Chapter 24
December 2, 2005
The day of the Christmas show. It was just after school, and we were sitting in the Arc Family living room.
"Hey Jaune, check this out, I learned the opening to Solsbury Hill."
I readjusted his dad's old Yamaha in my lap and rolled my neck out. It took me a second to figure out how the strap capo worked, but I got it adjusted correctly on the second fret. Counting myself in, I thumped my heel against the carpet and started the lick, doing my best Travis picking, which to be honest I wasn't very good at yet.
"Hold on, stop for a second."
I looked up at Jaune, muting the guitar with my hand.
"Mmm?"
"Just a sec, just a sec-"
He stood up from the love seat across from me and hopped to the closet, pulling out a thick faded green leather case from within and set it down on the floor between us. He hit the latches, which had a very distinct brassy kind of click to them, and lifted the lid, revealing a very weathered and long-travelled guitar. He picked it up and slung the old strap over his shoulder, and it was only then that I noticed the scripty C.F. Martin & Co. on the headstock.
"Oh my."
"My grandfather's. Dad stole it when he moved out."
"What is that, a D45?"
"D41. Play that lick again?"
I stuttered. "Uh, yeah, yeah."
I stumbled over my hands for a second, lining them up again as Jaune put on a set of thumb picks and put a capo on. I once again thumped myself in with my heel and started to pluck out the rhythm. It was a little difficult to remember all the fingering positions while also remembering the song was in 7/4 time. And of course just as I got to the second playthrough of the opening lick, Jaune joined me, the deep-bodied D41 adding so much bass. I honestly got a little lost in the sound for a second, forgetting to thumb the upper strings. As we got to the 'chorus' since Solsbury Hill has no traditional verse-chorus structure, I got back into the Travis picking rhythm and Jaune switched styles for a moment to play the descending synth chords that preceded the singing. On his guitar. Without ever stopping his picking. I swear, sometimes…
"~Climbin' up on Solsbury Hill~"
Again with the descending chords. I just grinned and stared at my left hand, willing it to have the strength for bar chords.
"~I could see the city lights~"
With a tone change, we went together into the E# minor. I have no idea how his fingers do what they do on a guitar. It's like five people are playing the same guitar with how many sounds he can make come out of it.
"~Wind was blowin', time stood still~"
The thumping pattern was a little difficult to remember since it didn't match a standard 4/4 rock beat or 3/4 swing pattern, but Jaune was keeping me going with his heel, too.
"~Eagle flew out of the night~"
We lifted back up to the A. My thumb and index finger had found their groove again. Of course, not as groovy as him, the bastard.
"~He was something to observe~"
I leaned back a little in my chair and flipped my ponytail around to my other shoulder. Here's a funny fact, Jaune sings with his eyes closed, like pretty much all the time. I still wonder if he's playing the official music video in his head or making one up as he goes.
"~Came in close, I heard a voice~"
Another drop down to the E minor. The boomy bass of the Martin was almost intoxicating.
"~Standing, stretching every nerve, had to listen, had no choice~"
I readjusted my guitar in my lap as we pulled up to the C major seventh.
"~I did not believe the informa-tion~"
Solsbury Hill is a hard song to play, not just because of its odd 7/4 time signature, but also because of Peter Gabriel's difficult cadence of lyric. And of course, Jaune could play it and sing it like he wrote the goddamn thing.
"~I just had to trust imagination~"
It was about this point I wished I had my hands on that old Martin. You could hear the Brazilian Rosewood singing as he played. It was wonderful. The spruce-top Yamaha sounded okay, but honestly that could have been attributed to the strings alone.
"~My heart going boom boom boom, 'son,' he said~"
He slid his hand up the neck to play an upper harmony, leaving me on the root.
"~Grab your things, I've come to take you home~"
We both played the last C major seventh and let it ring out and go quiet. He was quick to pull his capo off and return the antique to its case, closing it softly as I just watched him move.
"That's a beautiful guitar, Jaune."
"Yeah, it is."
"I'm really pissed off at you."
He leaned back on the loveseat and eyed me suspiciously.
"Why's that?"
I frowned and layed my entire weight onto the body of my guitar.
"'Cause you're so good at that, playing guitar an' singing n' shit. It just, like, comes naturally to you and I think that's completely bogus."
He shrugged. The nerve.
"It's not natural, it's practice, Weiss. I could say the same thing about you and piano. I mean, I watched you play Take the A Train with your eyes closed. If anything, it's me who should be pissed off at you since you have perfect pitch, which is frankly musical cheating."
"Is not."
"Is too!"
"Is not! And besides, I only did the blindfold thing to show I deserved the piano part in Jazz Band. You saw that Henry kid trying to show me up!"
Jaune chuckled and put his hands behind his head.
"You made Henry cry. With the Thomas The Tank Engine theme."
"Henry wanted a piano battle, I gave him a goddamn piano battle. Flight of the Bumblebee doesn't prove you can play Jazz. It proves you can memorize musical notation. Henry couldn't feel the soul of the music. If he wanted to cry about it, that's his prerogative."
"You are a menace of musical fortitude. Me being able to play guitar should be the least of your concerns."
I sighed and slumped back.
"I wish you wouldn't always provide clear and concise evidence against all my transgressions, Jaune."
"Maybe don't be so opinionated, Weiss."
I threw my arms dramatically up in the air.
"But that's my whole schtick! What am I if not a compact bundle of powerful opinions?"
"Hopefully something other than the Gremlin that you are."
"You son of a bitch."
Jaune pointed at me with a grin.
"You don't speak about my mother like that in her house. My mother is a saint."
"Actually, you're right, I take that back. You're a pain in my ass. How's that sound?"
Jaune cocked an eyebrow at me.
"Don't you threaten me with a good time."
It took me a second to realize what he meant, but when I did I turned a bright red colour and threw a couch cushion at him.
"Jaune! Ew, no! Ugh! Gross!"
He laughed and caught the pillow.
"You said it."
I threw a throw pillow. I mean, it's in the name after all.
"You didn't have to fuckin' extrapolate!"
Again, a perfect catch.
"Choose your words more wisely next time! And stop throwing pillows! You're gonna hit a lamp or something!"
"I'm trying to hit you! For homonymously dissecting everything I say!"
He smirked.
"Jeez, Weiss, you don't have to be so anal about it!"
"Aaaargh!"
I tossed one last pillow and fell back against the couch, head up to the ceiling.
"Like what the hell man, I'm supposed to be the one with all the dirty jokes."
I heard him snicker to himself.
"Thought I'd try it out. Turns out it's kinda fun."
"Okay, first off, rude."
I sat up again with a groan. Yeah, I know, seventeen years old, I shouldn't be making noises when I get up, well you can shut up. I have a steel plate in my leg, my joints are soupy, shush. Anyway, I resettled the guitar in my lap comfortably again and plucked out the beginning of the Solsbury Hill lick.
"You're getting pretty good at that."
I looked back up at Jaune, trying not to beam at his compliment.
"Think so?"
"Oh, for sure. Of course, don't expect to sound like the studio version, mind."
I frowned.
"Why's that?"
"Well, how do you think they got that tone for Steve Hunter's guitar?"
"Uh, it's played on a twelve-string, isn't it?"
I handed the guitar over to Jaune's outstretched hands.
