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starlitangels · 1 year

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Last Night of Tour

Literally everyone and their mom has done a rockstar/band AU for Redacted characters... but it's my turn now 4.0k words

—

Lovely

The house lights dimmed. From our spots right up against the stage, Tank passed me a pair of earplugs. I twisted them up and put them in my ears. Tank did the same.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and assorted honorable persons, please welcome to our stage here tonight:

“The House of Solaire!” the announcer’s voice boomed over the excessive amount of loudspeakers and the crowd went absolutely wild.

With the earplugs in, everything was tolerably loud, but not earsplittingly so.

The band ran out onto the stage. Vincent at the front, as always. And the screaming and cheering rose to an absolute breaking point. I was more grateful than ever for my earplugs. I cheered and whooped along with everyone else.

Vincent took his place at the front center of the stage. Lead vocalist. Keyboard. Front man.

Tank shouted beside me as Sam followed, going to the back center and carefully sitting on his stool behind his drum set with the band logo on the large bass drum. He picked up his drumsticks and twirled one in the fingers of each hand.

Alexis jogged out next to only slightly-less uproarious applause. She went the farthest across the stage and scooped up her electric guitar, slinging its leather strap with an embroidered red rose over her head and under one arm. She hit a test power chord and everyone in the crowd went nuts.

Frederick slipped out after her, walking instead of running or jogging. The crowd was still going wild even though he wasn’t looking them in the eye. His partner stood on Tank’s other side, earplugs in and staring at him intently, but not screaming or anything. He carefully slid his bass guitar strap on and took up his position.

Vincent yanked his microphone off its stand. Solid rose-gold. “Gooooood evening Dahliaaaaa!” He beamed broadly while the screaming got even higher pitched. “We are The House of Solaire and we thank you for such a big—warm—welcooome!”

More screaming.

Tank nudged me with their elbow. “Your man knows how to put on a show!” Their shout was nearly drowned out but I could see most of it on their lips. We were used to this by now.

I smiled wide and nodded.

Vincent snapped his fingers to a rhythm while looking over his shoulder at Sam. Sam clacked his drumsticks together, matching it.

He hit his drums, getting started. Alexis struck her first chord.

The crowd lost it with recognition. You Mentioned a Blackout was the single that really put them on the map, as it were, and was still one of their most popular songs ever.

Vincent had written it not long before we officially got together, but he wrote it because of me. He’d written it while I was unconscious and asked sheepishly if he could play it for me when I woke up. The sheet music was covered in the frenzied work of inspiration desperately trying not to be lost—and a few water stains of tears. No matter how many times I told him it wasn’t his fault, he never listened.

He held eye contact with me the entire time he swapped between working the crowd and playing the keyboard. Smiling and giving me a dramatic wink.

"I told you once and I meant it— "If you touch what's mine again— "You won't have time to regret it—"

The crowd sang along to the chorus, bouncing to the beat Sam was hammering out. Tank, Frederick's partner, and myself included.

Vincent strode out from the main stage and onto the jetty that jutted into the crowd, high-fiving reaching fans as he passed them, bent low and still singing.

On his strut back to the main stage, he paused during Alexis' solo long enough to fall to his knees, reach down for me, pull me up enough to plant a kiss on my face—to a swell of screaming cheers—and get back to the main stage.

When the song came to a nearly-explosive close, the crowd cheered.

Vincent whipped his glossy blue-black curls off his forehead, beaming. "Man, it is good to be home!" he said into his mic. Everyone whooped. "How's everybody doin' tonight?" More raucous cheering. Vincent raked a hand through his hair to get it out of his face. His white V-neck T-shirt was almost obscenely thin and would get replaced by a tank top at intermission. It was loose around his torso but clung tight across his shoulders.

Damn it looked good on him.

