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labyrinth2015So, one day last year, I met a couple of fierce and fabulous ladies. One thing led to another, and somehow we ended up writing evil self-insert tales of us arresting the Anthemic, in one of the best nights of my LJ life.
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princessleia04, you are a bad influence, in the best of ways! (You too, otherbella!)
Dearest Sarah, I hope your birthday is as amazing as you are, and that you enjoy this little gift before you head off on your long weekend. I can’t thank you enough for your friendship and your support. ILU <3
Title: Songs of Coherence, and Moving On
Pairing: Tiemann/Skib
Rating: [G] to [R], Gen to explicit m/m slash
Beta: The amazingcakesannie2791. Thank you for all your help, my dear! All errors remain mine.
Summary: Seven Skibmann vignettes based on the virtuoso Incoherent With Desire to Move On
Dedication: Forprincessleia04. My dear, you’ve been so patient, putting up with months on end of a pairing which you don’t ship! I hope this is some form of payoff. Hope you have the happiest birthday!
A/N: Skibmann details taken from http://nealtiemann.com. Photos fromhonestys_easy’s awesome Skibmann primer. Continuity/fact-checking/Southern-speech pattern assistance by annie2791 <3
Not for profit work of fiction. Fair use of lyrics asserted. Real characters referenced in fic belong to themselves. No libel or breach of privacy intended. Will remove without prejudice if a valid cease and desist is issued.
Songs of Coherence, and Moving On
Tiemann/Skib, [G] to [R], 3414 words
He realized early on that coherence wasn't something he could always count on when it came to Andy Skib.
It was ironic. He'd written so many songs for Andy, so many lavishly-worded paeans to the pain and pleasures of loving him. He'd put hundreds of syllables and metaphors into Andy's mouth. And yet in Andy's bed he always found words deserted him.
It was Andy that was the talkative one. "That’s so good," and “Jeez, I love the way your skin tastes,” and, best of all, "I want you to fuck me until I can’t walk" - and all Neal could do was mutter curses and slowly unravel under Andy's skillful mouth.
Well, there was one reason why Andy was their front-man. Why he'd chosen Andy to sing the words he couldn't say himself.
In any case, there could be no words for how Andy made him feel. Tracing the secrets of Neal's ink with his tongue, pressing his body fiercely against Neal’s like he could sear the colors on Neal’s skin into his own unmarked flesh.
“C’mon, Neal, fuck this, let’s go, let’s do it,” and Neal would cry out wordlessly, the whole world coming apart, taking everything away.
He'd murmur Andy's name after, the sweat cooling on their bare limbs, the words finally returning. He usually had coherence enough for that.
View From the Front
Andy knows people don’t understand. Surely there must be a part of him that hates stepping aside and letting Dave take the spotlight?
“You’ve been singing lead ever since you were fifteen,” they’d say in insinuating tones. “Don’t it feel weird to be singin’ backup for your old bass player?”
He knows they’ll never believe him, but the truth is he really doesn’t care.
The music is what matters, the notes and chords and melody, how everything comes together. How on a night like this one, the snaking beat and crazy guitar riffs shake the stage like the music’s alive. It really doesn’t matter to him who’s cupping the lead mic stand (or waving it above his head, or licking it like it’s a lover - he doesn’t know how Dave does it, but that sort of thing is never gonna work for him).
It doesn’t matter because he’ll always have the music – lead or rhythm guitar, lead line or harmony. And he’ll always have Neal. His one and only, his dead center, the voice in his head.
Neal loves Dave; he’ll always wanna write with Dave. Andy doesn’t begrudge Dave some Neal headspace – he loves Dave, too, and the music Dave and Neal make is kickass awesome every time.
It comes down to just this: Neal will always be his, like he’d been the day that they first met, and every moment since.
Everything You Thought You Knew
Neal’s seventeen and thinks he knows it all. He’s pretty good at school, always aces his English and science classes, and phys. ed. class isn’t too bad, though of course the less said about math the better. He plays trombone in the school marching band because he thinks diversity is important for a musician – this skill lands him a gig with a jazz band, so that’s a win for the diversity plan.
He knows he’s going to be a rock star some day. Not some fucking diva from some precious hair band whose lily-soft hands can’t even shred a bridge properly: a real rocker who can play guitar back-bended on his knees or behind his head.
He’d saved up for a proper Gibson, has taken classes since he was thirteen, practices in his dad’s garage. He’s left-handed, but he plays guitar with both hands. He makes the instrument sing, knows he’s born to it.
At all hours, at night, the words and music come, rolling back inside his head, and he writes them down.
