Cullen was more than a bit nervous about the upcoming performance. His role wasn’t too difficult, for the most part – just a lot of singing and acting like a self-centered noble. He’d met more than enough self-centered nobles to create a fair approximation of one. For another show, his rendition might have been too exaggerated, but there didn’t seem to be any such thing as too exaggerated in a musical. Despite feeling fairly confident that he could do the job, doing the job in front of so many people was a little intimidating. Cullen was accustomed to trying to look serious, intimidating, or inspiring in front of large groups, but looking deliberately ridiculous was something new. He was accordingly grateful for Dean offering some extra practice time.
They’d agreed to meet at the performance space so they could practice their blocking as well. (Blocking was one of several new theater words that Cullen had learned in the past few weeks.) Cullen arrived a little early; he was in the habit of being punctual, but he was not accustomed to the local habit of measuring time down to the minute, and the combination of the two had led to him being early to nearly everything for fear of being late. Accordingly, he was there to raise a hand in greeting when Dean arrived.
“Well met, messere – are you ready to begin?”
Dean had more than enough going on in his life, and he had contemplated dropping out of the show a few times, but he was still determined to see it through. It was a little difficult to manage, but at the same time, it was a great distraction. After the help from Sam, he was definitely feeling more confident about everything and he was happy to assist his stage brother. While it was the first time Dean was in a musical, it wasn’t the first time on stage for him, as he had been behind the scenes of Supernatural: The Musical, a few years back. It was during that time he became familiar with various theater terms and also made aware of the confusing stage directions that were the opposite of the direction you wanted to go in at times. Plus, as his brother had pointed out, he was acting on a daily basis at times, only it was unscripted.
He arrived at the theater just on time and when he was greeted by the other man, he looked at him with a raised brow, never having been greeted with such a term before. “Uh, hey dude, good to see you too,” Dean replied with a smile and made his way down the aisle and to the stage. “You and me, we’re going to be awesome,” he stated firmly and jumped up onto the stage. “I think I’m getting more comfortable with it all. How are you feeling?”
Cullen paused to consider how he was in fact feeling about all this. He appreciated Dean’s confidence in their awesomeness, certainly; it made him feel a little more confident himself. He knew his lines and his blocking, he had memorized the music down to the note, and being fully prepared had always made him feel better about a task. It was really just the potential crowd giving him the collywobbles now.
“More nervous than before a battle, less nervous than before a formal ball,” he concluded aloud. “Better than I felt at the start, though, certainly. I think I can manage if I just pretend that there is no one else in the audience.”
“Dude, I totally get that, but if you don’t look at them, it might not be so bad. Like, you pick a spot at the back of the theater, and when you have to look out, that’s where you look.” Dean raised his arms over his head and stretched them out, turning to the left and then the right in the same position, but bent at the waist. “I have no idea what I’m doing. This is just how I stretch stuff. I don’t want to be pulling another muscle mid-move or anything like that.” He rolled his head a few times and then his shoulders. “Okay, I think I’m nice and limber now,” Dean stated and took a few leaps across the stage to be sure.
“So, I want you to know that whatever happens when we’re on stage, I got your back.” He assured the other man with a smile. “If you’re nervous, just forget about everyone else and pay attention to me. I’ll be making such an ass out of myself that I’m sure you’ll be comfortable.” He made his way over to his spot on stage and reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone so he could hit play on the instrumental track. Dean started to sing, looking at Cullen for the first few lines and then turning out to stare out into the audience as he continued his lines.
The music was no trouble for Cullen; twelve years in the chantry choir had given him a good enough ear to pick a tune up quickly and hold a harmony line and stay on rhythm and key. It was the acting part that was more difficult. He tried to keep in mind all the director's notes, to treat the song like a conversation with his stage brother rather than a vocal performance, and to remember that he was not himself, he was a spoiled prince who only wanted what he couldn't have. It was a lot to try to put together, and Cullen had a sinking feeling that he was coming off stiff and unnatural. The performance wasn't bad, but he suspected it also wasn't good.
He did succeed in delivering all the lines and notes, though, and he'd memorized the blocking down to the last step. Precision came easily for Cullen. It was emotion that he struggled with.
When they finished the song, Dean was silent for a moment. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when he delivered his lines to Sabrina like a robot, but he knew that Cullen was holding back. He seemed to be more focused on accuracy than enjoying himself, and maybe that was part of the problem. His fingers scratched over his jaw while he searched for the right words. “Okay, that was good. You have a fantastic voice, but I think maybe you’re getting caught up in the technicality of it all? You don’t want to make a mistake, I get that, but, at the same time, making a mistake is...natural?”
