Archive of Our Own

"Dude, you don't have to-" Ash coughed uncontrollably as the powder Planet was buffing violently onto his face made its way into his mouth, tasting vaguely like how the side room the cast used for makeup smelled, "Attack me with the brush, god damn,"

"We need to be fast with the makeup, do you realise how many of you there are versus how many of us there are?" Planet said, chill as ever even as Ash was choking and struggling to breathe due to the sheer amount of makeup in the air. He leaned away, tugging down his (galaxy-print, matching his bandana, which was objectively unfashionable but Planet somehow managed to pull it off anyways) mask to grip the brush in-between his teeth and continued, albeit slightly muffled with the brush handle, "Anyways, did you hear? Mr. Wafula accepted one of the new students to be the second lead, finally."

The play that the high school production was doing required two leads, and Ash had gotten the role for one, but their director had turned down everyone who had applied to be the second with the explanation that 'none of them fit the vibe'. It was, basically, a long-winded way of saying that he was picky-- not that he'd ever admit it. 

Ash was mildly reluctant to ask him (he was.. to put it lightly, very, very enthusiastic about everything) and no-one he asked seemed to know anything, so after a week he had just taken to practicing his lines by himself. That wasn't easy to do when the whole thing was that he played off of the other lead's character, the plot following the romance between the two as they navigated a post-apocalyptic world. It was a remix of Romeo and Juliet, chosen by the high-school students; Ash thought it was simultaneously cringe and kinda sick.

"Wait, really?" Ash coughed again after inhaling another lungful of powder, thankful that Planet had leaned back to rustle through his box of unorganised makeup supplies in search of eyeliner. "How- ugh, ew, how long has he been searching for, a week?"

"Yeah," Planet mumbled through the cap in his mouth, and leaned back towards Ash's face with the eyeliner poised threateningly in his hand, "Stay still."

"What's his name?" Ash asked at the same time Planet started applying his eyeliner, and the white-haired boy hissed out something that probably included a threat to his life, pulling back mercifully after one wing was complete. Ash held himself back from cringing away at the feeling of the cold brush so close to his eye, staring down Planet with distrust.

"Red, apparently, but Mr. Wafula insists on calling him his full name, Red Doons."

"That's pretty in-character. Mr. Wafula probably thinks that it sounds cooler." Planet nodded in agreement and leaned back in to draw the other wing, freezing Ash with his hand halfway towards brushing back his hair. Ash muttered a complaint while moving his lips as little as possible, and Planet snorted apathetically.

"Oh, yeah, Jaron!" Planet turned a bit to call to one-third of the makeup crew, who was lounging behind them on a beanbag with his laptop balanced on one knee and a clipboard in his hands, "We're almost out of setting powder, mark it down,"

There wasn't a verbal response, but Ash was sure all three of them (Planet and Bacon did makeup, while Jaron did inventory, planning, and who-knows-what-else) had figured out how to communicate telepathically at one point, so he wasn't particularly thrown off when Jaron scribbled something down without complaint and then typed something else furiously on the laptop. Planet turned back to where he'd paused with the eyeliner still touching Ash's skin and continued drawing whatever the line was supposed to look like, quick and deliberate.

"Wait, so I have to kiss a guy I barely- my eye, Planet- know?"

"Eh," Planet shrugged, and glanced up and away from Ash's face in thought, "I mean, I could direct you to where he's supposed to be. If you wanted to get to know him, that is." 

"Yeah, if you wouldn't mind." Ash was going to avoid thinking about the implications of that sentence. Planet pulled back and nodded detachedly once he was finally done, recapping the eyeliner and tossing it aside into the huge box of makeup and supplies.

"'Kay," 

And that was that, Planet reaching for the mascara and making Ash cringe back with visible apprehension.

Ash almost forgot about their little girl talk until he was directed to backstage (but not before being forcibly stopped by the costuming crew, a.k.a Roshambo and Mapicc, to put on a long dress that looked like it belonged in some sort of Michelangelo-type oil painting) and Planet called after him 'He should be with the other actors!'. Ash had to take a second to remember what he was referring to before rebooting when he realised-- right, he still has to meet the guy that he has to kiss (angle-wise, Mr. Wafula insists that thumb-kissing won't work, which is bullshit but Ash immediately got shut down when he tried to protest it) before he actually kisses him. Awkward...

But, as the saying goes, the show must go on.

He slipped through the back-door into the backstage, where most of the other actors were waiting for their cues as a scene between 'Zombie #1' and 'Zombie #3" played out onstage. He took a moment to wave at a few people he knew (Kaboodle, another new student who had already introduced herself with a cheery grin and a firm handshake, and Branzy, who had somehow been in theatre longer than Ash and wasn't afraid to make it known) before looking around for the new face he was supposed to introduce himself to.

Though somehow, with his shitty luck, said new face found him first.

"Hey," A voice behind him whispered, and Ash spun silently on his heel (yes, heel, he didn't even know how Roshambo had found high heels that fit him), blinking in the darkness to see who was speaking. It wasn't a voice he'd heard before, monotone and slightly twangy, with a heavy southern-American accent; the closest he'd heard was Mapicc, who also spoke in a distinctly American accent but much more eastern. "Are you Ash Swag?"

"Yeah, uh, who are you?" Ash whispered back, careful to not make too much noise to avoid invoking the stage manager's wrath. He had once tripped on a prop and fallen into a coatrack right in the middle of rehearsals, and he wasn't sure he was ever able to hear properly again after the verbal beatdown Parrot gave him.

"Red Doons. You're the other lead, correct?"

Ash nodded, realised very quickly that Red probably couldn't see him in the dark, and whispered an affirmative. Red chuckled, slow and deliberate, and Ash decided on the spot that the other boy sounded kind of like a prick.

"I'd shake your hand, but I'd probably end up punchin' you or something instead," Red said, traces of both sarcasm and humour in his monotonous voice. Ash rolled his eyes and felt around for the other boy's hand, grabbing it shaking it with a bit more oomph than was strictly necessary. Red audibly winced.

