Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Laurent’s life changes, unbeknownst to him, the day Ancel asks him the most ridiculous question.

Nothing about his day or the situation he is in has pointed to it. It is a typical Saturday of his, with the evening sky somewhat clear and the house almost fully booked. No one has called in sick; no catastrophe has announced itself in one way or another. 

And yet, Ancel drops the question into their shared, comfortable silence, and it lands like a bomb.

“So what’s your type?”

Laurent looks up from the script in his lap and meets Ancel’s eye in the mirror. He is sitting in the makeup room of the theatre, in Ancel’s chair to be precise, and the question comes so very much out of the blue that Laurent is not sure whether he has misheard. 

“My what?”

“Your type!”

“My blood type?”

Ancel rolls his eyes. “No, you gorgeous bitch. Your type when it comes to men .”

Laurent’s face does not twitch. Neither the choice of words nor the tone concerns him. It simply is how Ancel talks to most people. Not as often to Laurent, however, if he is being honest. “I do not have one. I do not date. You know that.”

“Yes, yes, that weird career-driven lifestyle you have going on, everything for art, yada-yada.” Ancel waves his hand dismissively. “Your work is your life, something like that.”

“Correct,” says Laurent and looks down at his script again, at the lines he technically knows by heart. But it is a habit of his to revise the lines while Ancel does his hair and make-up for the show, and said habit makes sure he never forgets a single word.

He is a perfectionist, after all. The audience does not deserve anything less, even if they are a small independent theatre that gets very little funding to start with. Art is art, may it be the Globe or their small place. It deserves respect.

Such is Laurent’s opinion.

Ancel leans over Laurent’s shoulder and snatches the script from his hands. A dangerous move in itself – but were he not certain that Laurent knows his lines perfectly, he would not do it. The script lands on the old and worn couch in the back, and with it, the anchor Laurent has held onto.

“Now imagine what we could do if we could synthesize the perfect guy.” Ancel grins as he proposes the idea, now that he has Laurent’s undivided – and involuntary – attention. “Six feet tall, super strong. Gorgeous smile.” He taps Laurent’s shoulder with the hairbrush he is holding. “Wouldn’t that be amazing? We’d be able to build ourselves the perfect man.”

“And that is what you are going for?” Laurent asks, raising an eyebrow as he looks at Ancel through the mirror. “Six feet tall, muscles all over, dumb smile?”

“I said gorgeous smile ,” says Ancel emphatically before he continues with his work, namely Laurent’s hair for the stage. “But not just that. I mean, think of the possibilities. The perfect man.” He says it as if he were preparing to cast a spell, heavy sigh and everything. “He’d pick me up at eight, and not a minute too late, because I hate waiting. He wouldn’t be afraid to cry, and he would treat his mother like a queen. He’d be emotionally stable, and he’d be smart. But only almost as smart as me, of course. I like them a little stupid.” He throws his red hair over his shoulder with a perfect flick of his wrist. “And he has to be financially stable as well. I’m expensive.”

“We all know that,” says Laurent flatly, “Berenger knows that.” 

“The perfect guy would have to be a lawyer. Or a doctor.”

“Like Berenger.”

“A man of possibilities!” Ancel gestures broadly with his hands. “What would you wish for? If you could synthesize yourself a guy?”

“Ancel, why are we having this conversation?”

“Because I was talking about it with my beautician this morning and the idea intrigues me. So, spill.”

“I’m not looking for a guy,” says Laurent, “I’m not even sure why you would ask me that.”

Behind him, Ancel lets out a very long and very heavy sigh.

“Laurent. You are a smart, drop-dead gorgeous, beautiful, angelic gay man.” Ancel crosses himself with a wistful shake of his head despite being the least catholic person Laurent has ever met. “I could get you hooked up with any gay guy in the city within minutes . But you always refuse. That means you must have fucking high standards. So, spill .” 

Laurent rolls his eyes and leans back further in the chair to let Ancel work. “I don’t know.  I don’t think about these things.” He closes his eyes, hoping that the conversation will be done. It is not the sort of conversation Laurent tends to have with him in the first place. They do talk in the make-up room, of course. About the plays. About the other actors and actresses. About the weather, about art. About Ancel’s love life, frequently, even though Laurent would rather not hear about it. 

It is a wish of his that Ancel always blissfully ignores.

“Don’t lie to Mother Ancel.” The stylist taps his shoulder with the hairbrush again, harder this time. “Everybody thinks about these things. The ideal man. The ideal woman. The ideal person . What would satisfy their dreams and desires.”

Laurent does, in fact, hardly waste time thinking about such things. A thought or two surely have crossed his mind, but he has never given the very issue much attention. There have always been more pressing matters in his life, such as his career, or his family. His brother. His nephew.

Love and dating have never taken up any space in that constellation. 

Knowing that Ancel would not let the matter rest unless Laurent gave him a response, he replies: “I guess he would have to be kind. Not jealous unless I want him to. A gentleman. Someone to… I don’t know? Someone to take care of me in the bedroom in all the ways I want while being respectful at all times?” He opens his eyes and finds Ancel looking at him. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“You mean, romantic love and all but keep it rough?” Ancel makes a tutting sound and places both hands on Laurent’s shoulders, squeezing lightly. “Darling, you are asking too much. No man is like that. That’s a very wishful kink. Stick to bondage like everyone else.”

“Berenger is like that, according to you. I know what your sex life is like. Even though I never asked.”

“Berenger is not a man. Berenger is—he’s—”

A knock interrupts them, followed by a man coming through the door. With his brown hair, brown beard, and brown jacket, he looks iconically ordinary in the flamboyant surroundings of the hair and make-up room. And yet, he is a regular.

“Hi,” he says and shuts the door behind himself with consideration for its old hinges, “I’m sorry I’m late. There was an emergency at work.”

“I should hope so, you are a doctor,” says Ancel, but his gaze softens at the sight of his partner. 

“Berenger,” says Laurent.

Berenger nods at him in return. He does not talk much – something Laurent appreciates about the man. He also respects that Laurent cannot be bothered to hold in-depth conversations before a show, so he sits down on the old sofa in the corner, pulls out some files, and starts paperwork. That is what he does while waiting for Ancel. 

Sadly, Ancel does not drop the subject, despite Berenger’s presence. 

“You know,” he starts again, pinning some of Laurent’s hair into place and fixating the rest with hairspray, “I worry about you sometimes, mon chéri . You don’t date, you don’t go out, you only focus on your work. Live a little.”

“I do live,” Laurent gives back sourly, “just because I’m not sleeping around it doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.”

“I’m not talking about sleeping around, although that used to be a very fun hobby of mine.” He throws a heated glance at Berenger, who does not look up from his files, but whose mouth twitches. “I’m talking about meeting new people. Going out. Feeling the rush of emotions! Losing yourself, shutting your brain off.”

“This sounds horrible to me,” says Laurent. “I do not want to shut my brain off. Especially not when I’m going out.”

“Ah, mon chéri !” Ancel sighs heavily. “I sometimes wish you were able to see my vision. But alas.”

He does not press further than that, choosing to focus on his work instead. With quick fingers, he pushes the last strands of hair right where he wants them to be. Then, he sets the hairspray aside and admires his work one last time like some sort of very red-haired, very pale, very energetic Michelangelo.

“God, I love this haircut on you,” he says and puts a hand on his hip, nodding to himself, very much pleased with what he sees. “Definitely my best work this year. You look like a lesbian. Like Kristen Stewart.”

Laurent stares at him through the mirror for a long moment. “I suppose you mean that as a compliment.”

“The very best,” says Ancel and places his hands on Laurent’s shoulders, squeezing firmly. “Now off with you to the stage. Make the audience want to fuck you.”

“Ancel.”

“What?” Ancel turns around to his partner, not knowing of any sins ever committed. “That’s his job!”

“He’s right.” Laurent rises from the chair and grabs the bold, red lipstick from the table, putting it on in a single, swift motion that comes with months, yes, years of practise. It is the look of choice for tonight and for this play; to be sin personified, one has to look the part.

And Laurent knows that people are easy.

Particularly, men.

“It’s Saturday night. Better to make it worthwhile.”

For Damen, the night has been going for too long.

He cannot remember the last time he had a drink with no alcohol in it, although having promised his mother several times he would have a glass of water in between. But it had all happened so fast. One moment, he had been standing on the doorstep, waving at his friends who had come to pick him up for guys night. The next, he is finding himself in the very midst of the city’s most famous night club. In his hand, there is a drink, and on his lap, a very, very drunk Pallas, staring at the very reason for their night out.

“Woah,” Pallas says and holds up his hand to admire the ring on his finger for what must be the hundredth time that night. “Woah. Look at it, Damen. Just look at it. Woahhhh .” He wiggles his fingers, making the gemstone of his engagement ring sparkle in the flashing lights coming from the dance floor. With his jaw hanging open and his eyes shining in love and drunkenness, he looks like an utter and complete fool, but a happy one. Damen himself is far too drunk, too, to joke about it. He is happy for him.

“T’is is a really nice ring,” he says and pats Pallas’ back. He hits him a little too hard and Pallas slips off his thigh onto the free spot on the leather couch next to him and into the plush pillows. It does not bother Pallas in the slightest. He keeps looking at his ring in awe, and keeps looking, and looking, and looking. 

“It’s so nice.” Pallas almost whispers the words. “Damen, it’s such a nice ring. He got me such a nice ring, Damen. Damen, why did Lazar get me such a nice ring?” He looks up at him like a puppy; a lovesick puppy.

Damen pulls him into an upright position again – he is drunk, but not too drunk to know that someone who has had as much to drink as Pallas might as well throw up any second. 

“Because you’re engaged!” He tells him with a laugh. “Remember? Lazar proposed to you last night. You’re engaged.”

“I’m engaged?!” Pallas shrieks. “To whom?!”

“To me!” With his incredible talent to appear from out of nowhere, Lazar emerges from the dancefloor, smiling from ear to ear as he wraps his arms around Pallas from behind. “You’re engaged to me.”

“Woah,” Pallas says again as Lazar kisses his cheek and pulls him against his chest. “I’m engaged. We’re engaged!”

“Darling, how much did you drink?” asks Lazar, but Pallas does not give him a reply. Instead, he turns his head as much as he can.

“Lazar,” he breathes, “we’re engaged?”

“He’s fucking drunk.” Lazar laughs it into Damen’s face and hugs Pallas close. “You’re alright there, Damen?”

“Yep,” Damen gets up and sways a little on the spot. Perhaps some water would have been better than the gin tonic he had last. “D’you know where Nik is?”

“I’ve seen him grinding against some girl earlier,” says Lazar with clear pride, “I think he’s somewhere towards the bathroom?”

Damen gives him a thumbs-up before he makes his way down the pedestal of the seating area and onto the dancefloor to search for Nikandros. He loves his friends, and he loves Pallas and Lazar. But seeing them all over each other does little to distract him from the fact that too much alcohol makes him feel his emotions stronger, and with that, makes him feel somewhat lonely. Besides dancing with two or three girls tonight – all of them lovely, all of them very much not sober either – there is nothing going on in his life like that, and a club is the last place Damen intends to look for the love of his life. 

Better to get it out of his head right away, while he is still somewhat in control of his senses.

The music is so loud it makes Damen’s ears hurt, but he has to get across the dancefloor if he wants to find Nikandros. He spots him soon enough, as they are both tall enough to tower over most people, and slips through the masses of people as fast as he can. Nikandros is leaning against a pillar, an almost empty glass in his hand, looking at the dancing people wistfully. Damen slides up to him and bumps their shoulders together. “What’s that face?”

Nikandros looks at him with a pained expression. “She’s a lesbian.”

Damen has no idea who “she” is, but perhaps Nikandros means the girl Lazar has seen him with. 

“That sucks,” he says.

“Fucking sucks,” mutters Nikandros in agreement and downs the rest of his drink. “Did you get lucky?”

“Nope.” Damen shakes his head. “But I wasn’t looking, honestly.”

“Where’s Pallas?”

“Left him with Lazar. Where’s the rest?”

Nikandros nods to their left. 

There, in another corner, their other team mates are having a girl each on their laps, making out and being far too gone to notice them.

“Uhm,” says Damen.

“Yep.” Nikandros pops the ‘p’ at the end. “We’re fucking unlucky tonight.”

Damen shrugs. “It’s not like people tend to find their soulmate in the middle of a club.”

“God, your mum is right, you are a romantic.” Nikandros rolls his eyes and throws an arm around Damen. “Let’s find the happy couple before they start fucking in public.”

They make their way back across the dancefloor towards the couch where Damen has left Pallas and Lazar, reaching them just in time to stop Pallas from pulling Lazar’s jeans down. Of the four of them, Damen is, surprisingly, still the most sober, and because he knows neither their coach Makedon nor Pallas’ very Greek parents would ever forgive him if something were to happen, he drags the happy couple out of the club and into the fresh air of the night. 

With Nikandros’ help, that is.

“Oh, fuck me,” groans Pallas as they stumble onto the sidewalk, and Damen is not sure whether he means it as a request towards Lazar or as an expression of his current state. He is leaning against Lazar, and in the light of the streetlamps, he is looking paler than he did inside the club. 

