Slave to the Music

Anybody know why really metal bands feel the need to cover ridiculous stuff? Black Sabbath did a cover of "Stayin' Alive". White Zombie did "I'm Your Boogie Man". Marilyn Manson did "This is Halloween", for crying out loud! Nothin' to do with today's chapter, I just felt like blabbing.


"Okay, everybody," Lead Singer Sid explained. "Tomorrow's the County-Wide Death Metal Extravapaloozania. It's the biggest death metal concert in the whole county, and we're on first. If we play a good enough set, we'll all set to go straight to opening for our rivals, Monsterocalypse. We beat them, and we're straight shots for fame and fortune as the best death metal band in the country."

"Thank you, Mr. Exposition," Jack groaned. "Any machine gun pens and helicopter cars you want to throw at us while you're at it?"

Lead Singer Sid flicked the "pain" button, making Jack flinch back into his armchair. "You be quiet!"

"Sure thing, Fido- GAH!"

Lead Singer Sid, lowering the remote back to his side, adjusted the tightest of the three studded collars around his neck. That, in turn, made the leather studded wristbands he was wearing wrinkle uncomfortably, and the resulting wiggle made the rest of his leather outfit turn into one giant wedgie. "For your information, these things are metal."

After a few minutes of thinking, Jack responded with, "No, my dear friend, they're actually leather." He smiled evilly, and Lead Singer Sid got the feeling he was being made fun of. "I understand how that could be confusing for you."

Lead Singer Sid's hand twitched over the remote. "Shut up."

"Not like that," Lead Guitarist Sid explained to the skeleton. "He means they epitomize heavy metal."

Jack tapped his chin. "No, I'm pretty sure lead epitomizes heavy metal. It's a metal, and it's heavy. Thus being 'heavy metal'."

"Shut up!" Lead Singer Sid finally shouted. "We gotta practice! Everyone, get in your places! You too, Jack!"

He, instead, heard a soft ruffle as Jack settled back into his armchair, long arms and legs flailing over the sides dramatically. "No, thank you."

Bass Guitarist Sid wiggled under his Rotten Zombie Ninja Death Nazi Solider Werewolf Nun rubber mask. "Ah, cuh moh, Jah. Illbee fuh!"

The skeleton's face stretched height-wise, twisting into a strangely cute expression of confusion. He looked around the room for Sally. "Translator, please!"

Sally looked up from her magazine and blandly recited, "'Aw, come on, Jack. It'll be fun'."

As a thank you, Jack threw her a kiss and fell back into his chair. He waved his hands as he spoke. "Right, because music isn't fun unless you're dressed like the rabid dog of a dominatrix, a Japanese B-movie monster, a wanna-be transvestite-"

"Hey!" Drummer Sid growled, careful not to move too much for fear of his carefully sculpted hairdo. "Poison would be metal if they weren't a bunch of pussies!"

Jack's eyebrow crept up his head. "Riiiiight. Continuing, a wanna-be transvestite, a corpse- which, by the way," he pointed out to Lead Guitarist Sid, "Is much more blue than you've painted yourself."

After a second of painfully oblivious silence, Lead Guitarist Sid shrugged through his three layers of corpse paint. "Wal-Mart was out of white."

"-and, my personal favorite, that… that Simmons fellow."

Rhythm guitarist Sid smiled brightly through (what looked like) the rest of Wal-Mart's white paint, styled in a perfect replica of Peter Kriss's famous KISS face. "Gene?"

The smirk on Jack's face confirmed that his trap had worked, "No, Richard."

One click, and Jack was almost facedown on the floor in agony. Sally twitched in her chair, but a sharp look from Lead Singer Sid sent her back to her magazine article in a hurry.

Lead Singer Sid stuffed the remote in his pocket. "Everybody ready to practice now?!"

Drummer Sid spun his sticks, sending one into the bridge of his nose. "Ow! Ready!"

Lead Guitarist Sid hitched his guitar up to where he could reach it then lowered it to where he could barely touch the strings. "Ready!"

Rhythm Guitarist Sid jiggled his guitar until the bat wings of his suit snapped out of his way. "Ready!"

