hydralois:
Callum did have very diverse interests. He hadn’t considered ginger bearded, older ex-mayors convicted of treason a part of them until recently but hey—who wouldn’t be impressed by thatruling? Zane Matthews: treason. It was impressive in and of itself. Kinda like how being able to shove precisely sixteen marshmallows in your mouth was impressive but in a naughty way. In a, ‘maybe you shouldn’t do that but that’s still kinda cool’ type of way. Marshmallows, prison sentences. Tomato, tom-ah-to.
His sense of morality was as loose as his hips were these days. He would’ve given it more thought, perhaps, if it weren’t for the fact that he was preoccupied with craning his neck over cotton hems and picking the right polyester blends for Zane’s skin type.
Or, you know, not justZane’s, but if his was especially gentle on the skin, it was surely because he was one of the few guys who tolerated being put into a dress.
Theonlyguy who tolerated being put into a dress thus far, actually. The good doc had his work cut out for him this go-around. At the sight of Zane tugging on the rope, he couldn’t help but let out a little grin. He tried to hide it behind a cough but failed as a laugh bubbled up when he quipped,
“Well, the last time you climbed me was a few weeks ago, so something tells me you’ll be okay, Zane.”
Callum proceeded to back up his remark by casually leaning his weight onto the wooden crate beside him, going for Cool Guy Just Made a Funny but ending up with Dr. Waters Attempting To Be Cool But Almost Plopping to The Floor at the sound of running lines.
With Zane.
Running lines with Zane. He’s gotta run lines with Zane. Right now. Here. In front of everyone—and not the Elephant Love Medley or El Tango de Roxanne. No, it was The Montage.
The Big Montage. The one scene they hadn’t rehearsed yet. The one scene that Callum was certain he wouldn’t be able to watch because, well.
If Zane was going to be kissing anybody, it certainly shouldn’t be Christian. Hooky Christian with the rough hands that didn’t know how to gently handle a man, much less one in a delicately stitched satin dress, the one with three perfectly circular burn marks on his inner forearm.
He never did figure out where those came from.
“Debatably, they were already in love, right?” Callum diverted, his eyes darting from the dress, to the collarbones, to his own hands. He looked up and Zane and made a prompt decision:
No games, no funny stuff, no nada. This was all strictly business, and the show must go on. Alcatraz depended on it. Alcatraz depended on him to do the right thing.
He took another note from Zane and tried for the playful, deflective approach. He figured he couldn’t fall over himself twice within the same two-minute mark. He cleared his throat.
“Well, lucky for you, I just so happen to be Christian’s understudy,” His lips tugged into a cheeky smirk. “If ya wanted to mack on me so bad, you shoulda just said so,” The little flippy-do his stomach did betrayed his words. He was wrong. He could, in fact, fall over himself twice within the same two-minute mark. It was as if his body rejected the act, casting out its spirits with a spazz of a leg, a slip of his arms.
Smooth.
“We, uh. We’re starting with the ‘mad with jealousy’ line, right? When Christian and Satine are running circles around the evil Maharaj—”
And, as if the mention of evil summoned the devil himself, a figure sauntered into his peripheral:
Boss.
Zane wasn’t a man overly given to blushing. He was old enough and ugly enough to have long since moved past that stage of his life -- but Callum’s little remark about the climbing a few weeks ago almost did it. And if Callum had stopped there, and an awkward silence had followed, a blush might have even happened, mostly because Zane would have just started thinking about it, and--
For fuck’s sake. He was thinking about it.
Good thing Callum was an excellent distraction.
He might have gotten out some sass about wanting to mack on Callum (a clever lie and a bit of wit to disguise the very real truth that, yes, in fact, he really did want to), when fucking Boss waltzed up. Really, Zane should have felt him coming from a mile away, but Callum’s sunshine and roller-coaster-screaming tended to blot out everything else. Like standing next to the speakers at a party -- good luck hearing any other conversation.
But no, here came Boss. Big Boss, as he called himself, like an absolute idiot. An undeniably good looking idiot that Zane had fucked a few days ago, against his better judgement.
An idiot who was currently dressed in-- what even was that? A gold coat and a fake mustache? Holy hell.
“‘sup, losers,” Boss greeted cheerfully, absently flicking the lighter that Zane really shouldn’t have given him. “We ready to get this show on the road? Where the fuck’s Christian at?”
Zane was really enjoying the way everybody was just referring to each other as their character names. It prevented him from having to listen to His name and getting pissed off. So. Small favors.
“Somebody probably shelved a book wrong and now he’s fretting over the desecration of the Dewey Decimal System,” Zane replied airily, ignoring the wide-eyed looks he was getting from Boss. Yes, he was in a dress. On off-the-shoulder dress. Get over it.
“Wow, you’re about two inches away from a nip slip, my man--”
“So Callum will be filling in for rehearsals.” Zane steamrolled right over Boss. “Your job is to stand around in the distance looking jealous, which is what you already do most of the day anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard.” Effortlessly assuming control of the situation, Zane swept from the room (complete with holding up his skirt so it didn’t drag on the floor), calling back. “Come on, Callum, we need to get our scripts.”