"Not quite, it's actually three separate tracks overlaid with a speed oscillator to create a chorusing effect, almost like a twelve-string. Or, maybe an eighteen-string. But I feel like that would be hard to play, with all the string tension."
He played the opening lick to the song again, stopping after a few measures.
"Y'see how that sounds a little thin?"
I nodded, stretching myself out on the couch.
"Yeah, it does."
"'Kay, listen to this."
He slid over to the side of the room and pulled his dad's old guitar amplifier out from under the TV stand. There was already a patch cord in it and it was already plugged into the wall, so setup took Jaune all of about twenty seconds. I watched him fiddle with the dials for a moment, a dull buzzing coming from the speaker.
"Alright compare this-"
He played the opening lick with the amp in its regular setting. Same sound as before, just louder now since the pickups were active.
"-To this."
He reached down and pressed the chorus switch on the amp. He played the opening lick again, and this time I understood what he meant.
"See how that's different? It takes the one sound wave input from the guitar and multiplies it, creating a 'chorus' of guitars playing."
"Okay, cool, but why didn't Steve Hunter just use the chorus setting on his amp? Why do the three tracks thing?"
Jaune pointed his index finger at me.
"Because Solsbury Hill was recorded in nineteen seventy-six, before chorus pedals were commercially available. The first one was built and sold in seventy-six, and was probably too expensive for most studios at the time, and likely also an unknown technology. In fact-"
"Hmm?"
I watched him pull open a drawer on the TV stand and pull out a small black and chrome box with two long cables wrapped around it.
"-this is the Boss Chorus Ensemble, or CE-1 chorus box. It's basically just the circuit board from the Roland Jazz Chorus amplifier, put into a compact package. Every amp you buy now has a device built in to replace this, but it's still usable if you want to separate your pedals or run into a PA system instead of an amp. These things are kinda rare now."
I balked a little.
"Cool. Does it still work?"
"Yup. Knobs are a little stiff, though."
I chuckled.
"Most knobs are."
"Hardy har, very clever."
"See? Pervy jokes are my thing, don't be cramping my style, man."
Jaune sighed with a grin.
"You're right, you're right. It felt weird in my mouth anyway."
A very toothy grin crossed my face. I watched the realization hit Jaune's face like a wave.
"Heh heh, bet it did."
"Oh, shut up."
I laughed.
"See? Business as usual! I do the jokes, you play the music! Let's keep it that way!"
"I'm all for that. Speaking of music, how much longer until we have to be back at school?"
I pulled out my phone and flipped it open. "Lemme check- uh, like, four hours. It's quarter after three now and the show starts at seven thirty."
"We got some time then. You feel all practiced out yet?"
I shrugged.
"Yeah, I think I can handle it."
"You wanna watch The Wall?"
"Do you have popcorn?" I asked, leaning over my knee.
"Yes, yes I do," he answered extremely matter-of-factly.
"Then yes. I want to watch The Wall."
He stood up and placed the guitar back into its stand.
"Kay, cool. VCR's in the basement, we can go watch it down on the pull-out, I'll go set that up and rewind the tape. Popcorn's in the pantry, you go deal with that."
"Got it."
And to our respective battle stations we went.
/.../
My eyes struggled to open. My mouth was dry and my head pounded like a mid-90s grunge bassline. I was at the moment unable to get a bearing on myself as the haze in my eyes persisted. Apparently I nap like a dead person. Like, when I'm down, I'm down, body off, muscles loose, dead. And this is sort of the position I found myself waking up in, resting a sticky, salty cheek against something damp and moving.
As I blinked away the sleep, or at least, tried to, I noticed that the damp, moving spot I was sleeping on was actually a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and it appeared to be wrapped around a fairly solidly-toned set of pecs. I gave them, and the washboard below them, a quick feel. They were excellent. My giddy teenage heart did a few completely warranted flips. Hot guy alert, geez.
Of course this was about when I remembered I wasn't dreaming anymore and that lump of person I was snoozing on was Jaune. I recoiled slightly, not out of disgust or anything, just out of 'oh he better not be awake for that' kind of apprehension. Lucky for me, he was still asleep, snoring silently with his head back against the back of the couch, neck contorted at a funny angle and his mouth hanging open. If this was one of them Japanese animes I'm sure there would be a big translucent bubble inflating and deflating out of his nose, but alas, it was not.
I took a second to gauge my surroundings and found us on the pull-out couch in front of an aging, greying twenty-ish inch CRT displaying quiet static and lighting the room up in a dim flickering light. It appeared that we had in fact pulled out on the pull out and turned it into a bed. The wool throw-blanket loosely tossed over our legs was tangled askew and I noticed I was missing one of my green and grey Oscar The Grouch socks. And if you think I'm childish for wearing Sesame Street merch, you can shove it. I love my Oscar socks, they're super comfy.
I groaned and sat up on the pull-out. Funny name, pull-out couches. You know, for what most teenagers do on the basement pull-out, the name is almost euphemistically ironic if you catch my drift. I, on the other hand, have not great memories about the pull-out in Jaune's basement biting my hand every goddamn time I tried to pull it out or put it away. Ones in hotels? Fine, no biting. This goddamn one? Corduroy burns on my knees and my lower back from the cushions and a permanent scar on my left middle finger from the end of the bedframe snapping shut on it seventeen too many times.
Jaune made a noise from his mouth from his side of the bed, prompting me to look back over. Maybe sleepy me was sleepy. Boy was pretty handsome in these lighting conditions. I reached over the side of the couch and turned on the little desk lamp on the one nightstand, adding a hue of yellow incandescence to the grey flickering. It really served to highlight his cheekbones. If I had a camera other than the postage-stamp sized one on my phone, I would have taken a picture. If only to blackmail him later. I sort of spun slowly on my butt to face him, reaching down the collar of my shirt to pull my straps back up and re-adjust.
"Jau-" I started, realizing my mouth had a bubble of gross in it and swallowing it. "-ahem, Jaune?"
"Huhhh"
I snorted slightly, reaching over and slapping him gently on the cheek.
"Jaune? You awake in there, dude?"
His eyes rejected the light just as mine had.
"Ohh fufff-" he tried, pulling his head up straight with what looked like quite a bit of painful effort. "Oww- my neck. My back-"
I chuckled and slapped him on the thigh.
"Oh don't you be complaining, you're not even eighteen yet, you don't get to have neck and back problems."
Jaune leaned forward and pulled down on the back of his neck, stretching out whatever kink was in there. Probably something risque, if memory serves.
"Yeah, yeah, but you'd think I'd have remembered to sleep on a pillow or something, shit-"
"You kiss your mouth with that mother?"
We both paused for a second, and I received the slyest side-eye I think I have ever seen in my entire life. I turned a little pink.
"What was that?"
I hit him in the legs with a pillow.
"Shut up."
He straightened his back and did that arms-over-the-head twisty back thing, in a vain attempt to realign his spine. There was about six or seven loud pops, though, the kind that sound super satisfying when it happens to you but crazy gross when you hear it from anyone else. I cringed a little, but didn't look away. As he brought his arms down, he seemed to take notice of the darkened damp spot on his shirt, just below his right pectoral. He frowned down at it as he prodded with his fingers.
"Did you drool on me?"
"No," I lied as easily as I breathed. "I was sleeping over here."
He looked at me through his brow.
"Uh huh. Sure."
"Must have been you. Droolin' on yourself."