“In due time,” Lazar tells him with a grin, “don’t throw up on my shoes.”

“You look fucking awful, man,” Nikandros says and pats Pallas’ shoulder. 

“You should take him home,” Damen says to Lazar, “before he actually—” 

Pallas turns over and throws up with a disgusting retching sound.

“Right all over my shoes,” sighs Lazar, but he does not seem as annoyed as he could be. “Yeah, I’ll take him home, or his mother will actually kill me. Greek mums are scary.”

“Tell me about it,” mutters Nikandros. “If mine finds out I’ve been drinking like that she’ll cut my head off.”

They wait together until they have found a taxi willing to take a drunk Greek and a Frenchman with stinking shoes with them. When they finally drive off, Nikandros and Damen watch until the car is out of sight. 

“Well,” Nikandros says and puts his hands into his pockets, “so much for celebrating their engagement.”

“Do you want to go home?”

Nikandros shakes his head, burps, and puts a hand against his mouth. “I think if I get into a car right now, I’ll vomit all over the seat.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” suggests Damen, who also feels the alcohol very much in his blood, making him feel lightheaded and somewhat reckless. “Maybe grab some food.”

“God, even when you’re drunk, you’re the responsible one,” says Nikandros, but he does not protest as Damen pats his back and pushes him into the other direction, down the road and away from the club. “If you were a girl my mother would make me marry you, I’m telling you.”

It is not often that they do something like this – getting drunk like that, to an extent that they will regret it in the morning. Damen knows that he will nurse a terrible headache the next day, and that his mother, despite him being a grown adult of the ripe old age of twenty-five, will fuss over him while telling him off for being stupid. His father will make jokes, Jokaste will have some sympathy, and his brother—

Damen does not want to think about Kastor. Not even when he is drunk.

The engagement of his friends is a thing worth celebrating, however, and Damen does not regret going out. Even if he will have to suffer for it when morning comes.

“Makedon will torture us on Monday,” Nikandros says, and Damen fears he is very much right. He would call them lightweights and tell them to drink his uncle’s griva instead, the only drink their coach could possibly accept. “I think some kid at the club took some pictures of the others being all over the girls.”

“That’s their problem, not ours,” says Damen with a yawn and lets his eyes wander over the shops lining the road. For some reason, a lot of them are closed, or not exactly selling what people with alcohol in their system would be looking for. “Hey, did we take a wrong turn somewhere? I don’t think this is the high street.”

“Might be the other way,” says Nikandros and turns around, swaying a little on the spot. “Oh. Yeah. Wrong way.”

“Maybe we should go home,” suggests Damen. “It’s late anyway.”

“Noooo!” Nikandros groans and grabs his arm, holding onto him firmly. “Damen, for how fucking long have I been waiting for you to get ready to go out again? You’ve been miserable for months. This is our night! Pallas and Lazar getting engaged was the best thing that could have happened to you.”

“To me?”

“Yep.” Nikandros pats his back firmly, hanging onto him now. “The only places you’ve been going these days? The gym. The games. The dentist, like, once. You’ve been fucking miserable because of her. You don’t even notice the women that lust after you on a daily basis. She’s ruined your life, and you’re not doing a thing to make her pay. You don’t even do something for yourself. Start living again.”

“Trust me, she’s already paying by having to put up with my brother,” Damen says dryly. “Honestly, Nik, what’s the fucking point?” He shrugs in defeat. “I thought she loved me. I was thinking about proposing to her.” Saying it out loud with alcohol in his blood makes it even worse. 

His life has been shit ever since.

“And then she went and fucked your brother,” says Nikandros, as if Damen needed a reminder of that. “And got pregnant with his kid.” For a moment, he looks incredibly sober. “You know what I think? She got what she deserved. A lifetime bound to your dick of a brother. You should be glad she’s no longer your problem.”

When Nikandros puts it like this, it almost makes sense.

And yet, the knowledge of having been cheated on hurts.

Even after almost a year.

Damen closes his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, Nik, I’m just….” 

He does not finish the sentence. 

Instead, Nikandros puts an arm around Damen’s shoulders.

“Stop moping,” says Nikandros and digs into his chest with one finger, much harder than he probably intends. “You know what you need? A woman .”

Damen needs a few seconds to understand what he means, and then groans loudly. “I’m not doing a one-night-stand, Nik.”

“Who said anything about one-night-stands?” Nikandros shakes his head. “I know you’re not the type for that. But I can see what you need, and it is right over there.”

He points across the street. Damen frowns.

“That’s a house.”

“Yes.”

“Nik, why are you showing me a house?”

“It’s not just any house. Take a better look. What sort of establishment is open at this hour and has a poster of what I guess is a very pretty blonde woman in the window?”

“Nik.”

“That’s a strip club!!” Nikandros shakes Damen by the shoulder and begins to drag him along across the street. “That’s what you need now. Distraction from her . You keep thinking about her. I know you.”

“She lives in my fucking house, Nik, of course I think about her.”

“And it’s disgusting that she lives there after everything she’s done to you.” Nikandros keeps dragging him across the street towards the alleged strip club. “You need a distraction. And by God if that means you need to look at the tits of a dancing blonde woman, then so be it.”

In hindsight, Damen should have seen the signs. That there is no bouncer at the door but a guy selling actual tickets. That the door has actual glass in it one can see through. That inside, a woman tries to hand them a booklet and wishes them a good time. That they are just in time for the second half, and that, of course, no phones are to be used. Nikandros drags Damen past all of this until they end up in a dark room with people on a stage, and they fall into the closest seats available.

It takes them a few long moments to realise where they have ended up.

“Nik,” says Damen, “I think this is a—”

Another person enters the stage and Damen’s mind goes blank.

Blue eyes stare hard and cold into the darkness of the audience while a bold red mouth begins to speak, and both gaze and words bind Damen to his seat. 

The words wash over him in a way that makes them entirely incomprehensible, and yet, Damen finds himself spellbound by them. They are not directed at him, not at the audience, but at the other person on the stage – and yet, it feels as if the actor were speaking to him directly. Each word that is spoken hits him like a blow, shooting through his insides like arrows, and yet, it is not him to whom the young man is speaking. His words are hard, their meaning hurtful. 

If anyone were to ask Damen to recite any of it, he would not be able to.

The fact he is drunk does not help in the slightest.

“Shit,” he hears Nikandros say, “this is a play.”

“Shh!” Someone hisses from behind them, and Nikandros shrinks in his seat.

The play is in its second half, and that alone makes it difficult to follow the plot. Through the haze of his drunkenness, however, Damen can make out that is a love story. A tragic one, between a young woman and a young man, the latter trying to push her away for some reason. Their conversations are more like debates, hard and fast, and when the blond young man suddenly grabs the woman by the waist and kisses her, the audience gasps audibly, and Damen with them.

The air in the theatre is brutal, demanding attention, reaching Damen even through the haze, almost sobering him up.

Looking away from the stage would mean to commit a crime.

By the time the final scene comes, Damen has completely lost track of time. He does not know for how long he has been sitting there, eyes fixed on the figures on the stage; fixed on the blond young man with the blue eyes and red lips in particular, whose shirt shimmers in a greenish blue in the strange light coming from above. He is kneeling by now, to his feet the actress, the role she is playing dead. 

The young man takes her head into his hands and leans down to her. His blond hair falls into his face, hiding it from view.

“In columned halls, we embrace. Her cheek rests against mine.” 

The young man’s voice is as tender as can be, after all the hardness that shone through it throughout the play.  “Happiness like this comes once in a thousand years.”

Solemn, quietly spoken words, and the curtain falls. 

A few silent moments pass. Then, the audience erupts into applause and cheers.

Damen and Nikandros remain seated, staring ahead, each of them for very different reasons.

“Wow,” says Nikandros, “this really ain’t a strip club.”

Damen says nothing, not even as Nikandros hooks an arm around him and pulls him onto his feet and out of the audience, away from the stage, away from the blue eyes and red mouth.

The cold night air hits Damen like a slap to the face.

“Now, uh,” says Nikandros, glancing over his shoulder at the theatre-not-strip-club, “that was something else.”

“Yeah.” It is all that Damen is able to say, feeling his cheek burn in the cold air. It must be past midnight by now given the temperature, or at least very close to it. Damen does not care about the time. 

Burned into his mind are red lips and blue eyes.

“You know,” Nikandros says and steps towards the road, looking out for a taxi, “at least this sobered us up for a bit. I bet the people next to us would have killed us if we had tried to leave.”

Damen is barely listening. 

He does not talk much on the way home, not even as Nikandros has to convince the taxi driver that they are not too drunk and won’t vomit all over her seats, and he does not talk much either during the drive itself. Their surroundings are barely noticeable through the haze Damen still finds himself in, and in his stomach, a strange feeling that he might easily mistake for nausea. It is not that.

They reach Damen’s house first – Nikandros lives just around the corner, as this is a very Greek quarter of the town, but neither Damen nor the driver trust Nikandros enough to get there by foot in his still drunken state. When Damen opens the door to get out, however, Nikandros briefly holds him back. For that moment, he seems strangely sober. 

“You’re my best friend, yeah?” Nikandros says it with such emphasis that it makes Damen’s heart ache with guilt, guilt over having hidden so much over the last few months. “Forget about that bitch of a woman. Even if she lives in your house. She’s not worth your misery. Yeah?”

Damen gives him a small nod.

Nikandros lets go of him, pulls the door shut, and the taxi drives off.

Once inside, Damen closes the front door as quietly as possible, takes off his shoes and is master of his mind enough, still, to place them on the rack to his left before he heads upstairs, eyesight blurring and his mind a mess. He takes off his jeans and falls face-first into his bed as the world keeps spinning, and succumbs to heavy sleepiness that comes with the fall after the high of too many drinks.

In his dream, there is a man, with red lips and eyes as blue as the Aegean Sea. 

The morning that follows turns out precisely how Damen thought it would be.

His mother gives him a look that speaks of both disappointment and concern as he forces himself out of bed at a somewhat reasonable hour and comes downstairs. It is Sunday, the day of the Lord, and his mother would prefer seeing him getting ready for church instead of halfway hanging off one of her antique chairs in the kitchen. 

“What did I say to you, agoraki mou ?” She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. “Do not drink like you have your uncle’s constitution! It is not good for you.” 

“Let him be,” says Damen’s father from across the table, looking up briefly from his newspaper. “The boy was celebrating his friends, Egeria.” 

“So? Does that justify drinking alcohol like that? Look at him, Theomedes.” Egeria puts her hands on Damen’s shoulders and squeezes them reassuringly, pressing several kisses to his head. “My prince is half dead!”

“Mum,” Damen groans and rubs his eyes, “not so loud.”

“Eh, you should have thought about that before drinking those godless shooters—”

“You mean shots.”

“Don’t get smart with me.” She lets go of him and walks back to the kitchen, only to return with coffee for him and a plate of food. “Eat something. You will feel better.”

“Thank you, Mum,” mumbles Damen and tries not to look into his father’s direction, who chuckles as he grimaces at the smell of the food he usually loves. 

“Well, at least you did not throw up,” says Theomedes and folds his newspaper in half. “You have a good stomach.”

“Who didn’t throw up?” 

Jokaste comes into the room, blonde hair shining in the light of the sun coming through the windows as if she were an angel. In her arms, she carries Theo, who chews on his own fingers and makes a squeaky noise at the sight of his uncle.

Damen’s heart warms in an instant.

“Akielos men don’t throw up!” Kastor sweeps into the room after Jokaste, heading right for Damen and patting his head heartily several times. “Right, Damen?”

“Be nice to him, Kastor,” says Egeria and puts a glass of water before Damen and two tablets of ibuprofen. “And don’t be so loud.”

Kastor chuckles and sits down next to Damen, reaching for the toast on Damen’s plate. “Night on the town, eh? You haven’t been partying for ages. Was about time, even though that whole Pallas thing is pretty disgus—”

“Kastor, would you be so kind and fetch Theo’s dolphin from upstairs?” interrupts Jokaste sharply.

Kastor sighs, but gets up to do as he is told. “Everything for my son.”

He walks out of the room and Jokaste sits down on the other side of the table, next to Theomedes. “Don’t listen to him, Damen,” she says, “you know what he is like.”

Damen throws the ibuprofen into his mouth and washes them down with the water. 

“Don’t talk to me,” he says to Jokaste and grabs his plate and coffee on the way out.

His parents’ house is big. So big that his own bedroom is in an entirely different corner of the house, and so is the conservatory. It is where his mother cultivates her most precious plants and where she paints. It is her sanctuary and thus, it is the quietest place of the house.

It is there where Damen sits down at the low table and forces himself to eat some toast, eggs, and yogurt, even though the smell makes him want to throw up all over his mother’s good cushions at first. But as this is not Damen’s first rodeo, he sits it out, sipping water and coffee in between and waits for the nausea to subside. 

In the blissful silence of the conservatory, Damen manages to calm his mind. Somewhat, at least. He thinks of the previous night, of the club, of Pallas and Lazar being all over each other, madly in love. Of Nikandros, who had turned out unlucky with the ladies. The walk they have had together. Their conversation.

They had talked about Jokaste and the pain he still carries with him.

