Hey everyone, welcome back to this story!

Okay, it's been another couple of months, but those have also been the most stressful couple of months you could imagine, and I am determined I am not just gonna leave my stories to rot and die!

Time for the next chapter of this story! I always feel like chapter 10's a bit of a milestone in any story, so I'm really glad I finally made it with this story!

And, as promised, there is more Austin & Ally interaction in this chapter, and I've tried to make it a little longer to make up for the lack of chapters recently.

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own RENT: The Musical (or movie), Austin & Ally or anything you recognise from the show in any way, shape or form, nor do I own any recognisable brands, songs or lyrics within them.

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Chapter 10

After a couple of minutes of walking in silence, it suddenly seemed as if Dez had completely forgotten about their… discussion with the two homeless men, and he was back to his normal crazy, eccentric, endearing self as they continued their way to the market.

"So, what happened at the apartment when I was gone?" Dez suddenly turned to Austin, raising an eyebrow.

"W-What do you mean?" Austin hesitantly replied, thinking back to his rejection of Ally.

"Come on, Austin, I'm not stupid." Dez said, shaking his head slightly.

"You could've fooled me…" Austin murmurs under his breath, but either Dez doesn't hear or he chooses to ignore the comment as he continues speaking.

"I know you Austin, we've been friends since we were little kids, remember?"

There was silence for a couple of seconds as the men both had quick, fond memories of their childhoods.

"So, who is she?" Dez broke the silence. Austin didn't reply. "It was Ally again, wasn't i-''

"Oh, look, we're here!" Austin said, a little too enthusiastically, just happy to have an excuse to stop talking to Dez. The redhead allowed Austin to change the subject for now, but he was determined to get to the bottom of this Austin-Ally situation.

It was true, though, they had arrived at the small plaza where every year the Christmas Market came to town. Dim, mostly broken, multi-coloured fairy lights hang all over the place and there was Christmas music quietly in the background, coming from most of the mini stalls and tents that were scattered, all trying to lure customers to buy their wares.

The vast majority of items available at the market were fakes, as you could expect, but they were cheap, and in this area that's all that really mattered. Fakes they may be, but you could buy practically anything – watches, hat, coats, purses, you name it, it was all there.

The square was bustling with dozens of people shuffling around doing their last-minute shopping and desperately trying to bargain some good deals and discounts to save more precious money.

Dez immediately dashed off towards the cotton candy stand, leaving Austin standing alone on the corner. He took the time to look around at all the people, wondering how they all seemed to have their lives together better than he did and wishing his life was simpler.

Weirdly, as he stood there people-watching, Austin just couldn't get the short brunette he rejected earlier off his mind. He had been so adamant that he didn't want to go out with her, but he didn't even know why, and now she wouldn't get out of his head. He saw couples strolling round the stalls, joking about what they should get each other or their mates or their in-laws or whatever, and it gave him a weird pang in his chest, a sense of longing, desire… jealousy, even.

He already knew after his and Ally's first encounter that he had a crush on her, and Austin Moon was not one to fall easily. And once Austin Moon does have a crush, he acts on it. Austin Moon never gets nervous. Austin Moon never backs down.

Yet that's exactly what he'd done earlier – when Ally asked him out, he panicked. Austin had never actually been asked out before, he was always the one to do the asking. He supposed it must have just caught him off guard, is that why he panicked and said no? Either way, one thing he was certain of was that he should not have said no to Ally.

Before his mental state could completely collapse, Austin decided to leave his spot in the corner and wander round the stalls, looking for anything even vaguely interested, in a desperate attempt to distract himself from the mistake that continued to torment him.

As he walked slowly through the busy market, he enjoyed the almost cacophonous sound of all the various sellers shouting about how amazing their products are; of course it was all complete lies but he appreciated the effort, and the atmosphere it set. Each of them was selling something that seemed exactly the same as everything else, yet weirdly different, unique and enticing.

He turned the corner into another row of stalls, only to see Dez with a huge stick of candy floss in one hand and about seven small plastic bags in the other, full of stuff he'd bought. That was another thing about Dez – his gullibility meant that it wasn't too difficult for the sellers to convince him that he absolutely couldn't live without their products, meaning Dez's already fairly empty wallet didn't really improve in health.

"Oh hey Austin, isn't this market like the best thing ever?" Dez asked enthusiastically, somewhat hyper from the large amount of candy floss he'd been eating.

"Uh, yeah, I guess…" Austin replied.

"Hey what's up with you?" Dez asked, noticing Austin's continuing out-of-it mood.

"Nothing." Austin replied nonchalantly.

"Ally's on the mind, isn't she?" Dez guessed, and Austin signed, realising he might as well just unload his worries onto Dez for moral support.

"Yeah…"

"What happened whilst I was out, dude?" He asked, placing a hand on Austin's shoulder and leading him away from the crowds slightly to lean against a wall whilst they spoke.

"Well just after I got back from Life Support, Ally turned up at the front door." Austin begins. "She asked me if I wanted to go out to a club with her tonight. But I said no…"

"Wait, I thought you had a crush on her…" Dez replied, confused.

"I did! I do!" Austin says.

"Then why did you say no to her?"

"I don't know! I panicked, okay?" Austin replied, putting his head in his hands in shame, and cringing slightly remembering back.

"Well… don't worry, it's not like she's gonna hate you for it or anything." Dez continued, trying to remain optimistic and positive.

"Not so sure about that…" Austin replies, thinking back to his cold attitude towards her.

"Oh God, what did you do?" Dez asked.

"She went to hold my hand when she was trying to convince me and I snapped it back pretty quickly."