"Whatever. What time is it? It's kinda dark out."
I looked up to the slit window above the back of the TV. I shrugged.
"I dunno. Six-thirty? We should probably get ready to go soon."
"Yeah, Russ and Em are going to be pissed if we're late."
I stuck my tongue between my teeth and leaned back over to the night stand to grab my phone off it, only for it to slip out of my hands and land on the carpet and bounce under the couch. So I chased it down, flipping myself upside down with my shoulder on the floor and my knees still up on the couch to grab the darn thing. Real demonstration of elegance, let me tell you.
"They can wait. Oof," I grabbed my phone and hoisted myself back up, flipping it open. "Huh. Lotta missed calls."
I checked the top corner of the screen. And, uh, yeah. My heart and lungs basically exploded in an instant.
"Holy fuck!"
"What?"
"It's five after eight!"
"WHAT?!" he yelled. Yelled.
"It's eight-oh-fucking-five!"
"WE'RE ON IN FORTY MINUTES! LIKE, ON STAGE!"
I jumped bolt upright. Shaking.
"I KNOW!"
The speed at which we both bolted for the stairs was a little mind-boggling. I think we had made it about halfway back up to the main floor before the pull-out's comforter had even landed. I think I made it up the stairs first, because I remember falling face-first onto the hardwood floor of the front foyer and then Jaune's hands literally hoisting me back up to my feet by the boobs so we could keep running. Running with only one sock on over polished hardwood is a lot harder than with either both or none on, since you have fifty percent amazing traction and fifty percent zero traction, so you slip and fall awkwardly with just about every step you take. I of course had already forgotten about the surprise fondle by the time we had made it to the top of the second floor stairs. We smashed our way into his bedroom, bouncing the door off the brass springstop, which vibrated loudly. This is normally a funny noise. This time we were not laughing.
"Jaune, where's your dress?!"
We both stared at the bed, which only had the one outfit on it. Mine.
"I don't know, I put it right there next to yours!"
"Did your sister take it?! Your mom?"
He snapped his fingers and pointed at me.
"Bet it's on the ironing board."
We dashed for the door, and across the hall into the room that used to be one of his older sister's. Sure enough, there it was, hanging neatly on a clothes rack, bonnet in a delicates bag. Bless Inez for fretting over her son, that woman is a national treasure. Jaune grabbed his outfit and turned to me.
"Got it, okay, good-"
I interrupted him.
"I can't go on stage without washing my hair, it's fuckin' greasy as hell."
"You're right, it is. I need to have a shower too-"
I slapped him on the arm.
"Don't fuckin' agree with me, just say 'yes, great idea'! And you should probably go first, you probably take shorter showers than me. Gimme the dress, you go!"
"Got it."
I grabbed the dress from him and we split ways, me back to the bedroom and him toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. I tossed the outfit onto the bed next to mine and pulled out my phone, wincing a little as Jaune slammed the bathroom door closed behind me. I did some math in my head. It was going to take him probably a minute to get the water warm, seven minutes to actually shower, then we'd have a five-minute transition, I'd have to get undressed, then spend probably close to fifteen minutes in the shower, since my hair hung down to my butt. Then we'd have to dry off, I'd have to do something with my hair, dry it, brush it, yell at it, something. I wasn't about to go on stage in front of my peers looking like the girl from The Ring. We weren't gonna make it in time.
"Fuck."
I dashed over to the bathroom and tried the door, finding it locked. I fished a bobby pin out of my pocket, because of course, and sprung the privacy lock and shoved the door open with my shoulder. Jaune looked at me with bewildered surprise, halfway through turning the water on.
"What the f-"
"We don't have time for separate showers, we gotta do this at the same time."
"How did you-"
"Bobby pin. Now get in, get undressed, turn the water on, I'll be in right after you."
For the first time since the basement, Jaune stopped moving. I impatiently tapped my foot, expecting him to jump into action. He did not, however, and just looked at me with this confused look on his face.
"You want… to shower… together?"
"Saves time. Now hurry, get in!"
"We can't shower together!"
I threw my arms up.
"Why the hell not?! Em and I bathe together all the time!"
Okay, like once, but it was for her birthday. It was fun, there was bubbles, and we watched The Muppet Show on her portable TV/VCR.
"Wha- that is completely different!"
"You and Russel shower together all the time, too!"
We were starting to raise our voices.
"Yeah, at the Gym!"
"SO?! How's that any different to now?!"
"IT'S VASTLY DIFFERENT!"
"Is it because I'm a girl?!"
Jaune seemed at a loss.
"I- ah- Jus- Yes! Completely!"
I brushed him off.
"Look, we don't have time for your sexist showering ideologies, if we don't do this now, we're gonna go on stage like this, do you want that? Do you want dirty, greasy hair on stage?"
I could see the veins in his neck pulse and flex as he gnashed his jaw. I just glared at him expectantly.
"Fuck, fine!" he relented. "Whatever!"
I gave a thumbs up and pushed him back towards the tub.
"Great, you get in, undress behind the curtain, hand your clothes out to me, I'll undress out here and come in after you. You face left, I'll face right, and we won't turn around."
"Whatever. I'm so mad at you right now." He said, stepping into the tub and sliding the striped curtain closed.
"What?! I'm mad at you for wasting the last-" I checked my phone. "-four minutes arguing with me! Also, who the fuck falls asleed during The Wall?! It's a fuckin' horror movie!"
Jaune tossed his clothes back out and onto the lid of the toilet tank with a grunt.
"Both of us, apparently! Was your phone on silent or something?!"
"I don't know!" I yelled back, yanking my t-shirt off and kicking my one remaining sock off. "I don't even know how to change that, I only got it yesterday!"
I heard the water turn on, followed by a shriek as it hit Jaune's naked, angry body.
"Fuck, that's cold!"
"Stop complaining, we don't have time to wait for it to warm up!"
"I hate myself and my choices!"
I scoffed as I literally yanked the button apart on my jeans and slid both them and my underwear into a pile in the corner with a kick. Of course, something had to go wrong, so as I pulled at the plastic clasp on my bra, it snapped. Stupid hand-me-down.
"Oh for FUCK'S sake!"
"What?!"
"I broke my bra."
"What the hell do you want me to do about it, it's not like I have extra!"
I growled and stamped my foot, tossing the offending garment into the sink. I ripped off my glasses and put them angrily on the counter, lenses down. I know, I know, that's not good for them, I wasn't in any mood to think clearly and rationally.
"Fuck. I'll figure something out. Whatever, move aside! I'm coming in!"
"It's not warm ye-"
"I don't care!"
I pulled back the curtain, and holding one hand over my chest, because some irritating sense of modesty told me I had to, stepped over the side of the tub and in.
"Whoop-"
See, I should have asked which side of the tub he was standing on and which was he was facing, because then I would have been able to avoid the sudden awkward moment of standing face-to-face with Jaune's nude chest. The sheer cold of the water falling on our heads clearly was able to break us free from whatever romance-novel-trope-y trance we would have otherwise found ourselves in, and almost as if on cue we both about-faced.
"Sorry," I barely muttered.
"No issue."
