So we finally finished the actual, final version of the eighth and final chapter of my gift fic for @blackwolfchimera... Sorry for the delay! But hey, at least there’s finally a good ending... Anyway, I do hope you enjoy it! We’re working on posting it to AO3 soon, too, which might be easier to read than on here...
Chapter 1 (plus explanation) | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
The weekend passed in a blur that would have made the Tasmanian Devil dizzy. Even the small handful of school days that preceded the callbacks went by faster than usual as they crammed as much practice as they could into the time they had. They weren’t able to do as much without meeting for hours with their friends, but they still did what they could. Which meant time for anything but rehearsals, homework, and class was rare.
“Are you ready for this?” Roy asked when they finally saw each other the day of callbacks, squeezing Ed’s hand gently as they met up outside the theatre.
“I’m fine, Roy. Good to go. It’s you we need to worry about; you’re the one with the game to get to,” Ed replied with a light frown, “How are you feeling about all this?”
“Fine? I mean, I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” He said, running a hand through his hair nervously, “I have my uniform in my backpack just in case I have to change and just... Run to the gym.”
“I’m surprised you’re not already wearing it,” Ed teased, sliding his hand around the back of his boyfriend’s neck and pulling him into a brief but heated kiss, “Relax, okay? We’ve practiced for days. We’ve got this.”
Roy hummed softly into the kiss, looking more relaxed than before when Ed pulled away from him. “Yeah, I know. Just… Hoping it goes well, I guess. Shall we?”
Ed just nodded as they headed into the theatre together. Looking around, he noticed a distinct lack of people around, though he didn’t remember there being a lot of names on the callback list that had been posted. Maybe that was normal, it wasn’t like he was at all experienced in theatre productions. He noticed Ling and the other guy, their competitions for the leads, and a handful of others whose names he couldn’t remember in the slightest; he hadn’t bothered to pay much attention to anyone in particular on the list.
He and Roy wordlessly walked down the aisle and took seats together near the front, which was when Mr. Garfiel decided to make his appearance.
“Well, I’d like to welcome you all to the callbacks,” he said, looking out over them all as he took center stage, “All of you are in the running for some of the biggest roles in the production, but obviously I need to figure out who works best for what part. With that in mind, I’ll be calling you up in pairs and having you do a scene involving the characters I’m considering you for. When I call your names, please come onstage and I’ll give you the scripts I want you to use.”
Ed smiled a bit, completely relaxed as he squeezed Roy’s hand reassuringly. His hand, however, clenched down onto his boyfriends when Garfiel called up, not himself and Roy, but Roy and Ling.
“What the hell?” he hissed, glancing over at Roy, who suddenly looked panicked instead of calm. Panicked and probably just as confused as he was. He wanted to jump up and demand answers, and even let go of Roy’s hand to do so before he stopped himself. With them already on thin ice with this guy? Probably wouldn’t be the best idea to cause any kind of fuss.
Luckily, Ling decided to pipe up, and if he wasn’t sure that he was instrumental in sabotaging them, he might actually be grateful.
“Sir? Why aren’t we being paired with our previous partners? I’ve been preparing for-”
“I might cast anyone in any role,” Garfiel interrupted, giving Ling an unimpressed look, “I need to know you’re prepared to work with any partner, not just which person is best for which role.”
“I guess that makes sense…” Roy sighed softly as he suddenly reached over and took Ed’s hand again.
Ed blinked at their hands, wondering why he did that, and why he wasn’t moving, for a moment. Then he realized he was probably seeking some kind of reassurance, so he smiled a bit and squeezed it gently. “You’re gonna do great, Roy. We’ve got this, remember?”
“Thanks.” Roy said with a small smile before he stood up and headed to the stage without another word.
Ed and the other boy were called up a moment later and he sighed softly as he stood and grabbed the script, then stepped over to meet up with his new partner. The guy didn’t exactly look happy to be there, more resigned than anything else, and Ed couldn’t help but wonder why.
