Aaron//
Soleil//
Jesse//
Dylan//
Brendan//
Tasha//
Bianca
candidates//hatching//weyrlings//adults//Ryslen Weyr
"Then what do you mean when you call me a slut?" Brendan insisted, following her in and holding the door open for Jesse and Bianca.
"I just mean that you do tend to fool around a lot more than the rest of us do," Soleil replied simply.
Brendan made a sound of disbelief. "Oh ho look who's talking!"
Soleil whirled on the unfortunate checker. "Who do you think looks like more of a slut, him or me?"
Whatever the man had been expecting from the loud group of seven who walked into his store, this was the last thing he could have prepared himself for. "I...I think you both look like very attractive people," he stammered.
"So, just because we're attractive we're automatically sluts?" Brendan demanded.
"No...I just... I mean..." the man's words faded off and he stood there opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
"Girls, girls," Aaron said, putting a hand on both Brendan and Soleil's shoulders, "you're both ugly."
"Don't mind them," Dylan assured the poor checker, who was still immitating a fish, "they're just whores."
The checker bobbed his head. "Yeees... when you need to pay, give a holler. I'll be in the back."
"Congratulations, you two scared the checker away," Aaron told them.
Soleil looked up from the nutritional information on the back of a frozen dinner. "I don't see why, we just asked him a simple question."
Bianca pulled at Jesse's sleeve and stood on tiptoes to whisper into his ear, "I don't think either of them look like sluts."
Jesse nodded. "You have to get them out of their clothes first."
"I heard that," Soleil flung back over her shoulder. "Diva does too."
"Well I've never seen him with his clothes off," Bianca replied.
"You're not missing much," Soleil told her, then blushed as she realized what she had said. "I mean, so I hear."
Jesse arched an eyebrow at her. "Uh huh."
Soleil whirled on him. "What? You're saying you think I've seen it!?"
Jesse smiled and shrugged his shoulders innocently. "I'm not saying anything."
Aaron slung an arm across Soleil's shoulders. "Soleil, are you holding something back?"
"Why? Do I look like the kind of person who would hold that sort of thing back?" Soleil demanded, shrugging Aaron's arm off. "Don't even start," Soleil snapped as Bianca opened her mouth.
"Soleil, we are very very accepting," Tasha reminded her. "You can tell us if you've slept with Diva."
"I'm paying now," Soleil announced, starting towards the counter with her lunch. "Checker!"
The checker came out from a door behind the counter. "You are ready to pay now?"
"Yes, just one more thing," Soleil grabbed Diva by the shirt from where he was leafing through the latest US Weekly, "do I look like I'd sleep with him?
The checker looked to Dylan, who smiled and shook her head. "Yes?" he answered reluctantly.
Soleil glared at him. "Well for your information he's gay!"
"Oh like he couldn't tell," Brendan scoffed.
"Five dollars," the checker told her, cringing a bit.
Soleil opened her wallet, threw a five at the checker, grabbed her frozen and Dasani, and stalked out of the Seven Eleven.
Dylan put her food on the counter. "Like I said. Whore."
The checker was glad when Bianca paid for her food and followed the rest of the cast outside. Soleil glared back in at him. "I don't like that man."
"You just scared him, he didn't mean anything by it," Tasha assured her.
Soleil shrugged. "Still."
The seven walked back to the theatre in relative silence, Tasha and Brendan discussing the female orgasm until Dylan started singing songs from Hairspray. By the time the had gotten back to the theatre, they had finished with Hairspray and were well into Newsies.
"Ain't I pretty, it's my city," Jesse sang and flung open the back door.
"I'm the king a' New York!" Brendan finished. "Aaron, please tell me they have a refridgerator and a mircowave in this place."
"Don't worry Diva, you're not back in the stoneage," Aaron assured him and started towards the greenroom.
Soleil sidled up next to Jesse and put a hand on his arm. "Hey, do you think maybe we could eat... alone today?" she asked in a low voice.
"Um, sure, but I uh, I have to microwave my food first," Jesse stammered, holding up his Lean Cuisine between himself and Soleil.
Soleil traced a featherweight finger around his jaw. "Fine. Meet me in the women's dressing room when you're done."
Jesse watched her go, slightly confused and more than a bit wary. Tasha walked up beside him, shaking her head.
"Watch out for her, Jesse, she'll only use you," Tasha warned him.
Jesse laughed nervously and tried to shrug it off. "Yeah, I know. I'm a guy, remember? That doesn't bother me."
Tasha looked at him sadly for a moment and then gave him a quick hug. "Just be careful. You going to the green room?"
