Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all. Nothing. Not even the pebbles on the ground these people walk on. Not mine. Nope.

I like italics, commas, and semicolons. A lot. A lot. See; I rest my case.

Willy walked in through the door of the theater, looking around. His hands squeaked as he fiddled with the top of the cane nervously. He bit his lip, spotting James in a seat almost literally right next to where he stood.

"I don't usually sit this far back," James explained, still watching the stage, his arms folded on top of the seat in front of him, and his head resting on them. "I sit usually a few rows down. For some reason I don't feel quite comfortable down in those seats tonight…." He finally looked at Willy and smiled at the fact that he was wearing those silly goggles. "Is the moon that bright this evening?"

Willy laughed, then silently reprimanded himself for being so gosh-darned nervous.

"Don't just stand there, Willy, have a seat, for Christ's sake!"

Willy took a deep breath and sat down to James's right, having calmed down considerably as he walked through the other seats. He didn't feel so tense looking at the stage; he felt more at home.

"It is a lovely evening though, isn't it?" asked Willy, taking his top hat off but leaving the sunglasses on. James nodded when Willy sat back up from setting the hat on the floor in front of him. "I almost didn't want to come inside." He laughed that single, anxious laugh again.

James smiled and looked back at the stage, where Charles was standing, reading a pamphlet of some sort. He was leaning towards stage right, yet he was a tad bit center-stage. He did not look up at the two men sitting in the back, yet he knew they were there. This was all part of his little plan. Reading the pamphlet—which was absolutely blank—he grinned to himself. James didn't know it, but Charles had quite a romantic set-up ready for the two.

"It's because I love you, Jim," he muttered amusedly to himself, shaking his head and staring at the blank pages. "It's because I love you."

It was slightly awkward, because James had sort of been like a younger brother to Charles, so setting up something romantic for his little brother was just weird.

"Charles," James called from the back of the theater. "What's that you're reading?"

"It's new. It's called The Contemplation of the Life of Charles Frohman. Ever heard it, James?"

"Can't say I have, Charles. Sounds interesting, however; I must read it someday. Perhaps I could write a play on it? Maybe cast the Grim Reaper as Charles Frohman, you silly old man?"

Charles laughed, shaking his head, and exited stage right.

James looked around at Willy, smiling. "Charles and I have an excellent relationship."

"I can see that."

An hour of the cast rehearsing went by; Willy asked lots of questions (there wasn't really a set theme to his questions), as James predicted he might. James was happy to answer any of his questions, and every once in a while, he would throw in a fake answer just to make Willy laugh. However, every now and then, Willy would actually believe the answer, and ask for confirmation. James would laugh, then tell him the truth.

"Why do you suppose the sky is blue, James?"

"Well," James said, exaggerating his own Scottish accent to make the answer more interesting. "I reckon that the sky used to be a weird, greenish-yellow color, but the Great People in the Sky decided that that color was starting to get a wee boring. So they went to the nearest shop and bought themselves hundreds of thousands of pails of blue paint, and they threw the paint—" he made a flamboyant gesture of tossing a pail of paint, "—into the air, and made the sky so blue." He looked at Willy. "That's also how they created rain, because the wet paint dripped down from the sky."

Willy stared. "Really?"

"I believe it."

There was a thoughtful expression on Willy's face—given he still had his goggles on his face; it was believed that there was a thoughtful expression on his face. The lights in the theater had been shut off during the rehearsals, too, so James really had no clue as to what expression Willy had. His eyes really hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet because he had looked at the brightly lit stage the entire time he gave his explanation for why the sky was blue.

There was a short silence between the two men.

"James?"

"Yeah, Willy?"

"I'm not exactly sure…how to say this, but…but…." He paused. "I don't have the right words, see…." Ah, precious cue cards, where art thou! "Um…."

Suddenly, Willy felt his goggles slowly and carefully being pulled off his face; he looked right into James's eyes and stopped breathing.

"I…."

"Whatever it is you have to say," James whispered, "I want you to say it while looking at me."

The sirens that had gone off in Willy's head the day James had distractedly mentioned being fond of him had never exactly stopped going. They'd never been too loud since then, nor had they been so soft they were barely audible. They were definitely there. But now, as Willy slightly narrowed his eyes, staring right into James's dark brown ones—which he could see, because his eyes were already adjusted to the darkness—the sirens went silent. One word echoed hauntingly in his mind:

Found.

Before it was even occurring to James; before any of the two men even realized the stage had cleared off completely; before the both of them noticed that time had seemingly stopped, Willy leaned forward and pressed his lips to James's in a chilling kiss.

James, who was astounded beyond recognition, sat there, shocked, for a few seconds, and before he knew it, he returned the kiss with equal fervor. There was an entire month of wanting to do that bottled up inside of James, and now was the time to let it out. Immediately, James frowned, feeling there wasn't enough being let out in this kiss; he held the back of Willy's head and moved just so the arm of the chair wouldn't be crushing his ribs, and he leaned Willy backwards, also making sure that the arm of the next chair didn't hurt Willy's back too much….

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"And forward he leaps!" James dove downstage dramatically, pretending to hack through nonexistent vines and bushes and looking around just as spectacularly. "Through the treacherous jungle the daring and dashing explorer treks…until he comes across—" he gasped. "—A cliff! Oh, the sight startles the handsome traveler and he falls forward to his grave! He tries to grab on to a rock, anything, but nothing is—"

"James," Willy murmured hazily from the front row of the theater. "I obviously didn't die."

James grinned and stood up straight, jumping off the stage. He looked at Willy, who was wrapped tightly in James's overcoat and a few blankets found backstage, and he had his top hat and sunglasses on again. He wasn't smiling, but that didn't faze James at all. On the contraire, he sauntered up to Willy, placed both hands on the arms of the seat he was in, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Someone's a wee bit moody."

Willy made a face, but he blushed nonetheless. "I'm not speaking to you."

James rolled his eyes and turned towards the stage, jumping on it again and sitting on the edge. He sighed heavily and watched Willy. "I apparently missed something."

Willy merely shook his head.

The playwright looked down at his knees, raising an eyebrow carefully and trying to remember what could've possibly set Willy off into Moodyland. "Well," he confessed, "since I have no flying clue as to what you're angry at me about, I'm just going to remain a criminal, ay?"

Willy looked up incredulously. "Of course you're a criminal!"

The life in James Barrie apparently was scared out of him at this bloodcurdling revelation. He drew in a sharp intake of air and nearly fell off the stage; so he gripped the edge of it, his knuckles turning white. "C-criminal…?"

"Don't you see what you've done, James? You've broken my barrier! The barrier I've kept hidden from everyone else!" Willy threw the blankets off himself and stood up. "You amaze me! You purely amaze me! I was violated not but an hour ago, and you're merely contemplating whether or not you're a criminal!"

James grabbed at his own heart, feeling a white-hot pain coursing through his chest cavity. "Willy…I…I d-didn't—"

"Oh, James," Willy groaned, throwing the overcoat off of himself as well. "I was so sure you'd be as good a man as I'd hoped you would be…."

When Willy stumbled out of the theater, James gawked at the ground, frightened at the feeling he was experiencing at the moment. He'd felt it prior to that day; it wasn't a mystery. He'd only felt it once before, yet he could identify it just by the feeling.

His heart was breaking.

DUN DUN DUN! ((walks into a wall)) I just...killed it.