#even on polish folk singers

[jessieren]

Am I using the excuse of Moustache Monday to gratuitously post clips* of notebook and tongue fidgets?

Yes, yes I am..

Any complaints?

*Posted the clip because the gif just wasn’t doing it sufficient justice

#shaun evans #itv endeavour #endeavour morse #moustache monday #morsetache mondays #possibly with some gratuitous fidgets #notebook fidget #mini tongue fidget #any complaints about that #put them in writing #to ‘why would you complain about fidgets’ #via I’m not going to stop posting them anyway #so it’s really not worth complaining #just enjoy the Morsetache in all its glory #with the additional bonus fidget hotness #pylon is a very pretty episode #and evans is always pretty #even with the tache #which I am now very fond of #particularly the softstache #although I’m quite a fan of snark stache too #in fact any stache #well on evans #not actually any stache #not really a fan of moustaches overall #even on polish folk singers #unless evans is playing them #oh god my tags are writing themselves again #hot damn evans

[clusterbuck]

How about number 20 for Buck/Eddie, because clumsily flirting seems very much in their wheelhouse?

ohhh boy is it ever

every guitar-string scar on your hand

different first meeting | bar singer buck | 1.4k, T | ao3 | send me a blossoming romance prompt 🌸

Eddie stares down at the text on his phone screen.

Christopher is in good hands, I promise. Don’t you dare try to come home before 9pm. I know you don’t think so, but you need a break. 

He’s regretting letting his coworkers into his life right about now. He doesn’t know how to tell Hen that nothing about a night sitting alone in a bar sounds relaxing to him, but her heart is in the right place. The least he can do is make an effort.

The bar he’d picked is on the quieter side, some ways off the beaten path. Not the kind of place tourists go to for the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, but it’s nice enough. He can sit here for a few hours, nurse a couple of beers until it’s late enough that Hen will let him back into his own house.

It’ll be fine.

Except—

Just then, a man walks out of some back room carrying a guitar and a microphone stand, and Eddie sighs. 

Live music doesn’t exactly fit the quiet night he’d hoped for. 

Can I get an exemption if there’s a guy about to start playing guitar in the bar? he texts.

Hen sends back an eye-rolling emoji. Music is a good thing. Give him a chance. You might even enjoy it.

Yeah, and pigs might fly, Eddie thinks, but doesn’t text back. Hen is doing a nice thing, he reminds himself. She’s doing a nice thing for him, and the fact that she doesn’t know him very well doesn’t take away from that. 

He hasn’t been at the 118 for very long, but from his first shift he could tell they’re family, the kind of team that takes care of their own. Still, they never pried, just waited for him to open up to them on their own terms, and Eddie was surprised when he realised how much he wanted to. It’s been a while since he’s had real friends.

He’s grateful for all of them, but especially Hen—and not just because Hen has a wife, and every time Eddie’s met Karen he’s remembered that one of the things he promised himself when he left Texas was that he’d let himself be his full self.

He hasn’t come out to Hen or anything, partially because he doesn’t know what he would say, exactly. I’ve never so much as kissed another man but I was fifteen when Brokeback Mountain came out and it woke something in me that never settled down since and I kind of want to know where it leads seems a little too wordy. 

But sometimes, Hen looks at him and Eddie thinks maybe she knows anyway. Or suspects, at least.

The man with the guitar strums a chord. Eddie expects the bar patrons to quiet down and listen, but the man’s would-be audience barely even bats an eye. Something flickers across the man’s face, but it’s gone before Eddie can figure out what it is, replaced by a smile almost as bright as it is empty.

“Good evening, folks,” the man says into the microphone, smiling that polished smile. “My name is Buck, and I’m going to be with you for the next couple of hours. Let’s have some fun!” 

No one in the audience reacts.

Buck launches into a cover of a song Eddie doesn’t recognise. He can tell that Buck is good, though—he has a nice voice, and his fingers are sure as they find the chords against the neck of the guitar.

Eddie has a brief vision of Buck’s nimble fingers pressing into his skin, and blinks against the heat rising on the back of his neck. Only now that this first observation has crept in, Eddie notices more: the slight curl of Buck’s hair at his temples, like he’d tried to tame it and failed. The birthmark framing his left eye, and the tattoos running along his arms. The black t-shirt he’s wearing, and the way his biceps threaten to burst out of the sleeves when he strums the guitar.

The blush creeps up his neck and across his cheeks, and Eddie looks away, taking a deep breath.

When he turns back, Buck is looking right at him. He grins, and Eddie’s never met this man before but he knows that this smile is the real deal. 

The song ends. Most of the audience barely reacts, but Eddie applauds, and gets a wink in return. His face, he’s pretty sure, must be bright red by now, and he takes his phone out just to have somewhere else to look.

Before he can think better of it, Eddie opens his text thread with Hen. Well, at least he’s hot, so there’s that. He turns his phone facedown as soon as he’s hit send, not quite believing he just did that, but picks it up again immediately when it vibrates.

Hen has sent an entire row of eyeball emojis, followed by Damn, Eddie, get it.

The phone vibrates in his hand, and she adds, If you want to get it, that is. I’ve got Christopher as long as you need. 

Eddie can’t help the grin that slips out, and glances up at Buck again. He’s moved on to something Eddie vaguely recognises, and he lights up when he notices Eddie looking. 

I might want to… move in the direction of it, he tells Hen. Then he adds, Besides, no one else here is paying attention to him. I feel bad.

Mhmm, Hen texts back. I’m sure you do. 

One chorus later, his phone vibrates again. Have fun, be safe, make good choices.

Eddie rolls his eyes and puts his phone back in his pocket, but he can’t help the giddy feeling rising like a bubble in his chest. 

Buck plays on. The audience continues to mostly ignore him, and as the night goes on, the crows begins to disperse. But Eddie stays rooted to his seat. Buck stops pretending to play for anyone but him, and slowly, he grows used to the weight of Buck’s eyes on him. By the time Buck plays his final chord, Eddie is more than certain he wants to replace it with his hands.

But Buck is packing up, and Eddie finds himself suddenly nervous. Maybe Buck was only looking at him because he was the only person in the audience who seemed to give a damn.

Or maybe Buck was looking at him, but he’s looking for something other than a thirty-something gay man with no real experience of what it means to be gay. Maybe Buck just wants someone to take into the back alley for fifteen minutes of fun. Eddie doesn’t know if he knows how to do that.

Then Buck glances over at him, and his smile is warm, inviting, almost shy. Eddie gathers every speck of courage he’s ever had and gets to his feet.

“Hi,” he says, when he reaches Buck. “You were really good.” He swallows. “Do you, um, do this often?” Then he blinks, and flushes so hot his face must most closely resemble a tomato. “I mean—I didn’t mean that like a line. Like hey, handsome, come here often? Or—I mean—it’s not not a line—I just didn’t mean to—”

Now, Eddie thinks, would be a great time for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

Buck cocks his head, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “What, so you don’t think I’m handsome?”

“No!” Eddie yelps, then his eyes go wide. “I mean—‘no’ as in—I do think—” he groans, runs a hand through his hair. “Christ, I’m fucking this up.”

Buck takes a small step closer, almost like he’s testing to see if Eddie will flinch back. He doesn’t.

“I think you’re doing just fine,” Buck says. “You even have an advantage over me.” 

“Yeah?” Eddie asks. “What’s that?” 

“You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Can’t exactly keep calling you Hot Stranger, can I?” 

Eddie’s breath catches in his throat, and it takes a couple of seconds for him to be able to splutter out his name.

Buck grins, delighted. “Well, Eddie,” he says. “Want to get out of here?” 

Half-hearted fears try to rear their heads—worries that Buck might expect more than Eddie is prepared to give—but they die down almost as soon as they pop up. They just met tonight, but there’s something about Buck that makes Eddie feel like he can trust him. Makes him feel safe. 

So he takes a breath and lets himself relax, lets his face split into a smile. “Yeah, Buck,” he says. “I’d love to.” 

#911fic #buddie fic #meadowlioness #ask emma #emma writes

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now (Orchestra Version)

+

"FEW contemporary voices have aged more shockingly than Joni Mitchell's. The craggy alto on "Both Sides Now," her intermittently magnificent new album of standards (including two of her best-loved original songs), is so changed from the sweetly yodeling folk soprano of her earliest albums that it hardly seems possible the two sounds could have come from the same body.

In refusing to fight or try to camouflage the ravages of time, Ms. Mitchell belongs to an interpretive school that includes Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra, whose vocal deterioration brought them greater emotional depth and realism. Studying a chronology of their records is like following a road map of their lives that takes you deep into the mountains over increasingly rugged terrain. The bumpier the road gets, the longer the view. In the opposite school are supremely polished technicians like Mel Tormé and Sarah Vaughan, whose voices remained distinctively beautiful (even as they darkened with age) until the ends of their lives.

Listening to Ms. Mitchell, who is 56 and has smoked heavily for decades, you can hear the toll of all those cigarettes in her shortened breath, husky timbre and inability to make fluent vocal leaps. At the same time, that very huskiness lends her torch singing the battered authenticity we expect of middle-aged jazz singers with their years of after-hours living and accompanying vices." New York Times, February 2000

+

Mitchell has said that "Both Sides, Now" was inspired by a passage in Henderson the Rain King, a 1959 novel by Saul Bellow.

I was reading ... Henderson the Rain King on a plane and early in the book Henderson ... is also up in a plane. He's on his way to Africa and he looks down and sees these clouds. I put down the book, looked out the window and saw clouds too, and I immediately started writing the song. I had no idea that the song would become as popular as it did.

#Youtube #Both Sides Now #Joni Mitchell #reading and writing #songs #song lyrics #songwriting #my favorites #singing #singers

[dear-indies]

Hi! Hope you're having a great day/night!

I need some help finding chinese women with resources between 20 and 30. They can also be mixed, as long as they are half chinese. Maybe actresses, but it's not a problem if they are singers or anything else.

Thank you so much for your help and time!

Phillipa Soo (1990) Chinese / English, Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish/Northern Irish.

Malese Jow (1991) Chinese / English, Scottish, Cherokee.

Jessica Henwick (1992) Chinese Singaporean / English.

Zhu Xu Dan / Bambi Zhu (1992) Chinese.

Dilraba Dilmurat (1992) Uyghur.

Amanda Zhou (1992) Chinese or Taiwanese.

Baifern Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul (1992) Thai of Chinese descent.

Zeng Keni / Jenny Zeng (1993) Chinese.

Chen Fang Tong (1993) Chinese.

Bai Lu (1994) Chinese.

Ju Jing Yi (1994) Chinese.

Pat Chayanit Chansangavej (1994) Thai Chinese - "My family is Chinese. My grandparents who speak Mandarin can't even speak Thai fluently," Pat says.

Liang Jie (1994) Chinese.

Yu Shu Xin / Esther Yu (1995) Chinese.

Wang Yi Fei (1995) Chinese.

Caroline Hu (1995) Chinese.

Fernanda Ly (1995) Chinese Vietnamese.

Wan Peng (1996) Chinese.

Leah Lewis (1996) Chinese.

Chelsea Zhang (1996) Chinese.

Bridget Gao Hollitt (1996) Chinese and White.

Havana Rose Liu (1997) Chinese / White - is pansexual.

Tian Xi Wei (1997) Chinese.

Thaddea Graham (1997) Chinese.

Guan Xiao Tong (1997) Manchu Chinese.

Zhao Lu Si (1998) Chinese.

Curley Gao (1998) Ughyur / Han Chinese.

Zhang Miao Yi (1998) Chinese.

Sun An Ke (1998) Chinese.

Brianne Tju (1998) Chinese / Indonesian.

Song Zu Er (1998) Chinese.

Cheng Xiao (1998) Chinese.

Song Yu Qi (1999) Chinese.

Landy Li (1999) Chinese.

Laufey (1999) Chinese / Icelandic.

Sun Zhen Ni (2000) Chinese.

Ningning (2002) Chinese.

Madison Hu (2002) Chinese.

also because Hongkonger and Taiwanese folks get no rep!

Stephanie Hsu (1990) Taiwanese.

Jen Van Epps (1990) African American / Taiwanese.

Kristina Tonteri-Young (1998) Hongkonger / Finnish.

Jessie Mei Li (1995) Hongkonger / English - is a gender non-conforming woman who uses she/they.

Snowbaby (1996) Taiwanese.

Lauren Tsai (1998) Taiwanese / Polish, Italian, English, German, Irish.

Chou Tzu Yu (1999) Taiwanese.

Yeh Shu Hua (2000) Taiwanese.

Piploy Kanyarat Ruangrung (2000) Thai of Taiwanese descent.

Here you go!

#fc help #rph #rpc #chinese fc #hongkonger fc #taiwanese fc

[kkoralina]

I have just discovered this channel - it's about ukrainian culture. They cover forced or coerced russification in Ukraine, even after collapse of Soviet Union. it's unheard of for me to impose your language and culture on another sovereign state, ilke russia did.

This episode is about pop music in Ukraine. Here is some of my thoughts:

--> Quotas work. Whenever somebody tell you: there is not enough talented black people or women writers or Ukrainian speaking singers, don't believe them.

--> I envy Ukrainian's or Baltic state's folk festivals as a tool of resistance against soviet regime. Folk music is all about power of the people, roots and identity. And singing in polyphony with flower crown on your head is definetly cooler than roman catholic mess for motherland (which was Polish tool of resistance).

--> Since Ukraine found its voice (again), I started to follow Ukrainian music. I love how Ukrainian artists mix tradition with modernity. My favorite band from Ukraine is Onuka. You should check them out.

--> I love the host! Is he someone famous in Ukraine?

--> Ukrainian '90s pop is so fun! I should add these artists to my playlist.

#ukraine #ukrainian pop culture #ukrainian music #russification #identity #roots #Youtube

[t4tclip]

I forgot to put it there earlier, but I did a little comprasion of a first polish South Park dub of "Damien" with the original one, I hope y'all gonna to like it!!

The text of the intro is quite different

The guy singing never refers to South Park by name and instead refers to it as just south

Singer: I'm going down the South Park gonna have myself a time - - >  Come brother to the South to have a nice time

Kyle and Stan: Humble folks without temtpation --> You'll be be welcome by lack of dairy

Cartman: Ample parking day or night people spouting howdy neighbor - - >  Come on boy and park where you want even if you were an alien (I know it's most likely a coincidence but I like the reference to aliens in first episode)

Kenny's lines are just gibberish, kinda sad bc of that because he sounds cute

Cartman calls Kevin Stoley Mark???

Name Damien changes to Damian 

Poofie pie is changed to butter buns or something like that, I wasn't able to hear Cartman well in that part

Pip's real name gets changed to Peter for some reason???