“So…” he began, deciding to just cut to the chase rather than stand there awkwardly, “Which part have you been working on?”
“Um…the tutor,” he replied, finally looking up from his script, “You?”
“Shit...” he groaned, his eyes sliding closed, “Me too…”
“Oh, really?” the boy asked with a frown, eyeing the teacher thoughtfully, “Maybe we should go ask to swit-”
“No.” Ed interrupted, cutting off the guy’s thought before he even had time to finish it. He did not want to even be in the group that caused some kind of fuss... He sighed a bit, shaking his head. “No, I’ll just switch roles. I’ve been reading the entire script anyway, shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Oh, okay, thanks,” he said, offering him a small smile, “I’ve only really been thinking about the one role…”
Ed frowned at that, raising an eyebrow, “That’s not the smartest idea. Not if you want to get cast, anyway…”
“Well… I don’t. Not really.”
Ed’s eyebrows shot up at that and he stared at the kid for a moment, “If that’s the case…why the hell are you even here?”
The boy shrugged and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ling is a friend, you know? And he thought he’d get the lead but he wanted someone opposite him that wasn’t horrible and I did theatre awhile back. I wasn’t bad, I guess, but I didn’t enjoy it much. But of course, Ling remembered and, well…”
“He asked you to audition with him to make him look good…” Ed supplied, shaking his head.
“More or less, yeah.”
“Right,” Ed mumbled, rolling his eyes with a sigh, “Well, anyway, want to go over this or whatever?”
They discussed what they were going to do with the scene for a bit, though the conversation died pretty fast. Ed found himself wishing that he was still working with Roy, at least he’d given him ideas as to what to do with things. With his partner not saying much, he let his attention wander a bit. His eyes drifted over to the stage, where Mei was sitting with Mr. Garfiel and pointing out little things here and there, trying to make him get the students to do the scene over again. He half smiled at that, but it was only moments later that the teacher lost his patience with her and called up the next pair before Mei could protest further.
His half smile dropped, and he automatically glanced over at Roy, who seemed to be arguing with Ling over something or other. Well that wasn’t good. Ed forced himself to take a deep breath and stay calm, telling himself that it wasn’t going to turn into a disaster. Just because it wasn’t going perfectly didn’t mean it was all going to go to hell, he couldn’t jump to conclusions.
The teacher called Roy and Ling up to do their scene a moment later, and he watched closely as they stepped up onto the stage and performed. It wasn’t great, both of them struggling to put up a good performance with different partners than they were used to. Clearly they didn’t gel well... But at least they were both pretty rough, which meant Roy wasn’t quite out of the running yet. And neither one of them was terrible.
He and his partner went up right after, and he felt they did pretty good. Probably a little bit better, actually. Which was to say that his partner was so incredibly flat that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted with his part and it still worked.
“That went well…” Roy muttered softly as he met up with Ed when he came down from the stage.
“No kidding. I know he’s trying to throw us off but fuck, how would that crap help him decide anything?” Ed asked, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t be heard, “How was it, anyway? Working with Ling?”
“He’s actually not bad. Way less of a diva than we’ve been hearing, anyway,” he told him, also keeping his voice hushed, “But he definitely has his own ideas of how to do things. Trying to get a word in about my own was like…”
“Pulling teeth? Ripping limbs? Breaking bones?” Ed supplied with a grin before Mr. Garfiel interrupted their conversation.
“Alright all, that… Wasn’t bad,” he announced, clearing his throat and shifting some papers around, “We’ll be moving on to the next segment – this one will be strictly for the four in the running for the two leads. I’ll be asking each of you to sing a solo sung by the character you’d prefer to play.”
Ed froze and his eyes widened a bit – that was unexpected. Glancing over, he saw that Mei had pretty much much the same reaction as him, so he assumed this one had been a surprise to her as well, probably a last-minute addition by the teacher. He felt incredibly lucky that she’d made them both go over the entire play several times, even if they didn’t practice everything. He had some confidence they’d do alright with this.
