Fill your life with Laughter and Bees

Logan had been getting some work done at his desk when his phone buzzed, glancing over at it to see that he had a text message. That was a fairly uncommon occurrence as not many people had his personal phone number. So out of curiosity, he picked up the phone and opened it to see who contacted him.

“Nerd.” 

He rolled his eyes, quickly tapping out a response. “Prep.”

The next message came back immediately. “Hey, remember how you owe me one?” 

Logan raised an eyebrow, looking at his phone incredulously. “Not at all. How on earth have you come to that conclusion?”

“You said you’d repay me from that time I beat up the kid who stole your lunch money.” 

He sighed. “Roman. That was in high school. Over a decade ago.” 

“Still counts.” 

“...What is it you want from me?”

The following conversation somehow led to Logan finding himself seated in Roman’s expansive living room the following day, watching in disbelief as his long time friend laid out his entire idea. Once the famous actor was finished, Logan simply raised an eyebrow - something he did a lot around him.

“Let me ensure I am understanding you correctly. You want to put together a ‘secret band,’ so that we can create and release music that is not attached to our well-known names, just to see how well we are received by the public?” 

“I mean, I feel like you took my 20 minute presentation and reduced it to a single sentence. But yes, essentially.” Roman agreed, looking back at the music producer. 

“Why?” Logan asked, clearly doubtful. 

Roman just sighed. “Oh come on, Lo! It’ll be fun! A secret project! Show off things no one knows we can do! You’ve been DJing and mixing for so long- I bet you don’t even remember how to play the piano like you used to.” 

The competitive glint in his eye spoke volumes on how well his old friend knew how to push his buttons. It was clearly on now.

Logan had fallen right into what Roman hoped he would, and the two proceeded to discuss ways they could actually make this work. They’d have to hire the right team, bring on just the right crew to maintain the secret, they needed the necessary tech, and the people who had the know-how to run it smoothly. 

“Wait, wait. Roman. We’re overlooking the most important thing to make this actually work.” Logan interjected suddenly.

“What?” Roman asked, looking up at him from his notes which were only growing more and more hectic.

“More members? How do you plan for us to do this with just the two of us? Two is not often considered enough to constitute a band.” He explained, sitting back against the couch and crossing his arms over his chest.

The actor sat back as well, tapping his pencil against his palm as he thought. “I think I have a guy who would be up for joining us. I know he can play the guitar, at least.” 

“I definitely know a guitarist. I could ask him along as well.” Logan added, thinking. 

“Perfect! So that keeps me on lead vocals… I’m sure those two can work out what they need to between the guitars, and then that keeps you on keyboards and your mixing.” Roman nodded, returning to his notes and going back to jotting things down.

Their brainstorming session ended with them both agreeing to contact the friend they’d mentioned and try to all group up at Roman’s the following Saturday. 

Later that night, Roman threw himself back on his bed with a big smile before pulling up a number in his phone and calling. 

“Hello?” A voice came from the other end. 

“Hey Pat!” Roman answered, happily.

“Oh! Hey Roman! How’re you doing?” He responded warmly.

What proceeded was about ninety minutes of conversation, checking on how the other was doing, seeing what the other had been up to since they’d last seen one another, and just catching up on everything in general. They’d only met a few months back, while backstage at an awards show, so there was plenty for them to share with one another. Roman was a handful of years older than the young country artist, but the two of them hit it off immediately and had become fast friends. Of course with how busy they were between concerts and movie shoots they hadn’t actually gotten to hang out since the night they met, but that didn’t matter in the slightest to the two of them. They were clearly kindred spirits.

After that first hour and a half had passed, Roman finally remembered why it was he’d actually called. “Oh! I had something to ask you about! I’m putting together a little secret music project. I wanted to see if you might like to be part of it.” “Aw! You’d like me to? I’d definitely want to if you’re sure!”

“Perfect! I’ll send you my address, could you swing by on Saturday? A few more friends are going to come by as well, we can see if we’re all a good fit!”

“I’ll definitely be there! I’m looking forward to it! Thank you so much for the invite!” 

And with that, they fell back into another hour of friendly conversation, talking into the night.

Logan had gotten home, had something to eat, done a little bit of arranging for a song he’d been working on, and then finally pulled out his phone to send a text as he was settling in bed. 

“Virgil. I’m being pulled into a music group project against my better judgment and you’re going to accompany me so I don’t have to suffer alone.” 

“Goddamn it, Lo. Do I have to? This already sounds annoying.” 

“It assuredly will be. And yes, yes you do.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Here’s the address, see you Saturday at 11 am.” Then he simply rolled over and went to sleep.

About a week later, Virgil found himself on his motorcycle, heading toward the address he'd been given. He couldn't believe he was getting roped into whatever this was going to be. Sure, he technically could have said no to Logan - But the producer had been a good friend to him since he came onto the scene, he was at least going to hear out… Whatever this was about to be.