This year, there’s this freshman at school. Big eyes, funky hair, he reminds Neal of an Antipodean bush baby or some other bug-eyed thing. But the kid can sing. Neal hears it on the school field, in the concert hall, a unique, evocative voice that rises above the usual tuneless drone of everyone else. It makes him feel like there might be something there, something hugely important.
It takes Neal half the school term to figure out whom that voice was coming from – he must have terrified the entire freshman class in the process. But there’s the name on the kid’s school books, written in a neat hand: Andy P. Skib.
Neal’s not having much luck with singers for his garage band: he considers asking Andy P. Skib to join them. The kid’s friends look scared enough of him as it is, though, so it’s a conversation for another time.
One night at the jazz club, the kid shows up, dressed in a neat plaid shirt, hair slicked back. He makes with the Bambi eyes at Neal’s trombone.
“Hey,” he says, cool as a cucumber. “That’s a fucking huge instrument.”
Neal snorts: like he’s never heard that one before. He bites back the obvious retort – he’s not going to be lured into making a blowjob crack to a minor. Even one who cleans up this attractively.
What he does say is, “You just come in here to make nice about my instrument?” There, Neal can be PG-13.
“I hear you guys have a band,” the kid says calmly. “Looking for a singer? ‘Cause I sing.”
Kid’s being coy: he knows Neal knows. Neal’s done some digging since the time he terrorized the freshman year – he now knows the kid comes from comfortable middle class, doctor dad, country club, the whole white picket fence thing. So, Neal’s not sure. Kid can sing, but does he really know what he wants? At fourteen, can anyone know?
“You wanna show me what you got?” Neal asks casually. Maybe this will be interesting.
“Sure!” says the kid. “Think I could borrow a guitar?”
Neal hands him his acoustic, and fuck him but the kid tears into this unplugged version of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, which is Neal’s favorite song of all time.
It’s Neal’s favorite song, and as such Neal would have been all the more disposed to ripping the kid a new one if he messes it up.
But he doesn’t: Andy P. Skib, fourteen years old and bug-eyed cuteness, rocks the Floyd.
The angsty notes, the lyrics that speak of a web of heartache - Skib’s clever hands pluck the edged, bittersweet chords from his borrowed strings and aim them toward the sky like arrows. Through the guitar lines, the rudder of his keen voice steers true, making the pain bright and shining, reboots Neal’s world – takes him away from everything he thought he knew.
And Neal falls, headlong and unexpectedly: as if he had nothing else to do.
Song to Whoever
After he got back together with Alexis for the third time, he finally figured it out.
He shouldn’t have been astounded to find what it was that he was doing, over and over again. To find that, despite her familiar smile and ink-black hair and eyes like a dark lake, she could never be a substitute for the person he really wanted and couldn't have.
He realized Andy would love Jennie forever. Andy was just that kind of guy: fiercely loyal, made for forever love.
As it happened, Neal knew how that felt. Except the person he would love forever loved someone else.
The crash was deafening. He needed to stop but couldn’t; he never even had a chance.
Killing Time
It’s not fair: the stupid ideas Andy comes up with are never as cool as the ones Neal comes up with. (They aren’t even as cool as the ones Dave comes up with.)
The time they decided to get matching tattoos, the three musketeers and all that? Skib’s mom didn’t let her boy indelibly mark his skin, what the actual fuck. The time they decided to try to mix their own green beer from absinthe? “It’s really chlorophyll!” Andy had said, but it had tasted vile, and he'd puked so much they all thought it was alcohol poisoning and they'd have to take him to the hospital.
Neal had fantastic ideas for melody and chord progression; the lyric "here’s the part where I’m supposed to break down/all burned out and shaken up from a high” and the entire rhythm section to that song had just sprung whole out of his head in ten minutes flat. He had equally cool ideas for play: there was the naked laser tag, the road trips to faraway towns in search of music memorabilia, the Trivial Pursuit drinking game involving six differently colored drinks (which game Andy invariably lost – man, those cards were so soggy now).
The day at the beach had been Andy's idea. He figured they'd just come out here, away from it all, raise some cold ones, kick around the sand and toss a ball to Mr. Sixx. He might even persuade Neal to take off his shirt and get into his trunks, which, frankly, was enough reason for anyone to want to hit the beach.
Of course, since it was Andy's idea, this meant stuff went wrong. They had a picnic cooler malfunction, which meant the beer they brought was warm, dammit, and Mr. Sixx almost stomped on someone's little poodle and then barfed on their mat, and the day was too cold for swimming or swim trunks or the bareness he’d hoped for.
