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Chapter Text

The air-conditioner was broken.

A month ago, Lewis Nixon’s mom had explained that it had something to do with squirrels that got into the ceiling from the trees in the backyard. This shit always happened. Nix’s dad once suggested to the neighborhood board that they cut the tree down. The neighborhood HOA said something about how the trees “bolstered the scenic value” which was just a fancy way of saying “sucks to be you”. The broken air-conditioner was bearable during May but as the temperature rose from a pleasant 70 degrees to an only barely tolerable 90 as June rolled into July, the Nixons were fairly certain that they didn’t need to commit a grave sin to understand what hell felt like.

Nix lay on his mattress, completely bare, save the lightest blanket he could find. The black-haired boy watched the fan lazily turn around and around above him, the dangling light switches making a clanging noise as they hit the blades. It wasn’t like the fan was doing much more than rotating the already hot air in Nix’s bedroom, but there wasn’t much he could do about that anyway. He considered opening his bedroom window again, but the odds were that there wasn’t going to be any breeze coming his way. Earlier, for all his efforts of opening the window, all he got were a couple of flies buzzing around his face. Nix could handle there being no respite from the heat, but he couldn’t stand bugs.

He’d even tried the whole “spray yourself with a water bottle” method, but it didn’t take long for the water droplets on his face to become indistinguishable from the sweat that covered every inch of his pale body. The heat of the Georgia summer was hot and sticky and heavy and thick and hot.

For a brief moment, he recalled the opening pages to Frankenstein , the last book he was required to read for the summer before AP Lit began in the fall. The story began with a Captain Robert Walton writing to his sister about how he's powering through the biting chill of the North Pole in search of fame and fortune. Eventually, he meets Victor Frankenstein, but that wasn't the point Nix was getting at. Anything, the damn North Pole even, would be better that this stupid weather.

A quick glance to the blinking digital clock above his dresser informed him that he had only an hour before he needed to be ready, prepped, and in order on the blacktop outside of Toccoa High School. He had two hours before he had to lead a number of marchers, faces both new and familiar. He had eleven hours before practice would be over and he would return home, arms sore from directing the band, and fall face-first onto his bed before the same thing happened the next day.

The only thing he got out of this was having the authority of being a drum major. That was pretty bitchin’.

Nix felt around for his phone and loudly groaned when he discovered that it wasn’t on the bed next to him anymore. He rolled over to his left, his mattress squeaking as he did, and looked down on his stain-covered carpeted floor where he found his phone face-down.

Picking it up, he rolled until he was on his back again and swiped to unlock it, still unwilling to add a passcode because who had the time? It’d bite him in the ass one day, but that day was yet to come.

He opened his contacts app and scrolled until he found the name “Dick”.

Me: I’m rethinking my life

Me: Is it too late to turn back now?

Dick: Yes.

Me: when i told you i wanted to be a drum major, you should’ve kicked my dream in the dick, dick

Dick: :) I’ll see you there!

“Damn it, Dick,” Nix grumbled. He used his elbows to prop himself up using his elbows and sighed. Although Dick didn’t say it in so many words, that smiley-face meant a whole bunch of things. Namely the fact that Lewis Nixon and Dick Winters had dreamed of being drum majors since they were freshmen. He remembered the first day of band camp the summer before freshman year, wearing his new sneakers and “cool” sunglasses that would eventually give his face tan lines. He remembered the command the drum majors had over what was otherwise a chaotic group of high-schoolers. He remembered thinking that directing the band and doing those salutes were so much cooler than playing the clarinet on the field. 

Fourteen-year-old Nix informed his best friend of his plans and they were both determined to see their dreams come to fruition. 

Fourteen-year-old me was an idiot, Nix thought as he stood from his bed and put a shirt on. He looked at his clock again. Fifty-four minutes.

“Here goes nothing, I guess,” Nix muttered. He grabbed his empty water bottle and headed to the kitchen to refill it. This schedule of 10 in the morning to 8 at night was gonna be a long one.

Chapter Text

“Water bottles?” Donald Malarkey looked down at his written checklist. He and his friend Skip Muck were standing around inside Muck’s bedroom while going through everything they would need for their first day of band camp. The AC was on full-blast and the boys, wearing shorts and short-sleeves, kept themselves from shivering through sheer force of will. They had less than thirty minutes left of cool air before the hours in ninety-degree heat and, damn it, they were going to enjoy it.

“Yeah. Wrote names on all three of ‘em!” Skip said. He was digging through his drawer looking for who knew what. “I can’t believe we never thought about water bottles before. That’s a smart investment.”

“I bet the band moms will be stoked,” Malarkey commented. “And the Pit.”

“Uh, yeah. Leaving empty paper cups everywhere is rude as hell. Can’t believe we used to do that.”

“Sheet music?”

“It’s right there on the bed,” Skip momentarily stopped his search to point at the folder on his bed. “There’s only one folder. Y’all have to find your own. I only have so many supplies.”

“Three copies?”

“ Six copies,” Skip corrected, a smile on his face. “Six wonderful beautiful copies. Because someone’s gonna lose their music and I’m not paying Sobel for a backup.”

“We’re not gonna lose our music,” Malarkey argued.

Skip snorted. “Penkala fucking will.”

The bold statement wasn’t without good reason. In the past years as a member of the marching band, Alex Penkala had lost his sheet music a grand total of 37 times. Misplacing the music wouldn’t be a problem if he’d already had it memorized, but the instances of losing the music always happened during the first two weeks of camp without fail. Before this year’s camp, Skip and Malarkey practically put Penkala under house arrest to force him to memorize the music because they were seniors now  and it was fucking embarrassing.

“Sunscreen?”

“I got like a lotion thing that’s SPF 50 and there’s this spray that’s SPF 80, so I figure we can lotion up and then spray ourselves and make it an even 130.”

Malarkey laughed. “I don’t think that’s how that work, dude.”

“Who’s the brains of this operation? It could work. You laugh now but who’s gonna be laughing when you get sent to the ER because of skin cancer?”

“Lunch?”

“No. Not lunch. Me. I’ll be laughing.”

“I meant the food for tonight, idiot.”

“Ain’t that just dinner?”

“Same difference.”

“Peanut butter and bacon for moi , peanut butter and banana for Penkala. And just a plain peanut butter sandwich for you, you sad boring man.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Where’s Penkala anyway? He should be here by now.”

“He’s finishing up our written proposal,” Malarkey said. He placed down the list and knelt down to tie his shoes because they looked a little loose. He was a senior and the last thing he was gonna do was trip over his own feet and break his nose while doing pivots.

“The Careless Whisper proposal?”

“The very same.” Malarkey stood back up.

“You think Sobel will go for it?”

“He better. It’s our senior year. He can allow us this one thing.”

“He’ll probably appreciate it being officially printed, y’know, before laughing in our faces.”

“I don’t need your negative energy, man.”

Malarkey shrugged. “Just saying.”

“Ah, found it!” Skip pulled out a tie-dye shirt. It had the school colors, red and green. By pure coincidence, Skip had worn that shirt the first day of band camp freshman and sophomore year and he hadn’t realized it until Penkala pointed it out. He intentionally wore it junior year and he wasn’t ending his streak today. “Lucky shirt.”

“Why’s it lucky?”

“I’m gonna need all the luck I can get in order to put up with Sobel’s bullshit and you know it. Speaking of Sobel and bullshit, can you believe our show?”

“We’ve known about it since May. Yes, I can believe it.”

“I can’t believe it. It’s a show about football.”

“Yeah.”

“ Football , Malarkey.”

“Yeah.”

“Friday nights, the team’s gonna break for halftime after hours of football and then we lucky bastards are gonna do a show about football and then football is gonna start right back up again. It’s ridiculous. A football show?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I can think of. Even dumber than the disco show from freshman year. That was dumb, but this is just stupid. It’s insulting.”

“There’s the chance that changes can be made. Shows always go through changes.”

“Maybe.” Skip was now wearing his lucky shirt and took a deep breath. “I can’t believe this.”

“You still talking about the show?” Malarkey wondered.

“No, not the show. Us. We’re seniors. This is our last band camp.” Skip waved his hands around like words alone couldn’t describe this well enough. “This is it, man. Forever.”

“I don’t know,” Malarkey said. He began gathering all their supplies and dividing it into threes. He handed Skip a drawstring bag so he could put his stuff in there. “Don’t they have marching band in college?”

“Sure they do, but who has the time?”

Chapter Text

Webster was complaining in the backseat.

Joe Liebgott swore loudly and turned up the dial of the car radio, some top 40 station, one hand still tightly gripping the worn and tearing leather of the steering wheel. All the while, he was mentally kicking himself in the head because of course, of course , he forgot today was the first day of band camp. He’d otherwise been having a good summer, great even. Somehow, he’d stupidly thought that he’d still have another week to hole up in his room before the long and free days of summer came to an end and the long and arduous days of summer that he’d sign up for began. Not that he was ever the best with scheduling, (countless missed homework could attest to that. Not that he was a bad student, but he wasn't the great with dates), but band camp was an annual occurrence. It wasn’t like he was trying to avoid it; he fucking enjoyed nature, bug bites be damned. But he wanted to savor every bit of his air-conditioned pre-band camp days.

A day that ended about an hour ago.

What was even playing on the radio?

Fuck , he didn’t even like this song.

He quickly changed it to a different station. An announcer began shouting about a car sale happening downtown.

“It’s so hot!” David loudly groaned from the backseat.

“Shut up, Webster!” Liebgott said. It was said in unison with John Martin who was sitting in the passenger seat beside him. He and Martin had been buddies since they’d been the last two men standing in the infamous dodgeball game of their sixth-grade field day. He was short and stocky where Liebgott was tall and gangly. He also had a hell of a glare. From the corner of his eye, Liebgott could tell that Johnny was directing his signature glare towards the guy in the back.

That was the other thing.

Liebgott couldn’t stand Webster.

Okay, that was a lie. Webster wasn’t the worst company, but he was stuck up.

Living in the same neighborhood and being the designated transit for the neighborhood teenagers, since he was the only kid his age in the neighborhood who had a car to call his own, had made the blue-eyed kid no stranger to Liebgott. They’d gone to the same elementary and middle school, but they’d never shared the same classes. Not even band, since Webster was the kind of guy who saw that as another thing to excel in where Liebgott would rather have a fun time. It wasn’t like Liebgott actively looked out for where Webster spent his free time, but it wasn’t any secret that he’d carved himself a nice home in the library. Which library? Any library. The nerd would walk down the hallways with a book in his face and would have the audacity to look offended when he bumped into someone, not the other way around.

According to Liebgott’s friends, the ones who shared classes with Webster, the guy had the ability to get away with everything. Not that he did anything outlandish, but he could do nothing but read something unrelated to the class subject at his desk while the teacher did their thing. Toye once suggested that it probably had something to do with him getting good grades, so he’d get a pass, that maybe teachers let you get away with things if you were book smart.

No disrespect to Toye, but that was bullshit, and Liebgott let him know, because Liebgott himself had gotten straight A’s since grades started to matter and he was always called out for every little thing in class.

Middle school ended with little fanfare and high school began soon after. And somehow, some way, Liebgott and Webster had managed to have every single class together. From freshman year to junior year. It didn’t matter if it was Home Ec, Current Events, AP European History, whatever. Senior year was just around the corner and Liebgott felt as though he should bet good money on the two of them sharing the same schedule. And as a result of all that, Webster had equated “close proximity” with “very good friends with Liebgott”. Liebgott tried to humor him, give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, Nix could be a major fucking nerd when he wanted to and he was pretty alright, even if they weren’t the closest of pals. But David Webster proved himself to be insufferable and exhausting and a know-it-all with a stick up his ass and the only reason he was in the backseat of Liebgott’s car and not walking the six miles to Toccoa High School was because his complaining would reach Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Webster attended a book club with Mrs. Liebgott and if Mrs. Liebgott heard about it, Liebgott would never hear the end of it. 

It was a lose-lose situation.

“Guys, just,” Webster said from the backseat. Was he panting? It sounded like he was panting. The hell was he doing that warranted panting? “Could you crank up the AC or something? I’m dyin’”

It's not that he wanted to dislike Webster. He was a nerd, but he could be funny sometimes. He had a cute laugh. His hair was stupidly perfect. But biting the bullet and becoming actual friends with the guy meant putting up with more of this bullshit.

“Wanna pay for the gas money, Web?” Liebgott replied. The car ahead of him skidded in front of him just as the light went from yellow to red and Liebgott felt his knuckles tighten on the wheel. “Oh, come on! You sonuvabitch”

“We’re gonna be late,” Webster said.

“Yeah, no shit.” Martin was now leaning back on his seat, his red-colored band folder open in front of him. One hand flipped through the pages while the other hand made the motion of pressing down imaginary sousaphone valves.

“It’s the first day. We ain’t gonna miss anything important,” Liebgott muttered, mostly to himself.

“Yeah, maybe if we were late by fifteen minutes,” Webster pointed out. Sounds of him adjusting in the backseat came and from Liebgott could tell in his mirror, it looked like he was lying down now. “Announcements probably got read an hour ago.”

“Web, I swear that if I wasn’t driving this car right now, I’d break your shins.”

“Yeesh. That’s a little harsh.”

“Your fucking shins!”

“But really, man. It’s really hot in here.”

“Shut the fuck up! ” Liebgott all but shouted.

“Look,” Martin said. He turned in his seat so he was facing Webster in the back. “We’re seniors, right? We’ve got seniority rights and shit. They ain’t gonna worry about us. There’s all these new inexperienced freshmen. They’re gonna be so worried about them acting up, they won’t even notice if we’re an hour late.”

And he said it so calmly, so sure, that Liebgott almost believed him.

Chapter Text

“You’re late, man!” Babe Heffron called towards the three red-faced teenagers walking on the blacktop towards where the rest of the band were seated. The redhead was sitting cross-legged next to the other members of the drumline, bouncing up and down as much as his seated body would allow, as if the blood in his body had been replaced by Coke (at least, according to Bill Guarnere). Whether it was the carbonated beverage or the white narcotic, Guarnere refused to say. 

“Shut the fuck up, Babe,” was all Liebgott said as he sat down among the low brass, wincing slightly his legs touched the burning hot ground. It was obvious that the senior didn’t care in the slightest for the band’s somewhat-enforced “No Swearing” policy. If anything, it was more of a “No Swearing around Sobel and Dike” policy since they were the only people who ever seemed to become incredibly disturbed if tasteless four-letter-words left the mouths of their band.

“Alright, okay, cool,” Babe said, nodding to himself as he wrapped his arms around his knees. “What’s up with him?” he asked Guarnere.

Guarnere, Toye, Babe, and the Freshman sat in their own little pod (although Babe had no idea who invited the Freshman) near a few other members of the drumline who kept to themselves. They weren’t the largest drumline in the state, but they were a powerhouse in Babe’s humble opinion).

Guarnere was tapping a rhythm on the blacktop below him and Babe didn’t know how he could stand it, hot as it was. The dark-haired boy shrugged. “The fuck knows?” And it was a fair answer. This was Liebgott they were talking about after all. He’d blame an innocent table for stubbing his toe. He’d blame the pouring rain for making him wet, even if someone told him to bring an umbrella. The dude found fault in everything and a single incident could sour his mood for the rest of the day.

“Ten bucks says it’s Webster,” Another voice answered to the right of Babe. Shifty Powers. Given that Shifty pointed it out, it was probably right. He was better at placing bets than even Compton. Somehow, he’d inched his way away from his fellow trumpets and found himself sitting with them. Joe Toye sat next to him and he rolled his dark eyes, but didn’t necessarily disagree.

“Ah, yeah. That makes sense,” Bill said instead of elaborating on why, in fact, it made sense.

“Who’s Webster. And what’s wrong with him?” a freshman asked. Babe thought his name was Julian. Or maybe that was his last name. It didn’t matter since Babe had started referring to him as “The Freshman” in his head. He hadn’t thought much of him at first despite them being in the same section. He supposed he recognized him from the previous year’s Eighth Grade Night, when the local middle schoolers would come and be a part of the band for the night. The kid was, like, 70% leg and had more pimples than skin and, even though it fell on Babe to show him the ropes (especially since he was good enough at the drums that Sobel allowed him to join the drumline, specifically as the snare drum player next to Babe’s tenor drums), he’d decided to spend whatever short amount of time he could with the friends he hadn’t seen for a few months. He’d have the rest of the year to deal with The Freshman.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Guarnere said as Toye grumbled, “Mind your damn business, Freshman.”

And that sucked because Babe wasn’t a freshman and he wanted to know what was going on too, but now he couldn’t find out.

Babe could see The Freshman pouting and it was embarrassing. “Don’t take it personal, ‘k?” The freshman looked at him and huffed out a sigh instead of answering. To no one in particular, he let out a whiney, “It’s so hot out here,” before collapsing down onto his back, burning hot ground be damned. 

The Freshman might’ve been the only fourteen-year-old in the drumline, but there were plenty of new faces to go around in the Toccoa Marching Eagles Band. Plenty of them seemed to be buzzing with excitement, not unlike Babe himself. However, unlike Babe who understood what band camp entailed, and the future sensation of soreness where he had never felt sore before, these guys had no idea what they were getting into. The poor fucks.

All the teenagers were divided into circles based on their respective instruments. Babe sat among those in the drumline. To the right of them were the trumpet section, as loud and as obnoxious as their instruments were. Further away to the left was the low brass section, consisting of trombones and tubas who were tasked with supporting the show. There was the saxophone section loudly talking amongst themselves and the clarinet section sitting in rapt attention, impressing absolutely no one. The flute section was sitting with the mellophones because that’s just what they did. The “field” (which was what the parking lot was called, with its chalky yard lines drawn onto the face of the blacktop) sat on a hill and the color guard girls were practicing with their rifles below it. The members of the Pit simply stood next to their marimbas and timpanis and xylophones under the massive shadow of the viewing tower, chatting without a care in the world (which was fair enough since they didn’t march anyway). 

Babe waved to Gene Roe, the resident marimba player in the band.

Gene didn’t seem to notice, so Babe lowered his hand, telling himself that the rising heat in his ears was from the sun and only the sun. 

The band was quiet, or as quiet as a group of teenagers ever was, as the newest drum majors finished addressing them. Whispered gossip and animated chatter had gone back and forth among the band for the past thirty minutes (the first thirty minutes were more for “meet and greets” and getting a feel for the band room, along with distributing the extra sheet music with full knowledge that at least half would go missing before the week was through). Most of the band had tried to pay attention to what was being said, especially the seniors. Seniors tried to control their section, but it was never at a 100% success rate. 

There were four drum majors for this band season, fitting given the size of the band. One was Richard Winters, who went by “Dick”. Babe didn’t know the guy too well (the taller ginger played the flute last year and had hung out with the woodwinds), and he seemed pretty alright, but he didn’t know if the guy was totally oblivious to the absurdity of his nickname or if he did know and that it was just a massive power move on his part. Besides that, he seemed totally at ease at his new position of leading the band. His confidence was palpable, and his steady voice hardly needed a megaphone to command the attention of the band. As proof of his popularity, the beginning of his welcoming speech was drowned out by the cheers of the crowd seated before him.

The second drum major, Lewis Nixon (everyone called him “Nixon” or “Nix” unless you were Dick, in which case you could sometimes call him “Lew”), had black hair and pale skin, with eyes that sat above pronounced dark circles. However, he didn’t act as tired as he looked (and he looked dead on his feet, in Babe’s opinion). He wore a lazy smile while he gave his introduction speech, which was peppered with jokes Some of the jokes had the entire band roaring while some went under the band instructors’ noses. Some jokes seemed solely directed towards Dick, who would loudly snort when, for example, the black-haired boy said something about “those damn peaches”.

Harry Welsh was the third drum major and Babe instantly liked him. He didn’t have the impressive sort of command that Dick had, and he wasn’t a comic like Nixon, but he seemed the most approachable. His curly golden hair caught the light of the sun and his freckled face seemed to light up from inside when he told the band how much he looked forward to welcoming the freshmen into their family. When he was finished, the loudest cheer came from a girl named Kitty from the low brass section.

The last guy up caused a hush to come across the band, a stillness that not even Dick had been able to produce. Babe was positive that The Freshman was confused, as were the other freshmen, but Babe knew he’d figure it out soon enough. The fourth drum major was serious and focused. Not that the other drum majors weren’t serious and focused but this guy, Ronald Speirs, was totally Spartan . At least, that was the vibe Babe got when he was talking. It probably was to be expected, given that he had come from their rival school, Oconee High, but Sobel still allowed him to be a drum major for this year after he had moved to their district late last year and had, reportedly, been really impressed by his drum major audition. Something about his skill. Skill or no skill, it was still plenty weird. The awkwardness and tension that followed Speirs’s short, and to the point, speech hung in the air like another layer of humidity.

Liebgott, Martin and Webster had arrived during the tail end of Mr. Dike’s speech, their assistant band instructor. He was a fairly short man with neatly parted brown hair and iron-creased pants. Despite his well-put-together appearance, he always seemed to be under the weather. It took him three tries to get his name out between his sneezing and coughing. As per usual, his speech was filled to the brim with dated hip-with-the-kids jokes and unfinished sentences since he tended to change his mind before he got to the eventual point. It was an almost useless stream of blah that would be quickly forgotten in the next hour, so Babe had no idea why he was even trying. All things considered, Babe figured that missing an hour of that was an hour well missed.

Before the last speech of the beginning of band camp, before the actual practice, Babe felt the sun leave for a moment. He and a few other teenagers looked up at the sky as a large cloud covered the sun and everyone but the freshmen embraced that moment for as long as they could since the sun would come back eventually.

“And there he is. The goddamn man himself,” Guarnere said beside Babe. A tall black-haired man with impossible posture made his way to the front of the band. He smiled with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His cold, cold eyes. He’d previously been standing stoically at the edge of the sort-of-circle, not showing whether or not he disapproved of anything that had happened. Occasionally, his eyes zeroed onto a poor soul, leaving them shaking if they were a sophomore or a junior, or unaffected if they were a senior or a freshman, the latter because of ignorance and the former because of plain old indifference.

“Ten bucks he says the same speech.” Shifty mumbled around his water bottle, eventually frowning when some water spilled out from the corner of his mouth. He’d already gone through half of the bottle just in the minutes they’d been sitting down and that was bad news, since the eventual water break wouldn’t be for another few hours, probably.

“No one’s dumb enough to take you up on a stupid bet,” Guarnere replied. He punched The Freshman in the shoulder. “Right, Freshman?”

The Freshman’s eyes were wide, suddenly part of a conversation he had no idea was going on. He looked from his right to his left, mouth open all the while. “What?” he repeated.

“Rule one of band camp,” Guarnere started, pointing his finger at the open air beside him as if it were a piece of chalk a teacher might be holding. He tapped his finger against the imaginary chalkboard. “Always pay attention.”

The Freshman was still confused. “But I—”

“I’m the section leader. I know what I’m talking about.” And with that, Guarnere focused his attention back to the front just as Sobel was about to speak.

“What the—” The Freshman was still at a loss for words.

Babe turned his head to look at the kid’s red pimply face. Whispering he said, “Look, don’t worry about it. Guarno’s just being a hardass.”

“I heard that,” Guarnere shot back.

A chorus of Shhs went around the band as Guarnere was suddenly the loudest person talking. Everyone else had quieted down because no one wanted to be singled out by the notorious Herbert Sobel. Babe watched as Guarnere glared at everyone, knowing that he wanted to let out a string of curses but couldn’t.

Babe continued to whisper to The Freshman. “He just takes getting used to. Everything takes getting used to. Just don’t be annoying, don’t be an asshole, and don’t be an annoying asshole, and you’ll get around fine.”

The Freshman gave a skeptical look. “Don’t be an annoying asshole. Rule number two of band camp?”

“Sure,” Babe shrugged. “Rule number two of band camp.”

Chapter Text

“Is he blinking?” Albert Blithe asked. His large blue eyes were directed at the front field with a mix of awe and fear. “I don’t think he’s blinking.”

“He hasn’t fucking blinked once ,” replied Donald Hoobler. The two sophomore sousaphone players were listening to Sobel’s speech. Sitting further back from the front, their talking wasn’t easily heard, despite the near silence of the rest of the band. The low brass section tended to sit together, and usually further away from the rest of the action. So, with their arms around their sousaphones and their back to the woods behind them, they were able to speak freely, more or less. Especially when it came to the actions of a certain band instructor.

Plus, it was hotter than an oven outside and a distraction like talking, albeit discreetly, was better than no distraction at all. 

“Who’s not blinking?” The voice came from a freshman. His name was Tony Garcia. He seemed nice in Blithe’s opinion. He appeared to be very easy going and extremely well prepared. Blithe could barely see Garcia’s tan skin underneath his thick layer of sunscreen. He also had his water bottle filled half with water and half with ice. It was genius.

Hoobler was the first to answer, leaning towards Garcia who was seated in front of him. It was only the first day, but there seemed to be enough evidence that Hoobler was a fan of helping the freshmen along in any way he could. He directed them to the ever-elusive bathrooms, he sent emails early on instructing incoming freshmen to bring bug spray, he started the band’s group chat, he designed the t-shirts for everyone in his section (an action that the trumpet section deemed cool enough to replicate), and told them that, no, they weren’t allowed to climb the viewing tower (even though it was an open secret that he really, really wanted to climb the viewing tower). Carwood Lipton, fondly known by the band as “Lipton Iced Tea”, or any variation of that, jokingly complained that Hoobler was taking away his job.

“It’s Sobel,” Hoobler explained, shaking his head in mild disbelief. “I’ve been watching this dude talk and he doesn’t blink.”

“It doesn’t even look like he’s sweating or nothing,” added another freshman. It was the boy sitting next to Tony, named Lester Hashey. During the time the band had been sitting on the blacktop, he’d almost unconsciously start rubbing his sousaphone. It was an old instrument, almost a mustard-gold in color with a multitude of scratches and tiny scattered dents. Even the valves were worn away in parts, the original smooth texture now covered in bumps and furrows after years of kids handling it. It still shone in the sunlight, but only barely. Hashey learned only to complain once after getting a stern talking-to by Hoobler, which could be summed up as “it still sounds great” and “freshmen can’t be choosers”.

Albert Blithe was only starting the marching band thing this year. The fact that he wasn’t a freshman seemed to allow him some sort of privileges when it came to receiving his sousaphone (the only reason he hadn't joined the band his first year of high school was because he didn't think he was up to it. But attending the Friday night football games during last Fall had cemented his determination to be part of something like that). So, when he opened up his assigned case inside of the small Tuba Room (a room within the band room specifically for tuba players with the ever-present smell of Cool Ranch Doritos and valve oil and ancient tubas hanging on the walls) and saw that his sousaphone was in a better condition than the freshmen, he simply kept his mouth shut.

“Sobel?” Blithe asked, confused. He stopped playing with his sousaphone valves and looked at Hoobler. “What do you mean? I was talking about the new drum major guy. Speirs.”

“Who’s talking about Speirs?” Hoobler asked. He looked from Blithe to the front again where Sobel was still speaking. Something about the band fees. “I’m talking about Sobel.”

“Naw, it’s both of them,” Garcia said, incredulously. “I don’t think they’re blinking.”

“That ain’t natural,” Hashey added.

Despite the unnaturalness of it all, it looked for all the world, or at least this band, that neither Herbert Sobel or Ronald Speirs were blinking. For Blithe, “odd” wasn’t a good enough word to describe it. Possibly, “disconcerting”. But he had heard plenty about how awful of a man Sobel was. Perhaps his non-blinking thing was just a way to make the band feel uncomfortable. As far as he was concerned, it was working.

The thing he couldn’t understand was Ronald Speirs. It was the senior’s first year at Toccoa High and had somehow managed to become their fourth drum major. Supposedly, he was a master of his craft.

The chatter of the four boys seemed to increase in volume, not that any of them noticed. It took their section leader, Bull Randleman, to turn around and kindly tell them to “hush” for them to finally stop talking for all of ten seconds.

“I heard he killed a freshman at his old school,” Hashey said, breaking their short silence.

Hoobler scoffed. “Shut up.”

“It’s true,” Hashey insisted, leaning forward. “Or, at least sent him to the hospital. I heard it was because he never got to his dot on time.”

“Sure he did.”

“I also heard he can smell fear,” Hashey continued solemnly, like this was a campfire tale.

“Yeah, I heard that too,” Garcia agreed.

“Like a dog,” Hashey said.

Hoobler laughed at this. “Oh yeah, like the Oconee High Dogs! Good one!”

“Where’d you hear that?” Blithe asked the freshmen. Not that he really believed rumors like that. Could anything truly smell fear? But whether that was true or not, he still felt something was strange about the fourth drum major.                                     

“In the band room,” Hashey answered. “I was filling up my water bottle. I think, uh, I don’t know his name. He’s, like, tall and I think he was singing? Through his mouthpiece?”

“Skinny,” Hoobler said, interrupting him. “I saw him doing that. Go on.”

“I don’t think he was that skinny. He was, like, average, I think.”

“No, that’s his name.”

“His parents named him “Skinny”?”

“Nickname, freshman,” Hoobler rolled his eyes, but there was no malice behind it.

“Cool. So, yeah, Skinny told me.”

“Hey!” This time, it was Johnny Martin who turned around. The brunette’s glare was terrifying and he made a fast zipping motion with his hand over his mouth and his order was less kind than that of his taller companion. “ Zip it! ”

The four boys sheepishly turned back to their original positions, no longer facing each other in a circle of their own. They were quiet for about twenty seconds this time while Sobel began to talk about the rules.

