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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter thirty-four: one of us

Sam spent the next night at Joey's apartment before he offered to drive her back to the Bronx, complete with the painted canvas in the back seat. He also offered her to take a week off from school and spend it with him, but she turned it down.

“I worked too hard to get into school and claim my spot here in the Northeast, Joey,” she explained to him as she nestled down in the passenger seat next to him, “I mean, really. There's no way I'm giving that up. I wouldn't be here right now if not for school.”

“We gotta hang out again, though, Sam,” he insisted. “I like hangin' out with you. I feel more like myself when I'm hangin' out with you.”

“Maybe we can do something together over Thanksgiving—I have a four day weekend then.”

“Nah, I can't. We're gonna be touring over in Europe.”

“Dammit! Well, what about Christmas?”

“Christmas, I dunno. I think we have it off? I'll have to run it by Scott when I see him in a bit. Although—I do think we go back to Poughkeepsie after Thanksgiving, though. Poughkeepsie and also Providence.”

“Providence! So Zelda will be able to see you guys just fine.”

“I hope she does, yeah!”

Another few hours and soon the New York skyline emerged in their view: the cold gray clouds only made all those skyscrapers as well as the Twin Towers off in the distance appear even colder. Seeing the clouds made her think of that cat she and Marla had found outside of their new rehearsal space, especially given it was pouring rain when they found her. As Joey took to the next lane over to keep up with the freeway, she turned her attention to him.

He took a couple of glimpses over at her, the second of which he raised his eyebrows at her.

“What's up?” he asked her.

“Is it too much trouble to ask if we could swing by Marla and Charlie's place? They don't live too far away from my building.”

“I was just thinkin' about them,” he confessed. “The two of them and that little black kitty cat that she found.”

“Actually it was me who found her—Marla and Charlie took her in.”

“Oh, I see! But yeah, we can go see them for a little bit. I'm not the one with school after all.” He flashed her a wink; the freeway spanned out into a long flat stretch and they made their way towards the Bronx and all those familiar neighborhoods. For a few moments as they rounded the bend, she had forgotten what they had named the cat but she wished to find her something the next time they saw each other.

Joey took the next exit into the very heart of the Bronx and Sam shivered in the seat despite the blast of warm air from the heater vents. He flexed his fingers even though he barely held onto the wheel the whole ride there. She had had the gloves tucked away in her pocket, but she wondered if he had another pair perfect for his own hands, and one that was perfect for driving.

He flexed his fingers again.

“Tired?” she asked him with a raise of her eyebrows.

“Nah, just cold hands. I don't have those drummer gloves with me.”

“Drummer gloves,” she said in a flat tone.

“Yeah. When I was first starting out as a drummer, I'd wear this little pair of white leather gloves that protected my hands from the drumsticks. They also kept my hands warm against the cold. I think I forgot them back at my place. Louie has a pair, too.” He somewhat grimaced at the mention of Louie's name. “They're almost like gardening gloves.”

“Oh, I see. Speaking of which, I had already seen you in a hockey get up, I should see you drumming next.”

“Playing hockey and drumming at the same time,” Joey challenged her with a smirk on his face.

“Playing hockey and then drumming,” Sam added.

“Or drumming and then play a round of hockey. I'm that active, after all.”

They snaked their way through the side streets of the Bronx, and towards her apartment building, but they continued onward to Marla and Charlie's building nearby. She had a flashback to when she and Frank were in that closet together and she drew those cartoons in her journal. She could still feel the fine lush hair against her fingers. She wished to do more of those same types of cartoons in her journal, and it made her think of the ink drawings she had made in the past October. She missed doing it that time around given Cliff's passing and her filled schedule that fall as well, but she wished to do it again.

Lars encouraged her to do it with the ink at Cliff's memorial after all.

The rain had fizzled out by the time she and Joey made their way up the steps and inside of the dry, warm building.

“Do you remember where they live?” Joey asked her as he ran his fingers through his black curls.

“I do as a matter of fact!”

Sam reached the apartment first and she knocked on the door panel three times. Silence ensued.

“Are they even home at all?” Joey wondered aloud, and the door swung open. Marla greeted them, and complete with a towel wrapped around her hair.

“Hey,” she said with a surprised expression on her face. “Hey, you two!”

“Who's here?” Charlie hollered from the kitchen.

“Joey and Sam,” she called back to him, and she returned to them.

“We should'a called first but—we were just coming back home, though,” Joey explained.

“Just wanted to see how the two of you were doing,” Sam added with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Aw, that's too kind—come on in, you guys.”

Joey ran his fingers through his jet black curls again as they padded inside of that cozy front room. They had rearranged the furniture at some point: the couch had been moved over to the wall opposite from the front door and they had tucked a cat tree into the right corner of the room. Charlie emerged from the kitchen with his dark curls tied up at the back of his head, a plain white shirt, and bright red shorts rounded out by knee high white socks.

“Cute,” Sam chuckled with a gesture to the shorts.

“What, these? I found these literally right after we came back home from the tour.”

“I thought he looked good with them,” Marla added as she took a seat on the couch. The cat jumped onto the arm, right next to her, and something jingled in junction with it.

“There she is!” Joey declared.

“What'd you name her again?” Sam asked her.

“Genie,” Marla filled in.

“Genie, that was it!”

“Dream Genie,” Charlie added as she slunk past the back of Marla's head to the other end of the couch. She squatted down there and glanced over at Sam: those golden eyes shone under the soft light of their apartment. She spotted a black and green collar around her neck: right in the middle was a circular silver tag that resembled to a coin, and right behind that was a silver bell.

“She's our girl,” Charlie declared.

“I kinda wanna do something for her,” Sam confessed.

“Yeah, me, too—” Careful not to frighten her, Joey strode over to the couch.

“She's not too particular about men, Joey,” Charlie told him. “It took her a bit to warm up to me.” Joey bowed forward and extended his hand to her: Genie hesitated and her pupils dilated a bit. Sam held still for her; but then Genie tapped her dark nose on Joey's fingertip.

“We good?” he asked the cat in a gentle voice. He raised his hand a little bit to pet her head: she closed her eyes, and Joey moved in closer to her. Genie lifted herself in a seated position so he could pet her more.

“Yeah, we good,” Marla replied as she adjusted the towel on her head.

“Are we dying our hair again?” Sam asked her.

“Not yet, no—I'll dye it a different color over Christmas, though.”

“She did recolor it,” Charlie pointed out.

“Yeah, I recolored it a tiny little bit just to fix the roots and make it look even for the rest of the quarter. I'll leave the actual color a surprise, though.”

Joey meanwhile took his seat on the couch so Genie could come closer to him. Even just standing there next to Marla, Sam could hear the rich purr from inside of her throat: Joey petted her head and her back, and her tail shot straight up in response.

“I envy you,” Charlie muttered as he folded his arms across his chest. Genie rubbed up against Joey's arm and purred even louder. It was right then Sam knew that all of his problems were trivial: if that cat acted like that towards him, there must be a way to help him heal and overcome it all. She even turned around and let out a soft little meow for him.

“I really envy you now,” Charlie followed it up.

“You wanna pet her, Sam?” Marla offered.

“I'd love to—” she said as she gingerly stepped closer to Joey.

“You did find her outside of Montana after all—”

She extended her hand to Genie and she tapped her nose on her fingertips as well: she then ran her fingers on the crown of her head, and she continued to purr. Sam looked over at Joey and his brown eyes softened at the sight of her. The cat liked both of them almost immediately, and she knew there was a way in there with him.

Indeed, he walked her back to her place and up those stairs together. Aurora was descending the stairs with a plastic bag in hand.

“Oh, hey! There you are, Sam!”

“Were you waiting for me?” she asked her.

“Yeah, me and Zelda both. I was just gonna go down the block to ask Marla and Charlie if they knew where you were.”

“Well, I'm here now,” Sam told her, “with Mr. Bellardini here, too. What's going on?”

“Halloween and Day of the Dead, that's the deal.” Aurora flashed her a wink, and Sam thought about that one song that the Cherry Suicides did for their Halloween show the year before. “Day of the Dead.” She had a feeling but she had no idea if it was at all true. Aurora ambled closer to her and Joey, and she gestured for them to lean in closer to her.

“I was gonna tell Zelda after I came back,” she explained in a low voice, “but Metal Church, the band that opened up for Metallica and—” She turned to Joey. “—you guys, on their tour—”

Joey nodded in response to that.

“Metal Church cancelled the remainder of their dates for the remaining stint of the tour,” Aurora continued. “I called Morgan of the Cherry Suicides if she wanted to fill in for their spot and she accepted without a shred of hesitation.”

Sam gasped and Joey's face lit up.

“But don't tell her, though,” she lowered her voice to a near whisper to them, “I want it to be a surprise.”

“And you want to let it come from your mouth, too,” Sam added.

“Exactly, yes! She's been awful moody lately, too, so I wanna see the joy come to her face when she hears it.”

“Aw, that's so kind of you, Aurora,” Joey told her with that lopsided smile on his face.

“Anyways, what's in the bag?” Sam asked her with a nod. “It's for Halloween and Day of the Dead?”

“Well, it specifically is for Halloween. Day of the Dead has something else in a different bag out in the my car.”

She opened the top side of the plastic bag to show her the collar of a beige jumpsuit. The inside was line with black satin.

“From that movie Ghostbusters,” Aurora explained, “I even got this one personalized—” Indeed, she took it out part of the way, and they both noticed a black name tag embroidered there on the side of the chest: inside of the rectangle was Aurora's name in red lettering.

“I can get you one, if you'd like, Sam,” she added.

“I'd love one,” Sam replied with a smile and a raise of her eyebrows.

“One for me, one for you, one for Marla, and one for Belinda if she wants to join in with us. I tried to offer it to Zelda but she told me she didn't feel like dressing up. I told her, 'it's Halloween—you ladies own Halloween', you know to try and lift her spirits and whatnot. But I dunno.”

“She's probably waiting for us,” Sam remarked as she adjusted the lapels of her coat.

“Probably waiting for you in particular,” Joey added, “here, Aurora—lemme help you out with that—”

Sam continued on to the stairs, to the third floor and her apartment. Zelda had taken her seat outside of the front door: she flashed back on the time Cliff had taken his seat there outside of her door. But Zelda had more of a distant look on her face in comparison to him: he awaited her presence; she awaited some sort of comfort. She sighed through her nose and she bowed her head a bit, but when Sam stood above her, she peered up at her. Her eyes were large but far away.

“How you doing?” she asked her, to which Zelda shrugged. “Is everything alright?”

“I think my band might be breaking up,” she confessed in a small voice. “We haven't been able to do anything—Aurora hasn't gotten us anything. I can't put the blame on her, though. I feel like it's my fault.”

“Well—how 'bout you come on in? I can put on a kettle and make you a cup of tea.”

Zelda sighed through her nose again.

“Okay,” she almost breathed that out, and she climbed to her feet. “I do feel a little bit better saying that, though. I haven't been able to tell that to anyone else.” Sam unlocked the door and let her inside of the apartment. Zelda took her seat on the couch and she leaned back against the soft cushion. She still had that distant look on her face as Sam fetched her a clean mug and a bag of green tea. Her slender, toned legs separated a little bit: she looked a little bit thinner than usual.

“Would you like some sugar in your tea?” she offered her in a gentle voice.

“Sure, why not.”

“Um—Aurora is gonna get us some costumes for a Halloween party,” Sam recalled. “We could all go together in an ensemble of sorts.”

“Yeah, maybe we should,” she muttered. Something else bothered her, and Sam took her seat next to her on the couch.

“What's wrong?” she asked, and Zelda sighed through her nose again.

“I feel bad about breaking it off with Louie,” she confessed almost without taking a single breath.

“Well...” Sam fell short with that. There was no way she could console her because she had lost Cliff to something she couldn't control, whereas the whole thing with Louie hit a brick wall. And yet they both lost their boyfriends: she nestled up closer to Zelda, who kicked off her shoes and she pulled her knees up to her chest. She bowed her head and rested her lanky elbows upon her knees; Sam considered putting her arm around her shoulders so as to console her but she had no idea how Zelda would react to it. She smelled of cinnamon, that smell of Christmas. That smell that made her think of Cliff.

“You know Cliff used to sit right there whenever he came over here,” she told her in a low voice.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. He would just sit there and relax, and he let me come closer to him.”

Zelda's bottom lip trembled a bit.

“Do you miss him?” she asked Sam in a broken voice: tears lined her eyes.

“Every day. I think I'm gonna miss him every day.”

“At least you have him all to yourself now, though,” Zelda pointed out. “I just don't have it with Louie anymore.”

“Well—you guys broke up for—for—for some reason.”

“For some reason, for sure.”

“Would you be willing to listen to Legacy's new album, though?”

“Of course. I wanna know what it feels like on his end. He's also a drummer—I like my drummers.” She sniffled.

“You like your drummers even if they leave,” Sam pointed out.

“I do. I do, I do, I do, I do... I still love Louie even with him not next to me anymore.”

Sam extended her arms for her and Zelda moved in closer, and they embraced each other.

“Thank you,” Zelda breathed into her ear.

“If it's any comfort at all,” Sam started again; she moved back so she could look right into her tearful eyes, “I feel my heart opening again.”

“Really?” Zelda brushed away a tear.

“Yeah. To Joey.”

“Whoa, really.”

“Yeah. And—I wanna tell you to keep it under wraps, too.”

“What for?”

“Because—I honestly don't know how to break it to him yet. Or to anyone, really. I'm also not really sure of it myself, either. I keep thinking, oh, it's nothing serious. I just love him out of necessity. I don't necessarily feel that sort of love for him. But—all things equal—I do feel love for Joey. But I don't really want it to leak out as of yet. Mine and Cliff's relationship leaked out onto him and so I don't want me and him to leak out.” Sam extended her pinky finger to her, and Zelda hooked her own around it.

“I won't tell a soul,” she vowed to her a low voice. “And the amount of times you said 'leak' makes me wonder if there's a leak in here.”

“Nah, that just—sort of happened.” A soft whistling noise emerged from the kitchen.

“There's your water.” Sam lifted her gaze to the door and at the sight of Aurora and Joey. “And there they are, too.”

“Speaking of leaking—” Zelda turned around and Sam stood from the couch and hurried into the kitchen before the kettle whistled even louder. She heard their voices in the next room. And she switched off the burner and she picked it off there; before she could make her way back into the front room when Zelda let out a shrill yelp.

“OH MY FUCKING GOD, AURORA, I LOVE YOU!”

Joey burst out laughing right then. Sam hurried into the front room with the kettle in hand; Zelda threw her arms around Aurora's body and she began to push her back to the door. Joey set down the plastic bag and he clapped his hands. Even with his darkened skin, a soft blush bloomed in his face from his laughter.

“Well, don't suffocate her, Zelda!” Sam chuckled again; Zelda pressed her lips to the side of Aurora's face, and her smooth almond shaped eyes widened a bit at the feeling.

“Oh, my god, that just made my life!” she tearfully declared.

“I told—Morgan—but I wanted it to be a surprise—” Aurora stammered.

“So you coming to the Halloween party thing now? I don't even know what it is, to be frank,” was all Sam could ask as she poured the hot water into her mug.

“For sure!” She wiped away more tears. Joey clapped his hands some more before he extended his left to her. She gave him five down low and threw her arms around him. Aurora ran her hands under her black hair and let out a low whistle.

“I can't even remember the last time I had a bear hug with someone,” she choked out, “not even when I grew up out in San Diego. I don't remember the last time I had that.” And Sam almost dropped the kettle from laughing so hard.

Over the next couple of weeks, things seemed to lighten up once again. Sam could focus more on her art and her classes. Indeed, her watercolor paintings seemed bolder and brighter than before, with the washes looking as though she had taken the paint straight out of the bottle and applied it onto the heavy grained paper. The lines on her graphite drawings looked cleaner and smoother, and she was finally getting the hang of the extra dark shading. Belinda made a joke that it came from the weekend together with him.

