Overview: What would have happened if Wen hadn't been so anti-confrontational when Ray was bothering Olivia in the cafeteria that day?
Disclaimer: I do not own Lemonade Mouth, nor do I have any rights to the characters herein.
Note: Previously posted under my other account, Thayne M.
A/N: All right, this is the last chapter. Sorry that it's a bit all over the place, but I'm not really good at endings! They make me sad and...disorganized. Anyway, leave your final comments and let me know if I should write more Lemonade Mouth stories!
REVIEWS ARE SINCERELY APPRECIATED!
This truly was a week of firsts for Wen. First fist fight, first heartfelt speech, first realization of strong romantic feelings, first time sharing his mixes with anyone besides his big-mouthed little sister, and now it was about to be his first time performing onstage in a band. But before that, there was one more first to get out of the way: First time in the girls' bathroom.
He couldn't say that this was the most awkward first of the week, but it definitely wasn't without it's discomfort. He tried to distract himself by leaning against the black-and-orange decorated stall door (why wasn't the boys' bathroom decorated, he wondered) and speaking quietly to the blonde-haired singer on the other side. "How're you feeling, Olivia?"
"Oh, great. Super," she gasped, breathless voice echoing around the concrete room. Stella, Charlie and Mo all looked relieved to hear this, but Wen knew better. "But it's," she continued after a beat, "It's probably not the…the best idea for me to actually go out there. You know, physically." Wen had expected this. He'd spent a good chunk of time with Olivia since Wednesday, working on the new song, and he could see her growing steadily more uneasy about their upcoming performance. The night before, when the rest of the band left Wen's house and she stayed behind to run through the set list with him once more, she'd had a sudden moment of panic and spent a good five minutes dry-heaving after the keyboardist made the mistake of mentioning "the whole school watching us."
Each band member took a turn in trying to coax the singer out of the stall, but she didn't respond to any of them. It wasn't until, with barely six minutes left for them to get onstage, Wen noticed Stella's outfit addition. It was a hand-sewn zebra pouch that hung on her right hip, divided into five equal sections, each one holding a can. "What is that?" He gestured to the pouch and the guitarist smirked, proud of her clever self, and took one of the Mel's cans out.
"Pretty cool, huh?" She started to put it back before Mo's hand landed on her arm, eyes wide and hopeful. Wen's expression showed the same optimism and he reached to take the lemonade from Stella, moving back to the stall door and carefully passing it over the top.
"Olivia," he whispered, trying not to shiver when her fingers brushed his as she took the can. She continued her silence, and Wen told her, "We believe in you, okay?" Then, dropping his voice again, he pressed close enough so that only she could hear, "I believe in you." There was a minute of complete silence that seemed to stretch into forever before they finally heard the telltale sound of a tab lifting, cracking the can open, and Olivia taking a long sip. A second after that, the door swung open and she gave them all an unsure - yet determined - grin. "I'm ready."
Four minutes later, they were onstage and Olivia was reciting cues, steps and lyrics in her head like they were mantras as the rest of the band situated themselves around her. When the lights came up, the crowd booed, though none louder than Ray Beech, who stood dead center in the crowd, hands cupped around his mouth. "Hey, nice costumes!" He shouted to them, "Oh, you're not wearing any?" They were off to a great start.
Wen started playing the intro, but when he started through for the second time - when Olivia was meant to start singing - her voice froze in her throat and all she could do was stare out at her classmates like a proverbial deer in the headlights. "Olivia," Stella started, reaching out for the girl, but drew back when she saw Wen raise a hand to her. He cleared his throat and stepped around his keyboard, moving forward to put a hand on either of the girl's shoulders and turning her to face him.
"Hey," he said, careful to speak away from the microphone, "Are you good? Can you do this?"
"I want to," she replied, so helpless that Wen had to fight the urge to take her in his arms and hug her in front of the entire school. "I really do, but…look at all of those people, Wen."
He considered this for a moment, glancing at the crowd, and then an idea hit him. Without thinking about it, he grabbed her microphone stand with one hand and one of her hands with the other, leading her back to his keyboard. "Here," he said as he positioned the mic right next to where he would stand, "Just sing to me until you're comfortable, okay? Even if it takes the whole set."
"That's going to look so ridiculous," Olivia pointed out with a frown.
"To who?" Wen smirked, gesturing between the two of them, "We're the only ones here."
