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The city smells different today; petroleum fumes from passing vehicles and that of chalky old concrete dust have given way to the sticky sweet scent of summer rain. The roads glisten, and the windows weep. The downpour comes in bursts as the winds catch each droplet sideways, causing the trajectory to sway. It's as if the rain echoes static through a tv, with intermittent channel switches throughout.
Sssshhhh. A pause. Ssssshhh. A pause. On and on, the white noise fades in and out.
Beat tells herself that this is why she can't find it in herself to keep time today. The shower's rhythm defies her own. No, she held that note for too long, and Quaver noticed. From the top. Wrong word, wrong verse, and Treble gives her a forgiving smile. From the top. Clef curses under her breath and sets the pace once more with the tapping of drumsticks. From the top, over and over. The same mistakes in different places, all to the benign tune of droplets on asphalt outside.
It’s not like it hasn’t rained here before, and Beat knows it shouldn’t be affecting her. She’s good to go. Her voice is warm, her eyes are open all the way, and there’s a fire in her gut, in her chest, and in her knuckles. This is no different to any other rehearsal; there is no reason for this to be happening. And yet, that is not the correct consonant for the lyric, and now she sounds like a fool.
Something clatters to the ground behind her, and she almost jumps at the sudden disappearance of percussion. Everything else slows and stops, too.
It’s sotto voce, but Beat hears it. “Holy shit.” Clef is doubled over in her seat, face in her hands. Her purple ponytail flops forward over her shoulder. “There’s no way.”
Frustration brought on by failed repetition reaches a fever pitch – Beat can see it on the drummer, and it sizzles furtively beneath her own skin, too. She’s kept a lid on it well enough, but something about provocation from Clef just worms under there and agitates in a way no other stimuli can.
She starts more exasperated than aggressive – this whole ordeal has been an exhausting, irritating sequence. “Clef, would you-”
The twin cuts her off. “No, like, seriously! Eleven goddamn times, Beat!” Clef’s face flies up from out of their palm-perch. She peers over her kit with something that borders more on amazement, and less on outright anger.
That expression cuts a little deeper, and Beat feels her chest deflate. It’s shame, now. She’s been messing up bad for the better part of an hour now, and twelve midday feels heavy. She doesn’t even dare a glance at Quaver, for fear of what she’ll see. Instead, she pinches the space between her eyes, and squeezes them shut.
“...Yeah. I know-”
“Unbelievable. We have done this song on stage before.”
“Clef, c’mon, ease off.” Treble taps one key to draw attention. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“It’s sure as shit gotta be good, though!” Clef snaps in Beat’s direction, regardless of the fact the comment came from her brother.
“She’s tired.” Her brother hits a chord on his keyboard, full-bodied and interrupting. “The rain is making us all tired because it’s rain. Relax.”
Clef turns like a spring unloaded, seemingly about to clash with her only blood, but on meeting his eyes, only huffs and groans begrudgingly.
“We’ll take twenty. Thirty,” Treble continues, now addressing the group rather than only Clef. “Hell, we can probably afford to pick it up tomorrow.”
It’s uncharacteristic how easily Clef yields that final word, getting up from her seat and storming out through the door to the stairwell. It doesn’t even slam behind her, just creaks slowly to a close, and clicks sadly shut. Beat’s got her eyebrows raised in surprise, and she doesn’t even notice it until her gaze wanders to Treble, who is already staring at her in that way she knows means ‘I have something to say’.
“Ten, actually.”
“Huh?”
“Ten times. She messed up once. So I wouldn’t worry too much.”
Beat snorts. “I think one of those numbers is bigger than the others. By like, a wide margin.”
“Or you can beat yourself up about it, I guess.” Treble shrugs, dismounting keyboard from stand. “Kinda making me stick up for you for nothing.”
“...Sorry.”
“I’d still stick up for you anyway. It’s just one of those days.”
Quaver unslings her guitar and tilts her head towards the door. “Should I… go check on her?”
“Yeah, that was weird, right? Like, she doesn’t usually just. Give in. Like that.”
“She’s… she’s fine. I’ll go up there. Leisurely. It’ll give her a minute,” Treble assures them with a sigh. “She’s just had some stuff on her mind, and she’s on a hair trigger because of it.”
Who wouldn’t be? The life of public enemy number one isn’t the life enchanted. Being a fugitive is only romantic conceptually; the reality of surviving on the run is just that: surviving. It’s a garage hideout, sleeping on a shitty couch, laundromats, remote corner stores, and not owning appliances. It’s dirt, sweat, and hair standing on end. It’s staring at the door every night before falling asleep because this might be the night it gets kicked in, and you need to be ready to scrap.