Mei managed to recover after a minute and quickly waved down the teacher. “Sir? If we’re making the leads do that, why not everyone else? It’d only be fair…”
Ed smiled a little, mentally congratulating Mei for coming up with a brilliant solution for stalling the choreography section of the auditions… Right up until he heard the chorus of groans and complaints from the rest of the group.
“Well, unfortunately it doesn’t sound like anyone else is prepared for that. That isn’t much of a shock, as this was a surprise to all of you.” Mr. Garfiel said, eyeing him and Roy, “I do hope that our potential leads are prepared anyway?”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something,” Roy said smoothly in response.
The four of them got called up one after the other and it actually went alright. Ed and Roy were unpolished with their lack of practice, but with Mei’s excellent coaching and knowledge of the script, they were far from bad. Ling was pretty much in the same boat they were, but the last boy basically just copied Ed and Mr. Garfiel was completely unimpressed. He didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, however. Ed hoped that, however the casting went down, that he got to stay out of it. He very clearly didn’t want to be there.
Unfortunately, even with the song auditions, it didn’t take nearly long enough. He could see the girl who did the choreography ready to come out, and it just seemed too soon. He didn’t see any other way they could delay it, though, besides the little sabotages Al and Mei had planned. Which he had no idea how well they would work. He sighed a bit and reached over to squeeze Roy’s hand, just hoping he had the stamina to keep up with this and still do well in the game.
“Sir, I know we were waiting to do the duets at the end to see how well they do after going through the choreography,” Mei called out quickly, “But maybe we should have them try a little piece of it first? Just to make sure we have the two best pairs at the end?”
Ed stiffened in his seat, fighting a grin, waiting to see if he took the bait.
“That… Actually sounds like a good idea,” the teacher agreed after a long pause, “I’ll have you sing the chorus in the pairs I assigned you earlier. If you’d come on stage please…”
It wasn’t much, but he’d take anything he could get at that point. The singing went about as well as the scenes had gone, then teacher asked them to switch partners, and that was almost worse than it had been before. Grudgingly, as if he’d been hoping some other pair would be surprisingly good, he asked that they pair up with their original partners, and Ed was floored at how much better it went. He and Roy sounded fantastic, and so did Ling, despite his performance falling a bit flat because of his partner.
“Well, moving on then, I suppose.” Mr. Garfiel sighed, waving the choreographer out onto the stage, “We’ll be doing a dance audition next. You’ll be taught a crowd dance from the show, and then will perform it as a group.”
The smattering of groans from the rest were quickly silenced at a look from the choreographer, who was quite intimidating despite her petite stature. Still, it was more than clear that the majority of the group was completely unprepared for this part of the audition. Some even asked why she had started to lead them through stretches, to which she briskly explained that she didn’t want or need any of them hurting themselves. Of course, since none of them seemed to be dancers, at least half of them did the stretches wrong.
The confusion sparked an idea in Ed’s mind, and he quickly began to do the stretches slightly wrong himself. Not enough to raise the girl’s suspicions, just enough to add to the list of others that she already had to correct. He glanced at Roy and was amused to see his boyfriend frustrated, obviously trying to prove himself. But the less time was left to wear him out, the better off they’d be, no matter what he wanted to prove. His eyes then found Mei, who he saw was fiddling with her phone behind her back, probably signaling Al to start their other sabotage plans.
Soon after that, they finally began to learn the different combinations, and almost immediately Ed asked a question about some term she’d used to describe a move. To be fair, it was a genuine question, he wasn’t a dancer and had no idea what she was referring to, though he supposed he could have figured it out if he’d really wanted to. It worked out in his favor though, and he couldn’t help but grin as all the others began to voice their own questions and unknowingly contribute to the sabotage efforts.