She blinked at him for a beat before returning the smirk and nodding. Taking this as his cue, Wen started playing again, ignoring the taunting calls that had started from the audience. When he started through the intro the second time, he heard Olivia take in a deep breath and then, with her eyes firmly locked on his, she started to sing. "Tryin' hard to fight these tears," she focused only on Wen's blue-green eyes, repressing the knowledge that everyone that attended Mesa High was watching her, "I'm crazy worried." She smiled when she noticed Wen mouthing the words along with her encouragingly. "Messin' with my head, this fear; I'm so sorry." It really was as if she and Wen were the only two people there, pitch black behind them and on their sides, and a blinding light in front of them. "You know, you gotta get it out; I can take it. That's what bein' friends' about." She reached out and laid a hand on Wen's shoulder, and the spark she felt when she touched him took her by surprise. It was like a straight bolt of electricity zigzagging from her arm to her chest, unleashing what felt like a river of adrenaline that sparked a confidence she didn't know she had. Dropping her hand, she faced the audience as the music picked up, finding the courage to sing to the sea of surprised and impressed faces.
Aside from the similar spark Wen felt in his shoulder from where she'd touched him, he also felt a surge of pride. Olivia was moving toward the front of the stage, singing, doing the steps Mo had worked out, and people were loving it. They were cheering, dancing, clapping along, all for them; all for her. Had Wen been in the audience, he would have been hollering louder than them all. And though Olivia was the one who'd had her doubts about this night, it was Wen who had to focus on not screwing up. He kept getting distracted by the way she moved, the way she gestured him forward when the bridge came, the way her hand lingered on his arm when she placed his keytar over his shoulders. He couldn't even focus on the fact that everyone seemed to love them.
Then halfway through "Here We Go," when Brenigan shut off their power and charged in from stage left and Stella whispered for them to run, Wen couldn't help but reach for Olivia's hand in the darkness, closing around it and pulling her alongside him as they all made a break for stage right. Of course they knew that they would have to deal with the consequences on Monday, but they were on too much of a high to let the principal ruin their mood for the night. So Stella and Mo hitched up their instruments while Wen and Charlie abandoned theirs, and they ran. They didn't stop until they were out of the school and two blocks away, and they all collapsed into a fit of laughter on a sidewalk bench.
"Did you see those kids?" Stella celebrated, gently leaning her guitar against the bench. "They were so into it; I could feel them connecting to our music!"
"Forget the kids," Charlie shook his head, barely able to breathe between laughs, "Did you see Brenigan's face? It was, like, purple."
"I swear, I thought his head was going to spin all the way around," Mo chimed in, smiling wider than they'd ever seen her smile and plucking absently at her bass chords. Wen and Olivia both chuckled in agreement, hands still clasped tightly though neither of them realized it. "Oh, but your instruments," the bassist suddenly remembered, looking between Wen and Charlie, "Are you just going to let them sit there until Monday? Mudslide Crush will probably trash them."
Charlie was already reaching into his pocket, hardly bothered, "I'll text Lyle; he and Dawn will pack up for us if I promise to take them for pizza tomorrow." The five band members were squeezed in so tightly on the bench that the drummer had to wrestle the phone from his pocket and they were all silent as he hit a few keys and sent the message.
Stella suddenly sat forward, reaching across Mo to whack Olivia on the knee, "And how about you, Olivia? You were on fire up there tonight!"
The singer blushed and ducked her head, "Are you kidding? I freaked out and froze up."
"Yeah, but just for a second," Stella shrugged, "That's natural, ask anyone. But the way you bounced back was just…" She trailed off, waving her hands aimlessly, like she was trying to grab the right word out of thin air.
"Breathtaking," Wen offered, then silently cursed himself for how often his mouth spat out things that his mind didn't have time to approve. Fortunately, everyone seemed to agree to this description, and only Olivia had a sense of something more to it. She smiled at them all, but lingered on him, giving his hand the tiniest of squeezes before letting go. He tried not to let show his disappointment at the loss of contact; holding hands with her had felt so natural, so right.
"Thanks, guys," she told them, struggling to dislodge herself from the bench so she could stand up. She took a deep breath, getting a whiff of the cool night air, and looked around, "We're right by my house. Do you guys…maybe want to come over for a while?" She bit her lip, as if she expected them to be repelled by the idea. She seemed surprised when Mo immediately jumped to her feet.
"That would be great; I'm so not ready to go home yet."
Charlie quickly agreed, the way he always did when Mo was in favor of something, and Stella nodded as well. "I think your house is the only one we haven't been to yet," she noted thoughtfully. It was true. They spent most of their time at either her house, Wen's house, or school, but they'd had lunch with Mo's family twice and even had a band meeting at Charlie's one afternoon when his parents were out. Olivia was more reserved and liked to keep a lot of aspects of her life private; up until now, she hadn't felt close enough to the rest of the band to let them see this part of her. She couldn't explain it, but tonight had changed things.
"Is your grandma gonna be okay with you bringing four friends home at nine o'clock?" Wen asked, though he was already standing up to walk with the rest of the group. Since Brenda was Olivia's legal guardian, he figured he should probably suck up to her if he ever wanted to have anything more than friendship with-what was he thinking? He kept getting ahead of himself; he didn't even know if Olivia felt the same way.
