Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A – Arcady

Pete seizes Carl by the hand and twirls him around the room like a puppet, performing astonishing pirouettes.

“You know,” he says, halting suddenly and pulling Carl close, “if you truly want it, everything you wish for will come true. Everything, everything, everything will come true. We’ll have a band, we’ll sing songs, and all of England will adore us. Just wait and see! Our Arcady will come true and we’ll have everything we dream of!”

Carl gazes into those dark eyes, brimming with mesmerising, enchanting fire, and he longs to believe. He yearns to close his eyes and picture it all – the dazzling lights, the sound of an out-of-tune guitar, and the crowd chanting their songs. He yearns to lose himself in this dream, to escape to their Arcady, to the blinding lights. He is willing to leave everything else behind.

B – Blame It On the Brown

No one ever believes Peter, and that’s alright, because he doesn’t believe himself. He feels that he’s trapped and that there’s no way out. He is almost certain that there is no escape, living from inhale to exhale, with nothing else around, faces and voices blending into a mess. He has no words left, no thoughts, no dreams, no feelings. He knows he’s making mistake after mistake, but he doesn’t care.

He is the one who has been betrayed, the one who should be pitied – he has never been pitied, only reproached from all sides, over and over again. The never-ending reproaches turn into one long and bitter stare that claims ‘you promised’. Of course he promised, he promised so much, and now those promises are weighing on him like dead weight, dragging him down.

No you’ve got it the wrong way ‘round
You shut me up and blamed it on the brown
Cornered the boy kicked out at the world
The world kicked back a lot fuckin’ harder now

“To hell with all of this,” he says and sighs.

This is not his fault.

C – Carl

“And this is Carl, the one I told you about,” Amy says with noticeable pride in her voice.

Pete smiles politely, thinking that his sister could find someone better than this dark-haired, gaunt boy with a scared look and a strange, supposedly French name, behaving like a fourteen-year-old being eighteen. Carl doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, either trying to stuff them into the pockets of his tight jeans or tucking his mane of hair behind his ear.

“Amy mentioned you’re acing the guitar?”, Pete can’t help but ask, hoping to start a conversation.

Carl nods, staring down at the floor, then, self-consciously, at Pete. He has bright blue eyes and a cautious smile, as if he’s warily expecting a catch in everything.

“Will you show me?”, Pete asks as kindly as possible, and realises that he’s afraid of scaring him away.

To his surprise, Carl agrees, brings a worn guitar into the kitchen, and plays a song that Pete doesn’t recognise. Pete watches, memorising the new chords.

Half an hour later, they’re talking, talking non-stop, interrupting each other, occasionally raising their voices, trying to prove some truth that they’re the only ones to know.

D – Drew

Drew immediately falls for Pete’s charm – as does everyone else, and Drew knows it perfectly well. Most of the time, he is torn between wanting to hug Pete and wanting to punch him. Drew likes their music, he likes their songs and even admires the convoluted life philosophy that Pete occasionally attempts to explain. He’s not at all embarrassed by the fact that they probably will never escape from the shadow of The Libertines, and that to some people, he will forever be known as “the bass player of that junkie in a hat”.

He’s indifferent to all of this, because Pete is one of those people you can’t help but want to rescue, and Drew can’t resist that urge, although he knows it is futile. He is well aware that Pete will always make promises that are impossible to fulfill, and that he will somehow always manage to get out of it alive. At least for the time being.

Drew tries to avoid dwelling on what comes next, what happens when Pete is unable to get out after all. Though in principle, he’s made peace with that thought.

E – Eight Days A Week

There is almost nothing in their room – ain’t got nothing but love, and their mattress, their scattered dirty clothes, their guitars, countless cigarette butts and the atmosphere of endless, boundless youth. The room is never warm, and they have only one thin blanket for the both of them, and sleep shivering from the cold. Their minds are blank, with little to worry about as they feel they have all they need.

They don’t want anything – except for fame and glory, of course. But they know that it will come, they are certain that it will come, because there are only two options, two paths in front of them – it’s either the top of the world, or the bottom of a canal. They know that it will take a while, just a little while, and they will climb to that very top, that they will leave this room, leave all of this behind.

