myshipsaresunkwrites

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

Being followed by a car for 2 turns in the city: "I'm about to be murdered. Let me call my mom and write my will because this is it"

Being followed by a car for 6 hours on country highways: "The relationship between Blue Subaru and I is beyond compare. We're family. My road brother."

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

I'm back from vacation so updates on From The Ashes will start again on Friday!!

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

warning: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

Thank to my beta reader @indynerdgirl

A03. Playlist.

Chapter 9

As much as he hates to admit it, Jake actually really enjoys the week in the cabin.

No shows where he has to pretend like he still enjoys music. No photoshoots where they dress him up in clothing he hates. No interviews where he pastes on a smile and pretends like he isn’t hungover or wishing he were anywhere else and lying through his teeth. 

It’s just him and Natasha. And honestly, a lot of the time it’s just him. She finds a hammock in one of the cupboards and sets it up behind the house and reads through the old books on the shelves. She looks so peaceful that he doesn’t feel like disturbing her and instead uses his free time to explore.

There‘s a creek that runs behind the cabin, hidden behind a patch of trees. It‘s fairly deep and there‘s a rope swing hanging from a tree branch. Jake finds an old tacklebox in a shed and uses a stick to make a makeshift fishing pole. He catches a few small fish and releases them. The one medium-sized fish he snags he brings back for lunch. Natasha isn’t impressed; she makes him clean and gut it on a stump outside, and only lets him cook it over the firepit.

The next day he goes exploring again, slowly collecting larger sticks and building a massive pile. Then he constructs a fort. Without any nails or tools it‘s not the most structurally sound, but he can crawl in and out and it provides adequate shelter. Natasha is slightly more impressed with that.

“This looks good enough to sleep in,” she says. “Let me go grab your bedding. I think it‘s going to rain tonight, too. Perfect testing conditions.”

“I‘ll need some warmth. It gets cold out here at night,” he replies. “You know, body heat is the best. You should join me.”

“Someone needs to watch the house. But I’m sure a tough guy like you can stick it out.”

Every night - after Jake cleans up from his daily activities - they cobble together something to eat using the groceries Natasha packed. She hadn’t exactly meal prepped, so some of the dinners are interesting experiments. But it’s a fun evening routine that Jake looks forward to. 

And of course they always watch the sun set from inside the hot tub. 

On the second night, Natasha finally bullies him into checking and changing the bandages on his arm. Some of the road rash is beginning to scab up, but most of it is still pretty exposed. She makes him undergo another painful session of alcohol wipes before putting on fresh wrap.

On the third day, when Natasha is going on her daily walk up and down the driveway (which takes a solid hour), Jake finds himself reaching for his guitar. 

He plays a few of his songs, but they just don’t resonate. He tries a few songs he likes - or used to like, before music lost all importance to him - but they don’t hit the right spot, either. But for the first time in two years, he does want to play. He just can’t seem to find the right song.

Then he hears it. It’s quiet, a hum in the back of his mind. He has to drag it forward, kicking and screaming.

But it is there. A new melody. 

And as he starts to play it, lyrics pop into his mind. Tangled and distorted, in need of refinement. But they exist.

Jake lunges for something to write on. Nothing in his room. He jumps up and rushes into the living room, grabbing a random book off the shelf. From the kitchen he opens up all the drawers until he finds a junk drawer with a few pens. He snatches them up and runs back to his room, tearing out the blank page at the back of the book and starting to scribble down the ideas and chords.

The tune and words keep coming. He writes out the entire rough draft of a song and then another tune pops into his mind. He flips the page over and begins writing furiously, trying to keep up with his brain.

He‘s still playing when he hears footsteps on the creaky porch stairs. He quickly shoves the paper into his guitar case with the instrument and puts it back against the wall.

Jake doesn’t know why he’s so resistant to the idea of her knowing about his playing. He tells himself it’s just so new that he doesn’t want to get her hopes up in case he stops again as suddenly as he started. Besides, it’s such a personal breakthrough. To tell another soul would be to shatter the fragile beginnings of progress.

What he doesn’t want to admit, even to himself, is what the theme of those songs were. Who they led back to. What they meant for him.

He’s not ready to face those truths yet. So hidden they must stay.

Natasha peeks into his room. “No forts or fishing today?”

“Not yet.” Jake grabs a pair of shorts from his suitcase. “You want to go swimming?”

“In the hot tub?”

“There’s a creek not too far. It’s where I went fishing. There’s a rope swing and all.”

She doesn’t look too excited. Before she can reject the idea, he adds, “Unless you’re too much of a city girl to swim in natural water.”

Her eyes narrow. “Give me five minutes to change.”

He grins as she disappears. So predictable. She can’t resist a challenge, especially one made on a personal level.

Exactly five minutes later, she appears wearing a tank-top and athletic shorts, her hair quickly braided back.

Jake leads the way to the creek. It’s about twenty feet wide and drops off quickly. He wonders if the hole was man-made or somehow natural. The streams of water leading in and out of it thin considerably a short walk in both directions to just a few feet across and no more than a foot deep. Perhaps the people who once lived full-time in this cabin dug it out just for this purpose.

The rope swing hangs off a branch over the middle of the hole, where the depth is safe to jump. To get to the swing, you have to walk along a thin dock that’s barely more than two two-by-fours nailed together. Jake smiles and lightly smacks her back.

“Ladies first,” he says.

She stares at it, and he knows she’s trying to judge how dangerous this is. There is no cell service for miles; if one of them gets seriously hurt, they’re SOL. Then she narrows her eyes and, arms spread out for balance, walks across the planks. She grabs the rope swing in her hands, then gives herself a good push off, letting go just as she starts to swing back.

Natasha’s dark hair disappears under the water. A moment later she breaks the surface, grinning as she swims back to shore.

“Don’t tell me you’re too scared to try,” she taunts, reaching up and wringing out her braid. Her wet tank top clings to her figure in a way that makes it very difficult for him to look away.

“Of course not,” he scoffs, then takes off running across the planks. He almost slips near the end and realizes how bad of a decision this probably was.

Then he hits the water on his left side - his bruised side - and he realizes that was an even worse decision.

They take turns jumping off the swing into the swimming hole. It reminds Jake of his childhood, the innocence of having fun with no worries and no responsibilities. Everything he’s done so far this week has been that way - exploring for the sake of exploring, building for the sake of building. Doing what he wants to do, when he wants to do it.

Natasha was right to bring him here. The outside world doesn’t exist. No phones, no internet, no screens. No alcohol. Just nature and endless days to be spent however he wants to spend them.

Jake can’t remember the last time he slept a full night before coming here. He can’t remember the last time he woke up early in the morning naturally. He can’t remember the last time he was fully aware of his surroundings.

He can’t remember the last time he was sober for more than six hours.

It’s not that he’s completely free of withdrawal symptoms. There’s a dull headache throbbing in the back of his mind most times of the day. There are times he knows he’s cranky and easily irritable. He’d searched the entire house and shed for any hidden alcohol the first full day - not to drink, but just to know if there was any there in case he needed it. Of course there was none, to his disappointment. But maybe that’s a good thing. He’s being forced to detox, but Natasha is giving him plenty of space and not monitoring him so he never feels like lashing out at her. And he’s kept his body and mind so busy with his tasks that it’s almost easy to forget about how much he wants a drink.

Almost being the key word. He’s got a countdown in the back of his mind to when the week is over and he’ll have that bitter taste on his tongue again.

Jake swims back to shore quickly, trying to catch up to Natasha. She’s still carefully walking along the thin plank out to the swing. As soon as he hears her splash into the water he runs, tucking his legs up into a cannonball right beside her.

“You almost landed on me!” she protests, shoving him as he surfaces. He just grins and ducks underwater.

Her feet kick wildly, stirring up the water as though she knows what he’s about to do. Unfortunately instead of propelling her away, it just gives away her location. Jake grabs her ankles and pulls her abruptly under.

She kicks back up to the surface, her foot colliding with one of his bruised ribs in an extremely painful encounter that knocks the remaining air out of his lungs. He pulls himself back up to the surface, gasping as he breaches.

“You kicked my bad side,” he complains. 

Natasha is already swimming back to shore. “You deserved it!” she calls back.

Yeah, he probably did. He follows her.

As she wades into the shallow end, he notices something dark on the side of her leg.

“Hey, Natasha,” he calls. “Don’t freak out.”

She turns. “Freak out about what?” She follows his gaze to her leg and then proceeds to start freaking out.

“What the hell is that?! Jake, what is it?”

“Calm down, it’s just a leech.”

“Just a leech!”

He can’t help but smile. “What, you’ve never seen a leech before?”

“No!” She reaches down.

“Wait,” he says, hurrying over to her. “Don’t rip it off.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll bleed a lot.”

“But it will be off me!”

“There’s a better way.”

“Then shut up and get it off!”

Jake reaches for her, picking her up in one easy motion. She squirms. “What are you doing?”

“I have to take you back to the cabin. Unless you want to walk.”

Her eyes narrow at him, but she stops fighting. He carries her back through the woods and straight into the kitchen, setting her down on top of the counter. She keeps her leg pointed straight out while he rifles through the cabinets.

“Salt?” she asks, as he fumbles with the top of the shaker.

“Watch and be amazed.” He pours salt on top of the little black sucker and it shrivels up. Jake waits a few seconds, then wipes it clean off with a paper towel. “See? No blood.”

Natasha shivers. “That was disgusting. How do you know about the salt?”

“I played in my fair share of creeks growing up. Everyone gets a leech on them at some point.” 

She doesn’t look impressed. She slides off the counter, then glances around the kitchen. Puddles of lake water pool at their feet and half the counter is soaked.

“Look at the mess you made,” she accuses.

“The mess I made? Sorry, I’ll leave the leech on you next time.”

She tosses him a towel and picks one up for herself. “I call dibs on the shower.”

“You don’t feel in the mood for sharing?”

Natasha gives him a withering look. “No, in fact, I don’t.”

But he swears she’s smiling as she turns away.

-

Natasha isn’t sure who benefits from the week in the cabin more: her, or Jake.

After coming straight off of six years of working with Bradley, she’d had a wild ride of a first week working with Jake. Having a week to just hammock and read and shut off her brain totally resets her physically, mentally, and emotionally. Her patience levels rise drastically, the dull ache in the back of her head that she was starting to think was permanent disappears, and her sleep schedule resets.

Jake seems to recover similarly. Despite his protests the first day, he’s really taken to life off the grid. Though she played it off, not wanting to feed into his already-large ego, she was pretty impressed by how he caught and cooked up fish from the creek and built a fort with nothing but sticks and vines and rocks he found in the surrounding woods. Not once has he come across as irate or grumpy; most of all, he’s been stone-cold sober the entire time and never once mentioned missing the bottle, or even showed any symptoms of withdrawal - at least that she’s aware of.

That’s probably the biggest benefit for both of them; without getting drunk and acting like an ass, Jake is actually really pleasant to be around. And without him constantly pissing her off, she feels like she’s also much more likable.

Best of all, Jake can’t possibly get into any trouble, even if he tried. She can sleep soundly every night knowing there won’t be a disaster for her to wake up to.

When the last day comes around, she’s disappointed. One more day of peace and rest before they’re thrown unceremoniously back into the real world. Before the trials and temptations and stress of reality threatens to overcome all the precious progress they’ve made out here.

But she knew it would come to an end eventually, and there’s nothing she can do to freeze them in this time and place, as much as she desperately wants to.

Their groceries are starting to run out, so their lunch is a strange mix of whatever they have left thrown together. Jake has turned out to be a surprisingly good cook, but even he struggles to make something decent out of the odd mish-mash of leftovers.

“You better hope nothing happens to our driver tomorrow,” Jake grumbles. “Otherwise we may have to eat each other.”

“I’ll just send you out fishing again,” she replies. “Since you did so well last time.”

Jake looks over at her. “Is that a compliment, Trace?”

“Maybe.”

For dinner, they set up a fire in the metal fire pit behind the house. Natasha finds a few relatively straight sticks to use to cook the hotdogs over. Jake, acting like a juvenile boy, experiments with throwing different things in the fire to see how they burn. She only bans him from it when it starts to smell bad.

The sun begins to set as they sit around the fire sharing old stories from their childhood. Jake’s are from the “rustic” summer camps his parents sent him to. Natasha’s are from the camping trips she took with her family - which were always equal parts fun and disaster with four boys. While hers tend to be on the funnier side, Jake’s are all lowkey “Lord of the Flies”-esque. Natasha always thought that book was unrealistic, but now she realizes it’s just the difference between normal middle-class boys and uber-rich privileged boys.

She also picks up that his parents weren’t around much when he was a kid. They seemed to just ship him off to different places or bring in different babysitters. Maybe that’s one reason they don’t understand his music career. They never actually got to know their own son.

And it explains why he can’t turn to them when he needs help.

The sky grows dark, only the fire illuminating the area around them. Jake suddenly jumps up. “You know what we’re missing?”

A thought occurs to Natasha. “I do. But I don’t know if it’s what you’re thinking.”

He disappears inside the cabin. She follows, heading for the kitchen. There is one bag of food she didn’t bring out during their leftover scramble. A bag she saved specifically for this case.

She beats Jake back out to the fire, but only by a few seconds. When he returns, he has his acoustic guitar in hand.

Natasha won’t deny the joy that lights up within her as she sees him with it. Jake doesn’t do music outside of his shows. He doesn’t even listen to it. She was pretty sure he hated music now.

But he’s all smiles as he starts playing some dumb kiddie campfire songs. Natasha knows some of them and sings along as she pulls out a big bag of giant marshmallows.

“You came prepared,” Jake comments between songs. She grins and holds up the rest of the grocery bag.

“I’ve got graham crackers and chocolate, too. I had a feeling we might do a bonfire one night.”

“You really planned this out, huh?”

“That’s my job, isn’t it?”

She can’t quite explain it, but in the flickering firelight he almost looks disappointed when she says that. But then he jumps into another traditional campfire song before she can be sure.

The songs he sings get progressively more child-ish until he’s basically singing baby songs. At that point she walks over and shoves a marshmallow in his mouth to shut him up.

“What?” he asks when he finally swallows it down. “You don’t love my singing?”

“I might love it if you ever sang songs worth listening to,” she replies, leaning back in her seat and licking the sticky marshmallow residue off her fingers.

“And what songs would those be? Shall I serenade you with love songs?”

“By all means.”

He starts a song she doesn’t recognize, but she instantly makes a face. Country. 

“You don’t like country?” he asks in the interlude between the verses.

“No.”

His smile widens and when he jumps into the second verse, he makes sure to double the twang in his voice. She tosses half a graham cracker at him.

“So what music do you like?” Jake asks, mercifully stopping after the chorus, though he’s still strumming the chords. “Or should I ask what genre your boyfriend plays?”

Natasha pulls out another marshmallow and skewers it onto the stick. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not. Why should he be?”

Jake shrugs. “It sounds like you invested a lot of time and effort into him. Not just his career. That’s a major sacrifice for someone you don’t love.”

“You can love someone and not date them.”

“True.” Jake suddenly changes keys. “Do you love him?”

She scowls across the fire. “Why are you being so nosy all of a sudden?”

“I wasn’t aware that trying to get to know someone I spend a lot of time with is considered nosy.”

Natasha sighs. He’s right. It’s not fair of her to get riled up. Last time they talked like this, she was glad he was reaching out and showing interest.

Then again, talking about her family is a completely different topic than Bradley Bradshaw.

“He’s my best friend,” she answers, watching the marshmallow as she turns it over the fire. “I love him in that regard. And maybe there was a time I wanted more.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine he didn’t feel the same,” Jake replies. “Having a beautiful woman dedicate her life to your career for pennies.”

Natasha’s face grows warm. She tries to ignore the way her stomach flips at his compliment. She’s been told she’s beautiful by many people. Why is it any different coming from Jake Seresin?

“He did. At least, at some point he did. But it wasn’t…” She exhales deeply. “It just didn’t work out. The timing. The circumstances. So we let it pass.”

Jake is quiet for a moment. She dares a look at him. He’s staring into the fire.

“A shame,” he finally says, still not looking at her. “If I had someone who loved me that much, I’d fight for them. I wouldn’t let them slip away.”

Her heart lurches in her chest. A defense for Bradly rises to her lips. “It’s different for him. He’s lost a lot of people. It’s hard for him to let people get close.”

Jake’s eyes rise to meet hers. “I’m not judging him,” he says. “Everyone is different. I’m only saying what I would do.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. How to react. Thankfully her marshmallow bursts into flames and she has an excuse to look away as she blows it out and reaches for a graham cracker.

“S’more?” she asks, offering it. Jake reaches over the fire and takes it.

“Jazz,” she says after another minute. “Jazz, and rock.”

Jake shoots her a confused look, his cheeks puffed with s’mores. He looks a bit like a chipmunk and she can’t quite hide her smile.

“You asked what genre of music Bradley plays,” she explains.

He swallows. “So is that what you like?”

“I’m not too picky. I like music with heart and soul. Lyrics that mean something and music played with real passion. The genre doesn’t matter so much.”

“Unless it’s country.”

“Unless it’s country,” she agrees. “Then it’s just about your dog dying, your truck breaking down, the fish not biting, and your girl leaving.”

“How dare you break country down to its bare essentials. Besides, you forgot love of God and country.”

“So sorry, can’t believe I forgot those.”

Jake reaches for his guitar. “I may just have to play a few now so you don’t forget.”

“If you do, I’ll tell the driver to turn around and leave you behind tomorrow morning.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I’m not staying. And the driver won’t bring any more groceries.”

“You think I won’t like living all by myself, fishing everyday and sitting in the hot tub and playing country songs for myself?”

“I think you won’t survive very long.”

He presses a hand to his chest. “That hurts.”