It’s hard enough on your own. Having people makes it harder. Suddenly you need enough eyes to watch out for everyone else too. Now it’s not just the one door to watch. The band is a ticket to what the twins have been looking for, Beat knows that. She knows that when Clef gets like this, it’s because she gives enough of a shit to be mad about it. It’s a reaction to a break in symbiosis, a threat to their mutual prosperity.
Which makes it hurt a little more to know she’s letting Clef down. Three months ago, it would have sounded insane to admit. But whenever Clef shows her teeth, Beat can’t help but hear a bat connecting with a ball. And then she’s back there, hearing the words. Having Clef’s soul wash over her in heavy waves.
So instead of quipping, she just nods. Treble doesn’t see it, he’s already gone. Quaver stares at her alertly.
“Beat… are you okay?” The stupor of memory is trampled by the moment’s lucidity as her young companion pries her attention from the past with a tiny voice.
“I- uh, yeah,” She stammers. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“...It’s like Treble said. We’ll just take some time, okay? It’ll come back to you.”
The confession of faith hits her hard in the chest. I hope so, Beat thinks, and I wish I was as sure as you.
There’s a trend, here. Rehearsals have been met with failures before, but never with such density, never so often in the one day. Beat thinks back on those days, and wonders if the trend isn’t of escalating incident. What if she’s getting worse again? Eroding like stone under millennia of rain, her talents washing away in the tide?
What if it’s happening again?
She looks into Quaver’s eyes with bleak uncertainty. Her failure – her inability; whatever you want to call it – leaves the young girl stranded, she knows. This isn’t just Quaver reassuring her; there is a hidden intention to her statement. She depends on Beat recovering herself. She is pleading, silently, and perhaps unwittingly.
‘Get it together, please.’
And Beat knows that’s not fair to put on Quaver, she knows that’s just an internal critic, she knows that voice is all herself. But the rain keeps falling, and it does so little to quiet that voice – it is amplified by the white noise.
***
The rain. Keeps. Falling. It’s so goddamn annoying. She looks like an idiot.
Clef is soaked, from head to heel. She stormed out as ‘unobtrusively’ as she could (a previous request from Treble, not her own choice), and ended up bursting out onto the roof during the full downpour. Worse still, rainwater had been gathering on the roof of the stairwell access, and it only took an unlucky gust to blow it over the edge and directly onto her head. Now she sits, cold, wet, and alone at the top of the stairs, hearing wind whistle over the roof through the closed access door.
Despite the freezing surprise, her temper has only grown hotter.
Beat keeps messing up. She tries to tolerate it, brush it aside as regular mistakes – and they are! That’s what pisses Clef off the most. They are normal, human errors. Tiredness, clustered thoughts, aches, whatever else might have been going on; Beat has been making justifiably mundane blunders.
When she blew into the twins’ lives, she was just a weird pink irritant. Sure, nobody bothered ratting her out to DC – you don’t talk to cops, and you definitely don’t talk to cops about someone who has done something you’d have done – but still, an irritant. As time drew on, however, Clef watched Beat gain her footing. She might have done it like a newborn fawn, stumbling her way through what seemed like her first week being alive, but she got there. She proved that she has what it takes to make something despite all opposition. She proved it at the lighthouse.
That whole afternoon was electric and heart-pumping – a defibrillator for the soul. The HARM site raid, the performance, the following riot? It was like she and Treble never stepped away. All things considered, it wouldn’t have happened without Beat and Quaver’s poorly thought out intervention. Once everyone was on the same page, Beat’s performance on and off-stage became… admirable.
Point is, Clef knows Beat can do better. Way better. Those mistakes are normal, but eleven (ten, but she’ll never admit that) times? It’s telling of a problem, and by the fifth time, Beat should have spoken up that something was wrong.
But… something feels off about that line of thought, and it doesn’t take a genius to yield the answer: she feels like a hypocrite. Clef thinks about how she reacted. She thinks about how she left. The boon of retrospect becomes a bane when the consideration crosses her mind: they probably think she’s pissed because of Beat’s performance. Blowing her top isn’t helpful, so she’s made a conscious effort to remove herself before it gets too bad, lately. The drawback is that these nuances don’t get communicated until after the damage is done.