Pip's right-o get changed to alrighty (I love how he says it in the dub)

The boys straight up calls Damiens mum a bitch

Kyle calls Damien fucked up freak (it sounds better when it's actually in polish tho 🤌🤌popieprzony wykręt🤌🤌)

Chef calls Damien piece of damn devil and I actually like it a bit more than the og 

Not translation related: Polish voice actor of Satan actually speaks his lines in Latin and I thought it was cool

Father Maxi adds ,,hallelujah" after talking about how Jesus is gonna kick Satans ass and I don't know I thought it was nice 

Satan: Prepare to enter the house of pain -->  Prepare yourself for atmistique molestation

Stan: holy shit this man is huge - - > Oh damn dude what huge piece of shit

Satan: I have such delightful horrors to unleash upon thee - - > Your virgin blood will thicken inside your veins

Mr Mackey doesn't use ,,M'kay?" like at all

Mr Mackey tells Damien to be nice, open and assertive instead of being overly nice and passive, I personally don't like that change because it doesn't make much sense in the context of episode

Mr Mackey calls Pip french for some reason

Cartman calls Damien a little whore

Fartboy get changed to piard which I guess can be translated to fiart

Pip tells that he hopes that other kids would stop pick on him since kids starts to pick on Damien 

Let's begin to rumble gets changed to lets begin the scuffle (again it sounds better in polish, rozpierducha my beloved)

 Not translation related but Pip sounds like genuinely psysically hurt after Damien blows him off and I'm just :[[[

 Jesus calls God ,,Stary" which is like slangy, non cultural way of saying father 

Jezus; I'm all forsook - - > It's so bad

Kyle: You bastards!! - - > You motherfuckers!!

Liane proposes Cartman more pie instead of cake

It was pretty fun to do and I'm maybe gonna do some more of these

#south park #south park pip #pip pirrup #south park damien #damien thorn

[meropegaaunt]

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

Chapter 00 / Broadway Baby

Love Astor was born in 1951 and raised in New York, New York. The daughter of Robert 'Robbie' Astor, the business mogul, and June Koch, the film star. As a child, Love made a name for herself on Broadway, but as a teenager, she delved into the world of rock 'n' roll.

LILIAN WILLIAMS (former acting coach, the Williams School of Musical Theatre): Oh, yeah, I remember Love Astor.

We met for the first time in ‘55, probably. ‘56 at the latest. Into the school came her mother, June (Koch), dressed to the nines. Think Jackie Kennedy. There’s no way that woman wasn’t going for the First Lady look. Honestly, you might have mistaken her for a politician’s wife rather than an actress. At her side was this beautiful little girl. “This is my daughter, Love,” June said, nodding to her look alike. Love, like her mother, had this long, thick black hair that fell all the way down her back. Her eyes were this stunning sea green color. To this day, they still remind me of the beach. And her cheekbones were sharp, so sharp the rich pay to have theirs come even remotely close.

“What can I do for you, June?” I asked, expecting her to request more lessons for herself, but no. Imagine my surprise when she said, “Love here has the potential to be a great singer, but she needs to be trained. You could help refine her voice, could help turn her potential into skill.”

It came as a surprise, because Love was so young at that point, no older than four. Most children start theatre training between six and eight, but June wanted her children to be like her and Robbie: extraordinary. Usually, I’d refuse to train a child that young, but then June had Love sing one of Judy Garland’s songs. “Over the Rainbow,” if memory serves, and her delivery was smooth, polished. I thought, This kid is going to be somebody when she’s older, and I . . . I want to play a part in making her somebody.

So we started training, and by the mid ‘60s, she was getting casted on Broadway. Playing a part in Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof, Dames at Sea, and Cabaret. A few of the parts were written for older women, but the ‘60s were a different time. No one batted an eye at a teenage girl being cast as a woman. And Love, she put everything she had into each and every part, earning her the love and attention of many. Hell, not even critics had anything bad to say about her . . . until her brother died.

─── ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ───

On December 1, 1969, the U.S. Selective Service System conducted a lottery to determine the draft order for 1970. Stephen Astro, born March 14, 1949, was assigned lottery number 12.

LOVE ASTOR (singer, Daisy Jones & The Six): For the first eighteen years of my life, I lived at the whims of my mother. “Sing, Love. Eat better. Try harder at school,” she commanded, and I would without hesitation or reserve, because I had been made into a sponge, made to take in whatever orders she wanted. Then, my brother, my dearest friend in the whole world, got drafted, and it changed things. Stephen promised that he would return from Vietnam, that he’d be back before we even realized he was gone, but that was a lie. For eight months, there was radio silence, then word came that he died in Laos.

There was no body, so we buried an empty casket. And that . . . that broke me. I couldn’t bear the thought of him forever being lost, so I looked for something to quiet my mind, to numb the pain. That led me not only to the rock scene but to everything that came with it — drugs, alcohol, sex, and everything in between.

DALE WRIGHT (former bouncer, The Blue Room): I worked at The Blue Room from 1969 to 1974. It was a real sketchy club, bringing in folks from the seediest pockets of the boroughs, but goddamn was there good music. It (the music) drew in tons of better-off folks whose names I don’t remember, but I remember Love Astor. The first time I saw her, I was kicking out a junkie and in walks this bright-eyed, super skinny girl. She had the longest hair I’ve ever seen, and it was tied into some odd braid about her head. Her smile too . . . her smile was something else. It made you feel like you were the only person in the world. She was with some guy who was probably three times her age. He looked at her like she’d hung the moon, but she shed him by the end of the night and left on the arm of a roadie.

After that first time, she started coming in more and more. Four or five times a week, and each time, she’s make it a habit to talk to me and the rest of the club staff, to get to know us. Love was a real people person, you see. She was always happy, and wanted those around her to be happy, too. There was an innocence to her, a naïveté, which was why I made sure to keep an eye out for her. God knows no one else there was.

─── ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ───

Word Count: 893 words

© Meropegaaunt 2023

#daisy jones and the six #daisy jones headers #billy dunne #camila dunne #graham dunne #karen sirko #sam claflin #blanca soler #simone jackson #suki waterhouse #warren rhodes #eddie roundtree #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #meropegaaunt: something beautiful

[ravenvsfox]

Rockband AU Chapter 13

You read that right folks! she's back with lucky 13!! after a short 2 year sojourn :) If any of you still care about this story I am shocked and amazed and GRATEFUL. I truly deeply hope you enjoy this penultimate chapter, ilysm

__________

Beneath the green glare of a neon lotus flower, and a wall-length poster of a sailor tied in bondage knots, Neil reclines in crunchy sterile sheets and polished leather. The artist has his hot latex hands bracketing his work, and his head ducked close to the whirring tattoo gun. Neil focuses on the neat crop of lines as they appear, breathing medicinal tang and warm cologne.

Despite the still-looming Moriyama threat, it finally seems worth it to undergo this final initiation ceremony. He doesn’t feel quite so much like he’s letting the people he cares about stake their claim on a dead man. 

He’s been collecting all kinds of physical keepsakes lately: sharpie reminders on the palm of his hand, calluses from late-night bass lessons, pinks and purples from the graze of Andrew’s teeth, and now the promise of ink that will last long enough to fade in the sun. 

Neil finds himself in a never-ending charitable mood since his friends brought him home, every conversation or gesture pre-weighed on a scale of immoveable gratitude. It’s why he couldn’t bring himself to turn Nicky down when he promised he ‘knew a guy,’ and dragged Neil to a hole-in-the-wall tattoo shop. 

It’s cool and bright inside, full of modern-looking black leather and silver light fixtures, hanging plants and polaroid collages of old clients. Nicky does most of the talking for them both, and the cheerful cadence of his laughter, shuffling of sketches, and testing buzz of the needle are all strangely comforting. 

He lets himself be gathered onto the table and rolled up at the sleeves, shaved and wiped down and murmured to. He kind of likes the whole ritual of it, if not the prolonged closeness. The pain is fine and controlled—more like stitching a wound than creating one.

“It looks so goddamn cool,” Nicky gushes, craning to see the shading bleed into the outlines. “Andrew’s gonna lose his marbles.”

“I like it,” Neil says, watching the blood and ink be wiped gently away with a clean paper towel.

“Andrew is the boyfriend?” the artist asks.

Neil shrugs, and the artist has to tighten his rubber grip to keep things even. 

Nicky rolls his eyes. “That’s a yes.” 

“Ahh, one of those relationships,” he guesses. 

Neil frowns. “No.” He’s not even sure what he’s disagreeing with exactly, but he doesn’t like the implication. This stranger has picked up the dangling ends of Neil’s silence and Nicky’s oversharing and knit a warped picture out of them. Neil and Andrew are something different to each other every time they’re together, there’s no way he could have pigeonholed them. “But I think he’ll probably hate that he wasn’t told.”

“Don’t say that,” Nicky groans. “Even his slipped kneecap didn’t save me from his wrath. And I don’t have the pain tolerance that you do.”

“No shit,” the artist says. “He’s sitting like a rock.”

“I’ve had some practice,” Neil says.

The artist’s eyes bounce down to Neil’s armbands and up again. “Oh yeah?” He swipes his thumb over a patch of raw skin thoughtfully, but doesn’t press for details. “Well, she’s almost done, anyway.”

“Finally,” Nicky yawns. “Rehearsal started half an hour ago.”

“Oh—I wouldn't recommend doing anything too strenuous today. I usually prescribe my clients a good old-fashioned nap.”

Neil opens his mouth to argue, but Nicky jostles his free shoulder. “You don’t have to worry, man. He’s our lead singer, so he basically sits there and looks pretty.”

“I doubt that,” he says, twitching a smile. The needle startles a muscle spasm out of Neil when it touches down on the inside of his bicep. “So would I have heard any of your guys’ stuff?”

“Uhhh, If you haven’t, then you’re about to,” Nicky says, fumbling for his iPod.

“Nicky,” Neil warns. “You can’t spring this shit on people who can't leave.”

“A captive audience is the best kind,” Nicky says cheerfully.

“Play me something,” the artist says gamely.

“See, he asked me! Just be glad I’m not making you throw a live performance, Neil.”

“What would possibly make you think you have the ability to make me do that?”

Nicky rolls his eyes. “I guess I don’t have the same persuasive power that Andrew does, right?”

Neil doesn’t bother to reply. He closes his eyes and rolls his neck. Ink sinks its teeth into his arm, and then their new single walks in and pulls up a chair.

I named myself, at the end of the world

dug it out of the fire, before the edges could curl

sang in the mirror, made sure someone would listen

it took an apocalypse for me to be christened

I think I’m going to be a person now

nothing can be worse than how

it felt to be nameless

I was nameless

this pyre is the wildest thing that’s never hurt me

there aren’t any bodies here—you only cut down trees

well, I’ll cut the moon free, give each of you a crater

I’ll live in the seconds after the light, next to the generator

this thing we have is nameless

What we have is nameless

I made myself, at the end of the world

I took a hammer to the shell, and I fought for the pearl

put my shadow back on with a needle and thread

I’m growing up again, this time I’m not already dead

Someone saved me here, in the middle of the game

and I swear, the way you say my name—

It’s like you invented it

“Not what I expected,” the artist says, not unkindly. He maneuvers Neil’s arm gingerly off the table to wrap it. “I’m not usually a rock fan, but you’ve definitely got pipes.”

“We’re versatile,” Nicky says slyly.

Neil remembers writing that song in bed, in the days after, with only half his vision to guide him to the page. Andrew would sigh in his sleep, or the microwave would beep, or Aaron and Nicky would argue over a video game, and Neil would sit through wave after wave of gratitude.

He still feels that hysterical relief all the time, an undercurrent that catches up to him in the quiet moments.

Music didn't come back to him easily after Baltimore. One last robbery from his father, who didn’t quite manage to cut Neil’s tongue from his mouth, but always found new ways to keep him voiceless. Neil might’ve snapped and thrashed his way out of freezing water, sure, but getting up from his knees on ice that wants to break is hardly any easier.

In their first rehearsal back, in the yellow days of pre-summer, Neil had sat at the piano looking sorry for himself until Andrew poked a drumstick into his ribs.

“Play,” he’d said.

Neil had shaken his head until he realized Andrew was asking him to play the drums.

“I can’t,” he’d said, bewildered.

“Can’t hit something with a stick? I thought that was one of the few skills you might have.”

“It won’t be any good.”

“My expectations are low.”

And just like that, they swapped spots. 

Kevin had watched them with vague interest until Neil fulfilled his promise and sucked very badly—and then he’d taken an early lunch.

Andrew plonked on the same low note over and over again, watching him over the music stand, and Neil wailed on the kick-drum until his anxious pulse became a rhythm they could all deal with. 

It was more like therapy than music, until Nicky started shredding over top, mimicking Kevin’s over-blown I’m-an-artist-and-this-is-my-craft expression, tongue between his teeth. Neil had laughed gratefully, smashed on the cymbal, and then they’d gotten to work.

His damaged tendons throbbed constantly in those early days, the left side of his vision swam, and his consonants slipped and fell on his swollen tongue. But it was good, in a weird way, to focus on those little aches and pains, to see them slacken and fade over time.

Or—it was, but after Andrew came home bruised and crawling from the Moriyama estate, Neil’s healing took a sharp left turn. He had framed Andrew’s mottled purple kneecap with his hands, and realized that his terror from before—when he was stupid enough to misread Lola’s countdown as the next phase of Riko’s threat—was still sharp to the touch. 

And it had briefly grazed Andrew.

He knows Riko is still out there, resenting them. Neil is still defying his orders every moment that he stays where he is. And now Palmetto has badmouthed Riko to his own family, compromised Jean, and severely wounded his pride.

And now he knows intimately everything that can go wrong in a day. In a minute. Everything he builds can be unbuilt with the wave of a hand, that’s always been the risk for Neil. 

He can’t dwell on it for too long. Like, medically, he can’t. He’s had a handful of panic attacks thinking about Matt punching Riko, or Andrew cruising up to his Nest while he was away. His vision blurs, his scars hurt, and he truly thinks he’s going to die from fear. The same fear that his mother taught him to trust like a weapon.

Andrew can usually pull him back with a hand in his hair. His friends intercept every stressor they can, calling for breaks in rehearsals when he starts to go quiet, showing up at the house with edibles and board games, texting him in a group chat so he doesn’t feel obligated to respond, but he can read their messages and know they’re there.

He hasn’t gotten the hang of relying on people, and he often does it wrong. He can tell, from Nicky’s wobbly disappointment, the nervous exchange of glances between Foxes, the impenetrable look on Andrew’s face which turned out, after all this time, to be worry. But he won’t leave again. He’s branded now.

The muscles in his arm jump and shift when the artist has wrapped him shoulder to elbow in sanoderm. It’s surreal, the ever-shifting landscape of his skin, the stinging humidity under the plastic film—these scars have a story he actually likes.

“Welcome to the monsters, officially,” Nicky says, jostling his tender shoulder accidentally-on-purpose while they square up at the counter. “How does it feel?”

“Good,” Neil says, half-shrugging. He reconsiders, as they jingle out of the store and into a clear, blue day. “But also sort of the same.”

Nicky hums in agreement. “They suit you.”

He’s talking about tattooed monsters, but Neil thinks inevitably of the Monsters; Nicky, Kevin, Aaron, and Andrew, who took him in and gave him the teeth and claws to fight back.

“I think so too.”

______

They arrive back at the studio, and Nicky walks ahead of him importantly, clearly wanting to be the herald that breaks the news of Neil’s transformation. Neil follows the eager slant of his back as he lopes toward rehearsal. 

All eyes slide over to the pair of them, but as always, Andrew’s are the ones that stick. He’s rocking backwards on two chair legs, feet thrown up and crossed on the piano bench, and he catches sight of Neil’s hitched up sleeves instantly.

He rocks forward, and the front chair legs hit the floor with a clatter.

“Guess where we’ve been,” Nicky says.

“It’s a mystery,” Aaron replies sarcastically, and reaches over to flick Nicky right in the harpy.

“Congratulations,” Kevin says, pursing his lips in a way that Neil thinks is probably supposed to be a smile. “This was overdue."

Andrew stands, and pulls Neil to him by the wrist, and then the elbow. He frames the fresh ink between his thumbs. Distracted, Neil examines his bowed gold head, the swirl of his unkempt part, and is briefly overwhelmed by affection.

