Chapter Text
This school year is going to be hell, Tybalt decided.
He was starting his third year of Liceo and his parent’s standards being at an all time high, didn’t make it any better. Not to mention that Juliet would probably ask him to help the school’s theatre production in the tech crew this year again, so that would mean significantly less time to study.
Not that he minded helping the theatre club. He did so last year (per Juliet’s request) and he was surprised to find that he had actually enjoyed it. He learned a lot about stage management and theatre in general, which was another way he could bond with his favourite cousin.
Juliet loved theatre, loved it. She was obsessed with all things theatre and stage, she had joined the schools theatre club as soon as she could. Tybalt generally supported her artistic ventures, and was not as annoyed as he thought he would be when she asked him to help out behind the scenes last school year.
The only thing he disliked? Found off putting? In their schools theatre club were those two Montagues and their best friend. Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio. He didn’t really believe the rumoured ancient feud the Capulets and the Montagues had, no. He just found them generally annoying. They were loud, distracting and messed around constantly. Mercutio was especially irritating, with his stupid ginger hair and too tight shirts!
But the Capulet would be damned if he couldn’t admit Mercutio was a good actor. He thrived on a stage, just as much as Juliet did. It was disgustingly admirable how much gravitas the Escalus had on stage.
Although, even with such a fun and albeit intense hobby like school theatre (or maybe because of it) this school year was going to be hell.
The brunette boy was lost in his own thoughts while eating his lunch, cycling through worrying about what his parents where expecting, speculating what his classmates were up to, tech crew, theatre…
Until his stream of consciousness was interrupted by none other than Juliet and… Mercutio?
What was he doing here? Him and the Escules weren’t friends. So why was he awkwardly standing next to his cousin while both of them looked like lost puppies. Trying to get his attention without actually doing anything. With a sigh, Tybalt took off his wired in ear headphones that were blaring Be Your Own Pet on the loudest volume. It was connected to his shitty old iPod he used exclusively for music on days he needed to think. He didn’t really care that it was against school rules- no teachers ever found out.
He took great care into putting away his headphones and iPod, putting it into his backpack with a grand gesture, finally he asked “Ok. What do you want?”
Juliet looked like she was about to affectionately strangle him for taking so long on purpose, but fortunately, she didn’t. Instead she, not so calmly, responded, “First off, Hello to you too. But secondly: last year I asked you to help the tech crew because Angelo broke his leg and hip when he fell down his apartment stairs-“ she paused and looked at Mercutio, who was giving her a pair of thumbs up. She took a long breath and continued, “And this year we wanted.. to ehm. Ask if you could join the cast instead? Please?”
“What?”
“We are doing Spring Awakening this year.” Mercutio chimed in, in an attempt to explain why they needed him. That still didn’t help Tybalt understand. He was still pretty new to theatre and didn’t know any famous plays except A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which the school’s theatre performed last year.
“Ok, you clearly don’t know what we are talking about so let me explain a bit more”, the ginger finally said after a moment of agonising silence between the three and Tybalt looking at the two actors like he was a dear in headlights.
“Spring Awakening is quite the- how do i put it? Uhm “controversial” show, that a lot of parents complain about, even if it’s fucking old, so a few people didn’t sign up this year, and we are exactly one person short. Juliet said you would help, so here we are!”
“But why me? I’m not an actor! And I’m sure either of you have enough friends to ask instead of me.” Tybalt pointed out.
“That might be true”, Mercutio quickly replied,”but we already asked every one who was a viable option and they either didn’t have time or didn’t wanna do this show.”
Tybalt needed some time to think, he could get into more work than he was willing to do here, but Juliet was looking at him with big brown pleading puppy dog eyes. And those were practically impossible to say no to. Fuck it.
The brunette boy sighed again and put his hands up as a peace gesture before donning his usual nonchalant facial expression, “I’ll do it, I’ll join the cast. Just don’t make me regret it, especially you Jules.”
Upon his agreement Juliet and Mercutio grinned at each other and let out a high pitched synchronised “Yippie!”, and thanked him.
Mercutio quickly excused himself to go back to Romeo and Benvolio with a final thank you and ‘see you this Friday at rehearsal’ and promptly left. Tybalt could swear he saw the guy almost skipping back to his usual table in the cafeteria.
Before going back to her own friends Juliet informed him when rehearsal was, how long it’ll take and that they would be casting pretty soon. She was about to mention something else when the bell rang and it was time to go back to class.
Well, time to reevaluate his life choices during the most boring classes of today.
Latin and Math. Ew.