He knew that the huge house he was pulling up to certainly didn't belong to his friend, the stone lion statues that sat on either side of the drive way really didn't suit the understated genius. He made his way up to the gate and hit the button on the intercom, an automated voice immediately responding.

"Please state your name and business." "Uh.. Virgil Grimm, Logan Brooks told me to show up here." The voice that responded was clearly a live person, the intercom was probably connected to an app or something. "Oh! You're the guitarist Lo mentioned? That's so awesome. Come on up, I'll see you in a second." The voice sounded familiar to some degree but with the shaky clarity that came through an outdoor speaker, he didn't completely place it. Either way, the gate blocking him slid open and he was able to ride up the drive way, passing a large fountain made up of at least four more stone lions, and parking right between a fairly nondescript black SUV and a sky blue convertible beetle with flower cutouts on the break lights. This was certainly going to be one hell of a something. That was for sure.

He slid off his bike and walked up to the huge front door, leaving his motorcycle helmet on his seat. He normally wouldn't, but they were clearly gated in at a personal residence. Virgil warily made his way up to the huge double doors of the… Home didn't seem like the word. Manor? Estate? Wildly large living space. He didn't even have to grab one of the grand door knockers, both of which were a bronze ring held in the mouth of a bronze lion face, as the door swung open when he got close. He'd already seen eight separate lions since he'd arrived but didn't at any point consider he'd been walking up to Roman Lyons' house. Because in what world would anyone think that that was what was happening? However, something Virgil had been realizing more and more the more famous he had become - the world he lived in really didn't seem real most of the time.

"Virgil! Great to meet you! Come on in, Logan and Patton are already here." Roman said happily, waving him to walk past him as he held the door open. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be some sort of awestruck? This A-lister had been making movies since before Virgil's career took off. But even if he was, a little, it certainly didn't suit his style to fanboy. And if Logan was here, he'd just follow his lead on how to deal with this situation.

"Uh, great to meet you too. Thanks." He said, lamely, walking past the actor and into his huge entryway. Lord. Virgil was plenty famous in his own right, but this... This was money he didn't think he could really fathom. Everything was so open and enormous, shiny and white and marble and gold and- "There you are, Virgil. Thank you for coming, I don't know how much longer I'd have survived this without you." Logan's trademark deadpan brought him from his thoughts and forced his gaze to settle on him.

"Yeah? Why's that?" He responded, making his way over to where he was sitting perfectly properly on a large couch in the living room. "You'll see soon enough." Was all Logan gave him to work with. So that was helpful. A few moments later a gasp sounded from the mouth of a hallway leading away from the space they were currently in. "Oh my goodness! You're Virgil Grimm, aren't you? Oh, I'm such a big fan!" He heard, having to turn to see who was speaking to him.

He locked eyes with a very expressive young man in a sky blue flannel and cowboy boots. "Oh, uh, yeah. You're Patton, right? Patton Campbell?" The young man gasped again, rushing forward to take one of Virgil's hands in both of his, sort've giving him a handshake. "Oh my goodness, you know my name!"

"Oh, yeah, I've heard some of your stuff. You're really talented." The punk rock guitarist gave the country pop artist a small smile, he couldn't help it. He was just so sweet and sincere, he was literally squeaking with joy.

"Well, I'm glad were all here. Let's get down to business!" Roman said excitedly, clapping his hands together in front of his chest and then rubbing them a bit, drawing the attention back to himself as he joined them in his living room. The three reactions to this were quite different: excited, exhausted, and exasperated.

Roman waved the two standing to come fully into the living room, smiling as he gestured for them to sit so he could tell them the same idea he'd pitched to Logan a week prior.

It wasn't a complex idea, but it did raise a question for Virgil. The very same one it had raised for Logan, actually. "Okay. But, like. Why?" "It'll be fun! Besides, wouldn't it be interesting to see if it's more than just name recognition that gets us our acclaim? With no one knowing who we are, it's all based on our merit and skill. That's one hell of a challenge."

"So… This isn't about money or anything. You just… Want to?" Virgil asked, looking at the actor again. "I think he's just upset he didn't go into music." Logan said, a soft smirk growing on his face as he turned to the guitarist. "It's not like I couldn't if I wanted to." Roman murmured as he rolled his eyes. "But this would be so much better! I don't want to get attention just because people already know me." "And it sounds like so much fun!" Patton was clearly fully sold already. Neither Logan nor Virgil had really met Patton before today, but they could both already tell it was going to be a lot more difficult to turn him down than it would be with Roman. Virgil hadn't been quite sure how he was expected to react to Roman at first either, but Logan was clearly not intimidated in any way, so he was defaulting to his usual snark when it came to the actor.

