Content Warning: Language; mentions of violence
Ships: Hatter/Crow if you squint hard; Scriddler if you squint even harder and focus on a point in the horizon just behind its shoulder.
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English. Punks. Awful. Antagonistic, spitting, and covered head-to-toe in buckles and scum, every Limey jag who'd ever passed through The Asylum Club was thoroughly unpleasant to tangle with.
Look at this trash. He looked like The Sex Pistols' mentally stunted fifth Beatle. The spikey hair, the fugly plaid leisure suit, the ragged shirt underneath blazoned with "NOTHING WHATEVER" in splattered black letters. And those teeth. Bucked and unseemly, clenching a cigarette. A few of them were chipped and others still discolored, but he displayed those horrid piano keys nonetheless, grinning alone as if there was any reason to smile. He was loitering in the back of the venue among the pool tables, washed in a haze of smoke. Who did this guy think he was?
"That's what the cat dragged in, y'know."
Shaken from his thoughts, Jonathan turned back to look across the table at his bandmate, who was painfully out of place in his homemade "Question Mark & The Mysterians" shirt. Who really bothered that mod crap anymore? And what exactly were The Mysterians worth beyond '96 Tears' anyway? Only Eddie knew, apparently.
"Come again?"
"The fresh meat you were inspecting. That's our new keyboardist."
Jon decided to ignore his insinuations but glanced back over a second time for the sake of confirmation. "You don't mean that little sunspot do you?" He gestured over his shoulder with a jagged thumb. Nigma nodded once, smiling slightly. "So I've been told." He propped a dirty boot up on the edge of the table, gleefully chomping on his cigarette's filter in a manner that was much more neurotic than it looked. "You must be excited," he said, teasing. Jon's frown set further into his mouth.
Alright, alright, alright, alright.Time to put a stop to all of this business. "Oh don't give me that rot-"
"You were staring-"
"—With contempt. He looks ridiculous."
Eddie's smile only broadened.
Jonathan was beginning to regret coming out to him. Not even counter-culture could shelter him from that brand of antagonism, it seemed, even if it was derived from a harmless source in this case.
"As if you have any right to throw 'ridiculous' around. Jonny, look at yourself. There's enough egg white in your hair to make meringue."
Edward's looming companion bit back a growl, subconsciously pushing his glasses up from the bridge of his nose. "Well at least I'm not wearing a blue plaid-"
"However, I can't help but to agree with you. Selina sure can pick 'em. Here's hoping he plays better than he dresses."
The bass-man snorted sardonically, hunching over the table in the shape of a surly black-clad lump. "I don't see why it matters. Why the fuck do we need a keyboardist anyway?"
"Wall of sound," Eddie replied thoughtfully, putting the stub of his cancer stick out on the table's underside. "We have to drown out Pam's caterwauling somehow." Jonathan found that he couldn't entirely disagree.
Isley had a great look. She was all black leather dresses and thigh-high boots, wild orange hair done up in rockabilly victory rolls, or else loose and curly, flying every which way around that desirable heart-shaped face of hers. Fortunately, the singer's stunning good looks were betrayed (but not overshadowed) by her angry temperament. She spit and kicked and cussed with fervor to rival many of her contemporaries. Her stage presence was deeply threatening, and it caught the audience's eye. She once took a cat-caller out with the base of her mic-stand, and yet another time personally cracked a whiskey bottle over the top of a heckler's head. She would have been the perfect frontwoman, if only she had the musical aptitude to back it up. But that was punk for you. Talent was optional, though Eddie often insisted that it shouldn't be. He was by far the most impressive musician in the group, a self-taught guitarist and epigrammatic lyricist. He and Pamela clashed horribly over "creative differences," often in the middle of live shows. Maybe that's why they'd hired a fifth member. He and his little electric clavier would make an excellent physical buffer.
Crane took to tracing dull invisible circles into the tabletop, wishing for the umpteenth time that he had the money for a stiff drink. "Whatever. I didn't drop out of med school for this bilge."
Eddie's jovial smile failed him all of a sudden. He slipped a new cigarette out of his pocket, not fighting the urge to roll his eyes at his bandmate's moping. "Again with the med school thing, Jon? Do me a favor and lighten the hell up."
"Please. You first, o five-chord auteur."
The guitarist's face went ruddy at the affront, and he ruffled his green leather jacket indignantly.
"Well like it or not Jody, that little blond shit is in, and you're going to have to get used to him."
It was pretty true. Selina had been singing her new hire's praises all weekend long, already much too fond of his precocious mannerisms. Whoever he was, whatever he was like, he was their problem now.
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[Ya, another gem from the old ask blog, which will explain randomly shoehorning in queer things, it was kind of a pre-req. For once I would have preferred to leave it out what whatchagonnado. All of Jon's bandmates in this were selected for the sake of making historical punk references, if you're a ~cool kid~ like me you'll get them.]