Happy actual Twelfth Night! Yes I synced it so that I could publish opening night on the actual day dlkjdks anyway the gays are back men

- Daphne -

Opening night finds me with the Twelfth Night musical blasting and nerves writhing in my stomach. Blaire tracks me down after fourth period and we walk to the auditorium together, jokes and conversation flowing freely and fuelled mostly by anxious energy.

"Rehearsal from four until six, right?" I've checked the schedule a thousand times, but I still feel like I have to check.

"Yup." Blaire pops out her phone and thumbs through Mr. A's emails.

I spot my friends as we head into the auditorium and wave. My sister gives me a knowing look when she sees the girl at my side, and I can't even bring myself to be embarrassed. I'm glad Blaire's with me and that she likes me, and I'm glad we're doing this together even though Bruno's fine and Blaire's probably not gonna get to play Toby. What is there to be embarrassed about?

"Then the show opens at seven-thirty," Blaire says and shoots me a grin. I return it, feeling the energy nearly humming in the air as the cast piles into the auditorium.

Mr. A is finally wearing something normal, just a nice black, pinstriped suit and tie, and manages to be extra anyway. Is that eyeliner? He claps his hands to get our attention; everyone's buzzing with conversation, turning excitedly from one to another and sharing jokes, lines, and whispers of 'good luck.'

"Alright folks." He seems to be containing his anticipation, but his black eyes are sparkling under the dim lights of the auditorium. I know he's coloured just as stoked as we are. "It's been months of hard work, and I am so, so thankful for all of you. You guys have done a great job and made this process truly memorable and special. I hope you feel the same way, and are just as excited for opening night as I am. And just before we start our last rehearsal, a reminder from Mel to step all the way into the light."

Laughs ripple through us. Mel's probably individually tracked down all of us to berate us for not standing in the centre of the spotlights. I suddenly feel like crying, looking around at them all—Julio's white-knuckled grip on Blaire's hand, Penelope socking Baru in the shoulder teasingly, Haiza and Leandro looking at each other like they're the only people in the room, Ivy's arm slung around Belle's chair, Heloise and Izzie huddled together; they're not sad tears, it's just 'cause I'm so… so happy to be here, with all these people, at this point in time. Every little quirk of how they play their characters, every costume, every line, and every gesture… they're all a part of this amazing thing we've made that's never going to happen again after this week.

Five shows, I remind myself. Five shows to pull off and bring the house down every night. Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

We move through each sticky scene seamlessly, every song rings through the auditorium in turns raucous, tremulous, sweet, mournful, and celebratory, and we share laughs at the overwrought Shakespearean puns that no one in the audience has a chance in hell of catching unless they're Haiza, Moiz, and Baru's english-prof parents.

And then doors open.

We squirrel ourselves backstage, taking turns in the dressing rooms for the people who haven't dealt with all their costumes yet. Mr. A runs fight call behind the closed curtains. We hear the murmurs of parents, classmates, and everyone else who decided to catch this high school production.

"Scared?" Blaire whispers to me. I'm sitting against the wall with my sister and her, watching Heloise and Izzie run around. Izzie speaks rapidly into the commset, flashing directions to Heloise with her arms, white in the dim light of the backstage.

"A little. Mostly excited. How are you feeling?" I whisper back.

Blaire's grin is dazzling. "Fantastic. Feels like I took E."

I giggle. "How would you know? You've done ecstasy?"

"Naw. But this is what I imagine it'd feel like," she whispers, covering her mouth and doing the little giggle-snort she does when she's trying not to laugh.

Looking back at her, lit by the faint blue safety lights and absolutely electric with anticipation, something occurs to me. I'd like to be around her all the time. Dates. Hang outs. Make-outs. She's beautiful, really, even wearing Fabian's little dumpy brown vest (her words, not mine) and snorting into her palm, high on life. I don't think I've ever gotten the feeling with anyone else that I get when I'm around her. The impulse to sit up on my knees and kiss her flits through my head, then Mr. A comes over and my chance is gone.

