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seblos · 4 years

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there’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach - ch 1/10

chapter title: i think he’d rather play sharpay

word count: 2,027

read on ao3

Carlos Rodriguez is headed to auditions for the school’s musical when he hears a voice behind him. Granted, he doesn’t hear it right away, as he’s too wrapped up in his own thoughts about being choreographer (!!!) for the show, but he’s able to snap out of it when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Carlos, hey.” He turns, surprised to see Seb Matthew-Smith standing in front of him. He knows the boy, of course, they’ve been going to school together for years, but Carlos can’t recall how many times they’ve interacted besides group projects and friendly waves in the hallway.

“What’s up, Seb?”

Carlos swore Seb suddenly dropped a little bit of his happy tone as nerves crept into his voice. “I have a question for you,” he starts, immediately causing Carlos’ brain to swirl with possible scenarios.

“Okay, shoot,” he says, still smiling at the boy.

“It’s about the show,” Seb starts, still clearly nervous about what he’s going to ask. At least his statement shortens Carlos’ list of guesses as to what Seb might ask.

“Oh! Are you thinking of auditioning this year?” He recalls Seb playing piano in the pit for the school musical the previous year, but he had an amazing voice that belonged onstage. “Because you would make a perfect Ryan! I mean, you already look the part and everything!”

Seb’s face falls for a moment before he straightens his back. “That’s the thing. I kind of was thinking of auditioning for Sharpay?” he asks hesitantly, and Carlos melts a little bit inside. His smile must reassure Seb because he proceeds to ask “Do you think Miss Jenn would be okay with that?”

“I’m sure she would be more than okay with it,” he says, squeezing Seb’s shoulder who immediately breaks into a big, yet soft smile.

“Okay! I’ll see you soon then, I guess!” He says, before turning and walking away, the smile still wide across his face. Carlos watches him go for a moment, before remembering that he’s supposed to get to auditions early to help set everything up. With that, he continues his exciting path to the auditorium.

Carlos arrived at rehearsal still jittering with nerves about his role in the show, Miss Jenn had been the first teacher to give him a shot at something he was really passionate about, and he could not let anyone down. It was crazy already considering he was only a sophomore, but somewhere he knew he had it in him to do this show.

He was pleasantly surprised by the turnout; there were some crazy good dancers in this school, apparently. They were all very quick to follow the tutorial dance he had given.

Gina, who he also recognized from their grade as the new transfer student, was killing the game. He had no doubt that she would end up playing Gabriella if she had the voice for it.

He glanced over at Seb, who was at the piano playing the warm-up tune. He was still filling in the role for pit piano as they wouldn’t have the actual musician until tech week. Carlos was sad to not see him dance yet, but that didn’t take away from the high hopes he had for who would land the role of Sharpay.

The music he had been playing came to an end as the round dancers finished, catching their breath and grabbing their water bottles. Carlos clapped his hands together, “Great! That’s it for the warm-up!”

A murmur took over the crowd as everyone grouped back together. He heard one concerned voice asking “that was the warm-up?” and sighed, laughing just a little bit. Carlos wasn’t evil, okay? He just liked to push people to do what he knows they’re capable of.

Carlos turned back around as Miss Jenn had people pairing up. His eyes caught Seb’s for a second, who happily waved at him as he paired himself with a curly-haired dancer that Carlos had noticed before. He smiled back at Seb, before turning his attention to Miss Jenn once more.

She had them doing a couple of partner exercises: voice warmups, trust falls, stretching, etcetera etcetera, while she and Carlos supervised to make sure nobody broke an ankle before they started the audition process.

After that, Miss Jenn rounded them all up and put them in a line as Carlos grabbed her folder of sheet music for each part, following her as she chose parts for each person to read. He couldn’t deny that her choices were impeccable, and everyone seemed very happy with their designated parts to read. Not to mention the hypothetical addition of a ballad for the girl who wanted to play Miss Darbus, which was genius.

Carlos was a little surprised when Nini Salazar-Roberts, a girl he had seen only in the chorus of their shows, asked to audition for Gabriella. She was sweet, sure, and had a great voice, but she always seemed too shy to play the lead. Or, a part with any lines for that matter. He had hope for her, although Gina was already off-book.

They approached Seb, who was last in line and had been nervously fiddling with the zipper on his vest. Carlos gave him a reassuring smile, which Seb gratefully returned until Miss Jenn gave her verdict. Her glance over of him was quick, and she smiled asking “You’re reading for Ryan, right?”

Immediately, Seb’s smile was replaced with a look of fear. Before Seb could accept his fate, Carlos spoke up.

“I think he’d rather play Sharpay,” he told Miss Jenn. Seb’s smile was back as Miss Jenn turned around once more.

“I love that,” she said, an inspired look in her eyes. “That is so fresh.” She walked back towards the director’s table with that. Carlos pulled out the music for ‘Bop to the Top’ and handed it to Seb, who mouthed ‘thank you!’ with an excited look in his eyes and, for a second, Carlos felt his heart skip a beat.