“Nicky thought I should go with the cyclops.”

“Nicky has famously poor taste.”

“Do you remember when you told me that Nathaniel was gone and that—nobody could touch me? And I said—”

“You said ‘not nobody,’” he interrupts. Then, with some impatience, “I’m not Odysseus.”

A flush of satisfaction, as there often is when he can catch Andrew in a conversation without any stakes.

“No,” he agrees, warmly. “I wouldn’t make the mistake of calling you nobody.”

Andrew acknowledges this with something akin to an eye-roll, but he brushes the pad of one curious finger down over rushing water and coiling hair, rendered in piercingly fresh, dark ink.

When he traces the slippery tail around the underside of Neil’s bicep, he shivers perilously closer. Amusement glints off of the stillness of Andrew’s face, a reflection in the dark.

“So you lure men to their deaths,” he murmurs, turning the tattoo this way and that, crinkling the plastic. “When you sing.” He doesn’t really say it like a question, or a joke.

There is a strange giddiness moving trippingly through Neil’s body, and he fights halfheartedly to keep it under control. “Occasionally.”

The siren is locked underwater, hand pressed firmly to the surface as if it’s something solid keeping her elbow locked and her buoyant body low in the seaweed. Her fanged mouth is open mid-croon, eyes closed in apparent ecstasy, and her long muscular tail is locked twice around the barbs of Neil’s scars, which have been transfigured into spiky sea treasure and coral.

She is androgynous, sleek. Her free hand is outstretched towards the place where somebody else’s squarish palm and reaching fingers have breached the surface of the pool.

It’s the slightest bit ambiguous, whether she’ll pull this anonymous sailor down, or let him hoist her ashore. She seems too lost in her song to look at her prey, yet he reaches dutifully down for her. Clutched between Andrew’s left and right, his yes and no, Neil’s siren is a maybe.

After an endless moment, Andrew turns his attention to Neil’s other rolled sleeve.

He makes a tutting noise, and reaches out to reveal Neil's other tattoo—a firebird huddled amongst scar kindling, with flames pouring off of its back and whipping into the night. Its expression is strikingly similar to the siren’s: tipped back, eyes closed, beak cracked with song.

Andrew cups the image of the phoenix, and its talons almost seem to prick his fingers.

“Because Neil was born,” Neil says, “in fire.”

“Twice,” Andrew says.

He tilts his head, thinking of his mother and father, the death of each other, consumed by flame. “Twice.”

“Not very monstrous,” Andrew says with finality, letting the sleeve drift back into place.

Neil shrugs. He reaches up as if to trace one of the gnarled necks of Andrew’s hydra, but leaves his hand floating just shy of his skin. “Neither are you.”

There’s an uncharacteristically generous beat of consideration, as if infected by Neil’s ambiguity, his lovely menagerie of maybes, and churning life cycles. It's the kind of moment where, if they were alone, Neil might put his mouth to Andrew's throat.

“So what do you think?” Nicky calls. He’s perched conspicuously at the drum kit, openly watching their conversation unfold.

“I think you should mind your business,” Andrew says.

“This is absolutely my business! I just spent like six hours making small talk with my ex, just for this moment. I even held Neil’s hand for you,” he says, mock-serious.

Andrew takes an irritated step towards his cousin, and Neil’s raised hand accidentally brushes his turning cheek. 

“Can we focus?” Kevin asks, before the room has a chance to explode into squabbling. “End of the month concert. Foxes collaboration. Security at the venue.” He counts each item out on his fingers, aping leadership in a way that would ordinarily make Neil want to get up and leave. But between his new tattoos and Andrew’s subtle, probing approval, his good mood is lacquer, and everything else slides off of him. 

“Don’t forget surviving the literal mafia,” Aaron says. “Is that on the agenda?”

“See number three,” Kevin grits. “Security at the venue.”

“Oh yeah, a mall cop should stop an armed psychopath with a grudge.”

“Aaron,” Kevin says. He seems to look for something leader-esque to say for a floundering moment, and settles on, “shut the fuck up. Play the guitar.”

“Pass,” Aaron says. Kevin starts to argue, but Aaron continues, “rehearsal ended twenty minutes ago, and I have a date.” He looks at Andrew, challenging him to bar him from leaving, but Andrew just stares back, chilly.

As Aaron packs up, slinging his soft guitar case around his shoulders, an awareness tickles in the back of Neil’s mind, like he’s groping for a memory that isn’t his. 

Some things are lost on him since the day he buried Nathaniel for good. Some friendships seemed to redouble behind his back; some bonds have started to chafe unexpectedly. Neil brushes whispers away like cobwebs whenever he enters a room. He isn’t really sure how to ask about the gaps in his knowledge without rehashing the ugly details of his disappearing act.

“Say hi to Katelyn for us,” Nicky drawls. “And for the love of Christ, invite her to our show. She keeps hinting.”

“That,” Aaron says, “is really none of your business.”

“It’s so hard to be related to you clowns sometimes. If I can’t gossip about your love lives, what do I have, huh?”

“I don’t know about what you have, but you should get a life.” Aaron rolls Nicky’s stool out of his path in a way that’s almost affectionate, and Nicky yelps with laughter.

Andrew catches the stool with his boot, and stares, with his foot cocked on the wheels, until Nicky slinks over to his own instrument.

Kevin looks uncertain, gripping his bass too tightly with taped, callused fingers.

“Can we run one?” Neil asks, stepping through an entire root system of wires towards the piano. “I can stay late.”

Kevin’s brow smoothes, and he offers Neil a true smile. Some things are lost on Neil, definitely, but some things are easy in a way they never were before. He can offer more now, more attention, more time, more honesty. He can see past the mind-bending shape of his own fear.

“From the top.”

______

Later, Matt is noodling on his guitar in the early evening sunshine, and Neil is stretched out in socked feet on the living room carpet, crossed hands resting warm on his own stomach. They’re at the Foxes dorm, and they’ve been jukebox singing through Matt’s entire repertoire like this, in between turned pages and idle conversation.

“Can I ask you something?”

Neil cranes his head back to look at Matt upside down. “Ask.”

“Do you think you’re the happiest you could be?” he asks. His left hand is drooping from a soundless bar chord.

Neil knocks back onto his elbows. “Is this about Andrew again?”

“No,” Matt says immediately. “No, I just. Wonder sometimes. About all of us, I guess. Is it better to be with the sort of people who will always get it, but who we might be more likely to lose? Would Renee be happier in I dunno—Carnegie hall or something? Would Nicky be happier in Germany full-time?”

“I doubt it,” Neil says. “This is the life they found. None of us would have fought for it if it wasn’t important.”

“Yeah,” Matt hesitates. “Of course. But Neil—can I say something kind of fucked up?”

Neil's brow furrows. “At your own risk.”

“What, you gonna pull a knife on me?” Matt jokes, nudging Neil’s closest armband.

“Nah,” Neil says. “but maybe I’ll decide to finally go find this perfect happy life that I’ve been missing out on.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Matt says fondly. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that before.”

“I was on my best behaviour before.”

“That was your best? Goading the mob was—what—you minding your p’s and q’s? Trying to beat Kevin’s ass was like dinner at nana’s to you?” He laughs helplessly, and Neil hits him, upside down, in the shin. Matt doesn’t flinch, but he does put his guitar down as a barrier between them. “God, you monster. Okay, anyway. Don’t you dare take this personally, because it’s about all of us, okay?”

Neil sobers instantly. “Okay.” 

Matt takes a deep breath. “So, when one of gets hurt, or goes missing—”

Neil’s expression wavers, like fire buffeted by sudden wind. Matt puts a hand briefly on the crown of Neil’s head, a brotherly gesture that has probably lived in him since birth.

“I have to see Dan take the hit. She’s tough for everyone, she always is, but I see—“ He searches for words, and his face looks too bright, like a sunny, humid sky before the storm seizes. “She pulls away from me, and I can tell that she’s trying to slow her fall, so it doesn’t hurt so bad, right. And I’m always like—why do we do this to each other?”

Neil eases the rest of the way down onto the carpet, eyes closing.

“And I do know why, man. Because we don’t have a choice. That’s what caring is. But still. I wonder if we could’ve spared each other some heartache.”

“I don’t know,” Neil whispers. “I think that might be my biggest fear.” Now that his old ones are burned to ash.

“Sorry,” Matt says, wincing. And then quieter, “it's mine too.”

“But I do know that the way you all fought for me, when it would have been so much easier to let me go—nobody else would’ve done that. And for me, there’s nothing, and nobody, that could mean more than that.” He shrugs, and opens his eyes to the ceiling. “I have to trust that it’s the same for everyone else.”

“It is,” Matt says fiercely. “For me, it is.”

“Okay. Okay, good.”

“But also,” Matt says, “anyone who knew you would’ve done that for you. You don’t just—let Neil Josten go.”

He tips back to look Matt squarely in the face again. “That hasn’t really been my experience.”

“It will be,” Matt says simply.

Neil sits up, back to the couch, his ribs jostling Matt’s leg. “So I guess, yeah. I’m the happiest I could be.”

“Until tomorrow,” Matt grins. “We’ve gotta keep one-upping our game.”

“Not if you keep instigating the most depressing imaginable conversations,” a voice says from the doorway. Allison, uncharacteristically casual in dark jeans, and behind her, Renee.

Neil can tell immediately from the look in her eyes that kind-faced Renee is absent, and there’s someone else driving.

“It’s called emotional maturity,” Matt says.

“Between you and Josten? I seriously doubt that,” Allison snarks.

Neil looks past them both, and says, testing—“Renee?” Her eyes clip in his direction, then down distractedly to the slender silver watch on her wrist.

“Sorry Neil, I don’t have time to talk.”

“What’s happening?”

Her lips purse, and she reaches for Allison. “Kengo Moriyama is dead. I just got the call.”

The hairs on the back of his neck curl up, and he starts to get to his feet. “From who?” And then, cold with realization. “Is Jean…”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Allison interrupts. “You’re not invited, public enemy number one. Just think helpful thoughts.” She strides past him, strung to Renee by the hand, chunky shoes clattering hard against the fake hardwood. 

Neil starts to make for the door behind them, and Allison shoots him a warning look. “Goodbye,” she says pointedly.

“I can help.”

“Neil,” Dan calls, appearing from the kitchen. “They’ve got it. They’re resourceful as hell. You know how Renee gets.”

He doesn’t, really, but he doesn’t point it out.

“It’s my fault that Jean’s at risk,” Neil says. The front door closes hard behind his friends, and he turns in a frustrated circle, towards the door, then towards Dan, and back again.

“Jean knew how risky it was to help us,” Matt says. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s Riko’s fault, and no one else’s,” Dan says firmly. 

“Well, maybe Kengo’s too, for dying,” Matt says.

“I know what Jean did for me, and what it cost. The least I could do is get him out.”

“Riko’s like a dog with a bone,” Dan says. “I’m not keen to offer up his other favourite chew-toy unless I want it destroyed. You wanna be destroyed?” 

“What do you think?” he retorts.

“Neil,” Dan says, holding his eye. “Do you want to do that to us again?”

He looks away, feeling crumpled and warm with remorse. “No.”

“Self-sacrifice is fucked, man. I’m tired of it.” Now that he’s stopped his frenetic two-step between logic and instinct, she crosses the hall from the kitchen and collects both of his hands in her own. “Jean was okay enough to call. And he knows he has allies here because of you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but you kind of bring people together.”

Neil shakes his head, blinking at Dan’s warm brown hands between his own scar-notched ones.

“You don’t give yourselves enough credit. Palmetto was a team before I got here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dan shrugs, “but we weren’t really a family.”

He breathes out hard, and remembers that first dinner at Abby’s, when everyone was fighting, sharing food, and prying shamelessly into each other’s business. “You felt like one to me.”

Dan ropes him close enough that their foreheads clunk together, the pair of them warmed by the sunset through the living room windows. “Neil,” Dan’s voice trips, then rights itself. “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

“I tried,” he reminds her. “None of you ever let me.”

“So maybe I’m a bit like a dog with a bone too.” She pulls away, and pats a little bit clumsy-on-purpose at his cheek. “You don’t ‘just let Neil Josten go,’ right?”

Matt winces. “You heard that?” 

“I hear everything. It’s my job.” She goes to Matt, and he reaches up automatically to hold her, his face crushed against her sternum. “Also, idiot,” she says, gentler, “I’m the happiest I could be.”

“Yeah?” Matt says, looking up, the point of his chin pressed to her stomach. His eyes slip closed when she leans down to kiss the top of his head, and they stay that way.

Dan cards a hand through his spiky hair, and looks over at Neil. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m not really one to settle.”

“Me neither,” Neil shrugs. “I play with the best.”

______

When Renee and Allison haven’t come home four hours later, and the three of them have made their way anxiously through a Tupperware of spaghetti leftovers and two six-packs, Neil walks himself home. He needs the time to worry, systematically, about worst case scenarios. 

Kengo dead, Riko unleashed, Tetsuji with Andrew’s name in a ledger somewhere, and Ichirou lording over it all. Something cataclysmic is happening to the Moriyama family, and it’s not going to happen without Neil in the blast zone, not anymore. 

It’s been a long time since he’s had both a clear head and a sense of self-preservation at the same time, and frankly, it’s tiring.

He lets himself into the house after midnight, armbands damp with late-season humidity, fresh tattoos stinging, and finds himself profoundly dizzy in the sudden cool darkness.

He takes two floating steps and catches himself against the doorframe.

“Hey,” a voice snaps. Unexpectedly, it’s Aaron’s unimpressed expression that melts into his line of vision. “Eat something. I can smell your low blood sugar from here.” He smacks him on the nearest arm, between his tattoo and drooping armband, and Neil puts a belated hand out to bat him away.

“I’m fine,” he says irritably.

“Didn’t ask,” Aaron replies, already halfway out of the room.

“What happened to you?” Andrew asks, replacing Aaron in the doorway from the living room out into the hall—a maneuver which does nothing to help Neil’s dizziness. He focuses on the collar of Andrew’s white shirt, which is bleeding grey where his recently washed hair wasn’t dried properly.

Neil shakes his head. “Kengo is dead. And Riko's taking his anger out on whoever’s nearby.”

“I know. Not what I asked.” 

He thinks backwards. “What happened to me?” Neil considers this like it’s a sort of abstract crossword clue. “I don’t know. I drank, a little.” He slouches to the chair closest to where Andrew’s standing, and sits heavily. “I’m not sure if I can keep choosing the things I want if they get other people killed in my place. I have to think about it. I really don’t know. Jean—I don’t—we don’t even know each other, really.”

Andrew watches him closely as he struggles to put his half-crisis into words. 

“I should feel guilty, but mostly I feel bitter. Why would he compromise himself like that? What was his game? I doubt I would have done the same, would you?”

“Told the truth to save your life?” Andrew’s eyes are darker than dark, and his answer is obvious. When Neil says nothing, floundering, Andrew sighs. “Come here.”

He rolls out of the beanbag chair, and just barely manages to get his feet under him again. He steps up sort of accidentally into Andrew’s personal space, but Andrew just steadies him without complaint.

“Your coping mechanisms are bad.”

“It would be more surprising if they weren’t, I think,” he says, feeling exhaustion start to sap the energy from his body, joint by joint.

Andrew’s eyes roll in the dark, a quick fan of blond lashes, and then a hand is hauling Neil into the hall by the scruff of his shirt. He lets himself be dragged, grateful not to be holding the full brunt of his body and his thoughts.

