Ficlet: Not the Hotel Arts
Fandom: Pitchforkslash: Beirut/Final Fantasy.
Notes: For opprobrium. The reason this took so long is because your prompt created something so perfect and wonderful in my head, and no matter how many times I tried with this, something else entirely came out. :/
Also: has everyone seen Owen Pallett playing Cliquot all on his lonesome in Paris last summer? Probably I will bleed to death in a dark alley of self-inflicted wounds if he doesn't play it at his show next Friday. Probably.
After the Calgary show they wind up drinking in the hotel bar, the whole crowd of them tucked into a huge red booth way in the back. Owen is saying for the thirty-seventh time “I fucking hate this city,” this time because the fifteen year old server forgot the drink he ordered half an hour ago. The previous thirty-six times started when they first drove in and sat in traffic for a year, and continued after the show when bouncers turned them away from three bars in a row. Like hobos or high school kids. Owen was grinding his teeth to stubs, but everyone else just wanted a fucking beer.
But Zach doesn’t mind this place. It’s hideously trendy, practically empty, got shitty service and the few other patrons are fat men in suits who keep giving them the eye. He would’ve hated a club way more. He’s used to being the youngest, the one people sneak in and buy drinks for. Legal for a year now, he still misses the thrill. In Canada the eighteen-year-olds and their tits and open mouths make him feel like a dirty old man.
So for some reason he feels like getting shitfaced tonight. Just - bad show. He can tell by the way Tracy and Kelly disappeared to their room right after and how Nick is more grimacing than grinning. It wasn’t their fault at least. Just a quiet crowd. Like playing to a room full of corpses. Like even heckling isn’t cool anymore. Jesus. Zach tried to convince everyone it was reverence for their holy talent, but no one’s buying. Even the merch sales were middling.
Across the table, Owen and his foul mouth are somehow not killing the conversation. There’s almost an entourage, tonight. Friends of friends, some guy guaranteed to hand Zach a demo before the end of the night, the sound tech from the venue. Jason’s staring into his drink. Perrin’s talking his third cousins or something, a couple of farm kids who came in from outside of town to see him play.
And Owen’s saying something mean to the kid from the college newspaper - the one who interviewed Zach beforehand and asked questions like So how’d you get discovered? because she evidently didn’t have the time to look them up on Wikipedia before she did the interview. Owen’s grilling her about her publication credits. Asking about literary influences. Her polisci classes. Favourite bands. Her answer: Modest Mouse’s last album, some political stuff. I’m really into spoken word. Zach can visualize Owen’s tongue: glued to the roof of his mouth as his lungs expand with molten vitriol, oh god. The girl’s wearing a hat with Che Guevara’s face on it.
Zach half-stands in his seat. “Excuse me, gotta pee.” There are a dozen people between him and either end of the curved bench, and the table is about mid-chest height.
Nick looks at him, “Crawl under it, little man.”
Zach laughs. He should crawl under it. Instead he starts crawling over people, makes everyone squish together and moan about the awkward, and in the process succeeds in getting Nick to start beatboxing Sexyback by singing the Timbaland parts and doing a shimmy while passing over his lap. Kristin joins in with the falsetto she’ll only do after half a bottle of red, and someone’s doing their best tuba accompaniment. Zach catches Owen’s eye as he’s going by - crotch, not ass - and says, “Can I track down that bellini for you, princess?”
“Fucking wheat ale,” Owen corrects. “I’ll come.”
They skip the bar when Owen shakes his head, and just head through the side exit into the elevator hall. “Pool’s through there,” Owen says, and puts his hands on Zach’s shoulders to half guide him, half lean on him. “Fuck, I hate this city.”
“No shit,” says Zach. “You know what that girl asked me before the show? Why I don’t sing all the songs on the album like I do in Cliquot.”
Owen guffaws into his ear, chin resting on Zach’s shoulder as they push through the glass doors into the shimmering blue. The pool deck is deserted. The only lights are below the water. “That’s like, the twenty-third time, dude. Including the time the internet said it.”
“Then she said, Is your sexuality a big part of your music?”
“In Alberta that means We’ll deal as long as you don’t start doing the pride thing. They hate the pride thing here. It offends their stoic sensibilities.”
There are wooden deck chairs, even though they’re inside and glass on the windows is frosty, the sky outside merely blackish with smog and reflected light. Owen rolls down into one and pulls Zach with him into the v of his legs. Owen leans back in the chaise, buries his eyes in the crook of his elbow. “Wait till we get to Sault Ste. Marie. It’ll be worse. Buttfuck Ontario.”
