seven.
NATHAN SMILED EVEN though he knew he shouldn't. A masochistic reflex, perhaps, or maybe just a way to maintain his quaking composure.
Whatever the explanation behind the involuntary smile was, Adelaide sure as hell didn't understand it. She gawked at Nathan like he was a reincarnated prehistoric animal.
"How . . . Why in the world would you smi—"
"I don't know, okay?" Nathan quickly cut Adelaide off. "It's a reflex."
The Director tutted, a small buzzy noise through the earpiece, then said, "Look at my actors enjoying a conversation. Go get changed!"
"Shit." Nathan and Adelaide jolted alike then scampered across the stage, down the stair-steps, and hesitated in front of the room's door. One wrong move and they'd trigger the Director. They waited for a last order.
"Change at the same time—we can't waste a minute. One of you in the bathroom and one in the room. My heroine, make sure you close the door behind you. We all know what my villain's like."
Nathan's jaw dropped, brows drawing into a sharp frown. There was something particularly annoying about the assumption that all boys were thirsty assholes. In another case, Nathan would've spewed a string of obscenities but he swallowed down the instinct.
Adelaide gave Nathan a look, then both simultaneously glanced at the bathroom. Nathan realized she was thinking of something else.
"You change in the bathroom," he said. "It's fine, I'll change here."
Adelaide looked like she wanted to thank him but time didn't allow her; she hastened to the bathroom and disappeared for a split-second before thrusting out Nathan's clothing bag.
Fetching it right in time, Nathan cautiously watched the door—the glass slit towards the top through which the Director could be staring. He pushed the door so that it closed without clicking, though the thought of the psycho invading his privacy killed a nerve.
Nathan huddled in the corner adjacent to the door, on the other end, and quickly changed into his scene two clothes. Adelaide came out of the bathroom just as he was righting the belt around his hips.
She flinched, tilting away whilst rambling, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I totally forgot to ask if you're done but I didn't—"
"Don't worry about it." Nathan walked towards the door and nonchalantly gestured Adelaide over. "I was done anyway."
Nathan opened the door and stepped outside, followed by Adelaide. They climbed to the last rung and peeked at the stage: the curtains had closed again, and now a picnic basket and a checkered square rag lay on the floor.
"Prepare yourselves on stage," the Director said. "My villain, remember to sit right over the spot I marked for you. Right over it."
Nathan nodded, but it took him a quick breath to function. The Director's advice flashed in his head: keep acting no matter what happens. What the hell was gonna happen?
With his stomach churning, Nathan walked to the stage and sat down on his knees on the rag, adjusting himself right over the mark. Adelaide settled close to him.
The curtains started pulling apart. Nathan frowned. So the Director wouldn't announce that this was scene two? The sense of Adelaide's hesitant stare on him told him she was wondering the same.
"When they open completely, I'm gonna start," Nathan said before she could even ask. "I don't think he's gonna say this is scene two."
Adelaide nodded. Nathan busied himself with watching the curtains—the further they folded, the steeper his heart crashed into his ribs. Letting out a shaky breath, he gave the place behind him a quick look.
An urgent tap on his knee made him face forward again. The curtains stopped moving, so Nathan slipped into character and smiled like he wasn't kidnapped, leaning forward.
"I hated Mondays until I met you," he started. "Mondays only meant work, but now they remind me of the first time I saw you."
Adelaide was either scared for Nathan or scared for herself. Most likely both. Her expressions weren't solid, constantly distorted by shaky fear. "I hated all days of the week until I met you."
"How come?"
"I don't know . . . It's the sadness, I think. Or the loneliness, but a specific type of loneliness. The type that no one in the world can fill, not even a sibling or child or—"
"Sounds to me like you're talking about a partner," Nathan cut her off. "I remember you said a friend was gonna pick you up. Was it . . . ?"
"He was just a close friend, Dolion. Nothing more."
"So you're really alone."
Adelaide tried forcing a guilty look. It really didn't work, but Nathan couldn't blame her. "You can say that."