A few minutes later, as they’re working on a particularly difficult combination, the lights flickered on and off a few times, then turned off completely.
“Stop, stop!” Mr. Garfiel called out, looking annoyed at the interruption, “It’s not safe to keep going with no lights. Can someone please figure out what’s going on so we can continue?”
There’s a bit of a careful scramble, some using the flashlights on their phones to light the way, but no concrete answers came of it. After a minute or so, the lights came back on and they were able to resume the lesson for a minute before the lights started to flicker, then go out again.
On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
“Can you teach them something simpler? We’re running out of time.” Mr. Garfiel called, his frustration with the situation almost tangible.
“There is a simpler number from early in the show that I’ve worked out,” the girl said with a nod, quickly showing them the steps. It was all still stop and go, but with the simpler combinations it went faster than before and Ed finally managed to relax. He couldn’t imagine the teacher throwing anything else at them with how little time they had to finish up, and Roy wasn’t nearly as tired as he’d feared he’d be. It looked like they were finally out of the woods, and they’d actually managed to handle it just-
“Thank you for that, all but the four in the running for the leads can leave the stage,” Mr. Garfiel called out, “I’ll be having you pair up and do a different bit of choreography, just the two of you. I need to make sure our leads have the right chemistry.”
Ed went rigid with surprise and anger, glaring at the back of the man’s head as he turned to talk to Mei again while the rest filed off the stage. They’d been there for ages already! And if it kept on like this Roy was going to be late to his damn game, didn’t he realize that? Not just barely on time, but actually late. “Hey-”
“Ed, don’t,” Roy said gently, rubbing his shoulder a bit, “We’ll handle this, okay? If it really starts to go too long, we still have our last resort.”
“This is just getting fucking stupid!” he hissed irritably, his eyes popping wide as Roy placed a soft kiss to his lips, stifling any further protests.
“I know. But we’re almost through it,” he said with a smile.
Ed went slightly pink and cleared his throat. He was still massively irritated, but the kiss had distracted him long enough that he wasn’t as eager to jump up and voice his displeasure at the situation. And then they started to dance and he was thoroughly distracted from any irritation but the the unexpectedly intimate new choreography.
Just as Ed was starting to really get the hang of things, the fire alarm went off and they were forced to evacuate, the whole group left standing in the parking lot. That must have been what Al and Mei planned as their last resort...
“Shit…we didn’t finish,” Ed said quietly to Roy as they stood there in the open, “We didn’t even get to the duet.”
“I know…” Roy murmured back, sighing and rubbing his face in frustration, “I hope he doesn’t make us wait…”
The teacher, however, seemed far too frustrated to even consider that as an option. “Alright, let’s just… Do the duets out here and be done with it,” he groaned, eyeing them, “Can you four handle that?”
“Absolutely!” Ling said, grinning cheerfully, though his partner looked less than enthusiastic about the prospect.
“Fine. You two go first.”
They sounded worse than before. Apparently being forced to sing with no music behind him in a parking lot zapped what little ability and confidence Ling’s partner had left. Ling sounded alright, but with his partner’s lack of enthusiasm, his audition completely fell apart.
Mr. Garfiel sighed softly and shook his head, then turned to Roy and Ed. “Alright…are you two ready for this?”
Roy turned to look at him, smiling confidently, and Ed immediately grinned back at him. “Yeah. Totally ready.”
They performed the duet just as they’d practiced, and while it wasn’t as good as usual without background music, it was fantastic all the same and Ed could tell from the slight upturn to the teacher’s mouth that it was exactly what he was looking for.
“Well, I think that will be enough for today. Thank you all for your time, and I’ll have the cast list posted sometime in the next few days. Though… Ling? May I speak to you for a moment in private?”
