21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Chasing the Dream

Penny for your thoughts?"

Hawk glanced over to see Micah leaning against the picnic table where Hawk had been lounging for hours, a blank notebook open in front of him as he stared out over the scrub brush and a strange cactus that looked to be trying to climb up the canyon wall.

"Doubt they're worth that much," Hawk muttered.

"I take it the lyrics aren't going well."

"More like they haven't gotten started, yet" Hawk admitted. "So much for silence being inspiration."

He was still trying to find his footing, but it felt good to be on the road with them and the kids, even if it was only temporary. It turned out that they loved camping and with so many other people around to help herd them and keep any of them from wandering off, Hawk found himself with actual downtime, something that had been almost non-existent over the past several months.

"Then it's a good thing Declan's had better luck, with a healthy dose of help from me and Aaron."

Blinking, Hawk stared from the page, to Micah, struggling to grasp what he had just heard. The time up at the cabin had brought them all closer, but he hadn't pictured them at the writing together stage yet. Somehow, Declan had managed to get not only Aaron, but Micah a counselor who didn't mind doing telehealth sessions, so they had someone they could talk to who'd be able to offer them healthy coping methods for the turmoil each was experiencing. Hawk was giving some serious consideration to talking to her too. Dealing with the loss of his brother and the many changes in his life was something he was still struggling with on a daily basis and as much as it painted him to admit, he needed a sounding board and right now Aaron didn't deserve to have that heaped on him when he was still processing his own traumas.

"So how much of it did you work out?" Hawk asked as he arched his back, stretching and feeling the vertebrae pop.

He rolled his neck too, the popping bringing relief along with a healthy reminder that he'd forgotten to snag some added padding for his bed the last time they'd rolled past a Supercenter. And yeah, Aaron and Kelly had given him shit about going soft and getting too used to sleeping in his comfy California king back home. They weren't wrong, either. He'd barely been able to walk without hobbling after the night they'd spent in tents, despite how much the kids had enjoyed it. He'd firmly put his foot down when they'd begged to do it again.

With less than a week until Rocktoberfest, the band had split their time between practicing and writing new material and holy shit, this would be the third song in that time that Micah and Aaron had written together. Cade had been awesome about helping Hawk with the kids while the rest of them were busy, and the suggestion that his guest cabin be expanded to include an additional music room in addition to another set of bedrooms had been met with enthusiasm.

While Hawk was delighted that they'd found cohesion, some of the lyrics were downright heartbreaking and it wrecked Hawk's soul to get even a glimpse at some of the things those two had endured. He'd known Aaron had been carting around his trauma for years, but it was slowly leaking out, in positive, creative ways that were finally allowing him to cope with them. Like everything, it would take time. In fact, time was exactly what had been on his mind when Micah interrupted him.

After several long conversations, they'd agreed that keeping the name of the old band, despite the fact that Hawk would be contributing to the music, too, wouldn't exactly give them the fresh start Kelly had been after, so he was off somewhere contemplating names seeing as how they were listed on the Rocktoberfest lineup as Blissfully Immune Redux. They weren't Blissfully Immune anymore, or Near Exile, the band name they'd originally started with.

But the idea of naming themselves Last Chance seemed desperate, while Time Warp came off like a cheap 80's hair band, so he'd left Hawk at the table and headed up the trail, hoping to come back with something useable.

Last night, Declan had suggested Continuum, as a bridge between the old band and the new, and Kelly was still mulling that over and struggling to decide if they should add anything more to it, while Aaron and Micah had wanted to go in a completely different direction.

"Earth to Hawk…hello? Are you going to come listen to the new song or what?"

"Sorry, I think all this heat is getting to me."

"Isn't that why you suggested we come out early, to try and get acclimated to the weather?"

Hawk chuckled at that, because yeah, it had been his idea and a way of filling the weeklong break that Liam and Ella had from school. "About the only thing I've gotten acclimated to so far is the need to keep beverages close by so I can down one every ten minutes or as soon as I sweat out the last one, whichever comes first."

