RP gaynines: flame & fortune

[Katpride]

With one final slam, the last percussive beats of ‘Nine Tails Inc.’ fade out, ceding to the thrumming bassline and melodic guitar as Freyja feeds the ravenous crowd the last chorus they’ll be getting this evening.

Grinning, Spork Fuchs sits back on their stool, taking a moment to rake their sweaty hair out of their face. Then, holding their drumsticks tightly in one hand, they lean forward, grabbing the mic that had been waiting oh-so-patiently at their feet.

The chorus fades out, a breath of suspense lingering after the last notes.

They flick the mic on, feeling the heat of a spotlight capture them in the same moment as they point at the crowd with their sticks. “Thank you, Pittsburgh!!”

The applause is deafening, but they only grin and raise their hand in a cheery wave, waiting for the wall of sound to die down a bit before continuing. “That’ll be all for tonight! Now, y’all know the drill, so say it with me: Show’s over! Get your freaks home or get your freak on!!”

They’re pleased to hear most of the crowd repeating their outro, nodding approvingly at the slightly delayed echo even as they bring the mic a little closer to their lips. “No, seriously. Get going or they’re gonna cut the-”

Right on cue, the oppressive heat of the lights shuts off, and Spork smirks, flicking the switch to turn off their mic. Leaving it on the floor where they’d found it, they stand and jog offstage, joining their bandmates in the wings.

Of course, because Mari is Mari, she isn’t waiting for them when they get there. They pout a little at this revelation, but roll their eyes and go through the process of trading their drumsticks for their cane before taking off for the green room in a dead sprint.

A few hallways later, they burst through the door and throw themself at the nearest warm body, a wordless battle cry tearing past their lips as they wrap their arms around the woman’s waist and attempt to lift her off the ground.

“You left me!” they accuse, easily hoisting the slim form of their best friend and throwing her over their shoulder. “How dare you! I expected this from you, Mari,” saying this, they slap an arm around the woman’s thighs, then twist sharply and take a few steps so that she dangles behind them like a particularly unwieldy cape, “but you, Freyja? On our first official show? S-M-H. What’s even the point if I don’t get to tackle you into at least one piece of stupid expensive equipment? We had an agreement, hot stuff. An agreement!”

 

[HighVoltage]

The show had gone off without a hitch. This wasn’t a surprise to her, of course. Mari had spent most of the sound check going over various cues with the stage techs, including hammering home the importance of getting Spork’s show-closer right. She told them it was the only way to end their shows, that they’d been doing it forever, that it was basically a ritual at this point.

While that was true, it was mainly because Spork would spend the rest of the night pouting if they didn’t get to make their ‘get your freaks home’ joke just right.

So, as she launched into the growling bassline that signaled the start of ‘Nine Tails Inc.’ and her hand slid from the fretboard to slash her thumb across her throat, Mari’s eyes drifted over the crowd and locked onto the lighting tech. The girl looked frightened, but gave her a shaky thumbs-up. Good. Now she could focus on more important things, like letting her fingers run along the strings of her bass and letting her eyes run along the figure of their new singer/guitarist.

It helped that she was wearing a muscle-tank that exposed plenty of her side and a pair of quite well-fitting jeans. It certainly contrasted with the offense on the eyes that was Spork’s bumblebee outfit: a black tank top with yellow pants, slits running up the front of each leg to the hip. She looked downright normal by comparison in slacks and a burnt-orange sleeveless button-up, a few of the buttons opened to expose her collarbone.

Her tie had long ago been thrown into the crowd, another consistent part of their shows. Spork made a show of grabbing it and pulling her close until she could feel their breath against her lips, then they’d flash a smirk and hook a finger in her tie, loosening it and flinging it into the crowd before popping some of her buttons open and sending her off with a swat on the ass. The crowd ate it up every time. Mari had to start buying ties in bulk from Costco.

Freyja certainly wasn’t holding back musically, adding more of a growl to the lyrics than Mari ever could, switching back to a smooth, warm tone when it suited the song best. She’d been an excellent addition, and Mari and Spork had hoped that closing with one of their regular songs from their first album, ‘gaynines 2.0’ would help to silence the small but vocal subset of their fans that insisted Freyja’s addition was a detriment to the band.

Mari hoped they were too busy scraping their jaws off the floor to continue with comments like those.

Spork let out one more crash on the drums and Mari moved closer to Freyja, bumping against her to signal that it was almost time to bounce. They leaned on each other, stretching out the last few notes on their respective instruments as Spork shouted out on the mic. With a few quick bows and a couple of picks flung into the audience, she and Freyja stepped off the stage, handing their instruments off to the waiting stage tech.

“C’mon,” Mari jerked her head down the hall, signalling for Freyja to follow her. “I need some water. It’s fucking hot up there.” She ignored Freyja’s confused protests about waiting for Spork and instead led her down a few hallways until she pushed open the door to the green room. Mari loosed a few more buttons, thankful for the air conditioning as she tossed a bottle of water in Freyja’s direction before grabbing a couple more, tucking one under her arm while cracking the other open and draining it.

Just as Mari tossed the empty bottle in the vague direction of the recycling bin, the door flung open and hell broke loose. Mari’s world rapidly shifted to horizontal before flipping to upside-down. Her best friend ranted about the sheer betrayal of the two of them leaving Spork behind, and while Freyja floundered at their mock anger, Mari was busy plotting a true betrayal; taking the ice-cold water bottle that was tucked under her arm, yanking up the edge of Spork’s shirt, and pressing it directly to the small of their back.