“His last name is Belladonna, you said?” she asked her the day before Halloween.

“Yeah. A play on his real last name of Bellardini.”

“You know belladonna is deadly nightshade, right? Genus name belladonna atropa?”

“He took me to his hockey rink and he actually had a ball that actually said 'atropa' on the side, and he told me that was what sparked the idea for it.”

Belinda leaned in closer to Sam's ear.

“He's injected you with his venom, Sam I am,” she whispered.

“Injected me with his venom,” Sam chuckled and rolled her eyes at that, but Belinda's face remained serious. She never elaborated on that for the rest of the day, or even the next day before the party. The thought did linger in the back of her head as she returned home after school: she took a glimpse in the window next to her, at the black hat upon her head. She gazed into her own dark eyes, and she thought of Joey's big brown eyes. As brown as the earth. As dark as venom.

But it wasn't possible

But on the other hand, Sam felt relieved that it was Friday again, especially when Aurora swung by and they drove down to L'Amour together, wrapped in their jumpsuits no less.

“We're missing the little ghostie symbol on the door panel,” Sam said to her as the familiar neighborhood appeared from around the corner; she adjusted the black leather gloves that Frank lent her earlier that morning.

“The siren, too!” Aurora laughed. “Let everyone know that we've arrived.”

They rolled up to that spot before the side door, which hung fully ajar: as Sam climbed out of the car, she spotted Scott and Dan inside there, both with no shirt on. Lush dark hair sprouted all over Scott's chest while Dan looked as though he had just come from several rounds at a nearby gym. And she thought Joey was trim and fit!

“Looks like we've got some manly men, Aurora,” she announced in a loud voice. They both looked in their direction and burst out laughing: Sam strode inside first and she stepped to the right. Aurora followed suit and put a pair of black goggles on top of her head, and she stood to the left. Both girls pressed their hands to their hips.

“Lookin' badass, ladies,” Dan remarked with the points of finger guns; he then ducked away for something. Once they had come inside, Sam realized that their faces had been painted a pearly white, as if they had walked right out of a spa. Both men had clipped their bangs back to put more emphasis on their masks.

“Yeah, kinda puts our costumes to shame, to be honest,” Scott added with a raise of his dark eyebrows.

“Aurora, Marla, Belinda, and I are the Ghostbusters,” Sam explained. “We're just missing our version of Ecto-1 is all.”

“The lasers, too,” Aurora added.

“What about Zelda, what's she dressing up as?”

“No idea—I hope it's something good, though,” Sam confessed. “After Aurora said that the Cherry Suicides will be opening up for Metallica in Providence next month, she's just been on cloud nine lately.”

Dan returned with a handful of jars and some flexible stencils in his arms, and he set them down on the little table in between them.

“What's all this?”

“We're gonna be dancing clowns,” he explained. “Kinda glad you girls showed up, too.”

“Why, you need a couple of girls' help?” Aurora teased him, to which she took a step forward.

“If you don't mind at all,” Dan replied with a shrug of his bare shoulders.

“You girls are one of us,” Scott added as he took out a pair of plastic vampire teeth from his shorts pocket, “—we really need you.”

“Here, Danny, let me help you,” Aurora volunteered.

“Which means I get Scott.” Sam turned her attention to him. “Would you like some help with those false teeth?” she offered.

“Nah—I do need a li'l help with the false blood on this, though.”

Sam took off the black leather gloves and tucked them into her pocket. Scott held still as he let her paint that bright red and jet black paint over his skin: the stencil stayed in place upon his skin, but her hand remained steady. She followed the elaborate groove of the stencil and the thick solid black onto the white foundation.

“Scott and I were making a joke,” Dan began in a mumbled voice, probably from the stencil on his skin as well, “he should shave the word 'not' into his chest hair.”

“Pffff, why?” Aurora laughed.

“Kinda fits the whole mood of things,” Scott added with his teeth barred together. “We lost a good friend so we wanna lighten up for a bit.”

Sam dipped the brush into the paint again, and she thought about the red shorts Charlie wore when she and Joey visited them for a bit. She wondered where they were going with it all, especially since it had been a touch over a year since their record dropped. She placed the other stencil on Scott's face but she kept her free hand on the free one.

“They're sticky so don't sweat it 'bout it fallin' off,” he assured her.

“I see.”

“And I see Zelda over there—in a dress.”

“In a dress, really? Run for the hills!” Sam laughed, and Scott gritted his teeth to keep himself steady. His eyes darted across the room and he raised his thick dark eyebrows a little bit.

“Oh, my,” he muttered without moving his lips.

“What's it like?”

“I can't—really describe it.”

And with that, Sam peered over her shoulder and there was Zelda in the doorway. She had put on a big long white lacy dress with a skirt that fell down to the floor. She had on a smooth silken ribbon around her waist and torn lace gloves. But right in the middle of that fitted bodice was a false butcher knife, and fake blood spattered across her skin and a good part of the dress itself. The floppy hat upon her head had splatters of blood across the brim.

“Oh, deary dear,” Sam remarked.

“Oh, my god, Zelda, you look amazing,” Frank called from the other side of the room.

“Yeah, I know right?” Zelda said with a big smirk across her face. “Thank my ladies for this. We're not called the Cherry Suicides for no reason. We got the news from Aurora just yesterday and there was no way we couldn't not celebrate by dressing up like a bunch of bloody Victorian ladies!”

“Bloody Victorian ladies,” Scott echoed in a fake British accent.

“Hold still,” Sam encouraged him as she brought the paint brush back to his face for some more stenciling. His thick dark eyebrows complimented the black and red paint, and within mere minutes, she peeled off the stencils for him.

“Deliciously evil,” she remarked, and he stuck the fangs into his mouth. She then turned to Dan and Aurora, the former of whom had stars painted all over his face. “Excellent!”

She recognized that head of purple on the other side of the room, right by the bar and wrapped up in a beige jumpsuit herself. She had a black backpack on: it wasn't the laser, but it looked as though it did the trick.

“And there's the third member of our party, Aurora,” Sam declared.

“Thank you, Sam I am—this feels fantastic,” Scott told her.

“My pleasure, Scott—” She jogged across the wooden floor to meet up with Marla. She already had a Bloody Mary before her, and her face lit up at the sight of Sam.

“Hey, I was just thinking about you. Want a drink?”

“Nah, I'm good—Bloody Maries aren't really my thing.”

“No, no, I want to get you something.”

“Oh, yes please! One of those black and purple drinks with the club soda inside.”

Marla asked the bartender for just that, and Sam took her seat next to her.

“Belinda's on her way right now,” she promptly said, “apparently the suit was a little too small for her.”

“Too small? She's like a living doll.”

“I know, right? But I guess it was a bit too snug around her chest so she had to wing it a little bit on her sewing machine. She's like a mad scientist sometimes, I swear...”

Sam's drink arrived and they clinked their glasses together. She took a sip when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Aurora had finished up Dan's face paint and she met up with the heavy gentleman with the black suit and the black fedora atop his head.

“And there's Aurora and Emile,” she remarked. “He looks like a dark Colonel Sanders.”

“What's going on between them, do you know?” Marla asked her in a low voice.

“No idea, to be honest. All I know is he's separated from his wife and they're friendly with each other.” She turned her head towards Marla. “A little too friendly, if you ask me. That's just from what I've seen, anyway.”

“So there's whole thing between you and Joey and now we have Aurora and Emile.”

“Right. And I have no idea what's going with any of it, either.”

Marla squinted her eyes at the sight of the couple on the other side of the room. She didn't move or say anything for a good long minute.

“Let's see where it all goes from here on out,” Sam suggested.

“It's all we can do,” Marla added as she picked up her Bloody Mary and took a sip. Sam held her purple drink up to her mouth but she kept it there.

With Cliff's passing came a whole new world. Almost two years had surpassed since Sam came to New York and it felt as though so much more had happened to her. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly and she couldn't hardly stop to rest a lot. Emile quipped something to Aurora, who then burst out laughing. He set a hand on her upper back.

There was definitely something in between them. No way it was just friendly. Sam didn't have much experience with the whole thing but she knew that that extended beyond mere friendship. She finally took a sip from her glass, and Marla did it in unison with her.

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter ten: stuck in the middle with you

A couple of phone calls and twenty minutes later, and she had arrived at Charlie's front step just before their dinner showed up. Marla towered over Sam when she walked into the apartment, and her black two inch heels only added to it. The ceiling light made her bright orange hair glow and to the point it looked as though she had a halo about her head. The pink and blue streaks on the right side of her head resembled to crystals by the little glimmers in her hair. Her skin looked even creamier in person, and in lieu of the paint spattered white smock, she wore a bright red sweater with glittered thread embedded within and snug black jeans paired with big shiny black boots.

Charlie greeted her with a pair of little kisses on either cheek and then he put her arm around her to show her off to Sam and Frank.

“You haven't met him yet,” Charlie told her with a nod to the latter.

“The infamous Frankie,” she proclaimed, and she turned to Sam with a soft little smile on her face.

“And this is our new friend Samantha,” Charlie continued. “Sam I Am from California.”

“Good to meet you,” Sam told her with an outstretched hand.

“You, too.” Marla had a delicate grip: the soft cupped hand and light fingers of an artist.

“I hear you're an artist,” said Sam as she moved in closer to her.

“I am, yes! Art student but—I don't really feel the student part of it.” She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes at that.

“Well, she'll probably be a student soon enough, though,” Charlie pointed out, and Marla's face lit up. “I can see it getting better for ya, babe.”

“Oh, yeah! I hope you can get into it—it was hard for me, I'll admit it.”

“Well, she's got yet to show us her skills, though,” Frank added. “I've definitely seen yours.”

Marla showed him a smirk and another shrug of her shoulders. A knock on the door caught their attention, and Charlie let go of her and rounded Frank and Sam.

“Maybe after dinner I can show off a little something?” she suggested to Sam.

“Yeah, I'm up for that,” she said with a nod of her head.

“I'm up and down for it, too,” Frank joked as a smirk crept across his face.

“Up and down?” Sam asked him.

“I'm up for it, and I'm also down for it. Up and down.”

“Up and down in another way, too,” Marla said with a straight face.

“Up and down like these bags of food?” Charlie called out right as he shut the front door with his left foot. Indeed, he held two large brown paper bags, one resting upon either hand, as if he was presenting the three of them with silver platters filled with food. Frank ducked over to him for the one in his right hand.

“Have you tried this place down the block here?” Marla asked Sam in a low voice, and she shook her head. “Ooh, you're in for a treat, babe.”

The four of them took to the love seat underneath the bar, with Sam and Frank right next to each other on the right arm and the middle cushion respectively, Marla on the left side, and Charlie on the arm next to her.

“Why don't you grab a chair, Charlie?” she suggested to him as she opened the bag he had held in his left hand.

“I'm good,” he promised her, and Sam took a single look to find the tips of his feet rested on the carpet. Perhaps he could lean back onto the couch when he ate his fill, or lay down on the floor.

“So we've got orange chicken, pad thai, pea pods, and a shitload of noodles and vegetables,” Charlie told her as Marla took out a pair of plastic forks for the both of them, and then she took out two more for Sam and Frank.

“Shall we grab a quartet of plates for ourselves?” she suggested.

“Might as well,” Charlie said as he held onto the box with the pad thai. “I've got bottles of cream soda and beer in there if any of you'd like some.”

“I'll take a beer, dear,” Marla told him with a gentle toss of her orange hair.

“Beer dear,” he echoed.

“Dear beer,” said Frank with a wag of his finger.

“Dear, beer...” Sam ran the tip of her index finger along her palm as if writing something down.

“Dear diary, jackpot!” Charlie declared, and he stood to his feet and made his way to the kitchen.

“You know what? I'll take a cream soda this time,” Sam told him. After having a beer in the studio earlier, it only made sense to calm down the alcohol already running through her system with a little something sweet and bubbly.

“Yeah, me, too,” Frank followed up with a wave of his hand. Charlie soon returned with little green plates for each of them including himself, and then he doubled back for their drinks. Within time, he returned to his seat on the arm of the love seat, and he and Marla served out the food for themselves, and then Sam and Frank.

It wasn't much and it didn't take but Sam herself found the noodles and the chicken to be more than enough for her. The chicken was so lush that, when combined with the orange flavoring and the noodles, it felt like having a taste of home once again. The broccoli, the carrots, the baby corn, and the water chestnuts were perfectly steamed. Frank took seconds while she had to stop herself from undoing her jeans right in front of them.

Charlie took a hefty swig of beer and almost fell off of the arm of the love seat. Marla giggled at him.

“D'you bring your stuff with you?” he asked her as he held the bottle in one hand and his fork in the other.

“My art stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I didn't think I'd be doing a demo for you guys.” She reached for her bottle and took a little sip.

“Now, now—an artist should always come prepared.” He leaned forward for a look over at Sam. “Right?”

“Right!” she said as she took another bite of broccoli and water chestnuts. She had cleaned her plate and rested it on her lap.

“Are you done?” Frank asked her.

“I am, yeah. That was too good. About as good as the pho we had with Aurora the other day.”

“That was incredible,” Frank remarked. “Both this and the pho, I mean.” He raised his bottle of cream soda for her, and she picked up her bottle for a toast to him. The bases of the bottles clinked together and they both took a hearty drink at the same time. The cream hit her parched mouth and washed it all down.

Meanwhile, Charlie said something which coaxed a big laugh out of Marla, and she pushed him to the side. He almost lost his balance on the arm of the love seat but he caught himself just in time. She downed the rest of the bottle in a few large gulps and ran her fingers through the streaks on the side of her head.

“You know what we haven’t done yet?” she said to him in a louder, clearer voice.

“What’s that?” he asked her after a clearing of his throat: he had already had one other drink back at the studio, and for all Sam knew, he had had another one when she wasn’t looking.

She didn’t answer. Instead, Marla stood to her feet and strode around the coffee table. She stripped off her sweater and revealed her little black camisole underneath, and she turned around to toss Charlie her sweater. Something silvery caught Sam's eye, something on Marla's chest, right above the hem of her top. She tugged down the hem of her camisole over her slim waist and gave her orange hair another toss.

To think Sam was actually jealous of her. She pictured herself standing before Marla in the farthest corner of the room and painting her perfect body for all the world to see.

“Oh, I see—you wanna get down a little bit, don’t ya?” Charlie’s words slurred from the alcohol, but he climbed to his feet with ease. Marla took a seat on the carpet near the hallway entrance with her legs spread out before her: despite their shine, it looked as though she had had those boots for a long time from their eroded, worn down soles and slight scuffing near the soles. She leaned back against the wall and sighed through her nose.

“How ya wanna do this?” Charlie asked her, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sam looked over at Frank: they were both sober, and neither of them had any idea as to what to do right then. Charlie said something, which in turn brought another laugh out of her.

“Too much to drink between the both of us,” she muttered.

“Yeah, I'll say,” Charlie laughed. Sam glanced over at Frank and the flustered look on his face, and he tucked his feet right underneath him. They were underneath that bar and within range of the kitchen door.

“So you want me to do the honors, or should we switch?” Charlie asked her as he got down on his hands and knees, right in front of her knees. Marla opened her legs for him, and Sam parted her lips. She looked over at Frank again, who had raised his eyebrows at the sight before them.

“Ho, boy,” he breathed out.

“Yeah—” Sam squirmed in her seat, and Frank shifted his weight on the cushion right next to her. They watched Charlie undo the button on Marla’s jeans; he peeled them back to reveal the bare milky white skin underneath. Sam squirmed in her seat once again and huddled closer to Frank, who let out a soft little laugh out of nerves. Charlie tugged off her panties with one finger and slid them down to her knees. He bowed his head over her lap, and Sam and Frank looked at each other once again: she felt her face growing warm and her heart began pounding in her chest.

“Too much to eat, and too much to drink,” she said aloud.

“Yeah—and I don't think they seem to notice that we're even here, either.”

