Disclaimer: I'm shitty with a posting schedule. I'm tired, and sore, but I'm posting. I am SO not Stephenie Meyer.
Dimmer Switch: Essentially, the Dimmers control how bright the lights go, or how dark.
Calls: When a person is 'called' they are alerted to the time they have before they are due onstage. This is usually down to a runner, or one of the stage-managers.
Sorry, it's been a while.
Enjoy!
Jasper:
I stepped into the lobby of the theatre and looked around. The city had always been my home, so I knew my way around, but coming here was something new – the fringe of the town, the arts district. Something different.
Bella had let me stay the night, on the promise that I would call my parents and move back in with them at least before the next week – the house Bella and Rosalie owned only had two bedrooms, and though Bella and I had shared, there really was very little room for the three of us in one house – no matter how much I wanted to stay. So, when Bella and Rosalie had left at half past seven that morning – a time I was hardly used to, I had busied myself with calling up my mother and begging her to take me back.
She was still considering it.
So now I was standing in the grand foyer of La Bella Rosa, and looking around in confusion at the sheer amount of people standing in such a small space, milling around and seemingly drifting in the direction of the doors – though I wasn't entirely sure. A voice made my head snap around too quickly, and I felt dizzy, because my head was already spinning.
"Sir, I'm sorry! You'll have to come back later, the ticket office is closed, sir." I looked up at the girl who was stood, arms folded, on the stairs up into the auditorium itself.
"I'm here to interview, for the technical position," I managed as she took a couple of steps toward me, "I'm sorry, I'm probably really early, but-"
"You're Jasper?" Her voice was filled with surprised, and almost immediately, her arms dropped from their foldedness and opened out brightly, "It's nice to finally meet you! Bella's talked about you for months, you know." She stopped, "I'm Angela," She offered her hand, "Kim and Jacob are around here somewhere, I think Jake's holding down the fort with the lights – one of them blew and he's having terrible trouble fixing it. It keeps buzzing..." She trailed off and glanced down at her hand, clearly wondering if I was just going to leave her hanging or not. I hesitated for a half second, but took her hand anyway, a small smile lighting my face as I realised I knew exactly what the problem was.
"Your dimmer, it might not be as good quality as it could be – that's why it keeps buzzing. The voltage change..." I trailed off and looked up at her; she was still stood on the bottom step as she looked at me as though I was the most intelligent creature on earth.
"Oh! Damn! Why didn't we think of that?" She slapped a hand to her head, in a way I only thought happened in comedy movies and nodded to me. "Listen, I'll just run that over to Jake, can you hang on here for five minutes? I'll be as quick as I can, and I'll let Bella know you're here." She paused for a second, "There's water behind the bar, feel free to take a bottle."
She turned and dashed up the stairs, leaving me standing alone at the bottom of a rather grand staircase wondering for a second exactly what was going on.
-L-I-G-H-T-S-
Alice:
I paced furiously across the room until I hit the blank white wall, then turned back, started pacing again, gripping my hair in frustration and fishing my phone from my pocket.
"Edward! Pick up your damn phone!" There was silence on the other line – had been talking to his voicemail for nearly three days now, and I hoped to god that he hadn't run out of battery or the suchlike, because if he had, we wouldn't be hearing from him for the next week or so.
I slammed the damn thing shut, and stuck it back into my pocket, jamming it as far into my jeans as I possibly could, hoping it would go away, hoping he would go away... hoping everything would go away.
"Heyy! Ali, baby!" I span on my heel as the silence, precious, precious silence, was shattered by Demetri Marconi, Bassist Extraordinaire flouncing into the room. I cringed, because there was no other reaction to be had to 'Dimi', just awkwardness and... shuddering.
"Demetri!" I giggled, as falsely as I possibly could, "By any chance have you seen Edward? He's gone missing, and..." I shook my head, "Well, after the Jasper incident," Which I desperately wanted to refer to as JasperGate, "I really want to keep tabs on him."
"He's doing the nasty with somebody, non?" Demetri asked, and I rolled my eyes, really not wanting to think about my brother's sexcapades at all. Ever. I cringed and looked up at him as he clapped twice. "Ah! Michael is still with us!" Mike looked up from where he was settling down to his drums and I think his expression said more than words ever could.
Oh-shit-get-me-out-of-here-I-didn't-want-to-see-this-bitch-ever-again.
"Yep!" I snapped the gum I had been chewing for about an hour as I spoke. It sounded ridiculous, but it shut Demetri up within half a second, the look on his face mixed somewhere between disgust and 'I'm about to vomit'. Not a pretty sight.
"That's marvellous!" He let out a short, and no doubt false laugh, I cringed and waited for his next sentence, "And Peter? Charlotte? Are they both with us? Are they still together?" Part of me wished that he would stop referring to the band as us, and shut the hell up. I turned my back on him as he wandered over to Mike and started up another inane conversation.
At this rate, I would be flat out refusing to pay Jasper his money for leaving us with... him.
-L-I-G-H-T-S-
Jasper:
After ten minutes of waiting, I hopped over the bar counter and found the fridge, pulling out a bottle of water and leaning against the countertop itself, comfortable and at ease just looking around at the decor.
