#you guys have no idea how much self control it took to not make aragon mr harker

[energeticadrianz]

who everybody is swapped with ‼️

[survivorparr]

the sun and her moon, pt 2/8 (Don’t Lose Ur Head)

In Which Choreography is Rehearsed and Cathy Comes Back from Vacation

(aka Yes, those are Definitely the tEchNicaL names for that choreography, No, I do Not take constructive criticism)

•

“Alright, ladies! Brilliant show this afternoon, just a few things I want to clean up,” Grace announced.

“Brilliant show yourself - truly, Grace, you’ve been nothing short of incredible,” Aragon commended her.

“Yeah, mate, the crowd was going bonkers after I Don’t Need your Love, did you hear?” Anna added.

Grace turned red and smiled bashfully. “Thanks, you lot, that’s really kind! And thanks so much for being so great these past few weeks,” she replied.

“Aww, round of applause for Gracie!” The girls whooped, cheered, and clapped for their friend, eventually gathering her into a group hug.

“Alright, alright, I feel very loved, but now, there’s choreography that needs touching up!” Grace scanned the faces around her. “Let’s start with the second half of Don’t Need Your Love seeing as Cath hasn’t made it back just yet, and I can mark her track for now. Can we go from ‘you might think it’s tough’?”

Jane noticed that poor Anne looked lost in thought, just positively elsewhere, but she quickly snapped out of her fog when she noticed the others staring. “What? Sorry, yeah, sounds good”.

“If nobody objects, I’m just gonna speak the lyrics in rhythm instead of singing, yeah? My voice is a little shot from that last set of riffs,” Grace admitted. The queens took their places, Grace smiling at Anne from Cathy’s place at the other end of the stage. C’mon Anne, get your heart in it. She exhaled deeply.

“Five, six, ‘And you might think it’s tough...’”

Jump cross out, jump cross out

Jump cross out, jump cross out

Slooow circle, back it up, jump

“I don’t need your-”

Hop and kick and step and shake and

Leg, throw, rock-cross-out and

Body roll, hips,

Arms, arms, shuffle left, shuffle right

“Hmm... could we do it again from the roll? There’s something a bit wonky happening with the shuffley bit at the very end, and the arms just before are getting a tad lazy. Remember, you’re supposed to look regal! I’m gonna watch this time, so just... pretend Cathy’s here or something, I don’t know”.

(Anne tried to ignore the way her breath caught in her chest)

“Y’know what, just back all the way up to ‘tough’ so I can see the whole thing”. The girls obliged and reset their formation.

“Alright here we go... Five, six, ‘And you mi-’”

“‘-ight think it’s tough, but I’ve got to let your love run cold, we’re taking back control, darling you should know-”

As she walked backwards to her next spot, Anne searched the mirror in front of her for the source of the melodious voice that had suddenly taken over Grace’s marking. A flash of electric blue moving towards the front of the room caught her eye. Cath.

“I don’t need your love, no, no-”

Anne felt an exhilarating surge of energy course through her body. Suddenly, every jump and bounce felt electrified. “Can’t let it get the better of us, no, no”.

The segment of choreo that Grace has asked to see had ended, but that wasn’t stopping anyone. Cathy was moving to take her spot center stage for the riff chorus, and the others (most by now having joined in singing the backups) were encroaching in on her.

Anne swayed her hips back and forth as she sang, bouncing up and down along with Aragon and pausing for a moment to lean her head on Jane’s shoulder. All the while though, she kept half an eye on Cathy - Cathy sinking to the ground as her voice rose upwards in a scoop, Cathy coolly staring down an imaginary audience as she confidently strutted forward, Cathy’s eyes closed and her head thrown just slightly back as she released a chillingly powerful riff.

The girls punched their fists in the air, having reached the end of the number. Within moments, they were a pile of limbs and hair, each grabbing at any visible pieces of Cathy.

“Welcome back, darling!!”

“-missed you so-“

“-look right tan-“

“-good to see you!”

“God, I’ve missed you guys so much! I never thought I’d say this, but it felt weird having that much alone time,” Cathy laughed.

“We want to hear all about your trip,” Kat pressed.

“I’ll tell you all about it, but I’ve got a feeling this one isn’t done with us yet,” said Cathy, squeezing Grace around the shoulders and playfully tousling her hair. Anne involuntarily raised an eyebrow. “How’d you hold up then, Amazing Grace?”

“I felt pretty good about it, honestly!”

