Story Title: Anything Goes

Summary: Matthew's stuck in America with his dad and brother for the summer, far away from his mom, Canada, and everything else he's ever known. But when his perfect brother convinces him to audition for a summer show with him, little does Matthew know that his life is about to change forever...

Pairings: PruCan, RoChu, LietPol, DenNor, various others

Word Count: 1,477

AU information: Summer Theatre AU, most characters are their canon ages although some may be younger (still working out the details), no genderflip

Warnings: Language. Yaoi, yuri, het. No lemons planned but there may be some sexual references.

Notes: All right, so I'm taking on another project that I probably won't finish... *sigh* I was in Anything Goes, the musical the characters will be putting on, earlier this summer, so hopefully I am well informed on my subject and won't forget any important details. I don't own Anything Goes or Hetalia; all lines and lyrics I use belong to their respective owners (probably Cole Porter's estate). I will probably get lines wrong as this is only from memory (and some of our actors may have said them wrong all along, you theatre people know what I mean), so if you know the show and would care to correct me, that would be great. Enjoy!

Overture

Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane, shoulda been my name, Mr. Cellophane

Cause you can look right through me, walk right by me

And never know I'm there...

Opening his eyes slowly, Matthew Williams stared down into the sea of his fellow auditioners, blinking in the harsh stage lights. His voice lessons had not prepared him for this—this strange—applause? They were clapping for him?

His accompanist, who Matthew was pretty sure was also the music director, gave him an encouraging smile. His eyes widened. He was supposed to... bow, wasn't he? Whoops. He bent his head slightly, blushing, and hurried off the stage, nearly tripping and falling down the steps in his haste to be out of the spotlight. Why, oh, why had he ever let his idiot brother force him into this?

"C'mon, Matt, it'll be fun! You don't have to try for a speaking part or anything. The chorus is really easy to get into! I mean, it's not like it's a professional company or anything, just a local summer show."

"Al, you know I can't dance."

"No, but you can sing! So they'll teach you to dance! Don't spend your whole summer holed up in your room with that polar bear of yours."

"Kumajiji is a cat."

"Looks like a bear to me. Anyway, just 'cause you're stuck with Dad and your friends are back in Canada, doesn't mean you can't do something fun~"

"Thanks. Al. Thanks so much. I really needed that optimistic appraisal of my situation."

"Um, sure, whatever. Anyway, you'll meet people! New friends! Maybe even a boooyfrieeeend~"

"Al!"

Lost in reverie, Matthew barely heard the slight squeak... thump as someone took the seat next to him, or when they put their arm around the back of his chair. He only realized the person was there when they put their other hand on his shoulder, at which point he nearly folded himself up in his chair in surprise.

"Hey, uh... you sounded really good up there," said the person in a voice which was definitely male.

Matthew was stunned. Someone... complimented him? He must be mistaking me for someone else, he decided, turning to the unknown boy to tell him so—

He stopped short, staring. He'd never seen anyone who looked remotely like this before. Silver hair—real silver, not light blonde—and beautiful red eyes (red!) and oh crap he was staring.

"I'm Gilbert, by the way," said the apparition, holding out a hand for Matthew to shake.

"Uh, Matthew. M-matthew Williams," Matthew blurted out, grabbing Gilbert's hand awkwardly as he realized just how close they were sitting and blushed profusely.

"Hi, Mattie!" The strange boy—Gilbert—grinned, running a hand through his messy silver hair.

A nickname ohmygod he's given me a nickname—Matthew thought, nearly catatonic. Who was this person and why could he see Matthew?

"Um, uh—so how much longer are auditions going to last? N-not that I want to leave, um, this is fun, but I-I'm not sure if my parents—well, my dad, or my stepmom—know when to pick me up. Um, knows? But Al probably told Dad, so..." Matthew trailed off, blushing. Oh god he was blushing so much it must look so bad!

Gilbert laughed. Matthew had expected that. What he had not expected, however, was the next thing to come out of the boy's mouth: "You're kinda cute, you know."

Kinda cute... cute... HE THINKS I'M CUTE?

"Babble when you get nervous, huh?" Gilbert was saying. Mute, Matthew could only nod and watch his world crumble around him and be replaced with a new, shiny world where everything was silver and red and he wasn't invisible anymore. And he'd mentioned Alfred and there hadn't been the usual exclamation of "Oh, you're Alfred's brother? He's soooo amazing and everyone just looooves him and I bet you're, um, pretty nice too but we all just LOVE Alfred!"

