The Boards, Saturday, All Day

[furnaceface]

Jono was... more or less over his snit regarding the show the other week. Gremlin bites and Fandom Weirdness... they happened, and that wasn't the fault of his performers, even if he did still want to throttle a few of them for the way they handled some very specific wardrobe malfunctions.

You did the laundry, you scrubbed the floors, you shooed out the gremlins, and you moved on. There was probably some level of masochism involved in working in the theatre, but Jono wasn't going to think about that too hard.

He was actually pretty mellow today, going through scripts to musicals that he was considering running in the fall. He didn't expect them to be any less disastrous in the end, no, but at least he wouldn't feel quite so out of his depth if there was some aspect involved that he could honestly say he was feeling confident about.

He probably wasn't going to choose anything that involved any impressive amount of period costuming, though. Or costuming in general. What would an astronaut even be doing in a junkyard if he did DOGS, anyhow?

[Open! OCD-free as usual!]

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[whenshewasnice]

Some days just seemed to suck more than others, but at least Natalie knew potential cures for that.

Showing up at the theater unannounced save for the sudden sound of fingers on piano keys was one of them. The song was one she'd been playing here before. Sans singing, and she wasn't singing now, either. Yet, anyway. Still assembling the words inside her head.

She actually wasn't sure whether this wasn't about as masochistic as working at the theater was for Jono. But it was something to do.

[furnaceface]

Jono couldn't help but smile a bit as he made his way out from his office to listen. The song was familiar, he'd heard her play it before, but it was Natalie's playing that drew him out into the open. Always her playing.

It wouldn't be long before she graduated, and he'd have to learn to play his own damn piano.

For the time being, he was content to lean in the doorway, cross his arms over his chest, and listen.

[whenshewasnice]

And she had words, this time. Almost ready with them, even. She'd been working on this song since November or October, even. It was time. Her voice was the same as it always was. A little bit of distance between her and the words that just kind of served to make it obvious they were personal.

"Are we breathing? Are we breathing? Are we wasting our breath? It won't be enough to be rich." It probably said a bit about how much she trusted Jono that she was even playing this here, knowing he was likely to be around. That bit wasn't maybe that obvious with the things she didn't want to talk about, but... "All the babies tucked away in their beds, and we're out here screaming, the life that you thought through is gone. Can't want out, the ending outlasting the mood."

There was more there.

"I wake up lonely."

And wasn't that always the thing?

[furnaceface]

In Jono's experience these days, it was, yes.

He was silently nodding along as she played, now, listening to her words just as much as he was listening to the piano accompanying them. She was writing this one herself, wasn't she? Which meant the lyrics were hers, and if they weren't worrisome, at least they were intriguing.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie had been lonely for most of the past seven or so years, which in turn felt like most of her life. If nothing else, it could make for intriguing lyrics, and she honestly would have thought that was something.

"Crowd surf off a cliff, land out on the ice; crowd surf off to sea, float towards the beach."

Her fingers were light on the keys, and her voice was soft. There was a time to be loud, and there was a time to not. This was so much the latter it wasn't even funny.

"If you find me, hide me, I don't know where I've been. When you phone me tell me everything I did. If I'm sorry you lost me you'd better make it quick, because this call costs a fortune and it's late where I live."

[furnaceface]

This was definitely not a loud song, no, though Jono couldn't help but hum softly in time with her playing, something approaching an improvised harmony, as best as he could manage.

It hit a few chords with him, too, apparently.

[whenshewasnice]

Well, they weren't friends for no reason at all. "Rather give the world away than wake up lonely," she continued. "Everywhere and every way I see you with me."

And that, right there, that was today's particular melancholy topic. Not that she signaled that in any way. But it was. It was hard when you missed someone while spending all your time around the places you'd shared.

She returned to an earlier refrain.

"All the babies tucked away in their beds, we're out here screaming. The life that you thought through is gone.." Maybe it was melodramatic, but you were allowed to be melodramatic when you were making art, right? "Can't want out, the ending outlasting the mood."

There were no clean endings. So when she sang "I wake up lonely" one last time, it took a while until the song faded away, her hands slowing on the keys until she was done.

[furnaceface]

Jono knew those things all too well.

