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The bar is crowded, more crowded than any place this particular trio would usually go, but then again, it is a bar in Manhattan right within walking distance of nearly every theater on Broadway, and it is a Friday night just around the time when all the shows are getting finished. Kat, Zachary, and Dorian are squeezed at a high-top table in the center of the room and talking, though their voices are getting hoarse rather quickly from the large swarm of musical theatre enjoyers all here to come down from the post-show rush. They are talking about mythology and goddesses and lovers, and they are talking about jazz and dancing, and they are talking about actors and actresses. Mostly they are talking about stories, while Dorian dabs at the subtle tears left on his cheeks.
Hadestown has long been one of Zachary’s favorite Broadway musicals, though he can’t say he’s ever been as obsessed with any of them as Kat seems to be with all of them. Dorian was not alone in his tears at the end; she has confessed that she cries every time she listens to the soundtrack all the way through despite her very intimate knowledge of how it ends.
“So,” Kat says suddenly, taking on a very eager and very businesslike tone. Zachary looks up, having been somewhat distracted for the past minute playing with Dorian’s fingers across the table. “When’s our next Broadway trip, then?”
Zachary raises his eyebrows and replies, “I think a better question is what is our next Broadway trip. And I think, Kat, that you’re the expert to consult on that.”
Her face screws up in a very exaggerated and probably slightly drunk kind of concentration as she thinks, fidgeting idly with her nearly empty glass. “Hm. What would he absolutely adore. I dunno. I dunno, Zachary, do you think Hadestown was the best and we can only go downhill from here?”
“I defy you to find a better musical than that,” Dorian interjects, gesturing vaguely with his napkin in the direction of the theater. “That was excellent. Kat, you have magnificent taste. That was-”
Zachary shuts him up fairly easily with a kiss, leaning across the very small table, only because he’s been on this exact ramble many times since leaving the theater. Kat grins at Dorian’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, but, I dunno. Hadestown is a very you musical, you know? Like, it reminds me of you. It’s all mythology and poetry and stories and this very specific kind of feeling that…I dunno.” She yawns. “I’m sure I’ll think of another musical you’d love but I am also very sleepy right now. And my brain isn’t doing it.”
Zachary studies Dorian as Kat leans back in her chair, his hand now completely entwined with his on the table as he strokes his knuckles softly, repetitively. Dorian has the look in his eyes that Zachary has come to recognize when he finishes any story that deeply satisfies him, that touches him all the way at the center of himself. He thinks of the shores of the Starless Sea. He thinks of the lights coming up as the actor onstage looked back and he thinks of a sword through his own heart. He thinks of the way Dorian’s grip on his hand tightened and then eased during Promises, the love song, the hopeful song, and how he could tell that Dorian had been actually convinced that this retelling included a different ending entirely. He thinks of paper flowers.
Dorian’s gaze shifts out of the space he has been staring off into and meets Zachary’s, his eyes warm and brown and tired but happy and deeply fulfilled by a well-told story. The warmth spreads straight to Zachary’s heart, and without breaking eye contact, he brings Dorian’s hand to his lips.
Then Kat jumps in her chair and says far too loudly for even this very crowded bar, “OH MY GOD I’VE GOT IT ZACHARY LOOK.”
Zachary looks where she is staring up at the ceiling and finds himself looking at an elaborate chandelier, which gives him exactly three seconds of blind confusion before he understands what she’s getting at.
She sits up straight as she meets his eyes, slamming her hands down on the table.
“Oh my God, Zachary, we have to take him to see Phantom of the Opera,” she beams. “Oh my God, can we? I think he’d love it. Oh my God, that is, like, one of my favorite musicals of all time-”
“Oh, good shout, Kat,” Zachary replies enthusiastically, raising his glass to her slightly as he lifts it up to sip his sidecar. “Oh, that’s a good idea. That’s a good one. When?”
“Literally,” she squeals as she pulls out her phone, “as soon as I can possibly get tickets. Give me two seconds, my dudes. We are going to see Phantom of the Opera.”
Zachary meets Dorian’s eyes and sees them full of excitement for the new world Kat is introducing him to and smiles.
…
“Hurry up,” hollers Kat, her voice slightly muffled by Zachary and Dorian’s bedroom door.
“Kat,” Dorian shouts back at her, “I am buttoning quite literally as fast as I can.”
“Well, it’s not fast enough.”
