*2 weeks later*

"Are yer ready, kids?" Matt called, cupping two hands around his mouth, trying to speak over the chaos going on backstage.

"Aye, aye captain!" Lauren called back.

The Starkids -a name they'd all agreed they'd be proud to call themselves- were currently 2 minutes away from their first performance and everyone was freaking out.

Everywhere Matt looked, there would be someone rushing to get their hair done, or someone making a few last minute costume changes, or Darren having a panic attack, or- Matt's eyes widened, jogging over to a corner where Darren was curled up on the floor, both eyes squeezed tight and two hands on either side of his head.

"Darren," Matt placed a hand on the man's shoulder, shaking him, "Darren, c'mon. It's gonna be okay."

Joey was right there next to Darren the second he'd seen Matt crouch down beside him, of course, "Darren, buddy, just breathe."

It took about 5 minutes of coaxing the man out of it, but eventually Darren had calmed down.

"Okay, we're about 4 minutes late to be on stage." Matt looked down at Darren who immediately looked beyond apologetical, "But that's okay, don't worry!"

_____________________

It don't matter what'll come to be
our love is all we need to make it through

Struggling to hide their grins, the cast of Harry Potter: The Musical looped arms and bowed together, taking in the audience's applause.

The band came and joined them eventually and everyone bowed again, followed by even louder applause and cheering than before.

They continued to bow a couple more times before they all exited the stage, moving backstage.

When the last person had made it backstage and they were all just a huddle of people, they began creating their own applause, laughing and whistling, patting each other on the back and just celebrating what was surely one of the best days of their friendship.

"Hold on, hold on." Joey raised two hands, shouting over the noise until everyone had quieted down, "Lets all give a special applause to Matt, for actually making this whole thing happen!"

After the applause had erupted and died down, Lauren chimed in, "And A.J. and Darren for writing the music!" Darren curtseyed to the applause which was quickly joined by laughter.

"And to everyone." Matt paused, "Again!"

Laughter and scattered clapping echoed off the empty auditorium walls.

Eventually groups of people left together, some just seeing the others to their cars while other groups jumped into the same car and made their way to wherever they were going.

And Darren, sat in the back seat of Joey's car, leaned his head back, shut his eyes and released a deep breath. A smile etched its way across his lips, starting firstly by a small upturn of the corners until his mouth parted to reveal a big toothy grin, Lauren laughing silently at the sight, shuffling closer to Darren to rest her head on his shoulder, shutting her eyes too.

What felt like an hour later, Darren's eyes fluttered open, finding his shoulder cold with the absence of Lauren's head. He eventually looked around and realised he was in his own bed.

Not entirely sure how he got there and not remember ever leaving Joey's car; Darren stepped out of bed and walked to his window, blinking blearily against the bright light that came streaming in.

So he'd established it was day time. Now to find out what year it was.

Smirking at his inner thoughts, Darren slipped back into bed and picked his phone up off his bed side table, finding 5 missed calls from Joey and texts from almost every one of the starkids.

"Darren, where are you?" Darren pulled his phone back from his ear at the loud sound of Joey's voice.

"Wus' goin' on?" Darren asked, his voice still husky from sleep.

"You were meant to be at Lauren's over an hour ago! We spoke about this last night before you went inside."

"Oh." Darren said dumbly, "I kinda can't remember anything passed falling asleep in your car. I don't know why." Darren paused, before asking; "I wasn't drunk, was I?"

"No." Joey chuckled, "You weren't drunk. Just severely sleep deprived."

"I guess I have to come over to Lauren's now, do I?" 

"No, we all left ages ago." Joey laughed.

"Why did we have to meet, anyway?"

"Oh yeah. You know how we were debating about posting the musical to YouTube?"

"No?" Darren frowned.

"Right, we spoke about that last night." If Joey was here, Darren was positive he'd be rolling his eyes, "Well, we are posting it to YouTube."

"Ok." Darren shrugged, "Is that what-"

"No, Lauren was telling us that we can't call it Harry Potter: The Musical If we post it because the name Harry Potter is copyrighted. So, we're calling it A Very Potter Musical instead."

"Oh, okay." Darren laughed, "Why did you all have to go to Lauren's house for her to tell you that?"

"Well, we watched a movie too."

"I see." Darren shook his head fondly.

"Well, I'll leave you to sleep now. You probably need to sleep for the next month, so I'll speak to you next year?"

"Shut up." Darren snorted, "But I'm awake now. I'm probably just gonna go spend time with Chuck. I feel like I haven't seen him in ages."

"You do that."

"Will do." Darren smiled, "Bye Joey."

"Bye Daisy."

"Daisy?"

"Yeah, we were talking about you being late to Lauren's." Joey paused before continuing, "And Bonnie accidentally called you Dairen, or something. And someone said they thought she was going to say Daisy."

"Okay, I stopped listening when I heard Lauren's house. I swear everything happens when I'm not there."

Joey sighed, "Yeah, we all hate you. It's more fun without you."

"I hate you too." Darren said sarcastically.

"Kay, bye!" Joey shouted, Darren wincing and pulling the phone away from his ear, looking at it and finding that Joey had ended the call.

Rolling his eyes fondly, Darren put his phone on charge before laying his head on his pillow and pulling the blanket up over his shoulder.

I really think I need to stop with this whole starkid stuff. I mean, I love starkid but this is meant to be a crisscolfer fanfic..