#danny: i distinctly remember saying i never wanna see your face again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

Text

chapter eight: nightshade in cultivation

“So in nearly three months, you still haven't found a place yet?” Sam asked Marla, who shook her head at that.

“Nope—a lot of it has to do with my history with Charlie. There’s this royally fucked up belief going around right now that heavy metal, whether you’re inside of it or associated with it in any way, converts one to Satanism, but whatever.”

“Wow, what the hell.” Sam had to stifle a laugh with that.

“I know, right? but Genie seems to like living with Bel, though. She likes to sleep on her bed.”

The sun hung low over Providence and the first wispy sheets of a marine layer settled in from the ocean, and because of it, the two of them had made their way backstage before the Cherry Suicides took to the stage. Marla had to hustle to Sam's hotel room given the size and shape of their dresses, but the latter insisted things were fine as they walked down the block to the theater in question. Belinda had run back to New York City, and Aurora was on her honeymoon with Emile, and thus that left the two of them behind in Providence. Both girls were to get in through the fan club: Marla volunteered to put both of their cards into her purse so Sam herself needn’t risk taking hers along into the crowded theater. For the time being, they huddled backstage, on a bench on the wall within range of the main stage: to Sam’s right was Anthrax’s dressing room, and around the corner was the Cherry Suicides’ room.

Somewhere along the way, Testament had finished and released their album, but everything had happened so fast for Sam that the date passed her up: she had been focusing so much on school that she wound up wondering why Aurora never mentioned it to her on the occasional day she worked alongside her.

The otherwise slightly snug corset left Sam's body feeling a bit sore: every so often, she would raise her arms over her head to better ease the feeling within her.

“If and when I do find a place, would you like to be my roommate?” Marla offered her.

“I'd love to! It would get me out of the Bronx and I wouldn't have to find a new place for myself.” She raised her arms over her head and her shirt raised up over her waist a little bit. Minerva from the Cherry Suicides strode past them and she reached towards her exposed, slightly full waist for a little poke, but Sam was quick to bring her arms down again.

“I'll get you,” Minerva teased her with a wag of her finger: those long black and red acrylic nails glimmered bright under the pale yellow overhead lights.

“You and what army?” Sam retorted, and the three of them laughed. Minerva kept on walking and then Marla turned to Sam's body.

“You do look good with a little weight, though,” Marla remarked. “I remember when we first met, I thought you were looking a little on the thin side. So I like you with a few because it’s more so around your hips and your chest rather than right onto your belly.”

“Did you gain weight when you first started school?” Sam asked her.

“I actually lost weight—lost like ten pounds and then I met Charlie. He says he loved it but—” She shrugged her shoulders. “—swings and roundabouts, I guess. Hey, there's Alex!”

She nodded across the floor to the sight of Alex himself with his head bowed over a little amp on a chair. He played around with some of the dials on there but neither of them could make out any part of his face besides his nose. From a distance, Sam could tell that his nose had healed from the strong blow from Joey, but she paid attention to the way in which his jet black hair covered the side of his face, and she knew he was still rather ruffled by it.

“Alex!” Marla called out. “Hey, Alex!”

He gave his hair a little toss back, and then he glanced over at the two girls there. Marla gave him a pretty little wave, and while he raised an eyebrow at her a bit, his expression turned cold upon sight of Sam. He returned to his amp and then he reached for something behind the chair: he took out a little red guitar out of hiding and he slung it over his shoulder. He lifted his hair out from under the strap but he never looked over at them.

“What's up with him?” Marla asked her.

“I called him annoying earlier,” Sam explained with an exasperated sigh.

“Annoying? What was he doing?”

“Yeah, 'cause of the whole thing between him and Joey earlier and he was all like, 'I didn't do that!' and he was real insistent on it, too.”

“That's it?” Marla frowned at that.

“Yeah.” Sam sighed through her nose. “I dunno, Mar—I kinda feel bad for doing that, because he wasn't that annoying. I just wanted him to tell the truth and apologize to Joey.”