Well, big issue. But now wasn't the time. I put my head back and closed my eyes, wrenching my jaw shut to avoid yelling from the cold, and started to fluff my hair out to soak it. The great thing about Jaune's shower was the three-foot-wide rainfall showerhead that took up almost the whole ceiling of the shower. If there had only been one of those regular round heads on a hose, there probably would have been more protests from Jaune and a lot more arguing between us once I had eventually conned him into this situation. Apparently this showerhead was like seven hundred bucks and lit up with colourful LEDs, but the remote was out on the counter, and I wasn't gonna get back out again just for that. Jaune's elbow hit me between the shoulder blades.
"Hmm?"
"Pass me the shampoo, please?"
I opened one eye and looked around for it. Red bottle on the shelf right in front of me. I grabbed it and handed it backwards, bumping him on the butt cheek with it to let him know it was there.
"Here you go."
"Thanks."
My hair, being as long as it was, took an awful long time to get soaked. So by the time I was ready for any hair care product, my cleansing companion was already shampoo'd, rinsed, and halfway through conditioning. I leaned back and bumped him on the butt with my elbow.
"My turn."
"Got it."
He dropped the bottle onto my shoulder, and I took and popped it open one handed. I basically drained the bottle onto my scalp, leaving only like half a cup of shampoo for his next shower. I mean, that wasn't my problem. As I went to put it back on the shelf, my extremely soapy hands suddenly found no grip on the plastic, and the bottle fell and landed right next to my foot. Out of instinct, I tensed out of the way and stumbled, reaching out to grab something to inhibit my injurious path of travel. Jaune, once again, caught me around the waist with one arm, having contorted his spine and torso to avoid looking directly at me. Which is good, because I probably would have killed him.
"You good?"
I gasped for air for a moment before planting my feet and standing up again. He let go and turned back to his side of the tub, reaching down and rescuing the shampoo bottle from between our feet.
"I'm good. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
About now was when my jovial, juvenile heart caught up to the situation it was in and started pounding like one of those twin-pedal setups you see speed metal drummers using. My throat tightened and I employed every single ounce of self-control to stay standing and not let my anxiety vibrate me through space and time to escape. It was just Jaune. I could do this.
"Shit. Conditioner in the eye."
Jaune's voice somehow was able to get me to focus again.
"Sorry," I said on instinct, running my fingers through my extremely soapy hair to try and rinse it out.
"It's fine. I got it. Ow. You want the conditioner?"
"Yeah, yeah, in a sec."
After a few more almost violent tugs at my hair, the shampoo was finally all rinsed out, and I took the bottle of conditioner from his upturned hand and popped it open against my hip, pouring it into an open palm. There wasn't much left in the bottle, so it farted loudly as I pushed the air out the nozzle. I snickered to myself and blindly elbowed Jaune in the rib.
"Geez, Jaune, warn a girl next time."
"Shut the hell up, you nuisance."
I farted the bottle again.
"Dude, gross! What did you eat!"
He finally laughed.
"Weiss! Stop it!"
I farted the bottle a third time, just for good measure, and put it back on the shelf empty. I rubbed the gooey green liquid into my scalp and started to work it down my locks.
"That was me this time, sorry."
"Extremely ladylike."
"When have I ever been that?"
Jaune chuckled.
"~Well, I need you to be secure if I'm not. You're ladylike and more~"
"That's Big Wreck, isn't it?"
"That's right."
"Huh. Why don't we do that for the end of year concert?"
"It's got a banjo part. Can you play Banjo?"
I scoffed. "Pfft, no. Can you?"
"I've never tried. But so far, no. Also that's two guitar parts, a bass part, Banjo and drums. So unless you suddenly know two spare musicians, we're too short for that song. Loofa?"
"Huh?" I balked at the sudden question before realizing what it meant. "Oh, yes, thank you. And no, I don't know any spare musicians. At least, none I want to play with."
With my hair sufficiently conditioned, it was now a waiting game for it to set. For me, that takes almost ten minutes, but I was going to expedite that process today so we didn't miss our show window. I grabbed the soap bar off the shelf to my left and rubbed it into the provided loofa, not dropping it since this wasn't prison. After just about the fastest scrub down of my life, I handed the poofy soapy fabric thing back to Jaune to hang up on the faucet, like we all did for some reason. I sighed and leaned back, pressing my shoulder blades into the middle of his back and closing my eyes, enjoying the feeling of the rainfall showerhead.
"Yes?"
"Hmm? Yes what?"
"You leaned against me."
I stood up straight again and took a step away from Jaune.
"Oh, right. Nothing, I'm just tired."
"Well, we really don't have time to slow down. I'm gonna rinse out the conditioner and get out, I assume you need a few minutes more?"
I nodded, and realizing he couldn't see me, answered verbally. "Yes, I do. I assume you have a blowdryer in your bathroom?"
"I have two. I'll set them both up."
"Sweet."
I pulled my long lump of conditioned hair over my shoulder and twirled it idly in my hands, listening to the loud, wet slapping sounds of Jaune rinsing conditioner out of his scalp. After a moment, he stopped.
"Jaune?"
"Yeah."
I bit my tongue.
"Have you seen Russel naked?"
"Yeah, plenty of times. We go to the gym together."
"Thoughts? Opinions?"
"He's got a killer bod under all that Armani."
I chuckled at his comment.
"Funny. What about Emerald?"
"No, but we've seen her in a bikini, and I can extrapolate from there. It's not like she's gonna have extra nipples or a penis or anything, right?"
"You're right, she has a perfectly normal number of nipples and penises. Which is two and zero, by the way."
Jaune laughed at my joke.
"Numerically average, then."
"I dare you to tell Emerald that you think her body is numerically average."
"Done."
"What about any other girl, ever seen a real woman naked?"
"Other than just now as you stepped in?"
I flushed a vibrant colour that I was glad he couldn't see.
"You weren't supposed to look."
"Sorry."
I bit my tongue.
"I mean, I wasn't supposed to get in on that side anyway, we're both to blame. You didn't see anything?"
"Other than some patchy vitiligo, no nothing out of the ordinary."
I elbowed him, my face in my hands. I couldn't believe his brazenness.
"You know what I mean. Answer my original question, ass."
"What was it, something about naked women?"
"Yeah, have you ever seen a real one. Other than me."
"Yes, I think I was seven or eight. It was back in our house in Marseille, anyway."
I lifted my head up, suddenly curious.
"Oh, do tell."
"It was like, two or three in the morning, middle of summer, I needed to get a drink or something, so I was sneaking out of my room all quiet like, and my sister Saphron was dating this Parisian girl, and I come around the corner in the kitchen, and there's this girl in front of the fridge. Completely naked. I remember she had this long flowery tattoo all along her side and down her thigh, all in pinks and blues. I think she must have been about nineteen or twenty, and she had a huge rack."
"Holy shit. How do you remember that from when you were seven?"
"Weiss, it was the first time I had ever seen a girl naked, I'm going to remember it until the day I die."
I chuckled.
"I suppose that would leave an imprint, wouldn't it?"
"This wasn't the girl my sister married. I think her name was… Monique?"
"Hot?"
"Extremely. Anyway, I'm finished here, I'll step out and leave you to rinse up, right?"
I nodded. To myself, of course.
"Sure, sure. You get out, fire up the blow dryers, I'll be out in like five minutes."
"Got it."
