looked at the corkboard in front of the auditorium for the fiftieth time that day, “you’re literally one of two people to audition for Moritz.”

Easy for her to say. There’s no way Mr. D would cast anyone except her for Wendla.

“Yeah, Nico, chill.” Percy said. He hadn’t even auditioned for a role, how could he know?

Nico’s feet were planted in front of the auditorium. It was lunch anyway, so he wouldn’t be missing any classes, and he’d much rather be here instead of the literal hell that was the cafeteria. Big social gatherings were not his thing.

He shouldn’t even have auditioned. What was he thinking? A play in front of probably the entire school? This was all Piper’s fault.

“Go ahead!” she’d said, “audition! What’s the worst that could happen?”

This. This was the worst that could happen. Standing in front of an empty corkboard, stomach churning with anticipation.

Maybe Mr. D would be in there. He could just say that he wasn’t going to be in the musical, the other guy could play Moritz. Yeah, that would be for the best.

He stepped inside and breathed. Mr. D wouldn’t mind, right? Besides, it’s not like he sang like an angel of something. No one would miss him.

The auditorium wasn’t too big; Goode High was one of those high schools that paid no heed to the arts and wasted all of their money on their surplus sports teams. The large read curtains were drawn, and he could just barely see the light and sound booth on the opposite side of the wooden stage.

If only he could re-do his audition. And by redo, he meant not do it at all.

Mr. D wasn’t here. So much for that.

He stepped onto the stage. This was where he stood, at the first audition, then at callbacks.

The only reason he’d auditioned for Spring Awakening, other than Piper bashing his head out about it, was because it was Bianca’s favorite.

Bianca would sing him one song, Whispering, to him, before going to bed. Her soft voice got sadder and sadder up until the days she’d died. Nico had the lyrics committed to memory.

The first few months after, he’d sing the song to himself. Every day. It was comforting, like he could pretend Bianca was still here with him.

He didn’t really know why, but he started to sing.

He stepped down from the stage and sighed. What’s the worst that could happen?

~~~

Will was getting impatient.

He was waiting for an email from Mr. D saying that he would be stage manager of the Goode High production of Spring Awakening.

It was a voluntary thing, but Will wanted to be stage manager more than most. He loved theatre, and his mom was a singer. Will could almost imagine her proud face when he got the email. If he got the email.

First thing in the morning, he checked his phone. No email.

He got on the bus and was greeted by Lou Ellen. “Did you get the email?”

“Nope.” Will sat down next to her.

“Auditions were last week,” she tapped her chin. “Shouldn’t you have gotten it by now?”

“Maybe Mr. D picked someone else to be stage manager.”

“Pshh. No way. If you don’t become stage manager, I will literally tell everyone you’re straight.”

Will grinned. “Shut up.” He checked his phone again.

He was feeling great the rest of the day, other than the nagging feeling that the godforsaken email hadn’t come yet. There was a surprise quiz in biology, which he’d aced, thanks to all the late night studying he’d done.

While going to the cafeteria, he passed by the auditorium. Even the cast list hadn’t been posted yet. Will wondered if the actors were just as frustrated as him.

Maybe he’d go in, to check if Mr. D was in there. If he wasn’t in a drunken stupor.

Will decided to take the stage door instead of the main entrance. Mr. D was more likely to be backstage.

He saw the curtain ropes, the stage manager desk and the lighting booth, all the way up there facing the stage. He was looking for Mr. D everywhere, in the folds of the red curtains, underneath the stage in the pit, and in the dressing and quick change rooms, when he heard a voice, singing.

Whispering
Hear the ghost in the moonlight
Sorrow doing a new dance
Through their bones, through their skin

Who was that? Will recognized it, a song from Spring Awakening. The voice was definitely male, he sang it a few octaves lower than the original, and he must have been on stage, since Will scoured everywhere else looking for his teacher. He sounded beautiful, Will thought.

He slowly approached the stage, like he was cornering a wounded animal. He wasn’t sure why, really, the voice was distinctly human, but the boy sang it with so much pain Will couldn’t be sure if he was hurt or not.

There was no one on stage. Will wondered if maybe the singer was here for the same reason as him.