She tilts her head. “It’s true. You may be a little better than me, but you’re still relatively soft when it comes to the great outdoors.”

“That’s what the hot tub is for. A way to relax after a hard day’s work building shelter and making fishing poles.”

“And playing country songs.”

“Exactly!”

Natasha rolls her eyes. What a dork.

But she likes him when he’s this way. Relaxed, teasing, smiling. He’s so easy to be around. If she met this version of him out of the blue, she’d want to be his friend.

Is that what they are now? Jake said he didn’t have friends. But what else is this? Sure, technically she’s hired to keep him in line, but this is beyond that. She’s not obligated to hang out with him. She could have locked herself in her room this whole week and been within the guidelines of her job. She’s not spending time with him around a bonfire because she’s paid for it, she’s doing it because she wants to.

It's an interesting thought - where her job ends and her personal investment begins. Maybe an impossible one to determine. It was like that with Bradley, too. Not that she really paid much attention with him. She was his friend first and his partner in his career second. With Jake it’s the opposite.

Regardless of how blurry the line is, she knows this here isn’t her job. This is her being a friend. Chatting with someone she enjoys spending time with.

Now there’s a thought she never imagined she’d think a week ago.

The fire starts to die down so they cover the embers with dirt and drag their chairs back inside.

“Last chance to use the hot tub,” she tells Jake as they shut the back door.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replies. Ten minutes later they’re in their swimsuits, pulling the cover off and turning on the lights. The entire screened-in porch glows cyan blue as the underwater lights come on. Mist curls up in the darkness. Outside, the stars gleam brilliantly in the night sky.

“I’ve never seen the stars so bright,” Natasha says.

“I can’t remember the last time I bothered looking,” Jake admits.

She turns to him. He’s staring out at the sky, his green eyes glowing in the hot tub lights. She can’t help but look at him - really look at him, for the first time. Her eyes pass over his hair, long enough to be casual but not so long it’s unruly. They scan along his jaw, and the stubble he permanently keeps as though every day he’s one day late shaving. 

Her gaze drops down to his broad shoulders, his thick biceps, to his abs, which are outlined by the thick shadows cast by the lights. She imagines how firm they must be, how they’d contract even tighter under her touch…

“Enjoying the view?” Jake teases.

Shit. Natasha forces herself to meet his eyes, her expression blank.

“Your bruises are starting to clear up,” she says, by some miracle managing to keep her voice level and disinterested. “But we should change your bandages again tonight.”

His smile doesn’t fade. “I bet they’d heal even faster if you kissed them.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I would, very much.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re shameless, Jake Seresin.”

“You should try it sometime. It’s quite liberating.”

“I like my dignity intact.” Natasha stands and reaches for her towel, pretending like she doesn’t notice Jake watching her every move. They’ve definitely been in this cabin together for too long. “Don’t forget to put the cover back on when you leave.”

“Goodnight, Natasha,” he calls out to her, his tone altogether much too flirty.

She doesn’t answer. Mostly because hearing her name come out of his mouth in that voice does something to her that she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

She hurries back to her room and closes the door firmly.

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

Tips for Top Gun fanfic writers from a military brat:

These tips are mainly related to weddings, but there’s some in here that are definitely useful outside of that.

Clothing. If you’re writing a wedding fic, it’s not uncommon for the bride/groom who is a member of the military to wear their service uniform at the ceremony. Attendees who are also in the military typically wear their uniform as well, only if the service member in the marrying couple is in uniform. (They don’t have to, but from personal experience, most of the navy members in my family wore their uniforms at their weddings).

Depending on the time of year they could wear different uniforms. In the spring/summer (or in tropical locations), members of the Navy wear their white uniforms, and in the cooler seasons they wear their blue uniforms (but they won’t always adhere to this rule during wedding ceremonies). Attendees who are in the Navy will always wear the same colour uniform as the bride and/or groom.

Seating placement at the wedding ceremony is also determined by rank. Attendees who are of a high rank (captain, admiral, etc.) will be given seats of honour directly behind the immediate family.

Arch of swords is a tradition that happens after the ceremony when the newly weds exit the venue. (EDIT: It’s important to note it is only called “Arch of Swords” for the Navy, other branches of the military use different names). 6-8 service members line up across from each other in pairs and draw their swords, creating an arch that the newly weds will walk under. The last two service members usually put their swords down, blocking the newly weds and in order to pass the couple has to kiss.

Cake cutting with a sword. There is a whole formality process to this in which I can’t describe, but definitely google it!

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

Maverick: Everyone asks me how I handle the new recruits so well.

Maverick: I don't. I have absolutely zero control over those fuckers.

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

Warning: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

A03. Playlist.

Chapter 8

“Are we there yet?”

“You asked me that five minutes ago,” Natasha replies.

“And you didn’t answer.”

“Because you’re annoying me. We’ll get there when we get there.”

Jake looks over at her. She’s typing away at her phone, barely paying him any attention. He feels like a petulant child, but they’ve been driving for over an hour now, leaving the city far behind.

“Legally you’re obligated to answer me,” he says.

Now she does look over at him. “Is that so?”

“I have a very good case to argue that if you don’t, you’re kidnapping me.”

“Interesting.” She turns back to her phone. “Have you ever checked your emails?”

“My emails?”

“I send you a detailed itinerary every morning.”

“My emails,” Jake repeats.

“Electronic mail. You can access it on your computer.”

“I don’t have a computer.”

Natasha gives him her full attention. “You don’t have a computer?”

“I don’t need one. I have people like you and George to deal with my schedule and finances and anything else important.”

“You don’t order anything online? Watch any TV?”

Jake shakes his head. She should know this already, though. Since he’s not producing any new albums, he’s almost constantly on tour to make up for the revenue disparity. What little free time he has, he uses to work-out, sleep off drunken escapades, and take part in said drunken escapades. And on the rare occasion he wants to watch TV, the hotel rooms always have one.

“What about your music writing? Don’t you use a computer for that?”

He’s not sure if she knows that’s a sore spot or not. “I don’t write music. Haven’t for a while, at least.”

“Why not?”

He shrugs. “Prolonged writer’s block.”

“Well.” She seems a bit at a loss. “What about your phone? You have an email app on there.”

He grins at her and unlocks his phone before tossing it her way. “You see for yourself.”

Natasha picks it up without hesitation. Her eyes widen as she sees the numbers in the notification bubbles. A horrified look crosses her face. Jake’s smile widens.

“How…how do you live like this?”

“You’re asking the wrong question. That’s precisely how I live. I don’t bother keeping up with it all. None of it is important. So why should I manage it?”

“You have thousands of missed calls. Texts. Emails. Voicemails. Everything.” Her voice shakes. He remembers how neat her room was and his amusement grows.

“Jake, we have to fix this. We have to - ”

He plucks his phone out of her grasp and shuts it off. “We don’t have to do anything,” he corrects. “But if you want me to be aware of an itinerary, it’s best if you print it out and stick it to my door. Or better yet, write it on my arm.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

Natasha taps a finger against her lips. “I could tell you lots of things you don’t already know. But you would know them if you bothered to read the itinerary I sent you. Such as where we’re going and how long it will take to get there.”

He scowls at her and she laughs. It’s such a nice, light sound and he finds himself trying not to smile. Fine. She’d won this round.

The trees thicken around them and the driver turns from the interstate onto a patchy road and then onto a dirt road. Jake reaches up and holds onto the handle near the roof as they bounce around.

“Didn’t know you were a fan of off-roading,” he jokes.

“I’ve never been,” she admits.

“Too dirty for you? It would be a shame if you got mud on your boots.”

Natasha shoots him a hard look. “Just because I’m from LA doesn’t mean I’m a prissy city girl.”

“I never said it meant that.”

“You insinuated it.”

“You’ve never done anything to make me think otherwise.”

“Not even that spontaneous run?”

Jake had forgotten about that. But even that was just sweat, not dirt. “If that’s the best you got, it’s not as good as you think.”

“Oh, I’ve got much better,” she promises. “You don’t know the first thing about me, Jake Seresin.”

He opens his mouth to refute the statement, then realizes it’s true. He doesn’t know anything about her that he hasn’t directly observed or asked. And he hasn’t exactly been curious.

He fully expected her to be gone in a few weeks so he hasn’t bothered. But after the way she’s been handling him, taking everything in stride and always bouncing back up after every disaster, he has a feeling she might last longer than the others.

The thought makes him oddly…excited.

He can’t remember the last time something other than the promise of alcohol at the end of a long, hard day made him excited. And even that’s not true excitement; it’s more relief than anything else.

The driver takes them deeper into a wooded area and then a cabin appears at the end of a long driveway. He slows down and pulls up. Jake glances at Natasha, but she just slips her phone into her pocket and reaches for the door handle.

“This is it?” he asks in disbelief.

“This is it,” she confirms.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m getting out of this car.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“This is a classic horror movie set up. You’re going to murder me in the middle of the night.”

“That depends on how much you piss me off in the next one hundred and sixty eight hours.”

Jake frowns, trying to do the math in his head. “A week? We’re staying a week here?”

“George said you needed to lay low, stay out of the media. So I figured what better way to keep you out of trouble than to take you somewhere you can’t possibly get into any trouble.” 

“Sweetheart, I can get into trouble anywhere.”

“Perhaps. But there’s no one to witness it except for me here.” She holds out her hand to him. “Now get out of the car.”

The last thing he wants to do is follow her, but he has the feeling he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. And really, who can he blame but himself? So he grabs her hand and lets her tug him out.

The driver is already taking their suitcases to the porch. Natasha grabs his guitar case and shoves it at him.

“What’s this for?”

“In case you want to practice.”

He doesn’t bother explaining to her that he doesn’t play unless he absolutely has to anymore. It just reminds him how empty his life has become. But her voice doesn’t leave any room for argument so he dutifully sets it with the other luggage.

“And groceries.” She hefts a cooler out of the trunk, followed by a second one. “This should get us through a week.”

“So we’re really stuck here.” Jake’s heart sinks. He thought they’d at least have some opportunity to leave, to go into town where he would be able to get a few drinks when he needs them. Nothing too crazy, just enough to take the edge off.

“Yep. It’s called roughin’ it.” She punches his right shoulder as she passes. “I thought you were a Texas boy. Are you really going to let the LA city girl upstage you?”

“Hell no.” The words don’t have the power behind them that he wishes they did. He turns and watches mournfully as the driver takes off, leaving them alone in the middle of nowhere. Then, with a sigh, he starts carrying stuff inside.

The cabin is relatively small, just a living room arranged around a fireplace, a small kitchen with a table, two bedrooms and a shared bath, and a screened-in porch set off the living room. There’s no TV, no laundry machines, only a handful of outlets for the lamps in the rooms. Jake would be surprised if the shower had hot water.

“You couldn’t have picked a better place,” he says sarcastically as he comes back from dumping their suitcases in the rooms. Natasha is busy unloading the groceries into the fridge.

“It’s perfect,” she agrees, sounding way too cheerful.

“Where did you even find out about it? Some old bog fisherman?”

“It was on AirBnB. Got a great rate for it, too.”

Jake leans his arms on the counter. “I am begging you. I am a millionaire. Do not choose my accommodations based solely off price.”

She leans her arms on the opposite side of the counter, facing him. “I am promising you, Jake Seresin. The price was just a bonus. I chose this place because of its amenities.”

“Amenities?” He sounds as pained as he feels. “Like snakes in the bedsheets and serial killers in the woods?”

“Like how it’s almost entirely off the grid.” She smiles, as though that’s a good thing. “No Wifi. No cell service. Limited electricity from that old generator outside. You’ll have plenty of time to think about what you’ve done and maybe you’ll think twice about doing it again.”

He groans and slams his forehead down on the counter. “I thought you forgave me. I apologized.”

“Yes, you did. But that doesn’t mean there’s no punishment.” She reaches over and pats his head. “This will be good for you.”

“That’s what they always say,” he mumbles.

“Maybe you should listen every once in a while.”

He hears the cupboards open and shut as she continues putting things away. He slowly lifts his head and glances around. “So what are we supposed to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re stuck here for a week. What are we supposed to do for a whole week?”

“You could start by helping me unpack.”

He doesn’t feel like helping her do anything right now, but he’s already bored and when he’s bored he starts thinking about drinking so he stands up straight and opens the second cooler, putting away eggs, milk, a few vegetables, and some canned foods. At least she’d gotten some chocolate as well. She’s not a total hard-ass.

Just most of one.

When they finish putting everything away, he skulks off to his room. Part of him knows he’s acting childish, but he can’t help it. She is treating him like a child. When he misbehaved, even though he apologized and recognized what he did as wrong, she dragged him out into the middle of nowhere without warning. She couldn’t even pick a place with things to do.

His eyes fall on the guitar case leaning against the wall. There are things to do. Just things he doesn’t want to do.

And maybe that’s on him, not on her.

He didn’t tell her why he doesn’t write music anymore. And she doesn’t know that he doesn’t play for fun, either. It’s hard to blame her for not knowing what he’s not willing to tell her about.

He thinks of her offer from lunch yesterday. Even after all the stress he’s put her through in just a week, she still opened herself up to listen. To be his friend.

Would that really be so bad?

He can still remember clearly the care she’d taken as she cleaned and bandaged his arm, even though she was furious with him. He doesn’t remember the last time anyone touched him with such gentleness. Usually he’s just pushed from one place to another, positioned to pose for a camera or escorting from place A to place B.

Natasha does her fair share of pushing him. But she also reaches out for him.

He just can’t accept her hand.

-

Natasha doesn’t feel like cooking the first night, so she slaps together some sandwiches, puts them on a plate with some chopped carrots and apples, and calls Jake out. She realizes it’s a very child-ish dinner, but then decides that if Jake is going to act like a child, it’s what he deserves.

Thankfully he doesn’t complain as they sit at the small kitchen table and eat in silence.

The cabin is quiet - too quiet. Maybe Jake was right when he said it’s the perfect place for a horror movie. If someone came out of the woods and stabbed them, there’d be no way to call for help. No one is coming for a full week to check in on them.

A full week. With Jake Seresin. In a cabin in the woods. Far from society.

Yeah, maybe this wasn’t her most brilliant idea.

Natasha heads to her room and lounges on her bed, staring at her blank phone screen. She yearns to call Bradley, to have someone to talk to. She ends up turning over on her back and flinging an arm over her eyes. This is going to be a long week.

She lays there for a while. Then she suddenly remembers something and sits straight up.

She slides off her bed and crosses the hall to knock on Jake’s door.

“Yeah?”

The door inches open. She peers around to see Jake sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed, and staring at the peeling wallpaper.

She’d make a joke about how boring he is, but she wasn’t doing too much better a minute ago.

“I forgot to tell you the best part of this place,” she says.

He doesn’t even look over. “The spiders?”

“There’s a hot tub.”

His head whips over to look at her. “If you’re joking, I might kill you.”

She grins. “I’m totally serious. It’s on the screened in porch.”

Then she ducks back into her room to throw on the one swimsuit she’d thought to bring with her to Texas. When George offered her the job, she knew she’d have to pack light - everything in one large suitcase. A lot of hotels have pools, so she figured she’d bring at least one suit. It turns out she never has had time so far, but it’s not like there’s anything else for her to do this week.

Jake is already by the hot tub, pulling the cover off. “Half the electricity from the generator has to go to this alone,” he says. “And I am not complaining.”

“I told you I picked this place for the amenities,” she says. He gives her a long-suffering look.

“Thin ice, Trace. Thin ice.”

It’s not the fanciest hot tub, but it does the trick. She closes her eyes and sighs as she slides in. After all the long hours she’d pulled last week - the late nights and early mornings, the middle of the night bail-outs and lunchtime arguments - she needs some recovery time already.

She opens her eyes and looks out at the absolutely gorgeous view of the forest outside. Unbroken by civilization. The sun is just beginning to set, casting a warm light over the trees and setting the sky on fire.

“I’ll give you some credit for the hot tub,” Jake says, and she looks over at him. He’s keeping his bandaged arm out of the water, resting it along the side of the tub, and his bruised side is on full display. It probably won’t be half healed by the time they leave.

“I know what I’m doing,” she replies, averting her eyes. She doesn’t want him getting the wrong idea. Or even thinking that she feels bad about how injured he is. Of course she doesn’t like that he’s in pain, but she can hardly feel sympathetic when he brought it upon himself.

“Still haven’t broken even, though. Maybe if we survive this week without the roof falling on top of us while we sleep.”

“I was assured it was structurally sound.”

“By the guy renting it out? Of course.”

“Can you ever just enjoy something, Jake? Do you always have to find things to complain about?”

That shuts him up. He stares at the window silently.

A few minutes pass and she’s starting to regret how harsh her words came across. At least he was talking to her before.

He drags his right hand across the top of the water, watching the ripples intently. “My parents,” he starts, and her head whips in his direction. “They never enjoyed anything. Always bitched about one thing or another.” He pauses. “I swore I’d never be like them.”

Ah, shit. She’d gone and stepped all over a sensitive topic. Of course. She knows she has a big mouth sometimes, isn’t always the best about thinking things through before they come out. Especially if she thinks it’s a “gotcha”. Her desire to have the last word has caused harm on more than a few occasions.

“Your parents are pretty rich, aren’t they?” she asks, treading carefully. If he doesn’t want to get into it she won’t push it, but he did bring it up first.

“Yeah. My dad built his fortune from nothing, so he’s extremely picky about everything. Doesn’t want to waste a cent of his hard-earned money and expects everyone in the world to have the exact same work-ethic as he does. And my mom comes from old money - think Gilded Age railroad barons - so she thinks she’s royalty.”

That explains a lot. Natasha also starts to get an idea about things he doesn’t explicitly say. “And how do they feel about your music career?”

“Which part? The music? Or everything else?”