"Alright, so if we did do this… How exactly do you plan to pull it off? And what is it you want us to do?" Virgil asked, turning to Roman again. "If you have Patton sing people will know it's him."

"I'll be lead singer. Logan will do what he does best, and then you and Patton will be on guitars." Roman explained.

Before Virgil had a chance to give a sarcastic response, Patton had turned those big eyes on him. "I mostly play acoustic, but I know a little bit of bass guitar. I know I couldn't do lead guitar like you can, but I'll try my best to keep up! Um.. Do you think you'd be able to help me practice?" He really wasn't sure about this. He'd never liked working in groups. There was always drama and people competing with each other and other assorted bullshit. But he spared a glance at Logan, who was giving Roman one hell of an arched eyebrow, before focusing on Patton again. Logan wouldn't have called him over if he didn't actually think this could work. And he clearly had enough of a relationship with the actor that he wouldn't let him do anything too annoying. "…I can help you, that's no problem. I have a few guitars we can practice with." He finally said, unable to stop a small smile as Patton's entire face lit up with glee.

"Excellent! Logan and I have been working on logistics a bit already, we both have some connections we can pull that should help with the background stuff. We just need to coordinate between the three of us and figure out the fun parts." Roman smiled, clearly overjoyed this seemed to be going ahead.

"Fun parts?" Logan asked, his skeptical eyebrow seemed to be taking up permanent residence arched high up above his glasses.

"Like our band name! How we want to present ourselves! We can't let anything lead back to us, it has to be something we can agree on that's us but not too obviously us." Roman had brought his finger to his chin, clearly thinking. "Like what? Do you want to open the dictionary to a random page or are you planning on coming up with some kind of acronym?" Logan asked, clearly sarcastic.

"Oh! An acronym would be neat!" Patton smiled, clapping happily.

"Yeah! I like that a lot! Let's see… Well, our initials don't spell anything." Roman said, thinking.

Logan shared a look with Virgil, the other two clearly weren't fluent in sarcasm like they were. This really did seem to be going ahead.

"Oh! What if we had code names?" Patton said suddenly. "We could use those to make a word."

"Oh, I like that! Hmm. Like what though?" Roman had picked up his notebook, trying to think over options. Logan scoffed, looking at his long time friend. "Isn't this your area? You're the self-proclaimed creative one." "Well, I am! I embody the concept." Roman was quick to reply, but then continued after a momentary pause. "Wait, that's it! We could do descriptors. I'll be Creativity." He gestured to himself with a flourish. Both Logan and Virgil rolled their eyes but Patton was, like usual, the first to pipe up. "Oh, that's so fun! What should I be?" Virgil huffed, looking directly at Roman, gesturing at the country singer. "Is this how this project is going to go the entire time? You just have this angel on your shoulder telling you everything you do is right?" Patton's eyes widened, him quickly turning back to the guitarist. "Oh no, I don't want you to not get your opinions in though, I'm sorry. I can talk less." "No, Patton, I don't mean- That wasn't a comment about you, it was about him." Virgil quickly turned back to Patton, not wanting to make him feel bad. "But I'm the one who… I just want to make sure it's fair. And if-" Patton began. "Morality." Came Logan's voice, drawing everyone's attention. "Huh?" Patton quickly spun in his seat to look at Logan. "You embody the concept, Patton. Morality." He explained. Patton tilted his head to the side, looking like a curious puppy. "Isn't that like, deadly?" Logan blinked, holding in the sarcasm he'd have employed if it had been Roman who said it. Or even Virgil. "…You're thinking of mortality. Morality is about what's right and what's wrong." "Can I be Mortality?" Virgil piped up with a smirk.

Roman just shot him a look before looking back to Logan. "Alright then, nerd. What do you want to be?" The music producer thought for about half a second. "Logic."

"That's barely not your name." Roman raised an eyebrow.

"It certainly suits me as the voice of reason around here. Though.. We don't have a vowel. We might need to change something if we want to make an actual word." Logan took another moment to think.

"I mean, I have anxiety. Does that help?" Virgil added in, the bored tone in his voice and expression on his face not matching the sarcastic flourish he employed to raise his hand - clearly mocking Roman's exaggerated gestures.

Patton quickly turned back to Virgil, taking one of his hands in both of his once again. "Oh, I'm sorry Virgil, is there anything we can-" He'd begun but once again was cut off by Logan.

"Calm. That is the word we can spell. Which, I'd like to point out, describes none of us." Logan interjected, cynically. He'd originally opened his mouth to inform them that they could only make two words with their letters, but realizing one of them was "Clam" and it would undoubtedly invite painful wordplay and potentially horrendous themes, he thought better of pointing it out as an option.

Roman and Virgil both piped up in unison, though the latter's sarcasm didn't at all match the volume of the former's enthusiasm.

"Perfect cover."

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