West refused to admit that the tightening in his gut was nerves. He had scaled across the roofs of the barros and run with the bulls in Spain, there was no way a little thing like a school Gala was enough to make his palms sweat and his throat run dry. And yet as he wiped his hands against his pant leg for the ninth or tenth time, West was forced to admit that maybe he was a little.... anxious about the show today.
After the showdown with Joao and the Dog's, West had spent most of April ready for an attack. Add to that the issues his friend Alice was gonig through with the media and having Stuart on the loose, and his life had gotten far more interesting than he had ever anticipated at the beginning of the school year. The Cubano had to stop and take a moment when he realized that ever since November, when Alice first walked into his life, things had gotten thrown off their predictable course and onto a new, crazy one. And he was actually thankful for it, because this new path in life had given him Maddison.
So he walked over to Alice, seeing her quietly panicing in a corner, and threw his arm over her shoulders. "You ready for this?" he asked, smiling at her.
Alice turned to probably give him a smarta** responce but instead dashed to the garbage can to throw up. West raised his eyebrows, having seen another student do that ssame thing about five minutes ago. Nerves were contageous it appeared. "I'm guessing that's a no." he laughed, handing her a napkin. "You know it's not too late to run away with me." he suggested to the woman he now considered another sister.
Alice gave a soft laugh, knowing that he was joking. "For once that actually sounds good." she teased.
West gave voice to the truth of the matter. "Yeah but dealing with Reaper once he caught up would suck."
Alice smiled at the mention of her fiancee. "D*** straight. That man would hunt me down like the predator does alien. His favourite words are 'found you.'" she laughed, and West grinned, knowing that he had distracted her from the worst of her nerves. And his own nerves had been pushed aside at the same time, double win.
On the other side of the stage the band started to play, welcoming the guests in. West squeezed her shoulder in silent support and disappeared off to his side, knowing that they were both about to haveto focus on bigger things than a little stage nerves. It was time to go out and kick a**. A moment after that thought occured, Romeo stepped in beside him and the two men silently nodded hello to each other. Ever since the night of the throw down with Jo, the Trinidadian had been walking with an extra swagger in his step. Even if there had been no real fight going on, West's side had clearly won and Romeo obviously liked being on the winning side.
"Rock 'em sock 'em." Romeo muttered to West as the last of The Final Countdown faded away.
With a smirk, West strode out onto stage, taking his place as King Oberon. Sure it meant he had to dance with Lexi as if she wasn't toxic, but that was a small price to pay for the applause he'd get at the end. West was just honest enough to admit he liked the attention. He was just grateful that the irritating blonde wasn't doing her own speaking roles. She had this squeaky, little girl voice that the idiot thought was sexy! West just had to pretend that the woman in his arms was his red headed Angel, because that was the only way he could keep this blonde idiot in his arms and not have clear disgust on his face. Thankfully they didn't have to spend too much time actually together on the stage. Soon enough Lexi huffed off, the only realistic part of her acting was the overly dramatic exit, typical.
West felt the amused grin spread wider across his face as he saw Alice dance on stage. She wasn't attractive to him in that sense anymore, but he could appreciate the way the little squaw moved. For all intents and purposes, this was his sister-in-law dancing towards him, and if things had gone just a little differently, they probably would have ended up together as a couple. But knowing how much she loved Reaper and how badly West needed Maddison, he knew things had worked out exactly as they were supposed to. Still, he could flirt and tease and play, knowing that Ace was aware of how things stood between them, even if no one else really understood.
They walked across the stage, the background Faeries moving props around so it looked like he was leading Alice's Puck a long walk away to the love-in-idleness flower. He was greatful that the sound system wasn't bouncing back, making him listen to his own speech. Although a lot of women had told West that his accent and voice were dead sexy, the Cuban always preferred to not hear himself talk. Nudging Puck in the right direction, Oberon slipped off stage and then West was running full tilt for his other costume, nearly running over the love of his life in the process.
Maddison stepped out of the way but West stopped, unable to resist. He grabbed her around the waist and planted a big kiss on her lips, oblivious to the fact that they were in the middle of the highschool corridor. And then he broke off hte kiss and finished his mad dash, leaving a bemused and kiss dazed Mad behind. Throwing on the elaborate guard costume, West skidded back out onto stage just in time to topple Alice away from the love flower.
