Aristos Achaion
Chapter 4
The cigarette had left a bitter taste in Evan's mouth, much more bitter then normal. He shouldn't have smoked on an empty stomach.
"Do you know who the teacher is for theatrics?" Barty asked Evan, Evan shook his head and shivered. They entered the auditorium and was met with a medium sized old woman with high cheekbones, piercing eyes and a firm jawline, her lips were set in a firm line painted with a 'no-nonsense attitude'.
"Is this the theatrics class?" Evan asked the old woman.
"Yes, it is," The woman said firmly with a scowl "and I will be your teacher : Ms.McGonagall."
"Right." Barty said plainly before dragging Evan and walking towards Regulus, Pandora & Dorcas. Barty must have spotted them before Evan did.
"What the fuck is her problem?" Evan muttered as he sat down.
"No idea." Pandora replied trying to braid the ends of her hair.
The auditorium slowly filled up with more people. James, Sirius, Peter, Remus, Mary, Marlene, Lily and 1 girl and 1 boy that Evan didn't know made there way towards them.
"We're never gonna get the role." Evan said abruptly.
"I think we're gonna get it." Barty said in a wishful thinking tone, making Evan roll his eyes at his naivety.
"I heavily doubt that." Evan said as if he couldn't fathom why they would argue about something this obvious.
"I know! We can make a bet." Dorcas said stopping her conversation with the group drawing everybody's attention to Evan & Barty.
"A bet?" Barty said curiously.
"Yes! Barty what do you treasure most?" Dorcas asked laughing.
"Hmmm, true love." Barty replied jokingly, swooning across Regulus dramatically.
"You, Evan?" Dorcas prompted.
"Weed." Evan replied.
He was met with a bunch of 'fairs' or laughs.
"Then we have a bet : If you two get the role that you want, you owe Barty a kiss-" Before Dorcas could finish everybody was hysterically laughing, James & Sirius were hunched over laughing. Lily, Marlene and Remus were humorously gasping while Mary, Pandora, Peter and the 2 people that Evan didn't know were cheering. Evan sat there feeling very faint butterflies in his stomach at the thought of kissing Barty.
It took Dorcas a good 5 minutes to calm them down. "Can I finish now?" Dorcas said in an exasperated tone that had a note of humor in it.
"But if you 2 don't get the role that you want, Barty owes Evan a blunt." Dorcas said smiling proudly.
"A singular blunt? I think a kiss has more worth that that?" Regulus said in a conniving tone.
"Fine. 1 kiss equals to 3 blunts." Dorcas said slyly.
Dorcas was planning something, that was obvious but Evan couldn't pinpoint just what, Did she want them to kiss? Did she want to smoke a blunt courtesy from Evan? He didn't know.
"So do you guys agree?" Pandora said, eyes wide open with excitement.
"Sure." Barty said shrugging.
"Fine." Evan said smiling with disbelief, there was no way that out of all the people here he just happens to get the role that he fancies. In his books this was a free blunt to smoke tonight.
"We have a deal!" Dorcas announced.
"AHEM!" Ms.McGonagall said clearing her throat noisily. "Please take a seat on the chairs in front of the stage and I will be announcing all the details."
They walked towards the back of the audience chairs and sat there waiting for Ms.Mcgonagall to start.
"Welcome class. This is the theatrics class if you could not put that together and we will need utmost cooperation, determination and responsibility if we want to participate in this play. I will not reveal what the play is until the end-" Ms.McGonagall said smiling connivingly "-for starters this play will need around 80-90 people and there is around 300 people here so two thirds of you will leave upset, which i apologise for but there is nothing i can do. Secondly this play has a main homosexual storyline," This was met by a mixture of boos & cheers. "-so if you are auditioning for the 2 main characters and are not comfortable with this then simply do not audition at all. Thirdly if you have a problem with homosexuality them i'm afraid that this years play will just simply not be for you.-" A few people that we're sitting got up immediately and left, they were probably shallow lonely people. "-Fourthly, the play will be The Song of Achilles, which is set in ancient greek where an active war is going on and 2 male lovers try to navigate through it together." This was met by loud whoops & cheers.
"Now here comes the harsh part, since this will be a professional play, there will be certain requirements if you want to play certain characters e.g if you want to play Briseis, you must be able to show me that you can become her through acting or if you wanted to play Achilles you must be comfortable with kissing your peers deeply. Now I am going to say the characters that you can audition for;
-Achilles. -Patroclus. -Agamemnon. -Ajax. -Andromache. -Briseis. -Deidameia. -Odysseus. -Hector. -Helen. -Iphigenia. -Lycomedes. -Paris. - Thetis
Now please don't forget the backstage roles as well, so you may still have a part." Ms.McGonagall said solidly.
"That's not a lot of characters." Remus muttered.
"I'm sure we can still get the part that we want." James said enthusiastically.
Ms.Mcgonagall left and gave them some time to think about what role they may choose to say Evan was stuck was an understatement.
"What role are you picking?" Pandora asked Barty, everybody tuning in onto the conversation including Evan.
"Patroclus." Barty said confidently, they all whooped for him and clapped him on the back like an american football team that just won a game.
