#dissonace

The arena in Phoenix is cold and empty when she walks into it, meandering towards the stage from the labyrinth of seats before her. When she finally reaches it, she clambers up, leaving her feet to dangle over the edge as she pulls out her phone.

This was the rehearsal space that Corroded Coffin had chosen for her to learn the song and practice it. They had a few options, seeming to narrow down on one. The one that she hoped beyond hope that they don’t choose, but judging by her luck, those lyrics are going to be ripped from her throat either way.

She’s here early, of course, alone in the quiet for a while. It’s almost peaceful, mostly haunting, looking out upon the rows of seats, thinking that she sees a phantom sitting in one before her eyes adjust, and it’s gone. Dealing with paranoia was never her strong suit, and she’s staring up at the nosebleeds, swearing that there’s movement up there when the stage rumbles below her.

She turns, seeing the boys wheeling equipment and instrument cases onto the stage. Eddie’s in the rear, and she smiles stiffly at each one as they pass by, allowing her smile to fall fully when Eddie looks at her.

She stands, quietly watching as they unload their gear, plug various cables into various panels, Joey, Jeff and Eddie tuning their guitars while Gareth adjusts the foot pedal for his kickdrum, giving it a few tests before nodding in satisfaction, drumming out a little fill, general rehearsal stuff.

And she’s there, in her hoodie and sweats, standing awkwardly downstage, waiting for them to tell her to do something, or even speak to her.

Of course, it’s Eddie who finally does, adjusting the height on his mic stand as he looks over at her, “We brought an extra mic, if you need it.”

She pulls out her own from her bag, waving it a little as she connects it to the soundboard, wired as opposed to not, easier to deal with for just a rehearsal.

“So,” she says, approaching Eddie, dragging a stand behind her, setting it a few feet away from him, as she slips her mic into the clip, “What song did you choose?”

There’s only a couple songs that feature another vocalist, and among those, none feature a female vocalist, so she can’t really think where she might fit into all this, if she can at all. The label said this might not work, it could end up being a one-off, something that she never has to do again.

“People love nostalgia, so we’re choosing one from our earlier years,” He says, bending to dig some lyric sheets out of his guitar case, handing them to her.

She reads the name at the top of the page, and her blood runs a bit cold.

It’s the song. The song that propelled them to stardom, the song that got them signed to a bigger label, the song that broke containment out of their sub-genre and reached the world at large, the song that sat at 86 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a month straight.

“You’re kidding,” She whispers, running the tips of her fingers over the printed ink, “You want me to sing this? With you?”

Eddie tilts his head at her, his brow furrowing, “Yeah, we haven’t performed it in a few years, thought it was time to bring it back around.”

She stares at him. She loves this song. Always has - even after everything went down, this was the song that she couldn’t quite manage to delete entirely from her library, simply removing it from her most frequent playlists, but it would sit there, like an old tome collecting dust. 

One of the reasons that the song broke containment was because of its rawness and vulnerability. The lyrics themselves, though steeped in excessive metaphor, paint a picture of devastating heartbreak. A heartbreak, though asked by every news outlet and interviewer and magazine and just about anyone could get a second with him, Eddie has never discussed. The fact that it's shrouded in mystery makes it all the more popular, superfans scrubbing through Eddie’s past, trying to figure out who it’s about. It starts off slow, building through the first chorus and into the second verse, and by the bridge it’s a cacophony of sound, overlapping bits of Eddie’s voice singing different parts, until they come into one succinct harmony during the final chorus. They haven’t made a song like it since. 

“Alright,” she exhales, “Where do you want me to come in?” 

“Was thinking near the second chorus, leading into the bridge. I could sing the harmony, you can sing the melody.”

Which, again, is a strange choice. Her voice, louder, higher than his will be what people mostly hear, and she doesn’t know if the return of this song, the song with her in it, is what people would even want. 

Eddie’s watching her, seeming to know that she’s mulling it over in her head. He takes a cautious step forward, and she snaps out of it, looking up into his face. 

