#sssfic

Murphy shows up for the Entertainment Weekly interview a half hour early. Punctuality isn’t generally one of his strong suits, but being early means he has time to finish his coffee and get in the right headspace. It’s not that he hates interviews, per say, it’s just that he’s notoriously bad at them; always saying something a bit too asshole-ish or otherwise bad for PR.

But Abby has him under strict orders to behave this time, and while forgoing a filter might be more true to life, it does make Abby’s job two times harder. And despite everything he doesn’t want to be a prick to his manager; she’s good to him.

So he finishes his coffee and constructs neutral answers to the questions he anticipates the interviewer asking. She’s probably hoping for something juicy, considering the interview is supposed to be about Delinquency’s breakup, but it’s been five years; he and Bellamy gave up on hating each other ages ago—you might even say they’re friends now. It’s nowhere near as dramatic as the media likes to think it is. But a bad quote from him could definitely make it seem that way.

He fiddles with the cord of his earbuds, listening to Something to Erase. Most wouldn’t consider it a calming album, what with its themes of abuse and neglect and heavy rock guitar, but it’s an old favorite of his, and its familiarity settles on his shoulders like a warm blanket.

“You’re early,” Bellamy remarks, just at the end of the seventh track, stepping off the elevator along with the interviewer.

“Fuck off,” Murphy says, stuffing his phone and earbuds into the pocket of his jeans, and then turns his attention to the interviewer. She introduces herself as Kara, and seems professional in a harsh and cool way, down to her pressed blouse. Good. He hates the overeager ones.  

They settle down for the interview, him and Bellamy exchanging banter that Kara’s tape recorder eats up, and move on to small talk, easing them in for the bigger questions. The first few are about the breakup: What went wrong? What made it difficult? Do you regret it?

They are all questions Murphy had more or less anticipated. Bellamy takes the brunt of the answers. Quotes their differences in musicality and opinions, along with their hotheads. Says yeah, the change of direction in life was really the hardest. Mentions politely that they couldn’t regret it when they look at where they are now. He talks about what Mbege and Roma are up to, and Murphy feels like a bit of a dick for not knowing about Roma’s new modeling career in Europe or Mbege’s work in producing. His thumb is starting to bleed from behind the corner of the nail he keeps biting down on.

Kara notes all of the responses down with grace, even though something on her face suggests she’d like just a little bit more bite behind the answers. She looks to him for that.

“Do you think you might ever work together again, having a bit more age and perspective?” Kara asks.

“Nah,” Murphy is quick to say. “The whole thing was a failed experiment. We’re friendly again, but we work better apart.”

Kara nods shortly, and looks to Bellamy for confirmation, who agrees easily.

“Yeah, Murphy’s better off doing his own thing. Doesn’t like to answer to anyone.” Bellamy’s mostly teasing but Murphy can’t help but roll his eyes at the answer anyway. It’s not like he’s some anti-social diva, he works with his producers just fine after all, but he supposes being a lone wolf is part of his image now.

“Just in a hypothetical sense,” Kara says, turning back to him, “Who would you pick as an ideal collaborator?”

“An ideal collaborator?” he repeats, stalling for time. There’s a question he wasn’t expecting. He doesn't really pay attention to other musicians outside of listening to their music. In general he wants to know as little about other people as possible and that extends to celebrities who might double as his peers. But one band does come to mind.

"Probably The Dead Zone," he says, itching his nose. He had watched an interview with them on Youtube in between vine compilations one night when he couldn't sleep. He remembers the bands' discomfort at having to sit down with one of the late night Jimmys and seeing himself in Emori's off-color jokes and Otan's resting bitch face. He also remembers nodding along when they talked about their songwriting method, the chaotic writing and scrapping and bursts of inspiration that came at weird times of night. Maybe it's just because he was listening to them before he came for the interview, but in a perfect world he wouldn’t mind sitting down with them and hashing something out. "I mean genre wise we overlap almost completely, and I don’t need to tell you Emori’s vocals are great, she’s completely fucking exceptional." He could never manage to balance harsh syllables and aching crones the way she does, it's kinda amazing the more he thinks about it.

The interviewer is suppressing a smile for some reason as she jots down a few notes. Bellamy is giving him a weird look too, and normally he'd call him out on it, but he knows Kara is itching for some animosity to sprout between them, and he's under strict orders to be friendly, so he settles for delivering a questioning tilt of his head. But Bellamy just averts his gaze, still wearing that same smirk.

“The 100 has done a fair few collaborations, and I’d be happy to work with any of those artists again,” he supplies moving the interview along. It wraps up not too long after that, Kara thanking them ad nauseum and telling them they can expect the article up before the end of the week.