“Ugh.” She lets her face fall back into her hands and groans. The tightly-wound tension of anger dissipates, and now she just feels the cold rainwater on her skin.
“Yeah,” Her brother echoes, just now coming to rest at the landing of her flight of stairs. “A bit.”
“I screwed up again, huh?”
“...A bit. It’s fine,” Treble replies nonchalantly, leaning against the railing and looking up towards his dejected, drenched sibling. “All things considered, you’re doing better. They’re even worried, this time.”
She can’t help but scoff in return.
What must they think of her? From the get-go, Clef has been – thought she’s loathe to actually admit it, and only acknowledges it begrudgingly so – loud and confrontational. It wasn’t a problem when it was just her and Treble; he’s long known about her disposition, and has been able to deftly curtail or ignore the worst of it. That’s what a sibling does – they know your flaws and love you all the same. Beat doesn’t have a decade and change of experience. To her, Clef is probably still the same asshole she met in prison.
That hurts to think about. Clef finds Beat’s efforts admirable despite missteps, and regardless of that, she is so unintentionally set on ruining any chance of it being a mutual sentiment.
“I’m being serious, Clef,” Treble speaks again, cutting through the grief. “They noticed how you left on your own before things got heated.”
“...Bullshit.”
Her brother taps the railing with a finger to some unheard rhythm. “At the very least, they noticed something was off.”
“Yeah, well. Your advice is usually good.”
“I’m glad you took it to heart.”
“Usually.”
He raises a brow. “O...kay? Bad this time?”
Clef straightens her back and lets her head loll backwards lazily. “They think I’m a prick. I keep getting angry, and I don’t think they know why. And… thinking about it makes me more angry. I think…” She groans again, shoulders slumping once more. “I think I’m gonna tell her.”
“Tell her why you’re angry, or about the other thing?”
The ‘other thing’. It sounds damn near ominous. In truth, it’s innocuous, vapid, stupid – and Clef can’t stop thinking about it.
***
If she were to trace back when it started, it would have been during their latest stint in that HARM prison. She remembers blinding sunlight, uncomfortable heat, and the notorious ping of a baseball slugged across a field. Of course, being a mandatory activity, their jailers clearly weren’t interested in its efficiency, so pitching machines were limited to a one-at-a-time policy. This lead to perhaps the most boring hour and a half of Clef’s life; she sat there and watched others take turns at bat. Well, perhaps ‘watch’ was a stretch – she mostly tuned it out.
But she knows that, at some point, she did in fact start watching. Her eyes flicked up when Beat stepped to the plate. And god, it’s not like there was really a reason to start paying attention at that moment, but after that first swing, she found herself locked into it. It wasn’t her form – Clef doesn’t know shit about baseball, and couldn’t comment on proper stance even if she wanted to, and yet…
When did Beat get so… statuesque? Were her shoulders always so wide? Her biceps so defined? There was even something in her wrists that drew the eye. With that eyesore mustard sweater wrapped around he waist, her bare back was also on display in the sun. Clef watched it until it glistened. She learned that Beat does this thing where she runs her hand upward from her forehead, through her bangs, and they’ll only slowly settle back into place. She learned that she finds that motion, and the resulting look, rather fetching. She also learned that this fact caused some very, very dense confusion in herself.
She remembers the day of the lighthouse show, and the preceding raid. How Beat played her part perfectly – moved just so, acted quickly, always found herself in the right place at the right time. How she put everything into warding off Silence until it was time to disappear from within the riot. Clef remembers seeing her do ‘the hair thing’ once they were sure the coast was clear, and there was enough distance between themselves and ground zero. She remembers a tug at her cheek, and turning away to hide it.
The memory of a sleepless night last month is fresh, too. Because of the city lights, it’s nigh on impossible to see the stars, but Clef isn’t really focused on the night sky despite laying on her back. She’s just kinda staring into the middle distance – her mind is still behind her eyes. She’s stuck thinking about Beat’s hair, and her arms, her shoulders, her back, and… wondering how the hell someone makes sweatpants look good. That should be impossible, right?
“Clef,” A tired voice pierces her reverie, “You realise it’s almost eleven?”
Her response comes out through gritted teeth – not angry, but she’s had her jaw clenched for a hot minute. “Can’t sleep.”
“Well that’s obvious.” Treble, her brother, with bags under his eyes, lazily strides over and lowers himself to the ground next to her. “What’s up?”
Clef runs her tongue against the inside of her teeth, thoughtfully. “…I don’t wanna talk about it, really.”
“Might do you some good.”