"Hey, Barkeep!" I swivelled and saw a hulk of a man standing at the top of the stairs, "Nice job with the dimmers, dude," He stepped and stumbled down the stairs, thrusting his hand out to me and grinning like a lunatic, "We've ordered some better ones, I'll fit them in next Sunday," Another pause, "I'm Jake, by the way. Jake Black. Angela will have mentioned me?"
"Yeah," I nodded, "Jasper Whitlock," He nodded straight back, then, as I looked at him, I realised exactly where I had heard his name before. "Hold up a second, Jake as in Bella's High-School-Tech-Team Jacob?"
"The very same." He nodded, "When we all left for university, we sort of split apart, but Bells called us all up about six months ago, asked us if we'd be interested in..." He threw his hands up and motioned in every direction, "This."
"Yeah, she told me she'd picked up some friends, I didn't realise she meant... old friends," I laughed, "But hey, it's good to know the people you're working with, no?"
"Yeah, until they bring out the baby pictures!" Jacob took the soda I was offering and drained it quickly. "Has Bella been around yet?"
"Angela... I think it was Angela, said she'd let her know I was here, but... I've not seen her yet." I looked at him as I spoke, but saw movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced over to the main auditorium doors to see Bella standing in the passageway, looking right at home with her dark chocolate hair pulled up into a bun and her blacks blending into the darkness of the theatre behind her.
I could have stared at her all day.
"Jazz!" She looked up from speaking on her phone and her face broke into a huge smile, her eyes lighting up as she glanced back down at the display, "I'm sorry, I'll have to call you back..." She spoke as she stepped down the stairs, tripping on the carpet as she reached the bottom step. "Jasper!"
"Jesus, you've done a number on her," I heard Jacob grunt under his breath as she reached me and wrapped her arms around me, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "Bells, the boy can fix a dimmer switch." She grinned up at me and glanced over at Jacob before blinking a couple of times and stepping away to get a bottle of water.
"Good. Rosalie and Kimi will be here to interview you in a minute."
"Kimi?" I looked up at her and frowned slightly, "I thought-"
"I'm not interviewing you, Jasper," Bella smiled, "That would be cheating. I'll tell you you'll have a test or two, just to see how well and quickly you can work... and obviously there'll be the usual line of questioning..." She shrugged, "I couldn't do it, I'd be biased." She laughed again, patting Jake on the shoulder as she indicated somebody trying to come through the door. "Get rid of them?"
"Course, boss." He smirked and winked and I barely held back a growl. Bella heard me of course.
"Hey," She smiled up at me as she settled herself on top of the counter, "Don't sweat it." I glanced back up at her and she smiled, "You're shaking," She reached up and ran a thumb across my forehead, trying to smooth out the crease that had bedded itself in when Jake had winked. "He's a friend, and you're going to do fine." Another moment of silence as she leaned forward and kissed me lightly. "I can't wait to introduce you to Liam."
Wait a second - hang on. Liam?
-L-I-G-H-T-S-
Alice:
Edward Cullen was going to die.
He was going to die tonight.
He was going to die by my hand, and when I was done, I was taking him to the hospital so they could revive him and I could kill him again.
Twice.
"He's late." Mike made the ever-so-insightful comment as he sat down behind the drums and added a quiet ba-dum-tssh as he grinned back at me. Demetri laughed, though I wondered whether that was because he was trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to get into Mike's pants.
"Really, Michael?" Charlotte got there before I could bite his head off, "He's a bloody day late, and it's not good enough! We're supposed to be reviewed tonight," She shook her head, "And no disrespect, but we're in shit. We have a missing lead guitarist and singer, we have a brand new bassist who barely knows our music, and I have a headache. So get a fucking grip, Mike."
"Sorry, Charli." He had the grace to look ashamed of himself for all of thirty seconds, then resumed mock drumming, using a snare brush to keep the noise down.
Eventually, however, I snapped at the silence, and told them to start practising something, anything, as long as it was playable tonight. The place felt like hell, and I was almost entombed in it. Part of me wanted to run, just like Jasper had.
"Hello?" One of the boys in black, I didn't know his name, but I knew he was one of the technical crew interrupted from the side of the stage. I nodded and he came closer, walking slowly onto the stage as though he didn't want to be seen.
"What's the problem... er-"
"My name's Alec." He said softly, even his voice seemed to be trained for backstage, "I've been providing Edward's calls for nearly a week now." He added the last bit in a half whisper, so quiet I wasn't even sure I had heard him.
"What's the problem, Alec?" I said, and I knew my voice was harsh, but I wasn't in the mood to be distracted.
"Edward... he came into his dressing room... and he's just... I don't even know, Ms. Cullen." He shrugged, "I tried to help, but he yelled, so I figured..." Another shrug.
"I'll..." I bit my bottom lip and nodded. "I'll see what's wrong with him."
And with that, I stepped past him, walking quickly down the corridor that led to Edward's dressing room as Alec followed nervously behind.
Shit, shit. Fucking shit. Jasper was so not getting paid.
A/N Cricketward is coming, I promise.
Like, actually properly coming. Tomorrow, maybe?
Reviews?