"Hey!" A new voice whispered, and both of the leads turned to where it had come from. A few feet away and hidden further backstage, Vitalasy grinned at the pair, spotlit by the dim glow of his computer screen (he was in sound design; Ash didn't really know what he was doing backstage), and gestured past the curtains good-naturedly, "If you weren't too busy talking, you would probably have noticed that you're up soon, so get ready."

"Alright, thanks Vi," Ash shot him a grin he wasn't sure the sound tech was able to see and then turned to his reluctant partner, "You better have practiced your lines; I've been practicing for like the past week, so don't fuck this up."

When they both stepped into the brilliant light of the stage (Red had sprinted through the hallway connecting the left and right wings to come out of the opposite side on time) Ash made sure to keep his step light, acting as the 'Juliet' of the play. Around him, the scene was set to be a great dining-hall, decorated well for a party but still obviously in disrepair-- he had to remember to compliment the prop crew after his scenes were over, considering that with their school's budget all of the props couldn't have been easy to make.

"Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes, unplagued with corns will have a bout with you," Clown started on his monologue, his red-white-black (Ash had heard that his hair was naturally white, but he had dyed it red and black and let it grow out) hair shining in the light, and Ash busied himself 'mingling' with the other actors, playing the fair maiden of the Capulet gang-- and dressed the part too. Some were waltzing, some chatting quietly enough that their mics didn't pick it up, most of them holding glasses of cherry or grape juice daintily in their hands.

"What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?" Red's voice was only barely audible, an aside for the audience and one of the other cast members, but Ash let his eyes wander from where he was dancing with Zam to his spot onstage and immediately regretted it (though he was glad that his back was facing the audience) because his mouth nearly dropped wide open.

To Ash's shock, Red looked way different than he had expected. Ash had assumed he was, like, a stereotypical Chad with basketball shorts and a low taper fade, but instead haloed in the stage lights was a red-haired boy with a tall posture and a lithe figure, draped with chain mail and armour and silks that Ash had no idea how Mapicc was able to procure without robbing a museum or some kind of antiques shop. 

The most striking thing about him wasn't his titular hair colour, though, but the black face mask and sunglasses he wore even in the heat of the stage lights; Ash would have to ask Planet whether the red-haired boy allowed his mask and glasses to be removed for makeup, because it didn't seem likely with how he had them on now.

He was also quite thankful for Zam taking control of their waltz, obviously noticing Ash's distraction with a snicker and a glance towards Mapicc offstage, because Zam dipped him with a flourish and Ash snapped back into his body with a blink when he realised that was his cue; that Red was heading over to talk to him. Zam pulled him up and Ash broke the intertwine of their arms, though not without Zam shooting him a cheeky wink and stepping away towards where Branzy and Clown were stood (playing Lady Capulet and Capulet respectively). He turned when Red cleared his throat, completely in tune, surprise in his façade.

"If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." Red spoke smoothly, bowing to Ash with a swoop that jingled his armour gently. Ash pretended to blush and give Red an over-exaggerated once-over, eyes lidded and hand daintily poised over his mouth, channeling his inner Princess Sofia. 

"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." Ash said, reaching to take Red's hand gently and pull Red out of his bow, forcing himself into character. He was a helpless maiden, dammit!

"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?" Red asked, leaning forwards once again, and Ash sighed softly in the way that people do when they're flirted with (he hoped that was what was going on, and 'Romeo' wasn't threatening him or something-- it didn't seem likely, but with Shakespeare you never knew).

"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer." He retaliated, dancing just a bit closer, light and fleeting. He disliked how he couldn't see Red's expressions shift under the mask and glasses, feeling almost bare without anything hiding his face.

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." Ash didn't, like, actually know what Red was saying, but he had noted the 'hands' and 'lips' on the script and gotten the gist that they were flirting and that 'Romeo' was saying that they should kiss. Hey, the high school had chosen the play, not him; he didn't know old Shakespearean speak!

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake." Ash said, and looked at Red with wide, infatuated eyes and parted lips, an expression that he had perfected during their eighth-grade showing of Shrek (yes, he had played Fiona).

"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged." Red, annoyingly, sounded perfect for his role, his voice just the right amount of soft while still so obviously infatuated with Juliet in turn. Ash was unfortunately quite glad that Mr. Wafula had chosen him as the second lead, but on the bright side he had an empty spot next to 'rival' in the messed-up food chain of high school, so he could just stick with that as his cover story. He wanted to be better than Red, not with Red. Totally . 

('Man, aren't the parallels kind of distressing,' Ash thought fleetingly.)

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took." Ash whispered, hoping that the sound technicians had wired their mics well enough to catch their intimate lines, especially with such loud background noise in comparison. He might need to suggest to Vitalasy and Subz to turn down the 'mingling' noises they had put together when Ash and Red were reading their lines, just to make sure they were audible.

"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." Red chuckled softly, leaned in closer to Ash's face, and Ash struggled to not break character as he leaned back and away with reddened ears to speak his line.

"You kiss by the book." He muttered, swooning just a bit, and then his interaction with Red was over and they both pulled away comically when the Nurse (played by Rekrap, who looked mildly uncomfortable in the white linens he was draped in) walked in on cue. The scene ended after their lines were spoken, and Parrot shouted "Alright!" as everyone onstage relaxed into their normal postures and began chatting idly, wandering off into the wings or jumping offstage into the rows of seats.

Once the 'Meeting' scene had ended (Mr. Wafula wanted the two leads to get used to acting in tandem, so all Ash needed to practise were a few of the ending scenes and then they'd do the rest next rehearsal), Ash was pulled aside to talk to Parrot about his performance. Parrot had, at one point, actually been dedicated to giving him pointers, but as Ash got better and better it was really just routine at this point, like a check-up. Ash saw Red walk by out of the corner of his eye and fought the urge to turn towards him and flip him off or something.

"So, how's the new kid?" Parrot asked, leaning against the wall in front of Ash with a raised eyebrow and his arms crossed. Ash groaned into his hands and then moved them up to comb through his hair, shaking his head before looking back up at his friend.

"I hate him," Ash groused, face pinched with annoyance, "He's a prick."

"I can't believe you've known him for like twenty minutes and you're already sworn enemies." Parrot chuckled, knowing Ash well enough to take his commentary lightly and with a grain of salt. Or a tablespoon of salt, it really depended on how he was feeling.