Treble’s right. He’s always right. There’s no point being so adamant, she knows, but outright saying it? No.
“What do you think of her?”
“...Beat?”
“No shit, how many other ‘hers’ do you know?”
“I know Quaver.”
“Why would I be asking your opinion on Quaver?” Clef’s voice raises a little, exasperated, and her hands fly up in offense.
“I think she’s fine,” Treble ignores the gesticulation. “I think she’s cool, even. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without her, I don’t think. But the same goes for all of us.”
Clef’s voice falls soft. “Yeah…”
A short silence passes, with nothing but a passing gust of cool air breaking it.
“For clarity, I was talking about Beat. Not Quaver.”
Clef scoffs lightheartedly. “Obviously.”
“What do you think about her?” Her brother turns the question back on her.
“Pretty much the same.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Treble sighs, scratching his temple idly. “And, the only time you’ve brought her up – not to call you out – was to complain in some way,” He says. “So what’s up with that?”
Treble could be a real smartass sometimes. Clef loved and loathed that. It was super helpful whenever subtle belligerence was necessary – witticism never came easy to her – but was an annoyance when he put that marvellous brain to work against her. ‘Too smart for your own good’, they’d say. On occasion, Clef agreed.
“Look, I’ll stop beating around the bush. I already know. Me saying ‘she’s cool’,” Treble says, turning his head to meet his sister’s gaze, “was me telling you I approve. Or rather, that you could absolutely do worse. You’ve done worse.”
Clef’s face grows hot. She stammers. “Wh- How- How do you know?!”
“Clef, you literally have the subtlety of a hammer. You stare at her when she’s not looking. If it wasn’t for that fact, she’d know too.”
“I don’t-”
“To be honest, I don’t really care, that’s your issue. I just thought I’d let you know that I know, and I have your back.”
“I don’t stare!” Clef shouts indignantly, bolting upright.
“All the time. You stare all the time.”
***
Of course she does. Clef is fully aware that she does, but to admit it feels undignified and perverted, so she rails against the assertion with every fibre. Still, Treble knew of Clef’s disposition towards their singer. It’s been known for a long time. The stairwell knows it now, too, and echoes the words with hollow indifference. This is for Clef to figure out; the walls will lend her no credence. She just faces the truth, thrown back at her over concrete.
Treble, thankfully, is there too. At least he has ears to listen, and a mouth to respond. “And do you think that will help?”
“...Maybe,” Clef answers, after a brief moment of consideration.
“Let me rephrase; will it help you?”
“Maybe!” Frustration mounts, evident in the drummer’s voice. “I don’t know! I’m not the one who can’t focus because of it!”
“It’s not that that’s making her lose focus, but it is for you,” Treble retorts, whip-quick. “One of eleven times, anyway.”
Clef glares at him pointedly, squinting and frowning.
“… Okay, that’s beside the point. Still, will getting it… out there… help you stay on track, or will it just be another distraction? Like, I’m all for it, I’m not… trying to stop you, but, y’know.” He ends with a sigh.
Distraction. Feelings open or not, Clef can’t deny that she’s not always one-hundred percent there. Perhaps not as much as Beat, seemingly, but still. The worst part of being a drummer in love with a singer is that you’re always situated behind them; everything Clef noticed about Beat’s physique is on display. Clef has been distracted.
Has Beat? In the same way?
“I don’t think that’s the question, Treble.”
Her brother raises an eyebrow in silent query.
“I’m already distracted, do or don’t. I’m worried about her,” She continues. “Is this what’s on her mind? Am I?”
“… You’re worried that if it’s not something she’s considered, you’re just piling a heavier load onto her.”
Clef huffs, blowing a lock of hair from her vision. “This is so dumb. But yeah. Kinda.”
“Clef, promise you won’t take a swing when I say this.”
She squints, harshly. “...No.”
Treble ignores her, and continues anyway: “I don’t think you’re solely concerned about Beat having something on her mind,” he says. “I think you’re worried that what’s on her mind isn’t you.”
Clef bolts to her feet and begins to plod down the flight of stairs towards her obviously overstepping sibling.
Treble just speaks faster. “And it’s got you all riled up because the hypothetical solution to her funk is crazy simple to you, and it’s driving you mad that she hasn’t just confessed to you. And you’re scared that she doesn’t feel the same way because she hasn’t taken that simple route.”
She falters in her stride for a moment.
Her brother finishes. “But this shit isn’t simple. Because if it was, your shot would be shot by now.”
