Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Life is hard. Making music that doesn't suck is harder.
A/N: Melodramatic musical teen angst circa 2009.
I.
"I Don't Know How To Make 'You Were Never The Baby Jesus' Clearer."
2007
So.
Shane wants off the vacuous, soul-crashing, celebrity idol express and goes on a twenty-five minute rant about total idiots worshipping famous people instead of focusing on their own goddamned lives, pulls a class four freak out on some poor dude from Gawker who's just trying to ask him a question about his hair gel. There's hand gestures, frustrated, disappointed-in-humanity-headshakes\condescending eye rolls, and a string of dense, compelling ideas that have at least one member of the press furiously googling every sixth word that comes out of his mouth. TMZ has the event, which takes place outside of Forgotten Vinyl on eighty-second, on its site within the hour and it only takes Pitchfork half that time to write their Kid Rocker Gets Fussy, May Need Nap article suggesting Connect Three think about hiring a new front man. Public opinion sways from "that dude is the truth!' to "this basic privileged ass," to people on the edge of their seats about that hair gel inquiry and kinda pissed that the scandal is robbing them of this information. (Any real fan would know it's Fury by Jacob Tanner, but he's been favoring Blue Thunder and Chaos Theory for the past couple of weeks so maybe he was gonna make a statement about his new favorite before he decided to unleash the weirdness.)
In real time private meetings are held, sponsors are pacified, and Julian Gray father of three and CEO of Gray Studios makes four discreet phone calls from his private line just before finishing up his last game of Squash, in which he humiliates John Forbes so badly the former regrets having gotten out of bed that morning. Mothers of teenage girls are (understandably) upset, that young man is just so angry, there's no reason he can't make his point politely. For those parents for whom Connect Three poses a direct threat to the safety of their children and ultimately, the fabric of America this event is unquestionably a victory. When they aren't publishing studies showing a pronounced causal relationship between the release of a Connect Three album and spikes in teenage pregnancies, or holding demonstrations in front of the House of Mouse(even though the Connect Three TV show only lasts three weeks, and airs two and a half years ago-it still poses a major threat to the mental and emotional welfare of all the impressionable children unfortunate enough to see it) the Mothers Against Impropriety League are sending emails and speaking at high schools across the country warning young people about the danger inherent in choosing reckless, unhygienic, and hormonal singing lotharios with no palpable sense of decency as "role models".
They have pancake brunch fundraisers and organize boycotts and sit-ins in record stores. They go on national tours and even receive federal grant money by listing their organization as a "non profit". (When they come to the Malibu Hilton, it's Shane's idea to don their "old man" disguises- silver beards, aviator sunglasses, fishing\trucker hats-sit in the back of the ballroom and yell random questions in their crotchety old dude voices.)
The MAIL's comments on TMZ.com are an amalgamation of "finally the truth!" and the "thanks for proving our point." fruit basket with Shane's name on the card is waiting in the foyer when he gets home. (Jason gets home a half an hour before exhausted from correcting ten year old's backswings, sits on the carpet and eats half the contents of the basket while praising the snack gods for answering his humble prayers.) By the time Jason is making fairly realistic cooing sounds through the bars of Iago's cage the video hits the five o clock Beverly Hills news cycle on what is apparently the slowest news day in the history of time. Shane is literally begging people to get lives that don't involve being obsessed with his, preaching about worshipping anyone 'cause they're on TV. His ideas are articulated so carefully that people that don't know him personally think he's rehearsed it, the impassioned pleas are spoken as if they're being heard by one definitive higher power capable of rectifying this gross injustice.
Performance wise, Nate gives it a four.
He steals the "this culture is a myth" line from Goethe and the whole "dudes, I'm being so earnest right now it actually hurts" routine is a waste of oxygen that could go to someone with actual talent. When he's done (Nate likes the part where he's breathing heavily as if he's exerted effort) looking happier than he has in the last two years, he smiles, bows and walks out of the frame.
Its maybe the fourth time Shane's looked at society and felt the need to inform the public of his dissatisfaction with it.