"Fight call's done!" he whisper-calls to us. Izzie flashes him a thumbs-up and repeats it over her comm. Everyone's on their feet in an instant. Mr. A grins and steps back toward the stage. "Places."

Blaire takes my hand as a sliver of light illuminates the stage. Mr. A's pushed through the curtains. A moment later, his amplified voice rings over the audience.

"Welcome to St. Erin's production of Twelfth Night."

We listen to his little opening spiel, holding hands tightly. Izzie whispers something into her comm, then looks back at me and winks. Then Mr. A finishes and a crack of the thunder booms through the auditorium.

I bite my bottom lip, containing a grin. We can see the lights flash back here, then I hear Izzie murmur, "Go curtains."

The familiar rattly-swoosh forms an undercurrent to the rumbling thunder as Heloise pulls and the heavy red curtains sweep over the stage. Then there's utter silence as the storm lights and sounds drain away, giving Belle a chance to sprint from the tech booth to the stage. Leandro is lit like an unearthly spirit, his profile stark against the darkness of the stage.

It's opening night, so of course, there are snags. Belle sprints onstage just in time for her cue, nearly out of breath. Heloise is still too quiet, and definitely not 'stepping into the light.' I can't call up the same energy I had at dress as I follow Bruno onstage. Still, every moment is sizzling, even if I can't channel it into all my lines, or every movement.

"Well let her except, before excepting," Bruno announces.

"Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order," I shoot back at him, then glance over his shoulder as he steps forward to address the audience and catch Blaire's eyes in the gloom of backstage. She smiles, and I find an answering grin on my face. Then I turn and project my voice to the packed rows of faces.

"That quaffing and drinking will undo you!" I step into the spotlight and shoot a warning look at Bruno. "I heard my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer."

Bruno presses his hand to his chest like he's wounded and I turn to the audience with Told you so face. Doing these scenes with Bruno after having done it with Blaire feels like wearing shoes that are too small, but I keep up my energy through the scene. It's called acting for a reason, Daphne.

Baru comes on and we do our little three-person scene. I grimace at him as I offer him my hand, which is mostly acting; when around Bruno, Baru seems lovely by comparison. As each confusing old joke is exchanged, probably eliciting great laughs from the Tandons and absolutely no one else, I reach the end of my scene.

"Marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren," I say, and turn away.

It all feels worth it when I walk offstage and find Blaire waiting in the same spot.

"Brilliant," she says, and this time I do kneel. She cocks her head, dark skin still faintly blue from the backstage lights, then grins.

"Do, or not do?" Baru as Andrew Aguecheek muses aloud.

"Do," Blaire whispers, and I take that as my cue to close the distance between us and kiss her.

- Hermelinda -

I might be to blame for Heloise's lack of voice.

She seemed a little confused by my offering of the candy last week, and when I urged her to try one… she started coughing so hard I thought she was going to throw up. After some quick water-fountain-intervention and many of my apologies, she rasped that black licorice, in fact, both looks and tastes like a hockey puck. I confirmed this after trying one.

Needless to say, my attempt to signal interest through gifts failed handily and Heloise's trouble projecting her voice is probably just residual lung trauma from salty black licorice.

Once she's exited and I've quietly admitted the licorice situation to Izzie over the comm, endured her laughter, and become appropriately indignant when her laugh overstays its welcome, I return my attention to the control panels.

Belle sprints back through the door and slings herself into the chair, gasping for breath.

"Next lighting cue's not for another three minutes," I observe as she continues to breathe heavily. "Didn't need to fuckin' Lightning McQueen it."

"Shut," she says, pinching her fingers and taking a last, ragged breath.

"Kachow," I whisper to myself, then flick up the lights as Bruno staggers on.

"I heard that," Belle mutters to me.

"By mine honour, half-drunk!" Cory nearly yells the line.

I grin and fold my hands in my lap to stop myself from playing with the lights unnecessarily. And immediately decide it looks like the stage lights are a little bright for the indoors of Olivia's house. Don't, Mel.

I am a little over caffeinated, mostly because I've wanted to try every single type of coffee Lee gave me for Christmas, but the lights really do look too bright. I move the slider at a snail's pace; don't want the audience to know the tech head is still fucking with settings mid-scene like a first-day stagehand.