They don’t know that one day, they will look back at this as the best time of their lives.

Chapter Text

F – Fuck Forever

When Pete accidentally switches on the TV and sees Carl singing their songs alone, with that annoying curly-haired American playing his chords, he feels a wave of despair wash over him. He just wants to die. The pain is so intense that he feels like screaming at the top of his lungs, making London fall to pieces, so that his Biggles would finally hear him again. Like he’d heard him before.

He wants to wipe that meaningless tattoo off his arm, even tries to scrape it off with a kitchen knife, leaving deep cuts on his skin. He knows it’s incredibly stupid and childish, but he is past caring. He hates the world, hates his life, hates himself.

“Oh what became of forever though?” - the painfully familiar voice echoes in his head over and over again.

“Fuck forever”, Pete whispers, swallowing the tears.

G – Gary

At times, Gary wonders why he’s still here, why he’s still doing this. He loves the music, he loves the idea and the life. However, he recognises that there is no future for them – he remembers all too well how it all ended back in 2004. That was merely four years ago, and he cannot possibly comprehend why Carl is repeating the exact same mistakes, why they’re sitting in this bloody room all day long trying to write something. Yes, Pete’s place is now taken by Anthony, but they’re still snorting through mountains of coke and whatnot, and it’s so incredibly upsetting. Gary knows he’ll never touch that, he’s seen what it does to people’s lives, and he can’t help but wonder why the others fail to grasp that. How can they not see it? He can sense the atmosphere heating up, even though it seems like it can’t get any more intense. He knows that somebody’s about to punch somebody in the face, and that he’s the one who’s going to have to sort them out like every bloody time.

And God knows how much he wants to beat the crap out of them, throw all those bottles and plastic bags away and get a fresh start. But he refrains, because he knows it won’t help, because he knows that it won’t change anything.

H – Hippy's Son

“He was born in a kitchen sink!” Pete shouts in the face of the NME journalist, his voice exuding happiness as if he had just discovered a cure for cancer.

“That’s not true”, Carl replies, trying to stay calm. “Don’t start making up stories.”

“I’ll say what I wanna say! Let them know! He was born in a kitchen sink in Basingstoke, poor thing, to a family of travelling gypsies who’d learned it all the hard way. And all his ancestors were actors, like Basil Rathbone!”

“Is this true?”, the journalist asks, clearly feeling out of place, as if caught in the middle of a quarrel.

“Not all of that,” Carl replies, still calm.

“But it’s true!” Pete shouts at him, the voice lacking the cheerfulness of half a minute ago.

“I wasn’t born in a bloody sink,” Carl responds, and it sounds exhausted.

“And he was taken away from his mother when he was five because she was a drug addict!”

“That’s not true,” Carl replies, and the journalist starts to think that it’s not the first time this conversation takes place.

“It is true! He was taken away by social services because his mother was a drug addict! Of course he doesn’t want to talk about it because it was such a trauma. His mum was a drug addict!”

“My mum wasn’t a drug addict,” Carl says, pronouncing each word very distinctly.

“What did she do?”, the journalist joins in, as if hoping to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“She travelled a lot,” Carl replies, watching Pete sink into a slump, like a burst air balloon.

The room falls silent.

I – I Get Along

Of course it was never true that Carl did not care about anyone, that was all just stupid words.

“Fuck ‘em” – fuck them all, because it’s so easy to say.

But he knows full well that he does care. He’s petrified, afraid of every gig, he’s in pain, he feels like he could collapse at any moment and just die, from fear, from overexertion, from cardiac arrest, from the booze, from an overdose, from basically anything. He never wanted to be left alone on that bloody stage, he hated being alone, he always longed to be part of something bigger. He knows that he can’t take it alone. Thinking back to all the past promises and shattered hopes, he realises that this is the end, that nothing will change. But what other choice does he have?

So he goes on stage, sensing Pete’s absence in every fibre of his being and trying to forget that it’s all his own fault.

He remembers that there are two bodyguards backstage, and that there’s another bottle of Jameson waiting for him.

