07: THAT LAST PART ABOUT THE 2014 BROADWAY REVIVAL ISN'T EVEN RELEVANT

« do you know what she has done to me? it's terrible! she has turned me into an honest man. »

LYDIA THINKS it's a great idea. For the exact same reason, of course, Allison thinks it's one of the worst ideas ever conceived on the planet.

"I don't see why we have to do this," she grumbles as Lydia leads the way, clicking her way down the damp sidewalk in heels that Allison is extremely sure are practically impossible to stand up straight in.

(Lydia always has defied the laws of the universe.)

"Because, Allison, honey, you need to get out a little more," Lydia replies without looking back.

"At a concert?"

"Mm," Lydia turns into a dark and rather intimidating that makes Allison distinctly uncomfortable. "When I said concert..."

"Lydia," Allison's eyes narrow at her best friend's back, and there's a warning in her voice.

"I may have stretched the term slightly," she concedes, turning to face Allison for the first time.

"And we are actually going where?"

"A club?"

"...are you serious?"

"Very."

"God, I am going to kill you."

"No, you're not. You need me to get through Calculus this year."

"I can get Toby to tutor me."

"You know, somehow, I don't get the feeling that tutoring with Toby would involve much learning at all..."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you want it to, Allison. Whatever you want it to."

✦

"Oh, God. This is illegal. Lydia, this is illegal! We're gonna get arrested! It's gonna go on our record! Forever! I'll be expelled from high school! I won't be able to go to college! I'm going to spend the rest of my life sharing a cell with a homicidal shoplifter!"

(Allison is panicking.)

"You know, I've never heard of homicidal shoplifters before," Lydia's light tone can still be heard over the thumping bass of the club music. "I don't think they'd really be allowed to share cells. Too dangerous."

"Lydia," Allison makes a last-ditch attempt, grabbing her friend's arm and giving her a pleading look. "Can we please not do this?"

Lydia barely bats an eyelash at Allison's desperation. "We're not leaving until you have hooked up with someone. And I'm not being gender-specific on purpose."

Allison groans. "This again?"

"Yes, this again," Lydia says sharply. "This is the first step of moving on."

"Who says I haven't moved on?" Allison says in an injured tone.

"You still have three of Daniel's hoodies and you take them out of your closet to smell before going to sleep every night," Lydia says in a stop-bullshitting-me-Allison-Reed tone of voice.

If there's one thing to thank clubs for, it's low lighting, because Allison is pretty sure she's bright red. "Not every night," she tries to mumble in self-defence. "It was, like, one time..."

 "I'm sure," Lydia rolls her eyes. "Now, go forth," she presses a hand to the small of Allison's back, pushing her towards the bar. "And use the flirtation skills and fake ID I have bestowed upon you."

Allison inches her way away from Lydia ruefully, feeling very strong no-bad-bad-turn-back-while-you-still-can vibes emanating from the depths of her soul. 

"I don't even see why I have to do this," Allison mumbles to herself, sitting gingerly on a stool and using all her willpower to stop herself from slumping onto the bar in despair. 

"What would you like?"

She looks up to see the bartender giving her a questioning look, hesitates, then sighs. Knowing full well she is going against every rule set out in the Lydia Huntington Bible, Allison says despondently: "Just some water, please."

He arches an eyebrow, but doesn't comment, setting a plastic cup filled with the substance in front of her. Allison gulps at it as though it's beer, figuring it wouldn't hurt to give off that sort of impression. If Lydia asks I'll tell her it's vodka, she thinks to herself, knowing full well that her best friend wouldn't buy the story for a second.

(Besides, Allison isn't sure that giving people whole cups of vodka is even legal. Don't they have to be shots or something? She doesn't know. She's not exactly an expert.)

She feels her phone buzz in her pocket and takes it out almost immediately, eager for something to do. 

Toby: finished the video log for singin in the rain! any preferences 4 the next musical??

Allison suppresses a sigh, well aware that she's let out at least seven in the past three minutes, and any more would most likely give the bartender cause for concern. This is what her life has become. 

Allison: I'm not exactly a musicals expert, Toby. I thought we'd covered this.

Toby: well excuse me for not wanting to assume

Allison rolls her eyes, beginning to type back a reply, before her phone buzzes again, signalling a text from Lydia.

Lydia: Contrary to popular belief, most people don't come to clubs to sit glued to their cell phones.

Allison: I didn't come to a club. I was kidnapped and forced here against my will.

Lydia: Then take the opportunity and go talk to the cute guy two seats down.

Allison looks up to see a boy around her age, with dark hair just long enough to fall into his eyes. He's staring at his drink with a rather sober (no pun intended) expression on his face. She purses her lips, and glances back to the dancefloor, which Lydia is, predictably, owning.