Belle shoots me a look and I know she didn't miss my slider-fuckery. I pointedly avoid her look and tip the amber of Toby's lighting into saffron-yellow as Malvolio enters, then glance back at Belle and grin. It's been what, three years of working together? Guess it's not surprising she can anticipate it when I pull stuff like that. I hide my smile at the feeling. I'm really glad to be back in tune with Belle after everything was so weird with the break-up.

We work through an hour of cues in near-silence, nothing but the murmur of Izzie in my ear, the dials and sliders under my fingers, and the coffee in my thermos. The latter is gone by the halfway mark, which doesn't really calm my jitters.

"Here we go," Belle says, a hint of a smile in her voice.

I'm inclined to agree. Cory sweeps in, tugging Haiza along behind her, and I press up the orange undertone of Olivia's household, then doublecheck my script with all its smudgy cues in the margins as they speed through another back-and-forth.

Bruno enters again. I shift the undertone as he announces, "Gentleman, God save thee."

Then we get to the fun bit. Blaire sticks by Haiza's side, promising to talk to Sir Andrew on Cesario's behalf, while Toby runs off to tell Andrew that Cesario is a terrifying beast of a man that's going to soundly trounce him in battle. I keep the spot on Toby and Andrew as they mime their conversation, and Belle kills the lights on that half of the stage to leave Blaire and Haiza brightly illuminated.

"I beseech you, what manner of man is he?" Haiza asks. I can practically hear her lip trembling. Lee knows how to pick 'em, I think, remembering Cory's dramatics.

Then they lose the lights as Haiza says, "I care not who knows so much of my mettle." and I turn the spot on Baru and Bruno into a full-force overhead.

When they've finished, I move the darkness on Blaire's half to a medium glow as Belle dims the bright lights on Baru's into the same medium level. As Bruno steps forward for an aside, I follow him with the spot while Belle slowly drives both halves back up to full brightness.

"Marry, I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you," he says, which provokes a laugh from some.

"He hates that line," Belle murmurs. "Thinks it's gay."

"It sounds a bit…" I chuckle. "Questionable."

Baru and Haiza take up their positions on either side of the stage, unsheathe their swords, and begin furiously swinging at thin air. That gets more of a laugh from the audience, which I'm relieved by. For a comedy, they've been a bit dead. We give it a beat, and then...

Enter Antonio.

I douse the stage in silver.

Belle audibly chokes at the sight of Ivy, full costume, standing atop a platform centrestage and staring down at Baru and Haiza like a vengeful ghost. Wrong Shakespeare play.

She recovers enough to play the metallic sound of Ivy unsheathing her sword, at least. I swear to God, Ivy looks up for a moment like she can see all the way through the darkness of the auditorium to the tech booth, then she jumps down from the platform and roars,

"Put up your sword!"

Baru stumbles back like someone physically hit him as Ivy advances on him, a silver stud in her ear catching the spot and sending a sparkling dart of light all the way up to us. I relax the undertone a bit so Antonio's revealed as a real person, then kick Belle.

"Go down there, you're on in like a minute," I remind her.

"Fuck!"

She shoots out the door and I shake my head, sighing. Gay disaster. Why does Mr. A have her playing a minor character like that in one of the big tech scenes?

Then again, the rest of the scene is pretty light on tech. I lean back in my chair and watch Izzie and Belle come in with their Illyrian police badges to arrest Antonio. A moment later, I hear a rustle through the comm.

"Honey?"

"She just asked me to hold it," Heloise's voice crackles through the comm softly, and she laughs. "It's cool. Like a walkie-talkie."

God, she's fucking adorable. "Oh, yeah? It's nice to hear your voice." I bite my pinkie fingernail, grinning to myself as I watch Belle onstage. "How's the first show going for you?"

"Good." I can imagine her blushing.

"I'm having fun up here."

"Oh?"

"How's Izzie doing? Has she started compulsively tucking her hair behind her ears?"

Another soft laugh. "Not yet."

"Wow, you're keepin' her calmer than I do."