Zachary laughs, taming his curls somewhat in the mirror as he stands shoulder to shoulder with Dorian. They have plenty of time to kill anyway before the show starts, and the journey from the Harbour isn’t far; the nearest door to the Majestic is less than ten minutes’ walk away, but Kat is impatient. He can hear her bouncing on her heels slightly. “Kat, calm down, we’ll get there,” he calls to her, deciding he is satisfied with his hair and leaning his head against Dorian’s shoulder while he buttons his top few buttons and fixes his collar.
“Ten,” she begins, counting down. “Nine.”
Dorian rolls his eyes and turns to Zachary, pulling him close for a moment to kiss him, and then releasing him and looking him up and down. “You look absolutely lovely,” he tells him with utter conviction in his voice.
“Eight. Seven.”
“So do you,” Zachary smiles. “Are you excited?”
Dorian laughs. “Not as much as she is, because that’s absolutely impossible, but yes, I’m excited. You both are showing me worlds of new stories. Thank you.”
“Six.”
Zachary reaches out and opens the bedroom door and says, “God, Kat, we have plenty of time to get to the theater-”
But she is already grabbing them both by the hands and dragging them to the door.
…
“In 2011,” Kat explains to Dorian, leaning over, “they did a 25th anniversary production at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and had it professionally filmed and you can watch it on some streaming service and totally not pirate it because I have totally never committed piracy.” He laughs as she continues. “It was honestly wonderful, but I dunno, I hated the guy who played Raoul because he had the character all wrong, and it wasn’t really at a theater, it was a concert hall, so the set pieces weren’t as good. But most of the actors other than Raoul were fantastic. Then there was the movie, but, you know, that’s a movie, it’s not even comparable. Also, all the costumes were less colorful and they just kind of put Christine in a white dress for most of it which is so inaccurate, you’ll see, the costumes here are fabulous and I think you’ll actually love them- but no, I think the Broadway production is the best, and I’ve seen a lot of bootlegs with different casts so we’ll have to see how this one compares…”
Zachary is only half-listening to Kat’s overview of Phantom history, which she is giving because she has run out of things to point out about the set onstage before them. Zachary is still studying it, his hand casually entwined with Dorian’s, who is sitting in the middle of their run of three perfect seats. She is interrupted as the lights go down.
And then the show begins.
Zachary has never been to see this show on Broadway, but Kat once took him to see a nearby college production that was a fairly good approximation. He is somewhat familiar with the show, but this enchants him on a whole new level- not just the spectacularity of the show itself, sets and costumes and actors and the orchestra, but Dorian’s reactions to it. Zachary finds a particular joy in watching Dorian enjoy things. How every song sweeps him up in its splendor. How the candlelight onstage reflects in his eyes, wide to take it all in. His utter, unbroken concentration. The smile on his face when melodies call back to other melodies and pieces of it come together. They have spoken before about music in storytelling and the unique way it strings a tale together, from opera to the other Broadway trips Zachary and Kat have taken Dorian on.
Kat was right, he thinks to himself, satisfied, at the conclusion of Prima Donna, when the three of them and the whole theater behind them bursts loudly into applause. During the next scene Zachary catches Kat whisper something to Dorian about sets and costumes for three different operas as well as for the musical itself, but Dorian only nods slightly and does not respond, too taken in by the show.
“Oh,” Zachary whispers despite his commitment to wait til intermission to talk to Dorian. “Dorian, this is the love song of all time, coming up.”
At the rooftop scene he shifts a little closer, adjusting his grip on Dorian’s hand and laying his other hand on his arm. Without taking his eyes off the stage, Dorian leans over slightly to kiss his temple.
Breathtaken as they both are by the way the actors onstage sing- and they are stunning, really, the staging and the harmonies and the soaring voices- Dorian and Zachary cannot help but share several glances and soft smiles in the darkness. Delicately, as if he might break the spell of the play if he moves too sharply, Zachary leans into Dorian and rests his head on his shoulder, and Dorian’s head nestles on top of his, as they watch the rest of the song play out onstage.
Zachary is delighted by Dorian’s grin when he catches the sight of the Phantom’s fingers curling over the top of the statue that adorns the top of the stage, after the two actors have left. But as he sings the reprise there is a quality to Dorian’s face that shifts a bit, looks farther and farther away even as he is drawn deeper and deeper into the story. Something in his eyes like perhaps recognition, like ghosts of memory, like something in this story that is part of himself. He looks thoughtful enough that maybe there is a tinge of sadness there.