With that he turned and stepped out, and the brief waft of cold bathroom air on my skin made me shiver, a feeling quickly soothed by the heat of the shower water. True to form. I heard a pair of plugs going into the wall sockets, followed by the sound of a blow dryer turning on. All of these sounds went away as I leaned my head back and started to scrub out the conditioner, my hair turning to silk in my fingers. See, Four-Hours-Ago-Weiss would have been absolutely losing her goddamn mind about the prospect of being even a little bit undressed around Jaune, but here was Right-Now-Weiss with far too much adrenaline in her veins to give a shit about about how Four-Hours-Ago-Weiss might have been feeling. What a fucking bitch!
"Hey Jaune?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you braid hair?"
"I have seven sisters."
"Right, I forgot, why do I always forget that?"
"What kind of braid do you want?"
"Dutch Crown?"
"I can do that."
"Sweet."
"Hey, d'you want me to try and fix your bra while I'm out here? I've got some safety pins, or something."
I balked for a moment at the thought of him nonchalantly playing with my undergarments. To be fair, it was just a piece of cloth, and at this point useless until repaired.
"Uh, I guess so, if you think you can."
There was a pause and I heard him briefly pause and stab himself in what was probably his thumb.
"It's okay, I fixed it."
"That was quick, good job. Hey, uh, how do I turn your shower off?"
"Push the knob into the wall."
"There's like six knobs here, dude."
Jaune pulled the curtain back and looked past me, pointing to the middle one of three. He already had his underpants and a shirt on, and I suddenly felt even nakeder.
"That one."
I pushed it in, and the water stopped.
"Towel?"
He already had one ready, and I took it as he closed the curtain again. I really needed two towels, but I wasn't really in a position to make demands. With the equipment provided, I did my best to at least pull most of the water out of my hair, letting my skin drip dry. I ruffled the towel as hard and fast as I could against my scalp, pinching my locks between two folded halves of it and straining to not pull my hair right out of my head while still being forceful enough to facilitate de-wettening. And of course the towel, undersized on most normal sized people, was able to cover me from armpits to thighs as I wrapped it around myself. As usual. If Emerald wore this towel she would have to make the choice of exposing her tits or her crotch. But knowing her, she would have probably just foregone the towel all together.
"'Kay, I'm stepping out. Don't be alarmed by how I look."
I pulled back the curtain and stepped out, careful to step on the rug and not the tile lest I fall on my head. Jaune looked over and put his hands up in front of himself.
"Ah, I am alarmed."
I chuckled and sat down on the toilet seat lid facing the tank.
"Very funny. C'mere and help me dry my hair."
"Yep."
He stepped over, two hair dryers in his hands, and gave one to me.
"I'll do the top, you do the bottom, we'll meet halfway."
"Great idea."
He grabbed my hair at about the shoulder line and pulled it away from my back, and immediately started to attack it with the highest setting on his unit. I turned mine on to about half and pulled at my scalp, blowing hot air up my face and resting my elbows on the toilet tank lid. Actually, If I'm honest, this was somehow more intimate than being in the shower with him. I had never let Jaune play with or style or even touch my hair in this manner, so somehow being covered by a towel, which in case you're curious is about one hundred percent more dressed than I was forty five seconds ago, and having my hair dried by Jaune was making me feel more embarrassed and awkward than literally showering with him.. I shivered, which he noticed.
"Cold?"
"A little." I lied.
He briefly turned the hair dryer to blow hot air over my shoulders.
"Better?"
I mean, yeah, it was warmer, but it didn't make me shiver any less.
"Thanks."
Now, I can take like half an hour to just dry my hair, forget styling it or providing it with any aftercare, just the drying alone can take up most of a morning. I've been advised in the past by my extremely punctual sister to get a haircut which I am adamantly against for personal reasons. You can't whip your head around and hit someone with a bob or a pixie cut. And robbing me of that ability is tantamount to treason.
"Okay, I'm almost done down here. Your hair is really soft."
I was really glad he couldn't see my face, since I was pretty sure it was actually lit up like a spotlight. You could have lit a The Who concert with my face. I deflected, as usual, with sarcastic quips.
"It's your conditioner, Jaune."
"Is my hair this soft?"
"I dunno, probably, I've never played with it like how you're playing with mine."
I heard a chuckle.
"Weiss, can you even reach my hair?"
"Jaune, I will hit you."
"You let me set that one up. Okay, are you ready for me to start braiding?"
I turned off my blow dryer and ran my fingers from my scalp to the end of my locks.
"Hmm, it's like eighty percent dry. Braiding should hide the rest, right?"
"Absolutely."
I put the dryer down and sat back slightly, just so my butt was hanging over the edge of the seat. I felt Jaune's hands grab my hair gently around my ears and pull the whole mess down and away from my back. I heard him fumble over the counter to open the far draw to retrieve a comb.
"'Kay, I'm just gonna part your hair- here or so-"
I had the briefest of 'why do you even own one of these' as he ran the pointy end of a rat-tail comb around in a circle in the middle of my scalp, but then I remembered that Jaune was just as crazy about his hair as I was sometimes, except his crazy extended to all of the time. His hair-care drawer was even more comprehensive than mine, or even the mohawk-prone Russel. I suppose we all express our vanity differently. Out of instinct my head followed his hands as he parted my hair to the right side, and one of his hands quickly nudged it back straight again.
"Sit still."
"Sorry."
"This might take me a second to remember how this is done, but I'll get it. Haven't done a Dutch Crown since my sister's wedding."
I nodded, throwing him off for a moment.
"I remember the pictures, she looked amazing."
"Then I hope you'll trust my skill when I ask you to stop moving."
I flushed.
"Sorry."
"Thank you."
I felt the tugging of my hair around behind my left ear at this point. Jaune worked quickly, faster than my usual barber even, as he pulled the braid around behind the back of my head. For the length of my hair and the usual ways I style it this was the first time in a while that I didn't have hair covering the back of my neck, and I realized I should have probably checked myself for acne before letting anyone, let alone Jaune, touch and look at that spot. I ran my hand over it to check.
"Smooth."
"What was that?"
"Nothing, I didn't say anything."
"Alright. 'Kay, so, I'm almost done here, and as soon as I am, We're gonna have to do some running, so let's plan our routes now, yeah?"
I resisted the urge to nod. Or maybe it was Jaune's tight grasp on my head, I dunno.
"Okay."
"Alright. Soon as I'm done here, I'll bust out and leave you to get dressed. Now, do we want to put on the outfits here or when we get there?"
"When we get to school, I can't drive stick in a dress."
"Fair point. Now, where's your dress?"
"On the bed."
"Bonnet?"
"In my school bag, in the backseat of my car."
"Boots?"
I paused for a second.
"...Trunk."
"Great. Where's your guitar?"
"In the music room, on the stand next to the drumset."
"Fantastic. Alright, hold your head steady, I've just gotta… pin this… here…"
I flinched a little as he poked me with a pair of bobby pins, albeit accidentally, and waited patiently for him to finish tugging the edges of the braid out to finish the look.
"Done?"
"Yep, just gonna tuck this…"
He leaned my head back and I opened my eyes, finding myself staring directly up into his face. He didn't make eye contact for more than a second, focusing on tucking the end of the braid neatly into the crown. He let go of my head and let me re-center it, luckily giving me time to hide a very childlike and very inopportune blush. Again, why was this the thing that was getting me?
"H-how's it look?"
"Well, it's about the dirtiest and fastest Dutch Crown I've ever done, but it's passable. Shit, I wish mom was here tonight, she would have done such a better job. Alright, ready? We start running now."