"Nobody's calm around you," Heloise whispers. The scene's ending soon. I hope Belle briefly forgets her line so I get another minute before Izzie retakes the comm.

"Aw, that's not true."

"It is," Heloise giggles. "Well, maybe Izzie doesn't get nervous 'cause of you."

"She's straight." I shrug. I did try. Briefly, in grade eleven, and I would like to never be laughed at ever again when I flirt with girls, thank you very much.

"Don't you have a reputation for that kind of thing?"

It's my turn to laugh quietly. "Izzie's immune."

"Why are we talking about Izzie?"

I huff. "I don't know." Then seize the opportunity and lower my voice to a murmur to ask: "What would you rather talk about?"

Heloise hums, and I can hear a smile in her voice as she says, "I dunno. There's one thing I've been meaning to ask you, though."
"Oh?"

"What are you listening to in your headphones?"

I laugh. "You. The headphones are my comm."

"No, the red ones."

I smile, leaning back in the chair. "Hmm. You don't want to spoil the surprise, do you?"

I wait for her to press me on what 'the surprise' is, but nothing comes out of the headset. A moment later, I hear Izzie again. "Flirting's over. You missed your cue, Mel."

"Motherfucker." I grab the dial and drop the lights to move between scenes.

Speaking of gay disasters.

- Julio -

I'm going to throw up. Definitely. In minutes, most likely.

"Julio!" Blaire hisses as I start to backpedal toward the door out into the hallway. We're backstage, waiting for our scene to start, but with any luck I will be far away from the audience and not doubled over a high school toilet puking my guts up.

I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this.

The first scene was fine. Kind of fine. A nightmare, honestly. I felt faint, and the lights were making me sweat, but I only forgot like half a line. But that was a small scene. Storm in, shout, storm out.

This is not a small scene. This is a fucking humongous, if-you-screw-this-up-you-ruin-everything, colossally-plot-relevant scene. And it is making my stomach turn somersaults.

"Jules, goddamnit, stop!" Blaire's wheels squeak as she dashes after me.

Where's the closest bathroom? Even though there's the faint disinfectant, chalky, lockers, and sweat smell, I suddenly feel like I'm anywhere else. I wish. I'm backstage, and I'm supposed to be onstage in about thirty seconds.

"Hey, hey, chill."

I sink to my knees in the middle of the hallway. The sharp fluorescence is blocked a little by Blaire as she comes to halt in front of me.

"Are you okay?"

"No, fuck, do I look okay?" I snap, stomach making another dive for my shoes.

"Nope. Do you have the letter?"

"What letter?"

"The one with all the line starters I gave you."

Oh, that letter. My head is spinning. Or maybe the hallway is spinning. "No," I rasp. I need water. "Where is it?"

"I'll get it. Go find a water fountain and be back as fast as you can," Blaire says in her 'don't argue with me or I'll flip you like a pancake' tone. "You're gonna be fine, Jules, you know this. The impossible's happening tonight, and you are gonna be great. Get out of your own head."

Where am I supposed to go? I swallow the teeny bit of vomit creeping up my throat and fumble off to a water fountain. It's ice-cold as usual, but instead of feeling like my teeth are going to break, it grounds me a bit. Clown make-up. Clown make-up. Clown make-up. Whole ass. Out of my head.

Then before I know it, my teeth are defrosting, Blaire's shoving the textured letter into my hands, and I'm walking onstage.

"For here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling!" Daphne declares.

The vomit's back. I can feel pressure behind my eyes. Holy shit, this is going to be very, very bad.

"Fuck it up, Jules," Blaire whispers, then I feel her hand on my back and I'm on. The lights are hot, but I can feel cold sweat trickling down my temple.

And what is there to say except my opening line? You know this, Blaire reminds me. I know it well enough to free up some room in my head for panicking-Julio to have his meltdown. The rest of my brain will put on this performance.

"Tis but fortune," I say. "All is fortune."

My voice sounds flat and uncertain to my own ears, but the scene's rolling at least. I'm reaching desperately for the place I found after Cory knocked some sense into me, but I just can't find it; not when I know there are a couple hundred people watching, waiting for me to ruin this.

