6. staging a comeback
On New Year's, the day before Arthur was to depart for SPQR again, he went to the cemetery and visited his mum's grave.
He carried a couple of peonies in a parcel, and when he got off the bus, he took the peonies with him and into the cemetery.
Her headstone was not a particularly elaborate thing. It was a simply cute block of granite stone with elegant black letters that had her name on there—Diana Kirkland: loving wife and mother. Beneath that were birth and death dates. And still beneath that there was a quote: "Lights will guide you home."
It was her favourite song. Arthur remembered her playing in their old, disused piano and singing in her light clear voice. The sheer memory made Arthur's throat close up, and he bit his lip at the suddenly vivid images of her, of her just being, at that heartbreaking sweetness. His knees gave out by themselves, and there he was, on his knees, in front of his mother's grave. He unwrapped the parcel and laid the peonies in front of the headstone, right underneath the quote.
For the longest time he simply sat there, thinking, thinking about his mother's safe embrace, thinking about her laugh and her smile and her soothing, comforting voice, thinking about the warm smell of lavender that he hazily remembered always wreathed around her. Thinking and breathing and missing her.
When his throat didn't feel as choked up as before, he opened his mouth and spoke.
"Hi, Mum. How're you doing?"
Only a faint breeze answered him, and Arthur, though he was never one for the metaphysical, took this as a sign, that she was listening and loved him too. He folded his hands and kept talking.
"I'm sorry if I haven't talked much to you recently. I've… been rather busy and I go to school in London now. Can you believe it? I can't either." He chuckled briefly. "And I've got a band, too, with two other blokes and they're pretty good. Gilbert sings—he used to really annoy me, but we're getting along better now. And Mathias plays drums. I think his dad is from Denmark so that's why his last name's kind of odd. And," he sighed, "I don't know. Gilbert signed us up for this battle of the bands, and—and I saw Ian there, and then we came in last in the competition…"
He hated how right then he could feel the vague tickling in the back of his eyes that signified that tears were coming soon, trembling on the threshold of his lips and eyes and nose. "Mum," he said hoarsely. "I—I don't know what I'm doing… I don't know if this is even right. We—our band, we're downright horrible and I don't know what I was thinking when I formed it. Am I on the right path? I"—his voice cracked slightly—"I'm just so… lost."
He was trying hard to resist crying but it wasn't good enough. He wanted so badly for his mum to be alive for her to hug him and tell him that it was going to be fine, that he was fine. He needed that comfort, her sweet soap and soft, warm smile. Roma had gone up to Glasgow at the moment for business, and Arthur hadn't talked to him, not like this, not in a while. Arthur was alone. As alone as he'd always been. Talking to his dead mum wasn't going to do anything.
The winter breeze picked up again, and as Arthur reached up to adjust his scarf, he thought for a second—just for a second—he could smell a faint trace of lavender…
The tears kept streaming down his face, but now, instead of pain, they were tears of bittersweet longing and love.
"I love you too, Mum," he whispered. "Happy New Year."
.
"Kirkland, are you all right?" Arthur looked up to see Gilbert putting on a hat, even as they were heading indoors towards their dorm. It was still cold outside, though they were in London, at SPQR, but not as cold as it would have been. Not cold enough for a hat, either.
"I'm fine," Arthur managed. He shrugged to adjust his bag as they headed inside Eckland Residence Hall.
"You're not still depressed over what happened on holiday, are you?" Gilbert asked. He unlocked their dorm room and they both staggered inside, tired and weary.
"No, I'm not." Arthur said, flopping down onto his bed. "I'm just… argh, I dunno."
"Dead right," Gilbert said. "Actually, I'm still kind of annoyed about that… It's just, we played the best we'd ever done and we end up last."
"No need to relive that," Arthur said into his sheets. He decided not to voice his growing uncertainty about forming the band… they weren't ever going to go anywhere, so why bother? Talent is only that if you leave it at that—talent.
"…and it's not like we'll ever be any good, anyway," Gilbert said, still rambling, and Arthur blinked open his eyes, trying not to fall asleep. Sometimes his roommate would spend hours just talking—sometimes gossip, sometimes philosophy, sometimes history (somehow Gilbert knew a lot about the history of Prussia, a country that didn't even exist anymore). And then sometimes they would be random musings, like right then.