After almost a year, it still hurts, and the fact that she lives with them, now married to Kastor and having a child with him, does not make it any easier for Damen to come to terms with it. He remembers what he has said to Nikandros, and in the light of the morning with a somewhat sober head, it is no less true. 

He had loved her, once.

Now, Damen cannot stand the sight of her.

“Look who is here!” 

His mother walks in with Theo in her arms, undoubtedly taking care of him now to let Jokaste eat in peace. 

“Let’s see what your uncle Damen is up to, shall we?” Egeria says to her grandson and bounces him gently in her arms as she makes her way over to the couch and sits down next to Damen. “Theo, take good note. This is what you look like when you drink too much alcohol.”

“I’m pretty sure he has no idea what he’s looking at, Mum,” says Damen, but he cannot help but smile at his nephew, who makes a gurgling sound and looks at Damen with utter childlike wonder.

“He cannot learn it soon enough,” replies Egeria. “Why are you eating in here now?”

Damen glances at the door. “I don’t feel like looking at them.”

Egeria presses her lips together, thinking about the statement. “I know it is difficult,” she says.

“But?”

“No ‘but’,” says she, “there is nothing to sugarcoat about it. Anyone would be annoyed and angry about having their previous girlfriend living with them, married to their brother, having a child.” 

At least, Damen thinks, his mother is on his side. 

She had been furious when she had learned about Jokaste and Kastor, and even more so when she had seen what it had done to Damen. At the same time, she had done everything in her power to keep the family together, even if she had liked nothing about the situation.

She does the same now, trying to hold everything together, giving Kastor, Jokaste, and Theo a home while they are working on getting on their own feet. Even though Kastor is not her son, but from Damen’s father’s first – and for sad reasons short – marriage. Kastor has always been Egeria’s nonetheless.

On her lap, Theo makes a curious gurgling sound, and Damen instinctively reaches out to caress Theo’s cheek. His skin is as soft as can be, rosy and full of life. 

“He should have been my kid.” 

The words are spoken quietly, and are out before Damen knows what he is saying. But they are out in the world now and cannot be taken back.

And they hold the truth of his soul.

Egeria looks at him sympathetically. With the hand that does not hold Theo, she reaches out and pats Damen’s cheek, just like he just did with the baby.

“Your time will come, agoraki mou ,” she says softly and lets her hand rest on his shoulder. “You will find the person that loves you so much that they won’t ever look at anyone else but you. And that person will make you so happy that the past will not matter anymore.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Damen murmurs, “I don’t know if I can forgive her.”

“We’ll see about that in a year or so,” says Egeria. “Did you have a nice night with your friends, at least?”

“Yeah, it was nice,” says Damen, very glad for the chance in subject. He takes some toast from the plate and eats it, knowing it will please his mother, “Nikandros and I ended up at a theatre for some reason and—”

In his mind, the blue eyes and red lips appear again like a lightning strike.

“And?” Egeria is still smiling.

Damen shakes his head. “Nothing. I can’t even—I can’t even remember the plot of the play.”

“See, this is why you should not drink,” says his mother and gets up. “Finish your breakfast. You are going to church with me.”

“Mum, please.”

“If you can drink then you can also praise the Lord. And I know for a fact that the Delphas are dragging Nik to church as well. You can repent together.”

“Mum, we’re twenty-five, not fifteen,” Damen calls out, but his mother has already left the room with Theo, undoubtedly to hand him over to her heathen of a husband. 

Damen groans and falls back against the sofa cushions, rubbing his face. 

The things one does for one’s mother.

There are only a handful of rules at the house of the de Vere family.

Most of them are simple. Clean up after yourself. No shoes in any other room but the hallway. Wednesday is pizza night. The radio in the kitchen must not be meddled with and stay tuned to the French news channel that Auguste prefers and that never plays any actual music. 

There is only one rule, however, that Auguste is very much firm on.

“No phones at the table,” he says as they come together for breakfast on Sunday morning. With one hand, he places a basket with fresh bread on the table. With the other, he taps on Nicaise’s shoulder in warning. 

Nicaise groans and slips his phone into the pocket of his pyjama. “But Laurent is having his phone out, too!”

“That’s different, I’m working,” replies Laurent without looking up, and moves his phone out of the way just in time before Auguste can reach for it. 

“Laurent, please,” says Auguste, “it’s Sunday morning.”

Laurent sighs and locks his phone, letting it disappear into the pocket of his dressing gown. Instructions to the cast would have to wait.

“Thank you.” Auguste walks back to the kitchen isle, grabs his cup of coffee and sits down at the table as well. “See, it’s not so hard. Sunday mornings are for family. Not phones.”

He is utterly cheerful that morning, smiling from ear to ear, and Laurent suspects it is because no patient died during his shift at the hospital yesterday. Laurent had not had the chance to talk to him yet – he had left for the theatre before Auguste had come home.

“According to Mrs. B next door, Sunday mornings are for church,” mutters Nicaise, “she’s been trying to give me pamphlets again and telling me that God loves me.”

“I take it that she failed,” says Laurent, pouring himself coffee, and Nicaise grins at him in confirmation.

Auguste stares across the table at his son. “Nicaise, what did you do?”

Nicaise shrugs. “I told her to fuck off and made screeching noises so she thinks I’m the antichrist now.”

“Nicaise!”

“What?” Nicaise rolls his eyes. “She’s a fucking hypocrite anyway! Tells me that God loves me but tears down every rainbow flag that she sees! Of course I told her to fuck off!”

“No more f-word at this table!” Auguste sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Don’t think I didn’t see that!” He adds when Laurent gives Nicaise a thumbs-up. “You shouldn’t encourage this.”

“I, a gay man, should not encourage his fight against homophobic Christians?” asks Laurent, raising an eyebrow.

“You shouldn’t encourage him using foul language.” Auguste takes a long, good look at his son. “Next time she tries to give you pamphlets, you politely decline and walk away. No foul words, no shrieking. Especially no shrieking.”

“Ugh, fine,” mutters Nicaise and stabs a piece of peach with his fork.

Auguste suppresses a sigh and takes a large sip of coffee before he turns to Laurent with a deliberately lighter expression. “How was the show last night?”

“It was fine,” says Laurent, which is his usual answer, regardless of the actual quality of the performance given. He could have gone deeper with theatrical terminology, but as sharp as his own mind is at all times, his brother’s mind appreciates a simple Sunday morning. 

Laurent respects that.

“There were some drunk people coming in during the second half, apparently, but they didn’t cause any trouble,” he adds, stirring fruit into his yogurt. “Apparently, we are attracting that sort of clientele now.”

“Perhaps they were in a philosophical mood,” muses Auguste. “I’m sure they were well-entertained. You know what they say. Children and drunk people always speak the truth. If they hadn’t liked it, they would have let you know in one way or another.”

“As long as drunk people don’t become regulars, I don’t care. Nicaise, put your phone away.”

“Oh, come on!” Nicaise cries out as Auguste reaches across the table to confiscate the phone this time.

“You’ll get it back tonight,” says Auguste and slips the phone into his own pocket. “Today, we’re spending the day together. As a family. No phones necessary. I thought we could go to the new bird exhibition at the Natural History Museum.”

“Birds?” Nicaise grimaces. “That’s boring.”

“You loved the exhibition they had last year.”

“I was thirteen! Literally a baby!”

“I can’t go,” says Laurent and gets up from the table, mug in hand. “I’ll be heading to the theatre around noon.”

Auguste’s face falls. “So early?” He asks, beginning to frown softly. “Why?

“Last night’s show had far too many minor errors in it that could have easily been avoided.” Laurent drinks the rest of his coffee and leaves it by the sink. “There will be critics coming into town soon, I have been told. I can’t have the company present sloppy work.”

“You really never let them catch a break, do you,” says Auguste, but his voice is soft. “Do you want me to drive you?”

Auguste asks the question every single time he is available to do so. Laurent knows that if he asked Auguste to drive him anywhere, he would do so in a heartbeat. 

But the less cars in his life, the better.

“I’ll take the tram,” says Laurent, which is his usual answer. “I have to stop by O’Hara’s anyway and pick up an order.”

“Alright.” Auguste does not question his refusal, as usual. “Take care, yes?”

Laurent gives him a small nod and walks out of the kitchen, heading back upstairs. Auguste and Nicaise are still bickering by the time he reaches his room, but the sounds of their voices are familiar and comforting.

“Dad, can I get my phone back?”

“No.”

There is someone in this house, someone that is not a ghost, and Laurent knows he would do well reminding himself of it more.

For his brother and nephew are permanent.

Ghosts do not last.

One should stop chasing them as well.

Laurent’s life is not perfect by any definition of the word. It does have its ups and downs, most of them violent and ruthless, throwing him off his rhythm with far more ease than he would like to admit. Thus, Laurent is grateful for any sort of stability and for any phase that goes somewhat smoothly and without unexpected changes. He prefers his routine, and it is best left undisturbed. 

These days, Laurent appreciates the fact that things are going well in one way or another. The play has been accepted well-enough by the community, and although they are not sold-out every night, they are making good numbers. His hair looks good and his knees are bothering him much less than they usually do around this time of the year. 

There are little intrusive thoughts, too.

He leaves the house around noon and gets on the tram. He takes a seat at the back, puts on his noise-cancelling headphones, and turns on the soundtrack of his favourite Ghibli film. Outside the window, Quartier Arles passes by.

It is rather ironic that a French family would settle in a quarter named after the French people who once founded it not on purpose, but by accident. As far as Laurent knows, his parents had bought their first home there after moving from France without knowing of its heritage. The de Vere’s had fit right in, at least in terms of image. Nowadays, most people living in Quartier Arles no longer speak French, or a horribly distorted version of it that Laurent refuses to acknowledge. After their parents’ death, Auguste had sold the house, had given up his apartment in the heart of the city, and had moved them to the other side of Quartier Arles, to the very house they are living in now. 

After everything, Quartier Arles is still Laurent’s home, even though it sometimes feels as if he were living there on borrowed time. 

Perhaps, Laurent thinks, he should move on.

He gets off the tram a few stops later and enters O’Hara Books and Stationery to pick up his latest order; a bunch of theatre scripts not easily found, but for the woman running O’Hara’s, nothing seems to be ever impossible. With his new scripts acquired, Laurent gets back on the tram. With his headphones on, he cannot hear a thing – and he is grateful for it – but if he were to close his eyes, he would probably miss his stop. 

Two young men sit opposite to him on the other side of the tram, leaning into each other. That they are madly in love is obvious, even to Laurent, who hardly thinks about such things. The darker-skinned one of the two is looking down at his hand where a ring with a diamond of considerable size sits on his finger. An engagement ring, Laurent can tell. The other man, apparently the fiancé, takes the hand with the ring into his own, and leans even closer, kissing his lover on the mouth.

Laurent looks away.

He gets off the tram a few more stops later and crosses the familiar street. 

What kind of man would he synthesize for himself, if one were to continue Ancel’s ridiculous thoughts? Would he wish for a man that looks at him like the men on the tram look at each other? Would he want him to kiss him like this, in public, on the mouth? Would he spend a Sunday morning with him and not want to run because of feelings of being overwhelmed? 

A shiver runs down Laurent’s spine at the thought of another person invading his space, his time, his life. 

That person would have to know all of him, yes, would even demand it, and Laurent is certain that he is not willing to give any of it.

Best not to think on it further.

He unlocks the back door of the theatre and slips inside, and with it, into the world he knows.

Nothing else is needed.

Much to his surprise, however, the lights are already on. Leaving his bag in the tiny dressing room that he calls his own, Laurent makes his way through the narrow corridor to the stage. On the wooden floor sits Erasmus, on his lap the script, mouthing along as he silently reads the lines. 

“You are here early,” says Laurent. 

Erasmus winces, always easily startled. 

“Laurent!” He unfolds his legs and gets up rather elegantly, smiling. “You surprised me.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” says Laurent, glancing at the script in Erasmus’ hand. “Why were you revising your lines? You were perfect last night.”

Erasmus flushes an adorable shade of pink at the words of praise. “T-Thank you,” he says and holds the script a little tighter. “I wanted to make sure I will remember them. Last night I was a little too slow with my lines in scene three, I think.”

“No,” says Laurent, “Vannes was too fast. Your pacing was perfect. I will talk to her later, then you can rehearse it with her.” He studies Erasmus for a moment; a young man almost the same age as himself. A terrific actor and even a better singer, were it not for his utter shyness that he cannot seem to shake off, not even on stage. Each character he plays is unmistakeably Erasmus, which can be both a good and bad thing, depending on how one looks at it. “The next play we’ll put on will be not one of mine but a classic. It is not set in stone yet which one we’ll do, but I think you are ready for a bigger role.”

Erasmus’ eyes widen. “I… I’m not sure if I should,” he says and looks down at the script in his hands, playing with its edges. “I’m happy with the small roles. I don’t mind.”

“I know,” says Laurent, “just give it a thought and let me know. I will pass it on.”

“They will surely give you a leading role again,” says Erasmus without a single hint of jealousy. “You should be with a much bigger theatre company, and not with us. Everyone says it. Even the reviews.”

Laurent knows what the reviews say. “We’ll see what the next wave of critics will have to say about it,” he says. “Come. Let’s do some warm-ups.”

