Lowell Tracey is a Rock Star (brainjam) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-11-14 11:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !partner thread, isabela, lowell tracey |
Who: Lowell and Isabela
What: Isabela offers Lowell some advice before his concert
When: Tonight!
Where: The Hanged Man
Rating/Warning: None really
Status: Complete
There had been a time once, not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, when Lowell would have to load his own gear in. But those days ended when Lowell made it big. Now the studio could hire roadies to carry in all the band’s gear, and set it up to boot, which meant that all Lowell had to do was sit at the bar, have a few drinks, and watch them to be sure that no harm came to his equipment. They’d even make sure everything was in tune for them before they took to the stage for their soundcheck. This really was the life.
His bandmates were similarly lounging around the pub. The other three members of the band were all out for a cigarette, a habit that Lowell wished they would quit. He’d smoked in high school as well, but he’d stopped in order to help protect his voice. The raspy singer thing worked for some people, but Lowell was no Louis Armstrong. Still, sometimes he missed it. Especially when they all went out together and left him quite alone.
“Could I get a brandy?” Lowell asked, making his way to the bar. He may as well start drinking now. It was still a while before the show started.
There manning the bar tonight was one of the pub’s co-owners, a sassy pirate, Queen of the Eastern Seas, the Sharpest Blade in Llomerryn - one simply couldn’t dress the part without a pair of leather trousers, and that’s what Bela wore. Along with her staple corset top which skillfully showcased those glorious dirty pillows, a blue handkerchief having swept that sleek mass of inkwell hair away from her face and out of honey-coloured eyes. There was a band playing tonight, Pocket Dial or something? She thought she’d heard of them, back in the UK when she wasn’t dodging knife blades or bullets aimed at her person, but Hawke said they were good so she guessed she’d trust him.
A rock band was a different sort of entertainment for a medieval pub (you’d think there’d be a crooning bard in the corner), but alright, she’d go with it. And here was the lead singer now!
“Prepping the vocal cords, love?” Isabela grinned cheekily, pouring and passing over a glass of delicious brandy, with notes of blackcurrant and kind of a honeysuckle finish. It was a Thedosian thing, as most of the drinks at The Hanged Man were. “Or conquering stage fright?”
“A bit of both,” Lowell said. It wasn’t stage fright, per se, but it was close. It was a rush of adrenaline that made his heart pound in his chest and his palms sweat, innervating him with a nervous energy, but he could barely call it stage fright. Fright implied that it wasn’t enjoyable, and there was no greater feeling in the world than getting on the stage surrounded by so many people who loved his music. Brandy both calmed some of that energy, and helped warm up the vocal chords like no other alcohol did, even if it was only ever his first choice right before a gig.
“You might want a couple of drinks before everyone gets here yourself,” he suggested. “Word is the gig’s sold out.” As well it might. Pocket Dial didn’t play a lot of small shows anymore, as they could quite easily fill, or at least nearly fill, a large stadium. It was only because Lowell and the rest of his bandmates prefered close, intimate shows that they even had them at all, as rare as they were.
“Oh, I’ll be alright,” Bela assured, and indeed she would be - taking nips from a bottle of whiskey here and there, or perhaps even from a mug of Rat Droppings ale all to herself. “You just concentrate on your show. We’ve handled crowds and rowdy sorts before - I make an excellent bouncer as well as drink-slinger.” It helped that the rogue was always armed with something sharp and shiny - rarely did she go anywhere without a few blades strapped to her person, in discrete locations.
Besides, if anyone got really awful, they’d follow the same fate as the actual hanged man in the doorway. Just kidding! Maybe.
She decided to pour a little of that brandy for herself though, sloshing it in the glass. “I’m Isabela, by the way - I think you’ve talked to my ball and chain before, to set up this gig.” And she’d seen him about, on the network of oddballs with that whole dreaming problem. Cute.
Lowell looked Isabela over. When he thought of bouncers, he tended to think of someone big and buff. The bartender in front of him certainly didn’t look intimidating, but a closer look showed that her lithe body was also well-muscled. Perhaps she could toss rowdy guys from the bar. But then, he hoped she wouldn’t have to.
“Lowell,” Lowell answered, as if he needed an introduction at his own concert. So you and Hawke are married then?” Lowell asked. Getting married and opening a bar really didn’t seem like a bad life. That was, if he was ever going to get married. The one he’d moved to America for had broken his heart rather spectacularly, and he’d come to realize recently that he really couldn’t keep up with Liv’s peculiarities after all.