"I'd introduce that last song, but I think you folks already know it," he remarked. "Y'know. That song gets a good reaction everywhere else, but nowhere near as excited as it gets here in Dahlia." He chuckled as several excited whoops went over the crowd. "We've got a pretty special show for you all tonight. It's the last night of our Surge album tour and—" He paused while the crowd screamed. "—and we've got some very special guests tonight. But before we get into that, how about Fangs After Dark?"

The crowd lost their minds.

Sam clacked his drumsticks together again, looking at Frederick, before hitting the bass drum with his pedal. Vincent pounded his long, slender fingers into the keys of his keyboard.

Several songs came and went. The three of us knew them all by heart. We heard them all the time. So did the crowd, apparently. A local band making it big on the rock-and-roll scene was certainly something to celebrate in a college town like Dahlia.

Toward the intermission, Vincent picked up a little hand-towel from his keyboard stand and wiped the sweat off his forehead and neck. "Alright, alright, alright!" he said into his microphone. "Before we do our last song before the break, how 'bout a little intro for the band that needs—no—introduction?"

Screaming again.

Vincent chuckled. "House of Solaire. A little diddy, if you will."

Sam started gently tapping out a beat on his bass and snare drum, adding little cymbal flourishes. Alexis and Frederick kept rhythm on their instruments, Alexis improvising a melody.

"Over here on bass guitar, we have Frederick Collins! Give it up for Freddie!" Vincent announced.

Cheering went up across the stadium.

"And back in the back doin' his thing, we've got the best damn drummer in the world—Sam Collins!"

The audience went absolutely nuts. Sam actually smiled. Tank put their fingers in their mouth and let off several earsplitting whistles. Sam glanced at them and rolled his eyes affectionately, but we were close enough for me to catch his wink, so Tank definitely did too.

"And on my left we have my big sister. The most talented electric guitarist in Dahlia—no, in all of California itself—Alexis Solaire!"

The reaction wasn't quite as loud as Sam's reception, but Sam had always been one of the fanbase's favorite band members. Tank knew it too, and tended to be a little defensive of him.

Vincent let the screaming die down. "And last but not least, we have myself on lead vocals and the keys. My name is Vincent Solaire and I am proud to present The House of Solaire and our new album Surge to y'all tonight!" Even with all the loudspeakers, the end of his sentence was barely audible over the absolute bedlam of noise that erupted from the audience.

Vincent smiled. "Before we go to intermission, I give you a song I wrote for the love of my life." He glanced down at me and grinned. "Everybody give it up for Electric Soul!"

Another popular one that they'd released about a year ago.

The crowd went wild.

—

When the band came back on stage after the intermission, T-shirts and flannels had been exchanged for tank tops. They'd cleaned up and dried some of the sweat off a bit. The audience cheered.

Vincent didn't say anything to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Just looked back at Sam and smiled.

Sam clacked his rhythm signal and Alexis hit a power chord right in beat. A song Sam had written for Tank. Vincent still sang and led it but the lyrics had been a bit of a love letter. A very rock-and-roll love letter. Which I thought suited the two of them perfectly.

"Hold me tight and kiss me— "Before we damn near bleed out— "Darlin', don't you dare miss me— "I love you too much to see you pout—"

I watched Sam keep his gaze steadily on Tank the whole song. He always did when they performed this song and Tank was in the audience.

When the song ended, Vincent clapped along with everyone. "That, uh, that one was Before We Bleed," he said. He let the cheering swell and die down. He had a good instinct for it and always seemed smooth, not awkward while waiting for the crowd to calm. "So. Who here are fans of Milo and the Wolves?"

A fair portion of cheers rose over the crowd. Not as loud as the rest of the night had been, but still loud, even through the earplugs.

Vincent nodded, pacing back and forth across the main stage. "Oh good. I'd hoped so. Very good friends of ours. Yup. Very good friends." He smirked. The jumbotron behind us caught it, and so did the screens on either side of the stage. "We have one of their former members here tonight. And they're gonna do a song with us," he continued.

More cheers.

Tank was unbuttoning the flannel they'd stolen from Sam.

"You didn't tell me!" I shouted.

They gave me a cheeky wink.

