Let's Get Down to Business

[ifwebefriends]

Straight from the airport to the office, Harry in his wake for once. Normally he leaves his head of security in England, but more and more business is being done on this side of the pond now (as Serptichore becomes more established in America), and for the next three foreseeable months Robin intends to be Stateside. Enough staff has been left in

Comments

[ifwebefriends]

"Alright then." Robin shrugs and circles back around his desk to plop down in his chair. There's a folder on top of his otherwise almost-pristine desk, prepared by Bernard as per Robin's instructions during the flight over; Robin flips it open. He rifles through the papers contained with a certain childish disregard for their legal sanctity that would probably have his attorney wincing to see it, finally pulling out a few and scrutinizing them.

"Right," he says after a few seconds. "A few words that shan't leave this room, Rory-- for your ears alone, dear boy.

"Imprimis: I obviously don't give a bloody damn about the money. I doubt you much do either. But for your wonderfully human bandmates who must pay bills and so forth, it is no doubt a concern. Ergo, if the numbers quoted aren't what you think is fair for their work, then you and I can sort that out to your satisfaction before you go bringing them anything on paper.

"Essentially I'm telling you that I'll pay them whatever the ruddy hell they want, but they don't need to know that. As far as your bandmates are concerned, Rory, you haggled hard for every red cent and other such similar rubbish as occurs to you to sound good."

Robin drops the paper and leans back in his chair, regarding the ceiling and lacing his fingers over his chest.

"Given my extraordinary generosity on that front, I preface these next bits with the information that they are non-negotiable. I don't intend to argue with you on these points.

"Options: I normally sign a three-option contract, with one year per option and a year for the first album. In Breaker Street's case I will be insisting upon a five-option contract. Six albums, in other words. Per standard, live albums do not count towards your six albums.

"Exclusivity: I have it. Your music, your likeness, the band's name, blah blah blah, I own all that for the duration. Interviews and publicity likewise: should I call you lads-- and ladies-- up one fine morning and inform you you are being interviewed on such-and-such show at such-and-such time, you say, 'how high?' on your way over, especially since it's all for your own greater exposure and whatnot.

"Creative control regarding the artwork and all promotional materials: I have that too, blah blah blah good God I'm glad I have lawyers to write this nonsense up... what else-- oh yes, on that front: I have control of format release."

Robin sits upright at that again, lacing his fingers on the desk and peering at Rory. "Electronic media release, free downloadable albums, that sort of thing, if and when I feel like it. Your bandmates may not like that bit, soothe them with big bloody gobs of cash....

"What else, what else... oh, yes, Serptichore doesn't pay royalties, we split the gross profits. Standard policy. You can insist on royalties if you like but it's a raw deal, ask anyone. Mmmmm I'm forgetting something-- ah--" he snaps his fingers. Smiles warmly at Rory and adds in the sweetest of voices, "It should go utterly without saying but any outside work the band, and most especially you, do for other labels must be approved by me, and it will go utterly without being said outside this room that I will not be granting that approval."

Robin slides the stacks of paper Rory's direction across the desk. "Now then. Your turn to talk. And ask questions, I suppose."

[fey_fire]

Rory's eyes narrow in concentration as Robin lists his terms. The Puck is effectively insisting on a minimum of six years' creative indentured servitude for Breaker Street, since Rory's quite certain that the older fey will exercise all five of those options. By the time the singer/songwriter starts leafing through the sheaf of paper himself, he's already mentally bumped up his requirements for both pre-recording advances and the band's split of the profits. It's common industry practice to get as many records out of a new act at as low a payout rate as possible, but if Breaker Street won't be able to sneeze musically without Robin's approval for a full six years, Rory damn well intends to make sure they get compensated handsomely--

--until he reaches the relevant section of the contract and finds that Robin has already exceeded his expectations in that department. Generous advances indeed, and that percentage split will be sure to give some poor accountant an acid stomach, if not an outright ulcer. Or is Emma, Robin's clockwork amanuensis, still doing all the books?

Rory works his way through the contract, sipping his scotch thoughtfully as he considers the implications. Robin wants Breaker Street, wants all of their output to remain under his control for as long as he can arrange, but he's more than willing to keep them financially happy in the meantime. If, as he's said, he doesn't care about the money ...

He wants me. He wants a share in this whatever-it-is that my music and performances generate from an audience. Well, good. If I could find a way to offload the lot to him, I would do.