It has become a tradition for the families Akielos and Delpha to spend the afternoon after church together. That Sunday, it is no different.

Both Damen and Nikandros sigh in relief as they finally step out of the church and into fresh air again that does wonders for their respective headaches. The church is in their neighbourhood, and so, they walk a few steps behind their families on the way back, sticking to themselves in their alcohol-induced misery. Damen has to admit it is nice to be walking like this, feeling his senses properly waking up again. Fortunately, Nikandros does not force him to talk until they have reached the house of Nikandros’ family, where their mothers immediately head for the kitchen and their fathers – Theomedes having come over earlier and having skipped church – lounge in the living room. 

“Backyard?” 

“Backyard.”

Nikandros grabs them each a cup of coffee from the kitchen and they make themselves comfortable in the cheap plastic chairs that no person ever remembers buying. They can hear their mothers chatting and their fathers argue. 

As young men, they belong to neither group.

“Did your mother attempt to behead you this morning?” asks Damen and sips his coffee. 

Nikandros sighs. “I should move out.”

“Was it that bad?”

“You have no idea. Yelling at me for going out, yelling at me for drinking, yelling at me for coming home late, yelling at me for not having a girlfriend, yelling at me for sleeping around, yelling at me for not being married.” Nikandros gives Damen a long, dead look. “Honestly, I’m willing to move into the dorms the team provides if that’s what it takes to get some fucking peace and quiet.”

“We’re professional basketball players,” says Damen, “and we’re twenty-five. We can’t live in dorms.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, oh my god what will the media say.” Nikandros yawns and hides it behind his coffee mug. “You sound like my dad.”

“Your dad strikes me as a reasonable guy,” says Damen, smiling.

“Because he is. Look, it’s not that I don’t love my mother, I really do, but this is getting ridiculous.”

“We’re Greek,” says Damen with a shrug. “I think that’s just how we roll. Including the whole living-at-home thing until we’re married.” He pauses, thinks of his brother. “There are exceptions, of course.”

Nikandros does not even have to ask. “He should pack his shit and get out of the house. He’s working for your father’s company, that must mean he has money.”

“According to Jokaste, he’s terrible with money,” says Damen, “so there’s that.”

“Great.” Nikandros rolls his eyes. „So much for that, then.” On a more serious note, he adds: “I hope they’re not getting too much on your nerves, though.”

Damen sighs and sinks deeper into the chair – as much as is possible for someone his size, that is. “I don’t want to see their faces, but I want to see Theo.”

Nikandros hums. “He’s a fucking cute little shit, I’ll give you that.”

“You know what I said to my mother this morning? When she held Theo?” Damen looks up at the sky. “I said he should have been my kid. That’s the kind of future I envisioned with her, Nik. I wanted to marry her and start a family. That’s what I wanted. And she…” He stops, watching the clouds above slowly pass by. 

Neither of them speaks for a few minutes. Through the open kitchen window, they can hear their mothers chatting. Through the glass door left ajar, they can hear the television in the living room.

The sounds of Sunday.

“She never was the right person for you,” Nikandros says then, “she’s… I don’t know. Controlling, in a way. You didn’t follow her every whim. I think she didn’t like that. And ultimately, she turned out to not be trustworthy. But hey.” He leans over and pats Damen’s arm. “You have a nephew now. You’re an amazing uncle already. I’ve never seen a three-month-old with a better personal trainer. He’s gonna have killer abs.”

At that, Damen cannot help but laugh, and something akin to normality spreads through his entire being.

This is what a Sunday should feel like. 

Easy.

“God, my head,” Nikandros sighs and rubs his temple. “I shouldn’t have had that absinthe. Did we actually go to a fucking play or did I imagine that?”

“We did,” says Damen, and then, he finally remembers. Red lips and blue eyes on a stage, belonging to a beautiful young man acting his heart out. A tragic love story. A roaring audience at the end. 

The face of the young man remains burned into his mind, and yet, Damen would be unable to make him out in a crowd. 

“Fuck me,” says Nikandros with a yawn. “We actually went to see a play. Can’t remember the plot, though.”

“It was a love story,” says Damen. “The actor was really good. I think it was him on the poster and you mistook him for a woman.”

“Happens to the best of us,” says Nikandros and downs the rest of his coffee. “What was the play’s name, even? God, I was so drunk.”

“No idea.” Damen pulls out his phone. “Do you remember the theatre? Must have been one near the club…”

He opens Google Maps, zooming in on the club they had visited, and scans the surrounding neighbourhood for theatres. “Maybe this one?” He turns his phone screen towards Nikandros. “ The Aquitart Theatre . Huh. Sounds French.”

“Could be,” says Nikandros, “they probably have a website.”

Damen has already tapped the respective icon, waiting for the website to load. 

When it does, Damen stares.

The front page of the website is made up essentially of a single poster only, the very same that had hung in the glass box at the theatre. A young man with blond hair, piercing blue eyes and lips painted in bold, sensual red, looking right at whoever comes his way. His gaze is hardened, but at first glance only. For the longer one stares, the sadder his eyes become.

“Kallias.” 

Nikandros is leaning towards him now, looking at the screen. “That’s the name of the play, then. Kallias . Sounds Greek, if you ask me.”

“It is,” says Damen and taps on the poster. The next page loads, leading to the information site about the play and its cast. A tragic love story, as Damen had predicted, between a man and a woman. Right. There had been a woman on the stage, too. At the end of the play, she had died by the young man’s feet. 

Damen does not remember her face in the slightest.

He scrolls down to the cast list.

“Laurent de Vere,” he murmurs. 

“Huh?”

„The blond man on the poster that you mistook for a woman. His name is Laurent de Vere.”

“French,” says Nikandros, “this city is full of them.”

“Nik, the only French person you know is Lazar.”

“And that is already enough for me.”

There are more French names on the list of cast and crew, but also a Greek name that Damen recognises. “Would you look at that. Look.” He taps the name. “Erasmus is in it.”

“What Erasmus?” asks Nikandros. “You don’t mean… no? The small guy from—”

“—from Sunday school.” 

Both of them grimace at the memory of Sunday school, something they had been forced to attend as children. 

“Didn’t he move away to live with his grandparents in Greece after his mother passed away?”

“I think so, yeah,” says Damen and zooms in on the picture of the young man smiling shyly into the camera. “It’s definitely him. He looks well.”

“Maybe we’ll run into him sometime.” Nikandros gets up and stretches, yawning as he does so. “More coffee?”

“Sure,” says Damen and gives him his mug as well. Nikandros goes inside, right into the lioness’ den – the kitchen – and leaves Damen on the patio.

Damen scrolls up again.

Laurent de Vere’s photo is small, but Damen immediately recognises his face. The photo is black and white, but his eyes are no less impressive because of it. His hair is slightly shorter there, showing more of the high cheekbones and sharp jawline that one could cut themselves on. He looks at the camera as if he were challenging the photographer behind it to a duel. 

His mouth shows no smile.

Perhaps it is only Damen’s imagination, but the young man strikes him as touched by sadness.

Four days later, Damen stands outside The Aquitart Theatre, wondering if he should not have come alone.

Spending Sunday afternoon at Nik’s, Damen had not thought much further about the play until he had gone home and found himself in the silence of his bedroom and in the company of his phone only. His browser had still shown the website of the theatre, and with it, the faces of Erasmus and Laurent de Vere. Damen had grabbed his laptop after that, telling himself that he was merely interested about Erasmus’ life and whereabouts.

In the end, he had googled Laurent of Vere.

There had not been much to find that was not already stated on the theatre’s website. Laurent de Vere, graduate of an acting school in their city that Damen has never heard of, but that was apparently rather famous and prestigious. He had also spent a few months at a ballet school in Paris before that, but for some reason, it seemed to Damen as if he had never finished it. His main engagements have been at The Aquitart Theatre so far, with occasional roles in other more or less local theatres. That was about it. 

Erasmus had studied acting at a small school in Thessaloniki. 

The theatre only opens from Thursday to Sunday, and thus, Damen has had enough time to potentially come to his senses or to lose interest, depending on how one looks at it. And yet, despite focusing on his training, helping out his mother with the old furniture, and watching Theo, he has not stopped thinking about the play.

Or Laurent de Vere.

A young man with a name tag that says ‘Jord’ sits at the entrance behind a window, raises an eyebrow as he approaches. “Oh, it’s you,” he says, “I hope you are sober this time.”

Damen freezes. 

The man named Jord chuckles. “Don’t worry. You’re just easy to recognise. Do you want a ticket for the show?”

“I—yes,” Damen says, still embarrassed, “thought it would help to see the first half, too.”

“Sure thing.” Jord tears a ticket from an old-fashioned paper roll. Damen pushes the money through the small opening and takes the ticket in return. “You can choose the seat yourself. I wouldn’t sit in the very front; it kills your neck.”

“Thank you,” says Damen and goes inside, ears burning still.

He is early, and so the audience is still rather empty when Damen walks in. With all the lights on, he can see the stage properly for the first time. It is a small theatre; with how many seats, Damen cannot tell. The carpet is dark red and old, but looked after, and the seats are not as narrow as they are in newer theatres. It is a place with history, that much is clear; even to Damen, whose theatre experiences are rather limited. 

He takes a seat in the back row, mindful of his height and its interference with other people’s experience, and reads through the programme.

It contains everything he has already read on the website. On the front is a print of the poster, featuring Laurent de Vere.

The room fills slowly with theatre goers, and Damen has a feeling he is not the only one coming not for the first time. There are people talking about the play as if they had seen it several times already; most of them strike Damen as theatre students. But there are older people, too, talking animatedly about the play they are about to see. The couple next to him, however, don’t seem to have a clue about the show, and thankfully, they leave Damen alone. 

When the lights slowly go out, the room falls quiet, and the play begins, and a painfully beautiful Laurent de Vere enters the stage.

His eyes are blue and his lips are red, and from his lips fall words of love and venom.

A week later, Damen watches Kallias for the third time.

He comes back for a fourth, for a fifth, and for a sixth performance. A matinee.

By the seventh, he can mouth along most lines. He has still not spoken to Erasmus.

After the eighth performance, a matinee that does not feature Laurent de Vere but someone else in the main role, Damen learns that the play is soon coming to an end. Jord, the guy selling the tickets, is applying a sticker to the poster that says Last Performances This Week , and Damen quickly does the math in his head. Given his new training schedule, he will only be able to catch the final performance the following Saturday. Perhaps it is better this way, he thinks to himself and asks Jord to reserve a ticket for him in advance.

The play is just that good, Damen keeps telling himself on the way home. His mother approves of his newfound interest in theatre. In his family, she is the only one who knows where he keeps going, and she has given him some of her own books with Greek tragedies. There is a tale he finds that Kallias is loosely based on, and reading it in his own language makes it even more tangible.

So much, in fact, that it haunts him even in his dreams.

For the most part, he ignores them. It is normal, he knows, to dream of things one engages with. Hell, he has had countless dreams about games, about his team mates, about his parents, about Jokaste and Kastor, about Theo. Dreaming about the theatre is nothing special. Thinking a lot about the play is nothing special, either. 

After all, it is incredibly interesting. Given the things he knows about its origin now, Damen is able to understand even the more subtle bits of it, and spots things in it that he is not sure about in terms of intention. He reads more about the myth of Kallias on Wikipedia, then on SparkNotes, then on Shmoop, and adds his own notes to the little book he now keeps on his bedside table. The story of a young man, having been scorned by a woman he used to love, forcing him into the eternal damnation of never getting to have her again, pushing her away with every act he commits, may it be one of kindness or one of hatred – it feels familiar, terribly so. Even though Damen is no Kallias, and Jokaste no Myra. 

Perhaps this is what he has needed, Damen thinks one night after watching the play again. An allegory, a mirror to look into, in order to look at his own situation. Jokaste is not going to come back to him, and at this point, Damen does not even want her to. Their paths have diverted for good. 

It does not mean instant forgiveness. For that, the wound is too fresh and his feelings still too hurt, and Jokaste spatially too close. But it calms the anger he feels in his heart, and when he comes home that night, and Jokaste is still awake with Theo and greets him, Damen manages to nod at her. 

Only as he lies down to sleep, he realises he does not feel the stabbing pain that usually follows. Perhaps this has been the purpose of the play all along. Perhaps it had been meant to happen to him and Nikandros – perhaps it had been necessary for him to see it, again and again, in order to come to this understanding. Perhaps this had always been what had always drawn him back to the theatre, to the dark audience room, to the words of beautiful and venomous Kallias. 

He takes his phone and looks at the theatre’s website again. It is a shame that the play is coming to an end now, but from what he can tell, it has been on stage for some time now. Damen knows little about the world of theatre, or the lives of actors. Perhaps they would all have to find new jobs. Would they have to leave the city? Would Erasmus go back to Thessaloniki, without Damen ever having spoken to him?

It would be a shame, and a great loss indeed, Damen thinks, to never see Laurent de Vere like that again.

The impact of his own thought hits Damen like a brick, and horrible, flaming-hot realisation washes over him.

“Nik.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“It’s personal.”

“Yeah? Go on.”

“How did you know you were bi?”

