Work Text:
“You go down just like hohee marhee.”
In the dim lighting of his bedroom, Gary was staring into the small mirror that he had on his small desk, slightly frayed makeup brush in hand as he carefully brushed on some stark black paint. His face was twisted slightly in an attempt to paint on the correct shape, and it caused the lyrics he was softly singing to become wonky. More cheap makeup supplies were scattered across the already messy and cluttered desk, the wood housing deep stains, old and new, from previous makeup adventures. Some of these Gary had bought with the little amount of money he owned himself, others had been stolen from his mother’s room, and naturally Gary hadn’t really tried to hide the evidence of this; his mum would wake up in the morning to find her makeup bags open and dumped lazily onto her chest of draws, but Gary reckoned that she would probably be too hungover to care by that point.
A knock on the door jolted Gary out of his concentration and caused the line he was dragging across his cheek to jolt out of place. He spat out a swear before swapping his brush for a wet wipe.
“What?” He turned his head towards the bedroom door as he was scrubbing at the skewed paint on his face.
“Alright I finished tidying up the living room and I brought-“ Andy came in, using his back to open the door as he was carrying a mug of tea in each hand and a few packets of various snacks under his arms. Once he was facing Gary however, his sentence was cut short by the harsh black and white face paint that covered Gary’s face.
“Gary.”
“Andy.”
They stared at each other for a second.
“What on earth have you done to your fucking face?” Andy asked after a pause, frowning. He had stopped in the doorway out of pure bewilderment.
“Have you never seen anyone paint their face before?” Gary replied in a snarky tone, turning back to the mirror and continuing to scrub.
“Well duh obviously,” Andy said, rolling his eyes and finally moving from the spot in the doorway. He walked over to the desk and placed the mugs down before dumping the snacks on Gary’s bed in the corner of the room. As he placed things down he continued, “This just wasn’t what I was expecting to walk into, especially as it’s so…” Andy trailed off, and the pair looked at each other as Andy pulled a face. He paused, trying to find the right word, and when his brain couldn’t, he just gestured in a circular motion with an open hand at Gary’s face, his palm angled at Gary’s head like he was going to grab it.
“So what?”
“So… just… this.” The two stared at each other for a second before they both cracked a mild laugh.
“Yeah I know, it’s come out shit,” Gary sighed, smile fading as he looked disappointedly at himself in the mirror.
“Oh it’s supposed to be something?” Andy said in an over-exaggerated tone, raising his eyebrows and leaning forward so that he could also look into the mirror over Gary’s shoulder.
“Yeah it’s supposed to be like this dude,” Gary said, holding up in one hand a somewhat grainy image that had been printed out onto paper. He tapped at one point of the photo a few times with an index finger on that same hand. Andy took hold of it and studied it as best as he could in the dim, desk lamp lighting.
In the photo there were two people in the centre who were surrounded by four others wearing silver masks. The masked people were in stylish, all black clothing that was vaguely religious themed, the main element being shiny, upside down crosses worn around their necks. The two in the centre were dressed differently, one was a beautiful, blonde woman in a green and black patterned dress, and the other was a man with shaggy black hair, a dark red suit, and solid black and white face paint that resembled a human skull.
“Got it,” Andy said, beginning to understand. “But who are these people?”
“Ghost. They’re a band I like,” Gary said, looking into the mirror at Andy, watching him study the image. Suddenly, Gary spun round in his chair.
“Oh! Do you remember when you were round here the other week and you asked ‘why are you listening to a song about kissing goats?’ ?” Gary said, doing a deliberately poor impersonation of Andy.
“Yeah I remember,” Andy answered tiredly.
“Well that’s a song by Ghost. I said about how it’s in relation to Satan and shit… I think. I dunno, I never really listen to lyrics,” Gary explained.
“Yeah I remember you saying once that it takes too much ‘brain power’ or something to focus on lyrics most of the time,” Andy said, gesturing quotation marks with his hands.
“Exactly! It’s about the actual music for me, I rarely actually listen to lyrics,” Gary said, nodding. There was a pause as the two ran out of words for a second or so and stared into space, before Andy exhaled a laugh, causing Gary’s head to snap back up to him.
“What?”
“I can’t fuckin’ take you seriously with that bloody face paint,” Andy chuckled. Gary looked offended.
“Alright! I get it! It looks like shit! Fuck…” Gary said exasperatedly, spinning back round to face the mirror. He grumpily picked up the wipe he had previously been using and continued to remove the paint from his face, except this time with an extra angry roughness.
“It honestly doesn’t look that bad, y’know,” Andy said warmly as with a playful forcefulness he ruffled Gary’s hair with one hand. Gary simply held up two backwards-facing fingers at Andy without looking away from the mirror, causing Andy to laugh.
“Prick!” Gary said, trying to keep up with the grumpy energy and failing. A smile was beginning to fight its way onto his lips.