Ignoring the faint, taunting voice in the back of his mind saying oh really?, Rory keeps sorting through the papers in front of him. Sifting through all the minutia will happen later and with help, but he does run across one clause that triggers a wince.

"A ten-year lockout on top of a six-year contract, Robin? You're telling me we won't be able to do a damn thing with any of the music on our first album for sixteen years without your say-so? Which, as you've already stated, will not be forthcoming."

[ifwebefriends]

Robin's back to blowing bubbles. He picks up the wand as Rory skims the contract, and lazily sends soap spheres at the large windows with their stunning views of Manhattan. The cleaning crew may grumble about that tonight, but then again, they've had to clean up far worse in his office than streaks on the glass.

Rory's indignant question earns a shrug in answer as Robin watches an especially large bubble pop halfway to the windows. "Yes, that's about the sum of it," he says, then swivels to face Rory again.

"Naturally I can't make you accept such a deal. You and your friends are welcome to go elsewhere. The fact that you had a contract offer from me would probably get you at least an appointment with someone else." He twiddles the wand in his fingers, peering into the bottle to check the level of the soapy liquid remaining.

"Mind you--" a jab of the wand into the bottle, "--I doubt--" ah, it remains stubbornly soap-free, "anyone else would offer you--" Robin sloshes the bottle around, tries again, "--a fraction--" (This is the worst, when there's that half-inch left in the bottle and you have to try and tilt it on its side and hope enough liquid pools to get the wand coated) "--of the numbers you've got there."

Robin sighs heavily, a sound of deep gloom for Breaker Street's prospects with another label, and jabs at the intercom. "Emma, love? I need another bottle."

Alright, perhaps the sigh wasn't for Breaker Street.

[fey_fire]

Rory has to wonder whether Emma will interpret that plaintive statement as a request for more bubbles or more scotch. Or, indeed, more of any of a number of things Robin might keep in a bottle. He smiles at the possibilities.

"You're quite right, of course," he says, mellow humor restored. "Financially we can hardly do better with anyone else. And as you mentioned, you do have that particular understanding of my situation."

He idly leafs through a few pages, running a finger down the contents. "So it seems there are only a few more details for us to address before I take your offer back to the band."

[ifwebefriends]

A-ha, he's sorted the right angle for the bottle to get the wand soapy for one last go. Robin blows the stream of the final few bubbles in Rory's direction, smiles happily at him, and only then appears to process his words.

"Mmm? Details? What, they're all they're in the papers," he says in unenthused tones that suggest details are something the help, namely Bernard, has to worry about. Robin frowns, then sets about carefully pouring his remaining drink into the bubble bottle, in the name of stretching the remaining liquid. Whether alcohol will provide a suitable base for soap bubbles remains to be seen.

"What further details?"

[fey_fire]

Two mental pictures combine to distract Rory for several seconds: one of the possible after-effects were Robin to drink his sudsy cocktail, and the other of the face Nil would make if he could see what Robbie Fellowes just did to what is probably a high-end single malt. A bubble chooses that moment to pop on his forehead, bringing his attention back to the discussion.

"Just a few stray concerns," he murmurs soothingly. Leaning back in his chair, he spots another descending bubble and blows delicately to send it wobbling back in Robin's direction.

"The first would be Morrie Dubrowsky, our sound technician. He's been as much a member of the band as any of us musicians. If we can negotiate some kind of position for him, be it in-studio or touring, I can assure you he'd be an asset."

[ifwebefriends]

Robin scowls as he attempts the first bubble with his new mixture. The sputter of liquid is not encouraging. He sighs and watches the sphere Rory blew drift haphazardly back his way.

"Oh, if you like," he says absently; it'd be entirely forgivable if one was to think he wasn't actually listening. Robin extends a hand and-- here's a neat trick-- catches the descending bubble on one fingertip.

There's a soft knock at the door and then Emma enters, two new bottles of bubbles in hand that she sets down on his desk. Heaven knows how she predicts which it is he wants. Long familiarity, perhaps. She smiles politely at Rory, dips a curtsy, exits again.

Robin's toying with the bubble like a sleight-of-hand magician with a coin, shifting it from finger to finger, bouncing it on his palm, peering enraptured into its iridescent depths. "Very well," he says. "I'll tell you what, have your Mortie come on over, Vincent will try him out on the equipment, if he's all you say he's got a job. Is that satisfactory?"

His eyes rise to Rory's again. The soap bubble balances on a fingertip.

