"Time in the Lights" for the fanfic meme.
Theatre AU. And, because I just saw The Music Man... it’s Raoden and Sarene, in high school, as Harold Hill and Marian Paroo. Sarene decided to join the musical because she thought it would look good on her college applications, but got coerced into auditioning when someone (maybe Daora?) overheard her singing to herself. Turns out she’s a natural fit; she hardly even has to try to convey Marian’s skeptical disdain for ‘Professor’ Hill, given that it’s the same attitude with which she regards all high school boys.
Raoden, of course, is instantly smitten. He tries to engage her in conversation after rehearsals - she ignores him. He tries to learn about her from her friends, only to find that she doesn’t really have friends. Eventually he decides that the best way to ‘pursue’ Sarene is to not pursue her at all, and he takes to bringing history books with him to read backstage and studiously not interacting with her except when they’re in character.
It drives her nuts, because as Harold Hill he’s all witty charm, and there’s something about having that smile trained on her that makes her skin crawl, or maybe tingle? And sometimes he smiles at her where the audience can’t see, and it’s softer than his Harold Hill conman grin, and every time ‘Harold’ touches ‘Marian’ her heart does flips. Onstage he draws her in, and offstage she can’t keep from glancing at him, and they still haven’t actually practiced a stage kiss yet; she keeps coming up with reasons to put it off...
At their second-to-last rehearsal she finally decides that at the very least they should actually practice more than just at dress rehearsal, and so as everyone leaves she asks him to talk but the words won’t come out right so she ends up just... grabbing him and kissing him. Quite a bit, as it turns out, and maybe the hard part of their onstage kisses will be stopping rather than starting...