Zachary is thinking of asking him if he’s alright during intermission but then the chandelier falls and they applaud wildly and the lights come up on the theater and the moment is forgotten as Zachary, Dorian, and Kat shuffle out of their seats to get drinks. Dorian gets Zachary laughing in the lobby with a very badly sung serenade, taking his hands and echoing what he remembers of the last song, asking him to share with him one love, one lifetime, and Zachary thinks as he smiles at this very excited man before him that he wants nothing more than to do just that.
“Favorite part so far,” Kat demands, pointing her playbill at Dorian.
He folds Zachary into his arms and leans against the wall, thinking. “Everything in the Phantom’s lair,” he decides. “The magic of that, the candles, the fog, the boat. It was bewitching. And the song was gorgeous.”
Kat nods approvingly. “What a banger,” she agrees.
Dorian hums the melody a bit, swaying with Zachary in his arms, as Kat collects their drinks.
They return to the theater and resume their seats only minutes before the orchestra starts up again.
The second act is twice as thrilling, and Zachary is taken with Dorian's enchantment at the masquerade ball. He's considering that maybe they should have a ball like this in the Harbour sometime, with elaborate costumes and dancing. Knowing Kat she's already planning it in her head.
The show goes on and the story carries them to the graveyard, where the actress playing Christine gives a stunning performance and Dorian punctuates it with an appreciative sigh and heavy applause. That is about when the heaviness starts coming over him again, but Zachary thinks hardly anything of it- it is a sad song, it is a sad story. And so the show continues, and the story continues, and they continue watching as the end of the play unfolds before them. But there is something in Dorian’s demeanor that is bothering Zachary that he can’t quite shake. A weight on his shoulders almost visible, a shadow on his face-
It isn't until the last opera set is whisked off and the fog spills once more across the stage that it hits Zachary all at once, as Dorian grips his hand a little too tight and the Phantom sings onstage. His heart jolts as he sees it.
The story is one of a monster. A monster beyond redemption, beyond being loved, beyond anything but violence and force and desperation and murder. A man with hands stained with blood. A man who was unloved from birth, who never had a chance to know tenderness that may have changed him. A monster who is past the point of no return, and now faces the only sunlight in his world, who he has caused unforgivable pain.
It is a monster he knows Dorian has seen and seen and seen in himself, a man he has fought beyond belief not to be.
Zachary bites his lip as the final scene plays out onstage. He leans against Dorian again, feeling the tension and feeling a little guilty for not having foreseen this. Wondering if this will hit him worse than Hadestown did. He takes Dorian's hand in both of his and feels that it is shaking. He watches the scene escalate, but his eyes keep turning up to Dorian's face, reading his profile, the way his jaw sets and his eyes glisten a little. When the first tear slips down his cheek, bright against the darkness over the audience, Zachary leans forward to kiss his jaw where it falls, and feels Dorian cling to him tighter.
The actors on the stage before them are doing a too-marvelous job, but it is Christine's sung lines before the kiss that gives Zachary the feeling of something close to breaking- "pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known…" The next glance up shows him Dorian's lips trembling, his eyes welling up, and Zachary’s stomach drops because this is not how he looked at the end of Hadestown. He looks like he is seconds away from breaking down.
God give me courage to show you, you are not alone…
And then, on the stage, Christine kisses the Phantom.
Zachary feels Dorian’s whole body clench a bit and he turns his head in alarm to see that it was, in fact, a sob. Dorian’s other hand has moved to his face, pressed to his mouth, and he is really crying now, actually crying, shaking with silent tears. Zachary glances down at their interlaced, squeezing hands, tightly gripping one another, then back up at his husband, having a bit of a panic, not at all knowing what to do. He considers whispering something like are you alright or do you want to leave but this moment, a heavy moment, a painful moment, is one he somehow cannot interrupt. He can only ease it, and he does.
As the orchestra swells, Zachary lets out a breath, heart aching for Dorian, and wraps an arm around him completely, rubbing his back a bit and feeling the tremors run through him in the closeness.
…
Dorian cannot see nearly as well through the haze of shimmering tears pouring from his eyes but it is just as well, really, because if he could see in all clarity what is transpiring on the stage before him he would probably be crying harder.
Nevertheless, he manages with some difficulty to keep his tears silent as he crumbles quite unexpectedly to the very core of himself in a Broadway theater of all places, sandwiched neatly between his best friend and his husband.