"I'd prefer the term 'rivals'," Red spoke up from behind the curtain they were stood next to, and both Ash and Parrot jumped, the former whipping his head around to glare at the fabric as if it was the one that had spoken. Red didn't step out from his hiding place, so Ash huffed indignantly and turned back to Parrot (who, to his credit, wasn't audibly laughing).

"Shut up, you creep," He hissed, gesturing wildly at Parrot as if to say 'the nerve of this guy!' while Parrot giggled uncontrollably into the palm of his hand. "Were you just listening in on our conversation?"

"I was just passin' by, it's not my fault y'all were so loud." Red was audibly grinning. Ash buried his face in his hands again.

"C'mon, Ash," Parrot got out in between giggles, taking Ash's arm and pulling him away to a more secluded area, to a clear sigh from Red even behind the curtain. Ash gave in to his desires and flipped the black fabric off as he was dragged along.

--

The clock on the wall ticked loudly.

Well, not really. Ash was sure that the clock on the wall was ticking at a perfectly normal volume, and that he was simply so focused on it instead of the person sitting next to him that it seemed louder than everything else. But as it was, the clock was loud and he was more interested in it than his partner for the next English unit.

With his horrible luck, he had walked into his first-period English class the next day with his bag slung over his shoulder, not exactly ready to 'take on the day' or whatever the school counsellor said but not exactly adverse to it just yet, and then he'd checked the seating chart pinned to the board and almost broken down in tears right then and there.

"Ash Swag", read his name, in the teacher's weird loopy and borderline unreadable script, and then beside it, like a curse on his family's name or something, "Red Doons". They were also marked down as partners on the sheet sat by the teacher's desk, which he had chanced a peek over at when he saw the teacher wasn't in the room. 'Romeo and Juliet Performance', read the top of the sheet, and suddenly he was very worried for his reputation.

He had turned back to his assigned desk to sit down and nearly startled when he made direct eye contact with Red, who had somehow silently taken his seat right beside Ash's desk and had obviously been waiting for him to turn around so he could scare him. Ash stared at him for a few seconds, rubbed his eyes sluggishly, and then sighed. It was way too early for this.

"Dude, what the... never mind," Ash mumbled, exhausted already. If things kept going like this, it was going to be a long day.

"Aw, is it too early?" Red snorted, and scooted over in his chair to allow Ash to pull out his and sit down next to him. Ash threw himself into the chair dramatically, and then dropped his head onto the desk with a loud, resounding 'bang'. Red winced at the sound, then chuckled, leaning over to where his bag was laying beside his chair and unzipping it to pull out his notebook and computer, opening it and beginning to type something quietly.

Ash followed his lead and pulled out his notebook but refrained from opening his computer, and as the minutes passed, slowly people started filing in; Zam, looking like he'd rather be dead with his long hair tied up into a ponytail; Mid Mystix, who was blearily talking with a head of rainbow-coloured hair that had to be Cube; and Spoke, who was playing some sort of mobile game very loudly on his phone as if he couldn't hear it or something. Ash watched each of them as they walked past him to do literally the exact same thing he had (notice the seating chart and go to check the list of partners before the teacher arrived and stopped them) in lieu of waving.

Their English teacher, Mrs. Robertson, had a weird personal vendetta against computers; if one was open at the beginning of class, she'd take it away for the rest of the period, meaning that whoever was lacking their computer would have to share with someone else and do any assigned work on paper. Ash, thankfully, didn't know this firsthand, but he had watched Zam's stuff get taken away enough to engrave the rule into his brain. 

The rest of the class had also learnt this particular rule very quickly, which was why he felt stares on him (they were actually on his table, sure, and Red more specifically, but... it felt like they were on him). When Red didn't close his computer and the clock's hands stalked closer and closer to 7:00 A.M, Ash hissed out a resigned curse and reached over to slam the lid of Red's laptop down himself, the red-haired boy pulling his hands back in the nick of time with horror at how close they'd been to being crushed.

"Wh- What was that for?" Red sputtered indignantly, turning to Ash with his eyebrows just barely visible, furrowed as they were and hidden under the top of his sunglasses. Ash shot him a biting glare, looking away and mumbling something that wasn't audible to even himself, scowling. Red cupped his hand around his ear dramatically, obviously signifying his lack of understanding, and leaned on his fist.

"The teacher takes your computer if you have it open when class starts," Ash huffed, avoiding Red's eyes. Red gasped with more energy than Ash could ever hope to maintain this early in the morning and put the hand he was leaning against flat on his cheek, using the other to point at Ash like a schoolgirl would her crush.

"Aw, Ash! So you do like me, enough to save me from gettin' my computer taken!"

"No, people were staring at you and I have social anxiety," Ash scoffed, and with the way he was turned away he didn't see Red pause his ministrations and look at him, almost pensively. Red didn't try to respond, though, so Ash took it as a win.

Mrs. Robertson walked in with little fanfare and a steely gaze that swept over all of them, and wasted no time before launching into an explanation of the unit. They had been assessing the original 'Romeo and Juliet' script in English well before the current unit, analysing characterisation and contextual language and whatnot, but this unit was a paired work in which the partners or groups would have to select a scene to perform in front of the entire class. Ash groaned internally, but was at the same time mildly relieved; at least the performance bit wouldn't be too hard.

They'd have to make sure that the amount of each character's lines was balanced, and then read through their selected scripts several times to clarify meaning and confirm their choice in roles. There was a note beside the latter step reading 'Remember, in Shakespeare’s time men played all roles, so do not allow gender to dictate your casting choices.' , and Ash snorted with the revelation of, to quote their textbook, dramatic irony. He already had made a habit of wearing a dress onstage, he wasn't really worried about gender roles dictating anything.

After they had chosen their scene and roles, they would have to practice the lines without any movement to get used to speaking them. Then they'd slowly ease into movement, such as hand gestures and facial expressions; it was similar to the technique they'd learnt in theatre, to help newer actors get used to performing onstage. The teacher included a choice of using props or not, and Ash made the mental note to ask Vitalasy or Subz (or Vitalasy and Subz) to help him with amateur sound design for extra credit.