I get along just singing my song, people tell me I’m wrong…

J – John

John is upset. It’s silly, but he is really upset, even hurt. Of course he doesn’t show it, he has no right to be hurt. He knows that he has been very fortunate, that they are all fortunate, and that all is well. After all, he’s got it all, the fame and the music, the girls and the money. And the price he has to pay – oh, isn’t that petty?

But every time Pete walks up to Carl before a show, every time Pete takes him by the shoulders, and begins his endless litany of “just you and me, just the two of us, we don’t need anyone else, nothing else matters, just you and me, just us, you hear? You hear me? You and me and Arcady, and nothing else. Nothing to be afraid of, everything’s gonna be alright”, it just triggers him like a loaded gun. John wants to throw away his bass and walk away, walk away and get plastered somewhere.

He’s hurt because he knows that everything Pete says is the truth.

Chapter Text

K – Kentish Town

Pete had never been fond of August in the past – in August, all the promises of summer usually turned out to be wrong and it was clear that it had not changed a thing. But this August was different. In this August, August 2014, Pete believes again that everything is going to be alright, that everything is about to change. Carl is sitting across the table, looking at his guitar, Gary is pensively staring out the window, tapping some obscure rhythm with his foot, John is smoking and blowing smoke rings.

Pete is struggling to tame his excitement – how long has it been since they’ve stood on stage together? He’s very afraid that something will go wrong, and the thought makes him feel both happy and sad at the same time. He never used to worry, he would just go on stage and pour his soul out over the heads of the fans standing in the front row, without a second thought. It was always enough.

Pete is fully occupied with his thoughts, mentally rehearsing the chords of every song on the set list, suddenly stammering after “mind instructions”. Right.

On how to slowly, sharply screw myself to death

Oh, yes, there is a screw
And it’s pointed at my head

Before, he was always so certain that the words would just flow out of him when the time came. But now it is different. Now it has to work out, it just has to work out.

Because he doesn't know what he’ll do if he screws it all up again.

L – Libertine

Carl cannot recall who came up with the idea for the tattoo, but he is fairly certain it was him. However, he does very well remember that time in New York, when he believed everything could still be reversed, everything would still be alright, everything would work out, that everything would be as it had been before.

In fact, even then, he knew that he was fooling himself, as usual. Nine letters couldn’t change their fate no matter where they wrote them, but he wanted it to work so much that he was desperate to grasp at any straw. He didn’t care that they didn’t get their tattoos at the same time, or even in the same place – Pete had disappeared that day in pursuit of something stiffer, and Carl had gone to the tattoo parlour alone. Nonetheless, they both got them, and that was the point.

“I’ll never stop being a libertine, you know. I’ve got this tattoo on my shoulder,” Carl answers the familiar question and smiles.

He is exceptionally proud that he has mastered the art of smiling in response to this question.

M – Music When The Lights Go Out

Pete doesn’t know how to love – he can find charming words, write heart-wrenching poems, but he lacks the knowledge of truly loving someone. Unlike his notebooks, in real life he’s awkward, inept, and childish, even though he’s almost twenty. Just as he used to tease the girls he fancied by pulling their hair in school, now he’s trying to get Carl’s attention in every way he can. He needs his attention – twenty-four hours a day, eight days a week – and he’s constantly fighting for it as hard as he can.

It seems as if Carl can feel it, not being offended at all by these childish antics. Carl rarely takes offence at all, and he appreciates Pete more than he deserves.

Pete knows this. He figures that one day, things will change, that one day things will be different. But not now, not in their little room. Now, when the lights are out, he just lies in the dark and listens to the music of Carl’s steady breathing.

“I quite love you”, he whispers before drifting off to sleep.

N – NME

Carl despises interviews. He never knows what to say, he’s always embarrassed by what Pete says, and he gets so angry at himself every time the journalists start asking too many too personal questions and, instead of confidently brushing them off, he says something stupid.

He knows that everyone in the band is just flat-out rubbish at talking to the press, that they’re acting all too predictable. They share too many too personal details, they lie too much, they think too little in advance. But he also knows that this is all he wanted – his face on the magazine cover, his voice on the radio, his songs on the charts... There’s a price to pay for everything, and his price are his own awkward responses and the fruitless attempts to stop Pete’s erratic ramblings before he can say something regrettable.

