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It was late, past three in the morning, but that didn’t mean much to Kerry, who’d had three cups of coffee leading up to midnight when he would have sworn it was still only six. The past… shit, eight or so hours (apparently) had been spent in his studio plucking not only at the strings of his guitar, but the stubborn edges of a song that had been hovering in the periphery of his conscious mind for days now, driving him slowly mad(der). Like the song itself was playing just at the edge of hearing in another room and if he could just focus a little harder he'd finally be able to catch the melody.
In other words, it was a real pain in the ass.
Kerry had a stubborn streak a mile wide when the mood hit him though, and slowly but surely he’d been dragging the tune out of his head and into reality, hammering it into shape like a blacksmith with a bit of white-hot steel. Sprawled prone on his bed staring up at the ceiling, simultaneously wired and exhausted, the musician wondered if that was the origin of the word ‘songsmith’, and decided it must be. Where else would it come from? Why was he even asking himself this when he could just look it up?
He’d called it quits for the night, recognizing, after all these years, when he’d hit a wall on a project, but his thoughts were still churning like a sack full of pissed off cats and refused to let him sleep. Didn’t he have some thing tomorrow? Meeting with his new manager? Or was it something with the Us Cracks girls? He needed to sleep or he’d be a right bastard for whatever it was… If he could just get his brain to chill for five minutes together, maybe he could make that happen and save everyone some pain.
Half an hour later, Kerry thrashed irritably under the covers and threw one of his pillows across the room where it hit the window with a dull thump, and gave up. The musician rolled over and started to reach for the bottle of sleeping pills he’d been overusing lately, then stopped and reconsidered as an alternative occurred to him. Kerry glanced at the clock and grimaced at the time, neon numbers glowing sharp and unfriendly in the dark, like a physical threat (or at least an omen) of insomnia, then dropped back and made a phone call.
V answered almost immediately. “Kerry, what’s wrong?”
A smile curled the edges of Kerry’s lips at the sound of the other man’s voice. It was warm and rough as ever, melodious as gravel but sweet on the ears all the same.
God, he really was in deep, thinking sappy shit like that, huh?
“Kerry?” V pressed, concern beginning to creep in around the edges of his tone.
“Hey, V. Nothin’- I’m fine.”
A soft sigh from the other end of the line. “Sure ‘bout that? Even you don’t usually call at four am.”
Kerry grimaced again and rubbed his face fitfully with his hands before letting them drop back to his sides on the mattress. “Can’t sleep,” he groused, tone closer to a whine than he’d ever actually admit.
A bark of laughter escaped V and he asked, “And you thought I could help with that? Am I that boring, or are you just lookin’ for a lullaby? ‘Cuz that’s more your speed than mine, babe.”
Pointedly ignoring the way V’s casual use of ‘babe’ threatened to make his stomach flutter (he was an octogenarian, dammit, not a teenager ), Kerry quipped, “Just take the compliment, gonk. You’ve got a soothing voice is all; just wanted to hear it.”
There was a moment of silence, and then- “Well, shit. Went and got all romantic on me, what am I supposed to say to that?”
The musician could hear the smile in the other man’s voice, and he felt another of his own pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You’re full of it,” he scoffed playfully.
“Head full up thinkin’ ‘bout you,” V shot back in that low, earnest way he had that always left Kerry feeling a little breathless. He could just picture the way the merc would be looking at him right now if he was there laying beside him; brow furrowed, gaze direct and searching for some sign Kerry felt the same.
Jesus, what was he going to do with this kid? Decades he’d been longing for that kind of sweetness, that sort of honesty, no matter how much he’d told himself he didn’t deserve it; that no one like that would ever want to put up with a hot-tempered ass like him…
Shaken, Kerry took an unsteady breath and huffed a soft, helpless laugh. “Now who’s being romantic?”
“Hey, you started it.”
Desperate to change the subject before he could embarrass himself, Kerry asked, “I can’t sleep; why are you up? Aren’t you out with the Aldecados right now?”
“Was. Wanted to get a head start back to NC,” V explained.
“At four in the morning?”
The merc snorted. “Dunno if you knew, but it gets hot as fuck out on the highway at midday, even when you’re cruising at a cool one-twenty. Trying to beat the sun back home,” V explained.
