8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Songs in the Silence

Each night he stepped foot in the room, the first thing Hawk did was inhale and let the silence settle around him like a weighted blanket. It let the whirlwind of the day settle and the echo of the chaos fade, though now that he'd learned just how much the kids enjoyed group activities, the evenings had been a lot less turbulent. Instead of there being three rooms to clean up, they all cleaned up the living room together before they started getting ready for bed. These last two weeks had been filled with amazing bonding moments between him and the kids, and he'd thanked Aaron for that several times since he'd gone back to the city to work things out with the band. He'd opened Hawk's eyes to the possibilities and demonstrated in every interaction with them that there was a way of engaging and answering questions that kept the whimsy alive.

They still quibbled as much as ever, but Hawk had grown up with siblings, that's just what they did. One moment they were chasing each other around, screaming bloody murder and ratting each other out, and the next they were sprawled side by side watching a movie. It certainly kept him on his toes.

Okay.

Wuuuuussssssaaaaaaaa

No more thinking about anything but the music.

He'd formed the rest of the song around the words Aaron had written, but the opening verse still felt wrong. Not powerful enough for the words that came later. He'd never had a hard time tapping into emotions, but since his brother Arden's death there were places within himself that he didn't want to touch, and it was keeping him from getting that damned verse right.

Inhale.

Exhale.

He could do this.

He took a picture of the verse before he erased it, allowing him to document the process from blank board to finished song. Over the years, they'd chosen a series of images to print on the inside of their CD inserts, along with photos of the band doing some of the most random shit imaginable. His favorite was of him and Aaron wrapped up in a Velcro burrito, high atop a sky swing moments before the god dammed crane dropped them. Aaron had been grinning and waving like a madman, while Hawk had reached towards the camera looking for someone to rescue him. Roller coasters were one thing. Their asses were parked in seats and buckled to a bunch of metal. That sky swing…

Hawk had loved the last two-thirds of it, but that drop, holy shit, if Aaron hadn't been right there beside him, laughing and yelling for it to go faster, Hawk might have lost his shit. Instead, he wound up laughing at Aaron's commentary as they'd swung, then grabbed his hand and raced around to the entrance so they could do it again.

They weren't the words to this song, but words did come to Hawk's mind then, bright, powerful, energetic words that captured that day perfectly. Moments like this were why he believed in double sided dry erase boards and quickly flipped it to start scrawling words.

Past the point of no return

Mere inches from the end

Countdown clock ticking down

You'll pay for this

My crazy friend

His first thoughts were always rambling stream of consciousness bursts of writing that left his fingers stained and his mind empty by the time he was done, so he gave himself over to it, writing past when the buzzer on the phone went off and filling a good chunk of the space. Only when the well of memories and moments stopped feeding him the words he needed did he stop and put the cap on the pen.

He knew better than to start rereading. He'd be in here all night if he did that and there was plenty of work he needed to get done before he went to bed. Best to just snap a picture and shut the lights out, go check on the kids and get busy.

When he peeked into Ella's room, all he could see was the top of her head peeking out from beneath her comforter and an army of bears gathered around her like they were guarding their queen. She looked like her mother and had her personality too, sweet and thoughtful, always worried about Dani and Liam, letting them choose while she took what was left over. When Lynn had come into Arden's life, his brother had been struggling to stick with anything for longer than a four month stretch. Somehow their friendship had made it longer than that, then bloomed into something more. Half the band had given Arden dating advise, some of which backfired spectacularly, but in the end, they'd played the wedding with Hawk doing double duty as Arden' s best man.

He stepped away from Ella's room to check on Liam, who like Dani, looked a great deal like Arden, right down to the unique strawberry-blond hair he and Hawk had shared. They were both asleep too, but as he headed back up the hall, intent on getting laundry done and the dishwasher emptied, he was hit by a memory he hadn't thought about in years.

Dude…do you know what time it is?

You won't care where you hear what I have to tell you.

Uggg, we just went to bed.

Oh shit, is that Aaron draped across you? Hi Aaron!

