Meet Us at the Barre: A Series of SAB Oneshots

for your troubles

"Isaac?" Katherine slowly approached the kid, who seemed uncomfortably hunched over a laptop.

"If you want food, it's in the left pocket of my bag. Water's on the other side. Rehearsal goes until 8:30. Starts in ten minutes." He spoke, not taking his eyes off of the monitor.

Katherine smiled softly, but shook her head. "No, Isaac, I want to know if you wanted to go to dinner with some of us tonight? Abby, Nessa, me, Mark, Emmie, Ben, and James are all going to get our minds off of our tests. Why don't you come? You deserve a break."

Katherine had finished her finals the day before, thankfully because their rehearsals had also started to pick up, since shows were creeping closer and closer.

Isaac saved his studying notes and shut his laptop down. "Can I rehearse on it?" He asked, standing up.

"Of course." Katherine smiled gently. "Hey." She stopped Isaac before he could dash away to the rehearsal studio. "Love you." She stood up onto en pointe to be tall enough to quickly kiss the side of his forehead.

Isaac chuckled. "I love you too, Kath."

~~~~~

By 9:15, rehearsal had wrapped. Ten minutes late, in fact. But everyone was quickly back into their apartments, showered and in street clothes, ready to go to dinner.

As she swiped on a little mascara, Katherine balanced her phone between her shoulder and her cheek. "Hey!" She smiled to herself as she heard the other line of the phone call pick up.

"Hey, Hon." Isaac started to answer the question he knew Katherine was going to ask. "Listen, I don't think I'm going to make it to dinner. I have APUSH in the morning, and then I have to rush over to class. I'm so sorry."

Katherine sighed, picking her phone up and holding it in her hand. She knew this was coming. "Alright, Lovie. Rest up. Study hard."

"I will. Love you."

Katherine returned a sweet goodbye before hanging the phone up.

~~~~~

Dinner had come and gone. The group of friends, (lovingly referred to as 'the gang') hadn't gone anywhere fancy. They simply went to a Freddie's Diner.

Besides her own meal, Katherine ordered a significantly bigger meal to bring home for Isaac. He'd been studying all night, he deserved a steak burger and fries.

Katherine was quick to get to Isaac's apartment, making sure his dinner wouldn't get cold. She sent her boy a quick text that she was coming up with a 'surprise'.

She approached his apartment door, knocking a few times before she heard a shaky "door's open" from the inside of the apartment.

"Hey, Honey, I brought you dinn--" Katherine stopped, setting the bag on the countertop quickly. "What's going on?"

Isaac's eyes were red and puffy, tears only rarely falling from his eyes, though he couldn't seem to breathe. "Kath." He almost choked.

"Come here, come here." Katherine nodded her head, pulling Isaac into the tightest hug. That's what he always did for her.

Isaac kept hiccuping fragments of sentences about his tests, rehearsals, how tired he was, through breaths he couldn't catch.

"Isaac." Katherine stated, trying to get his attention. She backed up so he could look at her. After grabbing both of his hands, she continued talking. "Your tests? Rehearsals? We can figure that out later. Yeah? Start right now. What's causing you stress right now? Start small, Love."

It took a while for him to answer. He took more than a few minutes to catch his breath. Once Isaac could find himself breathing at more of a normal rate, he slowly answered Katherine. "I don't know. I haven't slept, I...I'm hungry." He covered his face with his hands.

Katherine frowned, knowing he felt embarrassed for his emotions in this moment, though he shouldn't have.

"Well, I brought you some Freddie's, do you want to eat now?" Katherine drew mindless swirls and patterns on the fabric of his sweatpants.

Isaac nodded slowly. Katherine stood up before helping him stand up from his place on his sofa.

"Sit down." She instructed, sweetly. Katherine sat the burger and fries she brought for him down onto the table. "Eat up, but don't eat too fast, you'll get sick, okay? Do you want something to drink?" She asked her last question as she opened Isaac's refrigerator.

"Thank you, Kath, but I'm--" Isaac started, but stopped when Katherine set a glass of water in front of him. She told him some note about how he'd be dehydrated. "Thank you." He whispered.

"Of course." Katherine sat down across from him.

"Here." Isaac spoke between bites. He extended a few of his French fries towards Katherine. "For your troubles." He chuckled, though his voice was raw from his crying and breaths he couldn't catch.

"That's your food. You need it." She pushed his hand back. "And nothing was a problem, Sweetheart."

~~~~~

Honestly, ok, I've decided I'm going to post when I'm inspired lol

P.S. Sightly inspired by an actual text conversation I had (tea)