“Want to grab something to eat?” Bellamy asks as they make their way out. It’s an awkward time between lunch and dinner now, but Murphy’s never really been one to turn down food.

There’s a cafe down the street that Bellamy swears up and down is great, and at this weird time it’s mostly empty. The hostess gives them a poorly lit seat near the back.

“So how have you been, really?” Bellamy asks once they have their respective drinks. It’s Murphy’s third coffee of the day, but it’s frigid outside and he had slept like shit so he takes scalding gulps as Bellamy warms his hands around his green tea.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe I’m actually doing fine. I’m still riding that post tour rush.”

Bellamy shakes his head. That’s one of the things they had fought over the most when they were still in a band together. Bellamy hadn’t wanted to be on the road for months on end when he had a sister back home, but Murphy lived for movement, for new cities with weird bars and diners, for being miles away from his hometown. It’s still his favorite part of being a performer, even if it gets exhausting.

“So you’re gonna take it easy for a bit?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Murphy jokes, although he’s kinda under orders to be doing just that. Even if he has two notebooks full of mismatched chords and fragmented lyrics waiting to be stitched together. Abby’s certain that he’s gonna burn out if all he does is churn out music, but he knows it’s the opposite. Sitting still isn’t an option.

“So you’re gonna see if you can make that thing with The Dead Zone pan out?” Bellamy says, finally taking a sip of his drink.

“That was just a hypothetical,” Murphy says with half an eye roll.

“Seemed pretty sincere to me.”

“I mean, if it were on the table, sure,” Murphy says, setting down his empty coffee cup. “But I don’t know the band at all, I just think their music is good.”

“I just think it would be good for you to work with other people—” Murphy rolls his eyes again. “—so you can make some friends in the industry. Lay down some roots, start to feel a part of something. You don’t have to be a loner.”

“I’m twenty fucking six, Bellamy, you can stop mothering me any time now.” Murphy crosses his arms. He has enough friends: Bellamy and Raven. Clarke, if he feels like putting up with her. It’s more than he had in high school. And generally speaking he’s pretty happy, the anger issues are in check, and he’s making more money than 16 year old him could imagine. If he wants to stay in his lane and mostly out of the public eye then that’s his prerogative.

“It’s just an idea,” Bellamy shrugs.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Murphy moves through the obligatory questions about Bellamy’s life and work. Of course he’s doing great, and Murphy really does his level best at caring. But soon enough the conversation fizzles and Murphy slaps down a few dollars for the coffee and slinks out of the cafe.

There’s a voicemail from Abby that he missed and he sends her and Jackson, his overly calm PR guy, a text letting them know that he didn’t fuck up the interview.

When he gets home he slumps on his couch and half-watches reruns of Mythbusters. His head is somewhere between buzzed with caffeine and mindless from exhaustion and it makes him answer Abby’s follow up texts more sharply than really necessary. Or maybe it’s the conversation with Bellamy that’s irritating enough to start a headache. He hates that all these years have passed and Bellamy can still take a hammer directly to all these things inside him he likes to keep in the corners.

He wakes up in the dark on his couch at half past two in the morning with a drum solo beating against the back of his eyes and no memory of falling asleep. An infomercial for exercise equipment blinks across the TV and a blonde woman blabbers on about self improvement before he snaps it off and trudges to his room.

His narrow bed is far more comfortable but it also invites dreams about vinegary wine and leather couches and the same video always on repeat. In the morning they taste like loneliness in his mouth.

He doesn’t go to the studio at all that week, per Abby’s wishes, but he hardly moves away from the keyboard at his place either. There’s a bassline that he finally straightens out, and he spends several hours too many trying to find the right synonym for stillness before scrapping an entire verse. Friday sneaks up on him, and he probably would have forgotten that the article was coming out if Abby hadn’t emailed it to him with a quick nod to his ‘interesting answers’ and a reminder to check his twitter.

If it was up to him he’d be a ghost a social media, mostly because of the whole ‘social’ part, but as someone who has miraculously achieved a modicum of fame in this day and age it’s a bit of a necessity. He could have Jackson run it for him, but that would mean turning his public image over to someone else, a thought that leaves an itch at the back of his neck. And as far as he can tell no one else would be able to pull off the right level of snark anyway.

His notifications are always off though. He really doesn’t need to see tweets about fans wanting to suck his toes, or whatever. But today it seems like everyone is more concerned with the admittedly well written EW article.

Or more concerned with his quotes from the EW article taken out of context. For some reason him liking The Dead Zone’s music is newsworthy. Even People Magazine hopped on the bandwagon. Figures.