This show has rattled him, slowly at first, then more and more, and its climax has him utterly shaken. It’s that he sees himself in it. It’s that he is watching this creature of darkness onstage finally be loved if only for a moment, and all he can think of is a kiss on the Starless Sea, tangled in salvation and desire and obsolete cartography, that he only sometimes still wonders desperately if he deserved in the first place. Dorian is thinking too much about love and the overwhelming ache of needing it and the impossible challenge of deserving it as the final notes ring across the theater and Zachary, beside him, always beside him, wrapped around him and holding him as close as he can in their seats, strokes the back of his neck in a touch that is almost too gentle as he shatters.
He starts frantically trying to swipe the tears from his cheeks as the crowd begins to applaud and the stage darkens briefly, but he can’t very well keep up with how fast they’re falling, and anyway the cast is starting to come out and he rises to his feet along with the rest of the audience, clapping so hard his hands sting but not wanting to stop. His whole face is slick with tears by the time the applause dies down and the actors begin to exit the stage, leaving the spectators in the house to make their own slow, shuffled exits through the crowd.
Zachary and Kat find both of his hands as they slide out of their row and into the bustling aisle. Zachary gives his fingers a squeeze and he squeezes back a bit shakily, trying to tame the wild flurry of emotions that is currently coming out of him as sob after sob after sob.
When they emerge into the lobby, Dorian finally sees Zachary’s face fully in the light for the first time and it calms him only a little. Zachary, though, looks alarmed when he sees Dorian’s face, the way it has crumpled, the way he is crying. Dorian brings a hand up to press to his eyes, suddenly very conscious of the fact that he is in a very full theater among a great deal of people who are all watching him cry irrationally much at the end of Broadway’s longest running musical. He draws in a sharp, shaky breath to try and calm his sobbing.
“Dorian,” Zachary says softly, “whoa, hey, Dorian, what’s up?” He looks rather concerned in a very soft way, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, reaching for Dorian’s hand that covers his face to pull it away. Dorian lets him, lets his hands be pulled into other hands which he knows too well and which touch him frequently and which, right now, he wonders if he has any right to hold.
The light heartache in Zachary’s expression as he touches Dorian’s face, brushing away a few tears, is enough to pull Dorian out of his own thoughts just enough to remind himself that this is all just a very intense reaction to a very good story, but it is a bit too late for this thought to make him feel entirely better. He opens his mouth to try to explain but only gets to “I- it-” before discovering that he can’t really make it through a sentence right now and shaking his head, clutching Zachary’s hands, still thinking of the ending of the play, weighed down by all the feelings it has drawn out of him.
“Okay, okay, here- let’s, um, go somewhere quieter,” Zachary suggests, seeming slightly at a loss but not faltering in his grip on Dorian as he backs in the direction of a less crowded stairwell. Dorian doesn’t see where Kat goes, but she has probably elected to give them a minute alone, seeing as she isn’t there by the time they get to a landing halfway between floors that has the kind of elegant quiet only found in maroon-carpeted, chandelier-lit theater staircases when everybody is starting to pour out of the theater onto the nighttime Manhattan streets.
Dorian allows himself to be folded into an embrace, trembling as Zachary wraps his arms around his neck and holds him close. His hands bunch up the back of Zachary’s shirt, and Zachary squeezes him with his whole body as he sobs, saying nothing but saying everything with the way he cradles Dorian’s head against his shoulder, combing his fingers through his silvering hair.
When Dorian has been crying into him for what feels like forever but has actually only been a minute or so, Zachary finally speaks. “That ending got you, didn’t it,” he murmurs against his ear, followed by several kisses that are soft against his skin. “I know. I…probably should’ve guessed that it would hit you pretty hard. I’m sorry.”
Dorian makes some kind of noise that he hopes Zachary interprets as this is not in any way your fault and I do not regret going to see this show this has been an overall fabulous experience please, my love, do not feel guilty in any way just because I’m having a minor breakdown in the lobby because it is absolutely worth your excellent choice of show and also very cathartic except I am a little bit having an existential crisis but that’s fine, though considering how incoherent and teary the noise is the best he can hope for is probably no it’s okay.
It is the kind of ending to a story that Dorian feels like he can’t get over. It has resonated so deeply with him that it has shaken him down to his very soul. “Do you want to talk about it?” Zachary whispers, and he does, he has so much to say, but he cannot say any of it now.
