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vagrantblvrd · 7 years

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Stars Like Forever (1/1)

Summmary: This whole mess is not Geoff's fault no matter what anyone says. One hundred percent not on him because he makes one dumb comment - one - when Lindsay and Trevor come to him to complain about what Ryan's cost them in ammunition and heavy ordnance since he joined the crew full-time.

AO3

They're lazing on the roof having pool party like the ones he and Jack used to have back before all this. Before they got big enough to afford the penthouse with an actual pool.

A really awesome pool, sure, but is a billion times better right now. Ankle deep water in a cheap plastic kiddie pool and cold beet in a cooler next to the shitty foldout lounge chairs. Feels more real than that fucking infinity pool.

Lindsay and Trevor come up to talk to them about budgeting and how Ryan keeps fucking up all their hard work when Geoff's a few beer in, a good buzz going on and feeling pretty damn satisfied with life at the moment.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Geoff asks, like they think he can control the crazy motherfucker. “Put it on his annual evaluation as something to improve on? Write him a letter and put it in his locker after class?”

Geoff pitches his voice to a warbling falsetto and says, 'Dear Ryan, I would appreciate it so if you would be more careful about killing the assholes trying to kill us. You're using so much ammunition! Keeping us from dying horribly is going over budget, please stop doing that. Love and kisses, Geoff. P.S. I love your creepy skull mask, it's so dreamy!'”

Gavin cracks up at that, laughing so hard it'd be a crime not to kick him off the rickety thing he's sprawled out on, really it would.

Geoff smirks at his startled squawk, laughs at the way Gavin sits up stupid sunglasses askew on his face as he screeches about Geoff spilling his beer.

Totally worth it.

Michael's shaking his head at the two of them, like he wasn't two seconds away from doing the same thing himself.

“Seriously though,” Geoff says, eyeing Linsdsay and Trevor over the top of his sunglasses. “If you two want to sit the goddamned Vagabond down and let him know he's going over the budget you've come up with, be my guest.”

Because y'know. Who the hell wants to get between Ryan and his weapons, really.

Lindsay rolls her eyes, conceding the point, but Trevor. Trevor's eyebrow goes up, expression unreadable and Geoff’s amusement fades.

It'd be Trevor. If anyone was stupid enough, crazy enough, to get between Ryan and his beloved weapons, it'd be Trevor.

Just as crazy as the rest of them, but the difference between them is that Trevor can hide his crazy. Make people think he's just a nice boy who dresses well and knows how to use his manners.

“No,” Geoff says, pointing at him. “Don't do the thing. For fuck's sake, do not do the thing.”

And because this is Trevor, he looks like he's considering doing the thing anyway. Tilts his head to the side and hmms>, eyes on Geoff as the corner of his mouth ticks up just so.

“Michael!” Geoff yells, so goddamned annoyed at his idiots. At least Michael listens to him. Sometimes. “Michael, tell Trevor not to do the thing!”

Michael, the brazen little bastard, grins in a way that means trouble.

“Trevor, no,” Michael says, in the flattest tone of voice Geoff's ever heard. “Don't do the thing.”

Geoff makes an aggravated sound and slouches down in his lounge chair, waving a hand at all of them, grinning and smirking and bullying the shit out of him.

“I fucking hate all of you.”

========

A few days later Gavin ambushes him when he's on the hunt for coffee, tired and feeling every one of his years.

And then he gets Gavin shoving a camera in his face while Michael grinning like a demented gremlin.

“Gavin, Christ, get that thing out of my face,” Geoff says, trying to shove it out of his face as he blinks away the aftereffects of having blinding light stabbing him in the eyeballs.

Gavin huffs, backing off a step and grumbling about Geoff being mincey, as if that's a real word, they've talked about this before at great length.

“What are you idiots doing?” Geoff asks, wondering just how long ago he lost control of his crew and why he didn't realize sooner.

Gavin explains, which means he spews out a jumbled mess of words interspersed with squawks and other unintelligible noises.

“Okay,” Geoff says slowly, and turns to Michael because he usually seems to know what Gavin's talking about on the rare occasions Geoff can't. “What, now?”

When Michael explains, amusement plain in his voice, it still doesn't make sense. Or rather, it does, but Geoff wishes it didn't.

“You want to make Ryan a video as a gift to celebrate the anniversary of him joining the crew,” Geoff says, even slower. Hoping like hell they'll laugh and tell him no, they're just kidding, really, Geoff. Good one, right?, but they don't.

They don't.