It is after training one night, at their usual spot on a Tuesday; on the table between them, a bowl of cheese fries and next to it, a plate of chicken wings. If Makedon knew, he would have their heads, but it has been a tradition for so long at this point that Damen and Nikandros refuse to give it up. 

Nikandros throws some cheese fries into his mouth. “I don’t know,” he says after thinking about the question for a few moments. “I guess I always knew, more or less. I mean, I had a crush on Toula when we were, like, five. But I also liked her brother when I was thirteen. Then there was David when I was sixteen and oh boy, did that confirm things.” He reaches for a chicken wing and takes a bite. “It wasn’t a big realisation or anything,” he tells Damen, “it was just always normal to me to feel that way.” He dips the chicken wing into some mayonnaise – another thing Makedon would kill them for – and takes another bite with a deep, satisfied hum. “Damn, they do make the best wings here. Should they ever close I’ll beg them for the recipe.”

Damen manages a small smile. The wings are very good indeed. But his stomach is in knots, killing his hunger.

“So yeah,” says Nikandros and wipes his fingers on a napkin, “I guess I’ve always known. Why are you asking?” He looks up and takes look at Damen’s face. “Oh. Oh. ”

Damen nods weakly and hides his face in his hands. 

He feels the table shake slightly, followed by the cushion of the bench he’s sitting on dipping under the weight of another person. 

“Hey,” he hears Nikandros say and feels a hand on his shoulder, “no need to worry about it. It’s a pretty great thing to be.”

“I know,” says Damen with a sigh and looks up, “but honestly, knowing it does not—does not really help.”

“Why?” asks Nikandros, tilting his head. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

Damen hesitates, then tells Nikandros the name.

His best friend stares at him for a long, terrible moment. 

Then, he says: “You have a fucking type. I’ll give you that.”

Before Damen can say anything, Nikandros has raised his hand: “Two beers!”

“Beer?” Damen frowns. “Why?”

“Because,” says Nikandros and returns to his own seat, throwing more fries into his mouth, “this is going to be a long night. Congratulations to your bi awakening. We’ll send you the membership card by express delivery for free ninety-nine.”

Damen cannot suppress the smile that fights its way onto his face, and he does not want to.

Just another thing to know about himself.

He can work with that. It does not have to mean anything.

Except that it does.

When Laurent walks back into the makeup room one night after the show, he becomes witness to a most strange conversation.

Truth be told, he should have seen it coming. There has been something making the rounds among the others for days, if not even weeks now. So far, Laurent has not given it any attention, has not asked any questions about it, his mind set firmly on the idea that if it were truly important, they would have told him already. Not a single word has reached his ears so far and thus, Laurent is sure it has nothing to do with the theatre, or the play, or the critics. 

Therefore, it does not interest him in the slightest.

There are more pressing matters to think about than idle chatter and mindless gossip.

“I’m telling you!” says Ancel and leans forward, over the back of his make-up chair in which Vannes is currently sitting, “I have seen him with my own eyes and I am never wrong.”

“You have seen him through the curtains, in the dark, with little lights on,” says Vannes and raises both eyebrows. “Your eyesight can’t be that good.”

“It is,” insists Ancel, “tell her, Berenger.”

“I am not part of this conversation,” says Berenger from where he sits on the couch with some patient files.  The things he does in order to spend time with Ancel, whose work schedule is very different from Berenger’s, is remarkable. Having a brother working in the same field as Berenger, Laurent is familiar with erratic work schedules that come with a doctor’s work, and how much dedication it takes to remain a good one. 

And how easy it is for the job to eat up one’s private life. It is something that Auguste struggles with from time to time, still, even after many years at the hospital.

Any other day, Laurent would have ignored their talks and bickering as usual, minding his own business. But they are talking about someone in the audience now, and the presence of someone who gathers everyone’s attention is something Laurent believes he should at least be aware of.

“What is going on?” he asks as he closes the door, startling Vannes and Ancel mid-conversation.

Vannes turns around in the make-up chair, make-up half gone, smiling at him like the villainess that she deep-down is. “We’re talking about the Hot Regular.”

Laurent looks at her, unmoved. “I have no idea who you are talking about.”

Vannes groans and rolls her eyes, letting herself fall back into the chair. “Of course you don’t. Do you even notice your audience?”

“No, because I cannot see beyond the first row, and neither can you, when the lights are off,” says Laurent and sits down in the other chair to wipe off the make-up and red lipstick. Usually, he does so in complete silence in his own dressing room, but he has run out of tissues. 

“You don’t scan the crowd at the end?” Vannes raises an eyebrow. 

“I do,” says Laurent, “but I know who to look for. Critics.”

“God, you’re boring,” she says and winces as Ancel removes pin after pin from her hair. “You would have seen him, then. He’s complete and utter eye-candy.”

“And he’s gay,” says Ancel.

“Who is gay?” asks Erasmus, who walks in with a towel around his neck and an adorable flush on his cheeks. 

Laurent rolls his eyes. 

“Hot Regular,” says Ancel, “don’t you agree?”

“Hot Regular?” Erasmus says the words as if he had never thought about the potential hotness of another person in his whole life. Perhaps he has not. 

Laurent does his best not to listen. The show had been good, except for a small stutter in the second half – not on his part – but the audience apparently had not noticed, or thought it to be part of the play. Those are the mistakes one can forgive. Sometimes, they even complement the play and are made part of the performance, such as Erasmus’ stumble in act three. It had not been part of the plan, but in hindsight, Laurent wonders why he had not thought of it much sooner.

“He is absolutely gay,” says Ancel and holds out his palms, as if in some sort of prayer. “I mean, look at him. That skin. That killer shape he’s in. Those perfect curls? I’m telling you, absolutely gay. Gay as a rainbow. Gay as a rainbow-shitting unicorn.”

“Don’t assume people’s sexuality, Ancel,” says Berenger from the back.

“I’m just stating a fact!” says Ancel and turns around to him. “It’s a real gift people have. Laurent knew I was gay the moment we met. Right, Laurent?”

Laurent looks up. “You were wearing a rainbow dress. Your phone case said Heterosexuality is a sin .”

It had been one of the most memorable first meetings in Laurent’s life, and the image of Ancel in that dress, together with his flaming red hair, had burned itself into his mind. For some reason, the manager of the theatre had made Laurent do the interviews for the new hair and makeup artist. A gruesome task that Laurent would have gladly given to someone else, but fortunately, the first person to walk in had also been the last. 

A lot could be said about Ancel, but his work was and is flawless. 

“Anyway,” says Ancel, ignoring him, “I’m telling you. Hot Regular is gay.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” says Vannes. “I know guys like him. Just because a guy washes himself and wears proper clothes does not mean he’s gay.”

“Vannes, he is gay . No straight man would ever dress so nicely.”

“I doubt it. I bet he is straight.”

“Gay.”

“Straight.”

“Gay.”

“Perhaps,” says Berenger with utter nonchalance without looking up, turning the page of a file, “he dresses well because he is European.”

Laurent rolls his eyes at the sudden hush that falls over the room. The headache that has been sitting behind his forehead all day is slowly getting stronger, and he really needs to hurry up to make it home before it gets worse.

“Huh.” Vannes turns around in her chair again, now that Ancel is not removing pins from her hair anyway. Laurent keeps wiping off the make-up, reaching for some cleanser next, refusing to be part of the conversation. 

“You’re British,” says Ancel, “how would you know?”

Only then, Berenger looks up. “My country left the EU, not the continent of Europe. I am still very much European.”

“But,” says Erasmus hesitantly, “your name is French. If you are British, then why is your name French?”

“Oh my God, Erasmus,” says Vannes, pretending to be shocked, “you cannot just ask people why their names are French!”

Erasmus’ eyes widen. “S-Sorry!”

Were the entire situation not so annoying, Laurent would have laughed.

“ Rho pour l’amour de dieu .” He drops his wash cloth and turns around, facing the room. “Do you not have anything else to talk about?” 

“You would think differently, if you had seen him,” says Ancel in French, “because he’s hot commodity indeed.”

Laurent gives him a dead look. The headache is spreading across his forehead now, all the way down to his eyebrows. “So?”

Ancel rolls his eyes. “Darling, you really need to give dating a chance. The eye-candy that you are, you could get yourself any man. If you let yourself be open to the opportunity, even you would admit that Hot Regular is a god turned human.”

“I don’t speak French,” says Erasmus weakly, “what is going on?”

“Neither do I,” says Vannes, “and my name is French.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” asks Laurent. “The man might be attractive by given standards—”

“He’s sculpted like a Greek statue, darling, he IS the given standard.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow. “So? There you have your answer. A guy like that spends his entire day in the gym. We would have absolutely nothing in common. People like that are not known to have a lot in their brains.”

“You don’t need brains in order to get a good fuck out of it,” says Ancel with a sigh and waves a hand dramatically.

“Is that all you ever think about? Whether I get laid or not?”

“It’s like watching cats fight,” whispers Vannes, “this might get me to pick up French on Duolingo again.”

“Honestly, sometimes I think you could use it,” says Ancel. “Live a little. Defrost your shell. You’re never going out. You’re not ever seeing anyone. All you do is work.”

Laurent stares at him for a long moment in the terrifying silence of the makeup room. “Do you really think all I need is getting bent over by some brainless idiot in order to defrost ?”

Ancel frowns, apparently finally realising that he has struck a terrible nerve. “Darling, I’m just concerned that—”

“My private life is absolutely none of your concern,” says Laurent, in a voice like ice, “stay in your line.”

Before Ancel can say anything else, Laurent has stormed out of the room and down the hall to his own, shutting the door firmly. Leaning against it, he is not sure what is worse. The knot in his stomach, the heat of humiliation creeping down his neck, or the knowledge that the one person he might regard a friend in these halls thinks of him as—

Laurent shakes his head. He knows the words his brain wants him to speak, has had them thrown against his head many times in the past. Perhaps they do hold some truth. 

Perhaps not.

Best not to think of it. Laurent knows where such thoughts usually lead, and that place is not particularly pleasant to exist in. It is better to ignore it, swallow it, lock it away.

Either way, what torture.

Taking a deep breath for good measure and as a means to swallow the rising emotional turmoil, Laurent removes himself from the door and sits down at the table, taking off the sapphire earrings he wore for the performance. Next, he reaches for the hairbrush, working through his hair that has been hardened by hairspray and sweat, already thinking of the hot shower he will take at home before, finally, he can fall into his bed, shut out the world, and not think of anything. His medication will kill the headache that has him in its full grip now. In the morning, he will have breakfast with Auguste and Nicaise, and after, maybe work on some new ideas. His life will be perfectly content. 

It already is.

There is no need to be concerned about his private life – or the lack of it, as one might look at it. The theatre is Laurent’s life, and it is only natural that it is part of his private life, too. That he gives his private life up for it. 

It is what he knows, and what he knows he does well. 

He takes off his costume – white shirt, pants, boots – and puts on his own clothes, sighing involuntarily in relief at the feeling of familiar fabric against his skin. He even goes so far to put on his glasses instead of contacts. 

The less irritation tonight, the better.

He puts on his coat and opens the door, only to come face to face with bright green eyes full of concern.

“Laurent,” says Ancel softly, lowering the pale hand he had apparently raised to knock. 

Laurent shoulders his bag. It takes him strength to look Ancel in the eye like this, cool and indifferent, and he has to admit he does not want it. He also is unable to, as the headache is telling him that more snapping and yelling would only make it worse.

“Can we talk?” Ancel is pressing his palms together. “Please?”

There are several ways this could go. He could tell Ancel he has a tram to catch, or that he does not want to talk, or he could simply tell him to fuck off and make it easy.

However, Laurent is not a cruel man unless he wants to be, and Ancel is not the sort of person he would want to offend that greatly.

Not when he is looking at him like that.

“Fine,” he murmurs and lets Ancel into his dressing room. 

It is a tiny place to begin with, perhaps half the size of Laurent’s bedroom at home, with just enough space for a dressing table, a large mirror, a costume rack, and an old sofa whose best days lie beyond the date of Auguste’s birth. With two people in it, it feels even smaller. Perhaps it would help if Ancel sat down, but he does not sit. He just stands there, palms still pressed together, looking at Laurent in uncertainty. 

“I,” begins Ancel, taking a deep breath, “am a fucking bitch.”

“Ancel.” Laurent pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine!” Ancel waves his hands dramatically. “I’m so fucking stupid! How could I say something like that to you? You—you are—”

“Frigid? Frosty?”

Ancel drops his hands and looks at him, shaking his head in what seems to be genuine sadness. The look on him is unsettling, so much that Laurent regrets ever having opened his mouth. Fuck those headaches and what they make of him.

“Darling,” Ancel says, and Laurent only notices now that speaking of it in French makes it so terribly real, “I should not have talked to you like that, and I know that your private life is none of my business. I’m genuinely sorry.”

With that, Ancel finishes his little speech, and Laurent allows himself a few moments of silence to process it. Silence between them is nothing unusual. No, they have gone entire test sessions of hair and makeup without exchanging a word, each of them doing their thing. It has never bothered either of them. This time, the silence is uncomfortable, and Laurent knows he has to say something.

Laurent crosses his arms, more a hug to himself than a means of self-preservation and rejection. “Apology accepted. I should not have snapped at you either. It was unlike me to behave that way. I am sorry, too.”