“Maybe he was telling you the truth,” she pointed out. “You didn't see what he was doing—he may have been telling the truth.” She stopped in her tracks. “What was he even doing?”

“He says he was talking to Greg about something and he was moving his hands around a lot and Joey thought he flipped him off.”

“Oh, I see. And then Joey socked him right square in the nose.”

“He told me three times he didn't flip him off,” Sam recalled.

“So? Maybe he was being sincere about it.”

Sam sighed through her nose again.

“I dunno, Marla. I kinda wanna—“ She stopped and pursed her lips together.

“What?” Marla tilted her head a bit but it was enough to make her iridescent hair shine a different shade of gold under the yellow lights.

“I want to help Joey,” she confessed in a low voice.

“Help him with what?”

“Get him to stop drinking for one thing,” she replied. “I can tell he doesn’t want to do it. Bel feels the same way about him.”

“Well, have you tried to actually do something about it?” Marla offered.

“Yeah, I’ve brought it up to him and I’ve moved him away from things that can bring it on. It’s just… hard to understand and predict, too.”

“When Charlie and I were together, he would drink a bit, and I distinctly remember telling him the day after his first big hangover that I didn’t want him to do that to himself. And he was like, ‘okay, what do you think I should do?’ And I said, ‘I want to help you out of those habits because I worry about you.’”

“So what did you do?” Sam asked her.

“Well, for about a week, I went with him whenever we went grocery shopping. I told him he could have a drink once in a while, but not a lot, though, like a beer every now and again. I asked Frankie to take it easy on it, too, and he promised to keep it in check himself. I guess Scott and Danny are the real big drinkers—that’s my guess anyway. But I’m not sure how to approach it with Joey. I think your best bet is to just keep an eye on him and walk him through it.”

“Which means spending more time with him, I would think.”

“Oh, yeah, but you don’t have to be beyond that, though. At least with me and Charlie, I had a bit of an advantage of being his girlfriend. But I wonder about Joey in particular—especially with how he looks at you.”

Sam rolled her eyes at that: stray notes from Rosita’s bass floated into the area right then. There was a slight sound barrier between the two of them and Alex so they couldn’t hear his playing around on his guitar.

“I have never seen him in action like that,” she flatly said, but she thought about his little advances in his apartment. The look in his eyes. The way he was so open to it, especially with Belinda there with her. She came close to him there on the couch.

“I sure have. I’ve seen him and the way he looks at your legs and your hips in particular. You may want to do something about it.” She then tilted her head a little bit once again, and the roots upon her head shimmered as if made of metal. “How did you and Cliff go about?”

“He got close to me once but we were fighting, though. We never went any further than his touching my hip and feeling me.”

“Did he at least kiss you?”

“Of course he kissed me. But, like I said, we never went any further than that.” She paused for a second. “Kinda wish we did.”

“Have you ever thought of experimenting with someone?”

“Not really.”

“When you get a chance, you should experiment with Joey. That is, if you’re comfortable with it. It’s all about going beyond what you already know and what you’re comfortable with already.”

“You want me to be comfortable but also not?” Sam raised an eyebrow at that.

“Yeah. In fact, I can readily say that art is just like that. Miss Estes told me and Bel both that when we first started taking her class. You have to expand your horizons so you come out stronger and healthier and more astute than before. It’s gonna be hard at first, but it’ll be more than worth it in the end. And another person, a new heart, is no different.”

She turned her attention back to Alex, who had moved his amp down to the floor and took his seat in the chair and cradled the guitar in his lap. His bangs shielded his eyes from their view, but Sam could tell he was focused on his guitar and only that.

“And by another person, I don’t mean Joey,” Marla continued in a low voice. Sam glanced over at her and the thoughtful look on her face.

“What are you saying?”

“Look at that little boy over there,” Marla nodded. “I know I just said he’s a little boy, but—just look at him.”