Gavin keeps looking at him with a hopeful look on his face, and Michael looks like he's about to lose it, just break down and cry with laughter at Geoff's expense.

“Well,” Gavin says, head tipped to the side. “At first it was going to be a slideshow, yeah? Like the ones you learn how to do in school, but - “

“But Gavin wanted to use shitty pictures of Ryan,” Michael says, the scowl he's aiming at Gavin doing nothing to hide how stupidly fond he is of him. “Except Gavin here couldn't take shitty pictures if his life depended on it.”

Well that's blatantly untrue.

Gavin's taken so many shitty pictures of Geoff and the rest of the crew over the years. The kind that change hands easily as money with the crew, end up being used for blackmail purposes among their merry little band.

“Show him, Gav,” Michael says, taking the camera from Gavin when Gavin takes his phone out and brings up the pictures in question.

Geoff rolls his eyes as he leans in to look, and stares.

Gavin's got a great eye when it comes to shit like this, composition and all that. Things Geoff's picked up after hearing him prattle on about it over the years. Things that stick in his head without him consciously aware of it. That have him noticing things he would have missed completely before Gavin all but fell into his life.

And this.

It's Ryan, head turned to look to something just off-frame. He's not wearing the mask, face paint slightly smeared, and he's grinning.

Not that creepy serial killer grin of his that he claims is an act, just good old Ryan playing up his reputation, but.

The real, genuine one he gets around the crew, around people he likes. Trusts.

Wide and open and joyful - but that may have more to do with the orange cast to the picture, and when he notices that, Geoff realizes he knows when this was taken.

It happened right after Michael shot a police chopper down with his rocket launcher to cover Geoff and Jack during a heist, Ryan and Gavin waiting to be picked up. He remembers Ryan's stupid, dorky and being startled at hearing it for the first time, sharing a wide-eyed look with Jack.

There are other pictures, most of them along the same vein. Ryan delighting in chaos and wanton destruction, and while it's this certain kind of disturbing, it's not like Geoff can go around pointing fingers here.

Not when it would make him a hypocrite if he did, because he remembers whooping loudly when Michael nailed that chopper.

The rush of adrenaline and exhilaration and fierce pride when Jack landed a jet pretty as you please on a busy street in the city and got them all out of there, cops hot on their tail. When Ray took a tank out for a joyride and made headlines for weeks afterwards.

There's more, too, though. Not just pictures of Ryan proving what a lunatic he is, but ones with Michael and Jack. Ray flashing a peace sign with a grin, the other assholes Geoff's made the mistake of bringing into the crew.

“Yeah,” Geoff says, handing Gavin's phone back, something rough in his voice. Fucking sleep, right? Always making you sound like shit in the morning. “Not exactly the kind of pictures you want to use in a shitty slideshow with Comic Sans captions.”

Michael gives Geoff a knowing look, which. Horseshit, Michael's just as bad as he is, having feelings for these assholes. Getting warm, happy feelings knowing they're not completely miserable.

“That's why Michael said we should make a video instead,” Gavin chirps, bouncing a little on his feet as he takes the camera back from Michael and aims it at Geoff's face, little red light blinking.

“Geoff, what was it like for you when Ryan joined the crew?” Gavin asks, apparently making one of those terrible videos people film at weddings for the happy couple on their special day.

Geoff shoots Michael a look because the fucker could have warned him. Michael turns his head away so Geoff won't see him laugh at him. (He can still hear it just fine, though. Thanks, jackass.)

Gavin's giving Geoff a hopeful look from behind the camera, and Geoff sighs.

“Ryan joining the crew was one of the worst moments in my goddamn life,” Geoff answers, staring into the camera and imagining he's looking right into Ryan's eyes. “I mean it, Ryan. Fucking horrible. Nothing but regret on my part. Stop being a creepy motherfucker, you fucker.”

That done, he flicks his eyes to Gavin. “That good, Gavin?”

Gavin gets out a, “Geoff, no!” but he's laughing as he does, so it's probably not all that heartfelt.

========

Geoff's not lying when he says Ryan joining the crew was one of the worst moments of his life.

That might have more to do about finding out about the Snapchat Saga as Michael and Ray end up calling it, and realizing Gavin was flirting – badly, weirdly - with the goddamned Vagabond on Snapchat.

Ray running into the planning room where Geoff and Jack were discussing plans for their next heist, waving his phone and them and laughing so hard they couldn't understand him hadn't been fun. Less fun was Michael rushing in to ask them if they'd heard what Gavin had gotten himself into this time, and Lindsay calling him to demand to know what kind of third-rate circus he was running.