"I'm ready."
"Okay. Go!"
I barely had time to turn around before the door slammed shut, leaving me by my lonesome. I huffed and stood up, and finally alone, let the mother of all anxiety shivers take my body over and drop me against the wall back first.
"Hoo, fuck, Weiss, what is wrong with you?"
I didn't have time for the existential argument with myself, so I settled on dressing. I tossed the towel against the rack in the corner of the room and grabbed my undergarments, pulling them on with shaking hands, feet, legs, hips, just about every part of my body was shaking, actually. This was not a part of me I had intended to show Jaune so soon. Though I supposed I had been plenty vulnerable around him, but this just felt excessive. I don't know what separates this kind of interaction from the stuff I did with Emerald behind closed doors, because it was fundamentally the same. We'd bathed together, we cuddled on her bed and watched movies, I'd let her do my hair basically once a week, and with her it felt 'normal'.
Why was it so different with Jaune? I'd known them both the same amount of time, they were, to my limited knowledge of this kind of thing the same level of friendship with me. Being quote-unquote 'intimate' with Em felt fine, but doing the same things with Jaune made me incredibly uncomfortable. But not 'I hate this' uncomfortable. More like, 'I want to do this more to see how it might continue to feel' kind of uncomfortable. What did that make me? Weird? Curious? This was a time of great confusion in my life, the same sort of thing every teenager goes through. Was I figuring myself out? Yeah, sure, I had a crush on Jaune, everybody knew that much to my dismay, but did Jaune? Why would he have agreed to shower with me if he did or didn't know?
A loud knock at the door woke me from my stupor, halfway through putting my pants on.
"You done?! We've got seventeen minutes to get to school!"
I jolted to life again.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm done, one sec-"
I grabbed my t-shirt and threw it on, completely ignoring the fact that my pants were unbuttoned and unzipped. I ripped the door open and grabbed my outfit out of Jaune's outstretched hands and we dashed for the stairs without exchanging another word, almost tumbling down them to the front entryway. I dived for the pair of yellow Converse on the lower landing, still missing one sock, and yanked them on without tying them. Jaune did the same with his boots, grabbing my keys off the table and hitting me right in the sternum with them.
"Coat!"
"Take!"
I took, as it was handed to me, and slid both arms into the coat in one fluid motion. I had practiced this, you see, and could basically do it on command. I picked up my outfit again and dove for the door, just barely missing my own face as I ripped it open with enough force that I probably would have laid myself out for a week if I had been even a millimetre closer. I made sure to hold my outfit well above the wet, salty ground so I wouldn't ruin it as we made the mad dash down the slightly-uneven paving stones that were the Arc Family front walkway. You know, I've never figured out why paving stones just decide to become uneven all of their own volition. Like, you lay the gravel and stone dust, compact the shit out of it, it doesn't move for five years then bam, one day when you're shovelling the walkway the shovel catches and you get pummelled in the stomach by the handle. It's bullshit.
As we reached my car, I yanked open the back door and tossed my dress onto the backseat. I always leave my car unlocked in Jaune's driveway, because who's going to steal it, it's a stick. I mean, if you're a clever enough criminal to learn to drive a stick, you could probably steal a locked car anyway. I ran around the front of the car's long, flat hood and dove for the door handle. And let me tell you, running to my car in a mad dash like I was, I really really really wanted to slide across the hood, but knowing my own athletic ability and propensity for hurting myself I definitely would have landed ass over tits and broken something. My self control is rare, but it is powerful. We fell into our seats and fumbled with the belts, and I had to fiddle with the seat controls since Jaune had been the last person to drive and his long legs meant he too, like my sister, sat basically in the back seat. Stupid slow seat motors.
I let the clutch out a little hard, and may have pressed the gas pedal a little hard as well, running the highly-strung, exceedingly German, very fragile six cylinder right to redline as I slid the big sedan out of Jaune's driveway and onto the street. I know, you're supposed to let cars like this, especially high performance ones, warm up before abusing them but I had neither the time nor the patience to follow the BMW-approved warm up procedure for the engine, transmission, and rear differential on this particular evening. This is something I would regret later, but that's a story for another day.
Actually, here's a bit of weird automotive trivia that nobody else seems to know. In Ontario, not sure about other provinces, but in Ontario, you are not allowed to reverse onto or along any main roadway, but you are allowed to reverse off of a roadway. This means that pretty much everybody, every morning, breaks this one weird obscure law. I learned this in Driver's Ed trying to reverse the world's worst Toyota Tercel with the world's least power and the world's most uncooperative clutch up into Jaune's driveway. Of course I asked the instructor why not pull in forward and back out, and that's when he told me that we're all criminals. So if you ever drive past my house, you'll always see my car pointing face-out.
"Hold on to your butt!"
"I'm holding!"
BMW's are known for their spongy one-two shifts, a feature similarly present in my M5. I didn't get that today, I got crunch and grind as I powered the car down the wet and salty street. I lifted my butt off the seat, yanked my phone out of my pocket, and tossed it at Jaune.
"Call Emerald! Tell her we're on our way!"
"Got it!"
He fumbled with my phone for a second, scrolling through my contacts.
"What the hell d'j'you call her in your phone?!"
"Goth GF!"
He made a noise.
"Just put people's names, you weirdo!"
"Shut up, Guitar Boy!"
Jaune flipped me off as he held the phone up to his ear. It looked like the line picked up really quickly, and it seemed the person on the other end was quite cross. Because I could hear them from my side of the car.
"Emer-"
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!"
Jaune held the receiver away from his head and flinched.
"We're in the car right now, on our way."
"You were supposed to be here an hour and twenty minutes ago!"
"We're sorry, we just-"
"Sorry's not gonna fucking cut it, Jaune! You get here now!"
I heard the line end, leaving Jaune frozen in place as I rolled yet another stop sign. I bit my tongue.
"Emerald's gonna kill us."
"Yup." he said, voice strained in fear.
"We deserve it."
"Yup."
I grumbled and rolled probably the fifth stop sign, finally making it to the main road.
"If there weren't so many stop signs in your neighbourhood, we'd be there by now!"
"Don't kill us before Emerald has a chance to."
"You worry too much, I'll be careful."
On this occasion I was not careful, firing the white Bavarian bullet up Greenbank Road at a speed that would have probably gotten my license suspended. Look, I paid for the whole speedometer, I'm gonna use the whole speedometer. And because of this, we went from Jaune's house to Sir Robert Borden in four and a half minutes, usually a twelve minute journey, slowing down only once going past the police station. And as I pulled into the parking lot, I could see a light coming from an open door on the outside of the Auditorium. Russel's car was parked just outside of this door, and Russel himself was standing outside of the door already in his dress and makeup, French Maid of course, leaned up against the wall and waiting for us. I ripped up on the E-brake and slid the car to a stop next to his, spinning the key off and falling out the door onto the sidewalk upon which I had parked.
"We're here, we made it!"
"You guys are in so much trouble."
"I know, I know!"
I fumbled in the back seat of my car, grabbing my dress and bonnet, and raced around to the trunk to fetch my boots. And as I opened the trunk, I froze, finding it empty.
"Fuck."
Jaune leaned around me, and peered into the trunk as well.
"What's wrong?"
"My boots are in Emerald's bedroom."
Jaune sighed. Russel laughed.
"Oh, goddamn it."