It strikes something in her nervous system, and for a second, there’s a pinching sting behind her eyes. It fades quickly. She curses under her breath and scolds herself for being so… pathetic. Because Treble’s right; if it were as easy as saying ‘let’s hook up’ she’d have done it months ago. She’d have done it in the afterglow of the lighthouse riot, when the adrenaline was pumping and emotions were high. She’d have made a fist in Beat’s hair, and pulled her lips in towards her own. She’s thought about the missed opportunity so many times, on quiet nights and long days. But she never acted on it. Instead, all that tension went into her fists – and if she was lucky, her sticks, and her drums. Regret made percussive, loud, and controlled, instead of saddening, quiet, and messy.
“Y’know, they call it ‘projecting’.” Treble tests a quip, now that Clef’s war march has halted. “Just. Do both of yourselves a favour, and ask her.”
***
Downstairs, Beat lays on her ‘bed’ – that couch with a depression in the cushions that you could probably cast a second Beat out of – as if a psychiatrist were picking apart her brain, hands clasped over her stomach, the fingers intertwined. She stares at the drab ceiling of the hideout absent-mindedly, lips parted and eyelids heavy. She’s not particularly lacking in sleep, but all the scouring and worrying is exhausting. She’s a machine trying to diagnose an error. She’s trying, with every firing neuron, to figure out why her performance has been so abysmal. Quaver sits across the room, her legs dangling from the platform as she tunes her acoustic guitar, offering platitudes and words of encouragement to the dejected singer.
Beat should be used to only the presence of herself and Quaver, but ever since spending more time with the twins, their absence is more keenly felt in moments like these. A hole yearning to be filled in. As if it isn’t ‘right’ without the four of them in the picture. As if the painting needs more purple.
They’ve been up there a while, she ponders.
What could they be talking about?
We’re thinking of parting ways, Bee.
An unkind voice in her imagination attempts to emulate Treble’s tone, using a nickname she’d rather never hear again.
The fake-sister speaks next.
Yeah, you’re clearly not up to this.
That one hurts a lot more. It’s a common fear for Beat, not being good enough. She fights it every day. She has to, or else the floor will give way, and she will fall forever. It’s hard enough with her own voices chiming in to grate away at her sense of self-worth, but to do it in Clef’s? Sinister work.
She tries to remind herself that she doesn’t know jack shit about why the siblings have been up there for so long. It’s a patchwork fix, like tape over a ship’s leaking hull, but it beats drowning in hostile speculation. The only speculation that is helpful, in this moment, is of what went wrong. So she closes her eyes, sits in the rain’s gentle, persistent noise, and relives it as best she can. She rewinds the tape to find the imperfection, the moment of flaw.
The set-up was fine. Hardware and instruments were working fine, including those made of flesh. Beat was alright, a little tired, but not enough to stop her from singing. She was excited for it, even. It helped that her day started gently – Clef had, instead of shouting her awake for practice, given her a gentle back-handed pat to her shoulder, and shoved a rain-wet, room temperature corner store snack into her hands.
It sounds unappealing, but in reality, it was the nicest morning Beat’s had in a while.
Beat shakes her head.
Lost the lead, there.
She forces herself back to the memory of rehearsal. The tuning of instruments. A vocal warm-up. A rhythmic count-in, and then it all kicks off in earnest. There’s a thumping that reverberates through the floor, into her shoes, up through her spine. A low growl from the beast that Quaver holds. Then it’s her turn to respond in melody.
There is no error. The rain precedes the song, as told by the droplets that still cling to the wrapper that once held a god-awful mochi, and it persists through it. Beat hits the notes. No words are slurred. She is present and in control. The tape keeps spinning in her mind’s eye, and she feels her larynx contract and widen with the syllables of the memory’s song. She runs through it, lyric by lyric. And she finds it. The moment it began to unravel.
That satisfying percussive tingling along her back harshens with a drum-roll, and it rips her from reverie, from euphoria. It’s not pain, no, but something more subtle and keen. Awareness.
Suddenly, Beat is not alone with the song. Suddenly, she is excruciatingly cognizant of the hands that thunder along with her. Specifically, Clef’s – the drummer’s. Usually, the sensation of being watched comes from the front, amongst the audience, where it ought to. But in that moment – as superstitious as it sounds – Beat could swear she felt eyes on her from behind, the gaze broadcasted through the repetitive hammering of drums. It’s all in her head, obviously – she’s thinking too much about outside perception, losing her place in the here and now, and instead stumbling around in the future, where consequences live. She knows this, but the ‘why’ matters so very little in the moment of panic. Her throat tightens, she stumbles over some consonants, and a restart is called before she can choke up fully.