"Dead right," Gilbert said absently. "We won't ever get a record deal and a real live world-wide tour and sold-out concerts packed with thousands of screaming fans…"
The German boy sighed, thinking distantly of dreams of fame and glory. Arthur yawned and closed his eyes. Now maybe I can sleep.
The door to their dorm flew open in the middle of the depressing mull of things, and Gilbert let out a shout of surprise, which was drowned out by the voice of a very angry Dane.
"What the fuck are you two aresholes doing?"Mathias screamed. "Weren't we going to practice today? Huh? Huh?"
Arthur groaned. "That was before we made bloody fools of ourselves."
"What, at the Battle of the Bands?" Mathias threw his words at them, and they stung sharply on Arthur's ears. "Who the hell are you kidding? That wasn't failure. That was an opportunity for us to try harder. That is our motivation. But this, this," he said, gesturing at Arthur and Gilbert lying pathetically on their beds, "this is failure. I don't know what the hell you both are doing, faffing about and being a pair of sulky and disgusting …lowlifes!" He spat the last word at the floor.
Arthur sat up and stared.
"Just because we lost to a bunch of people twice our age doesn't mean we stink," Mathias continued. "It wasn't our day—and I mean it," he said, looking at Gilbert, who was poised to say something. "The only way we're going to be able to make it is if we never stop trying. So get your lazy arses off those beds and let's go."
Arthur and Gilbert looked at each other and then looked at Mathias, standing in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, eyes bright and face feverishly flushed. He was gripping his drumsticks with a very intense sort of strength that Arthur didn't know existed, and his usually perfectly gelled hair was falling into his face, little strands here and there.
Gilbert grunted and yanked his hair. "Gott, you're right." He proceeded to rub his eyes. "What were we doing?"
Arthur scratched his cheek. "You're right." He slid off the bed.
The music hit him tremendously right then, a simple, low bass line. Just low E notes, hitting straight on the moderate tempo, octave after octave repeating steadily. Then the drums, upbeat with lots of clash to add flair. Then the guitar, a winding riff that rose and spun and fell, vibrating all the way… It was very classic rock and roll, sexy and alluring and catchy, Arthur could close his eyes and hear Gilbert's soft, breathy vocals on top… He could feel his head nodding along to it already, his foot taping a steady four-beat rhythm from the drums. This is it.
Gilbert and Mathias had been staring at him before Arthur blinked and looked up at them. They were watching him with a certain kind of reverence, along with severe confusion.
"What's going on?" Gilbert asked.
Arthur smiled, fumbled for a notebook and a pen, and opened it. The music flowed from his fingers to the page, leaving smooth trails of ink in its wake, and it felt so, so good to write again, to make something that was his.
"A new song," he murmured as he rushed to write it down; it kept tumbling inside of his head, faster than his hands could move. He couldn't lose it now. He kept writing.
"A new song?" Mathias asked dumbly.
"A song… we won't fail. Not with this," Arthur told them.
"We won't fail!"
.
It didn't take them long to get it. Gilbert still flubbed the lyrics from time to time, but it was perfect. Just dead perfect. In fact, Arthur had the song stuck in his head as he walked across campus, his hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers. He turned into the arts building and strode on.
His path took him past a ginormous bulletin where notices of all sorts were posted. Usually he walked right past it, but a coloured piece of paper caught his attention. He stopped, backtracked, and took a closer look.
In big letters it announced the "School Talent Show." Below it were dates and times for the show and also times for auditions. The auditions were all in April, and the show was in May. Arthur stared at it for a minute, his mind processing the information. Then he snorted, and a couple of girls across the (sixth form, by the looks of it) glanced over with curiosity. He shot them a "fuck off" grin and they turned around, muttering irritated remarks. Arthur turned his attention back to the flyer. A silly notion, he thought.
School talent show. A silly notion indeed. Arthur was still laughing to himself as he climbed up the stairwell. Performing for the proletariat student body—they probably wouldn't appreciate the music (or so he thought).
"Hello, Arthur," Mathias said cheerfully as Arthur reached the perpetually abandoned third-floor practice room. "Ready to practice?"
"Yeah," said Arthur, setting his guitar down. "Where's Gilbert?"
