A/N: The song they practice is "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by The Beatles! It's like one of my favourite songs, and I think it would actually work for how I imagine Mattie's singing voice to sound like. I mean, yeah, it's about murder and killing, but it's still a really great song, kinda like I Can't Decide by the Scissor Sisters. I love songs that have that snazzy oldies kinda style with messed up lyrics. If you know of any, please tell me. I'd definitely listen! Okay, enough rambling about my music taste, I'll get on with the fic. ~Amity
Right after everyone finished their (now cold) breakfast/desserts, they all decided to go to Antonio's house- apparently he had all the instruments. When they left, Matthew awkwardly waved at a shocked Feliks, who was gossiping with a tall dude with brown hair. The tall guy just seemed to be smiling and nodding along to his chatter.
When they made it, they had hardly began to set up and tune the instruments- Gilbert, apparently, played drums, Antonio was pretty decent on guitar, and Francis could play piano. Matthew was a surprised, to say the least. He didn't expect the others to have musical experience. Matthew was watching Gilbert set up his drums with a mild interest, and Gilbert caught his gaze, smirking.
"What? Do I look too sexily awesome behind the drums, Birdie?" Gilbert teased, and Matthew turned away, ignoring the steadily rising blush.
"Ah, L'amour~" Francis dreamily said, and Antonio whacked him on the head. "What? You know it's true, Antoine." The Frenchman snootily said.
Antonio chose to roll his eyes and not press any further. "So, what song should we practice first?" He asked, forcefully smiling.
Gilbert waved his phone in the air. "I have a great first song!" He chirped. "It'll totally work for Birdie's voice! Plus, it's really easy." He added, scrolling through his music library. His red eyes lit up and he clicked the song.
"Please say it's not in German…" Matthew prayed. He didn't think he could handle it. Surprisingly, it wasn't. The song… was disturbing, however.
"Bang Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer came down, upon her head~!" Matthew blinked. Huh? This song started out so happy and snazzy! In fact…
"Uh… Gil, isn't this by the Beatles?" Matthew asked, slightly overwhelmed. Gilbert nodded, and the song continued playing in the background. Matthew had to admit, it was really catchy. Francis and Antonio listened carefully, nodding along to the beat. When the song wrapped up, Gilbert grinned.
"So? Awesome first song, right?" He chirped, and was met by awkward shrugs.
"Well, the piano bit is fairly repetitive." Francis started. "It seems simple enough to figure out." Antonio nodded.
"Already have the chords figured out!" He chirped, strumming them on the guitar. They sounded scarily accurate. Matthew was impressed, and he also felt sort of useless.
"I don't know the lyrics yet." Matthew said apologetically, and Gilbert stood up and waved his phone in Matthew's face. Matthew grabbed the albino's wrist and peered at the phone. The lyrics were displayed. "Thank you." Matthew politely said, scrolling through the lyrics. It was worse than he thought. Plus, he was about to sing.
In front of people.
"So, ready Birdie?" Gilbert asked, and he hesitantly nodded. He could get kicked out of a Walmart, he could sing in front of people. "Okay, could we play along with the song for the first bit? It's more awesome like that." Murmurs of assent. Matthew nodded, taking deep breaths. He hit play…
"Joan was quizzical, studying metaphysical, science in the home," Matthew sang along, looking down at the phone. He heard the others drown out his naturally quiet voice, caught up in their own instruments. Thankfully. He began to sing with more confidence, swaying with the beat. The song was really fun to sing.
"Maxwell Edison, majoring in medicine…" He continued to sing, trailing off at the end. The others had stopped playing, and they were looking at Matthew. Gilbert coughed awkwardly.
"You sound really awesome. Birdie!" He chirped, and frowned. "But you're so quiet!"
Matthew blushed, ashamed. "Sorry…" He apologized. Gilbert smiled good-naturedly.
"No need to be sorry, Birdie, but try to speak up!" Gilbert said, and Matthew nodded, determined. Gilbert smiled and tapped his sticks together the four times, to establish the beat.
They practiced, each gently calling each other out on each other's mistakes. It was generally a laid back practice, and Matthew slowly became more louder with each try. Just as slowly, the others improved as well. Finally, after at least 2 hours of straight practice, they had managed to run through the song once with minimal mistakes. After a bit of tired celebration, they tried again. However, something felt… different.
"You guys feel like something's missing too, right?" Antonio asked, stopping abruptly in the middle of the song. Everyone nodded.
"It's like a missing instrument! It's so unawesome." Gilbert said. Matthew nodded, and Francis made a 'hmmm' noise.
"We have the vocals, the guitar, the drums, and the keyboard, oui?" Francis asked, just to confirm. Matthew nodded, curl bobbing. "Then what else do we need?"