Arden your timing sucks!

Says the guy with the suckiest timing this side of …!

Oh, shutup will ya, I'm sure Aaron will get back to sucking as soon as I'm through!

.

.

Oh my god I did not mean that the way you assholes just took it! For fuck's sake, I'm trying to tell you you're gonna be an uncle.

.

.

Wait, what?

Dude, he just told you that you were gonna be an uncle.

Fuck that, you're both gonna be uncles! Everyone in the band is gonna be an honorary uncle. My kid will have more uncles than they'll know what to do with.

Do you know what you're having?

Dude, we just found out we're having, give us a few months to figure out the sex.

You gotta let us do the gender reveal!

What the hell is a gender reveal?

Hell yeah you can do the gender reveal.

Will one of you two fuckers please tell me what a gender reveal is?

Aaron, educate my brother, will ya, I gotta go spoil my wife.

Staggering out of the memory, Hawk hit the wall beside the music room, a lump in his throat both choking him and bringing him to his knees. Man had they celebrated, first privately, then with the rest of the band after they'd hauled their drunk, hungover asses onto the bus. They'd celebrated as a family. So many events over the years, so many moments that no one else knew but them. They'd shared massive success and devastating failures as a unit, well once they'd gotten past the shit in the early days when Ethan, Hawk, and Aaron had struggled to figure out who was going to play which guitar parts. In the end, lead had fallen to Aaron, while Ethan had become the rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist. Hawk had been relegated to frontman with the occasional guitar solo to keep his fingers sharp, but that had been fair, when the two of them were the better guitar players. Aaron was the better singer too, even if the fucker wouldn't admit it.

He dropped the key twice before he got the door open, barely managing to get inside with the door closed behind him before he lost it completely. The only thing that should have changed when he'd been unable to return to the band was that they went from a five man group to four. Instead everything had fractured, the kids had lost two uncles along with their folks and Hawk….was terrified that he was going to fuck all of this up and those kids would wind up hating him the way his ex-bandmates did.

How the fuck had it been so easy for Just an and Ethan to cut ties and turn their backs on him? And when the fuck was Aaron going to go ahead and get it over with? He needed to do it already, before there was no way in hell Hawk would ever let him go.

Fucking hell, he was already to that point. He fuckin' needed him here. Right now. Right this minute. So he could lay in Aaron's arms and sob his soul out over ever shred of unfairness that had barreled through their lives. Those kids needed their parents. Hell they needed people who knew how to be parents and Hawk clearly didn't have a fucking clue. He loved them, he could provide for them, he could try to help with homework, dry their tears and protect them with his life, but would that be enough?

He was gonna fuck this to hell and everyone would know it when years down the line, when they were old enough to walk away, they turned their backs on him too and there were no calls, no visits, no touching base or checking in. Even Kelly only hit him up when there was something going sideways with the band, which was damn near every night theses days and it was always Aaron at the root of the problem and Kelly hoping Hawk would say something to Aaron that would turn things around. Sure Kelly asked about the kids, in a fleeting way that was more cursory than interested, so Hawk always told him everything was fine and left it at that.

His brother should have been here to sign Ella's report card this quarter, six As and three Bs. He'd have been so proud of her. Spelling was something she'd struggled with in the first few weeks, but Hawk had gotten in the habit of quizzing her on the way to school. In the process, Liam had learned how to spell several words and Dani had become her cheerleader, celebrating whenever they got one right. It was nice to see them coming together as a family in yet another way.

If tragedy had to strike, then why hadn't it hit him instead of his brother? He'd had nothing but the music and the band. No one who'd truly depended on him for anything. Arden and Lynn had been those children's whole world. Hawk couldn't fathom being that for anyone. Only he was and he wasn't equipped for it.

Caught in the grip of fear and pain, he rocked on the floor with tears soaking his face and his chest so tight he could barely draw in air. He knew he needed to get up. He knew he had shit he was supposed to be doing, but he couldn't pull it together. After a while, he was so exhausted he just lay there in the silence, fingers dug in the carpet as the only means of grounding himself.