The bathroom air is still post-shower thick when they open the door. Andrew props him up on the edge of the countertop. He picks hours-old sanoderm away from Neil’s new tattoos, tugging experimentally. 

“Can I?”

“Sure,” Neil says easily, enjoying the cool mirror at his back, the wet swipe of the back of his head over steamed glass.

It’s bandaid-quick on the right arm, and the fresh air against his ink-muddy skin is a surprisingly potent relief. He hadn’t realized how much his arms had started to feel divorced from the rest of him. Andrew tosses the plastic into the sink, and peels the other bandage halfway free before Neil can register the belated ache of the first.

“You knew about Jean already,” Neil murmurs.

Andrew bows his head in acknowledgement, wetting a washcloth and squeezing it out over the mess in the sink. “Renee called me. Told me you might get it in your head that you should follow them into the Nest. I told her you wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know how close I got,” Neil says. 

“Oh, I don’t?” Andrew gives him a look so glacial it could burn. “You would not have gotten far with Dan and Matt there. They know better than to let you out of their sight nowadays.” He hands Neil the sudsy washcloth, and slouches against the counter next to him, tense, but warm and close.

“You went to the Nest alone,” Neil says tightly. “I don’t know why your odds were so much more favourable than the three of us together could’ve been.”

He dabs vaguely at his own tattoos with water from the still-running tap, enjoying the way the monsters press their faces up through soap bubbles, stark and clean.

“My name isn’t on Riko’s most wanted list.”

“Alone,” Neil reiterates. “You took a bat to a hornets' nest, and barely made it home with both your legs.”

“And you, what? Miss the thrill of dislocation?” 

“I told you, I don’t want to put people out in front of me like a shield. I’ve tried that, it’s bullshit, and it’s pointless. I won’t let you take any more punches for me.”

“You don’t get to decide what we do for you,” Andrew says, in that conversation-ending way of his. He takes the cloth from Neil’s limp fingers, and starts wiping at the foggy blue stencil still staining his skin. He holds him steady by the ball of his arm, right before it slopes off into his shoulder.

From his side of the counter, Neil nudges his thigh outwards until it makes brief, exhilarating contact with Andrew’s. 

“Don’t,” he says mildly, without looking away from Neil’s phoenix, and the sparks and freckles which slurry down his left arm.

“I can do that myself,” Neil offers, reaching for the tap, but Andrew catches his hand and deposits it back in his lap. He folds Neil’s sleeves back over the curve of each shoulder, then rolls both sets of armbands off, revealing his own pale old half moons, and then Neil’s coarse, still-pink bramble.

He thinks, as he often does, of the first time he saw Andrew’s scars, here in this bathroom. With hair dye drying dark between his fingers, and their eyes getting caught up in the mirror, Andrew had promised Neil that he could leave Ausreißer any time he wanted to. 

Now he’s asking, in his own way, for him to stay.

Neil watches him smudge mild lotion over stinging raised lines, and he lifts his face until their noses nearly bump, bobbing canoes in still water. Andrew goes still, but he doesn’t move away.

“I wouldn’t have left you again,” Neil offers. “Not because of Dan or Matt. I just—couldn’t have done it.” Then, at the look in Andrew’s oil-lamp eyes, he’s the one who whispers, “yes or no?”

A slippery hand climbs from Neil’s shoulder to his neck, and Andrew guides him sideways until his wet bangs stick to Neil’s temple, his cheek, his collarbone. As they kiss, side by side against the mirror, monsters snaking up from their arms and necks, it feels crowded somehow—bigger than just the two of them. 

They separate, barely. Andrew drags a thumb over Neil’s cheekbone, and says, “Jean Moreau was fine, without you trying to die for him. I would not have been,” he struggles to say, “if you had—”

“I know,” Neil says, painfully, thoughts eating their own tails too fast for him to identify any one. Something Dan said earlier bobs past, and he struggles to grab ahold of it. “I think—I think self-sacrifice is usually selfish.” It’s as much as he can muster. At some point in the past year he’s learned that love can’t just be about burning the body. It can’t be. It has to be about keeping something alive.

The shower light is on, but the overhead ones are still off, and there’s something comforting about the shadows, the full-bodied fluorescence tempered by muggy darkness. Andrew holds him consideringly, like he’s pinning up laundry, blinking into the uncertain light.

Neil lets himself be watched, close-up, cocking his head back to accept the full impact of Andrew’s unrepressed interest. His eyes keep returning to the black shape of their armbands, tangled together on the countertop.

“These mean something—” Andrew tells him, the loose grip on his neck sliding down towards Neil’s siren. His palm is an obvious fit over the small, matching sailor’s hand. “—more permanent than our contract."

“I’m aware,” he says. “The all-day session would be overkill if it washed off in the shower.” 

“You’ll excuse my disbelief, considering your track record for not thinking things through.”

Neil catches a glimpse of his own scarred cheek in his peripheral vision. 

“I used to have to overthink everything. It was paralyzing. Nothing ever felt like the right thing to do, even when it was the only way.” He doesn’t know why he says it. He regards Andrew’s stoic face. They always end up drawn together, in mirrors and grey places, telling secrets; it’s like a release valve they keep pressing by accident. “But decisions come more easily now. I trust my gut, since some lunatic bashed it in with a guitar.”

After a long moment, Andrew says, “sometimes I’m not sure whether we made you into a monster, or you made us tame.” He seems vaguely unsettled by the prospect. Domestication, after all these years of fighting to keep himself alive and apart.

It’s possibly the most candid thing Andrew’s ever said to him. The idea of being any kind of influence other than bad is foreign to Neil.

He’s overwhelmed, as he is more and more often these days, by something he doesn’t have the right name for. Being close to someone without alarm bells ringing; the ending of blood-pounding survival, and the beginning of something else. Tame, he considers, might not be far off.

______

It’s funny, how the wound starts to close while the blade is still skewered inside.

Jean, battered nearly beyond recognition, is ushered into Allison’s expensive little car out on the front lawn of the Nest. Or so the story goes. Neil never learns exactly what Renee said, what leverage she could possibly have had over his captors, or what she saw in Jean from the get-go, but she manages to pluck him from Evermore like a moulting feather.

The media erupts, of course. Blame is bandied vaguely in Neil’s direction after the grand reveal of his murky past, and the tabloids put bold red X’s between shady-looking Jean and tender, grieving Riko. It’s despicable, and Neil says so, on the rare occasion that the press asks for his opinion.

The Moriyamas find a replacement musician somewhere in the Nest, and Riko remains the face of the band, the voice that people remember, and uncontested number one. Fans mourn the imagined dynamic between Jean and Riko, wondering avidly in online forums what might have truly gone down between them, and slandering Ausreißer’s name. The rest of the world just inhales the drama like a stimulant, and buys the new album.

Renee often comes to rehearsal with fresh status reports on Jean, who is starting to heal, with Abby’s help, up in the Foxes guest room. 

Last Neil heard, there was an indie band called Trojan Horse sniffing around Jean’s temporary door, and one of their vocalists was coordinating a contract from the middle of tour. His is the face on half the vinyl in Kevin’s room, and the voice he cites (incessantly) when he’s trying to get Neil to aim for a different, more melancholy tone. 

Neil sometimes finds himself wide-awake by the glow of the computer in the basement, watching tour clips on the Trojan Horse website. It’s an unusually large ensemble, featuring the usual synth, drum kit, couple of guitars, and a bass, but also three alternate vocalists.

The singers fluctuate between their own instruments: occasional banjo, muted trumpet or melodica, tambourine, woodblocks, or strings. Jeremy Knox is usually front and centre, but he seems to like to coax smaller units out of his band, and their stages change all the time.

There’s a still photo of a hollering percussionist, and the singer with the trumpet is holding a microphone up to her face, while pointing at a sweaty, golden Jeremy with one of the fingers not curled around her instrument. The caption reads:

Al, Laila, and the Captain tearing it up in San Fran.

Neil reviews their rapport with a level of interest that one might reserve for conducting a job interview. He’s not sure what they’re going to do with grim, obtuse Jean, and his deferent performances. He’s always played second fiddle to Riko, and Neil’s not sure he truly has anything else in him.

Once, in the murky recovery days, Neil encounters Jeremy on his way down through the towering Foxes apartment complex. He’s buttoned up in red, and his hair is blonder than blond.

“Oh,” Jeremy says when he sees him, stopping short. “Neil Josten, no way! I’ve heard unbelievable things.”

He holds out a hand and Neil, cautiously, takes it. “You’re here for Jean?”

He smiles with absolutely all of his teeth. “Yeah, you know. Gotta give the sales pitch in person.”

Neil raises an eyebrow. “How’d that work out for you?”

“Well, I hate to sign and tell, but it’s looking good.”

“Congratulations,” Neil says, “although I’m amazed you have any room in your line-up. Don’t you already have two guitarists?”

“You’ve done your research,” Jeremy says, clearly pleased. He leans himself halfway up against the wall by the elevator in a way that might be obnoxious on someone less charming. “I appreciate that. But Jean’s not playing guitar for us.”

“No?”

“Nope. We’re kind of hoping we can get him to sing.”

“Sing? I didn’t know—“ Colour moves over Jeremy’s face as he relishes good-naturedly in Neil’s surprise; he has the sort of skin-tone that goes ruddy pink at a moment’s notice. “I didn’t know anyone could find a use for four singers at once,” Neil finishes, changing course. “At this point I can’t tell if Trojan Horse is a band or a choir.”

Jeremy laughs. “You know, Neil, you’re not wrong. We’re going for musical chaos. Some artists are sensible, and some want to throw a four-piece quartet in the mix, just to see if they can.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

He shrugs. “I kind of thrive on logistical nightmares. Plus, I’ve heard Jean’s demos in the original French and they kick ass. You should listen, you might learn something,” he teases. It’s overly familiar in a way that Neil can’t quite bring himself to resent.

“I already speak French,” he deadpans.

Jeremy snorts. “Not quite what I meant, and I think you know it.”

In truth, Neil’s still buffering a little. It’s not what he expected out of Jean Moreau—who, to Neil’s knowledge, was never allowed to pick up a microphone at Riko’s side. But for whatever reason, it’s all he needed to hear in order to let go of whatever twisted debt he’s been harbouring. If Jean has a stage, he’ll be okay. That’s how it always works for Neil.

“I’ll listen to his new stuff,” Neil says. “I figure someone can only get better the farther away from Riko they get.”

Jeremy’s mouth twitches in appreciation. “You said it, not me. Hey, say hello to Kevin for me? I miss him at Trojan shows, he's my favourite groupie.” He says it with that same joyful quality as before—clearly a well-worn punchline.

“I’ll make sure to lead with that last part.”

"It'll be good for his ego." He gives him one last conspiratorial smile, and starts walking towards the stairwell.

“Hey—thanks for stepping up,” Neil says, and Jeremy stops with his hand on the doorknob. "One Evermore reject is more than enough for Ausreißer.”

“Hey, we’re happy to have him. I can never say no to a great voice,” he replies, bright-eyed. “Speaking of—let me know if you’re ever in the mood for a feature, okay?”

“One stray at a time,” Neil says, and Jeremy chuckles his way out onto the stairs.

“No promises!”

The next night, Jean is gone from the apartment, and his name is in headlines again.

Evermore ‘Murder' Claims its Latest Victim, Will Moreau Fly Solo?

The Evermore Curse Strikes Again: Jeremy Knox to Pick up the Pieces 

Music Industry Chess Game Continues: Moreau Trades Black Plumes for Red

He imagines Riko’s blood boiling, unable to control Jean’s image from afar, unable to cope with the Moriyama regime taking hits on every side, unable to stomach the idea that he might lose. For the first time in a long time, Neil’s satisfaction roars louder than his fear.

______

The moment he indulges in the feeling that everything might even itself out, Ichirou sends armed negotiators to Palmetto.

It’s less than a week before their return to the stage, and Kevin and Neil are walking back to the studio with lunch. A black town car pulls up to the curb next to them, and Kevin’s bag slips through his fingers, french fries spilling out into the street. 

He takes a staggering step backwards. “Neil?” he says, sounding eerily like a kid who’s just lost his parents in a department store.

The passenger side window rolls down, and Tetsuji Moriyama regards them both, grimacing.

“Get in."

They exchange a tense, disbelieving look. Neil puts the food down gingerly on the curb, and takes Kevin by the shoulders. “Go.”

“But—“

“Now.”

Kevin seethes in his direction, but ducks into the backseat without any further argument. Neil goes around to the other side of the car, head spinning with that rare, crystal clear, gun-in-your-face focus. His only option is to tread lightly, and correctly. He gets inside.

As the car pulls out into sparse traffic, Tetsuji turns in his seat to look piercingly at Kevin. 

“Master, I apologize,” Kevin starts, but Neil puts a crushing foot on top of his.

Tetsuji blinks. “Lord Ichirou sends his regrets. Neither of you are high enough on his priority list for in-person correspondence.”

“What correspondence are you delivering, exactly? If it’s so trivial.”

“You will not speak,” Tetsuji snaps. Neil swallows, heart hammering with rare humility. “I requested to come in Ichirou’s place. I tire of this game. My brother is dead, and you are a dangling thread from an era that can no longer exist.”

“We can get out of your way,” Kevin whispers. 

“You will get out of our way,” he corrects. “I am figuring out how best to remove you. Ichirou would have you culled, and consider it fair payment for the trouble you’ve caused.”

“With all due respect—” None. “—the disintegration of our band will draw more attention than you probably want,” Neil says.

“You truly think Lord Ichirou cannot make you disappear, undetected and unmourned?”

“I know he could, but I also know that his brother has been making a mess that even Lord Ichirou may struggle to conceal.”

“So I have been told,” Tetsuji says. In front of him, between the gearshift and his seat, his hand twitches on a familiar cane—with a sizeable chip missing. “By another child,” he spits, “who spoke out of turn.”

Neil goes quiet, putting all of his focus into remaining immobile. Tetsuji turns stiffly to face the windshield, and they sit in uneasy silence as the car glides down a side-street and rolls to a stop.

“Do you feel that Riko is a liability, Kevin?” Even through the filter of the rearview mirror, Tetsuji's gaze cuts deeply, invasive as a medical procedure. But Kevin’s face is a slab of stone, and it seems impossible that his mouth could move. Neil wills him to say something usable, something that isn’t an ill-timed apology or wasted plea for freedom.

“He has been…” Kevin begins carefully, miraculously, “unsubtle about his interventions into Ausreißer’s affairs. The fans are watching closely.”

Neil blinks at the side of his face, eyes wide. Emboldened, he says, “Riko isn’t thinking about the game the way Ichirou is. He’s thinking about bloody revenge, and he will misstep sooner rather than later. He’s in an industry which thrives on scandal, and they will find it in the Nest.” He adds, lowly, “he shattered Kevin’s hand—” 

Kevin shivers violently, and he presses his foot upwards into Neil’s.

“—and if you’ll excuse me, reacted to his father’s death by beating his bandmate senseless. The more he bullies talent out of Evermore, the more public sympathies will wear thin. His image is on the rocks, and the supremacy of the Moriyama empire may follow.”

“I fail to see how this is of any consequence to you. Your father ran in adjacent circles, but I have yet to be given a reason why his limited credibility should extend to his disloyal son.”

“I have a debt to pay,” Kevin says, wavering with weedy, undeveloped courage. “And my income will always be tied to Ausreißer. Neil—Nathaniel knows the world we come from well. He understands what it will take to repay you.”

“He bargains for you, as Minyard bargained for him. So many layers of defence. You must truly be a coward.”