~~~

Nico loved his friends, but they were too much sometimes.

At their lunch table, they talked loudly, getting some nasty glances from some stressed-looking seniors hunched over textbooks.

“-and then, she said, ‘I didn’t do anything!’” Leo exclaimed from the other side of the lunch table. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes narrating a fraudulent story from his math class.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, which was fitting, since most of Leo’s narratives we’re pretty much a hundred percent false. “The audacity,” she said sarcastically.

“Oh my god, Annabeth, you weren’t there.” Leo said, without any heat, and then went back to devouring his tofu enchiladas.

Piper wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I can’t believe you didn’t audition for the play, Leo. You would have been a perfect stage personality.”

“Yeah, perfectly annoying,” Percy said, which got a few laughs out of everyone.

Leo ran a hand through his curly brown hair. “As fun as being perfectly annoying sounds, I would never audition for the play. For all I know, theatre’s probably a cult.”

Piper made her voice low and gravelly. “Yes, join the theatre cult, when we inaugurate people with stage fog and Phantom of the Opera.”

Nico smiled.

Jason looked up. “Did the cast list get posted yet?”

“Not you too! Nico’s been pestering me about it since first period,” Piper groaned.

“I have not.” Nico said, but inside he was asking the same question.

Jason had auditioned for Melchior, the lead male. Jason could sing, but his voice was more authoritative than anything. When Nico thought about it, he really would be perfect for the role. Besides, Piper tried out for Wendla, and those two were so over-the-moon for each other, their chemistry would be pretty much unmatched.

As Nico packed up his lunch and headed to history class, he saw Mr. D in front of the corkboard.

Mr. D stepped away fron the board, regarded it for a second, and then left, leaving an alcohol-smelling trail behind him.

Nico rushed towards the board, almost slipping.

Spring Awakening Cast List:

Leads
Melchoir Gabor - Jason Grace
Wendla Bergmann - Piper McLean

Supporting
Ilse Neumann - Annabeth Chase
Martha Bessell - Silena Beauregard
Anna - Drew Tanaka
Thea - Kayla Knowles

Moritz Steifel - Nico di Angelo

Nico’s heartbeat almost stopped. He got the role. He got the role.

He tried to calm himself down. Everyone at school knew him as the emo kid who lost his sister in a car accident. He was fine with that reputation, he couldn’t be seen jumping and screaming over a cast list.