The relief on Ancel’s face is instant, but it does not wipe out the look of slight worry in his eyes that Laurent hates to see there. “You had every right to be mad,” says Ancel, “I was fucking rude and insensitive. Of course I know not everyone wants to get laid and shit. If that’s your thing at all, I don’t know, and it’s not even any of my business— oh my god Ancel shut up .” He mumbles to himself and shakes his head vigorously, sending his red hair flying. Composing himself again, he says: “I like to think that I’m your friend. All I ever see you do is work and…. I guess I just got carried away.”

“You are my friend,” says Laurent, and the words feel strange on his tongue. It makes them no less true. Ancel is his friend, even though they are fundamentally different. “And it is not like you haven’t said anything I have not heard before. I have been called frigid and cold everywhere so far. I merely thought I would not hear it repeated in this place.”

Ancel looks at him in a way that speaks more of pity than sadness now. Oh, how Laurent hates the pity.

“Honey, I have no idea what you are, but you are anything but cold. A crazy workaholic, yes, and a manic genius, too, but certainly not cold. And frigid? I’ve read your scripts. Come on.”

“My scripts are not me,” says Laurent and glances at the clock on the wall. He has a tram to catch. Medication to take. Medication that waits for him on his bedside table at home.

“Of course not,” says Ancel, “but they show more of you than you think, honestly. Your understanding of love and relationships is so fascinating! It’s like that one guy I used to see, he was also kind of on the ace spectrum and he—”

Laurent rolls his eyes and opens the door. “I’m not going to discuss my sexuality with you now. I have a tram to catch.”

“Alright!” The cheery tone in Ancel’s voice is back, and he hears him following him to the stage door, humming to himself. “You should get yourself some stickers, you know, with all the flags! There’s asexuality, demisexuality, aegosexuality—”

“Are you honestly giving me a lecture about this at 11.30pm?”

“Not a lecture, more like, inspiration!” Ancel follows him all the way to the stage door, holding it open. “Laurent?”

Laurent stops a final time and turns around.

“You’re happy, right?” Ancel asks. “I know you love your work, but there’s no shame in letting people into your life. Or a special person.”

“I know it isn’t,” says Laurent, the headache swinging its hammer with full force now, “but the truth is that it is never going to happen to me.”

With that, he turns around on his heel and walks away, heading towards the road as it begins to rain.

In the distance, the lights of the tram station are gleaming, slightly distorted in Laurent’s view through his water-stained glasses. As he walks, the cool air fills his lungs, calming him from the inside from the rush of an unexpected fight. Even his head feels slightly better now, less heavy. It does little, however, for the emotional turmoil he cannot seem to shake off, and the knot in his stomach remains with him all the way home.

Damen has come to a decision, and he is sure that it is for the best. 

There are only two sorts of people who keep going to the very same play repeatedly. The first is the normal sort, the theatre nerds who have a true, genuine passion for the art and all that it entails. They know everything about it, soak it up, analyse it, debate it, perhaps even write plays themselves. They are popular among the theatre crowd, always welcome, and usually a friendly bunch.

The other sort are the creeps.

Damen has long since accepted the fact that it is not the plot of the play per se that makes him come back again and again, but Laurent de Vere. The one time Laurent de Vere had not played the role of Kallias, he had felt deep disappointment, but had watched the play anyway in order to convince himself of having nobler intentions. 

In the end, he had not been able to fool himself, and the very vivid dreams about the young actor had confirmed it. Damen knows it now, unable to deny it any further. Not after his conversation with Nik.

He has a crush on Laurent de Vere, and the realisation of it throws his always easily-assumed heterosexuality straight out of the window and into the gutter.

Of course, none of this is a bad thing per se. Damen has been around queer people all his life, and especially Nikandros – who had called the ancient Greeks “the inventors of homosexuality” – has helped him come to terms with being part of the queer circle, too. It is indeed not a bad thing to be. No, Damen’s problem does not lie with that.

He has a crush on someone he does not even know, someone he has only ever seen perform a role.

None of this is good.

When he picks up his ticket for the final performance, Damen wonders if he should have come in the first place. It will be his final visit to the theatre, he tells himself as he takes the ticket from Jord and goes inside, down the now familiar hallway to the audience and to his preferred seat towards the back. He will watch the play one more time, thank the performers with his applause together with the others, and then turn around and leave this place for good, to never think of Kallias or Laurent de Vere ever again. There is no need to think about him further anyway.

After all, it is not like Damen knows him.

That night, he is not the only one coming for the last show exclusively. He recognises some of the other people in the audience, regular visitors like him, some of them apparently part of the audience every night. Some of them recognise him and greet him with brief nods before taking their seats and looking excitedly towards the stage. It looks the same as always, with heavy red curtains shielding its secrets from view. 

Perhaps, Damen wonders, he will still remember what the stage looked like in a few years’ time.

Some lets himself fall into the seat next to his own, and to Damen’s surprise, he realises it is Jord – the guy selling the tickets. 

“We are sold out,” he says to Damen when he meets his eyes, “not surprising for a final show. The good thing about working here, though, is that you get to watch this stuff for free. You don’t happen to be interested in a part-time job at the ticket office?”

Damen shakes his head. “Sorry, no.”

“A shame,” says Jord, “you seem genuinely interested in the theatre, you know. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Damianos. I mean—Damen.” Damen offers him his hand. “Call me Damen.”

“Nice to meet you, Damen,” says Jord, “and nice to finally have a name to the face that everyone has been talking about.”

“What?”

Before Jord has the chance to reply, the lights slowly go out and Damen’s attention is drawn back to the stage as if attached to invisible strings pulled by a mighty force.

It is Laurent de Vere.

The legend of Kallias is not a simple one. As a young man, Kallias, the prince of a rich state, falls in love with Myra, a lady of equal rank. They outsmart each other in battles of wit, luring each other in, playing with each other’s feelings, until Kallias is on the brink of losing himself. A court jester tells him of Myra’s true self, of her ambitions and her wrongdoings. Kallias refuses to believe any of it, until he sees Myra’s betrayal with his own eyes. Refusing to give up on her, Kallias tries to win her back with acts that he deems acts of love, but that only result in pushing her away further, until he is forced to realise that he has been used all along. From then on, his good deeds turn into twisted games of vitriol, driving Myra to the brink of insanity and Kallias follows her in it.

Damen has had to read the myth of Kallias several times in order to grasp its meaning, and although he has now a fair understanding of it, the interpretation of it on this small theatre’s stage shakes him to the core each time he sees it.

Laurent de Vere is a fragile Kallias at first, maddened by love and driven by desire, only to turn into a twisted and dark version of himself, until only an empty shell remains. The further he goes into his madness as Kallias, the paler he seems to become, the redder his lips, the brighter his eyes, the sharper his tongue. 

He could have read the phone book to Damen at this point. Damen would have applauded him.

There is no intermission this time. This is a thing they do here, Jord whispers to him when the usual break does not come, for the final performance when the actors wish to give it their everything. Without the intermission, love and madness become indistinguishable, and Damen finds himself wondering several times what kind of Kallias he is looking at now; what kind of Myra is addressing the audience; what kind of innocent younger brother, played by Erasmus, is pleading for his brother’s deliverance from madness.

When the final curtain falls, the entire audience erupts into roaring applause. Only Damen remains in his seat at first, frozen on the spot, spellbound still until Jord nudges him. Then he is on his feet, too, applauding as the lights come on again and the stage is a different one. There is no more death and misery, only happy faces of the actors as they come to the stage and take their bows. Even Laurent de Vere, who usually comes to the stage last with a rather sombre expression on his face, stands among them, seeming somewhat amused as flowers are handed to every single person on stage except himself.

“He organised it,” says Jord without Damen even asking, “he always does it. Says that the lead always gets, and I quote, ‘a ridiculous number of flowers for doing the bare minimum’.”

“That is very kind of him,” says Damen through the applause, watching as Erasmus almost bursts into tears at the sight of the flowers handed to him. “But who is getting him flowers?”

He has barely closed his mouth as a red-haired young man rushes onto the stage with a large bouquet, tossing it into Laurent de Vere’s arms without warning.

“Ancel,” Jord laughs, “our make-up guy.”

Ancel the make-up guy hugs Laurent de Vere from behind and presses a hearty kiss to his cheek, to which Laurent de Vere reacts with a stiff smile, similar to the one Jokaste would show towards the end of their relationship.

Damen tosses the thought aside, and he does so with incredible ease. 

Such things are no longer worth a thought now.

And then, it is over, with a final bow of the actors and cheers of gratitude towards the audience that Laurent de Vere does not join in on. The actors leave the stage, and slowly, the people around them leave their seats and move towards the exit.

This is it, Damen thinks to himself with a final glance at the stage. It is for the best.

“Damen!”

A young man with curls the colour of honey is making his way down the stage and through the audience, stumbling over his feet and saying “Sorry! Sorry!” several times to the people he bumps into before finally arriving at the back row. There, he comes to a halt, looking at Damen with big eyes.

“It is you!” Erasmus breathes and his face lights up like a Christmas tree. “I don’t know if you—”

“Of course I do,” says Damen with a smile and gets out of the row to embrace him. “Erasmus. It is great to see you.”

Erasmus laughs into his ear, his laughter the sound of happy bells. “I knew it!” He takes a step back and looks up at him, being considerably shorter than Damen – but then again, most people are. “Jord was telling us about a new regular that looked Greek to him, and I barely could believe my eyes!” Said eyes are sparkling now in almost childlike wonder, giving Erasmus a sweet and angelic look. “I didn’t know you were into theatre!”

“Frankly speaking, neither did I,” admits Damen and rubs his neck, “I came across this place and this play by accident.”

“Did you like it?” Erasmus asks, only to add: “Of course you liked it! You wouldn’t have come to see it several times if you didn’t.”

“It’s really good,” says Damen, “you were fantastic in it. You’re an actor now, then?”

Erasmus flushes. “I like to think that I am,” he says, “it’s not so easy to find work, though. Maybe I’m just not that good. But I’m really happy to be back in—”

“My, my!” says another voice and to Damen’s side, a small door that he has not noticed thus far opens, only to reveal the makeup artist that had hugged and kissed Laurent de Vere. His green eyes are shining menacingly in the dark. “Erasmus! Why didn’t you tell us you know Hot Regular!”

“Ancel!” Erasmus shrieks. “Don’t call him that.”

The man called Ancel slips through the door and into the audience room, looking Damen up and down, like a specimen to be studied. “I’m Ancel,” he says, “and with whom do I have the pleasure?”

“Ancel, this is Damen,” says Erasmus almost a little apologetically, “Damen, this is Ancel, he does our hair and makeup.”

“ Enchanté ,” says Ancel and shakes Damen’s hand with a smile. “What brings you to our small and humble theatre?”

“Ancel!” Erasmus whispers, but Damen has enough experience with the French – thanks to Lazar – to take it all in good humour.

“I wanted to catch the last show,” he says and lets go of Ancel’s hand, “and I just ran into an old friend.”

“We used to go to Sunday school together,” Erasmus explains, “when I…”

Ancel seems to be kind enough of a soul to understand what Erasmus is implying, for he drops the subject immediately. “I see! Now that has been a while, has it not? Erasmus, why don’t you invite him to our little party? We are having a little party tonight, you know,” he says to Damen. “Just a get-together to celebrate the end of the season. My man has just ordered pizza for us poor, unfortunate souls. You should come and meet everyone. Right, Erasmus?”

Erasmus nods. “I’m sure they would love to meet you. Unless you have plans?”

This is how Damen finds himself getting dragged through the small door Ancel has come from – “Ancel, I’m not sure he’s going to fit through!” – to the part of the theatre that usually remains hidden from view. It is narrow and dark at first, a tiny corridor usually meant to be used by the tech crew only, Erasmus tells him in an apologetic tone. But then, the space opens up into a simple, long hallway with several doors. On one end, Damen can see a door that says STAGE. 

“We’re meeting in the rehearsal room!” Ancel says as they walk down the hallway in the opposite direction to the stage. His shoes clack on the concrete floor as if the place were his personal runway. “Much bigger in there than all the other rooms here, and it’s too cold to use the roof.”

“In summer, we sometimes have pizza parties on the roof,” Erasmus says.

“That sounds nice,” says Damen, “when did you come back from Greece?”

Erasmus tilts his head to the sight in thought. The sight alone is adorable. “Two years ago? I graduated from the academy in Thessaloniki just then, and I wanted to come back here. It was sheer luck that I found this place.”

“You mean, sheer luck for us ,” says Ancel and turns around while walking. “He’s fantastic. A terrific singer. He should be on the big stages.”

Erasmus flushes at the praise. “I’m alright.”

“From what I’ve seen, you are really good,” says Damen in an attempt to encourage him, “and if your friends say it, too, you should believe it. They know what they are talking about, I think.”

“Thank you!” sighs Ancel and presses his palms together as if in prayer. “We keep telling him, but he does not believe us. He does not even believe Laurent, and if Laurent praises someone, that’s a fucking gold medal!”

That is all Ancel says about Laurent de Vere before pushing the door to the rehearsal room open and announcing: “Everyone, listen up! Erasmus’ little secret is out! He knows Hot Regular!”