Luckily Zachary seems to take his silence as a no or a not right now and simply nestles into him further, rubbing his back and swaying with him a bit, which Dorian finds very soothing. “Shhh,” he whispers occasionally, “shh, you’re okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
Finally when Dorian cannot keep the one burning thought in his head inside his head any longer, he picks his head up from where it is buried in Zachary’s neck, looking him in the eyes. Zachary grimaces softly and holds Dorian’s gaze, his eyes as warm and sun-filled and fiery as the first taste of coffee on a hazy morning, and Dorian takes a deep, trembling breath.
“Zachary, why did you stay with me?” he breathes, as he clutches Zachary like he doesn’t think he’ll still be there if he lets go.
Zachary’s mouth opens slightly and he seems taken aback for a moment, blinking incredulously and scrabbling for words.
“Dorian Fateheart-Rawlins,” he says finally in a voice as flabbergasted as it is gentle, taking Dorian’s face firmly between both hands. “No. No. Absolutely not. Hey, I know you-” He pauses, letting out a breath and softening a bit. “I know you related a lot to this and I know that whole story hit really close to home for you. But I’m drawing the line here. This is not the same as us. You are not a murderous phantom-”
“I was worse-” Dorian chokes out, and as more tears run over Zachary’s fingers he does not pull his hands away.
“You are mine,” Zachary whispers, leaning his forehead against Dorian’s. “You are not the bad guy in anyone’s story, not anymore. I want you. I need you. I love you. I seriously, really, truly love you, and I stayed with you because I do.” He pauses and Dorian takes in the sparkling look in his eyes, a light that only ever turns on when he is in Dorian’s arms. Making a very conscious effort, Dorian relaxes his hands, spreading them flat over Zachary’s back, holding him close. Zachary smiles.
“Because anywhere you go, I want to go too. That’s why.”
Dorian can only stare at him. The man that by every right he should not be allowed to have, and yet here he is, dressed up for the theater and gazing at him through the glinting rims of his glasses, wrapped up in Dorian’s arms. Dorian is still crying, but only softly, in a way that does not make his head hurt or Zachary’s brows furrow.
Zachary has slid his hands down to cup Dorian’s neck, but he raises one now and strokes his thumb lightly over Dorian’s lips, slowly, tenderly. It renders Dorian completely frozen, completely unable to move, save for the slight tremors of the softest of sobs.
And then, in a swift, smooth motion, Zachary leans in and kisses him, the kind of easy gesture that has become second nature between them. It catches Dorian off guard and then puts him at ease- a reminder that this is the life they share, this is the love between them, and it has never once been in question, even as everything else in their life might be. That this man wants him, and chooses him, again and again and again. Dorian squeezes his eyes shut, more tears slipping down his face, and kisses Zachary back, holding him tightly and gently and close, and manages finally to pull at least the deepest, most vulnerable part of his heart off of an empty stage with a single lonely man on it, and into this stairwell where being alone is something they can do together.
The tears come a little stronger as Zachary pulls away, and as surprised as Dorian is to find that he is still crying and still shaky and still not-quite-pulled together, Zachary doesn’t seem to be at all. “Hey, it’s okay, just take your time,” Zachary says quietly as he reaches up a hand to wipe more tears from Dorian’s cheeks. “I know this was all a lot. Probably didn’t help that the production was extraordinary and the cast was fantastic. Well-performed tragedy is the most fun way to get emotionally destroyed.”
Dorian laughs and it devolves into sobbing even harder which makes him feel a bit ridiculous, and Zachary sighs quite fondly and says, “Come here.” Dorian pauses before burying himself back in Zachary’s shoulder and cups his face in his hands, pressing a kiss into his rich curls, a very tearful kiss that lasts a long moment before he moves back fully into Zachary’s embrace. And there, for many long moments, they stand together, wrapped up in one another, and Dorian lets himself have a nice long cry.
…
Kat feels pretty terrible, all things considered.
She is wandering the lobby of the Majestic, having parted from Zachary and Dorian when they headed off for a secluded stairway; last she saw Dorian, he was crying much harder than she had at all expected, and she is currently trying to convince herself that it wasn’t wrong of her to take him to see a show which perhaps she should’ve guessed would make him this emotional. She figured the two probably wanted a moment alone, but now she doesn’t know what to do with herself, wandering around in her high-heeled red Converse and sparkly, deep-midnight-sky blue dress and star-patterned lace tights. She hopes Dorian is alright. She wonders if she should go to check on them in the stairwell, but Kat has no idea the kind of comfort to offer when the ending of a story hits someone so hard it has them sobbing.
Kat makes a few loops around the theater before she passes the merch table for the third time and notices something.
