Around Atton's New York, All Day Tuesday

[suitably_heroic]

So, Cade was still here. And... damned lucky that Dane had the patience of a saint (or at least a guy with crappy coping methods and a history of poor boundary-setting), or he probably would've been out on his ass by now. Hell, Jack had thought about throwing him out on his ass a few times now. The crossing the streams was just kind of weird.

And Cade could be kind of a jackass.

(But he'd also missed the guy and having him here was a good reminder of their misspent youth and space he really was getting old, wasn't he?)

Anyway.

It was show day. And Jack-slash-Atton hadn't slept a wink last night, so he'd just be on the floor of the living room, where he'd been for the last couple of hours. Ugh.

[[ for that guy and some ocd ]]

Comments

Morning

[suitably_heroic]

Stupid nightmares. They weren't as plentiful as they had been back when Jack had first moved here, but sometimes they still caught him by surprise in the middle of the night. Death and bombs and Meetra vanishing into the night-- all the hits.

So it was morning, and he was curled up on the floor with his back against the only wall that wasn't covered in shelves full of records, a cup of coffee in one hand and his head bent over his knees.

Ugggh.

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

"It is too damn early to deal with whatever this is," said the pile of clothes on the sofa.

No, Cade had no idea what time it was. No, he didn't care.

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

"If you didn't want to deal with it, you should've stopped drinking in time to make it to the guest room last night," Jack muttered into his knees.

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

"In our entire time knowing each other, tell me three times I've made a good decision like that," Cade said, cracking open one eye.

Re: Morning

[suitably_heroic]

Atton lifted his head up. Squinted.

"... I can't even think of one."

Re: Morning

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Me either," Cade admitted. "I was giving myself some room for being a better person than I am."

Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

'Dinner' was a meal at a dim sum place a few blocks from the venue. Jack and Dane could walk there, so they did, dragging Cade with them. When they got there, their drummer was already there, Jill looking none-too-impressed behind her menu card.

Well, at them, anyway.

Then her eyes drifted to Cade. "Huh," she said.

Jack squinted. "And hello to you too."

Re: Afternoon

[shutupandkillsomething]

Cade smirked right back. "Hey yourself."

Re: Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

"You didn't tell me he was hot," Jill said merrily, turning her eyes on Jack.

Who rolled his eyes. Maturely.

"He doesn't talk much before a show," Dane confided, pulling up a chair.

Some of them took advantage of that.

Re: Afternoon

[shutupandkillsomething]

"So I assume you tell lies and embarrassing stories when he can't protect himself," Cade said. "Like good friends would."

Re: Afternoon

[suitably_heroic]

"And we watch all the complaints and the arguments build up in his head until he almost explodes," Jill confirmed. She picked up her soda with a grin. "We're just making sure he has all the energy he needs up on stage later."

She took a sip. "Want to help?"

Re: Afternoon

[shutupandkillsomething]

"To annoy him, absolutely," Cade said. "I've no interest in how he keeps his energy up."

Showtime

[suitably_heroic]

The venue was pretty packed for a Tuesday. Couple hundred people maybe? Yeah, this was closer to the norm since the album came out than the twenty-to-forty folks they used to get, but if there was ever going to be a time where Jack didn't find that strange and surreal, this wasn't it. (They were also not, all Jack's joking in front of Cade aside, mostly teenagers. Twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, some real metalheads in there.)

Ah, well. He peered out over the crowd one more time. Sought out Cade's Force presence for a sec, just to see if he hadn't wandered off to do something more exciting. No? Dammit.

Onto the stage it was.

He swaggered up to the microphone stand with a nonchalance he didn't feel, and smirked into the crowd. "Hey, glad you're coming out on a fucking Tuesday night to see us, of all people," he said. "Now, usually--" Trent's bass hummed through him for a sec, and he threw a glance over his shoulder. "Cool it for five more seconds!" Clear throat. "Usually, we start off this set with a cover. Usually, we pick something poppy to mangle with some distortion. But I'm not sure that fits the mood right now."

And there was Trent's bass again, hitting a rhythm in the background. Dark, but fast, and building. "So we're going to start with a classic." He swiped the microphone out of the stand with a Jedi-like elegance, and snapped, "You're keeping in step! And in line! Got your chin held high and you feel just fine--" A brief half-step, a slowing, like skipping over, and-- "'Cause you do. What you're told." --voice raising-- "But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold!"

