DISSONANTS @dissonants-13 - Tumblr Blog

snippity-snip ✂️

@rainbowsandcoffee thank you doll for the tag, and I’m feeling chaotic so pls accept;

a snip from A Little Left of Heaven: Volume Two - the 70s band au odyssey literally no one asked for, with chapter one of V2 releasing this sundayyyy

an idea from a post-canon Olympics tale I’ve been marinating on

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a little left of heaven: volume two (70s band au jerejean)

“They were fighting barely an hour ago,” Neil says flatly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jeremy drags his gaze off Jean for long enough to follow Neil’s line of sight and see the couple engaged in a fiery kiss about ten feet from where they’re sitting. Allison is wearing what might be the tiniest pair of gold hotpants in existence, and they watch Seth’s hands skate down her back and shamelessly cop a feel. “Ah,” he says mildly, his gaze already back on Jean. Cat and Laila have joined him, and orbit him as they dance. Jeremy’s pretty sure it’s intentional; Cat’s hand slaps away a stranger reaching for Jean as she shimmies past. “They’re just kids in love.”

Neil snorts delicately. Jeremy isn’t quite sure when or how Neil came to be sitting with him, but he’s trying not to make any sudden movements. Neil’s got a cigarette between his knuckles, but it’s unlit, and he’d waved off Jeremy’s offer of a light.

“If that’s love,” Neil says, after watching Allison and Seth for another minute, his lip curling at the wet smacking sounds that reach them, “then fuck that.”

Jeremy laughs in spite of himself. On the dancefloor, Cat’s arms wind around Jean’s shoulders, lacing her fingers together at the back of his neck as she sings, “I nee-ee-ee-eed you,” in time with the song to him, and Jean laughs and moves his cigarette so he can press a kiss to her hairline. Jean is casually affectionate with both the girls; forehead kisses, letting them drape themselves off his tall frame like scarves, putting his arm over their shoulders, and it shouldn’t, but it makes Jeremy sick with jealousy.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in love?” Jeremy says, after another sip of his drink that does nothing to soothe the yearning that’s blazing in his chest like a wildfire. “Everyone is stupid and embarrassing when they’re in love, at least once or twice.”

Neil doesn’t answer for a beat too long, and is too casual when he shrugs and says, “Never got to stay in one place too long growing up. It’s all just a diversion anyway, isn’t it?”

Jeremy is silent for a long moment in the face of that incredibly bleak thought. Christ, who hurt this kid? He’s starting to get the sense that Foxholes are a collection of broken people - between Neil’s fox in a snare aura, Andrew’s touch aversion, the ghost of a haunted look that sometimes comes to Renee’s face when she thinks no one is paying attention to her, and Kevin’s issues with Riko, Evermore, and Jean, the band is a melting pot of fuses ready to blow. No wonder they’re always fighting, or fucking, he thinks, as Seth hoists Allison up into his arms, hands cradling her backside, still making out furiously.

And speak of the blonde devil - Andrew slides into the booth next to Neil without a word, a full highball glass in hand that, judging by the lack of bubbles, Jeremy is pretty sure is just straight vodka. Within a minute, there’s coke on the table, and Jeremy’s skin itches as Andrew inhales. He averts his gaze, and notes Neil’s disdainful lip curl.

“Drugs are stupid,” he says archly, in response to the question on Jeremy’s face.

“Ouch,” Andrew says, grabbing at his chest and pretending to be wounded, though both his smile and his tone are cold. “Neil is too righteous for the rockstar lifestyle.”

olympics post-canon wip

(2012, London Olympics year)

Jeremy drives too fast, he knows that. Too fast, and with too many risk factors, like always being on the verge of falling into a dead sleep behind the wheel. He had gotten better for a while there - a championship, being understood by a man who gave him purpose, and more than that, confidence, had obliterated the subconscious desire to fall asleep at the wheel and drive into oblivion. His own special brand of self-destruction it was; the ability to be the sunniest guy in every room and have no one realise that his warmth came from the fire that was burning him alive inside himself. Laila had once told him he’d make a fantastic actor, and she hadn’t meant it as a compliment.

Still, he nudges the car to ten kilometres over the limit, which feels like about fifty in the narrow, busy streets of London. A motorbike rider cuts him off at the corner of Wansbeck and Rothbury, and flips him off for good measure, and Jeremy’s honestly not sure who is in the wrong between them, but he can’t bring himself to give any emotion to it.