“I’ll say again,” Sobel was saying, again, his voice slow and deliberate, “Missing a day of band practice is not only detrimental to you , but to the band as a whole. I’m looking forward to a fulfilling season and any amount of slacking off on your part takes a toll. I’m looking at the seniors and juniors to remember and follow my expectations. Freshmen, this is only the first day. Have fun. But catch up. Swiftly. ”

“I don’t know,” Hoobler began, taking Sobel’s speech into consideration. “He seems nicer.”

“Who, Speirs?” Blithe asked, because the clarification was needed. He didn’t want to find out they were talking about different people again.

“No, not Speirs. Sobel.” Hoobler wiped away some sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead. “Well, maybe “nice” isn’t the right word. He seems sorta, uh, less snappish.” He smirked at Blithe. “But watch out for him during competition season.”

“What happens during competition season?”

“He becomes your greatest fear, man,” Hoobler said, seriously. “Whatever you’re scared of now is nothing compared to what he’s like then. You’re gonna have nightmares about him. It’s the worst.”

“Huh,” Blithe mused, pale hand gripping the valves of his instrument. He idly went through the fingering positions of some scales and tried to put Hoobler’s warnings to rest in his mind. If everyone feared Sobel, and Speirs smelled fear, Speirs must have a hell of a headache by now.

Chapter Text

“Reach down and touch your toes!” Compton heard Liebgott say. Compton watched as the nearby members of the low brass set their instruments aside on the blacktop. He flinched as he heard a rough sound drag across the ground. Liebgott was equally disturbed and added, “And, for the love of God, don’t scrape the instruments.”

“What if you can’t touch your toes?” a freshman asked, because they always asked. The freshman, if Compton recalled correctly, was named Will Dukeman and his face was white under probably an inch of sunscreen. His instrument was carefully placed on the ground beside him and he waited for an answer from Liebgott, the current section leader through something of an “Order of Succession”. Technically, Tommy Meehan, a trombone player whose family moved someplace up north (somewhere like Indiana, Compton thought he’d heard) just the other week, was supposed to be the section leader instead. It was quite a blow to the structure previously decided upon back in May. Of course, Liebgott stepped up to the plate, but he hadn’t ever planned on being section leader, not really.

Compton, a bari sax player, was only doing his stretches with the trombones because three sax players (namely Malarkey, Skip, and Penkala) appeared to be scheming about something. Any other time, he’d be interested, but not now. It was the afternoon, but it was too early for whatever they were planning on doing. He needed time to re-calibrate to the band camp schedule.

Plus, bari saxes played notes low enough to consider him an honorary member of the low brass and he had no problem with that (even if he considered slightly insulting since woodwinds could outplay the brass any day of the week).

“If you can’t touch your toes, then reach down as far as you can,” Liebgott said as he bent down to demonstrate this. “And hold it for a while.” This importance of this stretch, and the many other stretches they would do after this, was so they wouldn’t pull anything while marching. Marching band, while not categorized as a sport (and bringing that up was just asking for an argument) was subject to the same rituals of a sport, one of which was stretching before practice and cooling down afterwards.

So, they stretched. They stretched their arms across their chest, they stretched their hamstrings, they grabbed a foot and stretched it while standing up (and trying to keep their balance). It wasn’t anything terribly strenuous, but a couple of freshmen, one a girl and one a boy, already looked worn out by the end of it. Compton sympathized. Marching band was an exciting experience, but everyone had to jump over the initial hurdle of the hell that was the first few days of band camp.

Compton was a humble guy in his own personal opinion. His freshman year of band camp, he had cried a few manly tears of frustration. There was no shame in that.

An instruction to start standing on the yard lines came from Welsh. The yard lines, drawn in chalk, had spaced-out blue dots running up and down the line. Compton and some low brass kids were near the 65 yard line (which wasn’t really designated with a line; it was the space in between the 60 and 70 since that’s how it would be on an actual football field). He and Liebgott, as well as he could at least, told the freshmen and sophomores and juniors in their section to get on their dots and they heard similar instructions shouted across the blacktop at the other marchers.

“Ok, get on your dots!” came the voice of Harry Welsh, along with a loud clanging sound. Compton squinted his eyes and frowned at the cowbell Welsh was holding. Why the hell did he have a cowbell? Further up with the trumpets, Luz caught his eye and, when Compton mouthed “cowbell”, Luz mouthed his answer of “I have no idea”.

Chatter spread across the blacktop as people hurried to their dots. Compton hoped they would quiet down. Not for his sake, though. He could care less. But, Sobel—

“I want there to be complete silence on my field!” Sobel barked from the near the band tower. There wasn’t immediate quiet, of course. There never was. The freshmen were certainly left shaken, but anyone older started to giggle.

“Remember to keep your feet at a 45-degree angle!” This order came from Dick. There was a loud sound of shuffling while people got into position. Once everyone seemed still again, Dick continued. “Now I want you to raise your instruments and keep them in position. You’ll stay like that for four counts and then take one step.”

Practice continued in this way. Instruments would be held at attention and all the groans would come from the freshman and some sophomores and juniors. Despite the burning sensation in Compton’s arms and the sweat that began to darken the chest and pits of his shirt, he and all the seniors had all agreed on a silent pact that even though they felt like they were suffering (and they were suffering), they were seniors and they needed to set an example and look badass while doing it.

The initial practice was pretty basic as far as practices go. Soon, it’d get more elaborate and such. But, for now it was rookie stuff like snapping your instrument from parade rest to attention, listening to the clarinets complain for no goddamn reason, taking a few steps (first one step with their left foot pointed to the sky, then slowly evolving to taking two steps, then four steps, then all the steps needed to walk to the next yard line.) It was a monotonous process, but every penny adds up, as they say.

“You instrument is not that heavy! ” Compton heard Sobel shout from the viewing tower. Like this was day five or something, not day one. He blinked away the sweat falling into his eyes and glared at the tall man shouting into his megaphone. “Keep them raised up!”

“I’m gonna die,” Compton heard a freshman complain beside him. She was short and red in the face. Her instrument wobbled as she tried to keep it up.

Compton opened his mouth and tried to say something, but all that left his mouth was empty air. Unfortunately, he’d fallen victim to an especially aggressive cold a few days prior (in the middle of fucking summer) and all the coughing had practically robbed him of his voice for the time being. On the other side of him, he got the eye of Kitty and gestured to the freshman.

Kitty nodded in understanding and, as the band paused during the break in the metronome rhythm before marching to the right instead of the left this time, she and Compton stealthily switched places, getting to the other’s dot in no time at all. Kitty began encouraging the freshman on, explaining that it was only the first day and she was gonna be “so freaking buff” by the end of camp.

“Please!” Smokey scoffed. Smokey Gordon, for whatever reason, was missing from the rest of the clarinet section. Compton remembered seeing him scrambling around for a dot when basics began. The tall and lanky sophomore wore a baseball cap backwards and held his clarinet at attention. “I went through all this shit last year and I didn’t get buff.”

“That’s because you’re holding a stick, Smokey,” Liebgott said loudly from behind Compton. “You only get buff when you’re holding something baller like this.”

“Fuck you Liebgott. Woodwinds are shredded!” Compton heard Penkala call from pretty much the other side of the basics block. Compton mouth dropped open as he looked from Penkala to Sobel and back to Penkala. 

Shut up! he wished he could say. Don’t push it, dumbfuck.

“Not shredded enough to be in DCI!” Skinny Sisk yelled from the trumpet section, with the carelessness of one who made a pastime of adding fuel to the fire.

“You take that back!” Skip Muck shouted. And now, like clockwork, and all out verbal brawl played out on the blacktop, with woodwinds vs brass insults flying across the air like grenades. A quick glance to both the smug drumline and amused color guard proved that they were perfectly happy to watch the fallout.

Compton blinked up at Sobel at the viewing tower, his face contorted into his familiar scowl. There was chaos below him and Compton knew the consequence even before it was practically screamed into the megaphone.

“At the end of the day, EVERYBODY IS RUNNING LAPS!"

Chapter Text

Eugene Roe didn’t regret being placed in the front ensemble after auditioning to be part of the drumline his freshman year (he rather enjoyed it, even deciding to forgo the drumline entirely for sophomore year), especially in times like these. From his cozy part in the shade, he watched the marchers face the bell of the horns (or the woodwind equivalent) towards the viewing tower. Every marcher had fatigue visible on their faces, sweat darkening their chests and the pits of their shirts, even if the seniors were less apt to display it (expect for Joe Toye who, for all the world, looked pretty much at ease).

Neither Eugene nor the rest of the front ensemble could see Sobel’s position at the top of the viewing tower, but he could easily imagine what it looked like as he heard the band instructor give a countdown before the marchers were expected to blow their first note together as a band.

Eugene winced, bracing himself for the harsh sound due to come any second now.

“Brace yourself, freshie!” Eugene heard Ralph Spina tell their newest recruit, a short Asian kid with a buzzcut, just as Sobel reached “3” in his countdown. The short kid had all of one second to cover his ears before the band let out such a dissonant sound that could only be demonic in nature.

“We’re going to try that again,” Sobel said from above the Pit, and Eugene could imagine the man’s face. If looks could kill, Sobel would have a mass slaughter on his hands. “This time, everyone plays after I say “3”. Not before, not on. Try again.”

And try again, the band did. If possible, the sound was even more discordant. 

“Again!” Sobel called out, and Eugene could hear his signature frustrated strain creeping into his voice.

More noise. Terrible, terrible noise.

“ NO!” Sobel shouted, followed by a sharp slamming sound that was probably the band director snapping his binder closed with more force than was necessary. “ After 3 ! Not on  3! Not before  3! On my count!”

“There he is,” Renée Lemarie said next to Eugene. Renée’s shoulder length blonde hair was pulled back into a simple half ponytail since, after cutting it earlier this summer, there wasn’t much else she could do with it. About the decision, she explained to Eugene that she was donating her hair to kids with cancer, which Eugene admitted was a nice thing to do. Renée volunteered at the local hospital since her dream was to be a nurse once graduating college. Between all the volunteering she did at the hospital and dual enrollment at the nearby community college, Eugene wasn’t sure how she had any time to spare for band camp. Then again, she was also the most responsible teenager he knew. If anyone managed to make that schedule from hell work, it was her.

Spina snorted from the other side of Eugene. Spina, the self-proclaimed Timpani King (titled as such since he refused to allow anyone else to play the timpanis in the band for the past three years), was seated near his beloved timpanis. “He was trying way too hard to be nice this time around, he was bound to blow up eventually.” While Sobel continued to yell at the band from his tower (Eugene could imagine the spittle flying out of his mouth), Spina made his own announcement. “We’re taking a break. This is gonna take a while.”

Eugene walked away from his marimba with his mallets in hand, tapping them against the underside of his forearms in a rhythm that resembled the tune he'd been practicing earlier. He joined the rest of the front ensemble where they gathered at the curb at the edge of the blacktop, facing the band. The other people seated at the curb included the band moms and a golden dog that belonged to Talbert. Maybe.

Separate from the rest of the band was the drumline. They gathered in a circle near the parking lot doing warm-ups with Dike. Supposedly, Dike was a percussionist in another life. And, perhaps there was truth to that statement, not that Eugene had ever seen the man pick up a single drumstick in the whole time he’d been part of the band. Eugene admitted it was an unkind thing to say, but the man was what his mother would call “as bright as midnight”. He never, ever, seemed to have a clue about anything. Not that appearances were ever a way to judge a man’s character, but the man always looked confused about one thing or another. 

Dike appeared to be instructing the drumline on their drills, giving a tip here and there when none was asked. The drumline was practically its own self-governing entity, voting on their own amendments and collecting their own taxes (used to buy printed hoodies and outings to the bowling alley). But, Dike was far less of an obstacle to their ends than Sobel, so the drumline was willing to play along and keep up appearances for as long as necessary before going back to whatever tradition passed down by their age-old predecessors back when Toccoa High’s Marching Band was founded in 1969.

Eugene didn’t regret not being part of the drumline at all (especially because of the aforementioned issues they had to deal with), he told himself. After all, their band camp lasted for a week longer than the rest of the band (and, on occasion, they may keep practicing for an additional 45 minutes at the end of the camp day, long after everyone else had packed up and driven home). And there was the fact they were constantly underneath the full force of the sun and Eugene burned easily.

Then again, Edward Heffron was part of the drumline, so there was that.

“God, I can’t wait until we break for lunch,” said Augusta Chiwy, a junior who played the keyboard. She rested her head in her hands, her fingers getting lost in her afro of tight curls. “How many hours left?”

“130 hours give or take,” Spina said.

“You know what I mean,” Augusta groaned. 

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Spina said, gesturing towards the rest of the band, who were now in the process of dispersing to their dots, about to embark on the terrifying next step of band camp: moving while playing their instruments. “We could be those poor bastards, passing out all over the place. Speaking of which … ” He paused, eyeing the marchers on the blacktop. “Neon yellow baseball cap on the 45 looks like he's about to faint. Any takers?”

Eugene muttered a sharp "I got it" and went to his feet before Spina said anything more. He raced towards the 45 yard line where, sure enough, there was a kid with a neon yellow baseball cap looking wobbly on his feet. He was barely keeping his trumpet pointed in the air and Eugene knew that if he dropped that instrument, he’d have a lot more to deal with than simply his own hurt feelings. 

Sobel would be far more sympathetic to the dented instrument than a passed-out kid, Eugene thought.

“Hey, kid,” he told the freshman to grab his attention. He observed the situation around him and knew that it was only a matter of time before Sobel, or the drum majors, instructed the band to start moving. And the last thing he wanted to do was navigate a barely-conscious freshman through the mayhem of overconfident marchers. “You’re going on a break.”

“What?” The kid said, and Eugene knew that he probably didn’t have the clearest pronunciation on the planet, but he was close enough to the kid that he was pretty sure the kid ought to have heard him. So, if he was having trouble comprehending Eugene, the situation was dire. Hell, the kid looked pale even though it was ninety degrees outside.

“Break. Now.” Eugene said, stating each word deliberately. He wrapped his hand around one of the kid’s arms. As Eugene walked down the blacktop towards the curb, he waved his hand to get Sobel’s attention. 

Sobel opened his mouth, to say something rude no doubt, but Eugene beat him to the punch. 

“Water,” Eugene said, silently daring the band instructor to say anything about it. Eugene kept walking underneath Sobel’s frown. 

“Hey, Gene!” Eugene heard as he walked passed the drumline who were still doing their own personal drills. Edward Heffron had somehow, between the time of Eugene getting up to the kid to now, had acquired a bright purple bandana that was wrapped around his forehead. Some of his red hair hung stuck hung over the bandana. Edward did this weird nodding thing with his chin that made Eugene briefly concerned that he had Tourettes or something. “‘Sup.”

Eugene blinked, tightening his grip on the pale freshman. He racked his head for something, anything, to say. It was just his luck, he figured, thinking about Edward more than was probably necessary but coming up blank whenever there was an opportunity to say anything.

Finally, after standing there for a dangerously long amount of time, he looked the redhead up and down. “Your knees are locked, Edward.”

Why did I say that?

“Wha-” the redhead began, glancing down before raising his head and scowling. “I told you,” Edward said with an affronted look on his red face. “It’s Babe!”

“Sorry!” Eugene said hurriedly, helping the freshman off the blacktop. As he felt his face begin to burn up, not from the sun this time, he was sure that it was about as red as Edward’s, Babe’s, hair by now.

Chapter Text

The second day of band camp was finally over and Talbert was walking a dog.

An observation like that wouldn’t have seemed that out of the ordinary in any other situation, especially since it was focusing on Talbert. The guy just knew animals. Cats never scratched or hissed at him. Dogs never barked at him. Years ago at a summer camp Lipton had attended with Talbert, actually where he met the guy, he’d watched Talbert get the hand of riding a pony at the first try. Sometimes birds would land on his arms like he was the reincarnation of Snow White (and it happened more than enough times to make it uncanny). Even bugs never bit him, if that was worth anything. Even if you didn’t take into account all the previous stuff, it was the fact that Talbert never needed bug spray that captivated many of his friends.

Eugene once said something about Talbert having a “calming presence”, not unlike Renée. Not that Lipton had any reason to distrust Eugene’s judgement (and Lipton’s been witness to enough evidence with the animals), but he’d seen Talbert start a fight on the school bus over something that even he couldn’t remember after the fight was over. He’d seen Talbert scream his voice out at a tv screen during a tense football game. He’s seen Talbert vomit outside of a classroom due to plain old nervousness. Talbert was many things, Lipton would admit that, but “calming” wasn’t one of them.

But the thing that confused Lipton at the moment was the dog. Not that it was a dog, but that it was a different dog.

“Hey, Tab!” Lipton called to him. He just left the band room with and the trombone case he was holding swung at his side. His calves were sore and his shirt and hair was drenched with sweat and his feet were in pain . All he wanted to do was collapse on his mattress and become dead to the world for the nest how many hours before it started again the next day. And that was still a priority. But Lipton needed to get this sorted out first.

  “Hey, Iced Tea,” Talbert waved with his free hand. With the other, he held a bright blue leash and a Yorkshire Terrier was walking around in a circle, looking up occasionally with perked ears whenever something caught it’s interest. “How you doing?”

“Aren’t you going home?” Lipton asked, eyes still on the dog.

“Yeah, but I live, like, right around the corner. It’s no big thing.” Talbert saw where Lipton was looking and grinned. “You met Leia?”

“Leia?” Lipton asked with disbelief. “Her name’s Leia?”

“What’s wrong with Leia?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Leia.”

“Between Floyd and Leia, I’d rather my name was Leia.”

“Right,” Lipton said, nodding. “Anyway, is that a new dog? I swear you had a Chihuahua, like, two days ago.” Lipton remembered the hyper dog, barking up a storm if it were anywhere away from Talbert for too long. It’s name was Sandy, if Lipton recalled correctly.

“I do have a Chihuahua. And Leia.”

“Huh. How many dogs do you have anyway?”

It was then that Lipton’s ride pressed on their horn. The plan after camp was to go movie hopping at the nearest theater, sweaty as they were. It wasn’t Lipton’s idea. It was probably Luz’s.

Toye’s waved his hand out the window and gestured at his truck, asking him what the hell was taking him so long. Shortly after came the voice of Luz singing Rent’s “Take Me Baby” at the top of his lungs outside of his window. Except, instead of saying “Take Me Baby”, he sang “Take Me Lipton”.

“Hey Lipton! Don’t you want your Luz HOT!”

Lipton cringed, sighing loudly. For the moment, he decided not to press for an answer to his question. “Yeah, well. Have fun with Leia.”

Talbert waved him a goodbye and went on his way. Lipton walked towards Toye’s truck, glancing over his shoulder once with a bewildered look on his face.

“Y’all know how many dogs Tab has?” he asked Toye and Luz once he’d entered the truck and shut the door behind him.

“What, like besides Tobey?” Luz asked as Toye asked, “Other than Carface.”

Lipton was momentarily struck dumb. “Hold on, I thought it was just Sandy and now there’s this Leia. Just how many dogs does Tab have?”

Luz gave an exaggerated shrug while Toye set the truck on drive. “Far too many.”

“Anyway, the theater’s showing Terminator, Alien, Rush Hour, and Army of Darkness,” Luz began, for what for sure to be a detailed plan about their schedule this evening. “Now, for times sake, I’m thinking we could miss the last ten minutes of Terminator to sneak it into Alien. We can start the night with Rush Hour—”

“We’re ending the night with Rush Hour,” Lipton said. “That’s way too much horror. We’re ending the night in a way that I can actually go to sleep when I go home.”

Luz groaned, but conceded. “ Fine . Who’s buying the popcorn?”

Chapter Text

The first week of band camp was finally coming to a close. But when Ed Tipper exited his mom’s car that Friday morning with his mellophone case in hand, he knew that an incident was about to begin. He could feel the inbound bullshit in his bones.

He saw the three boys, Donald Malarkey, Skip Muck, and Alex Penkala. They all looked like they were waiting for him, and all three of them wore an eager smile on their faces. Like the fucking harbingers of Tipper’s prophesied misfortune.

“No,” Tipper said. He attempted to make a beeline to the band room but was stopped by a hoard of marchers rushing into the building at the same time.

“Tipper! How ya doing, pal o’ mine,” Skip said, his smile even bigger than before, if that was possible.

“Whatever you guys are planning, I’m not getting roped into it.” Tipper hugged his instrument case to his chest. “Not again.”

“Again?” Skip said. “Pssh!”

“Who said we were planning anything?” Penkala asked, his face looking innocent enough but his voice not able to solidify the act.

“You’re planning something ,” Tipper asserted. “You got that crazy look in your eyes.” Which was true for the most part. Malarkey was wearing a Seattle Mariners baseball cap. His face was hidden in its shade, but Tipper could still imagine his eyes looked as crazy as his friends.

Skip threw a hand over his heart in mock distress. “Tipper, you wound me.”

“You always get that look right before you ask me to do something that almost gets me killed.”

“Key word being “almost”,” Malarkey said, like it was an important distinction to make.

Tipper’s mouth dropped open. “That- that’s not the key word! Are you kidding me?” Tipper began to list off a series of pranks he’d been coerced to perform on Sobel, with the help of the terrible trio. He was always the secret ingredient since Sobel, for whatever reason, believed Tipper could do no wrong. He was still an ass to him, just less of an ass compared to how he treated everyone else.

“No one gets hurt,” Penkala asserted.

“I almost always die!”

“C’mon, man,” Malarkey said, as if it was Tipper who missing the point here. “You were never at any risk of dying. You’re protected by a higher power that shields you from Sobel’s wrath and judgement.” Skip and Penkala nodded in agreement as Malarkey continued. “It’s like you’re constantly rolling a nat 20 in life.”

“I don’t play your weird nerd games,” Tipper muttered.

“But, seriously,” Malarkey went on, choosing to not make a comment about “weird nerd games” while the faces of Penkala and Skip looked downright offended and vindictive respectivly. “This is a matter of justice. It’s a matter of taking back what’s rightfully ours. For too long, we’ve been denied the right to leave school grounds for lunch without consequence and, damn it, if I want hot and ready crappy pizza from down the road, then I should be allowed to get hot and ready crappy pizza!”

“We sacrifice our literal blood, sweat, and tears to this establishment, and for what?” Skip said, deciding to take up the mantle. “To be placed under some kinda house arrest where we can’t leave the grounds just because Hall got hit by a car two years ago? That’s Hall’s problem.”

John Hall was a former member of the marching band. He was a fairly soft-spoken kid who managed to be one of the first freshmen that year to memorize all their music and was also notable in the way they held off complaining about the heat and the humidity and the constant drills. Hall also left the school grounds during lunchtime one day of band camp to go get small fries (or so the rumor went). One thing led to another, and Hall (who had decided to walk on his own) got hit by a careless driver. With his leg broken and nose bleeding and immediate withdrawal from the marching band, Sobel implemented a new rule that lunch could only be brought from home before the day began or gotten from the vending machines inside the school. No more burgers, no more tacos. Most importantly, no more pizza, not even the crappy kind.

Tipper frowned. “That’s kind of rude, Skip.”

Malarkey muttered in agreement, shoving Skip, while Penkala said, “Yeah, you should dial it back. It’s not Hall’s fault. I mean, it’s Hall’s fault for being stupid and going by himself, but still.”

Skip rolled his eyes. “Yeah, look, what I’m trying to get at is that we’re seniors. Well,” he gestured at Tipper. “You’re not, but this is why the older generation fights for the rights of the generations to come.”

“It’s for the defense of civil liberties!” Malarkey, said nodding.

“Sticking it to the man!” Penkala added

“We have a dream , today!” Skip finished.

Tipper brought his instrument case to his face and loudly groaned into it. Voice muffled by the instrument, he asked, “Good God ! If I agree to whatever it is you haven’t told me yet, will you guys shut up and leave me alone?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Skip said, followed by similar agreements and assurances by Malarkey and Penkala. Seconds later, they went on to discuss their plan entitled Operation “Sobel Hears a Horton”.

Chapter Text

“You want me to do what now?” George Luz asked, lowering his trumpet. Luz, along with Frank Perconte and Shifty Powers, were in the process of organizing the stand-tunes for the marching band season. Heavily annotated sheet music littered the floor of the practice room they were in and loose pages threatened to fall off the music stands they were placed on. Some of the stand-tunes they performed dated back long before they were born, played by marchers who based them on popular tunes of their time. Stand-tunes, in Luz’s opinion, were a beautiful thing. Sometimes, the most simple five-note tune could energize the student section of the bleachers during game nights like magic . Band show themes came and went, marchers grew grey and died, but stand-tunes were forever.

The trumpet players had been in the Tuba Room, named such because of the all the Sousaphones in it (it wasn’t called the “Sousaphone” Room because it didn’t roll off the tongue, or that was the reason Luz was given as a freshman). The unspoken rule of the Tuba Room was that it was strictly for the use of tuba players, but it hadn’t been that big of a deal in previous years. Brass players and percussionists were occasionally allowed inside (woodwinds, especially the clarinets, were banned indefinitely because of a never-discussed incident regarding a blue-raspberry slushie that occurred before Luz attended Toccoa High and time would tell if the ban would ever be rescinded).

(As an aside, Hall  was also a clarinet player and while the Hall Incident was in no way connected to the incident that banned the clarinets from the Tuba Room, it was yet another reason for the dislike for that section in particular.)

However, with the influx of new tuba players this year and the sudden crowded feeling of a room that used to feel far more spacious, Johnny Martin had not-so-kindly requested that the trumpet players “for the love of God, go to one of the practice rooms or something ”, so they did. But it sucked because “Practice Room Two” didn’t roll off the tongue either.

“I’m sorry, Operation what?” Perconte asked. The short trumpet player’s black hair was neatly slicked back (someone asked what he put in his hair, and he’d simply replied that it was valve oil) and he wore a t-shirt with arm holes torn halfway down the shirt, as did all the trumpet players. It helped with the incessant heat. It also looked cool.

“Operation ‘Sobel Hears a Horton’,” Ed Tipper repeated, looking for all the world that he’d rather be talking about something else. “I did’t come up with the name, btw. That’s all Skip.”

“So I’m supposed to, what?” Luz asked. “Pretend to be our old band instructor to convince Sobel to get his act together?”

Oliver Horton, or The Major as he was called by his students, had retired two years prior, back when Luz and the rest of the seniors were still sophomores. The seniors and the juniors were the only people in the band who held any memories of the fargone days of Horton’s reign. Freedom to talk on the field without threat of laps. The ability to leave campus for lunch. Not being required to wear their band t-shirts ever Friday home game. And, sure, Horton was strict. All instructors had their moments. But he earned the band’s respect, and the respect of all the marchers at Toccoa High who had been taught by him over the past twenty years. But once Sobel came, things started to disappear. Gone was the free careless chatter of band students on the blacktop. Gone were actual water breaks, not these “Gush and Go’s” that had been implemented.

And most importantly, gone were the days of being able to leave the school and buy pizza. Not just during camp, but during home games once football season began. All the students risked getting kicked out of the band if they broke this one stupid rule.

So, of course, Luz had to do it. Whatever it was.

The plan was this, Tipper explained to him: Tipper was to discreetly pocket Sobel’s cellphone, play around in his contacts list, and slip the phone back into Sobel’s pocket. The phone number for The Major was saved onto Sobel’s contacts list. Somehow, without Sobel noticing, Tipper would have to add Luz’s number to said list under something similar to Horton’s contact name. Something identical at first glance, something that wouldn’t make him think twice before answering the phone. Maybe “Olliver” instead of “Oliver”, or “Horton.” instead of “Horton”. This was where Luz would come in.

Luz, and a few other students (so as not to allow Sobel to connect the dots) would leave the blacktop and “go to the bathroom” (although, not all at once; it would be gradual) where Luz would dial Sobel’s number. Sobel, thinking it was The Major’s number, would halt practice to answer the call. Luz would imitate The Major’s voice, giving the impression that he didn’t like the things he had heard about the way he was running the band (and maybe talk about the weather or whatever it was people that age talked about). Bada bing, bada boom, Sobel would get knocked cold by the reprimand and get rid of all the inane changes he had made to the band and the band would finally be able to sleep easy.

That’s if everything went according to plan.

“Because if it doesn’t work, he’ll probably kill me,” Tipper finished.

“He ain’t gonna kill you,” Luz said.

“Maim is more like it,” Perconte added.

Luz whacked the back of Perconte’s head with his free hand.

“He ain’t gonna kill him, Perco. If anyone gets killed, it’ll be me. Tipper’s got, like impossible invulnerability against Sobel.” To Tipper, Luz continued, “You’re like a cockroach and I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“Really?” Tipper asked, in the kind of tone that most people utilized when they actually wanted to say “Shut up, Luz” but were too nice to actually say it.

“When Sobel eventually triggers the zombie apocalypse, you’ve gotta be on my team. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Ten bucks says this won’t work,” Shifty said, breaking his silence as he’d been listening intently the whole while. He was currently crouched on the ground, gathering up all the scattered sheet music. “Look, Sobel’s an idiot, but he’s not stupid, y’know what I mean? The guy’s got a sixth sense for bullshit.”

“The guy’s got a sixth sense for bullshit,” Luz said, imitating Shifty’s voice to an uncanny degree. Perconte cackled from where he stood while Shifty gave Luz a mildly disturbed look. “I could do this in my sleep. I was born for this.”

“What time do you plan on borrowing his phone?” Shifty asked standing back up. “I need time to get popcorn so I can watch you guys screw up.”

“Ye of little faith,” Luz said, shaking his head.

“What time?” Tipper said. “Camp starts in eight minutes so … ” he closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Like, right now.” He opened his eyes and rested his arms to his side. “Can you guys hype me up or something? I feel like I might throw up.”

“Tipper! Tipper! Tipper!” The trumpet players whisper-chanted, pumping their fists in the air. 

“Okay. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but Operation “Sobel Hears a Horton” is a go.” Tipper turned around, his clutching his mellophone case so tightly the whites of knuckles shows. As the door to Practice Room Two opened and closed behind him, Luz could barely make out the younger marcher mutter, “I’m too fucking young to die.”

