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He didn’t know why he agreed to this. Not even agreed: he was the one who pitched the idea.
A cardboard wing now laid in place of Dom’s once existing wing. His left wing grew limp upon the thought of the big performance ticking closer every second. He was in some kind of old time era costume, with frills and puffy sleeves all over on his dark blue coat. His lavender Dominus was now replaced with a night sky blue one, with a fluff collar around the back of his neck that trailed down to a cape as blue as the midnight sea. Intricate white heels (technically “boots” according to their costume designer) laced the bottom of his feet. On his left face, laid a white mask with a mask of tragedy that covered half his face. He was tragedy. Literally.
His ever so joyful brother, Valk, wore a jester costume, his Valkyrie replaced with a jester hat too big for him. His frill collar, sleeves, puffy sleeves and pants, jingling bells on his jester hat and elf looking shoes. On his right face was a golden half mask with an expression of pure joy: he was the ever so shining representation of comedy.
Now, Dom didn’t actually have a problem with being the representative of tragedy. In fact, he liked the role; it was for the Phestival anyway. The two brothers had been so bummed and out of ideas for so long, that when they finally got an idea for the next theme, they were rushing their hands off in designing, song making, all that stuff (they also burnt out halfway through the process, but it was “worth it”, at least according to Valk). Dom liked the idea of tragedy: it was a part of the performing arts that showed the pains of reality, in his words, “making reality hurt less”.
He didn’t mind performing a tragedy: it was an act. It wasn’t life threatening, it was just a harmless display of acting that would teach the audience a little lesson maybe, or strike sadness into the crowd’s heart. But now, with the realization that he was going to perform something that actually happened to him in the past that traumatized him: it was scary.
For their endless days of rehearsal, they’ve only been rehearsing together. No matter how threatening Valk might try to act, Dom knows: it’s an act, and Valk would never scold him. Even his brother asked him if he was really okay with the idea. His stubborn self told him that he was totally fine.
Even with that in mind, it was still scary. He still couldn’t understand why he pitched and agreed to this, but suddenly, the memory came rushing back like a train running his wrecked body over.
Gentle bells jingled as a certain someone hopped towards Dom with excitement. “You ready?!” Valk exclaimed. “We’ve prepared for this day, and it’s only gonna happen once in our whole lives! Let’s give the Inpherno one hell of a show once more!” A hand reached out towards Dom, who was sitting on the floor near a corner, arms around his knees that was pressed to his chest.
“…Yeah, I’m ready,” he mumbled, taking Valk’s hand with his own white gloved hand. With a bit of support, he stood back up.
“Great!” Valk remarked. “And no worries, I’ll always have your back!” The shorter dragged the other near the pathway, the way they would get on and off stage. With light footsteps, they made it to the center of the stage, where they were still obscured behind the velvet curtains. Dom really wanted to bury himself in one of them — it looked so soft.
As soon as Valk thumbs upped to the production team, the curtains opens themselves as the crowd cheers in excitement of seeing their idols dabbling in a new sort of performance.
All went well, the two brothers having already memorized each movement, voice articulation, note and tune down to the last detail. That was until THE scene. The scene where Dom feared to go on stage. But the show must go on; he had to do it if he wanted to get this over with.
“Now where oh where could that monster of sadness be?” Comedy — Valk — exclaimed. He skittered from left to right, right to left onto the stage, until he pointed somewhere off stage, towards backstage right, where Dom was standing. “There you are! C’mere shy guy!”
Dom, now playing the role of Tragedy, shuffled his feet over to Comedy, every inch of nervousness pecking at him, chipping away at his sanity.
“Finally! You took awhile,” Comedy exclaimed, then grabbed Tragedy’s hand with both of his, throwing Dom off a bit, even though he knew it was part of the script.
“I wanna go flying!” He stated with excitement, his tiny wings flapping with joy. Dom rolled his eye under his mask; he knew it was part of the script, but Valk could barely even fly with tiny wings like those.