And Neal just stood there in his cool shades, smirking and fully clothed, the layers of fabric and denim covering his shredder's biceps, his broad chest, his thighs...it was seriously infuriating. Andy was seized with the irresistible urge to wrestle him to the sand and rip all his clothes off.
Before he knew what he was doing, he'd taken one step and then another, and then he'd launched himself through the air in a full-on linebacker's tackle.
His arms caught around Neal's midriff. He heard the breath whoosh out of Neal and they landed heavily on the sandy ground beneath.
Neal grabbed hold of him too, and the momentum rolled them in the sand in each other's arms like they were co-stars in some fucking romantic movie. The familiar smell of Neal’s smokes and half-metabolized alcohol filled him, together with the feel of soft skin and hard muscle underneath his clothes.
They came to a stop with Neal on the bottom. Neal had put his head back so he could laugh and wheeze breathlessly, and Andy leaned in and sucked on Neal's lower lip, using the snakebites to hold him steady.
Andy felt Neal’s mouth quirk with something more than just laughter. Neal’s hands, which had probably been poised to tickle or wrestle, slid down Andy’s back with a different intent.
When he felt Neal’s breathing come faster, Andy pulled off so he could look into Neal’s face.
Neal’s mouth was a little swollen, lip-rings slick with Andy’s saliva. His face – Andy loved it when Neal looked like this, bright and open for nobody but him.
"Not sure why I’m surprised,” Neal muttered. “I know how you can't resist me, Skib.”
They never promised anything to each other, except for this: Stay around long enough, and you might find you’re right about me. They knew they weren’t just killing time with each other. Andy wasn’t, anyway, and from the gleam in Neal’s eyes – let’s just say Neal put up with the stupid not-fun ideas for a reason, and it wasn’t just because Andy was a beast in the sack.
“That works both ways,” Andy told him, grinning, and felt Neal’s callused fingers slide past the waistband of his jeans.
Circles
For a long time, it had been just Andy and him. Finishing each other’s sentences, breathing each other’s air, playing in step. Then soul-patched Dave joined them in 2004, with his bad red hair and worse jokes, and it had been like a light had been switched on: the missing piece to their puzzle.
They went everywhere together, wrote together, played everywhere together. They didn't have a lot of disposable funds, but they had something more important.
In 2008, they decided to take a break. Burn Halo was looking for a stand-in, Andy had stuff he wanted to try on his own, Dave thought he’d take his kid brother to audition for some reality show or other.
The solo time didn’t faze any of them. They knew what they meant to each other, how they wouldn’t run too far from each other. People know when something’s right.
It was kind of surreal how the reality show thing took off for Dave.
It didn’t change anything, though when Neal and Andy went to visit they were totally taken aback by the hordes of screaming female fans and panties aimed at Dave and the other guys on the Idol tour. Okay, granted, the panties were mostly aimed at Dave and his new prettified hairdo.
In 2009, they got the call to hit the road with Dave: a different configuration, a different circle. It was a new and interesting experience - for one, some of the fans and the panties were now aimed at him.
Still. It might be different, working with (or, more accurately, for) Dave, but they were together again, and the things that were important were still the same. With Andy and Dave, Neal knew he’d never be alone.
Forward, on – they played huge venues, 50,000 people in Manila under a summer sky. Neal was glad for the chance to rock out in front of thousands, and tried not to wince as Dave well-meaningly butchered “Til I’m Blue” and “Make Me”. Dave hadn’t had as much time with the MWK back catalogue, not like Andy and him, who’d eaten and breathed those songs since Andy was fifteen.
Andy slid into the rhythm and backup lines as seamlessly as Dave had played bass in 2004, and Neal was the tower he had always been, the pivot round which the other two revolved.
That was 2009. Good times.
In 2010, the Midwest Kings gathered together again, with Andy on lead. They played in Tulsa, a seamless, rocking show, and it was like everything had come full circle - like it always had and always would.
One Thing
The first thing Andy does when he finds out about Neal’s hand is to slam his own hand against the wall. Jeez, what a fucking idiot.
The next thing: more muffled cursing, which gets him in a frame of mind to call Neal’s mom. She sounds as pissed off as he feels himself.
She says, “The doctors don’t know if he’ll be able to play again,” and for a moment Andy forgets how to breathe.
Andy really doesn’t want to call his dad crying like some little girl, but that’s what he ends up doing. Papa Skib promises to talk to the ER guy and head over to the hospital when he clears today’s caseload and look at Neal’s hand himself.
“He’ll be all right, son,” he tells Andy, like he really believes it and it’s not just what he thinks Andy wants to hear. “A couple of pins, he’ll be good as new, I promise.”
But he plays like nothing in the whole world, Andy thinks. What if the pins take those pieces away from him?
