Ficlet: Impresario
Sorry for the spam, guys. I'd filter this crap but then I could never hold on to my secret desire to have Owen or Zach run across it one day. Ah ha. Joking. Ugh. I totally just weirded myself out there.
Fandom: Pitchforkslash: Beirut/Final Fantasy.
Rating: PG for bitching.
Notes: 1000 words for petronia, who wanted something to do with Cliquot. This takes place in the same universe and general time frame as the last one - Trumpet Waltz & Strings.
When Zach wakes up it’s just a hitch of breath and his head lolling off the couch’s smelly green arm. There’s light filtering in through the stained glass, blue and red. So he didn’t make it to his cot last night. But his pants are on and there’s a blanket on the ground that was probably draped over him at some point. Zach rolls, pushes a hand through his hair and sits up.
Down the hall Owen and Kristin are sitting at the fold-down table, eating yellow apples and mostly ignoring each other. Owen has a pile of cores mouldering to his right, and sheaves of paper on his left, which he sorts through more than writes on. Kristin is reading something from the pile of outdated Canadian magazines. Zach squints: MacLeans. Alright.
When Kristin sees him she smiles quick, and her eyes shift to Owen and Owen’s sheets of paper that he’s working on. “There’s just apples,” she says, apologetic. She gestures at the brown bag full of them beside the sink in the kitchenette. “I was thinking maybe we could take a cab into town later? The A&W’s probably open,” she calls as Zach goes to fish one out. They’re from the neighbor’s orchard. There was one with a worm dead and brown inside earlier, now he’s careful to inspect for holes and bruising.
“Yeah, maybe later,” he says, dragging over a third seat, edging closer to see which sheets Owen’s marking up. It’s been a long, slow week in some ways. Pallett does frightening, brilliant things - exactly what Zach hoped for when he made that first phone call. But the strings eat away, erode the songs in his head into something opaque and unfamiliar. He’s getting all the Parisian he asked for, all the melodrama and history. He keeps getting exactly what he wants. Owen presents each change, serious as a midwife. Zach misses his euphonium constantly.
There’s a long pause, where the apple stays in his lap as he tries to sort through what he’s seeing. “Uh,” he says. “Is that Cliquot?”
Owen nods without looking up. The sheet is a gridwork of exactingly neat linework and cartographic corrections to Zach’s untidy scrawl. It looks like an Etch-a-Sketch. Zach can certainly feel the impulse to shake it - or Owen - like one. “You said it needed work,” Owen looks up, but his pencil hovers.
“Yeah, I scrapped it. You were there.” Zach says. He can see lyrics, though they don’t process. Owen’s writing looks like robot writing, like it’s constructed out of tiny bent paperclips.
“Whatever, princess.” Owen says, smiling at Zach’s scowl like it’s a joke - it is a joke. Zach always scraps things. But then he’s always the one to pull them back out, too. “It’s totally salvageable.”
“Actually, guys, I’m just gonna walk.” Kristin, who had been hovering in the kitchen, is pulling on her jacket and halfway out the door. “I’ll bring something back for you, alright?”
Zach ignores her again, and yanks the paper over so he can look at it properly. He pretends to read it. Actually, his brain is just a fog of heat. “What’d you fish this out of the trash?” he says, unable to hold it in.
“Yes.” Owen sounds almost annoyed now. “Maybe you should eat some breakfast.”
“I don’t need any more fucking apples, thanks,” he waves the paper at Owen. “What-” he takes a breath, “What are you doing?”
Owen leans back in his chair, stares back from under his sweep of bangs. His thin little mouth sets prim as a weekly hairdo. “I fixed the strings. I thought you were paying me to fix your strings.”
“Fix? Well then I guess you fixed the lyrics, too. And the - snare drum, is it? And about all of the melody.” Zach lists what he reads. “This isn’t even the same song.”