“Alright,” Luz began, facing the two other marchers. He cleared his throat and began to say the next sentence in a pitch-perfect imitation of The Major. “Let’s get this show on a roll!”

Chapter Text

If Joe Toye had a penny for everytime he glanced at George Luz and thought to himself “What the hell is Luz doing?”, he’d be a very rich man right now.

And one would think that someone who asked that question at least thrice daily would do their best to ignore said question by now. Especially if said someone was Toye’s boyfriend. But it was the fault of others for never pegging Toye as a curious type. Cool as he was, and he was very cool if he did say so himself, he liked being in the know about certain happenings without necessarily being “in the know”. Stealth was the name of the game. Being on the “down low”. Off the radar.

Sunglasses helped with that, especially the sunglasses he was wearing currently. It was a very sunny day and Toye tanned easily and at the back of his mind he knew that he’d get a stupid brown tan around his sunglasses on his face and that it’d be annoying until it faded sometime in September, but for now they made Toye look like a badass. And “badasses” didn’t get obviously engaged in gossip, as far as most people were concerned.

Best thing about sunglasses, however, was that no one could tell if he were sleeping or watching someone set up a very stupid prank.

Before the band gathered at the front of the band room for some basic announcements (“Forecast says it might rain.”, “Don’t forget your sunscreen.”, “We found an inhaler in the lost and found. Who does it belong to?”), Toye remembered seeing his boyfriend (and Perconte and Shifty) exit Practice Room Two walking around in the sort of way that people tended to when they had something to hide but were overcompensating in the way they were pretending otherwise. 

Toye, at the moment, chose to ignore it for the time being. He’d find out whatever it was soon enough. Maybe Luz and Shifty could keep tight-lipped about things (Toye had tried every trick in the book to wrangle out what his Christmas present was gonna be last year, but his boyfriend's mouth could be a steel trap when he wanted it to be). But God knows Perconte couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. 

Now that they were practicing outside, Toye didn’t understand how it could be almost week two of band camp and freshmen were still tripping over their clown feet. He didn’t remember ever being this shitty at marching when he was fourteen.

Unfortunately, he had muttered “I don’t remember ever being this shitty at marching when I was fourteen” a little too loudly and a little too near Lipton. The blond piccolo player simply smiled and suggested that Toye set an example for the freshmen and march with them since it bothered him so much.

And Guarnere, the bastard, enthusiastically agreed and helped with strategically positioning Toye next to the freshmen trumpet players (and freshmen were already annoying to begin with, but freshmen trumpet players? That was its own damn circle of hell). Such a transgression would never be forgiven nor forgotten. Gonorrhea was gonna have to watch his back for the rest of the week.

“Alright, we’re gonna try that again,” Harry Welsh said from the viewing tower, grinning his gap-toothed grin. His curly sand-colored hair reflected the sun so much it was almost blinding. Welsh wore a pink bandana around his forehead that matched the pink bandana that Kitty wore wrapped around her hair. Now that he thought about it, the whole trombone sectioned seemed to be wearing those pink bandanas. Bandanas, for whatever reason, seemed to be the trend this camp just like how face paint was the trend the year before. 

Granted, the face paint was banned after said paint spilled into an ugly psychedelic spew on the floor of the band room (near the trumpet section, to be clear). Toye wasn’t sure how bandanas would get ruined for everyone, but he wouldn’t put it past this band.

It was only the drum majors outside right now. Sobel wasn’t anywhere in sight (thank fucking God) . Nixon and Speirs were walking amongst the band, giving the freshmen tips on how to march and hold their instruments (at least, he assumed Speirs was helping. Even while Nixon managed to say something constructive, Speirs would kinda just glare until the issue was fixed). Winters had been on the tower with Welsh but had gone inside the band room for something or another).

“Everyone wanna play the first note of bar 24,” Welsh instructed. He began conducting in fours, raising his hand at the fourth count as a cue for the band to play the note.

Wasn’t the best idea since the band was still a little hazy on anything after bar 18.

Welsh made a cringing face and his arms fell to his side. “Sorry. I’m an idiot. Everyone point at me and say “Welsh, you’re an idiot”.”

A round of laughter and half-hearted “Welsh, you’re an idiot”s (and the Terrible Trio yelling “We love you, Welsh!”) came from the band. Welsh’s face was red, but he was still grinning as he gestured for the band to quiet down.

“Okay, y’all” Welsh said, eyes scanning the open binder of music before him. “No music this time. Just hold your instruments up. Everyone go to your first dot and, from there, to dot 15.” 

Once Toye and everyone else made it back to their opening position on the field, seniors began calling out instructions across the blacktop.

“Point your horns towards the 50!”

“March in a straight line!”

“Roll your feet!”

“Left foot!” Toye shouted to no freshman in particular since nearly all of them began marching with the right foot like they haven’t been over this 100 times already. "Your other left, Dukeman," he said to the freshman trombone player a few feet in front of him.

Welsh raised his arms up and began conducting. “Two, three, four…”

And the band got to moving. It was too much to hope for, that no one would bump into each other (or that the trombone players would misjudge the length of their slides, for one). Feet flew across the blacktop as the seniors and juniors (and some sophomores) got to their dots on time while everyone else started off too slow and made up for it by practically running to their last position.

“Okay,” Welsh said, as if he meant to say “Yikes”, but that wouldn’t have been productive. “You guys need to follow my hands and get to your dots at the same time. That’s the goal here. But, uh…” Welsh cocked his head to the side, as if considering something. “Who wants to go back to the metronome for now?”

Countless hands shot to the air.

“Right. Nix, you got that cowbell?”

Nix did, in fact, have a cowbell. He started clanging the damn thing at the specified tempo as Welsh began to conduct the band once again. 

With a steady sense of rhythm, moving to the dots this time was less of an absolute clusterfuck.

“Tie your shoes,” Toye told a freshman to the left of him once there was a short break after getting to dot 15. The drumline was less of a pod now; they were aligned in a straight line that went down the 30 yard line. Babe, Guarnere, and their freshman were all in front of him with Toye at the back. “Now,” he continued when the freshman proceeded to do a whole lot of nothing.

“I’m fine,” the freshman said. The fuck was his name?

The fuck does it matter, Toye thought. I’ll figure it out eventually.

“It won’t be fine when you face plant onto the burning ground and give yourself a bloody nose and a chipped tooth,” Toye said nonchalantly. 

“I can walk,” and Toye couldn’t understand the audacity that the youth had these days. No sense of respect for the elders who had literally been there, done that, and were trying to shed wisdom onto the newest dumbasses of the world.

“We’re gonna try dots 15 to 20,” Welsh instructed from the tower. “It’ll be step by step, so look at your dot sheet. We learned these last week, so let’s try to put them together.”

“Tie your damn shoes,” Toye said.

“I’m not gonna trip,” the freshman whined, as if this was worth whining over.

“What if I just pushed you?” 

The freshman’s eyes widened as he considered Toye’s words (and let’s be honest, Toye’s sunglasses probably made his statement sound more menacing than it actually was). He was being nice. Because what if this kid never tied his shoes? The actual marching season would begin and the little shit would act so confident on the blacktop and football field, his shoelaces dragging around a whole host of grime and germs that would make Perconte sick to the stomach. Then, they’d get to a school with a football field that didn’t have turf, only brown grass and potholes. What if the freshman marched with misplaced gusto and a devil-may-care swagger? What if his shoelaces got caught on a twig or a weed? What if the shit fell into a hole that he could’ve otherwise avoided, or brushed off, because he didn’t tie his fucking shoes? What if that happened at a game (or, worse, a competition) and the moment would be forever immortalized in one of Sobel’s meticulously organized videos that he made the band watch every Tuesday night after the game the Friday before to show them how best to improve? How would this freshman feel if his face-plant was shown to his peers?

Toye was just trying to save the kid’s life (and dignity), damn it.

“Fine,” the freshman muttered, lowering his trumpet to the ground. He got to his knees and hurriedly looped his laces together.

“Alright, Mr. Hardass. Let’s not threaten the freshmen, alright?” Nixon said from beside him. He was wearing a blue t-shirt that had a Star Wars logo on it, which could in no way belong to Nixon since Nixon didn’t “get” Star Wars references. He hadn’t even watched the series. That shirt belonged to Winters. Toye would stake his life on it.

Toye rolled his eyes at Nixon. Then, realizing that Nixon wouldn’t be able to see it under his ultra-cool sunglasses, said, “I’m rolling my eyes, Nix.”

Nix chuckled and continued walking, assisting other marchers who didn’t know how to get to dot 16.

“Can we take a break?” some freshmen asked near Toye. 

“I need some water!” another freshman added.

As if a reflex, both Toye and Guarnere, from further away, shouted, “Water is for the weak!”

At that moment, the members of the Pit had been rolling their keyboards, timpanis, and drum kits up the blacktop. Spina and Augusta seemed to be arguing about something while Renee talked on the phone as she pushed a drum kit up on her own. Further behind and rolling up a xylophone, Eugene Roe, probably the palest kid Toye had ever met, fixed Toye with such a cold and disapproving glare that Toye had half a mind to apologize.

The front ensemble finally got their instruments into position. Roe broke his glare and picked up a megaphone that had been lying on the ground. It belonged to Sobel but Sobel still wasn’t outside. Roe pressed the ON button and noise crackled from its speaker.

“Welsh,” Roe said into it with his soft sounding voice, although it had a bit of an edge to it. He walked from directly underneath the viewing tower to further onto the blacktop, where Welsh would be able to see him.

“Yeah, Roe?”

“Water break.” And Roe left it at that, pressing the megaphone off and setting it back on the ground before glaring at both Toye and Guarnere again as he shook his head. 

“Well, you heard the man. We’re taking a water break. Five minutes.” Welsh held out his right hand.

“Don’t scrape your instruments!” someone called out. Toye didn’t recognize the voice, which probably meant it belonged to some freshman girl. And judging from the sense of authority she had in her voice, she was probably a woodwind. Shifty would probably bet that it was a clarinet. Toye would take him on that bet.

Nonetheless, the sound of scraping traveled across the blacktop and Toye heard the same girl screech and repeat, “Don’t scrape your instruments! ”

As Toye set his drum down on the blacktop, he caught a glimpse of Perconte walking down to the sidewalk with the water-coolers. Toye wasn’t the gossiping type, but he loved being in the know. And, it’d be better to get to Perconte because the guy broke as easy as a potato chip.

“Hey, Perco!” Toye said, heading towards  the shorter senior. “How goes it?”

“Um,” Perconte’s eyes darted from Toye towards the band room to Toye again. “It goes— it’s going … going great. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. How are you going? Doing?”

“Uh huh,” Toye said, fighting the urge to smile. He cut to the chase, slapping Perconte’s back. “So what was going on in Practice Room Two?”

“Tipper’s gonna steal Sobel’s phone and Luz is gonna—” Perconte quickly shut his mouth and covered his mouth with his hands. He sped up his walking.

However, Toye’s legs were like the length of Perconte’s entire midget body. “Luz is gonna do what?” he asked, as he caught up to Perconte by taking just a single step. Because, of course, Luz had something to do with it. His loudmouth boyfriend was lucky he was cute.

“Luz is gonna mimic the Major and bring pizza back.”

Toye frowned. “What the fuck?”

“You know what,” Perconte said, smiling nervously. “I’ve said too much. I’m just gonna—” and Perconte ran towards the sidewalk with the water coolers, leaving Toye standing alone.

“What the fuck?” he repeated to no one in particular.

Chapter Text

Tipper had done it, the madman.

Bumping into Sobel and pocketing his cellphone was the hardest and most nerve-wracking part, and Penkala was so scared that Tipper was going to drop it with those butterfingers of his that he nearly shit himself.

Luckily, it didn’t come to that. The pickpocketing (and adding a new fake contact and subsequent re-pocketing) was done so seamlessly that Penkala was now suspicious that Tipper had a side job as a thief or something. It was almost too seamless. He was nothing less than God-sent. Jesus, Tipper.

Penkala silently laughed as he stood up from the rough-carpeted floor of the band room. Skip and Malarkey had already left for the blacktop, but he was still taking his sweet time enjoying the A/C. Tying and re-tying his shoes. So, he adjusted the strap of his alto sax and adjusted the red visor on his head with a smile as other marchers left the room. “That easy, huh?” he asked, finishing with a low whistle.

Tipper made a face at Penkala. “Thank you, Tipper. I appreciate it, Tipper.”

“That too!” He jerked his head towards the double-doors of the band room, surrounded by some of the brown band competition awards that had accumulated over many, many years.

“That didn’t sound like a–”

“Thank you, Tipper! I appreciate it, Tipper!” Penkala was sure to lay it on thick. “You’ve brought honor back to the mellophone section, Tipper!”

And so the plan continued.

The private group chat (officially named “Operation: Sobel Hears a Horton”) messages buzzed with anticipation.

HorseTipping: hes gonna know

HorseTipping: IM GONNA VOMIT

YouveBeenPenkd: get your head in the gamr man!!!

YouveBeenPenkd: gamr*

YouveBeenPenkd: game*

Soon after, band officially began and everyone was ordered to resume their assigned positions on the blacktop.

Penkala shared worried glances with Skip and Malarkey. Malarkey looked equally worried. But Skip Muck, an enigma, simply smiled.

“He’s gonna be fine,” the saxophone player said with a grin. “Tipper was perfect. Luz is Luz. Re-lax.”

All there was left to do was wait. And wait. And Penkala and Malarkey waited for the plan to fall apart while Muck laughed into his reed.

Chapter Text

“Meet me in the bathroom in five,” was what Luz stage-whispered to Floyd Talbert as the flute player was running to the band room to get himself a poptart from the vending machine for his lunch. Normally having a snack like that would be hardly suitable for a lunch, much less a lunch after the demanding work that was band camp (Luz once said that he was hungry enough to eat a horse as an appetizer and still have enough room for the main course). This went double when the flavors were basic unfrosted strawberry or unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon. But, the vending machine had been restocked recently with the hot fudge sundae flavor, a once every-two-months miracle. Talbert wasn’t turning this down.

Hell, he was going to buy three. Or five. This was a blink-and-you-missed it flavor.

Better make that seven. Splurge a little.

“You hittin' on me, Luz?” Talbert asked. It looked like Luz was hyped up on coffee, which was impossible since coffee was nowhere on the high school’s campus during the band camp season, courtesy of the “Why Does My Slide Grease Smell Like Coffee?” Incident of the 1993 band season. Which only meant one thing.

Talbert skidded to a stop and turned on his heels in such a smooth motion, he knew Dick Winters would be proud. Before Luz could continue doing whatever the fuck, he called out. “The hell did you do?”

Luz turned around and he made a cartoonish “zip” motion over his mouth. “Shut it. He could be listening. Bathroom in five!”

“What, has Sobel bugged the air?” Talbert deadpanned. “I don’t know if I should be offended or impressed.”

“Hey! I’m the wiseass here,” Luz said. “Bathroom in four!”

Talbert rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Sure. Fine.” He pushed open the doors to the band building and walked the few steps up to the vending machines that lined the walls. One vending machine was filled with soda, but the crap zero and diet kind (the real stuff was secured in the locked-for-the-summer teacher’s lounge and the locked-for-the-summer school store. It would be a cold day in hell before Talbert ever drank Coke Zero of his own free will.

He pressed the numbers for the hot fudge sundae poptarts on the snacks vending machine.

D12

The machine whirred and the poptart fell to the floor of the machine. Talbert opened up the door of it and pocketed it.

Unfortunately, Talbert wasn’t wearing cargo shorts and it wasn’t until he got to the fourth poptart that he realized he was in dire need of more pockets. But damn it if he wasn’t going to get seven of these things.

He wasn’t sure how long he was standing at the front of the vending machine, trying to stuff the seventh poptart into his now-tight pocket, when Luz slammed open the door to the band building. The trumpet player was followed by a host of other trumpet players, including Perconte, Shifty, and Skinny. Even Joe Toye, despite not being a trumpet player, was there.

Talbert finally shoved the remaining poptart into his pocket, deciding it was still edible even if it was no doubt crushed to dust. “Y’all need excuses, you know that?” he said in his best technically-a-section-leader voice.

“We got ‘em. And then some,” Luz began. “I have to go get my ibuprofen because I’m feeling a migraine coming on.”

“Forgot my inhaler inside my locker,” Shifty said.

“I need to take a personal call regarding my Nana in the hospital. It could be serious,” Perconte said, nodding solemnly.

“I left my dot sheet inside,” Skinny said. “I’m gonna have to do laps tonight, but it’s worth it.”

“I needed to use the bathroom,” Toye said, frowning. “Like, genuinely need to use it. So, get done with this so I can take a piss.”

“He really believed all of you?” Talbert said. “Sobel’s old, but not old enough to start going senile.”

“It’s probably just one of those days,” Luz said, exaggerating a shrug. “Why aren’t you in the bathroom?”

Talbert decided to not point out how strange a question that was in any context. Instead, he looked to his bulging pockets and nodded his head awkwardly. “Hot fudge sundae poptarts. Lunch.”

“Yeah, okay.” Luz said, thankfully not pointing out how strange that answer was. “We’re on the clock. Let’s go!” With that, the group of boys rushed down the hallway and whatever was going to happen, happened.

Chapter Text

“God, I hope this works,” Malarkey whispered when he heard the sound of Sobel’s phone ringing. He, along with the rest of the band, were standing at attention. The sun burned his neck and he took a moment to think about, what his section leader freshman year once called, a “wicked neckstrap tan line”. They were in the middle of getting through the first act. Unfortunately for the woodwinds, it involved a lot of big steps that took a while to get the hang of. Even upperclassmen got tripped up over making their steps spaced far enough. They’d get the hang of it eventually, like they always did. For now, Malarkey simply felt like he had two left feet.

While Sobel went through his clipboard, Malarkey felt a buzz in his shorts pocket underneath the pain of his burning muscles. He reached his hand down and turned his phone on. A notification was plastered on his screen over the Lord of the Rings background of the lock screen.

The message was from Luz. It simply instructed Malarkey to “hold onto your butts, comrades”. It took half a second for Malarkey to translate Luz-speak to English, meaning that the Operation was in full effect.

Then, Sobel got the call. 

“Hello?” Sobel said into his phone from the tower.

“I’m gonna shit my pants,” Malarkey heard Tipper say from nearby. The mellophones were in formation next to the woodwinds, forming what was supposed to be a half circle, but currently resembled a zig zag drawn with someone’s non-dominant hand. Malarkey saw the surrounding mellos give odd looks at Tipper before turning their attention back to the tower.

“Horton!” Sobel said, his voice jumping up an octave. His posture snapped into something militaristic, as if he believed the Major could sense his lackluster posture from over the phone. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Nixon, from his position on his step ladder looked from Sobel to the band and waved his hands in a downward motion. 

“Band, you can straight chill for now,” Welsh said while Nixon tried to smother his laugh by coughing. Dick nodded in agreement while Speirs just stared like usual. Frightening motherfucker.

“No, sir! Um, ah, yes, sir!” Sobel said, sounding distressed. His free hand ran through his black hair as he paced back and forth. “Oh, I absolutely understand, sir.”

“Is it just me,” Skip began from where he was squatting on the ground. Only seconds before, he tried to sit down on the ground, but the blacktop was too hot. “Or does Sobel look pale?”

“Like a sheet of printer paper,” Penkala said. Unlike Skip, and Malarkey for that matter, he was sitting flat on the ground, legs outstretched with the declaration that “pain was only a state of mind”. His face fell, suddenly. “Wait, isn’t that a sign on a heart attack? Or a stroke?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Skip asked, frowning. In the background, the tone of Sobel’s voice sounded. The remaining marchers either gossipped among themselves or not-so-quietly speculated about what was going on.

“So like, my uncle had a heart attack after watching a horror movie at the dollar theater. It was cheesy crap. Like, it wasn’t scary scary, but that’s not the point. He almost died. If he dies, will we go to hell?”

“No,” Malarkey said before Skip took the stand.

“Nah, Sobel’s going to hell for taking away pizza. I’m sure God’ll sympathize with our plight.”

“Really, Skip?” Penkala said in disbelief. “We kill someone and God’s gonna be like, “That was pretty shitty, but you wanted pizza so bad so, in the end, it all cancels out.”

“‘Course not,” Skip said, waving his hand. “God doesn’t say stuff like “shitty”.”

Malarkey ignored his friends and directed his attention back to the tower. Sobel looked stressed out. The tower wasn't meant for pacing, and there he was. Pacing back and forth. Malarkey couldn’t  fathom what Luz would saying on the other end of the phone but, between all of Sobel’s nervous ticks (biting his lip, fiddling with the collar of his dark orange polo, the ups and down of the volume from his end of the conversation), it wasn’t good. Which meant it was perfect.

“Band!” 

The saxophones ceased their speculations and quickly stood at attention, blinking up at the tower where the sun shone painfully down on them. Sobel stood at the top, binder discarded at his feet. The man looked distressed. Even more distressed than the time they’d lost first place to Lassiter High at their competition at Vanderbilt University. It was a real bummer, in Malarkey’s opinion. But he didn’t feel too bad about it then, or now, since they’d won second. The redhead didn’t subscribe that much to the opinion that “second placers are first losers”. They’d beaten dozens of bands in order to get that recognition. Like, fuck Lassiter, but there were always other competitions.

But, seriously, fuck Lassiter.

However Sobel … jeez. That night, the instructor looked like he wanted to shove the first place trophy up the ass of the rival band instructor. It was a sight to see, especially since the scores were reportedly so close.

And here he was. Looking much the same.

“I have an announcement,” the tall man began. “As you know, I expect the best out of this band. I have dedicated a lot of my time towards training you to reach your higher potential.”

Malarkey shared a quick worried glance at Penkala and Skip. Penkala looked equally worried. Skip looked at ease. How the fuck did he look at ease?

“I’m sure you’re all familiar with the rule of staying on campus during the time allotted to you for lunchtime. This, as well as the hours before a home game on Fridays. However,” here, Sobel grimaced and looked, dare he say, embarrassed. “It has come to my attention that this course of action perhaps wasn’t the most advisable course to take. For the time being, I am lifting the ban on leaving campus for lunch.”

The band had the good sense to not do something stupid, like cheer. They all stood patient and suspicious, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even the freshman behaved.

“This will be on a trial basis. If I am given a foolproof indication that you are mature enough to handle this responsibility,” he said, like he was giving them the ok to perform heart surgery, not get lunch, “the change will be permanent.” Sobel paused. “That will be all.” To the drum majors, he instructed them to lead the band for the time being.

“Luz, the madman,” Malarkey breathed in shock.

“I told you,” Skip said. He dug out his phone from his shorts pocket, unlocked it, and showed them the latest text he got from Luz:

Luz: Operation Sobel Hears a Horton was ruled a success.

“Is this gonna come back and bite us in the ass,” Penkala asked.

Skip shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. We just have to act on our best behavior for our last year. Good luck for the poor fucks after us.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” Malarkey said. His stomach was still tied up in nervous knots, but he felt a smile form on his face. “Anyone up for lunch at Little Caesar’s? Or you wanna take a daytrip to Ma Ma Dar’s?”

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, Ronald Speirs wasn’t a kleptomaniac. Being a klepto would imply a lack of control over his own actions, which he had. Being a klepto would mean that a large part of his everyday life would comprise of going toe-to-toe with a debilitating handicap, when it wasn’t.

Most importantly, being a klepto would make him “weird” and he’d been in the company of the Toccoa High marchers for three hot and sweaty weeks. He knew the face of Weird and he could see it every afternoon whenever he looked down the viewing tower, not in the mirror.

Speirs was currently on the viewing tower’s second story. It wasn’t as hot today. Mainly because of the breeze. The humidity was still there, but the breeze made everything feel cooler (even if it actually wasn’t). He cherished every second of it and was sure the other drum majors were as well. He wasn’t one to comment on the weather in general, but now he felt in his bones that if he mentioned how nice the weather was, he’d jinx it and Mother Nature would spike the temperature surrounding the Toccoa High parking lot, “spite” her sole motivation.

He flicked through the drill sheet in the binder like he would a flipbook full of animations (which was quite the trial since flipbooks typically weren’t laminated). The positions of the marchers were marked with an “X” and he watched as they would move into lines and squares and pods and shapes. 

The design of the show was fine enough, he considered. Too bad the theme was such shit.

Football? Unbelievable.

Although, the theme of the show seemed to have evolved a little more. It was still mainly about football, but also about heroics and fanfare. The music was good, which was all that mattered in the end. At the end of the day, it was a better show than the circus themed show his freshman year at Oconee High. Great show for the color guard, but no one likes circus music that much.

It was almost time to begin for the day. Winters and Welsh and Nixon were about to begin conducting since sectionals were finishing up (Nixon, in particular, had taken to wearing those hats with bottles of water on either side of it, drinking water whenever he, as he said, “damn well pleased”). They would stand on their stepladders spread up at the front of the band. Four drum majors might seem like a little much, but the band was growing and it was what it was. Better than having just one because then some especially short freshman would complain about not being able to see the front of the field.

Speirs decided to check out everyone on the ground. A little “face the front” here, a little “feet towards the 50” there. Advice and whatnot. Everyone needed it and groaning in annoyance was only going to set them back, progress-wise.

That was until he got to the sousaphones and noticed Albert Blithe.

Albert Blithe, one of the new sousaphone players (who, despite being a sophomore, had about as much experience as a freshman), poor guy, looked confused as hell standing on the back hash of the 30 yard line. The kid looked as though he was seconds away from tripping over his own feet whenever he happened to look his way.

But little did the majority of the band know, Speirs played the sousaphone himself back when he was in at Oconee High. It wasn’t a fact he had advertised yet, but someone would find out eventually. He was full of experience and now was the time to convert that to well thought-out advice.

“Blithe!” he called out, just as the other three drum majors clapped four times and shouted “Band Ten Hut!”, shortly followed by an instruction to keep their horns at attention.

It was admirable, watching the band jump to attention in record time before listening intently to the instructions that came from Winters. Only a few people lagged, but only one didn’t move an inch.

Blithe looked what Speirs’s old band instructor would call “dog-tired” (pun very much intended). His red face was covered in a sheen of sweat and his beige shirt was nearly dark brown due to the sweat making said shirt stick to his skin. His breaths were labored and his large blue eyes held a cold threat within that Speirs had seen many times before during the long and scorching days at Oconee High’s 9-to-9 band camp. The look said “I can’t do this anymore”.

That wasn’t even getting into how Blithe would continuously stalk away to the band building, asking for a bathroom break near twice an hour. If Speirs didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the blond passed water enough for the whole band.

Here and there, Blithe got the impression was a stone throw away from quitting the band. It wasn’t uncommon. Something like one to three kids on average per band season couldn’t stick it out. It was unfortunate in Speirs’s opinion. He’d been witness to the feeling of victory during a band competition and it was something he wished everyone had the opportunity to feel. 

He just needed to get Blithe to see that somehow.

“Let’s talk, Blithe,” Speirs said, cocking his head to his left near the woods that lined the back of the blacktop.

Speirs watched Blithe’s eyes widen and share glances with Hoobler, Garcia, and Hashey as he spun around widely. Blithe looked back at Speirs before nodding to himself and removing the sousaphone, placing it down next to his dot. Speirs had time, as far as he was concerned. It sounded like Winter’s little announcement was going to take a while.

“How are you feeling, Blithe?” he asked, wanting the younger boy to enter the conversation feeling somewhat at ease. Speirs knew of the rumors regarding him that grew from something small to its own monster, not that he was entirely innocent of it. If he got some of his old friends from Oconee High to pass along exaggerated rumors about the new drum major, all the better. Speirs didn’t like people in his real business. If the Toccoa kids were gonna pry, they may as well pry into something fictional.

Also, attending a new school allowed a way for Speirs to reinvent himself, he had no qualms against reinventing himself to sound like a badass.

Anyway.

“Fine,” Blithe lied, his face as red as a damn lobster. This pale kid was gonna have his face start peeling if he didn’t know any better. It was damn near 100 degrees out. “I’m fine. It’s kinda hot, though.”

Understatement, Speirs thought, recalling the forecast of a high of 97 degrees (along with 43 percent humidity).

“It’s a tough sport, marching band,” Speirs said to the sophomore. “Lots of fun to have, don’t get me wrong. 

“Yeah,” Blithe began. From the looks of it, he was planning on saying something more, but Speirs continued on.

“But make no mistake,” he warned. “Marching band can chew you up and spit you out, whether or not you want it to. Sometimes, the only hope you have is to accept that you’re already dead.”

Blithe’s eyes widened and he looked a little less red. Maybe paler, but that suggested to Speirs that his words were getting through to the boy.

“But it's the grueling nature that makes it. Every burn of your calves, every bead of sweat, is making you a stronger musician in the end. A stronger person overall. Stamina for days. Your probability for taking whatever life throws at you and chucking it back increases exponentially at the end of each day of this camp.”

“Sure,” Blithe began, although it still looked as if the blond was failing to understand anything Speirs was saying although he was confident he was explaining this in simple terms. “Uh …”

“That’s why, if you’re having any problems keeping up, don’t ever hesitate to come to me, or any of the other Majors, for help.”

“Oh. Okay,” Blithe nodded. “I’ll take you up on that, I guess. It’s just—”

“Yeah?”

“I’m having trouble with some of the music, actually.” Blithe’s face went a deeper red, this time not from the heat. “Some of the notes are … I can’t reach some of the notes.”

“For now, just remember that a sousa is just like the tuba. Only difference is that it wraps around you and you’re sprinting across the field while playing the circle of fifths or whatever.”