“…Uhm, I don’t think my right wing is in a good state to fly,” Tragedy mumbled out, his words barely audible despite the awareness of the large audience being there as he pointed to the cardboard wing. “I know, it’s quite the trage-“
“Hmm? It was fine the other day, Trage!” Comedy interrupted as he skipped around Tragedy, making a full circle until he stopped next to the cardboard wing. His arm extended towards the fake wing. “Let me take a look-“
“Wait-“
With a single, gentle grab, the weakness of the tape give in as the cardboard was ripped off his back. Normally, during rehearsals, he wouldn’t even feel a thing. But suddenly, for whatever stupid reason he couldn’t think off — maybe it was the crowd’s presence — the phantom pain of the past came crawling back at his back. His eyes started to hallucinate, ears ringing loudly, as if sirens were loudly blaring around him like that fateful day his true wing was gone.
It was all in a flash. He wanted to ignore it: stop acting like this, it’s not a big deal, he scolded himself internally. The pain intensified, calling, screaming for his attention. He fell to his knees, arms clutched around his stomach. Stop.
You have to stop it now.
Dom, stop, it’s not a big deal, you knew you agreed to this.
This shouldn’t have happened.
This is not part of the script.
Wake up from your cries. The show must go on.
STOP!
“STOP!”
He couldn’t hear himself crying, not when his head felt like an arrow had sniped through his brain.
The crowd stopped cheering for their team’s representative. Whether they were a Comedian or a Tragedian, they all stopped talking, the theatre now silent except for the cries of the Phantom of the Opera echoing through the halls: Dom.
“Wow, whatever this is, the acting is realistic,” Skateboard whispered to Slingshot, who was with his Playground mates to watch the show to take a break from the Phights.
“I don’t think he’s acting,” Slingshot frowned, looking at the display of the blue actor that has now crumpled onto the ground with tears, as the yellow one begins frantically waving a hand in front of Dom and another patting his back.
“Idk, they’re idols, idols are excellent masters at acting and whatnot,” Coil said, a bliss of ignorance on his face as he crunched on a piece of popcorn. Boombox, who sat to the right of him, slapped his face as a light scolding.
“I’ve worked with Flipside a handful of times before,” he whispered to the friend group. “This is… not normal. Not chill dude.”
The clown onstage on the other hand, fell into a puddle of panic as he tried getting Dom’s attention. For one, he was definitely aware that it wasn’t part of the script, and something is definitely wrong.
He looked towards the left side of the backstage entrance, where some members of the backstage crew tried to signal to him, indicating, “what happened?”. Valk quickly signaled behind his back towards the crew, which indicated the crew to close the curtains. The backstage leader flipped on their Walkie Talkie upon getting the signal, and with perfect coordination, the curtains slowly came to draw onto the stage. With quick movements, Valk turned off his and Dom’s face microphones, as well as disconnecting their voices from their respective gears.
“Alright big guy, get up, we’ll… talk about this backstage,” Valk whispered in Dom’s ear as he attempted to yank Dom’s rock solid body out of the position to get him offstage. Some crew members dressed in black rushed over and tried to help, but with nothing clear going through Dom’s mind, he thrashed the backstage crew — and Valk — away from him, afraid of any physical contact. With the last of his sanity, he dashed backstage, clinging onto his tear stained cape, shoving any Inphernal in his way out of his path. He staggered through the halls of backstage until he found the dressing room, locking it behind him to prevent anyone else from coming in.
A team member approached Valk, questioning if they should check on the taller actor. The jester actor sighed as he kindly told the member to not disturb Dom and instead requested them to end the show early. Though they seemed to hesitate, they ran back to the stage, accepting Valk’s urgent and very sudden request. He shook his head as he sadly stared at the dressing room door in the distance, knowing that Dom must be in some kind of pain, and it was somehow inflicted by the act.
After a bit of struggle, he took off his golden mask and jester hat. He was a bit unhappy with the carved horn, making him look a bit odd, but Inphernal horns were unique — they’ll eventually grow back, some way or somehow. It was better than whatever his brother was going through anyway.
He ran to the dressing room, accessories in hand, until he slowly stopped in front of the locked door. He tried pulling and pushing on the door handle, only for it to be locked. Valk knocked on the door, a familiar knocking pattern the two used to recognize each other. When no response came, Valk began to try and speak through the small gap between the door and the wall.
“Meg,” Valk called Dom, his real name coming to light for a moment. “It’s Mic. Can you let me in? I just have… things to put away into the dressing room.”
He could almost feel a sense of hesitance behind the door before the lock clicked from inside, the door slowly opening to reveal a hooded face with fresh tear marks on the left of the other’s face, his ivory mask no longer in sight.