But he’d told himself he wasn’t going to think about Liv tonight. He had a gig, and he couldn’t waste energy thinking about lost loves when he should be thinking about that particularly tricky riff in their new songs.
Toss? More like stab rowdy blokes, but you know, semantics. Isabela could do either, really - she just preferred the approach that meant wearing the blood of her enemies. Anyway! “Hawke and me, we’re married,” she confirmed. “Did it in Vegas one day, then spent some time there gambling and collecting cash.”
Cheating at cards, actually - sometimes it was handy to take rogues places (besides for the fact that they were always ready for a fight, or to pick a lock). What a fruitful getaway it had been - in fact, some of this Hanged Man decor? Thank her skills at Pai gow for that one.
“Not that it was very much on the whim,” she added, with a lift of one shoulder. “We had some time to plan. A little. I sort of proposed randomly though.” At least they had a chance to get rings, and the greedy pirate in Bela really loved hers - a rare black pearl, one she never took off the third finger of her left hand. “What about you, have you got a wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend, all of the above?”
“Vegas, hm?” Lowell said, raising his eyebrows a little. “I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who’s actually been married in Vegas At least, not that I’m aware of.” But then, most of them were more the rock star type than the marrying type, and those who weren’t were the business people that Pocket Dial had to deal with, and therefore weren’t the get married in Vegas type. “But it doesn’t sound like too much of a bad deal. Most people lose money on their weddings, not gain it.” Then, most people who went to Vegas tended to lose money rather than gain it as well, so he supposed it could have been a right disaster on that front.
He couldn’t stop his expression from darkening at Isabela’s question though, and he knocked back the rest of his brandy in a swallow and pushed the glass toward Isabela with a gesture that he’d like a refill.
“No,” Lowell said, smiling wryly. “A handsome rock star like me can’t keep myself tied down. Can’t disappoint the fans, after all.” Not that fans ever seemed to care if he was in a relationship.
“Oh, love!” She chuckled, refilling Lowell’s glass for him - a whiskey smooth as elven baby butt certainly went down easily, but it was best for sipping. She must have hit a nerve with that question, so as to inspire him to pour it down his gullet haphazardly? “You’re having troubles, aren’t you? Go on, tell me all about it.”
Isabela dragged a stool over, and hopped up to perch her gloriously perfect bum there on her new seat. Surely there was some time before he had to go tune up or whatever it was rock stars did before they took the stage.
“I give wonderful advice, you know. Straight, to the point, no bullshit. I’m also right, hmmmm, about ninety-six percent of the time.” She was rounding up, but whatever.
Lowell sighed. “That obvious, huh?” he asked, lifting his glass to his lips again. This time, he only took a small sip. “I actually just broke up with this girl this last week. She was great, but I don’t think it’s going to work after all, even if we wanted it to. But it wasn’t as though we’d been seeing each other for long, so…”
So, it still hurt more than it ought to have. Not after just two months, without having even slept together yet. And especially not since he’d been the one to pull the plug. He didn’t have the right to complain at all.
Fresh off a breakup, was he? That was a shame; he was a good-looking bloke, no doubt Lowell could have his pick of all the fish and urchins in the sea. But obviously he was still smarting from this romantic kerfuffle, the girl he was talking about still on his mind.
“Well, sometimes it takes a bit to get your shit together - took me and Hawke literally three years, in the dreamspace,” she shared. Obviously less time here, but Bela had her moments where she’d tried to run away - he’d stuck by her, stubbornly, and wouldn’t let her go. That’s what she needed.
“But if you want to make it work, you always find a way - takes two people.” Tucking one knee over the other, she sipped her drink, a bit of an mmmm escaping her as her insides experienced a wave of pleasant warmth. “What exactly happened, for you to end it?”
“Three years?” Lowell asked, his eyebrows raising. He couldn’t say that he’d ever invested that kind of time into a relationship before.
He sighed, running a hand through his short, black hair. Then he took another sip of his brandy. “It’s like she’s a different women every time I see her,” he said after a moment. He didn’t want to say anything terrible about Liv, like the fact that she was probably a nutter, but it wasn’t as though that wasn’t the truth. “And it was charming at first. A new surprise every couple of weeks. But I couldn’t keep up, and lately I’ve realized that it might not be so much charming as it could be dangerous. Especially with me being in the public eye as I am.” The last thing he or Liv needed was a tabloid headline about Lowell’s mental girlfriend.