He manages to read ten tweets before his fingers drift to the keyboard.

is there a reason you’re all going into

overload? @deadzoneemori is a great

talent. this isn’t news.

He taps send without much forethought. In part it’s genuine curiosity, but he also wants to make sure the band sees it. Bellamy’s nagging must have been really effective if he’s putting himself out there like this. He puts his phone face down on the coffee table, and decides to make himself some eggs.

The distraction works for the most part, and it’s half an hour later before impatience has him checking his phone again.

Emori Ramiro actually replied.

Don’t worry. I know.

I’m on the phone with our manager. How

serious is this offer?

An anxiety settles into him that he hasn’t felt in years. Like audition nerves, or first date jitters. But he was always good at overcoming those.

dead serious. why not?

He smiles at his own rudimentary word play, and also, maybe, because he feels excited about something. It’s so rare that the future seems full of potential.

Of course it means something a little different to Abby when she calls two hours later.

“You know you’re supposed to give me a heads up before you go off and make plans like that.”

“Come on Abby, it’s a good idea. Right?” There’s a long pause on Abby’s end, her way of saying ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed’ in a manner his own mother wouldn’t even have considered trying to pull off.

“It’s not a bad idea. It’s lucky for you that their manager Sinclair is an old friend of mine and that you work under the same record label.”

“So you think I’ve got this whole collaboration thing in me?” He asks, finally able to stop fidgeting with his sweatshirt strings. Approval isn’t something he generally seeks out, from Abby or anybody else, but he does like when he gets it.

“Of course I think you have it in you, John,” Abby says, “We have a meeting next Saturday.”

So soon. In the industry it seems like things take forever half the time, bogged down by strict schedules and contracts and red tape. His manager is a bit of a miracle worker.

Saturday comes faster than expected, one of the benefits of not having an entirely structured work week. They meet in Sinclair’s office, a modest room that seems far more lived in than Abby’s office. With a single large window that lets in plenty of natural light, and a worn couch against the far wall where the frontwoman of The Dead Zone sits.

Emori Ramiro looks more or less the same as in every music video he’s seen her in, long dark hair, a glint behind her brown eyes like sunlight catching on the sharp side of a knife. He’s always liked her as a musician, but he doesn’t think it would be hard to like her as a person either.

“Hey,” she says, offering her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s-it’s nice to meet you too.” He blinks a few times, shakes his head sharply once in an effort to remind himself that he shouldn’t be noticing how pretty she is.  

He introduces himself to Sinclair instead, only to learn that they’ve met before. Turns out he’s Raven’s manager too, something he should have remembered if Abby’s stern glance is anything to go by. They start into all the technical stuff right away, schedules and contracts and copyright, stuff he does a poor job of processing.

Emori is rocking in her chair opposite him, and when he shoots her a weighted ‘I’m dying of boredom’ glance she mimics it with an actress’s precision. His muted chuckle seems to be enough to motivate her to interrupt Sinclair and Abby’s negotiations.

“We don’t have to figure out anything official yet,” Emori says, “we can just play around, see what we want to commit to?” She looks to him for confirmation.

“Yeah, doesn’t seem right to make big plans now.”

That promptly sets Abby and Sinclair into another back and forth, although a much briefer one. The pair shuffle out of the office a brief moment later, something about moody rockstars on their lips, leaving him and Emori alone.

“Don’t get me wrong I’m really excited to work with you. Meetings are just…” He shakes his head.

“I get the feeling. I think I liked it better when I was doing everything myself, but you get big enough and can’t really book your own gigs anymore.”

“I never did any of that,” he admits, “I’m just impatient.”

“I don’t find that too surprising,” Emori says, coming over to sit next to him. There’s half a second of awkward fidgeting, Emori tugging on the fingers of her winter gloves, before she continues. “Why did you wanna work with us?”

“Because you’re music is great,” he answers, a bit confused by the question.

“No one’s made a serious offer to ever work with us before.”

“You’re shitting me,” he says, sitting up a little straighter, investigating Emori’s face to see if that is indeed the case. “People find you that intimidating?” He asks when he finds no signs of deception.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Emori actually laughs, but in a bitter, cautious way. Something on his face must demonstrate confusion because she shakes her head in wondered surprise. “You don’t know.”

He feels distinctly like he got off the wrong exit of the highway, he shakes his head slowly.

“I’m a curse,” she says, “Always have been.”

“Seems superstitious,” he says, only to be met with Emori’s knifelike gaze. She’s serious. People don’t carry around knives unless they’re afraid of being hurt. “I don’t follow.”

“You know The Alliance?” She asks after a held pause, referring to a pop-rock group that’s as popular now as it was a decade ago.