But as he walked in (late) to his history class, he couldn’t help thinking how excited he was.

~~~

Will loved his mom, but she was too much sometimes.

When they had moved to New York from Austin, all of these Yankees were, well, surprised by her so-called ‘southern hospitality’.

Will tried to explain that people were meaner, grittier here than they were in the south, but Naomi Solace would have none of it.

As soon as Will stepped in, his mom showered him with questions.

“William, sweets, how was your day?”

“Oh, you look so tired, did you stay up studying again?”

“Sit down, have some casserole.”

Will ate silently as his mom talked about her day at the new gig she got. It was jazz, Will’s favorite genre of music (other than musicals, of course).

“The saxophonist started playing this amazing improvised solo- oh, go on, eat some more- and the crowd went wild. Wild, I tell you” his mom said, while gesturing how wild the

Will smiled and shoved down more casserole. He had a disgusting amount of homework to get to. Not to mention that email.

“Oh, Will, I completely forgot! Did you get that email yet?”

“Not yet, Mom.”

Will’s mom walked over and ruffled Will’s blond hair. “Aw, shucks. What play are y’all doing again? Spring Ephiphany?”

“Spring Awakening, Mom,” Will replied.

Naomi ruffled his hair again. “Listen, Will, I got back-to-back gigs this whole week. I’ll be home late. Keep yourself safe, ‘kay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

Will went up to his room and sighed. Honestly, he always got whiplash from the utter nerdiness of his bedroom. He really needed to clean out all of the Star Wars memorabilia he had. He didn’t even like Star Wars that much anymore.

He recalled the mysterious boy he’d heard in the auditorium. He probably would have auditioned, right? Maybe then Will could put a face to the voice during the first rehearsal. If he got stage manager. No, when.
It had been a long day.

Will sat down and started doing his homework. Biology, for sure he’d do that first. Then math. Then probably Spanish.

Will barely noticed how tired he was. After a few pages of bio, he felt himself drift off.

Will woke up with a jolt. His biology textbook had a few drops of drool on it, he wiped them away quickly.

He rubbed his face and checked the time on his phone. 7:46. God, he’d underestimated how exhausted he was.

“Mom!” Will called, but he didn’t get a reply. She must’ve still been out.

Will saw another notification on his phone: a new email from. . .Mr. D!

He opened it quickly. His eyes skimmed over a few lines, typo-ridden, and finally got to the only sentence that he wanted to see.

Congratulations! You are the stage manager of Goode High’s production of Spring Awakening.

Elated would be an understatement to how he felt.

Chapter Text

Rehearsal Day 1

Surprisingly, Will was not nervous about rehearsal.

Excited, eager, enthusiastic? Yes. But nervous? Nope.

Will walked into the auditorium with a vigor he hadn’t felt since the first time he saw a live surgery and sat down in one of the many auditorium seats in front of the stage.

No one was here, which didn’t surprise Will. He came in thirty minutes early, because there was no way he’d be late to the first rehearsal. He didn’t care if that made him sound like a suck up.

Will sat up and looked through the copy of the script he had. Spring Awakening was not your usual high school play. While most schools did musicals like Seussical, Aladdin, or, at most Heathers, Goode High picked one of the most “problematic” musicals ever to hit the Broadway stage.

Spring Awakening covered controversial (well, controversial to the public) topics, like
abortion, child abuse, homosexuality...

As Will looked through the script, his original camaraderie had begun to dissolve. He had to memorize all of this? Along with the monstrous amount of homework his bio teacher gave him? And with finals coming up soon, would he be able to be a good stage manager.

“Why are you here this early?” a voice said.

Will turned and saw Lou at the door. “Why are you here?”

Lou sat down in front of him on the stage, legs hanging off of it. “Good morning, Lou Ellen. How are you? I’m fine, thanks for not asking”

Will winced and said, “Sorry. But why are you here?”

“Ensemble, remember?”

“You auditioned?”

“Yes, William. Jeez, get your head out of your textbook for once.”

Will smiled and suddenly thought about that mysterious voice he heard. He looked at the stage, where the owner of that voice might have stood.

“If you’re gonna keep ogling the stage you might as well have auditioned for Hanschen,” Lou said.

“You and I both know that I’m not ballsy enough to do that.”

Hanschen was one of the reasons Will was so surprised that the school chose Spring Awakening. A gay character in a high school play? Who actually kisses another boy and receives little to no backlash? To Will, it was like a fever dream.

