Snapshots

3. Ozzy

Ozzy has a lot of thoughts about Dancemania, and only some of them are good.

After spending his whole life watching the show religiously with his family, it didn't exactly live up to the hype. Izzy will be majorly disappointed, but it's not his fault that the judges are snakes and the producers only care about image. Seriously. They spent half an hour before the Resurrection Round trying to talk him out of wearing his glasses. You know, as if he didn't actually need them to see.

Fame, Ozzy is finding, is not all it's cracked up to be.

But the experience wasn't all bad. He killed his musical theatre solo, and he knows it. He never thought that was something he could be interested in or even good at, but maybe if his career designing video games doesn't work out, he'll give Broadway a shot.

The team is exhausted from a long week. It's been dramatic to say the least. After missing the last rehearsal because of a bad sushi burrito, Ozzy showed up to the airport Wednesday morning to utter chaos. Richelle had bailed on the team to go solo. Summer was his new dance partner. Finn was missing.

Really, they all should have expected the trip to be a disaster before they ever even left the airport.

They didn't win. They didn't even lose. They just disqualified themselves, and Ozzy's still not sure how to feel about the whole ordeal, but for now, he's just angry that his favorite dance show has been revealed to be a total sham.

But at least Richelle is back on the team where she belongs. Really, that's what Ozzy's most concerned about at the end of the day.

He and Richelle have a complicated relationship. He's still in love with her, even after a very brief stint of trying to get over her with Winnie, who is beyond cool solely because she helped him beat Legions of Lasers on Master mode. But he's not compatible with Winnie, not as anything more than friends at least. Maybe the fact that his heart seems to belong only to Richelle plays a role in that. He doesn't know.

All he does know is that Richelle still doesn't feel the same, but regardless, they're friends, and he's learned to take what he can get with her at this point. Maybe one day, she'll return his feelings, but right now, it feels like wishful thinking.

Even still, his goal is to snag the seat next to her on the plane. Five glorious hours sitting next to Richelle is all he wants after the week they've had. But because nothing this week can go according to plan, Summer and Kenzie get to her first.

Ozzy groans when he realizes his dreams are crushed, and Kingston rolls his eyes behind him, pushing him forward. "Come on, you're holding up the line."

"Would you stop pushing me? I'm going."

With Richelle sitting with Summer and Kenzie and Amy and Henry sitting with Nick, Ozzy's options are narrowed down to Kingston and Lily, Piper and Finn, or Heathcliff. Piper and Finn are by far the least nauseating choice, so he drops into the empty seat next to Piper without much of a second thought.

It only dawns on him once he's seated that this couple has spent most of the trip fighting and that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, but Kingston, Lily, and Heathcliff have already claimed the last row together, so Ozzy's stuck with the couple that has a strange attachment to Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box. Finn explained the significance of the dance the other day when they were working on his song for Piper, but Ozzy still doesn't really get it. It's just a party move, and a lame one at that. What's the big deal?

Then again, what does he know about romance? Given his nonexistent love life, obviously not much.

"What movie should we watch?" Piper asks Finn as they're waiting for the plane to take off. She scrolls through the options on the screen in front of her, but Finn's hardly paying attention, his eyes glued out the window.

Ozzy tries to ignore the way his seat is shaking from Finn's rapidly bouncing knee and tells Piper, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm always down for a zombie movie."

Piper grins at him, in a better mood than she's been all week. "I haven't seen any of those yet, but if I do, you'll be the first to know."

"That's all I ask."

Finn isn't much help in picking a movie to watch with his girlfriend, and Ozzy's thrown off by his usually energetic friend's weird behavior. He's never seen Finn nervous, but as the plane starts moving, the color starts to drain from his face, and it's then that Ozzy remembers Finn mentioning a fear of heights in the past.

Perhaps he and Kingston should have included Finn in the Get Over Your Fear of Flying simulator they put on for Heathcliff.

Finn's always been the confident, happy-go-lucky guy that Ozzy looks up to (not so much literally anymore but figuratively), but as the flight takes off into the air, he looks like he actually might hurl, and Ozzy finds himself regretting the decision to sit with them all over again.

Piper is completely undeterred, however. Ozzy watches in his peripheral vision as she holds her boyfriend's hand, lacing their fingers together and running her other hand up and down his arm in soothing motions. Her chin rests on his shoulder, and she's whispering comforting reassurances that Ozzy can't hear in his ear.

Slowly, Finn seems to relax, and by the time the plane is sailing smoothly in the air, the color has returned to his cheeks. "Sorry," he mutters, seeming embarrassed, but Piper's completely unfazed, looping her arm through his and looking back to the movie selections.

"Don't even worry about it. I'm in the mood for a musical. What about you?"

They don't actually end up watching a movie. Twenty minutes into the flight, they're both asleep, Piper's head on Finn's shoulder, her arm still looped through his. At some point, Finn's head rolls to the side, resting perfectly on top of Piper's, and she shifts in her sleep, hugging him closer.

It's almost like they were made to fit perfectly together.

Ozzy's never personally been one to nap. Once he's awake for the day, he's physically incapable of falling asleep again until the sun goes down. As his teammates sleep all around him, he spends the flight listening to his favorite sci-fi podcast and occasionally glancing to the snoozing couple next to him. He wonders if he'll ever find something like what Piper and Finn have. Because even though they spent most of the week fighting, everyone knows they love each other. It's obvious in the way they look at each other, in the way they talk about each other, in the way they talk to each other.

At some point, Ozzy turns his phone towards the sleeping couple and snaps a photo. He doesn't really know why he does it, but he has a feeling Piper will appreciate it.

Even in their sleep, Piper and Finn are the picture-perfect couple.