Text; Leo ⇄ Danny

xbhandri​:

I can’t do this. I shouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t. Xavier just sat there and listened as Leo gave a million and one reasons as to why he shouldn’t audition. He let him go on, but really, he didn’t know why. No matter what Leo said, he had an answer for. He wasn’t going to let his friend back out of this. And besides, maybe if he felt so strongly, he didn’t have to audition for Roger. Just being backup in RENT was something, right?

“Leo… There is no future… There is no past. Thank God this moments not the last,” he started to sing. He couldn’t really turn this down, right? What was RENT if not a way to say #yolo in an epidemic. You still have time, don’t waste it. “There’s only us, there’s only this, forget regret, or life is yours to miss,” he stood up from his seat to move closer to Leo. “No other to road, no other way, no day but today.”

Xavier took Leo’s face in his hands to look him in the eye. “I can’t control my destiny. I trust my soul. Will you wake tomorrow from this nightmare? We won’t fucking know until you do it. There’s only now, there’s only here. Give in to love, or live in fear. No other path, no other way. No day but today.”

-

Leo parted his lips out of awe but this time just stretched into a knowing smile. Of course Xavier would know exactly how to fan the flames of his heart. His best friend was just as eccentric and playful as he was, but somehow, Xavier knew how to stunningly straddle the line between being too much and not enough. He watched him sing the beautiful words written by Jonathan Larson. Leo’s mind began accompanying his voice with the instrumentals he knew by memory. The music and lyrics made the intention of Xavier’s performance grow. Leo really should at least try. Because if not today, when? No day but today. 

He looked down for a moment, only to feel hands on his face, and at this he had to smile again. He immediately looked back into Xav’s gaze, letting his friend caress his face as he sang RENT to him. If anyone were to walk in right now, they wouldn’t get it, and that is so them. His heart was appreciative at the effort to change his mind. His thoughts began to sink onto the possibility of just trying out. He was silent for one moment. Then he exhaled slowly, “Forget regret, right?” 

PENN BADGLEY — The Paper Store (2016)

xbhandri​:

@le0davis​

“Don’t you dare say anything. I don’t want to know. Just because you’re teaching my ex-husband how to act does not mean I want to know if he word vomited anything about our night together. Tell me everything.” Xavier quickly backtracked on what he was rambling about. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Why is sex so good? Not with him. Okay, like, with him, but in general. I meant in general.” He scrunched his face with a small tilt to his head. Taking a sip of his drink, he tried to ignore the feelings instead. “So what about Broadway. What’s your dream role, lover boy?”

-

Leo laughed after Xavier went on a little tangent. His relationship between Nate was a completely different vibe than his with Xavier. with Nate, Leo was a teacher and felt such responsibilty with him. with Xavier, Leo was himself; the good and the bad fully. Xavier was the only one who knew everything. hell, xavier added fuel to Leo’s fire. “Sex is so good.” He agreed quietly with his body slack on the couch and his hand and a halful glass resting on his thigh. “Dream role?” He repeated and then proceeded to murmur himself as he thought about it. “Any male lead.” He answered but he felt it was too general. “Roger from RENT.” His heart answered. “That would be fucking sick.” His enthused, still just a simple theater kid underneath the full beard. 

*jokingly hits on you but means it 100%*

xbhandri​:

@le0davis​

“Okay but listen. Hear me out. The stage lights pop on. We’re standing in a line. The piano starts playing. Everyone immediately gets emotional. Suddenly everyone knows how many minutes are in a year. Is it stable? No. It’s New York City in the 1980′s during the AIDs epidemic. We’re here. We’re queer. We’re dying and Regan isn’t doing shit about it. You know what will fix approximately none of our problems? Love.” Xavier had found out they were reviving RENT again and he would throw Wicked down the drain if he could land a roll. He was nearing the end of his contract anyway. He could just switch from one to another, right? He had only been on the stage for a handful of years, and while Fiyero have him everything he could ever want, the roll while main wasn’t big. He wanted more. He wanted more meaning. 