The last thing he does before he goes to see Neal is pick up some flowers – so stupid, like roses and daisies are gonna make Neal feel better. On impulse, he also collects Neal’s guitar from Neal’s garage.
Neal’s always been Irish-pale, but against the hospital whites he looks nearly transparent. His hand’s covered in bandages that make it look three times its normal size. His eyes are sapphires, like the sky, like other things that are blue – so feverishly hot they feel like they can burn through Andy’s flesh like a super heat ray.
“Hey, Doc.” Andy can't look at him. The nurse puts the flowers into a vase.
They sit in hopeless silence for a while, then Neal’s hot eyes flicker to the guitar in Andy’s hand.
“Good call on me not breaking that instead,” he mutters, and Andy can't stand it any more.
“What the fuck, Neal. You know you can’t afford to mess your hand up. Why did you do this?”
Neal stirs restlessly in the bed. “Well, what d’you want to hear?” he asks.
“The truth,” Andy says. “What’s gotten into you? If this is about Lynette…”
“’S not about her,” says Neal. He pauses. “It’s everything. The band, the music, you: everything. Well, that and some Jager, like that’s any surprise.”
“You were planning your escape,” says Andy, with sudden understanding. He sees Neal’s eyes flash. He continues, thinking out loud, “From the band, the music. From me. Neal, the hell, you wanna escape from me?”
Now it’s Neal who can’t look at him. “Don’t over-think this, Skib,” he mutters. “I get morose when I’m drunk. It’s not a big thing.”
“ `Not a big - ’ No, ‘cause it’s okay to mess your hand up over a little thing? Just tell me,” Andy says, and he puts the guitar down and he sits himself on Neal’s bed.
There’s that burning glance again, and suddenly Andy gets it.
“Huh,” he says. He really should’ve figured this out sooner. Every charged breath they breathed in the fumes of the garage, all the melodies Neal had given him to sing, all came down to this one thing.
He doesn’t know where to put his hands, or to look; what to say. Neal doesn’t wanna look at him, either. He settles for, “You shoulda told me,” and brushes his fingers over Neal’s uninjured ones.
“Ah, fuck,” says Neal, quietly. “I didn’t want to mess this up.”
So you decided to mess yourself up instead? When Andy can speak evenly again, he says, “What makes you think you would?”
Neal looks up at him finally and holds his gaze. Andy thinks Neal looks a little crazy, like a caged animal who can’t believe he might be set free at last.
“Andy, I didn't…I didn’t think you could ever give me this. It wasn’t fair to you. I didn't wanna ask.”
“After three years? After all you’ve given me?” Andy’s hand curls around Neal’s, holds Neal steady, leans in for their first kiss.
He feels the shudder through Neal’s body, feels Neal open his mouth to let him in. They’re down to this one thing, finally, and it feels like everything he’d ever dreamed: no more holding back, one honest scene at last.
Can you give me this? “It’s yours, Neal.”
~fin
princessleia04, you are a bad influence, in the best of ways! (You too, otherbella!)Dearest Sarah, I hope your birthday is as amazing as you are, and that you enjoy this little gift before you head off on your long weekend. I can’t thank you enough for your friendship and your support. ILU <3
Title: Songs of Coherence, and Moving On
Pairing: Tiemann/Skib
Rating: [G] to [R], Gen to explicit m/m slash
Beta: The amazingcakes
annie2791. Thank you for all your help, my dear! All errors remain mine.Summary: Seven Skibmann vignettes based on the virtuoso Incoherent With Desire to Move On
Dedication: For
princessleia04. My dear, you’ve been so patient, putting up with months on end of a pairing which you don’t ship! I hope this is some form of payoff. Hope you have the happiest birthday! A/N: Skibmann details taken from http://nealtiemann.com. Photos from
honestys_easy’s awesome Skibmann primer. Continuity/fact-checking/Southern-speech pattern assistance by annie2791 <3Not for profit work of fiction. Fair use of lyrics asserted. Real characters referenced in fic belong to themselves. No libel or breach of privacy intended. Will remove without prejudice if a valid cease and desist is issued.
Songs of Coherence, and Moving On
Tiemann/Skib, [G] to [R], 3414 words
He realized early on that coherence wasn't something he could always count on when it came to Andy Skib.
It was ironic. He'd written so many songs for Andy, so many lavishly-worded paeans to the pain and pleasures of loving him. He'd put hundreds of syllables and metaphors into Andy's mouth. And yet in Andy's bed he always found words deserted him.
It was Andy that was the talkative one. "That’s so good," and “Jeez, I love the way your skin tastes,” and, best of all, "I want you to fuck me until I can’t walk" - and all Neal could do was mutter curses and slowly unravel under Andy's skillful mouth.
