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!”

 

[Harpsicore]

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.

 

[Harpsicore]

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.”

 

[Harpsicore]

Freyja tried to keep her smile a soft glow rather than the beaming that she felt inside. Spork’s compliment meant the world to her, as typically twisted as it was. Most of their sentences were that way, starting in one direction and rambling their way off the path until they faced another direction entirely.

Yet for all of Spork’s emphatic gesticulation and threats of sexual conquest violence against her detractors, it was Mari’s comment that rang true with her, that let Freyja push away the thoughts of the texts and missed calls that were currently piling up on her phone and just focus on the high that she was determined to ride out as long as possible.

Then Spork leaned forward, fingers lingering on their exposed skin and Freyja was suddenly quite aware of how hot and sweaty they both were, trailing eyes unable to avoid noticing the trickle of water down-

“Down, boy.”

Mari called from her spot on the couch, pulling herself to her feet just to come and lean against Spork.

“There’s plenty of groupies practically throwing themselves at security in case you still have some energy left to burn off.”

She shot Freyja a lazy wink that only sent heat higher in her cheeks. Mari pushed off of Spork, casually strolling over to the snack table that had been set out.

“Catch.”

She deadpanned, chucking a pack of Twinkies in Spork’s general direction even as she tossed another in Freyja’s. Her stomach growled in appreciation and Freyja glanced around, hoping neither of them noticed even as she tore into the plastic packaging.

“If you do go that route, however,”

Mari continued, forgoing the Twinkies in favor of an absolutely horrid slab of brown goo that could barely call itself a brownie, let alone anywhere in the vein of being ‘Cosmic’.

“You’ll miss Freyja and I heading out to the bar. I know you wanna see what freaks Pittsburgh has in its bars on a Tuesday evening.”

“Wait, what?”

Freyja perked up at that.

“We’re going out?”

“Of course we’re going out.”

Mari replied nonchalantly, digging in the fridge and emerging with a can of what Freyja only knew was coffee because Spork had made her go over the rider with the provided snacks (

“If there's anything but brown M&Ms, I’m fucking the guy in charge’s wife”

).

“We have to celebrate the incredible success of our new vocalist and the overwhelming success of her first show.”

Mari raised the can in a mock toast before tilting it back, draining at least half of it in one go. Freyja grimaced, the thought of drinking straight black coffee distracting her from being embarrassed at the praise.

“First round’s on me.”

 

[Katpride]

Spork pouts, but relents, rolling their eyes behind their shades as they set their hands on their knees and push back against the (admittedly minimal) weight of their best friend as she drapes herself across their back.

“Bet?” they challenge brightly, cheered immediately by the suggestion. Mari rolls off of them, and they plop down on the couch next to Freyja, slinging their arms across the backrest in a casual sprawl.

Something light and crinkly hits them in the left tit, and they frown at the offending object, making no move to catch it. It’s only once they hear Freyja munching on her own Twinkie that they realize what it was that Mari had thrown at them, plucking it out of their lap and tearing into it with great enthusiasm.

“You’re going out???” they yell through a mouthful of fluff, unintentionally contributing to a weird, muffled stereo when Freyja says almost the same thing at the exact same time. Struggling valiantly not to choke, they point at the woman in question. “Jinx, you owe me a drink.”

Then they actually chew and swallow their snack, popping up off the couch to grab another water from the fridge. Washing down the last of the sticky mess and coughing a few times to clear the remaining crumbs from their airway, they cast about until they find Mari, catching her by the shoulders and wrapping their arms around her from behind. “Oh, Mari, you’re too sweet. Too kind. Too good for this world.”

“I’m putting all of our rounds on you. No take-backsies.”

 

[Katpride]

Tinned music poured from the bar’s speakers, the sound so muddled by the patrons’ overlapping conversations it was only just barely coherent enough to be called such. Valerie did not bother to contribute to the noise, having brushed off the attentions of each of the men and women that had attempted to approach her. There was a reason she had chosen the end of the bar for her seat, and it was not some foolish notion of being ‘picked up’ by a man with more stench than sense.

Aside from the occasional dismissal, the only sound she made was that of her perfectly manicured nails tapping a slow, measured beat on the side of her glass. Occasionally, she would pause, curl her fingers around its crystal sides, and lift it to her lips, savoring the smooth sharpness that danced along her tongue. Mostly, though, she sat. She sat and she waited, one stiletto hooked over the rung of her chair and the other tracing lazy circles in the air just above it as she watched her partner from across the bar.