That was an interesting situation. Bela didn’t know what the girl’s deal was, but breaking up with her because she wouldn’t look good to the cameras and for the rumour mill was just silly. “Do you like her?” the pirate asked bluntly. “If you do, then fuck everything else. That would be my advice - because otherwise, what, you’ll end up in an arranged relationship with Taylor Swift or something. Because it’s good for being in the public eye - “ Her tone indicated there were supposed to be air quotes around that phrase, pleasant sarcastic. “She’ll write about six songs about you and it’ll be extra embarrassing, when you should have just gone with the charming bird who’s got multiple personalities.”
Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. That also brought up another point.
“Obviously something’s going on with her, if that’s swinging the pendulum that hard. She’s got to trust you, to tell you what it is,” Isabela shrugged. “Or else you really haven’t got much of anything.” Not without trust - even a season runner from relationships knew that much.
“I do like her,” Lowell had to admit. “She’s like no other girl I’ve ever met.” Though whether or not that was a good thing was still up in the air. “She’s funny, and smart, and miles above Taylor Swift, even if she is a bit insane.”
He hated to admit that Isabela was right in this case at least. Lowell hadn’t met any girl he’d want to be with more than he wanted to be with Liv. “But I’m a simple man, and I like things to stay simple,” he added, as a kind of last ditch defense. It was weak even to his ears, especially not with the insanity that he’d managed to walk into when he’d joined Valarnet.
“Nothing stays the same forever. That’d be boring,” Bela’s golden eyes twinkled mischievously. “Give it a chance, love. Give her a chance to explain what her deal is - if she’s escaped the asylum then, fine, you tried. But maybe it’s something else.”
Honestly, she would bet it was something else - their lives were weird here. It was like a whole other world where the impossible became reality, what was up was down, and sure - maybe Lowell met some random lady who was best confined to a room with rubber walls, but what if that wasn’t so? “I’m just saying, in this county? There’s always a chance for things to be...not as they seem,” she pointed out. Not to be foreboding, just honest. Surely he was aware of that by now.
If Lowell hadn’t been privy himself to the strangeness of the OC, he probably would have scoffed at Isabela. As it was, he’d started dreaming - even if so far it wasn’t much different than his real life - and he’d even had a bit of a personality switch himself just a few short weeks ago. And Liv had stuck by him even when he’d become every bad stereotype of rock star he could think of. At least he hadn’t been talking to hallucinations during all of that.
But there was something to what Isabela was saying. “So, did you become a bartender because you’re great at the advice thing, or did you pick that up with the job?” he asked, shooting her a bit of a teasing smile.
“Ha!” Isabela chortled, hopping off the stool. “Picked it up with the job, I guess. It wasn’t my original career choice, shall we say.” But the black market underworld could only hold its appeal for so long, and she’d gotten tired of constantly looking over her shoulder - she’d do favours for customers here and there, if they needed a special book or a special bit of treasure, and she’d be glad to assist Kit with her endeavours too. But by and large, Bela was mostly retired from that life. “Glad to help though, you sweet adorable thing, you.”
He really was adorable - she’d have certainly sunk her teeth into him, under other circumstances. But she rather loved her furry Ferelden, and was glad that she hadn’t been so afraid of it that she shoved it in a compartment elsewhere for years because she had no idea what to do with it all. Perhaps they were all a bit more emotionally mature in this life.
A group of college kids approached the bar then, and Bela got ready to turn on all the charm - rich students with large allowances, who had never worked a day in their lives, were her favourite customers! “I better get back to bar wenching, love, but break a leg. Stop by after your show, will you?”
Lowell started when he realized that people were already being let in. He hadn’t realized that it was already time for doors, and he tried to turn before said college kids could recognize him. He ought to get up to the rooms upstairs to finish preparing - no doubt the rest of his band had already made their way up there. And if he was recognized how, the chances of him managing to make it up there without being rude to his fans was pretty slim.
“Of course,” Lowell said, and knocked back the rest of his drink. “Thank you. For the drinks and the advice,” he said, and made his way to the stairs without turning his face toward the newcomers.