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unholyhelbig · 3 years

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We Sold Our Souls | 001: Beca

Summary: A small-town rock band continues to play even smaller venues well past high school graduation. Aubrey, Beca, Emily, and Chloe struggle with newfound fame and the long bloody road to get there.

[Based off of "We Sold Our Souls" By Grady Hendrix"]

Read on AO3 | Dt to the amazing @ifionlyhadmorepaper

Beca’s fingers were split and callused where Chloe’s were warm and protected. They were covered in bandages of all shapes and sizes, little adhesive papers that browned at the edges from dirt or from blood that hadn’t been dabbed away. They were wrapped, lacerated where she had pressed too hard on the velvet cords of her guitar. Beca Mitchell would play until rustic oozing syrup covered the face of the instrument.

They stung, sometimes, but right now she leaned into the numbness that the temperature in the office provided. She wanted to spread them in an equal motion over the glass of the desk so each finger lined up with a toe in her Doc Martins. Instead, she placed them calmly in her lap and stared at the silver pen that rested next to the contract.

She picked silently at the ace bandage that she had strategically wrapped around her pinky finger. It had been the newest slice; a wound still fresh to the sterile room. She was sure it would drip one, maybe two drops of red on the white linoleum.

Beca glanced up from the writing utensil and saw nothing but a suit, a slate and dull grey that blended perfectly with the rest of the room. There were no photos on the wall, nothing but a bland black leather sofa and a glass coffee table that matched the same desk they sat at now. She wanted to look through the floor to ceiling windows but saw nothing but white. Everything was white.

She was the darkest thing in the room.

Her boot tapped against, a low and thumbed rhythm. She waited for him to say something, to say anything. But she realized quickly that he may be darker than her. She could stare into the abyss that was his face, into the shadow but it would mean nothing. There were no defining features other than a crisp, business-like smile.

She had switched from pulling at the dressing of her wounds to picking at the frayed edges of her black jean jacket, littered with patches and permanent marker. Beca traced a signature that Chloe had drawn on one drunken night.

They had popped a bottle of champagne and the bubbles made the cuts on her fingers burn something fierce. But she let the golden liquid slosh onto the carpet of the hotel room, and bubble up in her throat until she couldn’t quite hold it between her lips anymore. Chloe kissed her and she tasted like weed and cherry.

It was the first night that their song was played on the radio.

The four of them huddled around a radio, its antenna stretched to the ceiling of that dingy room. The lights buzzed as much as the static, and it was close to three am; too late for the bar handlers to be heading home, and too early for the suits to be warming up their cars. But they played it- they played it.

They could quite possibly be the only four people in the entire world to hear the first song from the DEMO that Beca slid under the studio door.

When she leaned forward, the leather her pants made an ungodly noise. She didn’t’ want to read through the stack bound with a thick black clip. The first page was highlighted where she needed to initial and bolded at the most important parts; the parts that distracted her from what really mattered.

Her father was a stockbroker before he was dead, and he would tell her every single time he brought home a new contract, that they make the glittery things darker. That’s not what she was supposed to read; she was supposed to look at the little pieces of text that had stars next to them. People liked to trick you with shiny things.

Beca moved her finger across the large stack; the paper was cool to the touch and caught on the adhesive of her ace bandage. “What exactly are you offering me here?”

Summer 1985

It took her four whole months to save up for the old white Charvel that sat at the back of Shawl's pawn shop. There were bars strapped across the windows and an ugly neon orange sign that let Beca know when they were closed and when they weren’t. She would cling to those bars when old man Shawl would tell her to buy something or get the fuck out.

He stared at her even harder when she emptied the shoebox of change and crumpled up bills stained with sweat and sticky substances onto the glass counter, but even he couldn’t turn down a profit. She waited for ages while his liver-spotted hands counted the money carefully. Then he pursed his lips and pulled the beat up guitar down from his perch above his shoulder.

In later years, Beca knew she didn’t have nearly enough, and she thanked him silently for taking pity on her and passing it over anyway. She was driving all of his customers, she reasoned, by sulking on the hot sidewalk in front of the shop, letting banana flavored popsicles drip onto her fingers until it was nothing but a stick left.

She had fastened the worn leather strap around her chest and straddled her jet red bicycle. Beca had never peddled so fast in her life. The Mid-August heat clung to every inch of her was humming with sweat by the time she skidded to a stop in front of her house. She let the bike drop and got an instant hit of relief when she crossed the threshold into the open garage.