Blip

Blup. Blup.

He heard his phone, but he couldn't make himself reach for it until after several more chimes. His hands were shaking so bad it took effort to get it open, and when he did, what he saw was several voice recordings under Aaron's name. Like a drowning man lunging for water, he hit play on the first one and took his first full breath when Aaron's voice filled the room.

Can't sleep. What else is new, right? So I'm down at the neon gardens, wandering and thinking about that time we fucked around and got lost trying to win that corn maze race ‘cause someone decided we should take a shortcut, knowing even you weren't tall enough to see over those stalks.

Groaning, he played it again, because he did remember. They'd been so far off course when Hawk had finally gotten the brilliant idea to put Aaron on his shoulders, that there had been no way for them to win. They'd made it fun though. Aaron trying for an Ausie accent while pretending they were explorers trudging through the bush, looking for the elusive Corvus Spiritus, otherwise known as the Ghost Crow. He'd woven a whole fuckin' tale on the way out of there, that had been both creepy and creative as hell. Hawk just wished they'd been allowed their phone, because he would have recorded it and kept it along with the rest of the footage they'd shot over the years.

Hey, they've added a whole new section! Check this out. Holy shit! And that does not count towards the swear jar, fucker, you can't blame me if you played it where the kids could hear.

In an instant he was laughing, especially when he scrolled down and spotted the photos of Aaron wearing several glowing bracelets and necklaces, a trippy caterpillar behind him trailing smoke. Hawk wasn't certain, but it looked like there were words written in it. In the next shot, Aaron was standing beneath a neon hat with rabbit ears sticking up out of it, and in the next, it looked like he was sitting in a stone teacup covered in glow paint. The last shot was the best though. It was Aaron with a wide grin trying to match the brilliantly colored Cheshire Cat smiling beside him.

Hawk's fingers flew over the keys, erasing, changing, pouring his heart out about the memories and the anger and the helplessness, then hitting the backspace button before he could hit send. Three times he tried to express what he was feeling, finger poised over the video chat button for a moment, because it wasn't enough to see Aaron's face right now. He needed to hear him.

Only Aaron was having an awesome time and the last thing Hawk wanted was to drop a load of emotional baggage on him. Finally, he settled for brief message that lacked any of the emotions he felt.

"Looks awesome, now go get lost in it for both of us and remember this moment the next time you think you'd be better off here."

He'd gotten the music room locked up and was halfway to the kitchen when a response came, only it was the last one he'd expected to see from Aaron.

Go fuck yourself.

What the hell was that for?

What is your issue?

Hawk typed back before dropping the phone on the counter so he could try to get some of his work done.

Every few minutes he want back to it though, despite the lack sound of announcing a text. Fucker had left him unread.

What the fuck?

He tried calling and it went straight to voicemail, so he hit the red phone icon before he said something he might regret.

Didn't he fuckin' get it!

There would be no midnight treks through the neon garden if Aaron uprooted his life and moved up there with Hawk. There would be nothing but an endless stream of housework, interrupted sleep, meltdowns and sticky fingerprints.

Aaron needed to get that through his fuckin' head…before he shattered Hawk's heart to pieces.

Torn between furious and crushed, Aaron sat there glaring at the neon around him. The Alice in Wonderland vibe had been a wonderfully mellow trip at first, now all he could see was the way the glow made each of character look a little monstrous and sad.

Twisted.

Broken.

Like him.

He hadn't come here looking for inspiration or anything really besides a trip through the colors. But the longer he sat, the easier it was to spot the cracks, the flaws, the sadness in the eyes of the cat, even when it was smiling.

One of the first lessons he'd learned in his grandparents house was how to smile in front of company and play in complete silence, so he would be seen as happy and obedient, even when he didn't understand why his mother had left him with people who only smiled at him when other people were around.