Frank shifted his weight yet again and he bowed his head a little bit. The collar of his jacket brushed against the lower part of his face and his lush dark hair sprawled over his shoulders. The very sight before them was almost too much to bear even for Sam.

She dropped her gaze to his hands, which he had dropped down onto the couch cushion on either side of his hips. She returned to the sight before them, and in time to catch Marla with her head pressed up against the wall. She had pinched her eyes shut.

“Dinner and a show,” Frank muttered with a giggle. Sam pushed her bangs up from her forehead to alleviate the warm feeling. Too much warmth all at once.

“Come with me,” Frank said right in her ear.

“Where?” she asked him in a hushed voice. He gestured for her to follow him away from the love seat, but then he stopped her right in her tracks.

“Never mind,” he said with a wave of his hand, and then they climbed to their feet and he crept around them there on the floor: Sam almost tiptoed around them as she entered the hallway right behind him. Indeed, there was Charlie's bedroom on the left but there was another room right next to it. Frank yanked open the door and clicked on the light on the ceiling overhead, and he gestured for her to step inside first.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile on her face: the room was tiny and narrow, complete with a heavy wooden bar on the wall to the right and a tiny dusty window at the far end: the amber light from the street shone onto the pane to the point it resembled stained glass. And it took her a second to realize it was a walk in closet except nothing hung off of that dowel.

“Charlie's closet?” she asked him when Frank closed the door behind him.

“Yeah, but he doesn't really use it, though. 'Cause—he doesn't have that much stuff with him.” He shrugged his shoulders: his dark lush hair brushed against his collar such that it resembled to dog ears.

“I wanted to get out of there, too,” she remarked.

“Yeah—me, too.” She gazed into his eyes, large and dark like big ink splotches. He nibbled on his bottom lip.

“You've got something you wanna tell me?” she asked him; Frank bowed his head a bit and sighed through his nose.

“Frankie?”

“I'm almost inclined to start making out with you,” he whispered to her.

“Why?” she sputtered. And then she flashed back on what he and Charlie had told her in the coffee shop, that story of them watching two women in a moment across the street from them. She wondered that, given it had been such a long day for both him and Charlie, that all he wanted was to kick back and get down with it all.

“I will only do it if you wanna do it,” he added. “You know, I—I don't wanna make you uncomfortable.”

“Frankie,” she started and then she hesitated. She closed her eyes as she struggled to find the write words. Marla said something to Charlie: they could hear them on the other side of the wall. “—Frankie, we've only known each other for a few days.”

She opened her eyes to find him gazing up at her with his head bowed a bit; he showed her a flutter of his eyelashes.

“Again, it's all up to you,” he told her in a low voice. She shifted her weight right on the spot, and she peered over her shoulder to the rest of the closet behind them. Completely bare—not even a box or a chair to be found in there. But the carpet looked soft enough, and the closet itself looked wide enough for them to have a seat and stretch their legs. She returned to Frank, who lifted his head enough for her to look right into his eyes.

“Would you rather I draw something in front of you?” she asked him in a near whisper. “Like—just something between of us? I won't show it to Charlie, or Marla for that matter. Draw something and then maybe follow it up with some kisses.”

“That sounds good by me,” he said with a warm little smile.

“You know, I'd have to go back out there to fetch my purse for my journal and everything.”

“It's alright—” He raised a finger to her. Silence on the other side of the wall, followed by something sliding on the floor. “I hear them shuffling around out there and doing something. I'm sure they won't notice.”

“Okay. I'll be right back.” He flashed her a wink before she skirted right past him to the door. When she reached the hallway, she caught the sound of Charlie breathing heavy. Something scraped on the kitchen floor as Sam reached that front room. She bowed her head a bit, but then she realized Charlie and Marla had gone into the kitchen. Acting quickly, she made her way over to the love seat for her purse and her journal, and then she scurried back to the closet and Frank without saying a word to either of them.

She shut the door behind her and he crouched down underneath the window. She took a seat next to him in the corner and they stretched their legs out before them. He offered to protect her purse underneath his left hand even though they weren't going anywhere.

She opened her journal to a fresh page near the beginning. Her mind fell blank for a second as she caressed the smooth clean surface of the white paper.

“Dunno what to draw?” he asked her in a soft voice, and then she clutched her pencil.

“Nah, I think I have an idea.”

Without another word, she brought the tip of the pencil to the paper and sketched out a little round curve first. She eyed Frank's lush nearly black hair, from his soft short bangs which rounded out his heart shaped handsome face to his narrow nose. He took a glimpse up at her for a second before he returned his gaze to the paper.

“Let me see,” she coaxed him and she brought a hand to his chin. Her finger tip lightly touched his skin and he gazed on at her. His eyes locked onto hers long enough for her to squirm again. Sam then lowered her hand and returned to the drawing in her journal.

She drew out his nose in the form of a little nub, followed by his eyes in an almost half moon shape; his eyebrows were narrow and straight; she started at the roots at the crown of his head and let the pencil lead her way. The graphite lightly kissed the paper so she could give it a bit of ink within time.

She drew the locks of hair such that it looked as though he was standing in an updraft of wind, down past his shoulders and complete with a part over his face. She gave him a little lanky body, one that wasn't too fixated on anatomy. She figured it would be nothing fancy: just a little thing between the two of them and no one else.

At one point, she set down the pencil next to her and picked up the ink pens. The two thinnest points would do the trick: she set the two millimeter one on her lap and took the cap off of the one millimeter pen. Carefully, she ran the ink along the graphite making up his face. Black ink contrasted against the soft white paper.

“It's almost like I'm seeing you at your most vulnerable,” he whispered to her.

“You—kind of are,” she told him and she showed him a smile at the sound of that. “You're seeing me at the most me I'll ever be.”

She followed the pencil markings around the crown of his head and even added some more to make his hair more to the real thing. Despite the cartoonish look of the drawing, she wanted it to resemble to the real thing. Short and small hatch lines underneath his eyebrows, and slightly larger ones on the side of his face obscured by his hair. A bit of cross hatching on his thighs and all around his jacket. She made the outline a little bit thicker under his head and around his neck; out of the corner of her eye, she could see him smiling.

“I mean, having you right next to me makes it even more intimate,” she remarked as she ran the pen over the piece of hair under his head. “It's almost like—I'm actually making out with you.”

“Touching and feeling me with the pen and the pencil,” he followed along.

When she added the final thin pieces of hair on the crown of his head, she signed her initials at the bottom of the page, but she hesitated for the date.

“It's the third,” he said.

“Already?” she asked, stunned; she scrawled the numbers “2 | 3 | 1985” right next to her initials. And then she turned back to him right as the beaming smile crossed his face. He then put his arm around her and tugged her closer to his body.

“I'm gonna keep going,” she told him, to which he nodded his head.

“Sounds good by me.”

She turned the page and proceeded on yet another round little face, this time one slightly fuller and with a cleft chin and a curlier crown of hair. She gave him a taller, lankier body as well, cloaked in a dark overcoat; she added little spirals and curls to his hair, such to the point it was twirling in the wind.

“There he is!” Frank declared as she signed her initials and the date once again. The fact she had someone right next to her only fueled her, and the fact that someone was Frank only made it better. She turned to the third page and proceeded on another one. His face was more square and his hair fluffier in texture, courtesy of her making shorter strokes on the crown of his head. Given the drawings of Frank and Charlie themselves had their hands stuffed into their pockets, she decided on showing off his hands. But before she got anywhere with it, she turned to him.

“Is it cartoon lore that all characters should have four fingers?” she asked him, to which he shook his head.

“I don't think so. Especially with us 'cause we're the real thing, you know?”

She nodded her head and proceeded on with five fingers on each hand: his left hand rested on the collar of his little coat, while his right hand hung right next to his head, as if he was adjusting his hair. Meanwhile, his hair streaked out from his head in a much smoother fashion, given his hair was straighter in comparison to Frank and Charlie's waves and curls. And yet, she still made little curlicues at the tips of his hair to give it that look of twirling in the wind.

“Danny?” asked Frank with a look of excitement on his face.

“Yes!” she exclaimed as she filled in the shadows with more hatching. She signed her initials and dated the drawing a third time before she turned to him again.

“Scott or Joey next?”

“Both,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

She turned to the fourth page and sketched out Scott's squarish face first, followed by the tendrils of wavy hair at the top and the sides of his head which, once again, twirled in the wind.

“I like how they're all consistent,” Frank remarked with a twirl of his finger.

“It was windy upstate today,” she pointed out as she drew his hands pressed together as if he was saying a prayer. “It kinda makes sense to me.” She made sure his coattails flowed with the fictional wind as well, and they billowed out before the front of his body. She couldn't recall if Scott wore gloves that day, but she added a bit of extra hatching to his hands so as to resemble gloves. Much like the drawing of Frank himself, she added finer strands of hair near the top of his head with the one millimeter pen as a finishing touch before she signed her initials and added the date yet again.

“And now—the big man,” she announced; Frank yawned and stretched his arms over his head, and then he brought his right arm back down onto her shoulders.

“The big chief,” he declared as he sank down even more next to her. She made sure the hair at the crown of his head was curly enough, but then again, they all stood in the wind so she drew most of his hair down by the side of his head. She pictured him in the back of his car, under that big heavy Indian blanket, all freezing cold and waiting for them to show up to help him out, and how he could not get warm for the longest time, and she drew both of his hands up by the collar of his jacket.

She felt Frank lay his head onto her shoulder at one point, but she didn't mind, especially when she began drawing out Joey's thick jet black curls with the two millimeter pen. Some extra hatching near his waist and his hips and she found herself recalling what Aurora had told her. Maybe she could catch him in the act at some point: she could find a way to make sure he was looking at her just right and then go from there.

After adding a bit of frizz to the tips of Joey's curls, she noticed Frank had started breathing at a more heavy, slower pace. He had fallen asleep right next to her. Indeed, the rest of the apartment was silent. She sighed through her nose and signed her initials and the date for a fifth time before she closed the book and set it down next to her. Careful not to wake him up, she climbed to her feet and ambled over to the light switch. Darkness blanketed the closet save for the light outside of the window; she hesitated for a second and then, using that ambient light, she returned to Frank on the floor there. He never stirred as she slid up next to him and leaned her head onto his shoulder.

Even with the hard wall at her back, Sam closed her eyes and still managed to drift off in no time.

She was laying on the ground again somewhere, this time surrounded by a series of glowing golden rocks the size of houses. The man with the stripe in his hair had appeared before her, and he, too, was laying on his side right next to her and wrapped in a heavy green blanket.

“Stay with me always,” she begged him in a near whisper.

“You never listen to me,” he told her in a full, deep voice.

“I'm listening,” she insisted; with that voice, there was no way she couldn't not listen to him.

“Come with me,” he begged her, and he scurried out from under the blanket like a hermit crab trying to find a new shell for himself. She followed him to the cliffs off to the side, and they rose up to the sky as high as she could see them. She lagged behind him given her feet and her ankles were tired. He stopped for her to catch up to him.

“Are you okay?” he asked her. She didn't reply. She couldn't reply. He seemed a thousand miles away from her and yet he sounded so close, as if he was standing right next to her.

“Come on, come on, quickly,” he insisted with a gesture of his hand.

“Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

The waves crashed down on the shores of the island and more golden rocks landed on the beach before them.

“Don't touch those, they're radioactive,” he said in a single breath. But she could scarcely run. It felt like she wasn't going anywhere. Her hips began to ache from trying to run in the sand, and yet that white stripe at the crown of his head shone so bright in the sun, like a warning siren. He pulled further away from her even as he continued to sound as though he stood right next to her.

And then she tripped on one of the rocks.

And she woke up to the sound of Frank's voice.

“Sam—Sam?”

“Hm?” Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed on at Frank's dark silhouette. It was still nighttime. “What is it?”

“You're sitting on my hand.”

She moved her hips a little bit so he could take his hand out from underneath her. In the dim light, she watched him shake it about to get the blood flowing again. A banging sound outside of the door caught both of their attention.

“Oh, shit,” Charlie's voice rang out through the apartment. Marla's voice caught her ear as well.

“Scott and Billy—they're outside—I'll explain it later—”

Sam shifted her weight next to Frank, who shuffled his feet about the carpet before him. He groaned in his throat and nestled closer to her.

“Not the first time I've had to sleep on the floor,” he whispered to her. Yet another dream with the strange man with the streak in his hair, and this time she was next to Frank and it was the middle of the night.

“I keep having these dreams about a guy,” she started.

“What kind of guy?” he asked her.

“A guy I never met before. I don't know who he is, and I don't know what he wants from me, either.”

“What's he look like?”

“He's got this big stripe of white hair on top of his head. Like—this big shock of bright hair in a head full of rich black hair. He's—kinda handsome, too, like he's got this real sharp brow and a cute little nose. All I can think about is the stripe in his hair. I keep seeing him in places near water, too, like I've dreamed about him at the beach, or a drying lake bed, and just now I dreamed we were on an island.”

“Huh.”

“It's like the third time in a row I've dreamed about him, too. I don't know who he is or what he wants from me.”

“The literal man of your dreams?” he suggested.

“Could be—who knows, really.” She closed her eyes again and leaned her head against Frank's shoulder, who lay his head onto hers. They both snuggled against each other in the middle of the far corner. Outside, Scott and Billy's voices cut through the night, but they would have to address it come the morning.

#fanfic #fanfiction #anthrax fanfic #anthrax #chapter 10 #charlie benante #frank bello #charlie benante x oc #fever in fever out #fever in fever out fanfic #mild smut #mildly nsft #also on ao3 #text

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter twenty-four: showtime

“Alright, gentlemen,” Sam started with a rubbing of her hands; she glanced over at the three men on either side of her as if they were her students. She was ready to head on out to the castle: the first time she would be witnessing a show near a castle.

“Alright, what?” Dan asked her as he gave his feathery hair a little toss back with a flick of his head.

“It's nearly showtime, isn't it?” she pointed out.

“Within like a couple of hours, yeah,” Charlie replied: he had just woken up from his nap. He had already put on those notorious bright red shorts for the show, but he seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever. And as far as Sam and Marla knew, he would have to take a whole series of naps on this stint of their tour. At least the two of them and Belinda were headed home after this show: she couldn't hardly think about Charlie having a difficult time just to keep his eyes open for a whole flight over to the next stop, and then the next one. Nevertheless, Sam stood there in between the beds with her hands pressed to her hips as if she meant business with them.

She glanced over to either bed, to Charlie and Dan there on her right, and to Frank on the left: Joey had gone out somewhere, and yet he left his guitar behind.

Stormtroopers of Death all over again for her, except this time around they were in a genuine hotel room rather than the front seat of Charlie and Marla's car.

“Where'd Joey go, by the way?” she asked Frank.

“He left for a few minutes to play fetch for a few minutes,” he replied with a straight face.

“For a few minutes and also for a few minutes?” she retorted back to him.

“Yeah! At least that's how he told it to me.”

“Well,” she cleared her throat, “don't you guys wanna like—go to the castle and rehearse for a bit?”

“Bon Jovi's the headliners so—not yet,” Charlie croaked out, complete with a rub of his eyes.

“Well, if they're the headliners doesn't that mean they go on last?” Sam asked him, to which he hesitated for a second and he gazed up at the pale ceiling above them.

“Yeah, they do. Fuck.”

“It's alright. Because it's a couple of hours, we can walk over there.”

“Walk or skateboard?” Frank joked.

“You can skateboard, Frankie,” Sam told him off with a straight face. “We kind of need our lead singer, though.”

“We?” Charlie tried to hold back that bout of laughter but he wound up laughing so hard regardless of that fact.

“You kind of need your lead singer,” she corrected him.

The door swung open and Joey stumbled right into the room right then. He gave his long black curls a toss back from the side of his face and the side of his neck, and he showed Sam a little smile.

“Hey! There he is!” Frank proclaimed.

“Here I is—what's happening?” He strolled over to the bed closest to the window and he picked up his guitar from the floor.

“I just suggested to the boys here that you guys ought to head on over there,” she informed him.

