Violet was seated and patiently awaiting the beginning of the performance. She had the program in her hand, but had only glanced at it to see if the names of anyone she knew were printed in it. There was only one - Dave's - which was of some reassurance to her. She didn't like crowds, not when she was all by herself in them. Dave was here somewhere.

Her feet were tucked under the chair, hiding the black heeled shoes she'd worn in an effort to look nice. An effort, because she didn't feel she'd succeeded. She looked very - neat. Not too dressy, though, in her opinion. She'd worn black pants, and her 'nice' shirt. It was a feminine-looking blouse, with a black lacy tanktop underneath, and was a little lower in the front than she was entirely comfortable with. She had on earrings,.. and a necklace to match. Both very basic.

Well, she'd tried.

At least, she reflected with an inward sigh, At least the bruises on her neck had faded away.
And at least there would be no trouble with spraypaint, this time.

Dave was, at the moment, paying little or no attention to anyone who might or might not be in the audience. Yes, he knew that this was the night for which he had gotten Violet a ticket to the show, but there was too much to occupy his mind preshow and during show to think about her just yet.

Checking lights, making sure everything was as it should be...

A voice on the headset: "Places."

He slid the house lights down.

And now the play begins.

----

And now it's over, because it's really boring to describe a show that is meant to be seen, especially since there's no interaction with anyone else going on.

And here comes Dave down the stairs, dressed in traditional techie black--of course--and scanning the crowd for Violet's distinctive hair. (Nice, that; it makes her easier to spot. He hopes.)

And there she is.

"Violet!"

Upon hearing her name called, Violet jumped. She looked around, trying to pinpoint the source... ah, there he was. She hadn't known where to look for Dave, simply hoping they'd run into each other at some point once the show was finished. She smiled and waved at him, then headed over.

"Hey, you," she said, by way of a greeting.

He grinned, eyes taking her in and brightening with appreciation. "You look good," he said simply, taking her arm and steering her out of the crowd of theatre-goers and partially up the stairs to the sound booth, so that they could talk for a bit in relative peace.

"How've you been? Sorry I haven't been able to see you much, the weeks right before a show starts are crazy."

Violet grinned at his compliment, but the grin faded to a normal smile within a few seconds' time. "Don't worry about, I'm sure it must've been busy," she said, shrugging a shoulder. She leaned back on the banister. "I've been doing --... stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary."

'Ordinary' being, taking a faery to go see a doctor because he was attacked by a psychic kid...

She shrugged again. "How 'bout you? Anything other than this?" Violet gestured vaguely to the area around them - the theater in general.

"Nah, not really. Theatre has a tendency to consume my life." He shrugged and grinned. He loved his job--when things weren't going wrong--and it didn't bother him too much that during the actual run of the shows, he didn't have much time to have a life.

"Wanna see the booth?" he asked, offering his arm. "Or do you want to go ahead and go out for coffee now, and see the booth some other time?"

"Ummm... how about you show me the booth now, since we're right here anyway?" Violet said, taking his arm. She didn't think on it right at that moment, but that gesture might end up getting annoying. Provided it happened often enough - which very conceivably, it might not. "Coffee can wait, I think."

"'kay."

Well, if the gesture was annoying, he could always stop. Part of the reason he was doing it was because it seemed to impress ladies--at first, anyway, and then he grew comfortable with them and didn't feel so much need to be quite so gentlemanly all the time.

He led her up the stairs and into the soundbooth, which was basically a soundproof room with several computers and a large window looking down at the stage and an enormous board, for controlling the lights.

He pointed out the switchboard, explaining how it worked. His eyes were lit up, like a boy showing a friend a brandnew toy. (All things considered, all this technology was rather like a toy... Or maybe a very complicated computer game.)

Violet listened as attentively as she was able to. She would probably forget half the details in an hour or so, but right now she was capable of remembering what,say, this switch would do. She particularly liked the window that looked down on the stage, and wondered how different the show must look from this point of view.

She didn't interrupt him once while he was explaining... once he had finished, she looked around and asked, with a sort of sheepish expression, "Can you show me? .. How it works, I mean."

"Sure, why not? I'll run cue to cue for the show so I don't have to reprogram anything. Here." He handed her one of the headsets and motioned her to sit on one of the padded black stools, putting on one of the headsets himself.

He'd probably get in trouble if this got around, but hey, what's life without a little spice?

He flicked a switch, turning on the headsets, and took his seat at the switchboard.

"Can ya hear me?"

"Yup, loud and clear," Violet nodded, taking a seat. She gripped the sides of the chair, looking around and waiting fot the 'show' to start. She couldn't honestly say that she'd expected it all to look so complicated, but it really did.

(If she'd known Dave could get in trouble for this, she would never have asked).

Well, that's why he didn't tell her.

"The headset's just for fun, right now," he explained. "During the shows, though, we use 'em to make sure we hit our cues at the right times. Coordinate what's going on down there" he waved at the stage "with what's going on up here."

At this point, he started deftly flicking things on and off, fading from one set of lights to another, bathing the stage in various colors and brightnesses.

"Usually, each of these is cued up by a line," he told her, grinning.

Well, at least one of them is having fun.