"Dunno," said the Dane, twirling his drumsticks between his fingers. Arthur slapped his palm to his face. It seemed that even though it was only two weeks after holidays had ended, Sadik had managed to teach Mathias how to twirl his drumsticks. As entertaining as it looked, it sometimes distracted Gilbert whenever he turned his back to the audience ("for effect!" as the German always said). Arthur had tried to get the two of them to stop it, but so far neither of the boys had budged in their habits.
"Hey, sorry I'm late." Gilbert stumbled in, not looking very sorry at all. In fact, he looked extremely happy: flushed with shining eyes and messy hair and dishevelled blazer and tie. He couldn't stop grinning and kept running his hands through his hair.
Arthur blinked. "What happened to you?"
Gilbert shrugged, still grinning. "Nothing happened," he said in a voice that suggested otherwise.
Mathias put a hand to his chin. "No, no, something's up with you," he said, his blue eyes studying Gilbert carefully.
"Hey, hey, hey," the German boy said, laughing nervously. "No need for the Inquisition, all right?"
Arthur furrowed his brows together. There was certainly something different about Gilbert. Something… maybe it was the hair? Or that little glob of something on his mouth, it looked vaguely shiny and sparkly… Arthur made a face. Sparkly?
"I got it!" Mathias laughed and pointed. "You still got some of that lip gloss rubbish on your mouth, mate!"
"What?" Gilbert slapped his hand to his mouth as Mathias leaned in and cocked an eyebrow conspiratorially.
"From snogging," he said, unable to contain the grin on his face.
"Oh god," Arthur groaned, leaning his head against the wall. "You can't be serious."
"I'm not; I wasn't snogging," said Gilbert with a completely straight face, sparkles gone from his mouth, but Mathias shook his head.
"Now, now, Gilbert," he chastised playfully. "You mustn't tell lies. Now tell us who the lucky one was!"
"There was no one!" Gilbert protested, but Mathias caught him in a headlock and laugh.
"Tellll usssssss," said Mathias. "Telllllllll!"
"Aggghgffff—okay!" Gilbert gasped, still stuck in a headlock. Mathias released him and he coughed out one name.
"Okay, it was Elizaveta. Yanno, the keyboardist."
Arthur's jaw dropped. "What?"
Mathias chortled again. "You fucking with us?"
"God, not after that headlock," Gilbert moaned, rubbing his neck. "No, for real. No kidding."
"Elizaveta?" Arthur said incredulously. "I didn't even think she liked you at all…"
"You thought wrong, mate," Gilbert said, smirking. "Lizzie and I definitely snogged."
Mathias scratched his head. "That's crazy, mate. I can't even process that at all. Dude, I thought she hated you. Which reminds me—why was she in Liverpool over winter holiday?"
"Dunno," said Gilbert, shrugging.
Arthur cleared his throat. "So, how about we actually get practicing? Okay?"
Mathias yawned. "Yeah, yeah, sure."
Gilbert picked up his bass and slung it over his shoulder. "Yeah, let's get going."
They plugged in their instruments. Mathias tapped their sticks together four times, and they launched into their song.
It was just a cover, really, but a bloody good cover. Today, they'd managed to haul some amps inside the room, so the guitar sounded properly gritty and soulful, albeit turned down to a low volume. Mathias had also swiped some spare toms from one of the store rooms, so instead of tapping on the brick wall he was using proper drums. In all of it, somehow, somehow the magic worked its way into the practice and they pushed through the song steadily, from Arthur's first chord, a lonely C minor chord to Gilbert's first breath of vocals, to Mathias's thirty-two counts of fills—though it didn't seem like Mathias hated having to count all thirty-two beats; he dead loved this song; Arthur could tell from the heart with which the Dane played. As for Arthur, well, his hands just knew instinctively what to do, it came so incredibly naturally and without knowing how it started or when it started, he was rocking to the song, tossing his head back and forth and spinning around on one foot and lifting his guitar and throwing it down with every strum. God it was incredible and no one could take that away from him…
They finished, breathing hard. Very hard. Mathias looked completely spent, Gilbert about to fall over, but they were both grinning. Arthur could feel his cheeks throbbing; his face was smiling so hard. They were all high on endorphins and all very spent. It wasn't even a real performance, really, but what Mathias had said the other day before, it'd seemed to click with all of them. Arthur felt like he was doing something right, finally. Standing there, grinning with his bandmates, he had no regrets. He could taste it. When they were brought together, there was something fresh and new and magical and miraculous and amazing and there was no doubt that they were going to change the world someday.