"Everybody give it up for Tankerrrrr!" Vincent called into his mic.

Tank shoved the flannel into my hands and leapt up onto the stage with a single bound in just their tank top, skinny jeans, and combat boots. They gave Vincent a side-arm hug as they passed him, ran off stage, and came back a single second later carrying their guitar, extended above their head in victory while the crowd cheered.

They slung the guitar strap on, took up a mark right next to Vincent, and flicked a guitar pick into their fingers from seemingly nowhere—but I knew it came from a special little pocket in the thick leather cuff bracelet they wore on their left wrist. They twiddled a knob on their guitar. One I knew meant they were turning up the gain for the real hard rock sound, compared to the more alternative style of The House of Solaire.

Not even waiting for Sam to count them off or Vincent to introduce what song they were doing, Tank slammed into an intro.

Frederick's partner and I screamed in support for our friend while the crowd joined in with us.

The song Tank played was a Milo and the Wolves song that Tank had written years ago called Tougher Than You, and their original band had been more than happy to give The House of Solaire permission to play a cover for a concert.

Vincent's voice was fundamentally much different from Milo's—the lead vocalist, obviously—but Vincent delivered a sincere cover that showed he'd put work into nailing the spirit of the song.

"If you hit me down, I'll hit you too— "Try to put me down— "But I don't lose— "Baby, don't you know— "I'm tougher than you!"

Tank sang the harmony with Vincent into the black mic on a stand that had been placed there over intermission, lifting their strumming hand off their guitar for just a moment to grab at the mic and hold it close to their mouth, letting their rich, sultry voice fill the loudspeakers.

I craned my neck to see Sam past his drum set.

Gazing, as I expected, with absolute, utter desire at Tank. Probably only keeping the rhythm on muscle memory alone. The tattoos covering both his arms shone with sweat.

I snickered, the sound completely drowned out by the stadium. Sam was entirely taken with Tank and he deserved it. I always thought they were cute together.

Tank struck back against their strings hard, backing a step away from the mic so when they bent in half in a headbang as they resumed their solo, they wouldn't smack their head on it. The crowd was jumping along hard, too.

When they ended, they gave Vincent a side-arm hug, ran their guitar off-stage, and gave Sam a long, dramatic kiss before rushing back toward me and leaping off the stage. Sam's ears were bright red as I handed Tank back the flannel and they put it back on. I threw my arms around them. "That was amazing!" I shouted.

They smiled. "Thanks," they said loudly. "Been a long time since I played in front of a crowd this big! Felt good! Felt... normal."

"Everybody give it up for Tanker!" Vincent called again.

The crowd cheered.

—

Darlin'

The stadium was finally cleared. The house lights had come on a long time ago and the stadium staff was cleaning up. Mopping up sticky, spilled soda and alcohol from the concrete floor, sweeping popcorn and discarded wrappers.

Vincent had taken his keyboard into his dressing room. I heard him singing Faithfully by Journey to his partner as I walked past. "O-oh you stand... byyy me—I'm forever yooouuurs—faithfully..."

Sap.

Just off-stage, my electric guitar was sitting up on a stand, its gig bag case haphazardly discarded not far away. I scooped up the gig bag and sat cross-legged in front of the guitar. "Hey beautiful," I said softly to it, digging into the gig bag's front pocket for an old cloth with some polisher stains on it. I pulled the guitar off the stand and into my lap, wiping at its amber-gold body and polished wooden head, including the tuning pegs. Giving it a little bit of a shine and clean-up.

"You take better care-a that thing than you do yourself, darlin'," a voice remarked. With a familiar Southern drawl.

I smiled and looked up.

Sam stood there, leaning slightly on a pair of enormous stacked amps, a set of drumsticks poking out of his back pocket, arms folded over his chest. In the light from the house and the regular lights of the stage, the tattoos all down both of his arms glistened just slightly where his tank top left them exposed. His hair was still a little disheveled from the performance.

It was a very hot look on him.