The ensuing yelp was worth being dumped onto the couch like a sack of potatoes. Mari chuckled evilly and let a lazy smirk crawl along her face.

“If we hadn’t tragically left you behind, how would you have gotten your running practice in?” Mari turned her attention to Freyja. “Great first gig by the way. Pretty sure you had them eating out of the palm of your hand.” She’d seen the way people had reacted to some of Freyja’s growls and shrieks as she took the band’s new and old material both and made them her own.

Mari was confident they’d made the right decision bringing her into the fold.

 

[HighVoltage]

The butterflies had been in Freyja’s stomach the whole day leading up to the show. If she was being honest, they’d been there for at least a few days, since they’d driven down to Pittsburgh and begun setting up for the show. If she decided to be truly open with herself, she could admit that they had been there for the past few weeks, ever since the announcement of the ‘Flame & Fortune’ tour, her first official tour with gaynines, as the new guitarist and lead vocalist.

And if she decided to stop lying to herself, Freyja would know that she’d been nervous ever since the album came out.

And how could she not be? gaynines wasn’t exactly a household name, but they were certainly more notable than the previous band she’d been in. It’d been hard to avoid the commentary online, speculating whether she deserved to be in the band at all, but Spork and Mari had done their best to reassure her that she was the perfect fit.

After that, everything had faded into the blur of writing, rewriting, and figuring out instrumentation. She’d been hesitant at first, but after Spork called her out for ‘holding out on them’, when they’d walked in on her idly plucking out a tune on the guitar, Freyja had grown more confident in her ideas and contributions. Soon enough they’d made it to the studio, and Freyja finally felt like she’d found her niche.

Now she was on-stage, seemingly drenched in sweat, heart hammering in her chest and adrenaline singing through her veins as, with one last flick of her wrist, the last note of the last song of her first show rang out over the crowd. A show where she’d contributed to at least half the setlist, sang almost all of it, and the crowd had loved it.

Freyja couldn’t help but let out a whoop once she and Mari were finally in the green room, still high on the rush of performing. She’d done it, she’d actually fucking done it! She handily caught the water bottle Mari threw her way, opening it and drinking about half before dumping the rest on her head. The cold shock went a long way to rebooting her thoughts, and the banshee shriek of Spork Fuchs on a mission was enough to see that cycle through.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to wait for you.” Freyja put her hands up in surrender, empty water bottle still clutched in one of them as beads of water dripped from her hair onto the floor below. “Mari told me to follow, and I did. I don’t know what you guys do after shows. You can tackle me into something now, I guess?”

The stammering in her voice trailed off as she realized that, as with most things, Spork wasn’t being serious. Well, maybe about the tackling, but that was honestly a coin toss. The attention was quickly taken off of her as Mari attacked Spork with a cold water bottle and Freyja took the opportunity to flop onto the couch and watch her two bandmates in quiet amusement.

The amusement turned sour in her mouth as her phone buzzed nearby. She didn’t bother looking at the text, just turned her phone off. Freyja knew who sent it, had a decent idea what it said, and didn’t want to deal with her tonight. She’d seen the shock of fiery red hair towards the back edge of the crowd, tried not to see the predatory grin that had split her face when she felt Freyja’s gaze sweep over her. She’d said she’d be there, Freyja didn’t know why she’d expected anything less.

Mari’s voice shocked her out of her thoughts and she shot an appreciative smile at her.

“You think so? I feel like I was a little shaky on ‘Spades’, felt like I had to cough halfway through it. And I wasn’t quite sure if I took the high note in ‘9 Lives’ too far or not, and I think I was a bit too loud for the backup on ‘Diamonds’ but, uh...” Freyja trailed off, realizing she was rambling.

“Thank you.” Another grin, this time more sheepish than anything, accompanied by a nervous chuckle. “I think it was a pretty good first show.”

 

[Katpride]

“I should’ve known Mari would corrupt you eventually.” Spork shakes their head sadly. “Those damn feminine wHYGH!”

Something ice cold presses against the small of their back, and they flinch, ineffectively trying to squirm away from the assault. When this doesn’t work, they relent and release their captive, bending down to set her most of the way on her feet before pushing her in the general direction of the couch.

“Bitch.” Finally free, they wipe condensation off their back and tuck their shirt back in, making a face at their treacherous best friend. Predictably, her only response is to throw the water bottle at them. It hits them in the chest, and they fumble to catch it, playing a mini game of hot-potato before finally managing to snatch it up and twist the cap off.

Flipping her off, they raise the bottle to their lips and chug a good portion of it, surfacing with a gasp and dumping the remainder over their head. Cool water trickles through their hair, clumps of yellow wilting down over their shades and under the back of their shirt.

After taking a moment to relish in it, they shake their head, reestablishing the spikes in their hair and flinging excess moisture every which way. The emptied bottle gets tossed over their shoulder, clattering somewhere behind them.

“Are you kidding? That was fucking awesome! And you,” they point at Freyja, “were perfect. Seriously, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Or, actually, do, and then tell me so I know who to annihilate.”

After a moment, they belatedly add, “in a fight. Ahem. This time.”

They put their hands on their hips, drumming their fingers along the skin revealed by the high slits of their pants, and grin, leaning towards her without moving their feet. “Unless you’d prefer it the other way around, of course.”