"Psst," Red whispered beside him, and Ash groaned, turning slightly to look at the new kid out of the corner of his eye with a scowl still firm on his face. "Should we choose a scene where Romeo and Juliet are talkin'? It'll be easier that way, since we already know 'em."

"...That's what I was thinking too," Ash admitted reluctantly. Red pumped his fist in the air with a soft cheer, and Ash struggled to not find it just a little bit endearing, turning away instead. To distract himself, he picked up the book that held the script and opened it, flipping to a page where Romeo and Juliet were talking and trying to assess whether the lines were 'equally distributed' or not.

"You're not wearin' makeup today," Red said suddenly after a few minutes had passed, and Ash blinked at his book before turning to him fully with his eyebrow raised in confusion. Red floundered, "I, uh, I noticed you were wearin' makeup yesterday but not today, um-"

"Yeah, the makeup crew gets violent if you don't let them put something on your face." Ash sighed, rolling his eyes at the memory of Bacon literally pulling a knife on him (which were, of course, completely banned in the school, but he wasn't a snitch) when he refused to let him apply blush on Ash's face one time. It was much less fatal and/or life-threatening to just let them run their course. "I don't usually do it myself. You're lucky, with that mask."

...Ash had just realised he would technically be kissing the mask. It was relieving in a sense, but still, he would be 'kissing' his self-proclaimed rival whom he totally didn't have a crush on so it wasn't really that relieving at all, actually. Ash bit back another conflicted grumble and increased the heat of his glare-- which was still aimed at Red, who cringed.

"Oh," Red said after a moment, and then paused awkwardly, "Would you laugh at me if I said it looks nice?"

"Yes," Ash deadpanned, and looked back at the script to signify the end of that particular conversation, picking up a purple highlighter and pointing at the line 'If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,' with the cap. "This is the beginning of the scene we practiced yesterday. It's sort of like... banter, I guess, so it would probably work."

"We should look at a few other options before decidin', but yeah, sounds like a pretty good scene to perform. Easy, if nothin' else." Red nodded along, flipping to the page to skim over the scene before reading ahead, presumably to find other options.

"Really, the only other choice would be the part that starts with 'I take thee at thy word' and ends 'Wanting of thy love' ." Red mumbled, almost to himself-- although Ash was listening anyways. "Because it's like literally the only bit where one of them isn't monologuin' to hell and back."

"Yeah, I guess monologuing was popular back in Shakespeare's time," Ash snickered a bit, and then remembered who he was talking to, his ears heating up with embarrassment, "Uh, ahem."

Red didn't say anything else, but Ash could still feel his gaze on him for the rest of the class.

--

"Stop callin', stop callin', I don't wanna think any more," 

Ash nodded his head along to the beat of the Lady Gaga song playing loudly through his earbuds, scribbling down his and Red's lines in the 'staging notebook' that their teacher had forced them to keep. It was well after school, and he was curled up in a nook backstage by a spot where just a bit of light from the spotlights above cut through the thick curtains; he wasn't cued today, but he needed extra time and with the long (and public, ew) bus ride back he'd decided to just stay behind and leave when he finished or when they kicked him out-- whichever came first. The thrumming of the floor, with all of the shifting of the props and whatnot, was pretty soothing as background noise anyways.

The vibrations of approaching footsteps made him look up from his position, his legs folded against a box and his back pressed against another, the notebook propped up and open in his lap. The slash of light made it so he couldn't tell who was looking down at him until they leaned on the box and dropped comfortably into a squat, and Ash squint-glared into Red's only-slightly-illuminated face.

"Why are you here," He whispered harshly, pausing his music with one hand and pointing accusingly at Red with the other. Red tilted his head slightly, and Ash was suddenly hyper-aware of his odd-looking positioning, but he deemed it too awkward to move after he'd already started talking so he simply stayed put.

"Waitin' on my friend," Red responded softly, the glow of his glasses slightly eerie in the dark, "Kaboodle, you've met her, I assume?"

"Oh, yeah, uh," Ash said, paused to consider his next words, and decided to try and attempt being civil, "I'm, uh, working on the staging notebook. For English."

"Is that why you're hiding back here like a creep?" Red asked, turning himself to sit with his back to the box, sinking into a criss-cross position and turning his head to look at Ash while he talked. Ash scowled at him, turning back to his notebook and refusing to meet his eyes, ears heating up again.

"Why aren't you hanging out with your friends? Why are you bothering me instead?" He sighed after a few minutes when he realised Red wasn't going to leave, more resigned than really upset. Red barked out a sharp laugh, soft but still a bit cutting, and Ash turned his head to look back at him with a bit of confusion.

"I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I don't exactly have any friends," Red chuckled dryly, haloed the spotlight, sunglasses reflecting the warm glow and his hair lit like fire. Ash, in his defence, only stared for about half a minute before processing Red's words and snapping his head right back towards the notebook (which he hadn't actually been focused on since Red had gotten there, but still).

"I mean, neither do I, I just know a bunch of people. Stick around, you'll probably find someone," Ash mumbled, pretending to read the words he had scribbled haphazardly on the page sometime before (...this is banter, so step wise it should be like a waltz...) instead of looking up at Red. He could feel the red-haired man's burning gaze on him, anyways, so what would be the difference?

"...Why are you giving me advice?" Red asked, sounding half-genuine and half-amused. He always sounded amused, though, it was kind of a given (or a personality trait, maybe). "I thought you hated me."

"As you said, we're rivals," Ash snorted humourlessly, the heat that had been on his ears spreading to his cheeks, "And if it'll get you to leave me be then I'll do it."

"Aw, I don't think that's true. Are you warming up to me, Ash?"

"No--"

A loud crashing screech that shook the floor and a sharp crack from onstage followed by a rattling scream cut their banter sharply in half, and Ash sprung up from his position with the grace and reflexes of someone who'd been on the tech team before, silent footsteps quick and light as he rushed to look around the heavy curtain. Red didn't move in tandem with him, instead standing up rather slowly, obviously startled and not used to onstage emergencies like Ash was. Red didn't know how fast things could go wrong with props, or people, or lighting, and Ash quickened his pace-

He turned the corner that the fabric formed and his mouth shut with a snap, all movement ceasing as he fell still.