Before she can regret the decision, Allison moves to the seat by him with her drink, coughing slightly. The boy looks up, blinking at her as though quite confused as to how she came to be sitting in next to him at all. 

"Uh, hey," Allison forces out, sighing inwardly as soon as the words form. Great start, Allison, Lydia's voice taunts from the back of her head. Real smooth.

The boy raises his eyebrows, before taking a gulp of his drink. "Hey," he returns, the word a perfect blend of cool interest and apathy.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," before she can stop herself, the infamous Reed sarcasm has infused itself into her tone, and she winces at how harsh the words sound. The boy, however, seems more amused if anything, the corners of his mouth turning up into a wry smirk. 

"I assure you, I am."

"Clearly," Allison says dryly before she can help herself. "I hope you don't mind me stopping by to crash the party." 

"Oh, not at all," the boy turns to face her, the smirk transforming from one of amusement to something a little more dangerous. "In fact, you just made it at least ten times better."

"Is that so?"

The boy leans in a little. Allison catches a hint of aftershave that reminds her of Daniel, but she pushes the thought out of her mind before it can properly take hold.

"It is very much so," he tells her, doing that thing boys do when they drop the pitch of their voices by about five octaves because they think it makes them sexier (admittedly, it kind ofdoes). Suddenly, his fingers are on her shoulder. Allison feels warm. "I'm Reuben," he tells her, sliding his fingers down her arm a little.

"Allison," she tries to keep her voice steady, doing so by ignoring how his fingertips are playing on her forearm.

"Pretty name," Reuben compliments, even though it really isn't, Allison thinks to herself. Still, it doesn't matter. Reuben's opinion on her name won't impact her ability to kiss him senseless. Which she very much plans on doing.

Her phone gives a little vibration in her pocket, almost enough to distract her – Allison's eyes flit to it for a millisecond, but are drawn immediately back to Reuben, who is now a lot closer than she recalled him being before.

"Hair is nice," he murmurs, running a strand of the aforementioned hair through his fingers. A small part of Allison's mind thinks ruefully that there were perhaps at least a dozen other things Reuben could have said that were at least a little more intelligent than hair is nice, but hey, she's looking for a hook-up, not a Casanova.

"Thanks," she returns in a similar tone of voice. There's a moment, then Allison thinks fuck it, and surges up to press her lips to his.

There's no surprise element, not because they decided to build up to it (well, Reuben kind of attempted to build up to it, with the whole I'm-going-to-compliment-your-hair-for-an-excuse-to-touch-it thing), but because both of them clearly started talking to each other for the exact same thing. Allison's actually pretty proud that even after Reuben's dragged her outside and proceeded to kinda kiss the shit out of her up against the brick wall of the club, she hasn't let out the word Daniel once. Well, okay, it's not like she's had much opportunity to say anything about anything, but she hasn't actually thought that much about Daniel either.

Reuben was actually a really good idea, Allison muses to herself as he presses kisses to her neck, because apart from the aftershave and the distinct lack of brain cells here and there, he's nothing like Daniel. He's shorter (but still tall enough to have a few inches on her), and less lithe - more...big. His skin is more tan, and his hair is straight, no hint of curls, and...damn it, she's thinking about Daniel, isn't she?

"Wanna get out of here?" Reuben rumbles against her collarbone after some time. Allison blinks lethargically, as though the sound of his voice has pulled her out of some kind of trance. She might as well, she thinks to herself. Reuben's attractive enough, and she kind of does really want to have sex, because the cons of a single life are really beginning to become clear to her.

"Yes."

✦

"My baby did good!" Lydia crows as soon as Allison comes into school the next morning, having successfully let Reuben out through her bedroom window after what was admittedly some really good sex.

"This was fun, Allison," he had told her, perched on her window sill. "If you ever wanna go again, you know where to find me." Then he had winked and climbed down into her garden and left, leaving her almost blushing but not quite.

"Shut up, Lydia," she hisses as they make their way to homeroom, glancing around to make sure no one's noticed.

"Oh, honey, it's nothing to be ashamed of," Lydia tells her, sitting down and crossing one leg over the other as she does so. "You had sex. With a cute guy. Who isn't Daniel." She pauses, before adding: "And it was good, hopefully?"

Allison scowls, but Lydia's querying expression doesn't change. A few moments pass, then she cracks. "Yes, it was good," she sighs.

Lydia smirks, no doubt mentally adding the entire ordeal to her list of Times I Insisted On Making An Intervention When It Came To Allison's Love Life And Succeeded.