She doesn’t need to ask about the everything else. No parent would approve of that. “The music.”

“They don’t understand.” Jake’s hand continues to lightly trace over the surface of the water. “But I never expected them to. I’m not sure they have souls.”

So it is his parents. She suspected it since Bob had told her about them, but now she’s almost positive.

Jake’s hand dips below the water. He looks over at her. “What about you, Trace?”

She blinks. “What about me?”

“Tell me about your family.”

He…wants to know about me? Why would he want to know about her if he isn’t expecting her to stick around more than a few weeks? Then again, he had called George and asked him not to fire her, so maybe he’s finally given up trying to scare her off. Maybe he’s even starting to warm up to her.

I don’t have friends, Trace. I’m sure you understand why.

Or maybe she’s overthinking it and he’s just bored.

“It’s me, my parents, and my four older brothers,” she says. 

“Four brothers?” Jake shakes his head. “No wonder you’re the way you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He gives her a look she’s starting to think of as his signature look. “You know exactly what it means. You’re tough, you don’t take any crap from anyone. And you’re not easily impressed. You have the weariness of a middle-aged mother.”

She opens her mouth to protest, then closes it. A smile instead comes over her. He’s right. It’s not an insult, either. She’s not like women in their twenties who didn’t grow up dealing with crazy shit all the time and are constantly starstruck by any semi-attractive man, even if he acts like a child half the time. And she has no tolerance for such behavior.

But it also indicates compassion. No matter how exhausted mothers are, they still take time to care for those around them. No matter how angry they get, they still find some measure of softness inside of them.

“Alright, I’ll take it,” she says. “But if I’m a tired mother, you’re a deadbeat dad.”

Jake winces, but he doesn’t argue. “And that’s precisely why I don’t have any kids.”

“Really? None? No secret child with a groupie you won’t find out about until they’re too bitter to want you in their life?”

“Damn, Trace, you’re cold.”

She shrugs. “I just happen to know the business.”

“No, no chance of kids. I don’t do the whole groupie thing. Too busy illegally drag racing motorcycles with gang bangers.”

She snorts. “In terms of permanently changing lives, I guess that’s slightly better.”

“I prefer to limit damage to myself.”

“And the side of a building.”

Jake raises his bandaged arm and motions at his bruised side. “I’m pretty sure the building won this fight.”

She grimaces. “Does it hurt much?”

He gives her that look again. “What do you think?” His voice drips sarcasm.

“Fine, stupid question. We’ll make sure to get you some ice before you go to bed.”

“Are you going to tuck me in, too, and read me a story?”

“Depends on if you’re a good boy.”

Jake smirks, and she feels herself fighting back a smile in return. It’s so easy with him like this. She thinks he’s enjoying himself, too. At least he’s acting like it. Why isn’t this enough for him?

A wave of sadness washes over her then. That’s his problem. That’s why he constantly turns to the bottle. Reality isn’t enough. He has to find ways to escape it at every turn.

She’s been approaching this all wrong. Now that she knows Jake didn’t have a great upbringing, that he doesn’t have anyone to turn to when he’s struggling with something, she knows what she has to do. With Bradley it was different. Bradley had a couple traumatic events that changed the course of his life. Once he was able to address those, he could pull himself out of the abyss of grief and self-loathing he’d fallen into. 

But Jake doesn’t have a “tragic backstory”, as they might say. He just had a progressive build up of crappy moments and memories that slowly built-up a massive weight on his shoulders. He doesn’t need to address them - it would be nearly impossible to do that. He just needs to be shown that there is something else. That life doesn’t have to be what it always has been.

Maybe that’s why he apologized after she’d brought him back from the police station. He expected her to leave him, or at most to bring him back and dump him in his room. He didn’t think she’d take the time to make sure he was okay, to help clean him up and tend to his wounds.

Because no one had ever done something like that for him before.

That’s her way in. Showing him that he’s not alone. Showing him kindness and patience when she wants to wring his neck. 

Giving him the unconditional love every child should have but he never experienced.

It’s a tall order. She won’t deny it. It might seem easy now, when he’s sober and friendly, but she’s seen how bad it can get. She knows she’s in for a rough ride ahead.

But she wants to help him. As more than just her job. He may not think he has any friends, but she’s going to be here for him whether he wants it or not.

She hoists herself out of the hot tub. Jake watches.

“Bedtime?” he asks.

“If you want a story.”

She’s joking, but inwardly she wonders if he ever got that - if his parents or at least his nanny or whoever was around ever took the time to read his favorite book to him or create some fantastical series just for him. She aches at the thought of a child who was shuffled off, dismissed, viewed as a chore instead of a joy.

Natasha tosses him a towel as she dries herself off, then helps him put the cover back on. She ties her towel around her chest and pulls out the big bag of ice she’d brought from the freezer. Some of it had melted and gotten stuck together during the drive, so she takes a metal spoon and uses the end to smash it back into smaller pieces.

She’d also come prepared with cling wrap and ziplock bags. She fills a gallon-sized bag and presses it against his ribs, ignoring his sudden hiss of pain.

“It’ll feel better in ten minutes. You’ll thank me then.”

She reaches out for the bandages along his arm, but he pulls back. 

“Don’t be a baby. We should change those as well. Clean them out again.”

“Not tonight.”

“Jake - ”

“Not tonight,” he repeats. She sighs and drops her hands.

“Alright.”

She follows him as he heads back to his room, leaning against the doorframe. “You forgive me for dragging you out here yet?”

“Ask me again on day five.”

She rolls her eyes, but takes it as a victory. A whole day without any drinking, meltdowns, fights or other incidents. She may just keep her job after all.

“Goodnight, Jake.”

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

Warning: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

A03. Playlist.

Chapter 7

The sound of her phone ringing wakes Natasha up.

For a moment she plans on letting it ring, on turning over and ignoring it and falling back to sleep.

Then the memories of last night come flooding in and she sits straight up, wide awake.

Please not George, please not George, she pleads, and picks it up. Bradley’s picture fills the screen.

With a sigh of relief, she answers and lays back down.

“Bradley,” she breathes. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear from you.”

“I bet. Not so golden in paradise?”

“Not paradise. Not even a little bit.”

“I know.” His voice is softer. “I saw the news.”

Her chest squeezes sharply. “I haven’t looked yet. What are they saying happened?”

“The only facts out are that Jake Seresin was involved in a motorbike accident late last night after his show. But there’s a lot of rumor and speculation about where the bike came from, what he was doing out so late, and if there was alcohol involved.”

Natasha closes her eyes and sighs. Not as bad as she thought. Not good, though, either.

Whoever said that all publicity is good publicity never met Jake Seresin. Natasha prescribes to the no news is good news philosophy when it comes to him.

“What did happen?�� Bradley pauses. “I mean, I understand if you can’t tell me everything.”

“When it comes to Jake Seresin, they’re almost always right,” is all she says. Then she immediately feels bad. It may be true, but it’s not right of her to talk about him like that. Especially not after his change of heart.

I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better.

For all she knows, it was a drunk’s guilt that is now long forgotten. But Jake is usually more of a jerk when he’s drunk, not kinder. And when she’d looked into those green eyes…

“How are you doing, Nat?” Bradley asks.

“I don’t know.” She rubs her face with her hand. She’d been a mess last night. Pissed at Jake. Pissed at herself. Then she’d thought she might lose her job and she’d been worried about Jake having gone and got himself killed, only to find him relatively unhurt in a jail cell. Back to being pissed at him and now terrified of losing her job. But because nothing is ever easy or straightforward with him, Jake had softened up and a lot of her anger had evaporated. Especially when she saw that he was hurt.

Now she’s still unsure what’s going on in her head. Part of her is still mad at him. Mostly she feels pity for him. Pity, because he’s set himself on a path of destruction and doesn’t seem to care. Pity, because he could do so much. He’s still so young. So talented. So intelligent. And yet, he’s hellbent on throwing it all away.

She doesn’t think he’s a bad person. He’s not doing it because he wants to inflict damage on others. Everyone else just gets caught in the crossfire.

The only person he’s gunning for is himself.

Natasha understands that he isn’t trying to hurt her, but that doesn’t mean she’s just going to stand by and let him. She won’t get swept away in his crusade against himself. She’s either going to stop him altogether or get out of harm’s way.

“I just…” She exhales deeply. “I don’t know what to do. How to handle him.”

“How does he treat you?”

She almost smiles. Bradley couldn’t have asked a harder question to answer. “He’s warming up to me. We didn’t get off on the right foot.”

“That makes it sound like you’re the mean one.”

“We each have our moments. He can be quite charming at times - in his own way. Other times he really gets under my skin. We’re working on it. On finding a balance. But he’s not bad to me,” she amends, realizing what Bradley is looking for. “Just gets on my nerves at times.”

“That’s a relief. I’ve heard so many different things from people here at Blue Line. Some have worked with him before and they found it an absolute nightmare. I’ve been really worried about you.”

“I’m okay,” she promises. “Just…figuring it all out. It’s a new job. It’s going to have its ups and downs and an adjustment period.”

“Yeah. It’s the same here.” A pause. “I miss you, Nat. I’ve got a whole staff doing the job you used to do alone, and it’s made me realize how much you did for me. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Bradley. I did it because I care about you and wanted you to succeed. Besides,” she adds, her tone slightly teasing, “You got me this job.”

“I think I might end up owing you more for that.”

Natasha laughs. Truth is, she’d missed Bradley too. What she told the other musicians last night is true: she needs to hang around and talk to people other than Jake Seresin or else she’ll go crazy. He’s her job, not her social life. Although, with as much time and effort as he requires, he’s pretty much been both so far.

“Seriously, if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to give me a call. Even if you just want to talk. You know I’ll always be here for you.”

Her fingers tighten around her phone, a lump appearing in her throat. “Yeah. I do know.”

“And if you ever need someone to stop by and knock some sense into Jake Seresin…”

“I’m afraid that won’t do much. He’s had the sense knocked into him so many times it goes straight through him.”

Bradley is quiet for a moment. His voice is serious again when he says, “I was pretty lost when you found me, too. But you made me remember that there was something to live for. And you helped me find my way back. If anyone can help him do the same, it’s you.”

He doesn’t usually talk about that part of their past. She knows how painful it is for him even now. So she appreciates it all the more.

“Thank you, Bradley. I really needed to hear that.”

Her phone buzzes as another call comes through; George. She winces.

“Hey, I’m getting a call from my boss. I have to take it. But thanks so much for calling.”

“Of course. I know you’re busy, but don’t be a stranger.”

“You’re the one who’s getting famous. I’m more worried about you forgetting me.”

“I could never.”

She ends the call with a smile on her face and picks up George’s. “Good morning, George.” She hopes he can’t hear the shaking in her voice.

“Is it?” he asks, and her heart drops.

“Listen, about last night - ” She starts.

“Last night was terrible. I was dragged out of my sleep at three in the morning and I’ve been on call with lawyers and the police and my bosses ever since. Jake sure knows how to make a mess of things.”

“I’m - I’m really sorry. I should have - ”

“Sorry?” George sounds surprised. “Ms. Trace, you have nothing to be sorry about.”

“What?”

“I would never have believed it if you told me, but I have the proof in my hand. Whatever you’re doing with Jake, it’s working. Of course I didn’t expect you to turn him around overnight, but you’ve gotten farther in one week than any of his former agents did in months!”

He sounds excited. Natasha rubs at her face, wondering if her mind is playing tricks on her.

“So I’m not…I’m not fired?”

“Fired? Hell no! I’m not letting you go for a million bucks!”

She sits up. What the hell happened? “I don’t understand.”

“Jake tried to call me last night. I missed it, because I was on the phone with his legal team, but then he left a voicemail begging me not to blame you for what happened. Begging. I’ve never been so shocked in my life. He admitted he didn’t realize that his actions had consequences on others besides himself. And then he apologized to me for having to clean up after him. You, my dear, are an absolute miracle worker.”

Jake did that? After she left?

She’s not sure she believes it.

“As happy as I am that he finally learned something, it doesn’t change what he did,” George continues. “We’re working with the police to get everything cleared up - apparently the bike belongs to a member of a notorious gang in the area. If we can help the police get him, we can get Jake off the hook for all charges. As for the media…well, the cat’s already out of the bag. Jake is going to need to lie low for a few days and let it blow over. I’ll let you handle those details. I’ve got enough on my end.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Alright, I’m getting a call from the legal team. Good work, Natasha. I look forward to seeing what other surprises you wring out of Jake.”

Then he’s gone and Natasha is left staring at the blank screen of her phone.

Of course Jake had to stumble into gang members. As if illegal racing while drunk wasn’t enough.

But he’d apologized. Not just to her, but to George as well. And he’s specifically taken responsibility for his actions and asked that they not reflect on her.

Those green eyes, dripping with regret and sincerity, flash again in her mind. She flops back down against her pillow.

Damn Jake Seresin.

-

It’s well after lunch when Jake Seresin wakes up fully. At first he doesn’t understand what’s going on. There’s no sunlight streaming through the windows onto his bed. There’s something cool wrapped against his skin. He’d managed to sleep through the worst of his hangover, but why does his body ache so much?

He touches the elastic bandage around his torso and then it all comes rushing back to him.

Shit.

He throws his covers off and jumps up, immediately regretting it as his knees buckle and he slams his side into the wall. Fortunately it’s his good side. He limps over to the bathroom, unwraps the make-shift ice packs (now melted) from his ribs and tosses them in the trash.

His entire left side is a swirl of purple, black, and red. Just looking at it hurts. His arm and shoulder are still wrapped up, and he doesn’t bother touching those bandages. The road rash is going to take a few days to scab over.

He heads back into the room and pulls out a t-shirt, jacket, and jeans from his suitcase and (painfully) pulls them on. The left side of his leg is pretty bruised as well, though fortunately there’s little to no road roash. He’s just glad he wore a helmet, or else he wouldn’t have been able to walk away so easily. In fact, he may not have survived at all.

His phone buzzes. He glances at the lit-up screen and the dozens of missed calls, texts, and voicemails.

Nope. Not going to deal with those. Not when he’s starving and in a ton of pain and still waking up.

Then he remembers the voicemail he’d sent hours ago and a surge of panic runs through him. Natasha. He slides on his shoes and rushes out, running down the hall to her room and banging on the door.

It opens. Natasha is standing there, wearing jeans and t-shirt, her feet bare. She raises an eyebrow at him.

“So you survived the night,” she says dryly.

She doesn’t look like someone who just got fired. He relaxes. “I always survive the night. It’s the morning after that’s the hard part.”

Natasha steps back, leaving her door open. Her laptop is set up on the desk and she sits back down in the chair. He wanders in a few feet, glancing around. She has a few shirts and pants hung up in the closet and an open suitcase on the floor. All her clothes are folded neatly or zipped up in packing cubes. Her shoes are lined up in front of the bed.

He’s not surprised by how neat she is. For someone whose entire job is to keep appointments and make sure he gets from one place to another, she has to be organized.

“At least you got to sleep through your morning after,” she says, and he can see the dark bags under her eyes. “I just get more work.”

A twinge of guilt runs through him. That’s the other part of her job - cleaning up all his messes. Her, and George, and his legal team.

“So what’s the verdict?” He takes a seat at the foot of her bed.

She swivels around to look at him. “You were hanging out with members of a notorious gang last night.”

“Really? Cool.”

“Not cool,” she corrects. “But fortunate, because if the police can use the bike to track them down, you’ll get off without any charges. Your lawyers are negotiating those details.”

“It’s a little cool,” he argues. “I totally have street cred.”

“More like they were taking advantage of a stupid drunk.”

He shrugs. She’s probably right, but he won’t admit to it.

He changes the subject. “You take your lunch break yet?”

“Haven’t had any time yet.” She frowns and looks at him. “Why?”

“I’m pretty hungry and since you, you know, picked me up last night I figure I owe you.”

“You owe me a lot more than just lunch,” she replies, her lips curling up.

“Call it a down payment.”

“Do you even have any money left?” she teases. “I’m pretty sure I maxed out your credit card for the bond.”

“Sweetheart, I’m worth millions.”

“If you haven’t spent it all yet.”

“Drugs are the real killer of fortunes,” he says, standing. “I don’t mess with those. Just alcohol. And even I couldn’t drink enough to drain my bank accounts.”

She gives him a look as though she’s not sure she quite believes that, but she stands and slides on her sneakers. “Alright. But I’m choosing the place.”

A half hour later, they end up at some mom-and-pop-owned burger joint. Jake wolfs down two entire burgers. He really doesn’t eat enough solid food on a daily basis; usually just goes through protein powder like crack between his drinking spells. It’s not healthy at all, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t really expect to make it past thirty.

“So,” Natasha says, pointing a fry at him. “On a scale of one to ten, how are you feeling?”

He swallows his bite. “Optimistically, I’m at a six.”

“That high?”

“I did sleep through my hangover. Otherwise it’d be a solid four.”

“Fair enough.”

“And it did help that I got some excellent medical care last night.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Don’t expect anything more than that,” she says, popping the fry into her mouth. “That’s about the extent of my abilities.”

Maybe because he’s still feeling bad about last night, he adds, “I do appreciate it. You coming for me. And taking care of me.”

She doesn’t meet his eyes. “It’s part of my job.”

“It shouldn’t have to be.”

“Well,” she says, her tone forcefully light. “That’s entirely up to you.”

“I meant what I said last night.”

Natasha looks up, catching his eyes. They’re guarded. He remembers what she said: I want to believe you. I do.

She doesn’t trust him. He can’t blame her for that. He wouldn’t trust himself, if he were in her shoes. But he told her he’d try to be better, and he knows the weight of the guilt that will crush him if he doesn’t uphold his word.

It’s one thing to disappoint himself. It’s a completely different thing to disappoint others.

“No more three AM bailouts?” she asks.

“No more,” he promises.