"Yup, gotta heat up my lunch," Jesse replied. "You?"
"Of course," Tasha answered. "My sandwich's already in the fridge though."
When Jesse and Tasha reached the green room, they found Aaron lounging on the couch, Brendan glaring at him, and Bianca trying to open the microwave.
"It won't open no matter how hard I pull!" Bianca complained when Jesse asked. "It's like there's something on the other side holding it shut!"
Jesse tried pulling on the handle. Sure enough, it was stuck fast, as if it were never meant to be opened. "Weird," he muttered, and, putting his hand against the back of the microwave, pulled harder.
Suddenly, the microwave gave a squeak and the door flew open. A bright pink lizard tumbled out, landed on the floor, flipped itself over and, chittering as if to scold everyone in the room, flew to the top of the refridgerator.
"Oh it's so cute!" Bianca crooned, waving a piece of turkey at it. "Here little lizard thing!"
The "lizard thing" gave a squawk and dove for Bianca's hand. Jesse ripped the meat out and flung it into the air just in time to save Bianca's hand. The lizard caught it deftly and retired to its perch on the refridgerator to enjoy it.
Brendan looked from the lizard to Aaron. "Did you know about this little lizard problem when you agreed to use this space?"
"Yes, and I took it just to annoy you Diva," Aaron snapped.
"I think the bigger issue here is what to do with it," Jesse interrupted before they could get started.
Feelings of defiance and ownership flowed towards Jesse and he had the eerie feeling they came from the little pink lizard on top of the refridgerator. He also got the distinct feeling that it was a he and thought of himself as a firelizard, whatever that was.
Aaron, Brendan, Tasha and Bianca laughed when he relayed this to them. "Jesse, have you been sniffing a bit too much exhaust lately?" Brendan asked, and then had to duck as the firelizard screamed and dove at him. It circled around and landed on top of the refridgerator again, glaring at Brendan.
"I think he's serious," Jesse said slowly, eyeing the firelizard.
"What gave you that idea?" Brendand asked, wavering voice softening his harsh words.
"Oh, poor thing, going through life being that bright shade of pink!" Bianca crooned. "It doesn't go with many other colors, you know."
Brendan tossed Bianca a glance and went on. "Well we have to get rid of it. I won't have lizards living in any theatre I'm working in."
"Oh come on Diva he's not bothering anyone," Tasha reasoned. "He's perfectly clean and besides, I think he's kind of cute."
Brendan glared at the firelizard. "Oh yeah, he's real cute when he's diving at you." The firelizard hissed back.
"Ooh, we should name him!" Bianca exclaimed.
Aaron cast her an exasperated look. "What do you think we should name him, Bianca?"
Bianca looked at the firelizard for a moment. "Ah... what about Mike? You know, because we found him in the MIKErowave?" She added after a moment when noone seemed to understand her reasoning.
"Or maybe we could name him Diva, since he and Diva seem to get along so well," Jesse suggested.
"Oh come on you can't be serious!" Brendan protested.
"Hey I think it would be an honor to have the only pink flying firelizard in the world named after you!" Tasha scolded. "Diva it is. Come here Diva!"
Diva chirped and launched himself off the refridgerator. But he didn't fly to Tasha, he flew to Jesse. He landed perfectly on Jesse's shoulder and nibbled affectionately on his ear.
"Well Jesse, you seem to have made a friend," Soleil said from the greenroom doorway. "I'm assuming this... lizard is the reason you didn't meet me like you said you would?"
Jesse laughed nervously. "Funny story, you see, when I tried to microwave my lunch, Diva here was in the microwave."
Soleil reached out to touch Jesse but a hiss and raised wings from the firelizard on his shoulder made her draw back. She smiled. "He's a protective little thing, isn't he?"
"And with good reason," Tasha commented, the off hand tone of her voice not disguising the accusation in her words.
Soleil pretended not to hear it. "Whatever would he need to be protected from?"
An awkward silence settled over the room. Diva hissed and shifted nervously. Bianca glanced at her fellow cast members worridley. "Oh ok this is really tense. Aaron, maybe we should get back to rehersal?"
Aaron searched the faces of each of the actors. From Soleil, to Jesse, to Brendan, to Tasha and finally Bianca. "I think that's a very good idea, Bianca," he said slowly. "Clean up and meet me onstage in five."
Aaron's footsteps on the stairs leading up from the greenroom to the stage were the only sounds in the room for the next few moments. Jesse cleared his throat, cast a look of confusion and worry at Soleil and one of curiousity at Tasha and followed Aaron up, his Lean Cuisine forgotten on the counter beside the microwave.