(Which, for the record, is a thing. Yeah, there've been enough interventions to make a list of them.)

She opens her mouth to say something, but their conversation is brought to a grinding halt when Toby parks his ass in front of Allison's desk.

"You kinda left me hanging last night," he says with a hint of amusement, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" Allison frowns, thinking back, then remembers texting Toby a few minutes before Reuben. "Oh," she says dumbly. "Right. Sorry."

Lydia says nothing, but shoots her a look that clearly says You were texting Toby at a club and you say you don't have a crush you are so explaining this later.

Toby smiles. "Don't worry about it," he tells her. "Wanna watch Cabaret tonight?"

Allison blinks. "Cabaret?"

He shrugs. "It's on our list."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine," she sighs. "But you better have food."

"I shall endeavour to find only the best for you, Miss Reed," Toby declares. "My house straight after school?"

"Fine."

"Cool!" He smiles at both her and Lydia.  "See you later, guys!"

He leaves to sit next to Daniel nearer the back of the classroom, and Allison almost wants to call him back just so she doesn't have to put up with Lydia's judgemental stare practically drilling a fucking hole through the back of her head.

"Lydia, quit that," she sighs without turning around.

"What?"

"The staring."

"You're not even looking at me, how do you know I'm – "

"Because you're Lydia and I'm Allison and I know these things. Quit staring at me like I just grew another head or something."

"Well, you might as well have!" she splutters. At this, Allison finally turns around, raising an eyebrow.

"And why is that?"

"Because! You and Toby Martin practically have a goddamn schedule – "

"Do you have to make a big deal out of everything?" Allison rolls her eyes.

"This is not just some random thing, Allison!" Lydia practically shrieks, still somehow keeping her voice at acceptable volume levels (another law of nature that her best friend is practiced at bending to her will). "The two of you are snuggling up on his couch every other day watching musicals – "

"We're not snuggling," she interrupts, pushing the memory of her and Toby sharing a blanket whilst watching Singin' In The Rain out of her mind. "It's an English project. Yes, we have a schedule. A lot of people like being organised. Calm down."

"Fine," Lydia sits back in her seat. "Just remember, I know things like this. And when I think something is happening, it – "

"Almost always is happening," Allison finishes, feeling like she's rolled her eyes far too many times in the past five minutes for it to be legal. "But the almighty Lydia Huntington is just going to have to deal with being wrong for once," she says. "As I just said, it's an English project. Not dating."

(Her and Toby are barely even friends. Allison isn't really sure where Lydia's getting all this shit from, to be honest. Especially considering she had a one night stand, like, yesterday.)

✦

"This is such a great musical," Toby gushes as he bends to put the DVD into the player. "Seriously, Allison, you're gonna love it. Genuinely."

"You say that about literally every musical," Allison reminds him, dipping a carrot stick into the pot  of hummus on the coffee table (the both of them had arrived at Toby's to find that they had finished the large supply of popcorn in the food cupboard. Toby suggested today be "healthy snack day". Allison couldn't find it in herself to complain.). "And it's never been true so far."

"You lie, Allison," he says, sitting down next to her on the couch. "You totally loved Chicago."

"It was about murderesses! Who were prostitutes!"

"And you dug that," Toby pokes her in the ribs, popping a cherry tomato into his mouth. "Don't lie to yourself."

"Toby," Allison starts.

"Yeah?"

She looks at him for a moment, then lets out a sigh, taking another bite of her carrot stick. "Just press play," she mumbles.

✦

"Oh my God! Another movie about prostitutes?! Really?"

"Ssh," Toby looks offended, fixated on the screen. "This is the best song."

"I will not shush!" Allison declares. "This is literally the third musical we've watched that has a prostitute as a main character!"

"Prostitute is a very demeaning term," Toby sniffs, deigning to look at her for a few seconds. "Community sex worker is much better."

"Community sex worker my ass!" Allison raises her voice above the music. "Toby!"

"Just watch the film," he tells her, putting up the volume a few notches. "This is literally the best song, I'm not lying."

"She's singing whilst lying on a man's bare chest," Allison says in a monotone.

"Irrelevant," Toby waves away. "What's important is the message. Listen to how much feeling she sings it with! Like, how hopeful she is, how excited she is for something new, how – "

"Okay, Toby, that's enough," she cuts him off. "I thought you wanted me to watch the film?"

"Right," he nods hastily. "Definitely. Absolutely. Watch the film. That's important."

Allison mumbles something about how damn straight it's important, but doesn't do much more, settling into the couch with a quiet sigh and watching the woman sing about how maybe this time she'll win. Allison admits that the actress has a good voice, and sings the song well too (although she's no expert at how the song's supposed to be sung, but whatever). The song ends, and Toby lets out a happy sigh.

