Logs:Unearned Luck

Unearned Luck
Dramatis Personae Alma, Jax, Ryan
In Absentia	2020-12-12 "There's so many of us out there looking for a lifeline."
Location <NYC> Madison Square Garden - Backstage
Even well away from the stage, it's loud back here, the opening act, the intermittent hollering or singing from the crowd still carrying through in a muffled chaos. There's other chaos, too, not only coming from the stage; a slightly wide-eyed young woman with a press pass trying unsuccessfully to hide her anxiety as she talks to one of Ryan's green-skinned backup dancers, a skinny girl with headphones on intently running through a piece on the keyboard, a pair of dancers with long capelike sheets wrapped over their costumes lounging on a couch eating sandwiches. Ryan is off in one corner, as much away from the bustle as he can manage. He's been idly toying with the edge of the asymmetrical half-cape draped around his shoulders; stitched from highly realistic artificial flowers in bright colors, it's worn over a loose black mesh shirt layered over a finer mesh shirt in powerfully iridescent pink and blue chrome, metallic purple jeans, and glossy black knee-high boots. His face has been tipped obediently upward for some time now. "I do have people for this, you know." Alma hasn't exactly been glued to Ryan's side, but she certainly hasn't strayed far this evening. She's dressed in her usual work attire, a black suit jacket smartly tailored to conform to her curves, a stark white dress shirt, slim black slacks not to slim to move in, the only color on her the metallic purple vest peaking out from beneath the jacket and the rainbow hanukkiah embroidered on her otherwise black kippah. She's leaning casually against the wall about arm's reach from Ryan, her arms crossed over her chest and her calm brown eyes scanning the busy prep work going on all around them. "But now you'll look extra glam," she points out, darting a glance at the work in progress. "Give this tour the grand finale it..." She hesitates, her eyes darting automatically to a door as it opens to admit a harried looking sound tech. "I'm not sure if the tour has earned it, but you sure have." "They gettin' a paid day off. If it bothers you much you can pay me too." Jax's fingers touch light underneath Ryan's chin, his other hand steady in his careful application of eyeshadow. "I'm sure they done a good job but this is the last show," he agrees with Alma, "s'gotta be --" He hesitates, brows knitting as he works. "You." He bites down on his lip as he trades one brush for a wedge-shaped one, touching up the edges of the colors he'd been blending. "I know I'm lookin' forward to seeing it but I can only guess you're lookin' forward to being off the road." Ryan keeps his eyes closed through his small huff of laugh. "Oh, it's gonna be explosive. Just hopefully not in the..." Despite the amusement in his voice there's a tension that tightens his shoulders for a moment, scrunches at his eyes. After this, a stretch of quiet. "I don't know. Be easy to say of course I'm looking forward to sleeping for a week -- or easy to say I'll miss all the energy and adulation. I don't -- think anything really had me prepared. For what it'd actually be like on the ground this -- this time around." Ryan may not see the brief shudder that Alma can't quite manage to suppress, but Jax certainly does. "It will be explosive in only the best ways," she declares, but then adds quietly, "bli ayin hara." She stands up straighter, rolls her shoulders in a slow stretch, the glint of her knives briefly visible against the red paisley lining of her jacket. "I'm not sure anything ever prepares you for any tour, much less an album tour, but this was a world apart from the last one." "Tch," Jax says very softly, forefinger tapping lightly against the side of Ryan's face, "relax that eye. He glances up to Alma, his brows hitching. "I mean, I'd guessed that bein' out now would give it a whole new tone than before but -- you had the worst of that in hand, yeah?" "Death threats, I'm used to. Weird stalkers, I'm used to. Police fuckery, whatever. But it..." Ryan is obligingly keeping his face relaxed but it's clearly a struggle, his fingers clenching down hard against his knee. "That wasn't it, you know. It was like -- fighting in every damn city with our venues to make sure we could do this safely, outside, strict distancing, strict masking, leaving Luci to play cleanup on the ones who thought we were playing around where we had to cancel, kids at every single stop like ohmygod, thank God you're here I always felt like I was the only one, I'd have killed myself if I missed this show, please explain to my parents I'm not a demon -- parents at every stop like did you make my child a demon? or -- crying like, we lost them and we don't know how to find them can you help or --" His shoulders sag heavily. "-- or. Like. I hadn't seen my twin in ages until you announced..." He breaks off but does not choke up, just taking in a slow breath. His cheek presses just a little harder against Jax's fingertips. "I'll be glad to be off the road, but I can't say I'll be leaving -- a lot of that behind." "We may both be used to all that, but there was more of it." Alma does not shudder this time, but the same harrowing chill is beneath her words no matter how evenly she speaks. "But -- yeah, the whole team worked hard to keep it in hand. The rest, though..." She tsks softly, inaudible (to most) beneath the sounds of the music and accolades. "Let's just say I don't envy Luci his job. I understand people here forgetting there's still a pandemic on, but out there -- I guess it's not so much that anyone's forgotten. Just some of them don't care, when it comes down to selling tickets." Her brows furrow deeply and she starts to reach for Ryan. Then stops, perhaps thinking better of startling him while makeup is yet ongoing. "There's so many of us out there looking for a lifeline." Jax switches his current brush out for a thiner eyeliner brush; the elaborate design he is painting on is highlit with very tiny gems here and there. "M'glad you was holdin' the line," he murmurs. "-- on a lotta fronts. Kinda inevitable folks'll be looking to you for some sorta guidance but --" He sets this down, now, moving on to lips. "You can open your eyes again," he offers as an afterthought. "Can't be healthy feeling like the only one someone's got to lean on. 'specially not someone a half the country away what don't actually know you." "Couchella might need another expansion. Like. Whole entire mental health blocks." Ryan studies Jax's face long and intent, a slight flush in his own cheeks. "-- No. Probably not healthy," he finally allows. "'least things are downhill from here, though, right? Hannukah, Christmas -- got some relaxing built in. After," he shoots a quick crooked smile to Alma, "We blow shit up out there tonight." "Couchella is already mental health support." But there's admiration in Alma's voice, and it doesn't take Ryan's empathy to pick it up. "Can't hurt linking something like that up with your street teams and fan clubs, though. It shouldn't fall to you anyway, but when you're the star in the sky..." She does finally reach for Ryan, when he's opened his eyes again, her hand clasping steady on his shoulder and squeezing gently. Her answering smile is just as crooked as Ryan's, though. "It woudn't be you otherwise."