Blithe laughed softly, almost nervously. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Oh, and one last thing.” Speirs reached for his back pocket and pulled out a folded Phillies baseball cap that he’d nicked somewhere sometime before. Fuck if he knew who the original owner was. The original owner must’ve not cared enough about it to leave the cap at any random place. “Here.” He waved it in Blithe’s direction.

“Uh… “ Blithe began.

“If you don’t put sunscreen on your face, you at least need to cover it somehow. Nothing hurts more than a burnt face.”

A look of understanding came into Blithe’s eyes and the blonde took the cap from Speirs, fixing it onto his head. “Um … thanks, Speirs.”

Speirs gave a single nod and pointed to the low brass section of the band, signifying the end of the conversation. As Blithe jogged to the area of the blacktop where the rest of the sousas were standing (all staring in shock at the cap Blithe was waving in the air), Speirs made his own way to the front of the field where Dick and Welsh were reading a binder together. 

His work here was just getting started.

Chapter Text

It was the hottest afternoon of band camp this year and Sobel was clearly suffering from some form of heat exposure because the man had clearly lost his damn mind.

To be fair, Julian had nothing to go on but hearsay about how band camps ought to be. Sobel had been the head instructor for two years and ruled with an iron fist. Word was, camp was far more lenient in the “good old days”. Word was, it’d only get worse come September, whatever that meant.

All Julian knew was that it was 100 degrees out, at least, and they’d only had one water break. More than an hour ago. He loved the snare drums (and, God, he couldn’t get enough playing them. So much so his Ma at home practically begged him to join the band back in middle school if only to release his tapping-on-every-surface energy into something productive). But he loved water just as much. 

He couldn’t believe it sometimes, his growing affinity for water. He used to subsist solely on Fanta and Mountain Dew and Root Beer. And here was, overwhelmingly willing to take a glass of water over any of the previous beverages.

“What part of keep your horns up are you having a difficulty understanding?” Sobel shouted from the tower, probably directed a quaking freshman. Julian had tried to carry a trombone for an hour and he couldn’t make it 20 minutes. Sobel needed to ease up.

“Jeez,” Guarnere muttered. Julian watched him nimbly flip his drumstick between and over the fingers of his right hand. “I wanna see him marching with a bass drum with no shade.”

Babe laughed in agreement while Toye said, “Imagine him getting stung by a bee and Dick telling him to “walk it off”.”

Guarnere snorted at that while Julian winced. He hated how the bees frequented the area where the water and blue gatorade was set up on the sidewalk adjacent to the blacktop. That was another reason he began to appreciate water. Bees weren’t willing to risk it all over that drink. Water was safe.

“When’s he gonna let us get a water break?” the Freshman, Julian, asked, his mind now singularly focused on water. Water this, water that. His throat was parched while the middle of his shirt was soaked in sweat. He knew that the blacktop beneath his sneakers burned something fierce, but it couldn’t be too bad to simply lie down and take an uncomfortably hot nap.

“We’re never gonna have a water break again,” Guarnere said, solemnly. “We play until we die.”

“Sixth rule of band camp,” Toye began. He was gonna have a wicked sunglasses line by the end of the summer. “Write a Will.”

“Actual factual,” Babe added.

“Really?” Julian whined, scuffing the sole of his shoe against the ground. Half of him knew the responses were in jest, the other half was far too thirsty to care. “Why the heck is he the way that he is?”

“I could read you a list,” Guarnere answered. “But I charge by the hour.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Julian muttered to himself.

“Hey!” Babe said, shocked.

“Watch your fucking language, kid!” Toye barked.

“You, talking in the back,” Guarnere saw Sobel gesture in the general direction of the drumline. “Laps at the end of practice, all of you.”

The drumline collectively shrugged under the weight of an uncaring sun.

“Who cares?” Guarnere said, once Sobel seemed out of earshot.

“I’m already ripped,” Toye agreed.

“He’s right though,” Babe began, looking at Julian. “It’s hot and I’m thirsty as fuck.”

Julian’s mouth dropped and he looked wildly between the two other members of the drumline. “What? How come you don’t care when he says it?”

“Seniority,” the three of them said in unison, earning them an additional warning from Sobel.

Once the drum majors began to conduct, the cue for them to get to attention and recall the next sets they were supposed to march to, Guarnere made a suggestion directed at Julian.

“How about you take one for the team and pretend to pass out. We promise to make a big stink about it.”

Chapter Text

Either the drumline was loud, or Eugene needed to stop eavesdropping so goddamn much.

He turned away from the drumline, who were attempting to stage some sort of water break con, and began to make his way to the nearest drum major before being stopped by Spina’s hand on his shoulder.

“You could at least let me see this played out,” Spina said.

So it wasn’t him. The drumline was just loud.

Eugene frowned and turned around. Spina’s hand dropped and Eugene watched him idly finger positions on the bass guitar he was holding. The timpani wasn’t being used for the second act of the show, so Spina took up the opportunity to play the guitar. He was wearing a faded brown Megadeth shirt and the cowboy hat he had come to band wearing was hanging around his neck. 

“Wow,” Eugene frowned, crossing his arms. “That’s incredibly irresponsible, even for you.”

Spina actually pouted. “Look, Gene, it’s hot. I’m baking, and not in a good way. Sobel’s got a flaming sword up his ass. I’m dying for even a bite-sized amount of entertainment, I swear to Christ.”

Eugene drew out a long sigh and considered returning to the keyboard. He needed the practice and it was a little exhausting to always have an eye out for the band. But, still. “Spina—”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Eugene was unamused, yet his brain decided to be an ass and provide a number of bad scenarios. Someone could get heat stroke. Someone could get dangerously dehydrated. Someone could faint and give themselves a concussion, just like Shifty did a year ago. 

He settled on, “Someone could die.”

Spina made a mocking laugh. “No one dies at band camp.”

“You asked for the worst that could happen, Spina, and that’s the worst that could happen.”

Right then, Julian decided to fall. Eugene’s eyes widened as he quickly looked away from Spina and towards that black-haired freshman. Of course, it wasn’t a natural fall; the snare drum player had obviously fallen in such a way that allowed next to no damage to his instrument. It looked awkward and planned. But, if the intended audience was Sobel or Dike, they’d be none the wiser.

“Oh crap!” Guarnere exclaimed dramatically from where the drumline stood, all in various pre-planned poses of shock. “He’s fallen and he can’t get up!”

“We gotta get him to the curb!” Toye said. To Sobel, he shouted, “Permission to carry Julian to the curb?”

Eugene couldn’t see Sobel from his position underneath the tower, but he was surprised by what came next. He should’ve figured that Sobel would become privy to the band’s plans over the years, but he didn’t expect him to say, “Assist Mr. Julian, and the return right back to your dots as soon as you’re done. You can have your water breaks with the rest of the band.”

“But—” Eugene heard Edward begin to argue.

“That’s another lap, Mr. Heffron,” Sobel snapped. “Are you keeping count?”

Eugene saw how the redhead was barely able to hide his scowl, but he, and Toye and Guarnere, helped Julian to the curb. Before the trio left, Edward waved at Eugene (Eugene waved back). Julian looked all sorts of guilty when he sat down, appearing to feign lightheadedness for the sake of the drumline who were punished on his behalf. 

And then, it happened. Perhaps not the worst that could happen, but a strong contender for the top three.

It happened so suddenly, and Eugene was positioned too far away to do anything to stop it before it happened. After the band was instructed in a few more drills, Julian appeared to decide that he had waited enough time to get some water from the coolers.

Eugene wasn’t sure exactly why the boy did what he did, but once he was there it was as if he decided that all that energy that he’d exerted pulling off that acting job deserved to be rewarded with not water, but blue Gatorade.

Except, it was at that moment that the feared bees flew back with a fervor. 

Only seconds after he poured himself a drink, Julian yelped and tossed his almost full cup of blue liquid into the air. Eugene wasn’t sure if the buzzing of the bees had become amplified, or if his ears decided to work ten times better as a way to taunt him for not following through and demanding an actual water break when he had the chance. 

Julian clutched his rapidly reddening throat with both hands and collapsed for real on the ground.

“JULIAN!” Edward screamed from the field, only a second after Julian fell.

Julian’s mouth gaped open, as if he wanted to respond. But his throat was swelling so fast that no sound came out.

“MAN DOWN!” someone else shouted, with an edge of panic in their voice.

Eugene’s eyes narrowed and he sprang into action. While the remaining drumline removed their instruments and ran to their comrade’s defence (despite Sobel’s continued chastisements. Along with that, Martin, of all people, appeared to be in a seemingly long-overdue shouting match with Sobel, perhaps done with the knowledge that being one of the band’s top musicians would allow him some sort of leverage), Eugene scrambled through the Pit’s emergency equipment bag, tossing anything that was unimportant. The growing chaotic sounds of the band dulled to his ears as he was focused on doing one thing: finding the damn EpiPen.

He dashed to the curb where Julian, the drumline, and various other members of the band were gathered. There were even some band moms who decided to halt their gossip and attend to the fallen boy. But, unlike any of them, Eugene was the only one with an EpiPen.

“Alright, hey, back away,” Eugene ordered, making his way through the cluster surrounding Julian. Julian’s face was a stark pale against the already swelling skin that was once a normal sized neck. Edward was crouched down next to Julian’s face, giving the younger boy reassurances that everything was going to be okay, that he just needed to hold on.

Eugene could understand the worry. As long as he and Edward had been in this band, they’d never seen a bee sting this severe. You got stung you moved on. It was simple fact of Toccoa band camp life. It was practically a badge of honor the band wore with pride. Oh, they might say, just you wait. Toye got stung in the arm just the other day. Alley got stung on both knees his first year. Bull Randleman got stung in his armpit. Liebgott got stung on the side of his neck his sophomore year, and had played it off like it was nothing. Lipton, poor guy, got stung in his inner thigh, worryingly close to his nuts. Both Popeye and Buck Compton got stung in their respective asses the first week of this year's band camp. In fact, getting stung in the ass at least one time during the typical four years of band camp was more likely than not.

But, much like an ant bite or a mosquito sting, they were never that serious. They were sore, and annoying, and itched like hell. But the Toccoa Band was a tough bunch and it’d take them more than a bee sting to keep them from playing.

Julian was different. He was obviously allergic and he very obviously was having trouble breathing.

“Heffron,” Eugene said, crouching down at the other side of Julian. “I need you to do one of two things. Either call 911, or find Julian a ride to the hospital if you’re anxious about the bill.”

“Fuck you talking about?” Edward angrily asked, interrupting his assurances to Julian that everything was gonna be alright. 

Eugene didn’t reply, rather he uncapped the pen and stabbed it into Julian’s uncovered thigh. He tore his eyes away from Julian’s face, who appeared to actually be passing out, and grabbed Edward’s shoulder. He probably grabbed it a little harder than necessary, but he could ask for forgiveness later.

“Call 911 or find a ride,” he said to Edward. Edward’s red eyebrows scrunched together in an argument he probably wanted to voice. His face was almost as red as Julian’s, his freckles standing out all the more. Edward’s frown deepened, as if his desire to stay by Julian’s side and his understanding that he needed to go get help had taken the form of boxers and were currently beating the shit out of each other.

After a second’s pause that seemed to last forever, Edward sharply nodded and speed-walked with a purpose towards Toye and Guarnere. With a look directed at the rest of the Pit, Eugene got the help of Spina, Renee, and Augusta in carrying Julian to Toye’s truck.

Once settled into a seat, Julian’s previous struggled wheezing seemed to have eased into something healthier. At the very least, it meant the kid was breathing. Edward sat across from him, while Toye started the engine and Guarnere rode shotgun. Before they drove off, Edward rolled down the window.

“Hey, thanks for tha—”

“ Now , Babe.” Eugene interrupted, the nickname slipping without his knowledge.

“Yeah,” Babe nodded. “Yeah, sure. Okay, Toye, you know where the hospital is.”

Toye answered in the affirmative and he started the truck. However, before they left the parking lot in the direction of the hospital, Babe poked his head out the window again and gave Eugene a surprised look.

“Hey, Gene, you called me Babe!”

“Heffron, get driving to the goddamn hospital.”  

Despite the current situation, Babe made a snorting laugh and the truck went off. Eugene watched them drive. Afterwards, he turned in the direction of Spina, who was standing behind him. Augusta and Renee had long since returned to the area of the blacktop where the band was gathered. It looked like Martin had held his own against Sobel. From this distance, even Dick seemed to be sharing some unfriendly words with the man. 

Eugene took a deep breath in an attempt to stop panting. That was too much excitement for one goddamn day. He stared at Spina. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Spina raised up his hands in apology. “I swear to Christ I’ll never say that phrase again. I swear on my mom.”

“M-hm.” Eugene murmured as they began walking back in the direction of the band. “So, how many laps do you think we’ll have tonight?”

“Eh. Legs are overrated,” Spina answered.

Chapter Text

“I can see the heat rising from the ground,” said Moe Alley. He stared at the ground in deep thought while he and the rest of the non-flutes and non-clarinets sat on the blacktop. The flutes and clarinets, mostly the freshmen and sophomores in those sections, were having trouble with moving together as a straight line, along with keeping their instruments from dipping, and Sobel had just about had it. Alley was simply grateful that he had a momentary break from having to snap up his horn, resulting in its tuning slide smacking the fuck out of his left shoulder.

“Alley, welcome to Toccoa,” Liebgott said from nearby. His trombone sat on the ground next to him while Liebgott’s arms were wrapped around his knees. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Alley rolled his eyes and watched the flutes continue their practice. The sunlight glinted off the shiny exterior of their silver-colored instruments. He noticed the trembling arms of some of the flute and clarinet players and snorted. What, were the instruments heavy or something?

“It’s so fucking hot,” Compton muttered, loud enough to be heard by the other members of the trombone section, but soft enough to not be overheard by Sobel. “I wish God loved me enough to let me die.”

A few marchers murmured their agreements in response.

“Well, count your blessings,” Kitty said, glancing briefly at Sobel before holding up her phone and showing the screen to everyone in her section. The weather app displayed icons of dark clouds. “Storm’s about to come in like an hour. Maybe less.”

“Awesome,” Alley said. “We get to go inside!” In celebration, he began to sing, “I bless the rains down in Africa!”

Liebgott cast a wary look at Alley and sighed. “Please shut up.”

“Sing for me, Lieb,” Alley said to his fellow trombone player. “I bless the rain!”

“Alley-”

“I’m not gonna jinx it, Lieb,” Alley said. He grooved in place while he hummed the song. His fingers played fake guitar with his lanyard, which held his dot sheets that he hadn’t quite memorized, but he wasn’t stressed over it. Low brass formations were never terribly fancy; all he needed to do was follow what the trombones on either side of him were doing. Marching in straight lines was easier than pie.

“You’re freaky with wishes, man,” Liebgott said, frowning. In the distance, he saw Webster nearly drop his clarinet and slap his arm after, apparently, a bee stung him there. From the clarinet section, a panicked, “They got me!” announced to the band the precarious situation. Liebgott, mostly to himself, muttered, “What an idiot.”

Compton, who was sitting a few feet down, closer to the 35 yard line, nodded in agreement to what Liebgott had said earlier. Wishes were kinda weird with Alley. 

The statement wasn’t without a valid reason. Luz had once joked with the junior trombonist that he was like a genie. Alley had the (as of yet, unverified by any scientific method) power to make something happen, but not the way you would’ve wanted it to happen. Case in point, the time in chemistry last year when he and Chuck Grant had been partners in a lab and Alley was loudly complaining about the chill in the room. Not even a minute later, the lab group nearest to them wrecked their lab project so spectacularly that the whole thing went up in a ball of flames, along with a decent portion of their notebooks left on the table.

There was more than just the lab incident. Alley once joked in about wanting to have a longer winter break. That wish was granted when the regular winter break was extended for another week due to heavy snow and icy roads. Alley once mentioned how he didn't want to take a math midterm on a Friday and the math teacher, the assigned sub teacher, and the sub on standby got food poisoning.

Perhaps Luz calling Alley a genie was a misnomer. It wasn’t so much he granted the wishes of other people. The common denominator for these incidents was that Alley was the one doing the wishing.

“Who said anything about going inside?” Randleman said. The sousaphone player was seated fairly close to where the trombones were gathered together. The tall marcher appeared to tower over them despite sitting down like the rest of them. “We’re brass. We play in the rain.”

“Like I said,” Liebgott continued. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“I love playing in the rain,” Kitty said. She was tying her strawberry-blonde hair back into a bun. “It makes me feel one with nature. Like when I listen to Stevie Nicks.”

“Uh huh. Well,” Alley said, not sure how to respond to what Kitty said. “Like, it’ll be cloudy at least. Blocking the sun and shit. That’s literally all I ask for.” Moe felt like his shirt, and shorts even, were plastered to his skin like glue on paper mache. The humidity was almost too much to bear. The air was stickier than usual. But, if Kitty’s prediction rang true, it was probably on account of the storm that was supposed to come through. 

Liebgott opened his mouth, hesitating for a second before finding his words. “Think dark cloud thoughts.”

“Alright,” Alley said.

“Nothing weird. Just shade. And wind.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t blow this for us.”

“Yeah, totally,” Alley said. “Dark clouds. Shade. Wind.”

“Yeah, Alley!” Compton called out. It was a testament to how focused on the flutes Sobel was that the band instructor didn’t react to it. “Work your magic!”

Alley rolled his shoulders and made a show of stretching his fingers and neck. Finally, he tightly closed his eyes and thought cloudy thoughts. Wind. So much wind. Cold wind. And shade, lots of shade from clouds.

He considered something. Maybe some rain. For Kitty.

A few minutes of intense thinking later, Sobel instructed the rest of the band to get to their feet and get from sets 5 to 30. 

Alley brought his trombone up and followed the other trombones to their original position. 

Cold wind. Shade. A little bit of rain. Cold wind. Shade. A little bit of rain.

Chapter Text

Lipton didn’t worry too much about the first drop of rain that landed right in his right eye. He simply waved his hand to catch Dick’s attention regarding the incoming weather. Dick smiled and nodded, giving an announcement that woodwinds needed to put their instruments away inside the band room. 

“But return to the field as soon as you’re done,” Dick continued after Lipton stored his piccolo away. “It’s just a little rain.”

However, the light drizzle started to come down harder a few minutes later once the woodwinds had all their instruments packed away. 

Lipton bit back a curse at having forgotten his cap at home. He knew exactly where in his room the damn thing was. He’d tossed it onto his stack of Nat Geos next to his bed, making a mental note to grab the thing when he left for camp the next morning. Newsflash: the mental note slipped his damned mind.

Lipton made a mental note to put down notes for his future self down on paper.

“Guys, I know we don’t have our instruments, but when they call for attention,” he began, facing the flute players in his section. “Hands up.” The senior demonstrated this by clasping his arms into a fist and holding it up in front of his body where his flute would usually be. He watched the other flute players mirror his action before waving his hand down. “Just remember that.”

The four drum majors clapped four times before shouting, “Band ten hut!”

“Hut!” the band responded in kind.

Lipton glanced around his section and saw the flute players with their hands up. He grinned and released his hands from fists quick enough to give them a thumbs up before bringing his attention back to the front.

“I know most of y’all don’t have your instruments,” Dick began, looking around at the band. “But we’re still gonna do our best here. We’re gonna start tackling Act 3.”

Groans echoed across the field.

“Guys, we’re at attention,” Talbert called from the middle of the field. The flute player had previously auditioned, and gotten the part, of the flute solo during the second act of the show. Thus, he was further away from the rest of his band.

“Thanks, Tab,” Dick said over the sudden roar of the wind. Lipton was almost positive that the only reason he managed to hear the ginger was due to the fact that the flute section was so close to the front of the field. Dick frowned at the sky and bent down to pick up the megaphone near him. He turned it on. “Alright, so we all know how to find our dots, right? Make note of how many steps it takes to get to your dot and we’ll go from there.”

Lipton glanced down at the his newest dot sheet. They’d passed them out earlier that day, so he had no idea why no one thought they wouldn’t be starting to figure it out the same day. According to his sheet, he needed to take 12 steps to get to his place 1.75 steps inside the 25 yard line, which also happened to be 2 steps in front of the front hash. Once he figured this out, he began the task of helping the freshmen and some of the sophomores find their spots as well.

“If it’s just right there,” a tall freshman named John Janovec was saying, pointing at a relatively short distance from his current dot. “Why’s it say I need 16 steps to get there?”

“Just take really, really small steps,” Lipton said. He demonstrated, marching on his heels, rolling only slightly. “I’m talking really damn tiny.”

“Duck steps!” Talbert shouted at the freshman from a few feet away.

“Duck steps!” Smokey parroted from where the clarinets were getting sorted.

Finding the first dot of Act 3 took all of one minute, which was a new record this season. From that dot, Lipton helped his section (and any section that managed to cross his path) find their dots. Grumbles were at a minimum, the rain and wind seemed to die down, and everything was going so smoothly. 

Suspiciously smoothly. 

Lipton had the strange feeling that the other foot was going to drop.

“Let’s get back to the end of Act 2,” Dick said into the megaphone. “And get all the way back to where we are now. How’s that sound?”

A cheer rang across the band, as the drop in temperature seemed to give them all a boost of much-needed energy. The colorguard held their white rifles at their first position from where they were gathered in an arc around the back section of the band. Everyone ran back to their old dots and stood at attention, waiting for their next instructions, when suddenly the drizzle became a downpour. It changed in a split second with nothing, not even a thunderclap, to signify it was going to happen.

Curiously, Lipton noticed how Speirs smiled into the sky in amusement. Lipton couldn’t say if he’d ever seen the drum major smile before. 

He should do it more often , Lipton thought, smiling himself as he blinked away the raindrops that fell into his eyes.

“Well,” Popeye Wynn said from behind Lipton. Lipton wiped, or attempted to wipe, some water from his face (but the difficulty of that was immense, as one couldn’t easily wipe away water with more water) and turned to see the sophomore slick back his now dark hair and uselessly wring his hands. “I’m wet.”

“Does that mean we’re going inside?” Janovec asked.

“What? This is nothing,” Lipton said, truthfully. “You should’ve seen us during the last day of camp before family day for our pirate show. We didn’t go inside for an hour.”

“Oh my God, I’m gonna drown,” the freshman said.

“Band, we’re still at attention!” Nixon called out, looking as ridiculous as ever with rain water dripping down all over his drinking hat. “Horns are still up!” Nixon made a face. “Well, you know what I mean.”

The drum majors waited for the band to quiet down before Dick announced that they were still going to do resume their practice.

“No one goes inside until we see lightning,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. They were the Toccoa High School Marching Band. All day, all night, rain, shine, tidal wave, whatever, they pushed on.

The band got to work, watching the drum majors conduct while they slowly marched their way (with a slower tempo) towards their dot. It almost seemed like they were going to make it all the way towards the end of Act 3 when—

“What the FUCK!” a voice screamed from the back of the band.

And with that cry came a heavier downpour. However, rather than the rain that they were powering through, what fell down was harder and colder.

“Alley, you monster!” Lipton heard Liebgott cry out. Lipton turned to see how exactly Liebgott was going to exact his rage on the junior. However, before he could find them, something hard and sharp hit his face and he let out a cry of his own.

“Everyone, head towards the band room!” Speirs commanded calmly into the megaphone. “That means you, Blithe.” 

Lipton briefly wondered how he managed to stay so calm through all this, but Speirs was already so goddamn weird.

Lipton raised his hands over his head as he witnessed hail crash into the ground all around him. The trees that lined the back of the field whipped back and forth in the strong winds. Marchers were shouting and scrambling and running in every direction, looking for cover. From the front of the band, the drum majors themselves were finding cover and the Pit looked more distressed than Lipton had ever seen them, arguing about where they were going to put the instruments.

Lipton tapped the area of his face above his cheek and held those fingers in front of his eyes, briefly noticing the red color on them before it washed away in the rain.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself before doing a 180 around him, making sure there weren’t any freshmen trapped under the hail of a, well, hailstorm.

Lipton cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “No marcher left behind!” As if to emphasize his order, deafening thunder boomed above, followed a few seconds afterwards by criss-crossing lightning that lit up the previously soot colored sky into a pale blue.

Near-neon lightning continued to flash across the heavens, followed by the deafening boom of a thunderclap. Flash, thunder. Flash, thunder.

Like the 4th of July, he thought, unexpectedly.

There was shouting and laughter, along with the sound of Tipper screaming about his eye.

Brass players dashed towards the direction of the band room, guarding their instrument with as much as their body as they could spare. Trumpets and mellophones were stuffed underneath shirts and trombones were pressed against rib cages. The sousaphone section appeared to channel the spirits of cheetahs, if the sight of them outpacing the majority of the brass (with that massive instrument wrapped around them, no less) was anything to go by. Hoobler was screaming something about “I’m a lightning conduit!”

Soon, it appeared Lipton was the only person in his section still out in the rain. He walked around, ignoring the wet feeling of his socks and shirt and jeans. The area of his cheek that had gotten hit still dully throbbed in pain, stinging whenever rain landed on the cut. In fact, the downpour of hail appeared to have shifted back to just rain. The rain continued to pour continuously until there was a constant hum of raindrops hitting the blacktop and the trees and the parked (and now slightly dented) cars. If Lipton had the time, and was free of the responsibility of being a section leader, he wouldn’t mind just standing out here for a while. 

“The hell you still doing out here?” a voice came from the side of Lipton. Lipton turned, shielding his eyes with a hand although he continued to blink furiously against the rain. As far as he was concerned, he had an easier time making out shapes and such when his head was dunked underneath the surface of his neighborhood’s pool. It took him a moment, but he finally made out the owner of the voice standing next to him. Ronald Speirs.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Litpon asked, pointedly. If Speirs was going to say anything about a section leader being away from his section, Lipton had all rights to say something about a drum major being away from his band.

Speirs shrugged, his previously curly brown hair falling over his forehead in waves underneath the weight of the rainwater. “Nothing wrong with a little rain.”

Lipton raised his eyes, incredulous. “A little rain, huh?”

“You ever been in a hurricane?”

“No.”

“This qualifies as a little rain.”

Lipton considered this as he watched the clouds above moving across the sky enough for the sun to peek through. The former hailstorm was officially a sunshower.

“Have you?” Lipton began.

“Have I what?” Speirs asked.

“Been in a hurricane,” Lipton said. “Because between how you were allegedly raised by wolves, that you’re a secret heir to a millionaire, and that you actually have eleven toes, I can’t seem to keep up.”

The former Oconee High Dog looked at him with an amused look on his face and made a little snorting sound through his nose. “That one’s true.”

“Which one?”

Speirs smirked. “Guess.”

“And the eight-pack abs?” Lipton wondered aloud, deciding it was probably better to not guess.

Speirs made a humming sound and shrugged, failing to conjure the appropriate amount of innocence in his expression. “No idea where that came from,” he said, with a tone that said he knew exactly where that rumor came from.

Lipton smiled despite himself, looking away from the drum major to look back at the sky, squinting since the sun was coming more into view.

“We should probably get inside,” Lipton said.

“Probably,” Speirs returned.

Lipton and Speirs continued to stand in the rain for a few minutes more.

Chapter Text

David Webster was 70% sure he had a crush on Joe Liebgott, which was a problem since Liebgott was the worst possible person to have a crush on.

It wasn’t so much that Liebgott wasn’t attractive, or funny, or smart, or seemingly blessed with the most perfect hair in Toccoa. He was all of those things and more. It was just that Liebgott himself was insufferable and rude and always seemed pissed off for reasons unknown . He’d tried his luck with being friends, but their personalities seemed to react like alkali metal in water: something was gonna catch on fire.

“You know what classes you’re taking this semester?” Smokey asked. He, Webster, and a smattering of other seniors, were casually lined up in the hallway outside the band room. The line led towards the entrance of the orchestra room, which was currently retrofitted into a uniform fitting room. It was due to be a long day, what with trying on uniforms, bibbers, gloves (Webster technically could’ve used his from last year, but he’d lost them during the months that followed since the last marching band season. They probably found its way inside the donation bin his mom was always refilling and dumping at Goodwill twice a year), getting helmets (seniors had priority for the new non-dented helmets that arrived this year), and shoes (if you needed them. Some miracle had guarded Webster’s shoes from last year, and he didn’t get holes in the soles this time around. Less pivoting than usual, he guessed).

“Tons of APs,” Webster said. He wasn’t sure if he were too concerned about it, but he was aware it wasn’t going to be easy. He was mostly worried about AP Physics, since he wasn’t much of a math-minded person. He was looking forward to AP Literature. He’d only heard good things about Mrs. Levi, the teacher for that class. He’d heard that reading The Importance of Being Earnest was turned into a whole event. There was even the collaboration with the school’s theater department with the Oedipus play. He hadn’t seen the annual performance the previous years it had been put on. Apparently the final act of the play had fake blood galore.

Smokey gave Webster a sympathetic look. “Yikes. Power to you, man.”

Webster shrugged. “I’ve made it this far. Hey, you know I’m really looking forward to the new marine biology class with Thornton. I bet we’ll get field trips to the Georgia Aquarium and everything.”

“Don’t you start with the sharks again, Web,” Katherine Page said from the other side of him.

“What do you got against sharks, Katherine?” Webster asked.

Katherine rubbed her face and gestured at Webster's shirt which was, incidentally, rocking a blue and white shark pattern. Smokey cackled.

“Whatever, Katherine. Hey Smokey, wanna hear a shark joke?” Webster took a step forward, since the line jumped forward when a senior entered the orchestra room. “What did the shark plead in court?”

“What?” Smokey asked, still laughing, as Katherine audibly groaned.

Webster opened his mouth to answer when Liebgott exited the doors of the band room, twisting open the top of his water bottle with the clear intention of filling it in the water fountain. He was wearing cropped black t-shirt that had the face of a detective on it, someone called “Dick Tracy” in a bold yellow font. It also looked like Liebgott was trying not to roll his eyes if the pinch of his eyebrows was any indicator. With his annoyingly perfect hair.