"Well… yes, that wasn't the nicest thing, but I'm sure she wasn't too disheartened or-''

"And then she basically looked like I'd just kicked a puppy." Austin continues, cutting Dez off.

"Ah. Well. Yeah. You screwed it up. But it's not the end of the world, she'll forgive you."

"Dez, you've never even met the girl. How would you know?"

"Well, Austin, I'm not known as 'The Love Whisperer' for nothing."

"Dude, nobody calls you that!" Austin glanced over Dez's shoulder as he said this, and at that exact moment Ally walked into the market, holding an oversized coat tightly around her shoulders, clearly looking for someone. "Oh man, there she is."

Dez's head whipped around so fast it's a miracle he didn't get whiplash, eager to catch a glimpse of the girl who'd made such an impression on his best friend. "Where?"

"There, the short brunette." Austin replied, pointing Ally out.

"Whoa, dude, she's gorgeous!" Dez said, turning back to look at Austin quickly. "Man, you really screwed up saying no to her." He continued with a chuckle.

"Don't remind me…" Austin muttered under his breath.

"Go talk to her."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"I'm serious. Go. Now." Dez said, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Dude, are you kidding me, I can't just go up to her and-''

"That's it, you're going over there right now." Dez cut him off, trying to drag the blonde boy over in Ally's direction, with very little success.

Meanwhile, as the two men continued to debate whether Austin should go and speak to her, Ally continued to scout around the crowds looking for… him.

No, not Austin.

Her dealer. She was in no way proud of her addiction, but it's not like she could just stop – that's the whole problem of addictions! She'd tried everything to overcome it, but nothing ever seemed to work.

Having the addiction made Ally feel worthless. A mess. Like she deserved to die from an overdose. She'd lost track of the number of times she cried herself to sleep, or exiled herself from the rest of the world for days, weeks at a time because she couldn't bear to show her face and have everyone that knew of her addiction judge her.

Finally, she spotted him on the other side of the square, and began weaving her way through the crowds towards where he stood in a dark corner, surrounded by a couple of other women in the same predicament as her.

She was just a few feet away when she felt a tap on her shoulder, making her squeal slightly and quickly turn to see a familiar face with a mop of bright blonde hair, and the back of a ginger-haired man walking away mysteriously quickly in the other direction.

"Oh. Hey Austin." Ally said coldly, looking down at her shoes.

"H-hey, Ally." Austin said nervously, scratching the back of his neck and glancing to the side. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for being so cold towards you earlier when you-''

"It's fine." Ally said sharply, cutting him off, still hurt from the way he treated her for no apparent reason.

Austin sighed. "Look, Ally, I really am sorry, I don't know why I acted that way. Can I please make it up to you?" He said, finally looking into Ally's eyes which were now staring back at his own, with the two making pretty much unbreakable eye contact.

"How?" Ally asked, expecting him to perhaps produce some lame fake handbag or something as an apology.

"Well… after Kira's protest performance tonight a bunch of us were gonna go out to get some food… you wanna come with me? I'll pay for you." He offered with a genuinely warm smile, something Ally was not used to receiving but that made her feel very happy and good inside.

"I'd love that." She replied with a smile of her own coming onto her face, and at that moment Austin decided to himself that smiling like that was a good look on her.

"Great." Austin replied. "If you wanted to come to the performance with us too…" He trailed off but Ally got the message.

"Sure thing!"

"Cool, why don't you go introduce yourself to Dez, my best friend – he's the tall ginger one over there by the candy stall." Austin said, pointing the redhead out. "I'll be over in a second."

"Okay. See you in a bit then, Austin." Ally said, before turning to start to walk away.

"Sure thing." He replied before also turning in the opposite direction, but barely got two steps before hearing her voice again.

"Oh, and Austin?" Ally called out.

"Yeah?" Austin answered, turning around to see Ally hurrying towards him, before throwing her arms around his neck in a hug which he openly received and reciprocated.

"Thanks. I haven't had people be nice to me like this in a long time." She says whilst they're hugging before stepping out of his arms.

"No problem." He replied, smiling down at her.

And with that Ally walked off across the square towards his weirdo best friend, and Austin spent a couple of seconds just staring after her. 'Yeah', he thought, 'I got it bad.'

This bliss lasted but seconds before he felt a rough hand slam onto his shoulder, and he turned around to see a tall, intimidating man stood behind him. "Hey buddy." The man said in a deep, gruff voice. "You get in the way of me and my client, you die. Get it?"

Austin was confused – did he mean Ally? And what did he mean 'get in the way'? Were they in some kind of relationship? Or was it just in terms of stopping Ally from buying… he assumed it was drugs. He thought it best not to ask and so just replied "S-sure…"

And just like that the man roughly released his grip on Austin's shoulder and disappeared back into the shadows, leaving Austin with a lot of questions… some of which he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answers to.

. . . . .

And that's chapter 10 done! I am honestly so proud of this chapter, it's one of my favourite ones I've written in a long time!

Once again sorry for the lack of updates, but this chapter was cute, right? Does that make up for anything?

IMPORTANT: if you know the story of RENT already, you'll know that one of the key plot elements is the story of Collins and Angel, in this story Elliot and Dallas. My question is: would you like me to keep their storyline as a key plot element and detail it, or would you prefer for me to focus solely on Austin and Ally and just have their story like running in the background? I need to know what you guys want, as this will determine what I write in the next few chapters, so please review and let me know what you would prefer! Same thing with Kira and Trish, who have taken the roles of Maureen and Joanne.

Thank you so much for reading and please remember to follow, favourite and review!

Catch you later!