“It's not for a couple of hours, though,” he pointed out as he crouched down onto the floor with the guitar cradled on his lap. He then poked his head up over the edge of the bed.

“You got that little bag in your purse still?” he asked her.

“No, I took it out of there when Marla and I got home a couple of weeks ago,” she said.

“Damn.”

“Besides, you don't need that shit, Joe,” Dan pointed out.

“It's just pot, Danny,” Joey insisted. “It ain't gonna kill me.”

“It was stinking up my purse, though,” Sam told him.

“It's good for inspiration, though,” he said.

“It's also taking a hit on your memory, too,” she added.

“Lemme play—lemme play!” he exclaimed.

“Okay, okay—don't be such a baby.”

“I ain't no baby,” he scoffed.

“I'm gonna check on Marla and Bel—and Aurora, too.”

“How's she doing by the way?” Charlie asked her.

“Who, Aurora?”

“Yeah.”

“Hung over like crazy earlier. Her and Emile both got drunk under the table last night—and I thought they were still drunk, too. Now my only hope is that they're good to go. If not, well—we'll see how things go with them and we'll see how Jon and Marsha both react to it. I'm especially worried about her because she's my best friend.”

“What about him?” Charlie tucked his hands underneath his head.

“He's my old landlord and I'm not paying him rent anymore—it's still worrying, though.” She paused for a second and then she recalled what had happened the day before.

“Does Alex know about those drawings?” she asked him in a low voice. “Like, who did them?”

Charlie lifted his head a bit and he glanced across the room to Joey crouched down on the floor. “He has seen them,” he replied, also in a low voice, “yeah he has—but I didn't see his reaction, though. The next time we see him, ask him what he thought about them. He's like me and Lars—he's really into art. I'm sure he liked all four of them.”

“You know where they're staying?” she asked him, to which he shook his head.

“Aurora probably knows but who knows how she's feeling right about now.”

“True.” Without another word, Sam left the room and headed on back across the hall: Marla ran a brush through her candy apple red hair right before the mirror on the wall. She lifted her gaze over to Sam and nodded her head at her: the light from the lamp behind her shone onto her hair so it looked as though she had a soft pink crown upon her head.

“How's Aurora doing?” Sam asked her as she stood in the doorway.

“Still out like a light,” Marla replied. “Bel's doing better, though.”

Indeed, Belinda, who had taken her spot there on the edge of the bed closest to the door, turned to Sam and showed her an exhausted smile.

“It's been a little difficult,” she confessed, “but it's been better, though.”

“Do you know where Testament is staying in?” Sam asked the two of them; Marla shook her head and Belinda shrugged.

“I only saw Alex and Greg the other night at dinner,” Belinda admitted, “haven't seen them since then.” She then smirked at her. “Why, you got a date with one of them?”

“I wanna know what Alex thought of those drawings I made for Anthrax,” Sam told her, “I also wanna know if he knows that I made them.”

“I'm sure they're around,” Marla assured her as she picked up her brush again and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Sam fetched up a sigh and turned her attention back to the corridor behind her. They had to be close by there in the hotel especially since Metallica also pitched in for dinner for them.

“God, I've never been so tired in my life,” Belinda groaned. “I'm better than I was before, but still.”

“I've been off kilter a little bit, too,” Marla consoled her. “Not as bad as that, but it's still nothing to sneeze at, though—”

Sam then doubled back into the corridor and she strode onto the front room for any signs of life. A few other guests congregated around that big heavy table but no signs of them. She headed outside to the porch and she hoped that a single walk about the place would give her a view into one of their rooms somewhere in there. But then again, the trees all along the one side of the building there kept her from doing anything more than that. She returned to the hotel and she walked past the table into that short nook back there.

A few more rooms, but each of them had their doors closed.

How five men had vanished into thin air in there in the hotel was beyond her. She stood there in the middle of the floor with one hand pressed to her hip and another hand upon brow in repose. How five men just disappeared in there.

She had no idea if they were even in those rooms; they could have been in the hotel down the street for all she knew. Thus she returned to her own room for another few moments, or at least until Belinda felt up to snuff on her part.

“No clue where those guys are,” Sam confessed to them.

“Well, shit.” Marla gave her bright red hair a little tousling over the shoulder, and then she put on some perfume in to go in junction with that black velvet camisole.

“You guys always look so rock n' roll,” Belinda groaned out from the bed. “Especially you, Sam—you got a pendant from Ronnie James Dio for god's sake. And a bracelet from Joey.”

“A bracelet Ronnie gave to Joey,” Marla corrected her.

“Hey, the very second I saw you in Bill's class I thought you were a total punk chick,” Sam assured her as Marla gave her a spritz of perfume on her wrists.

“Punk chicks come in all shapes and sizes,” Belinda pointed out. “Especially as Zelda will tell you.”

“Kudos to her, by the way,” Marla added as she put the cap back onto her perfume. “For watching Genie and the apartment.”

“And just kudos to her, too,” Sam chuckled.

A knock on the door caught their attention.

“Come on in,” Marla called out. Frank poked his head in there.

“You girls ready?”

“Born ready,” Sam told him, and Charlie laughed from right behind him. Belinda stood to her feet and the three of them headed out of the room. Frank and Charlie led them towards the front door, complete with that skateboard tucked underneath his arm.

“Joey and Danny already went over there,” the latter informed them once they stepped outside to the cool, crisp late afternoon: the overcast sky darkened into a rich royal blue with the setting sun behind them. It would be nightfall by the time Metallica and Anthrax took to the stage.

“Oh, I see—they don't want me to come along,” Sam jeered at that.

“They're guitar players,” Charlie assured her. “Joey's also the lead singer, too, so—they kinda have to be. None of us make the rules and one of us probably should've told you that but—it's water under the bridge at this point.”

Sam shook her head at that: the silver pendant Ronnie gave her clinked a bit with each and every step in the meantime. They crossed the street towards that treeline, which was then followed by the tent; beyond that stood the stage before the castle: the sounds of music caught her ear, and she wondered who had gone on right then. They reached the tent's doorway when Sam spotted Joey over in the corner where she and Ronnie had congregated the two days before.

“This way, Char—” Frank declared from behind her. A cloud of smoke emerged from that corner of the tent.

“Sounds like W.A.S.P already took to the stage?” Marla said aloud.

“No idea, to be honest,” Belinda confessed; she turned to Sam with those tired eyes. “We're gonna go check this out.”

She nodded in response and the two of them went ahead to the other side of the tent. Just so long as she got alone with Joey again.

She made her way over to him and the cloud of wispy haze that surrounded him. That rank smell coupled with something a little more fragrant. His eyes were closed part of the way all the while. He nodded at her and showed her a little smirk, but she gaped at him in concern.

“Joey, it's nearly showtime and you're baked out of your wits—”

“It's not out of my wits,” he insisted with his eyes still closed part of the way. “I just had a couple of puffs of smoke and that was it. Nuthin' more, nuthin' less than that.”

“Where did you get some?”

“Remember that lighter Frankie had?” he asked her.

“Vaguely.”

“Well, apparently, he still had a good deal of juice inside of it. So I asked Lars and then he gave me a couple of puffs and then he himself had a couple.”

“Lars had some pot on him?”

“Not a lot, mind you—but still enough to loosen me up.”

She frowned at him. It wasn't a drink, but he still had a hit of marijuana so soon before showtime

“Well, I worry about you screwing up, though,” she said, concerned, “especially on your own song, for chrissake.”

“I'll be fine,” he insisted.

“Fucked up—insecure—neurotic—and enigmatic,” she stated complete with a counting on her fingers.

“You mean emotional,” he pointed out.

“Whatever—well, at least you got it right. That tells me you're lucid.”

“Lucid? Loose is more like it.”

“Loose—like a loose pair of underwear.”

“Loose like a loose cannon is more like it,” she retorted back to him. She gazed down at those dark lips as they parted a bit for her. She hesitated for a second, and then she peered up at his brown eyes, those twin gaping dark holes as they gazed back at her from the hazy darkness behind him. She had to do something, something to get him back on track, even if it was just a little hit from a joint. She had nothing else to resolve it, except for the fact she had seen him naked, twice, and he always nudged her to be on display for the world to see—

She lunged for the sides of his neck and she moved her face into her own.

“C'mere, you,” she insisted.

“Whoa, what?”

“You're not going up on stage like that—no way, no how—” She pressed her lips onto his, firm and hard as if she meant it. She held his face back from her own and he looked at her in a gaze.

“Whoa. You really wanna go there, don't ya?”

She glanced around them.

“Not in here, though,” she said in a low voice and with a scowl still plastered on her face.

“But sounds good, though.”

He slung the guitar off of his shoulder and showed her his tongue. She gripped onto his hand and led him out of there; the last thing she heard as they left the tent was W.A.S.P leaving the stage on the other side of the tent. She forgot the exact lineup that evening, but she knew Anthrax were going on after Metallica.

She had to do this quick.

They headed out to the trees right as the sky darkened some more, that time into a rich violet color: the canopy overhead only added to the impending darkness.

“Where we going?” Joey chuckled.

“Right here—” She turned around and she pressed him back to the trunk of a tree. She pressed her lips onto his once again, complete with her hands tucked behind the back of his head: all through those soft ringlets near the nape of his neck. His deep chest pressed against her own. His slim belly as soft and silken as the very tongue she caressed against.

Metallica rang out through the dense dark trees that surrounded them. Joey dropped down a little more towards the bottom of the tree trunk just so Sam could put her arms around his slender little body. Her lips locked onto his and their tongues met one another in the middle: he tasted like that burnt end of the joint coupled with a bit of coffee. At least he wasn't drinking.

Jason's bass floated through the branches and Sam closed her eyes once she recognized its grinding thunder noise under Kirk and James' guitars. Lars thumped on his kick drum and everyone in the audience clapped along with him.

“How now brown cow,” James bellowed into the microphone. “I said, I said, I said'a—how now brown cow!”

Joey ran his hands down Sam's sides and onto her hips.

“Oh, fuck—if only we had a little more time,” he pled.

“You'd fuck?” she teased him.

“Just for a li'l quickie—but Metallica only got a short set on hand this time around.”

“So you gotta be back up there?”

“Yeah.” He then stood to his feet and ran his fingers through his black curls once more.

“Alright. But afterwards, we're picking up where we left off.”

“Of course, of course.” He flashed her a wink and the two of them returned up the pathway to the tent. Sam walked on to the side of the stage as Joey fetched the guitar and doubled back into the backstage for Frank, Dan, and Charlie. She rounded a corner and she recognized those five heads there at the side; beyond them was Metallica as they wrapped up the final song of their set. She skirted along the curtain and they turned their heads to her.

“Hey, there you guys are!” she declared.

“Yeah, we never left!” Eric joked, and Greg and Louie burst out laughing at that. Before she could say anything more, the audience behind them erupted into cheers for Metallica: James' long golden blond waves floated behind his head as he waved at everyone. Kirk and Jason gave everyone the sign of the horns while Lars blew Sam a kiss.

Like clockwork, Anthrax took to the stage: Charlie had tied up his hair into a tight ponytail behind his head while Joey had taken off his shirt, thus the flood lights shone onto his bare brown skin such that he resembled to a ghost.

“Hello, Britain!” Joey announced into the microphone head. “It's been a while.” He let out a long low whistle; even though the noise died down before him, a sound barrier began to form before Sam, such that she couldn't say anything more to the five men behind her; she turned around in time as Joey picked up that white flying V guitar and slung it over his shoulder, and took his black curls out from underneath the strap. “As you can tell we are officially a four piece now—but it's alright 'cause I got this guitar here courtesy of a guy you all might know, Dave Mustaine—”

Several people before him cheered at that.

“But anyway, we ain't messing around here, though,” he pointed out. “We're gonna have some fun tonight and while we're in Europe. Some new songs, some songs you may've heard of, some old ones, too! Fuck yeah, let's do this!”

He stepped back and ran his fingers through his black curls before he held onto the guitar neck and spread his legs apart. Frank led them into it with a rising bass line. The sound of Charlie's drums resembled to that of a gunshot. Frank gave his long lush dark hair a toss back with a jerk of his body and Joey mirrored him all the while. It was so strange seeing them perform as a quartet rather than as that five piece, but Sam stood there off to the side of the stage with Marla and Belinda with her eyes keen on the stage before them.

Charlie let out a short little drum solo before Joey picked up with the singing. He stood there with one leg forward and one leg back and his body stooped forward, and the guitar down by his thighs.

They had the sound to keep them apart from Metallica and even Testament, and Joey's voice was indicative of that.

“What is it!” Frank shouted into his own microphone.

“Caught in a mosh!” Joey followed up as though they were talking over each other.

They also had that sense of humor.

Sam peered out at the audience, at the mosh pit that formed out there in front of them. It went on for the entirety of the song no less.

“This song is definitive Anthrax if you ask me,” Joey declared into the microphone head. “Off our new album Among the Living. This is called 'A Skeleton in the Closet'!”

“This is a good song,” Chuck remarked.

“For real,” Sam replied back to him with a chuckle.

“Joey's a machine!” Marla declared over the roar of Frank's bass in junction with Charlie's thundering drums. Joey turned away from the audience so he could better receive feedback from his amp. His black curls obscured his face from Sam's view; she peered over her shoulder at the sight of the vast stretch of audience beyond the edge of the stage. Most of them were there to see Bon Jovi and Cinderella, but she could tell that most of them were in fact enthralled by the sight before them. Joey with his hair down in his face as he kept up the rhythm.

He was no solo artist like Dan, but he could play those powerful, grinding riffs. She kept her eyes fixated on his fingers down over the pick guard: he played like that and with his fingers to boot. Meanwhile, Dan's feathery hair fluttered and waved about on the crown of his head against the gentle cool breeze: he kept his gaze fixated on the strings underneath him and he let the solo out of the cage.

She thought of Alex right then: he stood somewhere back there and she knew he was feeling down and out about the sight before her. She peered over her shoulder at Chuck and Eric right there, and complete with looks of awe plastered upon their faces. She only saw the back of Alex's head but she knew that he was watching with a bit of that outsider feeling.

Much like their brothers in Metallica, they only played a short set before they cut things loose for Dio and then lastly Bon Jovi.

Joey took off the guitar and gave a big wave to everyone as they all gave him cheers. They were cheering for him. Sam ran her tongue along her lips as they all backed away from the side of the stage so as to give them room. Everything was dark, and yet Joey's silhouette and that upstate accent proved to be enough for her. She followed him back towards the tent while the boys from Testament were laughing about something.

“Back here, Sam—” he coaxed her. She followed him off the stage and towards the tent, which was lit up by the mere flicker of a hurricane lantern outside of the doors.

“Wait, Joey—don't you wanna see Ronnie go on?” she called after him. Using only the ambient light from the castle and from the stage lights, she followed him towards the trees; but he never replied to her as they returned to the same exact spot there in the bushes. He then stopped and turned around, which in turn made her stop right in her tracks. They were only a few feet away from the street and the sidewalk, but that particular spot in the trees kept them away from any prying eyes in their direction.

“So, hey, you wanna do that again?” he offered her.

“Why, you think you can do that again?” she teased back at him.

“Well—'cause Cliff touched you but he never went any further than that, though,” he pointed out.

“Besides, you didn't answer my question, either,” she told him. “Don't you wanna see Ronnie and his band?”

“We can listen,” he replied as he extended his arms to her once again. He brought his chest in closer to her and he bowed his head for her again: she pressed her lips onto his. Unlike the first time, he didn't taste like a joint anymore, but rather like salt dissolved in fresh water. He hadn't broken out a sweat on his brow, but he had exorcised some of that adrenaline out through his body like the work of a wizard. He had even more adrenaline now courtesy of being up on a stage before some several thousand people all the while.

She wasn't the one performing and yet her heart hammered away inside of her chest as well.

His rough hands ran up her back towards the hooks on her bra. They were going to do it right there out in the wilderness, out in the open, out there for all the world to see. And yet they had no one else around them. Her bra loosened and the straps slid down her shoulders a bit.

