fandomhighdorms | The Roof, Thursday Night

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The Roof, Thursday Night

Jono had gone out today and he'd spent money.

A stupid, ridiculous amount of money the likes of which he'd never spend again, but he had needed those extra clothes, and the rest was all about sanity.

Yes, the shiny brand-new candy-apple red Fender Strat that he was practically hugging off to the side of the roof where he'd actually managed to find an outlet for his amp. That was all about sanity.

So was taking it outside. Because he figured that people in the dorms would probably like to sleep as he tried to muddle out the chords for a few songs he'd been working on months and months back, before he... you know. Blew up.

They were very mid-90's grunge.

[Oh, the roof is so very open.]

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//It's worth it, for music.// He watched her hand carefully, curling his fingers slightly at the touch. //It's another voice, now. It was before I even needed another voice. It stops hurting, if yer use it enough.//

Edited 2009-09-11 15:27 (UTC)

Didi nodded slowly as she brought her fingers back to the fretboard. A lot of things were like that. "So what you're saying is that I need to practice?" she asked.

She wondered if his other voice had sounded like he did in her head. Probably.

It had. Except it had been there, real and tangible and warmer, at the time, before he'd become afraid and angry at everything.

//Yer need to practise,// he agreed, and then gently rearranged her fingers. A G chord, now. //Of course, there are instruments that won't tear yer fingers all to shite, too. Percussion, wind. They serve as nice accompaniment to a guitar, too.//

The Gs were easier than the As or Ds had been, and she was quickly picking them out, varying the rhythm to make a simple sort of tune. "But I like guitar," she said reasonably. "It's like you can carry a band around with you. Lyre's the same way."

//Now, there's an instrument I can honestly say I've got no experience with,// Jono mused, listening to her makeshift little tune with no small amount of interest.

He was committing it to memory, yes.

//Yer play the lyre, do yer?//

"Me? No," Didi said, and the little tune shifted to G-A-D, G-A-D ... over and over again.

"I had a nephew who did."

Jono nodded a little, his own hands resting on her wrists while he let her play the simple little tune.

//Stands to reason,// he settled on. //I mean, that it'd be somebody yer knew.//

It seemed cleaner than asking how family worked, if you were Death.

"I know a lot of people," Didi answered. G-A-D, G-A-D, G-A-stumble, clang, G...

Somehow it made her want to keep talking. "But yeah, the lyre was Orpheus' thing. He was my younger brother's son." A couple more A-D-Gs, then -- "Do you really want to hear about my family?"

//If yer wouldn't mind explaining,// Jono decided. He was curious. He couldn't deny for an instant that he was. //I'd be all ears, luv.//

"Seven of us," Didi said, slowing her strumming to a slow, chiming A-A-A. "I'm second. Destiny is first. Then Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium." She paused to give him a wry look. "D's a thing. I don't know."

//It's alliterative.// Jono gave her another smile, and then shrugged his shoulders faintly. //At least it isn't X.//

Hey, letters were totally a thing.

//Is it the same for all of yer, then? A day a century?//

[Ahaha... Hitting send helps.]

Didi shook her head. "Nope. I'm special," she said ruefully. "The idea is that I have to know what mortality feels like." She played a fidgety little melody. "After two weeks, I feel like a day is not nearly enough time, but that's what it was. The others ... some of them spend a lot of time around people. Some of them don't."

//Life isn't ... really made to be long,// Jono noted. //But a single day is hardly enough to appreciate it for what it is before it's taken away. Mortality is just as much about the journey to get there, I think.//

He hesitated for a moment, and then he slipped his hand over hers, gently moving to guide her fingers back to G.

//You can't... plan for tomorrow, or think back on yesterday, if yer know stepping into it that yer haven't got one or the other.//

"Yeah," Didi said, letting him move her hand. She was thinking. "But ... if you're going to exist for billions and billions of years, a whole human lifetime still isn't very much. One day or eighty years is about the same."

"The weird thing is, it's all a lifetime. That's what everyone gets."

The G chord achieved, he moved her hand to D. And then to G again. The opening chords for In My Life. It was simple, but it was there.

//One life apiece,// he agreed. //I suppose any one of us might argue that it isn't long enough, no matter how long. That'd be part of mortality, too.//

"... places I'll re-remember," Didi half-sang, half-mumbled, as she tried to get through those first few chords. She failed, tried again, and got it right this time before glancing up. Her singing voice was, while not painful, absolutely nothing special; it carried a tune, that was all.

"It would, yeah," she agreed. "Sometimes the oldest ones are the ones that get the most upset they're at the end. Most to lose, I guess." She played the chord structure again. "What's your family like?"

Edited 2009-09-11 19:52 (UTC)

//Mortal,// Jono replied, almost dismissively. //Gone.//

He worked her hand through more positions along the neck, through the E-minor and a C somewhere down the line. He used his own hand for the F, because it was the hardest note to play for not-yet-calloused fingers.

//The sort of family I had is the sort yer don't really talk about anyhow, luv.//

She was no superstar, no, but he liked to hear her sing. They could get back to that, maybe.

Didi winced. "Sorry," she said, and fumbled over the notes again. (And not just because they hurt.) She wasn't singing again yet, just tracing the chords.

//Don't be.// Jono's fingers found hers for a moment, and then moved past them, forming another few new notes with his fingertips. //That's the other end of living, yer ought to know that well enough. And I was never particularly close to them in the first place.//

The Starsmore family had kind of lapsed in the way of family ties, some time ago. Life went on.

"Yeah, I know it happens," Didi said, thumbing out a repetitive chord sequence. "It's still hard to be left behind." G-D-A-G-D-A...

Jono settled for sitting there without speaking for a moment, just thinking that over, getting lost in the sound of his guitar and the warmth of her arms under his hands. And then he found words again.

//I suppose that's just some people's lot in life, luv. For what it's worth, I'm still mostly here.//

"Three-quarters of the way?" she checked, smiling at him even though it really wasn't funny. She settled against him more firmly. "Well. I like having most of you here."

So there.

... Actually, three-quarters was about accurate. Jono didn't mention that part.

//Well the most-of-me that's here doesn't seem to have any complaints with the all-of-yer that's keeping me company right now, either.//

Didi had a pretty good idea that it wasn't too far wrong. She didn't mention it either.

"Was that you being all sweet?" she teased. "I'm impressed."

Jono blinked at that, as though the thought of him being sweet hadn't occurred to him at all until she'd pointed it out, and now he was trying to figure out what to do with that particular revelation.

//I can't have yer sayin' nasty things about me like that, can I?// Sweet? Him? Slander! He gave her a playful sort of poke in the ribs. //Am I going to have to watch my words from here on in? Yer might mistake me for somebody with a heart.//

No, Jono, if you sounded any more like a silly teenage boy, that would be where people start to mistake you for a guy with a heart.

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living_endless - 2009-09-12 01:57 (UTC) - Expand

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