I slammed the trunk shut.
"Fuck it, I'll just wear my sneakers. C'mon!"
I grabbed Jaune by the wrist and pulled him into the school building, Russel following us with an almost gleeful skip in his step. He was just waiting for us to get yelled at so he could watch and laugh. If he wasn't one of my best friends, I would have punched him in his smug little face. As we rounded the corner into the music room, there was our doom, standing just off to one side with her back to us. She turned around as we entered, eyes red with fury.
"I am going to kill the both of you!"
Yeah, I would have killed us too, honestly.
"I have seven minutes to do both of your makeups. You hear that playing out there? Two slots, and then you!"
Emerald's voice is scary when she's mad. But also at the same time… kinda sexy. She put her hands up as she race over.
"Why aren't you dressed?!"
I flinched.
"I can't drive stick in a dress-"
"The FUCK you can't! Get dressed now!"
I looked around the room. No one else was here, but I still felt uncomfortable.
"What, right here?"
"Yes! Use the storage room if you're suddenly so modest."
"But the storage door has a window-"
Jaune grabbed me by the wrist this time and dragged me over to the instrument storage closet on the far side of the room. I wanted to keep whining, but this seemed ill-timed. Jaune basically used me to open the door to the storage room and shoved us both inside and shut the door, notably electing to leave the lights in the room off. I huffed, standing upright.
"She's so mad at us…"
Jaune looked up at me, halfway through taking his shoes off.
"Wouldn't you be?"
"Absolutely. Turn around same as before?"
"On it."
I about-faced and kicked off my shoes, sliding my still-unbuttoned pants off and kicking them into a heap next to a pile of brass instrument cases. I peeled off my hoodie and t-shirt and crumpled them into a ball, knowing full well the earful I would get from Winter later about not doing this. Did I have time to give a shit? No, I did not. I pulled my dress out of its bag, a very frilly and very black Gothic Lolita number complete with brass buttons down the chest and gold stitching. I ruffled it a few times, slid the zipper down the back giving me room to step in over the waist, and pulled it up my body. Of course, as soon as I tried to adjust it, the safety pins holding my bra together tried to rip a hole in the front of the dress.
"Fuck off- oh, well."
At this point it was already damaged beyond repair, so I felt no disappointment in just ripping the safety pins out of the fabric and tossing them, like the rest of my clothes, into the pile I was quickly amassing. With a twist of my arms and a fiddle with the straps, the offending garment came off as well and I was finally able to zip the back of my dress up, at least half way. Now, I was absolutely flexible enough to pull the zipper all the way up to the top, but I felt this was an instance where I could be just a little coy for my own amusement. So leaving it zipped halfway down my back, I put my hand to the back of my neck to contain any stray strands of hair, and tried not to blush too hard.
"Jaune?"
"Yesh?" he said, bonnet in his mouth.
"Zip me up?"
"Yes, ma'am."
I didn't see, but I did feel. With one hand pressed to the small of my back, Jaune dragged the delicate miniature zipper the rest of the way up my back and tucked the pull into the fabric to hide it. Nice gesture.
"Thanks."
"Any time. Do me?"
I paused for a second. I grinned at the possible dirty joke.
"Why yes, with pleasure."
"Keep it in your pants, Schnee."
"I took my pants off already."
"Just fuckin' zip me up, Weiss."
I turned around and did as instructed, pulling the zipper up on Jaune's dress, a black-on-white Victorian Maid complete with frilly bonnet. He shook his head, managing to keep said bonnet in place, and bent down again to put his boots on. Heeled boots. Black leather, heeled boots. Because apparently the six-foot-one-inch tall, reasonably muscly man needed to be taller and hotter for some reason. I know, I chose this aesthetic, here I was reaping the consequences. I just sighed and slipped on my sneakers, leaving them untied. I figured if I tied them up, I would have probably developed a blister on my sockless foot.
"Right, we're done," he said, standing upright and a full four inches taller. "Time for the angriest makeup we'll have ever had."
"Uh huh."
We pushed out of the storage room and sort of dashed over to where Emerald had two chairs set up over near the window. Jaune, unsurprisingly, was quite adept at walking in heels. This wasn't the first time he had, either, since every girl with guy friends makes them walk in heels at least once. Because if you didn't, are you really friends?
"Sit." came the instruction.
We sat.
Emerald immediately tossed her leg over my lap and sat down, grabbing my chin in one hand and holding a tube of black lipstick menacingly with the other. I heard a loud round of applause coming from the direction of the auditorium., something that made a vein on Emerald's forehead pulse just a little harder.
"Pucker."
I wrenched my eyes shut and pushed my lips out, only to receive a very rough and yet somehow equally precise application of the extremely high-gloss lipstick that Emerald was also wearing. I'll clarify, from the tube, not from her lips. Though I think she was angry enough to do just that.
"Eyes."
Reduced to single-word instructions made me much more compliant than usual. Em quickly and aggressively ran a deep black line around my eyelids, curving it off in a wingtip that would make a certain ancient Egyptian Queen very jealous, not even bothering to touch up the edges with a napkin like usual. This was going to be a dirty job.
"Don't move," she turned to Jaune with a pointed finger. "Your turn."
With a spin of her hips she left my lap and landed in his, pinning him to the chair with his arms at his sides. She seemed to do that a lot, and it kind of made me wonder if Jaune's lap was just comfortable or something. I mean, when the four of us would take Jaune's truck anywhere, I would drive, Jaune would sit on the far side, and either Russel or Emerald would ride in his lap. I could tell that Em made him less comfortable than Russ, but that was to be expected. Bros before fantastic-assed hoes, after all.
I went to rub an itch in the corner of my eye, only to be caught by the wrist by Russel, who clicked his tongue and wagged his finger with a grin rivalled only by the God of Mischief himself. My face twitched, feeling the rough application of eyeliner not sitting well around my eyes. We literally did not have time to fix it, so I knew I would just have to suffer. Actually, I'm starting to think that was by design. Emerald finished Jaune's eyes first, tossing the eye pencil over her shoulder and took the lipstick tube out from over her ear, popped the cap off with her teeth and rolled it open all while maintaining grip on Jaune's poor face with a very strained hand.
"Pucker."
Jaune pushed his lips out tentatively. Em squeezed his cheeks.
"More!"
"Wet woh wuv wee!" came the protest, falling on deaf ears.
Emerald slapped him. Jaune's mouth hung open in shock, understandably.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
"You need some blush in your cheeks."
And then she slapped him a second time, with the other hand.
"Ow! Stop hitting me!"
"Show up on time next time!"
She paused, halfway through being angry, and leaned forward to Jaune's face. Instead of kissing him, as we both thought she was going to judging by Jaune's fruitless attempt to pull away, she instead pressed her nose to his hair and inhaled.
"Wait a second."
"What?" I asked, as she turned to me.
"Were you…" she leaned over and put her nose in my hair. "Green apple."
"Uh, yeah?"
She sat upright in his lap and glared between us, narrowing her eyes.
"I know what the two of you were doing."
"Not what you're thinking, Em." I attempted to deflect.
It didn't work. She turned to Jaune and smirked a knowing smile.
"Sure. We'll go with that. On your feet, get moving. We can talk about this later."