Among all the usual show merch in the display case behind the table- pins, keychains, T-shirts, hoodies, magnets, the like- there is a teddy bear. It is dressed as the Phantom, with a white plastic mask stitched to its face, a black velvety cape fastened around its neck, the front of a white dress shirt with little buttons fastened to it. It is the perfect size for snuggling, and Kat knows exactly who could benefit from a snuggle.
She snaps out of her slightly anxious wandering and hurries over to the table, fishing in the very large pockets of her dress (because when would the Harbour ever give her a dress without very large pockets) to procure her wallet. The merch line is shorter now that the show has been over for a bit, and she doesn’t take long to get to the front; when she does, she asks for a T-shirt in her size and one of the teddy bears. The very friendly employee procures both from beneath the counter, and after Kat pays for them she wrestles the shirt over her head, knotting it at her waist, and tears the plastic packaging off the bear.
She holds it out before her and looks it squarely in the eye, says “You have some comforting to do, my guy,” while the very friendly employee looks a bit confused, and then carries it off towards the stairwell.
When Kat finds Zachary and Dorian, they are standing halfway between two floors on a landing of the stairwell, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Dorian is still sobbing quietly, his face buried in Zachary’s shoulder, and Zachary is murmuring sweet nothings to him, comforting words that Kat can’t quite hear. It is Zachary who catches sight of her first as she peers around the corner, and he makes eye contact with her over Dorian’s shoulder before greeting her softly. “Hey, Kitty Kat.”
This makes Dorian look up, pulling a bit away from him and wiping at the tears on his cheeks. He turns to face Kat, looking like he’s trying quite hard to compose himself but slightly failing.
“Hey, guys,” she replies in a quiet voice, stepping forward a bit. “I, um- Dorian, I brought you this. I thought it might make you feel better.”
She holds the teddy bear out to face him. Dorian’s lips part slightly in surprise and he draws in a shaky breath, blinking as he holds out his hands to take the bear from Kat. He holds it before him for a second, clutched in his hands, staring at it through the tears slipping down his face, and Kat hopes desperately for a moment that she was right and he isn’t stupid enough to believe that there is ever an age at which one grows out of stuffed animals.
“Kat, this is adorable,” he whispers in a wobbly voice. He looks up at her and she smiles at him, warm and full of affection, and he smiles a quivering smile back. “Thank you.”
He just has time to open his arms to her before she throws herself into him, squeezing him tight. “I love you, Dorian, I really do,” she says quietly, resting her chin on his shoulder.
“I love you, too,” Dorian sniffles.
When she pulls away she watches Dorian consider the bear again, touching the fluffy fur, running his fingers over the mask, Zachary’s hand laid on his arm. “This really is very cute,” he manages, giving it a weak smile. “Incredibly sweet of you, Kat, thank you.”
“No problem,” she tells him earnestly. “There is nothing that you can’t fix with just, a little guy, to squeeze and love. I am absolutely certain of this.”
Dorian makes some kind of noise that is either a chuckle or a sob as he holds the bear to his chest and rests his chin on top of its head, twining his other arm around Zachary. Kat watches the way Zachary leans in to kiss his cheek a couple times, held close to his chest, and thinks maybe Dorian already had a little guy to squeeze and love, but two can’t hurt. Then Zachary asks, “Where to next, then?”
“Bar, definitely,” Kat announces, tugging at both of them. “I know exactly what the solution is.”
“Talking through the Phantom of the Opera in depth until Dorian feels existentially better about life and himself?”
Kat throws a glance at Zachary. “Well, yes, that too,” she concedes. “But. You know. I was just thinking alcohol.”
…
They choose a quiet bar, partially because none of them is in the mood for a high-stress, crowded environment, and partially because Dorian is not in the mood to have that many strangers watch him cry. In the bar they choose there is only a bartender and a scattered handful of other patrons who mostly look distracted in their own conversations and drinks. It’s a bit of a walk from the Majestic, but they don’t mind; for the most part, Kat leads the way as navigator, and Zachary and Dorian walk in back arm in arm, keeping close at her tail as they weave through the Manhattan crowds. Zachary is trying to soothe Dorian a bit by talking to him about the other parts of the show, other than the ending, other than the theme of becoming a monster from being so deeply and completely unloved. They digress into a long conversation about musical themes and the way they are used that takes them all the way to the bar, though they are interrupted by a brief Kat interlude in which she pushes back into Zachary’s spot and slips her arm into Dorian’s, chattering on about the masquerade costumes, until she realizes they’ve missed a turn and resumes her navigator role. Dorian is still crying when they enter the bar but he’s been laughing on and off along with the tears, his mood a bit lighter, embracing the slight ridiculousness he feels about having this much of a breakdown in public over an acclaimed Broadway musical.
