36 Questions: A Joanne Fanfiction

Question Five:

When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

The two were now part way through week three, and had spent the day muddling through the American Smooth. Now, they had just finished filming the reaction videos to the Jive and Charleston, and Joe was thrilled at how they'd turned out, he even found himself excited to edit them. Dianne, meanwhile was sat on the other side of the spectrum.

"Are you sure I was alright, I didn't have something on my face did I? I should have put some more makeup on before we filmed that Joe, look at these bags?" she ranted at him, who just shook his head in response. Joe was slightly concerned, Dianne was normally not like this at all, come to think of it she'd been slightly off all day, which he had initially put down to his awful American Smooth technique, but this behaviour was very much not like her.

"No you were fine Di, you were a natural! If you're really not comfortable, then I don't have to upload it, or we can film it again if you'd rather?" he reassured her, beckoning her to join him on the other side of the sofa rather than pace around his apartment.

Despite her slightly stressed out state (the American smooth wasn't going nearly as smoothly as the previous two dances) she smiled softly at this, internally awwing at his caring nature, before sitting herself down.

"No, it's fine I'm probably just overthinking it. I'm just a little out of my comfort zone," she confessed.

"Why's that?" he enquired gently.

"Well this is what you're good at, I don't want your audience to hate me or wish you had a different partner or something. I don't want to let you down. I don't want them to think that I'm stupid, and that you'd be better with someone else, that I'm ruining your chances. After all, I've never got further than week three" She revealed quickly, her words overtaking her mind, and spilling out the insecurity she had worked so hard to keep from him.

Normally it would take a lot longer to break her barriers, but there was something about her connection with her partner that told her she could tell him anything. In hindsight, she realised this was probably the doing of those questions, despite only having done four so far. This scared her a lot, if they were doing this at question five, how would she be at question thirty-six?

Despite this, when she realised what she had said, her eyes shot open in shock. She was stunned at the fact that she'd just uttered these fears aloud, and was suddenly very overwhelmed. Feeling trapped, she curled her body into a ball like position away from his potentially prying eyes and held herself, as if to keep herself from falling apart.

"Hey, hey hey" he said softly, not quite knowing how to handle the situation in front of him. Dianne always came across as such a confident, positive soul that he'd almost forgotten that like, everyone else, she had emotions too, and she wasn't the only one in their partnership that would have to deal with the other being in a bit of a state. Besides, Joe was never the best at dealing with emotions, especially those of a girl, so he was feeling quite out of depth at the situation in front of him. Quickly, he pulled himself out of his internal monologue, focusing on the issue in hand. He moved next to her, rubbing her back gently as hiccups of sobs escaped from the red ball in front of him.

He took hold of one of her hands, the other wrapped comfortingly around her waist, tracing small circles on her skin over her top. Eventually she began to relax, sobs no longer shaking her. He dropped to the floor in front of her, now meeting her slightly blurred eyes. "Dianne listen to me. There is not anyone else that I'd rather share this strictly experience with, however many times someone has won, or whatever fancy title they hold. You're the reason I'm having so much fun, and want to stay every week. And as for my audience, they already love you, after the childbirth simulator they've been begging for more videos with you, but even if they hadn't I'd want to film more with you anyway. You're not stupid, and you're certainly not letting me down." He said, sincerity evident in his voice. "If you don't want me to post them I won't Di, I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to, especially if it'll cause you to resemble a red koala on my sofa."