Ed allowed himself to wonder for a moment what that was about, but quickly snapped out of it and grabbed Roy’s hand. “Come on, you’re going to be late if we don’t hurry!” He and Roy arrived outside the boy’s locker room just in time for him to get inside and not be late, and Ed decided he might as well linger and watch the game. Roy wasn’t the star player he usually was that day, or at least not the one Ed had been told he usually was, but the team easily picked up the slack and netted them a solid win over the opposing team.
Ed pushed his way through the crowd, grinning like an idiot when he finally broke through enough of the people to set eyes on Roy.
“Hey! Congrats on the win!”
Roy blinked, then turned to look at him, a wide grin immediately breaking over his face. “You came!” he exclaimed as he jerked Ed into his arms and kissed him deeply. “Of course I did, you dork, I was already here,” he laughed when he finally pulled away for air, his face colored red with a blush.
“I hope you never stop blushing like that, it’s adorable…” Roy chuckled, brushing his thumb over Ed’s reddened cheek. “I can’t believe we actually pulled this off…”
“I know. With everything that happened...” Ed hummed in response, “I was way more on edge than I expected to be. Though, honestly, we won’t know if we actually succeeded until the cast list goes up.”
“Yeah, guess not…” Roy murmured thoughtfully, before looking sheepishly at him, “Is it bad that I really want to know now?”
“No,” Ed laughed, shaking his head, “I kinda wish we-”
“Congratulations!”
Ed turned quickly, blinking and frowning simultaneously as he saw Ling striding toward them cheerfully. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh, well, I just thought I’d congratulate you on getting the parts!”
“Wait, what?!” Ed asked, gaping at him, “Did you just say-”
“How do you already know that we got them?” Roy interrupted.
“Mr. Garfiel told me he was going to cast you when he pulled me aside. He wanted me to do a quick audition for a different part. The rival love interest from act 2? So he had to explain things to me.”
“And you’re not upset? That we got it over you?”
Ling just looked confused, raising a questioning eyebrow. “No? I mean, why would I be? It’s about time we got some fresh talent around here! I’m actually a little sad that you’re graduating this year, Roy, you two are really great together. But I hope I’ll see you next year too?”
“Uh… Yeah. Maybe.” Ed said, nodding numbly when he realized Ling was talking to him, “I’ll think about it.”
“Fantastic!” he grinned brightly, “Oh, and congrats on winning the game, too! I’m really impressed that you managed to balance all this and callbacks. I actually had to reschedule an appointment with the dentist to manage it myself. No idea why he decided to change the date like that...”
Ed and Roy exchanged glances, neither of them at all sure what to say to that. Ling, however, seemed completely oblivious to their unspoken confusion and carried on with a smile.
“Well, I’ve got to get going. I guess I’ll see you two at rehearsals!” he called as he walked off, waving and disappearing into the crowd once more.
Roy stared after him, then burst out laughing, Ed following not long after.
“Well, I guess we had the wrong idea about him.”
“I guess we did.” Roy said as his laughter died down again. He stared at Ed wordlessly, then kissed him again, sweeter this time. “I’m so glad I met you, Ed.”
“Yeah, yeah. Me too…” Ed admitted, grinning a bit himself, “I’m honestly glad that Al convinced me to go to that stupid party…”
“Glad you changed your tune,” Al teased as he came up behind them with Mei.
“Of course I did after – why are you guys holding hands?”
Al blushed and Mei beamed, pressing a little closer to Al’s side. “He asked me out after callbacks were over!”
“Well... Faster than I expected, but good for you,” he said, snorting and shaking his head. “You guys wanna go out for dinner or something?”
“Oooh! Double date! I’m totally okay with this!” Mei grinned as she tugged Al toward the door.
“Shall we then?” Ed asked, laughing as he reached over to take Roy’s hand.
“Yeah. I just gotta get changed,” Roy told him, kissing his forehead, “Meet you outside?”
“Sure,” Ed said, nodding before he walked after his brother and Mei, grinning happily. Everything was going to be great from now on, he just knew it.