Bass Guitarist Sid put his heavily gloved fingers approximately where the chord should be. "Rehh!"

"As if I have a choice…" Jack tossed his head towards Sally, who promptly tossed it back. "Translator!" When he received no answer, he found that Sally had covered her ears. "Sally, translate, plea-"

THE MUSIC CAME ON WITHOUT WARNING! THE AMPLIFIERS BUZZED WITH ELECTRICITY, AND THE HOUSES FOUNDATION RATTLED!

MURDER! DEATH!

MURDER! DEATH!

SCREAM YOUR KILLER'S NAME

WITH YOUR VERY LAST BREATH!

Some where in the middle of the first verse, Lead Singer Sid heard his voice being drowned out by an unearthly scream. He halted the band, and the Sids watched in awe as Jack emptied out the rest of his… uh… "lungs." Yeah. We'll go with that.

"THAT WAS SO METAL!" Rhythm Guitarist Sid wailed.

Lead Guitarist Sid applauded the skeleton warmly. "Now you're getting the hang of it!"

Jack shook his head violently. "No, I'm just now getting the feeling back in my head! You call that music?!" He shakily got back to his feet. "Now I know why you need the costumes! It's to distract the audience from the hellstorm coming out of your mouth!"

Within seconds, Jack had been thrown to the floor and was writhing in agony. Lead Singer Sid held down the button for about half a minute before finally letting Jack go-

Only to have the skeleton promptly pass out. The band groaned. Sally gasped.

"Jack?!" She rushed from her chair and cradled the limp skeleton into one arm. "Oh no! Are you okay? Jack!"

"He's fine." Lead Singer Sid stuffed the remote pack into his pocket, "accidentally" pressing "pain" on the way down and making Jack twitch.

Sally whipped her head around, eyes ablaze. "Stop it, Reggie!"

It got very quiet. Sally didn't realize what she had done for a few seconds. When she finally noticed she had called her brother by his actual name she panicked, gathering Jack's lifeless form in her arms. "Sid! Sid, sorry!

"Did you just…" Lead Singer Sid growled. "Talk back to me?"

"You know you shouldn't talk back to him," Drummer Sid recited.

Her mind was a shuddering heap of fear at this point, but Sally found that her mouth was working independently of her mind at this point. "I-I-I d-didn't mean anything rrude! I-I was j-just looking out for the b-band!"

It was quiet once more, but a different kind of quiet. A surprised quiet, and now all of the band mates were involved. Lead Singer Sid blinked twice, but started to relax. "How?"

Sally panicked again. Her throat began to seize up, and she could feel the blood draining from her face. Her arms began to shiver…

But the shivering made Jack's head fall softly onto her shoulder. The warmth on her neck soothed her nerves enough for her to speak. "I mean… Jack is… well, h-he's- (gulp) I mean, h-he's out cold. A-a passed-out demon doe- won't do the band much good, will it?"

Lead Singer Sid looked to the others. They seemed to share a collective shrug, and Lead Singer Sid responded with, "I guess not."

"You do?" Sally's heart stirred from somewhere in her lower intestines. "You do! And- Oh! And besides, I-if you hurt him too m-many times, he won't work ffor you at all!"

It felt more like Jack's words coming out of her mouth than hers, but it was enough to distract the band from the traumatized skeleton. Rhythm Guitarist Sid pointed to nothing, the signal that he was telling a story.

"Oh yeah, you know I saw this thing on the news where this guy bugged this dog, and like, it killed him, but instead of it being a dog, it was, like, a goat."

"Oh, dude, a harassed homicidal goat," Lead Guitarist Sid murmured. "That's so metal."

"Iz ih tolah tah chahne our banh nahm?" Bass Guitarist Sid asked.

Jack whispered, "Translator."

Sally recited in a hushed voice, "'Is it too late to change our band name-' Jack!"

Her attention darted to Jack's face; he looked completely wiped out, but he managed to put a finger to his "lips" before falling back asleep.

"Great, whatever, we'll start now." Lead Singer Sid grabbed Sally's hair and yanked it hard enough to get her attention. "Okay, now thanks to you, Sid wants to go write a whole 'nother song."

Bass Guitarist Sid raised his hand, "Noh, I doh!"