We push through it until the letter's introduced. I bend, fingers brushing the invisible tape so I know I've hit my mark, then slip the letter from my sleeve.

"What employment have we here?" I ask the audience. Somebody laughs. They know what's coming? Impossibly, I perk up a bit. "By my life!" I exclaim. "This is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's. And thus makes she her great P's!" The same person howls with laughter. What… the fuck? Definitely Baru's mom getting the dirty joke that no one else does. "It is in contempt of the question her hand!"

Still, hearing laughter when it feels like the audience has been sleeping through the whole production is pretty nice.

"M, O, A, I, doth sway my life," I announce. "Nay, but first let me see, let me see, let me see." I pretend to unfold reading glasses and peer at the letter. I've gotta think at least a few of the parents know about the blind kid in grade ten; I'm getting more laughs.

"I may command where I adore," I pretend to read, then exclaim, pressing a hand to my chest, "Why, she may command me! I serve her, she is my lady!"

They're laughing. This is good. My stomach is still flipping around, but in a much more… excited way? Terrifying excitement instead of terrifying I'm-going-to-throw-up-feeling? Here comes the big monologue.

"Soft!" I shout. "Here follows prrrose…" What is getting into me? Keep them laughing. "If this fall into thy hand, revolve!" I spin on my heel, in more a pirouette than the subdued three-sixty I used to do. "In my stars, I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em!"

And it's hardly revolutionary, but I do the required pelvic thrust with more verve than a high school production is probably allowed. "Remember who commended thy yellow stockings… and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say remember, go to, thou art made if thou desirest to be so. If not, let me see thee a steward still!" I throw in a cackle. This is my monologue, and it'll be fucking absurd if I say so. I don't know exactly what Blaire meant when she said 'Fuck it up' but maybe this is what she had in mind.

"I will baffle Sir Toby!" I yell, the adrenaline making my heart beat so fast and hard that I can feel it in my palms. The audience is responding, like a big head leaning toward to me to hear my words. "I will wash off gross acquaintances, I will be point device, the very man." I slap the letter. "I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me. For every reason excites to this; that my lady loves me!"

The big speech is finally over. The paper between my fingers is nearly soaked through with my sweat, and I think I might have a heart condition now, but I can feel the audience warming up like an engine rumbling under my palms. Fuck yeah. Is this why people act? I guess Blaire was right. The impossible is happening, tonight. Wonder what the hell she was referring to, though.

- Haiza -

I made it through the subtext scene. I made it through Come Away Death. I made it through slow dancing with Lee, and Lee's purple light and purple clothes and beautiful face and the way he smiles sadly when he says 'Tis not to so sweet now as it was before.'

But this one's gonna kill me.

"Since you to non-regardance cast my faith," Leandro spits at Cory, pacing the stage like a restless animal. "And that I partly know the instrument that screws me from my true place in your favour… Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still? But this, your minion, whom I know you love."

He's turned to me. Oh no. C'mon, God, Shakespeare, whoever's listening, please give me a good poker face. Please make Lee think that I'm acting as I stare open-mouthed as he stabs a finger at me, eyes glittering with fury and unshed tears.

"And whom by heaven, I swear—" His voice breaks and his hand, lingering in the air like it could cross the distance between us and cup my cheek, falls slowly. He rasps, "I swear, I tender dearly. Him will I tear out of that cruel eye where he sits crowned in his master's spite."

I think I'm actually shaking. Cory's staring at me, utterly bewildered, over Lee's shoulder. Is it my line? I don't think I can speak. I don't think I can stand up.

"Come, boy," Lee finally continues. His voice is quiet now. "With me. My thoughts are ripe in mischief." And now he's supposed to turn to Cory in one more spiteful jab, but… he doesn't. He just stops in the middle of the stage, crowned in purple lights and still as stone, and stares at me as he says, "I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, to spite a raven's heart within a dove."

I'm reaching out to him half-consciously, covering his fist with my shaking hands and answer, "And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly, to do you rest, a thousand deaths would die."

This one's going to kill me. I look up at Leandro. We're not facing out at the audience anymore; we've curled into each other, sucked into our world, and then Cory calls,

"Where goes Cesario?"