In the now, laying there on the couch, Beat plays that scene back nine more times. Eventually, she hears Clef’s outburst in her head again, and watches her storm up the stairs, and wonders if she was right all along; she wonders if Clef had, in fact, been a vigilant party.
However, just because Beat felt like Clef might have been zeroing in on her, it doesn’t mean she was. Likewise, wherever Clef’s eyes landed was her problem. It should mean nothing to Beat. This was clearly just another bout of stage fright.
… But Beat hasn’t been afraid of the stage for a while now. Maybe the fear comes back, from time to time? Maybe it knocks on the door occasionally to test you? Or, maybe…
Maybe it was because it was her specifically.
Beat already feels her face getting hot, and therein lies her answer. She immediately feels both incredibly stupid, and like a supreme detective. How obvious. How embarrassing. How long has it been since anyone looked at her the way she imagined – or perhaps feared – Clef did? How long since someone had just admired her? How long since she herself had found someone to admire? Unfortunately for Beat, there is plenty to admire about Clef.
Clef’s a headstrong individual, and while she may come across as hot-headed, it’s generally in the right place. She gets angry because she gives a shit – about the band, about the work, about the people, about the message, all of it. She’s a creature of singular commitment. No matter how you look at it, that takes strength of character, and unwavering faith in yourself and those around you. Beat had to earn that faith, and now that she has it, she sees its benefit.
It also helps that Clef is… super pretty. It’s a subjective measure that really lends no credence to a person’s value, but it passes through Beat’s consideration nonetheless. She thinks about the way Clef’s ponytail swings around freely when she pummels her drums. She thinks about how that cocky little grin slowly stretches across her face whenever a conquerable challenge presents itself. She thinks about the way her fingers flex before she takes her drumsticks in hand…
Oh god. It is her.
It’s not a grand revelation, nor a jarring epiphany – it presents as a slow realisation, a rational descent into the answer. It’s more than just mundane admiration.
She remembers the sensation of a smile creeping onto her mouth as Clef patted her awake in the morning. She wonders how often Clef has made her smile without her realising it.
The door to the stairwell groans open, and from it emerge both twins. Beat casts a passing glance in that direction, and when Clef comes into view – arms crossed over her chest, and eyes firmly fixed to the floor – she averts her own gaze.
Quaver pipes up, pulled from her idle plucking of strings. “Oh, hey guys. Everything… okay?”
Treble turns back to his sister, who is lazily trailing behind him, and their eyes meet briefly. Clef puffs a bang out of the way, and returns to staring downward.
“Uh. Yeah. Hey, Quaver,” Treble replies, “how about you and I head to the corner store to grab everyone something for lunch?”
“… Sure?” The young girl sets her instrument aside, hesitantly.
Beat already knows what’s going on. Treble’s making space for her and Clef to have it out – whatever that ends up looking like this time – without interruption. She braces herself for a shouting match, and reminds herself:
It’s because she gives a shit.
The rain is still coming down, and the smell of wet pavement drifts into the room as soon as Treble pulls the roller-door upward, the latch opened by Quaver. A small team effort. The girl plucks a ragged umbrella from its leaning place against a wall, and opens it before handing it to Treble, who nods and allows a thankful tug to overtake one corner of his mouth. Before long, the duo have disappeared into the city, and Beat continues to do her best not to meet Clef’s sight.
It seems like an easy task, with the drummer’s form stock still, as if frozen in either thought or fear. Either way, it looks almost dissociative.
The strangest pang of guilt crawls into Beat. Clef probably feels bad for blowing up again. It wouldn’t have happened if Beat wasn’t so damn paranoid about being seen, something that should be a complete non-issue to a literal singer in a band. As such, she sighs, and decides to put herself in the precarious, tentative position of apology.
“Clef, I’m sorry-”
“I’m sorry I lost my cool again, it was stupid,” Clef blurts out, causing ‘sorry’ to sound out almost in stereo. “I screwed up too. It wasn’t fair.”
Beat’s eyebrows raise in surprise. Apologies from her are not unheard of, but usually not so easily given, either. Maybe – just maybe – this won’t turn into an argument.
“That’s… uh,” Beat stammers. “That’s okay. I’m sorry too.”
“...Good.”
“...Great.”