Nate's thumbing through Siddhartha sort of reading but mostly thinking about lines from Shane's speech he can quote to annoy him when Shane walks through his own room (on the walls of which Jason has painted murals of Wolverine and Goethe and Bruce Lee) to stand in the doorway of Nate's room.
Typically, a Shane entrance consists of tackling\prolonged head lock or the singing-in a screechy falsetto-of any number of songs that make Nate want to rip his own ears off (he's been favoring Party in the USA recently and Nate's seriously considering moving to the attic) or any variation of "Dude! Stop watching\writing\directing porn in here!" shouted so loudly the mailman two streets away has to tell himself to mind his own business. Sometimes it's just about running in tossing Jason's tarantula on his bed and running away, or throwing in a handful of firecrackers at five a.m. or this one time Shane spends the whole afternoon at the petting zoo and Nate wakes up to find a baby goat chewing on his copy of Fellowship Of the Ring.
So when there isn't even a thoughtful "If mom and dad had just achieved perfection why did they have you?" it feels off.
Shane leans on the door frame and says "give me your keys" and the note in his voice makes Nate look up and it's worse than anything he'd been thinking prior to glancing away from Siddhartha's turmoil.
The fifteenth birthday present that's been driven three times in the last year is sitting in the garage between Jason's beat up Mustang and the silver Porsche Shane isn't allowed to drive for x amount of weeks because of something that happens at a party in Silver Lake. They keys are on his desk, under ancient copies of Radar and a small population of brightly colored picks and they feel cold and new in Nate's hands. He throws them underhand just to be a dick but because genetics and three weeks of little league Shane catches them anyway. He nods his thanks but his face is closed.
He opens his mouth again and his voice is a study in the narrow points-doubt and suffocation, being owned and wriggling free and fundamental chords snapping and Nate feels the depth of it, constantly living in manageable chunks they carry around. Every once and a while the thing itself outlives Shane's ability to stand it.
His hands are in the pockets of his jeans now, Converses scuffing Nate's floor. Restless, wary. He tosses his head toward the laptop on the floor.
"You think my memoir could come out while I'm still alive?"
How To Outshine Your Annoying, Try-Hard Band Mates And Become the Amazing Guitarist You Really Are (working title) is a sprawling, four hundred page epic spanning a sixteen year old life Nate gets paid twenty-five dollars an hour to edit. He stops halfway through the first paragraph which bears an incredible resemblance to the Nativity Story.
"No."
"Also, your notes are vague."
Nate runs a hand through his Fangorn Forest of a curl situation. "I don't know how to make "you were never the baby Jesus" clearer."
Shane nods, in a rare occurrence of conceit, scuffs his shoes, looks at Nate who thinks he sees his brother's face opening like the brief glimpses of sky through clouds, but later realizes he imagines it.
Later, Shane will tell them about being hauled into their father's office, the meeting about damage control and press direction and "image-destroying" stunts. They'll sit in Jason's room with Ween blasting from the speaker and Iago quite unwilling to shut up for a minute-while he'll tell them about "injuring the band" and their father's face and Danny pleading, pleading with him to hire another agent to handle all the pr bullshit so that Shane, all of them can just focus on the music. They'll sit on the floor, Shane rolling a joint (a skill he cultivates all summer and perfects two weeks into the school year) and he'll be cool about it, removed, he'll give everyone funny voices and mock the shit out of Danny 'cause he practically begs you to and he'll laugh and Jace will join in and the whole time Nate will see Shane in his room, glancing up, scuffing his shoes, looking as lost as they feel. He's confident and vicious and when he takes a hit he does it by the window all focus and control. Jason passes and Nate still remembers the first time, in the empty field after mass when the sky explodes and he feels sick dread in his stomach and Shane just rolls his eyes at them like they're children. Faces the window and puffs into the night.
But now as he's backing out the door jingling his keys he moves in unsteady lines, like he's forgotten the laws of momentum. The dark ends of the afternoon float through Nate's windows darkening the hall, and Shane's form disappears.
(He will be hit with the same feeling three years later upon receiving a two a.m. text from Kingstown.)
∞