The singer rolled her eyes and nodded, "I think she'll love it. She's always talking about how I never bring friends home. I mean," she backtracked quickly, "I have friends, I just never bring them home. It's sort of messy in there and…" She trailed off, biting down on her lip and picking up her pace.
When they got to the house, the living room lights were on and Brenda looked up from the TV as the five teenagers politely stepped through the door. "Oh, Olivia!" She stood to go to her granddaughter, but paused when she saw the four guests she'd brought home. "Wen, dear," she gushed, turning her attention to the keyboardist, "I was hoping we'd be seeing you again." In explanation of the "we," she gestured to the couch, where a bone-thin elderly cat was curled up.
Olivia cleared her throat, looking away for a moment before putting on a forced grin and introducing her three other friends. "We were going to hang out upstairs for a while, if that's okay," she said afterward.
"Of course, sweetheart," Brenda smiled, eyes memorizing each teenager's face. "For how long?"
Olivia looked over her shoulder at the other four, and Mo offered, "Well, my curfew is ten-thirty, but we can leave whenever you want us to."
"Oh no, it's fine, dear," the grandmother insisted, already on her way back to the couch, "Tonight was a special occasion for the five of you; you should be together. I just wanted to know. Go on, now," she waved them away as she settled in next to the old cat, "Go have fun."
Olivia didn't need to be told twice; even though everyone was on perfect behavior, it was still unbearably awkward to introduce her friends to her grandmother. She turned and started up the stairs, her friends following her, and lead them into her bedroom. She stood in a corner for a second while she watched them take in her pale blue walls, her white and yellow furniture, her desk that was covered with half-finished lyrics and books of poetry. "Put your stuff down wherever," she finally told them, waving a hand around as she crossed to the window. She unlatched it and slid it open, bunching her butter-yellow curtains up and securing them with matching ribbon. "Wen," she called to the keyboardist, and he quickly turned toward her like a dog being beckoned with a treat. "Could you hand me that light?"
He followed her gaze to a little electric lantern on her dresser, picking it up and handing it to her, "What do you need that for?"
"Well, don't take this the wrong way," she addressed the whole group now, "But I'm not used to having people in my room, so we're going outside. Watch your step." Before anyone could react, she carefully lifted a leg, mindful of her skirt, and climbed out of the window and onto the roof.
Mo wrung her hands and called, "Is that safe? I mean, it's dark out."
"The roof is really wide out here," Olivia called back assuredly, "And you can see everything with the lantern on. It's safe, I promise." Cautious yet adventurous, the bassist took a deep breath and crawled out after the girl, followed closely by Charlie, Wen and Stella. Olivia hadn't been lying; there was a good ten feet separating them from the edge of the roof. "This was originally a one-story," she explained, fiddling with the brightness of the lantern, "The family that owned it before my grandparents built the second story, but they only needed two rooms so that's all they did. We're sitting over the kitchen right now."
"Cool," Stella laughed, "If we get hungry, we can just dangle Charlie upside-down and have him snatch food through the kitchen windows."
They all laughed, with the exception of Charlie, who leaned toward Mo and murmured, "Is that safe?"
Mo snorted, then covered her mouth and nose with her hand, "Charlie, she's kidding."
"Oh."
"Seriously, Charlie, you think I'd really do that?" Stella feigned offense.
Olivia smirked, "In his defense, it does sound like you."
"Can you just imagine," Mo giggled, "Stella dangling him by his feet."
"I'm bad with heights," Charlie moaned, eyeing the edge of the roof warily. "And being dangled from heights."
"Would you do it for a pudding cup?" Stella asked, eyebrows raised.
"No."
"Would you do it for a Klondike bar?" Olivia added, and they all started laughing again.
Wen, who'd been silently studying his surroundings during this whole exchange, suddenly spoke up, "I love it out here." Everyone's eyes were on him then, but he hardly noticed. He leaned back, laying down and cushioning the back of his head with his hands. "You know, we have a big house, a poolhouse, stables, and three gardens, but there's really no place at home like this for me."
"What do you mean?" Olivia asked, taking off her cardigan to use as a pillow as she laid down next to him, barely a foot separating their bodies.
He shrugged, jacket making a scratching sound against the roof, "I dunno. A place that I can just sit and think and not feel so out of control all the time. It's clear up here, you know? There's nothing crowding up the space. I dunno," he repeated, "I can't explain it."
"I think I get you," Charlie surprised them by saying as he, Stella and Mo followed suit in leaning back to stare up at the stars. "It's like you have more room to just…be you for a little while." He blushed when his band mates all went up on their elbows to stare at him, stunned. "What?" He mumbled defensively, "Just because I don't always know what's going on, doesn't mean I'm an idiot."
