ofhypxrion:
A subway station, somewhere probably like Brooklyn for hipsters, the dead of night @apollosknight
People feared night. They spoke of things that went bump and ghosts that liked to linger, unseen dangers and potential chaos. But for all the reasons that the masses despised the shadows, she embraced them. Kat loved the creatures, the unwanted rats that would scurry in search of solace, the strange dwellers who revealed themseles, the criminal mess that the sinners would make, she among them. Daylight exposed everything - there was no space to hide anywhere then, only room for conformity. An odd creature, overspilling with darkness, she never could have fitted in. Only when no one could see her, could she truly be herself.
Only with the strum of a guitar did she realise that where perhaps no one was looking, they were expressing - maybe in search of an audience. Funny, she thought, there’s no one here to listen to you. No one but me. And am I even a person?
The song felt familiar, intimate enough to hum under her breath, words she thought long forgotten forming on her lips. How could she ever forget this melody? How could she ever escape the song her parents had blasted each night, their drug-fueled ecstasy drowning out the music? Sometimes, fingers in ears, she would shout the words, trying to block them out. It never worked. Trying to shake the ghosts from her shoulders, Kat searched for the source - finding it in a man, lips curved around the microphone, expressing his soul. She didn’t mean to linger. She told herself that, anyway.
Standing still, she watched - just the pair of them and the underbelly of the world for company. At the song’s end, Kat’s hands remained glued to her side, unable to clap. With the moment over, perhaps she should have moved on - but something kept her back. Quashing a heavy sigh, Kat tilted her mouth to speak, German accent stronger than usual.
“You know, you’ll make more money if you play by day. Tourists love that cultural shit.”
Through the barren days of his confinement, both before Sunny and during his imprisonment, Jason had always found solace in music. As a man who had always had little to begin with, this was the only gift that he could afford to give the rest of the world. The world, however, was not so kind in receiving gifts from convicted ex-felons and he often found himself playing alone on the streets in the middle of the night, hoping for a spot of good luck in making some spare change to help afford the apartment Julian and Sunny had so graciously offered up to him.
New York City by night was still a sight, bustling and busy until the early hours of the morning. The silence and the obvious stumble in the steps of drunken strangers was comforting to Jason in a way that he simply couldn’t explain. For once, the world was quiet and still and the only thing that filled the air was the gentle strumming of his guitar and his voice. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine a crowd of people surrounding him in a place that was far away from here and the demons that haunted him. Maybe if he wished it hard enough, it would come true.
And so, that’s what he did. With eyes squeezed shut, he bared his entire soul into his performance for no one in particular. Unbeknownst to him, he had managed to capture Kat’s attention. To say he was startled by her words and accent was an understatement, he nearly jumped in surprise as his eyelids fluttered open. He couldn’t help but to grin as he fully processed what she had said, feigning surprise as though he had never thought of that before.
“But, then, when would I sleep? Besides, I’d get drowned out by all the other performers that come during the daytime.”
There was irony in his words, though not known to her. His moniker was Apollo, the god of the sun, but Jason had the tendency to sleep through his days now, much preferring the dark to the light. Unplugging his mic, he began to break down his small set, slightly off put by the coins (or the lack thereof) in his case. “Have any other pointers, tips, or tricks for me?” He asked, his tone playful while he glanced up at her. “It seems like I could sure use them.”