A few moments of silence, and then the basement door was suddenly slammed open. "Maple!" Matthew yelped, jumping up. A pissed off man with dark brown hair was at the door. He was dressed in a green hoodie and black jeans, and his hair had a strange curl on it. It defied gravity just as much as Matthew's.
"Oi! Tomato bastard! Stop being so loud!" He barked, and Antonio beamed.
"Lovi~!" He cheered, and the man- whose name was apparently 'Lovi', snorted.
"I told you, my name is Lovino, bastard. Now, just what the hell do you think you're doing in our basement?" Lovino snapped, and looked around, just now noticing the others. "While we're explaining, why the hell are your damn friends here too?" He added peevishly.
"We're starting a band!" Antonio chirped, and Lovino snorted.
"You don't even have a vocalist, stupid bastard." Lovino said, and Gilbert wagged his finger at him disapprovingly.
"Nope! We have the totally awesome Birdie here with us!" Gilbert said, pointing to where Matthew was awkwardly standing. Lovino's brown eyes slid over to Matthew, and he forcefully smiled.
"Did your parents hate you? What kind of a name is Birdie?" He rudely said, and Antonio moved from his spot to pat Lovino on the shoulder.
"Now now, that's no way to treat a guest!" Antonio said sunnily. "His name's Matthew." Lovino snorted and shoved Antonio's hand off his shoulder, blushing.
"Dammit, don't do that. And what about your bassist?" Lovino sharply said.
"Oh! That's who we were missing!" Francis exclaimed, face palming elegantly. "Merde, I can't believe we forgot about that."
Antonio, however, wasn't fazed. "Si! We have a bassist!" He chirped, and Gilbert arched a silver eyebrow skeptically.
"No, we don't." He pointed out. Lovino smirked.
"Great, now you can shut the f-"Lovino began, and Antonio poked him.
"You can be the bassist!" Antonio chirped, and Lovino shook his head.
"No way am I going to spend more time than I have to with you three bastards." Lovino said, and Matthew got the feeling he had forgotten about him.
"Pleeeeeeeeease?" Antonio said, clasping his hands together in an 'I beg you!' sort of gesture. He widened his green eyes. "For me? I promise I'll do whatever you say!" Antonio begged, and Lovino paused.
"Anything?" He said, slowly beginning to smirk. That smirk did not look innocent. Antonio nodded, blissfully unaware of the dark intentions the Italian had. "Okay, fine."
Antonio tightly hugged Lovino, and his scowl looked mildly forced. "Okay, tomato bastard, get off me. What song are you practicing?" Antonio hurriedly bounced over to his guitar.
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer!" He said, and Lovino thought for a moment.
"Never heard of it." Lovino muttered. Gilbert clanged the drumsticks and they began to perform.
Matthew, luckily, was expecting the sudden start, and jumped in at the right time. He closed his eyes- though he could still feel the critical gaze of Lovino, and pretended he wasn't there. When the song ended- which sounded pretty good, in Matthew's opinion- he opened his eyes. Lovino sighed.
"Okay, that sounded decent enough. I won't be too humiliated by you bastards." He opened a closet and picked up a bass guitar, placing the strap on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and plucked out a bass tune, humming the melody to himself. When he was finished, he opened his eyes. "That tune should sound good with the rest of the song, idiotas. It's what I'm going to play, so you sure as hell better not complain!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
After lots of mistakes, complaining (mainly on Lovino's part) and practice, they finally had a decent sounding finished project. "Ugh, finally." Lovino complained, stretching. "I'm f*cking done." He gingerly set his bass down, rubbing his shoulder, and grabbed Antonio by the collar, dragging him out of the room. That left Francis, Gilbert, and Matthew standing awkwardly in the basement. Francis theatrically sighed.
"Well, mon ami's. I must be off." He declared. He fabulously waved, and elegantly left. Matthew and Gilbert exchanged glances.
"That was interesting, huh Birdie?" Gilbert said, smirking and walking up to Matthew. Matthew nodded.
"Your friends are idiots." He teased, and Gilbert gently shoved his shoulder.
"They're your friends too." The Prussian reminded Matthew, and he smiled. He's never had actual friends before- unless you counted Alfred, and Matthew didn't. They were brothers, after all.
"Yeah. Guess so."
A/N: Thank you for all the lovely kind reviews, and I apologize for the lack of PruCan in this! Hopefully the SpaMano worked in place. Speaking of which, Lovi's in the band now! Yay! C: So anyways, review if you liked it, or if you hated it, or if you don't give a crap. Because reviews are really nice and make me smile and write quicker. ^^ ~Amity