"What about you Panda?" Barty asked Pandora.
"Helen, the most beautiful mortal seems cool." Pandora said.
"Wanna go in a circle?" Lily asked, 'sure' was chorused between all of them.
"I think im going to go as Paris." Peter piped up.
"Briseis" Dorcas said smiling hard.
"Andromache." Lily said putting up her thumbs.
"I think Deidameia." Mary said carefully as she evaluated her own anwser.
"Odysseus seems right for me." Remus shrugged.
"Iphigenia" The girl that Evan didn't know said. Evan was itching to know her name and that other boy's name.
"Whats your name?" Evan said abruptly, shit that slipped out.
"Oh my god Frank! We completely forget to introduce ourselves." The girl said talking to the boy, the boy's name was Frank, Evan got that much.
"My name is Frank and this is Alice!" Frank said smiling brightly. Evan nodded and hopped for them to move on, he hated introductions.
"I think i'll try out for Lycomedes." Frank said smiling.
"Agamemnon sounds nice." Sirius said thinking hard.
"Thetis doesn't sound that bad." Marlene said shrugging.
"Hector doesn't sound half as bad." Regulus said biting his lip in heavy thought.
James made a slight coughing noise. "I'll just go with Ajax!" James said smiling.
Evan sat there contemplating his choices; He could say Achilles and look like a fool when he doesn't get the role or do something backstage.
"What about you Evan?" Marlene asked.
Evan took a sharp inhale of breath, they weren't going to let him off if he said backstage, but to be Achilles, to touch and kiss Barty and then go out of this theatre and act like nothing happened will make Evan's soul burn out like a isolated candle.
"I can't do Achilles, so I think i'll just go backstage." Evan said mildly.
"WHAT?" Dorcas and Pandora screeched in unison. Evan scowled at them, it really wasn't that big of a deal.
"No way, you can't do that." James said.
"You literally have the features of Achilles!" Marlene cried, Evan seriously doubted him looking like a prince let alone having decent features.
"Would you like to know Achilles' facial features?" Peter asked all of them.
"Just look at Evan." Regulus said, earning him chortles and laughter.
"No, but seriously tell us, you've got us intrigued." Sirius said, Peter sneaked his phone out of his pocket and put it on his lap in secrecy, from where Ms.McGonagall sat it looked like Peter was just tucking his knees and looking down.
"It says...'deep-green eyes flecked with green, features fine as a girl's, bright blonde hair that looks gold in the light, slender limbs, supremely handsome and a build like a slim runner' sounds pretty much like Evan to me." Peter said shutting of his phone and sliding it in his pocket swiftly.
Evan knew he was slightly handsome, he just didn't like himself.
"C'mon Evan, you have to at least try." Peter said.
Evan looked around and saw Ms.McGonagall staring at them, her face looked much more inviting then usual, the expression on her face almost resembled warmth?
For the next 7 minutes he had to go through the groups insane ramblings about he was literally Achilles' incarnate and so on, it was making Evan go insane.
"Fine!-" I will try out for Achilles now will you please, pretty please shut up!" Pandora & Dorcas let out a squeal and hugged him tightly.
Was it ever that serious?
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"If you want to audition for the characters, please come forward, tell me your name and which character you would like to do and I will give you the script for it." Ms.McGonagall said as she stood at the front of the stage.
They all moved quickly to grab a script.
"Do we seriously have to wear costume for an audition?" Sirius said rolling his eyes.
"Seems so." Marlene said shrugging.
"AHEM! All those trying to audition for the 14 characters I listed please follow me." Ms.McGonagall said walking off curtly after the annunciation. Ms.McGonagall led them to a secluded room, there was about 40 of them altogether sitting down on chairs waiting for the costumes to be handed out.
"I'm so nervous." Lily said.
"Same!" Pandora said twiddling with her hair.
Evan looked at the group of his friends noticing Dorcas & Marlene we're holding hands tightly, James was looking Regulus' way but Regulus was looking through a window, Sirius was circling his thumb along Remus' wrist, Pandora was trying to braid Lily's hair making her laugh softly, Peter had his headphones out looking at the ceiling & Barty was looking at him.
Wait Barty was looking at Evan?
Barty looked him in the eye and made a lazy wave at him before looking away and starting a conversation with Peter.
"Ahem! If you are auditioning for Patroclus or Achilles, follow me." McGonagall said, a few people got up including Barty & Evan.
"You ready?" Barty asked excitedly, Evan nodded ignoring the tight feeling in his stomach.
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"Are you ready?" McGonagall asked, Evan put a thumbs up while Barty nodded. They we're both wearing a thin white linen that was like a rectangular tube but was draped over there left shoulder and wrapped around the body, then fastened at the right shoulder with a pin, it had a little rope like belt around their waist securing it to their body, but the fact that you could see half there chest wasn't what was pissing off Evan, what was pissing him off was how short it was. It reached around Evan's mid thighs and so did Barty's.
"Look at us." Barty said kissing his teeth.
Dorcas,Marlene, Sirius & James started whooping and whistling at them.
"You can just buy me my blunt now." Evan said pessimistically.