A scarecrow was all find and dandy, but it wasn’t the love of his life, the dream role. Angel Dumott Schunard. He still didn’t know if she was a trans woman, a drag queen, or genderfluid, but to dress up as Mrs Claus and prance around a stage, only to die in the most emotional Broadway death known to man? He could still remember the first time he saw the musical and how it had changed his whole damn life. 

“Leo, it’s not stable, but nothing in life is. Do you want your baby thinking her dad is lame? Those who can’t act teach. Audition with me.”

-

Leo’s mouth opened in the middle of Xavier’s spiel. He so clearly saw the cast in a line singing ... Seasons of Love straight out into the audtence. The two friends had confinded in each other that their dream roles were in RENT. A show that was in the pre-production of returing back to broadway. He understood that to Xav that it was an oppurtunity that must be taken. But Leo wasn’t as starry eyed. 

“Don’t bring Mira into this.” He said, becoming slightly defensive at the mention of his daughter. Though that was chord that needed to be struck. Leo actually heard what Xavier meant. Being an acting coach was always supposed to be temporary. Something to do until he had gotten a break. But it took over, he began auditioning less to not at all. He fell into his own hell of repeating the same day over and over. So much so that he became a regular at a bar, and developed a dependency on alcohol and sex just to get through a Monday. This wasn’t how life was supposed to be. This isn’t the spotlight he was meant for. He sat there unaware of the spark that was growing in his chest.

His eyes still looking at his best friend incredulously. “I - Xav - you can’t really truly think that I’d ever be good enough to get Roger.” He was scared.  It was a huge leap into auditioning. Maybe he could start off small in non-speaking roles. He didn’t want to take that risk of auditioning for a role he had always coveted. He wasn’t as brave as Xavier. “You are no doubt in my mind are going to get Angel. Just gotta practice the drums. I, on the other hand, am gonna get laughed out at the door with no credits to my name.”

renfarber​:

He smiled at her, and she was twenty-one again, and the guilt that she’d been suppressing broke through. Before him, she’d never believed that she had the power to hurt anyone. She’d known that Leo loved her, but she hadn’t known how much, until she watched as his heart shattered in her hands. She hadn’t wanted that power ever again, so she’d never let anybody else that close.

And so, “Fuck no,” was her response to his question. It was automatic, instinctual, and she had no time to think better of it before the words were out of her mouth. “I mean… I’m happy that you’re happy, but it’s just not… for me, I don’t think,” she said, looking down at her hands and wondering how much was too much to say. “I do have a kid, though, so… that’s weird.”

-

Leo’s eyes widened slightly at her response. He had once objected to the idea of marriage just as strongly as she did. Especially after things ended with Serenity all those years ago. But meeting his wife made him see how beneficial life with a partner could be. Happy, though? He forced a nod, agreeing with her that he was happy. That’s how a marriage was suppose to be. Or appear to be. 

“A kid?” He questioned, his voice chiming too loud with surprise. “Like a whole person that you grew inside you and then…” he gulped thinking about delivering a baby and then being stuck with it. “That is weird. You’re a mom now.” He agreed and then began to mess with his popcorn bucket. not having the appetite for the snack. This was a lot to learn. There was a child out there that was hers. He bit his lip as he looked at her and tried to picture it. But the only thing his mind went to was who was the man that shared half of her son with. “Your boyfriend’s the father; I’m assuming?”

closed starter: @krosxn​ location: Katz’ home

“Hey Kitty-Katzzz,” Leo slurred out, and he repeated himself as he tapped on Katz’ door. Leo had somehow walked from a bar to Katz’ home, too tipsy to go to his actual home or his wife would see him staggering. And he can’t have her seeing him like this. Plus he had wanted to run an idea by Katz. “I had a thought at the bar, what if I had played Jonathon Larson instead of Andrew Garfield?” He shouted into the closed door with elation to the silly thought. “I’d kill 30/90!” He continued on with half lidded eyes.