Then, out of nowhere, sounding a bit like muffled gunshots, came applause. The slow, approving claps of just one person. It didn't burst their bubble of sheer happiness, but it was surprising all the same. Arthur exchanged glances with the other two boys and turned towards the doorway.
A boy was standing there. Arthur vaguely recognized him from his chemistry class. He had blond hair, but a darker blond than either Mathias or Gilbert had, a dirty blond. It was parted on the right, and was straight, tousled and messy. He had bold, blue eyes, glasses that sat crooked on his nose, and a tall, strong build. He wasn't wearing a blazer, but had a sweater vest and a bomber jacket thrown over it, brown, with a little star logo on the chest.
"Dude," the boy exclaimed in an American accent. "You guys are good!"
The three boys exchanged glances.
"Well," Gilbert began, popping up the collar of his shirt. "Thank you. Thank you very much."
"Dude," said the boy again. "Do you guys, like, do shows? Or anything like that? 'Cause yanno, Antonio's birthday's coming up soon and we're throwing this huge bash at our dorm hall, and dude, could you play for us? You guys would be awesome."
At that Arthur exchanged another glance with Mathias, who only shrugged. A birthday party? Arthur wasn't too keen to be playing at a birthday party, of all things, let alone a party thrown in the honour of someone he'd really barely talked to at all. God, what would they play? It would be a disaster. Arthur could see it already.
Gilbert, on the other hand, wasn't thinking about that. "Antonio's birthday?" he said, his voice jumping two octaves. "Shit, shit, shit, I still have to find him a present, verdammt!" He bonked himself in the head with the headstock of his bass, which Arthur, as usual, cringed at.
"Your playing there could be his present," said the American. "Dude, you have to, please please do it?"
Mathias shrugged again, as if to say "I'm just the drummer, don't mind me," and looked at Arthur.
Arthur quirked one corner of his mouth. They were desperate for gigs, he mused, and they hadn't exactly played at their usual place with Jager, Sadik, and Elizaveta in a while (especially since Elizaveta was busy snogging Gilbert, he added grudgingly). Something like they were over in Amsterdam doing business. (Sure.) But Arthur needed so badly that rush again, that fantastic rush of performing… and there was just something about what Alfred said to them, how he said it to them. It almost reminded Arthur of that one song… How did it go again? He found the chords almost automatically and strummed. Please, please me…
Arthur nodded slowly. Then he looked up into Arthur's eyes and asked, "So when is the gig again?"
.
Somehow, in the course of a couple of weeks (from the day Alfred F. Jones the American asked them to play to the actual date of the party), word spread around SPQR that a rock band was going to play at Antonio's birthday party. It had gotten so exaggerated that once Arthur heard that the Arctic Monkeys themselves were going to come and play at the party. Arthur and Gilbert laughed hysterically at these rumours, and compared FBN's sad, sad abilities to that of the Arctic Monkeys. It didn't quite match up.
On the day of the party, which happened to take place on a Saturday, Mathias swiped some toms from the store rooms, and Arthur and Gilbert dragged the amps all the way from their closet in Eckland to the Cooper Residence hall. They got there to find a small crowd of people already milling around with red plastic cups (at this Arthur groaned inwardly; he had better things to do than play for a bunch of drunk teenage idiots) and some mainstream top-forty rubbish was playing.
As soon as they set foot inside, Alfred made an instant beeline for them. "Great, you guys are here!" he babbled. "Can you guys set up over there?" He pointed to a corner with virtually no room.
Gilbert blinked. "There?" he said, distaste obvious in his voice.
"Is that bad?" Alfred crinkled his eyebrows.
Arthur couldn't help but to quirk a half-smile. "No, we're going to need some more room than that. Mathias's drum kit is rather big," he told the American, who turned red and began apologizing profusely (which included two cups of booze, one for each of them. Arthur turned his nose up at his, dismayed that his peers would take up the "national pastime" at such an early age, and gave it to Gilbert. The German-bred boy didn't seem to be affected by either cups of beer).