She gasped at the feeling of his lips against her neck and her collar bones. She could feel his fingers wedged right in between her legs. She shuddered at the feeling, such that he stopped right in place.

“What's wrong?” he asked her in a hushed voice.

“I can't,” she confessed.

“It's okay—I got you covered. I'll walk you right through this. I promise—just follow my lead.”

She then gasped and pulled away from his lips.

“What's the matter?” he asked her.

“I just realized why my mom likes you so much,” she whispered to him.

“What's that?”

“You're like my dad,” she said, to which he stopped what he was doing to her.

“I—I am?”

“Well, you have similar traits as my dad,” she corrected herself. “Between your protection towards me and your dark hair—it makes sense. You remind her of my dad. But then again, that's just a guess. I don't know exactly why she likes you as much as she does. I have to ask her.”

“Next time you and I see her, you gotta,” he insisted.

“Well, duh.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes at him, and he chuckled at that. He leaned in for another kiss on the lips, one that had a little more power to it that time around. She ran her hands up his back towards the base of his head and those especially soft black ringlets under the bulk of his hair. Even if her mother had a thing for him, she had to make her claim on him. Joey was hers now, there in the trees as Ronnie crooned out to the black sky overhead.

She let go of his lips and she looked right into his serene face, and those closed eyes, now soft and smooth. His skin looked much healthier and more radiant than before. Playing guitar had saved him.

Something moved from the corner of her eye. She glanced over and she spotted Alex right there at the sidewalk with a wounded look on his face: the plume of silver over his brow shone under the ambient light from the castle. She gaped at him, but then he bowed away from there and into the darkness.

Sam returned to Joey and the placid look on his face, just in time for his eyes to open up for her once again.

“You done?” he challenged her, to which she shook her head at him. She brought her lips back for another round with him, but she couldn't hardly shake the look on his face. There was something there with Alex that he wasn't telling her. She had too many questions now as Joey kissed the side of her neck and ran his fingers through her dark hair.

“You seem uncomfortable,” he confessed right into her ear.

“I'm not,” she assured him. “I promise—I'm not.” He moved his head a bit so he could have a better look right into her face.

“You just seem a little bit more tense than normal.”

“It's okay,” she said in a broken voice, “it's okay—I'm just—not used to—doing this outside.”

“Oh, I see—it's alright. It's just us here. Although—the ground is a little bit soggy. Think sump'n bit me, too.”

“Something bit you?”

“Yeah, right on the ass.”

“Sure that was an insect and not my own fingers?” She pinched him right then which in turn made him gasp. Some voices caught her attention.

“I hear people comin', too,” he said.

“I do, too.” He pouted his bottom lip for a few seconds and then he gave his black curls a little flick back with a movement of his head.

“Let's go catch Ronnie, shall we?” he offered her.

“We shall.”

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

Text

chapter thirty four: the new order of things

Sam's twenty third birthday came about in a quick flash and a draw in the middle of January, but given the look on Joey's face for most of the day, she knew that she would have to enjoy every second of it all. Anthrax themselves hardly had any time to enjoy the Christmas break or the New Year given they had a pair of shows to play at L'Amour the week before.

“Consider it our birthday gift to you, though,” he told her in the two days before then; even though they had been scheduled to play for two dates, she could only attend the show on Saturday given the new workload for the winter term.

In the springtime, they were to be out on the West Coast for several dates and a small taste of it all before she did.

On that afternoon before the second show, she had done her black hair up nice and dressed in the nice black and red knit sweater that her mother had sent her for Christmas. As she ran a hair brush through her hair, she gazed on at her reflection in the mirror before her. Her hair as black as Joey's crown of ringlets, but it seemed to sit far more flat upon her head than she had realized before.

A week from twenty three and she looked as though she had aged about ten years: her eyes lacked that spark from when she first started school and her skin had not that smoothness to it like when she first moved to New York. Or maybe she put too much thought into it, but she lacked that same luster as before when she bode farewell to her teenage years.

In that brief pocket of time before the accident, Cliff had seen her as beautiful, even when she got heavier over Christmas. And it was looking on at her own reflection when she realized what he meant by that. Into her own dark eyes. At her own crown of flat black hair upon her head. She couldn't see it herself, and yet he could.

Or maybe she needed something more to rejuvenate herself.

Six more months like the taste of a pomegranate seed on her tongue.

She put the brush down on the counter next to her and switched on the faucet. She then splashed some cold water onto her face. The cold feeling itself woke her up even more than the power of a warm cup of coffee. A cannon ball right to the face and an electric shock down her spine.

Using the hand towel next to her, she patted her face dry and then she gazed on at her reflection once more. It did something, though: her skin looked even tighter than before. Her dark eyes seemed far deeper and her black hair appeared blacker. Thick strands of hair lay upon the crown of her head: the one closest to her brow lay upon her head in a thick swirl. She had had a cowlick upon her head, but she had no idea when she had it the first time around, and she had no idea where it came from, either. But it lay there upon her head with the curvature of a serpent.

She patted the towel onto her head and dried off the front of her neck before she left the bathroom and put on her jacket.

It was cold afternoon there in New York City: the snows kept on coming one right after the other in the past three weeks alone. When she reached the front seat of his car, Frank told her that a Nor'easter was headed their way soon enough; he had insisted on driving her there rather than have to rely on the buses, even with all the stage hands and new help they had on hand from that point onward.

“Yeah, it's gonna be your first one, ain't it?” he teased her.

“Oh, yes, I feel like it's gonna be appropriate for the show tonight, too. Thank you for this, by the way.”

“Oh my pleasure! I mean, you are a friend of us, after all. But even with it, we still have to do some convincing about the place because the thing is they see you as a civilian still.”

“Which is amazing because you guys are civilians yourselves.”

“Well, to you we are,” he explained as they reached the first stoplight up the block. “You'll see what Joey and I were talking about when we got home with the big rowdy crowds. I should also tell you that we're not gonna be playing in New York City again until the middle of August.”

“The middle of August?” she gaped at him, to which Frank nodded at her with a look of concern on his face.

“Yeah, at the Ritz. But—yeah, for real. The middle of August. The tenth, I think? Literally right after you leave.”

She thought about what Joey had told her when they got home from Europe, and it was right there she relished every moment of that drive down to Manhattan from Hell's Kitchen. Indeed, by the time they had reached L'Amour and that familiar neighborhood, Sam gazeed on in awe at what became of it all. Two years since she had been there and the whole place looked as though it had come from a whole other city. Cars loaded up on either side of the street outside there and all around the storm drains. Even as Frank pulled into that familiar parking lot, the whole place was filled to the brim.

“I'm with the band!” Frank declared as he turned a corner.

“We're at home, too,” Sam pointed out.

“Right! I'm with the band and yet here we are playing at home. Oh, wait—there's Billy!”

“Mr. Milano?”

“Yup, right there—” Frank rolled up to the spot before the side door of the club, and where Billy stood in the middle of, as if he was saving the spot just for them; and he backed out of there so they could park. Sam and Frank were met with a blast of icy cold air all around them; she huddled down in her coat and kept her hands tucked into her pockets.

“Haven't seen you in forever and a day,” Billy told her and he showed her a smile.

“You, either!” She put her arms around him and then he led them into that warm front room of the club. The place was already filled to the brim with people despite it being three in the afternoon.

“We're making every moment together count, Bill,” Frank told him over the noise of the crowd.

“You ought to anyways,” Billy pointed out as he led them to the backstage area.

“Well, Sam I am here is going out to California for a thing for school this summer, though.”

“Oh, yeah?” Billy gaped at her in surprise.

“Yeah, it's for my senior year,” she explained to him; he held the curtain for her. “No idea how long it's going to be for, though. It could be a few months, it could be the whole school year, I have no idea.”

“Oh, fuck! Yeah, let's hang out together here. Show doesn't start until—seven, you said, Frankie?”

“Yeah. The doors were supposed to open at six but I guess everyone got impatient.”

While they walked across those wooden floor boards, all those Stormtroopers of Death memories came back to Sam. It was even that long ago and yet it felt like a whole lifetime altogether.

“Yeah, they consider it to be the easiest job in the world, but you can see it, though,” Frank pointed out, and he glanced back at her. “Wouldn't you agree? It's not easy as it looks.”

“Oh, yeah, we're having to miss you boys for weeks on end,” she remarked.

“Watch your step,” he warned her as he held onto her hand. Indeed, she took a glimpse down and there on the floor lay a pile of thick black cables like a bunch of big noodles. The last thing she needed was to trip on that again, even if it could be far worse than that.

With his free hand, Frank pushed the door open and Charlie, Joey, and Dan congregated in that little room in anticipation of them.

“Hey, there she is!” Joey proclaimed, and he stood up and opened his arms for her. His dark lips grazed the side of her neck, much to the beating of her heart and her toes curling inside of her shoes.

“We'll get you in with no problem,” Charlie vowed to her; a clink on the floor caught their attention; she then peered past Joey and watched Charlie toss his drum sticks in the air, one after the other, and he caught them both in one hand.

“Looks like someone's been hangin' out with Zelda,” Sam remarked.

“We toured with those badass chicks for weeks after all,” Dan pointed out.

“Are they here?”

“They should be,” Frank told her.

“They were here last night, though,” said Joey.

“Oh, yeah, they were here last night,” Charlie added as he tossed one drum stick again.

“When they're here, though, we're gonna load up the whole place,” Billy told her. “They just draw in the crowds, more so than these fellas here.”

Joey then turned his head and peered out the door behind him.

“We spoke too soon,” he declared.

“Are they here?” Charlie asked him.

“Hey, what's goin' on?” Zelda's voice floated in from down the hall.

“Let's load up the place,” Dan said in a bold tone of voice, and he ducked towards the door.

“Load it up!” Charlie added as he clutched both drum sticks.

“Alright, we're gonna get loaded!” Joey cracked, and Frank, Sam, and Billy all burst out laughing at that. They bowed out of the room only to be greeted by Zelda and that bob of black hair slicked back from her face by a handful of gel and her arms and legs even more sinewy and strong than ever. She threw her arms around Sam, whose spine cracked at the feeling of Zelda's new found strength.

“Whoa, jeez—”

“Well, don't kill 'er, Zelda,” Dan advised her from behind her.

“I haven't seen her in so long it seems, though,” Zelda told him as she held back to let Sam breathe. She peered down at her legs, now toned and strong from those duct taped boots on her feet this whole entire time.

“My goodness,” Sam remarked.

“I feel like an Olympian with these things on now,” Zelda told her as she adjusted her black Guns N' Roses shirt, “it's like I run a marathon every night and my legs just get stronger.”

“Soon you'll be like Wonder Woman,” Frank declared.

“She already kinda is!” Morgan said with a laugh. “I mean, you guys saw her all this time, she's nuts now!”

With the arrival of the Cherry Suicides came an even larger crowd for themselves to behold before them. Sam lingered off to the side by herself, and away from the crowd, a spot that she had been in before but not at L'Amour, as she watched those four women take to the stage. Morgan's voice had grown stronger and more gravelly from the European tour, and indeed, Zelda's drumming had tightened and quickened. They really were transforming into a thrash band in their own rite.

That song, “Dead Witches”, had become a crowd favorite given it always turned into a ten minute long jam between Minerva and Zelda. The former always put one foot up on the speaker closest to her and bled out a solo to make Alex himself fall to his knees, while the latter never broke out a sweat whenever she hammered away at the drums.

Their signature song alongside “Day of the Dead” and Sam thought about the evening they debuted that at L'Amour. She had come full circle with them all.

Soon Anthrax took to the stage and Joey had removed his shirt and put on that little ball cap with the word “INJUN” inscribed inside with big bold lettering. Before they performed anything, Sam felt someone tap on her shoulder. She turned her head and there stood Chuck and Eric, both wrapped in heavy winter jackets.

“Hey, you guys!” she declared over the roar of the crowd.

“Hey, you—thought that was you standin' over here,” Eric said right into her ear.

“Got a little time off from recording today so we decided why not?” Chuck added. He then put his arm around her and held her close to him even though she knew that Tiffany was nearby herself. She knew it would be one of many hugs from Chuck more often from that point onward.

“Alright!” Joey bellowed into the microphone. “It's good to be back home, New York. We're Anthrax and we take no bullshit whatsoever.” He slung that white flying V guitar over his bare shoulder and it nearly knocked his hat off.

“Joey's got the right idea,” Chuck pointed out and he opened his jacket for something, and he set a black ball cap upon his head. On the inside of the bill, in spiked lettering, it read “Suicidal.”

“Where'd you get that?” Sam asked him.

“Some friends of ours called Suicidal Tendencies. We oughtta introduce you to them when you come out west.”

“This first song, the four of us had been throwing around while on tour in Europe,” Joey began again, that time with his hands clutched to the microphone head. “It's a cover—it's not ours, but I foresee it going on something new from us in the future. By a little French band called Trust—you guys'll like it. It's called 'Antisocial'.”

He played that first riff, and Sam turned her head and peered out the window near to them right as the snow was falling outside. Something about the way in which he played that riff accentuated the soft white out there. She could pick up some snow and toss it in the air as if it were confetti or glitter to that riff.

Charlie's kick drum beckoned a uniform clap from everyone in the audience. Frank joined in with them all for what felt like a full minute, and then Dan stopped them all with a grinding thrashy riff.

Joey played along and belted it out, the best he had ever sounded before.

Then there was that singsong catchy chorus: by the song's end, everyone in the room knew it.

“That's a hit,” Eric declared to her and Chuck.

“It totally is,” Chuck said as the room erupted in cheers.

The sound of a cover made Sam recall that one evening she and Joey lay side by side with each other.

“Hey, what was that song that Alex played?” she asked right into his ear.

“What song? There's a bunch of them.” Eric chuckled at that.

“No, I think we were in Providence together—yeah, we were! It was after the wedding, and you guys were out in the hallway and he played some riff from some band in Seattle.”

Eric hesitated for a second, and then he gasped at that.

“Oh! Oh, yeah, that was—that was—” He snapped his fingers as he struggled to recall it. “—damn it. I'll have to ask him about that because I know what you're talking about now. I remember it, it was cool! Kinda psychedelic and wandering.”

“Yeah, it was.” She thought of what Alex had said about the Wandering Jew at the sound of that last word. And even though Joey wasn't too keen on it, the very memory of laying there with him made her recall that song.

Anthrax played for a full hour that evening, to which they ended the show with “A Skeleton in the Closet”, which made Sam remember everything her mother had said to her. All the secrets left out in the open and she would have to sift through them all the while she balanced out her school work and going to hang with Testament more up in the Bay Area. As long as they were within range of the Bay Area, she could find a way over to visit them. If not, there had to be a way to them. There had to be a way over to see them.

All the secrets she had figured out with Joey, and yet there was still so much she hadn't figured out yet.

All the secrets she had figured out with Cliff, and yet there was still so much she never had the chance to figure out.

By the time Joey hit those high notes of “Gung Ho!” and Dan stood at the edge of the stage with his guitar pressed against his little body, Chuck tugged back on Sam and he and Eric took her to the backstage area.

“Whoa, what's going on?” she asked, taken aback.

“It was getting kinda rowdy there near us,” Chuck replied. “They're pretty much done, too.”

“Yeah, and here they come,” Eric pointed to the curtain right as Charlie and Frank bowed in there, drenched in sweat.

“Wow,” Sam told them.

“Phew!” Frank declared in a loud voice and pressed his hands to his hips; he then laughed at the euphoric feeling around them. Charlie followed it up with a loud whistle. Rosita hurried up to him and he put his arm around her and stuck his tongue down her throat.

Anthrax were going to be huge after that night. Sam was sure of it. It was just obvious to her that they were bound to become rock stars after that second night at L'Amour, even as Joey treated her to a little birthday gift that next Thursday on her day off.

“Not gonna make the same mistake Aurora did,” he vowed to her as he drove her up towards Syracuse. “Today's all about you, Sam I am.”

