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“Darling, can you pass me a…”, Klavier stops to snap his fingers in an attempt to remember something. “Mein Gott”.
You really don’t want Athena to join your all-nighters, but sometimes you really wish Athena would join your all-nighters. At least she’s better with translating words back and forth.
“Revolvertrommel? The… bullet nest? The spinning thing with bullet holes, you know?”, he draws a little circle in the air for clarity, as if it’s not bad enough.
You could’ve try guessing a little earlier, but that’s kinda funny to watch him struggle with English language anyway. You still give him the look though.
“Do you mean revolver drum?”, you pick up a zip-lock with the key evidence to show him, like an elementary school teacher, just in case translation doesn’t come through.
“Yes, that! You really understand me from half a word, herr Forehead!”
“I… really do not. Ever”. Sometimes his impenetrable romantic optimism looks more like a first-degree delusion. Like, medically speaking.
“Aren’t you a musician? How do you even forget the word ‘drum’?”
“Well, my sense of rhythm must be manifesting more on practice”, raises his gaze from the cylinder for a moment to give you a wink.
You answer with an eyeroll he’s not even seeing. Maybe you both are not in the age appropriate for all-nighters anymore. It definitely takes a toll on both of your mental capacities. And you can’t even tell which one of you is taking more brain damage.
The doorbell suddenly rings, breaking late night numbness.
“Oh, is it morning already?”, Klavier jumps up from the couch, chips crumbs fall down on the floor from his well-worn “Gavinners” hoodie.
You once asked, why the hell he wears his own God damned merchandise so much and he just shrugged, saying its free for the band members and someone gotta utilize all those pieces unsold. It made you feel better about him somehow. Not a lot better but knowing he’s not cringe enough to pay seven hundred bucks for his own branded shoes to leave his own logo everywhere he walks just makes you… a little less unsettled.
Klavier trips over skinny jeans he’s trying to put on while running towards the mirror, lets his hair down from the bun, that was barely holding up by this hour anyway, trying to portray something rather more glamorous.
“Verdammt noch mal” he whispers to himself, trying to smooth out skin under his eyes with his palms and to give his rather greasy hair some volume, then turns one-eighty to you in some sort of what he must think is a flattering pose. “Herr Forehead, am I hideous?”
“I honestly wish I haven’t seen any of whatever you were trying to do here right now. Just go open a damn door”, you answer. He laughs.
“Thanks! It is so good to have someone honest by your side to give you a sober outlook”.
He swings his hair back with an accustomed gesture and goes to the door. You hear some “guten morgens” and “dankes” before the door closes. He gets back looking through his mail.
“Oh, that’s gotta be good”, Klavier says, flipping through some glossy magazine. “Look”.
“Is this one of your concerning music periodicals?”, you ask, taking it from his hand.
“Aww”, he purrs instead of an answer, pulling the magazine back to himself to make you lean in and plants a kiss to your forehead. “I’m going to shower real quick, check it out, tell me what you think”.
So you check the double-page spread offered to you. Which is dedicated almost entirely to photo session of yours truly. Half-naked and spread across various furniture items. Quite a Klavier Gavin type of aesthetic. But something is wrong. You can’t really put your finger on what exactly is the problem, so you frown, looking at the pics more thoroughly. Looks like Klavier. Looks not like Klavier. No missing or extra limbs. The poses seem… not like something an actual human being would do in their real life, but not unnatural or broken. It’s definitely not the eyebrows this time – you’re not falling for that trick again. Yet something is off. Leaning a little too close to the magazine pages with the tense frown on your face is how he catches you when he comes in from the bathroom with hair wet and nothing on but a towel around his waist.
“Are the pictures really that bad? You don’t like them?”, he asks in his half-joking manner, but this time he sounds slightly more concerned about your opinion then before.
“Are… Are you photoshopped?”, you finally connect two and two together and arrive to the conclusion.
“Well ja, of course I am”. Klavier sounds a little relived somehow. “Everyone in those magazines is photoshopped nowadays”.
You raise your eyes from the magazine and look him up and down.
“What’s even the point of nude pictures then?”
“Ha! Well, first of all-”, he puts his hands on his hips with this expression of almost defiant interest and joyfulness. One of his most irritating and inappropriate ones. “That is not nude pictures. I have pants on. My actual nude pictures cost way more, if you wanna know.”
“I really don’t…”
“Second of all! Those are better than just nude pictures”.
“So those are nude pictures”, you think to yourself. Klavier sits near you on the couch to get a better look at the double-page spread, water from his hair leaving marks on your shoulder. “They are perfected to be likable to anyone”.
“They’re even weirder that you actually are”. You follow a waterdrop run from a lock of his hair down past the collarbone. “At least you have a human skeleton with a real human skin on it. I hope”.
Klavier laughs with his deep well-paced laughter and throws his hands around your neck.
“You always say the nicest things when you don’t even understand to do so, you wütender spatzen”.
Now your collar is wet and water gets under your shirt. Great.
“Anyway, what did you think about the interview?”. There’s that daring curious happy face again.
“… What interview?”
Klavier snorts and closes his mouth with his hand, but it doesn’t really help him to hide how hard he’s laughing. Maybe ‘cause he falls back on the couch, hand on his chest, keeping making fun of you.
You can feel your face blushing violently. Now, was there an interview somewhere between those pictures? God damn it.
This is probably the most real laughter you heard from him ever. He takes a deep breath, stretches across the couch and of course- of course uses that to wrap his arm around your waist along the way and pull you closer.
“Okay, mein schatz, I think we both need some sleep, what do you think?”