[fey_fire]

Rory's lips quirk, both at Robin's bubble-balancing and his slight mangling of Morrie's name, but he doesn't bother to correct his fellow fey. With a foot in the door, the wiry sound tech will be on Serptichore's payroll soon enough. "Fair enough," he replies.

Collecting one of the fresh bottles, he pulls out the soapy wand and blows not a stream, but a single bubble that grows larger and larger until a slightly stronger puff of air sets it drifting. Satisfied with the result, the púca indulges in a trick that he and Tadhg used to play around with: humming a silken, unearthly tune, he sets the pale rainbows on its surface dancing in time with his voice. Lissome figures form and dissolve in the swirls of color, cavorting and chasing each other playfully until the sphere bursts on the hilt of a letter opener on Robin's desk.

"Concern the second," he continues as if there'd been no interruption, "would be concert schedules. I assume that they'd be part of the publicity and formats of which you've claimed control?"

[ifwebefriends]

Robin wrinkles his nose slightly when the oversized bubble bursts, sending a fine mist of soapy microdroplets over his desk. Why yes, he is a snot who is unappreciative of pretty swirly colors, unless they're his own doing.

Rory's question drags his attention back. Robin's gaze tracks from tiny pinprick spots of wetness on his desk to the younger fey's deep brown eyes. "You assume correctly," he says airily, and resumes once more toying with the bubble on his hand. "I mean, I will give you concert schedules months in advance of course, and if there's a date that's an utter absolute problem or something we can sort it out, but-- yes. I decide where and when you lot go to, more or less."

[fey_fire]

"Mmmhm." Rory slouches a bit in his chair, the very picture of relaxed equanimity. Robin's answer contains nothing he didn't expect, after all. He'll dig for certain other details a little later.

Smiling slightly, he lets his eyes follow the bobs and bounces of the bubble the Puck manipulates, the delicate globe now held together solely by a casual exercise of Robin's will. He exchanges the bottle he holds for his glass of scotch and takes a slow sip, letting the fiery liquid roll around on his tongue much like the bubble on Robin's fingers.

"Third concern," he says, his voice light and casual, "involves the matter of my compensation as a songwriter, over and above my share as a performer."

[ifwebefriends]

Robin pauses the bubble's bounce mid-air with the same effort he might pause a DVD, and gives Rory two slo-w-w-wly arched brows.

"Compensation?"

He flicks the bubble with a finger again, sending it back into a lazy drift towards the desk, and leans back in his chair.

"You are monetarily compensated for that; I can't think you want more money, given that it's just dollars. So very useful to our kind. And what else shall I pay you in, Rory?

"You are doing this to 'make it big', aren't you? To have more people listen to your music. Well. You're getting that. Fame and all that comes with it. The nights on stage, the crowd at your control. Oh yes, you're getting that."

Robin gestures for the bubble to come to him; it does, floating from where it lies on the desk to his hands. The Puck poises it again on one finger and then spins it, peering into the shimmering rotating depths as if at the future itself.

"And you are such a very virtuous boy that I'm not sure what else appeals to you. Sex? You have a girl, and you love her, which makes her of course more titillating than the combined attractions of all the sweet young flesh I could possibly find for you. Drugs? We've established that the chemical sort hold no temptation. Magic? You have enough of your own that the tricks I could impress crowned heads of state with are nothing extraordinarily special to you."

Robin's smiling, but it doesn't really reach his eyes. "What is it you want, Rory Stone?"

[fey_fire]

Millennia older than your father, Rory, he reminds himself as he watches the other fey's smile take on a certain hardness. He dances a delicate dance here, and one that he knows is not entirely safe. He wants Robin's understanding, not his anger, and so he eases back, letting his tone and attitude become a shade more suppliant.

"You've been extremely generous financially, Robin. I do appreciate that, and I'll have no problem accepting monetary compensation for those songs I'll write for Serptichore in the future. But for the ones I've already done--" He pauses for another sip of scotch, wishing briefly that he could find courage in a glass as so many can. Enough.

"I need answers," he says at last, meeting Robin's gleaming blue gaze once again. "A few honest answers to a few straightforward questions. Questions about me, not about you."

After some seconds of silence, Rory lowers his eyes to the liquid still in his glass, hoping to conceal just how unsettled he is by the question Robin asked him.

What is it you want, Rory Stone?

[ifwebefriends]

Robin, in response, yawns. Deliberate and casual, stopping the spinning bubble with the gesture.

The boy wants honesty from him. What a silly dangerous thing to ask for. To ask him for. Robin taps the bubble with one finger, tap tap tap, then pokes that finger through it and regards the skewered bubble with studied indifference.

