Chapter Text
East High announces the spring musical the way it announces everything important: over the PA system with just enough feedback to make everyone look up from their phones. By fourth period the posters are already taped crookedly along the lockers, bold black letters over photocopied skyline art—Rent—and by the time final bell rings the auditorium smells faintly like dust and electricity because someone has already turned on the stage lights even though rehearsal doesn’t technically start for another hour.
Gabby is there before most of them, binder tucked under her arm, hair pulled back, pencil behind her ear. She unlocks the booth, sets her bag down, and does a quick visual sweep out of habit. Luke is already halfway up the catwalk with a tape measure hooked to the rail, leaning out farther than he probably should while muttering numbers to himself. Connor is below him with a ladder that is not fully braced, arguing about angles without looking up. Hanna sits cross-legged on the edge of the stage with three wireless mics lined up beside her like surgical tools, earbuds in, laptop open, calibrating levels and humming under her breath. Jai bursts through the backstage doors at a full sprint, nearly colliding with a rolling costume rack, shouting that someone left the faux-bohemian table in the choir room again. It’s chaos, but it’s organized chaos, and Gabby steps into it the way someone steps into a familiar room.
“Connor, lock the back hinge before you climb,” Luke calls down without turning.
“It’s fine,” Connor says, already one foot up.
“It’s not fine,” Luke replies evenly. “You’re tilting right.”
Connor pauses, looks down, adjusts, and mutters something about perfectionists. Luke doesn’t respond. He just resumes measuring the downstage special, arm extended, eyes narrowed like he’s lining up a shot only he can see.
Gabby flips open her binder and starts writing in clean, controlled lines. “House to half at five. Full at ten. Miss Jenn said she wants a cold open with no announcement.”
“Cold wash or warm?” Luke calls, glancing down finally.
“For what?”
“For ‘One Song Glory.’” He shifts his weight on the railing. “Cold makes it lonelier.”
“Warm makes it human,” Connor shoots back from the ladder.
Gabby doesn’t look up. “You’re both wrong if you don’t focus it properly. We’ll test both.”
Luke snorts softly. Connor rolls his eyes. The argument isn’t heated yet, just familiar, something that will stretch across the next few weeks in different forms.
The cast trickles in louder than the crew. Mack is first, dropping his bag into the front row and stretching like he’s about to run a race. He flips through his script for Mark, already scribbled with notes in the margins. EJ follows, flipping through a script already covered in highlighter. Gina is quiet, observant, slipping into a seat near the aisle. Ricky lingers near the back for a moment before stepping forward, headphones around his neck, jaw set in that focused way he gets when he’s about to sing something that matters. Dani arrives last, not late exactly, just timed. She walks in like she expects the room to adjust around her, and in some ways it does.
She’s in loose rehearsal clothes, hair half-up, phone already in her hand. She scans the stage, then the booth, and her eyes land on Gabby for half a second longer than necessary. It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t even obvious. But it’s there.
Miss Jenn claps once, bright and sharp. “All right, artists. Welcome to Rent. This show is about hunger and art and love and the cost of all three. Let’s start with ‘Over the Moon.’ Dani, you ready?”
Dani grins. “Always.”
Gabby leans forward slightly, pencil poised. “Standby lights twelve through eighteen. Sound cue three.”
Hanna lifts a thumb without looking up from her board. Luke adjusts one of the fresnels by inches. Connor steadies the ladder with unnecessary force.
Dani steps into the center of the stage, barefoot now, script discarded on a chair. The first run is messy in the way first rehearsals are messy—too fast in places, too careful in others—but there’s something feral underneath it, something unpolished that makes the room go quiet. When she hits the laugh in the middle of the number, it echoes up into the rafters, and Luke instinctively shifts a light two degrees warmer.
Gabby watches through the structure of her job. She tracks entrances, notes spacing, marks where Dani drifts too far downstage left and where Ricky steps into her light without realizing it as he crosses behind her to prep for his entrance later in the sequence. She doesn’t let herself just watch. That would be a mistake.
