Chapter Text
Rodrick never thought of himself as the smartest in the bunch. But sometimes, he gets what he calls a strike of genius.
He crouches in the narrow crawlspace beneath the stage, trying not to choke on the smoke from the fog machine that just went off - a sign the final show of the night is nearly starting. He’s got a screw between his teeth, one hand on a tangle of cables. He knows which cords do what, more or less. Usually, he’s a master of sound equipment. Only tonight, instead of adjusting things to sound perfect, he’s setting them up for disaster. He grins. If he ever got one thing right, he knew how to turn a show into chaos.
Above him, muffled thumps shake the wood, synced to a beat of tacky pop music and fake cheers from the crowd. The Talent Glow Show. Or, as he calls it now after they pulled his band off the lineup: the Talent Blow Shitshow. Löded Diper were supposed to close tonight. Rodrick practiced for weeks on end – perhaps the greatest effort he ever put in something. All that work, only for the board to replace his band with a group dance number at the last minute.
Regina’s group.
Rodrick made a scene. Had a full meltdown in front of the board. In vain. Not only they refused to give Löded Diper the slot back as the closing performance, but they banned them from attending the show entirely. Not to mention, he got detention for a month and was prohibited from ever going near the school’s swimming pool ever again.
Rodrick knew something fishy was behind their decision. They were dead set on promoting Regina’s stupid dance number like someone threatened to leak their search history. And, knowing her, that wasn’t far from the truth.
The principal mumbled something about his music being “inappropriate” and “not people’s taste” to justify this crappy decision.
Fine. Most people in this town had a shit taste in music anyway. Not news. And it’s not like Rodrick cared about impressing the normies in this school or their almond-milk moms anyway.
But there was one reason he’d bothered to make an effort this time. A talent scout was in the crowd. A city guy rumored to sniff out teens with star quality and turn them into real stars. That’s how Low Shoulder made it. This scout could actually make Löded Diper go big. Turn him into a real rockstar.
Rodrick drags his pierced tongue across his teeth as the cheers rise. He imagines crowdsurfing on a wave of screaming fans. She just had to ruin that for him.
He yanks, reroutes, jams plugs into sockets that don’t belong together. Three thousand volts pass through these wires, give or take. Maybe he fries the system. Or, knowing his cursed luck, maybe he dies electrocuted under the damn stage. Hell of a punchline. Either way, dead or alive, he is going to ruin Regina’s night.
–
Backstage, Rodrick spots Drew shifting behind a half-opened door, a small black bucket dangling in his hand. A cloud of smoke raises around him, and it’s definitely not coming from the fog machine. Stupid prick. He just had to light a joint in here. If someone caught them, his master plan would blow up. But on second thought, not even Rodrick, who could usually sniff weed from a mile away, noticed the smell.No wonder, with the suffocating sickening-sweet perfume lingering inside the girls changing room.
As Rodrick rushes in, Drew leans on his shoulder, talking too loudly in his ear.
‘Fuck, this stuff is itchy. Where did you even get this thing? I got some on my fingers and they burn like hell. No joke, this shit should’t even be legal – look.
Drew extends his hands and Rodrick sees that he really isn’t joking. His fingers look like sausages stung by bees. It looks absolutely disgusting – just perfect.
Rodrick takes the joint from Drew’s abominated fingers and takes a deep inhale.
‘Greg’s science project’, he replies dryly. ‘Did you spread it on everything?’
Drew lifts the bucket. Neon green skull sticker, radioactive sign plastered on it.
“Costumes, hats, wigs, everything. They’re gonna go feral”, Drew laughs, his hand already extending to take his turn at a smoke.
Rodrick ignores him, as his dark half-lidded eyes settle on the vanity behind his friend. A rouge kiss smears across the mirror, next to a single letter scribbled in hot pink lipstick: R.
Smoke curls from his mouth and hangs there, stuck in that open smirk, all sorts of interesting thoughts popping through his head.