“No more motorcycle accidents?”

He shakes his head.

“No more getting drunk in random bars after shows?” Her voice is more hopeful than firm.

“I can’t make any promises on that front,” he says, and she throws a french fry at him.

But hey, some progress is better than no progress. Jake is doing the best he can, all things considered.

Natasha swirls around the ice in her cup, clearly debating something in her head if the crease between her eyebrows is any indication. She looks cute when she does that. Jake has to try hard not to smile as he watches.

Then she looks up, and the seriousness in her eyes stops him cold.

“Do you want to talk about last night?” she asks. 

“Which part? The gang? The race? The police?

She ignores his joking tone. Maybe she can hear how desperately thin it is.

“Why did you get so upset? Who were you talking to on the phone?”

He shakes his head. He definitely doesn’t want to get into that. Not when it’s still so fresh in his mind. Not when even the allusion to it makes him want to reach for the nearest bottle.

Thankfully Natasha seems to understand. She doesn’t press.

“You can talk to me, you know,” she says, her voice soft. “I…I want to be your friend, Jake. Not just your agent.”

No one wants to be my friend. The bitter thoughts well up inside him. He’d made damn well sure of it. The few friends he’d once had, he drove away. And now he keeps people as far away as possible.

Friends mean collateral damage. Friends mean more guilt he has to bear on his shoulders. Friends mean expectations. It means acting selflessly. It means changing his lifestyle.

He’s not ready for any of that. Not ready to let go of his vices and try to face reality sober.

He gives her a tight smile. “I don’t have friends, Trace. I’m sure you understand why.”

She nods once, not surprised or angry but resigned. Guilt claws up his throat again, though he can’t think of why.

She’s not his friend. So why does she make him feel bad for disappointing her anyway?

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

Warning: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

Playlist. A03.

Chapter 6

Natasha doesn’t bother phoning for her driver, who is no doubt sleeping soundly in his hotel room. She calls up a taxi as she runs, unable to stand still. 

A million thoughts swirl through her head. An accident. Involving Jake Seresin.

What if he’s seriously injured? What if he’s…No, she can’t think that way. But why else would they call her to the station unless to identify the body?

No. She can’t think that way.

She can’t think that way because this is all her fault.

She should have stopped him. She knew he was going out to get drunk out of his mind. And she’s read the stories of what happens when he does that. He gets into fights. He gets into trouble. Wanders into places he shouldn’t. He’s always made it out alive and relatively undamaged, but what if this is the time his luck has finally run out?

Maybe she couldn’t have stopped him. But she had aggravated him with her aggressive behavior. When she saw him upset on the phone, she should have sat down with him and let him talk. Even let him drink a little in moderation, under her watch. Then he wouldn’t have gone out on his own. 

Now who knows what’s happened to him?

Horrible images cross her mind. Him lying dead in a ditch, hit by a car. Or beat up and bloody in some bar, shards of glass embedded in his skull from a bottle. Or shot in a dark alley somewhere, his wallet and phone pilfered.

Oh, God. She hadn’t even made it one full week without getting her client killed.

Without getting her ultra-famous celebrity rockstar client killed. The police will run an investigation and they’ll interrogate her and maybe she isn’t directly responsible but her name will always be associated with this and she’ll never be able to get a job again.

And poor Jake. He kind of brought it on himself, but she should have been a better agent. A better friend. No one deserves to have their life ripped away so suddenly and over something so stupid.

The taxi stops in front of the police station and she bails out. Her legs are shaking so badly she nearly eats it on the sidewalk. Then she remembers she’s supposed to be a professional agent for a massive label company and she squares her shoulders, holds her head up high, and shoves her trembling hands into the pockets of her blazer.

She is not going to fall apart. Whatever happens, whatever she sees, whatever she has to do. She will keep her professionalism.

The front door is locked. She presses a buzzer and the lock clicks and a green light flashes. She pushes inside.

The interior is dimly lit. Most of the workstations are empty. A man behind the main desk rises as she enters.

“Ms. Trace?” he asks. She nods once, not trusting herself to speak. “Follow me, please.”

He leads her through the office and down a set of stairs. To the morgue? She nearly trips on a step. Now she’s really glad she had Coke instead of tequila.

The officer opens another door to a hallway. Bars loom up ahead. Not the morgue. The jail.

Wait.

“Are you shitting me?” she exclaims, all the tension in her exploding out. The officer gives her a side-glance and takes a half step away.

Jake is sitting on a bench in the cell, very much alive. Other than a bloody scrape along the bottom left of his chin and the side of his left hand, he’s also very much intact. And when he hears her, he raises his head and grins.

“Aw, you came for me, sweetheart.” His voice is lazy, his tongue still heavy with drink.

Natasha is tempted to turn around and walk away. Let him spend the night. But even as her relief at his well being settles in, a new set of crippling fears overwhelm her.

What is he doing in jail? This is still her responsibility. It’s her job to keep him out of jail, to keep him as sober as possible and to rehabilitate him and his name. And now he’s sitting drunk out of his mind in a jail cell, having done who-knows-what, and it all comes back to her.

She is so fired.

“What happened?” she asks quietly, so only the officer beside her can hear. She doesn’t take her eyes off Jake. Looking at that smug face keeps her angry enough that she doesn’t cry.

Fired. She is going to be fired.

The officer glances at his clipboard. “Stole a motorcycle and got caught in an illegal street race. We didn’t catch the other guy, ‘cause Mr. Seresin here crashed himself into the side of a building. He’s lucky he was able to walk away.”

“You stole a bike?” Her fists clench at her sides.

“Borrowed,” Jake mumbles in correction. “I borrowed it. From the guy I was racing. He offered it.”

The officer makes a note with a pen. “Thank you for that useful information.” He glances at Natasha. “I’m going to search up the license plate, see what I can pull from his friend. I’m assuming you want to take him home?”

I don’t want anything to do with him, she thinks. But she nods. She’s not fired yet, so may as well do her job as best as she can until the bitter end.

That doesn’t mean she won’t shoot Jake dirty glares the entire time. Here she thought he was dead, or seriously injured. He was illegally street racing while drunk. She’s tempted to reach through the bars and wring his neck herself.

“Let me call his lawyer, patch him through to you,” she says. “But we’ll post bail tonight.”

“Good. He’s way too chatty for my likes. Don’t envy you, though.”

“Me neither.” 

Ten minutes later, Natasha is leading Jake outside where a taxi waits for them. She pushes him roughly inside, then sits as far away from him as possible, staring out the window. Her chest is squeezed so tightly it aches, a lump caught in the bottom of her throat.

It’s over. It’s all over. She didn’t even last a week.

How hard could it possibly be to keep one drunk rockstar out of trouble for a few hours? Impossible, apparently.

Jake starts to say something and she holds up her palm at him, shutting him up without looking his way. If he says something, she might punch him. And she really doesn’t want to get charged with assault on top of the insult of being fired.

She squeezes her eyes shut against the prickling of tears. She will not cry. Think happy thoughts. Think of strangling Jake Seresin with his own guitar strap. Think of never having to deal with him hungover and complaining in the morning. Think of never having to go on spontaneous runs with him in inappropriate sports attire. Think of never having to come up with quick insults to throw back at him at a moment’s notice. Think of not having to look away and roll her eyes at him when he flashes that charming smile so that he doesn’t see her blush. 

These aren’t happy thoughts at all, she realizes as the sting in her eyes grows worse. For all his numerous, irritating, and horribly deep faults, Jake Seresin had grown on her.

Maybe that’s why this hurts so much. She wanted to believe in him so badly, and yet he keeps proving her wrong, time and time again.

He was right. She could never fix him. She couldn’t even start.

Natasha isn’t sure what’s worse - that, or the fact that he doesn’t even seem to want to fix himself. Won’t even try.

A golden prince who accepted prison as his inevitable fate, so long as he could choose the decor.

That’s what his album means. She understands now.

She understands all too well.

-

Jake really fucked it up this time.

The fog around his mind is starting to clear in spurts and gasps by the time the taxi pulls up to the carport of the hotel. Natasha doesn’t even bother helping him out, just slams the door shut behind him. He slinks behind her as she leads the way to his room. She’d taken his wallet at the police station, and now she searches through the cards for his room key.

It’s her silence that’s so damning. She’s not yelling at him. She’s not cussing him out or even scolding him.

She’s giving him the silent treatment. Totally and completely.

It hurts worse than any words ever could. 

And of course his mind starts filling in the silence.

Once she opens his door, she grabs the back of his shirt and shoves him into the bathroom. “Shower,” is all she says. He turns on ice cold water and steps in, the frigid water sobering him up.

He doesn’t bother soaping up or washing his hair, just stands under the freezing water and lets it pummel him into submission. It stings especially bad against his side, where he’d hit the concrete when he was thrown off the bike. He doesn’t remember the race - doesn’t remember who started it or why he agreed to do it. He told the police he didn’t steal it and somehow he knows that’s true, even though the memory is now too hazy for him to decipher. Maybe he knows it’s true because he would never steal, even when drunk. He doesn’t steal because he doesn’t have to. He’s never been poor. Never had a reason to do so.

He’s feeling pretty miserable about himself when he shuts off the water a few minutes later - and justifiably so. He quickly dries himself off with a towel, bundles up his clothes in a pile - they’ll have to be tossed out, the fabric was ripped or frayed to near breaking point along the entire left side during the accident - and steps into the room.

Natasha has her back to him, leaning over his suitcase. She pulls out what looks like a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and turns. Then her eyes fall on his bare arm, shoulder, and side and her shoulders deflate.

“Shit, Jake.”

He doesn’t have to look to know how bad it is. Scrapes and road burn all along the outer skin of his arm and shoulder. Deep purple bruising along his ribs. He’d seen it in the mirror when he’d stepped out of the shower.

He steps towards her and reaches for the clothes. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” She balls up the sweatpants and throws them weakly at his chest. “Put on the pants. I’ll be right back.”

Her voice sounds hoarse. As she pushes past him, he reaches out and grabs her arm, stopping her. She stares stubbornly straight ahead. He slowly raises his other hand, touching the opposite side of her chin softly and turning her head to face him.

Maybe it’s the dim light of the room, but he swears her eyes are rimmed with red.

Natasha pulls away from him, walking out without a word.

She was worried about me?

He sits down hard, what little strength he had left flowing out of him. It’s been so long since he’s been around people who actually care. Most of them he pushed away years ago. It was easier that way. Easier to be reckless and indulge in his guilty pleasures when he didn’t have to worry about upsetting others or dragging them into his drama.

His other agents didn’t care. Even the ones who stuck it out for almost two months. They were ready to be rid of him by then. Probably prayed every night that he would get himself killed so they didn’t have to quit.

Natasha isn’t like the others. She’s not selfish or embittered. She can be aggressive, yes, but only when he’s being stubborn or a jerk. And she didn’t let his initial - or continuing - unpleasantness stop her from trying to reach him. To help him.

It’s more than that, he realizes as he pulls on his sweatpants. It’s not just about him. It’s also about her. His actions reflect on her as his agent. Being his agent is more than just setting up interviews and photoshoots and making sure he gets to them. Being his agent in particular means dealing with him. He knows that. It’s no secret.

And when he goes and does reckless, stupid, and illegal things…

He’s putting her name, her job, and her reputation in jeopardy.

Of all the selfish and awful things he’s done in his life, this has to rank near the top. And he’s been doing it to all his agents as far back as two years. He never realized the true extent of what he was doing. Never thought his misadventures and scandals affected anyone but him.

No wonder all his agents quit.

The door opens and Natasha returns, a bucket of ice and a first aid kit in her hands. She unwraps a few pairs of latex gloves, fills them with ice, and ties off the wrist part as a make-shift ice pack. Jake is a bit impressed with her improvisation.

She doesn’t say anything, just moves his hand so he’s holding them against his bruised ribs and then uses an elastic bandage to secure them tightly. Her hands are deft yet gentle as she wraps it around his torso. He watches her face the entire time, but she betrays no emotion, just works. When her skin brushes against his, he can feel the path lingering long after her hand is gone.

Natasha takes a damp paper towel and softly dabs away at the dried blood, dirt, and grit along his arm and shoulder that the shower had missed. She’s sitting on the bed, practically draped over him as she works. Jake hides his grimaces in clenches of his jaw. When she switches to alcohol wipes, he can’t quite hide the hiss that escapes his teeth.

“You’re real stupid, Jake Seresin, you know that?” Natasha’s voice only has half the anger he thought it would.

“Yeah.”

She flicks another bloody wipe into the bucket and rips open a new package. “You could have died.”

He doesn’t say anything. She works her way up his shoulder, pressing the alcohol wipe just hard enough to make the sting really set in. When she reaches up to get the spot on his chin, he reaches out and takes hold of her wrist. Her eyes flicker up to his and he holds them for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and she freezes. “You…” He swallows hard. She’s so close right now. And he can feel the hand of hers that he’s holding shaking slightly. “You are really trying to do this job right. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I’ll try to be better.”

He holds her hand for another second, then releases it. She pulls away slowly, lowering her eyes.

“I want to believe you.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I do.”

She doesn’t speak again as she wraps more elastic bandages around his arm and shoulder, then throws everything extra into the bucket. She stands and heads for the door, turning back just before she opens it.

“Get some rest. I’ll cancel all of tomorrow’s appointments.”

And then she’s gone. Jake lays back against the bed, wiping at his eyes with his right hand. A different kind of pain and guilt than he’s used to bearing settles over him.

He’d hurt Natasha. She was crying because of him - whether because she was worried about him or because he put her career in jeopardy, it doesn’t matter. He’d also lost whatever little shred of trust she might have had in him.

Jake is used to feeling sorry for himself. He’s used to loathing himself for his actions. But this? Whatever he’s feeling right now is worlds beyond what he’s used to. It hurts in a way that’s physical, a deep ache in his chest and sharp pain in his heart.

Even worse, his usual cure - alcohol - would only make it hurt more. It would only lay on the guilt. She doesn’t like it when he drinks. No one likes it when he drinks. Hell, he doesn’t even like the person he becomes when he drinks. But it’s his only escape from all the other pain in his life.

So what does he do when he’s going to hurt either way?

There’s a dark thought pulsing at the back of his mind. One he’s never seriously entertained, but that never quite leaves. Sometimes he wonders if it takes over when he’s lost himself to the alcohol. Is that why he thought it would be fun to race motorbikes in Austin at three in the morning when he couldn’t even walk in a straight line?

He just…doesn’t care. Either way, he doesn’t care enough.

But this new pain…it came about as a result of caring. Caring that he hurt Natasha. Caring that he was the cause of her detached demeanor. Caring that he was the reason she was upset.

Jake doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t even know how to feel. Part of him wants to run to Natasha’s room and beg on his hands and knees for her forgiveness. The realistic part of him knows that won’t work. Actions speak louder than words. He has to prove to her that he’s serious about regretting the damage he’d done tonight.

He fumbles around for his phone, calling George. He doesn’t answer, of course - it’s four in the morning. But Jake leaves a message. One he’d never thought he’d leave.

Only then can he crawl under his sheets and fall asleep.

-

Natasha makes it to her room, closes the door, and then leans heavily against it, sliding down slowly to the ground. Her hands come up to cover her face.

That had to be a dream. There is no world in which Jake Seresin would offer a sincere apology. No universe in which he’d admit to being wrong.

She can still hear his voice in her head. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better.

Too late, she wants to cry back. You’re too late.

The damage has already been done. She’s already as good as gone.

But he had apologized. That has to mean something.

Unless it was just another one of his drunk acts that he’ll forget ever happened.

She closes her eyes, once again fighting back tears. Natasha rarely ever gets this emotional. She can count on one hand how many times she’s cried in the past five years - today excluded. Maybe it’s because she’s so far from home and all alone. Maybe it’s because Jake Seresin is really that awful.

She knows it’s not because she’s weak.

This job won’t be worth all the money in the world if she loses herself because of it.

Natasha drags herself up, wiping at her eyes. This is it. No more tears. It’s been a rough first week. And maybe she will or won’t be fired tomorrow morning. Until she knows for sure, she’s going to act like she isn’t. She has to send out emails to their appointments to get a rain check. Jake isn’t feeling good, she’ll write. They’ll know better; the tabloids will eat up the story of him illegally drag racing. They’ll sensationalize his accident if they can. But nobody will say anything directly to her because he’s a celebrity and she’s his customer service face.

First she takes a shower. She still has Jake’s blood on her hands. She wipes it off furiously, wishing she could as easily wipe away the memory of how he’d looked at her when he’d given that apology. Those green eyes of his…they’re trouble. Even more trouble than he is.

She hurriedly brushes her teeth, throws on an oversized t-shirt as pajamas, and climbs into her bed. Assuming she isn’t fired tomorrow, she has to come up with a better plan for how to deal with Jake Seresin.

The problem is that he just keeps surprising her. Whenever she thinks he has him figured out, he does something that completely overturns her image of him.

She’d made a lot of mistakes today. But she’d also had some great successes. The run was a success. Whatever just happened now that convinced him to apologize - drunk or not - was a success. The stuff in between? Not her finest moments.

She’ll figure it out. She has to. It just might be a bit of trial and error.

Natasha is going to make this work. She’s going to succeed at the job George tasked her with.

She just has to hope Jake also gets on board with it somewhere along the line.

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

Warning: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

Playlist. A03.

Chapter 5

After the show ends, Natasha and Bob escort Ellie down to the backstage area. The guys are all there already, putting away their instruments and rehydrating with water and gatorade from the cooler. Ellie knows them all by name, apparently, though their nicknames are new to her.

“What about yours?” she asks Natasha.

“She doesn’t have one,” Coyote says.

“Why not?”

“She hasn’t earned it yet,” Fanboy replies.