“Pretty good? She was bloody brilliant,” Anne interjected. Cathy tilted her head up to meet Anne’s eyes (had they always been so green?). While she’d been away, she’d noticed that on more than one occasion, Anne’s jarring Northern accent had popped into her head uninvited with a running commentary of sorts. Cathy wasn’t unpleased so much as surprised - she was fond of Anne, but she tended to spend more time around Aragon and Jane.

Cathy finally smiled. “I’ll bet she was. Did you get her to buy into your Cotton Eyed Joe idea?”

Anne cackled wickedly. “HAH - as if”.

“Your what now?” Jane inquired.

“It’s nothing, it’s stu-“

“Every night during intermission, Anne walks right up to me while I’m meditating and begs me to do the Cotton Eyed Joe with her when we dance together during Kitty’s part of the Megasix. Refuses to leave well enough alone, too - I swear, she just sits there making puppy dog eyes at me. Eventually, I realized I could get her to stop by plugging my ears and singing the Green Giant commercial jingle at her really really loudly and very off-key.”

Anne grinned, snickering at the memory. “Hey now, don’t expect me to help next time you can’t reach the top shelf”.

She took notice of Cathy’s barely-rumpled cropped cerulean hoodie and white lace-up joggers. Two immaculate Dutch braids ran down from the tip of her forehead and hung over her shoulders, edges perfectly set. Jeez, how does she still look like that after a day of airport travel? She suddenly felt self-conscious about her cut-up tiger t-shirt, sweatpants, and unruly top knot.

“Alright queens, back to it - we want to get out of here at a reasonable hour, don’t we? That last shuffle step looked much sharper to me, so let’s move on to No Way. Let me see the formation in the first chorus where you do the hands on shoulders bit”. The girls moved into their diamond with Aragon in the front, Anne and Cathy standing just off her shoulders.

“Can we hold and check the spacing on this?” Grace called. Everyone put their hands in position.

It must’ve been at least 6 full seconds before Anne realized her fingertips were brushing against Cathy’s where their hands met behind Aragon’s back. Inhaling sharply, she jerked her hand away and looked hastily to her left. Cathy shot her a quizzical look. “Sorry,” Anne mouthed at her, repositioning her hand slightly. “You’re fine,” Cathy mouthed back.

“Spacing looks better, let me see the diamond thingy in motion. Five, six, seven, eight, one-”

“If you thought for a moment-’”

Cath felt the beat pulsing through her as she bounced. She’d missed Aragon’s brassy, confident vocals. Slide, slide, twirl... it had been weeks, but she found she slipped back into the choreography with ease. Cross stage right in front of Anne, then fall in line behind Jane. She caught Anne’s eye as they passed each other and smiled at her. Anne reciprocated with one of her unfathomably odd (yet endearing) facial expressions as the two took their places in line. The girls giggled wildly as they body rolled opposite each other before stepping into their final poses of the chorus.

“YES, could everyone turn and watch Anne and Cathy do that last roll? If each one of you would put that much sauce into it, I could die a happy dance captain. Let’s see it again, you two: one, two, three, four-”

There was no time for Anne to panic or to process the heat of all the eyes watching her. All she could do was stare unwaveringly at Cathy as the two of them moved in unison (This was probably for the better, seeing as off to the side, Kat was tugging excitedly at Jane’s sleeve, and behind Anne and Cathy, Cleves was demonstrating her approval with some very suggestive dance moves).

It suddenly felt incredibly warm in the room. Head swimming, Anne could barely register anything else that was happening until Jane walked over, holding her green water bottle out to her. She reached out to touch Anne’s forehead.

“You alright there, darling? You feel a little warm. Anything bothering you?”

“I’m alright, just a little tired”.

“Really? So you’re definitely... not hot, or bothered? Not even in the slightest?”

“I told you, I’m fine, Jane, promise. You’re the one being massively weird, ya kook!”

“Alright, then. Just as long as you know that if something were going on, you could tell me, or any of us”.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re such a mom?”

“Yeah, I might’ve heard that once or twice.” Jane rubbed Anne’s back affectionately before leaving her to her thoughts.

Anne looked around to see where Cathy had gone to so she could apologize for her awkward staring, and then for her awkward fingers (again), but Cathy was across the room with Grace reviewing the most recent set of choreo changes to Kat’s number. For a moment, Anne stood transfixed by the duo’s equally fluid movements, but she was then pulled back to reality by a sudden twinge in her gut. Man, pull it together. I swear, Boleyn, whatever’s got you so jumpy, I sure hope it lets up soon.