#aotls

“Sorry, guys. Can we hold for a second?”

“Sure.”

“No problem.”

Tom and I were in the middle of rehearsing for the AOTLS (Actors of the London Stage) production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The production was unique in its own right; the acting style of the AOTLS company was incredible. Five actors per production playing multiple parts, bare minimum lights, props, sounds, set, practically nothing electronically worked. Nothing but the play and it’s bare bones, the way it was meant to be.

I was luckily enough to be a part of the production, playing the roles of Viola, Feste, and the First Officer.

Tom was playing Duke Orsino, Sir Toby Belch, Malvolio, the Captain, and Antonio.

We were right in the middle of working on Act II, Scene IV. The scene where Duke Orsino asks the disguised Viola to go and try to woo the Countess Olivia in his name for the second time in the play.

We’d been working on this scene, but there was something about it that just wasn’t working. Everyone could feel it; me, Tom, the Director, the rest of the cast, everyone.

I knew it was my fault; I was trying to do my job while avoid Tom.

He was just… perfect. Too damn perfect.

I wanted to avoid falling in love with him, so I was avoid him while still doing my job.

Obviously, it wasn’t working and no solution the director or Tom gave was improving the scene.

“Kelsey, do you mind stepping out for a bit?”

“No problem.”

I walked out of the theatre and went to the bathroom and refilled my water bottle.

I knew that I was taking a risk by letting personal feelings into the theatre; I could lose the job if I didn’t somehow make it work. I just had to hope they would give me a chance to figure out to separate my personal feelings from my professional life.

I paced outside, praying that I would still have my job when I got back into the room.

“Kelsey, we’re ready for you.”

I went back into the theatre and got back onstage.

“Kelsey, we’re going to take if from right after everyone else exits the scene. Just pay close attention to Tom and what he tells you to do. We’re just going to improvise it and see what we get.”

“Okay.”

“Tom, whenever you’re ready.”

Tom hit his thighs as he stood up from the chair in the middle of the stage. “Once more, Cesario.” He gestured stage left, where there was a basket that I’ve never seen before. When did that get there?

I went over to the basket, as Tom was clearly wanting me to do while he spoke the rest of his line. “Get thee to yond same cruelty: The parts that fortune hath bestowed upon her, Tell her I hold as giddy as fortune; But ‘tis that miracle and queen of gems that nature pranks her in attracts my soul.”

What I found in the basket was a small tube of skin lotion. I furrowed my brown at the object what could this be for?

“But if she cannot love you, sirrrrrr.”

I turned around to look at Tom as I said my line. When I finally looked at him, I found that he had taken off his shirt during his line and was now stretching up to the sky, showing off every in of his back, torso, and body.

I felt my face go flush at the sight. Good God, his body looked like it was carved by angels.

“I cannot so be answered.” Tom sat on the floor in front of the chair and beckoned me back over to him.

I gulped, straightened up and walked back towards him. Once I was there, he pointed to his shoulder blades.

Suddenly, I understood. He was asking me to massage him during the scene.

Taking a deep breath, I sat down in the chair and put lotion in my hands. “Sooth, but you must. Say that… some lady, as perhaps there is, Hath for your love a great a pang of heart As you have for Olivia:” I rubbed my hands together, spreading the lotion and warming it up. “you cannot love her; You tell her so; must she not then be… answer’d?” I timidly pressed my hand to his back, waiting for him to do something to let me know I wasn’t doing it right.

His skin was so smooth… and warm beneath my chilly, lubricated hands.

“There is no woman's sides Can bide the beating of so strong a passion As love doth give my heart;” For some reason, I kinda took that statement personally. I started massaging, like he wanted me to, but it was the kinda massage my dad would give; the kind that felt like a mother eagle grabbing you by the scruff of your neck with her talons and carrying you off to be food for her babies. I couldn’t tell whether I was actually hurting Tom. “no woman's heart So big, to hold so much; they lack retention Alas, their love may be call'd appetite, No motion of the liver, but the palate, That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt; But mine is all as hungry as the sea, And can digest as much: make no compare Between that love a woman can bear me And that I owe Olivia.”