Well, there was one reason why Andy was their front-man. Why he'd chosen Andy to sing the words he couldn't say himself.
In any case, there could be no words for how Andy made him feel. Tracing the secrets of Neal's ink with his tongue, pressing his body fiercely against Neal’s like he could sear the colors on Neal’s skin into his own unmarked flesh.
“C’mon, Neal, fuck this, let’s go, let’s do it,” and Neal would cry out wordlessly, the whole world coming apart, taking everything away.
He'd murmur Andy's name after, the sweat cooling on their bare limbs, the words finally returning. He usually had coherence enough for that.
View From the Front
Andy knows people don’t understand. Surely there must be a part of him that hates stepping aside and letting Dave take the spotlight?
“You’ve been singing lead ever since you were fifteen,” they’d say in insinuating tones. “Don’t it feel weird to be singin’ backup for your old bass player?”
He knows they’ll never believe him, but the truth is he really doesn’t care.
The music is what matters, the notes and chords and melody, how everything comes together. How on a night like this one, the snaking beat and crazy guitar riffs shake the stage like the music’s alive. It really doesn’t matter to him who’s cupping the lead mic stand (or waving it above his head, or licking it like it’s a lover - he doesn’t know how Dave does it, but that sort of thing is never gonna work for him).
It doesn’t matter because he’ll always have the music – lead or rhythm guitar, lead line or harmony. And he’ll always have Neal. His one and only, his dead center, the voice in his head.
Neal loves Dave; he’ll always wanna write with Dave. Andy doesn’t begrudge Dave some Neal headspace – he loves Dave, too, and the music Dave and Neal make is kickass awesome every time.
It comes down to just this: Neal will always be his, like he’d been the day that they first met, and every moment since.
Everything You Thought You Knew
Neal’s seventeen and thinks he knows it all. He’s pretty good at school, always aces his English and science classes, and phys. ed. class isn’t too bad, though of course the less said about math the better. He plays trombone in the school marching band because he thinks diversity is important for a musician – this skill lands him a gig with a jazz band, so that’s a win for the diversity plan.
He knows he’s going to be a rock star some day. Not some fucking diva from some precious hair band whose lily-soft hands can’t even shred a bridge properly: a real rocker who can play guitar back-bended on his knees or behind his head.
He’d saved up for a proper Gibson, has taken classes since he was thirteen, practices in his dad’s garage. He’s left-handed, but he plays guitar with both hands. He makes the instrument sing, knows he’s born to it.
At all hours, at night, the words and music come, rolling back inside his head, and he writes them down.
This year, there’s this freshman at school. Big eyes, funky hair, he reminds Neal of an Antipodean bush baby or some other bug-eyed thing. But the kid can sing. Neal hears it on the school field, in the concert hall, a unique, evocative voice that rises above the usual tuneless drone of everyone else. It makes him feel like there might be something there, something hugely important.
It takes Neal half the school term to figure out whom that voice was coming from – he must have terrified the entire freshman class in the process. But there’s the name on the kid’s school books, written in a neat hand: Andy P. Skib.
Neal’s not having much luck with singers for his garage band: he considers asking Andy P. Skib to join them. The kid’s friends look scared enough of him as it is, though, so it’s a conversation for another time.
One night at the jazz club, the kid shows up, dressed in a neat plaid shirt, hair slicked back. He makes with the Bambi eyes at Neal’s trombone.
“Hey,” he says, cool as a cucumber. “That’s a fucking huge instrument.”
Neal snorts: like he’s never heard that one before. He bites back the obvious retort – he’s not going to be lured into making a blowjob crack to a minor. Even one who cleans up this attractively.
What he does say is, “You just come in here to make nice about my instrument?” There, Neal can be PG-13.
“I hear you guys have a band,” the kid says calmly. “Looking for a singer? ‘Cause I sing.”
Kid’s being coy: he knows Neal knows. Neal’s done some digging since the time he terrorized the freshman year – he now knows the kid comes from comfortable middle class, doctor dad, country club, the whole white picket fence thing. So, Neal’s not sure. Kid can sing, but does he really know what he wants? At fourteen, can anyone know?
“You wanna show me what you got?” Neal asks casually. Maybe this will be interesting.
“Sure!” says the kid. “Think I could borrow a guitar?”
Neal hands him his acoustic, and fuck him but the kid tears into this unplugged version of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, which is Neal’s favorite song of all time.
It’s Neal’s favorite song, and as such Neal would have been all the more disposed to ripping the kid a new one if he messes it up.