They sit down at the bar and order their drinks, which come quickly; the teddy bear is sitting in Dorian’s lap, and he only unwinds one arm from around it occasionally to sip his bourbon. And softly, calmly, now that the tears are slower, they talk about how the show has affected him. He tells them things from the Collector’s Club that they did not know before, people he’s killed and how he killed them and why they, specifically, haunt him years later beyond the horror of what he’s done with a good portion of his life. Zachary keeps a hand on his back, always, reassuring him that he is here, that he will always be here, that nothing is going to scare him away.
And they talk about love, and how to deserve love, and how one comes to be loved after so much violence. The conversation flips back and forth between the Phantom of the Opera and their own lives with astonishing, slightly dizzying speed. And the lightness or heaviness changes like a rainstorm.
Sometimes it is lighter like the drizzling rain, like when Dorian grimaces that at least he could pull off the role of the Phantom if he knew how to sing, and that sets Kat off on a tangent about how they should’ve had the chance to be high school theater kids together. “Dorian, you so would’ve been the senior who everyone loves who adopts every underclassman and gets the lead,” she laughs, and when Zachary asks her who she’d play if Dorian was playing the Phantom she frowns and says she’d like to play Raoul, but especially if a pretty girl played Christine.
“You know, as with anything that makes me think about redemption, this has also made me think of Mirabel,” Dorian muses, his voice soft and still a little wobbly. “I would hope that if we’d been theater kids together she would have been with us too. Perhaps she’d play Christine.”
This makes Kat go red, and Zachary points it out, and they have a moment of laughter that temporarily sends some sunshine through the gloom in Dorian’s face.
Sometimes, though, the conversation is heavier like a downpour. Dorian’s hands shake as he tells them how the moment he realized he loved Zachary was also the moment he realized that Zachary would have no reason to ever trust him- that with all the blood staining him, when this man who he adored knew what he was and what he’d done, he’d never be able to look him in the eye again. He talks about the masks he has worn and the fear he has had of taking them off, and he talks about how terrifying it is to put a heart back in someone’s chest and then have just a split second of believing that the one you love, after all you’ve done to save them, will despise you now that they know what you are capable of doing with those bloodstained hands.
“But it wasn’t your fault,” Zachary says quietly, his hand rubbing slowly up and down Dorian’s back. “That was not a choice. Dorian, you’ve changed so much since before I even met you. You’re a good person, at the very heart of you, and because of that you’ve broken away from a version of yourself that everyone around you had done everything they could to trap you inside. And you’ve become someone who does good things and is kind to people and is good at loving, and someone who I am incredibly proud to be married to.”
Kat gives Dorian an encouraging nod of agreement as he stares down into his glass, processing what Zachary is saying. Zachary hopes he can ever find the words, better words, to express this to Dorian. How far he’s come and how good he is in the roots of him. Not only how much he loves him, but why he does.
They pass hours like this in the bar, picking apart every part of the show and every part of Dorian’s past and the ways they are connected in a way that has pulled Dorian quite apart. By two in the morning the bar is still quiet and they have finally worn thin every single thing they could say about the Phantom of the Opera.
They sit in silence for a minute, a comfortable and tired kind of silence, taking small sips of their drinks and gazing pensively at the ceiling or the wall of bottles or, in Zachary’s case, his hand entwined with Dorian’s on the bar before them.
Dorian looks down at the bear and squeezes it a little, running his fingers through its fur and over the velvety cape around its shoulders.
“This-” and his voice comes out too hoarse, so he clears his throat, blinking a bit. His voice is small when he speaks. “This is the first stuffed animal I’ve ever had.”
Zachary, for the first time in this very emotionally fraught evening, finds himself blinking at the slightest hint of tears. Perhaps he is just very drunk at this point, or perhaps it’s just that he wishes he could give Dorian all the love he has always needed back and back and back, reaching into a childhood where not one single person ever gave him a teddy bear.
“Really?” Kat murmurs, her brows furrowed, looking deeply displeased.
“Well, nobody ever gave one to me- that I know of, at least,” he sighs, looking down at the teddy bear in his lap. “Not in the orphanages. Not the foster homes or my own parents. Certainly not the Collector’s Club. Although I was by that point too old for-”
“You’re never too old for stuffed animals,” Kat cuts him off ferociously.