“Bell-end!” Andy replied, a contented smirk creeping up his face as he picked up his mug from the desk, and then sat down and made himself comfy on Gary’s bed.
“Let’s hope you can get all of that off before school tomorrow otherwise you’re going to look like a right twat,” Andy said, continuing to smirk as he took a sip from the mug in his hands.
“Shut the fuck up Andy Knightley.”
Andy laughed heartily.
***
Andrew browsed lazily through the DVDs in the family section. It was nearly Christmas and he needed to get presents for the kids, but he had been so busy with work that he hadn’t found the time to actually do any shopping until now. He had gotten a rather stern text from his wife during his lunch break, telling him that he better at least look for something when he had finished work. So there he was, in a shop that sold DVDs, CDs, vinyls, as well as other pieces of music, film, and tv paraphernalia, looking for an easy few gifts he could buy.
The shop wasn’t too busy considering it was close to Christmas day, but it was late in the day and coming around to closing time, so Andy figured that most people had given up their present searches for the day. He was also thankful that this shop wasn’t constantly playing Christmas songs on repeat, which was honestly one of the reasons why he had come in here; he was getting really sick of hearing the same jaunty songs everywhere he went.
As he was looking at DVDs of animated films, Andy’s ears suddenly perked up to the tinny music that was playing quietly over the speakers. He frowned and tilted his head slightly, looking around as if he had lost something. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something about this music felt really familiar to him.
Andy listened to the different parts of the song that stood out to him: it was heavy metal of some kind, with layered guitar parts. He didn’t listen to heavy metal, it was never a genre that appealed to him, so he was lost as to why this felt familiar. Parts of the song sounded like it had a church organ adding to the harmonies along with the guitars, which was an odd touch, so odd that it was recognisable to Andy. The vocalist had a unique voice, and during the chorus there were other voices added to create interesting harmonies. The lyrics that said vocalist was singing seemed to have a some kind of religious theming, although Andy picked up on a lyric that he was sure said “are you ready to swear right here right now before the devil”.
‘Goats’.
Andy visibly blinked in confusion. Why did his brain just give him the word goats?
Are you on the square? Are you on the level? Are you ready to swear right here, right now, before the devil, that you’re on the square, that you’re on the level, that you’re ready to stand right here, right now…
Wait a minute… goats.
Suddenly things started to click for Andy. He stood there, eyes wide as memories of people and places that he had not thought about for years started flooding into his mind. The background music of a old best friend’s bedroom, air guitar impressions, laughter that would surround him every time he jumped at the sudden chanting that opened one of the songs, discussions about kissing goats… mocking bad face paint at 1 o’clock in the morning…
Before he realised it, Andy was striding towards the check out desk where a man with dark red hair wearing the shop’s uniform was stood behind it. He was organising through a pile of CDs when Andy came barrelling over to him.
“What band is this??”
“Hm?”
“What band is this that’s playing right now?” Andy had come over with such force and such aggressive determination that he had started the poor staff member. He was staring at them fiercely and they were wearily meeting his gaze.
“Oh uh the music we play in the store is always displayed here,” the man said nervously. He pointed up to a shelf on the wall next to him and Andy’s followed the man’s finger upwards.
There was a label under the shelf that read ‘CURRENTLY PLAYING:’ in bold letters, and on that shelf was a CD that depicted a large, dark green building that spanned across most of the image, with a much lighter green sky. The image was very detailed, including a strange looking face in the centre of it, as if was part of the building. At the top, in stylish lettering, was one word: ‘Ghost’.
“No way…” Andy said quietly as he stared, bug-eyed at the CD. The eyes of the man behind the desk darted over to the side and then swiftly fixed back on Andy.
“Um… is everything okay, sir?”
“What?? Oh, yes everything’s fine,” Andy said, more aggressively than he would have liked. He decided that he didn’t want to bother this man anymore, and that he should make a quick exit. So with a short ‘thank you’, Andy spun round and quickly powered out of the shop, completely lost in thought.
Once outside of the shop, Andy stared at the ground as he swam in all of these re-found memories from so long ago. He thought about all those times where he was round his teenage best friend’s house, where they laughed together, teased each other, helped each other, all while this band’s music provided a soundtrack for those moments. Andy smiled warmly. But then his smile grew weak. The sweet memories had had their turn, and now the sour ones were joining the pool. The times his former best friend vanished without telling anyone, the arguments over petty things, all because he couldn’t admit when he was wrong, the stubborn refusal to receive help…
Andy felt something cold slide down his cheek. He raised a hand and felt that it was wet.
Quickly wiping his hand on his coat, Andy pulled out his phone with the other hand. Shit, the shops were closing soon and he still needed to get presents. He hummed in annoyance before hastily putting his phone away and striding off down the high street, the memories that had been swimming in his head also getting hastily put away.