“And she hangs around Hangman - Jake - all the time,” Payback adds. “It’s hard to give her one when we barely see her.”

“That’s going to change,” Natasha promises. “If I only spend time with Jake, I won’t last very long.”

Fritz gives her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“Speaking of…” She glances around. “I’m going to find him. Keep Ellie in one piece for me, please.”

“No promises,” Coyote calls, and they all smile. Only Bob gives her a nod that she trusts.

She weaves through the hallways, making her way to the room with Jake’s name on the door. She pushes the door open slightly, peeking inside.

He’s pacing around the room, obviously agitated, his phone pressed to his ear. Sometimes he attempts to speak but never gets more than a couple words out. Eventually he shakes his head, says something low and harsh that she doesn’t catch, and chucks his phone onto the couch. Then he raises the bottle in his hand to his lips.

Natasha’s eyes narrow. She shoves the door open. “What the hell are you doing?”

He whirls around. “Are you spying on me?”

“I just came to remind you that you’re supposed to meet with a fan. But apparently I should be spying, because you can’t go twelve hours without alcohol.”

She strides over to him and snatches it out of his hand. He glares at her, looking angrier than she’s ever seen him.

“Fine,” he snaps. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?”

“I’ll do what you want for ten minutes. But then I get to do what I want.”

“All you ever want to do is drink.”

“And that’s my decision.” He pushes past her.

She sets the bottle and follows him. At least he’s going in the right direction. She can worry about getting him to stay longer once he’s there.

Despite how he’d acted in his dressing room, he’s all charming smiles once he enters sight of the others. He takes a few pictures with Ellie, asks her about the show, makes a few jokes with his musicians - who act a little uneasy, but cover well enough that Ellie doesn’t notice. She’s too excited to pick up on the subtleties that Natasha does.

When the ten minute mark passes and Jake is still hanging out with the others, she begins to relax. But it’s not too long after that he starts to excuse himself and darts out.

Natasha is right on his heels. He ignores her, winding his way through the now-empty venue. She catches him in the lobby.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Where?”

“That’s none of your business, Trace.”

“Yes, it is precisely my business.”

Jake turns, and once again he has that dangerous, cold look in his eyes. It’s both feral and contained at the same time, like he could lash out - wants to lash out - but won’t.

“You do not control me. You do not dictate what I do and where I go at all times. I am not some child you have to keep an eye on.”

“If you don’t want to be treated like a child, then perhaps you shouldn’t act like one.” Her tone is much, much harsher than it should be, but she can’t help herself. Something about him can just set her off at a moment’s notice.

Unfortunately, she also seems to be able to set him off - even more than he already is. “I can act however I want to act. I do my job, I go to the interviews you tell me to go to, and I met the fan you arranged for me to meet. Now I’m on my own time, which I get to spend doing whatever the hell I want to do. And that doesn’t concern you.”

“Except that it does. If you want to waste your life getting drunk, fine. But you can’t just go out and do it where the whole world is filming every second to post on the internet. Because that does affect me and your musicians and George and every single other person working around you. So it is my concern.”

“You knew who I was when you signed up for this job.” He jabs his finger at her. “You accepted this risk. I haven’t changed. And I’m not going to.”

“And why not? What are you so scared of, Jake? What’s so difficult that you can’t face it sober like the rest of us?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not like the rest of you. That’s your problem, Trace. You’ll never understand me because you’re not like me. It must be nice, living in your little world where you push people around like toys and then get to sleep peacefully through the night just to wake up and do it again. But that’s not my world.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You think my life is perfect?” She makes a disgusted sound. “I have to deal with you every day. Do you even know how hard that is?”

“Yes,” he snaps. Then he turns on his heel and shoves the doors open, striding out into the cool night air. Natasha is stunned for a moment, then she runs after him.

“You’re a coward, Jake Seresin!” she calls after him as he strides on his long legs towards a waiting taxi on the curb. “You just run away from all your problems!”

“At least I don’t stick my nose in everyone else’s!”

She reaches him as he slides into the backseat of the cab. For a moment, they just glare at each other.

“Why are you even here?” he asks, his voice suddenly quiet. “Why did you think you could be the one to fix me when everyone else has failed? You call me arrogant, but you’re just as bad. And your pride is a sin. The difference between us is that I embrace mine for what it is. You dress yours up as something prettier because you don’t want to admit it.”

Her jaw drops. Before she can think of a reply, Jake slams the door in her face. The taxi drives off.

Natasha takes a few steps back from the curb, tearing at her hair with her fingers. She’s not sure if she’s more angry or hurt. The nerve of Jake Seresin! She’s trying to help him and he’s resisting her at every move. Not just resisting, but lashing out.

And yet, there’s some truth to his words. As much as she hates it, it hits a spot deep inside her that knows better.

Why did you think you could be the one to fix me when everyone else has failed?

Fix. The same word George had used on the phone when he first called her to offer the job. Back then, she’d even disliked how it sounded. But isn’t that exactly what she’s been trying to do this past week?

So what if she was successful with Bradley? He’s a completely different person. He wasn’t as independent as Jake. In fact, he’d asked her to help him structure his schedule so he didn’t have free time to think about the drugs he’d become reliant on to cope. Once she’d become his friend, he actively wanted her to help him help himself.

Even if her formula with Bradley could work on anyone, she’s definitely butchered it here. She should have worked on gaining Jake’s trust first before pushing. Part of that isn’t just jumping on him for living the way he has for the past two years. She’d even seen how he was upset on the phone; instead of attacking him for drinking, she should have approached him from a more compassionate standpoint and asked him what was wrong and if there was anything she could to help him.

It’s just…so hard to not get riled up by him. It’s like everything he says and does is with the sole purpose of pissing whoever is around him. And lately, that person has been her.

She rubs her face in her hands. Today had started off so promisingly. Maybe that’s what set her off. Their run in the woods had led to some actual progress. She’d really started to think she was making a breakthrough. She’d tried to push too far and made everything worse.

Natasha crosses her arms over her chest and starts walking back in the direction of their hotel. It’s a long walk - a few miles. But she needs the fresh air and the time to rethink her strategy. If she wants to have a chance at making this work, she’s going to have to find some hidden reserve of patience. Some new level of tolerance and compassion and understanding.

It takes her a little over an hour to reach the hotel. She has a bunch of notifications on her phone, but none from Jake. She slips it back into her pocket and heads towards the bar, the only amenity still open at this hour.

“What can I get for you?” the bartender asks. He’s polishing wine glasses with a white towel. Natasha thinks of going for something strong - tequila, maybe, or a good whiskey. Then she sighs. What is she doing? She was just lecturing Jake for turning to alcohol to solve his problems and now she’s sitting at a bar about to do the same.

“I’ll have a Coke.” It hurts to say it and the bartender looks annoyed, but she’s not going to be hypocrite. Not after Jake hit her with that blow about her pride.

Natasha does take pride in her work, and she doesn’t think that’s wrong. But sometimes she overestimates herself. Has higher aspirations than realistically possible to achieve. And she doesn’t always want to admit when she needs help or is in over her head. That’s the sinful kind of pride creeping in.

She looks over her calendar for the next week as she sips at her soda. She’d booked Jake pretty tightly. Maybe she should relax a few things, give him his space. Maybe that’s one reason he’d also blown up tonight. The phone call - whoever he’d been speaking to about what, she still has no idea - had been the catalyst for the build-up of her week of tightly planned activities. He’d played along with her coming on the run with him, but what if he really needed that time alone?

Jake was right. He is an adult, regardless of how he acts, and she’s not going to get anywhere treating him as anything less. She has to trust him. Even when he isn’t trustworthy.

At the end of the day, this job is just a paycheck for her. For him, it’s his life. His name. His reputation.

-

Jake’s day took a distinct turn for the worse.

He was actually having a good day. Natasha’s tight schedule over the past few days had kept him too busy to go out for drinks and too tired to bother needing to drink to sleep at night. He’d been exercising and actually eating well, and he not only had more energy than he’d had in what feels like years but his head also seemed much clearer, like there had been a fog invading his mind that he’d just gotten so used to being there that he didn’t realize it didn’t belong.

Then he’d gotten ready to go on the run and she’d shown up. But for some strange reason, he hadn’t minded the company. She was fun to tease and even when the conversation dipped into deeper topics, he felt enough at ease to talk freely. And of course it was amusing to see her running in her work clothes.

She was desperate to reach him. He could see it clearly. Why else would she have followed him? Instead of being annoying, though, he actually found it…touching. She cared enough to do something uncomfortable, something she clearly didn’t want to do and wasn’t prepared for.

But that’s usually how his agents start out. For the first couple weeks they’ll try really hard. Then they slowly give up until they call it quits.

He can’t imagine she’ll be any different from the others, even if she does put up a better fight right now. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about who she is - how strong she is; it’s about him. How utterly repulsive he is.

 Everyone warned me about you. I thought I could be the one to fix your brand. But there’s nothing left to fix.

Same plot, different characters. The ending is already written. There is no changing it.

But he still admires her for trying.

After the run, he had to get ready for the show. The show went on as it usually does - a constant reminder of what he’s lost. Of how there’s nothing left of what he used to be. Of how fatally empty he is inside, so empty that even his passion has been scooped out and discarded.

Shows always put him in a bad mood. Especially tonight, because he hadn’t drank before the show. Every time he reached for the bottle he thought of Natasha’s warning and he stopped himself. She would have been proud of him - but by the end of the show, he didn’t care what she thought of him anymore. He needed something to soothe the pain that had risen back inside of him.

And then his parents had called.

It was the same as it always is with them. Worse this time, because they’d heard the news of his latest fight. Of course it had taken them a whole week to bother him about it, too busy to address it until it was convenient for them.

Doesn’t matter. With them, it’s the same script and the same characters. A play that is put on like clockwork, except all the actors are stuck inside of it. No way to escape. No way to deviate.

And like the good actor he is, Jake has his lines and actions memorized to the letter. Including the post-drinking and rebellion.

Except Natasha had interrupted him this time. And he has no idea how much she overheard but he knows she witnessed something. He could see it in her eyes as she looked at him. She disguised it with her anger over his drinking. She’s like a new director, trying to manipulate the play to her vision. But how can she change something she’s never read? Never understood?

He doesn’t mind her meddling in most affairs; none of those changes will remain once she’s gone. But this? This isn’t open for negotiation. It is what it is and what it always will be.

Even if it could change, he doesn’t care enough to make the effort.

Although Jake isn’t at a place in life where he feels much of anything besides loneliness and a persistent hopelessness - as hard as it is to believe that life can’t get better, it’s even harder for him to believe it can - he does remember what it was like to get excited about things. So when Natasha reminds him about Ellie, he puts on his best face and makes an effort.

But he can’t act forever, and the weight of the world is starting to settle back down on his shoulders so he takes his leave. And of course Natasha follows him, nagging again at how he isn’t what she wants him to be and all he wants to scream is that he’ll never be what she wants him to be, that he isn’t capable of being that, that she’s better off going back to her old musician boyfriend who did still have enough life left in him to revive.

She’s too perceptive, though. She’d read straight through him. So instead he picks a fight, because picking a fight always puts him in a better mood. It makes him feel alive again, for a few minutes, and he also craves the reminder of how terrible a person he is because for once someone isn’t lying to him.

Except that he doesn’t feel better after their fight. In fact, he feels much, much worse.

The taxi driver drops him off at a random bar. If Jake was in a better mindset, he might have noticed that it was farther from the city center than he usually prefers. He might have noticed the sketchy surroundings. He might have thought twice about going on.

But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.

He heads straight for the bar. No one notices who he is. His audience is mostly younger - people in their twenties and early thirties, some teenagers. And he’s sure he looks like total shit by now, since he’d run his hand through his hair a million times on the ride and he’s still sweaty from the concert and worked up from the phone call and the fight.

He slaps a hundred dollar bill on the counter and asks the bartender to keep the drinks coming.

It’s not until the fourth drink that he starts to feel anything at all. And it’s not until the sixth that he starts to slip into that blessed fuzziness.

Sometime after his seventh drink is when he starts getting into trouble.

-

Natasha flips her phone around in her hand, debating on whether to call Bradley or not. It’s two am now and he’s probably asleep but she knows he’ll wake up if she calls him.

The problem is that she doesn’t think he’ll understand. She’s not sure there’s a way to describe her issues with Jake without making him sound irredeemable. And maybe he is, but she refuses to believe it. There have been just enough small glimpses to make her believe otherwise.

She finds herself scrolling through the lyrics of Jake’s songs. Bradley had said music was his way of expressing things he couldn’t outright say. It’s probably the same for Jake. Between the poetic lines and metaphors, there has to be a hint of how he’s really feeling.

His first album, Golden, is a story album. Each song tells a different verse of one long saga focusing on a “golden prince” who grows up in a luxurious palace. As a child he delights in the sweets of the kitchen and the soaring ramparts lined with armored guards bearing his family’s crest and the endless halls of silver and diamond. He climbs the tallest tower and looks over the world around him, knowing that it all belongs to him.

As he grows older, he yearns to step out and explore what is his but he’s only ever seen from a distance. He still enjoys the luxuries of the palace, but he’s starting to look beyond the walls for something more. The king and queen assure him that the outside world is his but he’s not ready to leave yet. There’s still much he needs to learn.

The prince becomes an adult. The gilded walls of the palace burn his eyes. The walls press in. The guards and servants are faceless beings who haunt his every move. The king and queen are his jailors. His only salvation lies in the world outside.

One day he fights his way out. The king and queen tell him that if he leaves, he will not be welcome back. The world will no longer be his inheritance. But what point is an inheritance he cannot have? He flees and the gates slam behind him.

He goes into the world. There is much he has to learn, but he is smart and educated and makes a successful life for himself. For a time, he is happy.

Then one day, as he walks through the world, he realizes he has achieved the highest station he can occupy. He has no goals left to work towards. The people he sees are all faceless. The sky begins to close in on him, the ground threatens to swallow him up. He has every tree memorized. The brilliant sun burns his eyes. The gods above are his jailors.

So he builds his own palace with walls and hires guards to wear his emblem and he decorates his halls with gold and jewels. For if the entire world is a prison, he may as well make his to his own liking. And if he still feels so empty inside, he may as well distract himself with flashy things.

Natasha understands it’s a metaphor for his own life. He grew up rich. The king and queen who kept him locked up are his parents. But the album doesn’t answer whether they were locking him up for his own protection or for their own selfish reasons. It doesn’t explain how he feels about them abandoning him forever and disinheriting him.

All it does is confirm Bob’s theory about his parents. Too bad she didn’t end up getting to talk to Coyote today.

She’s not entirely sure she understands the rest of what the album is trying to say. The way it ends leaves her wondering whether he knew what he wanted to say - or if he was struggling to find a satisfying conclusion as well. From what she knows of him, he probably hasn’t.

If he continued the metaphor to what his life looks like today, she wonders what stage he would be at. Still in the palace? Or drunk in a random alley? Perhaps stuck in a deep, dark well, barely keeping him head above water. Would he blame someone else for trapping him there? Or would he blame himself for getting lost?

She starts to look up the lyrics for his second album when her phone buzzes. An unknown number with a local area code. She hesitates, wondering who could be calling at this time of the night. Then she answers.

“Hello?”

“Is this Natasha Trace?”

“Uh, yes, it is. And you are?”

“Austin P.D. We need you to come down to the station right away.”

Her stomach drops. Her hand starts to shake. “What happened?”

“There’s been an accident involving your client, Jake Seresin.”

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

Memes And Laughs

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes Chapter 4

Warnings: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

thanks to @indynerdgirl for beta-reading

A03. Playlist

Chapter 4

Jake stretches his hamstrings, pushing until it hurts and then letting it sit there for a few seconds before switching to the other leg. Ahead of him is the cross country trail some college runners had helpfully pointed out to him earlier in the day, marked by the occasional orange tie. His performances this weekend are at a university, not at a traditional venue, and he hadn’t felt like working out in a crowded gym full of students who all want a picture and an autograph.

So no weights today - though it’s probably good for his body to get a rest. He really pushes himself in his work-outs, doing more reps at a higher weight than is healthy, especially since he doesn’t have a spotter in case he does overextend himself and he doesn’t usually take rest days.

Death by irresponsible working out. He almost smiles at that thought. Everyone thinks he’s going to drink himself to death, or get involved in a violent fight. No one would expect death by dropping two hundred pounds on his chest.

The sound of footsteps in the grass coming his way makes him release a sigh. He already knows who it is, without even looking.

“How did you find me?” he asks, straightening and turning as none other than Natasha Trace approaches.

“Wasn’t too hard. Just followed the trail of excited whispers. And you were tagged in an Instagram story walking this way.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were stalking me.”

“It is part of my job description.”

He glances her over. She’s gotten a little more casual since that first day, switching out her heels for more practical sneakers and wearing solid-colored blouses rather than button-ups all the time. She still wears blazers and dress pants, though. He’s always thought professionalism was overrated. No one really cares how you look. Especially when you work for a rockstar.

“What do you want?” he asks. She always wants something. Never stops bugging him. It reminds him of his nanny growing up, except she was at least nice the first few times she asked. Natasha just nags, all the time, her voice sharp. And she looks at him like he’s a burdensome child.

Which is probably a fair estimate of how he acts around her. He can’t really blame her.

“I want to talk to you.”

“No one wants to talk to me.”

“Fine. I need to talk to you. Before the show.”

Jake glances at his watch. He’d timed his run pretty tight within his schedule. Then again, with Natasha dictating his schedule, he feels like he hardly has any free time anymore. She’s only been his agent for a week and she’s totally turned into a dictator.

“I’m going for a run.” He glances over at her. “If you want to talk, you better keep up.”

“Jake - ”

He sets off, starting at an easy jog as he enters the wooded area. It’s a park just outside of the campus and the city, but not so far that signs of civilization aren’t everywhere if you look for them. Normally running isn’t his preferred work out, but sometimes on a trail like this he actually enjoys it.