Indeed, Sam took another glimpse over at him there. He raised his head a little bit so she could see right into his face. His deep eyes seemed even deeper from the side there, and his black eyebrows were even blacker. His fingers held to the guitar neck as if he held onto it for dear life, while his other hand glided across the bridge at a quick pace. The sound barrier between them had only gotten stronger with the Cherry Suicides better putting up their set, but she could tell he was performing a solo to himself.

“When did their album come out?” she asked Marla.

“Who, Testament?”

“Yeah. It’s been a few months, and up to this point, I’ve just been up to my eyeballs in school and Aurora’s wedding—she even fell short with it all herself. I haven’t really been paying much attention lately.”

“I think last month? I haven’t been in the know, either. You know, with Charlie being out of the picture and whatnot. I’m pretty sure it was last month, like I overheard someone talking about it some time ago, but that’s about it.”

Sam sighed through her nose. Yet another album she needed to listen to before they put out their next one. But first things first: she stood to her feet and she ambled towards Alex and his soloing to himself. She could hear some voices on the other side of the curtain: the show was about to start up for the night.

He lifted his gaze a bit but then he returned to his guitar: when she cleared the sound barrier, the heavy dark tone of the guitar strings greeted her. His tone was rich but cold, and his fingers sailed about the guitar’s neck. He reached down and fiddled with one of the dials on his amp, and turned it down a little bit, much to her surprise.

“Hey,” she said to him in a low voice, but he never raised his head to her. She put her arms behind her back and she cleared her throat so he could better hear her. “Listen—about the annoying comment—I'm sorry if that upset you at all. I was just—freaking out about Joey is all.”

Under his bangs, she could make sight of his eyes as they pointed in her direction. The black hair dye held onto that gray stripe for dear life, even though she could see its faint glimmer under the light. The gray stripe that aged him, and the black hair dye that brought him back to the end of his teenage years.

But he never raised his head towards her, and he never stopped.

She leaned in closer to his face. A red mark had appeared right on the bridge of his nose, and he had a slight bruise under his right eye, but he still looked fine.

“I don’t ever mean to upset you,” she said right into his ear. “I just wanted to protect Joey.”

He kept on playing and thus, she lifted herself into an upright position and she strode on back to Marla. She nodded her head at her.

“So?” she began once Sam was back in earshot.

“Eh, I gave it a shot,” she confessed with a shrug.

“Hey, at least it’s something,” Marla pointed out, and Zelda walked past right then in bare feet and with her drum sticks tucked into her shorts pocket: her long slender legs shone with a nice glow courtesy of a fresh shave.

“Have either of you girls seen Chuck?” she asked them, out of breath.

“Can’t say I have,” Marla confessed with yet another shrug of her shoulders.

“You can probably ask Alex over there,” Sam suggested, “but he’s not really talking to anyone right now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Sam called him annoying earlier because he flipped off Joey and Joey punched him in the nose for it,” Marla explained in a single breath. “As far as we know, anyway.”

“So I tried to make it up to him,” Sam filled in, “but he never said anything back about it, so I don’t really know.”

“Jesus, if I had a nickel for every time someone talked about someone flipping someone off and then that person punching them in the nose—I'd have two nickels,” Zelda proclaimed also in a single breath.

“Anyways, what do you need Chuck for?” Sam asked her.

“I borrowed his old shoes so I can drum faster. These big heavy boots that were just falling apart and one of the last things Louie told me was that if I weigh down my feet and ankles with big heavy boots, they’ll get stronger. Guess what happened.”

“They fell apart?” Marla quipped.

“They fell apart! Right at the seam near the toes. So now, I gotta tell him and then go find some duct tape for them.”

“Hope you don’t get sore feet, though,” Sam advised her.

“Nah, they fit well otherwise. Just have to stick them back together. I once duct taped a pair of slippers back together when I was in school and they’re still holding up perfectly.”

“Wow!” Marla gaped at her.

“I gotta find him quick, too—we’re gonna go on in like twenty minutes.” She then turned her head. “Oh, there’s Greg with a roll of tape—hey, Greg!”