"—fter Tonio sings, it's dance audition, and then the cold read," Gilbert was saying. Matthew tried to pay attention. "Never done this before?"

Matthew shook his head, eyes wide. There was more?

"Wow, with a voice like yours? It's a good thing you're starting now. This is a really great show, y'know, really fun."

Matthew made a very intelligent noise that sounded something like "...buh?" and tried to stop gaping like a fish.

"Oh, dance time! Sweeeet!" Gilbert bounced out of his seat, grabbing Matthew's wrist and pulling him along. Matthew barely noticed when his seat jounced closed behind him, dumping his phone onto the floor.

The next few minutes (it had probably been much longer than that, but Matthew didn't notice) were a blur. Afterward, he couldn't remember a single one of the steps they'd been taught, nor whether he had managed to do them properly. He could see Gilbert being showoffy out of the corner of his eye, and tried not to stare at him all the time and concentrate on not tripping over his own feet. He was pretty sure he hadn't fallen on his butt or whacked anyone in the face, which was always good, but beyond that he had no idea what he'd been doing.

And then suddenly he had a script in his hand, someone had stuck a very large hat on his head and told him to pretend he was wearing a very large false beard, and he was being surrounded by what felt like the entire population of China but was probably more like about thirteen fellow thespians, some also clutching scripts. Matthew was glad his character was supposed to be flustered, because he certainly was.

"Okay, that's good, back up!" someone, probably the director, yelled. "Angelique, start from your first line, please."

"I know who you are!" a tan-skinned girl with her hair in pigtails, presumably Angelique, shouted, pointing a finger at Matthew, who tried to hide under the hat. "You're George Bernard Shaw!"

They had been given context, which Matthew was currently trying desperately to remember. His character had used that as an alias, right? So he felt exposed. Matthew hid more under the hat and sunk in his shoulders in shame.

"I know who you are," shouted someone else behind him. Matthew looked at the script, pushed his hat back a bit and tried to look confused. (It wasn't hard.)

"You're Snake Eyes Johnson!"

Wait, who was this again? Had they said something about—

"Public Enemy Number One!"

Ah. This would be an Oh Crap moment.

Strangely, everyone started to rush toward him. Oh, so that's what they had been practicing when they were crowding him before. So they wanted to get closer to a known criminal? This, Matthew decided, was a really weird play.

"Everybody stay back or I'll shoot!" yelled Gilbert, somewhere in Matthew's peripheral vision between someone's pale arm and someone else's really long sleeve. He made a finger gun, and Matthew tried not to blush, giggle, or both.

"Arrest this man! He's obviously an accomplice of Snake Eyes!" yelled someone, who seemed to be trying to sound very official and only succeeding in sounding very angry.

There was a pause in which Gil hammed it up pretending to be dragged offstage by invisible strongmen. Watching first Gilbert and then the people crowding around him (ohgod), Matthew missed the next few lines and lost his place in the script.

People he couldn't see said things he couldn't find, and Matthew finally found his place around the Captain's line "Can't you see Mr. Johnson is a popular character?" Feeling claustrophobic, Matthew took off the stupid hat and raised an arm in the air, flailing it helplessly in an attempt to get more air and yelling his next line, "But I—"

The guy reading for the Captain, who seemed to be ridiculously happy all the time, said something about "drinking Mr. Johnson's health," and then suddenly people stopped talking and Matthew could hear a few people clapping out in the audience. Oh, was it over? Relieved, Matthew slid out of the crush of people and, not knowing what to do with the huge hat, threw it on the edge of the stage.

"Thank you!" he heard the director say. Oh good, that sounded final. "Matthew, Gilbert, Angelique, Antonio, Lovino, you may go—unless there's something else you'd like to do first?"

Matthew mutely shook his head and got the hell out of there. Alfred was so going to get it when they got home.

…although he was the reason I met Gil...

Strangely enough, Matthew was beginning to hope he'd get into this thing. He shook his head. Al must be corrupting his mind...

Nevertheless, he went to sleep happy that night, humming the tune of "Anything Goes."

End Notes: So, did you like it? You know what would be really nice of you to do if you did, or even if you didn't? That's right, click the nice shiny review button. You know you want to. I always accept concrit and if you like or dislike something about the fic so far, I'd love to hear what it is so I can keep doing it/fix it. Cause the reason I don't continue most of my works is because they get few or no reviews and I get disappointed and feel like no one is paying attention to my work. *sadface*