He’s not doing a very good job, or rather, he’s not doing a good job at all. In a few days, he’ll cringe at the sight of their less-than-flattering photo accompanied by a less-than eloquent quote from Pete on the newspaper stand. Is this really what they wanted? Was this the fame they sought?

Bloody journalists. Bloody show business.

O – Old Vic

Carl doesn’t immediately grasp what is happening when Pete suddenly appears out of nowhere at the posh banquet where Carl is working as a waiter. Pete is shouting something and gesticulating wildly. Carl thinks he hasn’t seen him this upset, hurt and discouraged in a long time.

“What are you doing here?”, Pete shouts across the room, almost crying. “Can’t you see that all the people around here are idiots? We’re supposed to be writing songs! We’re supposed to be making music!”

It seems to Carl that all the heads have turned around and are expectantly looking at them – no, at him, at him alone. He feels the earth shift beneath his feet, the tray in his hand teetering dangerously to one side. A thousand thoughts are jumbling in his head, and he has absolutely no idea what to do.

But he knows that Pete is right.

Chapter Text

P – Peter

“Doherty, Peter.”

“Do-k-erty,” Pete corrects automatically, pronouncing his last name the Scottish way.

They hand him some documents, his belongings, something else, but he is oblivious to what’s happening around him – his head is preoccupied with quite other matters. There is only one door left, one door separating him from his freedom, and he can’t believe it at all. In front of the door, he suddenly pauses in hesitation and remembers what’s waiting outside.

Or maybe not.

He doesn’t recall the exact moment, but during one of the sleepless nights in his cell, he realised that he couldn’t go on living if Carl wasn’t waiting for him out there. He even wrote a shabby farewell note, and now he reaches into the back pocket of his trousers for it. It seems to him that it suddenly weighs several pounds, dragging the pocket down like a stone. Someone behind him shouts for him to move away from the door and let the others pass, and Pete, with a deep breath, steps outside.

The warmth outside envelops him, and he shields his eyes with his arm as the sun blinds him.

“Hey there, Pigman.”

The familiar voice makes the world around him start spinning like a bloody merry-go-round.

“You.” That’s all that Pete manages to utter before he falls in Carl’s hands, clutching him as if he were a lifeline. “You... You... You’re here?”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting in return, but Carl just looks at him silently, smiling.

Q – Queen Bodicea

Pete staunchly believes that their very first song was “The Good Old Days”. He admits that perhaps it wasn’t actually the case, and that he may have made it up, because he made up so many things, who could ever remember the truth now, after all these years? But it fits so well with his personal legend about them, the Libertines, that he takes it for a fact that “The Good Old Days” was their first song. It encapsulates everything – the Albion, Arcady, daisy chains, the grandeur of days long past, and even Carl’s bloody romantic patriotism, the origins of which remain a mystery even to himself.

In Pete’s mind, every stroke of this picture is crystal clear: they’re sailing on a huge boat across the vast expanse of the sea, blending with the steel-coloured sky at the unseen horizon, and there is nothing, nothing around them. Only the raging wind and their absolute freedom, just the two of them and the entire world at their feet.

Queen Boadicea is long dead and gone, and they are her sole remaining heirs, her faithful knights. But they are not meant to restore her kingdom.

R – Reading + Leeds 2010

Of course Carl is considering the money – he’s going to be a father in a few months, he can’t afford any more contingencies, he knows that. Nevertheless, he persuades himself that he agreed not only because of the money. He has changed, they have all changed, and he’s determined to not repeat past mistakes, he no longer needs to step on that same rake over and over again to feel alive. He convinces himself that everything will be fine, that he shouldn’t worry, that nothing will happen, that everything will turn out alright. He knows that he needs to focus, to pull himself together, and to just do it. Against all odds, just do it.

And he does, he always has.

Carl can’t quite believe it’s actually happening – ecstatic fans and thousands of flashlights, he still can’t believe it when Pete confidently strums the first chord, he can’t believe it when they finish the last song of the set list, when the air seems to explode and everything around them blends into an endless euphoria. This is not a figment of his imagination, not a fever dream, not an illusion. They really did perform together and everything really did go down – well, not as planned, but not worse than that. For a second, he thinks that this is the moment to start dreaming again. The second passes, they hug on stage, and it’s over.