Beca scooted past the dusty Monza that barely fit in front of the door leading into their kitchen. Her mother had bought it off a stranger that came into the diner back in 78’. There were questionable stains in the backseat and an odd scent of Clorox that they could never get rid of. But it ran back and forth, and that’s all they needed.

She pulled open the honey blossom fridge and grabbed the closest thing they had to a cool drink. Beca drank tang straight from the pitcher, letting it drip down her face and soak into the collar of her shirt. She was noisy when she drank, and oblivious to her mother watching her from the archway as she tied her apron around her waist.

“We have glasses, Bec’s”

Her mother didn’t’ comment on the guitar strapped to her back. She figured that her daughter had picked up another hobby. Last year it was basketball, and the year before that she begged and begged for a set of baseball cards from the local hobby shop. After they were shoved under her bed she was told to fund her ventures on her own.

Beca swallowed the last of the orange flavoring on her tongue and took a savoring breath to fill her burning lungs. She turned to the woman and smiled “That would just dirty two things instead of one. Besides, you don’t drink this anyway.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Her mother wrestled silently with the faux pearl earrings that matched the beaded necklace against her collarbone. The soft blue tone of her uniform washed out her skin and made her look pale despite the summer heat that lingered well into August.

Beca placed the glass decanter back into the bottom half of the fridge before she mock saluted her mother and wandered back out to the garage. Her skin instantly became slick with sweat. She pulled an empty milk crate a few inches from the line of the setting sun.

She finally pulled the old Charvel from her back and situated it in her arms. It was far from a perfect fit. She reached over the neck and felt the way the side dug into her ribs uncomfortably. The strings were frail and sounded rough as she dragged her thumb against them.

Beca had only learned the start of one song, the first few cords of Black Sabbath’s Tomorrows Dream. They had printed the cords on the back of the record sleeve, each specific note highlighted in a comically large dot. Beca would breathe in the dust of the garage and listen to the record on a constant loop, pressing her fingers down against the notes.

She took a deep breath and started to follow the instructions that she had completed a million times over. The strings were too tight and it sounded choppy, sharp, and thick all at once. She cringed at her half-hearted attempt and the way the cords cut so deeply into her fingertips they stung.

She ignored the old car pulling out of the garage, and the way she had to squint at the darkness after a while. There was still the sour taste of orange on her tongue and sweat dripped from her nose. But she played and played, and played until there was blood against the white face of the instrument and tears pinching at her eyes. It sounded somewhat like Black Sabbath.

“You like metal?”

Beca jerked her hand back quickly and drew in a sticky warm breath of air. She had been so wrapped up in her task that she hadn’t realized she wasn’t alone anymore. A girl stood in the dull light that leaked from the garage and into the pavement. She didn’t’ quite pass the threshold- instead, she lingered.

A certain chill had invaded the air and the girl folded into herself. Her wild mane of orange hair fell around her shoulders and ghostly blue eyes lit up optimistically at the sight of a guitar.

“Uh,”

“That’s a Charvel, right? I begged my parents for one last Christmas but they got me an acoustic instead. Hooked me up with lessons from Miss Jensen. I learned one country song and started pocketing the fifty bucks a week instead.”

“Yeah,” Beca swallowed hard “It’s a Charvel”

“That’s cool,” she rocked back and forth on the souls of her sneakers. The cold didn’t’ seem to get to her much anymore. Beca tried to place her. Her ears were ringing and her fingers hurt. The crickets were hissing their own song. “You go to Kennedy don’t you?”

“I’m second year”

“I’m third.” She beamed “I live right next door, I’ve seen you around.”

Beca lifted her chin; she had seen the girl around too. It usually followed loud screaming and slamming doors. She would sit on her stoop and stare at the way her cassette player would turn. Beca had seen her flip a tape four times once- still like a statue until the music stopped and hat to be reset.

“Listen, I uh- don’t want to intrude, but maybe we could play together sometime?”

“Yeah, I would like that.” She found herself saying, the orange drink in her system making her stomach churn. She nearly felt bad, felt a pang of sadness for the girl. “I’m Beca.”

“Hi, Beca. I’m Chloe.”

Winter 1994

Beca let the case fall shut a little too loudly. The acoustics on the small stage seemed to catch all the wrong things. She couldn’t get her voice to carry earlier in the night, but the fur-lined box that they housed their amp in bounced all the way to the entry of the little venue in Portland.

She blinked hard, trying to ignore the harsh red lights that covered every single inch of the place. There were bumper stickers covering the spotty paint of the walls and a bar that was more piss and peanut shells than anything. Emily gulped down warm beer and struggled to keep it down momentarily. She didn’t look up at the noise, her stare trained on a coaster, and the crumbs that lie next to it.