Emerald finally stood up off his lap and let him breathe, and we both jumped to attention as the sound of applause once again radiated into the music room. Russel handed me my bonnet, which was a tiny black tophat on a hairband, and made sure I had put it on straight. I dove for our guitars on the rack by the drum kit, pulling the latches and lifting them up and out of the little U-shaped hooks. Jaune's guitar was quite a lot lighter than mine, and I nearly smashed myself in the chin lifting it before I tossed it into his arms. Mine, of course, was the school's Squire Strat copy, bright yellow with the SRB logo stickered on the strikeplate, unlike Jaune's, which was his personal guitar.
Now, Jaune has… an affinity for musical instruments, nothing is ever good enough as it is, nothing can ever be left stock. Such was the story with his first guitar, the first 'big' purchase he had made. It had started as an off-the-shelf Fender Telecaster American Ultra, bought very used at Spaceman Music for like twelve hundred bucks, and then he proceeded to completely rebuild the entire guitar from the ground up. He started by pulling all the electronics out, switches, dials, the pickups, and replacing them with hardware from a Stratocaster his dad had found in the dumpster behind his work. He had taken the neck right off and routed out two new pockets for a pair of antique Gibson PAF dual humbuckers in the body, neatly soldered up to the refurbished Fender hardware.
Even the neck wasn't left alone, since he wasn't a fan of the chrome frets; they were replaced by bell bronze fretwire that he had cut and sanded himself. Of course, even I could have told you that bronze frets don't match with chrome switchgear, so Jaune had sent out the Stratocaster's body equipment to a guy in Perth who had electroplated them a bronze-red colour. And to top it all off, Jaune had buffed off the Tele's original dull black and repainted it in a medium cream, adorning the body with a bright white strikeplate. I had once had the opportunity to play this guitar, Jaune was very selective with who got to touch it, and I have to say it played and sounded like a significantly more expensive piece than its original price tag belayed. My school loaner, hell even most of the guitars I would come to own later in life paled in comparison.
"We good? In tune?" I asked, adjusting my strap over my shoulder.
Jaune plucked out his strings, leaning down to listen to the muted sound. He grimaced, hearing the top string ring lower than normal.
"Fuck, I'm still in drop D. You tune yours, I'll tune to you, You have perfect pitch."
I nodded and did as instructed, pulling the neck of my guitar up so I could hear it better. My D and B strings had fallen a little, and required no more than a quarter turn each.
"Okay, give me E?"
I plucked E, and he stepped forward so our guitars almost touched so he could hear. I think he was only out by half a semitone, if that, and he quickly remedied all six strings up to their correct tones. I don't know what it is about guitar tuning, but there's something soothing about an instrument coming back into tune, like it makes the hair stand up on my neck when the resonance is just right. Maybe I'm weird, though.
Emerald stomped her foot to grab our attention.
"Are you guys ready?! You have thirty seconds!"
We sort of jolted, and stepped apart. Luckily, Jaune was slightly more composed.
"Yeah, we're ready, let's go!"
Russel chuckled and pulled a pair of drumsticks out of who knows where.
"Let's fuckin' do this, boys."
I cricked my neck out.
"Couldn't have said it better myself."
Emerald chuffed and ushered us out the back door of the music room and into the hallway behind the auditorium, hearing the muffled sounds of the MCs on stage doing their usual between-sets vamping. We burst through the downstage left door, finding a very irate looking Ms. Capella waiting on the other side. She didn't even have time to yell or be mad, just pointing towards the stage where the rest of the equipment was already set up for us. A stage hand wave me over with his flashlight, and I did my best to not trip and fall over the miles of cable that littered the edge of the stage for the monitors as I dashed over to where he was standing holding my patch cord. After fumbling for a moment to plug in, I checked the two effects pedals at my feet, and made sure they were set correctly. A quick glance over to Jaune saw him hooked up too, and he gave me a thumbs up.
"Blow the roof off?" I asked.
Jaune smiled at me.
"Let's."
I looked back forward to the backside curtain, and caught the very tail end of the MCs introducing us.
"...closing out the night, it's your very own, The Black Dresses!"
The curtain opened to a round of moderately excited applause. In the dark, I could see Jaune step up to his microphone. There was a moment of pause as the curtains finally retracted all the way and Jaune readied his power stance and pulled a pick out of the little holder attached to his strap. He took a deep breath.
And began.
"~I've got another confession to make!~"
The single spotlight hit him as he started the crunchy C sharp minor, leaving Russel and I in darkness.
"~I'm your fool!~"
He dropped to the A.
"~Everyone's got their chains to break!~"
Back up to the C sharp minor. I readied my hands on the neck, my wrist a little shaky.
"~Holdin' you!~"
Back down to the A. My fingers found the C sharp minor almost by themselves.
"~Were you born to resi-i-ist, or be abused!~"
I started to strum out the harmony, which was the same chords just plucked out instead of power-strum, gaining a spotlight of my own. Jaune had strung my guitar with a fairly expensive set of deep-bottom Rotosound Ultramags to give mine a deeper resonance to account for our missing bass guitar part. Yes, it did make the instrument harder to play, but boy did it vastly improve the sound quality.
"~Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?~"
I turned my tone knob up one number. Thanks to the spotlight shining on my face, I couldn't see anyone in the audience, which was probably for the better, my stage fright gets worse if I can see who's judging me. Although, by the whoops and cheers I could hear over Jaune's near-perfect Dave Grohl growl and crunching guitar, they weren't judging.
"~Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?~"
I hovered my foot over the left effects box. The overdrive box I had bought at Value Village for three dollars. Best three bucks I've ever spent, honestly.
"~Are you gone and onto someone new~"
I kicked the pedal down. I could see in the corner of my eye Russel's hands coming up, sticks ready. We let the chords hang for a moment, resonating in the air. People were cheering. For us!
"~I needed somewhere to-~"
Both crashes came down. The strobe lights exploded down on us, lighting up the stage.
"~-Hang my head! Without your noose!~"
I'm pretty sure the whole front row was up on their feet, jumping. With the strobe effect, I was seeing the world in stop-motion, and the crashing of Russel's cymbals rang through my head and silenced everything else but the good out.
"~You gave me something that I didn't have! But had no use!~"
At this point I just closed my eyes and let whatever was gonna happen happen. I remembered to keep my feet apart so I didn't trip on my untied shoelaces.
"~I was too weak to give i-i-in, to strong to lose!~"
Jaune was nearly eating the microphone, his perfect broken growl doing untold things to his throat. But man did it sound fucking great.
"~My heart is under arrest again! But I break loose! My head is giving me life or death, but I can't choose!~"
I kicked the second effects pedal, a simple Nano Clone chorus box. Any harder and I would have broken it, I think. Sweat streamed down my face.
"~I swear I'll never give i-i-in, I refuse!~"
Another instance of Jaune's supersonic reflexes as he dialed up his tone switch between strums. I wish I could do that.
"~Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?~"
He had just the right amount of break in his voice as he coiled it up and around the lyrics, practiced and perfect. Jaune's voice was a weapon. And he was slaying every single audience member at once.
"~Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?~"
Me too, actually.
"~Has someone taken your faith, it's real, the pain you feel, you trust, you must confess~"
I was in love with Jaune Arc. Plain and simple.
"~Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?~"
Yes. He had gotten the best of me.
"~Ooohhh!~"
We played our fucking hearts out to a crowd of cacophonous cheers and hollers that night.
It was amazing.
And yes, we blew the goddamn roof off.