“Listen,” he says, all tall, voice low, only meant for her, “We don’t have to like each other. Hell, we don’t even have to get along like best friends, but you and I both know this tour is going to suck ass if we’re always at each other's throats.”

She sighs, biting down on her cheek, “Yeah. Let's just…try and behave ourselves, I guess.” 

He nods, pulling his guitar from the case and slinging it across his shoulder. 

“Alright,” Eddie says, plucking out a little tune on the strings before approaching his microphone, “First verse.” 

***

She’s standing in the wings, tired from her own set but shaky about her part in this one. She can hear Eddie in her in-ears, can feel rather than hear the music, and as the lyrics inch closer and closer to her starting point, her heart rate jumps in her chest. 

Rehearsal had gone well enough, they’d decided that she would start singing when she was off the stage, and then walk on stage still singing. It’s a little Disney Channel, sure, but it didn’t really make sense for her to be on stage the whole time, awkwardly hovering by Jeff, waiting until it was time for her to sing. 

When the song had started, she could hear the cheers of the crowd, so loud that they had picked up on Eddie’s mic. He hadn’t really introduced it, just started playing the first few chords, recognizable enough that the crowd’s confused whispers had turned into a roar of excitement.

The second verse was finishing up now, the pre chorus ringing in her ears, Eddie’s raspy voice sending pins and needles down the length of her spine. He was a beautiful singer, there was no two ways about it, and try as she might to find more and more things wrong with him, with his music, with the band, with everything that had anything to do with him, she was coming up short, more and more. 

“Okay,” She hears one of the sound guy’s voices in her ear, Pete, maybe.

”Three.”

She takes a deep breath in.

”Two.”

She raises the microphone to her mouth.

”One.”

She starts to sing.

Her voice comes out stronger than she would’ve expected, higher, louder than Eddie’s like she knew it would be. Their harmony twists around each other, like both strands of a double helix around a DNA ladder, and judging by the way Eddie’s voice skips, he jerks his head to look at her, eyes wide, he’s just as surprised as she is. It didn’t sound like this in rehearsal, because they hadn’t been working together as they are now, off in their own worlds, in their own parts of the song, despite the fact that originally, the bridge was meant to be a cohesive piece.

It’s that way now, and as she walks out on stage, flashing a shy smile in greeting, Eddie holds out an arm in introduction, one hand off the neck of his guitar for a few seconds before it flies back, picking up the chords.

It goes well, considering.

For about thirty seconds.

When her in-ear cuts out, and she can only hear Eddie again, she figures that her mic is still on, and so she figures that she should keep singing, as the bridge is almost over. A quick glance at Eddie tells her that this is not the case, and she raises a finger to her mic in question, and he shakes his head, and then nods for her to come share his.

Which is quite literally the last thing she wants to do. She could just as well share Joey or Jeff’s mic, but they’re not even singing back up right now, and as the few seconds pass before she makes a decision, she can feel a lull in the crowd, and can hear, above all else, Stacy’s voice in her head, telling her to ride their coattails. 

She jogs up to Eddie’s side, having kept her distance from him this whole time. He moves to the right to accommodate her as she stands on tiptoe to reach his microphone, as it’s set just above her head.

She can hear herself again in Eddie’s mic, and she can feel Eddie himself pressed into her side, the neck of his guitar crossed in front of her like the blade of a sword, his elbow brushing against her as he changes chords.

The last few lines of the bridge approach, and her eyes slip to meet his. She can feel his breath on her face, they’re that close, and when the lights strobe around them, she can see the expression on his face in snapshots, apathy, then interest, then a softness that shows in his eyes, the way they half close when he looks down at her mouth, the way that the only thing separating their faces is the microphone between them. 

It’s over half a second later, Eddie’s turning back towards the crowd to sing the final notes of the song, and she slinks off stage in a way that she hopes isn’t obvious. Her job is done, she sang the fucking song, she can leave. 

She’s walking so fast back to Daisy Chain’s greenroom that she missteps and rolls her ankle in her shoe and falls against the wall, panting. 