But he doesn’t: Andy P. Skib, fourteen years old and bug-eyed cuteness, rocks the Floyd.
The angsty notes, the lyrics that speak of a web of heartache - Skib’s clever hands pluck the edged, bittersweet chords from his borrowed strings and aim them toward the sky like arrows. Through the guitar lines, the rudder of his keen voice steers true, making the pain bright and shining, reboots Neal’s world – takes him away from everything he thought he knew.
And Neal falls, headlong and unexpectedly: as if he had nothing else to do.
Song to Whoever
After he got back together with Alexis for the third time, he finally figured it out.
He shouldn’t have been astounded to find what it was that he was doing, over and over again. To find that, despite her familiar smile and ink-black hair and eyes like a dark lake, she could never be a substitute for the person he really wanted and couldn't have.
He realized Andy would love Jennie forever. Andy was just that kind of guy: fiercely loyal, made for forever love.
As it happened, Neal knew how that felt. Except the person he would love forever loved someone else.
The crash was deafening. He needed to stop but couldn’t; he never even had a chance.
Killing Time
It’s not fair: the stupid ideas Andy comes up with are never as cool as the ones Neal comes up with. (They aren’t even as cool as the ones Dave comes up with.)
The time they decided to get matching tattoos, the three musketeers and all that? Skib’s mom didn’t let her boy indelibly mark his skin, what the actual fuck. The time they decided to try to mix their own green beer from absinthe? “It’s really chlorophyll!” Andy had said, but it had tasted vile, and he'd puked so much they all thought it was alcohol poisoning and they'd have to take him to the hospital.
Neal had fantastic ideas for melody and chord progression; the lyric "here’s the part where I’m supposed to break down/all burned out and shaken up from a high” and the entire rhythm section to that song had just sprung whole out of his head in ten minutes flat. He had equally cool ideas for play: there was the naked laser tag, the road trips to faraway towns in search of music memorabilia, the Trivial Pursuit drinking game involving six differently colored drinks (which game Andy invariably lost – man, those cards were so soggy now).
The day at the beach had been Andy's idea. He figured they'd just come out here, away from it all, raise some cold ones, kick around the sand and toss a ball to Mr. Sixx. He might even persuade Neal to take off his shirt and get into his trunks, which, frankly, was enough reason for anyone to want to hit the beach.
Of course, since it was Andy's idea, this meant stuff went wrong. They had a picnic cooler malfunction, which meant the beer they brought was warm, dammit, and Mr. Sixx almost stomped on someone's little poodle and then barfed on their mat, and the day was too cold for swimming or swim trunks or the bareness he’d hoped for.
And Neal just stood there in his cool shades, smirking and fully clothed, the layers of fabric and denim covering his shredder's biceps, his broad chest, his thighs...it was seriously infuriating. Andy was seized with the irresistible urge to wrestle him to the sand and rip all his clothes off.
Before he knew what he was doing, he'd taken one step and then another, and then he'd launched himself through the air in a full-on linebacker's tackle.
His arms caught around Neal's midriff. He heard the breath whoosh out of Neal and they landed heavily on the sandy ground beneath.
Neal grabbed hold of him too, and the momentum rolled them in the sand in each other's arms like they were co-stars in some fucking romantic movie. The familiar smell of Neal’s smokes and half-metabolized alcohol filled him, together with the feel of soft skin and hard muscle underneath his clothes.
They came to a stop with Neal on the bottom. Neal had put his head back so he could laugh and wheeze breathlessly, and Andy leaned in and sucked on Neal's lower lip, using the snakebites to hold him steady.
Andy felt Neal’s mouth quirk with something more than just laughter. Neal’s hands, which had probably been poised to tickle or wrestle, slid down Andy’s back with a different intent.
When he felt Neal’s breathing come faster, Andy pulled off so he could look into Neal’s face.
Neal’s mouth was a little swollen, lip-rings slick with Andy’s saliva. His face – Andy loved it when Neal looked like this, bright and open for nobody but him.
"Not sure why I’m surprised,” Neal muttered. “I know how you can't resist me, Skib.”
They never promised anything to each other, except for this: Stay around long enough, and you might find you’re right about me. They knew they weren’t just killing time with each other. Andy wasn’t, anyway, and from the gleam in Neal’s eyes – let’s just say Neal put up with the stupid not-fun ideas for a reason, and it wasn’t just because Andy was a beast in the sack.
“That works both ways,” Andy told him, grinning, and felt Neal’s callused fingers slide past the waistband of his jeans.
Circles
For a long time, it had been just Andy and him. Finishing each other’s sentences, breathing each other’s air, playing in step. Then soul-patched Dave joined them in 2004, with his bad red hair and worse jokes, and it had been like a light had been switched on: the missing piece to their puzzle.