They can’t go back in time, they can’t rectify the past. He understands it well enough, and he knows that everyone in the band does, too.

S – St. Anthony

Anthony glances at Carl, hidden behind his unkempt hair, chewing on the filter of an unlit cigarette. Carl nods and Anthony starts playing, as usual hunched over his guitar. It’s an idiotic habit, and he's aware of that, but it doesn’t help. He gets halfway through “What Katie Did”  before Carl nods again and gets up from the chair he was sitting in before.

“Fancy a smoke?”, he asks, and Anthony, propping his guitar against the amp, strolls over to the table.

“Nice hair”, Carl states out of the blue.

They look at each other and burst into laughter. As it dies down, they continue smoking in silence, and Anthony sneaks another glance at Carl, who is busy fumbling with his phone. He has the appearance of someone who hasn’t slept in a month and has forgotten what fresh air feels like, yet somehow, this ragged weariness fits him.

“We’re meeting the others next week. I'll give you a call,” Carl says casually, finally breaking away from the phone.

Anthony nods and puts out his cigarette in the ashtray.

T – They’re Just Narcissists

“WHAT’S WRONG?”, Alan’s voice cuts through Carl’s sleep.

Carl wants to open his eyes, but for some reason he can’t, so instead he just licks his lips and, unexpectedly, tastes blood. Someone else comes running into the room and starts screaming at Alan, and Carl recognises Pete’s voice, all hysterical.

What are you doing you stupid fucking idiot

Wake up

“Why are you all shouting like that?”, Carl asks, trying to figure out why he can open only one eye.

Alan and Pete are still screaming in unison, so he decides to get up. Half of his blanket is stained brown from dried blood, and the entire floor is covered in dark red. Seeing him standing there, Alan and Pete fall silent.

“What happened here?”, Alan finally asks in his managerial tone, each word carefully honed.

Carl notices the throbbing pain in his head as he struggles to recall what happened.

“Well, I got drunk”, he begins, “and then.…”

His memory provides him with the right point in time, and he stops talking.

“I suppose I slipped in the bathroom and hit my face on the basin”, he continues after a treacherous pause. “Should probably go to the hospital.”

Later, at the hospital, the doctors say that Carl got lucky, because he could as well have lost his eye. Pete sits beside him, looking like a terrified puppy.

“You didn’t slip”, he murmurs quietly when they are finally alone.

“No”, Carl replies, staring up at the ceiling.

Chapter Text

U – Until the Very End

Pete is filled with dread, when Carl starts saying all these things, he’s scared that Carl really thinks that way, feels that way. He’s scared that what they have might not be enough, because it’s never enough for Carl, nothing ever is. He’s scared that one day, Carl will climb up on this roof alone and really jump off, drown in eternity, disappear from this world in which he, apparently, has no place.

If you’re still alive

When you’re twenty five

Shall I kill you

Like you asked me to

Pete wants to ask, “What about me? You can be by my side, the re will always be room for you, right?”

B ut he doesn’t dare, he’s too scared of saying the wrong thing, standing here, on this rooftop. S o he just punches him hard to make him stop say ing all those things. And right as Carl collapses, unconscious , just an instant later , Pete gently lifts him in his arms, like a fragile flower, carries him downstairs to the flat, and whispers, whispers that everything will be alright, that they will be together until the end, that he will never let him go, never abandon him, never betray him.

“Until the end,” he whispers, laying Carl down on the couch.

“Until the very end,” Carl replies.

V – Vertigo

Pete has always been used to literally looking down on everyone, being the tallest one since high school. It’s not his fault, of course, but he still feels guilty. He knows that the roadies make sure to raise it a bit when they set it up for him, but it’s still not enough, and he tilts a little, slouches a little, it’s been a habit for a long time. The mic on the Glastonbury stage is positioned exactly as it should be, as if someone had deliberately measured it, and Pete doesn’t have to adjust, doesn’t have to bend his back or raise the mic a little higher.