It wasn't so much Gavin pulling ridiculous shit in between heists, that had been bad. Lord knew he had a habit of coaxing Michael and Ray into some scheme or other. It was the fact that he was joyriding down Chiliad with the goddamned Vagabond driving, choppers circling overhead and a stream of police cars in pursuit.

He hadn't known what to expect when Gavin strolled into the penthouse the next day with Ryan trailing after him like it was any other day, nothing out of the ordinary here, no sir.

Things had only gotten worse from there when they all realized that Ryan's reputation was a bit. Not inflated, no, not when he was just as good, competent, as advertised, but.

The rumors left out the part where Ryan is a colossal dork, a nerd of the highest caliber who makes crappy jokes about coding languages and coos over a new weapon. Who is not above stupid, petty arguments and is frequently dragged down to Gavin's level while everyone else watches and wonders how they ever thought Ryan was a cool kid.

Fucker won't even let Geoff have the pleasure of telling other...associates that he him over with his superior everything. That Ryan realized he'd be a fool not to throw in with Geoff Ramsey and the Fakes, how fortunate he was they'd saved him from a life in obscurity.

No.

He'll just stand there being his usual creepy self and laugh at Geoff under his mask where no one can see, Gavin being a cheeky little shit and gushing about how great Geoff is.

How lucky they all are Geoff decided to give them a chance, laying it on thick as he brings out his Earnest Face because he's serious.

Geoff is the absolute best.

If the others are around, they'll close in like sharks scenting blood in the water, and take joy from Geoff's suffering at the hands of two of his biggest mistakes. (Two out of many, most of whom allegedly work for him.)

========

Geoff walks into the penthouse one day and stops in his tracks because Sarah McLachlan is blaring – well, not blaring because Sarah McLachlan.

“What is happening right now.”

Someone's playing the newest shooter, a lot of people dying messily on the television screen. An explosion every so often that's probably the work of grenades.

Gavin pokes his head up over the back of the couch, frown on his face. A moment later, a mop of curls pokes into view before Michael's head appears.

“Gavin's working on another video for Ryan,” he answers, an implied duh in there. “I'm killing whiny little bitches.”

“Okay,” Geoff says, not sure if this is where it's revealed his lost his damn mind years ago and only now realizes it. “Riddle me this, assholes. Why does it sound like an emotionally manipulative ad for the ASPCA in here?”

Michael snorts, dropping back down.

“You know how Ryan messes with the newbies?” he asks, taking someone's head off in the video game with a bat he's picked up somewhere. “Gav's making a video of it. Like a work training video when Ryan's not around to fuck with 'em himself.”

That's.

Ryan does this thing with people new to the crew.

Well.

The ones who keep sliding furtive looks at the big bad Vagabond, wondering to themselves what his story is. Who hurt him, that he hides his face behind that mask of his, the even creepier face paint underneath like weird, fucked up Russian nesting doll. The ones who keep orbiting around him, until Ryan arranges to go on a job with them.

Something small with a lot of tedium in it. Staking out a rival crew or learning security patrol routes before a heist. Things that leave them with a lot of time to sit around on their asses.

And then Ryan starts dropping hints, little clues. Lets little things slip that the poor bastard teamed up with him roll around in their head for a while, coming to all the wrong conclusions. Thinking Ryan's past is a misery, nothing but suffering and hardship in it. That the only one able to help heal, to pull him out of the darkness of his past, the torment, was Geoff.

Most of them buy it hook, line, and sinker because in between all the suffering he was doing back then, Ryan somehow found time to do a bit of theater.

“Why, though,” Geoff finds himself saying, plaintive.

Michael cackles, and Gavin starts singing along to the song, and Geoff decides then and there to just give the fuck up already.

========

Ryan goes quiet when Gavin gives him the first video, the one infested with feelings and shit. Goes quiet and looks up at him, something vulnerable in his face because Gavin took those pictures, filmed those videos.

Always right there with Ryan getting up to mischief, egging him on and laughing stupidly when he gave in and indulged Gavin, that soft spot for him that started up who the hell knows long ago. Got worse the more involved with the idiot he became, until he pulled a big damn hero moment and saved him from the cops.

It's pretty awkward for Geoff and the rest of the crew witnessing it, heading right into unbelievably disgusting when Ryan pulls Gavin into a kiss like he forgot they aren't alone. That the rest of the crew threw together a crappy little surprise party complete with cheap party favors and cake.

But, nah.

Ryan's taking a page from sappy romance novels. The kind of bullshit that's all about (badly written) purple prose containing orbs the color of gemstones.