And it just breaks out of me in a flood, because when you've gotten really good at not saying it for six years, you've also gotten really good at imagining saying it a thousand times.

"After him I love." I turn, and pound my chest in time with the iambs. Da-dum. Da-dum. Like a heartbeat, see, Haiza? Mom told me when I was a kid, spreading my little fat hand over my own chest to feel my heart. "More than I love these eyes," I press my fist in again like I'm stabbing myself. "More than my life. More by all mores than ere I shall love wife."

I open my arms to the audience, abandoning both this stupid man I've chosen to love and this woman who also fell in love with the worst person at the worst time, and tell them, "If I do feign, you witnesses above, punish my life, for tainting of my love."

Silence falls heavily. I can feel my heart, responding to the lines, and my breaths huffing in and out.

"Aye me detested," Cory murmurs. "How am I beguiled?"

Leandro is still looking at me with that heart-wrenchingly betrayed expression, so I fix my eyes on Cory and beg, "Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?!"

"Hast thou forgotten thyself?" Well, this is maybe worse. Cory looks just as desperately confused and sad. "Is it so long? Call forth the holy father."

"Come, away," Lee growls.

"Whether my lord?" Cory asks, stepping forward. I feel my entire stomach lurch, possibly nausea from the way the lights keep switching from Orsino's purple to Olivia's orange like they're literally playing tug-of-war with me, and dread surges in me and Cesario as Olivia says,

"Cesario, husband, stay."

Leandro stiffens in an instant, like he's just been shot in the back. Then he asks softly, "Husband?"

"Aye," Cory sounds satisfied. "Husband. Can he that deny?"

Lee turns slowly to look at me. I've heard the line a thousand times, probably, with every torrented movie and every production my mom dragged me out to and every cheesy adaptation I made Baru and Moiz watch with me, but literally nothing could've prepared me for the deathly chill of Lee's voice as he repeats, "Her husband, sirrah?"

"No, my lord," I gasp. "Not I."

Then the whole song and dance of bringing out Sir Topas begins, but I can't take my eyes off Lee through the whole process. He's shaking his head, cheeks blotched with passion and rage, and finally, we get there.

"Oh, thou dissembling cub," he breathes. "Farewell and take her." He lashes a hand in Cory's direction, never once taking his eyes from my face. "But direct thy feet where thou and I henceforth may never meet."

I swallow. Yup. I can definitely do this four more times. And the scene goes on, and on, and on, every last subplot getting tied up and resolved. And I still don't look away from Leandro. I'm still staring at him as he steps into the middle of the stage.

"Be not amazed." Leandro's voice rasps over the words. Maybe the break in emotion has shaken him as much as it's done to me. Moiz stands across from me, dressed nearly identically. Only the black scarf wrapped around my hair distinguishes us. "If this be so, as yet the glass seems true. I shall have share in this most happy wreck. Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times, thou never should'st love woman like to me."
I step forward, joining him in the purple light. It's been turned to a deep plum; I guess Sebastian and Viola's combined blue have overthrown him a little. "And all those sayings will I overswear," I whisper. "And all those swearings keep as true in soul, as doth that orbed continent, the fire, that severs day from night."

"Give me thy hand," Lee asks, and I slip mine into his. We're probably both thoroughly soaked in sweat, exhausted, and in need of some rejuvenating gatorade, but a kind of joy so entire and overwhelming that I never thought it was even possible swells up to fill me. Even if the only way I can tell him is with this four hundred year old script, and even if we'll only be together as Cesario and Orsino… this is more than I thought I'd ever get.

"Cesario, come," he says. "For so you shall be while you are a man."

We share a grin. Heterosexual, Leandro's echo when we were in his room running lines declares, catching the hot cheeto I lob him in his mouth. Straight as flax on a distaff, I agreed.

"But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen."

I gaze up at him as the final song's chords play and for a second I can believe we're both thinking the same thing.

Then curtains, bows, and the moment's gone.

Yeah I'm dramatic as hell ok what's new I like twelfth night too much lol

~Akila