I'm not sure where this came from. I was listening to Daughtry and this song made me think of John and a high school romance. It had to be John. Originally it was going to be written from her viewpoint, and I still might go back and do that at a later date if people want to see it, but at the moment this is as it stands.
Disclaimer: Nope, the boys don't belong to me and likely never will. You know what I would do with them if I got my hands on them.
"Louder Than Ever"
John was sometimes convinced that his eldest brother was a grumpy old man at heart. As much as Scott enjoyed to have fun his taste in music often left more than a little to be desired. Virgil's obsession with the recent jazz resurgence could be excused, he played it well and it had an appeal to the entire family, Alan and Gordon were young and so their choice of the most bizarre mix of R'n'B and Metal could be explained by the shocking lack of maturity they often displayed in some areas (seriously if John had to watch Alan make cow eyes at Tin Tin one more time after the last Christmas he would not be responsible for his actions). As for John, he liked what he liked and that was often the end of it. Recently he had gone through a phase of loving the pop music of Japan and Korea, before that he had taken a more classical turn and before that Euro pop had been his music of choice. In John's mind since not even the stars were unchanging why should he be so rigid as to not adapt his preferred listening every now and again. Scott, on the other hand, seemed to be adverse to listening to anything had not been recorded during a rather specific thirty to forty year period over the last hundred years. The maintenance days when Scott chose the radio station were not as difficult as those with Gordon (John was too rarely planet side with Alan for it to be a problem) but not as easy as those where it was John or Virgil's turn.
As a compromise they had agreed on a station that played a good mix of modern and older music. Mostly it was background noise, although sometimes one brother or another would hum along, and occasionally it would spark a memory. Today the familiar song was about eight years old and John could not help but hear the groans of his older brothers. He knew why as well, the memories washing over him in a wave of warm nostalgia.
He had been about seventeen and in that endless summer of his teens before college and reality would descend upon him. She had been the same age with hair that had been died a riot of turquoise, pink, purple and blue, silver blonde roots showing through and eyes of pale blue that could flicker between ice and sky in an instant. It had been their song, the one that they played endlessly, that they sang to as he drove them around the small Kansas town they grew up in. His car had been old, one he had bought himself with every dollar he had saved up since he had turned sixteen. It needed constant work and the air conditioning had stopped working months before. In the heat of the summer there was nothing for it but to drive fast with the windows down. He could still remember the way her hair had whipped around her face, her eyes closed and her smile wide as she sang along.
It had been a little bit like something from one of those terrible teen romances that she had loved so much. His father had been the successful business man, with more success than they could ever have dreamed of on the way, who had been mildly horrified by the girl John had brought home. Jeff Tracy's smile had been rather fixed at the ever changing colour of her hair, the six hoops that hung from each ear and the pierced navel that had made an appearance in the warmth of spring. Fortunately, he had not tried to put his foot down on the relationship and had lectured John for hours on the necessity of care, respect, and avoiding teen pregnancy. With his father's blessing, reluctant as it was, John had spent more and more time with her. By summer they were nearly inseparable.
Contrary to the dirty minds of his brothers, and likely the possible horror of his father, John did not spend all his evenings with her in the back seat of his car or desperately hoping that one or other house would be empty. Many evenings and long nights were spent in fields of dry grass, the delicate snuffling of horses nearby and the air thick with heat and animal smell, as the two of them indulged in their biggest shared interest; the stars. They would lie on a blanket together, her head pillowed on his chest and he with one arm behind his head while his free hand toyed with her fascinating hair. Their conversation would be soft, hushed in the dying light of the day and the delicate illumination of the stars and the moon. They would talk of the future, of their hopes and dreams. They would encourage one another no matter how far fetched the goal or how ludicrous the idea and all the while they would watch the stars. More than once they would fall asleep only to be woken by the ringing of a cell phone as her sister or one of his brothers called to summon them home.
That bliss, those two summers that they had been together had ended with college. They had been too young for long distance and had both refused to try and get into the same college purely so that they could be together. Both of their parents had applauded their good sense, their focus on their distant future rather than the immediate. Other than a few chance encounters, a few songs on the radio, there had been no real contact between them. They had grown and moved on.
Still, in that moment and in Thunderbird Two's hanger, John had to wonder what had happened to Marie Gardiner. He smiled softly to himself, maybe he would look her up later, and turned his attention back to his work as the last notes of the song died.
Artemis