Folie

Act III, Scene 1

"Am I more than you bargained for?
Yet, I've been dying to tell you anything, you wanna' hear, 'cause that's just who I am this week!"

A voice rang from the stage as Dallon and the other actors hurried around backstage to get ready. A makeup artist was applying stage makeup to Dallon's face, as he ran through his lines and his songs in his head. He found it difficult to focus, however, as a number of issues ran through his mind. One, the sound check on stage distracted him. Two, he felt anxiety coursing through his veins in anticipation of the first dress rehearsal tonight. Third, and most importantly-

"Alright everyone, curtain's up in ten minutes! Be ready in places on stage in five!" Brendon barked as he walked through the dressing room. He strode past Dallon as he did, and for a brief but pregnant moment, their eyes locked together.

Brendon then left the room without another word, leaving Dallon's mind to race alone.

In the past month, as Dallon moved on from Patrick, he and Brendon began to talk more and more. They grew rather close in that time, and Brendon didn't remind Dallon about his ex at all, so he didn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, he felt himself starting to like him. His rosewood eyes, his plump, scarlet lips, his bubbly, sodapop demeanor - everything about Brendon seemed to draw him in more and more.  Brendon came with baggage, of course - knew he dealt with a lot of anxiety - but he knew how to ground Brendon. Dallon used to deal with anxiety himself, before he learned how to cope with it.

"Please let me in, (please let me in), the mad key's tripping, singing vows before we exchange small rings," Brendon's tenor powered through the walls into the dressing room, causing Dallon to remember his favorite trait of all.

Dallon, a trained classical singer, marveled at how someone who didn't even major in music could sing with such power and ability, and most importantly, with such beauty. Even though he spent every day surrounded by other highly-trained vocalists, he had never before found someone with the power to hypnotize him with the sheer gorgeousness of their voice. Brendon could, as his singing lulled Dallon into a daze even now, and the makeup artist had to nudge him to catch his attention.

"Dallon? I finished already. You need to get on stage," she said.

"Oh, right," and with that, Dallon left the room and walked onto the darkened stage.

---

As Dallon had his makeup done, Joe paced around the green room, running through his first kissing scene with Patrick. He could never run through this scene without fucking up at least one line (much to Brendon's chagrin), mostly because this scene caused him the most nervousness. No matter how many times he did it, he could never get over kissing Patrick. Every time their lips met, he felt electric, like the neon signs on Times Square, as the excitement of kissing the boy he came to really like over the past few months overtook him.

Yet, as Joe reminded himself every time, it was only a stage kiss. Patrick made it clear that he couldn't handle a relationship right now, and Joe took that as a gentle way of letting him down easy. He knew Patrick didn't think of him that way (at least, he thought he knew). That's why he toned everything down with Patrick - he just didn't want to encroach on his space anymore than necessary. If Patrick didn't like him, if Patrick just wanted to stay friends, Joe wanted to respect that.

The show had to go on, though, and Patrick and Pete themselves wrote this kiss and a relationship into the musical. If Joe happened to enjoy the kiss, he couldn't help it, and while he knew it was only a play, that didn't mean he couldn't take just a little enjoyment out of the situation. If only kissing Patrick didn't make him so damn nervous...