To his surprise, Natasha falls into step beside him. She shoots him a dirty glare as he smiles.

“I’ve never had an agent I couldn’t outrun,” he remarks. “Normally George sends me pudgy middle-aged guys.”

“I can see why that didn’t work out well.” She pulls her hair up in a messy ponytail without slowing down.

“He never did tell me how he stumbled across you. You know pretty much everything about me by now. Doesn’t seem very fair I don't know anything about you.”

“I graduated last spring with my masters in communications and marketing from UCLA,” she replies.

“That’s a decent school.”

“Decent? Oh, sorry, Mr. Princeton.”

“Well, we can’t all be Ivy League grads.”

“Do you ever get tired of bragging about yourself?”

“No, actually. You should try it sometime. Does wonders for self confidence.”

“And terrors for the ego.”

“Only if you consider pride a sin.”

“It’s literally one of the seven sins.”

“But is it always?”

She’s quiet for a moment, thinking. Jake didn’t particularly mean anything deep by it; it’s just banter. He has to admit that it’s fun going back and forth with her. She’s good at poking at him without actually making him bleed. She understands him well enough to know what’s safe territory to mock him for.

Unfortunately that probably means she knows him well enough that when she does, inevitably, want to lash out and hurt him, she’ll be all too good at that, too.

But Jake is good at taking the hits. Mostly because he doesn’t take them too personally, even if they are intended that way. Nothing a bottle of tequila can’t soothe away for a few hours.

“Alright, Seresin.” She regards him briefly before turning her eyes back to the trail. “I’ll admit that I take great pride in my work, and I don’t consider it a sin.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re so on me about everything. You really do want to impress ol’ Georgie.”

“He hates when you call him that, you know.”

“That’s precisely why I call him that.”

“It’s like a chronic condition with you,” she says. “Pissing off everyone around you.”

“It’s fun,” he corrects. “People are too uptight about the most ridiculous things.”

“And you? What pisses you off?”

He thinks for a moment. Very few things get on his nerves these days - but that’s only because he feels so very little. It’s hard to get riled up when you just don’t really care about anything.

“It pisses me off when someone drops into my life thinking they can control every aspect of it.” He gives her a meaningful look.

She visibly fights back a smile. “Really? I’ll have to keep that in mind. Wouldn’t want to step on any toes.”

“And you say I’m the mean one. What have I ever done to you?”

“Would you like that alphabetized or in chronological order?”

“So,” he says, changing the subject back to where it started. “You were at UCLA. How did George find out about you?”

“In my free time I started helping one of my classmates who was an aspiring musician. He had some…issues. I helped him work through them and then built up his fanbase in a grassroots style. Just a few weeks ago his second album was released to great success.”

“Billboard Top 10?”

“No, but he was trending at number one on Twitter and Youtube for a few hours. And he now has over a hundred thousand subscribers and a million streams.”

“So you basically built him up from nothing.”

“The music was all his. I just did everything else - organized his fanbase into advertisers, booked events, got him the equipment he needed to record his albums, drove him everywhere, took all his calls, managed his social media…” she trails off, as though realizing she might be the one bragging now. But Jake doesn’t think so. She’s simply listing what she did.

And it sounds like she did about five jobs in one. If not more.

“You did that all while you were taking classes?”

“It was hard,” she admits. “There were times I was tempted to drop out.”

“And you did it all for a classmate.” Jake looks at her, but her gaze is fixed straight ahead. “I’m assuming he was more than just a fellow student.”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t push. That’s her business and he doesn’t care too much, anyway. Chances are she’ll be back with him in a few short weeks, anyhow.

“So George thought you were the perfect person to rehabilitate my image. Apparently he doesn’t realize that building someone up from nothing isn’t the same as fixing someone with enough scandal to rival the British royal family.”

“Bradley had a lot in common with you when I first met him. I helped him get out of the rut he was stuck in.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not stuck in a rut. You can’t just lay down some boards and expect me to gain the traction I need to get free.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t think she does. He’s been well-behaved since she started working for him. Not a single public drunk outing yet. She’s been keeping him too busy to get into trouble.

But her next words surprise him.

“More like falling into a bottomless, dark abyss.” Now she looks over. “Free-falling with no end or beginning in sight. Nothing to hold onto. Nothing to even strive for.”

That hits a little too close to home. Jake swallows and pastes on his trademark grin. “You should become a psychiatrist.”

“I don’t like seeing people like that. It makes me sad.”

“Then you chose the wrong rockstar to work for.”

“Maybe. But believe me, Jake. I am going to drag you out, kicking and screaming if I have to. That’s why I’m here.”

Good luck, is all he can think. Others have tried. None have succeeded. The truth is, Jake doesn’t want help. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want it. You can give them the world and they’ll turn their back on it.

It’s not that he’s deliberately destructive. It’s just that he doesn’t care. Not one bit. And not caring about something eventually destroys it by nature of not ensuring it’s kept in good condition.

He doesn’t care because he’s never been given a reason to care. It took him more than twenty years to realize the truth, that the world is fake and everyone is lying and selfish. But now that his eyes have been opened, it’s like he can never see anything the same way again. And the only way to blunt the hopelessness that comes along with that cursed sight is to drink until it doesn’t matter.

“Well, then,” he says, and the end of the trail is in sight. Back where they started. “I promise to do my fair share of kicking and screaming.”

Natasha smiles. “I expect nothing less from Jake Seresin.”

They slow to a stop, walking in circles to lower their heart rate. It wasn’t a long run, just a few miles, but it did the trick. Natasha’s hair is a mess, falling out of her ponytail, and her nice shirt is spotted with sweat but it actually looks kind of cute on her. Jake wonders if she was ever an athlete. She certainly has the build for it.

“So,” she says, her hands on her hips. “What I came to talk to you about.”

He sighs. “We didn’t cover it already?”

“No. Remember that intern from the radio station you invited to the concert?”

Jake vaguely remembers a blushing and stuttering blonde-haired girl. “Ellen?”

“Ellie,” Natasha corrects. “She’s coming tonight. And I got her a backstage pass to hang out with you and the other musicians after the show.”

Jake groans. “I never hang out with the others after the show. That’s not how we do things.”

“No, how you do things is drink until you forget your own name, run your smart-ass mouth, and get into trouble that others have to clean up.”

He points a finger at her. “You did this on purpose. You think that if I have to play nice for a fan, I won’t fall into my bad habits.”

She shrugs, looking innocent. “Maybe.”

“You’re a clever little fox, Trace.”

“I never let an opportunity pass me by.”

Jake steps towards her, making sure to stand just a little too close for comfort and forcing her to look up.

“Be careful,” he warns in a quiet voice. “Foxes often end up in the mouths of hungry hounds.”

Then he turns and leaves.

-

Foxes often end up in the mouths of hungry hounds.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

And why is it probably the most serious and genuine thing Jake Seresin has ever said to her?

She contemplates their conversation while she showers and changes, preparing for the show. She thought their discussion was productive - probably the most productive one she’s ever had with him. He didn’t expect her to actually run with him, and she’s pretty sure that made all the difference.

Is that the key to unlocking Jake? Meeting him on his terms? Doing what no one else would be willing to do?

She has the sense that she’s dangerously close to understanding what makes him tick. What motivates him - or rather, in his case, what stops him.

Once she figures that out, she’ll be able to actually make progress towards helping him instead of just constantly babysitting and dictating his every move and keeping him away from what isn’t good for him. It’s not a permanent solution by any means, and it’s exhausting her quickly. But it’s all she has to work with right now.

There were two things that especially stuck out from their conversation. One was his joke about getting pissed off by her take-over of his life. He’d said it in a light tone of voice, but somehow she knows there was truth in it. Jake is someone who likes having freedom to make his own decisions, even if he doesn’t make good ones. Does that indicate a control issue in his past? Was he in a relationship where he didn’t have much agency over himself? 

Whatever the case, she knows she’s going to have to relax her current strategy. If it’s upsetting Jake, she risks undoing any progress they’ve made. Especially after he admitted it to her face that he doesn’t like it.

The second thing was how he seemed genuinely interested in hearing about her and how she got here. Sure, he mocked her college and her exact experience in relation to her current job, but he did listen and interact with what she said and even brought the subject back when it got off track. Maybe he isn’t quite so self-absorbed as she thought.

Once again she circles back to the idea of meeting him on his own terms. He didn’t think she would still want to talk to him if it inconvenienced her in the slightest - and in this case, running in her work clothes was very inconvenient. But when she did it anyway, he opened up a bit.

Somehow she’ll have to find a way to repeat that sort of thing on a daily basis so she can keep making progress.

By the time the car swings by to take her to the venue - just a regular car today; the limo is only for special occasions - she’s showered and re-dressed, this time in a button-down shirt, blazer, and nice jeans. She’s aware of how quickly her professional dress is deteriorating, but with Jake inviting her on spontaneous runs and all the other strange things she’s ended up having to do, she’s leaning more towards comfort every day.

The driver opens the door and sitting inside already is Ellie, the intern from the radio station. She smiles at Natasha as she climbs in.

“It’s good to see you again, Ms. Trace,” she says, and Natasha is struck with that odd feeling of being old. She’s probably only about four years older than Ellie, but she’s being called by a professional title. It’s so strange that she has to shake it out of her head.

“You too, Ellie. I trust your trip was comfortable?”

“Very. Thank you so much for arranging everything.”

They arrive at the venue, skip past the lines - Natasha gets yet another lanyard, and Ellie gets her first - and head up to the reserved VIP space. She leaves Ellie there long enough to head back to the dressing room and check on Jake.

He’s sitting on the couch, reading something on his phone, but he’s dressed in his performance clothes and she doesn’t see any bottles or smell any liquor so she takes that as a win and disappears. No use in him thinking she’s micromanaging him more than she already is.

Back upstairs, Natasha notices Ellie is talking to a man in the box. Although man is a generous term; he’s probably about her own age, but he looks more like an overgrown boy. He’s got thick, round glasses that cover half his face and a nervous smile.

“Hey.” Natasha steps forward.

Both of them turn towards her.

“Who’s this?” she asks Ellie.

“This is Bob.”

“Bob?”

He gives her a small smile that’s both awkward and pained at the same time. “We’ve met before,” he says.

Oops. It must have been at that first show last week, when she was tired and overwhelmed. She can’t remember anyone she met there aside from George.

“Sorry. You’ll have to refresh my memory.”

“I’m Jake’s tour manager. I, uh, arrange his tours.”

She smiles. “Nice to meet you, Bob. I promise I’ll remember this time.”

They talk for a bit. Below, the venue begins to fill out as the lines of anxiously awaiting fans are let in.

When she worked with Bradley, Natasha would usually spend this time mingling with the audience - most of them would just be random people interested in the event, who had never heard of him or his music before. She’d have conversations with them, have them scan a QR code that linked to his Youtube and Instagram, sometimes even hand out free pins and stickers. It was hard, tiring work, but it was also fulfilling. She got to meet so many people, and some of them became the very ones who helped him get his second album trending.

She wonders what Jake’s early career was like. He obviously didn’t start with filling arenas and stadiums with tens of thousands of fans. He must have been genuinely charismatic at one point - or has his entire persona been an act?

“How long have you been working with Jake?” she asks Bob when Ellie excuses herself to use the restroom.

“Since he signed with Blue Line Records. It was my first real job in the business. That was, uh, about four years ago.”

Natasha winces. “And you’re still around? No offense, I just assumed everyone who worked with him quit within a few months.”

“Most do.” Bob grimaces. “I’m lucky that I don’t have to work with him directly very often. I’m not even sure if he would recognize me.”

She thinks carefully about her next question. The last thing she needs is for Bob to take it the wrong way. “Has Jake…has he always been…”

“An asshole?”

“Yes,” she admits, though she hadn’t wanted it to sound so harsh.

“He’s always been difficult to work with. Independent to a fault. Sarcastic humor that hits the wrong spots. Assumes he’s always the smartest and most capable in the room. But…” Bob pauses. “He wasn’t always awful to be around. He could be fun. He used to be friends with the other musicians.”

“What happened?”

“You mean the drinking?” Bob sighs. “I don’t know exactly. I was never that close to him. I think it had something to do with his parents, but if you want details you’ll have to ask Coyote.”

“And what about the music?”

“What about it?”

“Did he ever enjoy it? He always looks so empty on stage.”

Bob frowns, as though he hadn’t considered that before. “In between the first and second album, he spent almost all his free time writing,” he says. “And when we traveled abroad, he’d always grab Payback and make him play something at those pianos they keep tucked away in train stations and airports. Sometimes he’d even jump in when he passed a busker playing one of his songs, or a song he liked. But I haven’t seen him do any of those things in a long time.”

Ellie returns, and Natasha lets the conversation drop. In her mind, she turns over this new information. It sounds like Jake’s drinking started around the same time he quit playing for fun. She wonders if the two are directly related, or just symptoms of another problem.

She’s definitely going to have to talk with Coyote. Maybe she can sneak in a few questions tonight when Ellie gets her backstage tour.

On the stage below, the concert starts. Natasha watches for the first song, then shakes her head and turns away, going to stand by the snack table. It’s hard to watch such soulless music, especially coming from someone who obviously has such talent. And after years of following Bradley around, who throws all of himself into every performance, it’s just so empty. Void.

She thinks she could like Jake’s music. The lyrics are well written, covering deep and relatable topics. There are themes about materialism and how empty it is in the first album. That certainly lines up with how he lives - simply lugging one suitcase from hotel to hotel. As far as she’s aware, he doesn’t even own a house or an apartment. Where he stays when he’s not on tour, she’s not entirely sure. The second album revolves around taking on life alone - and though Jake does live a lonely lifestyle now, the lyrics in the those songs seem to indicate that it’s not preferable.

But she can’t like his music the way he performs it now. The way he sings the words without seeming to believe them, or put any emotion into them. She can see by the way he moves on stage that it’s all choreographed to look like he’s energetic and excited, but really he doesn’t feel anything at all. Like a robot following instructions.

That’s not music. That’s just depressing.

She pulls out her phone and shoots Bradley a text: What is it that inspires musicians?

It’s a few minutes before he responds. Thinking of getting into it? A joke. He knows she’s hopeless when it comes to music.

Just trying to understand what makes them tick.

That’s like trying to understand why Van Gogh cut off his own ear, he replies.

Because he had depression.

And so do most musicians.

She stares at the text box for a long time. Bradley can only say it so flippantly because he did suffer from it himself. Still does, sometimes, but he’s learned how to manage it. How to identify the signs and what helps him escape it before it gets a chokehold on him.

She’d helped him. And she learned a lot from that experience. But in the end, she could only provide resources and be a sounding board. He had to make the decision to fight - not once, but every day. Every time it came back up.

Jake has all the signs. All the symptoms. Understanding where it came from could help her find ways to talk to him about it. Even how to better approach him in general.

But until he decides to make a change for himself, there isn’t much she can do.

I’m inspired by my dad, Bradley adds. And because it’s the best way I have of expressing myself. I can sing about things I can’t talk about.

Have you ever struggled to relate to songs you wrote at a different time in your life?

Of course. But that’s why I write new ones.

Natasha chews on her lip as she reads that answer. So why hasn’t Jake written any new songs lately? she wonders. Why doesn’t he write about what he’s struggling with now?

That answer could be the most important one to understanding him. But it’s also going to be the hardest to get the answer to because the only person who knows is Jake himself.

And he’s not likely to give her a straight answer.

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

A03. Playlist

Warnings: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

Thanks to @indynerdgirl for beta-reading!

Chapter 3

Jake’s peaceful sleep is violently disrupted by a harsh burst of light and his blankets being ripped away.

“Hey,” he complains, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Time to get up.”

A woman’s voice. Very no-nonsense. He opens his eyes slightly, seeing a blurry form standing at the end of his bed. A few blinks and it focuses on an attractive woman about his age with dark hair wearing professional clothing.

“You could have just knocked and told me politely,” he grumbles, not moving.

“I did. Three times.”

Huh. He definitely didn’t hear anything. But he’s usually pretty dead to the world on mornings like this, when his head is stuffy and achy from last night’s alcohol and his ears are still ringing with the noise from the show.

All he wants to do is sleep away his misery. He turns on his side, away from her, and curls back up. He’s a rockstar worth millions; he should be allowed to sleep in when he wants to.

He doesn’t hear any footsteps, but he does hear the sound of the shower start. He imagines her getting in, leaving the door open. An invitation?

No. He doesn’t have the energy. Or the will. For all his insinuating talk and charming smiles, he isn’t interested in company. Just another act, another defense he puts up so people don’t pry any deeper into what he does in his free time.

He’d rather be thought of as a whore than a pathetically lonely drunk.

A wave of freezing cold crashes over him and his body instantly reacts, snapping into motion. He rolls, going right off the bed and crashing onto the floor, his head and arm smashing into the little desk by the bed.

“What the hell?” He touches his wet shirt, then looks up at the woman. She’s holding a bucket in her hands - the ice bucket, for champagne.

Her expression is as stern as before. “Get up. The shower’s running. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“Who are you?” He pushes himself into a sitting position and he glares at her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re trying to kidnap me. But I think kidnappers would treat me a little better, considering how much I’m worth.”

An incredulous look flashes across her face. “You don’t remember? We met last night.”

Last night…yeah, that was not a good night. He barely even remembers the concert, and he knows he didn’t meet her before then.

“I’m your new agent.” She hesitates, then steps forward and offers her hand. “Natasha Trace.”

My new agent. George had mentioned he’d found a replacement. Jake remembers that much. He must not have left a good first impression when they met. Of course, he never makes a good impression when he’s been drinking.

