High School Musical Authentic, Corporeal, Real

**Authentic, Corporeal, Real**

**Summary**

Gabriella attends the red carpet of a film starring her favourite actor and gains a newfound perspective of the truly important things in life. TxG. One-shot.

**Author's Note**

Just something I had to write for me. Some of you will know why. I promise Someday II is coming – I've written a couple of chapters, just getting ahead of myself before I start posting.

**Dedication**

I would like to dedicate this to Zachary David Alexander Efron – for being real.

* * *

Gabriella had never felt so claustrophobic in her entire life. She wasn't typically one to be overwhelmed with the sensation of claustrophobia. She'd been to a few rock concerts over the years, she'd been into crowded nightclubs which bore a striking resemblance to a mosh pit. And yet it was in a crazy, shrieking crowd of predominantly adolescent girls where she felt the walls closing in around her. Fortunately she was at the very front of the barricade, meaning that not only was there some air in front of her, but that the entire experience was bound to be worthwhile. Gabriella, Taylor and Sharpay had taken four days out of their lives, taken time off work, flown across country, to be in this very place.

It was the red carpet premiere of _Chains_, the movie sensation which was tipped to break box office records. Largely because of its leading man.

Chaz Alexander.

A name which had the ability to render Gabriella practically incapable of coherent speech. A name which brought an instant smile to her lips. A name which if announced in a crowd of women was likely to cause a certain amount of shrill shrieking to echo about.

Chaz Alexander was the rising star of Hollywood. Between his soulful blue eyes, his trademark 'lazy' haircut, his abs – as well as actual talent and a genuine, sincere personality – he had succeeded in capturing hearts across the world. He was young, in his early twenties, and had a magnitude of fans from the adolescent and tween market. However it wasn't only starstruck teenagers who he had captivated. He had succeeded in captivating the hearts and libidos of three girls in their early twenties; originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico – but now all residing on the East Coast of the United States of America. Gabriella and Taylor were now living in Boston; and Sharpay in New York City.

"Is it just me, or do these girls behind us keep getting closer and closer?" Taylor asked Gabriella lowly.

Gabriella shook her head. "It's not just you. The girl behind me, I would almost think she was making a pass at me, that's how close she is," she replied back.

"Gabriella, why don't you just text Troy and get him to come down here? If he came and stood behind this mob of people, he would surely attract some attention and clear the crowd a little," Sharpay suggested.

Gabriella rolled her eyes. "Sharpay, a lot of the girls here are younger than us. I don't think a lot of them follow the NBA. Let alone the players who have only just been recruited."

"Nuh-uh, besides, the guys agreed to coming to Los Angeles with us, but they made it very clear that they would not be caught anywhere near this event," Taylor reminded them.

"We've got over an hour to go of this," Sharpay complained. "My feet hurt."

"I told you that you should have kept your flats on," Gabriella said.

"Why do they keep taking the soundtrack off? They put it on for like five minutes and I feel slightly perkier and then it gets taken away," Taylor said with a grumble.

After a long day, the final half hour seemed to take even longer than the 10 hours prior. Finally, the MC started crowd warming, and the proceedings began. After the contest winners began to arrive, the B Grade celebrities began to fill the red carpet. Gabriella didn't care about any of them. She didn't care about ex Idol contestants, or former small band members, or local television personalities. There was only one man she cared about, one man only.

The way to know when a celebrity has arrived at this type of event is to listen to the crowd. The consistent shrieks will suddenly increase in volume and in decibel. Thus indicating an important arrival. Up the far end of the red carpet, beyond where Gabriella had any capability of viewing, she could hear a series of shrill shrieks. She could see the media across from her beginning to react. Even standing on tip toe and leaning out as far as possible, she couldn't see anything, she could only see the ocean of awaiting people and randoms who filled the red carpet.

There was a girl behind Gabriella who seemed to have within her agenda to poke out Gabriella's eye. She was clutching to a spiral notebook which was held out in front of Gabriella's face, waving about in a ridiculously violent manner. Gabriella kept glancing back to give the girl greasies.

"Hey!" Sharpay snapped, turning to glare at the girl. "You've come this close to poking my friend's eye out with that stupid notebook of yours way too many times. We got here at 7:30 this morning, we earned our places up the front, so stop pushing and shoving!"

The shrieks began to increase in volume and were gradually coming closer to their end.

And then her stomach sank to her feet, her heart skipped a beat, every cliché movie moment description happened in that very moment.

He was there.

Gabriella blinked and rubbed her eyes, making sure she was seeing correctly. It was him. He was there. If it wasn't for the high decibel of shrieking in the room, he was close enough that she could call out, "Hey Chaz!" and he could hear. Moving his way along the line of interviewers and photographers, answering questions.

Someone called out to him from the crowd and he glanced up, giving a small smile and a wave.

Around her, there was pandemonium, people shoving from behind her violently, a camera was literally being rested on her shoulder to take a photograph, the notebook waving girl was back in full force, the crowd was surging forward and the barrier in front of her was very seriously in danger of collapsing.