“Ancel!” Erasmus shrieks, but it is too late. A good dozen heads whip around and a second later, Damen finds himself surrounded by the people he has only ever seen on stage. 

A woman with piercing eyes, the one who played Myra, looks him up and down in appreciation. “Your name is Damen, then? Much better than calling you Hot Regular.”

“Vannes,” Erasmus says faintly, “please be nice.”

“What? I am nice!” Vannes laughs. “Just kidding. Welcome to our place, Damen. How do you know Erasmus?”

And so, Damen finds himself telling the story of himself being forced to go to Sunday school as a child, and how Erasmus had always sat in the back row, and how they had always played together afterwards until Erasmus had moved to live with his grandparents in Greece. He does not go into detail – it is obvious that Erasmus does not wish to speak greatly about having lost his parents so young, and Damen does not mention it further. Erasmus’ friends seem happy enough with that answer and invite him to their midst, sitting cross-legged on the floor that has already seen much better days, just like the rest of the theatre. There are more people that Damen has not seen before, some of them part of the tech crew, others being the partners of some of the actors. 

Laurent de Vere is nowhere to be seen.

Pizza arrives a while later in the form of several boxes being carried by a single man. “They didn’t have the broccoli special anymore,” he says from behind the boxes and Damen gets up, reaching out to take half of them. “Oh, thank you very much,” says the man as Damen takes the boxes, and as they come face to face, both of them pause.

Damen blinks. “Dr. Varenne.”

“Oh, hello, Damen,” says Dr. Varenne and puts the boxes down on the floor. “What brings you here?”

“Wait a fucking second.” Ancel appears from out of nowhere, wrapping an arm possessively around Dr. Varenne’s waist. “Berenger, you know him?”

“Of course I do,” says Dr. Varenne, “good to see you, Damen. So you were the person everyone was talking about?”

“Uh,” says Damen, and feels the least intelligent of all time. 

“How do you know him?” Ancel demands to know. “Is he one of your patients?”

“You know I’m the physician for the basketball league here,” says Dr. Varenne with endless patience and puts an arm around Ancel in return. “Damen is part of the team.”

“Oooh.” Erasmus’ eyes light up once more. “Damen, that’s so cool!”

“And I told you to call me Berenger,” says the physician to Damen with a small nod. “Dr. Varenne is terribly formal.”

“Of course,” says Damen and puts the pizza boxes down. “So you guys are…?”

Ancel throws his red hair over his shoulder. “I’m his fiancé,” he says with pride, “though I’m still waiting for the ring.”

“Because you were not happy with the one I got you,” says Berenger calmly. 

“That’s not true,” says Ancel, “I said I don’t want to wear a replica while waiting for the real deal.”

“I ordered the ring to be made in London and there’s a delay,” explains Berenger as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “I got Ancel another one to wear in the meantime, but alas.”

“Congratulations,” says Damen with a wide smile. “I hope you will be very happy with each other.”

“Thank you,” says Ancel and looks Berenger in the eyes, “we will be. Right, love?”

“Of course,” says Berenger, and the way he looks at Ancel makes Damen – and the others, for that matter – look the other way. 

“Well,” says Vannes and reaches for one of the pizzas, “we better eat before it gets cold. Where’s Laurent?”

“He’ll join soon enough,” says Ancel and sinks down to the ground elegantly, pulling Berenger along. 

“Is there a bathroom where I could wash my hands?” asks Damen.

“Down the hallway, third door to your left,” says Erasmus, folding his legs together as he sits down. “Don’t open the one to your right, that’s the closet we barely managed to shut.”

Damen gives him a thumbs-up and leaves the rehearsal room, chuckling to himself. The last thing he expected to happen tonight was a reunion with Erasmus, let alone running into Dr. Varenne – Berenger, from now on, he reminds himself – and his dangerous whirlwind of a fiancé. But they are all a very friendly bunch – just like his mother had told him about her days playing theatre at university, back in Athens. She had always loved the arts, and Damen’s newfound interest in it had made her very happy. 

She will be sad, Damen knows, to hear that he won’t be going back to the theatre after this.

Perhaps he can accompany her to the opera to keep her mind at ease.

He opens the door to his right, expecting to find the bathroom in question there, but instead, finds himself face to face with a backyard. On the opposite wall, there is a large dumpster, accompanied by some wooden chairs beyond repair, and to his left—

Laurent de Vere is leaning against the brick wall of the theatre. He is already no longer in costume, wearing black jeans and a matching turtleneck instead. His hair, however, still bears traces of what it looked like on stage. In his hand, he holds a cigarette.

Laurent de Vere turns his head and looks at him, a cool gaze of indifference. 

“Sorry,” says Damen.

“For opening the door?” His voice is calm, neither too high or too low, at the precisely right pitch. Blue eyes take Damen in, flickering from his face all the way down to his shoes and back up again within a second only. What he thinks of him, Damen cannot tell.

“I was looking for the bathroom,” says Damen and feels incredibly stupid.

“You went one door too far,” says Laurent de Vere and gestures with the hand holding the cigarette. 

“Thought so,” says Damen, “sorry to bother you.” 

He pulls the door shut again, but before it locks, he opens it again. Why he does it, he does not know, not even years later when he thinks about his first meeting with Laurent de Vere, he has an answer to his sudden and unusual action. 

Laurent de Vere looks up again as Damen steps outside with his hand still on the handle. The cigarette in his hand gives him a sombre, lonely look; as if he were in his own world altogether, and Damen were an intruder.

“I just wanted to say,” says Damen, “that your portrayal of Kallias was—extraordinary. I couldn’t look away. Whoever adapted the myth had a really good understanding of the source material.”

Laurent de Vere’s mouth twitches. “Thank you,” he says.

“Do you know who wrote it?” 

Laurent de Vere slowly tilts his head up. Only then, Damen sees that he is leaning against a poster of the play, showing his very self. And at the very top, it says—

“Oh,” says Damen, “you wrote it?”

“Yes,” says Laurent de Vere, “so thank you.”

Damen cannot help but smile widely, and he lets go of the door and folds his arms. “Now that explains a lot. I mean, the omission in the fourth act alone. It was really good.”

Laurent de Vere frowns ever so slightly.  “What do you mean by that,” he says, tilting his head to the side, “an omission of what?”

Damen blinks. “You omitted the murder of the brother and the poisoning of the queen for act four,” he says, “it would have made Kallias’ development implausible.”

Laurent de Vere looks at him for a long time while his cigarette keeps on burning and going to waste. “That’s not even part of the myth as it is usually published,” he says slowly. “Are you that much of a fan? A critic? A stalker?”

“I’m an athlete.”

“An athlete .”

Something about his tone tells Damen he has just been insulted.

And yet, he finds himself not caring in the slightest.

The cigarette in Laurent de Vere’s hand goes out and as he notices, he throws it into the bin next to him. 

“An athlete who reads the most obscure classics, then,” he says and turns around fully, leaning against the wall with one shoulder now. He looks tired, Damen thinks, but it is no wonder after an exhausting performance. 

It makes him no less beautiful.

“To be fair, I sort of slipped into it,” says Damen, “the first time I watched the play, I was drunk. So I had to read up on it later and—”

“That was you?” Laurent de Vere raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “I was told there were some drunk people watching the play a few weeks ago.”

Damen blushes. “Um. Yeah, that was me and my friend. He—” Before he can say what Nikandros initially thought the theatre was, Damen stops himself. No, he should not say any of it. Instead, he says: “We were coming out of a club and didn’t want to go home just yet.”

“And then you decided to watch the second half of a play.”

“Yes.” 

Laurent de Vere looks at him as if he were not quite sure whether to think Damen an idiot or not. Not that he has to. Damen feels very much like an idiot already, talking to a man that is clearly much smarter than himself. 

“And because I didn’t remember much of the plot, I read up on it,” Damen goes on and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans, an old habit and thus, comforting. “I wanted to watch it again, so I came back and it just… stuck. I really enjoyed it. It’s a brilliant play. Your portrayal of Kallias was really impressive. I think it will stick with me for a very long time.”

The face of Laurent de Vere does not change. It is an unreadable mask in which the eyes have the leading role; in them, all facets of the person they belong to seem to come together to create an image that Damen cannot see. These eyes study him now, azure blue and somewhat icy, but not as cold and indifferent as before.

If Damen is not mistaken, that is.

“What was your name again?” asks the actor, “I do not think I caught it earlier.”

“Damianos. I mean—Damen. Most people call me Damen.”

Damen has no idea why he introduced himself with his full name in the first place.

“Damianos,” says Laurent de Vere, and never has his name sounded more obscure. He pronounces it well, as if he were not quite unfamiliar with Greek names and terminology. Given his authorship of Kallias , it should not be surprising. “Damen.” 

“Yes,” says Damen.

“My name is Laurent,” says Laurent de Vere, and only then, Damen realises that the young man has an ever so slight accent. French. “Why are you backstage? Are you here with someone?”

“I’m a friend of Erasmus,” he says, “he spotted me in the audience and invited me along.”

“Erasmus.” Laurent sounds surprised. “I see.”

With that, he removes himself from the wall and walks towards the door that stands still open. “The bathroom is just over there. I have been told there is pizza.”

With that, Laurent de Vere goes back inside and walks down the hallway without looking back.

Damen closes the stage door and goes to wash his hands.

In the mirror of the tiny bathroom, he finds his face flushed.

When he gets back to the rehearsal room, everyone is already seated in a circle on the floor, with the pizzas in the middle. Someone is playing music from their phone. Were it not a theatre, Damen would think he is back at university again. Many game nights had ended exactly like this.

Laurent de Vere is among them now, sitting elegantly on some sort of cushion, eating a slice of pineapple pizza.

Well, then.

“There you are,” says Erasmus with a happy smile and moves a little to the side so that Damen can sit down beside him. “Here, I saved you some.”

“Thank you,” says Damen and takes the slice he is offered. 

“You took quite long,” says Vannes, grinning wickedly, “did you get lost on the way, big boy?”

“I was speaking to Laurent,” Damen says, glancing at the young man opposite to him. His blond hair is falling into his face and shielding his eyes from view.

“Oh?” Vannes turns around. “So you’ve met Hot Regular now!”

If Damen is not mistaken, Laurent almost chokes on his pizza. 

“That was our name for you,” Vannes explains without being asked. “Ever since we spotted you in the audience. Hot Regular.”

“There are others, too,” says Ancel, “like Smelly Regular, Homeless Regular – who is super funny, so no hate – Crying Regular, Bitchy Regular, Dyke Regular—” 

“Anyway, it was nice to have you in the audience,” says Vannes and bats her eyelashes at him. “Something to look at, you know.”

“Do you like theatre, Damen?” asks a girl whose name he does not know. 

“I’m pretty much a newbie,” he admits, “but I really enjoyed this play.”

“Laurent is a real genius,” says Erasmus. As if on cue, Laurent gets up from his cushion and walks over to the other side of the room, where someone has put various drinks on the table. He remains there, his back to the room. “He writes plays like no other. He has even won some awards for them.”

“He could easily work at the big theatres,” says Ancel and leans forward, only to whisper: “But we all wonder why he’s still here!”

“He surely has his reasons,” says Berenger calmly. “Erasmus, could you please hand me a serviette?”

“A what?”

“He means a napkin.”

“Oh. English is difficult!”

The actors babble on, and Damen gets up from the floor. His legs feel ridiculously heavy as he walks over to the table with the drinks and takes a look at the selection. There are various sorts of beer and even wine, amongst the non-alcoholic beverages. Laurent de Vere, he notices, is pouring himself a plastic cup of iced tea. 

“Can I have some of that, too?” asks Damen.

Laurent wordlessly hands him the carton. Damen pours himself a cup and takes a sip. It is awfully sweet.

“You don’t like hearing them praise you?” He asks when he knows nothing else to say. 

It is, apparently, the wrong question, for Laurent sighs inaudibly, but Damen can see his chest and shoulders rise and fall distinctively. As if Damen had angered him.

But Laurent says, in a much softer tone than expected: “They should praise themselves. They have been doing the work. This is not a one-man-show.”

Damen looks over his shoulder, at the actors that sit relaxed in a circle and share pizza slices and good laughs. Their mood is a happy one, the air is one of relief. None of seems to surround the young actor next to him.

“I think it is fair to say that you carried the play,” he says to Laurent, “it’s the purpose of a main role, I guess. And your performance was really, really good. Not that I know much about acting,” he adds.

Laurent looks at him. “And yet, you read the myth of Kallias,” he says, “do you have any idea how many of my co-actors read it? One. The rest just went with the flow.” He takes a sip from his iced tea and stares straight ahead at the wall in front of them that has been plastered with old posters of productions of previous years; of decades, even. 

“Does it bother you?”

Laurent shakes his head. It takes him a moment of hesitation.

“Damen?” Erasmus’ voice echoes through the room, more like the call of a shy child than of a grown man. “Could you bring me some water when you come back?”

“Sure.” Damen takes one of the small bottles of water and returns to the others, sitting down next to Erasmus, who takes the bottle with a happy smile and a thankyou on his lips. 

“So, Damen,” says Vannes, “you are an athlete, they say? A basketball player?”