He steps to the vanity. A mess of makeup palettes, half spilled glitter boxes, hairspray bottles and bobby pins are scattered all over it. He drags a finger across the surface, his hand settling upon a pink hairbrush. He picks it up and examines it. Strands of blond hair are tangled in it’s teeth. He puts it down and moves on to grab a black eyeliner. With his other hand, he smudges the he hot pink R until it’s only a stain. Then, using the eyeliner, redraws the R in stark black. He takes a moment to admire his mark, glowing in light of the vanity. Then, he stuffs the eyeliner in the pocket of his tight ripped jeans.
“Let’s go,” he says, satisfied, then takes another hit of the joint. Before he turns away, he flicks the ash into an opened box of pink glitter. Once. Twice.
“Should we go take our seats?” Drew asks, grabbing his toolbox.
A cruel smile plays at the corner of Rodrick’s lip - that lazy, crooked grin that makes people nervous.
“Not inside. I’ve got us special seats.”
He passes the joint back to Drew and prepares to walk out.
The door bursts open. A girl storms through, a box of sandwiches clutched to her chest. Her blue eyes widen when she sees them. Rodrick doesn’t recognize her. Doesn’t even know how to react. But she’s pretty. Like really pretty. Actually, the proper word to describe her would be smoking hot - dark hair, blue-siren eyes, full lips.
“What are you boys doing in here?”, she asks with a soft voice that carries that masked innocence girls like Regina use at times to toy with people. Something Rodrick has learned is a form of weaponised sex-appeal, like a wolf in a sexy sheep’s clothing or whatever. There’s something in her expression that Drew can’t find the word for.
“Maintenance”, Drew replies raising the toolbox, with the joint still between his lips. His backward cap and dangling earring making him look like the poster child for bad decisions. She seems to like it.
“Is that so?” She’s obviously unconvinced, but there’s a spark of amusement in her stare.
“Yeah. We’re experts in, uh, fixing technical stuff like –’
Jennifer laughs as Drew mumbles. He stops speaking and just stares at her with a dumb smile.
“Anyway, I bet you’re hungry after all your work”, she cuts, glancing at the joint in Drew’s hand. “Take a sandwich, I’m sure no one will mind”.
She doesn’t have to say it again. Rodrick and Drew already have their hands in the basket. Good, Rodrick thinks. Munchies are already kicking in and he didn’t eat anything since breakfast. But still, odd. Girls like her don’t usually talk to them. Not like that anyway. And they definitely don’t flirt with Drew.
“So what’s your name?” Drew asks, unwrapping the sandwich and taking a bite, trying not to make it obvious that he’s scanning her body from down up.
“Jennifer”, she replies smiling. “I just transferred schools”.
“Riiiight,” Drew drawls. “I would’ve definitely remembered if I saw you before”. He pauses, the rusty cogs of his brain are almost visible through his eyes as he struggles to come up with a good pick up line.
“Just so you know”, Drew says, a hint of smuggness in his voice, “We’re actually not mechanics or anything – we’re in a band actually.
Rodrick tries not to roll his eyes at the oldest trick in the book. Either way, it’s pretty damn effective, as Rodrick himself used this line successfully more than a few times.
“No way!”, Jennifer exclaims, and her eyes light up in a freakishly intense blue. Then, with a sly smile, she adds.
“Just so you know, I have a weakness for band boys”.
Drew must be dreaming. He’s one moment from damning Rodrick’s plan to hell if she keeps flirting with him like that. Rodrick taps Drew’s shoulder, trying to snap him back to reality. He hates to mess up his friend’s game with a girl like that, but they’re kinda in the middle of something important.
Voices carry from outside. They need to bolt, right now, or they will be caught in here and everyone will learn it was them dusting all the costumes with that cursed itching powder that might be deemed a major environmental hazard. It’s bad enough this Jennifer caught them in here. Now that they’re technically adults, they could literally go to jail for things. Rodrick drags Drew out the door by his arm. Drew follows him, walking backwards, still facing the girl so he can wink at her before they disappear around the corner.