It was difficult to help someone out you weren’t familiar with, but he was definitely trying. “You and me, we’re just bitching to each other, like, we’re princes, and we could have any girl in the kingdom but these two, who seem to be so out of reach. Long story short, it’s a bro bitch session. Does that make sense?”
It did not. Cullen tilted his head like a puzzled dog. “Er...the first part, yes? I thought myself that my performance is likely too mechanical. It’s a long-standing habit of mine, I’m afraid. When I’m unsure of what to do, I fall back on the easy, black-and-white rules. The, ah...bro bitch session, though, I...to be honest, I have no idea what that means. What is a bro?”
“Right, bro is short for brother,” Dean explained, having forgotten that he wouldn’t really know much in the way of slang terms, given where he came from. “By bitch session, I mean we’re complaining to each other. I think my life sucks, you think your situation is worse, I obviously don’t agree, and it’s just a bit of back and forth.” It would have been easy to demonstrate if he’d had Sam there, but he would just have to make do with an explanation.
“Oh.” It seemed very simple now that Dean had explained, but Cullen wasn’t sure he was getting the sense of it so much as just the specifics - which was his entire trouble, of course. His relationship with his brother had never really involved ‘a bit of back and forth’. Rosalie had been so much younger that he still sometimes struggled to see her as an adult. With Mia, it had taken years before they were really able to share things with each other, because they’d always been so competitive when they were young.
In the darkness of Cullen’s attempt to understand slang, a torch flared to life. He got it! Didn’t he? He was pretty sure he got it, and that was exciting. “It’s a competition. We’re not--we’re not really trying to sympathize with one another at all! We’re just trying to outdo each other!”
"Yes, exactly!" Dean exclaimed with a nod, pleased he had been able to explain it properly. "We don't care about the woes of the other. Our agony is more important than the others." He went over to where he set down his phone and prepared to go through it a second time. “In other terms, you could say we’re pleading our case, and we’re willing to do or say anything to prove our point, regardless of how dramatic or ridiculous it is.”
He was feeling much more confident now and a little more excited about the show. Working through the song with Cullen was helping him with the rest of his character and the show. “Okay, let’s do this again.” Dean waited a moment until the other man was in place and ready, and then he hit play, quickly running to his spot for the song. The music began and Dean started again, going through the motions with a little more flair.
This time, Cullen decided to trust his feet to remember where they were supposed to go, trust his brain to keep hold of the words, and put his energy into emphasizing that his princely woes were ever so much greater than those of his equally princely brother. As children, Cullen and his elder sister had competed over nearly anything that could even possibly be turned into a competition, including a number of things that really had no business being competitions at all. He attempted to treat the song like one of those silly contests of who was the better chess player, the better hair-braider, the faster, the stronger. Every time Dean did something ridiculous and dramatic, Cullen tried to do something more ridiculous and dramatic, because those were the conditions of winning, and winning was the most important thing to these idiot princes.
The song finished, and Dean stood there beaming. “Dude! Yes, that was it, you so nailed it.” He exclaimed with a smile and reached out to give Cullen a playful punch to the arm. The other man had really come through, and Dean couldn’t help but be proud of himself in return. It was all coming together nicely, and at this point, he couldn’t wait for the show to have their first official dress rehearsal and everything so that he could see it all together at once.
“I’m glad I was able to help you out. I knew you would totally kill it.”
“I’m glad you were, as well,” Cullen replied, grinning broadly. The whole performance had felt better this time around, just with that little bit of coaching helping him find the right approach. If he could make that work in the reprise and in his other scenes, he might actually manage to not make a fool of himself in this play. “I find I’m actually looking forward to doing all this in costume now. Thank you, messere.”
“Yes, same here. I can’t believe we’re having costumes made specifically for us. Like, I just get my stuff from the store, I’m not used to that sort of thing.” Dean admitted with a shrug and walked over to retrieve his phone. “So, I think we’re good now? I mean unless you want to go over anything else?”
“No, I think that bit of extra practice was sufficient. I feel more prepared for tonight’s rehearsal than I did.” Cullen nodded to Dean and picked up the messenger bag that had become home to Cullens notes, papers, keys, and a few emergency snacks. “Until we meet again, messere.”