“The interviews or the crowds? God.” Zach stares at the blue pool and thinks that they’ll probably get kicked out soon. Then he can follow Owen to the hotel room and screw around and probably either fuck or fall asleep with the tv on. Either and both make him almost frighteningly happy - protective, too. Owen’s voice has that edge in it that means he’s teetering a bit. Drunk, and teetering. “You hate it a lot.”
“What? Alberta?” Owen doesn’t take his face out of his elbow, just speaks to the vault of the glass ceiling. “It’s the whole country. All of fucking Canada is just one giant stretched-out small town. You never wonder why I like Americans so much? For all the heartland bullshit at least you people are too selfish to care about anyone besides yourselves. Leave some breathing room. That’s a huge goddamn advantage in my eyes.”
Zach doesn’t respond. He just tucks his legs up and leans back against Owen’s chest and curls a hand around the spare wrist. Wonders if he’ll ever coax all of the ire out of these lungs. Unlikely. Owen’s palm is damp and he smells like beer and sweat and citrus. His voice is a caustic blur, and it echoes in splinters off the water.
“I stand around up here every day and everyone’s so freaking excited about the Polaris or whatever, but kids still get beat up in the same park. Same fucking school. It’s all the same. Someone’ll slash the tires on the tour bus or write another retarded review about us. It’s still junior high - the more I stand here the worse it’ll get for us.”
Zach isn’t dumb enough to question the leaps he can’t follow. He just murmurs in soothing sounds and strokes the back of Owen’s hand. Shifts to rest his cheek against the curve of his breastbone. Owen’s voice rattles through lungs and skin, “Don’t let them fucking tell you that you’ve come out. Don’t let them force you into it. Just step back.”
Zach shakes his head, not even thinking about it. Never been something he’s worried about. Instead he’s worried they’ll fall asleep like this and be hung over and aching for tomorrow’s drive through the mountains. If he’s going to be sore he at least wants the satisfaction of sex. But somewhere in his mind he can picture it, picture Owen and his towering brittle pride of self, the pain of that cracking over and over again through the years.
He’s falling asleep in the chair, the cool blue light. They both are. He gets them to the elevator. Their jackets and wallets are downstairs but Kristin or Nick or someone will pick them up. He has the keycard in his pants pocket, and though the process of getting Owen out of his pants leaves him half-hard, they fall asleep wearing their socks and t-shirts, curled like apostrophes under the sheets.
Notes: For opprobrium. The reason this took so long is because your prompt created something so perfect and wonderful in my head, and no matter how many times I tried with this, something else entirely came out. :/
Also: has everyone seen Owen Pallett playing Cliquot all on his lonesome in Paris last summer? Probably I will bleed to death in a dark alley of self-inflicted wounds if he doesn't play it at his show next Friday. Probably.
After the Calgary show they wind up drinking in the hotel bar, the whole crowd of them tucked into a huge red booth way in the back. Owen is saying for the thirty-seventh time “I fucking hate this city,” this time because the fifteen year old server forgot the drink he ordered half an hour ago. The previous thirty-six times started when they first drove in and sat in traffic for a year, and continued after the show when bouncers turned them away from three bars in a row. Like hobos or high school kids. Owen was grinding his teeth to stubs, but everyone else just wanted a fucking beer.
But Zach doesn’t mind this place. It’s hideously trendy, practically empty, got shitty service and the few other patrons are fat men in suits who keep giving them the eye. He would’ve hated a club way more. He’s used to being the youngest, the one people sneak in and buy drinks for. Legal for a year now, he still misses the thrill. In Canada the eighteen-year-olds and their tits and open mouths make him feel like a dirty old man.
So for some reason he feels like getting shitfaced tonight. Just - bad show. He can tell by the way Tracy and Kelly disappeared to their room right after and how Nick is more grimacing than grinning. It wasn’t their fault at least. Just a quiet crowd. Like playing to a room full of corpses. Like even heckling isn’t cool anymore. Jesus. Zach tried to convince everyone it was reverence for their holy talent, but no one’s buying. Even the merch sales were middling.
Across the table, Owen and his foul mouth are somehow not killing the conversation. There’s almost an entourage, tonight. Friends of friends, some guy guaranteed to hand Zach a demo before the end of the night, the sound tech from the venue. Jason’s staring into his drink. Perrin’s talking his third cousins or something, a couple of farm kids who came in from outside of town to see him play.