"People always tell us to take better care of our babies than we do ourselves, right?" I asked, finishing the last bit of wiping up and gently tucking my guitar into the gig bag, zipping it up.

A member of the tech crew that had been moving equipment backstage approached, holding her hands out for the guitar bag. I hesitated for just a moment before passing it over. I trusted The House of Solaire's usual crew. I was just protective of my guitar.

The tech shuffled off with it.

I spun to face Sam again. "So. Last night of tour. How's it feel to be done and free for the next couple months?"

Sam shrugged. "Ready to take some time to relax—but you know me. I'll get restless fast."

I approached him and hooked my fingers around the belt loops of his jeans, pulling him close to me. "I can help with that," I whispered, leaning close to his ear.

He chuckled low in his throat. "Well, I look forward to that," he said, voice low and soft, turning his head to kiss behind my ear. Goosebumps rose all the way down my spine. I shuddered a little bit. His hands wrapped around me and he held me close. I held onto him too.

Vincent still singing Journey to his partner was barely audible over the sounds of the stage and house crews packing and cleaning.

Sam rested his chin on my shoulder and looked around. "How'd you ever give this life up, darlin'?" he asked. "I don't think I can."

I smiled and sighed out my nose. "I needed a break, at least. After the break-up and Nomadic's PR people doing their damnedest to throw me under the bus and try to ruin my image... stepping off the stage was the easiest choice I'd made in a long time. David, Milo, and Ash all understood, and Ash had been wanting to try to take up lead guitar for a while anyway. So after they found Christian to take up bass guitar, Iii... left."

"Ever think you'll rejoin?"

I snorted. "I'd love to, on one hand. On the other... it'd mean even less time with you. Being back on tour at different times... or even the same time... I wouldn't be able to take a weekend and fly to wherever you're playing to see you."

Sam massaged his fingers into my hips. "Guess you have a point," he said.

I hummed, letting go of his hips to run my hands up his arms, tracing the lines of his tattoos as I passed them. "You know, I swore off dating rockstars after things with Quinn fell apart," I remarked.

Sam kissed my neck. "What changed?"

I sucked in a shuddering breath. "I met you," I replied.

He smiled against my skin. "That a good thing?"

I snickered. "A very good thing, smart mouth."

"Mm... then why don't you do somethin' about this smart mouth of mine, darlin'?"

I kissed his neck, feeling the way he relaxed under the contact. "Oh I plan to," I replied.

—

Lovely

"Y'know, it's kinda funny to me," I began, watching Vincent lean over the counter of the vanity station in the dressing room.

"What is?"

"You take off all those piercings and put on a nerdy T-shirt and normal jeans and no one recognizes you out in public," I said.

Vincent removed the earring from the helix of his left ear. The only one he ever left in between shows was the industrial on his right. He spun around to face me, leaning back against the counter. "That's part of cultivating a public persona. People expect the tight, plain T-shirt with the V-neck and the black skinny jeans and big boots. The dozen piercings. The rockstar eyeliner. No one recognizes... just some guy in a T-shirt with I Am Groot plastered across the chest. Put me in a grocery store and I'm just a taller-than-average nerd. No rockstar to be seen."

I scoffed. "No. You're not just some guy. You'd still be waaay hotter than everyone else in that grocery store."

Vincent laughed and held his arms out for me. I hugged him. "I think you're a little biased, lovely," he whispered.

"Oh definitely," I said.

His hands slipped under my shirt. And hesitated, as always, over the scar across my back.

He wrote You Mentioned a Blackout after a former lighting tech of the band's had been making jokes about The House of Solaire's lighting rig being enough to cause power outages in the smaller cities they played in. That lighting tech—Adam—had been making more of those jokes while Vincent was showing me around a venue before we were officially together. Just flirting. Adam had, apparently, been watching me intently while working. Tried to flirt with me after. When I turned him down, he had "accidentally" dropped a small light fixture he'd been setting up over the stage. It glanced off my shoulder on its way down and knocked me forward. It had already been attached to live wiring and the electrocution and strike knocked me out.

