Karkat: Land Your First Gig

I placed the last staple on the poster we made a while back, and crossed my arms into my sweater in victory. It had Dead And Walking on it, with some art that was "Strider-Certified" . Most importantly, underneath the name was a sentence that read "BAND WILLING TO PLAY FOR FREE, SIMPLY CALL" and then there was my phone number. Now it was just a waiting game.

As I walked home, I couldn't help but reflect on the band as my hands found their way to my pockets. It was weird, how their first practice was 6 months ago. It seemed like days to me, not almost half a year. But even still, I wasn't complaining. Those weeks were a lot of work and a lot of time spent just fine tuning everything they thought was "Good enough". I didn't start this band for mediocrity. We encountered our first problem pretty quick, once we realized there wasn't a bassist.

But we also solved it rather quickly, because Strider said he could just make a base line that'll play under whatever song we needed, and while I was very skeptical about it, it turned out working just fine. Unfortunately, that was a temporary solution, because how the hell would we play any song with bass in it with a static bass line. It was working either way though, so it wasn't something I wanted to worry about. There was already too much shit filling up that space in my mind.

I walked back into my house, locking the door and calling out "I'M HOME" even though I knew it was pointless. I always left the door unlocked when I left because I figured people thought my dad still was here, at least I always talked about him like he was. I quickly ran upstairs to my room, and nearly screamed when I saw a note on my door.

I knew who it was from.

I grabbed it and read its contents; "Good luck with the band, champ. You have my sup-" it was all I could read before tearing it up and throwing it to the floor. My vision became like a tunnel and my air felt short, so I shoved my hand into my hair and tried to calm my breathing. I had mild anxiety, so this kind of thing was pretty normal with me, but he should have known I wouldn't have hopped into his arms going "Oh daddy, you DO love me?" so this was his fucking fault

But like I said, this was kind of a normal occurrence at that point, so it didn't really affect me as much as it probably should have. But it wasn't the time to worry about such trivial people/things; they were on the cusp of playing out somewhere so I wasn't going to let anyone get to me.

So I sat there, with my phone on my desk and me in a chair backwards resting my head on it. And that's how I spent the day. And the next.

And the next.

I was getting bored of this, and fast. It was kind of irritating to just sit and stare at a phone having that lurking suspicion that no one will call but still waiting anyways. It was already 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and it wasn't getting me anywhere.

So I got up and left my room, going into the kitchen and grabbing something to eat. There wasn't much food, but enough to make a sandwich or something, so that's what I did while making a mental note to go grocery shopping. As I sat there, mumbling and complaining with my mouth full, I could hear something. The feint buzzing of my phone.

"Shit!" I yelled out, dropping my sloppily made sandwich on the ground and sprinting up my stairs. "HANG ON!" I yelled, for some reason thinking it would make it to the mystery caller. When I made it to my room, I practically dived onto my phone and answered. "Hello?...Yes, this is them…We are fr-…Friday, 6:00?...Alright, we'll be there...Yes, we'll bring everything. Okay, got it." I hung up and the butterflies in my stomach started raging at the feeling flowing through me. They actually were going to play somewhere.

I sat down next to my keyboard and messaged the group chat I set up, and it read "ALRIGHT EVERYONE, I FINALLY LANDED US A JOB AT SOME SHIT'S BIRTHDAY PARTY. IT'S THIS FRIDAY AT 6 SO CLEAR UP YOUR SCHEDULES, NO EXCEPTIONS. IF WE DITCH OUR FIRST SHOT WE'LL LOOK LIKE FUCK HEADS AND I'M NOT A FUCK HEAD SO JUST SHOW UP AT THIS ADDRESS AND BE PREPARED TO PLAY A METRIC SHIT-TON."

I waited and saw the responses, and they more or less said they'd all be there along with Dave's comment "are you sure it's going to be a metric cause fuck that's insanity". It was weirdly satisfying to have him comment like that, and I found myself not really minding it like I used to. It was probably just an immunity to his incessant smart-ass comments.

But even still, Friday was 2 days from now. I had no idea how the hell I was going to spend those days until there was a ring that came from my computer. I curiously walked over to it and saw that it was a private message from Dave, instantly rolling my eyes and preparing for the worst. But when I opened it, it caught me completely off guard.

"hey vantas, theres some shit I want to work on for Friday, just you and I. you free tonight?" My jaw almost fell through the floor. No joke or insult, just a plain question on whether or not I wanted to work on things privately with him. This was new.

"STRIDER. I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF TRAIN PUMMELED INTO YOUR HEAD, BUT I THINK YOU MIGHT WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU SENT ME AND CHECK IT FOR VALIDITY."

"nope I sent it correctly, I need to check some shit out and as the singer and ring leader kind of youre the person I need to check it with"

Did he just call me ring leader? What the hell was going on?

"OKAY WE CAN MEET AT THE NORMAL PRACTICE SPACE. AND I'LL BE SURE TO CHECK YOU FOR CONCUSSIONS OR ANY OTHER MENTAL DISORDER."

"do what you want bro, ill see you there"

And with that, I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. This perplexed me to new heights, because this was the first time he really sought me out without having some sort of strong words. So with a bit of reluctance and hesitation, I grabbed my keys and made my way down to the music store. I wasn't sure what this had in store for me, but knowing him, there was no way it was going to be good.

Author's Note 2: Welp, this might be going well! Apparently I'm getting more and more views (Which is kind of promising, yet also means not too much), and it's kinda motivating! Knowing people like your stuff is cool, and also, to those reading and not following, feel free to leave a review or message me because I'd love to hear your criticism or praise for this. I imagine there's going to be a lot more editing with these chapters, but I think it's going quite swimmingly. And for anyone reading this far, you the real MVP

(And in case you haven't noticed, these beginning parts are literally just me writing straight out of my ass)

But either way, I plan on updating a lot more and getting to the climactic end of the first part of this series (With other entries being a loooooooot longer) by 2-3 weeks from how I'm updating this thing. Depends on what I wanna add. I'll stop talking now. Lot's o love kiddos

-themountainswan