He had bought her a cupcake and a cup of latte from the bakery in North Syracuse and then spent a little bit of the afternoon with her down by the lake, even with the waters as black as the very night that awaited them later on. Joey huddled next to her with his head bowed and his hands tucked in his jacket pockets. His black curls fluttered about atop his head as if they were ribbons.

“How'd things go with Aurora, by the way?” he asked her at one point as she sipped on her coffee. “Because I tried callin' her the other night and she was just impossible to speak to.”

“She and I got into an argument,” Sam explained. “Well, I did most of the arguing. She just kind of stood there with the phone to her ear like a dumb idiot and I got really heated with her.”

He shook his head at that and then he looked out to the cold inky black waters beyond the railing. Silence fell over them. Silence except for the soft cold breeze through the pine trees off to the side and the gentle lapping of the lake down below. Sam took another sip of her coffee and relished in the warmth of it. She sighed through her nose and lingered closer to Joey. Times like that she knew she could stand in comfortable silence with him.

“Remember when we first met?” he began again with a clearing of his throat.

“Yeah, it was the first day I was here,” she recalled. “You and Frankie in the furniture store.”

“Mmhmm. I always thought of you as like the one who mirrored me when it came to moving. Except you've got more of a grasp on it than I do.”

“I don't think so,” she confessed. “You've moved several times before I did. It's just hard is all.”

“Hard work and hard going, too.”

She finished the rest of her coffee and then he cleared his throat once more, and rubbed his hands together.

“Wanna take a walk?” he suggested.

“Yes, please.”

Sam held the cup to her chest as they walked on to the pathway close to the water. Snow blanketed bushes lined the right side while a slope dropped down from the walkway on the left. Given Anthrax were going to be away during her spring break, she knew that this would be the last time she would see upstate New York in this snowy state. She glanced out past the snowy slope to the black waters. Nothing like it. Absolutely nothing like it, not even her memory of Lake Tahoe or Yosemite fulfilled the same feelings as that lake north of Syracuse and the forests all around the state.

“There's something so romantic about walking about upstate New York after a snowfall,” she noted.

“It's all the trees and the remoteness,” he said. “And just the way the sky is dark and the fog comes in from the lake up the road—Lake Ontario, I mean. At least the roads are clear, too. We can do whatever we want from here on out.”

Her last birthday there upstate with Joey and she had to make every second count with him. The last of her own skeletons in the closet for him as he did for her.

“You know,” she began again, “we're not too far from that old studio Stormtroopers recorded their album at, either.”

“No, we're not. Wanna go there?”

“Yeah, I want to show you something there.”

Within time, they reached the top of the pathway and within the line of sight of Joey's car. Given it had been some time since they had been there, Sam had to rack her brain for the way over to that little notch in the woods. It was also a bit of a drive but Joey himself didn't seem to mind however.

That familiar treeline emerged within view, as did that old ramshackle building before the partially collapsed sidewalk. A large snow drift piled up before the storm drain which meant Joey had to park a bit out in the street. Sam climbed out of her seat first and she led him past the drifts and towards that notch in the trees. Given a fresh blanket of snow had fallen upon them, she knew there was no way she could walk in through those trees, even with her boots on.

Joey peered in through the gap as well, and up to the canopy: all the branches collected together under the snow so it resembled to a lacy veil.

“The quiet place,” she remarked.

“The what?”

“Charlie and I found this little spot when Stormtroopers of Death were making their album a couple of summers ago. We hung out here when the sun was going down, too. We called it the quiet place because we went inside here to a clearing and it was dead silent.”

“Wow,” Joey breathed. He looked over his shoulder to the trees across the way. No one else around.

It had in fact become the quiet place.

“When you come back here, we should hang out here again,” he told her. “Hang out here and you can draw me while I'm in the trees.”

She giggled at that and they returned to his car once again. Once she buckled herself into the passenger seat, she caught a glimpse of Joey looking on at her with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“You know that song we do on Spreading the Disease?” he began. “Medusa?”

She hesitated. “Yes? Yes.”

“I don't remember the full mythos behind Medusa, but according to Scott, there's a star in the sky referred to as 'Medusa's head.' I don't remember the name of it, but we get the word 'alcohol' from it. Medusa was left hung out to dry after Athena turned her into the snake headed monster that we all know and love. And you know how booze makes you feel afterwards.”

“Oh, yeah, how it dries out your mouth and the back of your throat big time. Especially if it's a lot of booze, too.”

“Consider yourself Medusa after this,” he told her in a soft voice. “The way the snow outside here just tightened up your skin, but there's something else, though. Something I can't really put into words, like there's something to it. Kinda like Medusa herself.”

Her own reflection in the mirror before the first Anthrax show at L'Amour. Her own eyes as they stared back at her and the way her hair seemed far blacker than before. For a few seconds, she did in fact turn into Medusa there: she missed the snakes upon the head however. She brought her attention back to Joey and the stoic look upon his face. His brown eyes as they gazed back at her, like the cold stony stare of Medusa.

“Shall we head on back to the city?” he suggested.

“Yes please,” she declared, and he fired up the car and they began on back down the road to New York City and ultimately Hell's Kitchen once more. By that time, the cold gray sky overhead succumbed to even colder blackness. She knew Marla and Genie awaited her with her birthday dinner.

“You wanna spend the night at our place?” she offered him. “You did an awful lot of driving today.”

“I don't see why not,” he confessed with a shrug of his slender shoulders. “It might be the last time I do.” He unbuckled his seat belt and then he stopped right in his tracks. “By the way, d'you ever get into stained glass this term?”

Sam shook her head.

“Belinda's powers of convincing fell flat over the Christmas break,” she replied, “and so I missed the cut with there. I don't know if I can do it spring term, to be honest. If I do, then I might be ahead of the curve a bit because she's willing to teach me some tips and tricks on it all.”

“Excellent!” he said with that lopsided smile on his face.

He guided her back into the building and up to that apartment on the third floor. She opened the door where she was greeted by the look of joy on Marla's face and her open arms.

“Our birthday sister!” she declared as she held Sam close to her. Belinda stood up from the couch and joined in on the group hug.

“Our last little party together,” she said, and she brushed away a tear from her eye.

“What a lumpy number this is, though,” Sam told her with a straight face. “Twenty three.”

“Could be worse,” a man's voice near the door to the porch caught her attention. “Could be twenty four like me and Chuck this spring.”

“Or me in a couple of days for that matter,” said the other guy.

“Hey!” she declared as she looked on at the two of them. “Louie and Eric!”

Joey, who stood right behind them, shifted his weight at the sight of them there. Eric flashed her a wink and Louie leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs right then.

“They have something they want to tell you,” Marla announced to her. “Something pertaining to their new album.”

Eric nodded his head.

“We're calling it The New Order,” he told her.

“The New Order—” Sam started and then she nodded her head. “I like it, it's kinda mysterious. Like those old science fiction novels you'd read in school.”

“Exactly!”

“He and Chuck ran it by Zelda at the show the other day and she was like, 'that just sounds badass,' you know?” Louie said in a single breath; he had this look of disappointment on his face when the words left his lips at that.

“Hell yeah.”

“So we have a cake ready for you as well as some spaghetti Bolognese,” Marla told her right then. “Belinda just took it off of the heat right as you and Joey walked in.”

“Oh, boy!”

Joey rubbed his hands together and he ducked into the kitchen without a second thought. Belinda and Marla joined him, as did Eric. Sam turned to Louie with a serious look on her face.

“How are you feeling, by the way?” she asked him, to which he frowned and shook his head at that.

“What do you mean?”

“Like you were mentioned Zelda just a little bit ago. Is everything alright?”

And he pursed his lips together and lowered his gaze to the floor. It dawned on her right then.

“Don't tell me you told her,” she stated in a low voice.

“I kind of—had to,” he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders, and her heart sank at the sound of that.

“How'd she react to it?”

“Well, she slapped me across the face and then she kissed me right on the lips, and then she slapped me again.”

“Slapped you twice and then kissed you?”

“No, slapped, kissed, and slapped again. And when I say 'slapped again', I don't mean across the face.”

She gaped at him. They were still in love. So much here that was left wide open.

“Louie, sit tight,” she began with a raise of her finger. “I have an idea.”

“No, Sam—no. Besides, dinner's ready.”

“Well, seeing as I'm going to be back in California soon, I want to make myself at home ahead of time.”

She made her way into her room and she fetched her journal and one of her pencils. She was leaving for California come the end of July and even as she picked up her journal and that pencil, she wasn't ready to leave as of yet. Even when she first moved there, she had to begin on packing her things early on so things would run more smoothly once the time came. She wanted her room to remain as is right there; she returned to the living room with a bit of haste and Louie burst out laughing at the sight of it.

“Would you like me to pose for you?” he joked as he leaned back with his arms atop of the chair.

“Nah. Although, I do like that position you're in right now. With your hair sprawled over your shoulders like that. Very Greek godlike.”

“Who's a Greek god?” Belinda asked her as she returned to the room with a plate of food in one hand.

“Louie is. Wouldn't you agree, Bel? By the look of his hair over his shoulders like that.”

“Oh, yeah.” She beamed at her by the sound of that. “Anyways, there's a plate of spag bol waiting for you both in there.”

Louie almost jumped out of his chair at that, but Sam kept her mind on her bedroom behind her as she beat him to the kitchen. Marla served Joey up a plate of food and Sam lingered right next to him.

“I guess I'm gonna have to start packing it in soon,” she confessed to him in a low voice, and his face fell at that.

“I don't want you to go,” Joey begged her. “You gotta stay and hang with us.”

“I wish I could, Joey,” Sam told him as Marla handed both her and him plates of Bolognese with a solemn look on her face; neither of them were ready for the new order of things coming soon. “I genuinely wish I could.”

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter sixteen: gimme fever

Zelda sat next to Sam the whole entire time there on the curb outside of the front lobby. Testament had already left for the airport, but neither of them need not see them off. Eric did apologize to Sam however, but nothing could change the fact that she felt as though she had done something wrong. She had pushed him away all for nothing more than who she was. She came on too strong; she thought of that piece of rice paper in her bottom drawer and she wondered if it was even worth it.

She considered taking the next bus back up to the Bronx and throwing that rice paper in the trash, but the bus had already left the stop up the block. There was no way she could do it now.

Zelda had a few tears in her eyes herself, and Sam thought about what she had said about Alex, and his breaking in new shoes for their tour. But as she bowed her head a bit, Sam could tell that the whole deal with him left the both of them baffled. Eric crouched down next to him, and his smooth inky black hair swept down off of his head like a curtain, albeit one that protected them both from the hazy gray morning light.

“I'm still gonna be with the fan club,” Sam promised him, complete with a sniffle. “I can't do that to you guys.”

“I'll talk to him, don't you worry,” Eric vowed as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “He gets kind of worked up about some things—don't worry about it.” The last thing he did for her was put his arms about her: he did the same for Zelda as well.

“You guys have a safe flight,” she told him in a soft voice.

Chuck embraced the both of them as well before he left after him: the soft aroma of incense riddled about his smoothed out brown waves. He peered down at her, such that the light on the ceiling shone down on his head so it resembled to a full crown.

“There's a little art shop somewhere around the block here,” he told her, “can't remember where it is, but I did see it, though.” And yet she had no desire to do anything at that point. She hadn't really known Testament very well, but it felt as though she had been betrayed by a friend. She lay her head against his chest for a few more seconds, and he patted the upper part of her back a little bit before he let her go.

Sam stood there on the sidewalk with her arms folded over her chest as she watched Chuck and Eric climb into the van in unison; the latter showed her a little wave and she returned the favor to him as the tears stayed brimmed upon her eyes. She watched them drive off; even once they had disappeared behind the corner, she stayed there and she brushed away a tear with the back of her finger. She then sighed through her nose and doubled back to the front lobby where Zelda awaited her once again with an embrace.

But Sam bowed her head so no one would look at her. It came on so fast and so suddenly, that she swore she wouldn't look at anyone for the rest of the day. Zelda lingered right next to her, also with her head bowed.

Someone next to her patted a hand upon her shoulder.

She looked to her left and the sight of those long fingers upon her, and Zelda, who had backed off a little bit. She turned her head again and Frank stood right next to her with a soft look on his face. She sniffled again at the very sight of him.

“Things will be okay,” he promised her. She turned closer to him: even though summer was upon them, she knew he was warm enough to hold for the time being. She thought about that puffy sweater he had worn on that cold morning in which they rescued Joey from the snow. A warm late spring morning and yet everything was still cold as if a fresh blanket of snow had fallen around them.

“C'mere, Puff Daddy—” she begged to him with her arms outstretched for him.

“That's a nickname I haven't heard in like a million years,” he noted with a smirk on his face. Frank held her close to his body. Someone else joined them from the side: Sam moved her head and she recognized Charlie's curls upon his head. From the other side, Zelda joined in as well.

“Nice li'l group hug here,” Dan remarked from behind Frank.

“Group hugs and love,” Charlie added as he raised his head for him. “Good way to start off our day off.” Sam lifted her head from Frank's chest and she rubbed her eyes with one hand.

“C'mon, Sam I am—if it's open, we'll take ya all the way out to Coney Island,” Scott offered from behind them.

“That's kinda far, though,” Dan pointed out. “Be hell of a subway ride—take us all day just to get there.”

Sam looked over to Joey, who sat right there at the table on the other side of the room with a cup of coffee in one hand. They were in the City and the drive to upstate was a little too far. But she needed to be in a place where she could be alone, in a place like upstate New York.

“Well, we've gotta do something, though,” Zelda quipped. “Don't really wanna stick around here in the Big Apple with nothing to do, though.”

Joey then turned to her with his eyebrows raised; he took a sip from his coffee and then he stood to his feet and cleared his throat.

“I know what you can do,” he stated, and they all turned into his direction. He ran his fingers through his jet black curls and he gazed on at her with those large brown eyes.

“What's that?” she asked him with another sniffle. Joey picked up the cup once again, and he drank down the rest of the coffee. He ran his fingers through his curls again and then he gestured for them to follow him. Sam watched him walk towards the door right before them: he then turned around and gestured again for them to follow him outside.

“C'mon,” he insisted; his expression never changed from that of concern. Sam glanced back at them and Charlie nodded at her. She sniffled again and then she followed him outside to the sidewalk there. She peered over her shoulder at Zelda, Frank, and Charlie right behind her. Joey walked on towards the driveway when he stopped right at the edge there. He turned again and he gestured once more for Sam to follow him.

“I'm coming, I'm coming,” she promised him as he took out his mirrored sunglasses, despite the veil of marine layer clouds over the sun. He peered up the street to the small piece of traffic, and then he crossed the street first. His black curls waved behind him like a series of streamers there at the back; Sam caught up with him as he moved at a brisk pace to the other side. Meanwhile, Zelda, Frank, and Charlie waited there at the corner for the rest of the traffic to clear out a bit.

“Where are we going?” she asked him over the noise of the street; they reached the other sidewalk and he slowed up for her to catch up with him. “Joey, where are we going?”

“You'll see,” he replied. She thought about the art shop that Chuck had mentioned and she wondered if that was it. She also wondered what exactly was in there.

“We drove past this place yesterday,” he confessed to her. “Surprised you didn't even see it yesterday when we first got here—although I can't really blame ya because it's kinda tucked around the corner here. But I had my eye on it the whole entire time you and Marla were helping out the Cherry Suicides yesterday—Danny and I even went in here yesterday afternoon because I knew it would be right in your wheelhouse. Did not disappoint, either.”

“An art shop, right?” She grinned up at him.

“Not just any ol' art shop.” They reached the next block up and there it stood on the corner in front of them. A large bay window stretched around the corner of the building so they were able to have a look inside of there. Through the glass, Sam spotted a pure white wall in the back, past the rows and rows of silvery metal shelves.

The light turned green and they walked onward to the front doors there. Joey held the door for her and they strode inside there: once they were inside, Sam could see that the wall was not what she believed. She spotted the gears upon the highest corners of the wall: a giant roll of blank pure white canvas suspended against the wall. Indeed, beyond the shelves stood a stretch of floor for anyone to come in and paint whatever they wish.