“Gill-ty,” Liebgott answered, the bottle top popping open.

Smokey laughed harder and Webster’s eyebrows jumped to the top of his head, ears burning with from an emotion he couldn’t place. “Yeah. Yeah. Lucky guess!”

“No,” Liebgott shook his head. “You said the same joke last year in AP Lang, Web.” With that, he walked down to the water fountain.

“Oh,” Webster said to himself. He barely paid attention to what Smokey was currently talking about, something about how tough Mr. Guiterrez’s Calc class was supposed to be. Try as he might (though, who was to say he was actually trying), he couldn’t hear Smokey and Katherine’s conversation over the sound of blood rushing through his ears, over the sound of Liebgott’s voice saying “last year in AP Lang”.

Liebgott remembered a joke he’d told.

Liebgott remembered a joke he’d told.

By the time Webster walked into the orchestra room where band moms were sorting through the green and orange uniforms hanging on a rack, he was 90% sure he had a crush on Liebgott. How it jumped up 20% extra percentage points was less a mystery and more having to do with the way Liebgott had not-so-subtly smirked when he said “Gill-ty”.

Fuck, how embarrassing was that?

Chapter Text

“Friday Night Lights, The Replacements, or Necessary Roughness?”

Roy Cobb gave Perconte an unimpressed look, frowning as he organized the music in his band folder. “Is this for movie night?”

“Yeah,” Perconte answered.

“The movie night that’s tonight? That movie night?”

“Yeah,” Perconte answered.

“And Dike probably asked you to organize this, what, weeks ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you think it reflects poorly on you as a junior to put this off until the la—”

“You gonna choose a movie or not, Cobb?”

“Waterboy,” Cobb said, smirking.

“Get fucked, Cobb,” Perconte said, brushing past him to where a freshman named Earl McClung (lovingly nicknamed “One Lung” on account of him joining the band as an asthmatic) was unscrewing the valves of his mellophone in order to oil them down.

“Hey, McClung? Friday Night Lights, The Replacements, or Necessary Roughness?”

It wasn’t so much that Perconte had put off gathering the list until the last minute. Or, perhaps that was very much the gist of the situation, but it was more complicated than that. The job was originally designated to Burton Christenson at the beginning of camp, a fellow trumpet player, and had agreed to get the band to choose between three football-themed movies. However, that plan had fallen to the wayside when Christenson announced that he needed to get his wisdom teeth removed halfway through the first week of band camp. By then, he hadn’t even chosen the three football movies. Which, fair enough, he was going through a lot at the time, what with his whole jaw being sore and puffy looking and being unable to play the trumpet (just finger along and hold it an its upright playing position doing fuck all in the meantime). As Christenson would get picked up early during camp days to recover at home, he shopped around the rest of his section for anyone else willing to take up the movie job.

No one volunteered.

Then, Christenson said he’d pay the person ten bucks.

So Perconte (and Luz) jumped at the chance because ten bucks can buy a lot of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Perconte and Luz flipped a coin on it and Perconte won. The job was his.

Here was the issue though: marching band was exhausting. A typical day consisted of waking up at ass o’clock in the morning, practicing for hours under the hot Georgia sun, having a quick chug-and-go for water breaks and a thirty minute breather for lunch. Whatever water you had time to swallow is pouring out of your body from every existing sweat gland in your body, so much so that by the day’s end you’ve managed to lose half your body weight in sweat alone (not to mention the fat that leaves you with calves of steel). Plus, all that sweat makes you smell like shit because deodorant does nothing in humid 90 degrees. The sun might even burn through your shitty dollar store sunscreen and every muscle you have the disadvantage of possessing hurts in such a way that you’ve half a mind to die of starvation by curling up in the fetal position for the remainder of your life if it meant that you wouldn’t have to ever move again. Rinse, repeat.

So, Perconte might have shelved the movie job into a lower priority than he had initially anticipated.

Two days before the movie night (one of the few recompenses given to the marchers after working so damn hard), Perconte woke up in a cold sweat (three hours before ass o’clock in the morning) suddenly, suddenly, remembering the movies.

The past two days was spent watching as many football movies as he could find and settling on the three he liked the most. He had downloaded all three movies (from, admittedly, sketch websites but desperate times call for desperate measures) on stand-by in his laptop, and all he needed to do was settle on one.

“Um,” McClung inspected his valve before twisting it back in. “I don’t watch sport movies.”

Perconte gave a tight smile. “Just choose whatever sounds like something you’d watch.”

“Probably, uh, Necessary Roughness? Title sounds weird.”

Perconte looked down at his notebook, opened to the page titled MOVIE NIGHT (underlined an undefined number of times due to the anxiety that racked his body while he was writing it down. He thought the lines tore through the page). Very few tally marks covered the page underneath the 3 columns representing the movies, but any number of tally marks was better than zero. He added a tally underneath the column for Necessary Roughness.

“Thanks man, you’ve been a real help,” Perconte said before walking to the next nearest marcher. “Hey, Dukeman, Friday Night Lights, The Replacements, or Necessary Roughness?”

Chapter Text

Movie night was a hit. Not too much because of the movie (Necessary Roughness won out), but because of the spontaneous dance party that began in the art room.

“I’ll start at the beginning,” Smokey said, recounting the events of the night to his girlfriend on the other end of the phone. The senior girl, Elizabeth, was at a summer getaway with friends from her orchestra class. Smokey could hear the cello player's friends giggle in the background.

It had been only a few days before Family Day. Everyone was antsy about finishing the show. All the fine tuning would be done later, which was no problem. It was simply exciting to be marching like one entity, finally, accomplishing the task they had devoted most of their summer to. Competition Season, of course, would be hell on earth (not to mention juggling actual school work on top of preparing for competing with other bands). But that was tomorrow’s problem. That day, the color guard and woodwinds (instruments strategically set to the side) swung and danced their flags across the field in the third act. The fanciful picture of flags fluttering and dancing of the bright-colored flags over the blacktop, led by the undisputed leader of the color guard: Erica (who had the misfortune of being nicknamed "Eggy" her freshman year due to a senior prank involving chickens gone wrong). That day, the drumline played sharp rhythms that carried the band forward. That day, he watched the horns move as a unit, marching in a straight line to the front of the field, blasting the last note of the show in such a deafening harmony it made goosebumps travel up his arms.

Although they still had two more days of band camp (and school would start the week after next), Smokey would never grow tired of the proud feeling that filled him that came from finishing band camp.

Sobel had called the band up to the front, and they all sat expectantly on the ground under the sunset painting the sky a warm orange hue. The air was cooler, his arms ached as they always did, and Sobel was wearing one of his weird smiles. Smiles always looked weird on the man, as if his face was built around the objective of constant frowning and any deviation from that would push him into Uncanny Valley, but smiling always meant the man was in a good mood. He wasn’t gonna jinx that.

Their band instructor congratulated them all on a job well done, thanking the drum majors for their leadership in guiding the band, and eventually let them go off to sectionals. The sectionals lasted about a second in length because everyone’s minds were set on the popcorn and drinks and pizza and movie playing inside.

“Turns out there was more than just that. Sobel had to leave early to visit some lady friend of his, so someone set up a fucking casino thing in the chorus room. If Sobel was there, he woulda crawled our asses,” Smokey said, laughing loudly for a few seconds before continuing. “Now, whether it was Shifty or Compton who set it up, I ain’t gotta clue. All I know is that Babe walked into that room with 20 dollars and left five minutes later owing Compton 30 bucks and a pack of gum.”

The setup of the arts building was completely turned upside down to accommodate the size of the band and the activities they were planning on participating in. The band room, in all its musty glory, had the lights dimmed and the seats arranged around the big screen at the front of the room. The previews were playing loud enough to hear in the hallway and Perconte was loudly trying to fix the volume problem, cursing loudly whenever something went wrong. In the hall itself was a popcorn machine and a snowcone maker with dozens of kids lined up to get both. Some artsy kid, a freshman or a sophomore or whoever, had set up a line herself for anyone who wanted their face painted.

“Folks like to complain about some chick being heavy on the makeup, but give some dude face paint and he goes buck wild,” Smokey said.

The face paint, as it turned out, glowed in the dark. Smokey was certain either Popeye or Skip made some Dateline joke about that both Webster and Liebgott had called out for its immaturity (which had them looking awkwardly at each other, which Smokey thought was hilarious).

The movie wasn’t anything special in Smokey’s opinion. He was more of a baseball movie fan himself. Give him Field of Dreams or A League of their Own or even The Sandlot any day of the week. Football movies weren’t it for him.

The highlight of the movie wasn’t the movie itself. He stayed long enough with a bag of popcorn to see Luz walk up to the stage, saying something about this was his “favorite part of the movie”.

“Then,” Smokey said, “He was all like, “Give me a hat! I need a hat!” and then someone gave him a hat and then he also put on a jacket and zipped it up. And then he performed the scene.”

Once the scene came on, Luz had promptly threw down the hat he was given onto the ground, mouthing the words that the coach was saying on the screen. “Not a goddamn thing's been working for us!” the coach said. As the onscreen coach continued on his tirade, Luz stripped himself down from his jacket (here, Smokey pointed out that Luz was wearing another jacket underneath for the full effect), stripped off the second jacket, threw down an imaginary tie, and got as red in the face as the fictional coach. 

“You go out there! You tear their fucking heads off! And you shit down their necks!” it had finished. Luz brought his palms together and bowed his head. “Let us pray,” he had mouthed alongside the coach.

The movie had held little interest for Smokey after Luz’s performance art. Like he’d said, football wasn’t his cup of tea. 

“Then I got my face painted like Robin,” Smokey said. “Whites around my eye and outlined with black. All I needed was my clarinet to double as a baton.” He wiggled his eyebrows slyly even though Elizabeth wouldn’t have seen over the phone. “I also just needed a Batgirl.”

He heard a snorting laugh over the phone, followed by his girlfriend calling him an idiot.

Smokey had entered the art room. He’d heard dance music being played in their, but the room was pretty empty, save the mellophones. And Kitty.

They had been busy moving chairs out of the way, even Cobb (although he complained the entire time about the noise the chairs made being dragged across the floor). Paintings and charcoal drawings hung from the walls, along with works of pretty crappy pastel pottery that lined the shelves. He supposed that some art students decided to leave their creations in the room after graduating (he had plenty of teachers who would ask to keep works of art done by students that would later be displayed on the classroom walls. His AP United States History teacher even had art on one of her walls done by students dating back a couple of decades, which made sense since the teacher was, like, a million years old). Popeye said they looked good, but Smokey was colorblind. What did he know about art? He could only draw stick figures standing in place. No teachers ever asked him if they could keep his artwork.

The song playing from someone’s speaker hadn’t been one he recognized, but that didn’t stop Smokey from bobbing his head up and down and making his way towards the center of the room bopping to the beat.

“Now did I start the dance party?” Smokey asked with a laugh. “Did Americans land on the moon? The truth is out there.”

Whether or not he started the dance party, it didn’t take long for the mellophones to begin shaking their thang in their own unique way. Cobb watched from sidelines because the dude was allergic to fun.

Soon after, the sound’s of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” blasted from the portable radio, so loud that the radio seemed to bounce a little from the vibrations booming from the speakers. Smokey was no dancer, but he channeled the energy of every music video background dancer in his memory and let it all out on the makeshift dance floor.

“Tipper screamed his head off about a dance party so then everyone wanted to get down on it. Did I ever mention Tipper wears an eyepatch now? The hailstorm fucked up the dude’s right eye, but he’s all like “No, I gotta support the band no matter what!” I’d’ve been, like, fuck that, for real!”

Soon after, the art room began to get crowded. All but a few lights were turned off. The paint on the marchers’ faces glowed in neon designs (because whoever that freshman or sophomore artsy girl was, she was a genius). A soul train of sorts had formed and people danced down the line.

“There was even a disco ball. I didn’t even know we had a disco ball!”

A variety of songs had played, from weird polka to dubstep. A Led Zeppelin song had even been thrown in the mix and everyone did air guitar. Eventually, the songs had somehow landed on disco. 

“I later found out this was Grant’s playlist. This dude listens to literally everything.”

Smokey learned many things that evening. Firstly, Christenson could do the worm. Secondly, that Renée could do a split. Thirdly, that Malarkey, Skip, and Penkala were probably the best dancers of the robot that he’d ever seen (Compton might’ve been just as good, but he burst in the room at the end of the song with arms full of popcorn shouting over the music that he hated this song). Fourthly, Nixon could do a backflip, although he had to quickly run outside to throw up after he did it. Fifthly, both Talbert and Welsh could breakdance like a motherfucker.

“That wasn’t that big of a surprise because I went to the same science camp as those two. I saw them breakdance years ago. I think Talbert taught Welsh how. They both just got weirdly better at it.”

Sixthly, and most surprisingly, both Webster and Liebgott could hold their own in a dance-off.

“I don’t know how to describe dances, but Webster was like this ,” Smokey said, flapping his arms and contorting his back in one fashion. “And Lieb was like that .” He did different flapping and contorting. “It was crazy. It was unbelievable. I can’t believe I didn’t get it on video!”

Elizabeth pointed out that she couldn’t see a single thing Smokey just did, so he promised to show her once he saw her that weekend.

If anyone was more surprised at the night’s events than Smokey, it was Liebgott. He had given Webster an odd look at the end of an Earth, Wind and Fire banger, sweating and panting their asses off. Smokey didn’t know what came of it because the radio had switched to a song he hated and he had to leave, for the sake of his health. Nothing was worse than an earworm wiggling around in his head when he planned to hit the hay.

“So that was cool. And, oh yeah, a couple of freshmen got into a fight in the girl’s bathroom and dislodged one of the stall doors, so a group of us spent the rest of the night trying to fix it before Sobel found out later on.”

“See, this is why I never joined band,” said his girlfriend. “We’re nowhere near as weird as you guys.”

“How was that weird?” Smokey argued into the phone.

“You broke a bathroom door!”

“I didn’t break it. And did you miss me talking about the dance party? Because we had a dance party.”

“Before that, Luz started stripping during the movie.”

“It wasn’t stripping. It was performance art. It was funny.” Smokey paused. “Hey, y’all are plenty weird.”

“How is orchestra weird?”

“Not orchestra, Liz. Drama club.”

“That’s a different type of weird.”

“It’s a different type of weird, my ass,” Smokey said. “Y’all had a Rocky Horror flashmob in the cafeteria during Spirit Week last year. That’s weird.”

“I’m hanging up,” Elizabeth said.

“No wait, I haven’t even gotten to the part of the night where Shifty blew up the cotton candy machine.”

Elizabeth hung up.

Chapter Text

Nixon didn’t need a sixth sense to pick up on the near-electric excitement and growing anticipation that had radiated from the marchers only minutes before the band was due to set off for their summer trip to see the Drums Corps International at the Georgia Dome. 

In opinion, DCI was the highlight of the band camp season. It was more memorable than something as simple as a movie night or playing in the rain or snow cone night or (obviously) the dreaded picture day that had yet to occur.

Hell, even the bus ride to Atlanta was worth looking forward to since Sobel, for all his hard-assness didn’t shirk when it came to top quality shit. Nixon would never admit it out loud, but that was one thing the current band director had over the previous one. But he wouldn’t get caught dead giving the man a compliment. 

DCI was an opportunity to blow away high school marching bands with the sheer power and energy emanating out of the rows of shiny horns. It was a time to become awed at the patterns the professional marchers were able to form, whether they were spirals or rotating boxes or entire moving images that could give an impression of a bird in flight. (It was also a time for the woodwinds to make a loud case for allowing their instruments in the profession while getting summarily shut down by the brass).

There were the Bluecoats, Cavaliers, the Blue Devils, Phantom Regiment (Nixon’s personal favorite ever since he saw their Three Musketeers show his freshman year), the Spirit of Atlanta (Sobel had performed with them in his youth), the Mandarins, Carolina Crown, among others. It was a chance to kick back, relax, and have your eardrums ruptured like you were in the front row of a dubstep concert (a genre that Nixon would never admit he liked out loud).

Currently Nixon was sitting on the bus, legs outstretched over the two connecting seats in his row. They were fancy seats, covered in a fuzzy grey and maroon checkered pattern. Every so often, he’d raise his eyes from the book he was reading (Frankenstein was required summer reading before AP Literature began in the fall and Nixon was many things, a dog owner, a classical music connoisseur, a borderline teenage alcoholic, but he wasn’t a slacker). He’d mutter “Taken” to any person who wasn’t a pale and lanky redhead who passed down the length of the bus looking for a place to sit down.

“Damn, Nixon, you can’t just save seats,” Hoobler said as he reached where Nixon was sitting. He was wearing a Bluecoats sweatshirt, all ready and prepared to support his favorite marching band. In his hands was a tupperware container of something homecooked, a common sight among a good third of the band since not everyone was willing to pay outrageous prices for food at the Dome. 

“I’m a drum major, Hoob,” Nixon replied. 

“So?” Hoobler questioned, dragging out the vowel like he didn’t have anything else to do.

“So, tough shit,” Nixon returned without malice. He smiled at the young sousaphone player. “Find a seat. Have a nice day.”

“Better luck next time, Hoobler” a voice said and, thank fuck that Nixon didn’t have dog ears or else they would’ve perked up and he’d never be able to live it down. He bookmarked Frankenstein and glanced up to where a familiar redhead was standing behind Hoobler with a drawstring bag hanging over one heavily freckled shoulder. “And I think Garcia and Hashey were looking for you. They’re on bus two.”

“Shit,” Hoobler said, immediately squeezing past Dick. “I thought this was bus two.” And with that, he was off. 

The bus was beginning to get louder and would undoubtedly get louder still. There were overhead television sets (fancy as hell) which would soon be playing something Disney. Nixon knew someone told him the title. He thinks Perconte might’ve asked him to vote on one. Nixon was unfamiliar with each title except The Lion King . That, Aladdin, and Mulan were the only Disney movies he’d ever seen and the two others weren’t on the list. He didn’t think The Lion King won. He probably would’ve remembered that.

Beyond the tv sets, the noise of the bus would become filled with jokes, chatter, and campfire songs in the vein of “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” and “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” until somebody screamed at them to shut up.

It was always the loudest going. The ride back always ended up with half the band asleep and drooling.

“Goin’ my way?” Nixon drawled, in a Georgian accent more reminiscent of his grandma than the accent he regularly spoke in. Supposedly, the accent reared its head when he was really, really drunk. Which, fortunately enough, was less and less often. But Dick had once said that the accent made him sound like a Classic Hollywood star. His words, not Nix’s. And it wasn’t accurate. Nixon had heard his grandmother speak and she wouldn’t have been allowed within fifty feet of a silver screen. That, and Classic Hollywood actors sounded almost British. And he’d know that since he was the one in this relationship that watched old movies. Hell, Nixon was pretty sure that Dick had never watched a movie made pre-1980. What did he know about Classic Hollywood actors and how they spoke?

Not that any of that mattered in the slightest. Nixon was just a pedantic asshole sometimes. And he thought it was a sweet thing to say. So, of course he randomly switched to that accent at any opportune moment since he knew Dick thought it was hot.

Dick smiled, his cheeks blotchy with a darkening shade of red. “Sure,” he said.

Nixon swung his legs out of the way so Dick’s giant self could sit down. 

“Don’t know why I have to do this,” Nixon began once Dick had gotten comfortable next to him. His boyfriend was wearing a purple Back to the Future hoodie. At least that’s what Nixon thought it was. It had that same 80s brunette on it, but he was wearing a cowboy hat this time. Maybe it was a different movie.

“Do what?”

“Save seats,” Nixon said. “I’ve got more than seniority rights. I’m a drum major, for Chrissake.”

“Yeah?”

“I think this status implies that any seat I’m sitting next to is reserved. I shouldn’t have to argue it.”

“Then don’t,” Dick simply said.

“Don’t what?” Nixon asked, idly flipping the pages of his book. “Argue it or reserve it.”

“Argue it. You’re a drum major for pete’s sake.”

Nixon snorted and playfully shoved Dick’s shoulder.

“Just one word: “Move it along”.”

“That’s three words.”

“And who got a 5 on the AP Lang exam?” Dick playfully demanded. At Nixon’s shaking head, he smirked. “Exactly.” 

Nixon began to put his book away into the bag he had at his feet.

“Is that any good?” he heard Dick ask. 

Nixon looked at the book and shrugged. “Dr. Frankenstein is kind of a dick.” At the unamused face Dick made, he began again. “He’s kind of an ass, I mean. A real headcase”

“That so?”

“Yeah, so like. He builds this life-form, right. He drops out of college and decides to go grave robbing for parts in order to create this life-form. However, once the life-form, Frankenstein’s monster, wakes up, the guy decides to abandon him. Just ups and leaves. Like an ass. Or a deadbeat dad. Deadbeat god? If anyone’s the monster here, it’s the doctor.”

“Would he even be a doctor?” Dick inquired. “You said he dropped out of college.”

“You’re right. It should be called “College Dropout Discovers the Meaning of Life and Shits on It: A Tragedy in Three Parts.”

Dick laughed.

“You know, in the book, he falls in love with his cousin. But, in other books it’s his adoptive sister.”

“So that’s why it’s a horror book,” Dick said in wonder, with the kind of tone that Nixon wasn’t totally sure if the drum major was joking or being serious. Suddenly, his face changed. “You know what’d be fun? A Halloween show?”

It was Nixon’s turn to make a face. “Sounds tacky. Plus, we already did that Edgar Allen Poe one. Which should’ve been more “Alan Parsons Project” and less of that Danse Macabre stuff. Anyway, remember that one competition at the Dome where that school performed a Christmas show? That must’ve felt like cruel irony during their band camp.”

“Everything sounds tacky at face value,” Dick stated. “What’s our show about again?”

Nixon cleared his throat. “What were you saying about that potential Halloween show again?”

“Now, imagine it starts off with the front ensemble playing the theme from The Exorcist .”

“You’ve seen The Exorcist? ” Nixon asked in undisguised disbelief.

Dick ignored Nixon and continued. “The trumpets might feature the theme from the Munsters.”

Nixon grinned. “Thriller’s gotta fit in somewhere. But let’s talk set design.”

And as the bus filled with the remaining students before driving off onto the road, the two drum majors continued to speculate at their seats about a potential Halloween show. They couldn’t agree on a name, nor whether or not to include Ghostbusters (Nixon argued the tackiness was going too far). Nixon didn’t notice when the Disney movie began and had no interest in paying attention to it since it wasn’t The Lion King . For now until Atlanta, Dick Winters had his attention. He didn’t have much to add to the conversation and was mostly content with listening to Dick’s imagination run wild.

Chapter Text

“So, like, what’s the big deal with DCI anyway?” Garcia asked. The freshman stood with Hashey. The two of them seemed to have become pretty close after the weeks of band camp.

Compton stepped off the bus for the second time this evening. The first stop, the band had stopped at the Varsity to grab a bite to eat. Somehow, someway, some freshman had gotten a large blotch of ketchup on Cobb’s shirt after tripping over his own feet. Cobb “blew a gasket” as they say, and would’ve punched the kid if Hoobler hadn’t intervened. For a while, the tension had become so thick, you could slice it like bread. Bull had eventually ended the fight with a few cutting words directed at both Cobb and Hoobler. Compton hadn’t heard, since his attention was focused mostly on the card game he was having with Babe Heffron who was sadly mistaken if he thought he was gonna win back his 20 bucks and pack of gum.

“It’s a demonstration of the best a band can be,” Compton answered, in a poor imitation of Sobel. Thankfully, Sobel was on the first bus. The ride to Atlanta on bus two was the smoothest ride anyone could ask for. “Naw, but seriously it’s just a good time. Loud music and expensive merch. It’s like going to a concert.”

“I hope Santa Clara Vanguard has a good show this year,” Skinny said. “I don’t know how they’ll top their Les Mis show, but I can’t wait to see it.”

“Do you have a favorite band?” Hashey asked this time.

Compton shrugged. “They’re all cool. Fun fact, did you know that Sobel used to play in one of those bands? I can show you a video later.”

And so the conversation continued. Their talking was momentarily interrupted when Dick did a quick roll call, but resumed shortly thereafter once they walked into the practically freezing dome building. Freshmen shivered and Liebgott, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, made a point to ask, “Didn’t anyone listen when I told y’all the dome was gonna be cold?”

“Don’t worry, Lieb, they’ll figure it out by November,” said Skip. “I’ve got a song that’ll help them remember.” Then Skip did a little dance because he was a “poet and he didn’t know it”.

The band formed a line to go up the ramp, which would eventually take them all the way up to the floor where they would be able to enter the stadium. At the floor, there were smells of all types of foods, from overpriced pan pizza to overpriced fried chicken. The Dippin’ Dots and funnel cakes were overpriced too, but Compton figured that was due to the nature of the products. Funnel cakes were always stupid expensive at carnivals. You couldn’t ever find Dippin’ Dots in any normal place, so of course they’d be pricey.

Of course, he was gonna get some.

Up ahead, he saw Dick and Nixon make their way inside the stadium, bypassing the food and merchandise. Compton remembered seeing Dick bringing along a packed dinner. Because, that was something Dick would do.

“Damn, I love the Mandarins,” he could hear Talbert say, “But I don’t know if I love them enough to pay 40 bucks for a t-shirt.” The brunet scanned the stand where merch was set up for that band. He finally held up something smaller. “Maybe enough for a wristband?”

“See you guys,” Compton said, quickly walking towards where he saw Penk’s curly head walk by. “Hey,” he asked when he saw Penkala. “When are y’all going in?”

“No idea,” Penkala said. “Malarkey’s had to pee since we left the Varsity and now I’m waiting for his ass.”

So, they waited. Compton found a planner that showed the lists of all the bands and the shows they’d perform. Unfortunately, the Boston Crusaders were going to be playing a pirate-themed show and it was only unfortunate because if Malarkey didn’t hurry up that bathroom break, he was gonna kill him.

And where was Skip?

“Hey, dudes!” Skip called from up ahead. “I got ice cream from the future!” He was carefully holding three containers of Dippin’ Dots and walked quickly through the lines of people who were headed every which way. “The ice cream is for y’all. Where’s Malarkey?”

“Bathroom,” Penk and Compton said together, gathering up the ice cream.

“Why the hell didn’t he pee at the Varsity?”

“Because I didn’t have to go then!”  Malarkey’s voice carried over the crowds of people in the Dome. “Cool, Dippin’ Dots! Which one’s mine?”

“I don’t know,” Skip answered, shrugging. “I chose flavors at random. I gotta bounce to get some pizza, but hurry up inside and save me a seat!” Then he dashed away.

“How’s he gonna get pizza in five minutes?” Malarkey wondered out loud. He decided to settle on chocolate chip Dippin’ Dots.

“I dunno,” Compton answered the redhead, around a spoonful of the rainbow kind he chose. “Why’d you take a nap on the toilet?”

“Hey!”

“So,” Penk began. “We headed inside, or?”

The three looked at each other and speed walked down an opening that led to the stadium inside. The crowd was, thankfully, fast moving. They chose seats that were high above the 35 yard line and waited impatiently for Skip to hurry back in.

The seats began getting filled. Compton saw fellow marchers further down, further up, further to the right. They saw marchers from other schools and laughed about how they were wearing matching t-shirts. 

“When are we getting our show shirts again?” Penk asked.

No one answered because, frankly, they had no idea.

“‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me, ma’am. Just gonna squeeze by here, sir,” the trio heard, looking up to see Skip twisting and turning around people trying to make his way down the steep stairs. Compton waved his hands around to catch Skip’s attention, who smiled and nodded after noticing. 

Once Skip got to the seat they saved, they heard the loudspeaker announce that people needed to get to their seats. Skip slapped the hands of his friends away, claiming the pizza was just for him, damn it. That didn’t stop Malarkey and Penk from whining for even a few slices of pepperoni. Skip pointed out that they weren’t even halfway done with their ice cream.

“Ssh!” Compton raised his finger to his lip. “The show’s about the start.”

Those were the magic words, for as soon as he said that, they saw the black and red uniforms of the Boston Crusaders enter the field and set up. With a wide grin on his face, Compton prepared himself for the deafening roar of brass.

Chapter Text

“Forgot to tell y’all I’m naming this dent ‘Amy’,” Hoobler said standing next to the rest of the members of the low brass, including Luz who, despite being a trumpet player, decided to join this sectional because the trumpets had finished their meeting early on and were now making their way to the field.

Because today was Family Day, the day after DCI. So morning practice had been short and sweet, more of a warmup than anything. It was over in an hour and everyone was jittery and hyper because of the long-anticipated snow cones and BBQ and distribution of the official band shirts that illustrated the theme of the show. Despite their pestering, nothing had ever come of Malarkey, Muck, and Penkala’s “Careless Whisper Proposal”.

Each member of the Toccoa High Marching Band (outside of the trumpets) were gathered together in post-camp day sectionals, divided into little pods all over the field. The dent Hoobler pointed at with his blue finger (temporarily stained from the instrument) was a reminder of the hailstorm they’d had a few weeks ago. “After my ex.”

“Why would you name a dent after your ex, Hoobler?” Martin asked, sounding judgemental.

“It maybe didn’t end on good terms,” Hoobler began, wrapping his arms around the sousaphone. “But I like to keep her close.”

Martin scoffed an “okay” and continued what he was saying. “Anyway, before I was rudely interrupted.”

Hoobler had the good sense to say “sorry”.

“It’s Moe’s birthday!” Martin reached over and ruffled the younger boy’s hair. Except, considering he was shorter than Moe, the section leader’s gesture was half ruffle and half dragging the kid down to his level. “Happy Birthday, man!” he said over the boy’s shocked protests.