Fury washed over him, bitterness too. He grabbed his notebook and pen out of his back pocket and angrily started scribbling words that were half letter and half lyrics. He got so lost in pouring his pain onto the page, that he didn't realize he wasn't alone until something jingled, then clattered when it hit the ground. Aaron glanced up to see a large shadow-shape stooping to pick something up off the ground.

"Sorry about that," the guy said. "Didn't mean to disturb you. Just trying to get some footage of the place."

"It's pretty awesome, isn't it," Aaron said as he paused to look around again.

"I'll be gone in a few minutes."

Aaron snorted and lay the notebook on the lip of the cup he was still sitting in. It was a cool design for a bench. Back when his old band was about to release their third album, they'd done a photoshoot here, several of the images making the inside of the cover. This exhibit would have been a favorite if it had existed back then. It would have made for an awesome backdrop to the group shot with them all gathered in and around the cup.

"No worries, you weren't interrupting anything," Aaron said.

"You looked pretty busy to me."

"Naa, just pissed off scribblings that won't amount to anything."

"Sad."

"Not really. There are enough angry, angst fueled lyrics out there, the world doesn't need mine."

"You shouldn't assume that," the guy said. "You never know what might resonate with someone."

"Maybe, but if it doesn't matter to the one person you want it to, then what's the point?"

"Could be that's the problem," the guy replied as he moved around, shooting footage while he spoke. "You're thinking of points, but points are tiny, insignificant specks in an ocean of possibilities."

"Maybe I should just hand over my notebook and let you write," Aaron offered. "You've got a cool way with words."

"Meh, I do okay. My brother, on the other hand, is amazing with them. Writes all kinds of poems and lyrics and shit. The best I can do is string a few together and hope I don't come off sounding like a fortune cookie."

"Hey, some of those fortune cookie companies could probably use an upgrade to their messages," Aaron offered. "The last time I ordered takeout, I wound up with two that said the same thing and one that was blank. It didn't even have the lottery numbers on the back."

"Yeah, and what did the two identical ones say?"

"Don't dream, do."

"That's not bad advice."

"It is when you're dreams are unattainable."

"Nothing is unattainable until you give up."

"It is if what you want is someone who is making it very clear that they don't want you."

"Yeah, that's rough man, I'm sorry."

"You and me both."

"I'm Cade."

"Aaron."

"So do you always come out here when you're pissed?"

Aaron glanced around and shook his head. "Naa. I usually come here just to enjoy the way everything glows. There's sometime about it, ya know."

"Yeah, I do, though it would be nice if the folks who designed it had set it up in a way to be accessible to everyone."

"It's one of the few free places in the city," Aaron pointed out. "Can't get more accessible than that."

"So, not what I meant, but okay, I can see your point there."

"Kids who don't have anything shouldn't be excluded from spaces like this, and museums or the damned zoo just ‘cause they don't have the crazy fee it costs to get it. I get that maintenance along with the upkeep of the animals and exhibits takes money, but there has to be some way to make it fair."

"I won't argue with you there," Cade said. "When I was a kid, everyone in the class had to sell candy bars to raise money for this fieldtrip to the Imaginarium, but not everyone in the class had family that could afford to buy them. Hell, some lived in neighborhoods where going door to door might get you shot. We didn't make the goal, so we didn't get to go on the trip, which sucked, ‘cause I think some of my classmates would have benefited from the chance to see how much was possible."

"My point exactly!"

"Right on man, see there's something the world needs. Why not write about that?"

"Maybe I will."

"I hope you do," Cade said. "Just remember when you start putting pen to paper that it isn't always a lack of finances that keeps someone from being able to enjoy a space. Sometimes it's that the space isn't set up in a way where there is room for them."

"I guess."

"I better get moving if I want to finish filming tonight," Cade said.

With a little wave, he rounded the corner, while Aaron picked up his notebook and pen, tapping the cap against the paper while he replayed the conversation in his head and tried to shape it into something someone might one day want to sing about.

In the end he penned just a few lines before he left, but they were words he was immensely proud of.

I hope you find your light

In this place of glowing dreams

And see there are no impossibilities

When you fuel the spark inside of you.