They went everywhere together, wrote together, played everywhere together. They didn't have a lot of disposable funds, but they had something more important.
In 2008, they decided to take a break. Burn Halo was looking for a stand-in, Andy had stuff he wanted to try on his own, Dave thought he’d take his kid brother to audition for some reality show or other.
The solo time didn’t faze any of them. They knew what they meant to each other, how they wouldn’t run too far from each other. People know when something’s right.
It was kind of surreal how the reality show thing took off for Dave.
It didn’t change anything, though when Neal and Andy went to visit they were totally taken aback by the hordes of screaming female fans and panties aimed at Dave and the other guys on the Idol tour. Okay, granted, the panties were mostly aimed at Dave and his new prettified hairdo.
In 2009, they got the call to hit the road with Dave: a different configuration, a different circle. It was a new and interesting experience - for one, some of the fans and the panties were now aimed at him.
Still. It might be different, working with (or, more accurately, for) Dave, but they were together again, and the things that were important were still the same. With Andy and Dave, Neal knew he’d never be alone.
Forward, on – they played huge venues, 50,000 people in Manila under a summer sky. Neal was glad for the chance to rock out in front of thousands, and tried not to wince as Dave well-meaningly butchered “Til I’m Blue” and “Make Me”. Dave hadn’t had as much time with the MWK back catalogue, not like Andy and him, who’d eaten and breathed those songs since Andy was fifteen.
Andy slid into the rhythm and backup lines as seamlessly as Dave had played bass in 2004, and Neal was the tower he had always been, the pivot round which the other two revolved.
That was 2009. Good times.
In 2010, the Midwest Kings gathered together again, with Andy on lead. They played in Tulsa, a seamless, rocking show, and it was like everything had come full circle - like it always had and always would.
One Thing
The first thing Andy does when he finds out about Neal’s hand is to slam his own hand against the wall. Jeez, what a fucking idiot.
The next thing: more muffled cursing, which gets him in a frame of mind to call Neal’s mom. She sounds as pissed off as he feels himself.
She says, “The doctors don’t know if he’ll be able to play again,” and for a moment Andy forgets how to breathe.
Andy really doesn’t want to call his dad crying like some little girl, but that’s what he ends up doing. Papa Skib promises to talk to the ER guy and head over to the hospital when he clears today’s caseload and look at Neal’s hand himself.
“He’ll be all right, son,” he tells Andy, like he really believes it and it’s not just what he thinks Andy wants to hear. “A couple of pins, he’ll be good as new, I promise.”
But he plays like nothing in the whole world, Andy thinks. What if the pins take those pieces away from him?
The last thing he does before he goes to see Neal is pick up some flowers – so stupid, like roses and daisies are gonna make Neal feel better. On impulse, he also collects Neal’s guitar from Neal’s garage.
Neal’s always been Irish-pale, but against the hospital whites he looks nearly transparent. His hand’s covered in bandages that make it look three times its normal size. His eyes are sapphires, like the sky, like other things that are blue – so feverishly hot they feel like they can burn through Andy’s flesh like a super heat ray.
“Hey, Doc.” Andy can't look at him. The nurse puts the flowers into a vase.
They sit in hopeless silence for a while, then Neal’s hot eyes flicker to the guitar in Andy’s hand.
“Good call on me not breaking that instead,” he mutters, and Andy can't stand it any more.
“What the fuck, Neal. You know you can’t afford to mess your hand up. Why did you do this?”
Neal stirs restlessly in the bed. “Well, what d’you want to hear?” he asks.
“The truth,” Andy says. “What’s gotten into you? If this is about Lynette…”
“’S not about her,” says Neal. He pauses. “It’s everything. The band, the music, you: everything. Well, that and some Jager, like that’s any surprise.”
“You were planning your escape,” says Andy, with sudden understanding. He sees Neal’s eyes flash. He continues, thinking out loud, “From the band, the music. From me. Neal, the hell, you wanna escape from me?”
Now it’s Neal who can’t look at him. “Don’t over-think this, Skib,” he mutters. “I get morose when I’m drunk. It’s not a big thing.”
“ `Not a big - ’ No, ‘cause it’s okay to mess your hand up over a little thing? Just tell me,” Andy says, and he puts the guitar down and he sits himself on Neal’s bed.
There’s that burning glance again, and suddenly Andy gets it.
“Huh,” he says. He really should’ve figured this out sooner. Every charged breath they breathed in the fumes of the garage, all the melodies Neal had given him to sing, all came down to this one thing.