Beca leaned back on her heels and pulled in a thick breath. She smelled like sweat and blood and alcohol. Her little stunt had drawn the attention of Aubrey, the woman wrapping the cord to a different amp around her forearm and palm. She narrowed her unripe stare.

“This was fucking shit,”

“I’m doing my best”

They spoke at the same time. She knew that Aubrey’s anger was buzzing, it was festering until it finally burst. She looked pale under the red lights, the same tattoo they had all gotten two years ago stretched under her tank top and down to the gap between her jeans.

She knew what Aubrey was going to say. Her best wasn’t good enough, and it never was; they had been doing this for years, eight long years and they were still playing the shit-stink venues in even shittier towns. They barely had an audience tonight, and it had all been Beca’s fault. The whole room was thinking it, but no one had the balls to say it other than Aubrey.

Chloe moved from the corner of the room, “We’ll get a better place, Bree.”

“Yeah? When? I’m tired of giving my all to an audience that doesn’t’ fucking exist. We’re not kids anymore.”

“We’re shit broke.” Emily turned in the creaky barstool, swallowing the foam at the bottom of her glass. “I don’t even think we have gas in the van.”

“How much from this gig?” Chloe asked.

Her hair was matted with sweat and her thumb pulled at the chain around her neck. It was fastened with a marbled red pick, one from their first real venue ever. She had nervously wiped away the gold lettering and now the smooth plastic was all that was left. Beca hated disappointing her, and she did it often these days.

“Five hundred.”

“Five hundred? Beca that’s barely enough to cover the hotel rooms.” Aubrey let the wrapped cord fall back to the stage “We don’t break even on this. It’s not fucking worth it. It never was and it never is.”

They all knew what came next. Emily stared down a coaster she had begun to shred. The remaining foam on the glass culminated at the very bottom of the glass and she knew she couldn’t muster enough change to order another one. So she sat with the sour taste in her mouth and festered.

Aubrey would mention Julliard.

“I could have had everything.” She hissed instead.

Beca didn’t dignify it with a response. Instead, she leaned down and pulled the amp up with nothing more than a grunt. Instead, she walked out into the cold Portland air and let it make her skin tighter. She blinked away the red light and searched for the keys in her pockets. She had left them inside.

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Bechloe #Emily Junk #Aubrey Posen #Junksen #band au #rocker au

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oddsnendsfanfics · 6 years

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Under One Condition

Genre: Fan Fiction (Vikings) Pairing: Ubbe/Reader Warnings: N/A Rating: G Length: Drabble Disclaimer: a strict work of fiction, I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line. In no way am I affiliated to any of it.

A/N: a fun and fluffy little Ubbe piece

"Good morning, love." Ubbe struts onto the rickety porch of the aged hunting cabin.

"Morning." You mumble, drawing the quilt tighter around your body. "Coffee?" expectantly you glance at him, wide eyed and hopeful.

"It's brewing." He assures you with a wink and a nod.

Temperature nearly freezing and Ubbe is standing there in his favourite, worn cotton lounge pants and a loose knit sweater that he found in his father's trunk of old clothes. Looking at him was making you colder than you already were.

Inside the cabin a fire roared in the small fire place, hand built by Ragnar and Rollo long before Ubbe was ever born. Inside next to the fire, drinking coffee, bundled in your favourite flannel pjs was where you wanted to be.

Ubbe had insisted that on your last morning here, the two of you needed to be on the porch over looking the small lake, as the sun rose. He was insane and there was nothing you could do to change his mind, although you'd tried several times.

What man gave up the offer of morning sex to a sunrise? Only Ubbe.

Silently Ubbe stands beside the door, the morning darkness giving way to that serene glow that only comes as the sun is beginning to rise in the eastern sky.

He'd been planning this trip for months, going as far to tell his brothers they weren't allowed up here for at least two weeks before your trip. Sigurd had a habit of coming and stinking up the place with weed and incense. Fortunately when Sigurd came up it was often him and his guitar, unlike Hvitserk who had a habit of bringing girls - sometimes two or three at once - for a weekend of raunchy sexual exploits.

Cleaning up incense and rolling papers was preferable to finding used condoms and a stranger's underwear in unmentionable places.

"Coffee." You remind Ubbe with a look over your shoulder.

"Hold your horses." Ubbe grins.

Alone, once again, in the cold dim morning, you wait for Ubbe. This time he doesn't come out until he has your coffee made just the way you like it. A blue tin mug is hot with the dark nectar of the gods, but you don't mind. The heated mug warms your hands instantly.