Still massaging out of annoyance, I retorted, “Ay, but I know-“

Tom grabbed my hands from his shoulders, and leaned his head back into my lap, looking up at me with big, innocent, beautiful eyes. “What dost thou know?”

Those eyes… those goddamn eyes… they made me forget my line for a moment…

“…Too well what love women to men may owe:” I snapped my attention away from him and looked around for anything else to look at while I thought hard about my line. “In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship.”

“And what's her history?”

I looked back down at Tom when I felt him press my hands to his temples. He closed his eyes and settled against my lap. He wanted me to massage his head, forcing me to look down at that incredible face.

“… A blank, my lord.” I started slowly rubbing his head. “She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: … she pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief… Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more: … but indeed Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love.”

With a lazy, almost sleepy tone, Tom asked, “But died thy sister of her love, my boy?”

“…I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.” I cleared my throat, trying so hard not to look at his face. “Sir, shall I to this lady?”

Tom gave a tried hum. “Ay, that's the theme.” He reached into his pocket, bringing out a ring that he held out for me to take. “To her in haste; give her this jewel; say, My love can give no place, bide no denay.”

I looked at the ring and snatched it away in frustration. But when I looked back at his face, I forgot that frustration.

His hair.

His brow.

His nose.

… His lips…

I didn’t even realized that I had inclined my face down towards his until he whispered, “Olivia”. Followed up by a snore.

I sat back and looked to the sky, just thinking, “Why me?”

“Guys, that was incredible! Perfect! Take ten guys! Tom, can I talk to you?!”

“Thank you five.”

I hurried out of the theatre as fast as I could without drawing attention. I couldn’t let them see me cry.

…

Tom’s P.O.V.

During the entire improvised scene, I could feel something coming from Kelsey that gave the scene an incredible energy charge. I could feel something within her struggling to get out, much like Viola’s love for Orsino. And it almost came out before the end of the scene. Just before I did as Anna had suggested and feigned sleep talking about Olivia, I felt her presence come a bit closer. It was snatched away the moment the snore came out of me.

It did not escape my notice that Kelsey seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to get of the theatre.

I went to where Anna, per her request.

“So it turns out I was right…”

“Indeed…”

“The question is, what will do about it…”

I looked at Anna, who simply nodded towards the door, giving me permission to go do what I needed to do. “Take as long as you need.”

I ran out of the theatre and started looking for Kelsey.

…

My P.O.V.

I hunkered down in a stall in the girl’s bathroom. I know it was very a very immature, high school thing to do, but where else could I hide?

I tried to keep as quite as I could so that anyone else who came into the bathroom wouldn’t be disturbed.

I was the only one in the place until about five minutes into the break. Somebody came in and took the stall next to me.

But they didn’t close their stall door.

“The liquid drops of tears that you have shed Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl, Advantaging their loan with interest Of ten times double gain of happiness.”

I looked up to see Tom’s face staring down at me in pity. He must’ve been standing on the toilet in the other stall.

 I don’t know what came over me; shame, if I had to guess. I mean, it’s embarrassing enough when people see you cry. And I was doing it in a public toilet in front of Tom mother-fucking Hiddleston, for Christ’s sake. I shot to my feet and burst out of my stall attempting to make a run for it.

Tom wasn’t far behind, though, leaping off of his perch and grabbing me by my shoulders and whirling me around to push me up against a wall.

I struggled against him, pushing against his torso while whipping my face from side to side in an attempt to hide my already exposed tears.

Despite my movements, I didn’t manage to do anything more than tire myself out. Tom kept my pressed against the wall while my heavy breaths were the only thing that could be heard in the bathroom.

“… Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,

Which I by lacking have supposed dead,”

I snapped by eyes up to look at Tom. I recognized Sonnet 31 as well as any scholar. Why would Tom suddenly start reciting in in that precise moment? “And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, As interest of the dead, which now appear, But things removed that hidden in thee lie. Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give, That due of many, now is thine alone. Their images I loved, I view in thee, And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.”

That was when Tom pressed his lips against mine for the very first time.

My eyes went wide with surprise upon the contact, and my body went stiff. But the kiss… felt so good… It didn’t take long for my eyes to flutter closed and my body to melt against him and into his arms.