“No,” says Owen. There’s another long pause, where Owen’s eyes clear and gaze back at him, thoughtful. Zach considers last night’s embarrassing arm wrestling tournament and the inevitable tales of tour hook-ups and the quality BC weed and the long, slow blowjob on the garden swing out in the back overlooking the dark creek. Pallett is being the princess, here. He’s the fucking contractor. He’s supposed to be fleshing bare songs out with his own talents, not turning them into frighteningly accurate mimicries of what Zach would’ve wanted to do.
“It’s a better song, Zach,” Owen finally says. He uncrosses his arms and leans forward and takes Zach’s apple from him. “If you don’t want it for the album, that’s fine. I just didn’t want you to waste it.”
Zach’s stomach turns over, protesting the thought of even one of those bitter, acidic apples on nothing but a weed-hangover. “You just want me to sing these gay-ass lyrics,” he mutters, peering down at the sheet again. It makes more sense, now. He sees the accordion. Likes it. Kind of.
He hums the refrain for the violin, a third of the way through, and Owen joins in to correct a patch, and Zach makes the notation in blue ink on top of Owen’s physics equations, frowning.
Owen keeps humming and bum-bahing, but it takes less than a second for him to switch registers to a low, pleased moan when Zach crawls over the table corner to pin him down at the hips, look him in the eye from half a foot away. “It’s your song, you can fucking sing it.” God, he can hear the sulk in his voice but Owen doesn’t seem to care, more interested in tongue than copyright, craning his bird’s neck up. Zach pulls back again, he’s straddled Owen’s thighs on the rickety wooden chair, Owen’s hands are up his shirt and on his ass. “I’m serious. You’ll sing it.”
“Sure, yeah.” Owen looks him in the eye for a second, his voice is low and open. “Whatever you want.”
For a brief nervous second, Zach looks down into their laps. He’s starting to suspect that Owen knows what he wants better than he does himself. And that Owen is better suited to providing it than anyone else he’s ever known. The slow circle of fingers on the bare skin at the base of his spine, and the calculated squirming and sliding smirk set to entice him seem to prove it.
By the time Kristin gets back with a bag of mcmuffins and a collection of microwaveable lean cuisine dinners, they’re down at the soundboard again, playing up the strings.
Fandom: Pitchforkslash: Beirut/Final Fantasy.
Rating: PG for bitching.
Notes: 1000 words for petronia, who wanted something to do with Cliquot. This takes place in the same universe and general time frame as the last one - Trumpet Waltz & Strings.
When Zach wakes up it’s just a hitch of breath and his head lolling off the couch’s smelly green arm. There’s light filtering in through the stained glass, blue and red. So he didn’t make it to his cot last night. But his pants are on and there’s a blanket on the ground that was probably draped over him at some point. Zach rolls, pushes a hand through his hair and sits up.
Down the hall Owen and Kristin are sitting at the fold-down table, eating yellow apples and mostly ignoring each other. Owen has a pile of cores mouldering to his right, and sheaves of paper on his left, which he sorts through more than writes on. Kristin is reading something from the pile of outdated Canadian magazines. Zach squints: MacLeans. Alright.
When Kristin sees him she smiles quick, and her eyes shift to Owen and Owen’s sheets of paper that he’s working on. “There’s just apples,” she says, apologetic. She gestures at the brown bag full of them beside the sink in the kitchenette. “I was thinking maybe we could take a cab into town later? The A&W’s probably open,” she calls as Zach goes to fish one out. They’re from the neighbor’s orchard. There was one with a worm dead and brown inside earlier, now he’s careful to inspect for holes and bruising.
“Yeah, maybe later,” he says, dragging over a third seat, edging closer to see which sheets Owen’s marking up. It’s been a long, slow week in some ways. Pallett does frightening, brilliant things - exactly what Zach hoped for when he made that first phone call. But the strings eat away, erode the songs in his head into something opaque and unfamiliar. He’s getting all the Parisian he asked for, all the melodrama and history. He keeps getting exactly what he wants. Owen presents each change, serious as a midwife. Zach misses his euphonium constantly.
