moonlight / in the shade — yan & feng

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tick 12a / calla
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last seen Nov 20, 2024 18:01:45 GMT -5

just a litle creacher

moonlight / in the shade — yan & feng Dec 30, 2022 0:58:29 GMT -5

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Post by tick 12a / calla on Dec 30, 2022 0:58:29 GMT -5

► ► ►

After the first showing of Hegemon-King, Cao is already trying to push the next production. There's still months left on the playbill and he flits around like a little beetle, flapping his wings and his mouth and trying to put your Consort Yu in an early grave.

You've retired with the stack of script notes that Lilian brought in earlier, which you were able to resolutely ignore until she came back in and practically threw them at you.

It's for Seventh Honour.

Again.

Cao still thinks it's going to be a masterpiece some day, even though half the markings he's made in the playbook are nonsense. He's already coerced one of the tailors to take in Cheng Huaixing's costume for you, even though you never play daoma. He's still trying to convince Yitang to take both the Adroxis roles - apparently it's supposed to be poetic.

You think it's rather stupid, actually.

It's much more tempting to hold Cao's notes over the little flame of a lamp and watch the edges curl in.

He must have some kind of vendetta against the classics. Or he just has very bad taste.

You settle in for a night of steady parchment burning, you can already see the look on his face in the morning when he comes asking for feedback and you dump the ashes into his lap.

Someone rushes down the hall and skids past your door.

The lamplight flickers a little, you've got a window cracked open and the season's brought the beginning of a breeze to the area. You have silks though, and cushions still full enough to lie back on, and it's blissfully quiet now that the theatre's gone dark and your migraine from Yitang's voice is starting to fade-

There's a thud outside, and a set of whispers that carries further than the breeze.

You ignore it, burn another page, burrow yourself further.

Someone giggles.

Your eye twitches.

You shove a stool aside and nearly catch your sleeve on fire with the motion, practically throw yourself out into the hall, but it's empty. The sound is coming from further down.

The exasperation hits you full force. It's late. All you want is to burn Cao's stupid little lyrics in peace, but the juniors are all up still, three of them clustered behind the doorway from the courtyard to the theatre, looking out past the stage, across the tables and the chairs, all the way to the bar. They keep nudging each other, laughing, and one almost steps out past the threshold.

You pointedly clear your throat and each of them whirls around, freezing when they see you.

"Yan!"

"We were just-"

"It's not-"

"Go." You hiss at them, and they trip over each other as they pass by, whispering and shoving each other all the way back to the bunks.

You count to ten in your head, press your thumb against the inside of your wrist. You make to turn back, to the lamp and the papers and the ash, to the comfort of your own room away from the other actors that squish in together at the back of the hall.

But there's the slightest noise from where the juniors where gathered to watch. The stage must carry it, because it always feels bigger after a show. Vaster. Like it echos on purpose. It isn't perfectly level, and a lot of people don't know that. It slopes halfway down, gentle enough that you can't really feel it unless you're looking. It makes the sound a little different, makes it travel a little stranger.

You step out from the curtain and onto the slope. It always feels wrong being on the stage like this - without the music and the costumes and the makeup. It feels sadder. Darker, too. Colder. It isn't as warm without the spotlights on, the shadows make the theatre corners go on for miles and miles and and your skin crawls from it. All the empty chairs sit down at the floor level, silently tucked away and ready for tomorrow, and one of the bartenders fiddles at the bar across from them.

"Oh." You say, disappointed at the find, "You're still here."

You don't know what you expected the juniors to be so intrigued by. A theatre ghost? A body someone left behind? Certainly not someone doing extra work in a place like this. It's hard enough to get people around here to do the bare minimum. You'd know - you're one of them.

There's still a little spot of ash on your thumb that you rub away.

You step closer to the bar, walking further downstage until you hit the edge of it. The only light comes from the lamp on the bar-top and it reaches weakly for you, stretching out like the fingers of a gnarled old woman.

You stomp on the fingers and hang back, annoyance still brushing against the tenderness of your temples.

"Cao won't pay you overtime, you know."

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gamemaker kelsier
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“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

moonlight / in the shade — yan & feng Apr 8, 2023 2:36:34 GMT -5

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Post by gamemaker kelsier on Apr 8, 2023 2:36:34 GMT -5

F E N G

There's no point in doing the monthly inventory in the morning, least of all on a Saturday and Cao demands an accurate count, down to how many fingers are left in an open bottle. Though the actors might say otherwise, it isn't their performances that keep people filtering in through the doors night after night but the taps on the bar and the exquisite cocktails you and your kind craft with expertise. Cao demands revenue, it's you who demands perfection from the other bartenders.

But then it's also you stuck here long after the rest of the day staff has left, working a double shift on a busy Saturday.

You don't mind it so much like this though, with the hall empty but for you and the flickering lamps. The building creaks around you in the wind and you hear the faint sound of footsteps every now and then from the actor's quarters behind the stage but that's always been more comforting than alarming. When you leave for your house in the early hours of the morning, you always feel the emptiness more.

You're standing on the bar top, counting the wine bottles stored above when you catch movement out of the corner of your eye. You only pause briefly in your count, turning your head slightly to study the threat before deeming it unworthy. It's just a few of the younger actors watching you from the wings again. This happens often and you assume they're just spies from Cao to ensure you're doing a good job.

It hasn't ever occurred to you that you might be considered handsome. Your mother used to say you were but that's what mothers do. Your grandmother Weng said you looked like your father and that always felt more like an insult than a compliment to you.

But the truth is, you are. You've grown into your looks and that serious expression you've always carried since you were a baby. Years of hard work have broadened your shoulders but there's a stubborn gentleness to you that most men lose when they're much younger than your eighteen years. In a place like this, that alone is attractive.

And even without all that, a boy who carries pain as well as you do is undeniably irresistible to some.

"Oh, you're still here."

You look over your shoulder to see a figure standing on the stage, just on he very edge of the dim lighting from your bar top. But you know that voice, you've heard it near every night for two years now. The lamp flickers and you can see a dismissive expression on his face, tinged with annoyance. It isn't rare for you to be here this late, back when you were more security than bar man you were often here much later into the morning. You know everyone by name at this point but you strongly doubt that Yan knows yours.

Why would a first Dan deign to learn the bartender's name, though?

"Yup," you answer, and look back at the wine bottles. There's a bottle of merlot missing from your ledger and far too many boys in the complex that know how to pick a lock.

"Cao won't pay you overtime, you know."

"Yup," you answer again. It doesn't matter what Cao will or will not pay you, it's you who has first access to the earnings from the alcohol sales and you'll simply take what you're owed for your labour. If one day he finds out and fires you for it, it will be his funeral. People crawl in from all over Nine for one of your cocktails and you both know it.

You say nothing else but when you finish counting the bottles up top and jump back down behind the bar, Yan is still standing there.

"You're still here," you echo him, and then you just stand there, staring silently.

"Do you need something?" you ask finally, a hand resting on your clipboard. You don't mind it when the actors ask you to fix something for them in their rooms, you like the satisfaction a small job like that brings, but it's been a long day, images of your bed keep flashing through your head.

And you have to let the chickens out.