"Yeah, we've been guzzling water too. We're going to do a lot of that before we go onstage and then rush the nearest bathroom as soon as we're through."

"Somehow, I doubt you'll need to piss much with as much as you'll sweat during the performance. Last year most of us played shirtless, and while it helped a little with the heat, we sweated off all the sunscreen and wound up looking a bit crispy when we were through."

"Then I guess it's a good thing we're playing a night set," Micah said. "How'd we get so lucky, being that we're unknown, at least in this incarnation?"

"Because they went by who the band was last year, and that garnered us a spot after dark."

"Which I am eternally grateful for," Micha said. "Now come on before they send a search party."

"You mean Cade," Hawk said, chuckling some. "You seriously need to put that man on the payroll. He's proving to be extremely versatile and resourceful as hell."

"Thanks," Cade remarked, his voice startling them both.

"Did I mention comes complete with this nasty habit of walking against the wind," Hawk muttered beneath his breath.

"It's not like I go out of my way to sneak up on people," Cade protested.

"Naaa, it just seems to come natural to you," Micah murmured. "Like the way you scared the piss outta me this morning."

"Not my fault you were lost in a daydream when I wandered out with my coffee, which I wouldn't have had to do if you hadn't confiscated the sugar jar and brought it out to the table in the first place."

Snickering, Micah had the good graces to look sheepish. "Sorry about that. I still wake up with the dawn sometimes. Figured it would be a good time to write a letter to my old man the way Chelsea suggested. Aaron wrote his letter to his grandparents yesterday, so tonight, when we light the bonfire, we'll toss ‘em in and hope that purges some of the shit we've been carrying around with us."

"It sounds like it could be cathartic," Hawk remarked.

"I hope so. Some mornings I wake up so pissed I don't know what to do with myself."

"I told you I could hook you up with a heavy bag if you wanted to try beating the hell outta something," Cade offered. "It mostly works for me."

"Note, he said mostly," Micah remarked, chuckling a little. "Now, are you coming, or what?"

"Getting there."

Micah grinned and plopped down on the table, planting his bare feet on the bench as he reached for one of the lukewarm sodas Hawk kept forgetting to put on ice. "Sure you are. That's why you haven't moved yet."

"Aaron told you to say that shit, didn't he?" Kelly grumbled.

"He may have made some comments about how difficult it can be to motivate you into action and how easy it is to get your goat when someone points out that all your intentions towards movement produce nothing but words and a whole heaping lot of inaction.

"He's a damned menace," Hawk grumbled. "Always spilling my secrets that way."

"And you are still stalling," Cade said, plucking the remainder of the six pack off the table and wrinkling his nose at it. "And these are going on ice. Damn. You guys truly do need a keeper. I'm willing to go on the payroll if they want me to. It's not like I was in any hurry to be separated from my twin."

"Then consider yourself hired," Kelly said, having appeared from out of nowhere, much like Cade, or maybe it was just that Hawk had grown used to how noisy the kids were when they were racing around that he'd forgotten adults weren't nearly so loud. Most of them anyway.

"I dub thee the band's official roadie, which can easily morph into manager if you're looking to take on any of the bullshit I hate doing," Kelly declared.

"You can start showing me the ropes after Rocktoberfest," Cade said. "That way I can help with the logistics of practice sessions, shows and still making sure all of you have time to have a life away from the music. Now come on before Aaron and my brother decide to go off in search of the electric snakes they've been bantering about."

"Electric snakes?" Hawk muttered as he scanned the sand warily.

"I thought the only damned animals that were electric were eels and they were in the ocean," Kelly yelped as he climbed up on the table and started looking around.

"Pretty sure there is a type of ray and at least one type of fish that is too," Cade remarked, chuckling as he shook his head at Kelly's antics.

"I never heard of a fish that could electrocute somebody," Kelly said. "Never heard of a snake that could either! How are you standing there so calm when one could come slithering by at any moment?"

Micah caught Cade's eye and the two of them cracked up, laughing so hard neither could answer Kelly's question about what was so damned funny about the possibility of getting electrocuted, bit, or both.

