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For the ask post, "This is all your fault." (Angst)

16 - “This is all your fault.” / Thibaut & Irfane

You want to pull yourself together, Chris?

Clock strikes ten and Irfane feels like he’s losing his mind. He shakes off the inquiries and concern and stumbles out from backstage, down the corridor and past security and out of the club altogether. His gigmate is still back there, doubtless still going strong, patching over all my mistakes if I haven’t utterly ruined the set as it is, this is it, I’ve done fucked up and Thibaut is most definitely not going to want to cover for me much longer. His hands are shaking and he’s exhaling hard through his teeth and even though the streets are lit he can’t actually see most of it. He doesn’t know whether he can bear to stay nor where else he could possibly go, and worse, he probably has no longer than five minutes to decide one way or the other.

This is all your fault. You’re a chore, Christopher. His chore.

Oh, he anticipated a learning curve. He never expected this to be the set of his life, he’s still essentially taking lessons - but Irfane didn’t anticipate that he’d react so badly to the inevitable, either.It’s very obvious when one fails a crowd at a club. It doesn’t look exactly like what one might expect it to look, full of disgusted grimaces and walk-outs; those tend to be the early signs of something groundbreaking, something Irfane doubts he will ever reach. An actual failed set creates spaces - people saunter away to the bar, sit down with casual indifference, wait for a set actually worth dancing to. And as far as Irfane’s gathered, the truth is that the crowd grows when Thibaut’s in the lead and goes away when Irfane takes over.

He’s awful. Irfane got the message loud and clear. He covers his face.

Does Thibaut even need him? Their first set together as a duo and in their home field, no less, and he’s blown it. No one’s scolded him for being awful, but he knows the judgement is there. Must be there, anyway. He can’t imagine Thibaut not judging him, never mind he doesn’t know what that looks like - years of knowing each other and he’s never been angry at Irfane, even once.

Irfane can’t face finding out.

“Chris!”

He blinks and finds he can see straight again; the warmth that blurred his vision is now hot against his cheeks and he realizes he’s crying, long after he knew that he must be. He doesn’t know if he’d have cried more if it was Thibaut calling out for him, either, that’s not Thibaut’s voice- “P-Pedro…”

Pedro doesn’t answer for a moment, panting for breath as he catches up to Irfane. Eventually he takes a deep breath, drawing himself up to his full height. “You want to pull yourself together, Chris?”He says - he’s soft-voiced, that Pedro Winter, no matter what crisis lies ahead - but Irfane flinches, trying to turn away. “Dude, Thibaut needs you! Where are you going?”

“I’ve fucked up.” (Well, his voice comes out steady, that’s something.) “I’m not good enough to stand with Thibaut and I’m not going back in there.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Monsieur.” Pedro grasps his hand tight. “And you’re old enough to find out, on your own, exactly what about what you just said was so wrong. If you don’t want to be there, you will at least have the decency to tell Thibaut you don’t want to be there before you split.”

“He doesn’t need me to keep this set going-”

“He needs you because you’re you!” Pedro’s voice turns sharp, then quietens again with some effort. “That’s all I can say in his stead, because I don’t claim to speak for him - but you better believe he actually said it. I pray to God it’s enough. I came out to find you so he wouldn’t run off himself; will you at least come back to talk?”

Silence. Irfane lets his tears fall and Pedro waits. The seconds keep ticking away. It slowly dawns on him that Thibaut could only have said that to Pedro if he himself had been desperate to find Irfane - if he’d had to summon help for that purpose, if he’d been so frantic that he nearly ditched the set himself. Part of him just wants to squirm and hide for making things harder for Thibaut. But the other part of him is - well, it’s not happy, exactly, more like humbled or even resigned, but it is telling him to go back and do justice to Thibaut like Pedro said. It won’t magically improve his DJ-ing skills, but wandering the streets won’t, either. It’s better for him to hope that he can improve, even if it’s only for the few minutes it’ll take him to talk to Thibaut, because hope has potential and despair doesn’t.

“All right.” Irfane says, and leads the way.