The curtain was rough and velvety against his hands, Ash noticed faintly, and he decided quickly that he would prefer focusing on that feeling it gave instead of the scene in front of him. His throat had closed up, shock freezing him to the spot, eyes wide-- he couldn't bring himself to look away, though, couldn't tear his eyes from what had happened.

...Why had Vitalasy been onstage?

"What?" Red, still behind him, asked, and Ash realised he'd said it out loud, spoken his thoughts into the air without actually thinking. He couldn't turn away, though, to look at Red with his horror-stricken expression-- instead, he watched as students frantically buzzed around the stage, some frozen like he was, some backing away with stumbling little steps, most on their phones and speaking over each other in an ebbing tide of voices that drowned out everything else. He felt footsteps come up behind him, felt trapped in place like some sort of terrified prey animal.

When Ash was in second grade, he had been a loner. He'd sit by himself by the tree-line of the tiny little playground, watching the other kids play together, chasing each other like minnows around the mulch of the jungle gyms and climbing structures. He would play with sticks, sometimes, build little houses or civilisations that he'd rule over as God, or he'd dig up huge rocks from the soil with his tiny hands like they were trophies.

In therapy later Ash wouldn't tell if he thought that it had been a turning point in his life or not, but one of those days, he had been digging up a particularly large rock from a patch of mud (he remembered the veins running through it, the pretty silver shining against drab grey) when the sound of laughter coming up behind him made him stand and turn around to watch. He'd never say if it was a turning point, but he had been close enough to watch it happen as a kid, snot-nosed and gangly, tripped and fell in almost slow motion; he had hit a rock face-first, and Ash remembered vividly how the boy hadn't even screamed.

All Ash could recall after that was flashes of blood, splattered onto his legs and his dirty knees, up the tree he had been leaning against and the rock he had been trying to dig up. He had been just close enough, in range of the brain matter, the teachers said when they thought he couldn't hear them. He thought he remembered screaming at the top of his lungs until his breath ran out, as if to make up for how the kid didn't make a sound the whole way down.

And so Ash stood, curtain gripped tightly in his hand, and he felt deep in his stomach that he was trapped in that moment again, with blood still dripping down his calves and splattered across his overalls. 

He had turned past the fabric barrier just in time to watch Vitalasy, half of his body trapped and twisted under a shelf that they had deemed a safety hazard but still used as a prop, go limp; it felt like his eyes had locked in on the way that his hand had went from clenched in a fist to open, palm-up, how his eyes had slid closed as he passed out, then his shaky ribs settled still a moment later. He looked almost peaceful as he lay there in the middle of the stage, and Ash stared at the blood spreading across the cracks in the floorboards as the other actors and students were shooed away from the scene and out of the theatre by frantic teachers.

A kind of hush had fallen over the theatre once the echo of the crash had petered out. Encore, encore, the silence seemed to scream. 

Subz (who went everywhere with Vitalasy) stood alone onstage, stock-still with both his computer and Vitalasy's computer still weakly clutched to his chest and his hands shaking uncontrollably. The spotlight, still on, shone down on him; he was silent, eyes wide with shock and mouth open as if he had been caught in the middle of a word-- maybe he had been talking. One of the teachers led him away soon after, and they tried to put their palm on his back like Vitalasy did, but he shrugged it off, and then Ash stared at the blood for a little while longer when no one noticed him standing in the wings.

A hand on his shoulder, warm and grounding against how he felt suddenly numb, pulled him back into himself. Red was speaking, behind him, but Ash's ears were ringing and he turned silently to look back at Red without voicing a response, hoping his face conveyed how exactly he was feeling.

Red took him by the wrist and led him away from the scene, both of them silent, stricken in different ways. Ash didn't know where they were going, feeling only flashes of cold when his hands hit a railing and then plunging back into that numbness again. The darkness of the sky and the cool summer-night air stung his eyes as Red pushed them through a door, and he only realised he had stopped breathing (and that the ringing in his ears had gone away) when Red pressed his hand gently against Ash's shoulder again.

"Hey, Ash, listen to me. You have to breathe," Red said, and glanced around the empty courtyard for an indiscernible reason, furtive and the furrow of his eyebrows soft. Ash leaned back weakly against a concrete planter, square like the school was trying for 'modern' architecture, and looked at him. "Follow my lead, okay?"

And then Ash gasped, raspy and with too much air, as Red pulled his mask down so Ash could see him count, could watch him take a breath in and out. He kept the sunglasses on, but Ash looked at his face and thought vaguely that Red was pretty and that if he wasn't probably in shock he might never bring himself to look away.

"In, out." Red said, and Ash followed his lead without a thought, the unshed tears in his eyes sparkling like stars, "Like this, yep, just like this. Good job,"

They stayed like that for a while in the darkness, just breathing together. Ash remembered Vitalasy's eyes slipping closed, his limp hand, the way his mouth had been-half open and his slow breathing hitched, but Red's hands on his (when had they gotten there?) grounded him through it. There were sirens outside the school, ambulances and police cars, but neither of them payed the red-and-blue lights any mind.

Ash pulled back after a while and sniffed, combed his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes, and Red watched him untangle himself silently.

"Do I look like I've just seen someone get crushed by a shelving unit? Be honest, I have to go on the public bus after this," Ash said, voice wobbly and weak but still with an attempt at humour. Red laughed, quick and startled, and then nodded with a small grin. It was at that Ash realised he hadn't put his mask back on, and he quickly looked away-- he was a prick, but not that much of a prick.

"Your mask, I don't.. want to make you uncomfortable or whatever," Ash reminded him with a little eye-roll, and Red paused, bit his lip as if considering something.

"I don't mind," He said eventually, and Ash was almost slightly startled by the rasp in his voice. He sort of, vaguely, wanted to hug him-- it would be the least he could do, considering he basically shut down on the guy. "I mean, you've already seen my face, so what's the problem?"

"Dunno," Ash mumbled, and mindlessly pulled out his phone, tapping the screen and watching it light up. No missed calls or texts, or even new notifications, though he wasn't really surprised by the lack of contact.