“Maybe,” Kevin says, possibly trying to mimic Neil’s low, unshaken tone. “But Ausreißer’s sales have been on the rise. Nathaniel has proven to be an asset. I cannot return to Evermore in good conscience, in a position where my talents—talents you honed—can’t possibly be utilized. But I can do my best to ride out our success as it is, and donate our earnings back to you.”

“You are not the first men to beg me for their lives and call it negotiation.”

Kevin takes this critique with his head bowed. “I just want to settle my debt. You raised me, and any wealth I see in my lifetime belongs rightfully to you. Your investment doesn’t have to dry up because I’m playing under a new label.”

Neil seethes in painful silence. He realizes when Kevin’s jaw tics, and his eyes dart in Neil’s direction, that he’s been leaving white nail marks in the dark leather seat between them.

“Your impudent bandmate suggested a similar bargain. But Evermore has garnered notoriety that your pet project certainly has not.”

“Give us time,” Neil says evenly. “Between us, and Jean Moreau’s fresh contract, we can cover your losses and then some. Riko’s fame is unstable right now. His fans pity him, but the headlines are suspicious of his inability to share the stage. Unlike him, our negative press doesn’t reflect poorly on you, it only increases our visibility. We’re stronger and more profitable as allies than we are dead.”

Tetsuji turns again to face them both. “Do you understand what you are promising? Lord Ichirou will not take such a deal lightly, if he deigns to consent. He will not forget. You will not be released from his service. You will be held to a standard of performance for the rest of your careers, and if the whims of the public change and your value decreases, we will terminate you, Moreau, Minyard, and anyone else who you have implicated in this life-debt.”

“We understand,” Kevin says, whisper-thin.

“And if Lord Ichirou is unimpressed, as I can only imagine he will be, then I will kill you myself, today, and consider it a more immediate and satisfying payment.”

The driver has a sleek cellphone to his ear already, and he’s speaking precisely in Japanese. His eyes flit up to the rearview mirror and then indifferently to the alley they’re still cradled inside. Concrete and brickwork and big blue garbage bins, and criminals threatening criminals just behind tinted glass. 

Neil waits, hand sweating into the leather, bones feeling dislocated from one another, bad eye squinting against phantom pain. He thinks stupidly of the food they left out in the street. He wonders if someone from Palmetto will come out to see the fries smashed flat by tire tracks and piece together what happened.

Tetsuji and the driver speak, briefly, and Neil hears just the shine off of the silken voice on the other end of the phone. Something cool and uninvested, and in between it all, their names: Wesninski. Moreau. Day. Minyard. Wymack. Knox. A shortlist of the indebted.

Neil feels a slice of awful regret when he hears Andrew’s name in amongst the damned; Ausreißer was always going to be implicated in this power struggle alongside Kevin, but Neil was marked when he challenged Riko that first time, and the Butcher’s history was dredged up. If Andrew hadn’t gone fishing for deals, maybe he wouldn’t have been so high on their priority list. 

But then maybe Tetsuji wouldn’t have come himself, already primed for this arrangement. Round and round they go, protecting each other to the point of impracticality. 

Tetsuji makes a ‘tsk’ing sound, taking the phone from the driver, and Neil sees his nearest hand—age-weathered and vaguely bruised around the knuckles—clenching into a fist on the console. He says something clipped, and then his expression changes entirely, and he nods as if chastised.

There are few more short words exchanged, and then Tetsuji claps the phone closed and deposits it in a cupholder.

“You are lucky, today,” he says, without looking at either of them. 

Kevin slouches back into the seat, his impeccable posture warped by relief. Neil’s ears are ringing with disbelief so acute it’s physically unpleasant. His life has never been kind enough to offer him a first floor window in a house fire. It’s always fall from the twentieth storey or burn.

“80% of your earnings will be adequate, for as long as your record sales replicate what Day and Moreau might have achieved in direct service to Evermore. Lord Ichirou wishes, as I do, to square this away quickly; arrangements will be made to funnel royalties between our agencies. I assume you can broker such a deal with your father?”

Neil frowns, confused. “My—“

“Yes,” Kevin says hastily. “Palmetto has never been stingy with our cut of the revenue. I’m sure he—we can adjust our contracts accordingly.”

Neil’s universe reorients itself for the second time in a minute, some personal gravity flicking off and on and off again. “Jesus Christ,” he mouths, but Kevin is busily tensing and relaxing his hand on the door handle as if deciding whether or not he needs verbal permission to leave.

“Thank you,” Neil says, belatedly. He feels slow with unexpected victory. He feels like all the life he never thought he would live is rushing at him all at once. He can’t possibly believe their luck, it’s lunacy. 

“You are dismissed,” Tetsuji says. “If one of you comes to the Nest again without being summoned, you will be executed.”

“Understood,” Neil says, unlocking his own door and prodding Kevin again to follow his lead.

“Thank you,” Kevin says, one leg out the door. “Thank you."

“Do not thank me,” Tetsuji says, turning to look at them one last time, hatred cooling in his eyes. “I would have had Riko discipline you as he saw fit. And then I would have taken my turn.”

Kevin wobbles out of the car, and Neil follows, trying to temper the full-body urge to sprint down the alleyway. The car engine turns over. He waits for Tetsuji’s window to roll down, for him to deliver some last threat or stipulation, but the car just grumbles to the end of the street and out of sight.

Kevin turns liquid; he falls back two stumbling steps out of sheer blind relief.

“Oh god.” He’s not quite crying, but his whole body is trembling and swaying like he is. He grabs blindly onto Neil’s shoulder, and Neil grabs back, bracing. “Am I free? Did that—am I actually free?”

“For now,” Neil says, struggling a little to hold them both upright. “As long as we make half-decent music, we’re assets to the main family. We’ll stay safe. Riko can’t touch any of us.”

“He can’t touch us,” Kevin echoes hoarsely, but he still looks cornered, searching frantically for an exit he’s already gone through.

“It’s going to be okay,” Neil says quietly. 

Kevin shakes his head. “I can’t believe it.” He says can’t, but his darting eyes project shouldn’t. “There’s always a punishment for leaving the Nest.”

“You’re not part of the Nest anymore,” Neil says. Sometimes when he’s losing it like this he just needs someone to tell him something obvious, something irrefutable. “You’re not on Riko’s contract. You’re out, for good.”

Kevin digests this, still shaking his head. “How is that possible?” he whispers. “One conversation and I’m out? After all this time?”

“Something good had to happen to us eventually,” Neil says.

Kevin finally looks at him instead of through him, if only to gape disbelievingly. “Says who?”

“Says math. It’s a statistical certainty.”

“And yet look at us,” Kevin says sardonically, gesturing at the alley where they’ve been dropped, the latest in a string of depressingly habitual near-deaths.

“I'm looking," Neil says, exasperated. "We just bought back the rest of our lives. We won, for once. ”

“Yeah, well, I want a receipt.”

Neil rolls his eyes, instantly losing his sympathetic streak for this slightly less pathetic version of Kevin. He lets go of his shoulder, walking back towards the mouth of the alleyway and into the sunny open street. “Come on. Back to reality.”

As soon as they’re out, and Kevin’s gate is almost normal again, Neil asks, without looking at him, “when was I going to find out that Wymack is your father?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin flinches so hard he nearly trips. “It wasn’t your business.”

“Does he know?”

Kevin’s mouth twists. “I tried to tell him the day he signed me, but Neil, you don’t know the kind of heat that was on me back then. One wrong move and Ausreißer would’ve been done before it started.”

“Uh huh. And you had to protect the band, right?”

“Actually yes,” Kevin says fiercely, seeming to shock himself as much as Neil. “I didn’t know what the public would do with a confession like that. You know what it’s like as is, the accusations we get, the way news travels back to the Nest. You wouldn’t have told us about your father and I wouldn’t have told you about mine.”

“My father was the Butcher of Baltimore, Kevin. Yours fosters strays.” Neil looks to the shape of Palmetto, just another squat building against the mild blue horizon. “It’s never going to be the right time to say something, but it will be too late, eventually.”

Kevin shakes his head at the ground, but a flash of dark humour curls his mouth. “First I’ve got to tell him that we just tanked our profits forever.”

“Maybe he’d take it better from a long lost son.”

Kevin shoots him a look, and Neil turns his face into the sun to mask his smile.

They find their abandoned food exactly where they left it, cooling on the pavement. Neil shrugs, and crouches in the gutter to collect their bags, to Kevin’s disgust.

As Neil wrestles a wrapped sandwich back into its grease-damp bag, Kevin says, “you know Riko won’t let us go quietly.”

Neil examines a fry that’s been squashed into a fat, white streak on the pavement. “I know.”

______

When Neil’s days were (literally) numbered, every moment was measured against Lola’s countdown—a thousand small goodbyes, splinters of time he could only think of as memories even while they were happening to him. 

The week before tour restarts is like one continuous arc into the unknown. He feels like he went hurtling over the edge of a cliff, found himself unexpectedly, thrillingly airborne, and now he’s waiting to see if he’ll touch down on the far side.

The prospect of performing without searching for his father’s face in the crowd is wildly gratifying, but even that small freedom is tempered by the possibility that Riko is just unhinged enough to take a swing at them in public.

Ausreißer and Foxes, together at one of their final, dwindling rehearsals, react to the details of their liberation from the Moriyamas with nearly uniform support.

Andrew spends most of his limited energy moderating Kevin’s post-adrenaline tremors (and his exhausting new resolve to succeed). He seems only mildly dismissive when Neil comes to him with a lifetime of Ausreißer on a platter, which is how Neil knows that his disinterest is mostly for show.

Wymack yells for a while, tells them that they should’ve come to him a long time ago, and that the paperwork hangover he’s about to have will last him until his early grave. He’s grey with anger, but Neil can tell that it’s only the thinnest layer on top of endless striations of worry. 

He looks between Wymack’s pacing and Kevin’s furrowed, sullen silence, and wonders how the truth of their relationship could possibly have eluded him. 

Jean is coarsely dismissive until they’ve faxed him all the signed, orderly details of their deal. In the silence crackling over the line, he makes a small, anguished noise that Neil will remember for the rest of his life. Kevin stays on the phone with Jean for a long time after that, murmuring in French.

Renee accepts the news with a beneficent smile, as if she orchestrated the deal herself; Aaron makes snide comments in Neil’s direction until Kevin interjects, to everyone’s surprise, that they would be down two band members if it wasn’t for Neil’s bargaining; Allison, meanwhile, insists on taking everybody out for drinks.

The dust is still settling, now that Palmetto's two worlds have collided.

Most days, they feel more like a single entity than two bands under the same label. Matt shows up to the monsters’ rehearsal and sits, rapt, in the booth; Wymack pulls Dan and Neil for biweekly meetings that devolve into late-night drinks; Nicky starts getting weekly sushi with Renee, and once, while they’re fine-tuning their feature and handing out solos, Neil sees a text flash up on Allison’s phone screen from Katelyn: 

Thanks girl! Aaron never tells me about any of this lol. Thanks for the goss :)

He doesn’t know what to make of it. He’s unused to these new factions amongst them, the little alliances that come from spending non-stop time in the same rehearsal space.

He thinks it’s probably the sort of thing that happens in big families: taking sides, arguments for the sake of arguments, good-will with a secret agenda. He doesn’t take any of it for granted—being in each other’s business makes it feel like they’re never dealing with anything alone.

Plus, they’ve never played better than they do when they’re together.

They rehearse more than they need to for the one and a half songs they’ve co-written, but their combined mess is sort of irresistible. Renee usually plays dirty, stomping the kick drum like it owes her money; Neil and Andrew perform up front together, sharing a microphone like a cigarette; and one day, Kevin un-tapes his fingers and starts playing bass solos that sing like flaming arrows through the air.

Foxes is at the pinnacle of their career, and their sound has evolved, mutating and absorbing the monsters, absorbing the world. Their new album has the broadest appeal Neil’s ever heard from a pop group, fresh and complicated, operatic and catchy. Ausreißer’s song was scribbled into the sheet music as ‘to die quietly,’ and that’s the title that made it to the track-list.

It’s a song that sounds like a power struggle, and it’s also the most fun Neil’s ever had singing. Neil takes point, Kevin and Matt share harmonies, but there’s a fast-talking verse that’s all Andrew:

We don’t know how to die quietly,

fighting not to be who they thought we’d be

took pesticide to your family tree

and swallowed down all of my apathy

I wish you had never happened to me

now we’re at terminal velocity

Evermore we’ll be victims of gravity

or else hitting the ground is what sets us free.

Andrew’s been writing more lately, easy, like it doesn’t take anything out of him anymore. They both understand that their old deal is forfeit; Andrew writes about Neil, Neil writes about Andrew, they sing each other’s confessions, and they never talk about it. 

Neil writes almost exclusively about finding a home, although he wouldn't say it outright: phoenix’s alighting on outstretched arms, sirens climbing the mizzen to join the pirates they’ve watched all their lives. He admires the rich colours of freedom on Kevin, the responsibility heaved from Andrew’s shoulders, the way they’ve only redoubled their grip on the things they actually want.

He still suspects that Riko must be mobilizing some kind of punishment for dodging his wrath, but he can’t find the chasm of dread that used to live inside him. It’s filled with something else now. When he faces Riko, it won’t be alone.

______

The kickoff to Ausreißer’s revived cross-country tour is in New York, on a Saturday in the middle of summer. After a brief rehearsal for their guest spot—a surprise encore designed to make their audience fully delirious—Foxes sets out to waste time in the city, getting good and day drunk while Kevin drills the monsters’ soundcheck into the ground. 

It’s sweltering hot backstage, and Neil's been distracted all day, trapped in sense-memories of their last gig: the leaden zero in his pocket, the body crumpled in the dressing room, and Lola’s Halloween mask grin.

He’s also conscious of how different he looks now—his dark hair threaded with auburn, his eyelid split and mended, and his arms half hidden in black cotton and half flooded with ink and scar tissue. He doesn’t really care how he’s perceived, but he knows the band’s image will change, people will ask difficult questions, and he won’t be able to protect his friends from any of it.

He focuses on chord clusters, empty seats, and the whir of electric fans. He watches Kevin on the edge of the stage, one leg kicked up, playing Matt’s acid green electric guitar. Neil’s never seen him like this, straight-backed, laser-focused, and playing just for the sake of it.

“I’m tired just looking at him,” Nicky says, dropping down on the piano bench next to Neil so its legs creak. 

“He has an exhausting effect on people.”

Nicky laughs, “yeah, just kind of an aura.” He pats the back of Neil’s neck. “So are you ready to take another stab at this tour thing? Oof, stab. Pretend I said something more sensitive.”

“I’m ready,” Neil says, walking both hands through a quick, dextrous warm-up as proof.

“Good, because I just walked past our lineup, and it’s unprecedented.”

A spike of excitement that swerves hard towards panic. “Do any of them look like they might belong to the yakuza?”

Nicky snorts. “No Moriyamas in trenchcoats.” A fan blows his dark bangs up out of his face when it oscillates in their direction. His fingers are still tapping absently along Neil’s shoulders. It’s actually comforting, in this moment, to be crowded.

“Hey monsters,” Matt calls, picking his way out towards them with a trio of full glasses balanced between his hands. “Huddle up.” The girls follow him out on stage, each with two of their own drinks.

“They bear gifts!” Nicky crows, standing. “See, this is why we asked you guys to come.” 