"There's no such thing as an electric snake," Cade remarked, finally taking pity on Kelly, though he was struggling to smother his snickers as he spoke. "They're shooting the shit about an Overkill song called Electric Rattlesnake . The drums and guitar in it are killer. Aaron was playing it the other night while you were on the phone, and Declan jumped in on the drums and even threw some growling vocals in to offset Aaron. Ever since then, I dunno, it's been a running joke between them."

"Wish you'd led off with that," Kelly muttered, eyeing the patchy grass one last time before easing down off the table.

Shaking his head, Cade started back in the direction of the trail he'd come down. "I just bet you do."

Hawk finally managed to heave himself to his feet and wipe some of the sweat from his brow so he could follow, meaning Kelly scrambled to keep up, no doubt still thinking about the possibility of encountering a snake out there.

"So, how'd the whole songwriting bit get started, anyway?" Hawk asked as they walked. "Last I saw any of you, you and Aaron had taken the kids to look for fossils."

"Which they found. Several, actually. Now they're sprawled on blankets, coloring and listening to Aaron and Declan work out some of the pieces to the new song," Cade explained. "That's why they sent me to find you guys, which Kelly saved me the trouble of having to do when he magically appeared the way you all claim I do."

"Because you do," Hawk insisted. "Kelly on the other hand is rarely that subtle and usually bounds into the room with all the energy of a golden retriever."

"Yeah, I've started to notice that about him," Cade admitted.

"As for how it got started," Micah began. "Declan was sunbathing and listening to the instrumental tract Aaron recorded right before we left, and I kept thinking back to the conversation Aaron and I had in the clearing on the day of the storm. I guess fossil hunting inspired him because Aaron came back from the canyon with more than just the kids and a trilobite. He wanted to share and once he did, well, I had words and Declan had words, and even Ella suggested a word when we got stuck on one and all those words started flowing together into something truly special. Call it purging shared pain, if you will, but we're excited for you to hear it."

"It's that far along already?" Kelly remarked, whistling low. "You all must have been busy."

"We were. We've worked out not only the lyrics but the beat, several of the lead guitar riffs and a couple rhythm pieces too. I've been working on some harmony bits and we've all been bouncing ideas around for what tempo range we want to keep it in."

Mashing the button on his phone, Hawk was shocked to see that the whole morning had flown by while he'd been wool gathering and thinking about the surprise he had cooked up for Aaron once they got back from Rocktoberfest.

"Damn," Hawk muttered as he tucked the phone back into his pocket. "I didn't realize how much time had passed."

"Yeah, you burned it up good," Cade remarked.

Soon they reached the spot beneath a gnarled Joshua tree where Declan and Aaron sat with the kids around them, each with their own spots and crayons so no one could accuse anyone else of using the color they wanted. It was a brilliant setup, and they hardly glanced up when he arrived, they were so content with what they were doing. Hawk found himself wishing he'd brought some ice water ‘cause damn, just that little walk had left him even sweatier than he'd been before. Cade leaned against the tree a few feet from his brother, eyes drifting to half-mass as he listened to the notes rolling out of Aaron's guitar, while Declan sat nodding and tapping away on his tabletop electric drums.

"I hear we've been summoned to a concert," Hawk said as he dropped onto the blanket beside Aaron, who stopped playing and fiddled with one of the strings.

"Something like that," Declan said. "We've got something we'd like you guys to listen to."

Nodding, Hawk and Kelly got comfortable and waited to hear what they'd come up with.

"It's umm, it's not meant to be fast. It's not a ballad either…it's just…" Aaron stammered, blushing a little until Hawk wrapped an arm around him and pressed their heads together, reminding him to relax, that no one out here was going to judge what he'd created.

It pissed Hawk off to no end that the brief time he'd spent in his grandparents' presence had caused Aaron's self-confidence to plummet further then it had already been.

"Ready for you to play it," Declan encouraged. "So, let's hit this."

It was all the nudging and encouragement that Aaron needed. He started strumming out the intro, with Micah falling in beside him, and damn did those twin guitars sound haunting as they echoed over the desert, especially when Aaron began to sing.