He smiles at her wearily.
“I think, Kat,” Dorian says quietly, “that being too old for anything depends on how much people love you.”
“Because if people love you, they want you to be happy,” Zachary finishes the thought, knowing exactly where Dorian is going. “And a lot of things that seem childish are just things that make people happy.”
Dorian nods slowly, blinking a few more times, and looks down at the bear in his lap, turning it around to face him. Zachary watches the look in his eyes- his heart breaking for a man he knows was so deeply unloved in the past but healing in the same breath for a man he and so many others now have the power to love as much as they please. Dorian exhales and with it comes a few tears, but he is smiling down at the teddy bear, an almost wondrous smile, a smile for a new feeling, the new feeling of having a stuffed animal- a little guy to squeeze and love- in his arms, given by somebody who loves him.
…
It is easily past three in the morning when Zachary, Dorian, and Kat finally leave the bar and begin their walk back to the door. The streets of Manhattan are almost quieter at such a late hour, but these three are actually quite loud, having shaken off the last of the melancholy from earlier. Now on the emptier parts of the sidewalk Dorian has room to spin Zachary about as if they’re in a massive ballroom, or possibly on a massive stage, dancing the dance of a lifetime. They are singing together- “Say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime-” and both sound horribly off-key, but both do not care, and to both it is probably the most beautiful thing they’ve ever heard. Kat is laughing at them, not daring to swoop into the dancing herself because she has just enough sense left in her head to know that trying to do what they are doing while this intoxicated and wearing high-heeled Converse is probably a recipe for disaster.
Dorian looks to finally be feeling better, whirling Zachary around, pulling him close and then outstretching their arms again. They keep losing their place in the song, not knowing the words, starting over, singing the same chorus because they can’t remember the others, not really. At some point they start doing the instrumental parts because they can and they are drunk and they love each other. It makes Kat beam, watching Dorian pick up Zachary and spin him in circles as he walks just like onstage. Zachary is shrieking with laughter, which echoes among the tall, grimy buildings like sunlight setting the concrete aglow.
“Love me, that’s alllll IIIIIII askkkkkkk offfffff youuuuuuuuuuuuu,” Dorian sings for what feels like the millionth time, setting Zachary on the ground only to twirl him and dip him, pausing to kiss his head. He has somehow managed all this dancing with the teddy bear tucked under his arm, which now falls, but he and Zachary, with scrabbling hands and quite a bit of giggling, manage to catch it before it hits the wet, likely quite disgusting sidewalk. Kat watches them with some amusement, catching up in the pause.
“You guys are very drunk,” she says, very drunkly, as she grabs Dorian’s hand, slinging his arm around her shoulder. He doesn’t object to this, holding her close as they walk, wrapping Zachary under the other arm.
“I love you both,” Dorian says as they head down the street to the location of the door. His voice has the slight blur of intoxication but also a contented quality, soft and sweet and and and and and and and and and and and and and and tired but happy and deeply fulfilled by a well-told story. Kat watches with a smile as he turns his head to kiss Zachary’s hair, and then does the same to her. “Thank you for…taking me to plays and buying me stuffed animals and making me feel better about everything. Thank you.”
…
When they make it back to the Harbour Dorian wants nothing more than to crawl into bed, so he and Zachary bid Kat goodnight and head to their apartment, which is dim and cozy in anticipation of their arrival. Dorian finishes undressing first and slips into bed, curling onto his side both so he can wrap himself around his teddy bear and so he can watch Zachary fumble with his buttons and take off his own clothes.
“Stay right there,” Zachary whispers when he is finished, walking around to his side of the bed. Dorian does not see but rather feels him climb in, the mattress shifting under another weight beside Dorian’s, the blankets rustling around and then pulled a little further over him.
Zachary snuggles up behind Dorian and pulls him close, nuzzling into the back of his neck, wrapping an arm and a leg around him as he leans forward to kiss his cheek. “I love you,” Zachary whispers. “I love you, Dorian.”
Dorian finds himself made immensely sleepy by the very act of lying down, and even more so by the way Zachary’s fingers tangle in his hair and run gently over his head, the way he softly kisses his shoulder, the way they are fully entwined and as comfortable as they’ll ever be. But the last thing he manages, more of a mumbled suggestion of words than a real sentence though he knows Zachary will understand, is “I love you, too.”