Chapter Text
Sebastian, Present Day
“Do you have any idea how fucked it is to hear a breakup song on the radio and know it’s about you?”
Sebastian’s drunk, whining to some girl who doesn’t give a damn at a party he doesn’t want to be at– posted up outside on the balcony because the noise and the crowd inside the apartment makes him want to put his head through the wall. He sucks down his cigarette and ashes it over the railing, drops the filter into a beer can on a little plastic table that everyone has been using as an ashtray. It occurs to him, vaguely, that he could have taken this girl home– before he went and brought up his ex, that is. Her flirtatious giggles have fizzled into the night along with any hope of a quick hookup as she sighs against the balcony railing, eyes unfocused as he babbles on, like she’d rather be anywhere else. ‘ That makes two of us.’
He’s only here because the promoter at Crawlspace, a man known only as Big, demanded he show his face. Freelance coding work doesn’t quite cover the outrageous cost of rent in Zuzu, so he picks up DJing gigs at a few clubs in the area– mainly Crawlspace, but he’s put in some sets at The Basement, Crave, Shift . . . the names blur together after awhile, every weekend full of too much noise.
The girl rolls her eyes and adjusts the spaghetti strap on the pink lace cami she’s wearing. “That’s a bold assumption,” she says, bluntly, “You sound pretty full of yourself.”
It might be easy to assume the lyrics are about someone else, if he didn’t call it ‘Pelican Town is So Two Years Ago’ – if he didn’t weave so many memories into the lyrics that only Sebastian would remember. Sam was never one for subtlety.
You said growing up meant letting go
But I grew roots in the songs, in the dirt, and they grow
You said you needed silence — well, here’s the cost:
A hundred setlists and the sound of what we lost
“Maybe I am,” Sebastian says, lighting another cigarette and offering the pack to the girl, who declines. He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “This party sucks.”
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He doesn’t quite remember how he got home last night, but there’s a brief flash of yellow in his mind– a taxi, throwing up in the back of it. He’s violently hungover, tangled in the sheets and sweating, and the dark grey sky outside the window of his apartment is a blessing. He shuffles blearily to the coffee maker, pulling off his soaked t-shirt and discarding it on the floor as he goes. He watches the rain splatter on the window panes as the coffee brews, and tries to get his head on straight.
City life is starting to take its toll on him. He’s too proud to admit that leaving Pelican Town was a bad idea though– especially since there’s nothing there for him anymore. Sam and Abby, what remained of Goblin Destroyer, had gone ahead and signed the record deal without him, replaced him with a new keyboardist, hired a bassist somewhere along the way, and rebranded as Sunset Arcade.
And now they’re touring the world, tearing up the pop punk charts, while Sebastian sits here in his shitty apartment that he pays far too much for, tapping out code and wallowing in a hell of his own creation. Speaking of code, the deadline for a website he’s working on– a small one for a local restaurant– is looming over him, so he takes some aspirin with his coffee and boots up the desktop computer wedged in the corner of his studio apartment.
Sebastian flicks on the radio while he waits for the program to load– a mistake. The synth melody at the beginning of the song sounds extremely familiar, because he wrote it. It’s an old Goblin Destroyer song, one of the first they ever made together. When Sam’s voice comes pouring through the speakers, though, he realizes that it’s a different song entirely.
You hated crowds but loved the rush
I crashed through curfews just to feel your touch
We weren’t made for “someday” or “safe”
We stitched our love into every mixtape
He might actually throw up. It’s bad enough living with his regrets– he made that bed and he’ll fucking lie in it. But Sam still haunts him through the speakers.
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Sebastian, The Past
The synth fades out. Sam’s nodding, making scribbles in a beat up spiralbound notebook, arm craned at a weird angle over the red electric guitar in his lap. Sebastian loves the tiny crease between his eyebrows that forms when he’s thinking, guitar pick clenched between his teeth, foot tapping out the rhythm of a song only he can hear.
He plucks the pick from between his teeth, sets his fingers to the fret board and plays through a few chords, green eyes focused on the notebook on his knee. “How’s that?”
“Hmm . . . play them together?” Sebastian asks, fiddling a little with the settings on his keyboard. “I’m gonna put some more reverb on it.”
“Send it.”
Sebastian starts the melody again, the added reverb giving it a haunting quality– a bit sad, but a little hopeful too, and when Sam brings the guitar in, bright and sparkly, he knows they’ve struck gold.
“I think we got it,” Sebastian says, sauntering over to where Sam sits on the edge of his bed, back to scribbling. He crooks a finger under Sam’s chin and tilts his face up, instantly rewarded with one of those lopsided grins– a ray of sunshine in this dingy basement. Sebastian kisses him, and the song-writing session comes unceremoniously to an end as they make a different type of music.
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Sebastian, Present Day
He still remembers the day he wrote that melody, perfectly preserved like a fly trapped in amber. They were totally in sync, Sam’s sunny chords splashing over the darker notes of his synth, blending into twilight– that afternoon blending into night with Sam’s honey blond hair wrapped up in his fingers, bodies tangled in the sheets, lips and tongues dancing together to a song that only lived in their hearts. The kind of memory that can’t be tainted by what came after. Even now, listening to someone else play his part, he can’t look back on it with anything but fondness– perhaps grief.
The sidewalks cracked beneath our plans
But–
Sebastian turns the radio off, ears ringing in the sudden silence.
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HiveJournal
user: x_smalltowncynic_x
“Summer in the city again- another year without You” [Summer 1, 2007][3:34AM]
Thinking about the summer i fell in love
A boy with sunshine in his hair
Eyes like the rolling hills of the valley that trapped me
You took my words and forged them into weapons
A new attack on my ear drums every time i tune in to listen
I know I should turn it off
But it’s the only piece of you i have left
And I’ll never be brave enough to say it
I’ll take these sunbleached memories to my grave
Got too drunk at a party I didn’t even wanna be at. Couldn’t keep your name out my mouth. Guess it’s just the same as it always was. I’d say good luck with the band, but maybe I could forget you if the dream crashed and burned like I said it would. Sometimes I wonder if you think about me just as much, or if I'm just a line you can use in your songs. Drop me in when you can’t think of something more poetic to say, let me cry into the chorus. That's all I was ever good for anyway.