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“You get in, you do the job and you get out. Understand? Don’t take anything extra, don’t lose focus.” They’d been over it a hundred times and he rolled his eyes at the seriousness in her voice.
“When have I ever failed before?”
“If there’s any job you’re going to mess up, Prime knows it’ll be this one.” The grin melted off of his face and he crossed his arms over his chest. He knew what this could do for them; they’d be set for months at the very least.
“I’ll do what I have to as long as you do, too.”
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
They shook on it, and that was that.
~-~-~-~
Fundy nearly tripped as elbows knocked into him, everyone clamouring to get as close to the red carpet as possible. Blinding flashes surrounded him as he slipped through the chaos; the crowd spit him out in a crack incredibly close to the front and he struggled on his tiptoes to see.
“Mrs. Nihachu!” The voice of a reporter called, nearly inaudible over all of the others. “How are you feeling?”
The singer in question was dressed in a sparkling black gown, a white feathered boa thrown over her shoulders.
She smiled as she walked, waving politely at the cameras.
“I feel great! I’m just glad everyone will be able to hear what I’ve been practicing.”
“M-Mrs. Nihachu!” Fundy tried, but the frenzy swallowed it. “Mrs. Nihachu!”
As if by a miracle, Mrs. Nihachu turned to him, and Fundy felt his tail start swinging behind him. A wide smile spread across his face and he cleared his throat.
“Do you feel the hall is safe for both yourself and the audience?”
“Of course! Security will be provided at every entrance and the doors that lead into the ballroom. We’re here tonight to relax!”
Fundy snapped a final picture on his rusty camera as the pinkette continued down the walkway. It was small, expensive to maintain and the pictures were poor quality, but he had put it together with his own hands from scavenged parts.
Fundy was shoved back into the ocean of paparazzi, and he let it take him.
It was enough.
She had spoken to him! And he had proof!
He had really done it!
~-~-~-~
Niki looked in the mirror, dabbing at her cheeks with a makeup sponge.
A man holding a clipboard ducked his head into the room.
“You’re on in five, Mrs. Nihachu. In bocca al lupo!” Niki laughed, but didn’t take time to pause applying the makeup.
“That’s opera, dear, but may the wolf die all the same.” The stage manager blushed and smiled awkwardly, closing the dressing room door.
Niki took in a deep breath, pinning up her hair. This was it. This performance was the most important in her life. Last night had been her big break, but tonight would be under even more pressure.
Critics didn’t care if you hit the top of the charts once; they wanted consistency.
If she could perform well enough, a record label might pick her up.
Niki applied a final coat of lipstick and popped her lips. She held up a string of pearls to her neck and then swapped it out for a golden locket.
After a few tense moments, she decided on the locket, locking the other necklace in the table drawer.
The pinkette carefully pulled spotless white gloves up each forearm and rose.
She just had to relax. Everyone was here to hear her! They believed in her. She’d go out for ice cream or something after to treat herself.
She only needed to get through the night first.
~-~-~-~
Phil tapped his heel against the floor under the table, taking a small sip from his glass. The singer really was one of the best, hitting every note and drawing out every fermata of the song.
The musicians weren’t half-bad either, and it all blended together into an enjoyable, controlled sort of chaos.
But he probably wasn’t the authority to ask about music.
He watched the dance floor carefully. It was hard to pick out faces with the dimmed lights, but he did his best.
“Should’ve known better than to cheat a friend and waste the chance that I’ve been given.”
It was laughably easy to get past the guards and pick their pockets. That was a problem to be fixed urgently. Someone would need to be much more careful when it came to the selection process.
Phil glanced down at his watch. 10:23. It would be hard for things to have gotten off track, but Phil wouldn’t put it past them.
He sighed fondly, slipped a few dollars beneath his empty glass, and pushed it to the centre of his table.
“Sir.”
“Ma’am,” he replied without looking up. Of course she was here, because she was always where he wanted to be and never where he wanted her to be.
“What a coincidence that we’ve happened to meet on a night such as this.”
“We keep meeting.” He did look up now to find a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“A dance, sir.”
“Must I humor you?”
“To the heart and mind, ignorance is kind,” Mrs. Nihachu drawled in the background with the accompanying piano.
“Well, you usually do. Unless, of course, you’re busy?”
Phil stood, straightening his coat. There was time. He always factored in time for her. In fact, more often than not she was the only thing he appointed time for.
Besides.
He had been practicing his Lindy Hop.
~-~-~-~
Wilbur stole a glance down at his watch. They were running late. He gripped the catwalk railing as the song floated up to him.
“There’s no comfort in the truth, pain is all you’ll find.”
From his angle he could see the illuminated faces of dancers, but none of them were familiar in the slightest.
His eyes raked the crowd until they landed on a less than organized movement. A darkly clothed figure was weaving through the swarm like a salmon swimming upstream.
Wilbur rushed as quickly as he could across the catwalk to the northwest spotlight.
He flicked it on and swung it to face the stage. The singer squinted into the sudden light, beads of sweat popping up on her forehead and Wilbur dashed to turn off another.
If anything went wrong in the ballroom, they were done for.
“Though it’s easy to pretend, I know you’re not a fool. ”
When he looked back at the crowd, the figure had disappeared.
Wilbur cursed.
~-~-~-~
Tommy’s hood flipped off of his head as he pushed the rack of clothes down the empty hallway. The wheels were old and the weight heavy; they creaked from effort.
Assistant to the Head of Costume Design was a real nice way of saying he was on laundry duty. Tommy sighed. At least it was a job, and he could hear the muffled music through the walls if he strained his ears.
The blonde unlocked the dressing room door, leaving the rack outside.
Multiple dresses, hats, and scarves were strewn across the room, discarded without a second thought.