Puck skidded across the stage, the move practed a hundred times so that it looked like she was going to fall right off, but Alice grappled the edge and hauled herself back in place. With a mask covering his face, West grinned, loving hte tingle of adrenaline that laced his system, the loud music pumping his heart rate up. Alice launched herself towards West, and this was the scene that made it necessary for him to play as a guard. He was the only one strong enough for this. She used the carefully placed props to run up as steps and landed with one leg hooked over West's shoulder, one straight down his chest. As she hooked onto him, he spun and gripped her tight but carefully so she could lean back. Her leg and his strong hands were all that kept her from crashing to the ground as he spun and she swung herslef to point her head to the floor and then straighten up again. They paused for a second and the lights went out, the blacklights revealing all the bright neon colours and white of her costume and the guards. It looked amazing as h***. West felt her unhook her leg and he threw her, the audience only seeing her fly back into a wall, the cushion hidden from view. Puck rolled back to her feet and ran back towards the wall as West the guard came chasing after her. She did that action movie run up the wall to flip over the guard's shoulder, but he spun and 'backhanded her away'. Alice jumped back up, grinning madly though no one but the Cubano could see it. She loved this s*** as much as he did, and West grinned back even though she couldn't see it. West reached out to her and grabbed her hand and litterally spun her around as she hung off of him. He picked her up bridal style as the lgihts slowly came back on and it looked like she snapped his neck. He dropped to his knees, letting Alice step out of his grip and walk to the flower as he slumped to the floor. Then she calmly skipped off stage as the curtains closed. Intermission.
Picking himself up off the floor, the Cubano hustled off stage and out of his costume. After dropping the guard gear off, he went running over to pick Ace up in a massive bear hug to spin her around. They had to keep the noise down though, because even though it was intermission, the band and choir were showcasing their own talents right now. Soon enough their brief break was over, and now West went back onstage as Oberon. The play was only half over and it already felt like they'd been doing this for hours. Thankfully he knew he got a break shortly, and his appreciation for Ace's endurance was steadily climbing as she kept the high energy gonig through all her complicated choreography. The props were already set up so that she 'turned the flower into paint', and West could feel the audience eagerly watching as his Oberon strode on scene to dance with Puck and lead her over towards the slumbering Titania. Puck painted the neon marker onto Lexi's face, and West could tell she enjoyed scribbling little hearts on Lexi's face. Then he pointed out the human lovers, wanting to teach the cruel Demetrius a lesson so he directed her to mark him too. But she tagged the wrong human, making Lysander leave his lover Hermia to chase after Helena. Oberon commands that she get the right male so shortly after Demetrius starts chasing poor Helena too, who thinks this is all a mocking prank and then West finally got to leave the stage for his next break. It was shorter than the last one, and he greedily sucked on the pieces of orange he had stuffed in his mouth, the citric acid stinging his dry lips. And then he slipped back on stage, taking the 'child' that Oberon and Titania had been fighting over.
That was the beginning of the wrap up and every single actor, dancer, signer or musician West spied had that same glow on hteir face. No one had screwed up, nothing had gone wrong. It literally had been a perfect show, and West felt the same pride that shone on all their faces. He barely remembered to say his lines 'freeing' the humans and instructing Puck to restore Bottoms' human head. And then they were done and it was over except for the applause and bowing. Eventually the stage emptied and all the actors were ebullient backstage.
"We have to go out and celebrate." West laughed, hugging Alice once again.
"Agreed. You go grab the respective significant others, I'm going to take a sander to my face to try and get this s*** off my skin." Alice instructed. West laughed at her and walked off, waving as people called out to him.
He made it all the way to Maddison's side when he suddenly stopped, head tilting to the side. He'd just gotten a really bad feeling in his gut and looked up to see Malcolm frowning at him. Either the Spanaird had gotten the same bad feeling, or West hadn't imagined jsut hearing someone scream Reaper's name again.
"Oh shit." West muttered and took off running, pushing through the crowd at the same time Malcolm did. No one else looked alarmed, but then again, no one else expected bad s*** to happen today. But the Cubano had recognized Alice's voice even through the din of the crowd. Despite his words to Joao last month, West was ready to kill when he skidded into the hallway a half step behind Malcolm and saw Alice on the floor with Stuart on her back and too much blood all over both.
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A/N: YES! I FINALLY got West's story to the Gala. Holy CRAP there's been a lot blocking this from happening lately. Holy flipping G it's been nuts this week. Between me being struck with the flu and work being struck with a highly contagious case of imbecilitus, I wasn't sure if I would get this done at all. I've got the zombie walk tomorrow and a full day Sunday, so the next update isn't likely to happen until Monday. Anything posted this weekend is just bonus as far as I'm concerned. :D