The girl nodded, and leaned forwards to rest her elbows on her knees. Just listening and watching. She was having a good time, but definitely not as good a time as Dave. It would have helped if she'd understood at least a little of this before she'd asked about it.

"Heh. Nice lightshow," she commented. "Each one's cued by a line? How do you know which goes to which? Is it all programmed in...?"

"Nah. If it was all programmed in, they wouldn't need me. I sit up here and listen for the cue lines, and push buttons accordingly. What we program is which of the lights up there," a wave of his hand at the catwalk with all the various apparatus hanging from it, "turn on in what combination and pattern."

He grinned.

"I do a lot of crawling around up there when we're getting the lights ready to start tech runs, making sure the lights are all pointing in the directions we want 'em to, and putting goboes on." A pause.

"Goboes, by the way, are little things that we put over the lights and give us a pattern of light and shadow. Gels are just plain colors."

" 'Goboes'. Hm. That's a new word for my vocabulary," Violet grinned. She liked the sound of that word. Goboes. "So, I guess it takes awhile to get this all set up, does it?..."

She was, despite all her efforts, beginning to be a teensy bit bored, but she hid it well.

"Yeah, takes a while. Usually at least a day to focus the lights--and then refocus them, 'cause the director changed his mind on us--and then putting on the goboes and gels..." He shrugged.

"I could prob'ly show you more, but that'd get into the really technical stuff, so, 'less you want me to drone on 'bout that... I guess we're done?"

(Also, the longer he stayed up here, messing with things, the better chance that he'd get caught and in trouble. Thus, finish the light show, and be done with it. Also, he wanted coffee. Because it was just a leetle late.)

"Mmyeah. Guess so. I don't think we need to get any more technical, I probably won't remember what we're talking about by the time we're done," she joked, taking off the headset and standing up. She cast a last glance out the window, then smirked at Dave. " 'Kay, set."

He nodded, taking off his own headset and hanging it and hers in their places, grinning. "Well, that's why I went to school to learn how to do this; 's not like it's something anybody could pick up in ten minutes." It's really computers that turned the field into what it is, of course. (Probably, all things considered, he could turn his skills with theatre tech to ordinary programming with little effort. Did, occasionally, actually.)

"Anyway, the bike's out back, but the actors'd have my head if I took you through the green room and the dressing rooms, so we'll go around. That okay with you? I could always bring it 'round front, 'f you'd rather."

"Nope, s'alright, we can go around," Violet shrugged, smirking - it really didn't make a difference to her, but whatever, "Lead the way."

She gestured towards the stairs, moving towards them by a step or two. She was actually waiting for him to show her which way to go. She was sure she'd get turned around or something,.. though it would be impossible to get lost, considering Dave probably knew the theater inside-out.

"'kay then." He trotted down the stairs, forgetting to offer her his arm, but remembering to open the side door for her, waving her outside and stepping out himself, locking the door behind him. (The light show had taken a bit longer than planned; he'd probably be hearing about that later.)

"This way," he told her, gesturing with his head and fingering something in his pocket. It might have been his keys. It might have been something else. (The theatre wasn't exactly in a rotten district, but you never know.)

Violet nodded, following silently along with him. It suddenly struck her how quiet it was - the crowd had broken up a while ago, and everyone was headed home, but still,.. it was too quiet. She found herself to be expecting something to happen. It always did, after all. When things got too quiet, that meant she hadn't been paying attention, and something must have gone wrong. The silence was the tip-off that she was just about to notice it...
But no, ... there was nothing. There were no tagalongs his time around. It was going to be a perfectly normal evening.
Violet was almost disappointed.

Well, perfectly normal is rather nice, sometimes. It cuts down on the monotony of having something always happening...

Of course, if Violet would like a tagalong, Dave could probably find a district where there would be one. But he doesn't feel like having to play knight in shining armor, frankly. It's bad for his nerves.

And around into the alley behind the theatre, where Dave's bike sits, hulking and covered with a tarp so that some punk kid doesn't come along and steal it, or mark it up, or something...

"Where d'you wanna go for coffee? I'm up to just about anywhere."

"Same here... I have just one rule, though - " she put on a smile that was halfway between teasing and self-mocking. "The rule is - as long as there are no dead animals in the coffee, anything goes. I'm serious, by the way."

Violet was easy to please... or else had no sense of taste when it came to coffee.
No dead animals in the coffee was a standard for anyone, after all.

"I get the feeling I don't wanna hear that story," he remarked, opening that handy little compartment and pulling out the helmets, handing the black one to her and putting on his own red one.

"I dunno, only place I can think of off top of my head's the Bean." Which is expensive. Oh, bother. He'll live--he's been hardly eating the past couple weeks anyway, so he's been saving money on food.

"Climb aboard."

"It's definitely not a story you want to hear right before you have a coffee," she affirmed, putting on the helmet and giving it a tug to ensure that it would remain in place. "The Bean's good... I was there once before. That place definitely fits to the rule."

She slid onto the bike, a tad easier this time. Not that she'd had any visible difficulties before, but it did take a little getting used to. "Mmkay, ready."

He grinned--mm, there's just something fun about riding on a motorcycle with a girl. You get to have the girl wrap her arms around you a heck of a lot sooner than usual--and gunned the engine.

"The Bean it is, then."

And we're off.