And he would’ve auditioned for Hanschen. Or Ernst, for that matter. It wasn’t the kissing-a-boy part that bothered him. It was the kissing-the-boy-in-front-of-a-full auditorium part that did.

Lou Ellen nodded and sat in the seat next to him. “Yeah, you’re a complete weakling. Plus, you don’t have the vocal ability.”

“Shut up.”

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, until people slowly started trickling in.

“How did Mr. D, of all people, get hired as a theatre teacher anyway? I bet he hasn’t heard one musical in his entire life,” Lou said.

“You never know. Maybe he’s an actor fallen on hard times,”

“Yeah, and I received a Tony award for Best Lead Actress.”

“You’re just salty you didn’t get the lead.”

“Am not.”

Will went back to his script, when he heard a voice. “Why are you guys here this early?”

Will panicked, thinking it was Mr. D. What if he had heard Will and Lou? Then he could kiss his stage manager's dreams goodbye.

He turned. It wasn’t Mr. D, but someone he was equally surprised to see. Nico di Angelo?

“Oh, it’s you,” Will said, relieved it wasn’t Mr. D.

Nico scowled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Great job, Will. Make the cast hate you before rehearsal even starts.

“Nothing,” Will said, “Just surprised.”

Nico scowled again. “Sure.”

Will eyed him as he walked to his friend group. Piper McLean and Jason Grace? They didn’t quite seem like the type of people Nico would hang out with. But then again, this guy seemed full of surprises.

It was 8:30 when Mr. D finally arrived, with the expected amount of snark and irritability and just all-around loathing for teaching. He sat down in the row furthest away from the stage and wiggled his hands at Will, in a way that said ‘You’re the stage manager. Do your thing” and promptly stuck his nose in his phone.

Lou grimaced at Will. “Well, I guess that means rehearsal has begun.”

Will approached the stage, deciding which manner of introduction would make the cast hate him the least. He cleared his throat and began.

“Hi everyone! Thank you for showing up. My name is Will Solace and I’m your stage manager for our production of Spring Awakening. I see we all have our scripts, that’s great. I think, to get to know everyone, we should start with some icebreakers--”

He was interrupted by groans and poorly concealed eye rolls.

“--or maybe not. Uh, I guess we can just start with a general read of the script, and we can run through all the musical numbers. How does that sound?”

Will could have sworn there were crickets. Lou Ellen, bless her heart, clapped and whooped like he didn’t just kill everyone’s already-low morale. This was going to be a nightmare.

This was a nightmare. Nico didn’t know which part was the worst, the yawns from his fellow-cast mates, Piper’s exceedingly annoying taunts, Mr. D’s lack of interest, or their stage manager’s apparent incompetency.

Piper whispered to Nico, after Will Whatever-His-Name-Is finished his introduction, “He seems nice.”

“Inadequate is what he seems. Has he even done this before?”

“Have you? Give the kid a chance, Neeks,” she said.

“Don’t call me that,” he scowled and got out his script, already highlighted for his parts.

Jason looked over his shoulder. “Well, someone came prepared. Come on, everyone’s on the stage.”

Everyone sat in a circle on the stage, flipping through scripts and whispering at Nico’s presence. That was fine. Nico didn’t have to like or talk to any of these people, just act and sing. All he was here to do was act and sing.

The door opened and someone came rushing in. It was Annabeth, holding a large scroll of paper and about 17 bags full of things.

She tried (and failed) to quietly sit down next to Piper. “Am I super late?”

Piper smiled. “No, but you did miss a bunch of really fun icebreaker activities.”

“Damn it! You know how much I love icebreaker activities,” she said, genuinely hurt.

Nico had always felt some resentment towards Annabeth. Not because she was super smart, always got fantastic grades, and managed to be beautiful while doing it, but because of Percy.

Percy…he didn’t want to think about him right now. He never wanted to think about him ever again.

Even though he knew it was inevitable.

“Hey, rehearsal wasn’t that bad.”

Will looked up from his textbook, resisting the urge to chuck it at Lou Ellen’s apple-eating face.

“You have to be joking. I screwed up so bad. I wanted to do icebreakers. We barely got half the play ran-through, not to mention absolutely none of the songs. Who in their right mi-”

“Jeez, okay. I get it,” she said, setting down the apple she was eating. “I mean, you can be better next time. If Mr. D doesn’t despise you now and there is a next time.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence. Eat your goddamn apple or I’ll shove it in your face.”

“Violence is not the answer.”

Will snorted and went back to reading his textbook, but he couldn’t focus. Next rehearsal would be better. He’d make sure it was.