Silence descends. Not the capital ‘S’ kind, the kind that can be fended off with enough belligerence and blunt force. Just your average, run-of-the-mill awkward quiet; less dangerous, but just as uncomfortable.
Clef opens her mouth to speak again, instead closing it and huffing through her nose. She rolls her head back to stare at a corner where two walls meet the ceiling. Seemingly, she finds the words she was looking for there.
“So, why’d it happen? What’s up?”
Beat swings her legs over the edge of the couch, and rights herself. Clef is standing on one leg, the other one driving the toe of her shoe into the ground over and over again, kicking nervously.
“I’m just distracted, I guess.”
“By what?” Her response is lightning-quick, as if she’d predicted the deflection. “I want to help, Beat. Whatever it is.”
I don’t have an answer for you, Beat thinks, none that you’d want to hear, anyway.
It strikes her that she doesn’t know how Clef would react to this news. Beat barely knows how to react to her own realisation; she hasn’t had time to process the feelings. Maybe she’s had the inkling of attraction for a while now, but with this new, calcified confirmation, she doesn’t know what to do.
Yeah, Clef, I keep messing up because I’m wondering if you’re giving me an up-down.
How ridiculous. How assumptive. She can already hear the indignant shouts.
YOU WHAT!? WHY would I be doing that!? The mockery in Beat’s mind is never pitch perfect, but the broad strokes generally remain true.
“The best way to get over something is to talk about it,” Clef continues. “At least, that’s what Treble says. So, why aren’t we talking?”
But she still doesn’t have an answer that isn’t some variation of ‘I like your face, and can’t stop thinking about it’, so she deflects the only way she knows that works with Clef. Unhealthily. Confrontationally. And she cusses herself out on the inside as she does it.
“Well, what about you? You messed up as well, why am I the only one getting interrogated?”
Clef’s eyes snap onto Beat. It’s reminiscent of watching a snake spring forward from grass to latch its fangs onto a hiker’s calf. Barely concealed offense, barely controlled anger.
“It’s not an interrogation. I’m worried,” the drummer strains through teeth that might as well be gritted, “about my friend.”
“Worry about yourself. I’ll worry about me. I’ll get it sorted, but I don’t need a goddamn armchair therapist for it.” Beat watches the escalation from behind cerebral glass, a thick pane separating what she should say from what a self-protective instinct forces out. Her body stands up, ready to brave the oncoming wave.
“What the hell?” Clef’s arms unfold into a wide gesticulation best translated into ‘what gives?’, and her voice betrays yet more hurt. “Beat, I’m trying to do the good thing here and help you work through your shit, like a friend would, and now I’m the bad guy?”
“You can’t ‘work through my shit’, Clef.”
“Why not?”
“What if you’re part of my shit? You can’t.” She can’t stop the words in time. Another wave of regret collides with her.
Clef takes a stomping step forward. “If I’m part of your shit, let me… fucking… I don’t know, un-shit myself from it!”
“You can’t-” Beat points an accusatory finger at the drummer.
She smacks it away with a backhand, cutting her off. “I’m part of your problem? I’m making you lose focus? You are so fucking-”
Beat has never seen anyone move this fast before. In a matter of seconds, Clef is upon her, arm outstretched. She braces for a punch, and clenches her fist to return it. In the back of her mind, a needling tells her that she’s done it again – she’s screwed up for the last time, and burned another bridge. This fight will be their last, and then she’ll be adrift again. She’ll carry the bruises until they fade, and then she’ll let someone else down.
Impact never comes. There is no blunt ache, no thump that shakes her skeleton, no grunt of exertion from an assailant. Instead, there is cloying warmth, and a strange, mingling taste. A tightness at the back of her head. Her arms are still tensed, her hands still balled into white-knuckled fists, but no punches are thrown. Her eyes are open wide, and with them, she witnesses it all.
Clef is pressed flush up against her front, with a fist balled in the hair above her nape, and her lips planted firmly, insistently, against her own. No, not planted, not static – there is motion. Clef is moving her lips against Beat’s. A long, decompressing breath sighs out from the drummer’s nose, tickling her face.
“-annoying…” Clef’s words don’t register in Beat’s ears, even as she huffs them out before pushing back in for another kiss.
This time, Beat closes her eyes when the two make contact. She feels her muscles relax, the tension draining from her biceps. She feels her hands drawn forward by an urge she hasn’t indulged in a long while. She feels the waistband of Clef’s skirt under her fingers. The warmth of her body through her shirt. A seam of her bra as her hands climb Clef’s sides.
