Chapter Text
He finds her backstage again, rearranging costumes on a rack. She still won’t look at him.
“Look, Sash,” he swallows. Even he doesn’t know where he wants this conversation to go, but he just has to tell her—something. Anything to get her to look at him again. “About earlier—”
“We don’t need to talk about it.” Her tone is clipped, and she yanks hangers across the pole a bit too sharply.
“I want to, though.”
“What could there possibly be to talk about.” She unclips a tag from one of the gowns. “It’s just a stage kiss. Except,” she huffs a laugh, “it wasn’t—you didn’t."
Sasha finally turns to face him, and she’s close enough that he can see that anger and that sliver of something like hurt that she always keeps so well hidden.
“You make out with Alex almost every night, and it’s Alex, it’s—I know you don’t have a problem with stage kissing. So, the only explanation is—you must have a problem with me.” Once it’s out, she crosses her arms in front of her chest and looks away again. Tim’s heart twists with guilt.
“Sasha. You can’t seriously think that.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to think? Why couldn’t you—"
“Because I wanted it to—” Tim catches himself for just a brief second, and thinks Well, fuck it, “—to be real.”
It’s enough to echo across the empty stage. There’s just the hum of the speaker they hadn’t turned off, and the sound of their breathing. Somewhere in the hallway, they hear a door close.
Fists clenched, Tim swallows, and says again, a little quieter: “I want it to be real.”
The wild tension in her spine seems to unfurl, a bit. She drops her arms to her sides. Her face is serious, an upward tilt to her eyebrows, somehow looking so intent. Like she’s waiting for something.
“Okay.”
Tim almost laughs. He feels like he’s freefalling. “Okay? Just like that?"
“Yeah,” says Sasha. Her expression hasn’t changed, almost defiant and grave, but even on the half-lit stage her eyes take up all the space in the room. She’s looking at him like no one’s ever looked at him before. “Kiss me, Tim.”
With his heart suddenly pounding a mile a minute, he’s thankful they’re already standing close; Tim can’t imagine using his legs after hearing her say that. Instead, he brushes his hand under her chin softly, just barely tilting it upwards. Like he did before, when they were running lines. Like he really should have done.
Sasha watches him, can certainly see him swallow nervously, his eyes flittering over her face like he’s lining up his shot. He just—wants to do it right. But Tim doesn’t miss the moment her eyelids fall, and her gaze slips to his lips.
He leans in. Soft, tentative, this hesitant brush against her mouth where he forgets how to breathe.
He leans back, just barely, a shaky exhale against her cheek.
Sasha huffs, and whispers, “Like you mean it, Stoker.”
Sasha was wrong. He does have a problem with stage kissing.
It could never compare to the real thing.