Allison rolls her eyes and hands him a glass. “We’re toasting.” She passes one of Matt’s remaining drinks to Aaron. “Pretend to have a gracious and optimistic outlook for a minute.”

Renee holds a glass out to Andrew at a questioning distance, and Neil is surprised to see him accept it. Kevin reaches up to take the last spare glass from Allison, and they congregate around him at the lip of the stage.

“We didn’t have champagne, so vodka tonics are going to have to do. Don’t make that face at me Minyard,” Dan warns. Neil glances at Andrew, then Aaron, and finds them sporting almost identically grim expressions. Dan holds her drink aloft. “This year has been fucked up.”

“Inspiring,” Aaron says, and Nicky flicks him in the ear.

“Actually, it’s been batshit insane, most of the time. I know we’re pretty different from each other, but we all have a history of losing shit that matters to us, and I kind of feel like we all dug our heels in this year, and decided enough was enough.

Wymack is always talking about giving out as many chances as we need, and I thought that was this rare, cool thing. But lately, with Neil joining us, and the rest of us kind of falling in line, I think we’ve all been giving out a lot of chances to each other too, and I don’t see that stopping any time soon.”

She pauses, thoughtful, licking her lower lip.

“I like that when it looked like we might lose one of our own, none of us would accept it. I like that we can fight together, and work together, even when you’re all pissing me off. I hope that this is the tour that you deserved, before everything went to hell. I hope you take this second chance and run with it. Cheers, to all of us monsters.”

“Here here,” Nicky says, eyes bright. 

“Cheers,” Aaron agrees, quieter.

The rest of them chorus their agreement and knock glasses, sloshing vodka and laughing—and all nine of them drink together.

______

As soon as Nicky walks on stage, adoration rushing all around him like water, and says, “honeys, we’re home!” into the mic, they are.

He thought Foxes were at the top of their game, but when Kevin opens their first song with a nimble bass solo that lasts nearly ten minutes, Neil can’t help but stand aside and cheer alongside the rest of the fans. 

The whole theatre is packed, the audience stacked up to the walls, barely held back from the stage where their feelings are being drawn up and administered back to them like a blood transfusion. Many of them are wearing armbands, holding up bobbing ‘We Love You Neil” signs, cheering and breaking to pieces trying to sing along.

Neil orbits his bandmates, ringed giants and blue-hot suns, staggering from microphone to microphone and feeling, as always, like he’s singing his way towards something. The shining thread in the maze is what Andrew wrote for him, and he’s almost, almost there.

With unexpected extra rehearsal time, physical therapy, and Foxes’ coaxing influence, every song hits the audience like it was dropped squarely from above.

He thought he’d played his last, best concert. He thought he’d taken his talent to the very edge and let go. But he knows now that he’ll never have enough, even if he lives sixty more years on stages like this, and dies at the end of a crescendo.

He keeps watching Andrew, tattoo clutched around his throat like the physical embodiment of his voice, relentless and multiple. He moves savagely to the music, leg bouncing, hands flying, the indifference in his face tempered by the physicality of the rest of him. He so obviously belongs here, setting the pace however he wants, dragging everyone after him without exerting any pressure at all. 

Neil forgot how active Nicky is on stage, crouching down to bore deep into a solo, jumping up and down through a group chorus, coaxing Kevin into head-banging, or twirling Neil under his arm.

Beyond the reality that Kevin is playing better than he—or possibly anyone—ever has, he’s also exhilarated when he manages to push past his previous limits. His hands pretzel, the amps shake, and he laughs.

Even Aaron is getting into it, experimenting daintily with improv, sweaty hair raked back from his face, the sphinx on his forearm lounging over his streaking hands. Neil knows Katelyn is in the crowd, because Aaron keeps playing directly to her accidentally, rocking the headstock of his guitar out in her direction.

When Neil reaches for a screaming riff, and tears down all the curtains and walls with it, the responding roar is just as deafening. He plugs lyrics into Andrew’s microphone, and Andrew plays fills back at him, and it’s like they’re talking. Evermore couldn’t play like this if they tried, because they couldn’t feel like this if they tried.

By the time they invite Foxes out on stage, the room is already euphoric, exhausted, raging. Nicky asks if they’re emotionally stable enough for a surprise, and there’s immediate commotion, shouted no’s, drunken laughter. 

Kevin calls, “hey, Foxes, do you mind coming out here?” and the crowd explodes, a high shock of disbelief spidering through the noise, like they’ve just been promised an onstage brawl.

Why would Foxes be guesting at an Ausreißer concert? What would that even sound like? Since when are our monsters capable of playing nice?

Allison strides onstage first, mini skirt swishing. She’s about six feet tall in high heels, hair twisted up above the crown of her head to make her look even taller. Renee is close behind, grungy in overalls and boots, her frothy rainbow tips swapped out for split-dye black and blue. Matt comes out with Dan on his back, already blowing kisses to the crowd.

The backstage crew hauls a second drum kit out on stage, piece by piece, and a ripple of excitement clamours for their attention. Renee sits opposite Andrew, each of them safe in their own set-up, drums spread out like an arsenal around them.

Allison cheers’s the neck of her bass with Kevin’s just to see him flinch away, holding his own instrument protectively. Dan sits at her keyboard, cracking her knuckles and winking at Neil, and Matt toggles the settings briefly, throwing his guitar on over his chest. He leans over to Dan’s microphone and says,

“Sorry to crash your concert.” Renee smashes the hi-hat as punctuation. “We’re here to play synth at you against your will.” The crowd hoots and yells.

“You may have heard of us—” Dan starts, leaving room for the inevitable tidal wave of sound. Her nose scrunches joyfully. “—from our Ausreißer fan-page?”

“Fan encounter gone too far,” Neil says, playing along.

“Yeah, they wouldn’t leave us alone until we let them onstage,” Nicky jokes. “Super embarrassing.”

“It’s our first time sharing the spotlight,” Allison says. “So if we start throwing punches, just let it happen.” She smacks Aaron in the bicep to demonstrate, and he flips her off.

Renee hits the snare to get everyone’s attention, and Andrew mirrors her, automatic. Jingly little adjustments, testing strums, and last minute tuning all cut out.

“This is the unofficial Palmetto anthem,” Renee announces. She nods at Andrew. “Try to keep up.”

No one counts anyone in, they just start double drumming at once, like they’re pulling the oars on either side of a boat, heaving in the same direction. Andrew deviates first, swapping between favoured counter-rhythms, and Renee shakes her head, grinning through it. Neil has always liked her best when she’s at a drum kit, hair wild, mask off. 

Dan’s synth settles in like fog, and then the nastiest guitar line they’ve ever conceived of starts sliding all over the place—the full, resonant effect of the three of them. Kevin keeps everyone tied down to his irresistible bass-line; his sound is the dance floor they’re all spinning on.

Neil steps out into centre stage, and becomes the dark pupil in the eye of the spotlight. 

He looks up to face his crowd, dragging the mic up to his mouth by its stem, and the first face he glimpses, out beyond the violet glare of the stage lights, is Riko Moriyama’s. 

#I simply cannot look at this anymore :)))) #the foxhole court #aftg #andreil #tfc fanfic #mine #rockband au #scars tw #I cannot. believe it's been two years #it was a pandemic and also I was getting a master's degree please forgive me

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

Not quite massively mainstream, but still a step above indie. A little too hazy to just be alternative rock, but not enough to be a full on shoegaze album. Somehow Siamese Dream manages to fall outside of the boxes it was aiming for, but the result is Smashing Pumpkins' most artistically sound release. They're more polished than on Gish, but it just helps put a finer point on their strengths. Corgan's voice is just far enough up on the mix to be fully intelligible, but not dominating it. The guitars are heavily layered and take up all the space they can in the mix whether the gentle acoustics of Sweet Sweet or the intensely heavy Geek U.S.A.. Corgan may be a megalomaniac, but this album really shows that he had a strong artistic vision at one point.

Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle

Where others were trying to be the toughest cop killingest rappers in the game, Snoop opted to be the weed smokingest biggest balls rapper. While still playing in the kayfabe of 90s hip hop he carves out a new niche as a disaffected cool guy who loves weed and doesn't really care what other people think. Snoop stands out from his peers not just because he perfectly embodies the Death Row Records G-Funk sound, but because his attitude necessitated a different type of flow. Snoop is so laid back in his delivery and rarely expresses anything other than mild amusement that anyone would be dumb enough to not want to be him. Somehow the attitude is infectious rather than annoying, and it drives the album to new highs that were unassailable even by Snoop himself who never quite topped his debut.

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1814

The release of 86s Control cemented Janet Jackson as a pop giant, but it was the follow up that proved she was probably the most talented member of the Jackson family. Fully embracing the New Jack Swing sound that she had pioneered on Nasty, Rhythm Nation is full of funky Hip Hop beats. This album defined pop music in the 90s, practically everyone started incorporating Hip Hop into R&B. But none of the imitators ever found a balance of edginess and sweetness, of hard beats and bubbly pop that Janet Jackson managed on this record.

Brian Eno - Another Green World

This is Brian Eno in transition for sure. The ambient sounds of Discreet Music are barely present, but the quirky pop sensibilities of Here Come The Warm Jets fully abandoned. But there are no stepping stone albums in Eno's discography. Another Green World is just as much a fully fleshed out idea as anything else. In this case ethereal beauty is the driving force. There are still some pop sensibilities on songs like St. Elmo's Fire and I'll Come Running, but they lack the outright goofiness of his earlier work. Instead the album is driven by it's instrumentals and in true Eno fashion there are a swath of guest musicians here to flesh out the sound. Phil Collins, Robert Fripp, Percy Jones, and John Cale all make contributions and it really provides a lush atmosphere. Basically everything that Eno recorded, collaborated on, or produced is a masterpiece and Another Green World is one of his best.

Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

I feel like this is an underrated gem from Dylan's collection. It's main claim to fame is that it has the less popular version of All Along The Watchtower. I think Dylan actually nails the depression era hobo folk singer thing that he was clearly going for at the beginning of his career. Dear Landlord, I Am A Lonesome Hobo, and I Pity The Poor Immigrant all have strong Pete Seeger vibes while Drifter's Escape and I'll Be Your Baby Tonight are straight up country songs. It's a sharp turn from his electric era and I think Dylan is at his best when he's taking sharp turns.

Roxy Music - Avalon

I wasn't familiar with this album so I was surprised and quite happy to see that it's wholly unlike any other Roxy Music album I've heard before. Gone is the wry wit and glam quirkiness and in its place is raw romantic sincerity and smooth synths. This album has that sterile synth sound that I associate with albums that 70s prog bands put out in the 80s but it really works here. I think there's just more texture to the sounds, instead of plastic it sounds ethereal, haunted kinda. Like the kind of eerie unease that comes with letting yourself be truly known.

Bob Dylan and The Band - The Basement Tapes

I honestly think that Dylan's work with the band The Band is his best stuff. Both groups compliment each other really well and they seem to let loose when they team up. The basement tapes in particular feel a lot more fun than any other album by either artist on their own. Dylan is bluesier and The Band are a little less maudlin, like they were trying to make music in each other's style and both hit the same middle ground. It's prolly a little long, coming in over 70 minutes of music with an admittedly low level of variety, but the energy will definitely keep any blues rock or folk rock fans engaged for the full run.

Santana - Abraxas

Carlos Santana is a talented but uninspired guitarist. Come at me dads. I actually like this album a lot though. While Santana may only have one and a half guitar solos in his back pocket he also has a good sense for vibes and some great percussion. And his two smash hits are covers that blow the originals out of the water so he's doing something right. I only come down hard because Santana is treated like a guitar god or something and he really isn't but his style has influenced other better guitar players so I won't dismiss him outright.

Bill Withers - Still Bill

Bill Withers had an incredible way of dropping monstrous pop hits and still flying under the radar. It feels like instead of a string of hits he's just a one hit wonder five times in a row. Withers has all of the energy of early 70s funk and all the soul of a 60s Stax release. While overshadowed by some of his contemporaries Withers still should be seen as a titan of Soul music and this album shows it. Even funkier than his debut and led by a couple of beastly good singles. Use Me has the coolest funk grooves and Lean On Me is pretty much the platonic love song of all time.

Elvis Presley - s/t

How can I be even handed when taking about rock and roll's greatest colonizer? This album is unreviewable, do I like the music on it? Yes, I actually do. But even if I hated it you should still listen to it for the historical value. This album marks the beginning of the modern music industry. The sale of Elvis Presley's recording contract to colonel Tom Parker and RCA Records is a moment that changed musical history and this album, the result of that sale, is necessary listening for anyone that cares even a little bit about popular music. Elvis is non negotiable. You can't talk about Rome without talking about Caesar and you can't talk about popular music without talking about Elvis.

#smashing pumpkins #snoop dogg #janet jackson #brian eno #bob dylan #roxy music #santana #bill withers #elvis presley #500 album gauntlet

[quickdeaths]

karaoke headcanons

Rio is not a great singer, but she'll gladly tag along with friends or her middle brother. At an anime/game otaku, when it comes to her turn, basically all she knows are anisongs. She's got a lot of enthusiasm and is very smiley so everyone has a good time, although the inevitable rendition of A Cruel Angel's Thesis does elicit the collective groan of not this again.

Izumi is a fantastic singer, being classically trained and having perfect pitch. She doesn't like singing at all and gets very very nervous singing in front of crowds, so it's an uphill battle even getting her to come along. She might be convinced to do one (1) song if it'll get everyone to otherwise ignore her. As for what that song is? Her tastes are very eclectic, so it could really be anything.

Tsubasa doesn't really know how to sing, and a lot of their favorite music isn't really karaoke-friendly either due to being instrumental or too underground or too subculture-y. They do know how to rap, though, whether that's breaking out something they know, or filling in the obligatory rap break in someone else's take on a popular pop song.

Shinobu is a decent singer, but doesn't inherently enjoy it. More often than not, if they're at karaoke, they've been dragged by Anzu. 90% of what she'll sing are 'duets that Anzu wanted to do with her.' Over the course of a long night, Anzu will probably get two duets out of her, if she's lucky. There's only so much pleading puppy eyes that she can resist.

Anzu is a pretty good singer and more than that, she's a great performer. She has a strong ability to read the air and find what kind of thing will get her the most praise and attention, whether that's a bouncy pop song that will get people on their feet, or a soulful ballad that will bring a tear to the eye. She's still a teen girl though, and she'll have fun as long as she's with friends, especially if she can get Shinobu to play with her.

Yi-Chun is cheating, she's an actual idol. She likes singing and dancing, but it's at least partially her job, so it's not necessarily something she likes to do to relax and have fun with friends. She won't complain about it, though, and she'll do songs from idols she likes and admires, particularly if there's a section in Mandarin. Don't expect anything too polished though - if it's just for fun, she'll just sing in the booth rather than get up and "perform."

Kousuke doesn't know popular music. His reference for music is like, folk songs from rural areas. He's like that meme of the medieval peasant and mcdonald's sprite, if you played him a Hatsune Miku hyperpop remix it might kill him. That said, he has a soft, pleasant voice well-suited to ballads, if you can teach him some songs that won't activate his 'city people are insane and scary' sensors.

Kiyomi likes karaoke a lot, it's one of her favorite after-school hobbies, and she's quite good at it. Her taste is a little basic, in the sense that she likes what's popular online, the kinds of songs that get millions of views or are in commercials. Whatever pop songs are big at the time, she'll listen to enough just to pick up without really thinking about it, and just pop out whatever comes to mind when it's her turn.