“Trying to beat the sun back home… that’s a good line,” Kerry mused distractedly, words catching at his muse and driving him to roll over to the night stand again, sweeping aside his bottle of sleeping pills in favor of the notepad and pen he kept there. The musician hummed absently to himself as he wrote the words down, melody of the song he’d been fighting all day practically begging for the lyrics as he penned them.
“Shall I leave you alone, maestro?” V asked, amused by the musician’s distraction.
“Nah,” Kerry answered as he set the pad aside. “I’m good. You on your bike?” he asked and folded his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as he talked.
V hummed an affirmative. “Aldecados moved camp, fastest way there was off-road but the axel on my runner’s still fucked so I took a bike.” As an afterthought, the mercenary added, “Just you, me, and the highway, now.”
“Let me hear,” Kerry said. There was a moment of quiet from the other end as V changed his call settings from voice only to ambient, then the dull roar of his motorcycle’s engine suddenly cut in, accompanied by the howl of the wind as it whipped past.
“Still hear me?” V asked, voice a little muted now, but still audible, and the musician hummed, pleased.
If he closed his eyes and let the sound wash over him, he could just about feel the wind in his hair and the heat of V’s back against his chest as they rode through the night. “What’d the Aldecados need you for this time?” he asked.
“They had this job-” V began, but was cut off almost immediately.
“Wait, was Panam involved?” Kerry asked. He'd never met the woman, but he'd heard enough from V by this point to know she gave even his merc output a run for his eddies with the kind of trouble she could get into.
“Uh, yeah?” V answered, confused. “She’s the one that planned the job.”
The musician snorted. “Yeah I bet she did. Anything she’s involved in is way too exciting for a bed time story, gimme something else; you can tell me about the job when you get back.” V laughed, and Kerry pressed, “What’d you do before you left?”
The mercenary made a thoughtful noise as he thought, then finally answered, “Fixed a roller coaster.”
Kerry’s eyes shot open of their own accord. “What.”
“Yep.”
“Bullshit.”
V laughed again, his delight at flummoxing the musician practically radiating into Kerry through their connection. “It’s true. The one down at the GIM. Gave it a ride after and everything.”
Kerry squinted at the ceiling, debating the likelihood of this being a falsehood. On the one hand, the statement was a classic example of the absurd; on the other, V’s entire existence on this Earth seemed to be an exercise in absurdism by anyone else’s metric, so he could never tell with him.
Sensing his continued doubt, V cajoled him lightly, saying, “C’mon, when have I ever lied to you?”
Well, never, Kerry had to admit, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t exaggerate. “You’ve been known to embellish.”
“I just like to add a little flavor sometimes,” V objected, and Kerry could practically hear him grinning.
“Uh-huh. So, did you actually fix a roller coaster, or-”
“I did! I’ll take you when I get back if you want.”
Kerry chuckled and closed his eyes again, then rolled over onto his side. “Date to a death trap on the beach, huh?”
“Babe, first time we spent any real time together, you asked me to help you hold up a van at gun point then blow it up with a grenade.”
Grinning himself now, Kerry said, “Yeah, alright, that’s fair.”
“And the second time-”
“Alright, alright, you ain’t gotta remind me,” the musician groused, still smiling in spite of himself. “You’ll get me reminiscing about the fourth time,” he added as an afterthought, stomach tightening pleasantly at the memory of their inflammatory little foray on his ex-manager’s yacht. He’d had a lot of wild nights over the years, but that was one of the better ones, and he wouldn’t soon forget it.
“Good times,” V murmured, then- “So, you getting sleepy yet?”
“Just horny, mostly,” Kerry complained and the mercenary laughed.
“Alright, how about I tell you a story my grandma used to tell me as a kid on the road? Knocked me out every damn time; if that doesn’t do the trick, you’re beyond my help.”
“That boring, huh?”
“Only the most boring for you, babe.”
Restless, Kerry rolled onto his other side and fought his blankets to get comfortable for a moment, then replied, “Alright, hit me with it.”
It really was a boring story. Full to the brim of old world, biblical moralizing that made the brain want to shut down in self-defense, and combined with V’s soothing, familiar voice, Kerry's insomnia was no match.
“Ker?” V asked after a while, then smiled to himself when he didn’t get a response and squinted against the light of dawn as the sun slowly began to creep over the edge of the horizon. He reached into the front of his jacket, wind whipping through his short-cropped hair, then pulled out his aviators and slid them into place. “Sweet dreams, babe; see you soon.”