It all started innocently enough. When Al heard that CATS was coming to Central, he couldn’t wait.

“It’s going to be awesome,” he said to Ed as they mounted the steps to Central HQ.

“Why do you like that show so much?” Ed asked. “It’s just a bunch of people dressed as cats dancing around. There’s not even any real plot.”

“No,” Al agreed. “But the dancing is always phenomenal. Plus nothing can compare with the experience of sitting in the audience and actually seeing the show.”

“If you say so,” Ed said.

The two of them walked into the main building and headed for the library. There was something Ed wanted to check and here was the best place to do it.

“You know,” Al said. “You would probably make a pretty good Mistoffelees.”

“What?” Ed asked.

“Yeah. Just clap your hands and you could do anything. You wouldn’t even need any special effects.”

The two of them started in on their research and were quiet for a bit.

“You know,” Al said after a while. “They’re holding open auditions.”

“Who are?” Ed asked.

“The Padfoot Theatre Company,” Al said. “They’re the company putting on the show. And they're having open auditions next week.”

“Okay.”

Ed slid down the ladder and he and Al carried their stack of books to a nearby table.

“You should audition,” Al said as they spread out their books.

“What?” Ed asked in disbelief.

“You’d nail it,” Al insisted.

“You must be joking,” came a third voice.

Both Ed and Al turned to see Roy walk into the room.

“You’d probably trip over your own feet,” he said to Ed.

“What do you know?” Ed demanded, getting to his feet. “I could get that part blindfolded!”

“It takes more than flashy alchemy to be a true performer,” Roy said. “It takes poise, grace, talent.”

“You just described me perfectly,” Ed said.

Roy snorted.

“So you’re saying that you would be better?” Ed said with a glare.

“Naturally. I could walk into that audition and get any part I wanted.”

“You’d never make it Call Back!” Ed shouted.

“I’d still get further than you!” Roy shouted back.

“You wanna bet?” Ed hollered. “I’d bet a month’s salary that I’d get further with this Mistoffelees before you’d get with-” He turned to Al.

“Tugger,” Al whispered.

“Tugger!” Ed finished.

“You’re on!” Roy shouted. “First to be dismissed or to quit on their own loses!”

They shook hands and went their separate ways. Neither expected that the director and producers would love them both…
+++

Merry Christmas, Blah.

did his secret Santa thing again this year. And I was privilaged with the beautiful

Hope you like it. If you can’t tell, it’s Roy and Ed from FMA in dance rehearsal for CATS. Roy is playing the Tugger and Ed is Mistoffelees. It’s rehearsal, which is why they not actually in costume. And I know thier proportions are all wrong. I still think I did a decent job.

Background was fun. Except for the nutcracker, it was all made in MS paint. Roy and Ed were drawn by hand and then touched up in Paint as well. Turns out, when you want to do that, a crappy scanner is your friends. It scans really low quality, so all you get is your line art, not all the colors that the page itself is. That makes it much easier to manipulate in MS paint.