[paris] old love, leave me alone [banshee]

In Liam’s mental ranking of the greatest and most fun tours Banshee had ever had, this wasn’t up there.

Couldn’t be the worst one, obviously. It was hard to beat out the US Refugee Comeback for that title, or at least, Liam imagined so even if he couldn’t remember most of it. But this was certainly no American debut. Or even European debut, and that was the one when he’d lost his first guitar sometime during a drunken night in Prague.

He knew he wasn’t being fair here—it had a lot to do with being in love. A lot to do with the chords he’d first strummed gazing at Ollie in the beachside breeze, playing them again and again as hundreds of strangers sung along. Liam had been offered the frontman position a decade ago and for a long time wondered what things would have been like if he’d taken it, but Merlin, now he was grateful he hadn’t. He hadn’t ever considered what that must be like for Charlie before now. The man, bless him, couldn’t write anything that wasn’t about some woman he wanted to shag, and he’d had tons of romances with tons of bitter ends. Did he struggle repeating the words he’d written as a happily married man?

They were supposed to be rehearsing, but Alan wasn’t there to force them so the attempt had fallen apart before it had begun. Liam and Sam were on the floor, sliding a guitar pick back and forth across the hardwood and talking about nothing. Charlie was at least making some effort. His magically amplified guitar echoed in the room—warming up with the first few notes of Silver Lining.

With a heavy groan, Liam flopped over flat on his back.

“I’m sick of this stupid song,” he said. “How about this show we just…don’t play it?” No one had listened to his suggestions of this kind before, but there was no harm in complaining.

@Charlie Baker @Sam Lynch

Slumping against the wall was giving Sam a crick in his back; another for the lengthy list of signs that he was no longer twenty-one. This had been a tour full of those, thus far, and it promised to remain so. He hadn’t even finished setting up his kit, today -- instead he and the boys were loafing around, bored out of their skulls. Sam stood the guitar pick of his and Liam’s attentions on its edge and flicked it at Liam like a paper football -- “Catch.”

It amazed him sometimes that they were professionals. He tilted his head back and let it thud softly against the wall.

It was too small a room for Charlie’s volume right now -- Liam flattened himself melodramatically onto his back and, in solidarity, Sam scrounged on the floor nearby for something to throw in protest. Liam’s voice cut through the guitar, a little faint with lying-on-his-back, and Sam laughed.

Ten years was really a long time to be friends. He and Liam had been through a lot in ten years, but Liam on the rebound was uncharted territory, at least for Sam (and he suspected for Liam as well.) He supposed now he knew why, but it was still mad. Silver Lining wasn’t his favourite song either, musically (so often, the real hits had boring drumlines) but at least it hadn’t been about his ex-lover. But then, Sam tried not to attach the music to the times.

Especially with Charlie writing it; that was just good sense. Nothing in their repertoire didn’t have a story behind it, but sometimes Sam preferred not to think about the story. Peppermint Grapefruit Iced Tea was a lot of fun out of context.

“Tough luck,” he yawned. “Don’t reckon Alan’ll let us get away with that, the girls love it.” Having an agent that Charlie couldn’t make eyes at was the worst sometimes. Sam lifted his head back up to look at Liam, badly tempted to get up and poke him in the belly. A cruel, brotherly instinct. “Guess we don’t have to tell ‘im.”

Charlie strummed his guitar, picking the opening notes of Silver Lining -- the chords sounding oddly lonely without Sam’s drums to punctuate them. They’d been alternately using the song as the show opener and as the encore, trying to figure out where it got the best response on the setlist -- logic said use it to set the stage for the night (it was their biggest single in over a year, thus far), but ending on a high wasn’t a bad tactic either. They were fortunate enough to have options, Alan had reminded them.

He (just) heard Liam’s groan over his playing and turned in time to see the bassist roll onto his back. Charlie’s last notes echoed in the hall as he abandoned ‘rehearsal’. He grinned at Sam. “That’s because the girls don’t know it’s about Liam dreaming of boning his boyfriend.” He picked an irritating, high lick on the fret, bending the string up to be as obnoxious as possible. Ex-boyfriend, now, but Charlie hadn’t suffered through a decade of being ripped into to not make the most of it now he could finally do it back. And this was being gentle, by their standards.