He skipped away from the microphone and launched himself wholesale into the song, hesitation forgotten. That was the thing about it. Jack had always tucked his feelings away for the Sith, to be brought out only to be used; then he'd become Atton and put on a good show of hiding them and only pulling out what he needed to keep up a front. Then there'd been the Jedi. He'd found himself drawn to Juyo, to the idea of taking that entire mess of pent-up emotions and throwing it into your hands and feet, walking up to the Dark Side as closely as you could without tipping over. Letting that fuel you.

Up here? He could do the same thing. Just without actual threat of lethal injury.

It fed into the crowd, too; one person threw a shove, another matched it, following the energy. A third, and then they had a fucking mosh pit. Maybe Jack-- Atton-- was putting it out there in the Force. Maybe he was feeding off it in the room. He didn't know.

"You want more of that?" he challenged as the beat died down, hair already clinging to his forehead. "Well, come back next week. Maybe we'll do a little Metallica for you. As a treat." Dane hit a loud chord behind him. He paced over the stage. "Come crawling faster! Obey your master!"

Cheering from the pit.

Jack laughed. "Next week," he said. "Now you're going to have to deal with one of ours, instead. You want sweet or do you want loud?"

More cheering.

"Well, that's not really conclusive," he said. He glanced over at Dane. "What do you think?" He slipped the microphone back into the stand.

"Feel like we gotta match Trent Reznor's energy for another beat," Dane called.

Jack gave a casual shrug. "We'll save the sugar for later," he said. Not that they hadn't already planned out this set. Not like Jill was already setting up an ominous, building, winding rhythm behind them. Not like Trent was getting ready with the guitar.

He leaned into the microphone. He smirked. "Oh, oh, you came out alive - again. Walked out the door upright when you could’ve died - again..."

And for a good forty-five minutes, Dane's guitar roared in anger and Trent's bass hit the melancholic notes and Jill's prog rhythms made things complicated and messy-- and Jack snarled and howled and softened and shoved all the tragedy of himself into stupid words in stupid music, where he didn't feel the need to minimize his own damage.

Re: Showtime

[shutupandkillsomething]

And Cade lounged against a wall and drank, a bemused look on his face.

Re: Showtime

[suitably_heroic]

That rowdy guy in the crowd? Didn't so much mean to throw his beer at Cade, except it kind of went flying right over his head.

Re: Showtime

[shutupandkillsomething]

Cade wasn't going to use the Force when he could duck like a normal person, but now he was a normal person who smelled like cheap beer. "What the fuck?" he yelled.

Re: Showtime

[suitably_heroic]

"Sorry!" the man hollered, before leaping back into the pit.

"Hope is a dragon born from the shadows, luring his prey with fading light," Jack snarled into the microphone, backed by an extremely loud guitar.

Re: Showtime

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Ugh," Cade grumbled, stripping his shirt off.

Backstage Afterwards

[suitably_heroic]

Jack felt empty. Empty of energy, empty of feelings, empty of just about anything. It was nice. He was seated on the floor of the backstage area, his shirt lost... somewhere between the stage and here. He had a towel over his head, his head bent over his knees and a bottle of water dangling from his fingers.

Just breathing for a second. Or five hundred.

Re: Backstage Afterwards

[shutupandkillsomething]

"You're definitely going to catch something sitting on the floor here," Cade told him as he sauntered back, shirtless and smelling like beer.

Re: Backstage Afterwards

[suitably_heroic]

"I've been doing this for over two years," Jack muttered, somewhat muffled under his towel. "I've developed an immunity to backstage gunk."

Re: Backstage Afterwards

[shutupandkillsomething]

"Ew," Cade said. "It's like being to Nal Hutta enough not to smell it any more."

Re: Backstage Afterwards

[suitably_heroic]

"I mean, I also lived on Nar Shaddaa for a while," Jack muttered ruefully.

He pulled the towel further over his head and then wiped at his forehead with it. "You smell like booze. Catch a spray, huh?"

Re: Backstage Afterwards

[shutupandkillsomething]

"The guy was--"

That was a very specific Huttese phrase, Cade.

OOC

[suitably_heroic]

src