Zelda hurried over to Greg, who stood on the other side of the backstage area with a roll of silvery gray duct tape in hand and his bass slung onto his back.

“Wanna go out to the audience?” Marla offered Sam, who frowned at the sight of them over there. She looked across the floor to Alex, who had gotten to his feet and stooped over behind the chair. For a few seconds, she fixed on the slight curve of his hips and thighs, but then she remembered how he behaved towards her a few moments before.

“Yeah, might as well,” she said with another exasperated sigh.

Marla put her purse over her shoulder, and then she and Sam began towards the hallway which led them back outside, at least for the time being. They would double back around the other side of the theater and show off their fan club status to will call. Indeed, Marla took Sam’s card out of her purse, but then she hesitated.

“What’s up?” Sam held the card in between her fingers as if it was a business card.

“Hang out here for a moment, I need to use the ladies’ room—“ Marla closed her purse and she ducked past her to the corridor behind her. Sam stood there with one hand pressed to her hip; she gave her dark hair a little toss back and she gazed up to the rafters overhead.

She was honored to be a part of the fan club of a brand new band out of the Bay Area, but on the other hand, she had new doubts about Alex. None of it with him made any sense. Maybe it was part of the way he grieved Cliff: she was Cliff’s girl, but the whole thing with Joey felt so strange to her. There was so much her parents never exposed her to upon growing up, and thus she saw the whole thing with him as total science fiction. She wished it was easier to understand, that she could go back in time and actually see what happened outside of that cafe that evening. If Alex had told the truth and if Joey just had a bad reaction to it.

She then felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to find Alex right behind her, still with that stern look on his face and that little guitar slung around onto his back. Her heart skipped a few beats.

“Oh—”

“Hold out your hand,” he said. She did, and he reached into his pocket and he took out a little blue guitar pick.

“That was Cliff's pick,” he told her in a low voice. “I guess he didn’t use it much, that’s why it’s so pristine. And I guess they found it plus Cliff’s skull ring at the scene of the accident and Jason took it. But then he gave it to Frank and then Frank gave it to me.”

Indeed, when she turned it over, Cliff’s name had been inscribed on the back in silver cursive lettering. She recalled that one song from their last album, “Orion”, and the heavy bass riff of that filled her ears by the mere thought. A sudden wave of nostalgia washed over her. All the tears and all the grief, and she still missed him. Marla’s words rang through her mind as well, and she wondered if she could go places with Joey that she never could with Cliff.

“By the way—I recommend you stay away from Joey,” he continued, and then she shook herself out of her daydream.

“Why?” she demanded, taken aback.

“He's lazy.”

“No, he's not,” she insisted and she stifled a chuckle at that. She held the pick close to her chest. The only piece of Cliff left behind that wasn’t just his parents or his sister.

“Yes, he is,” Alex persisted with a straight face. “Let me ask you this, have you ever seen him actually do something for Anthrax besides sing for them? Like write a song or anything like that?”

She shook her head.

“I know I sound like a total dick for this but—I feel like he should do more for them than just provide his voice. Don't you agree?”

“Well...” Sam shrugged her shoulders, and she had no idea as to how to answer that. He raised his eyebrows at her, the first time she ever saw his face soften up.

“Tellin' you, Samantha. The man's lazy.”

“Have you seen him play hockey, though?” she pointed out.

“That's totally different. Skating on a stretch of ice and adding something more to a band you're part of are not comparable.”

“He's a drummer,” she continued.

“Have you seen him drum? Has he added his skills to something from them, like has Charlie asked him to do parts on anything?”

She shuddered at it all. She didn't like hearing Joey in a bad light like that because he needed more love and care than anything else. There was also a lot to the music world and the making of it that she still didn't know yet: there was so much for her to recall in the art world in and of itself. Some things had not crossed her mind in the same way in which it had with all of her musician friends. Alex shifted his weight and then he squinted his eyes at her.

“Be careful around him,” he warned, and Sam scoffed at that. “Come on, you know I'm right.”

“Well, you could be completely wrong about him, too,” she curtly pointed out.