He takes her hand and uses it to roughly haul himself up. To his surprise, she seems to be expecting the move and has her feet set firm. She doesn’t budge an inch as he looms in front of her.

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, Natasha Trace, but it hasn’t exactly been a pleasure.” He drops her hand.

“I could say the same about you, Jake Seresin.” Her dark eyes are hard. Unwavering. Even though she’s looking up at him, he feels like he’s the petulant child being scolded. “Now get in the shower.”

She turns and walks away, glancing around the room as though trying to glean information about him from it. Good luck with that. Jake doesn’t have any personal items. Just a suitcase full of wrinkled clothes and empty bottles of liquor.

That’s what his life has been reduced to.

He doesn’t want to listen to her. He wants to fight her, like he’d fought with Tony and some of his other former agents. In an odd, self-flagellant sort of way, he liked hearing them cuss him out and tell him the bitter truth about himself. So many people want to baby him because he’s rich and famous; interviewers throw him softball questions, fans make up excuses for his actions, and his record label continually gives him second, third, twelfth, fiftieth chances in the vain hopes that someday he’ll wake up and want to turn his life around.

So few people are actually honest about what he is. Even fewer have the guts to say it to his face. At least, until he provokes them enough.

He can tell that Natasha loathes him. He could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. Everything Tony had once said to him, she’s thinking. But she’s not ready to say it out loud. Not yet.

She will eventually. They all do. It’s just a matter of time. A few weeks? A few months?

He wonders how much money George offered her. Tony was only partly in it for the money. What he really wanted was the prestige of being able to say that he rehabilitated Jake Seresin. That passion only lasted two months. But money is a big motivator, especially for an unknown woman her age.

He might be stuck with her for a while. Depends on how tough she is.

If this morning so far has been any indication, he’s not about to underestimate her.

There will be plenty of fights ahead in the future, he’s sure. For now, he slams the bathroom door shut and steps into the hot shower.

-

Natasha breathes a sigh of relief as she hears Jake enter the bathroom. She’d been prepared for a much bigger fight. But she’d gotten him up and on his feet, and that’s half the battle.

She’s not about to boast about her victory yet, though. Not until she gets him to that interview. Every step of the way is going to battle, and there’s no use celebrating until she wins the war.

Her eyes scan the room. Nothing but bottles on the floor, twisted sheets on the lone queen bed, and an open suitcase with rumpled clothing on the table. Somehow it doesn’t surprise her. He seems like a pretty solitary guy. From what she’d researched, she’d seen no evidence of a girlfriend or significant other, he has no siblings and doesn’t appear to be close with his parents, and from his musicians’ comments last night, it doesn’t seem like he has any friends.

Not that he acts the way a person who wants friends would act. She wonders if he’s self-sabotaging himself on purpose. Bradley had been the same way when she met him. He drove away everyone that loved him, his grief over his mother’s death and his anger at his uncle fueling him into a downward spiral. On paper he looked fine - his grades were excellent, he was involved in extracurricular activities, and he was perfectly polite to his classmates and professors. But in actuality, he just didn’t let anyone get close enough to see what was really going on under the surface.

Natasha had wormed her way in. She noticed the disparity between how he acted around others and how acted towards himself. She forced her way in and helped him turn his life around.

And that’s exactly what George hired her to do with Jake Seresin.

At least Bradley had some redeeming qualities, she thinks bitterly as she digs through the clothing in the suitcase and pulls out what she thinks would be appropriate for the interview. Bradley was never harsh with her. When she pushed too far, he just closed up like a clam. Jake is more like a porcupine. She doesn’t even have to push, just get too close and he lashes out.

Well, it’s not like her salary isn’t high enough to accommodate some medical bills.

She opens the closet and pulls out the ironing board. Across the room, the sound of the shower is still going. She irons the clothes for Jake to wear today, then hangs them up. Then she figures what the hell and starts working through the rest of the suitcase, folding and rolling them so they won’t wrinkle again when he travels.

By the time she finishes, the bathroom door opens. Jake steps out, nothing but a towel around his waist.

Her eyes land on perfect six-pack abs and her lip curls up. Disgusting. How can someone who does nothing but drink all day and night look so good? It’s really unfair.

She nods with her chin towards the closet. “I picked out clothes for you to wear. Put them on and we’ll go.”

As if reading her mind, he says as he passes, “I hope you know that I’m missing my morning workout for this.”

“Too bad,” slips out of her mouth before she can filter it. “You should have gotten up earlier.”

He pauses and gives her a side look. “You’re not very nice.”

She meets his gaze. “And you’re one to talk.”

“We’re going to have a fun time together, aren’t we?” He smiles, then snatches his clothes from the hangars and returns to the bathroom.

Natasha doesn’t like his definition of “fun”.

Five minutes later they’re sliding into the backseat of the limousine. Jake runs his fingers through his damp hair, straightening it out. Then he leans forward to the mini-fridge and reaches for a bottle.

Natasha uses her foot to kick the door shut. Jake doesn’t manage to get his hand fully clear before it slams closed. He cradles it close to his chest and shoots her a hurt look.

“What the hell was that for?” He sounds more like a petulant child than an angry adult.

“You’re not drinking before an interview.”

“I always do.”

“Not anymore.”

“What circle of hell did George drag you from?” Jake massages his hand.

“L.A.”

Jake simply nods. “Of course.”

She’d meant her comment as a joke, and now she feels a little stung by his implication. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Everyone knows Californians are jerks,” he answers easily. “Especially the ones from the big cities like L.A.”

“You called me a prostitute last night. I hardly think I’m the jerk here.”

“I did?” He grins. “Sweetheart, I’ve never claimed to not be a jerk. But I’m not representative of my entire state. More of an exception. Besides, I have something vital that you don’t.”

She crosses her arms. “And that is?”

“Charm.” He smiles sweetly, and she feels her stomach drop. Damn it, he’s right. He knows exactly how to use the gifts God gave him and somehow that just makes her hate him more.

“Only works if the person doesn’t actually know you,” she shoots back. “You might charm young women across the country who see you on TV and run fansites about you, but no one around you is fooled.”

“I know.” He drops his hand and starts reaching for the fridge again. At the look she gives him, he scowls and asks, “Am I not allowed any water, either?”

To his credit, he does just grab a water this time.

The driver pulls up in front of a local radio station’s headquarters. Natasha and Jake slide out. She pulls up her pass on her phone and flashes it to the security guard, who lets them in. A receptionist at the front desk smiles as they enter.

“Hi! How may I help you today?”

“I’m Natasha Trace and I’m here with my client, Jake Seresin, for an interview with Mark at eleven.”

The young lady’s eyes widen as she glances over at Jake. “Oh! Yes, of course.” Her hands fumble through stacks of papers and notes on her desk before she finds two laminated lanyards. “Here, you’ll want to wear these. And give me just a second to call up our intern to give you a quick tour.”

Natasha pulls the lanyard over her head, wondering if she’s going to have to prepare to wear them for the next six months straight. Jake doesn’t wear his, just tucks the ribbon in his pocket and leaves the plastic card to hang out.

Another girl scurries out, looking about twenty years old. She has a messy bun with a pencil stuck through it. When she sees Jake, her eyes nearly pop out of her head. Natasha rolls her eyes; yet another thing she’s probably going to have to get used to seeing on a daily basis.

What is with everyone and worshiping Jake Seresin? No wonder he’s got such an inflated ego.

“Uh, hi.” She clasps her hands together in front of her and rocks back and forth on her heels. “I’m Ellie. I work as an intern here. It’s good to meet you.”

She hardly looks at Natasha. Jake gives her an easy smile and offers his hand. “Jake Seresin. A pleasure to meet you, Ellie.”

Her face turns red and she meekly shakes his hand. “This is so exciting. I see celebrities all the time, but I’ve never met someone as famous as you. And of course I’m a huge fan.”

“Did you make it to my show last night?”

Ellie’s smile fades. “No, I uh, had to work late. But my friend went and she shared a bunch of photos and videos.”

Jake frowns. “You had to work late last night? And again early this morning?”

She shrugs. “You know how it is, balancing college and a job. You take whatever you can get.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun. You’re supposed to work hard and play hard.” Jake glances over at Natasha. “When’s my next show?”

“Uh…” She pulls out her phone and glances at the calendar. She’d stayed up late last night going through the entire binder George had given her - only skimming it, though, because it would take hours to thoroughly go through everything in it - and inputting all the appointments and dates from the emails he’d sent her into her calendar. She won’t brag about being the most organized yet but hey, it’s her first day and she’s jumping in head-first. “Next weekend is in Austin. You’ve got two shows back-to-back, Friday and Saturday.”

Jake turns to Ellie. “You have to work next weekend?”

“I - I have Saturday off, but - ”

“Good. We’ll get you a ticket.” He nods at Natasha. “She’ll organize everything for you.”

Ellie opens her mouth, then shuts it. “T-thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me.”

Jake waves her off. “You can repay me by showing me where you keep your coffee. I didn’t get my usual morning routine.”

Natasha presses her lips together. Ellie leads them through the studio, chatting excitedly the whole way. They end up outside of Mark’s studio, where he’s finishing up his latest segment. Jake gets his coffee and Ellie reluctantly leaves, promising to be back when they finish.

“I’m not your assistant, you know,” Natasha tells him.

“No?” He takes a long sip of his coffee.

“I don’t work for you. I work for Blue Line. For George.”

“Perhaps. But whose money pays for your salary?” Jake raises his eyebrows. Natasha glares at him. She’d forgotten her note about his intelligence.

“And here I was about to admit that what you did for that girl was sweet.” Natasha makes a note in her phone to make arrangements for Ellie. She’ll have to get the girl’s contact info on their way out.

“It was practical. I only make money because I have fans. If I’m not nice to them, they won’t cough up their measly cash on my tickets and merch and then I can’t afford my drinking habit.”

Of course. For just a brief moment she thought that he might have some semblance of a good side.

“Besides,” he adds, seeing the look on her face. “I’m not an asshole to strangers.”

“Except when you’re drunk.”

“Exactly.” He flashes his brilliant white teeth at her. “See? You understand me.”

Unfortunately, she’s beginning to.

An ad segment goes up and the door from the studio opens. Mark, the local radio celebrity, steps out. He grins as he sees Jake.

“Hey! Thank you so much for stopping by.” He offers his hand and shakes it. “I’m so glad you made it.”

“My agent wouldn’t let me miss it, despite my best efforts.” Jake says it like he’s making a joke, but it’s literally the truth. “Pleasure to meet you, Mark.”

“The pleasure is all mine. I’ve got a short list of interview questions, and we’ll play some of your songs to break it up. Here’s the list if you want to give it a look over, see if anything raises any flags. Or if there’s anything you want to talk about that’s not on the list, just let me know and we’ll make a note.”

As Jake skims the questions, Mark turns to her. “Ms. Trace, I believe?”

She shakes his hand and exchanges the customary pleasantries. She realizes she’s starting to sound like she’s reading from a script, just like Jake. Maybe everyone in this industry is an actor. Maybe no one is real and authentic.

“We should be about an hour,” he tells her. “We’ve pushed our ad breaks to bookend the interview so we can get you out sooner. I know your client is a busy man.”

Not really. Maybe that’s one of his problems. She fakes a smile. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

And then he’s back to Jake, chatting him up a bit, probably to warm him up before they go on air, and Jake grabs a doughnut from the table before they head into the studio, leaving Natasha alone in the break room.

She half-watches the interview on the monitor, half works on her schedule for the next week and reviews some of the more important notes she’d copied from the binder. Partway through, she gets a call from George.

“Did you get Jake up yet?” he asks. From the background noise, it sounds like he’s in a car.

“Uh, yeah.” She frowns. “He’s halfway through the interview.”

A pause. “Seriously?”

“You said it was at eleven. So I made sure we got here by quarter to.”

George’s voice is filled with warmth. “Natasha, I could kiss you.”

“Please don’t.”

He laughs. “You are a saint. A miracle-worker. I knew I had a good feeling about you.”

“I’m just doing the job you hired me for.”

“And you’re doing it brilliantly. Which is saying a lot when it comes to Jake Seresin. Alright, I have another call to take, I just wanted to check in and see how things were going. Which sounds great. If nothing else comes up in the next few days, I don’t think I’m going to travel to Austin for the show. I’ll trust you’re handling everything in your very-capable hands.”

“Uh, thanks, George.”

“No, thank you, Ms. Trace.”

She lets the phone slip slowly to the table. Is the bar really so low? How bad were Jake’s last few agents that she’s praised for doing such a small thing correctly?

Mostly, she worries George’s expectations for her are going to explode. Yeah, she got Jake up and dressed - but that wasn’t really so hard. She just had to be firm, push him around a little and not take his crap.

The hard part is going to be keeping him out of trouble.

-

Jake is wide awake and feeling better than he has in a long time when the driver drops them back off at the hotel. Maybe Natasha was right about not day drinking.

He opts for a later lunch and changes out of his casual formal interview clothing (a nice button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and jeans with his usual boots - at least his agent has some sense of style when it comes to what she picks out for him to wear) and into his workout clothes. He takes a dry-shot of protein powder and then heads down to the fitness center.

He typically prefers to get it out of the way in the morning, but obviously his new agent had other plans for him. He doesn’t plan on rearranging his schedule to fit with her idea of what his habits should be. Apparently he’s feeling generous today.

As he steps into the gym, he sees a dark-haired woman on the treadmill. For a moment he thinks it’s Callie, though there’s no reason she would be here. That interaction happened in a city halfway across the state. But it stuck with him more than he wants to admit.

Then she turns her head and he realizes it’s Natasha.

“I feel a little better now,” she says as he steps onto the machine next to her for his warm-up jog.

“About what?”

“There is one hobby you have aside from drinking and getting into trouble. One that’s actually productive.”

Working out isn’t so much a hobby as an outlet. Jake thinks his activities are pretty simple: he works out so he doesn’t lash out, he drinks so he forgets, and getting into trouble is simply an unfortunate side effect of drinking. But he doesn’t bother trying to explain all that to her.

“How else am I supposed to seduce my new agent?” he asks, putting on his most charming smile. “A beer belly just won’t do.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Some guys try having a good personality. You know, like being nice and making jokes that aren’t all insults and not acting like a pain in the ass all the time.”

“That doesn’t sound like any fun. Nice guys never win, you know.”

“Have you ever won?” She waits for a moment. “I didn’t think so. Assholes don’t win, either.”

And then she puts her earbuds back in. Jake finishes his run and moves to weights, trying to pretend like she’s not there.

He thought Natasha Trace would be insufferable because she’s actually confident enough in herself to not take his shit and he’d actually have to listen to her. But now it seems like she’s insufferable because he can’t get away from her. Most of his other agents tried to spend the least time possible with him; this one almost seems like she’s trying to babysit him.

At least that should make it easier for him to drive her away. No one can stand being around Jake for more than a few hours a day. If she’s intent on spending most of her day with him, every day, he’ll have plenty of time and opportunities to wear her down.

And when she is finally gone…Jake doesn’t think that far. He knows it means the end of his career. The end of him. But if he’s being honest, he’s been dead for a long time. George and Blue Line and all these agents are just dragging his corpse through the streets, using strings to prop him up in a garish imitation of life. Maybe it’s time to finally let what is dead lie to rest. 

For some reason that thought isn’t as potent today as it would normally be. In fact, as Jake racks his weights and reaches for his water bottle, it almost makes him sad. For a brief moment, he has a flash of nostalgia for what he once was and regret for what he’s become.

Then he tosses it from his mind with all the other useless emotions he doesn’t feel like dealing with.

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

i just found an old post where someone posted that still of the london skyline and went “i love london c:” and a bunch of sherlock fans all went “lol stupid hipsters… they don’t even know they’re reblogging a FANDOM thing… aren’t ordinary people adorable”

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

From The Ashes

Warning: language, substance abuse, references to suicide

A03. Playlist.

Thanks to @indynerdgirl for beta-reading

Chapter 2

Jake sits in his dressing room, trying not to flinch as the two make-up assistants brush foundation over the remaining vestiges of his bruises. It’s been over a week and his eye is no longer swollen, but there are still traces of green and red and purple. He’d been practically shut away from the public since the fight, Blue Line terrified of him doing something else to splash his face all over the tabloids and internet.

The last thing he wants is to get make-up dusted all over his face, but it’s part of his job. He knows he messed up big time by getting into that fight and making himself trend - again. He’d finally sought out a video of the fight and it wasn’t pretty - the audio didn’t pick up what he’d said exactly to piss off the biker, but he and his friend had really gone to town on Jake. Since he didn’t hit first he could press charges, but he knows himself well enough to know that whatever he said was probably fighting words.

Besides, he can take the hits. It’s not the first time it’s happened and it probably won’t be the last time.

Through the reflection of the mirror, Jake can see the door open and the familiar brown hair and red-tinted goatee of George Findlay appears. The make-up assistants finish quickly, packing up and scurrying out.

George stands behind him, looking at him through the mirror. 

“Bad news, I presume?” Jake asks.

“I found you a new agent.”

“Should we be celebrating, then? I think I have some brandy stashed away somewhere here.” Jake swivels on his chair and starts to rise, but George pushes him firmly back.

“I wasn’t messing around with you on the phone.” George glares down at him. “You need to pull yourself together if you want to keep your job.”

“I’ve gotta be honest, Georgie, I don’t really care about the job.” Not anymore. Not for a long time.

“Fine. The money, then. If you don’t want to end up on your ass out in the streets, you gotta find a way to act like a semi-functioning human. Get up on that stage, do your thing, and don’t get into trouble afterwards.”

Jake flashes him a smile. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s not saying much.”

“So, are you going to tell me who this new agent is?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” George turns to leave, then pauses and turns back in the doorway. “I had to go to great lengths to get this person. I’m not going to sugarcoat it - this is your last chance. For your own sake, don’t mess it up.”

