Cosmo's oneshots / drabbles

Blueberry x Cheesy one-shot 3

It was the night of Cheesy's comedy routine at hotel OJ. It was a weekly occurrence, but this week was going to be different. More than two or three objects were actually going to show up for this-- though mostly because Cheesy barely managed to convince OJ to make a hotel-wide announcement about his show this time. Meaning the seats were hopefully going to be at least... more occupied than usual. Sure, small crowds on a weekly basis was a really big blow to his pride, but small crowds were also comfortable. Easy to work with. And now, faced with the possibility of a bigger crowd? Well, Cheesy couldn't tell what he was feeling, other than the looming nervousness, and stage fright. Why now though? He didn't really understand, seeing as he's never had problems like this before with his acts, he wondered if it was because the crowd was going to be full of objects he knew. That if he fumbled, or embarrassed himself, he knew he'd never live it down. But the show had to go on! He couldn't just not do it after having OJ get a bunch of people to show up, that would just make OJ mad, and nobody wanted that. So Cheesy sighed, still standing behind the stage, setting up and practicing his jokes under his breath. He still had an hour before he was set to start, he was sure some objects would be showing up early. Even with nobody in the room yet, Cheesy could feel his palms getting sweaty. Even just practicing his lines was making him fumble. Tonight was not going to go well, surely he'd have to lock himself in his room for a week, or even worse, if it gets that bad, he'll have to move out! His brain kept spiraling, thinking of worse and worse scenarios as he paced back and forth, not noticing the opening of the door, and the footsteps leading up to the stage. He did notice whoever it was though, as a voice broke the silence;
"Cheesy?"
He froze for a moment, dropping the notepad he held, whipping over to the sound, where Blueberry stood, peeking out from the other side of the closed curtains.
"Oh-- oh, It's-- just you," Cheesy let out a nervous chuckle, hearing the shakiness in his own voice, which made him internally cringe. Blueberry must have noticed it too, as he stepped forward onto the stage, letting the curtain fall back into place.
"Was wondering where you were... Are you nervous about tonight's show?"
"Pssh, me? Nervous? No way!" Cheesy waved his hand dismissively as he knelt down to pick up the dropped notepad, trying to play it off, but the shakiness in his voice remained, giving himself away as a liar.
Cheesy easily noticed Blueberry's frown growing, just a bit, to a point it wouldn't even be noticeable to anyone else, but Cheesy had seen Blueberry enough to be able to tell these things. His nervousness and doubts crept in again tenfold at this.
"Look- I'll- I'll be fine, okay?" Cheesy fumbled, now fiddling with his hands to distract from his shaking-- why was he shaking so bad? He shouldn't be shaking this bad. His eyes darted to the stage floor.
"I... don't think so." Blueberry spoke bluntly, stepping over, and carefully taking Cheesy's hands in his own, looking at them, and then making eye contact. His eyes remained half-lidded as usual as the two stared at each other for just a moment longer than what would be considered normal.
"You're letting this get to you... Maybe call off the show?"
"I-- I can't just do that, not when I had OJ make an announcement-- and it's... I want to do this, Blueberry, I really do, I just--" Cheesy shut his mouth, his eyes darting back to the floor as he felt tears prick at the edges of his eyes.
"I should be able to do this. It's just like every other show, but with more people and I-- I don't... I don't understand why this is so hard..." Cheesy's voice cracked, as Blueberry focused on keeping Cheesy's hands steady, still holding them in his own.
"It's okay if you can't do this. It's okay to postpone. Forcing yourself to do this won't be good for you," Blueberry carefully moved one of his hands to hold Cheesy's cheek, wiping away a tear.
"Try again next week dear, nobody is going to hate you for not being able to go on tonight... I'll make sure of it." Blueberry spoke softly, keeping his monotone voice a bit quieter than usual. Cheesy moved his hand away from Blueberry's, letting it fall idle to his side for a moment, before pulling Blueberry into a hug.
"Thank you," Cheesy's voice cracked again, barely going louder than a whisper, as Blueberry returned the hug.
The two remained like this for a bit, before Cheesy broke away, now visibly shaking much less than before. He pocketed his notepad, and let out a hefty sigh.
"Do you want to go back to the room?" Blueberry smiled a bit.
"Probably should uh-- call off the show first," Cheesy shook off the rest of his nerves, heading to the front of the stage, going through the curtains, Blueberry following behind, both of them being caught off guard by the few people already sitting down, having showed up. Blueberry quickly ducked back behind the curtains out of his own stage fright, as Cheesy's nerves returned again.
"Ahaha-- Um... wow okay uh-- sorry guys but I'm um-- Feeling under the weather um, the show's gonna actually be um... next week?" Cheesy spoke, raising his voice enough for the objects to hear, which most of them just seemed to not mind, thankfully, as Cheesy watched each one of them leave to do their own things. Now, once the room was truly empty, did Cheesy let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding, as he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Okay, now let's go up to the room," Blueberry spoke quietly, with a bit of a sheepish tone. Cheesy chuckled.
"Yeah, let's go before anyone else shows up."