“Jeez… you- you really cried a lot,” Valk commented as he slipped into the room. Dom locked the door behind the yellow demon as Valk placed his hat and face accessories on a table. “Uh, no offense.”
“Yeah,” Dom responded, voice still shaky with tears left in his body. He sat down on the left side of the couch in the room. “Mask was stuffy. Sor-“
“Don’t even TRY to apologize,” Valk interrupted, sharply turning away from a mirror in the room to face Dom. The other avoided eye contact, as his head turned to the left. Valk sighed, walking over to sit on the right side of the sofa. They were on the same couch, but an awkward distance sat between them. “Can you… explain?”
“I’m so-“ Dom clamped his mouth as tears threatened to fall out of his remaining eye. “The wing- it just- I just-“ his voice grew shakier as he yanked his cape up to his face, burrowing his face into the soft fabric. Upon the mention of the cardboard wing, Valk could understand what his brother meant.
“I-“
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Dom cried out, unable to hold himself back anymore. He knew he was going to cry frame one the moment Valk walked into the room. “You already asked me if I was okay with it because you knew it would cause complications! But I’m stupid, I’m stupid! I agreed to it! It’s not your fault, I’m sorry-“ his whole body shook, an anxiety attack and a mental breakdown wracking his entire body altogether.
“Dom.”
“And I- I know, I’m just dumb, I didn’t think ahead, I knew this would’ve happened. A-and yet I agreed to it-“ — he sniffed halfway — “-you knew you would never let this happen. But I said I was fine-“
“Meg.”
“I was fine! I proved I was fine during our rehearsals! My stupid intrusive thoughts just decides to wreak havoc at the wrong time! This was not meant to happen!”
“Megaphone.”
“And if anything-“ — he hiccuped — “it was never your fault. You were already considerate about my wellbeing, you knew this could’ve happen. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m-“
“Megaphone!”
Dom couldn’t talk anymore. All he could produce was noises of hiccups amongst his cries.
“I just… don’t know why I’m like this,” he finally said.
Valk patted his laps, signaling for Dom to lay down on them to provide comfort. The taller immediately crashed onto the yellow demon’s puffy pants, his head barely tilted up just to bury it in the jester getup Valk had worn for the Phest.
“Touch?” Valk asked, waiting for consent of the other to allow physical contact. Yes, Dom was practically glued to Valk at this point, but Valk always found it important to respect Dom’s sensitivity towards physical touch from others, even among the family.
Dom nodded as his left hand weakly reached for his back before returning to hug Valk with a presumably what he thought was a death grip on the shorter demon. “It hurts,” he said, referring to his phantom pain.
“I see,” Valk sadly responded as he began to massage and pat his brother on the back. “It’s back, isn’t it…”
“I-“
“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk anymore,” he hushed the other, hand rubbing circles on Dom’s back. “I know your anxiety attacks come every now and then.”
“What about the show…” Dom mumbled after minutes passed in the room, his cries finally stopping, with only hiccups every now and then interrupting him. “I- I didn’t mean to-“
“We can do that tomorrow,” Valk answered. “And like, think about it! We can hop on our social medias later and just tell the public it was a cliffhanger for the last part, and they’ll totes believe it! The advantages about watching a play is that the audience won’t even know if it’s part of the script or not! As for the costumes, no worries, I gotcha.”
“You’ve rarely done washing before…” Dom commented. His voice was muffled by Valk’s clothing that he had buried himself in. “I’d doubt it’ll come out 100% okay.”
“Wow, still have the guts to bully me huh,” Valk rolled his eyes. Dom lightly snickered as he finally detached himself from the position he was in for roughly 30 minutes. He sat up next to Valk and just tilted his head just to slightly rest it on Valk’s head, ignoring the possibility of their horns colliding.
“…Thanks,” Dom finally whispered out.
“No worries,” Valk kindly responded. His eyes prompted him to close it, resting after the long day the two had. I’ll have to update our fans later, when Dom’s okay, he reminded himself. His left arm managed to stretch out and reach for Dom’s left arm, Valk’s arm now resting on his brother’s back. “I told you, I’ll always have your back.”
“So like, any bets for who’s gonna win this Phest?”
“Pfft, obviously me. You were never over the half time results in the last Phest!”
“Hey, not my fault, Team Mermaids was just… not very cooperative. This year is different.”
“Hah! As if. Comedy will reign supreme!”
“Wait until me and my team show you the power of Tragedy.”