Page 41 of Darien
Then it was time to go get warmed up at the venue, and before they left, Darien grabbed Justin by the arm and pulled him close. He whispered in his ear, and then he was swept off into the rising tide of the excitement for this concert, his bandmates taking him away as inevitably as a strong undertow would.
Which was fine, maybe, because when Darien whispered to Justin, the other man nodded his agreement, and Darien saw it before he was carried away.
“Watch for Noah. Bring him to me if you see him,” Darien whispered, and Justin gave one of those rare smiles and a nod, and Darien somehow knew that it would be okay if Justin had anything to say about it.
* * *
The bright lights, shining in his eyes so that Darien could barely even see the crowd, didn’t thrill Darien as much as they usually did. He was enjoying himself, and he loved the cheers just as much as ever, but as he and the rest of the members of the Lost Boys sang and danced and flirted with each other, he found that it just didn’t matter to him.
The last year of his life would have been a complete dream for most people. And truthfully, that’s how it felt to him. Like a dream, like he’d been asleep ever since he left Noah. And it was Noah coming back which had started the process of waking him up.
He couldn’t go back to sleep after that. After feeling love for the first time in his life, at least in a romantic sense. He would be a complete idiot if he gave up on that, and as he sang his heart out and spun through the complicated choreography, he said goodbye.
Regardless of whether Noah showed up or not, and Darien couldn’t see into the crowd well enough to know if he had, Darien was done. This just wasn’t the life for him anymore.
It was a bittersweet time for him when the lights finally lowered, except for a single spotlight which fell on him. His heart clenched in his chest, nerves fluttering away in his stomach, the butterflies there feeling like they’d been given steroids or something.
Being one of four was safer. Comfortable. People weren’t just looking at him, not usually, and as he stepped forward to the mic which was just waiting for him, he became even more sure than ever.
“Hey, everyone, I’m Darien. This song was written for someone who means a lot to me,” Darien said, and he was speaking to a crowd of thousands, but really, he was only speaking to one person. To a person who wasn’t even there, maybe.
Just as he opened his mouth, just as the music was swelling around him, a movement caught his eye from backstage, someone desperately trying to get his attention.
For a moment, it was like someone had cast a spell which had literally stopped time. Darien wasn’t even sure that he was breathing, because when he glanced over to see who it was, he saw Justin’s intense gray eyes gleaming at him, the waving of his hands as he pulled Darien’s gaze to him.
Beside him was the one person that Darien, if he saw beyond hope to what was likely, had not expected to see. Noah, shielding his eyes against the bright light coming from the stage.
Darien didn’t so much look at him as he did devour him with his eyes. He raked him over, from the tip of his adorably pert little nose to the tips of his toes. When he saw the cast, and how Noah was leaning on crutches, he winced slightly.
But Noah didn’t seem too hurt. In the little glimpse that Darien was able to catch, anyway. Unfortunately, Darien couldn’t read his face at all, and he had no idea how any of this was going to go over.
For just a moment, a split second of weakness, Darien considered just staying right where he was, giving up on making anything with Noah. For a little bit longer, he thought that the best thing that he could do would be to go over to the other man and wrap his arms around him and kiss him until Noah couldn’t deny that there was something here.
But they had a plan, him and Justin. Justin had been in his corner this whole time, and Justin was standing there, everything about him, his expression, his posture, encouraging Darien on. Noah might have seemed completely neutral, but the same could not be said of Justin.
He had made his decision, anyway. All of this uncertainty, it was just nerves. Just his old, careless way of being messing with him, trying to pull him into habits that didn’t serve him anymore.
No. He wasn’t backing out. Though it was much more terrifying to face this than he had thought possible, though he was certain that he was going to open his mouth and nothing but a squeak of terror was going to come out, he was still going to try. He owned it to Noah, and to Justin, and most of all, to himself.
So he stepped up to the mic, and he cupped it with shaking hands. He took a deep breath, a singer’s breath, right down into the very depths of his diaphragm, his stomach expanding with it. He stole one more glance at Noah and sent up a silent prayer to anyone who was listening that this would work, that Noah would feel his emotion through this song.
Darien didn’t even know if the song was good anymore. It had all been so rushed, and he had put too much of himself into it to know anything about it on an objective level. His heart and soul was in this song, and all he could do now was perform it and see what other people thought.
What Noah thought.
So he took the mic in hand, and he stepped closer to it, his body intimate as he wrapped himself around the stand, looking out into the bright light, hearing the cheers of the crowd, and hoping that he didn’t completely ruin the flow of the concert with this.
But Justin was the expert, and Justin had arranged their set. He would just have to put his faith in him. Gazing out into the light, but with Noah’s intense little face the first and foremost thing in his mind, Darien parted his lips and let the first words of the song escape from his mouth.
He just hoped that they found Noah’s heart.