Damen nods. “Yeah, I play for the Warriors. Nik does too, by the way,” he adds, looking at Erasmus, whose eyes widen.

“Nik! Oh, I hope he is doing well!” He says happily. “To be honest, I don’t quite remember all the people from Sunday school, but you and Nik were always really nice to me.”

“Sunday school.” Ancel pulls a grimace. “Thank God I didn’t have to do that shit.”

“If you were to ever enter a church, you’d burst into flames, I bet,” says Jord with a chuckle. 

Ancel tosses his flaming red hair over his shoulder. “The church would burst into flames around me , you mean.”

“It was just something we had to do as kids,” Damen explains, “being Greek Orthodox and all. It made our mothers and grandmothers very happy.”

“Speaking of mothers,” says Ancel and looks at Berenger, “yours keeps calling me at 4am. She needs to understand what a fucking time zone is.”

By the time Damen finishes his slice of pizza, Laurent has also returned to the circle, sitting once more on the cushion as if he had been made by a porcelain manufacturer and put there on display. As far as Damen can tell, he does not actively engage in the conversations of his peers, but will give a response when asked to. Most of the time, he remains a listener, and his eyes do not stray too far. Every now and then, he pulls out his phone, as if he were waiting for a message.

And yet, he is fully included into the circle. His peers do not seem to mind that he is quieter, that he does not engage in the conversations as lively as them, that he does not get up to do silly dances to the music player from someone’s Bluetooth speaker. Erasmus and the others include him naturally, and thus, he fits right in, even though he appears so incredibly different and detached.

They extend the same welcoming hand to Damen, even though he could not be further away from their artistic lives. 

“Let’s play a game,” announces Ancel. “Fuck, marry, kill.”

“Ancel,” says Berenger calmly. 

“I don’t want to play that,” says Vannes, who has a girl on her lap at this point, hugging her around the middle. “Back in the day, we used to spin a bottle.”

“What are we, twelve?” Jord shakes his head and takes a sip from his bottle of beer. “Why do we have to play a game? Can’t we just chill?”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying to get the party started,” says Ancel and rolls his eyes. 

“You just want to tease Damen,” says Vannes with a grin and winks at the man in question. “And you want to startle poor Erasmus. Erasmus, are you a virgin?”

“Hey,” says Damen with a frown as Erasmus flushes furiously, and together with him, someone else speaks up. Another “hey”, much sharper than his own, echoes through the room. 

It is Laurent’s.

Everyone’s eyes immediately land on Laurent, and Vannes sighs. “Sorry, Erasmus.”

“It’s alright,” Erasmus says with a shy wave of his hand. “For what it’s worth, I’m not. But it really is not a question you should ask someone out of the blue.”

“Or in front of people,” says Laurent and gets up once more from his cushion, walking over to the table with the drinks again.

Damen watches him go, then leans towards Berenger. “Is he alright?”

Berenger nods lightly. “Do not worry. He is protective of Erasmus, nothing else. Most of them are. Vannes too, she just likes to tease.”

Damen watches Laurent pour himself another cup of iced tea, but this time, he does not return to the circle. He stays by the table, typing away on his phone.

“Don’t worry about him,” says Erasmus and touches Damen’s arm gently. “Large groups are not really his thing.”

“I see.”

The party goes on as someone turns the music up. Ancel is the first to pull Berenger up from the floor to dance with him, and the other couples soon follow. It is almost like a party with his family at home, Damen thinks as he watches Erasmus teach some of the others a few steps, and soon, he is asked to join in as well to give his expertise on how Greeks dance.

Only Laurent stays away from it all, still on his phone by the table with the drinks, on his forehead an ever so slight frown.

When Damen finally breaks away from the dancing group, he feels almost as if he were on a night out with his Greek friends, except that the people here are not just dancers by passion but by profession, too. They could probably dance through the night if they wanted, and if Damen is honest, he has no idea for how long parties like these usually last. 

He stretches a little and glances down at his phone to check the time, as he notices something dark and smudged next to his shoe. Damen leans forward, squinting at the words scribbled on what seems to be tape on the floor.

“What’s this?” asks Damen and looks up as someone stops next to him, shivering as he finds Laurent looking at him in what must be uncertainty in deciding whether to see in him an idiot or not. In his hand, he holds his cup of iced tea.

Laurent glances down at the floor and up again. “Markings,” he says, as if it were obvious, “for the actors.”

“I see,” says Damen, “as in, where to stand?”

“Yes,” says Laurent.

Damen moves on to the next marking, leaning closer to read what is written on the tape. “So…. E-A2-S2….”

“It means Erasmus, act two, scene two.” Laurent follows him to the marking. 

“You have them on the stage, too, I guess?” asks Damen, and Laurent nods in confirmation. “I assume you know them all by heart now.”

“Yes, we do.” Laurent glances at the rest of the troupe, but none of them really seem to pay attention to them. 

“Amazing.” Damen smiles and searches the floor for the next one. “So this one is…. Laurent, act four, scene one.” He looks up at Laurent. “Who decides who goes where?”

“The director,” Laurent says. His expression still has not changed by much, although he now somewhat appears softer. Perhaps it is the light. “He is not here tonight, in case you were wondering.”

“I thought you were the director,” says Damen, “since you wrote the play, you surely know it best.”

“Yes,” says Laurent with a small frown, “but I am also in the play. I cannot exactly watch myself.”

Damen nods and puts his hands into his pockets again. “That does make sense, I admit. But you surely have a say in it, still? How and where your character moves, things like that? It must be difficult to let go of it like that, after you’ve put so much effort into writing it.”

Laurent’s hand tightens slightly around his cup, causing a cracking sound of the plastic. “The secret is a good director,” he says, “who is willing to work with the actors and the script. We have such a director. Unfortunately, he is currently occupied elsewhere with his family, so for the next play, we will have to find a different solution.”

“Do you already know what to put on next? Another play of yours?”

“No,” says Laurent with a slight shake of his head, “we will do a classic next. We haven’t decided yet.”

“A classic,” repeats Damen. “I’m afraid I know little of what would be classified as one. Like, Romeo and Juliet. That’s a classic, right?”

“It is, yes,” says Laurent, “but we will not do Shakespeare this year.”

“A shame,” says Damen, “I liked Shakespeare in school. The Two Noble Kinsmen was my English project.”

At that, Laurent frowns ever so slightly. “You know The Two Noble Kinsmen ?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you are not that much into theatre?” The corner of Laurent’s mouth is twitching by now, almost showing a hint of a smile. But it lasts only a second. 

Something tugs at Damen’s insides, like a musician on a string.

“I mean—”

“Damen!” Erasmus calls his name. Damen turns around and sees him waving his phone. “My grandma is on video call! She wants to say hi!”

Damen lets out a laugh. “Sorry,” he says to Laurent, “Greek grandmas must not be ignored.”

Laurent gives him a small nod and Damen walks away, joining Erasmus and greeting a tiny old lady on the other side of the screen.

It is well past midnight, creeping towards one in the morning when Damen seeks out the bathroom again. His mother would tease him in the morning, he is sure, for even staying after the performance, but she would be very happy to hear about Erasmus. When his parents had died, Damen’s family had looked out for Erasmus, Theomedes had even offered to pay for a lawyer. In the end, Erasmus had moved to Greece to grow up in his father’s hometown near Thessaloniki, and they had never seen him again. 

Until now.

When Damen leaves the bathroom again, he can see a door to his left open and close, followed by a blond head of hair. 

“Going home?”

Laurent looks up from locking the door of what must be his dressing room. He is wearing a jacket now, the nights of mid-September already chilly. On him, it looks more like a chic blazer than anything else.

He looks tired. And yet, his eyes still keep their intensity that lures Damen in.

“Yes,” he says, “it is late.”

“It is.” Damen walks over to him. “It was really nice to meet you. I hope I get to see more of your plays.”

“Not anytime soon,” Laurent says and shoulders his bag, “this was the last I had written.”

“Then you will surely write many more,” says Damen, smiling, “perhaps based on The Two Noble Kinsmen ?”

Laurent raises an eyebrow. “As I said, are you sure you are ‘not that much into theatre’?” His tone is mockery, but his face is not. He is looking at Damen as if he were trying to make him out, as if Damen were a strange specimen to him but merely of minor interest. It could mean anything.

But because Laurent is a good actor, and Damen has somewhat proof of that by now, Damen has no idea which is true.

Damen shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t even read that much. Not because I don’t like it, but because I don’t have the time. When I’m not training with the team, I’m at the gym or doing family stuff. The arts are not that easy to incorporate.”

Laurent nods a little. “I understand that,” he says, much to Damen’s surprise. “I take it that it would be the same for me, if I were to show an interest in sports. I have other things taking up my time already.”

“Exactly,” says Damen and smiles again, “but it’s been really great to watch this play. To watch you. It was mesmerising, like watching an intimate act.”

He says it before he knows what his tongue is doing. What is even worse is the reaction to his words. Laurent seems to flush and go pale at the same time, his lips opening and closing again. 

Oh God.

“Oh God,” Damen says, mortified, and feels himself flush as well, the heat rising to his cheeks, “I—I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s fine,” says Laurent hurriedly and makes a quick, dismissive gesture with his hand, clearing his throat. “You—you grasped the meaning of the performance. Everyone has a different way of putting it.”

Perhaps it is the light of the godawful lamp above them, but the tips of Laurent’s ears have turned pink.

“Y-Yeah,” says Damen, embarrassed, “Christ, I didn’t mean to put it like that.”

“Trust me, I have heard far worse,” says Laurent quickly, and Damen has no issue to believe it. He does not even want to imagine the fan mail Laurent must have been getting.

“Okay,” says Damen, but nothing is okay. There is nothing okay at all about such things, not when you hear them from strangers who clearly confuse the person with the role. 

Jesus Christ.

“I should go now,” says Laurent and adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder, “the last tram leaves soon.”

“Of course,” says Damen and feels like he has ruined himself for good, “have a—have a good off-season.”

“A what?”

“That’s—that’s what we call the time between seasons,” says Damen, “in—in sports.”

The look Laurent is giving him could mean many things.

It most likely means his verdict of Damen being a complete and utter idiot.

“I see,” he says and gives him a small, final nod. “I guess the term is not entirely inappropriate.”

“I’m glad,” says Damen.

Oh shut up, Damianos.

Laurent adjusts the strap of his bag a final time. “I assume Erasmus will show you out later,” he says, “good night.”

“Good night,” says Damen.

Laurent turns on his heel and walks away from him, to the rusty door Damen had accidentally opened earlier that night and stumbled upon the young actor smoking. It creaks as Laurent opens it, a gust of cool wind hitting his face and playing with Laurent’s hair as he steps out into the night to head home, wherever that may be, away from this conversation, and out of Damen’s life.

A few seconds pass in which Damen hears nothing but the silence of the hallway and the singing of the others in the rehearsal room.

Something inside Damen gives his heart a firm punch.

He pushes the stage door open. “Laurent?”

The figure he can make out in the light of the lamps is already reaching the edge of the road; a hint of an autumn wind playing with the dirt and leaves on the ground. Damen lets the door fall shut behind him and hurries after him. “Laurent!”

Finally, Laurent turns around.

In the perfect golden light from the streetlamp above, his hair glows like a halo.

Damen comes to a halt in a respectful distance to him, already feeling the chill on his skin due to his lack of a coat. “Laurent, would—would you like to go out sometime?”

This time, Damen can clearly read Laurent’s face. There is a frown, followed by a slightly confused and cautious look, a twitch by his eyebrow. 

“Go out?” He repeats in an honest question.

Damen nods. His heart is beating its way out of his chest, rejoicing in the fact that his desire has won over and he is no longer playing the charade. 

“I really—really enjoyed talking to you tonight,” says Damen, and by God, the last time he was that nervous he had been about to kiss his first girlfriend in high school. “I would like to get to know you better. Will you—would you go out with me?”

Laurent stares at him and a terrible thought crosses Damen’s mind.

He’s not gay.

It is a cliché, and an awful one on top of that. Not all actors are gay, not all dancers are gay, not all opera singers or figure skaters are gay, and how could Damen only ever think that Laurent—

Laurent is still looking at him, studying him. Damen has the impression that he must be thinking very hard.

“Give me your phone,” says Laurent.

Damen’s hands work on their own accord, reaching into his pocket and handing it over to Laurent. Had Laurent asked him for his credit card and social security number, he would have gotten them that way as well. 

Laurent frowns as he unlocks it, but says nothing as he types away. When he returns it, there is a new number in Damen’s contact list.

“You should add a passcode or fingerprint,” Laurent says, “it is dangerous to leave your phone like that.”

“Yes,” says Damen, looking down at the beautiful numbers that, put together, create a direct connection to Laurent. 

“Call me for a moment,” says Laurent, “then I will have your number, too.”

Damen presses the button and Laurent fishes his vibrating phone out of his bag. He checks the number, types in Damen’s name, presumably, and puts it away again.

“Let me know what you have in mind,” he says, “I have to go. My tram is about to arrive.”

“I will,” says Damen, his heart racing still, “have a good night.”

“You too.”

With that, Laurent walks away for good, across the street and past the shops towards the dimly lit tram stop.