“So what if I am?” he asked her, and she rolled her eyes at him. She clutched the pick in hand and flounced away from him.

“If I am wrong, at least I'll admit to it,” he called after her, and she turned back to him with a look of disgust on her face.

“Belinda's right—you are precocious,” she snapped.

“At least I admit to it,” he repeated, and she rolled her eyes at him yet again.

“Whatever,” she said as she pocketed the pick without thanking him. Sam strode out of there at brisk pace and let the door shut behind her.

“Whatever, Alex,” she muttered. “Whatever. I don't need you and I don't need your opinions about anything.”

She stood outside under the cool marine layer as it covered the slight sliver of a moon. She thought of the gray stripe on Alex’s head, and how it appeared to fight back against the black hair dye. It became a faint memory at that point, but she recalled what Aurora and Marla had said about it at their first show at L’Amour. Something about that stripe that not only aged him, but put him in a strange spot.

But she shook her head, and the door behind her swung open. Marla strode out from behind her with a refreshed look on her face.

“I was just talking to Alex,” she started as they walked side by side to the street, “he said Anthrax might not do well tonight.”

“Why’s that?”

“I dunno, he didn’t say. It was kind of out of the blue, too—like he said that to me rather suddenly.”

Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. She held the pick in her hand all the way to the street, and even though it belonged to Cliff, she thought of throwing it across the street. She fumed at the thought of Alex. He was not only precocious but he was pretentious as well. That gray stripe aged him, but he obviously couldn’t handle it. She kept on shaking her head as they reached will call and made their way towards the front part of the floor. Marla handed her the ear plugs and she slipped them inside.

Zelda’s drum kit had been set up right smack in the middle of the brightly lit pale wooden stage, and she took her seat there behind the kit. She turned away from the audience: Sam spotted Greg, who knelt down before her with those boots in question in hand. He had stuck a great deal of silver duct tape over the toes and part of the soles so they better fit her feet. She smiled at him once Zelda teased him about something and it made him laugh.

If nothing, she could still turn to Greg, Louie, Chuck, and Eric.

Indeed, those boots made Zelda push harder and harder on the drums, but Sam and Marla both could tell it proved to be a challenge for her, even though the crowd behind them loved them. The Cherry Suicides played “Day of the Dead” and Zelda was out of breath by the first chorus. The first time Sam had seen her truly exhausted from a night of drumming: she always did it as though it was second nature to her.

When she left the stage and waved at everyone, her chest heaved and her face was pale from dehydration. Sweat had drenched through her white t-shirt and little shorts, and she seemed to trudge her way off of the stage.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen her that beat before,” Marla confessed to Sam over the noise of the crowd and the muffled quality in her ears, and she shook her head at that.

Within a few minutes, Anthrax took to the stage. Charlie had tied his black hair up at the back of his head in a taut ponytail while Frank and Dan wore big baggy bright Bermuda shorts: the former’s were a bright fiery red while the latter had on little blue ones with the Jetsons imprinted all over them. Scott soon followed as his dark hair billowed behind his head and his thick dark eyebrows stood out even from across the room. And then—

“Oh my god, look at him,” Marla declared. Sam gazed on at the sickly look on Joey’s face and his shaking hands. He let out a low whistle and then Scott picked up his white Flying V guitar and slung it over his shoulder. He ran his fingers through his hair and leaned towards the microphone before him.

“Hello, Rhode Island, this song is called ‘Medusa’,” he said and his voice broke a bit.

“They look sick,” Sam confessed to Marla, who nodded at her. Scott led the way into those grinding riffs: Sam had a vague memory of this song from Joey’s apartment, and all she remembered was Charlie’s thumping drums and the dissonance in the chorus. Joey’s voice meanwhile, seemed a lot more restrained than usual. His vibrato wasn’t as strong and he held back on his high notes in the chorus.