All these thoughts are whirling through his head, and he doesn’t even notice them, in fact he thinks that he’s ruminating on something else. They sing the first song of the set, and he finds himself in a lousy mood, definitely not the right mood for such a huge stage. But now is certainly not the time to think about that. Gary counts off, nodding his head before the next song, Pete picks up the rhythm, Carl starts his riff and then suddenly he’s off. It’s a minor slip-up, such things happen, and he gets it straight on the second try, but it makes Pete realise that Carl is not in a good mood either. But why?

Koreema knows just what it is she does

Time flows, the bars run one after another, the English summer sun shines over the crowd.

I know what’s on your mind, my boy

Pete takes a couple of hesitant steps forward, but then stops. He tries to catch Carl’s gaze, something he used to be able to do so effortlessly – but that was back then, almost fifteen years ago.

Climb up to her window ledge or you’ll forever be

He wants to press pause, to stop Gary’s drums, to cut off the guitar riff, to drown out the voices of tens of thousands of people. He wants to say something, something simple and soft. But now is certainly not the time.

“As the people hear you crying please”, he screams into the mic. “Please, please, please.”

The distance between them gets to zero, and Pete hopes that Carl will hear him, that they will suddenly understand each other without words once again.

His “please” is hanging in the air, and he freezes at the mic a little longer than necessary. He falls out of time and space, but immediately pulls himself back. He knows that now is certainly not the time.

Me, my boy I was never sure

Was it the liquor or was it my soul?

W – What Became of the Likely Lads

Pete awakes to a typical June morning outside the bedroom window. Katia is already up , standing by their baby girl’s cot. He still can’t believe that this little lump has become an integral part of his life in a matter of weeks, that someday she will start smiling, laughing, walking, talking. By the time she finishes school , he’ll be in his sixties – if he even lives to see it, if his body doesn’t make him pay sooner for all that he’s done to himself before that . But that is the future, and he has to concentrate on the present.

Still in bed, he glances at his phone, and the date reminds him of something, something rising from the depths of his mind, beeping and buzzing. Yeah, that’s right, the sixth of June.

“Happy Birthday, Biggles!”, he types on the on-screen keyboard and hits “send”.

Then hesitates again and catches something else.

“45”, he types. “Who would’ve thought? So it’s a good thing after all that I didn’t heed your call twenty years ago, like you asked me to.”

“oh fuck off”, comes the immediate reply.

Pete laughs, and the phone vibrates again.

“not only did you wake me, you’re mocking me too”

“lovingly, you know”

Nothing comes back for a long time, and as Pete sits on the bed and waits, memories float before his mind’s eye. Obeying the familiar feeling, he stands up and grabs the guitar leaning against the wall. He picks up one chord, then another, rearranges the words in his head, and begins to sing.

Oh, what was that song they played

And what about the pact we made

You know, you should’ve stayed

The day you went away

He looks up at Katia, who holds their daughter in her arms, swaying slightly to the rhythm.

“It's lovely,” she whispers.

“But not as lovely as you two,” he replies with a smile.

She giggles and shines, glowing with that special light that has become his beacon. Having enjoyed her sight for a while, he returns to the guitar, switches on the recording mode on his phone and plays the fragment again. Then he hits “send”.

X

“Did I ever tell you I had a twin brother?” asks Carl, puffing smoke into the ceiling.

They are sitting in their chilly room, lit by a single dull light bulb hanging in the middle of it.

“Wait, what?” Pete asks back.

“I had a twin brother,” Carl repeats, his voice as calm as if he were talking about going to Tesco for groceries.

Pete puts down his guitar and gives Carl a look of disbelief.

“He died. Pretty much as soon as he was born. Do you think I’d be any different if he hadn’t died?” Carl turns his head and looks at Pete, waiting for an answer, but then decides to continue. “Maybe then... Maybe that’s why I feel this way…”

He stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray and immediately lights another, trying to find the right word. Lonely? Worthless? Damaged? Broken? The unspoken word lingers in the air, just below the light bulb, like an unknown variable on a blackboard during a calculus lesson.

“But now you’ve got me,” Pete breaks the silence, and the room seems to brighten a little.