"Hey," Red started as if reminded, and Ash looked up from the device without hesitation to see his face again, "Do you wanna trade numbers? I had been meaning to ask for English, but uh..."

"Yeah, we got so rudely interrupted," Ash laughed a bit, listing out his number and saving Red's contact as 'annoying asshole', knowing full well his coping mechanism being humour was probably not healthy in the slightest. Hey, at least it wasn't alcoholism. He'd take what he could get. 

Red peered over his screen at his contact name and scoffed, turning his phone so Ash could see his number saved as 'Juliet' with a dagger emoji at the end. Ash grinned, amused, and quickly changed Red's name in his phone to 'Romeo' with a skull and crossbones emoji (because there was no poison emoji).

"We're matching," He laughed. Red laughed with him, and together they reluctantly said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

And if Ash stared at Red's contact in his phone when he remembered Vitalasy telling them to get ready and felt the tears that had been threatening to well over recede, it was between him and the old lady asleep in the front of the bus. And if Red smiled every time he recalled Ash's starstruck, teary face when he took his mask off, that was between him and the streetlights as he walked home.

...He'd forgotten to pick up Kaboodle. Eh, she could probably get home by herself.

--

Ash's phone buzzed as he snuggled deeper into the nest of pillows he'd created in his bed, having changed out of his school clothes and into a loose set of pyjamas with holes worn in their knees, much better for crying in (he didn't really wear pyjamas to sleep in most of the time, but he considered this a special occasion). He glanced blearily over at it from where he was, again, folded up into a ball, his computer perched on a stuffed animal so he could rest his head on his knees and reach around them to type. His eyes caught vaguely on the ice cream container he had decided that he deserved after what had happened literally just a few hours ago, and then slid back over to where his phone lay, no more notifications sounding from it.

Reluctantly, he reached over and unlocked it, checking his messages to see one unread from 'Romeo'. His mouth curved up in a small smile against his will, and he snorted into his palm, opening it with the other.

Romeo: Hey, we have to practise for English outside of class, right?

Juliet: u text like a mom.

Juliet: yea we do tho

Romeo: It's called having basic grammar. We should plan that, it's due in a month.

Juliet: but

Juliet: we have our lines memorised???

Romeo: We shouldn't copy our choreography exactly, the teacher'll probably deduct points.

Juliet: stop using big words its scaring me

Romeo: We should do different movements. Dumbass.

Juliet: shut up you capitalist

Ash sighed at Red's highly grammatical texts, reaching over to grab his spoon from the ice cream container and put another chunk of it into his mouth, sniffling when his nose started running again but grinning at his screen anyways.

Juliet: also i have ice cream and u dont

Juliet: so im better than u.

Juliet: loser

Romeo: Pics or it didn't happen.

He flicked the camera app open, leaning over and taking a selfie of him with the ice cream container raised up to his face, not checking how he looked before sending it to combat his bad habit of overthinking. There was a long pause where Red started and stopped texting sporadically and the overthinking got to Ash anyways, but then there came the telltale buzz of a new text and he opened his messages app again.

Romeo: Bro have you been crying?

Juliet: i literally watched someone get crushed by a shelf

Juliet: no shit ive been crying.

Romeo: Oh. Fair, I guess.

Romeo: Okay does after school Friday work for you? We can use one of the spare Drama rooms.

Juliet: literally any time works for me

Juliet: sounds good 

Romeo: K, good night.

Juliet: lmao gn

--

In the end, the school board didn't even give them a day off. There was a sort of unnatural dullness that had settled over the school like a blanket, and an empty seat in some of Ash's classes that felt like a glaring loss whenever he looked at it.

In some classes, the teacher would call Vitalasy's name during roll call and there'd be a sort of echoing, hollow silence; Ash had watched Zam get up after it happened the first time, face stricken and building tears in his eyes as he half-ran out of the classroom. Ash had been frozen to the seat, waiting for a call of 'here' that never came, and he watched students stray around Vitalasy's seat in each class like they were saving it for him. The theatre doors were closed and roped off when he passed by on his way out.

"Dude, how are you so unaffected by what... happened?" Ash still couldn't mention Vitalasy by name, the wound too raw to poke at and not yet scabbed over. Red, sat beside Ash on the floor and doing something on his computer while fiddling with a camera to record their practices, glanced up at him. Ash had tried not to force him into taking off his mask, but Red had done it anyways, and Ash watched his lips quirk like he was considering what to say (it should have been distressing, how quickly he picked up all of his tells).

They had met up by the Drama rooms and scribbled down their names on the ‘room use’ sheet after school, opting for the one furthest from the other occupied rooms for soundproofing and to spare them the embarrassment of audibly flirting in Old English. Ash had done a bit of troubleshooting for the choreography while Red marked it down, but Ash was still (obviously) not over what had happened to one-half of the sound crew, his distraction becoming more and more glaringly obvious.

"I got used to it, I guess." Red decided on, and Ash looked at him with horror that was almost palpable. Red probably blinked at him, mouth closed with one end tucked up and radiating confusion at Ash's reaction as if that was a normal fucking thing to say. 

"What? What the hell does that mean, you got used to it?"

"Uh... are you sure you wanna know?" Well, Red saying that made Ash just want to know even more. Ash huffed, brows pinching together as he glared at Red in annoyance, leaning in as if that would make him talk.

"Uh, yeah, " Ash rolled his eyes and crossed his arms like some kind of overly-sassy elementary schooler, "Of course I do, you can't just drop that on me and then not elaborate."

"Okay, calm down," Ash bristled at the comment and Red hurried on to not risk an insult, "I grew up in a bad part of the city, I guess, so it wasn't all that uncommon for people to just... not show up to school one day, never come back."

"That does not explain why you're so casual about seeing-" Seeing someone die in front of you, Ash wanted to say, but he cut himself off with a grimace instead as the words stuck to the roof of his mouth. Red looked at him, mouth settling in a line that silently screamed sympathy, which did nothing to make Ash feel better..

"Well, I mean, it also wasn't uncommon to have people do... not exactly public executions, but. You know (Ash really didn't). One time some guy set himself on fire in the middle of the cafeteria in front of everyone. I was close enough to watch his skin melt off; you sort of get desensitised to death when it replays over and over again in your head."