Nathan hummed and scooted closer until their knees touched, fingers daintily brushing against the side of Adelaide's hand. "But you have me now," he said as he glanced at her. He tilted his torso closer to her, partially sealing the space in between.
Adelaide's tense discomfort was too painfully tangible and Nathan wondered if she could sense the same about him. Frozen but not unwelcoming, particularly like the script's orders, Adelaide said, "I-I feel like I'm doing something I shouldn't do."
"I kinda feel the same." Nathan looked down at the finger that he'd taken the ring off of—a tiny detail he doubted the Director would notice. With the edge of his finger, he gently forced Adelaide's face up until their eyes aligned.
"Then what are we doing, N-Dolion?"
The question came out unintentionally real. What really were they doing? Acting out a play about lovers that made them both experience the ultimate levels of awkwardness? For what? To save themselves from fear of the unknown or fear of the known?
Nathan stuck to the script. "Maybe the wrong thing. Maybe the right thing. Whatever it is, I like it. And—"
Something hot like fire passed across the backs of Nathan's legs. He let out a forcefully muted whimper. His hand tightened around Adelaide's arm where he'd been touching. Hard. Probably hard enough to cut off her blood circulation.
He didn't care. All he knew was that whatever happened to his legs really hurt but he had a line to deliver. Directly opposite him, Adelaide's mouth was slack. Shocked. She looked ready to break character.
Keep acting no matter what happens.
"And I know you like it too," Nathan quickly continued, voice almost incomprehensibly breathy. His hand never left Adelaide's arm: an outlet of pain, a feeble line to keep him from screaming.
"Th-That's the problem." Adelaide's eyes glossed like twinkles resided inside.
Nathan wondered if she'd managed to catch what the hell had happened. He desperately sucked in a breath as fuel. "What's the problem?"
"That I like this. That I like your presence. I shouldn't."
Nathan let go of Adelaide's arm, still not daring to look back at his legs even though the act had just ended. Adelaide cupped her mouth and her eyes seemed to do the job for him—directed behind him. She didn't speak.
"End of Act Two," the Director said, then left them in dreary silence for two minutes until he strode on stage. "Don't cry, my villain. Just a little scratch. It's nothing compared to all the shit you're doing."
Nathan finally glanced back; one thin, blood-doused wound cut into his calves. Like something small but sharp had passed by and sliced him.
His shoulders shuddered, but he managed to keep himself together. The Director kept glaring then finally spoke: "Get up, bow to the audience. Then you clean the stage, my villain."
Nathan blinked. Then he pulled himself off his knees, one leg at a time, and he gave Adelaide a clueless look when she caught his arm and helped him hoist himself up. Both of them bowed like ordered.
The Director held out the broom. Nathan approached, almost faltering at the suddenness of the wound's stings, and grabbed it.
"But he's wounded," Adelaide said as she extended her hand out, as if wanting to interfere. But the Director's disapproving expression had her recoiling. "I can help him clean maybe?"
"No! Why would you clean, my heroine?" Again with the utterly surprised, borderline scandalized voice coming out of the Director. A bit overdramatic if you'd ask Nathan. "You're too sweet. He doesn't deserve it. He never deserved it."
The Director bowed his head to the last statement. Sadness, or pain, or empty derangement. Then he looked around him, behind him, and twisted back to face Adelaide and Nathan.
"Get to cleaning. And Luna, back to your room."
Luna?
What the hell was up with the interchanging references? Nathan shook his head then glanced over his shoulder at Adelaide, only to find her staring at the wounds on his calves. Just go, he mouthed.
Adelaide did, but the weight of her watery eyes lingered on him. When Nathan turned back to the Director, he wasn't there.
Probably a test. Nathan dusted the floor, wincing every time the thin cuts stretched and tore further apart. Step by step, he found himself near the chords. He crouched there—a quick rest—and glanced at his wounds. Some of the blood trickled onto his pants in dark lines.
How the hell had that even happened? A fucking flying blade?
Sighing shakily, he glanced forwards again. Nathan couldn't see anything beyond the iron chords where an "audience" normally would be. The inky blackness there combined with bad eyesight made it nearly impossible to discern a shape, recognize a figure.
