"Roles Of A Lifetime"
Summary: A reimagining of the concert video when Ross talks about Raura. And the aftermath. Three-shot.
Disclaimer: I don't own…Ross and Laura? Or R5? Or any of their songs.
A/N: I honestly tried to resist writing Raura for as long as I could but Ross literally makes it impossible. So blame him.
There's a lull between songs when they pause to catch their breath and talk to the audience. Usually it's about the band, or the city they're in that night, not one-sided-loves-of-their-lives.
So naturally, tonight, of all nights, Riker asks him about Auslly and before he knows what he's saying he's talking about Ross and Laura, not Austin and Ally.
"It depends on if they want the characters together, or us together in real life," he says, and then immediately wishes someone would punch him in the face right about now because there was absolutely no reason to bring that up.
"What's the real life pairing?" asks Riker, and the audience screams, "Raura! Raura!"
"Raura," he says quietly.
"Who ships Raura?" Ellington asks from behind him and he turns his head to look at the drummer and the audience goes insane.
The audience is still screaming but somehow he hears someone suddenly yell, "Laura's perfect!"
"I know she is," he says, and it's like his brain hates him or something because he so should not be talking about this right now. He swallows and looks around to see that Riker and Rocky are staring at him incredulously.
But it's already a train wreck so he just keeps going. Maybe he's a masochist.
"But she said no," he says softly, and the audience quiets and he just stares out, frozen in disbelief at what he's just done.
His band mates are in shock too, it seems, until Rydel finally snaps out of it, laughing nervously into the microphone. "Okay, Ross, haha, I think it's time for you to sing?"
He turns his head to look at her behind him and she widens her eyes, giving him a what the hell do you think you're doing? look. He wishes he knew. He really, really wishes he knew.
He finally manages to compose himself and the next thing he knows he's singing Not A Love Song, and how appropriate is that because it is a love song and in his head, his crazy, messed up head, the characters they play are really them, aren't they?
The rest of the show passes by while he's in a daze and he signs autographs afterward mechanically, taking photos with fans with a standard, just-add-water smile that he's gotten to be pretty good at making look real.
His parents and Ryland stay behind to clean up and talk to the owners of the venue so at least he doesn't have to face his mom quite yet but the band walks silently to the tour bus together after they're finished signing. Once they're inside they all turn on him and start talking at once. He looks at his shoes and lets it happen.
"Ross, what the hell were you thinking?"
"Are you insane?"
"This is going to be all over the internet!"
"She's going to find out, you know," Riker says quietly, and he lifts his head to look at his oldest brother.
He just stares at him for a moment before he spins around, heading to the back of the bus to his bunk. "I'm going to bed," he says. "I don't want to talk about this."
He ignores their questions and their yelling and he climbs in fully clothed and draws the curtain shut and stares at the ceiling. He replays the entire incident in his mind and there's no misinterpreting or spinning what he said. He's just told the world, because let's be honest, all of those teenagers in there are on Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube and the news has no doubt already spread like wildfire. He's dreading looking at his mentions but he really must hate himself because he picks up his phone and scrolls through his feed. Probably 98% of his them have something to do with him and Laura and the other 2% are the standard will you marry me/you're so hot/can I have your babies tweets that he ignores.
Some of the tweets are full of pity: "Aww Ross, keep your head up, you'll find the right girl someday!" But there's only one girl.
Some of them are encouraging: "Dude, make a move! She's so into you!" and he files those away into his brain for when he needs to be cheered up. Like right now.
Some of them are insults about Laura: "She's a whore/slut/bitch who doesn't deserve you/isn't worth your time." Those make him want to throw his phone into the wall. Or maybe his fist, he's not sure.
He doesn't do either of those things though, and just keeps scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until it's a blur and he feels his eyelids getting heavy. He welcomes sleep because at least it'll allow him to get a brief respite from all of this, and he's just about to drift away when he feels his phone vibrate.
He knows who it's from before he even looks at it and he sees that he's right when he looks at the screen. Laura Marano. Text Message. He swallows nervously before sliding the lock and he enters his password and he thinks he might throw up when he sees the words staring up at him.
We need to talk.
Oh, shit.
Thank you to all for reading!