As if that was the cue to begin, the rest of the low brass began singing a terrible-sounding rendition of “Happy Birthday” (with Luz doing his best to harmonize with his trumpet).

“Aw, shut up,” Alley said, looking absolutely mortified. “Jesus Christ.”

“Since it’s your birthday, know what that means, jolly good fellow?” Luz asked, trumpet now at his side. Without waiting for an answer, he continued with, “Seventeen punches. For a long and bountiful life!”

Alley made a face before resigning himself to his fate. He outstretched his arms. “Lay it on me.”

“3,” Luz began, raising a balled fist as Alley cringed, “2.” And on “1”, Luz opened his fist and wrapped both arms around the trombone player. “Bring it in, man.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, guys, group hug,” Luz said, urgently. “We’ve gotta get this boy seventeen seconds of sweet lovin’ before he feels bad and rains fire and brimstone on our asses.”

“Look what happened to Tipper,” Hoobler recalling how the hailstorm caught Tipper in the eye. That earned him a shove from a few different marchers. Poor Tipper and his badass eyepatch.

The remaining low brass followed suit, laying down their instruments on the blacktop and falling into place. Arms wrapped around bodies, faces squeezed against backs. The pile of marchers created their own little planet, with the unlucky fellows inside suffering against the boiling temperature of its core. A barely muffled “Jesus Christ” could be heard from the inside of the mound of hot and sweaty bodies.

At the end of the seventeen seconds (but who was counting, honestly?), the low brass unwrapped themselves, telling each other how gross the other smelled.

“C’mon, Bull,” Luz began, smiling at the taller section leader. “This close to the end of camp and you haven’t given us a speech yet.”

“Luz—” Randleman began, but Luz wasn’t having it.

“Speech. Speech.” Luz said, gaining support from the rest of the low brass. The chant continued. “Speech. Speech. Speech! Speech!”

Randleman smiled despite himself and opened his mouth to begin. “It’s been a long and demanding few weeks. But each and every one of you have come so far since the first day of camp. None of y’all backed out, even though I bet some of y’all were ready to pass out.” He made a pointed look at Blithe, who wore a sheepish smile. Garcia and Hashey gave him friendly shoulder squeezes as Randleman continued.

“The low brass is the powerhouse. Without us, without our beef, the rest of the band has nothing to rely on. And all of y’all are proof that this section is not just the best section of this band, but that we only get better each year.” Randleman made a face and gestured at Luz. “And Luz’s trumpet. Like Compton said, what would we do with George Luz?”

Luz quickly bowed, waving a hand grandly as he did so.

“This is our last day of band camp. Today is Family Day.” With that, the section cheered. “Then there’s school. Then, we’ll have to divide our time between tests and projects and preparing for competitions. These last few days, we’ve given it our all. Don’t start slacking later on, not when I know you have it in you. I’ve seen what y’all are capable of.”

“Jeez,” Hashey said in awe. “That’s the most I’ve heard you talk all summer.”

“Just get him started on old cars,” Liebgott muttered. “The magic words are 1970s Convertibles. He’ll go on for hours.” To Hoobler, it seemed like the trombone player spoke from experience.

“Hands in,” Martin ordered, ignoring Liebgott. The trumpets, trombones, sousaphones, and Luz, placed their hands in the middle of the circle they’d formed. Once everyone’s hands were in the middle, they all took a deep breath and shouted their traditional, and vulgar, rallying cry:

“GO LOW AND BLOW!”

Chapter Text

“You know what?” 

“What?” Popeye looked up at Smokey once he was done putting on the new band shirt. It was a dull orange and neon green, with a superimposed silhouette of a football player on the back to boot. Above the heart on the front of the shirt had “THMB” (Popeye liked to pronounce it “thumb”), the initials for “Toccoa High School Marching Band”, along with the year at the bottom. It looked to have been done with Papyrus font. How, on God’s green earth, did anything about football scream “Papyrus font”?

“I don’t think they look half bad.” finished Smokey, inspecting the shirt front to back. It still had all the creases of a newly minted shirt.

“Smokey, these shirts are ugly as sin,” Popeye said. “You won’t be hurting anyone’s feelings by saying so.”

“Wrong,” Smokey’s muffled voice continued. He was in the process of some strange acrobatics where he aimed to remove the black and white striped shirt he was still wearing after putting the new band shirt on. He was locked in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable entanglement. 

Popeye waited patiently until Smokey’s now red face finally poked out of the new shirt. He grinned, waving the removed black and white striped shirt in his hand. He dropped it unceremoniously over his bookbag. 

“Like I was saying,” Smokey said, breathing in the ragged way one does when they’re out of breath but trying desperately not to show it. “You’re wrong. Didn’t you have a neon purple shirt for your freshman show? The horror show?”

“That’s different,” Popeye said, defensively. “And “Nevermore” was before your time. The color guard had ghost costumes and the Pit played Danse Macabre and we acted like zombies during the drum break.” He wore a half smile. “It was a badass show.”

“I’m not talking about the show,” Smokey waved his hands. “I saw the show at my eighth grade night. I meant the shirts.”

“Even the ugliest shade of purple is better than the best shade of orange,” Popeye explained.

“The fuck it is.”

“Whatever,” Popeye adjusted his baseball cap, popping open his bottle of sunscreen. After squeezing a decent amount onto his hands, he tossed it to Smokey who did the same.

Oftentimes, Popeye wondered how different his high school life would’ve been if he hadn’t joined the marching band freshman year. He was a junior now and, looking back, he could’ve easily done a sport or something. Not that he would ever voice that out loud, questioning the validity (or lack thereof) of the marching band’s sport status. But marching band didn’t get you sports scholarships, so that settled that in his opinion. Even the cheerleaders could exempt their physical education requirement like the other jocks. 

In another life, he thought he may have liked to try his hand at Toccoa High’s baseball team. 

His real main gripe was that marching band took up so much of his time. Fun as it was during the summer (it gave him more than enough to do. Toccoa wasn’t the most exciting city, one of those places that struck him as nice to visit but sorta dull to live in), Family Day was, in every sense of the word, the beginning of the end. They were currently a hop and a skip away from the start of school. And with school came tests and studying and other obligations that he would try and fail to make time for. 

Then again, he really couldn’t even imagine how high school would’ve gone if he hadn’t gone with his gut and decided to march competitively. With a damn flute, no less.

Back in middle school, Popeye always thought the very concept of marching band was ill-conceived, at best. While he wouldn’t argue that the flutes had it the easiest (he, Talbert, Janovec, Lipton, and the others, were notorious for lazing around during their sectionals in the culinary classroom the floor above the band room; they would always scramble to hold their flutes at the ready position whenever they heard someone coming despite the fact that they had memorized their sheet music backwards and forwards), he couldn’t argue that it took a certain kind of dumbass to give up a perfectly good summer vacation and trade it away for sweating underneath Satan’s asscrack.

A shy kid in middle school, he had made so many friends during the weeks of his freshman band camp. The marching band was a hodgepodge of the student body; AP kids befriended slackers and metalheads buddied up with students in the drama club. Popeye had even befriended some relatively popular guys, because being in the marching band didn’t stop some kids from becoming popular. That surprised him.

Hell, he’d never once left the state of Georgia before his first band competition in South Carolina. Since then, he’d gone to Florida, Alabama, and he was anticipating the biannual big band trip to Chicago this school year since he’d missed his chance freshman year.

What is it about Family Day that gets me all sentimental? Popeye thought, smiling to himself. 

Hell, maybe good times were worth a semester of packed schedules. Who needs a normal social life?

“Hey!” Popeye called out to Smokey who appeared to be walking away with Popeye’s sunscreen still in his pocket. “You turning into Speirs or something?” He held out his hand. It had become a more-or-less unspoken joke among the more observant members of the band, about how Speirs tended to have sticky fingers. 

Smokey smirked and tossed it back, throwing it like he was dunking a basketball. “Race you to the field?”

“You’re on,” he replied, hand tightly gripping his flute case. He stood up and got into a running stance.

Earlier in the day, members of the band had busied themselves with the variety of end-of-camp activities surrounding the football field behind the school’s main building. After setting down their instruments on the rubbery red track just outside, situating them into intricate designs (the mellos made a diamond while the saxs made a pentagram. Sobel was not amused at the latter), and donning their new unattractive band shirts, they helped themselves to food trucks dedicated to hot dogs, snow cones, and burgers. Some teens bemoaned the lack of pizza, but between all the pizza Dick had consumed after a longer-than-typical day at camp, and all the pizza he knew they would eat with the band during the school year, he figured they could take a break from the darn pizza for one measly day.

As per the theme of the day, members of the band’s family also joined the band around the field. It would be another few hours before they introduced their finished show to the world. Dick treated himself to a Monster snow cone (not “Monster” as in the size, which was small, but “Monster” as in a surprise flavor that had the clipart image of a shark and nothing else. Of course, Webster got suckered in with the shark and couldn’t help but try the flavor for himself. But between the incredibly odd and sour flavor of the snowcone and the black crumb rubber that kept trying to slap off of his legs, Dick couldn’t tell what annoyed him more). 

To the chagrin of many parents, some marchers explained to their parents and siblings that they would just have to wait and see what they had been working on all summer just like everyone else. But a handful of other marchers were in a hurry to show off. Three girls in the color guard demonstrated flag tricks. Skip, Muck, and Penkala played nearly the entire first half of the show by themselves, Skip breaking off a few times to sub in for the percussion.

And while there were activities put on by some marchers, most were just content to relax and eat, not unlike he and Nix. After spending the first couple of hours with the combined Winters and Nixon troupe, the two sat on their own on the tall and steep steps leading down towards the field. Dick had a burger and Nix ate a hotdog. Dick talked about his excitement for their final marching band season and Nix got into his anxieties about the looming first day of senior year. Eventually, they were startled out of their chat by simultaneous notifications buzzing on their phone, ordering them to get ready. With a gleam in both of their eyes, they hurried to their feet, threw away their trash, and headed for their destination at the middle of the field.

Once the two arrived, Dick waved at an incoming Welsh and Speirs. Welsh waved back while Speirs nodded in Dick’s direction. Shaking his head, he made yet another mental note to crack through Speirs’s tough exterior before the band season was over.

Once the four drum majors were practically shoulder-to-shoulder, they clapped four times and shouted. 

“Band Ten Hut!”

And like a homing beacon, every member of the band and color guard doing their own thing, both inside and around the football field, stopped, perked up, and looked around. It took about a minute for everyone to get to the center of the field, and about five for the stragglers (kids still eating, kids in the bathroom, kids who couldn’t get out of a conversation with their parents) to follow suit. At Dick’s instruction, every sophomore and older joined hands and stretched out into a circle, grabbing confused freshmen by the hands until the circle expanded even further.

For what would come next, Dick wished he could’ve been powerful enough to amend tradition that had been in place at the high school since the 70s. Speirs, while a drum major, was just as new to Toccoa as the green freshmen. But unlike Alley, he wasn’t going to risk a hailstorm just because he felt like messing with unseen forces he couldn’t understand. So, he, Nix, and Welsh had filled Speirs in on the tradition. The fourth drum major hadn’t seemed too impressed, but 40 year old traditions weren’t exactly meant to wow. It was about the camaraderie.

“Alright,” Dick began. “Everyone close their eyes and bow their heads.” 

The freshmen looked around with questions in their eyes and on their tongues. “Wha-?” Julian began. 

“Mouths shut!” Speirs responded, in that harsh way that was typical of the former Dog.

Julian’s mouth slammed closed.

Welsh rolled his eyes at Speirs. “Please,” he added on Speirs’s behalf.

There was some muttering in response before there was silence in the circle. The only sounds came from the bleachers; the freshmen’s folks were probably wondering what was going on. 

Dick turned to the other drum majors and nodded before they separated. They walked around the circle and whispered instructions into the years of every freshman marcher and guard member they came across (or newbie in general, when it came to Speirs giving the same instructions to Blithe). 

Once finished, the four drum majors clapped four times again and shouted their regular three word phrase. When they got the attention of the excited marchers, and ever-confused freshmen, Dick started.

“On the count of three,” he said. Holding his hands up in a conductor’s stance, mirrored by the other drum majors, he continued with a steady wave of his arms. “One. Two. Three.”

“Some!” Julian began so loud, his voice cracked on the first word. His face went red in about a half second and Heffron caught an elbow to the stomach courtesy of Guarnere as he was unable to hold back a snort. However, the other newest marchers were quick to come to their fellow marcher’s aid.

“Times in our lives,” Garcia, Hashey, and other assorted freshmen (and Blithe) continued, with voices nowhere near as tune as their handheld instruments. “We all have pain. We all have sor-roooow!”

“But, if we are wise. We know that there's always tomor-roooooow!”

“Lean on me!” Dick and the other drum majors shouted as they joined in with the youngest marchers, who were now singing with their whole chest. The sophomores, juniors, and seniors started laughing in good humor, beginning to lean from side to side making the circle have a back and forth wave effect. “When you’re not stroooong. And I’ll be your friend.”

“YOUR FRIEND!” The remaining marchers yelled in response, causing Blithe to jump in turn.

“I’ll help you carry on.” Dick made a bring-it-back motion, urging the guys to keep going.

“For!”

“FIVE!” The other marchers yelled and cried out.

“It won’t be long!”

“SHORT!”

“‘Til I’m gonna need!”

“ELBOWS!”

“SOMEBODY TO LE-EEAN OOON!”  the band finished together.

At the last note, cheers erupted from their circle in the field. Any embarrassment the newest members of the Toccoa High School Marching Band felt was appeased by the knowledge quickly setting in that everyone before them had gone through something similar. 

“Okay, everyone grab your instruments,” Nix said. “We’re going through all three acts.”

“And,” Welsh added just as the marchers slowly headed towards the track where their instruments were arranged. “Remember to just keep your instrument up if you forget the notes. A wrong note is more noticeable than an absent note.” He smiled his golden smile. “And remember to have fun.”

“Let’s show them what we’re made of,” Speirs had added before the marchers ran off. Dick chuckled to himself. There was that competitive spirit again. How intense would he get by the time they actually started competing?

The drum majors also ran to their positions below their respective field podiums lining the front of the artificial green grass. In the time it took for the marchers to arrive at their spots on the football field, Sobel had finished giving his introductory speech about what the band had accomplished the past few months, the story of their show, and his appreciation for the parents for entrusting their kids into his care.

“Now ladies and gentlemen,” Sobel was finishing his speech. “The Toccoa High School Marching Band!”

That was the signal. Dick and the other drum majors clapped their hands four times.

“Band Ten Hut!”

“HUT!” The band shouted their response in unison.

And again.

“Ready horns up!”

Across the football field, a dazzling display of silver and bronze horns snapped up in sync reflecting the orange sun, nearly blinded Dick. 

Once the marching band were standing at attention, the four drum majors turned towards the crowded bleachers. At Sobel’s nod, the four of them began their salute. The idea was mainly Welsh’s, although Dick and Speirs helped to make it snappier and more “marching band friendly”. Their salute was more dance-like than previous years, taking inspiration from the dance in Remember the Titans. It had a few movements that made them move from the left to the right, backwards and forwards. With a slide to the right, both hands stretched outwards mimicking wings, the salute finished a final legitimate hand-to-head salute to the front. When Dick first performed a rough draft of the salute for Nix, his boyfriend had simply shook his head and responded that it was gonna wear him out if they had to do that every time they performed. Dick knew he liked it anyway, elaboration and all.

The crowd cheered from the bleachers and the drum majors headed to the top of their field podiums and faced the band once again.

Glancing to his right, he saw Nix’s hands form a conductor's stance, palms facing the band. To his left, he saw Welsh wiggle his fingers at Kitty. She was part of a box formed by members of the low brass right outside the 40 yard line. Without looking behind him, he knew the bleachers were filled with friends, family, and people who lived in the neighborhood adjacent to the school who probably wanted to know the reason for this year’s annual summertime racket.

And now, here they were. The orange and green-clad drum majors stood on their field podiums, the same ones used by nearly a decade-worth of drum majors before them. It was an odd feeling, one that he knew would probably become odder and odder as game nights came and went, not to mention the county’s exhibition in a month and a half’s time. And the competitions. But that anxiety was for tomorrow.

Time almost seemed to slow. He took a deep breath, knowing mere seconds separated his eventual exhale and the opening notes of the band. 

Now or never, he thought, before making sharp, almost militaristic, movements with his arms.

Chapter Text

Family Day was a glowing success. Rave reviews all around. The show only lasted fifteen minutes but, between all the hours the band had spent learning the music over the summer and the nerves that coursed through them like electricity, those fifteen minutes seemed to last forever. However, once the drums had ceased and the horns stopped blowing, the bleachers filled with their friends and families exploded with cheers so loud that it left Renée Lemarie’s ears ringing for minutes afterwards.

Oh, sure, perhaps she was exaggerating. But, it gave her a warm feeling in her chest, seeing all those smiles. Even as rough around the edges as they were, given it was a Family Day show and not a competition show, it wouldn’t ever get old.

But, the grace period was over (however much it can be argued that the grueling band camp was a grace period) and the band was settling in for the long haul. It was 2 o’clock on a Friday, the first Friday of the school year, and Renée could hardly pay attention to whatever the French teacher was rambling on about.

Someone’s foot kicked the metal grate behind her desk. Renée turned around to see Augusta mouth “pay attention”, and obviously Augusta would notice something like that while sitting behind her. Renée quickly turned around. She smiled and rolled her eyes and returned to scribbling whatever Mr. Chennault had written down on the dry erase board.

Nouns, places, action words. Renée inwardly sighed. She’d managed to go three years now without the language department catching wind of her fluency. It was a well known fact that anyone who already knew a language couldn’t take that same language for a grade. What a load of malarkey! Between concert band, marching band, volunteer work, dual enrollment, and anything else that caught Renée’s fancy, she could use the reliably easy A. 

Poor Anthony Garcia. The freshman had already learned the tough way and was subsequently enrolled in the still open German 1 class after the Spanish teacher overheard a phone call of his, spoken entirely in Spanish.

Time limped by in slow motion until Renée eventually heard the clanging bell informing students that classes were over for the day. But not everyone was going home.

Renée slumped in her seat, a counterintuitive decision as she needed to leave the classroom anyway. 

“You need notes?” Eugene asked. Renée looked up and saw him standing next to her desk. At the front of the classroom, Mr. Chennault was making shooing motions at any stragglers still inside. She scrambled to her feet, banging her knee against the wooden desk in the process. She grabbed the notes that Eugene was still waving in his face, a slight mocking grin on his face. After slamming the paper into her binder, she shoved her school supplies into the backpack at her feet.

“It’s not like I need the notes anyway,” she said as she swung her bag across her back. End of school announcements echoed over the intercom. Details about book sales, bake sales, and car washes. The administration was always looking for ways to suck their students dry, and Renée somehow fell for it every single time. She wondered if it was preparing them for college. “Perks of bilingualism.”

“You know that Chennault likes adding questions about videos we watched in class or stories he told us to in the exams,” Eugene replied. He was a year younger than her, but tested into the same French class as Renée when he was a freshman and she was a sophomore. A near similar story to Renée, he was taking French because he was lacking in the reading and writing despite speaking it well enough.

“Hmmph,” Renée responded and they walked out the door. Augusta was already waiting for them, groaning about how slow they walked. Didn’t they know that the band room was located on the other side of the high school?

“Any plans on how to kill the next several hours?” Renée asked as they made their way through the mostly silent hallways. In only a few minutes, the school had been emptied of anything between 80 to 90 percent of its inhabitants. The only ones that remained were a few tutors, teenagers organizing their first club meets of the year, and the band.

“Probably gonna take a nap,” Augusta said. Her tightly curled hair was held back with a cloth bandana, although Renée swore she was wearing a run-of-the-mill headband earlier. Headbands truly were this season’s accessory. She was curious what next season would latch onto. Bowties? Glow Stick bracelets? 

“Where?” Renée asked, almost laughing. “On the soft, comfy band floors.”

Augusta shrugged. “If I’m tired, I’m tired. I’ll sleep anywhere.” Her mouth twisted downwards and her nose scrunched up. “God, I just remembered that we’ll probably be out there until nine! That’s forever from now.” Augusta continued to complain about the time spent on all the marching band activities they were due to participate in any day now. This, she was arguing, was why she needed to catch up on any amount of sleep she could conceivably get.

“What about you, Eugene?” Renée asked. The boy had been content to walk silently alongside them, which was typical. Eugene wasn’t much of a talker, but anything he said was well worth listening to in her experience. 

“I heard,” he began slowly, and his cheeks and ears curiously darkened to a pink shade. “The drumline is driving to Little Caesars at 4, or ‘round then.” He stared resolutely ahead, down the hallway towards its burnt out red exit sign.

“Ooooo,” Augusta teased. “The drumline.”

Eugene stayed stubbornly silent, but his blush was loud enough.

“How is Babe, anyway?” Renée asked, not one to pass over a good tease. 

“Ha ha,” Eugene flatly returned.

“I hear he has very soulful brown eyes,” Augusta continued. “ Il est beau, non?”

“Such bright orange hair,” Renée nodded. “Enough to distract you from the way his voice still cracks.”

Without sparing the girls a look, Eugene walked faster towards the building’s exit. 

“No, wait! Eugene, please,” Augusta called after him. “Could you tell Babe to get me a pizza too?”

Eugene, who had already reached the door, yanked it open. Walking through, he let the heavy door slam behind him.

Their third companion gone, Augusta laughed out loud. “You know, I don’t think he’s ever gonna make the first move.”

“And you think Babe will?” Renée said, not hiding the disbelief in her voice. “If it were up to either of them, they’d spend the rest of high school staring at each other from across the blacktop.” She paused. “We can’t let that happen.”

“I hear you,” Augusta replied, solemnly. “I’ve never played matchmaker before, though. How hard do you think it is?”

“Who cares,” Renée said. “But we’ve got the rest of the season to figure that out. This will they, won’t they, is starting to get on my nerves.”

The Friday football games were a time for contradiction, as far as Johnny Martin was concerned. Martin loved football, and anyone who knew him knew that. Sure, their marching band show concept was … rough, to say the least. Regardless, football was a large part of Martin’s life. He was born into a football family. There were more than a few photos of a chubby baby Johnny propped up in front of the living room television, surrounded by his family wearing jerseys and foam hands. Superbowl Sunday, a holiday as far as he was concerned, was taken very seriously in the Martin household. It was only due to his love of his instrument that he was up here and not down there.

Herein lies the contradiction: every Toccoa High football game was a shitshow, and never in their favor.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Martin screamed at the field, distantly realizing that his eyes might look a little crazy. “That’s an embarrassment!” Slamming into the hot bleacher seats, he groaned loudly into his hands. He felt a large hand pat his shoulder. Bull Randleman.

Peeking his eyes over his hands, he stared wide-eyed at the green, at the lousy football players that represented his school. The cheerleaders in bright green stood on the ground, facing the fans at home. But all they’re chants and their smiles weren't doing anything to turn the tide. Vikings 38, Eagles 7 shined brightly, taunting Martin. “It’s a massacre out there.”

“It’s just football, Martin.” Bull’s southern drawl calmed him down slightly. He sat down to the right of Martin. “Yain’t gonna die.”

Martin glared momentarily at Bull before returning his eyes to the field. Dropping his hands into his lap, he said. “If they don’t score at least once, they’re gonna die.”

Below him, he heard Muck cry out, “Let me down there coach!”

“Let him down!” screamed Malarkey and Penkala.

“I’ll turn this whole thing ‘round!” Muck was yelling. “Noooo! Where’s the penalty, damn it?!”

To the left, the somewhat separated stands were filled with students and parents and a few teachers here and there. Practically everyone was wearing green and nearly everyone was shouting at the football players, or the referee at times. Spectators walked up and down the steep stairs, concession stand food in hand. The only times Martin wished he wasn’t in the marching band was when he saw the food. Fully decked out in green and navy uniform, they couldn’t consume anything except for water or clear lemon-lime soda. Never Sprite, always some off-brand crap called Twist Up or Citrus Drop. All the money they paid to do marching band, and Sobel penny pinched with Sprite.

Bull chuckled as Martin started shouting again. Just another Friday, and they had so many more Fridays to go.

It wasn’t so much that Bull wasn’t as big of a football fan as Martin was. You could hardly live in Georgia and not care about football in some capacity. The difference between the two teens was that while Martin still held out a futile hope that the Toccoa High football team would someday make it to the playoffs, Bull had written the team off years ago.

Suddenly, a “Band Ten Hut” was shouted from below. A couple of the drum majors made an “G” sign with their arms and hands. The sign was for the classic stand tune, “Go Big Green”, a popular stand tune among high school marching bands, with plenty of variations. The most notable variation came in the name, “Go Big” being the only constant. Colors changed based on whatever the school’s theme colors was.

“Alright, alright,” Martin muttered, getting to his feet. “You starting, or I’m starting?” Bull shook his head and Martin got himself into position.

“C’mon!” Hoobler whined from two seats down, sousa at the ready. The sandy-haired boy poked his head out and begged the two seniors, “I’ve got it this time!”

“Maybe next Friday, Hoob” was all Martin said before positioning his fingers. He took a deep breath, placed his lips against his instrument’s mouthpiece, and started slow.

He held a long F before dropping down to a B-flat. D. E-flat. E-natural. Back to F.

The rest of the band followed suit, as this was a well-practiced stand tune during their band camp days. The brass lit up while the trumpets did their best to overpower them, as was to be expected. The woodwinds, in contrast, danced in sync. He didn’t have to look to know that the clarinets and flutes were during the macarena. The saxophones played along, although Martin could never hear them over his giant of an instrument.

The percussionists slammed down a few rhythmic beats.

“Go Big Green!” the band shouted.

The low brass continued on with the bass notes while the rest of the band picked up the pace. Luz jumped an octave and got jazzy with it, sprinkling in a few grace notes as a bonus. He finished before the percussionists repeated their early beats.

“Go Big Green!”

Many members of the band cheered as the peppy cheerleaders shouted “Go Eagles!”. Plenty of band kids cared nothing for the football game before them, and never would. Just because they played every Friday night until the end of the season wouldn’t keep them from talking about tough classes, dating advice, and upcoming concerts (concert band related or otherwise). Thus, a bad football game wouldn’t be enough to dampen their spirits as long as they could play good music.

Ignorance was the sweetest bliss.

Here and there, they played a few more stand tunes. Classics like “Word Up!” and “Seven Nation Army” got everyone hyped. The drumline all the way at the bottom did a rendition of “Low Rider” at one point (Guarnere looked like he was having the time of his life down there, laughing alongside Babe) and the trumpet line blasted the opening notes to “The Final Countdown” right before the clock ran out before halftime.

Martin shook his head roughly and rolled his shoulders. Time to put the humiliating score behind them and focus on their damn football-themed show.

“Helmets on,” Bull instructed. He wasn’t the only one; section leaders all over the bleachers were fixing their silvery helmets to their heads, helping the freshmen and some sophomores that had difficulties getting the straps to snap together. Two band moms stood at the bottom of the stands, each holding a box of what looked like white feathers. The plumes in there would get attached to the tops of their helmets and securely clipped behind them. The older teens knew the drill about making sure everything was fastened together. No one wanted to be that person who pivoted on the field so hard that their plume started spinning like a helicopter.

Martin was sweating as he walked down the sides of the bleachers before making his way down to the green. But the sweat wasn’t from nerves. The summer heat didn’t just cease once school began. It was only August. They had until at least halfway through September before they got any respite. Unlike during band camp, where everyone got to wear their tank tops and shorts, they were required to wear their suits over their bibbers over their actual clothes (and that didn’t include their white cloth gloves). It was almost unbearable, but Martin knew better than to complain.

Once it reached the midpoint of October, the temperatures would dip. But they’d still be out every Friday until late November. The whole time, the chilly weather would surround them. And, ironically, the layers of clothing would do nothing to hold in the heat. That’s when it got really bad, the freezing nights. The freezing nights with rain.

He’d just grit his teeth and endure it until then.

The band gathered into their sections behind the field goal and gave each other encouragement for what would be the first of many Friday night performances. Bull ruffled Hashey’s hair. The freshman’s teeth had somehow started chattering, he was so nervous.

The color guard were arranging some of the set pieces onto the field, big posters of football heroes lining the back of the field.

Martin shook his head at the lack of creativity. Even the disco show his freshmen year had better props than that.

“We got this,” Hoobler said, a smile on his face.

“I’m starving,” Garcia remarked, getting a sympathetic nod from Hashey. 

“What, you didn’t eat anything?” Martin asked, disapproval clear in his voice.

“Too nervous,” was all Garcia replied. 

“Yeah, well don’t do that next time.”

“Alright, we got it, blah, blah, blah,” Liebgott cut in. “There’s no time for this cheese, we’ve gotta get going.”

“Didn’t ask, Liebgott,” Martin returned, but understood the point that the trombone player was making. With instructions to get to their respective sides around the field, the low brass shouted a “Go Low and Blow!” before scattering.

Standing at attention, Martin listened for the tell-tale sounds of the drummers tapping that told them it was time to enter the field. Left foot at the ready, he marched in time to the beat until he reached his “dot”. Of course, the field had no dots and they practiced for this very scenario back during band camp. It was all about reaching your yard line and positioning yourself in relation to the marchers next to you. The woodwinds were marching in from the back and the drumline was standing at the front. The color guard posed near the props and elsewhere on the field. Martin continued marching in place until the drum majors, standing at the front of the field on their individual podiums, indicated for them to stand still.

Breathing evenly, he overheard Sobel’s voice echo across the field. “Now ladies and gentlemen, for your halftime entertainment, the Toccoa High School Marching Band!”

Martin allowed himself a small smirk while Sobel continued on, introducing the drum majors. Given the bad performance the student athletes had given the crowd, the bar was basically on the ground. No, the bar was underneath the ground. Even if their lines weren’t straight or their notes were slightly out of sync, their musical performance would still be miles and away better than their mess of a football team.

