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Singing isn’t something Ruze can say he’s proficient at.
Sure, he can hum along to a song or mouth the words under his breath, but he wouldn’t call himself someone that can immediately pick up a tune after hearing it once.
Not to mention Ruze thinks his voice sounds like two rocks grinding against each other. No one sane hears him speak and thinks, ‘oh, this guy can sing!’
Hell no; the first thing they usually think is, ‘what is this guy so angry for?’, and, ‘please don’t cut me down with your axe’.
But Ruze isn’t one to back down from a challenge. Especially if the challenge was thrown down by Jurard of all people.
“Singing isn't hard, Ruze,” Jurard had said, chin in his palm and tapping on the table with his elegant nails. The sound grated at Ruze’s eardrums, just like how his stupid handsome face grated at Ruze’s eyes. “Just open your mouth, make noise, and sometimes it sounds good! Keep going at it.”
Ruze won’t have Jurard one-up him at something. So, he takes the halfling’s advice, but adds the bright idea of singing in front of an audience.
He would just like to clarify that the whole “sing-in-front-of-people-to-gain-confidence-and-have-fun” was his beloved guildmates’ idea first, not his - he just went along with it because he was afflicted with his favourite confusion elixir. So any emotional trauma inflicted by his god awful singing is three-fourths of ARMIS’s fault. He refuses to take responsibility - they took advantage of him at a vulnerable time, dammit!
Despite the fact that it’s not his idea, Crimzon Ruze, a: doesn’t back down after agreeing to something; and b: doesn’t do things by halves. If he’s gonna do something, he’s gonna go all the way, and put his best damn foot forward.
Even… even if he embarrasses himself in the process.
But Ruze draws the line of actually seeing people make a fool out of himself in person. What if they decided to throw garbage at him for his garbage singing? So he’s cooped himself up in his room, his setup ready to stream to an eager online audience that the other boys managed to convince into watching his terrible self.
Of course Jurard manages to spin it into some money-making scheme. Not that Ruze is opposed to it; a bit of pocket money goes a long way in the Badlands. He’s getting a significant cut in exchange for his humiliation, whether Jurard likes it or not.
Ruze’s finger hovers over the LIVE button, hesitating.
“You’ll be fine.” Octavio’s voice rings in his ears, the words gifted to him in a passing whisper, right before Ruze ducked away towards his room.
And if someone as amazing of a singer as Octavio tells the complete amateur Crimzon Ruze that he’ll be fine? Well.
His finger presses down on the button.
It’s time to get this over with.
=====
With trembling hands, Ruze pulls his headset off his pointed ears and lets it clatter on his desk. He takes a couple of stumbling steps back, head spinning, blood roaring.
His fingers are tingly. His extremities are almost numb. His throat hurts like he’s swallowed sandpaper and his lungs burn like he’s just run a hundred miles.
But, he did it. Ruze sang - and people… actually liked it?
Shit, Ruze huffs out a disbelieving rasp of a laugh. People actually liked it. Huh. Not bad for an untrained singer.
His door flings open with a loud BANG, and Ruze barely has time to lift his head before his nose and mouth are buried in a fluffy, pleasant-smelling head of hair.
“Ruze!” It’s Octavio in his ears, his nose, his lungs, and around his waist as the excited puppeteer crashes into him and wraps his arms securely around the bigger man.
Unthinkingly, Ruze returns the embrace, partly to steady the both of them, and partly because Octavio is something tangible he can hold onto, ground himself with.
The white noise in his head starts to fade as Octavio’s excited rambling starts trickling into his eardrums.
“Ruze! Ruze Ruze Ruze you were amazing! You did so well! I can’t believe you did that! I didn’t even know you had such range! Oh my gosh–”
Ruze can slowly feel his senses come back to him. The scent of spearmint and lemon tickles his nostrils and fills his lungs as he takes a slow, steadying breath in. The touch of Octavio’s warm body is almost searing as the numbness and tingling fades from his flesh.
“–and with some practice and lessons you’ll refine your voice to a point where you can sing almost anything!”
Octavio’s arms squeeze tighter around Ruze’s middle, and the pressure startles him enough to make him aware of what position he’s landed himself into.
“Uh–” Ruze lets out a small, nervous laugh as he tries to surreptitiously nudge at Octavio’s waist with shaky hands. However, the puppeteer has a tight grip around him, and now there’s no escaping the embarrassing wave of compliments Octavio is bombarding him with.
Octavio nuzzles his temple against Ruze’s chin, continuing his chatter as he presses close as he physically can against his bigger, trembling form - and oh, he smells really good.
Ruze kind of wants to melt into his embrace like some fucking softie or something. Fuck.
“O-Octavio,” Ruze clears his throat pointedly, trying not to let his nervousness show. “That’s– that’s enough of that…”
But Octavio doesn’t seem to be listening to him, because he still has a deceptively strong grip around him like some octopus, and he doesn’t, stop, complimenting him . The tips of Ruze’s ears are burning.
“Octavio!” He barks out, a bit too sharply than he initially intended, but his heart is pounding and there’s this thing in his head that’s running around in circles in a panic the longer this whole thing goes on–
And Octavio pulls away, but not entirely, but at least he’s not pressing his entire body against his anymore.
“Oops! Sorry, Ruze!” But Octavio’s hands are still on his waist, his palms a warm weight on his sides, his fingertips touching whatever bare skin his piss-poor excuse of a shirt exposes - and Ruze wants to run.
Ruze extracts his own hands from Octavio’s sides - when did those get there? - to slide down his forearms, to linger on his delicate wrists, before gently pulling his hands away from his person.
Octavio twists his wrists so that they’re now holding hands, and gods if he didn’t respect this little goober so much Ruze would go ahead and suplex him into the nearest garbage can for making him feel like he’s about to have a heart attack.
The puppeteer looks up at Ruze with his big, pink eyes - and smiles, warm and beautiful.
“You’re amazing, Ruze.” Octavio repeats earnestly, his voice caressing his name like it’s something to be revered, to be in awe of–
–And Ruze really needs to cut this short before he does something stupid, like lean in and kiss him. Or something.
Wait, what?
“Thank you.” Ruze replies, his voice disgustingly weak and feeble after his bout of singing.
There we go; something simple and honest - better than the stupid thoughts going through his skull.
Octavio beams, and it’s like the sun, “You’re welcome!” and Ruze is so, so screwed.