But none of that mattered. Because he was right there, she was looking at him. Chaz Alexander, her favourite actor, star of her favourite movies, the man who possessed a God like aura. A man who she had been looking at through her computer screen and television screen and the cinema screen, who she collected magazines about, who she scoured the internet in search of information and photos and updates.

He was authentic, he was corporeal, he was real.

He moved across from the interviewers to the side of the red carpet where his fans stood gawking, shrieking, crying, grasping for him. He moved along swiftly, scrawling his signature to posters, to DVDs, to CDs, to notebooks. He was right there, standing right in front of them, within kissing distance.

Gabriella had her CD cover held out, and she watched as his hand moved along, signing item after item, skipping over hers, moving to the next. She reached out a little further, moving it to once again be placed directly in front of him. And once again, he skipped over it.

And then he moved along the line, and he was out of her reach.

In that moment, he felt more out of her reach than he ever had before.

In that split second moment when Gabriella realised that he wasn't coming back, that he'd finished his brief minutes with the fans, that her friends had gotten autographs and she hadn't, that she'd flown hours to come see him, queued up for ten hours and he walked away… in that moment, Gabriella felt herself break. Tears filled her eyes, she stared after him forlornly, as though trying to somehow magically will him to turn around and come back, to catch his eye and make him see her sobbing uncontrollably and come back to appease her simple desire. She didn't want much. She wanted three seconds of his time, however long it took to scrawl his name.

He needed to come back.

Time ceased to have meaning. The time remaining was a blur. Chaz's co-stars came along and Gabriella wound up with a series of other autographs. Julieanne even spoke to her, in her soft delicate tone, the words, 'thank you!' genuinely popping out of her mouth. But it didn't matter. Because Chaz had been there and then Chaz was gone and for Gabriella, it was over.

The crowd gradually began to dissipate, and Taylor and Sharpay were busy squealing and hugging and shrieking and exclaiming.

"Oh my God, and when he took my book from me to sign he _touched my hand!_" Taylor gushed.

"You have to see this photo I got, he was looking _straight at me_, it's like he was posing for me!" Sharpay gushed.

Gabriella sank to the floor, knees drawn to her chest with her back up against the barricade.

"Gabi?" Taylor asked questioningly.

Gabriella wordlessly held out her notebook. Taylor began to flip through, seeing the autograph of the director, and of Chaz's co-stars Julieanne and Kelly.

No Chaz.

She'd been crying since the moment he had slipped beyond her reach, and now, Gabriella reached the point of being barely able to breathe. She was struggling to intake air, struggling to even see clearly. In that moment she felt absolutely ridiculous for being so upset and yet at the same time, all she wanted to do was sob uncontrollably.

"Oh Gabi… honey…" Sharpay said softly, only just realising what had happened – or rather, what hadn't happened.

In the excitement of the event, neither she nor Taylor had registered the events.

"I'm fine," Gabriella said quickly, wiping her eyes. "I'm fine. Really."

"Should we get out of here? They're asking people to leave so they can clean up," Taylor said quietly.

Wordlessly, Gabriella followed her friends and they began the familiar walk up the street to their hotel. On the walk back, Taylor had called the guys and told them they were heading back and could meet them. Troy and Gabriella's room was designated as the meeting place. Gabriella didn't speak a word; she pulled out her key to her hotel room and went straight in, going through the lounge area and straight into the bedroom. She could hear her friends excitedly gushing in the lounge area, and she felt guilty for taking away from their moment. Just because she was miserable, it didn't mean she wanted to inflict her misery upon them. And so she remained in the bedroom.

Sobbing.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, when Troy entered the room, he saw Gabriella lying on the bed on her side, facing away from him. She was clinging to a pillow in her hands, gripping onto it ferociously. Her body was shaking as whimpers escaped from her lips.

"Baby?" Troy cooed gently. He slipped his shoes off and crawled over on the bed to nestle himself into her back. He pressed a soft kiss to her shoulder as his arm snaked around her waist.

"I'm sorry," Gabriella whispered.

"Why are you sorry?"

"For crying. I'm being stupid."

"You could never be stupid."

"But I am. I'm almost 23 years old. I have a college degree. I'm engaged to a burgeoning NBA star. And I'm crying about some stupid celebrity who for all I know, is actually the world's biggest asshole and the genuine nice guy thing is just a persona."

"Taylor and Shar told me what happened," Troy said gently. "That really sucks."

"He was real Troy," Gabriella whispered, her eyes shining with tears. "He was real. He was there and he was real. And then he waved and he came over and he was so close that I could have reached out and touched his cheek, I could have leaned over really far and kissed him. And he was real and he rejected me and I just… I watched as he kept walking away, as he moved on, and it was like some slow motion movie moment. I felt like I could hardly breathe. He was there and he skipped me. And I just… I broke. I don't know if I'm crying because of him or partly because I'm just crying at myself for crying. For being so pathetic."