“Course, they played the Super Bowl two years ago.”

“Yeah, well they started in the town next to us. We used to play at the same mall, do the same open mic nights. Just ran into each other a lot. I don’t know if me or Otan or Sienna did something to piss them off, or if they just hated the competition, but they’ve had a vendetta against us for years now. And when they went big they had enough influence to essentially get us on a blacklist.”

“That’s...fucked up,” he says. Music shouldn’t be about competition, and he can’t understand why anyone would want to tamper down talent like Emori and her band.  

“Yeah, it was hard to get people to work with us and to gain a following for a couple years, but we got a record deal anyway, so they can suck it.”

“Screw ‘em,” he says with conviction, and Emori seems to soften a bit, her knife sheathed.

She shrugs out of her jacket only now, her scarf and gloves following. Her left hand has a slight deformity to it, her thumb small and awkwardly bent, and fingers long and fused. It’s something he thinks he should’ve noticed before.

“I was born with it like this,” she says, seeing him notice. “First part of the curse. My mom thought I wasn’t worth raising.” He can tell from the way she tucks her hair around her shoulder and neck that there’s more to the story but he doesn’t pry.

“Well screw her in particular. It’s pretty badass.”

Emori chuckles, somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “So, where do we start with this whole collaboration thing?” It’s the first time she’s sounded fully sold on the idea, and his feet stop their insistent bouncing and settle firmly on the ground.

He scratches his neck. “I’m kinda notorious for being horrible at it,” he says, just to warn her about what she’s getting into. Some selfish part of him has already decided that he’s going to make this work with Emori. They haven’t even finished the meeting and he’s already looking forward to seeing her again, getting to know her determination better.

“I don’t exactly have much experience either,” Emori notes.

“Well you weren’t responsible for the most infamous band breakup in the twenty first century so…”

“You’re really tooting your own horn there. I was personally devastated when One Direction broke up.”

He almost snorts from laughing so hard. “I think we could make something great,” he says, something like butterflies in his stomach, but more promising. Nervous and powerful and threatening to spill out.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Emori says, fishing out her phone. They exchange numbers, with plans to reconvene with fresh ideas somewhere more comfortable. It’s a particular torture an hour later when he’s lying on his couch staring at her contact information. Can he text her now? It’s only been an hour, and he doesn’t want to be pushy or insistent, he vaguely remembers something about a three day waiting period until it occurs to him that that rule is about dating. At risk of getting lost in his own head, he buckles and sends her a short message.

She replies quickly and eagerly, if the number of exclamation points is anything to go by, and it does a lot to dissuade his worries. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with coming over to his place, and once the plans are set the conversation turns away from the professional. They complain about New York construction and list their favorite places to get coffee and the banter is so easy Murphy doesn’t realize two hours have passed till Emori mentions that she has dinner plans.

They say their goodbyes and then he tucks his phone away to make his own meal. Chopping onions does little to distract him from thinking about Emori or the plucking feeling in his chest.

The next day she sends him a Delinquency tag yourself meme with no context other than a caption reading ‘I’m you.’ He laughs at the offbeat descriptions, Bellamy’s in particular, but ultimately has to agree that it’s accurate enough for him to claim his description for himself. It’s a deep dive into google images for him to find a decent Dead Zone version only for it to spark debate between them about if Emori can rightfully tag herself as ‘Emu’.  

The day before she comes over he spends undue amounts of time face down in his pillow explaining to himself all the reasons why nothing is going to happen between them. They’re going to hang out and write a fucking awesome song together and he is not going to catch feelings.

The pep talk is more or less futile.

“Just the two of us?” He asks, ushering her inside the next day.

“You just get me, sorry,” Emori says making herself comfortable. “I basically do all the writing for the band, nowadays.” She spends a lot of time getting her guitar out after that, too long really. He considers not questioning her about it, normally he wouldn’t, but if they want this song to be any good they’ll have to get to know one another a bit.

“Why is that?” When Emori returns with a confused look he corrects himself. “Why are you the only one writing the music?”

“Oh.” She’s tuning the guitar know, ear turned to the strings. “The first album was all songs me and Otan wrote together growing up, before we got the record deal. We were really close back then. Now though-” she shrugs, “-we don’t have the same ideas about things as we used to.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he says, an offer at condolence. He’s never been good at understanding the whole sibling thing.

“I think it’ll be nice working with another person again.” There’s a nervous lining to that statement, like the alternative is an empty recording booth or to be stuck with just her own thoughts.

“Yeah,” he says, tearing his gaze away from Emori’s hopeful smile. “Speaking of…” He hands her his song-writing notebook. “That’s everything I’ve been working on recently, so you can get an idea. Sorry about my handwriting.”