–
They slip out to the school’s back courtyard. Rodrick climbs the metal fire escape that runs up the back of the auditorium all the way to the roof. The railing groans under his weight. Drew follows next, the ladder shaking.
“Holly shit. Did you see that?” Drew says . “That chick, Jennifer, was totally into me. If we stayed just a bit longer, I’d totally have her number.”
“That was weird,” Rodrick mutters. “Hanging out in the girls’ changing room would’ve been weird as fuck anyway. And when do girls like that flirt with you? We’re not the type.”
“You underestimate us, Rodrick. Chicks love guys like us. Look at Ben– he’s got a hot girlfriend”
“A hot girlfriend which we’ve never actually seen” Rodrick corrects him. “Are you sure he’s not making her up?”
Rodrick was pissed at Ben anyway. Ever since he got this hot secret girlfriend, his boy stopped showing up to practice and has been MIA. Didn’t take his calls in three days. Rodrick notes to himself to remember to stop by Ben’s tomorrow and speak some sense into the treacherous fuck so he remembers his priorities.
“Maybe that’s our problem”, Drew says. “Maybe we should stop spending that much time thinking about being rockstars and music, and spend more thinking about girls.”
He scratches his head, visibly struggling to form a coherent thought in his head with all that weed brain fog.
“Although, the girls will definitely be swarming all over us, if we’re rockstars”.
Rodrick replies with a dettached duh, not in the mood to listen to pothead philosophies. He has more important things to think about right now. And he’s not even trying to come up with a new song, the only times in his life when he manages to be so concentrated.
No, tonight he is definitely thinking about a girl. Only he has no intention to charm her.
-
“Here – perfect seats for the show,” Rodrick says, nodding toward the glass dome in the center of the roof. From there, they’ll see everything clearly: the lights, the stage, the perfect disaster.
“Up we go then,” Drew says, tossing his bag down. The curved glass is slick, and he scrambles up with the grace of a drunk squirrel until Rodrick gives him a shove. Drew sprawls flat on the top, chest pressed to the glass, praying it doesn’t shatter beneath him and send him crashing down the stage below. A dead body would definitely ruin Regina’s big moment.
For a second, Drew wonders if Rodrick’s psycho enough to actually let that happen just to fuck with Regina. The way he’s been lately? Drew’s never seen him this fired up, and he’s known the bastard since primary school.
He shakes off the thought, and extends an arm to Rodrick up. Rodrick settles next to him. He pulls out the sandwich he has squeezed in the pocket of his tight black skinny jeans, unwrapps it and takes a bite. His smudged eyeliner, and half-lidded eyes give him the look of a predator.
Below them, the auditorium glows a glittering pink hellscape of spotlights, sequins, and people swarming like ants. Even the backstage area is visible beyond the fake wall. A group of people comes out of the changing room, all glitter and hairspray. They’re struggling to push a massive pink heart-shaped cake. Rodrick squints. Maybe the performance is them trying to eat all of that? That would be really odd but strangely interesting at the same time. Regardless, the girls are wearing the costumes Drew treated with Greg’s magic itching powder, so things are going according to plan.
Except for one problem. She’s not among them.
Someone yells into the microphone, announcing the final act of the night. The crowd claps.
“Showtime,” Drew mutters.
But Rodrick brings a finger to his mouth, nervously scraping the black polish with his teeth.
Where the hell is Regina? He thinks. If she’s not coming, this’ll all be for nothing. Sure, pranking the rest of them is fun. But fucking with Regina? That was the whole point, the cherry on his cake.
She will show up, he reassures himself. There’s no way in hell the princess is missing the opportunity to parade herself to the talent scout.
The lights dim and a hush spreads over the audience.
Two dozen people march out on stage, pushing the massive heart-shaped cake and set it center stage. The music changes to a slow tune that resembles something coming out of a creepy music box. The dancers start moving in unison. Drew can tell they’re not experienced dancers, but there’s something about the way they’re moving that’s almost hypnotising, so he doesn’t notice scratches, the twitching wrists, the nervous glances they exchange among themselves. Rodrick does - but his frown deepens. Still no Regina.