He sauntered over to Liam and kicked him (a little too hard to be entirely playful) in the side. “Sam broke up with Quinn, he’s not asking not to play Force. Get a fucking grip.” Sam hadn’t complained at all, in fact, but even if he had Charlie would have told him where to shove it, too. He didn’t want to mention the plethora of songs (literally, the entirety of their discography, minus covers) that were about his exes and almosts, he’d never asked them not to play -- he might have forgotten the words that one night, and the boys (surprisingly) hadn’t ever brought it up, but he wasn’t enough of a pussy to ask not to play certain songs. What sort of reviews would they be getting if he flat refused to sing Peppermint Grapefruit Iced Tea?

“Can play Santa Baby if you really want,” he said, fishing for a bite.

Sam laughed and Liam smiled—they all knew validation from the fans was enough to save anything for him. “Can’t let the ladies down, I figure,” he said, with a sigh.

Charlie was less willing to indulge him. To be fair, Silver Linings wasn’t about anyone’s boyfriend anymore—Liam wanted to snipe that back at him, but if it wasn’t a song about his life then it meant he had no right to be so attached to it. “No one wants us to play Force,” he replied instead, unable to rein in the pettiness. Charlie’d asked for it.

As he was squirming around post-kick in the ribs, Charlie threatened him with Santa Baby. Liam put up his hands in surrender. “Alright, fine, I still hate that one more.” He snorted softly. “Ridiculous—even I wouldn’t fuck Santa.” Well—maybe for a yacht. But he preferred not to think on it anyhow.

Lazily, he dragged himself up to lean on his elbows. “Next album we quit banging on about love and start writing songs about how great it is having drinks with your mates.” He’d said it before and he’d say it again. Even if this past one he’d gotten a bit sentimental, he was feeling the sting of it now. He flicked the guitar pick back to Sam and grinned. “Let’s go out tonight. The Three Musketeers. Find us all some random birds to shag and never speak to again. Or—find you lot some anyway, I s’pose.” Liam hated this, feeling like some odd mismatched part of the set. Heterosexuality had been at least forty percent of their bonding ritual.

He leaned his head back over his shoulder to look at Charlie. “Hey, that photographer mate of yours still around? Marcel or whoever?”

Sam echoed Liam’s sigh -- “No,” he agreed.

Force of Nature was the single song that Sam had ever had a songwriting credit for, which made him protective of it; having already chucked Liam’s pick at him, he was short on things to throw, so he wiggled one leg and thumped it on the floor, too lazy to get up and actually get in a good kick like Charlie had.

“Dunno if it’s a question of fucking Santa,” he said, “I always thought the song was about Santa fucking you.” They were equally unappealing prospects; Sam imagined, for a moment, fat Father Christmas in lingerie. It was about the worst thing he’d ever pictured in ten years of friendship with Liam Thompson, and friendship with Liam Thompson -- ‘specially in its early days -- had been rife with horrible mental images.

This was a much nicer mental image, though, an album of odes to friendship. “Sounds pretty gay,” he opined, before he’d thought two seconds about saying that. “Reckon we can get away with that, or do you think they’ll just slap ‘and alcoholic’ after ‘notorious womanizer’ in the reviews?” Either way -- he tilted his head back again and grinned. “Berks on a bus, our next album. Top o’ the charts.”

He swiped the guitar pick out of midair, laughed. The Three Musketeers was a better album title, actually, though Sam thought it also sounded pretty gay (he’d seen what they wore in the Kiefer Sutherland movie.) He wasn’t feeling too cheery at the prospect of going out -- he’d spent most of their tours being the first one back at the hotel -- but he could deal with some absolutely scummy behaviour, in the name of nostalgia.

Sam barely knew Charlie’s photographer mate, and didn’t care to know him better, but he perked up anyway, more out of nosiness. “Thought you get all your stuff off your mate in L.A.,” he said suspiciously.

Charlie was pretty fond of Force, actually, even if it had been borne mostly from Sam’s ideas, Charlie had put enough of his own feelings into it (same with Silver Lining, really) to be just as attached to it as any other of their songs -- he would concede that it was a little slower. And Silver Lining probably had -- ironically -- better drums. There was a reason it had been the lead single, anyway. Still, fans were fickle -- especially in the wizarding world. “They like Force more than Bowie, what does that tell you?” He glanced at Sam, somewhat apologetically.

He laughed. “You would if he was twenty-one and fit,” Charlie told Liam, before laughing again at Sam. “Christ.” What an image.