“Jesus Christ,” Geoff sighs, so incredibly, unbelievable done with these morons. “Save it for later, when we don't have to fucking see it, you fucks.”

========

And of course Ryan just loves the second video.

Watches it over and over again while they're all trapped there, horrified at what they've allowed to happen. Their own worst enemy, until Michael shoots the television to make it stop, and Geoff isn't even mad about it because he knows he'll be having nightmares about that song for months afterward.

(Geoff, in fact, may or may not give Michael a bigger cut of the take on their next heist as a show of gratitude, but no one can prove it if he did.)

#FAHC #fahc au #fahc fic #freewood #vagrant fic #a life less ordinary #i dunno

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jesusvasser · 7 years

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Celebrity Drive: Geoff Downes, Keyboardist for Yes, Asia, Buggles

Quick Stats: Geoff Downes, keyboardist, Yes/Asia/Buggles Daily Driver: 2014 Porsche Boxster S (Geoff’s rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10) Other cars: see below Favorite road trip: A40 in Wales Car he learned to drive in: 1970 Land Rover First car bought: 1965 Hillman Imp

Class of 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes was driving a beat-up old Ford Escort wagon when he did session work, because it could fit his electric piano and other items. But then “Video Killed the Radio Star” topped the charts, and he could afford a proper rock star car in 1980, well before the hit helped launch a cable network called MTV.

“When we got the Buggles success, I thought ‘I’m not going to drive around in this battered old thing anymore,’ so I just dumped it and bought myself a Porsche 911 Targa,” Downes tells Motor Trend. “That was my first new car, because at that time I’d made a bit of money off the Buggles and so I was splashing out a bit, so I thought I’d go buy myself a Porsche. And I did. It was great, I loved it.”

You might say that 1980 Porsche 911 made Downes a Porsche guy to this day when looking at the cars in his garage. “I’ve got two and they’re both Porsches, I’ve got a Porsche Boxster S and that’s the one I bum around in and then we’ve got a Porsche Cayenne,” he says.

Even after the mega success of Asia’s “Heat of the Moment” in 1982, with fans around the world wearing their long sleeved T-shirts and denim jackets painted with album art, Downes still kept the reliable Porsche.

“We were the biggest band on the planet in 1982. It’s so big that album, it was No. 1 on Billboard. I was quite happy with what I had. It was a bit of a bonus really to get success in that as well,” he says. “I really loved the car. People used to joke with me because I had it for quite a few years.”

Downes laughs thinking about the parking lot where the band came together. “When we formed Asia, I remember being outside of the rehearsal room and the cars were incredible because John Wetton had an Aston Martin, Carl Palmer had a Rolls Royce and Steve Howe had a Bristol, which was quite a rare British car. These cars were all lined up outside, it looked pretty fancy. We used to joke that it was like one of the big show rooms,” he says. “In the interim, I’d been in Yes for a couple years, and again, Chris Squire had a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Alan White had a Bentley Continental S. It was like a prestige car showroom.”

Downes kept the Porsche because it stood him in good stead. “It was always a good car to leave outside the studio, it got me there in the mornings. It was a nice vehicle,” he says.

Daily Driver

2014 Porsche Boxster S

Rating: 9

“It’s very fast, very comfortable car. It’s automatic as well, so it’s pretty cool in traffic. The whole thing was people thought having the stick shift was a proper sports car, but I think times changed that and the automatics are really, really good,” Downes says.

This is the third Boxster he’s had. “I think there were four versions, four models, and I’ve had the last three models. I’ve always been very, very satisfied with it,” he says. “I’ve think they’re very reliable. I’ve not had, touch wood, too much problems with them.”

Downes also likes the fact that they’re very driveable and yet comfortable rides. “They look pretty cool as well. You take the lid off on a sunny day, we get don’t get too many of those in the U.K.,” he says from the U.K. “It’s a great car. I don’t have too many complaints about it.”

2014 Porsche Cayenne Diesel

Rating: 8 or 9

For a long drive, the Cayenne is always the ride Downes takes. “That’s just like sitting in an arm chair. That’s an amazing drive. A lot of people that come in the car say, ‘Wow this is really nice, it’s really comfortable,’” he says. “The Boxster S is the sporty version and the other one is more of a traveling car. But they’ve both proven to be very, very reliable, which is good.”