#'i don't have a headcanon tag' tag #done double-digit replies since saturday #i deserve a little self-indulgent headcanon treat #and a teensy break from serious threading

[inquisitorius-sin-bin]

5 and 35 for the music-themed ask thing ?

Have a great day !! 💕

Thank you very much I appreciate it!

5. Name an album you feel is perfect

I listed Mania by Fall Out Boy in my last post, but in this one I'll talk about a different album I think is perfection: New Flesh by Priest

I have no idea why Priest only has 100k monthly listeners on Spotify. Is it their split from Ghost? Is the name too similar to Judas Priest and that's who people assume you are talking about? I discovered them through r/music and people dunking on them, expecting that since they were former members of Ghost, their music would be kind of electronic metal, and instead they got "slightly harder core Daft Punk" BUT I cannot stop listening to them!! They are such an earworm! So groovy! I started out with Vaudeville being my favorite from the album, but then I really started to get into Populist, The Pit, Virus, History in Black, and Call My Name. Populist is probably my favorite. And even though Ceremony is not on the New Flesh album, I do think it is also pure auditory perfection, possibly their best song? As my husband puts it,

"No matter how many times I listen to this song, it doesn't slap any less hard"

35. name two musicians who haven’t already collaborated on anything who you think would sound great together

This is going to sound strange, but The Hu, which is a Mongolian throat singing folk metal band, and Nergal from Behemoth. So I don't love Behemoth's music as I'm kind of tone deaf and a lot of it's complexity is lost on me, but Nergal (the frontman) has this side project which is American Dark Folk/Blues music under the title Me and That Man, where he collaborates with other European metal singers, which is absolutely INCREDIBLE. Also worth noting Nergal, and Behemoth, are Polish. So yeah, I think the Mongolian metal folk singers and the Polish metal folk singer should get together to make something amazing.

[festival-of-pudding]

hope you like my bullshit anon cause I'm still on it (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Buck’s first night was going pretty well. Marv spent most of his time counting money in his office, so he didn’t have to talk to the little weasel again after that first introduction; plus his new coworkers seemed friendly, and the customers seemed fairly respectable too. This might just be a cushy gig after all, but he'd reserve his judgment until the night was over.

Being a bouncer was kinda like being a fireman, he figured: be ready to swing into action when you're needed, sit around doing nothing when you're not. He preferred to find a good place to lean against the wall and keep tabs on the room from a distance. He’d found the perfect spot here pretty fast: a support beam near the entrance, out of the way, where he could eyeball the whole joint from the shadows. The cool night drifting in from outside kept his reflexes sharp.

Not that he needed them much so far. The crowd was lively but well-behaved — even the sailors were on their best behavior. One thing Marv was right about, the customer base definitely skewed female — and not dime-a-dance girls either, but dames that looked like their daddies owned a bank. Fellas had to show respect to snag girls like that, and so far Buck hadn’t seen anyone getting rude or handsy. 

Another thing he hadn’t seen was the singer, Eddie. After taking Buck around to meet everyone he’d left to get ready for the night's performance, but after two hours he still hadn't reappeared. The band was out, though: a standard quintet playing standard songs, the same stuff you'd hear in any dance hall or soda shop. They were good, but they didn't seem to match Eddie somehow, Buck thought. But they knew what the customers wanted, and once the crowd filled in they picked up the pace from slow jazz to swing tunes. Couples were dancing, everyone was drinking, and a haze of smoke from various sources drifted in the air between the red candle globes and the fans on the rafters.

"How’s it going, güero?"

Buck’s fists clenched by instinct, but he recognized Eddie’s voice before he drew one back.

"Whoa, easy there, cat. I come in peace. Thought you could use a drink." Eddie held out a bottle of Coca-Cola and smiled.

Buck accepted the bottle and let Eddie clink his beer against it before taking a swig. "Thanks."

“Well, that's better. You looked so sore over here I thought somebody was giving you grief already."

"Nah, this place seems pretty tame. I figure I gotta look the part, y'know? Let folks know I ain’t here to dance. Can't be standing around grinning like a fool."

"But you'd rather be," Eddie said.

“Come again?”

"This—” he gestured with his beer at Buck's ramrod posture, bunched shoulders, stern face— "this ain't who you are, man.”

"How do you figure? You just met me."

Eddie tapped a finger to his temple. “I can tell. I got a good eye for people. My abuela says I have the Sight."

He wasn’t wearing his hat, and in the light from the dance floor his dark hair gleamed like patent leather. All the other guys in this place had standard Ivy Leagues or Navy whitewalls, but Eddie wore his hair slicked back above his ears and swept into a ducktail on his forehead. Just another little thing that made him different. He hopped up onto the service counter beside Buck, legs dangling as he swigged his beer, and his cuffed trousers hiked up to reveal the socks he wore with his brown saddle shoes: a bright tricolor argyle in yellow, green, and purple. Eddie saw him notice them and grinned.

“I keep it mellow for the squares in this joint, but I gotta have some color somewhere.”

Buck had no response for that. Who paid that much attention to their socks? Eddie’s clothes meant a lot to him, that much was clear: his suit was sharply pressed and perfectly tailored, all his accessories matched, and his shoes were polished to a brilliant shine. But it wasn't about flashiness or vanity, Buck thought. It was something else, something that mystified Buck as much as it intrigued him. Why would someone so good-looking bother with slick clothes, when he'd still look like Valentino even if he wore farmer overalls?

On the bandstand, the quintet ended their dance tune with a flourish, and the dancers clapped and whistled as they caught their breath. The trumpet player pulled the microphone stand into place and spoke into it.

“Thank you, thanks a lot folks, glad to see so many smiling faces here tonight. We’re gonna keep the dancing ditties going for you, but first, it’s time to bring up our singer. You know him well - ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Eddie Diaz."

The applause was drowned out by the distinct sound of female screaming, and Eddie hopped off the counter and slapped Buck on the shoulder with a wink.

"Duty calls."

The crowd parted for him, cheering him all the way. Eddie shook a few hands, allowed a couple of dames to grab him for a kiss as he passed by, before he stepped onto the bandstand and took his place behind the microphone. Without a word he nodded to the saxophonist, who began a swing riff that the drummer immediately picked up, and the others joined in on a song even Buck knew the words to. The dancers cheered and hopped into action, and Eddie tapped his feet to the rhythm as he began to sing.

baby, baby, it looks like it's gonna hail baby, baby, it looks like it's gonna hail you better come inside, let me teach you how to jive and wail

Buck loved watching people dance. He'd never admit it, and he kept his face fixed in its harsh bouncer glare, but inside his boots his toes were secretly tapping. He couldn't dance to save his life, and he’d probably snap a girl in half if he tried to fling her around the floor like these fellas were doing, but he loved the energy of swing — how light they were on their feet, not caring what they looked like or what anyone else thought, just enjoying themselves with giddy abandon. Nothing held back, nothing shoved down and hidden away. Buck envied them. 

And above them all, fueling their energy, was Eddie: swaying with the mic stand, shiny hair bouncing, polished shoes tapping to the beat.

a woman is a woman and a man ain't nothin' but a male a woman is a woman and a man ain't nothin' but a male one good thing about him, he knows how to jive and wail

His face had flushed in the spotlights; it made his tan skin look darker, a striking shade of ruddy bronze against his white shirt and beige jacket and pants. His suit was neutral, almost bland, but Eddie shone more brightly than any of the dancers in their pastel button-downs and polka-dot dresses.

Stow that shit, Buckley, he thought. You just got here. You don't even know if he goes that way. Just because he took The Good Smile and gave it back to you… with interest… doesn't mean he— ohhhh shit.

Eddie had turned his gaze to the corner where Buck stood. Their eyes met, and Eddie grinned around his lyrics. He twirled the mic stand, winked, and shimmied his hips once before continuing the chorus.

oh you gotta jump, jive, and then you wail you gotta jump, jive, and then you wail you gotta jump jive, and then you wail away…

The empty Coke bottle slipped in Buck’s sweaty palm. He set it down and wiped his hands on his dungarees before crossing his arms even more tightly across his chest, trying to ignore the warmth in his cheeks. He forced his eyes away from those hips, but he couldn’t stop them from staring at that flushed, sweat-slick face.

He could have been imagining it, of course. A man like him had to tread extra carefully in this world, be completely certain of things before he even thought of taking action. Buck was smitten, but he was also patient. And he was also now certain of two things — one, he was sticking with this gig, weaselly owner be damned; and two, one day, somehow, before all this was over, he would get his hands on those hips and make Eddie sweat for a different reason entirely.

#fic prompt #summer of trash 2022 #the sunset club #i've created a monster and his name is pachuco eddie #writingtag

[luuurien]

Jacob Banks - Lies About the War

(Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B, Singer/Songwriter)

A major label unable to contain his heart and ambitions, Jacob Banks' sophomore album and departure from Interscope establishes him as one of the strongest, most beautiful players in modern R&B and soul. With a singer-songwriter's intimacy and storytelling skills, Lies About the War's fusion of gospel, electronica, and folk into introspective neo-soul jams is nothing short of remarkable.

☆☆☆☆½

Jacob Banks has never been interested in pure commercial growth, and his step away from Interscope cements that. Though his 2018 debut Village came out polished, cleanly-produced, and full of color, it felt like his ambitions were stifled by the fact that his music had to fit as least somewhat within the boundaries of major label R&B - bombastic beats, dramatic vocal performances, huge choruses - even its quietest moments like Unknown (To You) barely had any space to breathe. And so, he left the world of major label music, bookending his time on Interscope with a lovely eight-song EP and starting his own label Nobody Records, exploring areas he couldn't until now ("...I felt like I was occupying a space that could go to someone who actually really wanted to be on the radio..."), the resulting album his best yet and a prime example of what leaning into your artistic inclinations and stripping your music down to emphasize them can do. Lies About the War doesn't always move at a consistent pace, and there's not much in the way of Village's cinematic gravitas, but what it has above anything else is killer songwriting and some of the most emotive and heartbreaking vocal performances this year. Lies About the War is a short, magnificent maturation for Banks as an artist, his willingness to dive into something new and unfamiliar the growth bed for songs that are as heartfelt as they are refreshing. R&B might not be a traditional U.K. sound, but Banks embraces that disconnect by bringing his own spin on the American folk and gospel music that shaped the genre decades back. Compared to the heavy production flourishes and noisy beats all over Village, Lies About the War is much more careful and precise with how it uses those bigger elements in the music. There's still electronic touches here and there - the rushing synth pads creating tons of tension and euphoric release in Just When I Thought, the massive orchestration that skyrockets the second half of Aim for My Head to heaven - but they're brought on in the context of neo-soul balladry, less the focus of the production as they were on his debut and rather dashes of digital grit and motion atop a largely organic landscape. Oftentimes, Lies About the War's beauty lies in the way Banks utilizes live instrumentation and delicate arrangements to give more presence to his voice and lend the album an extra layer of intimacy, By Design [Evel Knievel]'s R&B waltz driven by watery piano chords and glossy gospel organs that swell and contract as he carves out the song's peaks and valleys across its four minutes, and when he embraces plain acoustic balladry on the back half of the record from centerpiece Our Song to finale Here Lies the Man That Never Changed, the joy of listening is those finishing touches unique to each of the songs - the warped synth boiling under Our Song's acoustic guitars, Parachute's rich vocal harmonies in the chorus, the sunny nostalgia of Coolin bolstered by vocal support from Nigerian singer Adekunle Gold and London's Samm Henshaw - Banks might be playing it relatively straight throughout most of Lies About the War, but every song is given such a distinct identity with their own memorable moments, the album never losing its magic even when he's at his most reserved. And with all those musical changes comes a shift in his songwriting, too, less focused on social commentary (despite the album's title, somewhat ironically) as Banks retreats into himself, drawing short but vivid vignettes of intense emotional shifts in his life and the ways in which they've changed him over time. Even when he brings the outside world in on occasion, such as with the opening lines of Just When I Thought, they're never without context, Banks' inquiry of "do you believe in faith or science" preceded by him desperately trying to find any connection in a relationship that seems to have already crumbled at his feet - "I still wanna call it love / But I guess this is what we've become," he sighs in the pre-chorus. Other times, his stories are so naked and vulnerable that his velvety baritone voice stabs right into the center of your heart, Aim for My Head's simple lyrical knot of "But don't make me lose you / And find you off the ledge / Oh, don't make me lose you / And find you in someone else" that much more gut-wrenching when he's shifting in and out of that sensitive, quiet falsetto, and the baseline imagery he puts to use throughout Parachute sticks in your mind so well because he has the sorrow and passion behind it to make a metaphor so direct work so well. This kind of storytelling and ability to relay his emotions without having to add unnecessary amounts of detail has only come about because of his intentional move away from the major-label focus of radio hits and huge commercial success, Banks' commitment to storytelling and a genuine connection to his art paying off completely with an album that will only continue to get better with time. Songs as elegant as Won't Turn Back or as plainly lovely as Our Song could have come out decades ago and still be some of the most radiant songs I've heard in a good while - an accomplishment like that is worth more than anything else. Banks knew what he was doing when he stepped away from Interscope, and it's clear from Lies About the War's rounded and fully-realized vision that it was without question the right thing for him to do. Never before has his music been so soul-baring, so thoughtfully written, so emotionally resonant, and the tiny edges he carves into the sides of his songs don't sacrifice any of their beauty and humanity, his narratives placed at the forefront and the music doing everything it can to support that effort. With one of the most gorgeous voices out there and the diligence to see his visions through to the end, Lies About the War a powerful yet gentle reminder of the ways we carry ourselves through the world and what happens when we start to lose the things we hold dearest. Unhurried in his pursuit of healing and holding on tight to the reins of his music, Lies About the War Jacob Banks at his most personable and compassionate, an album that's absolutely impossible to not fall in love with and a monumental turning point for one of the most engrossing artists in contemporary soul. If this is just where his independent career is beginning, there's nowhere for him to go but up.

#jacob banks #lies about the war #self-released #contemporary r&b #folk #neo-soul #pop #pop soul #r&b #singer/songwriter #soul #2022 #9/10 #album review #2022 albums

[the-wardens-torch]

The Emperor and the Nightingale

((Fal’s Eorzean retelling of my personal favorite public domain fairytale. Written mostly because I wanted to write but had no original thoughts in my head. Its about 3,300 words if you‘ve got the time. ))

There’s an elegant little bar in Gridania called the Yarzon’s Toe, and its one of my favorite places to play, mostly because I never fail to meet an interesting person when I have a gig there.  One such person was a lovely Garlean lass whose name I won‘t be telling you, just because folks can be less than kind to Garleans. Anyway, she was tall and strong and beautiful, and she took me home to her place for the night… and, well,  much as I’d love to regale you with an anecdote of that night, I’m in polite company.

While we were in less than polite company with one another, I noticed that she had her own orchestrion - a marvelous little gadget I’d only ever seen a handful of times.  I joked that if she had an orchestrion with roll after roll of music from some of the finest composers and musicians on the star, why did she want to hear a cheap bard like me? She just smiled and told me that my question reminded her of a story that she’d heard when she was a little girl.  One that took place long before the Garlean empire as we know it, before even emperor Solus took his throne.  She said that it wasn’t important for me to hear it, but the dreamy look in her eyes and the sigh in her voice told me that it was important for her to tell it. Besides, I’ve always thought that it’s a foolish bard who turns down the opportunity to hear a good story from another culture, especially one that someone is eager to share. So, I kissed her gently on the shoulder, and humbly asked that she share her tale with me.