He scratches his nose as Emori sets the guitar aside and flicks through the notebook. There had been a lot of internal debate about whether he’d show it to her or not. The notion usually left him feeling like a picked open scab, exposed and vulnerable, but as he watches her eyes flick over the musings of his mind it doesn’t feel so bad. She’s serious about it, seems to know it’s a big deal for him. A couple times her mouth will twitch with a smile, like something in it is good, or she’s excited to be able to read it.

“That’s usually how I start,” he says, when he can’t bear the silence anymore. Emori looks up.

“It’s great stuff, John.” He’s so touched by the compliment he doesn’t even register the use of his first name until she starts singing the fragmented lyrics that she’s singled out as her favorites. “‘Due north, a simple instruction/if only I knew how to work a compass.’ I really like the sorta sense of, lost direction. Wandering.”

“Yeah, I don’t really like stillness,” he says, “but one day...I wouldn’t mind stability either.” He can’t believe he just said that. Can something feel like a lie in your head and come out sounding truthful from your mouth?

“Yeah,” Emori says, musing, turning back a few pages, “Like ‘I’m dragging myself to the promised land/it’s more desolate than I imagined’.” She doesn’t sing it like he would, the vowel sounds are longer and all of it less droning. It’s like seeing the lyrics in a mirror’s reflection. He really likes it. “It’s hard to know what to put your faith in.”

“I have no faith,” he says. Emori blinks. She has knowing eyes.  

“Me neither,” then, “That could make a good song.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon debating what sort of themes they want to work with, taking some of his lyrics and some they come up with together and trying to make them work. They agree to put loneliness at the center, focus on the ways in manifests and how they try and fail to combat it. It’s a start, and one with potential, even if they’re not yet positive what sort of beat it’s going to fall on.

She comes over again the next day so they can keep the momentum going. He hadn’t realized it was snowing until he saw the flecks of white in her dark hair.

“You cold?” he asks, taking her guitar case as she shivers and unlaces her damp boots. “I can get you something to drink.”

They sit on his couch and drink coffee as Emori warms up, somehow managing to talk about everything but their song. He likes to think he has some bizarre touring stories but Emori seems to have him beat at every turn, going into detail about how they got lost in Ohio on their way to Cleveland and ended up camping out in a corn field by sweet talking the farmer who owned it even though he had no clue who they were. In exchange he tells her about the time Jaha, the record’s vice president, had tried to sell him speed at a party once only for Emori to jump in and tell him he’d attempted the same with her.

“Was he high off his ass and trying to tell you that it’d take you to the city of light, or something?” Emori laughs.

“Yeah, I was like, ‘Paris is across the ocean’. I may have also called him dude to his face.” Emori’s laughter has her shoulders rocking to nudge against his. When she collects herself she lets her head lean against the back of the couch and doesn’t move away from the point where they’re touching.

“City of Light,” she says, eyes closed against the brightness of his overhead lighting. “Sounds fake. Like it’s too good to be true.”  

“Like a place you put too much faith into only for it to suck.” There’s an idea in his head that he’s trying to grab with words. Emori perks up, easily catching on.

“I like a good metaphor.”

They move off the couch after that. Hunkered down over the kitchen table they’re able to work out the chorus, one about high expectations that get dragged down. He settles at his keyboard after that, and Emori drags over one of the kitchen chairs, and the two of them play around with chords.

“I thought you were a drummer originally,” Emori says when they get stuck.

“I started with piano, actually,” he says, considers opening up a little more, and goes for it. “My dad taught me. He was better than I’ll ever be, played recitals and stuff when he was young.”

“He died?” Emori has a perceptive ear, all musicians need one, but rather uniquely hers is able to translate to human observation too.

“He got a shitty conviction and then got killed in prison, yeah.” He plays the gasping bridge of “Flu Season” almost unthinkingly. “Then I learned drums during my rebellious teenage phase.”

Emori’s lips pinch at the tonal change but she goes with the flow.

“You know I wouldn’t have thought that phase ended.” He smiles in gratitude as she continues. “I learned guitar during my rebellious pre-teen phase. One of my foster mothers said that I wouldn’t be able to play because of my hand, so I taught myself out of spite.”

He’s noticed the unique way she holds the frets, only using her two longer fingers, putting down pressure at different points along the digits rather than just the tips. It probably makes for interesting calluses, but it seems to suit her just fine.

“That’s really badass.”   

“I think so too,” she says. “I made Otan learn bass and a couple years later we moved and our neighbor Sienna knew drums and that was history. Did Delinquency really meet in detention?”