Freyja had arrived well before she did, and it would’ve been gauche to approach her while she was in conversation with the two talentless imbeciles she insisted on calling her new bandmates. Fortunately, Valerie Hellström was a very patient woman, and she did not mind partaking in a drink or two while waiting for her lover to catch her eye. Neither could she regret the time that she had taken between leaving the ‘show’ and journeying here; it had been sorely needed, if only for her to recover from the senseless drivel that the ‘GayNines’ slapped together and called music.

She had stayed and suffered through the entire concert, of course. It was her partner’s grand debut - it would have reflected poorly on the lead singer/songwriter of The Valkyries if she had skipped it, or, worse, left early. Freyja’s instrumentals gave her something to look forward to, at least, and it had been… enlightening to see her take the lead on vocals. She had always been too timid to do so in their own band, but up there on that stage she had stepped forward and oh, how she shone. Even through the trainwreck that was Fuchs’ and Ito’s backup, she had been radiant, pulling a passable show from the wreckage through her will alone.

That was the girl that Valerie had taken under her wing so many years ago. That was the second-in-command of The Valkyries. Her partner. Freyja Solheim, all grown up.

It was time for Valerie to put an end to this little diversion.

 

[Harpsicore]

Loud music fell from the speakers, wrapping around the patrons and blending with their voices to create something unique that settled comfortably in Freyja’s bones. It wasn’t unlike being at a live show with incredibly shitty speakers, the performance failing to rise above the crowd as intended and instead wading through it, music and man mingling and merging.

She’d been worried that Mari would pick out some fancy place, a high-class bar that served champagne, where she would stick out like a sore thumb. Fortunately, she’d underestimated her bandmate (the word still elicited a giddy response in her core that Freyja wasn’t sure she’d ever shake).

The air smelled of sweat and spilled beer, the music kept every conversation private by way of requiring near-shouting to be heard, and almost every patron was showing skin in some way, exposing tattoos and scars, amongst some other things. Her gaze had wandered a bit, and more than a few times she brought her attention back to her side to find Mari glancing at her amusedly, only to look away with a smirk and a sip once Freyja caught her eye.

Luckily, her blush was hidden by the heat of the room.

Mari had definitely betrayed her by informing Spork, however, considering the way they kept looking in her direction and waggling their eyebrows. Freyja just brushed them off, doing her best to ignore the downright salacious looks they were giving her. Perhaps it was just the alcohol, but she didn’t mind their advances that much, and she could have sworn she caught Mari’s gaze wandering as well. Freyja would have been lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying the attention from the two of them, especially as the heat of the alcohol continued its life’s work of eating away at her inhibitions.

Then someone caught her eye at the other end of the bar, and every drop of warmth left her body, replaced by a chill that gnawed on her bones.

Her auburn hair was thrown casually over her shoulder, freshly-manicured nails clutching a far-too-nice glass whose contents were undoubtedly top shelf. Dark lipstick and clothing, matching the dark coils of ink that wrapped around her arms and down her legs, contrasted with her pale skin, all working in concert to make the chips of ice that rested within her sockets all the more striking. Those eyes had always been a weakness of hers, and even now as Freyja met her gaze, those eyes pierced through the fog of alcohol and flirtation, cutting right to the core of her being.

Valerie Hellström flashed a lazy smile at Freyja, wiggling her fingers in greeting before returning them to her drink. Her gaze lingered on Freyja for a few moments more before deliberately sliding off, to better and more interesting things in the bar.

The cold had finished eroding her insides and had instead settled into her stomach, a frigid steel ball that flooded her veins with frost. She pushed her glass back, the thought of the sweet liquor inside sending a twinge of nausea through her.

“Hey Spork,”

she called, scooting her stool out from the bar.

“Going to the bathroom, watch my drink for me? No, I don’t need help.”

Freyja cut off their anticipated joke with a slightly forced laugh and set off towards the end of the bar. Her steps were slightly unsteady, but that had nothing to do with the alcohol. The texts and missed calls, the show, the tour. It wasn’t a coincidence.

“What are you doing here, Vee?”

Freyja asked, the nickname coming easily, too easily for how much Freyja had tried to put it out of her mind.

“We both know a place like this is beneath you.”

You’re too pretty for this place, she wanted to say, something in her chest stirring beneath the snow. Valerie always knew how to dress to best accentuate herself, even if she didn’t have quite the same assets Freyja did. She already felt her gaze being dragged along, following the lines of Valerie’s tattoos as they traveled across her skin.

“So why are you here, Val?”

Freyja brought her gaze back up, attempting to inject steel into her voice but ending up with gallium instead.

“I doubt you just wanted a drink.”