“So you and Danny actually came in here yesterday?” she asked him as they made their way over to it.

“Yep. We went full on—what's that artist who does the splatter paint? You've taken art history—I think you know who I'm talking about.”

“Jackson Pollock?”

“Jackson Pollock, yeah. It's about eight feet wide so he and I were able to share it and paint all over it.” They halted before the canvas and she gazed up at the roll suspended near the ceiling. Eight feet wide and ten feet high: not very big on its own, but the sheer size of it shrunk her down to the size of a pinprick on a tack.

The front door swung open again, and Sam and Joey took a glimpse back at Zelda, Frank, and Charlie as they entered the room themselves in single file: Sam looked beyond them to Scott and Dan, both of whom crossed the street and strode towards the shop. Sam returned to the blank canvas. Not very large, but it seemed to stretch on forever for her by the way of the roll and also on either side of her. She then turned her head back in Joey's direction: he held his sunglasses close to his chest in both hands for a moment before he tucked them into his shirt collar.

“So what is it that you want me to do?” she asked him as Zelda, Frank, and Charlie congregated behind them.

Joey turned to the table next to them, the one with the jars of used paint brushes, large bottles of paint, and a couple of pencils, one with hard graphite, the other with softer graphite. She looked over her shoulder to Zelda, who frowned at everything that was going on before her, and Sam shrugged at her. Joey took a step over to the table there and with one hand on his black curls to keep it back, he kept his hand over the two pencils there.

“Joey, what can I do?” Sam asked him, and he picked out the hard pencil and he returned for her, and he handed it to her as if it was a weapon. She parted her lips at the sight of it, the sight of the hard graphite tip at the end. She gazed back up to the vast stretch of canvas up on the wall, and then she returned to him. The whole room was silent, except for the noise of the morning traffic outside.

“This,” he said, to which she shook her head.

“No—I don't feel like it,” she confessed as the tears returned to her again.

“It's your greatest passion,” he insisted.

“Joey—it's so big, though.”

He bowed his head a bit, so he hung close to her face: some of his black curls brushed against the sides of her face so they somewhat blocked out the five of them behind them. She flashed back on the memory of sitting next to Lars in that dark room; but she still shook her head. The encounter with Alex earlier still left her rattled to the core; Joey swallowed and then he spoke again.

“It is what gets you up in the morning,” he whispered, to which Sam shook her head once again.

“I can't,” she stubbornly said, and she bowed away from him. “I can't, Joey. I can't—”

“Sam, please,” he called after her. But she brushed past the five of them, back to the front door. The tears began to fall once more, but he caught her before she could open the door again. He turned her around so he could face her straight on; she tried to hide her face from him but he clutched both of her shoulders.

“Sam, please,” he begged her, “listen to me. You need to do it.”

“No,” she wept. “No! No!”

“Sam, do it,” he declared; and she could hear tears in his voice as well. “Do it! Do it!”

She kept on shaking her head at him. Joey set her free hand on her shoulder and he bowed his head so he looked right into her face.

“Sam, listen to me,” he persisted in a gentle voice, “you're all about protecting me from some horrible things. It only makes sense that I do the same for you. I need you to do what you love. I need you to go forth.” He showed her the pencil. “Do it. Please. For me.”

She looked up at him as a tear streamed down her face. Those brown eyes, cold and earthy like the venom he had injected her with before, now soft and riddled with tears himself.

“Please,” he begged her in a single breath. She closed her eyes: he never let go of her, even though she wished for him to do that and let her go out to the street. The tears were almost too much to bear for her, but then she opened her eyes again.

“Please,” he whispered to her. She sighed through her nose and she took the pencil from Joey's hand. He closed his eyes and sighed through his nose; he ducked past her to the group behind her. She gazed up at the white canvas up on the wall. She looked down at the pencil in her hand. There was one thing she could do with the pencil there on the canvas, but the canvas itself seemed so big and daunting before her.

She curled her fingers around the body of the pencil, and she lifted her gaze to a row of paint brushes. Up to that point, she had been a student. The student with two years under her belt, and yet there wasn't much to take from the whole entire time. She came to New York on a whim and a promise, and yet it felt as though she had learned hardly anything from those two years.

There had to be more. There had to be more within her.

She then tucked the pencil behind her ear, and she turned to the paints on the table. The bristles on the brushes were clean, albeit stained from a few colors, namely the Prussian blue, the cadmium red, and the veridian green. But she spotted a jar off to the side for a bit of a washing.

Just the pure paint, and the way in which she felt about everything up to that point.

She had made her friends and so much had happened in the past two years. Two years worth of everything, and it felt as though she had built up some kind of new armor all the while. Armor built up by living alone in the Bronx, and she knew it had toughened up a bit by the loss of Cliff and by being in class all this time. But then again, as she thought about the loss of Cliff, and the fact they were almost a year away from that accident, she wondered if it was even tough anymore.

The encounter with Alex earlier had opened a new notch in that armor, such that it felt as though it need not be in place anymore. Seeing Joey opened yet another notch for her. To see his brown eyes so soft and so watery brought on such a tight feeling inside of her chest. A tight feeling that only caused the hardest and most astute of armors to weaken in its wake. The very venom he injected her with had brought it all down to its most basic level.

Red paint first for a base. Like blood stains on the otherwise pure white canvas before her.

She thought about Joey and Dan in there the day before with the whole splatter method. She dipped the head of the thick brush into the mouth of the bottle and then she threw the paint onto the pure white canvas before her.

Blood on the canvas. Cliff's blood on the pavement, on that road in the heart of darkness, over in Sweden.

She did it again. Even more blood before her.

She reached for the black paint: that time she splattered some from the mouth of the bottle itself and she used the larger of the brushes for a smearing. The bristles split apart a bit at one point and she thought of Alex's hair. That jet black hair with the little sliver of gray over his forehead.

She moved it towards the red. Towards the proverbial blood, as if Alex had hit his head on the pavement alongside Cliff.

More black and red. That time around, she used the big brush and she employed shorter, much more shallow strokes. The brush resembled to a knife. She moved about more quickly and much harder over the canvas: if she could jump that high, she would cover the whole canvas with the violent feeling, the feeling of betrayal and wanting to inflict a knife onto him to teach him a lesson.

“Such emotion,” Charlie whispered out at one point.

Harder. Faster. Just like the Cherry Suicides the night before. Her heart hammered inside of her chest. She moved about as if she was lighter than air. Alex's angered expression burst into her mind right then.

He pushed her and she was pushing back against him. The knife right into that boy's face. What he gets for being so cold and callous, even in the face of Cliff's demise. There was no way she could take it from him. No way. Not ever.

It was all shedding away from her, like the old skin from a snake.

“Looks like a grindcore cover,” Scott remarked as she took one of the smaller brushes. A bit of yellow right smack in the middle of the canvas.

Hair first. Followed by the shape of his handsome face. Then the brim of his hat. That black hat he had given her. Right against the red and black, right against the blood and the pavement. She then painted a piece of rope from the base of his neck and she led the end of it to that first patch of red on the canvas.

Her boyfriend gone and all his band could do was replace him.

They replaced him. They replaced him! They replaced him before they could rise up through the clouds with him! Lars said it himself: he was their brother.

Their brother and yet they still replaced him.

Breathing heavy and with a bit of sweat that ran down her back, Sam finished the little thick rough portrait before her. She then backed off so as to catch her breath and to let her heart calm down from the feeling. She held her arms out on either side of her like a crucifix: the paint brush in one hand and the bottle of yellow paint in the other. She gazed on at the scene of violence before her, something that she had never done before, not even in her wildest dreams. All of the art she had done before then was so calm and serene, but this had no restraint whatsoever.

The walls had come down before her and she could finally shake off the remnants of that broken armor. All those dark thoughts before her on canvas. Those dark thoughts of which she swore she had buried had made their way out before her.

“Is that—” Frank swallowed; Sam looked back at him and the tears in his eyes.

“It is,” she told him in a light whisper. He lingered closer to her and they both looked on at that rough painting of Cliff together. She then felt a hand on her shoulder once again: she turned her head to find Joey right next to her. He hadn't tears in his eyes anymore, but he did have a soft reassuring look upon his face for her.

“C'mon. Let's take this with us and then we'll go back to the hotel for a li'l sump'n else.”

“Like what?” Sam asked him, and he turned to Zelda, who raised her eyebrows at that.

Neither of them answered Sam as the clerk in there helped them cut down that piece of canvas for themselves: once they were sure that the paint was dry, she and Joey rolled it up and then he tucked it underneath his arm before they each pitched in to pay for it. The bunch of them returned up the block to the hotel: Sam was about to take the canvas back upstairs to the Cherry Suicides' room, but Joey gestured for her to follow him.

“I'll take that,” Zelda promised her. “I'll take it and take good care of it—don't you worry 'bout a thing.” She flashed her a wink as Sam handed her the rolled up canvas; Joey led her past the front lobby towards a door on the far side of the room. He held it for her, and she was met with a cozy dark room lit up by a series of candles in red jars. A low bar stood before her and she turned back to Joey, who had a smirk on his face.

“No,” she told him off.

“It's okay—I promise you. Yesterday, Danny and I came in here and we had Shirley Temples.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief as he guided her towards the middle of the bar. He tugged on the stool to his left, and he gestured for her to have a seat next to him.

“Bottle of wine for me and my lady here, please,” he announced to the bartender, to which she gasped at him.

“Joey!”

“What? You’re obviously lookin’ better now—we gotta celebrate. Besides, Frankie told me that wine is healthy and easy to digest. It’s not like we’re drinking beer.”

But she still shook her head at that.

“Please don't,” she begged him.

“It's just a single glass, though,” he pointed out with his eyebrows knitted together in sober seriousness. “I promise you—it’ll just be a single glass. One for you, and one for me.”

“Yeah, but—a single glass turns into a whole bottle of wine.”

“It won't this time,” he promised. “Trust me.”

Sam nibbled on her bottom lip as the bartender handed them two crystal clear wine glasses. There was no way Joey could keep it one glass, especially once that lush red wine poured inside of those two basins, one right after the other.

“Cheers to us,” Joey proclaimed with a raise of his glass; Sam followed suit. A little sip of that red wine was all it took for her to know that it would give him a rush. She turned to the bottle, which the bartender left there on the bar for them. If Joey wanted more, then he would have to fight for it himself.

“Gimme that,” she pleaded under her breath. She swiped the bottle and poured herself more, and then she drank it down in a few large gulps. The alcohol was bitter, but the wine itself tasted rich and full with those dark grapes. As dark as Joey’s eyes.

And yet, when he downed his glass, she hesitated before him. He then reached for the bottle himself. Before, she would have tackled him or at least slapped his hand, but that was all within her mind.

“Eh, why the hell not,” he said.

“Hang on, I thought you promised to only drink one glass of wine,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but—it's so good, though.” He offered to pour her another one, and she took the offer.

“Isn't it?” She downed it right there.

“It is. Very much so.”

She was two drinks in already, but she felt as though he was onto something. A big fat painting on the wall and now they treated themselves to a whole bottle of red wine. On the other hand, she was glad that he had taken a glass of wine rather than a bottle of beer or vodka for that matter. The red wine filled the whole basin of Joey's glass; he set the bottle down between the two of them and then he brought it up to his dark lips once again: the rich blood red color was warming and welcoming, even from the outside looking in.

Warm and welcome, even with the alcohol within there.

Sam's eyelids drooped a bit from the feeling within her. Two big drinks in and she already had a blush upon her face. A bit of fever brought on by the paint, the pain, and now the wine. She held still there with her hand on the glass as Joey poured himself a third glass.

And then she forgot everything after that.

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter thirty: belladonna atropa

Sam crossed her legs so as to better steady herself on the little stool there on the floor. They still hadn't brought in most of the chairs back into the new space, a vast brick building with a low arch outside of the front door and a short stairwell that led down to a carpeted hallway. Next door stood the actual rehearsal spot: the day before Anthrax were in there but Sam and Marla had had a full day of school two blocks away from there.

“Two blocks away and we can still hear them, though,” Marla had said with a chuckle. “Through the bricks.”

And thus, even though they soon learned it was named Montana Studios, the three of them referred to the place as merely The Bricks. The rain came down over their heads as she and Sam strode down the sidewalk together from the school; the brim of the hat protected Sam's eyes from the onslaught of a downpour around them where Marla shielded her eyes with her hand.

Sam put the hat on the table next to her, and she only had nothing more than a small stool head underneath the seat of her jeans: granted, they hadn't moved in the rest of the furniture and most of the equipment as of yet, but Aurora did have a heavy wooden desk with her now tucked in the corner of the room there, one fetched from the street courtesy of Frank and Charlie: a proper desk in comparison to a simple clipboard. She could sort everything out with ease.

On the first visit, and it was raining that day as well, Sam spotted a little black cat outside of that back room, right outside of that low floor level window. She opened the window and Marla coaxed her in from the rain. Her black fur was soaked but they let her rest there in the far corner next to Aurora's desk. Sam bowed down further for a better look at the alleyway out there, at the tipped cardboard box with a half a dozen of old glass bottles.

“Little female alley cat,” Aurora remarked as she brought in a blanket from the closet down the hall, and folded it up and lay it on the corner.

“Let's get her some food,” Sam suggested, and Marla ducked out to the street to do just that. Sam and Aurora sat with the cat down on the floor: since the only towels around there were the paper ones from the bathroom, Aurora was gentle with her as she dried off her black fur. Her round golden eyes gazed up at her, and then Sam pet the back of her head. A soft purr emerged from her throat.

“She came in just easy,” Aurora noted.

“Yeah, she's definitely not much of a stray,” Sam added as she kept on petting the cat's head. Within time, Marla returned with a few cans of cat food and a pair of little bowls. She set the food and water before the cat and, gingerly, she scanned the little lump of food first: her little black nose twitched at it. She nibbled at it at first, but then she moved in closer for a larger bite. Marla pet the top of her head and she bowed her head over the food.

“I'm calling you Genie,” Marla said to the cat. “'Cause you came to us out of a box of bottles. The bottom of some bottles.”

“She came out of a bottle!” Sam declared as the cat raised her head towards her and padded closer to her legs.

“Might wanna take her to the vet, though,” Marla pointed out. “Just to make sure of everything, you know?”

“Oh, right.”

That night Marla took Genie home with her and Charlie, who was eager to take care of her. And within a few days, she had mingled into her household and she nestled in between them in their bed together.

“Black cat around Halloween,” Sam remarked at one point complete with a wag of her finger.

“Black cats are good luck, though,” Marla assured her. Aurora herself meanwhile shuffled through the papers on her desk, and she picked up a list of something on top of the stack closest to her. She then raised her eyebrows and parted her lips at what she saw before her.

“What's up?” Sam asked her.

“The records that came out this past year, I swear,” Aurora remarked.

“That's according to Charlie, too,” Marla added.

“I mean, between Metallica and Megadeth, and then Anthrax put out Spreading late last year—can't believe it's been almost a year already!” She gaped at that. “Then there was Slayer, Exodus, Death Angel, Overkill... Legacy and the Cherry Suicides are both trying to worm their way in now.”

“Do you even know when Anthrax are gonna be here?” Marla asked her.

“I don't, no. I was thinking you'd know that given you and Charlie.”

“He went over to Frankie's place this morning when I went off to school and then that was it after that. Sam and I walked here through the rain.”

“A year since Spreading,” Marla echoed her as she folded her arms across her chest.

“I still have yet to listen to that thing, too,” Sam confessed in a low voice.

“You haven't listened to their record?” Aurora gaped at her.

“No! I don't have a record player on hand back at my place and it's not like I can make it come out of thin air, either. And I haven't heard anything from Danny yet—he promised to let me use his record player just so I can listen to it.”

“I dunno if there's a record player in here, to be honest,” Marla told her with a shrug of her shoulders.

“And I'd have to run back to my place anyway,” Sam pointed out.