Some of the magic had been wiped away when he saw this side of celebrity life.
“So I’m never gonna dance again the way I danced with you~! ”
Some of it.
Tommy hummed the tune to himself as he stooped to collect the clothing into a pile.
~-~-~-~
“Tonight the music seems so loud. I wish that we could lose this crowd.” Kristin kept her eyes on Phil even as couples closed in on either side of them. The dance floor was hot with the physical effort and amount of tightly packed dancers.
Someone moving quickly brushed against Kristin’s back and Phil spun her out of the way.
“You’re doing much better than last time,” she said genuinely and he hummed. They twisted and turned around each other with perceivable ease. “Funny. I could’ve sworn you were more of a talker.”
“Sorry, I thought you would prefer if I didn’t step on your toes.”
“That’d be much easier to do from your couch at home, dear. Your presence here is stepping on my toes enough.”
“Maybe it’s better this way. We’d hurt each other with the things we wanna say.”
“Well I couldn’t make it easy for you, could I? Thought you liked a challenge?” Her eyes narrowed as he spun her.
~-~-~-~
Techno slipped past dancing couples as quickly as he could, moving towards the swinging doors. He took a final look up at the catwalk. He could just see Wilbur’s faint outline like the corona in a solar eclipse.
Techno silently hoped his twin knew what he was doing before he slid out of the door, the song following him.
By the time the pinkette made it to the hallway, the figure had vanished.
It didn’t matter.
Techno already knew where they were heading.
He just needed to get there quicker.
~-~-~-~
“You always have to outdo me, don’t you?” Kristin breathed and Phil rolled his eyes sarcastically.
“If I bought an advertisement on the radio, you’d buy the entire radio company.”
“We could’ve lived this dance forever.”
“But you’ll never be happy if I get what I want.” She was forging forward, speeding up the dance.
“Love, you always want what I want.”
“Then you should let me have it.”
“But now who’s gonna dance with me?”
~-~-~-~
Niki brought the song to a close and thunderous claps filled the ballroom. She felt warmth rise to her cheeks and smiled, taking a small curtsey. A figure on the catwalk caught her gaze and she looked up.
The pinkette couldn’t quite catch their face but they looked pleased enough from body language alone.
It must’ve been a talent scout.
Niki’s heart sang as she started the next song, bouncing a bit on the balls of her feet.
~-~-~-~
Tommy closed the dressing room door to find peals of applause leaking in through the opposite wall.
He blushed a bit to himself and imagined it was for him. The blonde gave a tiny bow as he pushed the cart on squealing wheels.
His eyes were still closed when the cart bumped against something and he went toppling forward.
Costumes, dresses and suits poured out of the cart like wine from a bottle and Tommy swore under his breath.
“Oh! Here!” Tommy looked up to find a young man in a red, pressed suit kneeling in front of him. Pink curly hair was piled on his head and a few loose strands fell over his eyes as he tossed clothes back into the cart.
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“It’s really no problem.”
Before long they had everything situated and the elder clapped Tommy respectfully on the back. “A word of advice? Be careful, boy. You don’t know what kind of things people are up to.”
“Yes, sir.”
~-~-~-~
“Bei mir bist du shöen means that you’re grand!”
Although the new song was slower, Kristin continued to fling herself through the dance, forcing Phil to accelerate as well.
He was struggling to keep up, racking his mind to remember what taps and twirls went where. Kristin was still breezing through it, shaking as naturally as a leaf in the wind.
“When will you learn not to say no to me?”
“Again I’ll explain. It means you’re the fairest in the land!”
“We could exist separately, y’know. This only happens because we choose to get messed up in each other’s work.”
Kristin let out a bubbly laugh.
Phil almost tripped.
“You couldn’t live without me.”
“I could say ‘bella, bella' even ‘sehr wünderbar’! ” The song was speeding up; Kristin was just a blur of sequined black and Phil was relying solely on muscle memory and Kristin’s help.
“But it’s you that keeps coming back.”
“Every language only helps me tell you how grand you are~!”
His hands were on her hips and then they were at eye level as he lifted her into the air.
~-~-~-~
A hand settled next to Wilbur’s on the catwalk railing. The brunette didn’t bother to turn.
“You get it?”
“What d’you think?” Technoblade responded, running his free hand through his hair. Wilbur hummed, still focused on something down below. “Where is he?”
“What do you think?”
~-~-~-~
“I’ve tried to explain, 'Bei mir bist du shöen’.”
She was panting but wouldn’t stop. Phil just barely managed to avoid a high kick with enough force to smash a pumpkin. The leg was replaced with a smile and she pressed up against his chest.
He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
Suddenly her lips were grazing his. He let his eyes flutter closed and leant into it.
And she was gone, dashing out the door.
“Kiss me and say you understand!”
Phil looked down at his watch.
10:30.
He was late.
~-~-~-~
Kristin leaned against the railing of the boat, cheek held in her palm. A new hat and earrings decorated her head. Extra goodies were tucked into a gift bag at her feet.
Tommy tossed a feathered boa over his shoulders with a hand practically dripping in rings and laughed giddily.
Phil, Wilbur and Technoblade burst from the ballroom as the boat floated lazily down the river.
Kristin blew them a kiss.
Wilbur crossed his arms over his chest and Techno leaned against the wall; Phil just held something up in each hand that Kristin had to squint to see.
In his left, a string of large white pearls.
In his right hand, a barrette in the shape of a flying crow.
Kristin’s hand flew to her hair.
Phil gave an exaggerated bow from the sidewalk.
He’d give it back.
Eventually. Kristin sighed, and a genuine smile slid onto her face. She leaned further into her hand as the music drifted lazily through her head.
“When you’re in love it’s really not a gamble. ‘Cause you’re betting on a real sure thing.”