"That... Red, I'm gonna be honest here, that just sounds like PTSD."

"Eh. Maybe, I dunno, I never liked therapists much, so I wouldn't know."

Ash sighed, curling his knees up into his chest and burying his head in his hands as an incoming headache pressed against the inside of his skull. Red leaned into him and then away again, as if deciding against it very quickly; Ash made the split-second decision of leaning back into Red's side instead, and Red froze but didn't pull away immediately, which was promising. Ash smiled as Red slowly relaxed into him, warm and grounding.

"We've been trauma bonded, so I hate you less," Ash explained his thought process with a little strain of laughter. Red snorted in agreement beside him, moving his shoulder slightly to type on the laptop again but still sticking to Ash's side like a burr.

"I'm glad. It would be really awkward for you to hate me after I showed you my face and stuff." Red mumbled, his focus shifting back to the screen in front of him. Ash turned his body slightly to rest his head on Red's shoulder instead of the top of his arm and looked at the screen (Red typed in Comic Sans, what the fuck). 

Red's writing was very... pretentious, using large words and complex sentence structure that didn't help Ash's impending headache at all. He looked away with a mildly annoyed scoff.

Abruptly, there was a knock on the door that sounded too close to something falling, and Ash cringed back violently. Red's hand found his shoulder again and he carefully got up, Ash right on his tail, looking through the thin blinds that they had closed over the door's window; Ash caught a glimpse of brown hair and green eyes and exhaled audibly, tapping Red on the shoulder.

"It's Subz, let him in," Ash said, stepping back to allow Red to open the door. Red did just that, and Subz silently stepped over the threshold after a second, gaunt and pale like a ghost. Behind him, Red fumbled with his mask, securing it over his face and shifting his glasses so they weren't trapped under the straps.

Subz was in a worse state than Ash had ever seen him, his usually-pale skin a thin white, the bags under his eyes deep like they were carved out of marble. His hair was unbrushed and messy and his face was dotted with acne, the skin around his eyes and nose raw and red like he had been nonstop crying. He stood, unmoving, in the middle of the room (Red closed the door behind him carefully and quietly) and only moved when Ash opened his arms in a noiseless invitation, collapsing into them like he was free-falling without any hesitation. 

Ash caught him and sank right back down to the floor, hugging him tightly in an attempt to be grounding. With his free hand he motioned for Red to join the impromptu cuddle pile, which he did, gingerly and after a few seconds of hesitation. They just sat there for a little while, Ash waiting for Subz to pull back and Red waiting for Ash to pull back, Subz in between them shaking like a leaf and clinging to Ash's back. Ash would gladly wait until he was ready, gently and kind of awkwardly patting Subz's trembling back with the hand that wasn't trapped under Red's torso.

Subz pulled away from Ash's clavicle after an indiscernible amount of time, and Ash gently stopped his hands from coming up to rub harshly at his already-raw skin, carefully dabbing away his tears with the sleeve of his cardigan. Red stayed behind him, hands loosely settled around his shoulders so that Subz could get away if he wanted to, but the brown-haired boy just sunk back into Red's torso with a rough little sigh.

"...Do you want to talk about it?" Ash asked, looking at Subz with sympathy and quite a bit of concern. Subz swallowed, nodded, and closed his eyes, holding up one finger in the universal sign for 'give me a second'. Ash and Red both nodded quickly. "Yeah, man, have as much time as you need, don't worry."

"Ahem," Subz cleared his throat, rasping, and Ash and Red winced in tandem. "I... I saw you there onstage when... it happened. When.. he," He struggled to continue, mouth opening and closing, and Ash reached forwards on autopilot to wipe away more tears as they fell. Why were they, as children-- not even legally adults, still in high school, forced to deal with the repercussions of this? Did the school not have the budget for a proper counsellor, someone who knew how to give support and could actually help instead of forcing them to huddle like this in secluded drama rooms and try to piece themselves back together with what they had left?

"I know, I know. Don't worry," Ash mumbled placatingly, voice soft, swallowing down the lump in his throat. Even if he was hurting, Subz was hurting more-- he couldn't forget that.

"Okay… alright, okay.. I- I don't know, I just... saw your names and I thought... you were the only ones to see.. what I saw..?" Subz's voice pitched up at the end like a question, and Red behind him muttered out a little affirmative, squeezing his shoulders supportively. Subz sighed, choked on an inhale and coughed hard; Ash waited patiently for him to finish, Red patting his back with one hand.

"I.. just needed to be around someone who knew, what-... what happened. The teachers keep saying sorry, but they don't- they didn't see him. They didn't ," Subz sniffled, and Ash felt the lump in his throat grow, swallowing against it once more. He hadn't really taken the time to process what had happened; he'd forget that Vitalasy wasn't coming back, really and truly, and then he'd remember again and have to escape whatever situation he'd found himself in before he shut down again. It must have been so much worse for Subz, one moment talking to his friend and the next he was gone, no warning, taken so quickly from right in front of his eyes.

"I know," Ash said instead of the instinctual 'I'm sorry', and Red said nothing but tightened his hold fractionally. Ash was glad that Red wasn't hesitant to help him out, even though he didn't really know Subz aside from that one time they'd all grouped up in Science. Red met his eyes and tugged down his mask enough to flash him a quick little wobbly smile, and a surge of affection expanded in Ash's ribcage, giving him a little grin in return.

He could do this.

After a little bit of drying tears and taking moments to just practice breathing, Subz left with Red's contact fresh in his phone and a promise to text or call them if he ever needed anything. Red had waved, sighed lightly when he'd left, and they had wrapped up their practice with a bit of halfhearted banter and a medium-speed waltz to the music playing from Ash's shitty phone speakers, parting ways with tiny twin smiles.

The numbness that had been clouding thicker and thicker in Ash’s head after each class seeing Vitalasy's empty seat dissipated slightly when he slept through each night without a text from Subz, when he saw Zam and Subz in the hallways walking together, talking together, healing together. He smiled at them, and waved when they smiled back, and slowly he watched Subz fix himself (he nearly cried when Subz showed up to school wearing a pair of Vitalasy’s stupid fox ears, and from the tears on his cheeks Ash could infer that Zam had cried).