Needless to say Adam got fired after the incident. But the scar of the electricity and the light fixture remained—and Vincent was always hesitant to touch them. He'd been wracked with guilt when I woke up in the hospital. Made it his personal mission to take care of me while I recovered. Put a tour on hold before it even really started—their tours always started and ended in Dahlia—to make sure I got better.

And along the way, our feelings deepened and we fell properly in love. We'd been together ever since.

I knew Vincent still felt guilty about the "accident" but I tried not to let him dwell on it much. Including pushing him past his hesitance to touch the scar it left behind, almost three years later.

I kissed him. "Excited for the after party tomorrow?"

"I will be if I get enough sleep," he replied. "I love touring but, God, it leaves me exhausted."

"I know, baby. But you get a couple months off now. To rest and relax and recharge. Then you can get started on your new album."

He snorted. "Lovely, you know I wrote nine songs while on this last tour, right?"

"Wait, really?"

"Hours upon hours on a bus between cities? Yeah. Plenty of time."

"What'd you write?"

"Mostly yearning for you. A few love letters to the places we visited. None of them are at a stage that they actually fit our usual style but I just... I don't know. I can't not write new songs. Taking a couple months off just means I'll keep writing more songs. Alexis and Sam probably will too. Just not as many as me. But it'll be a passion project at that point. Then maybe later get to be an album."

"You're adorable," I said.

Vincent smiled. "I'll play them all for your while we're home."

"You'd better." I pressed another kiss to his mouth.

He deepened it immediately. "Oh God, I missed you baby," he whispered. "Doesn't matter how many weekend shows you flew out to see. I miss just being with you all the time."

"Me too."

—

Darlin'

I really had to hand it to Sam on his foresight. The stool of his drum set was sturdy and steady. Able to bear the weight of two people.

The crew usually saved the stage itself for last to clear, so we had plenty of time to sit on his drum stool—me straddling his lap—and make out. His hands, warm and callused, were just barely under the hem of my shirt on my bare skin. We were passionate, sure, but not exhibitionists. And the house staff was still cleaning the stadium seating area. We were mostly blocked from sight by the drum set, but better not to go too hard while there were still eyes on us.

Still, he was warm beneath me and his hands on me were heaven. I ran my hands down his back and slowly extracted his drumsticks from his back pocket. The muscles in his back relaxed more immediately.

"How's this for doing something about your smart mouth?" I whispered.

He chuckled. "Ohhh... I think it's just right, darlin'." He kissed me harder. "So. Next tour, gonna play with us at more concerts?"

"Mmm... maybe. Vincent and William haven't officially offered yet." I ran my hands over his hair. "But if you're just asking me to go on your tour with you... I can probably arrange that."

Sam dug his fingers into the skin on either side of my spine. "We've got a while before that happens. But I'd love it if you could join us. Hell, maybe Vincent and Fred can bring their partners too. Maybe it would make the band less sick-a each other by the time we're done."

I snickered. "Maybe," I agreed. I kissed him deeply again. "We'll see, cowboy." I pressed more kisses to his cheeks and forehead. "Now kiss me like you mean it and let's celebrate the end of this tour, yeah?"

"Hell yeah, darlin'." He rocked against me and met me in a kiss that I returned enthusiastically. I threaded my fingers into his hair and tugged on it, making him moan into my mouth while I stuck my tongue in his. His body was so much more relaxed when we were like this. Loose, wild, carefree.

I loved every second of it.

And, judging by how he was moving, he did too.

—

Tag list: @zozo-01 @shellssstuff @thegoldenlittlerose @darlin-collins

#Redacted ASMR #fic #Redacted Vincent #Redacted Lovely #Redacted Sam #Redacted Darlin'#Redacted Alexis #Starlit Fic #Redacted Audio #I don't see Sam with tattoos or Vincent with excessive piercings normally #but c'mon #they're rockstars here

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