After the run, Dani grabs her phone without breaking stride. “Wait, do that again,” she says to no one in particular, propping it against a water bottle on the edge of the stage. “Just the middle.”
“You’re filming?” Gabby asks before she can stop herself.
“Rehearsal content,” Dani says easily. “People love process.”
Gabby presses her lips together but doesn’t argue. “From center. You’re off your spike.”
Dani adjusts without looking down. “Yes, ma’am.”
They run it again. The laugh is sharper this time. The ending lands cleaner. In the background, faint but audible if you listen for it, Gabby’s voice cuts through: “Hold for lights—okay, go.”
Dani retrieves her phone immediately, thumbs moving fast as she trims the clip. She doesn’t ask permission. She never does. By the time Miss Jenn calls for a five-minute break, Dani has already posted it.
Up in the booth, Gabby’s phone buzzes once. Then again. She ignores it.
Below, Luke and Connor resume their argument, now more focused.
“Cold wash,” Luke insists, arms crossed. “Blue undertones. Isolation.”
“It’s not isolation,” Connor replies. “It’s yearning. Warm amber from stage right. Like he’s reaching.”
“Reaching into what?” Luke says.
“Into the world.”
Luke exhales. “That’s vague.”
Gabby finally looks down at them. “Test both during tomorrow’s run. Stop philosophizing and finish focusing.”
Connor grins. Luke just nods and climbs higher.
Rehearsal stretches into evening the way it always does, time dissolving into cues and corrections and repeated harmonies. Ricky runs “One Song Glory” off to the side at one point, voice rough in a way that feels intentional, hand braced against the piano as if it’s the only solid thing in the room. Mack paces nearby, script tucked under his arm, quietly adjusting camera blocking ideas for Mark in the margins of his pages. By the time the custodial lights flicker once as a warning, everyone is tired in that satisfied, overstimulated way that only theater kids understand.
Gabby packs up last. Dani lingers.
“You sounded good,” Dani says lightly, leaning against the stage and looking up at the booth. “Authoritative.”
“I was calling cues,” Gabby replies.
“Still counts.”
Gabby hesitates, then: “You should’ve asked before posting.”
Dani tilts her head. “It’s just rehearsal.”
“It’s my voice.”
Dani studies her for a second, expression unreadable. Then she smiles, softer this time. “I’ll tag you next time.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” Dani says, and for a second it almost sounds like she does.
That night, the Midnight Society meets in the abandoned corner of the park by the old amphitheater, jackets zipped against the cold. Luke brings a flashlight he doesn’t need. Hanna brings snacks. Jai brings a blanket and immediately trips over it. Connor brings nothing but commentary. Gabby sits upright, binder absent but posture unchanged.
They take turns telling stories the way they always do, one per meeting, something strange or urban-legend adjacent. Tonight it’s Connor’s turn.
“There’s this theater,” he begins, lowering his voice theatrically. “Not haunted. Worse. It gives you exactly what you want. Applause, attention, perfect reviews. But every time you step onstage, it takes something back.”
“Like what?” Jai asks.
“Time,” Connor says. “Voice. People.”
“You don’t notice at first,” Connor continues. “You’re too busy being adored. But the stage demands sacrifice. And if you stop feeding it, it makes sure you never perform anywhere again.”
Luke rolls his eyes but doesn’t interrupt. Hanna listens, chin propped on her hand. Gabby stares out at the dark silhouette of the old amphitheater behind them.
“That’s dramatic,” Jai says.
“It’s theater,” Connor replies. “Everything’s dramatic.”
Gabby thinks about the way Dani laughed into the rafters earlier, the way the room shifted toward her without meaning to. She thinks about the clip already circulating online, about her own voice caught faintly beneath it.
“Stages don’t demand sacrifice,” Gabby says evenly. “People choose what they give.”
The wind moves through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a car passes.
Above them, the amphitheater stage sits empty, waiting.