There’s a long pause, where the apple stays in his lap as he tries to sort through what he’s seeing. “Uh,” he says. “Is that Cliquot?”
Owen nods without looking up. The sheet is a gridwork of exactingly neat linework and cartographic corrections to Zach’s untidy scrawl. It looks like an Etch-a-Sketch. Zach can certainly feel the impulse to shake it - or Owen - like one. “You said it needed work,” Owen looks up, but his pencil hovers.
“Yeah, I scrapped it. You were there.” Zach says. He can see lyrics, though they don’t process. Owen’s writing looks like robot writing, like it’s constructed out of tiny bent paperclips.
“Whatever, princess.” Owen says, smiling at Zach’s scowl like it’s a joke - it is a joke. Zach always scraps things. But then he’s always the one to pull them back out, too. “It’s totally salvageable.”
“Actually, guys, I’m just gonna walk.” Kristin, who had been hovering in the kitchen, is pulling on her jacket and halfway out the door. “I’ll bring something back for you, alright?”
Zach ignores her again, and yanks the paper over so he can look at it properly. He pretends to read it. Actually, his brain is just a fog of heat. “What’d you fish this out of the trash?” he says, unable to hold it in.
“Yes.” Owen sounds almost annoyed now. “Maybe you should eat some breakfast.”
“I don’t need any more fucking apples, thanks,” he waves the paper at Owen. “What-” he takes a breath, “What are you doing?”
Owen leans back in his chair, stares back from under his sweep of bangs. His thin little mouth sets prim as a weekly hairdo. “I fixed the strings. I thought you were paying me to fix your strings.”
“Fix? Well then I guess you fixed the lyrics, too. And the - snare drum, is it? And about all of the melody.” Zach lists what he reads. “This isn’t even the same song.”
“No,” says Owen. There’s another long pause, where Owen’s eyes clear and gaze back at him, thoughtful. Zach considers last night’s embarrassing arm wrestling tournament and the inevitable tales of tour hook-ups and the quality BC weed and the long, slow blowjob on the garden swing out in the back overlooking the dark creek. Pallett is being the princess, here. He’s the fucking contractor. He’s supposed to be fleshing bare songs out with his own talents, not turning them into frighteningly accurate mimicries of what Zach would’ve wanted to do.
“It’s a better song, Zach,” Owen finally says. He uncrosses his arms and leans forward and takes Zach’s apple from him. “If you don’t want it for the album, that’s fine. I just didn’t want you to waste it.”
Zach’s stomach turns over, protesting the thought of even one of those bitter, acidic apples on nothing but a weed-hangover. “You just want me to sing these gay-ass lyrics,” he mutters, peering down at the sheet again. It makes more sense, now. He sees the accordion. Likes it. Kind of.
He hums the refrain for the violin, a third of the way through, and Owen joins in to correct a patch, and Zach makes the notation in blue ink on top of Owen’s physics equations, frowning.
Owen keeps humming and bum-bahing, but it takes less than a second for him to switch registers to a low, pleased moan when Zach crawls over the table corner to pin him down at the hips, look him in the eye from half a foot away. “It’s your song, you can fucking sing it.” God, he can hear the sulk in his voice but Owen doesn’t seem to care, more interested in tongue than copyright, craning his bird’s neck up. Zach pulls back again, he’s straddled Owen’s thighs on the rickety wooden chair, Owen’s hands are up his shirt and on his ass. “I’m serious. You’ll sing it.”
“Sure, yeah.” Owen looks him in the eye for a second, his voice is low and open. “Whatever you want.”
For a brief nervous second, Zach looks down into their laps. He’s starting to suspect that Owen knows what he wants better than he does himself. And that Owen is better suited to providing it than anyone else he’s ever known. The slow circle of fingers on the bare skin at the base of his spine, and the calculated squirming and sliding smirk set to entice him seem to prove it.
By the time Kristin gets back with a bag of mcmuffins and a collection of microwaveable lean cuisine dinners, they’re down at the soundboard again, playing up the strings.