And Owen’s saying something mean to the kid from the college newspaper - the one who interviewed Zach beforehand and asked questions like So how’d you get discovered? because she evidently didn’t have the time to look them up on Wikipedia before she did the interview. Owen’s grilling her about her publication credits. Asking about literary influences. Her polisci classes. Favourite bands. Her answer: Modest Mouse’s last album, some political stuff. I’m really into spoken word. Zach can visualize Owen’s tongue: glued to the roof of his mouth as his lungs expand with molten vitriol, oh god. The girl’s wearing a hat with Che Guevara’s face on it.
Zach half-stands in his seat. “Excuse me, gotta pee.” There are a dozen people between him and either end of the curved bench, and the table is about mid-chest height.
Nick looks at him, “Crawl under it, little man.”
Zach laughs. He should crawl under it. Instead he starts crawling over people, makes everyone squish together and moan about the awkward, and in the process succeeds in getting Nick to start beatboxing Sexyback by singing the Timbaland parts and doing a shimmy while passing over his lap. Kristin joins in with the falsetto she’ll only do after half a bottle of red, and someone’s doing their best tuba accompaniment. Zach catches Owen’s eye as he’s going by - crotch, not ass - and says, “Can I track down that bellini for you, princess?”
“Fucking wheat ale,” Owen corrects. “I’ll come.”
They skip the bar when Owen shakes his head, and just head through the side exit into the elevator hall. “Pool’s through there,” Owen says, and puts his hands on Zach’s shoulders to half guide him, half lean on him. “Fuck, I hate this city.”
“No shit,” says Zach. “You know what that girl asked me before the show? Why I don’t sing all the songs on the album like I do in Cliquot.”
Owen guffaws into his ear, chin resting on Zach’s shoulder as they push through the glass doors into the shimmering blue. The pool deck is deserted. The only lights are below the water. “That’s like, the twenty-third time, dude. Including the time the internet said it.”
“Then she said, Is your sexuality a big part of your music?”
“In Alberta that means We’ll deal as long as you don’t start doing the pride thing. They hate the pride thing here. It offends their stoic sensibilities.”
There are wooden deck chairs, even though they’re inside and glass on the windows is frosty, the sky outside merely blackish with smog and reflected light. Owen rolls down into one and pulls Zach with him into the v of his legs. Owen leans back in the chaise, buries his eyes in the crook of his elbow. “Wait till we get to Sault Ste. Marie. It’ll be worse. Buttfuck Ontario.”
“The interviews or the crowds? God.” Zach stares at the blue pool and thinks that they’ll probably get kicked out soon. Then he can follow Owen to the hotel room and screw around and probably either fuck or fall asleep with the tv on. Either and both make him almost frighteningly happy - protective, too. Owen’s voice has that edge in it that means he’s teetering a bit. Drunk, and teetering. “You hate it a lot.”
“What? Alberta?” Owen doesn’t take his face out of his elbow, just speaks to the vault of the glass ceiling. “It’s the whole country. All of fucking Canada is just one giant stretched-out small town. You never wonder why I like Americans so much? For all the heartland bullshit at least you people are too selfish to care about anyone besides yourselves. Leave some breathing room. That’s a huge goddamn advantage in my eyes.”
Zach doesn’t respond. He just tucks his legs up and leans back against Owen’s chest and curls a hand around the spare wrist. Wonders if he’ll ever coax all of the ire out of these lungs. Unlikely. Owen’s palm is damp and he smells like beer and sweat and citrus. His voice is a caustic blur, and it echoes in splinters off the water.
“I stand around up here every day and everyone’s so freaking excited about the Polaris or whatever, but kids still get beat up in the same park. Same fucking school. It’s all the same. Someone’ll slash the tires on the tour bus or write another retarded review about us. It’s still junior high - the more I stand here the worse it’ll get for us.”
Zach isn’t dumb enough to question the leaps he can’t follow. He just murmurs in soothing sounds and strokes the back of Owen’s hand. Shifts to rest his cheek against the curve of his breastbone. Owen’s voice rattles through lungs and skin, “Don’t let them fucking tell you that you’ve come out. Don’t let them force you into it. Just step back.”
Zach shakes his head, not even thinking about it. Never been something he’s worried about. Instead he’s worried they’ll fall asleep like this and be hung over and aching for tomorrow’s drive through the mountains. If he’s going to be sore he at least wants the satisfaction of sex. But somewhere in his mind he can picture it, picture Owen and his towering brittle pride of self, the pain of that cracking over and over again through the years.
He’s falling asleep in the chair, the cool blue light. They both are. He gets them to the elevator. Their jackets and wallets are downstairs but Kristin or Nick or someone will pick them up. He has the keycard in his pants pocket, and though the process of getting Owen out of his pants leaves him half-hard, they fall asleep wearing their socks and t-shirts, curled like apostrophes under the sheets.