He put his game face on and let the first notes of the ESPN theme song take him away.

Chapter Text

“Why. The fuck. Is he here?”

Shifty Powers glanced from Roy Cobb to the man in question, Robert Sink. With great dismay at this turn of events, he unwillingly agreed with the guy. 

“Hey!” Chuck Grant whisper-shouted in the direction of Cobb. The mellophonist sharply shook his head with eyes that screamed “Don’t force me to make you run laps.” Since collective punishment was the norm, if one person went down, they all went down. And so it goes.

Cobb had good enough sense to shut his mouth. 

For now, Shifty thought.

It wasn’t so much that Shifty disliked Sink. The volunteer instructor was a regular during the marching band season and, many decades prior, had been assistant band instructor of the Toccoa High Band. He was an excellent trumpet player. Fantastic, actually. He could jump octaves like no one’s business. Shifty had never truly appreciated how incredible the trumpet was before he’d witnessed Sink play such a beautiful rendition of “Georgia On My Mind”; it nearly sounded like the trumpet was singing with a soul of its own.

It was just that, well, the man had a debilitating case of “My Way or the Highway” and it made brass sectionals a hell of a lot more stressful. His freshman year, he watched the man stress out Perco almost to the point of tears. The shorter trumpet player had been extremely red in the face at the time and had kept replying “I’m fine” to anyone concerned. That incident had colored Shifty’s opinion of the man since.

But, damn, could he make a trumpet sing.

It was afterschool on a Tuesday. Their post-band camp schedule was like this: Mondays and Wednesdays? Free. (Shifty was in the Robotics Club, scheduled on Monday afternoons, and would hang out with Popeye while they finessed some insane contraption that they swore wasn’t gonna blow up this time. Wednesdays, he had his unofficial-official Parkour Club. They were still trying to get it off the ground). Tuesdays and Thursdays? Practice from 4:30 to 7:30pm. You’d think there wasn’t enough going on that warranted three extra hours of practice after school, twice a week, and you’d be both right and wrong. See, while the entire band still needed refining before the Fall Exhibition and the upcoming competitions, and that was all well and good, it got boring watching those rough edges get sanded away. Focus would go from the clarinets on the 50, who couldn’t march in time, or the low brass at the back field, who weren’t playing loud enough to hear from the tower. Everyone else would end up sitting their asses on the prickly blacktop for tens of minutes at a time before it was their turn to get molded. And, God, did it get boring sometimes. The long, long waiting.

Right now, it was sectionals. The flutes were in the empty orchestra room, the clarinets were in the art room. Or were the saxophones there instead? The percussion were outside because they had to be. And the brass players were stationed in the gaudy red and green school auditorium. The large room staged many events throughout the school year, including (but not limited to) jazz and orchestra performances, school plays and musicals, standardized testing, the fall and winter shows, honors ceremonies, and the ever-loathed annual DARE program.

But while sectionals were intended for individualized and dedicated rehearsals, they were kind of just whatever. You put a group of teenagers together and order them to do one specific thing, they either would or they wouldn’t. Shifty knew damn well the flutes weren’t practicing anything (according to Popeye, all they ever did was talk). At least the brass was doing stuff, however unrelated it was. Shifty could probably do the show music in his sleep at this point. It was the other music he was concerned with, like his second-trumpet-in-wind-symphony responsibilities, for starters. Or, the stand tunes.

None of the brass players were seated in the dark green chairs in the auditorium; they were grouped in their sections around the stage. The sousaphones were lying flat on their backs participating in a whose-burps-are-the-loudest competition (Bull and Martin refused to take part in such nonsense, instead practicing their music like responsible seniors), Liebgott was doing a demonstration on how to make the most effective movie sound effect noises on the trombone (so far, he’d shown the freshmen how to best imitate the voices of the adults in Charlie Brown and was currently showing them how to do the sad womp-womp-womp sound), the mellophones (mostly just Cobb himself), in-between running through act 2, had been gossiping about scandals that had arisen from other non-band students during the summer, and the trumpets (Shifty included) were practicing stand tunes, starting with “Go Big Green” and ending with “Word Up”. You could never practice stand tunes enough, in his humble opinion.

The idea was that they’d spend some time doing stuff on their own before being gathered into a group for the last hour. Each brass section had their own section leader (Bull and Martin both handled the sousas, but it was technically, officially Johnny Martin’s domain. Grant was in charge of the mellos and (with the exception of Cobb, who hardly listened to anyone, and Peacock, who liked to think his status as sophomore meant he knew enough to instruct the other mellos) managed to run a pretty tight ship. Against all logical sense, Liebgott assumed the role of trombone section leader because, for some reason, he enjoyed the responsibility (or maybe he just liked bossing people around). While Luz technically, and musically, ranked higher than any other trumpet player, Pat Christenson, a junior, was the section leader because Luz adamantly refused any extra duties during his final year of high school). Once gathered together, Martin and Grant were co-leaders for the entire brass section. Each section leader knew their sections strengths and weaknesses. Thus, they knew when the time called for seriously focused practice and they knew when the time called for just chilling out.

Except, all of that was swiftly put to an end with the sight of Old Man Sink entering the auditorium with his binder of sheet music held under one arm, the brim of his baseball cap shadowing his face. He practically marched down the walkway next to the rows of theater seats. Not like a band marcher, but like a soldier. It was unnerving.

“Alright brass, what are we currently working on?” Sink began. The noise in the auditorium came to a disappointing halt at the question. However, before any of the section leaders could answer (or before Luz could say something like “stand tunes” so the man might take the hint and go bother someone else), Sink made a funny face and gestured to the stage.

“What’s with this lazing around business?” he said, sounding affronted. “I want all of you on stage.” He started to make his way onto the stage as well.

Everyone shared glances and swallowed their groans before making their way onto the stage. Some climbed over the edge while others walked up the stairs near the sides of it, vanishing behind a wall and red curtains, and reappearing on the black stage. They arranged themselves into a semicircle and, for those who still needed them at this point, set up a few rickety music stands. 

Once everyone was in position, Martin explained the parts they were practicing (though, not without his voice sounding somewhat strained because members of the low brass would rather practice on their own). Sink raised his hands to begin conducting the beginning of the third act.

The third act of the show had its main melody modeled after the title theme from Remember the Titans. Shifty thought it sounded great, the theme of the show notwithstanding. Right before the third act, the percussion had a break where they played “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”. It was arguably the best part of the show, but third acts tended to always be the best no matter what. It was all about bringing it home.

Sink conducted for a while before waving a hand and frowning. “Okay, okay. Trumpets, what are you doing? Y’all’re falling behind.” He slammed the palm of his hand against his thigh to demonstrate the tempo, as if he had a metronome in his head. “Run that again.”

Shifty stifled a sigh and saw Perco at his left furiously tapping the valves of his trumpet. Turning to the person to his right, he caught Pat’s eye who gave him a look that said “here we go again”.

Sink had them practice warm up scales. Circle of eights. Articulation exercises. Elementary stuff. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t played at all that day. It was an afternoon practice two weeks after their first football game. A hot August was finally giving way to a slightly-less-hot September. Shifty was pretty sure they deserved an itsy-bitsy tiny break.

Perco had his trumpet raised at attention. Shifty could tell that the fellow junior was clearly only going through the motions of playing the notes. If you pressed your ear against the bell of his trumpet, you’d hear nothing at all. It wasn’t because Perco didn’t know how to play. On the contrary, Perco was a pretty good trumpet player. He was third chair trumpet in the Wind Symphony. It wasn’t anything to sneeze at, given how difficult it was to get into Wind Symphony in the first place. But, in front of Old Man Sink, Perco’s confidence just flew out the window.

Unfortunately, Sink was notorious for calling out random people to hear them play and offer scathing advice. Shifty didn’t truly think it was out of any malicious intent. The man was just blunt to a fault. He said what was on his mind, damn your feelings on the matter. But Shifty didn’t have to like it.

“Now if we could work ourselves back and start at bar ten,” Sink said, rubbing his chin and shaking his head. “I see a grace note on this sheet. I’m not hearing it. Are you playing it?” It was a rhetorical question. “I want it to sound crisp. Let’s start with you Mr. Sisk.” His finger singled out the sophomore near the end of the row.

Carefully, but clearly, Skinny played that section of music. But, fuck, he missed the grace note.

Red in the face, Skinny repeated that section again under Sink’s instruction and watchful eyes. But he was hardly given any acknowledgement for correcting his mistake before Sink called on “Mr. Luz” to demonstrate.

Luz played it perfectly, not first chair trumpet in Wind Symphony for nothing, but he wore an annoyed frown as he flipped his trumpet back down. And Sink went on, calling out random nervous freshmen as well as nervous upperclassmen. It wasn’t as though Sink was necessarily berating them for not having that part played to his satisfaction, but his condescending criticism of anything from their posture to their tone to their timbre got to them. Like he expected them to play to the standards of college students, or professionals, when they were high-schoolers. Damn good high-schoolers, award-winning high-schoolers, but high-schoolers nonetheless. 

The entire time, Sink made unwanted and uncalled for changes to the music. They needed to crescendo here, decrescendo there. (“Mr. Christenson, play this bar.”) He wanted the first and second trumpet players to play a harmony that didn’t exist in the sheet music. Play two steps lower. (“Mr. Powers, start right here.”) Take the mouthpieces out of the trumpets and buzz along for this section. This part oughta be quieter. This part should sound more discordant for contrast. 

Getting them to play the grace note at the same time was important, he understood that. It’d sound like a blurry mess if everyone played it at different times. But all these other changes?

They were practically playing an entirely new song at this point.

And then, as if purposefully saving him for last, Perco was ordered to play.

Shifty heard him take a deep breath before pressing his lips to the silvery mouthpiece and blowing. The sound that followed was immediately accompanied by a collective wince from the rest of the brass section. The notes whimpered and squealed out of the horn. It was less music and more a dying rodent’s last gasp for air.

The auditorium was silent as Perco brought his trumpet to parade rest. Sink’s eyes were wide with undisguised shock. Perco’s face was redder than the stage curtains.

“Mr. Frank Perconte,” Sink began, slowly. “What on Earth do you call that?”

“I dunno, sir,” Perco squeaked out. “I, uh, I-”

“You, uh, what?” Sink replied, rather unkindly (in Shifty’s opinion). “Speak up.”

“I dunno, sir,” Perco repeated, louder this time.

Sink folded his arms across his chest, back stock-straight, chin high, eyes looking down on Shifty’s friend. “And where do you happen to sit in concert band?”

Perco cleared his throat. “Third chair, Wind Symphony, sir.”

“What goddamn sense does that make?” Sink continued, definitely unkindly this time.

It was the dreaded performance anxiety. Every student in the band fell victim to it once or twice (and anyone who claimed otherwise was a shameless liar). Somehow, against all your best efforts, a block in your brain would appear. When asked to play something you could otherwise play in your sleep, your fingers froze. Your breaths would stutter. Your embouchure would go all out of whack. All the notes you ever played just vanished from your mind. Suddenly, your instrument was as good as a paper weight. The best way to circumvent this phenomenon was to play in a group, your musical contribution blending in with everyone else’s. You were stronger together. Unless you were a soloist, but that wasn’t everyone’s calling. It wasn’t Shifty’s.

It most certainly wasn’t Perco’s.

Sink proceeded to chastise Perco and had him play (and replay and replay and replay) the measure, nitpicking everything he did all the while. He demonstrated how it should be played on his own trumpet, adding flourishes that didn’t even exist in the sheet music (so who was getting what wrong anyway?) Were any of his changes run by Sobel first, or was he just embellishing for embellishment’s sake?

The other non-trumpet brass players looked on in complete mortification. Even Cobb looked like he felt bad for Perco, and they weren’t even necessarily on good terms. Then again, almost every marcher knew what it was like to get called out for small reasons. There was a code; you didn’t have to like your fellow marcher in order to have their back.

“Mr. Sink?” Shifty spoke up, gripping his trumpet tight against his ribs where it was at parade rest. He kept his face blank as Sink turned his head towards him. The frustration that Shifty had felt at the beginning of their rudely interrupted sectional had festered into something angrier. He wasn’t usually one to speak up, but he’d been pushed.

“Yes, Mr. Powers,” the man replied, as if it was Shifty who was interrupting him.

He could feel his heart pound inside his chest as he opened his mouth again. “We’re kinda running low on time.” That was a blatant lie, but anything to get Sink out of the auditorium. “Sobel wanted us to cut our sectionals an hour short before we go back to the band room.”

“Oh?” Sink said, surprise in his voice. “When did he say this?”

Shifty opened his mouth while wracking his brain for more made-up details. “Uh-”

“Yeah, he just gave us word, like, ten, twenty minutes ago,” Grant quickly added from the other edge of the stage. Shifty saw him pull out his phone and flash it up and down before shoving it back in his pocket, not unlike a fake cop waving a fake badge in some television show. His face was totally impassive, as per usual. “I think he only told it to section leaders, though?”

“Then where did you hear this, Mr. Powers?” Sink asked Shifty, correctly identifying him as someone who wasn’t a section leader. Not that he would’ve known that information. What about him screamed “not a section leader”?

Nice fumble, Chuck, Shifty thought.

“I stole Christenson’s phone,” Shifty quickly recovered, shoving his shoulder against Pat.

Sink raised an eyebrow at this before nodding his acquiescence without argument. “Alrighty, then.” He rolled his shoulders back and held his personal trumpet to his side. “We made some significant progress this evening. I expect you to build upon this in the coming weeks.” And on and on he went about the standards of the Toccoa High Marching Band and how we wanted better out of all them, blah, blah, fucking blah.

With that, Old Man Sink marched his way off the stage. All the brass players seemingly held their breath as he headed down the aisle and, finally, behind the auditorium doors.

A beat followed after the heavy slam of the doors before wild chatter spread across the stage.

“What the hell was that?” Liebgott called out, immediately voicing what everyone thought.

“He had no fucking right-” Kitty began.

“Look at me.” Luz had a haughty look on as he mimicked Sink’s southern drawl. “I’m Mr. Big Shot Symphony Orchestra. I’ve got sun shining out of my-”

“Ugh! That was so embarrassing!” Skinny said, hands covering his face.

“Is he always like that?” asked some freshman girl.

“-wasted so much time,” Hoobler was saying, hands flying in the air. “And he just ignored the rest of us!”

“I wish he ignored all of us,” Shifty heard Perco mutter.

“I think I zoned out,” Blithe muttered from somewhere behind him.

“I want to film myself kicking his ass and upload it to YouTube,” added Cobb with troubling sincerity. 

“Hey!” Martin practically shouted, pointing his finger at Cobb. “Knock it off. The rest of you?” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “All of you, just knock it off. Please.”

Everyone reluctantly shut their mouths, save a few freshmen who continued to chit-chat anyway. Freshmen. What can you do?

“Were all in agreement that that whole ... thing,” he gestured to the area where Sink had just been on the stage. “Was a bunch of bullshit, right?”

Shifty shrugged and watched as other members of the brass did the same. Perco, still red in the face, didn’t move.

“So, feel free to disregard everything Sink said,” Martin added. “Ain’t gotta change a thing unless it comes out Sobel’s mouth.”

“Yeah, he was just jerkin’ himself off. As one does.” Luz grinned at the brass. Martin shook his head at his choice of words, but he said nothing to dispute the trumpet player.

The other seniors, and some of the juniors, nodded. Business as usual with Old Man Sink. Shifty wasn’t unfamiliar with it. Neither was Perco. But it didn’t make his comments sting any less over the years. Shifty could still feel his heart pound away with residual anger. It was moments like this he almost wished he joined Toccoa High’s basketball team instead of its marching band. At least the school athletes were respected.

“Nice idea with the fake Sobel announcement, by the way,” Luz nodded at Shifty. “Great minds think alike. I was planning on-”

Cobb scoffed from where he was seated with the mellos. “Oh, yeah? What exactly were you planning, Luz? Planning to just stand there and do a whole lotta nothing?”

“Shut the fuck up, Cobb,” Liebgott said from the trombone section. It came instantly, like the phrase was second nature to him.

“What, like you?” Luz rolled his eyes in Cobb’s direction while Grant groaned and tried to get them to quiet down. “What exactly do you contribute?”

“Wasn’t my section.”

“I meant in general, Cobb. What do you contribute in general?”

“I-” Cobb started.

“Shut the fuck up, Cobb,” Liebgott loudly repeated.

“Hey!” Martin’s voice, once again, rose above the rest. “You guys are upperclassmen. Act like it.” And before anyone else could argue their dissent, he went on. “Perconte, Sink was being a complete asshole. Take everything he said and toss it like the trash it is. Nothing he said matters.”

Perco hummed in response, but gave no indication whether he agreed or disagreed.

“Shifty, congratulations on lying to Sink and getting away with it, for the time being.” Martin’s face didn’t look nearly as proud as his voice sounded, but Shifty figured he was still wearing his Stern Section Leader face for the time being. “Hopefully, that doesn’t bite you in the ass.”

“You’re telling me,” Shifty replied.

“Yeah, speaking of,” Grant began, walking towards the center stage. The other mellos followed in tow. “He’s probably gonna figure out that sectionals are still another hour.” One hand carried his mellophone while the other rested on his hip while he waited for Shifty’s grand idea.

In fact, everyone was looking at Shifty. Wasn’t everyday he was the center of attention. Wasn’t yet sure if he liked it.

“We should probably scatter,” came Shifty’s simple answer. He flipped his trumpet upside down and back again. “Before he comes back.”

“Scatter,” Grant echoed in disbelief.

“I didn’t think this far,” Shifty said honestly.

Martin’s stern face gave way to something far more exasperated. Bull standing beside him, however, started to laugh. With shaking shoulders, he added his only verbal contribution to the sectional up to this point.

“Well, y’all heard the boy.” The giant senior picked up his sousaphone and cocked his head towards the auditorium’s side doors, the ones that led to a different area of the building than the one Sink had gone to. “Scatter.”

None of the brass needed to be told twice, even though Cobb continued to make some uncalled for comments. Some ran down the stairs while others jumped the stage (Tipper nearly landed on his face. He was probably still getting used to his lack of depth perception, having an eyepatch and all). There didn’t seem to be any set end destination in mind, just that they were out of Sink’s (and Sobel’s) sight for another hour. 

“He’s right, you know,” Shifty began, catching up to Perco. The other trumpet player was just underneath the red ‘Exit’ sign that led to a hallway with many openings. One direction, the lunch room. One direction, the World Language hall. One direction, the stairs that would lead to the electives floor. “What Martin said. Everything Sink said was bullshit.”

Perco shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Seriously.” Shifty held the door open a little bit longer so some stragglers (freshmen) could make their leave. “Sobel’s, like, insanely neurotic. Like neurotic enough that his brand of neurosis is probably a rare medical condition.”

He smiled when he heard Perco snort.

“So, like, bet your ass he ain’t gonna change any of the music in any of the acts,” Shifty went on. “Not with so many underclassmen who can barely get through act three as is. He’d want that solid.”

“True,” Perco finally responded. “That freckly what’s-his-name, some freshman … ” 

“O’Keefe?” Shifty guessed.

“Yeah, O’Keefe. He missed Family Day, too, remember? He’s lucky he was absent today. Y’know he told me the other week that he forgot there was a third act? I don’t think he was joking. If he was here today, I think Sink woulda killed him.”

The ‘look at how he treated me’ part was left unsaid, but Shifty heard it loud and clear.

“Like I was saying,” Shifty started again. They started heading up the stairs. Maybe they’d stop at the culinary classroom. There could be some snacks lying around in there. “Sobel’s a neurotic freak of nature. Everything has to be a hundred and one percent perfect. Y’know what that means?”

“What?”

“There’s no chance you’d be third chair in Sobel’s Wind Symphony if you weren’t meant to be there.”

There was a pause as what Shifty said hung in the air. “Yeah, whatever,” Perco said, his face growing redder by the second. It was as good as a response Shifty was gonna get, so he wouldn’t push it. For the most part, he was a man of few words himself.. But, there was no way he was gonna let Perco go without first kicking Sink’s words out of the guy’s head.

“So,” Shifty decided to change the subject, for both their sakes. “I’m starting this parkour club with Popeye … ”

“I ain’t trying to kill myself outside of band, Shifty,” was Percos quick reply.

Shifty shrugged. “Worth a shot. Anyway,” the two of them stopped at the top of the stairs. “You think they got snacks in the culinary room?” When Perco raised a curious eyebrow at him, he went on. “Wanna find out?”

Chapter Text

The county-wide marching band exhibition was in a week’s time and the stress from it was giving Harry Welsh hives (there were red bumps all over his neck and chest that hadn’t been there a week earlier). Not so much because of what the exhibition involved (frankly, he enjoyed the bus ride to the county’s largest high school and watching all the shows the different schools came up with). No, Welsh’s stress was a direct result of Sobel’s growing irritability.

Well. “Insanity” was the better term, but “irritability” sounded nicer.

“He picked up a chair, threw it at the wall, and it shattered,” Welsh said, eyebrows pinched together.

“There’s no way,” Kitty said, chewing around a slice of cafeteria pizza. The high school cafeteria pizza was crappy as far as pizza was concerned; the cheese was as tough and tasteless as plastic, the sauce was too watery, and the bread was so hard it took forever to soften in your mouth. More often than not, the hard and tough bread tore into the roof of your mouth just from biting into it. Then again, for the cafeteria food at this school, it was the best thing Toccoa High offered.

But, Welsh was smart enough to pack his own lunch from home, thank you very much.

“The brass section was gettin’ on his case, somehow,” Welsh said, recalling the incident. The Wind Symphony’s brass section had more than just the marching band kids. Regular concert band folks filled the seats, too. There’d been some pretty harmless goofing off and snickering going on that just couldn’t die down. Who knew what the cause of it was? It literally could’ve been anything.

“But you’re in brass,” Kitty pointed out, as if it was impossible that Welsh could’ve been part of the reason Sobel snapped.

“I know,” Welsh said, woefully, dragging the vowel out.

“And here I was thinking the Wind Symphony was full of goody-goodies,” Kitty smirked. Kitty, Welsh remembered, was good enough to join the Wind Symphony. But, in Kitty’s own words, it would’ve messed with her schedule (that and, Welsh suspected, Kitty’s interest in band had tapered off and she was only in it still because she didn’t like to leave things unfinished). She was a major part of the school’s newspaper team, and the newspaper elective was at third period. So was Wind Symphony. Them’s the breaks.

“Not this time,” Welsh continued. “He got so mad, he threatened to pull the trombones out and do the show without them.” Kitty made an affronted gasp when Welsh paused for effect. “Whole time, he was zeroin’ in on trombone players who weren’t even marchers. He couldn’t see past his damn rage.” Despite himself, Welsh felt a smile grow on his face. Just saying it out loud sounded so ridiculous, you just had to laugh.

“Yikes.”

“You should’ve seen Liebgott. If looks could kill,” Welsh gave a low whistle and took a swig from his Coke Zero. He didn’t care much for the taste of it, but there wasn’t much he could do when the school’s vending machines only sold diet or zero Coke products. And Welsh wasn’t about to stoop low enough to sneak into the teacher’s lounge to get the legit stuff.

“I guess he’s worried about competition season?” Kitty wondered, not that she needed an answer.

“We’re all worried about competition season. We’re the ones marching.” Welsh rubbed a hand through his curly golden hair. “His attitude’s gonna make everyone antsy. And I know this happens every year, but it’s annoying. Every. Year.”

“You’re probably just feeling it more since you’re actually a drum major now,” Kitty pointed out.

Welsh’s lips thinned and he nodded, figuring that was the case. While he never considered himself a difficult underclassman back in the day, he ought to have given the upperclassmen back then far more grace. Those poor guys went through hell.

And on top of actual school, too.

“Yo!” A voice came from behind Welsh, rising above the white noise of chatter filling up the cafeteria. Welsh turned around and saw Nix, holding a tray with a paper carton full of burning hot french fries (Welsh knew this from experience. The roof of his mouth didn’t stand a chance). He also knew that the cafeteria’s french fries were the next best thing to get for lunch, with a line for it sometimes trailing out the doors of the cafeteria, even. They weren’t all that filling, they were loaded with salt, and they burned your tongue. But Nix lived and died by them, claiming that since he was able to watch the cafeteria ladies dump the fries in scalding, boiling oil himself, he considered it the safest thing to eat.

“Yo?” Kitty and Welsh both asked in-sync. It wasn’t the sort of thing Nix said.

“Yeah, I though I’d try it out. Yo.” Nix lowered his tray to the table, sitting in the empty circular seat next to Welsh. “Yo,” he repeated once more, making a face and shaking his head. “Maybe, it’ll grow on me.”

“You don’t think senior year’s a little too late to reinvent yourself?” Kitty asked, chewing around another bite of pizza.

“Absolutely not. The best time to reinvent yourself was four years ago.” He sat down. “The second best time is today.”

Welsh chuckled softly. Kitty reached across the table and stole a couple of Nix’s fries. Ignoring Nix’s sputtered words, because what the hell, she asked, “So, Welsh told me that Sobel broke a chair against the wall. That sounds insane.”

“Nope,” Nix shook his head and pulled his tray of fries closer to his chest, somewhat out of Kitty’s reach. “When it’s not band time, I’m not talking about band. I spend enough time talking about band during band. I think I’m losing brain cells just thinking about band.”

“Ugh,” Kitty scoffed. “You’re so boring, Nixon.”

“I’m boring? I’m dead serious,” Nix replied. “If I think about band outside band-designated areas and band-designated times, I think my brain will leak outta my ears. I’d rather talk about AP Lit and The Mayor of Casterbridge. ”

Kitty made a face. “Thanks for reminding me,” she said, not sounding all that thankful. Welsh remembered that they were in the same AP Lit block and Kitty never had anything nice to say about that class. “I was trying to forget about that.”

It was Nix’s turn to make a face, always ready to defend the classics. And defend them, he did. He was one of the few people Welsh knew (next to Webster, maybe, or even Lipton) who delighted in their assigned summer readings, even going as far as to read all the options listed despite only being required to read one. Everyone was a nerd in their own fashion, Welsh supposed, placing his elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand.

And Nix was right about the band talk. Watching the playful back-and-forth about the readability of The Mayor of Casterbridge was a welcome respite from thinking about his band responsibilities. For now.

Chapter Text

Roy Cobb was not a section leader. Roy Cobb was not a section leader. You’d think that this many months in, the younger marchers would’ve learned by now to redirect their stupid questions to Grant. But, no! Instead, he was cursed to be surrounded by actual morons!

“How is that my problem?” Cobb said for the umpteenth time. At this point, he felt like the younger members of the band were out to get him. How was he so unlucky that every freshman and sophomore had to come up to him and ask him the dumbest question, tell him the most idiotic things? Was it his face? Did he look too approachable? Did he need to frown harder? Because, Jesus, you’d think these kids were born yesterday.

“Where’s the vending machine again?” came from a tiny brunette with a clarinet. “I forgot to pack dinner.”

“Why’re you asking me?” Cobb would say.

“Do you know what key this part’s in?” asked the freshman mello who was currently in sheet music debt.

“No,” Cobb would say, flipping through his own sheet music.

“If I have to leave practice early, who do I tell?” asked some four-foot-something kid who was sporting a mullet for some reason.

“Grant is right there.” Cobb didn’t bother looking up from packing his backpack, choosing to point in the direction of the actual section leader’s voice.

“The bathroom stall doors won’t stay closed,” some sophomore whined to him, hands gripping his large black instrument case. “Can you tell someone?”

“I’m starving,” some kid told him during lunch time, like the little charity case was expecting Cobb to hand him a wad of cash or something. “Do you know where–”

“How is that my problem?” Cobb would interject before walking in the other direction. To hell with them. This literally wasn’t his job.

And now they were finally at their county-wide Fall Exhibition. Cobb looked up at the darkening skies, noticing the huge and glowing orange-yellow moon in the far, far distance. It looked kinda cool, but he only ended up looking at the sky because he’d been rolling his eyes at yet another stupid question. 

“What time are we playing?” said another random freshman, their curly orange hair growing frizzier by the section because of the hot and humid weather. Despite October being less than a week away, the last week of September was still too early for Georgia to cool down in a way that mattered.

Maybe the weatherman’ll start announcing wind chills in the forecast next week, the junior thought. 

They were playing at eight-fifteen, but, still, Cobb felt compelled to answer, “How should I know?” before telling the kid–w ho wasn’t even in his section–to go look for her friends or something. He ignored the glare she sent his way. He didn’t write for Toccoa High News’ “Ask Column”. They could bother Kitty Grogan about that. 

Or find a program, he thought. Learn to read.

The band collected their instrument cases from the buses they had arrived in. The place that the exhibition was hosted at was massive, originally used as a small private college before turning into just another high school. But, because of its size, it was a long fucking walk to carry their instrument from the buses to a place where they could leave their instruments for easy access before they had to perform.

Much like the size of the school, even the bleachers seemed giant. Everyone’s seatings were organized by section, so the flutes and percussion sat at the very bottom, rest of the woodwinds and trumpets in the middle, with the remaining brass all the way at the top. But Sobel’s rules were bendable for some people. The low brass being the low brass and the percussion being the percussion, they considered themselves above it all. He wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up sitting somewhere else before the night was over.

But rules were rules, even if he didn’t like them. And said rules forced Cobb to sit behind loud-mouthed trumpets. It was all he could do to bite his tongue and keep his thoughts to himself, lest anyone accuse him of “instigatin’”. Sobel would have his ass (everyone would have his ass). 

Cobb could already feel a headache forming right above his nose, but he’d rather die than ask anyone for ibuprofen. The last thing he needed was to be seen as reliant on the rest of them. The last thing he needed was people expecting him to carry around ibuprofen for randos in the future, like every goddamn thing needed to be reciprocated.