"You're not pathetic," Troy said softly.

"I don't even care about autographs! I don't collect them or anything. I don't even… I don't even understand why I care so much."

"You don't care about the autograph. You care about him, the real guy, taking something of yours and pressing his pen to the paper. You wanted the real guy to sign something for you."

Gabriella nodded. "I wanted to say, thank you so much. I wanted to hear him say something as simple as, _no, thank you _or _you're welcome_ or… something. Anything. I wanted to have that minute moment of connection, of conversion, so that… so that I can really, truly comprehend that he is real and then I could stop feeling like such a star struck fool. It's not normal for someone in her twenties who is in a healthy relationship to be feeling like this."

Without warning, Gabriella felt herself break once again, she felt the tears swelling in her eyes, she felt the lump forming in her throat. "But he was there and he was real and then he was gone," she whispered. "And now it's just such a blur that I don't remember it. I don't remember hearing him talk, even though Shar said he did. I didn't see the hair flip thing he does, though he must have done it since Taylor saw it. I didn't look at his eyes, his blue blue yes… I didn't… I didn't…"

Gabriella felt herself struggling to breathe and stopped, dragging in gasps of air. Troy soothingly rubbed her back.

"Shhh baby, just breathe for a minute."

Gabriella was silent for a moment, keeping her eyes closed as she attempted to neutralise her breathing. She went to sit up a little and sniffled, wiping her eyes.

"I'm being so stupid. I hadn't realised that this person I don't even know had such an impact on me," Gabriella murmured.

"It's natural. I told you about when I had no capability to speak to any of the Celtics when I met them, right?"

"That's different."

"Why is it different?"

"You… You admire them on a role model level. I admire Chaz for his…"

"Abs?" Troy supplied teasingly.

Gabriella let out a half sob half laugh and hit Troy playfully on the arm.

"Hey… I have blue eyes," Troy said softly, caressing his thumb to Gabriella's cheek.

She sniffled loudly. "You do."

"And… I can do that hair flip thing. Watch."

Troy sat back and ran his fingers down through his unruly hair, bringing strands down to cover his eyes. "Oh look, my hair is annoying me so, I might just swish my hair to the side and make it go out of my eyes," Troy said, and then performed the very action he was describing.

Gabriella cracked a small smile. "Baby, he doesn't narrate it as he does it."

"You know how we have that list of celebrities that we're allowed to sleep with?" Troy asked.

"Mhmm?"

"I'm beginning to think that if this Chaz guy for some reason fell into your hands, that it wouldn't just be a one off sex thing," Troy remarked.

His tone was light and jovial – the meaning behind it was very real.

"Hey…" Gabriella said gently, reaching out with her hand to caress Troy's cheek gently. "You know it's all about you."

"I bet you wouldn't cry about me," Troy said teasingly.

"That is so not true. I cried for days during the summer between junior and senior year when we broke up."

"Even though you broke up with me?"

Gabriella nodded. "Yup."

"Well… that worked out okay, didn't it?" Troy asked.

He reached out to clasp her left hand with his, running his thumb over the diamond ring on her left ring finger.

Gabriella smiled. "Yes, it did."

Lips connected for a soft kiss, a soft kiss which became a lustful, tantalising passionate kiss. The couple pulled apart, foreheads resting together, hands loving caressing the other ones face and hair and neck.

"I love you," Troy said breathily.

"I love you more," came Gabriella's breathy reply.

Tongues playfully toyed and teased as lips connected in a familiar but always exciting dance. Gabriella's fingers began to nimbly work at unbuttoning Troy's shirt, feeling a desperate yearning to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips.

A knock came at the door. "Gabi? Troy?" Taylor's voice called through the door. "Did you guys want to come to dinner?"

Troy pulled away from Gabriella. "Do you want to go to dinner?" he asked softly.

She shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay here with you."

"No, you guys just go without us," Troy called back.

"Are you sure? Do you want us to bring anything back?"

Troy sighed and jumped up to open the door a fraction so he could smile assuringly. "You guys go. Gabi is a bit upset. We're just going to order room service or something."

Taylor nodded and gave Troy a small smile before he closed the door.

Troy turned back around to face his fiancée, who was lying back against the pillows, her slender legs outstretched before her.

"So if Chaz Alexander came here right now…" Troy mused, as he stalked over to her.

"I'd tell him to go away because I have everything that I need right here."

Troy grinned and crawled up the bed. He pressed his lips to Gabriella's in a sweet, tantalising kiss. His hands fell to the hem of her dress, sliding the material up until it was bunched around her belly button. His hands fell to the warmth of the skin of her abdomen and ran up, cupping her breasts as his lips fell to the crook of her neck to trail a sensual lick.

"That, or ask him if he's into threesomes," Gabriella said, as a sudden afterthought.

"Doesn't he have a girlfriend?"

"Who said that you are invited?"

* * *


End file.

High School Musical, Hurt-Comfort, Romance