A/N: Aaand we're back once again! I admit, this story was starting to run away from me a little, but I'm pretty sure I've got it under control now! At least I hope I do. Sorry it took so long, though.

Disclaimer: Still don't own it. Moving on.


Ryan got a text from Josephine the next morning:

hey ryan! srry but we cant meet at my apartment today for lines. pipe burst upstairs and its leaking through my ceiling. supposed to take all day to fix ;-;

He hesitated for a moment, then replied:

we could meet at my place. not much but its quiet, most of the time. if u don't mind that is.

don't worry ryan, i trust u. or i wouldnt have asked you over in the first place. XD sounds great! just send me the address.

Which is how he ended up inviting Josephine over to his apartment that afternoon.


There was a knock on the door at one o' clock sharp, and he opened it to see her brilliant smile. "Hi," she greeted him cheerfully.

"Hi," he replied. "Come on in."

She looked around as she stepped into over the threshold, her eyes widening at the sight of the cabbage crates. "You weren't kidding when you said it wasn't much."

He shrugged. "Keeps the rain off."

He spoke casually, but in reality he was rather self-conscious about his living conditions. Perhaps Josephine noticed this, but in any case she thankfully didn't mention anything else on the subject. Instead she took a seat on an upturned crate and pulled a stack of papers out of her bag. "So, this director has a little bit of a different way of doing things for auditions. I mean, he has us read like you normally would for an audition the first time. But then, when he does callbacks, he'll call back groups of people and have each person take a part and read the scene out together. He says that way he can get a feel for character and group dynamics before he locks people into parts." She laid some of the papers on top of another crate. "These are some of the scenes that he's picked out. Oh, and there's the character list."

Ryan took a seat opposite her and skimmed over the list. Theseus and Ariadne he recognized, but: "Asterion?"

"The Minotaur's name," Josephine explained without looking up from the papers she was holding. "Pretty sure it means 'little star'."

"Huh," he replied. It sounded so - human. "I guess I never really thought about the Minotaur having a name -"

"- Besides 'the Minotaur'?" she finished. "I've noticed that these plays that are geared towards student ages tend to include a lot of thought-provoking themes. For example, we always tend to think that the Minotaur was a fearsome monster. But was he naturally a monster, or was he forced to become one through rejection and ostracism?"

He was at a loss as to how to answer, but she continued on without noticing: "Anyways, we should probably get started. My afternoon shift starts at three, and I'd like to go over at least half of Ariadne's lines today."

"Yeah, sure," he replied, mentally shaking himself out of his daze. "So, who do you want me to read for first?"


Three hours later, Ryan sat reclined against a crate, flipping through the pages of lines that Josephine had left for him. They'd ended up making it through all of Ariadne's provided lines, along with those of the other characters in those scenes, and so they'd begun to explore which of the male characters that Ryan might be interested in playing. They'd only been able to read through a few together, but so far he found himself partial to the role of the innkeeper. The part involved a kind of smooth and easy confidence very similar to what he was used to portraying as Red X, and it was small enough that he actually had some chance of getting it. A very small chance, true, but a chance nevertheless.

Once again he had been surprised by Josephine's own ability to take on the persona of her character. She experimented with all different inflections, tones, and registers, so that he never knew if in the next scene he would be sitting across from a dignified, heroic queen or a timid and petulant child. One thing he did know for certain: no other actress would stand a chance against her at the audition.

She had teased him about trying out for Theseus, but he had shaken his head at her. "I'm not really big on the 'hero' types," he'd said, and they'd both left it at that.

He was actually somewhat excited in spite of himself at the prospect of this new opportunity. He wasn't even entirely sure why. Of course, there was the fact that he'd be spending a lot more time getting to know Josephine. But still.

Try as he might, he couldn't deny that he was looking forward to it.


Ryan picked at the frayed cuff of his jacket. It was the only thing he could think of to keep from going crazy with nervousness on the hot, crowded bus.

"Pre-audition jitters?"

He looked over at Josephine, who appeared to be perfectly composed as she occupied the seat beside him, sitting on her hands.

"You know, saying that it happens to everyone the first time doesn't help," he replied, really not wanting to hear sagely words of comfort at that moment.

She frowned at him, pretending to be offended. "Do you really think I'd be so cliché?" she asked. "It is true, though. And not just the first time." She pulled her right hand out from under her thigh and held it out to him: it was shaking like she was eighty rather than eighteen. On an impulse, he took her hand and squeezed it gently. She was surprised at first, but then gave a little squeeze back and smiled at him. It wasn't as blindingly brilliant as her usual smile, but it made his pulse quicken all the same.

From the bus stop, it was a short walk to the Theatre, a large building sitting at the top of a small flight of concrete steps. As soon as they stepped through the double doors, Ryan heard someone shriek "JoJo!" just before Josephine was tackled by what seemed to be a mass of curly red hair.

Within about thirty seconds, Josephine was enveloped by a swarm of people who all seemed to know her and each other, but the overlap of conversations was too thick for him to make out anything. Until one of the guys in the crowd asked, "Who's your friend over here?" And suddenly, everyone was looking at him.

Fortunately, he managed to play it cool (at least he hoped so) as Josephine introduced him: "This is Ryan. He's pretty new to the stage, but he definitely has talent. Of course, he could probably use work on his variety, but he's got some real potential all the same."

One of the taller guys stepped forward to shake his hand. "Name's Ethan. I'm trying out for Theseus. Good to meet you, Ryan. As long as you're not going to pose any competition to me, that is." He grinned to show he was joking before pretending to carefully look Ryan over. "You do look like a generally villain-type."

Ryan contorted his face into an expression between mild confusion and being miffed. "Excuse me?"

A peal of high-pitched, bubbling laughter rang out. "Guess he doesn't need to work on variety as much as I thought," Josephine said through her giggles. "C'mon, Ryan. I'll show you where to go."


He came off the stage with a long exhale. For all the stress and worry he'd put into it, his actual audition had passed by in rather a blur. He knew he had done his best to act oily like the character, but other than that, he wasn't quite sure what exactly had happened.

Josephine appeared at his side with a cheerful smile. "How'd it go?"

He took another deep breath. "Nerve-wracking."

She took his hand and squeezed it like he had done for her on the bus. "I'm sure you did great. I'll let you know when the list for callbacks is out."

He nodded. "Thanks." He forced himself not to hesitate before the next part: "For right now, how does lunch sound? My treat."

Her eyes widened in surprise just like they had on the bus. Then, she gave him the same smile. "Lunch sounds wonderful."


A/N: Whew, I finally got this all out. I kinda lost the thread of where I was going with this, but I think I've got it now! This chapter is a little bit longer than the some of the others, though, and hopefully you liked the fluff that I tried to mix in! Unfortunately, updates on this will probably continue to be slow; I'm still working up to the next point that I've already had a grand vision of inspiration for. Between those few places, it's a lot of hard slogging. However, I do promise that I'm going to see this all the way through, no matter how long it takes! Until next chapter!