Downes had another Cayenne, but switched to this diesel because of the high price of gas. “The one before was extremely greedy on petrol, which, as you know, it’s a lot cheaper for you guys over there,” he says. “But here, we pay a very, very high price for fuel and the actual amount of mileage you get out of the that would be probably about 200 or 250 miles, whereas with a diesel it’s about 700 on a full tank. The old petrol version got a bit expensive on the gas as you can imagine. Particularly in Europe and the U.K. where petrol is very expensive, you see quite a lot more diesel because their consumption is much, much better. They have a much better ratio to miles to gallons. It’s a much better car.”

He’s also looked at other Porsche models, like the Macan. “You can’t really go wrong with Porsches,” Downes says. “Something like 70 percent of them ever made from the very beginning are still on the road, which is an incredible testament to that particular brand of motors. Then you think that many cars are still in service on the road, that’s a pretty amazing percentage.”

There isn’t really anything Downes dislikes about the Cayenne, except for one thing. “I’ve got a panoramic sunroof on it and that’s pretty nice, it gives a lot of light in the car,” he says. “Sometimes with the newer one, with that window, it’s a bit less vision, so you don’t quite have as much peripheral vision as they had on the older ones, but that’s a small point and you get used to it.”

Car he learned to drive in

“The car that I passed my driving test in was a Land Rover, which was a very difficult car to drive and difficult car to learn on because it had very complex gearing. They call it double declutch,” Downes says. “It was not an easy thing to do, but once you get used to it, it was pretty good. You’ve got to press the clutch again when you move up a gear, you have to double it when you hit neutral and then put it back in again. It’s a slightly complex method of changing gear, but those old ones were like that.”

Downes says the Land Rover, which belonged to his parents, was most effective as a farm vehicle. “It was a standard short-wheelbased Landrover. If you look at those old Land Rovers, they haven’t really changed their design too much,” he says, guessing it was a circa 1970 model year. “You’ve got the short-wheelbase or the long-wheelbase and visually they’re about the same. I suppose they were a version of a British jeep in many ways.”

He learned to drive on the streets around Manchester, where he grew up. “I used to bob around in this car, and unfortunately it was very, very expensive on gas. You had to keep filling it up which is a bit of a pain,” Downes says. “It was a nice car to drive. I had a lot of fun in it. It was pretty good because it was a soft top and in the summer it was quite cool to take the lid off. There wasn’t as much traffic on the road then. It wasn’t anything like it is now.”

First car bought

After passing his driver’s test, Downes bought a circa 1965 or 1966 Hillman Imp with money he made as a landscape gardener during his gap year before music college.

“It was a bit like a Mini,” he says. “I drove it to a music college in Leeds, which was about 50-60 miles away from Manchester and that was my car that I kept in Leeds when I was a student,” he says. “I had a little bit of money and I had a grant, so I could just about afford to run it.”

As any first car that a teenager can just barely afford, it had its problems, but Downes was grateful to have a college car.

“I had a bit of a problem with it because the third gear didn’t work, so I had to rev it really high in second and then chuck it into fourth,” he says, laughing. “So I toughed it out. But what separated Leeds and Manchester are some pretty savage mountain, there were mountain roads. Going over those on a weekend when I was driving home, it was pretty intense going up the hill when you didn’t have third gear, you need third gear when you’re going up the hill. I could make do it with it, it was character building.”

Favorite road trip

“I live in the south of Wales and there’s a really nice road that goes all the way up to the mountains at the top,” Downes says. “It’s called the A40. It goes the whole length of Wales. It’s pretty amazing and some of the scenery is absolutely breathtaking, but it’s quite winding, because it’s not a proper motorway, but it’s an extremely scenic trip and you go through reservoirs and these beautiful mountainous views and lakes in the mountains. It’s pretty phenomenal.”

The only thing is that Downes makes sure to be careful with the Boxster. “The clearance is very, very low. You can’t go off track too far because of uneven surfaces, you just bottom out on it,” he says. “The car bottoms on the surface, so you’ve got to be careful you don’t go too far off the track.”

2017 Yestival Summer Tour starts Aug. 4 and Yes’ 50th Anniversary

It’s a big year for Yes. Earlier this year they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Downes is busy this month on the summer Yestival tour around North America, which started Aug. 4 and ends Sept. 19 in Huntington, New York, with stops in Rochester and Boston just before that. Todd Rundgren and Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy will join the tour at various dates. Yestival will feature the greatest hits from all of Yes’ studio albums up until 1980.

Aug. 4 is a special date for Yes because as of that day, the prog rock band is now in its 50th year, having played their first concert on Aug. 3, 1968. Yes will also be on Cruise to the Edge on Feb. 3, sailing from Florida for five days of progressive rock. For all things Yes please visit yesworld.com.