The rain came down even harder on the roof over their heads; she lowered her gaze to the hat right next to her. She shivered and she thought of Cliff right then. A jar of ashes having strewn across the cold earth: she wondered if he was going to become a tree out there in the Bay Area. She wondered how he would have reacted when he saw Genie there in the corner behind them.

But they stayed there for another twenty minutes when they saw that Anthrax weren't showing themselves there at their brand new home. Aurora took the bus back to her place but Marla offered to take the subway back to the Bronx with Sam. They stood across from each other next to one of the silver poles: Sam gazed at the crown of her head and the dark roots under the violet color.

“Are you gonna dye your hair again?” she asked her in a low voice.

“Yeah, definitely,” Marla replied with a nod and a flip of her hair. “Not sure what color I'll use yet.”

“You should do like zebra stripes,” Sam suggested, “all random colors.”

“Like all neon colors or something?”

“Yeah!”

“Neon green with like dark red and solid black, and then straight up blonde next to that and then gray and blue.”

“Silvery gray,” Sam added.

“A solid head of silver? Hm, I can see that aging me, though. You know, the whole thing with Alex's gray sliver and everything. It makes him look older than he actually is.”

“Maybe you can do silver with like really hot pink.”

“Perfect half colors or like a fading into the next color?”

“Fading. Although the half colors would be hilarious, though.”

“I wanna be stylish not funny looking, though.”

“Maybe there's a line between the two?” Sam asked her with a raise of her eyebrow.

“Could be. Where that line is is a whole other question, though.”

They got off there in the Bronx and Marla walked her back to her building through the heavy rain.

“What's today?” Marla asked her as they made their way up the front steps.

“Thursday.” Sam held the door for her and they ducked inside the front foyer. “I only have one class tomorrow, though.”

“I have two.”

The two of them made their way up the steps to her apartment: she thought about Cliff and the times he waited for her outside of her place. Indeed, she expected to see him at the top step, and then she imagined him with his back to the front door. She was disappointed when she didn't see him and the two girls padded into the apartment.

“Want something to drink?” Sam offered her.

“Yes please! It's gonna be a while before Charlie comes back here, as far as I know.”

“Where'd they even go by the way?”

“They're going back on tour soon, so they drove upstate today. I think Belinda's out there, too. I didn't see her today.”

Marla took her seat on the couch as Sam continued on to the kitchen. She thought about the mug of Mexican hot chocolate she made for Cliff, and then she remembered the flight home from the Bay Area given she saw Zelda and Louie together. The last time she saw Zelda and Louie together no less.

She put on the kettle, and she took a clean mug out of the cupboard over her head and set it down on the counter in front of her. She rounded the counter and stood in the kitchen doorway with one hand on the side there.

Marla raised her head to her.

“D'you know Zelda and Louie broke up?” she said to her, and she gaped at her.

“No!” Marla paused, and then she frowned. “I didn't even know they were together. Like, I didn't know that at all! What happened?”

“The whole long distance thing was getting to them.”

“Ohhhh, no!”

“Yeah.” Sam set a hand on her hip. “She was telling me and Aurora on the flight home a few weeks ago that she's a Rhode Island girl and Legacy is a West Coast band.”

“Sounds like they're getting serious,” Marla noted, “Legacy, I mean. You know, when Anthrax were starting to get serious with touring, Charlie and I weren't sure that we would last, though. But here we are now with a cat that sleeps in between us.”

“Well, Alex is out of school now after all.” Sam thought about Alex's chilly expression.

“I hope they can do something with themselves,” Marla said, “—especially with that name.”

“If nothing, they could just have 'the' before it.”

“Yeah, they could. I can still it being confusing a bit, though, if another band's using it.”

Sam doubled back into the kitchen for the kettle of water and the chocolate.

“Would you like some marshmallows with your cocoa?” she offered.

“Oh, yes, please. Those tiny little marshmallows the size of your thumbnail—“

She was cut off by a knock on the door.

“That’s probably Charlie,” Sam said as she poured the boiling water into the mugs. She dropped a few of those tiny marshmallows in as Marla opened the door for him. She asked him something but Sam couldn’t hear it.

“Some treats for the dream Genie,” he answered, and he followed it with a soft rattling sound: a small bag of fish shaped cat treats!

“Wanna share a cup of cocoa with me?” Sam handed her the mug: it felt so weird without the whipped cream and the spices, but it was part of letting go of Cliff.

“Oh, no, Frankie and I have pressing matters to attend—but I just swung by here to come get you and say hi to Sam I am.”

“Well, I have a cup of cocoa now,” Marla told him as she brought the rim close to her lips. “I’m just gonna drink this real quick and then we’ll bounce.”

Sam took a seat on the couch with her mug in hand. The right side of the couch, and she gazed on at the cushion next to her where Cliff always took his seat at. There was so much to adjust to, albeit adjusting she never realized before until she took a seat there. Everything reminded her of him, even with Marla and Charlie there before her.

She dared not tell him that Zelda and Louie split and Marla was silent about it the whole time they were there. He was going to find out about it one way or the other anyway once Legacy came to the label and proceeded with their new record.

She thought about them once Marla and Charlie left and thanked her for the cocoa. The day of Cliff’s memorial, the five of them were clustered at the back of the room. And she never realized just how much more she wanted from them. She knew there was so much more to Alex in particular—if only there was a way inside of that cool demeanor, that sliver of gray right over his forehead.

She only had one class that next day, and when she emerged from the front door, she spotted a head of black curls by the curb, and she recognized those large brown eyes and that Roman nose even from a distance.

“Hey, Joey,” she greeted him. “What brings you here?”

“I came here to just check on you,” he confessed; he fixated on the hat upon her head, “I also came down from upstate to do some rehearsing. We're going on tour again with Metallica soon enough.”

“You want to spend some more time with me before you gotta boogie again?” she followed along.

“Exactly!”

“So glad today’s Friday,” she declared as they walked side by side. “Been a long week.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” he added. “So are you done for the day?”

“Yup, Friday is one and done for me.” She turned and faced him. “Why, you wanna do something?”

“Yeah. Seeing as it’s still pretty early, let me buy you a big lunch.”

“A big lunch? Where?”

“I'll take you back to Syracuse with me,” he told her as he led her to his car parked at the curb.

“You just like me fat,” she teased him as she stopped in front of the passenger door.

“Nah, I promise you—you're gorgeous. Nice and round still. But I call it a big lunch so you got sump’n to work with. I want to introduce you to my world.”

“What do you mean, your world?”

Joey unlocked the door and he nodded to the back seat. Sam peered through the back window at the pair of hockey sticks as well as the skates and a pile of red fabric behind the driver’s seat.

“Oh, that world!” she proclaimed as they both slid into the car in unison. She shut the door and paused. “You sure you wanna do that with me? I’m not really much of an athlete.”

“It’s okay,” he assured her as he ran his fingers through his black curls: some of them began to pile up and stand on end at the top of his head, as if he wore an actual crown for himself. “It’s why I’m here. I just have a little rubber bouncy ball in the back seat there ‘cause I couldn’t get a mask for you, though.”

“That’s okay—“ He started up the car and they drove away from the curb into the fine drizzle. “But a big lunch to keep me going, though?” she asked him.

“Yeah. It takes a lot of energy just to stand up on the skates and move about on the ice. And I’m just gonna assume you haven’t really eaten much either.”

“Just some toast and a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, yeah, gotta get that belly filled up. Open your gullet and drink down the venom, you’re hanging with the deadly nightshade for the day.”

Four hours later to the same spot in the northern side of the city, and Sam never realized how hungry she was until she and Joey split a large slice of blackberry pie and he encouraged her to eat up a large helping of macaroni and cheese with vegetables. She thought back to the reception following the ceremony and how Joey himself just vanished afterwards.

“I ate so much after Cliff’s ashes were scattered,” she told as she picked up a forkful of carrots.

“Really?”

“Yeah, me and Lars. We had like four plates full of food. He and I were so stuffed—and then Kirk tried to offer us some birthday cake, because you know, it was Alex’s birthday.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right! I overheard one of those guys saying that. Like his birthday was literally two days after we got home from Sweden.”

“Do you know anything at all about them?”

“Who? Legacy?”

“Yeah.” Joey shook his head as he picked up a slice of garlic bread.

“I really wanna know more about them,” she admitted, “I’m a part of their fan club but I haven’t really heard anything, though.”

“Probably ‘cause of Alex. Mr. School Boy.”

“Probably.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“By the way, I oughta tell you this,” he started. “Seeing as we’re here and you mentioned Lars.”

“What's that?”

“I really, really want to be drawn up. Full body, the same way in which you drew Cliff.”

“You mean—pounced in the middle of the classroom floor before me?”

“No. Minus the classroom.”

Sam stopped right in her tracks and she raised her eyebrows at him.

“Just you and me,” he said, “in an intimate setting. And I want it to be a full thing, too—that little pen drawing you did for me back in the cabin feels like an appetizer.”

“Okay,” she said in a low voice, and she picked up some more macaroni, “let’s set aside a day for it, then.”

He flashed her a wink and they continued with their lunch. The refills and slices of pie continued until Joey pointed at his wristwatch.

“Gotta get going,” he told her with his mouth full. “Before we get too relaxed here—“

He almost dragged her away from the table and to the hockey rink two blocks away. Joey was quick to strip off his shirt and put on that delicate little red jersey and those big black skates, complete with shiny silver blades which looked so pristine. She slipped the skates on over her feet, and the blades underneath felt as though if she stepped the wrong way even a little bit, it would twist her ankle. She tightened the laces and gazed on at the jersey next to her on the bench.

“I’m so glad we could come out here,” he confessed as he lifted his hair out from under the jersey’s collar, but Sam was still reluctant to put on the jersey. Joey ran his tongue over his dark bottom lip.

“‘Cause I oughta get you in the middle of a hockey rink as well,” he told her. “It's not hard. I promise.”

“I dunno, it seems awful violent,” she confessed with a grimace on her face.

“Hey, you're a girl with a boyish name and you just lost the boy you love. A little violence, a little pain, will give you some stout strength. Trust me on it, Sam. Trust me when I say this—it'll give you the swift kick in the ass and it'll allow you to clean everything out.” He then handed her a pair of black and white gloves, but then she put on the jersey over her shirt first.

“Whoa, you sure you wanna do that?” he warned her with a look of concern on his face.

“What?”

“Put the jersey on over your shirt? You're gonna get hot.”

“You just want me to change in front of you,” she teased him.

“Nah—I won't look,” he promised her. “Here—” Joey bowed his head and covered his face with the gloves and his left hand. Sam took off the jersey first and then she peeled off her sweat shirt after that. The cold feeling the concrete floor beneath them sent a wave of chills across her slight belly and up her back; but she was quick to put the jersey back on over her bare body. She adjusted her ponytail and she tapped her finger on Joey's shoulder. He lifted his gaze to her and he nodded at her.

“I’m gonna assume you haven’t skated before,” he stated, to which she shook her head. “It’s all about balance and getting acquainted with it. Just getting on and to the ice is the only bitch about it.”

“So you said it's not hard,” she pointed out.

“Nah, it's not hard at all,” he echoed, and they held perfectly still across from each other. She rolled her eyes and he giggled at that. She almost lost her balance right there from the blades under her feet. They both swung the hockey sticks over their shoulders and began onwards to the sheet of pearly white ice.

“Keep the guards on,” he advised her: he held her hand with his free one and he guided her towards the edge of the rink. It felt like walking in sand, but once they reached the rim, he let go of her hand and opened the gate. She stood still and watched him lift his left foot. That guard came right off.

Right foot next: those blades were sharp and perfect. He set the guards on the little notch there, and then he set one foot on the ice, followed by the next.

“Do you need help?” he asked her, and his voice echoed over the sheet of ice behind him. “I’ll hold the stick for you—“ He reached out with his free hand.

“So I just take them off and get on the ice?” She handed him the stick and then held on the top of the protective wall. She pried off the guard and that blade glimmered bright under the cold white lights.

“Exactly! Careful, though—gotta let the blade do the talking. Easy now—“

She set that foot down and pried off the other guard. She set them there next to his. She clutched onto the sides of the gateway, and she set her right foot on the ice. Like standing on a razor. Joey held both sticks in one hand and he reached out for her all the while.

“You got it?” he asked her in a soft voice.

“I think so—“ she sputtered as her ankle quivered from the strange feeling. All her weight on that little blade.

“You got it?”

“No—!” She lost her balance and stumbled towards him. But Joey caught himself and steadied her right against his body. He showed her a grin.

“Easy now,” he warned her: his chest was warm and his body was soft. But she had to let him go first. He held onto her hand as he inched away. He held her steady with one hand and held both sticks with the other.

“Should probably tell you that falling down a lot is normal,” he told her, “I remember I did when I was starting out.” He then handed her the sticks: he nudged the other one closer to her with his fingers. “Thing is is ya don’t wanna think about it too much. Just get moving and let the blades and the ice do their thing.”

“Like drawing or painting,” she declared as she took the stick.

“Like drawing or painting, yes!” But he never let go of her hand. He guided her towards the other side of the rink with the stick in hand.

“I’m not letting go and dropping the ball until you’re comfortable enough,” he vowed to her. She gazed into his eyes, those deep brown eyes: like the dark of night, like venom. He locked eyes with her such that he slipped and almost lost his balance, and he nearly brought her down with him. But she let go. He corrected himself and stood upright. She almost fell the other way but she steadied herself by some miracle.

“We's be fallin' face down ass up!” he called out as he skirted around the rim of the rink, but she caught herself before she could fall even further down onto the ice. Sam clutched onto the hockey stick and she put her right foot before her to better steady herself.

Don’t think about it too much, he said.

She inched forward and the blades glided across the ice. It felt like running, especially when she picked up speed and put her other foot forward.

“Hey, you got it!” Joey called after her.

“Yeah, I do!” she declared as she neared the end of the rink and turned her feet away from the wall: she moved in a parabola away from it and back towards Joey. He took the black ball out from his pocket and dropped it on the ice: as she came closer, she spotted the word “atropa” inscribed on the side.

“Origin of my last name,” he said. “Bastardization of Bellardini.”

“Deadly nightshade,” she declared as she stuck the hockey stick out.

“Deadly nightshade, yes—hey!” She nudged it away from him and he chased after her to the other side of the rink.

“Good thing it’s just us here,” he confessed as he swiped it with a flick of the head. “I can see you playing rough—“ But he was the quick one: Sam lagged behind him a bit, such that he coasted in order to slow down.

“Hey, what’s Metallica’s new bassist’s name? Jack?”

“Jason!” she called back.

“Jason, that was it!”

He moved the stick’s head behind the ball even though he kept moving along the ice.

“I wish you girls could tag along with all of us,” he confessed, and she glided up to him with the stick in both hands.

“Aurora, Zelda, and I were all talking about that on the flight home—and you were right there when we said it, too. If we were there, the accident wouldn’t have happened. And we’re gonna start acting more. And being here definitely helped me out, too.”

“See what I mean? It gets you goin’!”

He was about to skate forward with the ball but she caught it from him instead.

“I’m an influence, I see,” he teased her.

“Well, yeah. But—thank you, though, Joey.”

He showed her a crooked little smile.

“It’s my pleasure,” he said in a low voice, and then he moved his stick ahead for the ball, but she knocked it ahead of them. He laughed and lunged forward, but she held back a bit and watched him go ahead.

He peered behind him with a grin on his face.

“I need like a big headdress on top of my head,” he confessed to her, “‘cause I’m Iroquois Indian, you know?”

“You oughta do that while on tour,” she suggested as she skated after him, and that coaxed a big laugh out of him. And then it hit her, especially when she gazed on at those thick black curls and at those big brown eyes whenever he looked in her direction again.

He had been there all along, and yet she was far too focused on Cliff in order to better see him for herself. The way to letting him rest but the memory with her all the way, and it took Lars sitting next to her after a funeral for her to bring up the connection. She could build on it from that point onward.

The answer was Joey.

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