The searing pain in her ankle is accompanied by a pounding in her chest, so loud that she can hear it in her ears. She sinks to the ground, putting her head between her knees, breathing deeply. 

She doesn’t know how long she’s there, breathing in, out, in, out. It could’ve been minutes or an hour, but sometime later she feels a hand on her shoulder, and jolts, head snapping up. 

It’s Steve. Thick eyebrows drawn together in concern, a small frown on his lips. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, pressing the back of his fingers to her cheek as if to check her temperature. 

“Yeah,” she chokes out, and he helps her stand. She puts a little weight on her ankle and it pounds, but not enough for her to not be able to limp back to the bus and ice it, “Just - got a bit -“

“Overwhelmed?” Steve offers, hand on her hip to steady her as she tries walking a few steps, “You seem to be like that a lot, lately. Is there something going on?”

She considers, for half a second, telling him. Telling him that her career, her livelihood and her passion hangs in the balance if she doesn’t play nice with Corroded Coffin, and with Eddie. That if she isn’t a good girl, that if she doesn’t stay on the marionette strings UDR has her on, she’ll lose the one thing she’s actually accomplished in her life. 

She also considers telling him that playing nice with Eddie is not as hard as she thought it would be, and that she wishes it was harder, so she’d have a reason, a tangible, solid reason to still hate him.

She shakes her head, though, gulping all of this back, “I think it’s just the adrenaline. That crowd was really loud.”

Steve nods, but she can tell that he doesn’t believe a word she’s saying. Despite his reputation for being a bit of a himbo, she’s come to find that he is actually quite perceptive. When she sees him, that is. She can count on one hand the number of times they’ve hung out on this tour, despite being almost a month into it.

He helps her back to the buses outside, and on the journey they talk a little. About the tour, about his music, about a little bit of everything and nothing at all. He’s on in less than 20 minutes, but he makes sure that she gets in okay before speeding away, into the waiting crowd of managers and crew, who all roll their eyes at him, in a fond sort of way.

She sheds what she can of her clothes, grabs a can of soda from the fridge and collapses onto her bed, resting the can between the wall of her bunk and her ankle. She stares up at the ceiling, and right before sleep takes over, she sees that flash of Eddie’s eyes again.

***

Her disappearing act doesn’t go unnoticed. Eddie’s salty about it during load out, tossing cables into his case in a pissy little way, so much so that she clamps her headphones over her head and ignores him for the rest of the day.

The girls had been concerned, telling her that they’d searched all through the venue for her before finally returning to the bus and finding her zonked out in her bunk. She gave a half apology and an even weaker explanation, folding in on herself like she always does.

They drive through the night to get to Santa Fe, having a few days to themselves before the show.

Both bands, and Steve spend this time apart, in their respective buses, and on day two, their hotel rooms. It’s nice to sleep in a full sized bed for once, even if Reader wakes up with Chrissy’s limbs wrapped around her like a koala.

On the third night, the night before the show, cabin fever sets in. It’s late, past 3 am when Reader moves Chrissy’s limbs off of her and pads quietly out of the hotel room and down the hall, tugging a hoodie on as she goes.

She just needs a little air, is all. She walks through the pristine hotel lobby and into the night, which has a chilly bite to it that has her pulling her hoodie closer around herself.

Stucco buildings tower around her. The hotel is situated on a quaint little street, with old fashioned orange street lamps lining the road, bathing everything around her in a warm, amber light that ignites a sad little twinge of nostalgia in her. Home, in Indianapolis, on crisp summer nights, biking home from band practice, throat sore and heart full.

She closes her eyes, the sound of distant traffic playing in her ears. Then, a much closer sound has her eyes flying open.

The click of a lighter sounds somewhere close, and she glances around, feeling an unearned and slightly misplaced terror that Eddie is lurking somewhere in the shadows. Her eyes eventually fall on a much shorter figure, and Gareth steps out of the alley between the hotel and adjacent building, and even from here, she can hear the music that is blaring through his headphones.