But, Jesus, this headache…

Other high school marching bands sat on the bleachers below them, to the left of them (to the left to the left of them), to the right of them. Hell, all over the place. They all stood out in their bright and clashing colors. Yellow and purple, orange and navy, red and white, black and green. Some were ugly as sin, but who was he to judge? The Toccoa High Marching Band’s uniform was lime green and navy blue. 

Could be worse.

And so the annual county-wide Fall Exhibition began.

Cobb spared a glance to the field before he looked down at the Fall Exhibition program he’d nabbed on the way up. It was thin, only had a few pages, but he brought his white-gloved fingers down the list of names and locations and bands and there! Toccoa High was performing at 8:15pm (he already knew that, though), the third band to take the field. Right after them was– 

Ugh.  

The Oconee Dogs. 8:30pm on the dot.

Cobb wasn’t alone in hating the Oconee Dogs. 

“Oh, shit, you’ve got a program, Cobb?” Liebgott’s voice came from over his shoulder. The trombones were seated behind the mellophones and, apparently, Liebgott, of all people, was seated directly behind Cobb.

“No,” Cobb lied, gripping the paper tighter.

“What’s it say, man?” Liebgott said instead. At Cobb’s silence, he said, “Hey, Tipper, what’s it say?”

Tipper was sitting to the left of Cobb, so Cobb angled the program more to the right so he couldn’t see, since he wore an eyepatch and everything. Cobb had no idea why he was still allowed to march. Tipper strained, but Cobb leaned back.

“Stop being a dick, Cobb,” Liebgott’s voice had an edge to it, getting Luz’s attention. The noisy trumpet player was seated in front of (and to the left of) Cobb.

“Jesus, Liebgott,” Cobb returned, turning around to face Liebgott and his narrow-eyed stare. “Worry ‘bout your own shit!”

Unfortunately, once he’d turned around, he felt the paper get pulled from his grip and, before he knew it, Luz had his mouth open and was talking in one of his stupid voices.

Good God, he couldn’t stand these people!

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tew- naught, our young mah-chers across this region will dee-splay their coh-lehc-tive musical talent at this year’s annual Northeast Georgia Fall Exhibition!” Luz put on a pronounced, overly-exaggerated southern accent for no other reason but that he had an attention-seeking personality disorder. “We are also proud to be featuring a special guest performance by the University of Georgia’s Redcoat Band on this fiiiine evening–”

“Give it back, Luz!” Cobb tried reaching out his hand, but Luz was now standing, performing like he was a TV show host, waving Cobb’s hands away. Asshole.

“Sponsors, sponsors, blah, blah, blah… Right, here we go.” Luz hurried through the unimportant information. “Eastanollee High School performs at seven o’clock in the PM. Our lovely neighbors to the East, Alexander Stephens High School, otherwise known as ASS, will perform at 7:15. Liberty High–”

“Goddammit, Luz!” Cobb cut in, though Luz continued to speak like the dickhead he was.

“Toccoa High School at 8:15 and,” Luz paused as a few marchers made cheering sounds. But, his face dropped. “The fucking Oconee Dogs right after us.”

A collective groan came from the brass section, with some negative comments mixed in, the most repeated being “ Fuck the Oconee Dogs!”

“You wanna yell that a little louder?” Pat Christenson spoke up, gesturing down to where the drum majors were seated. There was no way Speirs could hear them from all the way up where Cobb was sitting (especially given how many other people were talking around them), but Speirs was looking up at them all the same.

Cobb swallowed nervously.

“Alright, alright, here ya go, Cobb,” Luz handed the program back to Cobb, who had just about reached his annoyance limit. “Now was that so hard?” And the dickhead had the audacity to smile.

“Fuck off,” Cobb grumbled, snatching the (now severely creased) program back and folded it up. He bent over and stuck it down one of his socks. Unless anyone wanted to get his program with eau de Cobb foot sweat on it, it was safe.

“Sorry, Cobb. How immature of me.” Luz brought a hand to his chest, dramatic-like. “Was that a dick move?”

“Yeah!” Cobb was incredulous.

“Interesting.” The trumpet player was now tapping a finger against his chin. “Because if we wanna start comparing the number of times you “borrowed” my stuff and never gave it back, you’d be–”

“Like what?” Cobb scoffed.

“Like what, hmm! How ‘bout last year, competition up in Vandy and you asked to borrow my spare gloves, spare black socks, spare change, and I’m a nice guy, right, so it’s cool, only for you to not show up? You skip the whole thing! And you didn’t even give me my stuff back?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Cobb argued.

“You’re the winner of the Dick Move Championship Games, third year running,” Luz continued before his idiotic face suddenly changed and his eyes bugged out. “Wait, pause. What? How is that not the same thing?”

“You never asked for your stuff back,” Cobb answered simply. “Not as big a deal, obviously.”

“I never asked for–are you batshit, Cobb?” The irony of Luz asking him this with a laugh after the preceding events must’ve escaped him. “Swear to God, we can drive all the way down to Emory and get the doctors to study you. It’ll be on my tab and everything!”

“If you wanted your stuff back bad enough, you’d’ve reminded me,” Cobb shrugged.

Luz’s eyes couldn’t bulge any bigger. “You need professional help.”

“Keep digging that hole, Roy.” Tipper muttered beside him as Cobb began to open his mouth again. “That’s smart.”

“Whatever,” Cobb muttered back. He crossed his arms and stared at the field ahead, just about over this whole thing. Luz needed to get over it.

And yet, inevitably, the freshman mello player sitting to his right tapped his shoulder and asked if she could borrow the program for a “hot second”. She’d probably been distracted, talking to her buddy when Luz had stolen it and made an immature fool of himself. Given how loud Luz was, she was probably deaf as well. That would explain all the missed notes during practice.

I’m surrounded by absolute morons.

“What program?” Cobb grumbled back while he watched Eastanollee High take the field to a militaresque drum beat that sounded oddly like “Low Rider”, of all things.

“Could’ve been worse,” Guarnere mused as he marched up the bleachers, metal creaking underfoot. The orange moon above them was massive and the breeze was almost cool; fall was so close, he could taste it.

Toye and Julian murmured their agreements to Guarnere’s whispered observation. They’d left it all on the field, their Exhibition performance over and done with. They’d sounded the drums, guiding the band back from their invisible dots into their two-row lines. Woodwinds to brass to percussion at the very back. 

The performance hadn’t necessarily gone off without a hitch (it was still September and there was much to improve on, ‘specially the third act). Talbert, the flute soloist choked halfway and played some on-the-fly improvisation (not that anyone outside of the band would’ve noticed, but it was off enough to make a few folks lose their steps) and marching on an actual dirt-and-grass field totally tripped some people up who were only used to marching on turf. Guarnere had witnessed more than a couple of freshmen stumble whenever the grassy ground dipped. Miller, a freshman trombone, took a hard fall himself. But, credit where credit was due, he righted himself and quickly located his “dot” without even getting lost. Sobel’d chew him out good, but he couldn’t ask for a better recovery. 

It was a bumpy fifteen-minute ride, but at least it was over. The kids would figure it out eventually, but this was just Exhibition. They weren’t playing for trophies and accolades– yet. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter all that much. This was a friendly showing-off. My band’s cooler than your band, ego-boost sorta thing. All in fun.

The percussion line was perfect, but that went without saying. Their accents were clean, they crushed every double stroke and triple diddle. He expected no less after practicing, what, 8’s and flams a million damn times. Could do ‘em in his sleep. Best performance yet and Babe was all–

“Could’ve been better,” the ginger muttered in response, probably worrying his ass off over the show review come Monday. Both the percussion line and half of the Pit were getting back to their seats on the bleachers. They were now positioned at the second to the very top (just below the sousas), having been near the bottom before they’d gotten onto the field. The flutes and other assorted woodwinds were filling up the seats they’d left behind. Guarnere felt his stomach twist and grind–rookie mistake–and wished that this exhibition was a competition, because at least then he’d be able to munch on a corn dog or funnel cake or something.

Rather than whine about his hunger like a fourteen year old, Guarnere scoffed at Babe’s comment. “Could’ve been better, he says.” He ignored the ginger’s glare and gestured to the gold-suited band to their left. “You wanna talk about “could’ve been better”, how ‘bout ASS High?” he questioned, referring to the nickname bequeathed to Alexander Stephens High School. “They had narration playing over a fuckin’ recording! Who does that?” 

“Yeah.” Babe slumped where he sat, resting his chin in his hands.

“That one trombone player knocked the plume off some guy’s helmet,” Julian the Freshman added helpfully, wincing at the memory of said catastrophe.

“Uh-huh,” Babe murmured, wincing in turn, no doubt remembering the way the feathered plume spun atop the marcher’s head like a helicopter.

“Their drum line was all out of time, made my goddamn ears bleed,” Toye grumbled, cracking the knuckles of his fingers in an aggressive fashion. Could’ve been breaking them, as loud and sharp as the cracking noises were. 

“They had a guitarist,” Ralph Spina mentioned, working his beanie onto his sweaty head. “Ain’t a dig, since I also play a guitar. Real recognizes real.”

A red-faced–and still impossibly pale–Doc Roe snorted at that, which was about as much criticism he was willing to give, if it was criticism at all. The pale teen was situated between Spina and Babe. As much as he nagged about the safety hazards of being this high up (one of many reasons he was given his nickname), he doubted the guy was up here of his own free will. There was a push-pull factor in play. The push being Spina, and the pull being Babe. Otherwise, he’d be down with Renée, Augusta, their freshie Jackson, and the horde of gossipy woodwinds.

“And they wonder why we call ‘em ASS,” Toye continued, gruff voice almost disguising his humorous undertone. From further down, Guarnere heard Spina get pedantic with a “Technically, the acronym is ASHS–”

“Hey, okay,” Babe finally looked up, frowning at Toye. “They weren’t that bad. They were…” He waved his fingers around, trying to desperately grasp at something nice to say, probably, something constructive to say about an objectively lame show. “Ah, they were fine! Weren’t as good as us, bu–”

“Right!” Guarnere gave him a healthy and friendly slap on the back. While Babe made an “oof” sound, Guarnere grinned. “Could’ve been worse! There ya go!”

Babe rolled his eyes. “What the fuck ever, Gonorrhea. What the fuck ever.” The kid smiled anyway.

The September evening air was so warm and wet that Guarnere could probably swim in it. Even time itself was affected, ticking away slower and slower like the black hands of an unseen clock were straining against the sludge. He watched as the remaining marchers got to their seats, more-or-less where they'd been seated before. Guarnere could hear the growing petty squabbles of “I was sitting here!” or “Scoot over, this was my spot!”, because assigning seats on a specific section of bleachers they wouldn't see again for another year was a very useful way to spend your time, apparently. 

This wasn’t the case for all the marching sections. There was a common sense hierarchy, one the band more-or-less followed during game nights and competitions (and exhibitions). The Pit was typically at the very bottom of the bleachers, followed by the woodwinds, the high brass, the low brass, and–finally–the Battery at the very top (or second to the top, the “rules” were bendable). The arrangement of the Low Brass varied year-to-year and Guarnere was always close enough to judge the switcheroo. Sometimes, the Sousas would be directly below them, other times it’d be the Trombones. His freshmen year, they had a whole Baritone section…that largely consisted of seniors who all graduated at the end of the season (the sole junior and sophomore were forced to trade in their valves for slides, as there had been no incoming Baritones to replace the older models). It was a never-ending shuffling and reshuffling, with familiar faces graduating and newer faces easing in. Replacements upon replacements.

This was all relevant because it was the Sousas this time around who ended up sitting behind the Battery now (plus Spina and Roe), because the Low Brass didn’t give two shits about no “assigned seating”. They weren’t fascists.

“How’d you think it went?” Hoob asked, finishing some conversation with his gaggle of freshmen (and Blithe). The longer the evening went, the cooler the air became (not enough to make a difference, but enough to notice), but the sophomore’s sandy hair was still dark and plastered against his forehead like he’d just taken a dip in Lake Toccoa. The mini atmosphere inside the marching helmets was sweltering. “Side note, but you saw that band with the contras? Eastanolee, right?” he asked, referring to one of the other bands that had marched earlier that night. Unlike the vast majority of high school marchers, they didn’t have sousaphones; Eastonlee had contrabass bugles. Monster instruments slung over one shoulder. It hurt Guarnere’s back just looking at it, he was but a simple drummer. 

“Man, I wish we marched contras,” Hashey said, a wistful look in his eyes.

Gluttons for punishment, the low brass were.

Don Hoobler was also notably out of breath. His stamina wasn’t any worse than the rest of the Toccoa marchers, so Guarnere supposed it was from his handling of his section’s two freshmen (plus Blithe). He was always so eager to help the younger guys, despite being young himself. He’d make a helluva section leader one day.

“How it went. Funny you should ask, Hoob. We was just talkin’ about that, weren’t we? What’d we land on, again?” Guarnere paused for a few seconds before raising one finger and turning so he could face the sousas. “Oh, right. Could’ve been worse!” He grinned widely and saw Babe roll his eyes again.

“It gets less funny the more you say it,” Babe said.

“Who says I’m tryna be funny?” Guarnere asked. “Y’all just need to stop bein’ so damn hard on yourself. It’s band.” 

“Not a one of you tripped,” Bull pointed out, his deep voice rumbling with pride. “Ain’t that somethin’?” Thankfully, the trombones were far enough away, and so thoroughly engaged in a conversation of their own, that Miller wouldn’t’ve heard. It was only delaying the inevitable; nobody’s marching mistakes were safe from being eternally preserved in Sobel’s infamous Fall Exhibition Archives. 

Then again, the trombones (like the rest of the low brass) were made of stronger stuff. They had to be. Give it a coupla days and Miller’d be joking about it with the rest of ‘em.

The freshmen sousas (plus Blithe), however, perked up at Bull’s review. Compliments were a powerful thing, especially when they so sparingly came from the band instructors.

“Oh, man, I thought I was gonna trip!” the smaller and tanner one of them spoke up. Garcia. One of his hands flew up and slapped the back of neck. Mosquitos in the fall, bees in the summer. Either way, no Marching Eagle was safe from an aerial attack. “There were, like, potholes in the turf and I got outta step.”

“‘S ‘cause that ain’t turf. That’s organic grass, dirt, ‘n’ red Georgia clay.” Bull explained and, wow, he was on a roll tonight, practically on track to give even a caffeinated Luz a run for his money, what with all his yapping. “Ya live ‘n’ ya learn.” The guy probably held a high opinion of their performance, so high in spirits and all. 

Hell, look at him, he was beaming.

“Well, ain’t you a regular chatterbox tonight?” Guarnere began with a laugh.

“Right, I can barely hear myself think,” Toye added. Julian the Freshman cracked up beside him.

The tallest sousa made a trademark Bull-grunt before announcing that he needed “to piss” (‘least that’s what it sounded like he said, but you couldn’t always tell with Bull). It was a damnable offense to skip out on an Exhibition performance, especially for an underclassman, especially if one needed to walk all the way down from the top of the creaky bleachers so everyone and their ma could see him leave. But this was Bull Randleman. More than that, all the twelfth-graders were starting to catch that infamous “senioritis” a couple months into their last year at Toccoa High. Experts say there’s no innoculation against it. So, fuck it. And fuck everybody else.

“Try to make it back in one piece,” Hoob said while Blithe wondered aloud in his ever-confused tone, “I thought we was using the buddy system?”

“Don’t get lost, man,” Spina said through a yawn. Guarnere, leaning slightly forward, glanced down his left to where the junior was sitting–spine stiff, arms crossed, eyes closed. Then, he glanced down through the floor of the tall bleachers. The ground was a long, long drop away.

Hoob, similarly, didn’t seem too concerned about how high up they were. However, unlike Spina who was sitting still (even leaning forward), Hoob opted to lean back until the back of his head was supported by the flimsy metal barrier behind him–barely. Unafraid of falling. Or just part of being an idiot fifteen-year-old.

Guess the jury’s still out on his potential as a section leader, Guarnere thought.

Roe clearly wasn’t having it. He turned around, grabbed the fabric of Hoob’s bibber, and yanked him forward with little resistance, bookending the swift action with a sharp “You tryin’ t’ break ya neck?”

“Jeez, c’mon, I wasn’t gonna–”

“Fall?” Roe finished for him. “Don’t do that shit.” Roe shot him a look of sheer exasperation. Spina exchanged a glance with Guarnere– ”This guy,” his face said–and rolled his eyes.

No mystery why folks started calling the kid “Doc”.

Rather than listen in on whatever the two sophomores were sure to start bickering about, Guarnere shifted his attention towards the remaining senior sousa– Johnny Martin. Martin was the guy that usually spoke more than (if not for ) Bull, not the other way ‘round.

“What’s eatin’ you, Johnny?” Guarnere began, eyes on the sousa who was looking more irritated than usual. Which was saying something, considering this was perpetually-irritated Johnny Martin.

Martin grunted a Bull-like grunt before translating. “Nothin’,” he bit out while rubbing white-gloved fingers in circles around his eyebrows.

“Physics, right?” Hoob attempted to clarify, taking time out of his stand-off with Doc Roe to add commentary. “It’s physics. He was talkin’ about it on the bus.”

The surrounding marchers offered sympathetic nods. Even Julian supplied a “That’ll do it”, though Guarnere would eat his shoe if the kid knew even knew the difference between speed and velocity, much less any other physics-related concepts. Much less anything AP Physics. Plus, everyone and their ma knew that the word “physics” is practically synonymous for “pain in the ass” and “hard as hell” in everyday lingo, right up there with “rocket science” and “Greek”. Not for the faint of heart.

Being in the low brass and choosing to be an honor student on top of that? What was that, “Glutton for Punishment” squared? Guarnere thought with raised eyebrows.

Which is why ol’ Gonorrhea (who actually wanted to have fun his senior year, save the stress for college if he bothered doing the college thing at all) chose to do a normal science course his senior year. Basic as hell geology. Rocks and shit. Clearly Johnny Martin was a masochist.

“There, there, Johnny,” Guarnere offered, unable to hold back the grin on his face. Damn AP students choosing to sign up for those damn AP classes.

“And it’s a Thursday–a school night!” Martin released his fingers from his face and curled them up in frustration. He looked more like a bulldog than Randleman right now.

“Fuck Thursdays, man,” Guarnere said with a tsk and remembered a thing Nix said sometimes. “Can never get the hang of ‘em.”

“And Mrs. Ansell, she–ugh! A physics exam? On a Friday morning? C’mon!” Johnny’s hands returned to his face. “I should’ve brought notes with me. Could’ve been studying. Could be home, right now.” He frowned, looking to the empty space to his right as if only just noticing his friend’s absence. “Where the hell is Bull?”

It was unlikely the senior heard Hashey answer “Pissing”, as his voice was easily overpowered by Toye’s deeper and nonchalant voice answering, “We always have Fall Exhibition on a school night, man. You’d rather be studying?”

“Right? On a beautiful night like this?” Hoob added before slapping at his ears when a pesky buzzing creature got way too close. “Motherfucker!” he muttered, still slapping. But with all the moving and shaking he was doing on the bleachers, he once again caught the Doc’s attention and Guarnere sighed, knowing he was about to get it from the Doc another time.

“Yeah, I’d rather be studying. I’ve never had a test the morning after Exhibition, Toye.” The sousa glowered at said drummer.

“Hmm. I’ve got a quiz or somethin’ in Lit tomorrow, you don’t see me whining about it.”

“No one asked, Joe,” Guarnere said over the sound of Martin’s annoyed grumbling. Randleman needed to piss faster, this was starting to get ridiculous.

Shit, maybe he got lost, he considered for a brief moment. I respect his decision, but this is why he needs a damn phone.

“I’m just saying,” Toye shrugged, like he was just making conversation. Which he was, in fairness. Joe was just like that. But Martin wasn’t the best conversationalist, even on his best days. And Toye was unrelentingly unbothered, even on his worst days. There was probably a physics joke in there, somewhere. “So, what, you forget to study and shit?”

“You forget to shut the hell up?” Martin looked like he was seconds from jumping down the last row of bleachers to bite someone’s head off. An outsized escalation, but this Johnny without his Bull. A wild card.

Toye held up his hands in a mock surrender, but not before mumbling a “This is why I don’t date honors students” so low that only Guarnere could hear. Smart move, because if Johnny’d heard him, Guarnere’d need Doc’s help to get someone to Stephens County Hospital. Stressed and pent-up rage meet built like a brick wall. It could go either way. Could even be entertaining. But if Guarnere wanted pettiness and drama, he’d’ve sat with the damn clarinets with the Pit girls and their newest tagalong.

Guarnere gave Toye an elbow shove and a pointed “You done?” before redirecting the conversation towards somewhere more constructive. “Outside’a that, how’d you think we did out there?” Guarnere asked. It’s all about maintaining the mood. Johnny was leaking negativity into the air like a broken second floor faucet, and if Guarnere didn’t act fast, that noxious fluid was gonna drip through the floor until a hole burst through the first floor floor ceiling. Speaking from experience. And that room smelled like shit for months after.

“Hmmph. Fine. Good. It was good.” Johnny’s exasperated voice was muffled through the gloved hands now covering his face, forehead to mouth. “Christ, my GPA.”

“Oh my God, what happened to the fucking vibes here? Y’all get depression?” Hoob finally untangled himself from both the younger sousas and the attention of Doc. “I thought it’d be better up here than way down there.”

“What’s wrong with down there?” Babe asked.

“Fuckin’ Cobb.” Which was answer enough. Worse than the clarinets all by himself, that’s for damn sure.

“Fuck Cobb,” Babe replied. A few others voiced their agreement.

“I swear, I’m this close,” Hoob held up his white-gloved pointer finger and his thumb with hardly an inch of space between them. “This close to knocking his teeth out. He thinks that just because he’s an upperclassman–barely–that means he gets to talk shit about everyone younger than him. Keeps tryna pick a fight with someone and someone’s gonna give it to him.”

“And that someone’s you?” Spina asked, eyes still closed and voice barely hiding his amusement.

“Hell yeah!”

“Your response to Cobb being Cobb is knocking his teeth out?” Martin questioned with raised eyebrows and gloved hands folded in his lap. Of course, the sound of a younger marcher potentially acting irresponsibly was enough to momentarily nudge him out of his slump. “That’s smart,” he continued, echoing an oft-repeated phrase of Ed Tipper.

“You’re gonna sit there and tell me he ain’t askin’ for it?” Hoob’s eyes were wide and his mouth was pulled to one side like he was holding back a laugh. He probably was. “This is Roy Cobb I’m talkin’ about.”

“So you weren’t talkin’ about the innocent people of Cobb County? Oh…” Guarnere heard Blithe’s voice rise among the newer sousas near Hoob. He chuckled at that. He didn’t know Blithe had jokes. 

“You all forget that Cobb’s mom is a band mom?” An unfortunate truth. “Roy Cobb isn’t worth getting kicked out of band for,” Martin finished, like it was just that simple.

Guarnere made a noncommittal noise.

“Eh,” Toye added.

Babe raised one hand and made a see-saw motion while Doc rolled his eyes, although he didn’t voice any disagreement.

Even Spina cocked his head to the side, considering, while all the younger sousas cracked up behind him.

Martin frowned even deeper. “If there comes a time you people either nearly or fully get kicked out of band because you were stupid enough to start a fight with Cobb, of all people, I’m not writing character letters on your behalf. I don’t care how much of an asshole he is.”

“Well, you gotta understand, Johnny,” Guarnere said. “Cobb’s a huge asshole.”

”Then be the bigger person. Take the high road,” Martin tried again, in vain.

“Naw, see, what I’m thinkin’ is,” Hoob started up again, “If I go down, he’s goin’ down with me.”

Martin sighed aloud, but his posture looked lighter. Whether or not the teen himself noticed was anyone’s guess, but Guarnere felt better knowing that at least he was frustrated about something objectively less frustrating. It was still 100% on him for signing up for AP Physics in the first place. But with a brain like his, he’d ace the stupid exam anyway. He just needed to take his mind off of it, engage in some healthy shit-talking. Forget the books, shit-talking was the real chicken soup for the soul. It was either that or get a migraine, and a migraine was the last thing anyone needed in the general vicinity of brass and percussion.

Shit, maybe Toye’s on to something.

“Hey, can I ask a question?” voiced Julian the Freshman, asking a question.

“Just did,” Guarnere and Martin answered in-sync.

“No,” said Toye.

“Why?” asked Babe, earning a look from Doc and a chuckle from Spina.

“Fuckin’–” Hoob scoffed and shook his head, leveling the rest of the guys with a slightly annoyed once-over before nodding at Julian. “What’s your question, man?”

“Jeez. So, okay. Thank you, Hoobler,” Julian emphasized, really over-the-top. “Thanks a lot for letting me ask my question, Hoobler.”

“Don’t make it weird,” Hoobler replied with a laugh.

“Yeah, so why does everyone hate the Oconee Dogs so much?” Julian began. “Is it, like, a historic rivalry thing that goes back decades, or did someone do something specific that everyone remembers or are they a bunch of dicks or what?” His eyes widened. “Is there a death involved?”

Hoob took a deep breath and whistled. “No one told you ‘bout the beef? Well, it’s–” Hoob made an attempt at a juggernaut of an explanation, but was interrupted by the announcement of said band’s imminent arrival to the field. Once the announcer began talking, it was customary (under fear of slow death by Sobel) to shut the fuck up. And it didn’t help that everyone else was quieting down; if you spoke up in the silence, everyone was gonna hear you.

Hoob hurried out an apology to a visibly dejected Julian.

Martin muttered another concerned “Where the hell is Bull?”. This time, Garcia tried to answer, only to get drowned out by the sound of snares and the announcer’s voice on the loudspeaker listing out the name of sponsors and other relevant bullshit.

“…and now, ladies and gentlemen, for your evening entertainment,” a new announcer began, presumably the Oconee band director. The voice sounded familiar enough. “The Oconee High School Marching Band in their performance of “Once Upon a Midnight Dreary”!”

That’s weird…

Guarnere frowned. Something about the title was scratching at his brain. He glanced from the field below to Toye next to him, who was wearing a similarly confused frown. 

“That’s weird,” was all the teen said, low and under his breath. Toye looked from Guarnere next to him to Martin behind him. “That’s weird, right?”

Martin made a “shh” sound and made a zipping motion over his mouth, but even his eyes were pinched in obvious confusion at the Oconee marchers entering the field.

It wasn’t just them three, Guarnere soon realized. Hoob was leaning forward in rapt attention, gloved fingers folded under his chin. Babe was whispering something in Doc’s ears, something Doc would’ve otherwise ignored (or told him off for) if not for the fact he was also watching the field with narrowed eyes. Even Spina’s eyes were wide open.

There rose a muted chatter amongst the majority of the Toccoa Marchers, tapering off once the Oconee Dogs stood in position on the field. The silence in their section of the bleachers was tense as the announcer asked the three Oconee drum majors if they were ready. The tension thickened once the drum majors finished their elaborate salute.

Guarnere browsed the other Toccoa marchers seated below him, able to pick people out by the back of their heads alone. He spotted Luz leaning over and tapping Compton’s shoulder, hands gesturing wildly. The saxophonist said something to the trumpeter and made a motion with his fingers. A “pay me” motion.

Oh shit.

Guarnere squinted at the field, the title “Once Upon a Midnight Dreary” repeating again and again in his head until something clicked. He leaned back. He blinked.

Sparing another glance to Toye, he whispered, “They wouldn’t.”

Toye wasn’t even given a moment to open his mouth before the sound of horns erupted from the field…to the tell-tale tune of “Danse Macabre”.

Exactly like the main theme of Toccoa’s “Nevermore” show just one year ago. Same chords, melody, everything.

“YO!” Guarnere shouted, incredulously. And, shit, he obviously didn’t mean to blow up like that, and it would’ve been fucking embarrasing had his shout not been joined by a similar disturbance up and down the bleachers. Shouts of shock and disbelief and “Who the hell do they think they are?!” Shouts of “They stole our show!” and “Goddamn hacks!” and “I knew it!” (this was followed by a grinning Compton turning around and holding out an expectant hand towards Luz, who was struggling with his uniform top in order to–if context was anything to go by–pay the man. He lost a bet. 

Guarnere spotted the back of Speirs’ head, but he couldn’t quite make out how he was reacting to this act of aggression.

This blow up lasted no more than five seconds or so before getting stamped out by more responsible section leaders and the evil eye of Sobel, but it felt like forever.

“The fuckin’ audacity!” Guarnere whisper-shouted, earning another “Shh!” from Johnny. But even the sound of his “Shh!” was half-hearted now that the familiar music was taunting them, haunting them, from down below.

“Psst! Julian!” Guarnere heard Hoob get the freshman’s attention. “Wanna know why we hate the Oconee Dogs? Turns out, they’re low enough to steal a show! They probably really hate us now since we poached Speirs, and they already hated us.”

“Damn.” Julian shook his head.

“Damn straight,” Hoob finished. After Martin told him to cut it out, Hoob added a fainter, “I know, I know, I’m done.” 

Damn straight, Guarnere agreed. He closed his mouth before anything flew in, still open from the shock. Damn, indeed.

“Of all things for Bull to miss…” Toye trailed off while he shook his head, eyes still wide. “Shit, he still pissin’ or did he go home?”

Unfortunately, there was really no way to know for sure. Bull Randleman was an off-the-grid kinda guy. No phone means no updates. And Bull never had his damn phone.

“Could’ve been worse? Could’ve been better?” Babe asked sarcastically, harkening back to the summary of their own performance earlier that evening.

“Shut up.” Guarnere shoved Babe with his shoulder and kept his eyes glued to the field. Them notes of “Danse Macabre” may as well be fighting words.