Liam announced (not for the first time) his desire to quit banging on about love. Charlie frowned, ready to defend himself -- but it was all he bloody wrote about. Even the songs he’d started scribbling out ready for the next record were all that way inclined too. Fuck—

He barked out a laugh, grinning amusedly at Sam before the expression faltered again and he looked away awkwardly. He knew (hoped) Sam didn’t mean anything by it, but hearing him voice his concern (genuine or not) still gave Charlie pause. The problem with being notorious for anything was that you could never leave that brand behind -- not that he’d earnestly tried. Even when he’d been with Kate he’d done nothing to change his image, and maybe that was part of the problem. His lips curled, a little weakly, at Berks on a bus -- he’d have found it funnier had Sam’s lead-in not singled him out so spectacularly.

Fortunately, Liam provided further distraction. He’d just been (internally) lamenting his ‘womaniser’ label, and yet he couldn’t deny he was immediately interested -- they probably wouldn’t get the chance tomorrow night with Fflur and Robin in tow. “We can still find you a bird, mate,” Charlie smirked, then met Liam’s eye. “Michel? Yeah, he’s around.” He glanced at Sam, then back at Liam knowingly. “Oh, can’t get Michel’s stuff in L.A.” He smirked again, only half-heartedly trying to keep a straight face. “I’ll flick him an owl, sure he’ll be keen.”

Charlie chuckled down from where he was standing over him; Liam had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. “Well, yeah,” he replied. So would Charlie if Santa were twenty-one and fit and also a woman, what was the point? “Could do without the beard, I s’pose, though,” he added. “Reminds me too much of bloody Dumbledore.” Of course, he had seen old pictures of Dumbledore. Thank goodness he hadn’t been a teenager when that thirty-year-old motherfucker was teaching classes. Lockhart had been rough enough, and he’d been enough of an idiot to temper it a little.

He gestured rudely at Sam. Affectionately so, as he knew Sam meant nothing by it, but enjoying a drink with the mates was off-limits to Liam now too, it seemed. Depressing. He'd dwell on it later. “What, they haven’t caught onto the alcoholism already?” he said with a good-natured laugh.

It was Michel he was thinking of, apparently. “Right, him,” said Liam, waving a hand. Sam and Charlie caught on immediately and, of course, found it hilarious.

It took Liam a second to realize the mate in LA whose stuff they were sniggering about was Ollie. Boyfriend’s the word, you arseholes. But they weren’t wrong, you couldn’t get what Ollie had offered him just anywhere. At least, not while you were a marginally recognizable person looking not to go public. “Couldn’t stand that bloke, but I haven’t got anyone else lined up in France you can.” He shrugged. Maybe he ought to start building a network.

“Gross,” said Sam in agreement.

He stuck his tongue out but let the subject drop, a tactic learned over years of being an eldest brother. (Sometimes it surprised him to remember that he was the youngest member of their band.) “We’re about overdue a scandal anyway,” he said. “We’ve covered sex and rock ‘n’ roll already, thre’s only drugs left.”

Sometimes he wondered if he was just personally less susceptible to vice than Charlie was -- most of their scandals had been Charlie’s, which he thought should mean that he and Liam were overdue some of their own -- but he liked to think that this was just because Charlie was the frontman. Fame did strange things to people. No wonder all the greats were addicts.

While they were talking about drugs, he sat up, passing Liam’s guitar pick between his hands thoughtfully, chucked the pick back across at Liam. “Well, Michel’s a prick and his parties aren’t even that good,” he said -- Michel’s parties had always been too decadent for Sam’s tastes. Artists. “I thought you still had some stuff left over from your American friend, or did we use it all in Lisbon?” It didn’t matter either way --

“There’s parties all over Paris, sure there’ll be drugs too.” There was no way they were going to make it as the Three Musketeers sober. They were a wet blanket, a homosexual, and a divorcee.

Charlie had stepped away and was midway through lifting his guitar strap over his head when Liam called him an alcoholic. He held the guitar in one hand and raised the middle finger of his other at Liam in response -- he hadn’t exactly accepted it, but he wasn’t stupid enough to deny it (not to the boys, anyway). He continued putting his guitar back in the rack with the others.

Sam might not have thought he was giving them his blessing (not that they really needed it, either), but Charlie chose to interpret it that way. “Drugs it is,” he grinned as he turned back to face them where they were still slumped on the ground, already trying to work out how to find out if Michel still had a friend of a friend...