He startles when he sees her, eyes growing wide as he comically jumps back. She raises an eyebrow at him and he quickly collects himself, pulling his headphones off to rest around his neck before looking at her again.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks, in a would-be casual voice, but there’s a distinct undertone to it that makes her mouth taste a little sour.

“Not really. Chrissy is like a furnace.”

He murmurs something around his cigarette, something that sounds a little bit like lucky but she can’t be too sure.

“What’s her deal, anyway?” He suddenly asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Is she like,” He makes a vague gesture that she has no idea how to interpret, “Single?”

Reader bites back a grin and shakes her head, “Nah, she’s got a guy back home. They’re crazy about each other.”

She can tell he’s trying not to look devastated, and a little pinprick of pity sparks in her chest before she remembers that she doesn’t like him, then it goes from sad to pretty funny.

“What about you? Or Nancy and Robin?”

“Robin and Nance have been together since they were seventeen. Me? None of your business.”

He seems to know that none of your business means that she’s as single as the day is long, and it's his turn to feel pity or vindication, whichever one he wants.

It doesn’t show on his face what he does feel, expression made carefully blank. He takes another drag off his cigarette and turns his gaze towards the street.

“Eddie’s been pretty pissy since Phoenix,” He says, rather suddenly, eyes darting to her before they dart back toward the road.

She was afraid of the conversation veering into this territory, not wanting to think about or talk about Eddie, as much as she could help.

“Boo-hoo,” She deadpans, “Not my problem.”

“He’s not as bad as you think,” Gareth turns towards her now, eyebrows scrunched together in a display of earnestness, “He-”

“I don’t care what he is, Gareth,” She cuts him off, “I’m just trying to get through this tour, okay? Corroded Coffin wasn’t exactly my idea of a good tour mate, but we play the cards we’re dealt, and I’m playing nice, aren’t I?”

Gareth looks like he wants to retort, but she quells him with a stare and he raises his hands in surrender, the glowing bud of his cigarette waving through the air as he does.

He turns to go back into the hotel, and she hears the sliding doors open, and then close.

“He doesn’t hate you. I think you should know that.”

The doors open again, and she’s left standing there, in the chilly night air that just got about ten degrees colder.

***

She’s frenetic tonight, never staying in one place too long. She’s gone up to the barricade more than once, allowing several hands to grasp around her extended arm, while security keeps a tight hold on her legs to keep her from being pulled under.

Song after song, lyric after lyric, Eddie can’t keep his eyes off her from where he stands in the wings, a post that he’s taken up a little too often as of late. He makes excuses here and there, but always finds himself watching some part of their set before he trudges back to their green room to do warm ups.

He watches in almost indecent fascination as she gears up for the bridge of the song they’re playing, filling her lungs with air.

When the bridge comes, she whips her guitar around her body on the strap, so that it’s slung across her back. She seizes the microphone and rips it from the stand, the honeyed tones of her falsetto reverberating across the venue. A slow drum line builds as she sinks to her knees, and the lights go crazy, turning the sweat droplets that cling to her skin into a thousand tiny jewels, sparkling as brightly as the shimmery eyeshadow packed onto her closed eyes. The crowd goes fucking wild as she tilts her head back, hair cascading like the branches of a willow tree down her back. 

Fuck, Eddie thinks, watching her from the side of the stage, watching as her brow furrows, watching as she bangs her head in time with the whine of the electric guitar riff that Chrissy’s shredding out.

She’s back on her feet again, slipping the microphone back into the stand, bringing her guitar back to her front, fingers sliding across the neck as she strums the rhythm section of the final chorus, grinning into the microphone as she sings, hips swaying to and fro, the curve of her ass peeking out from underneath her skirt as she bends at the knees a little. 

She’s so fucking pretty. She is so fucking pretty and Eddie can’t breathe. When the song ends, and she honest to god giggles into the microphone, the noise being amplified and echoed around the venue, and Eddie can’t help but feel like this whole thing has been specifically designed to make his knees weak. 