In the end they set up in one of the back common rooms—it was nicely furnished, but not as nicely as Eckland was, Arthur would say. On the whole, though, it was very nice and very modern, and the acoustics weren't half-bad, so when Mathias arrived, they set about putting everything where they ought to be. Then one of the third-years, a boy with straight blond hair, glasses, and smart, goody-two-shoes look, did some technology magic so that their sound echoed through the loudspeakers installed in the building. Gilbert thought it was absolutely great; Arthur just wondered if they'd be able to pull it off without any of the teachers giving out detentions.
Even so, by the time they were all ready to go, a small crowd of people had gathered in the room, talking enthusiastically and eyeing the three boys with interest. Arthur slung his guitar over his shoulder and glanced over at the other two members of Fantastic Boggle Nerds. "So, er," he stammered, well aware of Alfred's intense gaze on him. "What should we play?"
Mathias shrugged. "Do you think we could throw out the set that we did for the Battle?"
Gilbert cringed. "Are you really sure about that? Every one of those songs has been ruined for me because of that thing."
"I agree," said Arthur, frowning. "I really don't want to be reminded of the Battle."
"Then what?" Mathias asked.
"First of all, why are we even discussing this, for one?" Arthur shot back. "We look like bloody idiots, talking right now!"
"Everyone here is bloody idiotic anyway, so we blend in," whispered Mathias, cautiously watching the anxious crowd. "It really doesn't matter."
"Is there something wrong?" Alfred appeared behind Arthur, making the Brit jump. His blue eyes were wide and concerned.
"Urkff—I mean, yeah, no, we're totally great," Arthur babbled, and then fell over very hard on his behind. Gilbert, as usual, snickered.
"We're having trouble about what to play," Mathias said.
Arthur closed his eyes and imagined slamming his head down on his guitar very, very hard. Idiots! I'm surrounded by idiots!
"Shouldn't you have figured that out before this?" Alfred asked. His face was twisted into a confused expression. "I mean, you had two weeks."
"We fail…." Gilbert groaned, half-laughing for no reason.
"We do," agreed Mathias glumly. He stood up and poked Arthur in the face with his drumstick. "Hey, Artie, you okay?"
Arthur grimaced and sat up. "I'm fine," he grumbled, still slightly annoyed about falling down in front of Al—a whole crowd of people. He fell down in front of a whole crowd of people.
"Why don't you guys just play that one song that you were playing when I walked in your practice?" Alfred suggested, and Mathias poked his forehead with his drumstick.
"Dammit! The obvious solution!" he said.
"Provided I don't flub the lyrics, sure," said Gilbert.
Arthur stood up, tuned his guitar briefly, and then looked at Mathias. "Let's do this."
Four taps and there was that C minor chord again, with the soft tinkling of the hi-hats in the background. Then Gilbert with his bass, providing the core and centre of the song. Arthur shifted his fingers higher for the high notes, his still-red-dyed fringe brushing his forehead as he watched the fretboard, watching his hands move to each chord.
"A cloud hangs over this city by the sea…"
Time flew and before they knew it, they'd passed the first verse, the second verse, the long drum fill and the guitar solo—the song ended on a rest, so Gilbert's voice echoed emptily into the roar of the crowd. Arthur, breathing hard, looked out into the room. It seemed as if more and more people had been drawn to the back commons area where they were playing, until everyone in the party had been packed into that room, yelling and cheering them on.
Arthur grinned, looked over at his bandmates and laughed. Mathias grinned back, got up from his stool, and joined Gilbert and Arthur at the front of the makeshift stage. They bowed, the crowd still clapping and stomping and screaming.
Gilbert grabbed the microphone he had been singing in. "Thank you!" he yelled. Arthur did the same, still oddly happy. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that a pair of sky-blue eyes had caught his gaze. No, it was definitely the adrenaline.
"Yes," chimed in a new voice, magnified by a megaphone and definitely not a teenage voice. "Thank you."
And in walked their chemistry teacher, a disapproving look in her eyes.
.
"I hate detention," grumbled Gilbert.