That excitement went away later on though, and Carlos’s head was pounding after the fiasco that was those Troy and Gabriella auditions. He didn’t understand the drama and, frankly, he didn’t really care either. At least those auditions were over, and they could move on from whatever just happened.

When Miss Jenn started calling out those who were auditioning for Sharpay, though, Carlos’ heart started racing as the hetero drama was replaced with the memory of his conversation with Seb from earlier.

Carlos never had a problem at school about the whole gay thing, and he hadn’t heard a problem within the past few years. Sure, there was the occasional name-calling while passing in the hallway, but that stopped at the beginning of his sophomore year. He had never been shoved into a locker or beat up outside of school (yet, knock on wood). Still, though, casting Seb as Sharpay would be huge for representation.

A few girls came up to audition, all singing the same first 16 bars of ‘Bop to the Top,’ and while most of them were good, nobody totally stuck out to Carlos. He had noticed that either they had the right personality for it but not the voice, or vice versa, and he could tell Miss Jenn was noticing it too. It did make him a little bit nervous for Seb, as he was used to him being sweet with a good voice, and had never really seen him be harsh in any way.

“What do we know about him?” Miss Jenn asked Carlos like she had done with every person so far.

“Seb Matthew-Smith. Was the piano accompanist last year, but an amazing singer and actor,” Carlos said, before adding “And male, obviously.”

Miss Jenn merely smiled at the last bit before turning her attention back to the boy in front of her, who was still nervously fiddling with the zipper on his vest. “Whenever you’re ready, Seb!” she called out. And don’t psych yourself out! Carlos added silently.

His fears immediately dissolved the moment Seb took the stage, leaving Carlos captivated. When he started reading Sharpay’s lines (it was the moment right after ‘Status Quo’ after Sharpay was hit with the cheese fries) Carlos couldn't help the smile that grew on his face as he watched Seb become a whole different person. His sweet personality had immediately melted and he watched in awe as Seb took up the entire stage. Maybe he was biased, but Seb was the best actor they had seen all day.

The scene itself was phenomenal, but once Seb started singing the chorus for “Bop to the Top,” Carlos was floored. He knew that Seb had a powerful voice, but he never knew how powerful until there he was, performing like it was opening night. And judging by the look on Miss Jenn’s face, this wouldn’t be that last time he performed it either.

After the sweeping round of applause that followed Seb’s audition, as well as auditions for all the other leading roles, Miss Jenn sent everyone into the hall except for Carlos as they began to discuss the cast list.

By “discuss”, Carlos means Miss Jenn wrote down the cast list while he sat next to her and just nodded, knowing full well he didn’t really have a say in it. For the most part, though, it didn’t really matter because he agreed with all her castings. Carlos maybe would have preferred Gina to play Gabriella considering her level of skill and experience compared to Nini’s, but he had to admit even after the weird mess that was the Troy & Gabriella auditions he was blown away by Nini’s voice in the audition.

He was surprised when she asked him to immediately post the cast list, but went along with it. At least that meant they could get the show moving!

Carlos shoved past the crowd waiting (eavesdropping) at the door, hurrying forward with the green piece to stick on the wall before he got trampled by the swarm of theatre kids rushing forward to check the list.

He noticed Seb was one of the first ones to it, immediately gasping in surprise, no doubt due to the Seb Matthew-Smith written neatly next to Sharpay Evans, although Carlos didn’t really understand how Seb could think it would be anyone but him.

He watched the rest of the drama unfold, rolling his eyes when he heard EJ Caswell complain “She thinks I’m a Chad?” Sure, he may have been a better fit for Troy, but Chad was still the second-biggest male lead. (Or, third in this case now that Sharpay was going to be played by a boy.) It made Carlos feel bad for those Miss Jenn had pegged as Chad’s previously and had now found themselves in an ensemble. Oh well though, he wasn’t about to try and argue.

Just as Carlos began to walk away from the madness, he felt a hand grab his arm. For a second, his heart sank, thinking it was someone who was angry about their part and was about to take it out on Carlos.

When he turned around, though, it was just Seb.

“Oh, sorry,” he said quickly, letting go of Carlos’s arm when they noticed the surprised yet fearful look on his face. “I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me? For what?” Carlos asked genuinely. “None of those casting decisions were mine.”

Seb smiled softly. “I know. I wanted to thank you for what you told me earlier. I was almost about to back out, but you gave me the extra bit of confidence I needed.”

Carlos was still confused. “What do you mean? I asked if you were auditioning for Ryan.”

“Well, yeah, but then when I asked if I could audition for Sharpay, you looked excited,” his smile grew a little bit wider, and Carlos couldn’t help when the corners of his mouth lifted too. “This is my dream role and you helped me get it, so… thanks.”

“Seb,” Carlos said. “That was all you.”

And the smile that Seb gave Carlos in return to that could light up all of Broadway.

#seblos #hsmtmts #carlos rodriguez #seb matthew smith #high school musical the musical the series #my writing #not a star

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