And then he’s gone and Jake is finally, blessedly, alone.

The monitor on the wall shows the rest of his musicians and sound crew finishing set-up and starting to warm up. He knows he should go out and join them for sound-check. They get irritated if he skips it. But it’s hard for him to care. Hard for him to care what they think. Hard for him to care how he sounds on stage.

Hard for him to care about anything.

He lounges on the couch and picks at some of the snacks spread out in front of him. There’s a pounding on the door and then Coyote bursts in.

“What the hell, man?” He instantly crosses the room to the rack of clothes, pulling off a cut-off t-shirt, jeans, and a jacket and chucking them at Jake. “Get dressed. You’re not missing sound-check again.”

With a loud sigh, Jake rolls off the couch and dresses. Coyote scans the dressing room, picking up empty bottles of alcohol. “Damn it, how drunk are you right now?”

“Not nearly enough.” In fact, Jake’s pretty much sober - as sober as he ever is these days, anyway. Those were left over from this morning. Or was it last night? He can’t remember. The last few days have been a bit of a blur since he’s been basically under house arrest. “But thanks for reminding me.”

He finds a half-empty bottle of vodka on the table and down it before Coyote can slap it out of his hands. The burn down his throat feels good and he relaxes a little. He gives his guitarist a smile. “Now I’m ready.”

Coyote shakes his head. “You’re messed up, man. Really messed up.”

“You always say that.”

“And I’m hoping someday it will get through your thick skull.”

They walk down the hall, up the stairs, and onto the stage. The other musicians barely spare Jake a look as he passes. They’re just as annoyed with him on a daily basis as George is. The only difference is that their jobs depend on him.

So they probably hate him more than George does. If Jake fails out, George just gets a pay cut. These guys will have to find a new artist to tour with - not a very stable job market.

“What song do you want to do?” Coyote asks. Jake pulls his guitar strap over his head and strums a few test chords.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Coyote starts playing the intro to a song and the others join in, following his lead. The audio technicians rush around, adjusting wires and dials and speakers.

They play a couple songs until the techs are satisfied. The musicians split, heading off to get dinner together as they usually do. Jake retreats back to his dressing room, picking at some pretzels but mostly searching for the few bottles of liquor he’d been smart enough to hide. He can’t remember the last time he got through a show sober.

An assistant director from the venue comes to retrieve him a few hours later as the opening band finishes. Jake rubs his eyes as he follows, side checking a doorway. Maybe he’d drank a little too much today.

Oh well. Too late now.

He takes the stairs slowly, then raises his hands as he walks on stage. The crowd screams and he does his best not to wince. He walks up to the mic and runs through his memorized script of thanking the opening band and inviting the audience to applaud them again. Then he grabs his guitar as they switch out with his own musicians and the show begins.

All the songs he sings are from the two albums he’d written a few years ago, back when he was just starting in the music industry. Back then, he’d lived and breathed music. It was his way to express himself. His way to work out the confusing emotions inside of him, to cope with some of his trauma. His lyrics were raw and real.

Playing concerts used to bring him to life. For the first time, he didn’t feel so alone. With others singing their hearts out about the same issues and problems he suffered from, he felt connected to the world in a way he never had before. He loved when fans came to talk with him about certain themes in his songs, or lyrics that had really resonated with them or moved them. And others just liked his voice and the blues-rock sound, and that was enough, too.

Somewhere along the line - probably after he broke out and started selling out famous arenas and getting bombarded constantly by crazy fans breaching basic privacy rights and flash journalists digging up every little detail of his past and publishing it for the entire world to see and he started drinking significantly more than just a couple beers once or twice a week to cope - he’d lost touch. He knew he wrote those songs, but the Jake Seresin that wrote those words was a complete stranger to him.

Now they mean nothing to him. He doesn’t hear the music as he plays, only feels the vibrations of the sound as they travel up through the souls of his boots. His fingers move by muscle memory alone. The words coming out of his mouth hold no more meaning than they would if he was speaking a foreign language or nonsensical syllables.

The crowd is a sea of blank faces, nothing more than shifting shadows in the strobing lights.

That woman from the gym, Callie, was right. He is different. The people who have given him a career, a living, mean absolutely nothing to him. He should be giving them for all, and instead he’s no better than a wind-up toy.

But what if this is his all? What if this is all he is capable of?

George had said his best wasn’t reassuring. He hadn’t argued that Jake wasn’t actually giving his best. Just that it wasn’t much.

Just that he isn’t much.

That thought alone nearly sobers him up mid-song, enough that he trips over the line of lyrics he’s singing. He steps back from the mic, raising his arms as if he’s letting the audience sing to him. That’s something a lot of musicians do. Of course, their intent is to let the powerful energy of the crowd screaming their words wash over them. Jake is simply taking a break to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.

I hope you’re happy with yourself. Tony’s words, from the day he quit.

You have the looks, the voice, the charm - when you’re sober. But all that’s not enough to keep you afloat if you sabotage yourself. George. The closest thing he has to a friend - which isn’t saying anything.

I hope you figure it out. Callie.

Jake shakes the thoughts and voices out of his head. He steps back up to the mic and resumes singing. He makes it through the show, bowing and gesturing at his touring musicians. Then he flees while the crowd is still cheering, flees to the backstage rooms where he knows there’s liquor waiting, where there’s some relief from the spotlight shining directly on him and calling him out for all his misgivings and sins.

If he drinks himself to death along the way, oh well. At least some people will make major bank off his corpse and withering legacy.

-

Natasha steps off the plane into a bustling Texas airport. She gets lost for a minute, the chaos a little disorienting. She’s never traveled by plane before; she and Bradley had to drive everywhere due to their budget limits and all the equipment they had to haul around. Not that they ever went somewhere so far they really had to fly.

Then she joins the current heading towards the baggage claim and hopes this isn’t symbolic of how the next six months is going to feel.

A man in a suit is waiting for her just beyond the baggage claim, holding a sign with her name on it. Her heart begins to race a little faster as she walks up to him, introduces herself, and shakes his hand. He leads her out the door where a limo - a limo - is waiting for her.

Natasha is too nervous to touch anything. She still can’t believe this is really happening. She went from working long, mostly unpaid hours for her best friend’s beginner music career to working for one of the current top rockstars in the world in about a week’s time.

To put it in perspective, she went from driving around a rusted old van with an unsecured drum set constantly smashing itself around in the back across state and county lines while trying to manage bookings on the phone to being picked up in the airport and driven around in a sleek limousine.

Natasha glances down at her outfit and worries she’s underdressed. She’s wearing a white button-up shirt tucked into a black skirt with short heels and a blazer folded over her arm. The driver met her in a full three-piece suit. What if George intended on her using the bonus money to get appropriate clothing? What if she makes a terrible first impression?

They wanted you, she reminds herself sternly. They sought you out. You hold all the bargaining chips.

She wishes she could truly believe that.

None of her formal job training programs or apprenticeships had ever prepared her for this kind career jump. She leap-frogged at least a decade of experience overnight.

Maybe she shouldn’t have jumped on this offer after all.

She pulls out her phone and rereads the list of notes she’d made on Jake Seresin in the few days between signing the contract and getting on the plane to fly out. Her research was almost enough to get her to call George back and say that she changed her mind. Bradley stopped her, reminding her that the media sensationalizes everything and surely he can’t be that bad. At the very least, he can’t be any worse. She went back and forth on it for a while before deciding that what was done was done.

She focuses first on the hard facts: Jake Seresin is a Texas-born blues-rock singer and musician. His debut album, Golden, reached Billboard Top 10 within two weeks of being out and stayed there for an impressive ten weeks. It hasn’t left Billboard Top 100 in the four years it’s been out. His second album, Lone Sunset, peaked at number 1 and stayed there for twelve weeks, stayed in the top 10 for another eight weeks, and is also still in the Top 100. He hasn’t released any new albums or songs in the past two years but has been touring almost nonstop the entire time.

Then there was his early life: born to Oil Mogul Harry Seresin and Clara (m. Vanderbilt) Seresin. Went to various prestigious private schools, graduated valedictorian. Attended Princeton and graduated Summa Cum Laude with degrees in business and economics. Played varsity football in high school and earned state-level honors but only played at a club and intramural level in college. After graduating college he turned to music full-time and within the first year signed a contract with Blue Line Records and released his first album to great success.

He’s obviously a very intelligent and well-rounded person. Unfortunately it also sounds like he’s been handed everything on a silver platter all his life.

Everything after that is a mix of rumor and speculation. It’s so hard to verify how accurate the news articles on his misadventures and scandals are, and she has no journalism training to do a deep dig herself. So instead she tries to take everything she reads with a grain of salt.

But there are some things that jump out to her that are nearly undeniable: he’s got a big mouth but not the fists to back it up, a substance abuse problem, and he doesn’t seem to care who witnesses his blusters.

Basically, she’s got her work cut out for her.

The limo pulls up to an arena. Thousands of people wait in long lines outside, talking and chatting, some sitting and some standing, many wearing t-shirts featuring album art or Jake Seresin’s face.

A man with brown hair and a goatee wearing an expensive suit that looks just a little big on him rushes forward as the driver opens the door for her. He smiles and grabs her hand, shaking it enthusiastically.

“Ms. Trace, I’m so glad you made it.”

“George Findlay?” she guesses, recognizing the voice.

“That is me.” He waves at the driver, who gets back in and leaves. “He’ll take your luggage directly to the hotel. How was your flight? Have you eaten yet?”

“I’m - I’m good.” She follows him as he leads the way inside. The audience members are just now being let in. Some stop at merch tables to buy t-shirts and hoodies and posters. George digs in his pocket and pulls out a VIP lanyard for her.

“We’ll get you an official one soon,” he promises. “For now, that will get you wherever you want to go.”

She touches it, realizing how official this all is. Bradley never played a venue so big that she needed a special pass. And she was the one communicating with the venue owners and managers, so they all knew her by sight.

“For tonight, I just want you to watch the show and afterwards I’ll introduce you to Jake. But don’t worry, I don’t expect you to officially start until tomorrow.”

Natasha glances around, taking it all in as he leads her up to a special VIP box above the normal seats. There’s a table with snacks - fruit, crackers and cheese, little sandwiches. There are a few people milling around, all wearing special IDs on lanyards.

George introduces her but she doesn’t retain any names. None of them are too important, anyway - at least not for her job. She does grab a few snacks while he chats some of them up - investors and shareholders with the record company, apparently.

When the show starts, she makes her way to the front of the box, carefully observing. Jake Seresin walks out wearing a black leather jacket, a white t-shirt, and jeans. He has a sort of hybrid country-rock look, though his music is more rock leaning with clear blues influence. He reintroduces the openers and asks for another round of applause for them, then grabs his own guitar.

Natasha has been around Bradley long enough to know, despite having zero music abilities herself, that there’s something off about his performance. He sounds good - he’s got a good voice, and he’s clearly well-practiced with guitar. But there’s something missing. Something Bradley always had.

She glances around the other musicians and then it dawns on her: they seem to be present, to be having fun. The drummer has his eyes closed, his head banging up and down as he bounces on his seat. The two other guitar players move to the rhythm, and when they sing back-up vocals, they throw themselves whole-heartedly into it. The keyboardist dances behind his little stand, clearly having a blast.

But Jake? He’s playing, but it’s like a wedding cellist playing Pachbel’s Canon in D for the millionth time. He doesn’t move away from the mic, doesn’t dance around, just stands there and performs.

The only exception is once, when there’s a slight fumble in the lyrics. And then he steps back and holds his hands up. The crowd takes it as their cue to scream out the lyrics for him. But instead of raising his head to the skies like Bradley always does, absorbing the echo, Jake hangs his head.

And then he steps back up and starts playing again and it’s like nothing happened at all. After the last song, he half-runs off the stage, leaving his other musicians to give a little after-show as the audience slowly trickles out.

“Well?” George is right next to her again. “What did you think?”

“I like the music,” she says. “They are all obviously very talented.”

“Let’s go meet them.” George grins and turns. She snags a few more crackers and grapes off the snack table as they pass and pops them in her mouth as George clears a path to the backstage.

By the time they get down, the other musicians are just leaving the stage and putting their instruments in their cases. George glances around.

“Where’s Jake?”

“Who even knows?” the keyboardist shrugs. “He never stays long.”

“Who’s this?” the guitarist wanders over, glancing at Natasha.

“This is Ms. Trace, Jake’s new agent.”

All four of the musicians glance over. And then they break out in smiles. Natasha feels her cheeks burn. They’re mocking me.

She raises her chin and regards them with a confidence she doesn’t actually have. “Is there a problem?”

“Not with you,” the drummer assures her. “It’s just…”

“It’s Jake,” the bass guitarist finishes. “He goes through agents like most rockstars go through groupies.”

“I assume you don’t mean that literally,” she responds coolly. They grin again, but this time it’s warmer. Directed at her joke, not at her as the joke.

“I like this one.” The keyboardist steps forward and offers his hand. “Reuben Fitch. But they all call me Payback.”

Interesting. She takes his hand, giving it a firm shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“Javy Machado.” The guitarist steps up next. “But I go by Coyote.”

The drummer, who looks like the most rock-starish of the group with his wild black curls barely kept out of his face by a bandana and a cut-off t-shirt, gives her a nod. “Mickey Garcia. I’m called Fanboy.”

And finally the bass player. “And I’m Billy Avalone. They call me Fritz.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “What’s with the nicknames?”

Coyote shrugs. “It’s just our thing. You stay long enough, you’ll get one too.”

“Do I get to pick mine?”

“That’s not how nicknames work,” Fanboy protests. “You gotta earn it.”

“Does Jake have one?”

They all glance at each other, as if deciding whether or not they should tell her. But that’s precisely why she asked; what they refer to him by will say a lot about what they think of him. And she has the feeling these guys know more about him than almost anyone else.

“Hangman,” Coyote finally says. “That’s his.”

Interesting, she thinks again. She nods at them. “Nice to meet you all. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Best of luck,” Fritz says as she turns away. “Really.”

She suppresses a smile as George leads her deeper backstage. Little do they know that nothing motivates her more than a challenge or a dare. Talking with them has inspired her to make this work out, no matter the cost. They don’t think she’ll last, so damn it she’s going to make it.

Her confidence soars as George leads her on a wild goose chase around the venue for Jake. They finally find him back in his dressing room, sprawled out on the couch, a small stack of liquor bottles around him. A lazy smile crosses his face as they step inside.

Natasha notices that he’s shed his leather jacket, revealing that his t-shirt is cut-off like Fanboy’s. His large biceps flex as he raises the bottle in his hand in greeting.

“Hey, Georgie. Enjoy the show?”

George does not look amused. “Seriously, Jake? How are you already drunk?”

“Well, it’s quite easy, you see. I found some bottles and I made them disappear. Down my throat. You should try it sometime.” His eyes dart over to her, and he lazily scans her up and down. Natasha feels immediately uncomfortable, as though he’s mentally undressing her.

Probably is. She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Who’s this?” Jake asks, sitting up. “Did you bring me a stripper?”

Natasha’s jaw drops. There’s so much rage flowing through her that she can’t form a coherent thought.

“Sorry,” Jake says quickly. “Definitely not a stripper. Too classy for that. An escort, then? Too clean for a groupie.”

She wants to slap that grin off his face. But before she can take a step forward, she realizes that he’s joking. He’s baiting her.

And she fell for it.

She shuts her mouth and fixes a scowl on him. His smile widens and he leans back on the couch, looking very satisfied with himself.

“This is your new agent,” George says stiffly, his face blotchy. 

“Really?” Jake’s eyes light up. “I was joking about getting a hot chick. But I’m not complaining,” he adds quickly. “At least she’ll be soft on the eyes while she’s cursing me out.”

George’s eyes blaze. “You’re an asshole, Jake. And you only get worse when you drink. I’ve already warned you twice. Don’t mess this up.”

“You know I mess everything up.” Jake winks at her. “And you’re the person who gets to clean up after me.”

Natasha narrows her eyes. The nerve of this guy. She adds Ego like the Titanic to her list of facts about him. “That doesn’t extend to cleaning up your puke when all those drinks come back up in about a half hour. You get to do that yourself.”

George lightly grabs her elbow and steers her out of the room. Jake’s laughter follow them out.

“I’m so sorry,” George fumbles. “He’s not normally - ”

“No need to lie,” she says dryly. “At least I know what I’m getting myself into now.”

George’s hand tightens on her arm. “Please don’t quit.”

“I’m not.” She shakes herself loose from him. “Not yet, at least. It will take more than an arrogant drunk to scare me away.”

“Good, good.” George twists his hands in front of him nervously. “So I have a binder of notes from the previous agents. It’s waiting at your hotel room with your luggage. The driver is waiting out front to take you there. It’s not far. Jake has an interview with a local news station at eleven tomorrow. I’ve sent you all the details in an email. You’ll need to get him there on time.”

Natasha nods. Get a hungover guy dressed and somewhere on time. She can manage that.

Except it isn’t just some guy. It’s Jake Seresin. Asshole of the year. Notorious drunk.

And now her responsibility.

This is going to be the hardest six months of her life.

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

Natasha "Phoenix" Trace x Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Inspired by: Not a Chance by @myshipsaresunk Hannix Series by @bradshawsbaby

[myshipsaresunkwrites]

7.5 chapters to go *crosses fingers I don't add any more*

i love this story, i truly do, but i can't wait to move on to other projects. writing this story has been like sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. i just wrote the chapter that originally should have been the last. and i still have a good 30k words to go now

chapter 2 will be up sometime tomorrow.

i hope to get back to the prompts as soon as i'm done with this story. be on the lookout for the next homesick/christmas AU installment as well as another distracted AU part. and i've got a great idea for a fake dating prompt but that one might get a little long word count-wise