As Neil had known he would, Ryan had drifted off to sleep within a few minutes. Neil smiled. They knew each other so well that the other guys could see Ryan's exhaustion even when he was trying to hide it. He and Ryan were sharing a hotel room, and Neil had watched the tiredness creep over Ryan at the end of each day. So far it had hit after they were done rehearsal, but today they'd seen signs of it starting in the morning. He was sure that some of the emotional things that Ryan had gone through today were part of being tired as well. He was usually much more even-tempered.
The smile turned to a frown. Soon they'd be working on choreography as well, and that was going to make things even more difficult. Not to mention the extra filming for the bonus DVD. Neil was firmly in favor of David's strategy of making Ryan responsible for asking for breaks, but at the same time, he knew that Ryan would feel he was inconveniencing the other guys by asking for them. Not that any of them would mind - once they really got into rehearsing a new show, everyone was exhausted, and it wasn't unusual for any of them to fall asleep when they did have down time. A few extra breaks would be welcome.
Neil heard footsteps coming down the hall and looked up. Sharon appeared and looked concerned when she saw Ryan sleeping, motioning Neil over to her. "Is he OK?" she whispered as Neil approached.
"He'll be fine," Neil assured her. "He pushed himself into an overload while we were working on 'Voices', and David sent him out to rest after he refused to admit that he needed a break. It's the same thing he's done all along, trying to prove to himself that he's better than he really is."
"Maybe I should just build some breaks into his schedule anyway," Sharon mused. "He'd been doing fine up until today, so I didn't see the need for it."
"David's made it clear that he considers it Ryan's responsibility to tell us when he needs a break," Neil said. "He got a hard lesson today when he didn't. We...talked after we came out here, and he admitted himself that what he did was stupid."
Sharon smiled. "I'm assuming you mean Ryan had a bit of a temper tantrum and you set him straight," she said knowingly.
"Something like that," Neil agreed. "You know he hates to inconvenience anybody. He's just going to have to deal with it."
"All the same," Sharon said, "I'm going to talk to David and to Belinda as well about mixing up ensemble stuff with solo pieces rather than trying to do all the ensemble work at the same time. It'll probably be better for all of you. And we've got such a mix of solo, duet, quartet and so on with this show that it should be easy to use their time wisely and still allow you all some down time during the day."
"You know none of us will argue about that," Neil grinned. "Not that any of us minds pushing through it when we have to, but if we can manage a little bit of break time, it'll help all of us."
Sharon went on about her business. About half an hour later, the rest of the guys came as quietly down the hall as they could, looking into the lounge as they passed and giving Neil thumbs-ups and smiles when they saw Ryan sleeping. Within a few minutes, Ryan started to wake up - "as quietly as they could", where the guys were concerned, wasn't really all that quiet even when they were trying hard.
Ryan sat up and stretched, yawning. "Still here?" he asked Neil. "How long was I out?"
"Just about an hour, like I said," Neil grinned.
Ryan chucked Jen at him, laughing. "OK, so you know everything," he said. "Was I still dreaming, or did I hear the thundering herd go past a few minutes ago?"
"They tried to be quiet, but you know us," Neil laughed. "Yeah, David must have given them a break a few minutes ago. You ready to go find them?"
"Sure. They're probably outside since the weather's nice."
He was right. The guys were lounging in the sun outside. George spotted them first. "Feeling better, brother?" he asked, coming over to clap Ryan on the shoulder.
Ryan smiled up at him. "Much," he agreed. Looking at all of them, he said "I'm sorry for wasting your time in there."
"You didn't..." Emmet started, but Ryan cut him off.
"Yes, I did. Neil pointed out to me that it doesn't do any of us any good for me to try to keep practicing when I'm too tired to keep my music straight. It just holds all of us back. I promise I'll try to do a better job of taking care of myself as stuff gets more intense. I think I forgot how tough it can get."
"We all forget it," Keith groaned. "Otherwise why would we keep coming back to it? Poor Colm's just finding out how tough it can be; even with having to jump into AC as fast as he did." He grinned at their new member, who was leaning against the sun-warmed wall looking like he was about to doze off himself.
"I'm all right," Colm said sleepily, and then nearly fell as his body went limp on him suddenly. Emmet grabbed him and sat him down on the sidewalk, then sat down next to him.
Scrubbing his face with his hands, Emmet yawned and then said, "Now I understand the Starbucks addiction. It's the only way to get through this." Since they'd filmed "Voyage" on the road, they hadn't done all the extra stuff that needed to be done at the same time like this. Even then, pre-tour rehearsals had been tough. "How much longer are we going tonight?"
"Dinner break soon," Keith said. "Then a few more hours, I think." He yawned hugely. "I'm glad we've got hotel beds and not bunks," he groaned.
"Ah, quit griping," Ryan said. "At least we've got bunks."
"That bounce around," Keith groaned dramatically. Which led to the others cuffing him around the head and shoulders, as they'd all (other than Colm) heard it more times than they could count. They knew Keith loved touring, but he would never shut up about how much he hated the bunks on the bus.