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“Are you ready?” Julian asks as the others rush off to the wings of the stage.
Noel is sweaty and a little breathless, but his smile is cartoonishly wide, exaggerated by the Old Gregg makeup lining his lips and eyes.
“Yeah. Let’s do this.”
Julian’s hands settle just north of his hips, and his fingers press tight into the space beneath Noel’s ribs, like the world’s tiniest hug.
-
“Ready?”
It’s practically a line of the script now, even if no one hears it but them. Julian looks more of a mess tonight than Noel does. He nearly had a disaster in a costume change, and it left his hair looking like someone went at him with a broom instead of a comb. Noel pops up on his toes to tuck a few stray pieces back behind his ear.
“Let’s blow their tiny minds,” he says, grinning, and traces the line of buttons down the center of Julian’s chest before he tilts his face up.
-
Noel leaps off his box, stumbling forward until Julian catches him by the waist to stop him landing on his face. He looks like a glitter hurricane from a weird little girl’s dream. “You’re going to break an ankle doing that in those boots.”
“Not if you catch me faster next time.”
Julian rolls his eyes. “Sorry. Next show I’ll be here to hand you down like a lady from a carriage.”
“Guys,” someone hisses from off stage. “The curtain.”
There’s no time to check in. Their lips brush. The curtain flutters.
-
Julian turns to Noel with the word on the tip of his tongue, but it’s Noel who says, “Ready?”
He’s got that cocky sparkle in his eye that he always gets when he subverts an expectation, and he curls his hands in Julian’s collar to pull him down. Julian is still laughing when their mouths meet.
-
Noel’s hastily-applied makeup is already running, dripping down his cheek from the sweat and the stage lights. Rainbows bounce off the sequined bodysuit and shimmer in the folds of his silver jacket, and Julian is only distantly aware of someone patting him on the shoulder in congratulations before walking off.
The stage feels impossibly large as they move toward each other, even though it’s only a few strides, and by the time they’re near enough to touch, Noel’s grin has fallen away.
There’s no room in the air between them for words. It’s the end of tour, and for once Noel looks more tired than eager. There’s no bounce in his step. When his hands settle on Julian’s collar, they clutch. He’s so slight after months on the road that his full weight, draped against Julian’s chest, is barely noticeable.
Julian can see the Ready in Noel’s eyes this time. He tilts Noel’s chin up with two fingers. Their mouths collide well ahead of the cue, and they pause, pressed together from toe to tip. They feel the breeze of the curtain flying back before the screaming starts.
The cue for them to break apart comes and goes, hanging in the air.