High School Days Ch 29 Scene 7: Alan's Night Out

Scene #1 for September, 2017

Universe: High School Days

Tags: Rat, Hyena, Raccoon, Fox

1,287 words

High School Days Ch 29 Scene 7: Alan's Night Out

Illustration by Donryu

***

“I was the man who took your breath away.

I made you smile like the sun and it kept me warm

I was the one who loved you so much it tore us apart

Because I was only filling his place in your heart.”

Even though Alan had only heard this song for the first time a few weeks ago, the rat knew it by heart now. He both loved and hated this song. He’d loved it that first time because of how soulful and painful the lyrics were when Shane delivered them. It was such a perfect love-gone-wrong song, that Alan had been compelled to play it again and again, the words seeming to haunt him with their pain. Shane had taught him how to play the bass part the night he’d stayed over, and the song spoke to him so deeply that he’d committed it to heart. Alan was really glad now that they were on stage in front of the Diamond fucking Dogs their little jam session had been so memorable.

“I tried as hard as I could to keep you happy

I fought with all my might to keep you safe,

But nothing I did seemed to matter

Nothing could fix the hole in your heart.”

Since this song only had one vocal track, Alan took a moment to look around some as he played, getting a better feel for the stage and the band. He’d been so focused on getting the first song right, he’d barely noticed who was out in the crowd or… anything really. He’d been totally tunneled in on not fucking up the first song. This one, he could play Shane’s love song in his sleep now, so he drank in the crowd’s reaction and his fellow band members.

“I knew that I was filling someone’s shoes

but your love for him never changed how I felt.

Though I stood in his shadow, I was glad

I was filling his place in your heart”

The crowd was growing larger now, people who had been lingering in the smokey back tables of the Mystic Brew coming forward and listening intently as Shane sang his sad love song. Unlike their first song, this one was all gender neutral, he could be singing about a woman, but Alan knew he was singing about David. He didn’t know why Shane had written a forlorn love song about the kangaroo, but he knew it was about him.

Alan watched the raccoon’s expression of pain, of pure heartbreak as he sang the words, and when Shane turned to him for the chorus, Alan broke into song along with him, singing in harmony with the raccoon again even though they hadn’t worked that out beforehand. It was just… obviously what the rainbow tailed raccoon wanted him to do, and so Alan did it.

“Nothing made me sadder then to hold you,

Nothing made me happier then to be with you

No one had ever made me feel that way,

And I wanted to spend my life with you.”

It didn’t feel weird to sing those words. In fact, Alan knew exactly the right kind of pain to put into those words. That’s why Alan hated the song, as well as loved it. All he had to do was think about Keith’s face, and he could sing with that same heart-broken sadness that Shane did.

Like the one verse duet, Alan hadn’t planned that. He hadn’t decided that Keith was his ‘love that got away’, hell he hadn’t even decided if he actually liked guys or was just… confused by everything that was happening. But when Alan sang those words about wanting someone and being unable to have them, it was Keith’s face that haunted him.

“When we were alone, I kept you safe.

I tried as hard as I could to keep you happy

I fought with all my might to make you smile,

But I was only filling his place in your heart.”

Alan forced himself to look away from Shane as the raccoon continued to belt the words out. It was too raw, watching him and knowing that the words were real, that he’d written them on the back of notecards in a military school, hidden them, lost them, and written them from memory. Alan had seen the half-finished verses that were missing, and knew that there were more out there, somewhere.

“My arms were there, but you wanted his,

So you went in search of your other half,

The man whose place I filled for so long,

And when you left, you behind a hole inside me”

Trying not to look at Shane as the raccoon bared his soul, the rat turned away from the raccoon, facing towards JD. The hyena looked up at him, eyes quizzical for a moment. His round ears shifted, and tail flicked, and Alan knew he was signally the rat a question. ‘You good?’

The rat flicked his hair back and around, projecting confidence, his tail lashing once as he played the power cords this part required. JD’s teeth shone, and for a moment he and the rat were moving in sync, playing their instruments together like Alan and Shane had been singing, bobbing and weaving to the song as they played.

“So now I know why you left me,

I know the longing you felt inside your soul,

To be in the arms of the one you loved,

To fill the hole you left in my heart.”

The song ended, and Alan let his paws fall away from the bass guitar, gaze still fixed on JD as the hyena grooved with him. But behind them, instead of stopping the fox drummer began to smash the drums, riffing on the end of the song, the tempo building with power that led to a peak, and then falling utterly silent, paws slapped down on the drums to stop them cold, creating a hole of silence in the room.

Which the synth track JD was still laying down filled, a slow melody that brought the whole the coffee house down to a low, empty noiselessness, the last sounds a twisted and distorted version of the hyena’s own laugh.

Shane spun around in surprise, looking completely shocked, and Alan looked over at the fox drummer in surprise too. It hadn’t been part of the song, but it had been the perfect ending for it.

The fox brushed their long hair back from her face, tying it into a ponytail as the moment lingered. Alan blinked, and did a double take. It was Sarah from the cheerleading team? But, she didn’t play… no wait she had been in band class hadn’t she? She was just one of the backup percussion section, which okay Alan admitted he never hung out with the clique of drummers who formed the percussion section. It’s why he’d never had a good drummer for his ‘band’ to begin with. The vixen grinned at him, flashing the rat her sharp white canines and waving the sticks at him before blowing him and Shane a kiss.

The crowd brought the four of them back into the moment by cheering and clapping, and once again the song was a hit. The three Diamond Dogs were talking intently, and they motion for the four of them to keep going. Shane tossed out a song name, another of Alan’s tunes with a happy, harsh beat, and the rat nodded. JD flashed his grin and gave a thumbs-up, then tapped a few buttons to send the song over to Sarah who simply nodded and began to set the time with a casual tap of the snare drum.

The started playing again, as the crowd cheered.