( The Scene Stealer. ) - Blog Posts

oofscenestlr​:

one thing that’s held through the past few years of dealing with nat is that he somehow always manages to make it about him. she had first hand experience, the constant days and nights when orson would pair them together was like a thorn in her side. getting through scenes was tough, but she tried to stay professional about it. so what if she was a try-hard? she was doing more than half the people here anyway.

“i’m not even gonna try and respond to that fucked up theory. just some advice for you - maybe get your head out of your ass and realize the world isn’t in love with you. in fact, the world has a lot more things going on than falling to their knees to worship you.” she’s bitter, it’s true. and maybe this was a losing fight, but she had to hold her own. she was a perfectionist, that much is true, and if nate couldn’t see there was anything to gain from that, it was lost on him. but trying so hard to impress orson’s ghost? grace had no respect for orson anymore. “have you considered i work so hard to get where i am for myself? and not for the fake validation of some ghost busy haunting our school and the real murderer?”

giving somebody shit for actually caring about something, especially their craft, is the lowest hanging fruit and while nate knows that, it doesn’t stop him from standing behind his words. because yeah, while grace’s work ethic was something fierce, she had generally not been a nice person from the moment nate met her. and in the wake of orson’s death, she still didn’t seem to get it. and maybe she never would. “save me the fucking diatribe about how you’re so different from the rest of us and how much you’ve sacrificed to get here. ‘cause if you wanna compare notes, we could be here all night,” nate takes another long inhale of the joint and closes his eyes.

for a moment he thinks he can feel it — the warmth of this particular strain — but it doesn’t last long. clearly whatever he had going on right now was not going to be solved with just one smoke. 

it’s a small revelation that he chooses not to focus on, so nate turns back to grace instead. “look, did you come outside to just yell at me about petty shit or did you wanna smoke and try to chill the fuck out for once? i mean, aren’t you tired of all this fighting? i know i am. i’m fucking tired, grace.” nate pushes himself off of the railing he was leaning up against and extends the joint to her. things were changing around here — and while drugs weren’t going to fix any of their issues, nate didn’t have it in him to keep throwing insults back and forth. not tonight, at least.

scenestlr​:

grace scoffs softly at his comment, “i’m not surprised you’d find it so boring. i still don’t know how the hell you got pandarus last semester.” the cast list came as a surprise for her, to see him in  such an important role in trolius and cressida. she didn’t care for that role, nor did she want to take it from him - but that very essence of knowing he didn’t deserve it struck her to her core. the very bitter and evil thought of maybe nate hooked up with orson like chandler did to get that role crosses her mind. grace lets that anger subside, just for a moment, as she hears his next question.

she presses her lips together, she’s used to his typical comments and jabs - just as he was hers, but that felt pointed. the whispers were one thing, but a direct accusation to murdering someone feels different. she holds little respect for how he gets his ways, on and off the stage. it’s a dirty move, something they shouldn’t be joking about. “you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” she forms her words carefully and malignantly. “i don’t have to prove my innocence to you, palmer.”

it’s always nice to know that while most things change, others would remain the exact same. for example, nate has done a lot of soul searching over the course of his twenty-two years — contrary to what he presents to most people, he’s done a lot of growing up; compared to grace, who, unfortunately looked like she was always gonna be hater. yikes. nate rolls his eyes at her comment about pandarus, but is satisfied that she’s still salty about it. point for him.

“well i hate to break it to ya, but you haven’t been proving much of anything to me in these past few years i’ve known you,” he cringes a little at the harshness, so he follows up, “...besides the fact that it’s clear to me and everybody else that you’re secretly in love with me, which honestly, i don’t blame you. but the whole ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ trope is kinda played out, don’t you think?” nate brings the joint back to his lips, and he hides his smirk behind the smoke. messing with grace was his favorite pastime, but there’s something about this night that has nate feeling particularly weird, so he keeps talking for no good reason.

“all i’m saying is, you don’t have to try so hard. especially since orson....y’know. bit the dust.”

scenestlr​:

grace’s lines were circling in her mind throughout most of the day. she knows her role well enough, has studied in her free time ever since learning who she’d play, and really, prince escalus wasn’t a difficult role. what she didn’t prepare for was that terrible feeling of returning to alderidge and being around everyone once again. she feels stares everywhere she goes, and she knows that after she goes on, it’ll only increase.

she can’t think about how she feels like the stares were becoming less and less about her and chandler. so she ignores the looks and heads outside. away from the police and everyone else in the refectory, the music fading into the background. she appreciates the night chill as it settles into her bones, her footsteps light upon the cobblestone. she lets out a small breath, and for a moment feels at peace. right until she hears his voice, reciting a soft line from the play. and of course, nate palmer had to be out here at the one spot away from the rest of the tiny bubble that was alderidge. she considers poking fun at his running of lines but lets the comment die in her throat. (does she say anything? does she keep walking past him like she didn’t see him? what do you say to someone who found a dead body?) 

she moves towards the backdoors again, careful in her steps, but stops when she realizes the detectives have patrolled to their side of the room now. great. she wasn’t guilty, she knew that, but she didn’t want any interaction with them and whatever they wanted to find out. she turns back around, striding quickly towards the outside and where nate was smoking. she couldn’t handle the detectives and stares, but she knows she can handle nate palmer. “wow,” she intones as she leans against the outer wall, now concealed from the doors. “i didn’t mean to, uh, interrupt your serious rehearsal time. apologies.”

there are just some people in the world who don’t want to see others happy, and at this point, nate is convinced that grace ishihara is one of those people. he knew it was practically impossible for them to not see each other again ─ with such a small class size and the loom of orson’s death hanging over the department like a nimbus cloud, there was a high probability that he would have to talk to grace again before they graduated. which, honestly, couldn’t come any sooner.

nate laughs, because he always does, but this one is short and dry. “no worries. i’m just taking a page out of your book, y’know? trying to be a serious actor who cares about his craft for once. but, i gotta admit,” nate turns to face her and flicks his lighter open, “it’s as boring as it sounds.” the end of the joint burns, and nate looks back at grace with his best poker face.

there are plenty of things he could say right now that would probably be unnecessarily harsh, so he keeps his mouth shut for once. he has some sense of self-control, after all. instead, he takes a quick puff and asks, “those detectives are here for you, right?”