Name: In Your Corner
Author: canis-lupus-nubilus
Series: Power Rangers Ninja Steel
Rating: M
Chapter: One-Shot
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Pairings: Brody/Preston
Summary: Preston, bundle of nerves that he is, tries to prep for an upcoming magic show – with a helping hand from Brody. Short and fluffy and full of enough sexual tension to pierce clear through with a knife.
Warnings: Boy-love. Don't like, don't read.
"You're staring again."
Brody blinks once, twice without actually altering his gaze. Shifting slightly in his seat, he replies, "Where do you expect me to be looking?"
Illuminated vividly by the overhead spotlight, Preston maneuvers a large, rectangular black box on wheels to the stage's center. His hands begin to frantically search through the inner pockets of his coat – for what, Brody can't quite tell from his seat in the auditorium's front row, almost completely bathed in shadow.
"I don't know." Preston doesn't look up, preoccupied in his search for whatever it is he seems to have lost. "Up, down, side to side." He gives up; his arms fall to his side like limp noodles. He sighs, heavily. "Anything else to preoccupy yourself with."
A grin forming at the corners of his mouth, Brody vaguely trails his eyes across the rest of the auditorium, barely able to see much of anything in the darkness except the rivers of humps that form the cushions of neighboring seats. Against the unnatural brightness of the stage's spotlight, trained onto Preston like a seeker-missile, everything in Brody's periphery seems to shred its usual physicality, blurring into nonexistence. He can just see himself, his own seat, at the edge of the spotlight's reach.
He tries to change the subject. "Any word on how many are coming tomorrow night?"
"Uh." Preston's panic ceases momentarily. His mouth opens into a kind of oblong as he searches his memory. Silently, Brody reminds himself how cute the other boy is when he's thinking. "Close to a hundred? Maybe two hundred?"
"So no pressure," Brody quips, smiling faintly to himself. "Just think: it's only one more performance in a series of performances you've already mastered. Nothing to worry about; you're in your element. Just take a deep breath, and give them one heck a magic show."
"There isn't gonna' be any magic show," Preston begins, now patting his pants' pockets and scanning the brightest area around his feet, "if I don't find the one thing I told myself I wouldn't forget today. Jeez—"
Not for nothing that Brody had taken the liberty of giving Preston's belongings a cursory search before they'd left school, sensing this very predicament might come up. Not because the other boy was particularly forgetful, or reacted poorly under stress (present moment excluded, of course), but because Brody had just felt like it'd be the right thing to do. One friend looking out for another. The last thing Preston needs before tomorrow's big show is for things to start falling apart even before rehearsal. So Brody, caring friend that he is, leans forward slightly in his chair, palms resting against his knees, and tries not to appear too obviously interested in the developing pout on the other boy's face.
"Hey." His voice is lowered, deliberately softened. Preston glances up at him, still a bit too distracted to pick up on any nuance Brody might be trying to toss his way. "Check your bag?"
For a moment, Preston merely looks at him blankly, as if knocked speechless by an invisible blow. Then his mouth begins to open again, this time forming a perfect 'O'. Not missing a beat, he runs backstage, leaving an echo of hurrying footsteps in his wake, along with a very amused Brody. A quick crescendo of noisy stomps announces Preston's return, bag hanging lifelessly from his right hand. Brody is quick to notice, in the boy's left hand, the familiar shape of a long, narrow wand.
Preston offers him a shy grimace. He says, somewhat apologetically, "Guess I got a little carried away for nothing."
"See, this is why you need me here." Brody stands and begins absentmindedly tapping his right heel against the edge of his chair, offering the other boy a reassuring smile. "To calm you down when you turn your own dial up to, oh, let's say, eleven."
Preston sighs, smiling despite himself. "If you were me, you'd be nervous, too."
"Bet I would."