He doesn’t know where to put his hands, or to look; what to say. Neal doesn’t wanna look at him, either. He settles for, “You shoulda told me,” and brushes his fingers over Neal’s uninjured ones.
“Ah, fuck,” says Neal, quietly. “I didn’t want to mess this up.”
So you decided to mess yourself up instead? When Andy can speak evenly again, he says, “What makes you think you would?”
Neal looks up at him finally and holds his gaze. Andy thinks Neal looks a little crazy, like a caged animal who can’t believe he might be set free at last.
“Andy, I didn't…I didn’t think you could ever give me this. It wasn’t fair to you. I didn't wanna ask.”
“After three years? After all you’ve given me?” Andy’s hand curls around Neal’s, holds Neal steady, leans in for their first kiss.
He feels the shudder through Neal’s body, feels Neal open his mouth to let him in. They’re down to this one thing, finally, and it feels like everything he’d ever dreamed: no more holding back, one honest scene at last.
Can you give me this? “It’s yours, Neal.”
~fin
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2010-04-09 03:40 pm (UTC)THIS WAS THE FIRST THING I SAW AT THE TOP OF MY FLIST WHEN I CHECKED THIS MORNING.
I fucking LOVE YOU. This was amazing. Thank you SO SO SO much for birthday Skibmann. You know how much they are my OTP - and how much I love them. I....don't even have the words to tell you how awesome it is. I loved every word, I loved the vignettes and I loved the pictures.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
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Date: 2010-04-10 01:47 am (UTC)I KNOW THIS IS YOUR OTP. AND I LOVE THEM TOOOOOO. This was such a long time coming, and I was so so excited to make it for you! <3
At some point, the Skibmann is gonna visit the World's Beginning ;)
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Date: 2010-04-10 02:52 am (UTC)*butts in and does a happy dance all around the room*
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Date: 2010-04-10 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 04:06 am (UTC)(I may or may not have to steal it)
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Date: 2010-04-10 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 04:06 am (UTC)OMG I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS TO HAPPEN.
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Date: 2010-04-10 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 10:17 pm (UTC)And um, I'm sure Annie can give you some ideas on kinks ;)
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Date: 2010-04-11 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-09 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-09 11:36 pm (UTC)Love it. Of course you already knew that. If I had to choose a favorite, I think I'd have to go with 'Killing Time'.
Thanks so much for letting me help out. I use the term "help" loosely because really, you didn't need much at all :)
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Date: 2010-04-10 01:59 am (UTC)Re photos, WELL. There's no ship with this much ~evidence, I have to say XDDD. And Sarah likes the prettay (and OMG so do I!), so we indulge her.
OMG, thank you for your help, and words of encouragement! I loved making this, I'm likely to make more <3
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Date: 2010-04-10 02:45 am (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2010-04-10 03:28 am (UTC)*clings tightly
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Date: 2010-04-10 01:48 am (UTC)These were amazing bb.
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Date: 2010-04-10 02:00 am (UTC)Next up: the boys hatch a plan to seduce the dude in my icon? OKAY, I might be able to make it work. *cracks knuckles*
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Date: 2010-04-10 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 04:36 am (UTC)THIS IS AMAZING, BB. LOVED SKIBMANN.
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Date: 2010-04-10 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 07:19 am (UTC)I loved it. :D
you kind of killed me with these, actually, if you want the truth, but in the interim, I got better. :)
Thanks for posting!
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Date: 2010-04-10 07:37 am (UTC)And, *blushes* I am so glad you liked! I am starting slowly, with the Skibmann, so I'm really grateful for the warm welcome! (Also: glad I didn't kill you!)
Oh man, thanks for reading!
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Date: 2010-04-10 07:20 am (UTC)Jay, this was amazing! I love your song fics and ILU! <3
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Date: 2010-04-10 07:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 08:01 am (UTC)♥
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Date: 2010-04-10 08:22 am (UTC)Eta my Neal icon
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Date: 2010-04-10 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-10 03:13 pm (UTC)But anyway! I loved all the scenes. Great, great, great. I think my favs are Killing Time and One Thing. And I loved all the pictures! Cool idea.
Thanks for sharing this with us! Love me some Skibmann. :)
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Date: 2010-04-10 04:26 pm (UTC)Ah, thank you so much! I loved making Killing Time out of the silly beach pics of the boys, and I have always loved the extravagant passion of Neal's hand-wrecking, which the Muse decided to take in a Skibmann direction.
And the pictures - Skibmann has so much photographic evidence! XDD
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Date: 2010-04-19 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-13 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-13 09:11 am (UTC)Um, here is my other Skibmann? let us conspire to ignite. With this other dude. Warning: recreational drug use.