"I love that song," he shares.

"Really?" Allison deadpans. "I never would've guessed."

"You know, one begins to grow attached to your cynicism," Toby says thoughtfully in reply. "And by attached, I mean develops a good habit of pretending it's not there at all."

"I'm so glad to hear how you appreciate every word that comes out of my mouth, Toby."

"There it is again."

"Whatever."

✦

"That was so great," Toby says happily as the credits begin to roll. "Wasn't that great, Allison?"

"Not really," she mutters.

"It so was," he retorts, unphased by her lack of enthusiasm (and for good reason; Toby has enough enthusiasm for the both of them). "I know you liked it. I saw you smile at one of the jokes."

"I did not," Allison says vehemently, because when it comes to things like this her policy has been and always will be deny, deny, deny. "It must have been a trick of the light."

"Whatever you say," he sings. "We should probably do the log now," he gets up, beginning to head into the kitchen. "Want some hot chocolate?"

"Might as well," she shrugs. "I'll set up the video camera."

"Be careful with my baby," he calls, heading into the kitchen whilst whistling Maybe This Time. "If you break her, I'm making you pay!"

"Yeah, yeah," Allison brushes off, knowing full well that if she did break the video camera, Toby's family could probably afford to buy at least one hundred more without batting an eyelid.

It doesn't take long to set up the video camera, since she's got the hang of it now, and two minutes later she's sat on the couch, staring into space and waiting for Toby to return with their drinks. He does, eventually, bearing two large mugs with steam and a chocolatey scent wafting from them.

"I'm impressed," he comments, handing her her mug. Allison gives him a look.

"It's a video camera, not rocket science," she tells him.

"Right," he takes a sip of his drink, wincing slightly as he does, presumably at the heat. "That's more Lydia's forte, isn't it?"

Allison smirks. "You could say that."

"Wanna do this thing, then?"

"Let's get it over with."

✦

"I don't even know if Allison was actually paying attention for half the movie, to be honest – "

"I was!" she cuts in, giving Toby a glare that she hopes says quit fucking around this shit is going towards my grade you jerk very clearly. "It's a really interesting musical," she says to the camera. "There's loads of really historical context and subtext, like how the Kit Kat Club itself is a metaphor for Weimar Germany – "

"It is?" Toby's eyes widen.

"Well, yeah," Allison frowns. "I thought that was obvious, but I might be wrong..."

"No, I'm not saying you're wrong," he shakes his head. "I just didn't notice it before. Actually, it kinda makes a lot of sense."

"You learn something new every day, Toby," Allison says sweetly. "Anything you want to add?"

As it turns out, there's quite a lot of things Toby wants to add, and it's another six minutes and twenty-three seconds before Allison can press the red button on the camera again to stop recording. "That was unnecessarily long," she says severely. "From now on, when I ask you if there's anything you want to add, it's merely cordial. You should always reply with a no. Is that understood?"

"But – "

"No buts."

"Allison – "

"No," she says harshly. "That last part about how Michelle Williams is going to play the main character in the 2014 Broadway revival isn't even relevant."

"It is!" Toby defends. "It's going to be her Broadway debut, and – "

"Enough," Allison holds up a hand to silence him, using her other one to rub her head despondently. "I've got a headache," she mutters.

"Want some Aspirin?"

"No, I want you to stop talking," Allison says,  wincing as she realises that the words are perhaps a little too blunt. "Sorry," she apologises. "Just hurts."

"I'll get you that Aspirin," he says, tone softer, more round around the edges. She feels the couch shift as he gets up, and lets out a sigh as she hears him go into the kitchen.

She wonders why she's so annoyed all of a sudden. This morning hadn't even started off too badly. Allison shuts her eyes for a few moments and sits in silence, then opens them with another sigh, getting up and following Toby into the kitchen, where Toby is rifling diligently through the medicine cupboard, presumably in search for some Aspirin.

"Uh..." Allison starts then trails off, wrapping her arms around herself. "Sorry for, you know, snapping. Guess it's been a long day."

Toby looks up, giving her a wide smile that, for once, she feels grateful for. "Don't sweat it," he tells her brightly. "We all have off days, right?"

"Right," she murmurs. She wonders when Toby's last off day was.

____________________________________________________________

a/n: theeey're back! i'm sorry this took so long, but i hope this is an okay chapter - i've got the next two chapters already written and both are bit better than this one so ye

i dont deserve it, but leaving me comments makes me ridiculously happy, so if you do i'll probably love you forever

any guesses as to what allison and toby will watch next?

- mariam