…

Once, a long time ago, there was an emperor who ruled over a kingdom of great prosperity.  He was a lover of all things fine and beautiful, and surrounded himself with only the most sublime and transcendent of beautiful things.  

His many royal robes were made from all sorts of exotic and beautiful materials.  One was made entirely of spider silk - the life’s work of a hundred thousand golden orb spiders. Its hem was even stitched through with hundreds of golden bells no bigger than a mouse’s eye, to make sure that his every movement produced a symphony of gentle sound.

His royal carriage was drawn by seven chocobos of seven colors, arrayed in the same order as the colors of the rainbow. Each day he ordered his grooms to buff their feathers with velvet cloth and precious rose oil until they shimmered like dewdrops at dawn.

Even the most humble objects in his palace were beautiful - one could not even find a simple pine broom that did not have a decorative handle, bearing a hunting scene or a relief of swallows in flight.  And these were not the carvings of a common village carpenter, but the intricate works of master woodworkers who labored for months to create them.

But more than the beautiful things themselves, he valued the people who could create those beautiful things.  His court was full of artists and poets and singers and dancers, whom he had assembled from all over the world. 

One such creator was an old peasant woman who had a gift for playing the flute. While she immaculately played all manner of familiar tunes, one day she played a melody he had never heard before that gave him pause.  It was unlike anything he had heard before - fragile and dreamy and unobtrusive while also being insistent as a cicada’s drone and smooth and clean like polished silver.  He dared not disturb her while she played, afraid her melody might stutter and flutter away like a startled butterfly, but as soon as she had finished, he called her to the foot of his throne.

“Old woman!  Approach me so that I may hear you better. Where did you come to learn such a sublime melody?”

The old woman knelt respectfully before him and bowed her gray head in supplication.

“Your Radiance… I thank you for your praise, but it humbles me to admit that the melody is not of mine own creation. It is the song of the nightingale bird that dwells in the forests near my home village, and the shrill cadence of my clumsy flute can scarce compare to it.”

“A bird?” the emperor scoffed, rubbing his chin pensively.

“Oh yes, Your Radiance.  It is a wondrous bird indeed, who can be heard singing its song each night in summer as the fisherman moor their boats.  When I was but a small girl, my mother used to tell me that the reason the days were longer was because the sun wanted to linger to listen to the bird’s song.”

The emperor turned to his guards and clapped his hands.

“You!  The summer solstice begins a few days hence.  I want you to travel to this village and bring this bird to me.  I would like very much to hear it sing at my court. And if its song is as magnificent as you say, old woman, I shall see you rewarded.”

And so, the emperor sent an entourage of his best men and women off into the mountains to find the bird. And in the meantime, he had his goldsmiths fashion a golden filigree perch for the nightingale, one that was an exact likeness of the branch of a red pine tree, not unlike those that grew in the region the old flute player had spoken of.

His entourage was gone for many days, and as each day passed, he entertained ever more fanciful notions of what the nightingale must be like. In his mind he pictured a bird bedecked in extravagant plumage and bright colors.  Would it wear a rainbow as bright as his lovely chocobos? Would it be silver?  Or white? Or golden? Would it have a flowing tail like a peacock or an elegant crest like a cardinal? And what would its body look like? Long legs like a heron? Perhaps its song would pour forth from the stately beak of a hawk, mounted on the graceful neck of a swan?

He was in the middle of one such reverie when he heard the scratch and clatter of chocobo feet on the cobbles outside of the palace. His entourage had returned! Trying his best to hide his childish excitement (which ill befit an emperor,) he waited patiently until a guard came to report what they had found.

“Your Radiance!” he said with a respectful salute. “We have found the nightingale! And it has returned with us to sing for you! It said that entertaining at your court would be an honor unlike any they have ever had the pleasure of experiencing! It…”

“Well, send it in then! Do not waste my time with such meaningless prattle.” the emperor huffed.

“Y-yes Your Radiance!” the guard bowed and tiptoed backwards from the room.

Though he had been scarcely able to contain himself a moment earlier, the emperor’s anticipation turned to disbelief as the nightingale entered the imperial chamber. Despite his fanciful expectations, the nightingale was a tiny and drably attired creature, who could have easily fit in the palm of his hand.  It took its place perched on the golden branch with some reticence, and bowed its head respectfully.

“Surely you cannot be the glorious nightingale of which the old flute player spoke?” the emperor said haughtily.

“I am, your radiance…” said the nightingale. When it raised its head again, it regarded him with eyes like black pebbles, arranging its plain, mud-colored feathers as if smoothing the silken skirts of a courtly robe. “Would that I were more beautiful, for then I could bring joy to your eyes as well as your ears, my emperor. However, I pray that my humble song pleases you nevertheless, for it is an honor merely to be in your presence, let alone to perform for you.”

Before the emperor could speak again, the bird raised its head to the heavens and began to sing. The song that poured forth from its open mouth was unlike anything he had ever heard. Each note sparkled like a jeweled bead on a necklace, unique and beautiful, but part of a harmonious whole. One moment it sounded like the spring snowmelt trickling down from the mountains, and another like the wind whispering through tender new birch leaves.  It tinkled as clear and pure as crystal as the bird’s tiny throat swelled and vibrated with the effort. It was so beautiful that it seemed to freeze all time in place so that creation itself could stop to listen. As the song came to an end, the emperor realized that his eyes were wet with tears.

“What an honor it is to have moved my emperor so! Truly those tears are more precious treasures than my humble heart deserves.” the nightingale said, bowing its head and spreading its wings as if giving its most elegant curtsy.

“Nightingale…” the emperor said, scarce able to raise his voice above an awed whisper. “It is as the old woman said - your song is beyond comparison.  All of the gold in my empire could not make me feel half so rich as listening to your song.  Please, stay in my palace and sing for me forever.”

The little bird trilled joyously. “I cannot promise forever, your radiance, but I would gladly stay until the sun sets upon the last day of summer. I must return to my home, for my song was born from the forest, and to the forest it must return. That is where is sounds the best, and where I draw my inspiration from.”

The emperor agreed with great alacrity, and thus did the bird remain at his court, and sang many different songs that were heard by the empire’s humble peasants as well as its most prestigious dignitaries.  Even the kings and queens of foreign nations came, offering the most handsome of sums and most vast of riches in exchange for the bird, but the emperor refused them all. But as the moons passed, the emperor grew worried, never forgetting that the bird had said that it would only remain through the end of the summer. And so, he hatched a grand plan to capture it, so that it could sing to him for the rest of his days.

“It shall have the finest golden cage and feast upon whatever delicacies it desires… And should it yearn for freedom, my servants will tie the softest silk threads to its feet and accompany it to my gardens so that it may be caressed by the breeze and bask in the sun without ever needing to leave. Whatever it desires, it shall have.  Surely none but a fool would refuse such sumptuous accommodations?” he said to himself.

But when he put his plan into motion, his royal guard discovered that the bird was nowhere to be found. Incensed, the emperor branded the bird a fugitive and promised a hefty reward to whoever could bring it back to his court alive. But his empire was very large, and the bird was very small. Days passed, rapidly turning into months, and the emperor grew despondent. A man of his word, he paid the old flute player and her family a fair sum, and listened to her play her flute whenever he missed the wondrous song of the nightingale.  But even in her politely exaggerated humility, she had been correct about the fact that her flute could never even hope to replicate the beauty of the nightingale’s song that had inspired it.

The emperor feared that he may never hear the bird’s sweet song ever again, and the thought of it weighed  upon his shoulders like a heavy cloak.  That is, until one day when a boxed gift arrived from a desert nation far to the south, renowned for its talented goldsmiths. His raised an eyebrow and opened the box, anticipating an opulent helm or stately ring.

But that was not what awaited him inside. The sight of it made him gasp and turn pale, and for a moment, his guards feared that it bore some sort of assassination device.  But what he lifted from the box was not a weapon or cursed object, but a golden facsimile of the little nightingale. No, even better than the nightingale, for it was made of the purest gold, with eyes of midnight-blue sapphires. And as he looked even more closely at it, he noticed that each feather was cast in perfect lifelike detail, and set with a rainbow of tiny gems. Next to it lay a tiny, equally bejeweled key.  Trembling with wonder, the emperor put the key into a tiny hole on the bird’s back and turned it gently.  The song that issued forth from the clockwork marvel was just as he had remembered the nightingale’s song on that fine summer day.

From the day forward, the emperor wore the tiny key on a chain around his neck and had his servants carry the bird with his everywhere he went. He even had it ensconced on the golden pine branch he had crafted for the original nightingale.

“Truly this is more befitting of you than it is of that dun-colored urchin of a bird!” he proclaimed.

For several summers, the emperor was happy with his clockwork bird, and wound it up to sing its single solitary song as often as he wished. But, over time its song seemed to be less and less as he remembered it. It was growing tinny and hoarse, as if tired from singing so much. He had it examined by every goldsmith in the empire, but none could fix it.  They told him that the tiny gold gears and cogs within it were fragile and soft, and that they could not be repaired without dismantling the bird entirely.  Even then, the reassembled bird would never sing the same way again.

And so, the emperor forbid that the bird ever be wound again. However, he could scarce stand to look at it, so badly did he wish to hear its song as it once was. But not much time had passed until the emperor could bear it no longer.  Furtively in the night, he removed the key from its chain around his neck, and retrieved the bird from the silken cushion next to his bed.  Resolutely, he wound the bird again… Only to hear a sound like the snapping of twigs, and a fading metallic whimper. The death rattle of the most beautiful thing that he had ever beheld.  His most precious treasure…The emperor was devastated, and too ashamed to tell his people that he had broken the bird in the same way that a selfish and impatient child breaks a favorite toy.

Some time later, the emperor fell ill. His skin grew ashen and his limbs spindly and emaciated, until he scarce could leave his bed.  He was not without friends in his hour of need, for his subjects fussed over him endlessly, and doctors from across the star came to attend to him. But as they came and went and the sun rose and set, the corner of the room took on the tiny semblance of a dark shadow, which seemed to grow larger and closer with each breath he took. Tears began to roll from his eyes as he realized that the shadow could belong to none other than death. He bid his servants to light his room with candles and lanterns, but the shadow remained.  Frantically, a chambermaid took up the tiny golden bird in her hands, and knelt by the emperor‘s bedside, offering up the bird so that he could reach it.

“Please, forgive me for my impetuousness, Your Radiance, but please! Take the golden key from around your neck and wind it! Surely it would comfort you in your hour of need to hear the nightingale’s song one more time?”

The emperor shuddered and began to weep, knowing that the bird was broken, and that he had already heard its final song. The shadow of death was closer than ever now, and he could feel its weight on his chest as he fought for breath between his sobs of anguish and regret.  He closed his eyes and waited, icy fear gripping his heart…

Just then he heard a miraculous burst of sound, more transcendent than anything he had ever heard. He thought at first that he must be hearing the choir of heaven itself, welcoming him into eternity through the blackness of death.  But as the blackness lifted, he was not greeted by the heavenly host, but by the sight of a tiny creature perched just outside of his window. It seemed to wear the crescent moon like an angel’s halo as it perched upon a live cedar branch, singing more beautifully than it ever had before.

The nightingale.

In full view of the emperor and his awestruck servants, the bird descended through the window and landed softly at the foot of the bed, all the while singing.  And before the emperor’s eyes, the shadow of death grew smaller and smaller, lingering only to hear the final note of the bird’s lovely song before stealing away into the dark corner from which it had come.

“Nightingale!  You have returned to me!  The emperor said, color already returning to his cheeks. “Such a fool I was… Please promise than you will stay with me!” he pleaded.

“I will not stay as your servant. My place is wherever my song sounds the brightest, and wherever it can bring the most joy.” the little bird said.  “I need no golden cage or silken ribbons - for I may subsist only upon the joy that they bring to those who hear my songs. You cannot change what I am, nor what I need to sing my songs, dear emperor.”

The emperor sat up and stared ruefully at the mechanical bird on the pillow. “I promise I will smash this pale imitation into a thousand pieces and throw them in the ocean for mocking you!”

“You cannot change what the clockwork bird is either. It has done nothing wrong, and it is still beautiful in its own right.  It did only as it was built to do, and did so with great faith and diligence until it sang its last note.”

The emperor, now strong enough to get up, knelt before the little bird with head bowed.

“It shall be so, most radiant and beautiful nightingale, for you truly are the monarch of all birds.”

The nightingale trilled with something like displeasure.

“Goodness, no… Raise your head, your Radiance.  For you need not prostrate yourself before me.  Simply seeing you well again gladdens my heart well enough, and I demand no deference. I only ask that you think of me as a friend, rather than a possession. So long as you grant me this favor, I should always be glad to share my songs with you.”

Humbly, the emperor pulled himself to his feet again and reached out his hand. With a melodic chirp of pleasure, the nightingale alighted upon it.

“Of course… My friend.” the emperor said, and together they watched the sun rise.

…

Enchanting, isn’t it?  I’m sure you I never expected to hear a Garlean tell a story about nature outshining technology. And I’m sure that you, like me, will never look at her or any Garlean the same way again. For the best of them know that clever machines can never replace flesh and blood, and only the warmth of life may chase away the chill of death.  

#my writing #in-character #Garlean inspiration #i guess its sort of an Endwalker mood too? #the emperor and the nightingale

[spiderlegeyelashes]

i just realised today maybe i want to do something with music in my life. another fucking thing then! do i want to do languages or physics or MUSIC ???×&&* but actually in thr end thus makes a lot of sense because for most of my life i was obsessed with music and as a kid wanted to become a singer but then i guess i figured its too late for me to start but today i realised its not that horribly hard and when i played that bass (acoustic) today it didn't even sound bad or feel alien. i COULD do this maybe.. and the main guy playing violin said he didn't even touch a violin til he was 16 so it's not like it's too late if ur not a child prodigy. i think i'd like to play bass..... and some other small thing... not amazingly and impressively but just to be able to do it, some kind of polish-ukrainian folk music probably, music that's just to be enjoyed and danced to and not competitive. the people who played for us today said theres gonna be this event on saturday where they and many others will play folk music for the whole night to dance to qnd i think i would like to go... it's a dream of mine, for years i've been listening to polish folk thinking i wouldn't really have the chance to dance to it with other people but i just might! i just might!!!!!

#trajkotanie

[artistbookings]

Blanche - Vocals, Guitar

Blanche is a highly talented First Nation Wiradjuri musician from Sydney. With his impressive range of musical styles, from alternative rock to RnB, Blanche is a singer/songwriter with a unique voice and a fresh perspective. He uses music as a tool to explore and understand the world around him, as well as to delve into his own psyche.

Blanche has already made a name for himself in the industry, with three hit songs that have appeared on both Apple Music and Spotify Playlists. His first single, WAKE, was featured on Apple Music's First playlist and Indigitube's First Sounds Vol 5, which is a compilation of 12 tracks showcasing First Nations artists from all across the country. His songs FLY and SEA have both appeared on Spotify's Original Storytellers Playlist, and SEA was even selected for Spotify's Chilled Afternoon playlist, which boasts an impressive 190,000 likes.

With his captivating performances and polished sound, Blanche is making a big impact on the music world.

Instrumentation: singer songwriter, Guitar

Music Genre: Folk, Pop, Indi, Original, R&B, Psychedelia

Size: Solo

Setlist: Blanche

Buy Music: Spotify

Hire For: Festivals, Main Stage Performances, Background Music, Feature Acts, Community Events, Small Gatherings, Corporate Events

Equipment supplied: Yes - suitable for small events

#Aboriginal #Vocalist #First Nation singer NSW