But it didn't affect the hearing. Nathan froze when he heard noises echo. Kinda distant and oddly jumbled. He stared past the bars again. Listening. But nothing, at least not there.
Behind him? Nathan hadn't had the chance to turn when a callous hand gripped the nape of his neck, fast and sudden like a predator. Nathan let out a muffled gasp.
"What are you doing, my villain?"
"Nothing," Nathan quickly said with his chin tilted upwards. He tried not to resist the force so that his neck wouldn't snap. "I was cleaning and I thought I heard something there."
The fingertips slackened around his flesh. Nathan released the breath he'd unawarely locked in his lungs.
"You heard something?" the Director said. Silence, but it was soon marred with a wet mocking laugh. "Of course you're going to hear something. And that something might hear you too."
Nathan's expression twisted unsurely. And he'd thought chemistry was confusing; finally something else topped the list. He didn't dare move, not with fingertips colder than the chill tracing his spine still against his skin.
"Don't ever try looking there again." The Director tightened his grip, adjusting it, then jammed Nathan's head into the chords. "Or else you won't get your surprise when we finish," he spat.
Nathan groaned, long and pained. For a split-second he saw all black. Then swirly colors. Everything cleared again. The side of his face throbbed, and he splayed a palm against it with his eyes screwed shut.
The broom slipped from Nathan's hands at some point midst the trance. The Director's rough jab on the back of his shoulder popped his bubble.
"Just . . . Just go to your room, my villain. Go."
Nathan didn't bother asking: but what about cleaning? He gripped a chord and pulled himself up, then trudged towards the end of the stage, pressing a palm to the wall for stability as he descended the stair-steps.
At the room's threshold, Adelaide was standing wide-eyed, her palm still on her mouth. Wasn't it time already for her shock to expire? Nathan had known violence would slam into him at some point—especially coming from a psycho harboring inexplicable grudge towards him.
"Oh my gosh, what happened to you?" Adelaide asked, squeezing herself against the threshold and gesturing him in.
Nathan ignored the question and lumbered inside, heading straight to the wall and slumping against it. The position was comforting: a reminder of when things hadn't yet escalated.
"Stretch your legs, you idiot." Adelaide urgently tapped his knee. The confidence in this almost made Nathan laugh. He'd never seen her so demanding until now. "I was looking through the bathroom cabinet and I found disinfectants, so don't worry, alright? We'll clean up the wounds and nothing will happen. Yeah. Everything's alright."
The way she was trying to comfort Nathan seemed like she was comforting herself instead. "It's fine," he mumbled, closing his eyes for a second. "It could've been worse."
Adelaide had been in the middle of turning to the bathroom, but the words had her spinning back to Nathan. Hand on her hip, brows furrowed, she said, "Stop saying it's fine. It's not, alright?"
"You were literally just saying that everything's alright."
Adelaide froze for a second, recalculating. She frowned. "Oh yeah . . . " She waved her hand exasperatedly. "Ignore me when I'm panicking."
She vanished into the bathroom. Nathan straightened a little. Disinfectant? Surely not a coincidence. The Director had planned this and stocked disinfectants to clean the wounds. So the rule was hurt but not kill?
Even worse.
"Adelaide," Nathan called, peering at the bathroom. "Forget about the stupid disinfectant, we need to talk about something."
Adelaide came back with tissues and a disinfectant. "We don't have a doctor here. If this stuff gets infected, you'll lose your entire leg. Please don't underestimate a small wound."
Standing like that, frowning, worrying, rambling on about safety, Adelaide could be a doppelgänger of Nathan's mom. Or big sister. Nathan couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh or cry at the comparison.
Adelaide made a pirouette with her finger. "Now turn, please. I'll clean the blood and you'll tell me whatever you want to tell me."
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a/n: hello! hope you enjoyed. I've been feeling super insecure lately so my paranoid ass is telling me no one's enjoying. I hate myself too lol.
Thank you for reading/voting/commenting!