"Not you!" Lead Singer Sid choked. "Wait, I mean yes- you, I mean- fuck!" He pointed accusingly at Sally. "This is coming out of your half of the spending money!"

"But I-"

Too late. The Sids had already left the garage for the living room to write their next big hit, "Harassed Homicidal Hell Goat". Sally sighed softly, pulling Jack a little closer to her chest. "Never mind."

She decided to see if Jack was still asleep; he wasn't, instead smiling quite contently with his head resting right in the valley of her breasts. He spotted her staring at him and smiled weakly.

She pushed him to his knees, holding onto his shoulders for stability. "You pervert."

"Iwasquite content there…" Jack slurred, head still spinning from his experience. Sally gave him a light pop on the nose with her first two fingers. "Ow!"

Sally crossed her arms and waited for him to recover. "Do you still hurt?"

"If I say yes, willyouholdme again?"

Sally popped his nose again, although she was resisting the urge to laugh. Those perverted little snippets were actually a little funny, not to mention cute when coming from Jack Skellington, living stick figure. "Okay, I'm asking you again. Are you still hurting?"

Jack was too busy rubbing his eyelids to answer right away, but he eventually responded with, "I'm a lot better than I used to be- Ow! I wasn't being smart with that one!"

The two then fell into a giggle fit, each holding his or her side and trying not to let the other know they were laughing. Sally finished first and wrapped an arm around Jack. He lifted himself as best he could and tried to walk, letting Sally carry what he couldn't to her room.

He whispered to her somewhere around the kitchen area. "I heard you tell your brother off."

"I didn't tell him off," Sally snapped.

"Well," Jack relented. "Whatever you call it in this backwards little universe of yours, I'm proud that you did it."

Sally blushed a slight shade of pink, and Jack (for no particular reason) blushed as well. He was grateful that Sally wasn't looking at him at that particular moment, or else he would have never stopped explaining to her how he did it. "I-I didn't really do anything-"

Jack stopped in his tracks, Sally not quite catching on and pulling him a few steps forward before she stopped. His vision reeled for a moment, but he soon got his sense of balance back and said, "You protected me from that trigger happy brother of yours, and that's enough for me. I have to pay you back. What do you want me to do?"

It seemed unlikely Sally could turn any redder at this point, but she did. "Oh, Jack, please…"

"No! I insist! I have to do something!" Jack poured on his best grateful routine, the best he'd done in a long time (considering he was still shaky and aching). "Come on! I'll help with the housework one day… no? Maybe something a little more intimate?" He fell to his knees and folded his hands, his head falling somewhere around Sally's belly button. "PLEASE let it be something more intimate!"

The embarrassment nearly sent Sally to her knees; she was lucky to fall back against the refrigerator. "Oh, GOD, Jack!"

Sally snapped her fingers. "I want you to stop bothering Reggie and do what he tells you."

Jack didn't move. It was almost as if he hadn't heard her. "What?"

"I want you to do what he wants you to do." Sally helped the (now) very quiet skeleton back onto his feet. "I know he can be a pain, but you're only making it worse. Will you do it for me?"

Jack stood still for just a minute… then he smiled at Sally and took her hand. "For you, my dear, I would do anything-"

He unexpectedly pulled her into his arms and spun her around like a ballroom dancer, landing her in a low and dramatic dip. "Because you have complete and total control over what's left of my heart-"

He bounced her back onto her feet and tucked his appendages into his body contemplatively. "And all the little hormones that I have but don't use anymore because I have no crotch."

He tapped his pelvis where his genitals should be, making a hollow tapping noise. Sally turned purple with embarrassment and fell flat onto the floor, trying hard to stifle her laughter. He grinned again, happy he could make that woman laugh like that. That could be his side job; not only would he make the idiot band ridiculously successful, he would make Sally laugh a lot. She needed it. It made him sorry he had to leave.

But the favor he would be doing her made it that much better.


I'm trying to be funny all the time, really I am, but it's tricky. Especially when writing for Sally. Sally's not a verbally humorous character, especially not at this stage. Stay tuned. Big concert scene next chapter, and it will feature "Harassed Homicidal Hell Goat". As soon as I write it.