Stoned streets at dawn

Emerald pavements undulating with restless movement

The denizens and the damned all hurly-whirly mixed together

A macabre dance of pleasure and pain

Jaded eyes shimmer dollar bill green

Basking in the glow of capitalism

The meaning of life measured in yields and gains

Lies roll off forked tongues as easily as rivers grow

Creep over their banks after heavy rains

Drown in the silt and silk

Unable to sort the muck from the logic

Seeking threads of light in vast expanses of darkness.

Rise reborn slip on fake snake skins at dawn

Electric snake skins to go out and play in

Blinking at the sun like it burns

It all burns while we slither

Slinking through vast caverns of the human mind

Into caves we never tap into

Dormant and all but forgotten

These places we fear to tread

These lines we fear to cross

Fear stifles creativity

The creative shatter molds

The weak just break them slowly

Piece by piece

Subtle changes too faint to see

But the wild ones burn.

Singing this is what's left when the fire dies.

This panted face and devils grin

Crimson jeans and affliction t-shirts

Inked. Pierced. Painted. Dyed.

Soulful windows staring unblinking at the masses

Seeing everything.

Devouring it all.

Single minded determination. Life's goals whittled down to raging mantra.

"Imma show you how great I am."

All Hawk could do when they finished was sit there, mouth opening and closing as he digested not just the pain and fury in the song, but the melody, which made him wish like hell he'd brought his guitar from the RV. His fingers were itching to add some deeper undertones, something that would help then draw out the lingering moments. They'd done this together, without needing anyone to guide or even participate, and he couldn't have been fuckin' prouder. Then Aaron turned, facing him as he pressed his guitar into Hawk's hands, giving him the chance to feed the creativity he hadn't been able to tap into earlier and in an instant, those undertones started pouring out, while Aaron raced to capture the chords in the notebook he held. By the time he'd finished, Cade stood beside him rather than across from him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"I thought you might like to have this so you could join in," Cade said.

"Thanks man," Hawk said, flexing his fingers before passing Aaron's guitar back to him.

Those twenty minutes a night had been keeping them limber, but this right here was what Hawk loved. The kids had stopped coloring and lay watching them, enchanted, much like that day back at the house when he and Aaron had helped them create rocked out versions of the nursery rhymes they loved. Cade had snagged Kelly's bass too and they all joined in on the song this time, fueling one another, encouraging, yelling out chord changes as they made it tighter each and every time they played their way through. Okay, so maybe Kelly had been right when he'd tried to convince him that he could still have the music. He just hadn't been willing to believe him on account of his inability to tour. Now though, he understood what Kelly had meant about them still being a five man band. Knowing that he could still contribute was everything right now, especially when he saw the awe on the children's faces.

"That, right there, is gonna blow people away," Kelly remarked when they finally took a break.

"The question is, can we have it ready for Rocktoberfest along with the rest of our new pieces?" Declan asked, resting his sticks at his side now that the song was through.

"It's not like any of us sleep much," Micah said. "And we've got nothing but each other and the sand for the next two days, so I don't see why not, if we push ourselves."

"We can do it," Micah said.

"If you guys will let me deal with the basic shit, like cooking the meals you bastards are constantly forgetting to cook anyway, you'll do just fine," Cade offered. "Consider it my first official duty as your new roadie."

"Seriously? You're gonna stick it out with us?" Declan asked, looking an equal mix pleased and relieved.

"No place I'd rather be than here watching you achieve your dream, bro," Cade admitted. "Besides, being way out here, and up in the mountains, and who the hell knows where else you go, will be inspiring as hell. Maybe I'll figure my own shit out along the way."

"In that case, you have to promise us one thing," Aaron said, gazing up at him.

"Yeah, what's that?" Cade asked, a hooded, hesitant look having crossed his face.

"That you let us help you the same way you're helping us," Aaron said, drawing twin smiles from Declan and Cade.

"Consider it a done deal my friend," Cade remarked, fist bumping him.

For the first time since Blissfully Immune fell apart, Hawk found himself certain that whatever the future held, it would be as epically amazing as the past…maybe even more so.