Ash was proud of him. And from the way that the red-haired boy smiled whenever Ash brought the two up, he could tell that Red was too.

--

"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?" Red said, bowing towards Ash's hand to press a 'kiss' (or, the equivalent, with his mask on) to it, keeping eye contact with Ash the entire time. Ash giggled breathily, as he had practised over and over again; it echoed weirdly in the large room, but the quiet background noise that Subz had figured out how to set up helped drown out the worst of it. 

The class had decided to conduct their assigned performances in the main gym instead of in the theatre, out of respect, the doors still locked and unlikely to be opened any time soon for the comfort of most of the student body. The play hadn't been cancelled, per se, but it had been put on hold indefinitely as the community mourned the loss of one of their own. The stage crew and cast still held meetings, but most of them were simply used as a time to get closer together, to make sure everyone was doing okay after the event that had devastated everyone.

"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer." Ash responded, pulling Red up by his hand and twirling him like they had been dancing the entire time, smooth and fluid, dipping forwards to look into Red's eyes before pulling back like he was toying with him. A waltz, like the banter between them, light-footed and swift as it was sweet. Ash's breath was just a bit bated, focused on his performance to the best of his ability, having planned it for a month and grown more and more excited every day. He could tell Red was too, by how too-perfect his movement was (Red preferred to keep his movements human, with err and missteps that showed the person under the mask, if only slightly-- Ash had asked him one day, hidden under a jab about his acting skills).

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." Red took Ash's hands in his, exaggeratedly pleading, waltzing them forward before Ash ducked under his arms to slip out of his grasp and circle around to press his chest against Red’s back. Ash leaned his chin on Red's left shoulder, placing a hand on each of his shoulder-blades, and Red leaned back into him as Ash leaned forwards. Ash's dress, made of draping white silk which just barely stopped below the bones in his ankles and his ballet flats (he had convinced Ro to give him them instead of the heels) were silent against the shiny wooden floor, moving gracefully around him like a rippling waterfall of fabric.

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake." Ash stage-whispered into Red's ear, and then pulled away, a sly look on his face and his steps more calculated, watching Red's exaggerated movement as he put his hand over his heart like he was swooning. Red turned to face where he was, reached his hand out, and Ash took it without hesitation, letting Red pull their bodies flush.

"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged." He spoke, gentle, not pushing but asking all the same. Ash's heart was thrumming against his ribcage, all of their planning about to spiral into glorious effect. A few metres away from them, the class sat in fold-out chairs, silent and enraptured aside from those who had begun to whisper-- all a part of their plan. Ash could feel the burn of their stares, and he smiled slyly.

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took."

"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." Red spoke his line, and Ash could feel Red’s heartbeat matching the speed of his, and-

In a swift, fluid motion, Red dipped Ash with one hand and pulled down his mask with the other, pressing their lips together gently in a sweet kiss. Ash's hands threaded into Red's hair and there was an explosion of sound from the audience as they all came to the realisation of what exactly was going on, but all the two star-crossed lovers cared about were each other as they joined hands in the dim lighting of the gym.

--

They had been planning the scene for quite a while. Together, with the help of a few reference videos and tutorials on YouTube, Ash and Red had planned out and recorded the final draft of their choreography and lines in the first week or so, both of them able to do it line-for-line in their sleep once they were done practising.

Ash had been sitting on a bean bag in an empty classroom, Red trying his best to do the same but also on Ash’s bean bag, with his hip digging into the purple-and-black-haired boys thigh. There had been some meme pulled up on Red's computer, something about rivals kissing, and Red had jokingly asked if they should do that since they were 'rivals'-- and Ash had seen his chance and lunged for it, fingers gently brushing along Red's jawline, and he had replied with some taunt about actually doing it. Red had quickly agreed, flushing impressively.

Their first kiss had started out soft and sweet and ended with giggles and Ash jabbing Red in the ribs sharply with his elbow, Red pulling back to complain about Ash's braces against his lip. Ash had teased him for the blush spreading across his cheeks like his namesake and watched as Red only turned more red.

"Does this mean you love me?" Red had asked, tugging his sunglasses down to flutter his eyelashes at Ash dramatically, and Ash had snorted.

"No, I still hate your guts. Of course I love you, dumbass!" Ash had snarked, and pulled Red in by his too-fancy tie for another kiss. Red had returned it with vigour, though he had also elbowed Ash in the gut to 'get him back', so Ash bit his lip and forced Red to shove him off with an indignant cry and another round of laughter.

"Oh, god, how are we supposed to break this to everyone?" Ash had sighed out after a few moments of immature giggling, and Red had gasped like he did when he got an idea.

"I have an idea..." Red confirmed Ash's hypothesis with an evil little chuckle, and Ash had nodded along with a growing cheshire-cat grin.

--

Saddeningly, they had to pull away for air at some point, Ash taking a deep breath in and smiling against Red's lips as the class talked over one other loudly. There were a few shrieks and gasps, a few cries of 'I knew it!', and Ash was pretty sure he heard Zam yell "You owe me fifty bucks!".

"You kiss by the book." Ash spoke his line a bit quieter than he intended considering he was still pressed against Red's lips, looking into his 'eyes' (read: sunglasses, because the photophobic asshole refused to take them off) with a lovesick smile painted sappily on his face that was only a bit more real than usual. Red pretended to drop him with a snort, and Ash shrieked out a curse and smacked him in the arm, giggling uncontrollably as he clung to Red's torso, the red-haired boy pulling him up from where he had been basically carrying him to pull his mask back over his nose bridge and adjust his glasses. 

Turning to the audience with his ears burning, hand in hand with Red, Ash bowed, and the metaphorical curtains closed.

Subz and Zam approached them after class to laugh at them, congratulating them with a group hug that had Ash crushed in the middle with breathless ‘thank you’s. He's pretty sure Zam might have cried, and he definitely saw tears in Subz’s eyes, but-- he couldn’t blame them. The emotional turmoil was probably a lot, especially with all of the recent events.

And they got a 110% on their assignment.