“Where did you think the band name came from? We were all unoriginal seventeen year olds with authority problems.”

Emori teases him by playing the main riff from “Whatever the Hell We Want” the band’s biggest hit. It was probably one of two songs on the album he and Bellamy ever really agreed on. He still plays it at shows sometimes.

Their session crumples after that, the pair of them playing or singing over each other until Murphy realizes how hungry he is and goes into the kitchen to make them some quick sandwiches. They talk more over the simple dinner, and even though in the grand scheme of things they didn’t get a whole lot accomplished, it still feels like one of the most productive days he’s had in a long time.  

She comes over one more time before the weekend, and he goes to her place on Monday where he spends nearly two hours perusing her CD collection instead of doing anything productive. They book a studio room on Wednesday to try and work in a more neutral environment and Emori sorts out the song’s rhythm, fast during the verses before a lull in the chorus until it peters out at the end.

On Friday they meet Otan and Sienna at the studio so they can work on the incorporation of their instruments. It’s a grueling couple of hours, but by the end of it they feel almost done; he and Emori agree there’s one missing piece they need to figure out and then they can work towards getting it recorded.

He invites the band over for dinner afterwards, all the lessons about being personable Abby and Jackson have beaten into him over the years making an appearance. But Sienna has a young son at home, and Otan claims to have an outstanding plan to meet up with some friends so it’s just him and Emori.

“Does your brother not like me?” He asks on their way back. “Cause that excuse seemed kinda made up.”

Emori hesitates, and that would be telling if it weren’t for the huff of exasperation that followed. “I think he knew we wanted for it to be just the two of us.” She doesn’t quite look at him until, “Right?”

He considers answering with the more fair and welcoming response but ultimately he agrees with a quiet and telling, “yeah.” For a moment he thinks they may have come to an understanding with one another—they both want it to be just them—and that has to have larger implications, but Emori pushes the conversation forward and he has to tuck the thought away.

“So what’s for dinner?”

“Stir fry,” he says, and then has to go into a lengthy tirade when Emori questions his cooking skills. But she helps him chop vegetables against her doubts, and seeing her working in his kitchen, sneaking M&Ms from the bag in the cupboard and singing under her breath to the playlist they made earlier in the week, has him feeling warm in a way that has nothing to do with the stove.

“Ok I take it back,” she says once they’ve tucked in. “I guess I’m going to have to make you cook for me more.”

“Anytime,” he says with sincerity. Emori smiles, in that soft, surprised way she sometimes has and it doesn’t fall off her face even as they drift to talking about the session and then to a prank Emori had pulled on Otan a couple months ago and then of course Murphy has to explain the classwide prank war that happened his senior year and they end up lingering at the table long after their food is finished.

Doing the dishes is a slow process, even considering the small number of plates. And it’s not that Emori is particularly bothered with seeing her face shine in the ceramic, if anything she wants to stay longer, judging by the small steps she takes about the kitchen, making sure there’s no rush.

“You, uh, wanna watch a movie or something?” He offers, because it’s not like he wants her to leave either. “I don’t have much in the way of desserts, but…”

Emori accepts readily, and they settle on his couch half watching The Goonies as they attempt to throw M&Ms into each other’s mouths.

“Can I come over tomorrow?” Emori asks when all the chocolate has been eaten and the credits are rolling. “To finish the song,” she adds after a beat.

“‘Course,” he says, fighting the urge to play with her hair like he has been for most of the night.

“I have a meeting in the afternoon, but I’m free in the evening,” Emori says getting to her feet with tired effort. He follows her to his door. “Thanks for dinner, John,” Emori says, then steps forward to give him a hug. It’s a long hug, longer than it needs to be, tight and warm and comfortable. He learns that his chin rests perfectly on her shoulder.

“Goodnight,” she says as she slips out of his place, leaving him standing in his living room with a pounding heart and the thought that they’re both probably fucked.

She texts him the next day around five thirty telling him not to eat because she’s bringing takeout. She arrives forty five minutes later with a still warm pizza and a smile.

“Since you cooked last night,” she explains as they settle at his kitchen table, eating as they look over their notes and playback the preliminary recording Emori has on her tape recorder.

“I don’t think it’s a music problem,” he says around his third slice of pizza, after they’ve mulled in silence for a while, “I think it’s a lyric problem.”

“Yeah,” Emori agrees, scratching her brow, “I think the message got lost, or changed, somewhere along the line.”

Murphy flips to the front of the notebook, the new one he started just for this collaboration, and glances over the list of ideas they made.

faith (non religious)

optimism/pessimism

how to achieve ideals?

abandonment

loneliness

physically & metaphysically lost

discovery, leading to neg. consequences

Emori points to the fourth item. “I don’t think abandonment fits.”

