The Fragility of Hope (Mavi)

Chapter 7

This one gets pretty dark towards to end. Heads up.

***

Their show in Boston is quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of Avi's entire life.

His voice had never failed him like it did at that show. He completely nailed the first half of the set, but the second half...

They were just finishing up Misbehavin' when it happened. He didn't know how, or why, or what even caused it, but his voice cracked. His voice hasn't cracked like that since he was in high school.

And he made panicked eyed contact with Kirstie, who made extremely urgent eye contact with Scott, who just looked confused. He stared at Avi with an incredulous look on his face as the crowd screamed, and he was never afraid of Scott until that very moment.

When they hesitantly kicked off into their next song, Scott put so much power and soul into his voice to cover up for Avi's mistakes, Kirstie belted everything louder than she ever has, and Mitch... Mitch sounded exactly the same. But then again, he also kept shooting Avi extremely sympathetic looks, and it only made him feel a million times worse. He didn't need pity, he needed an escape.

Avi decides that he maybe wants to be dead. Because the rest of the show finished up, and he had to use a vocal fry for notes that he should've been able to easily hit, and it hurt. He wanted to know why was his voice was cracking and why he'd been cursed in the middle of a show, and why the crowd kept cheering even though he brought the entire group down. All Avi wanted to do was go hide in his bunk for the rest of eternity.

And when they all stepped off the stage and their in ear monitors were hanging loosely around their necks, Scott pushed Avi so hard that he had to take a step backwards. "What the fuck, Avi?"

He's never seen Scott mad before, and he really wished that he didn't see it now. Because the man was livid, and his voice was sore and raw from all the power he put into his performance.

"I-I don't know, I just..." His own voice reminded him of sandpaper, and he wanted to die, man did he wish he was dead. "I'm sorry."

"Scotty, it's not his fault." Avi's ears perked up at the caring tone in his guardian angel's voice. Mitch rested one of his delicate and elegant hands on Scott's bicep, and if Avi ever doubted his feelings for Mitch, he sure didn't now. Because he might possibly be the most perfect human being in the world, and even in this extremely dire situation, he could actually see himself dating the boy.

Welp, there goes that theory about 'not being able to date a male'.

"I just, ah, have a lot on my plate," Avi mumbled while awkwardly scratching his neck. His heart dropped at the truth of his words, because a lot didn't even begin to describe what he was drowning in.

"What could possibly be going on in your life that fucks you up this hard, Avi?" Scott's face relaxed from an angry scowl to a gentle and compassionate one, and it made Avi's heart hurt. "What is going on with you?"

Nothing. Everything. Please save me. I'm sad and my voice isn't working and I think I might be gay and death is sounding very appealing right now --

But before Avi could formulate a half witted response, Kevin was nudging Scott backwards towards the dressing rooms. "Alright, man. Now's not the time. Come on."

He was so thankful for Kevin being the most logical person in the group, and he tried to make eye contact with him, but he was already herding Scott away and didn't pay Avi any more mind. Mitch was following them too, and Avi mentally begged for him not to go.