"I doubt," he says lazily, "that I am such an expert on your person as you seem to think. What you mean to say is answers about the music, about what you feel when you're on stage; let us speak plainly, my dear dear boy. And, frankly, for you to try and say those questions therefore aren't about me is patently absurd. Your interest may be discreetly within the bounds of yourself, but nevertheless."

Robin is poking and prodding and stretching the bubble as he speaks, elongating its shape, pulling out a bit to form a nose, flicking his fingers at the top to create the semblance of hair, making a face out of the shimmery nothingness.

"You may ask your questions. You get three. That's a nice traditional number."

The bubble is starting to resemble Rory.

[fey_fire]

Well. Rory draws a slow and careful breath. He's gotten what he asked for, even if he's increasingly certain it isn't what he really wants. But then small children don't want to eat their vegetables, or go to bed early, or do any of a number of things that are actually in their best interests. Sitting here in front of one who was already old when the Romans invaded Britain, Rory feels like a small child indeed, his own century-plus on this planet a mere drop in that bucket.

He watches Robin shape the soap-encased pocket of air, watches his familiar features forming. If the display is meant to unnerve him, he's forced to acknowledge that it's working a little too well. If only his own interests were on the line here, he might say to hell with it and drop the whole line of inquiry, but in this matter several other people have linked their welfare to his. He needs information, for their sake if not for his.

"All right. Plainly then." His voice sounds low and rough, not entirely like his own; he clears his throat and went on, "What was I picking up on from the audience? Insofar as you could tell."

[ifwebefriends]

Ah yes, what indeed. Robin sinks a little lower in his chair, attention still ostensibly on the bubble-Rory he's shaping but his eyes drifting half to shut...

He remembers-- the lights, the stage, the sounds. The feedback of the speakers as they warm up for the night, the resonance of the first chord, out over not just the stage, but out over the people. One hundred or one thousand, it both matters and doesn't matter. They are a sea of shadows in which the pinprick gleams of cigarette lighters or eyes-reflecting-stagelights gleam like stars. The true believers are there in the front, crowding the stage, their faces upturned like the devout to their gods. An apt metaphor.

And all of them his, his for the taking, his for the using, his to both rule and serve, because he owns them for the duration of the performance but ah yes, they own him too, by their existence they justify his own and perhaps the best term is not master or servant but lover--

The bubble starts to fall and Robin jerks his attention back to the now, to balancing it once more on his fingertips. "Belief. Worship. Admiration. Enjoyment. Pick an abstract noun, I've many more of them.

"...to put it in the sort of terms you'd see in a bad science-fantasy novel, you were picking up on the collective psychic energy of a group of human beings engaged in something they are genetically programmed to do, which is to say, be entertained and awed. And you register this because it is what you-- a part of you, the non-human part of you-- are in your turn genetically.... no... existentially programmed to do... hm..."

Robin speaks in tones of indifference, his eyes never leaving the shaping of the bubble-Rory's likeness.

[fey_fire]

Jesus. Rory takes another swallow of scotch in an attempt to summon saliva back to his suddenly dry mouth. He'd tasted the intensity of a crowd's focus, certainly ... but worship? Can the phrase rock god actually be that literal? He wants no part of that. None whatsoever. He grimaces slightly when he finds himself repeating the words in his head.

And existentially programmed. Robin makes it sound as if Rory's own will is as insubstantial and malleable a thing as the bubble he's still shaping. Does his fey nature really make him that -- that vulnerable to his audience?

Was Robin just as vulnerable, during his brief flirtation with stardom?

You know better than to ask that one, boyo.

Speaking of asking ... he sees Robin watching him through the bubble-replica with half-lidded eyes. The thinning of his lips reminds Rory both that he has two more questions and that the Puck hates having his time wasted by anyone but himself. Extremely eloquent lips, those, even when they're not shaping words.

Right then. After a deep, not-quite-calming breath, he continues. "I asked Tadhg to check me over after a gig. The first words out of his mouth when he saw me were Ruddy hells." Rory recalls the shocked look in his brother's eyes. "He told me that, given the effect even a small crowd had on my energy levels, he was worried about what a larger audience might do. Said I might ... lose track of myself, in everything they poured into me."

He finds his eyes fixing, not on Robin's eyes, but on the fingers now adding deft details to the bubble. "Do you believe he's justified in his concerns?"

There's a risk of getting just a one-word answer, he knows. But even that one word should be ... instructive.