can you die from lack of affection? Asking for myself

alaska-davis​:

closed starter to @le0davis​

location: the masquerade, after the secrets have been revealed

A lithe finger lifted to tuck a braid back into the bun that rested atop her head. Alaska, much like the others at the event, had been feeling elegant, and was trying to let that feeling overpower the irritation she felt with her husband. How they’d arrived to the venue and he was already drunk. How he never seemed to stop glancing at his cellphone—like clockwork, she would hear it buzz in his pocket, and he’d wait exactly a minute, then turn away so to conceal who he was talking to, and a moment later, his fingers would tap against the screen. 

She didn’t even want to confront the idea that he could be cheating on her. The thought alone, though held like anticipation in her chest, was too heavy to bear witness to. To accept in any capacity. Even if she’d had suspicions for so long. In too many ways it always felt like she and Leo were untethering, and now she didn’t know the man she begged to look at her in therapy. To see her. Hear her. Just listen. And care.

But Leo didn’t seem to care about much at all anymore, except that dirty bar on ninth street. At least, that’s how Alaska felt anymore, and she stared back at her reflection in the bathroom’s mirror with a sort of hollowness. Like his love, so frayed and incomplete now, sunk straight into her pores and weighed her down from the inside out. The woman inhaled a small breath, washed her hands, and then smoothed down her dress. The clack of stilettos against the tile announced her return to her husband, and for a moment she just observed him, watching him drink. Wondering if this was the existence he wanted more than anything she could give to him. Before she could actually go and try to talk to him again, her own phone pinged now. The concession of messages that flooded through her phone made her eyebrows furrow inward, and she stared quietly down at each one until his name—and another woman’s—popped up. Conjoined. For a moment she just stared at the phone, disbelieving, with her lips fallen apart in shock. Then, as quickly as the tide, tears welled up in her eyes. “You did—what?!” she suddenly came out, viciously, against the anger and anguish suddenly setting her entire body alight. The betrayal heavy in every nerve. “Who is she, Leo?! Who is ‘Gisele’?!”

-

Leo turned his head when he heard the familiar click of Alaska’s heels come to a halt. He watched his wife began to scrutinize her phone. Nano second later, his phone vibrated continuously on the bar’s countertop. He flipped it over and it shook in his hand, as a series of text messages from an unknown number kept going on and going. He glanced through them; seeing the names of colleagues, friends, and acquaintances. Each text reading like soap opera nonsense to him. There was no way any of it could be true…

Until he got to his own known name, and it was coupled with Gisele’s. His brain stitched the image of her name and her body so well. It lingered there as his mind protected him from the reality of what was happening as long as it could. And suddenly, breaking through his thoughts, her voice struck down at him like a bolt of lightening. His own nightmare was right in front of him. He had been caught. He recoiled from her feeling her anger and pain lash out towards him. Instinct took over, in order to live through this situation was to deescalate it as quickly as possible. “Alaska, love, please.” He pleaded loud enough to get through to hers but kept his tone calm. Staying controlled despite the radical pace his mind was racing in order to find a way out of this. He knew what was said was a lie. He did not have sex with Gisele. Though his encounter with her was anything but innocent, he was innocent by the technicality that he didn’t go all the way. He played his fear out as if it were pain, and anguish began to materialize within him. She had believed a rumor so incredibly easy. Were they at that stage now? She’d easily trusted anyone else besides him? 

“Baby calm down,” he cooed reaching out to try to control her before she drew in more attention. His hands hovering over the frames of her shoulders, keeping his distance just in case. “Why are you so quick to believe these texts?” He questioned gently though skillfully turning the accusation back on her. How was it so believable for her to trust a spammed message? It hurt to see how sure she was to believe in the worst in him. He continued on to answer her question with his version of the truth. “I’ve only just met this Gisele tonight when I went to donate.” He said, keeping every bit of the truth far away from what he was telling her.