Triphilia - together forever | one-shots

Stage Fright

Avi was nervous. He had his guitar ready and was standing behind the stage, ready to go.

He took a deep breath... and another one. 'You can do it' he told himself over and over again. 

"Two minutes, Avi" someone told him. 

"Okay..." Avi closed his eyes and tried to focus. 

"Thirty seconds!"

Avi opened his eyes and stepped up to the stage and then entered it. "Good evening" he said into the microphone. "My name is Avi Kaplan and this song is called I'll get by."

He cleared his throat and started playing his guitar. 

But... 

It was out of tune. "Sorry..." Avi stopped playing. "Something went wrong there." He shook his head. After all he had tuned the guitar himself only minutes ago. He tuned it once more, quickly and then deemed it perfect. 

"Sorry" he apologised again. "That shouldn't have happened. Anyway... I'll get by, once more." 

He started playing again. 

The second time it sounded good and Avi was relieved. 

He closed his eyes momentarily and just focused on the melody he was playing, first alone and then joined by the keyboard.

But... there was no keyboard.

Avi played the intro once more and turned around to the keyboarder. He wasn't there.

The whole band was missing. There were no instruments either. He was alone.

Shit... what was he supposed to do. How did this happen?

The whole time, he was plucking the intro absentmindedly. He knew that he had to do something. 

He could just do the first song alone, acoustic and then find a solution. So he finished the intro to the song and opened his mouth to sing.

But nothing really came out. He noticed that he was singing, but it wasn't his rich base voice that resonated in his ears. "No..." he whispered after the first line. He stopped playing altogether and shook his head. Tears were burning in their eyes when the audience started booing.

"I'm sorry... I... I'll be back in a minute" he said quietly and almost fled from the stage.

"Can... get Scott and Mitch please" he said to the nearest worker and ran into his dressing room. There he sank down on the sofa and waited. He didn't know what to do, but he was sure that his boyfriends would be able to help him. And if not, they would at least give him a much-needed hug.

"Avi?" There was a knock on his door and the worker entered.

"Yeah? Are they coming?" Avi wanted to know.

"They are not here" said the worker. "I'm sorry, but they must have left a few minutes ago. I asked the security and they saw them exit."

"That cannot be. Please go and look again. Just get me anyone. Kevin, Leigh, Kirstin, Matt, I don't care. Anyone..." Avi was desperate. He was close to breaking down and he didn't want to be alone.

"Of course..." the worker left again.

Some time had passed when the door was opened hastily.

Avi pulled himself out of his trance and looked to the door, hoping to see a friendly face.

"Are you crazy? Get back out there and play!" It weren't Scott or Mitch or anyone else, it was Ken, the owner of the location. "People are going crazy."