Settled in the Adirondack chair adjacent to the one you've been warming for the best part of an hour, Ubbe sips his coffee and sighs. This is turning out better than he had planned.

In his mind this morning would be nothing short of magical, but this...this is even better.

"Come 'ere." He pats his lap.

Without hesitation, you collect your blanket and move over to sit on his lap. Quilt wrapped around you, coffee in hand, you nestle into Ubbe's torso. Now this was worth sitting out here for.

"Suns almost up." Ubbe mumbles around the edge of his mug.

"'Bout time," you sniffle against the cold. "Could we not have done this from bed?"

Ubbe chuckles, his chest rumbling, he leans in for a kiss. His thick beard coarse and scratchy when it brushes your cheek. "But then we wouldn't get to see all of this."

Nature was where you and Ubbe disagreed. Ubbe would spend hours outside, working, playing, filling the need to wander and explore. He took pleasure in the simplest things like a colourful sunrise or the fresh smell of the buds on the trees.

You weren't entirely against nature, only when it was cold or wet.

"I suppose it is nice." You hum taking a drink of coffee allowing it to settle you.

In the sky the sun began to creep higher, waking the world. Brilliant pink and gold cascaded through the tree painting the sky. No civilization for miles and miles, it was as if the sun was there for you and Ubbe only.

"When we were little, my dad would bring us out to watch the sunrise." Ubbe reminisced. "He was doing it so that mom could sleep off her latest binge, but at the time we never knew that."

You knew Ragnar and Aslaug, as kind as they were, Ubbe had assured you that things hadn't always been the way they were now. Years and years had gone into making them the happy, adoring couple they were now.

Counseling, rehab, temporary separations, and the likes had all been there through Ubbe's youth. He and each one of his brothers had worked through it in their own way.

"Anyway," Ubbe replaced the dark thought with a smile, "Dad used to tell us; one day, boys, you'll be bringing your own kids here for the weekends."

The idea of schlepping a family up here had never appealed to Ubbe. He loved the hunting cabin and the weekends they had spent here a children, but the hassle was it ever really worth it?

Dragging kids through the woods, up the side of the mountain, across the river, and back. All for what? A few days away from a television.

It wasn't until six months ago, maybe seven, Ubbe had changed his mind.

"Do you think you'd like to do that? Maybe, one day?" Ubbe speaks, his gaze stuck on the sunrise that is dazzling the crisp morning.

"What are you trying to say, Ubbe?" You challenge, nestled into him for warmth and comfort.

"Thinking out loud, my love."

"Oh really?" Your brow quirks and you smirk. "Because it sounds an awful lot like you're asking if I want to have children."

"Do you?"

"Perhaps, one day, maybe. Although, I do have some stipulations of my own." You shift to look at him. His brilliant blue eyes crinkled at the corners, his lips drawn into a bright smile.

"Yeah?" Ubbe asks, you nod. "Huh, well then."

"So, Mister, if you think we need kids running around here then first I want to know that you're in this fully."

"Of course I am. Whatever you want, consider it yours."

"Good, then there is only one more thing to ask." You bite your bottom lip, the courage coming from somewhere - where you're unsure. "Will you marry me, Ubbe?"

"Will I marry you?" Ubbe burst into a fit of laughter. "Really?"

"What's wrong? Can't a girl ask a guy to marry her?" You huff, frowning at his stupid face and laugh.

"Well, yeah, but..." Ubbe nudges you to sit up. Standing before him, quilt pulled around you, a frown deepening. Fishing around the pocket of his lounge pants, Ubbe hands you a small white draw string bag. "Open it. Go on."

Fumbling with cold fingers to open the strings, you shake the bag, the glittering engagement ring sliding into your palm.

"Ubbe." You gasp.

"I was worried that you'd say no. I had planned to ask you this morning." Ubbe explained, "But, since you beat me to it." He snatched the ring back, sliding it onto the tip of his pinky. "Yes, yes I will!" His mocking of a crying bride was somewhat pathetic and over the top comical.

"Jerk." You smack his arm, grabbing his hand and pulling him from the wooden chair. "Now give me my ring and let's get inside. I've had enough of this nature shit."

Happy to oblige, Ubbe follows you into the cabin, inside the fire still roars, keeping the place toasty and warm. Nudging you with his hip, Ubbe winks. "So, do we get breakfast or go straight to working on those children?"

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#ubbe's wolfpack #ubbe ragnarsson #ubbe lothbrok #ubbe imagine #modern ubbe #ubbe x reader #ubbe ragnarsson imagine #ubbe lothbrok imagine #jordan patrick smith #under one condition

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