He rests the point of the pencil next to the word, considering what she’s saying. It’s inclusion had been Emori’s idea originally.

“I think it’s important though,” he says, “It’s what’s contributing to the feeling of being lost, being alone.”

“But that’s more of the prelude,” Emori says, “The backstory of the song. Sure, the loneliness was fueled by abandonment, but it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Maybe it’s not lonely at all. You could still be trying to find something—the city of light—with another person.”

Her voice trails off at the end, like she’s not even sure if she’s convinced herself of the argument.

“So we make it more concise,” he suggests, “We don’t need to paint the entire experience, just one moment.” He crosses out abandonment and loneliness, to see where that leaves them. “Maybe it’s about being afraid to put your faith in something new. Feeling lost about what to do.”

“I like that,” Emori says, after a held moment of consideration. “Sort of being afraid of the future because of potential disappointment but wanting to live it anyways.”

“Okay,” he breathes, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Except they don’t make anymore progress that night. Emori, despite her numerous near convincing arguments, is very tired from her day and can’t be made to focus.

They text back and forth the next day, suggesting lyrical changes they can make, sometimes a single line, sometimes more. The amounts to which they agree vary widely, and Murphy thinks it has to do with the way the words look in blue speech bubbles—it’s just not productive.

He suggests that they sleep on it, his brain feels picked clean, and he can’t see how Emori is doing any better. She agrees, but even over text he can sense her hesitation. And the same feeling duels in himself, the satisfaction of finishing the song combatting with the notion of what happens when they’re finished. Emori came into his life out of nowhere, he doesn’t want her slipping out of it in the same way.

Whatever this stage of inbetween is that they’re in, he hates it.

It comes up on Monday, when they’re dissecting the lyrics yet again.

“It just feels like a different song,” Murphy says. It’s the due north lyric, which is already in its third version. He’s near positive it’s impeding the song, but he also knows both he and Emori are too fond of it to scrap it entirely. Besides, a song about going on a fool’s errand holds a lot of potential.

“A different song of ours?” Emori asks, emphasis heavy on the last word.

“Yeah, I think so,” Murphy says. He hadn’t wanted to think about what would happen when they finally got the song nailed down. Part of him thinks Emori would like to spend time with him even when they weren’t working on a project, but now he doesn’t have to risk finding out. “We could do an EP?”

Emori nods, reaches out to squeeze his wrist in excitement, then draws a box around the discarded lyric, as if to indicate they’re packing it away to save for later.

Murphy sleeps late the next day, his dreams oddly calm despite the clear memory of a knife. It makes the time before Emori comes over shorter, filled with updating Abby as to their progress.

She sounds genuinely excited over the phone when he mentions how well it’s been going, and how much he and Emori seem to be meshing as artists, and it gives him new hope that they’ll figure out the song.

Emori is as eager as ever, and after a couple hours they’ve managed to reframe the themes of the song as planned. The song is good, easily one of his favorite pieces, but they still agree that something is just a bit off. Like there is a final piece that will click right into place if they could just find it.

But his voice is strained from singing and it still isn’t fixed.

“Wow it’s dark out,” Emori notes when they’re taking a break.

“Cause the sun sets at like, four thirty this time of year,” he says, marking down a change on his sheet music. Then considers her words. “Oh, do you need to get home?”

“No, I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Emori says, “And I want to be here.” He’s selfishly grateful as Emori strums the opening cords, indicating they should start from the top again.

It’s a long night, one that eventually degrades to them lying beside each other on his (thankfully carpeted) floor. His ceiling isn’t anything to look at, but Emori has fun with seeing faces and animals in the spackle.

“It’s a little boy in a meadow,” she says, and he shakes his head because he really has no idea what she’s been saying for this entire conversation. Emori flicks his shoulder, as if it’s his fault that their brains don’t find the exact same patterns in everything. “Too bad he doesn’t have any friends.”

“Oh, I know this piece,” he finally contributes, “John Murphy circa age ten.”

“Did you not have friends growing up?” Emori asks, the playful tiredness morphing into its melancholy cousin.

“Not really.”

“Me neither. Just Otan.” Her head lolls to the side to look at him. “I’ve been missing him recently, we see each other all the time because of work, but it’s not like really seeing each other.”

“Like you’re just going through the motions together?”

“Yeah,” Emori says, picking her head up with a smile. “See, you get me. That’s why I’m so glad we’re working together. Our last album…I felt so alone in it. I’m not used to music being like that.”