The dancers spin around on stage before kneeling around the cake in a perfect circle, heads bowed.
And then -
The tune changes. A catty pop beat thunders through the speakers.
Boom.
The top of the cake bursts open, spewing a massive explosion of confetti and pink petals. Rodrick’s jaw drops open.
She rises out of the goddamn cake like a goddess from a cult’s wet dream.
Regina herself, bathed in stage fog and glitter.
Arms crossed up behind her head, she looks straight out of the cover of the magazines Rodrick keeps hidden under his bed. Her outfit – blush pink crop top shaped like seashells and a short-front skirt with a long flowy hem - is dripping in sequins, glowing unnaturally as if the stagelights themselves worship her. She flips her hair, gracefully raises one arm - and the crowd roars like Aphrodite just descended from Pop Mount Olympus.
“Fuck. Me.”, Rodrick drawls. Impressive entrance, gotta give her that.
He can’t really see her face from up here, but he can’t picture it clearly nonetheless. That serene demonic gaze of her eyes. That “I-own-you-now-worship-me” smile. Oh, so sweetly soon, it will twist into something else.
Rodrick keeps his eyes on her. She sways like she’s underwater, moving in sinful ways that have no business being on a high school stage. She steps on the backs of two girls who lift her to their shoulders - arms outstretched, head thrown back, balancing herself in the air on one leg. The whole crowd melts into a single, stupid scream.
But Rodrick notices what they don’t: the subtle scratching between steps, the flinches. The twitch that doesn’t belong in the perfect choreography.
The powder’s kicking in.
Rodrick’s grin stretches slow and sharp. He closes his eyes and imagines that smile slowly dying out on her lips. Any moment now. He pulls the small remote cramped in his pocket and begins to flick his thumb around a big red button.
‘Dude, I think it’s starting’, Drew says.
Indeed. The dancers are missing steps now, unable to stop their scratching. The cheering deems to uneasy murmurs. One girl yanks off her pink wig and runs offstage. The show turns into a confusing mess as dancers fumble one after another. Their whole routine falls apart. Regina barks orders at the others like a pink dictator, trying to salvage the number - but it’s done. Even she can’t hide the frantic scratching now. The itching powder’s in full, hellish bloom.
“Holy shit, they’re going feral!” Drew laughs, nearly choking on his food. “Tearing off their clothes, scratching like dogs!”
Rodrick takes another bite of the sandwich and presses the button on the remote.
The pop beat distorts itself into a loud screech before it dies out. Then, almost bursting everyone’s ears, a noisy, guttural metal song starts, making the glass roof vibrate with aggressive drums and a guitar screeching like a banshee. Löded Diper’s latest track and what Rodrick is proud to consider his best work. He hopes the talent scout takes notice of it.
The stage erupts in chaos. Glitter flies. Sequins tear. Costumes split. The dancers claw at themselves, ripping fabric, shrieking, bolting offstage half-dressed.
Enjoy the music, Rodrick murmurs. The screams of the audience perfectly sync with the screaming chorus of the song. This is fucking art, Rodrick thinks. A whole symphony of screams, all masterfully directed by his own cruel genius.
He looks at Regina, who is now tearing off pieces of her costume one by one. Closes his eyes and begins to count. Just like he does at the start of every song during practice.
One, two, three, and -
He presses the button again, stopping the music. A scream splits the auditorium, raising above all others. Sharp, high, unmistakable. The perfect fucking pitch.
Regina.
Rodrick’s eyes roll back in his head a little, dizzy with satisfaction. He exhales slowly, so slowly, letting the wave of euphoria wash over him.
“Look,” Drew blurts, “the crowd is evacuating. The principal’s on stage and he’s scratching too!”
But Rodrick doesn’t open his eyes. Not yet.
He just sits there, replaying the delicious sound of her scream.
And maybe - just maybe - thinks one more time about the moment she started taking off her clothes to his music.