He still couldn't sit on the bench at the duck pond without getting a little choked up.

And he stood there in silence for a while, just letting the last bit of mood settle in around them through the quiet, before finally speaking up.

"It's come along well, luv."

[whenshewasnice]

"Well, it's been a long work in progress," Natalie replied without looking back. She'd only just been considering the possibility of a breakup when she'd started working on it, after all. "Nice to know it shows."

[furnaceface]

"It says a lot." Jono tilted his head at her from the doorway, arms still crossed over his chest. "There's something very... relatable in it."

He quirked the beginnings of a smile.

"Some songs take longer than others to let you know what it is they're meant to say."

[whenshewasnice]

"Mmhmm." This time she did actually glance over. "Depressing songs for depressing times."

[furnaceface]

"All times are depressing times," Jono replied with a wry twist to the sides of his mouth. "It's just that it always feels so much worse in the here and now, people are inclined to remember days gone by as something brighter and better."

[whenshewasnice]

"It doesn't really work like that for me," Natalie said, probably with very little intention of elaborating on that. "But that is the general thinking, yes."

[fewer_explosions]

Liara knocked once on the door, then stood awkwardly in the doorway. She was simply trying to make a social call, but her experiences with such things were... well, generally limited to Yeul, who was non-threatening, and Karolina, who she spent a great deal of time flailing at.

She was not entirely sure how these things were supposed to go, still. "Hello."

Except for that part. But after that part she was fairly stumped.

[furnaceface]

Well, for what it was worth, Jono did his best to be as not-threatening as possible. He glanced up from his desk, smiled, and set the script in his hands back down on his desk.

"Liara," he greeted. "Come in, luv. How're you doing?"

[fewer_explosions]

"I am okay," Liara said. Awkwardly. "I came to apologize for missing your show last time."

Never mind she had never promised to come or really spoken to Jono about the matter; flaily, thy name was Liara.

[furnaceface]

Jono couldn't help but make a bit of a snorting sound at that. It was nothing personal, Liara, but that show...

"You missed a spectacular comedy of errors," he offered, his smile gone a touch sardonic. "Fandom had a great deal of fun with this place the other week, so the show you missed wasn't at all the one we'd rehearsed, at any rate. I wouldn't worry too much about it, Liara. It was... special."

[fewer_explosions]

"A... comedy of errors." She frowned. "I hope no one was hurt. That seems... concerning."

At least Jono himself seemed to be in a decent shape.

[furnaceface]

"Beyond three gremlin bites and a bruised tailbone, no real injuries, thank goodness," Jono replied, sighing. "And a lot of battered pride to go along with it all, I'm certain. I need to remember to send out thank-you cards, or possibly a referral to a therapist, to the people who were involved. We made it through the show, at least."

... Sort of.

[fewer_explosions]

Liara blinked as she processed all that information. She was attempting to picture the state of it all, but it was not quite working. "What... exactly... happened during this show?"

[furnaceface]

"It started with the waffles raining from the ceiling," Jon replied, looking... pained. Pained was a good word for it. "Our two leads had to find replacement costumes as a result, which they didn't tell me about, so when one came onstage looking like a modern-day astronaut and the other was dressed like a chicken, I near had a heart attack. That was after Zhari slipped and fell on a waffle before any lines were even spoken..."

It just went downhill from there, Liara.

"I caught the whole thing on video. I... haven't been able to bring myself to watch it just yet."

[fewer_explosions]

Liara's... well, they weren't eyebrows: Liara's birthmarks made their ascent towards the ridge of her crest. "I... see," she said. "Is this... rain of waffles... common?"

[furnaceface]

"Not even remotely, no. At least, not since I took this place over. I can't speak to the state of th'Boards while I was a student or anything of th'sort."

He'd never really gotten along with the previous owner, the one who'd come before Troy. So the history of the building was just a little out of his depth.

[fewer_explosions]

Liara pursed her lips. "Perhaps it would help to have a friend around," she posited, "When you... watch it again."

[furnaceface]

"It would have to be somebody who doesn't mind me yelling at the island as we watch," Jono shared. "Bloody hell, everything that could've gone wrong did. It's a wonder th'building didn't burn down or something."

Maybe next show.