For him music has always been a way to pick himself raw. Clawing at feelings inside himself and exposing them so that they might start to heal. But working with Emori, being with her, has added another step, putting a balm on the wound, encouraging it to get better.

“I think...the reason the song isn’t working quite right is because we aren’t the same people we were when we started writing it.”

He expects Emori to mention the mere two and a half weeks they’ve known each other. Instead she says, remembering, “we cut out loneliness.”

He nods, some of his hair sticking up because of the static of it dragging against the carpet. Emori reaches over to brush it back. Her fingers linger around the shell of his ear.

“It’s late,” Emori says, maybe with regret. “I should get going.”

“I’ll call you a car,” he says. The two of them sway while they wait by the door, the long conversations of the day leaving them with silence now, as they make eye contact only to break it, over and over.

He sleeps with restless anticipation, the kind that comes the day before a new discovery one is expecting to have. The morning is rung in with four new messages from Emori that force Murphy to squint at the time stamps.

Emori

ok I know it’s 3am and you’re gonna think im crazy, but I think I cracked City of Light

Emori

On the surface it’s about dashed dreams and faith, like we were talking about

Emori

But really I think it’s about falling in love

Emori

And i KNOW love songs aren’t either of out styles but this works, at least in my head at 3am, I’ll come over tomorrow and we can finally hash it out (and I’ll try to get some sleep before then lol)

He considers the messages while he showers. It might work, he won’t know until she gets here, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to talk to Emori about love for hours on end. He will though. He’ll do it gladly, even.

Emori is at his place by nine, two coffees in hand, and nothing on her face suggesting she got a max of five hours of sleep last night. In fact, she’s smiling.

“So it’s a love song?” He asks once their situated at his kitchen table, coffee gulped down.

“Yeah, think about it,” Emori says, scooching over so she can compare his notebook to the stack of post it notes she brought along. “Falling in love is about opening yourself to vulnerability right? And having faith that the other person will...love you back.”

He nods slowly in dawning understanding, the beat of his pen against the table a churning undercurrent. Three weeks ago he would have claimed to know nothing of love, but he thinks he’s starting to get the idea. “So the City of Light is really a metaphor for love?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. That...makes a lot of sense.” Emori’s eyes are alight with the thrum of victory, and she doesn’t seem able to keep a smile from her lips. “I wouldn’t have thought you had so much love insight.”

“It’s sort of a new development,” Emori says, then clears her throat. “So we rewrite the chorus a bit, and maybe slow it down?”

It’s a scramble after that, reaching over each other to write things and then cross them out, holding their breath as the other drums a rhythm against the table or holds a note. They almost trip over each other on the way to the keyboard, where they share the single chair.

But an hour later the song is finished. When they sing it for the first time, it doesn’t come out the way it’s meant to be sang. Softer than it might ever be again.

Hide and wait or risk the stakes

I’ve never been one to take the bait

Of an even score or a glittering shore

I’m more comfortable in this zone of war

It was the end of it all when an old man told me

At the horizon is where you start your story

So I dragged myself to the promised land

It’s more ravaged then I imagined

City of Light, what do you hold?

Chances are I’ll never know

Tell me, why should I go?

There’s reward in the final mile

The upward tick of you pretty smile

And I want to hold you with these hands of mine

But do I have the courage to make us entwine?

I’m like Caesar at the Rubicon

with all the world watching on

To see if I can open my arms

But what if your embrace is too warm?

City of Light, what do you hold?

Chances are I’ll never know

Tell me, why should I go?

Is it a leap of faith if I’ve got nothing better to do?

You whisper in my ear

It is when it’s you

It’s you

It’s you

Emori’s voice seems to shiver on the final note, her gaze fixed on him as his fingers relax over the keys. Her eyes are wide and her mouth parted as she takes steadying breaths. There’s a feeling in him like crying, or laughter, emotion so strong it has to spill from his body. He presses it into Emori’s lips instead.

Her mouth falls open as she kisses him back, her breath shuttering until the arm wrapped around his shoulder pulls him closer. Her waist is warm under her shirt, where his hands rest; it’s been so long since he’s kissed someone he had forgotten how comfortable it can be. How happy it can make him. Although maybe that’s just because it’s her.

He pulls away so he can tell her, stopping only to kiss her cheek.

“I have feelings for you,” is what he manages to say.

“Really?” Emori laughs, and he almost can’t believe she’s being sarcastic right now, except he knows it’s exactly why he’s falling for her. “Me too,” she says, more sincere, “I couldn’t sleep last night because I was thinking about you, and that’s what finally made the song click.”

He had suspected that Emori felt the same way, but the confirmation in conjunction with the kiss has his heart pounding. “I love it,” he says, “the song.”