Clef pulls away again, and speaks under her breath. “-stupid…” She goes in for another, barely drawing in breath.
When Clef’s tongue pokes pleadingly at Beat’s lips, she’s unsure whether to let it in. It slides against her bottom lip again, and she can hardly deny the desire any longer. If she tastes this good from the outside, what about the rest of her? She meets Clef’s probing petition in kind. Now, her hands are scrunching the fabric of Clef’s jacket, gripping tightly as if to anchor herself in place, as if to let go was to let everything dissolve around her, and float away. She just might, anyway.
Eventually, as anticipated, Clef relinquishes her assault in favour of breathing – but not before uttering a few final words. “I’m glad I’m your problem, dumbass. That’s a problem I can fix.”
Beat’s chest is heaving, trying to draw in the air she’s been denied in lieu of a kiss she never expected. “Y-you… you always solve your problems with french kissing?” She asks, in low tones. It feels wrong to speak above a certain volume, with a certain projection. She doesn’t want the moment to shatter.
Clef raises a quizzical eyebrow. “I don’t know what the hell a french kiss is, but… anyway. This problem was unique. And… shared.”
“What do you mean by ‘shared’?”
“Beat, do you really think I’d stick my tongue in your mouth if I hadn’t also been going goddamn insane thinking about you?” She looks up at the singer from under her brows.
“Was this a confession?”
“You are such a dumbass.” Clef shakes her head, punching Beat’s shoulder. “No, I just go around putting my lips on any girl I meet. Yes, I like you!”
“Oh,” Beat says. “Cool.”
Why would you say that? She chastises herself in soliloquy.
“’Cool’?”
“Uhh, more than cool. Super cool,” She scrambles. “...It’s been a while.”
“No shit.” Clef laughs, and Beat smiles sheepishly. To her, it’s the sweetest sound in the world. “So… next time you need to... work through your shit... talk to me. ‘Kay?”
For the first time in a while, Beat thinks she might. It shouldn’t have taken a kiss to remind her that Clef cares, and for that, she feels a little guilty. But something in her clicks, an understanding that turns the hypothetical into something factual – something fundamentally, unassailably true. Clef’s is a heart laid bare, and a soul she can depend on. She also needs to be dependable, in turn.
“So, was that your problem?” Clef asks, hands on her own hips. Like a mechanic staring down a vehicle’s engine, waiting for it to purr. “You good now?”
She looks at Beat so proudly, like that kiss was a job well done, a cure-all. “I… I dunno. Was that, like, your goal here?”
“I wanted to let you know anyway. Eventually.” Clef’s shoulders droop a little. Reflecting on her intention rather than result is clearly discomforting – no wonder, since the kiss seemed as impromptu and impassioned as it could be. No thought, just pure instinct. “So. Two birds, one bullet.”
“It’s ‘two birds, one stone’.”
“… That’s dumb. It’s not even alliterative. And a stone would suck for- anyway,” The drummer shakes her head, and that ponytail jostles in just the way Beat likes. “Did it help?”
“Well, I feel a lot better right now. A little confused, maybe,” She answers. “I, uh, I like you too, by the way. In case that wasn’t clear.”
“It was clear,” She says it quickly – like it was the most obvious thing on the planet – and continues just as fast. “You didn’t answer my question. Was I your problem?”
“Oh,” Beat takes in a deep breath, and huffs. “...Yeah. Kinda.” Her eyes have already fallen away from Clef, focusing on a crack in the concrete flooring, down to the left of her.
“Good, because we’re practising again tomorrow.” Clef turns on a heel and plods up the stairs towards her kit. “Until then, get some rest, I guess.”
Beat assesses herself, briefly. Her throat is still tight from the expectation of conflict; there’s no way she’s singing in this state. Her face feels hot, and she knows it won’t abate for a while – she’s been in love before. The rain keeps pouring outside, a white noise that compliments the new quietude of the room so well. Relaxation would hit the spot. Sharing space with Clef is an added bonus.
A devious flicker crosses her mind. “Hey, Clef…”
“Yup?”
“If I mess up again tomorrow… would you try to ‘fix’ me again?” A grin pulls at her lips.
Behind her kit, Clef rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t like how.” She mimes a smacking motion with her hand, as if she’s clapped someone across the back of their head. “You get more of that,” She points to the place she once stood, with her body against Beat’s, “when you do good. Deal?”
Beat can feel her vocal chords warming up already. “Deal.”