Arthur nodded. There were certainly other places that he could better stand to be in than in Mrs. Bradley's classroom at (he check the clock) six-twenty-four in the evening, pulling fat and other rubbish off the cows' eyes. Firstly, the stench was absolutely unbearable, pungent and foul and raw all at once. (And they didn't have gas masks either.) Secondly, the eyes weren't something that Arthur liked looking at. Instead of white and brown and whatever colour that eyes really ought to be, they were fatty yellow and disgusting tan and fleshy pink. His skin crawled under the latex gloves. It felt like his fingers were getting soaked with the preservative liquids, but the last time he checked, they weren't.
"I can't believe we have to do this," complained Mathias. "I hate biology."
"Anatomy, you mean?" Arthur chucked another fat-free eye into the tub.
"Whatever. Gimme the scissors." Arthur handed them to the Dane, and Mathias used them to yank another piece of fat viciously from the eye. "I'm really more of a physics person. Those planet-looking things—"
"Atoms," Arthur said. "Specifically the Bohr model of atoms, which is dismissed today due to its fixed electron orbits."
"Shut up," said Mathias. "Since when do you actually pay any attention in chemistry class?"
"Since I don't fall asleep while Bradley's lecturing, that's what," Arthur retorted, and Mathias snorted.
"So where is Bradley?" asked Gilbert.
"Dunno," said Arthur. "Guess she stepped out."
"Good," said Mathias, and he peeled off one glove.
"What are you doing?" hissed Gilbert, watching the Dane fumble with his pockets.
"Checking Twitter," Mathias hissed back. He pressed a button and the screen of his mobile lit up.
Arthur shrugged and continued clearing away rubbish from the eye he was holding. Twitter was absolutely useless and he didn't bother with it. He didn't use the computer often enough, either, and though Roma had told him that his phone could use the internet, he wasn't exactly sure what to do with it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gilbert lean over to look at the small screen of Mathias's phone. "Why are you checking Twitter?" the German asked, bewilderment evident in his voice.
A short chuckle from Mathias answered him. The Dane turned the phone to show Gilbert and Arthur. "This," he said.
Gilbert's jaw dropped. "Bloody hell!"
Arthur turned to look at Mathias's phone.
DanishPastry: fun show last night! except for the detention, of course :/
"That's me, by the way," Mathias said. "Heh, heh. 'DanishPastry.'"
Arthur sighed, and briefly considered banging his head on the lab table, if it were not covered in cow eye rubbish and preservatives. Only he would come up with that stupid of a name.
"Damn," Gilbert said. Arthur hastened to look at the other tweets—and nearly dropped the cow eye he was holding.
thelandofoz: amazing amazing birthday party! tony is a lucky mate to have such a great rock band to play at his party! :)
captain_america: DanishPastry damn you guys were awsome! thx so much for playing! :D
afctomato: best birthday ever! gracias, fbn :D
ladybella: fbn, u were so great! can't wait to hear more from u 3
tino_v: DanishPastry that was so brilliant! keep playing :)
liz_hedervary: DanishPastry great show! you and arthur and gilbert were all brilliant! 3
The Brit widened his eyes slightly at the one tweet at the bottom, and frowned slightly.
bonnefoy714: DanishPastry encore! :)
Argggh. What was he thinking? It was just one little annoying tweet from an annoying little frog. No need to get all riled up about it… dead right.
"Bloody hell!" Gilbert said, his finger reaching out to scroll down the page. "We're… famous!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Mathias jerked the phone away from Gilbert's still-gloved and fat-caked hand. "No touching my phone! Especially with that nasty rubbish all over your hands."
"But we're famous!" Gilbert protested, but he peeled of his glove anyway and snatched the phone away.
Arthur couldn't resist a small smile. They were famous.
For now.
author's note~
A turn for the exceptionally mundane! Ahaha. Slowly weaving in some of my fave pairings—did you spot them? XD (Well, I'm not entirely partial to USUK but it still makes a good complex plot element, lol.) I apologize for any inaccuracies regarding Twitter, because even though I have one I never use it, so I don't know anything about it really. ^_^; Hopefully you can figure out who's who from the names… Bonus points to whoever gets the first one ;)
Songs featured: "Fix You" by Coldplay; "Anna Molly" by Incubus.
(I feel like "Fix You" is overused in a sense, but it is so fitting in this case… ;u;)
Next chapter should be a lot of fun so please look forward to it! Love you all *heart*
(Psssst, Rain, Parmesan: DID YOU SEE THE COW EYES REFERENCE? Memories, memories xD)