Speaking of Michel. Charlie kept his eyes on Liam, knowingly, even as Sam piped up with his dislike of the Frenchman and his parties. “Well,” Charlie cleared his throat pointedly, “sometimes the reward outweighs the punishment.” He could personally attest to that; his ex-girlfriend from around the time he’d met Fflur and Michel had been a high maintenance nightmare but she was fit as fuck and exceptionally good at—

“Course there will,” Charlie agreed. “Leave it with me,” he smirked. “And anyway, you didn’t like his parties because you had the old ball and chain with you all the time.” None of them had that problem this time around. He stopped in front of Liam and held one hand out to help him to his feet. “Have you got any of that shite left?” Couldn’t hurt to be overprepared.

“Drugs aren’t a scandal if you’re a rock star,” replied Liam, matter-of-fact. “Just what you’re supposed to do, innit?” Cheating on one’s wife, on the other hand, was another story, but he was sure that was clear enough to all of them that he didn’t need to say it aloud. Charlie was already bitter that he’d cracked about his alcohol dependency. Not reminding him of all the other shite he’d done wrong was the least Liam could do.

Sam had no great admiration for Michel. “Fuck off!” Liam interrupted, with a bit of a laugh. “I know, he’s a prick, but you leave the parties out of this.” Charlie was right, it wasn’t Sam’s taste. Liam, though wasn’t feeling too indulgent towards Sam’s tastes right now. The conversation so far was making him worried this was too homosexual of him to say, but Sam was a wet blanket and Michel’s ridiculousness had  been just what he needed while repressed and grieving. It had been fun.

Of course, he had no idea if Michel had grown up in the intervening years. It happened to the best of them, and even Liam had flirted with it a bit recently. But he hoped both of them were still at least a little ridiculous.

Oh—he’d misinterpreted Sam’s comment about the stuff (How possibly could he? Get fucked). “Oh, yeah, loads.” He hadn’t spent as much time as he’d expected doing hallucinogenics so far this tour, so his liberal estimate had been far more than sufficient. He took Charlie's hand up and wandered over to pick up his bass. “I reckon that stuff’s better for writing than performing, though.” The last thing any of them wanted was Charlie downing a vial before heading out on stage.

“Oi -- I didn’t like them because they’re pretentious and overdone, that girl had nothing to do with it,” protested Sam. There was no arguing the ball-and-chain point, though; she had been the girlfriend to most deserve the title. She’d enjoyed next to nothing about being on tour with them. It’d been sort of a damper on the whole thing, he’d thought, though -- probably -- it’d really only bothered him.

Liam was standing up now, presumably getting ready to rehearse; Sam sprawled onto the floor with a groan. “Fuck, fine,” he said, his voice funny with lying on his back. “Shoot Michele an owl, whatever. Maybe there’ll be normal people at the party.” Hiding in corners from the couture types, undoubtedly.

It definitely wouldn’t do to get high right now, he supposed, but he shrugged, the motion rubbing his shoulders against the floor. “What’ve we got, a week ‘til Brussels? I say we have at it as soon as we can. See if your stuff gives Chet Baker here any divine inspiration about a bloody B.L.A.T.”

He turned his head to one side to look at them, dangling sideways off the floor from this angle, starting to tune up -- “What, are you actually gonna rehearse? I thought we were just gonna tell Alan we had.” He rested his head back against the ground -- “Look, I’m all ready. One, two, three, four --” he rapped a quick tattoo against his stomach and mimed hitting a cymbal -- “Tsh!"

Sam scraped up to his feet -- if they were going to play, he supposed they were going to bloody play.

[out]

Charlie watched Liam waltz over to his guitar and pressed his lips into a hard line -- as if he hadn’t just bloody put his away because the two of them had been so reluctant to actually get off their arses. “That how you came up with Silver Lining?” he asked, then: “Thought you were busy ingesting something else,” he grinned, stepping away from the other man, just in case.

He folded his arms across his chest and looked at Sam, who hadn’t yet arisen, but was at least agreeing to meeting up with Michel. “Great, I’ll let him know his holiness is willing to grace him with his presence.”

Charlie grinned. “Don’t bloody tempt me,” he said, then sauntered back to pick up his guitar again. “Though, it has to be said, I fucking hate tomatoes,” he volunteered, as if the boys hadn’t had to suffer through his complaining about the fruit for the last however many years, however many tours. He slipped the strap over his head and rolled his shoulders, running his thumb across the strings, fiddled with the pegs and tried again. “Probably ought to at least do a soundcheck,” he answered Sam, then grinned lopsidedly. “Come on, you fat git. Get up.”


[ out ]