“Wow!” She exclaims, tossing a couple picks into the crowd, “Thank you so much! That tune is one of my favorites, and on almost every stop on this tour, it's gotten a bigger and bigger response.”

Robin drums out her agreement, and Reader looks over her shoulder with a smile, before turning to the audience again, introducing their next song.

And all Eddie can do is watch. He watches her dance to the beat, smile to herself, watches her fingers fly lovingly across her guitar. She’s a little firecracker when she’s on stage, always in motion, and it’s so electrifying, so fucking endearing that Eddie feels the hair on his arms stand up when her shimmering, graphic liner gaze falls on him for a millisecond. 

She sings about love. She sings about sex, about nostalgia and about the ocean, sings about the minutiae of human experience and heartbreak, each lyric captivating and masterful, tugging at the exact right parts of the brain, evoking what feels like a million different responses in Eddie, from skipped heartbeats to a tightening in his jeans to a hot sting in his eyes, and he can’t quite take it anymore. 

Corroded Coffin is next, he knows that, but he - fuck, he needs a minute. He ducks away from stage right and heads to their green room, pouring out a shot of whiskey and downing it, hands clenched around the edge of the vanity, head bowed towards his chest. 

It’s mystifying that this girl, who’s capable of such vitriol towards him, who avoids him at every turn, who has nothing but contempt for him can reduce him to this with lyrics and vibrato and sweetness reserved for no one else but the crowd in front of her. 

If he has to stand smushed against the barricade, metal digging painfully into his skin as sweaty bodies press into him to catch even a little bit of that sweetness, to catch a stray smile, he’d do it.

Which is so fucking ridiculous that it pisses him off. He’s got people knocking down the door for even a chance to fuck him. He could go out there right now, flash a smile at anyone and would probably end up getting his dick wet for it, a hot mouth against his. 

But he wants her, and it is infuriating, because he knows, he fucking knows that it’s never going to happen. She wouldn’t want him even if he was the last man on planet earth. 

He supposed this is what he deserves for that throwaway comment, and the utter lack of humility to go to her after, through text or DM or pull her aside as she walked into UDR, tell her that he’s sorry, he’s so fucking sorry and not only that, he’s an idiot, a callous, selfish idiot that had eyes and ears for nothing else but his own band, his own success, so much so that he was willing to step on her neck get ahead. 

If only he had known - fuck. How talented she truly was, would it have made a difference? Even if she sucked, even if her band couldn’t hold a tune it still wouldn’t have mattered, it wouldn’t have made that comment okay, in any way shape or form. 

It’s retroactively humiliating, but he knows, as he glares at himself in the mirror, hating himself, that his humiliation is nothing to what they’d done to Daisy Chain. 

He's so wrapped up in his self-loathing spiral that he doesn’t really register that the music warbling through the walls of the venue has stopped. He only comes back to his senses when the door opens and peels of laughter seep into the room, the clunk of platform shoes proceeding the girls, save for Robin and her keds, all smiling and sweaty.  

Reader’s eyes land on him first, and her smile disappears in an instant. 

Up close, he can see her makeup running a bit, can see the tired sorta droop to her eyes and he can smell her perfume mixing with her sweat, which normally would’ve been kinda gross but in this instance, sends his brain into a tailspin worse than it already had been.

Chrissy speaks first, “I think we have the wrong room.”

They do, as the bands were afforded separate green rooms, the one that Eddie’s standing in presenting a distinct lack of everything the girls own. 

They all file out after Chrissy’s proclamation. All except for Reader. 

She’s staring at Eddie, eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

“Are you…” She hesitates, shifting her weight from foot to foot, “Alright?”

How uncharacteristic. Up until now, Eddie was under the impression that she truly didn’t care if he lived or died. So, it’s somewhat shocking that she’s displaying even a shred of concern for him, even if it looks like the words taste sour in her mouth. 

“Yeah,” he manages, straightening up, “Yeah, I’m good, thanks.”

She nods curtly, “Good. You’re up, by the way.” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of the stage.