They all agreed to this and went back to their previous positions, letting a comfortable silence drift over them as they memorized constellations and watched the light breeze sway the branches of the tall backyard tree. "I like your grandmother," Mo said, breaking the silence, "She seems really cool. If I brought boys home - even with girls, in the middle of the day - my father would send me to an all-girls boarding school…in Antarctica."
"Well," Olivia chuckled, "Who doesn't love penguins?" Then she made a thoughtful noise and said, "Yeah, Gram is pretty cool. She's supportive and understanding, but she doesn't get out much so she has some problems relating sometimes."
Stella grinned and gave her a little nudge, "That's what you've got us for." Another pause before the guitarist asked, "How old is your grandma's cat, though? She looks like she's seen better days."
Just like that, the mood shifted. Olivia went stiff, her jaw clenched, and she cleared her throat three or four times before finally getting out the word, "Seventeen."
And once more, she had everyone's attention. "You okay?" Wen asked gently, turning his head to look at her. Her face was tensed, eyes glistening in the lantern light.
"Yeah," she nodded, though she obviously wasn't okay. "It's just," she sniffed and cleared her throat again, "She's not my grandma's cat. Um," she blinked in quick succession, but a few tears managed to slip down the side of her face despite her attempts to hold them back. "Nancy was my mom's, so she's kind of like the…last real thing I have left of her."
They all fell silent again following this admission, no one really sure of what they should say. Olivia wondered if she'd ruined the good thing they had going tonight by letting too much show; who would want to be friends with someone that fell apart over an old cat? This thought lasted only a moment, however, before she felt a pressure on her shoulder and glanced to see Stella's head there, leaning on her. "I'm so sorry," the guitarist said quietly, "I didn't know."
"Hey, Olivia?" Mo said, getting the singer's attention.
"Yeah, Mo?"
"You know you've got us, right?" She went up on her elbow to lock eyes with the girl, "I mean it; anytime you need to talk, or not talk, you can call us."
"We're here for you," Charlie added sweetly.
Olivia was so overwhelmed by her gratitude toward these friends she never expected to have that she couldn't keep back the tears that were welling in her eyes. She turned her head away from the three so they wouldn't see, remembering too late that Wen was on her other side, staring right at her. The funny thing was, she didn't feel as ashamed to let him see her cry as she thought she would. Sure, it wasn't going to win her any charm points, but she knew he wouldn't judge her for her tears. After all, he was her knight in shining armor.
She reached for him, covering his hand with hers and letting out a sigh of relief when his fingers twined through hers. He gave her one of those looks - seemingly expressionless, but with a softness to the eyes that spoke volumes - and she knew that he was telling her without words that she could cry if she needed to. But the funny thing was, she didn't want to anymore.
An hour later, all five band members stood on the front porch, saying their goodbyes. Charlie and Mo left first (because Charlie always liked to walk Mo to the end of her block), and Stella followed about ten minutes later, when she finally got an impatient call from her mother. That left just Olivia and Wen, blinking at each other in the harsh yellow brightness of the porch light. "So, um," Olivia rocked back and forth on her heels, "Thanks for everything tonight…or, this week, I guess."
"Hey," Wen laughed, shrugging, "It was all you. I was just there."
"Yeah, well," she shifted from foot to foot, "I really appreciated you being there."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He grinned and, on impulse, leaned forward to press his lips against her forehead, breathing in the combination of her strawberry shampoo and her rose-scented soap. It was forward and daring and dangerous, and probably one of the best moments of his life. It was a simple gesture, not even necessarily romantic, but it sent pinpricks of heat throughout his entire body, making him feel alive and invigorated and untouchable, like he could take a tumble off of the wide roof and walk away unscathed. If this was how he felt kissing her forehead, he couldn't even imagine what it would be like to kiss her lips. And maybe, just maybe, have her kiss back.
When he pulled away a few seconds later, Olivia was staring up at him with wide eyes and pink cheeks. That's it, he told himself, You crossed a line, bonehead. You totally blew it. But then she smiled, reaching up to touch his cheek for a brief moment before dropping her hand back to her side. "You should call me tomorrow," she suggested shyly, biting her lip, unable to tear her eyes away from his. "Maybe I could go with you to get your keyboard from Lyle or something."
"Yeah," Wen quickly agreed, then added, "And maybe afterward we could…have lunch at my place?"
Olivia smiled, going up on her toes so she could wrap him in a hug. "Definitely."
A/N: So...that's it. That's all for this one. Should I write more Lemonade Mouth stories? If you have any requests, I'd be happy to take them. Any plot or pairing, though I refuse to write Wen and Olivia with anyone but each other. Thanks for sticking with me, guys! You're all amazing!