“Yes,” Carl replies with a smile. “Now I’ve got you.”

Y – You’re My Waterloo

Carl strongly dislikes Thailand, though he’d never admit it. It’s hot here, and the heat presses against his temples, leaving him breathless. Everywhere he looks, there are gigantic insects crawling about, and the constant buzzing makes it impossible for him to sleep properly – although he hasn’t been able to sleep properly for so many years that the phrase has lost its meaning by now.

He also doesn’t like to give in, he doesn’t like the compromises Pete makes him accept. Over the years, he’s forgotten what it’s like to compromise.

“Let’s record You’re My Waterloo”, Pete suggests a week after they started making their new album.

Carl doesn’t even realise what Pete wants at first.

“Why?”, he asks, feeling like an idiot right away.

“We never recorded it”, Pete innocently replies. “They all love it. Why not?”

Because it’s our song, our very own song”, Carl wants to say. “Because we’ve already thrown our whole lives in front of them, because there’s nothing left of that time, absolutely nothing, except for this one piece, except for these few words.”

But Carl remains silent. He knows for a fact that Pete would laugh at his sentimentality if he tried to explain it to him. A decade ago, they wouldn’t even have to have this conversation! There would be no need to talk about this back in 2004.

“Alright”, he mumbles, and reluctantly sits down at the piano, trying to conceal his bitterness, his anger at himself.

He plays the first chord, surprised that he can remember every single note.

“You’ll never fumigate the demons”, Pete starts a bit flat. “No matter how much you smoke.”

Carl grinds his teeth so hard that his jaw goes sore.

Just say you love me for three good reasons

Pete is right, as always. None of his lyrics, none of his metaphors and pictures, belong to Carl anymore. It’s all become some kind of public domain, become something big, grown beyond the two of them. But bloody hell, it was his song, this song – just this one song! – was his alone, as was the blurred, time-wiped memory of the Waterloo sunset, of Pete picking the nearly wilted roses in that fading light.

Z – Zealots

The boys in the band head outside, expecting to see a motley group of people – and sure enough, there they are, just outside the fence, about a dozen of them.

“Oi hellooooo!” Pete shouts, raising his hat in greeting.

They all turn round as one.

“Only the faithful here?”, Pete asks, and Carl laughs.

They both – no, all four of them – love moments like this, because they’ve been through it all for this, for these people, for a few lost souls. Smiling, they walk down the stairs and step outside the fence.

The early noughties have long faded into oblivion, and no one is chasing after them with feral screams anymore. The people outside the fence are all probably in their late twenties, and in a couple of hours, they’ll have to get up and go to some office building to stare at a monitor screen for eight hours straight. But here and now, they’re standing at the fence, three of them wearing the red military jackets of the glorious past.

“Nice one!”, Carl nods approvingly, taking a closer look at one of the jackets.

“How are you doing?”, Pete asks, eager for a genuine response.

He hopes that they know he’s really interested in the answer. Who would, if not them?

Someone hands him a black felt-tip pen and a ticket to sign, someone else just stands there and stares at them, breathless and enchanted. Someone proudly shows Carl his tattoo.

“You wrote that! In London, back in 2008!”

Carl laughs.

“Look, Peter!”, he exclaims, shoving their old picture under Pete’s nose. “Look how beautiful we were back then! Do you remember that night?”

Pete isn’t quite sure, but it doesn’t matter. They both sign the photo with the black felt-tip pen and hand it back. The bloke in the red jacket carefully puts it in his pocket, beaming with joy.

Time dilates and contracts, Pete’s talking to someone about books, John is smoking someone else's cigarettes, Gary is making inquiries about the best way to get to the club he’s supposed to be DJing at in an hour. Some girl says that their songs saved her life, and that she’s so happy to finally get to hear them live, and Carl immediately hugs her, offering a gentle smile.

“I reckon they saved mine, too”, he adds softly, then takes another sip from the Jameson bottle someone has passed him.

A couple more minutes, and Pete is singing something, and now they’re all singing together.

“Our songs are for you”, Carl says.

“For Arcady!”, Pete continues.

“For Arcady!”, echoes the rest of them.

For Arcady.