"This isn't just some afterschool performance," Preston adds, his left hand forming a soft grip around his wand. "People from the whole community are coming. My family and friends are coming…" Staring back up at the ceiling, past the glowing halo of light, Preston doesn't see Brody slowly making his way closer and closer to the stage's edge; eventually, he, too, is lit by its touch. "I've never been this panicked in my whole life."
"And what," Brody replies with emphasis, startling the other boy and eliciting and sharp inhale from his throat, "could you be so panicked about that your charismatic boyfriend couldn't make it better?"
Brody's eyebrows lift teasingly; his forearms, vibrant and muscular in the light, rest against the edge of the stage.
Preston stares down at him, eyes a bit wider than normal. It takes a moment to collect himself. "Well, he can start by helping me unload before we—" At the reflexive smirk that forms across Brody's lips Preston catches himself; he corrects himself just as quickly: "By helping me bring out some of the heavier stuff from the back."
"That's not nice," Brody retorts, lifting himself onto the stage and moving past the other boy toward the parted curtains. Truth be told, it isn't nice, but Brody supposes that Preston isn't exactly in what he would call his typical headspace. Any other circumstance and a line like that would have been the verbal equivalent of setting a flame to a barrel of gasoline. Not to mention that Brody really does understand what Preston's getting at: if Brody were in the same situation, he'd probably be just as much of a nervous wreck, under the spotlight, a million faces looking up into your own, waiting for the show to start…
"Anything in particular you need?" He calls to Preston from backstage, glancing over the different bags and boxes the two of them unloaded earlier, each filled with various little odds and ends: everything from trick top hats to playing cards to a small cage off to the side, a furry rabbit sitting up on its hind legs, watching Brody closely. Brody kneels down and offers the tip of his finger, which the critter playfully sniffs before sidling back to its little corner for a nap.
Preston pauses, thinking. "Grab the blue box – no, the black one. I think I'll start with something small tomorrow night. Don't wanna' show off my best stuff before the night's even begun, right?"
"I can see the logic in that," Brody replies, finding the appropriate box and lifting it with ease. Moving back toward the circle of light, he drops it just outside of its circumference. "Keep them waiting. Makes them want more."
"You're about as subtle as a water buffalo, and just as graceful," Preston says, not turning around, but Brody can distinctly hear a quiet laugh escape from the other boy's lips.
"I tagged along to diffuse anxiety," Brody retorts. "So far I think I've been pretty helpful." When Preston doesn't respond, but instead kneels down and begins to rummage through his bag, already involved in some other search for some other something, Brody adds, more methodically than he realizes: "Hey. I'm in your corner. You know that, right?"
At this, Preston stops, looks up at Brody with curious eyes. "What do you mean?"
Brody steps closer, reaching down to tug not too hard at the other boy's arm and bring him back up to eye-level. "I mean… you know that when you get up here tomorrow, in front of all those people, I'll be in the front row again. Just like today." Preston opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out. Brody continues, "And I'll be watching and smiling and gasping and cheering… Every time you pull something out of your hat, or correctly guess that someone picked the Queen of Hearts, or saw an unsuspecting bystander clear in half. Each time like it's the first time I've ever seen it done." Both boys fail to stifle their chuckles. Preston sniffles, feeling himself not tense, no, but relax against the feel of Brody's palm against the back of his head, pulling him closer until their foreheads touch, warm and moist under the heat of the spotlight, and their noses relish a playful Eskimo kiss: by now, something special, theirs, shared just between the two of them. "I'll be clapping loudest," Brody adds abruptly. "They'll have to ask me to leave the auditorium. Too much noise." Another smile, another laugh. Brody's breath, warm and sweet, tickles against Preston's sensitive lips. "Maybe I'll riot."
"You won't," Preston pleads. But he is laughing, too, completely unabashed.
"I will if they take me away from my boyfriend," Brody replies softly, but not without a firm, determined edge to the final word. "Rest assured."
Preston exhales slowly, relaxed and weightless in the other boy's hold. "Noted," he says before giving Brody's fingers a meaningful, tender squeeze.