“He's either having a bad night or he's hammered,” someone behind them shouted over the wall of music. Indeed, Sam frowned at the sight of Joey's closed eyes and the pallid look of his otherwise healthy sun kissed skin. He rubbed his eyes every so often. He looked as though he had just woken up from a nap, but he kept a hold on the microphone head and the stand. She thought about what Alex had told her back there, but she knew she could help Joey out of it.

The words bled out from his mouth and even though she could hear the words, he lacked that big operatic power she heard from the studio and the record.

Every time he finished a line, he bowed his head and closed his eyes.

All five of them appeared to be out to lunch, and thus they only played four songs, and Sam wondered what was going on there. Joey retreated back into the backstage area, but Sam couldn’t visit him just yet given she and Marla were a part of Testament’s fan club.

On the other hand, the five of them were as tight and strong as the duct tape on Zelda’s boots. Alex, Greg, and Eric let their long black hair wave about with Louie’s rhythms: he put his head down and powered away on his drum kit. Marla looked over at her with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Man, these boys got tight!” she exclaimed.

“Off of their first album!” Sam shouted back; she flashed back on the Stormtroopers of Death tour, and how the four of them were so tight and loud during that string of dates in the hot summer sun. Chuck held onto the microphone stand and bellowed into the head. Where Joey missed his marks, Chuck brought home the bacon with his smooth dark hair over his face and his shriek having developed a bit of depth. In those few months alone, he went from a screech akin to Zetro’s voice to a powerful singing voice much like that of James.

There was that shout courtesy of him, Eric, and Greg, “OVER THE WALL!” and it filled the whole otherwise vast room. Even though she was questioning Alex, there was no way she could miss them for a hot minute.

They, too, only played four songs, but it came from the fact they were rather new in comparison to Anthrax. Louie chucked his drum sticks out to the audience and someone behind Sam and Marla caught them; Alex bowed out without a trace. Greg and Eric flashed the two of them the sign of the horns, and they returned the favor.

“Thank you, Providence!” Chuck exclaimed through his microphone over the roar of the audience. “We love ya! We’ll be back soon enough! Remember, we are TESTAMENT!” He then left the stage, and Sam took the plugs out of her ears. The sharp noise of the crowd was enough to make her go deaf.

“Wanna go check on Joey?” Marla offered to Sam right into her ear so she could hear her.

“You know I do!” she declared; she led Marla towards the edge of the room, and the doorway into the backstage area. She stared ahead to the wide open doorway of Anthrax’s dressing room, and she spotted Joey’s slender legs spread out in horizontal fashion from something.

Dan poked his head out from the doorway: the look of concern was all she needed to know.

“Thank god—you girls better get in here,” he told them once they were within earshot: his voice sounded so far away given the slight whirring in her ears, but she could hear him. She stepped past him and there Joey lay flat on his back on a little fold out bed. He had put his hands over his forehead and he groaned from the feeling inside.

“Oh my god, you’re wasted!” she exclaimed, and the tears filled her eyes.

“Was,” he corrected her in a broken voice. “I knew it was too much and so I puked it all out, though. So I ask kindly to keep your voice on the down low.”

Sam nibbled on her bottom lip. If he had knowingly puked it out, then that meant he needed something right there.

“Wanna help me get him something, Marla?” Dan suggested.

“Yeah, sure,” she said.

“Thank you, Danny,” Sam called after him. She stood over him, slightly disgusted but she realized the truth about that drunk guy from the wedding. He probably gave Joey something he shouldn’t have had. She wiped away tears and dove down to the bed next to him.

“Come here—“ she cooed to him: Marla’s words rang throughout her mind. If she wanted to have him get better, she needed to act for him. She put her arms around his slender waist and he let out a soft groan. He smelled of alcohol and vomit.

“I don’t want you to drink anymore,” she begged as the tears streamed down the bridge of her nose. “Never again. Please, Joey. I’ll make sure you don’t ever again. I don’t want you to do that to yourself!”

“And I don’t want this,” he groaned with a pained grimace on his face. She kissed the side of his face and kept her arm around him. She stayed there, cuddled next to him, until Dan and Marla came back.

2 notes · View notes