He races along Carpenters Road, and as buildings give way to the green space of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the magnificent, purpose-built Olympic Stadium looms on the right. A week ago, Jeremy had walked the stadium track with Team USA, head tilted upwards and craning back and forth in wonder at the lights and sounds and the crowd. He and Jean had shared a look of awe, and Jean had, at one point, put both his hands on Jeremy’s shoulders as they watched the opening ceremony from the athletes’ corralling areas - first, the ode to rural Britain, that gave way to the pandemonic recreation of the Industrial Revolution, and then the freaking Queen herself, with James Bond. Jeremy had hardly been able to believe it was all real; he was at the fucking Olympics, literally the Everest pinnacle of professional sport, his arm brushing against Jean’s as they celebrated their lap of honour with their team. They had jumped up and down, dancing and singing every word to the Arctic Monkeys performance of I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor with ten thousand other athletes and the massive stadium crowd. A lump of emotion had formed in Jeremy’s throat as they watched the Olympic flame being lit, and the incredible fireworks show over Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Centre, and the emotion was mirrored in Jean’s eyes when they met Jeremy’s.

Taking a hand off the wheel is monumentally stupid, and even more so when you’re driving on the other side of the road, the drivers’ seat on the other side of the car, in an unfamiliar city, but Jeremy already feels sick with guilt so he does it anyway. He hits the redial button on his phone and jams it into the space between his shoulder and his ear as the traffic in front of him slows and he downshifts. It rings for a minute before he’s greeted by the same beeping fuck you, fuck you of the voice mail.

He hangs up, and is momentarily nostalgic for the days when you could hang up with an angry pounding of the end call button or slamming a receiver.

Of course, he’s not actually the one who’s allowed to be mad in this situation.

The stitches at his hairline throb as the local anaesthetic starts to wear thin. His neck is stiff too, as he head-checks, pulling out onto Olympic Park Avenue in a small gap in the traffic. That’s the whiplash. He’ll probably need an injection before the gold medal game, so he can at least have enough mobility to see the ball coming.

His phone rattles on the passenger seat - he glances at the caller ID as he joins the queue of vehicles waiting to scan into the Athlete’s Village, and then he becomes the one ignoring calls. The Program Director is pissed, and Jeremy doesn’t have it in him at that moment to play peacemaker.

He throws the car haphazardly into a parking space, and catalogues all the places that hurt like fuck as he eases out of the drivers’ seat. He swipes into the Team USA building with the card hanging on the lanyard around his neck, casting a surreptitious glance around for anyone who might recognise him. It’s still close enough to dinner time that the vast majority of athletes will be in the dining hall, fuelling after a day of competition. Every other night, Jeremy has loved the buzz of the hall, the atmosphere of hundreds of elite athletes excited about competition and Olympic spirit. Just two nights before, the Phelps versus Lochte battle had enthralled the entire village, and Team USA Exy had been allowed to go to the Aquatic Centre to watch Phelps win the 200 metre Individual Medley and be so spent that he had to lean against the wall to stop himself falling off the podium. Thirty minutes later he set the fifth-fastest time in history in the 100 metre butterfly semi-final. Jeremy tucked the night away in his memories - the inspiration to drive himself harder than he ever had before, the excitement to be here, competing, being a part of history.

Then he’d somehow nearly ruined everything, but he shoves that thought down with the bile that rises in his throat.

Jeremy breaks into a jog down the hallway that leads to his room, ignoring the ache in his shin where the dash crumpled against it. He’s not sure where his room key is - all the stuff he had on him is in a hospital patient belongings bag he forgot on the backseat of the car - so he knocks jauntily instead, trying to fortify his nerves.

The doors rips open, hinges squealing, and Jean Moreau fills the doorway. His broad shoulders fill the space, and despite this being Jeremy’s room too, he does not yield a single step.

“You look like shit.” It’s harsher in Jean’s accent than it might have otherwise been, centuries of French judgement infusing the words with a guillotine edge. He crosses his arms over his chest.

The lump in Jeremy’s throat feels like lead. Jean is angry. Angrier than he’s been at Jeremy in a long time.

Jeremy is looking at the slant of Jean’s sinful, perfectly-shaped mouth, when his eyes grow hot and wet, and he feels his bottom lip tremble. Jean clocks it, and softens almost imperceptibly. Only Jeremy knows him well enough to see the change at the corners of his mouth, in the tension in his shoulders, in his brows.

Jean takes a few steps backwards, and Jeremy enters, sinking down onto his bed with a wince that Jean definitely notices. His gaze narrows again. The door swings shut behind Jeremy. The sound of the lock re-engaging is like a gunshot in the cavernous silence.

A tear escapes, followed by several more, the tracks they leave behind cooling rapidly on Jeremy’s feverish cheeks. He exhales tremulously.

Jean appears in front of him, and he takes hold of Jeremy’s chin in a firm grip. Jeremy lets his head be tilted upwards, ignoring the ache in his neck, until their gazes meet, and Jean doesn’t let go. Jeremy exhales again.

His eyes, the grey of liquid mercury, pin Jeremy in place. The intensity is like a vice, and Jeremy is pretty sure he’s stopped breathing. His stomach drops. He can’t seem to make his lungs fill.

Jean’s next words are like a punch to the chest, like airbags exploding. Tyres scream and glass shatters.

“I just need to know if you did this on purpose.”