This song is for the people who live this dream.

[against_all_trouble]

Arthur Black was sitting on the couch trying to tune his guitar, but his perpetually-indecisive roommate has decided that this week she is a singer again.

"Come on, Art, I'm a good singer!" Suzy pleads with big eyes and a bigger wave.

"Suze. That is not the thing that worries me, Suze," Arthur says as he sets down his guitar to the side, "The thing that worries me is that this week you want to sing and the next you'll be back to sculpture. Or painting. Or found-object collages. Or interpretive-freaking-dance!"

"Interpretive dance is silly, Art, why would I do that? And anyway, you know you want to try some of the vocals you wrote ♫ for ♫ high ♫ voices! ♫"

That's two things Arthur is not good at refusing: chances to show off and requests from Susanna Blue. The look he gives back, though, is definitely a scowl. Not a smirk at all. "One of these days, you're going to wear out your welcome... with everyone but me. OK, show up to tonight's practice a little after we start, I'll bring the guys around."

"Yay! You're still the best, Art." She really is happy, that hug was only about a third tackle.

---

Practice comes and goes, and the rest of No Rainbows goes along with Suzy's request. Arthur isn't explicitly in charge, but he's a big personality and the group started out of bluegrass jam sessions he organized, so they're used to following his lead. And her voice is pretty good.

A couple nights later, they are all setting up in the back of an Atlanta restaurant. Suzy's helping Arthur set up the amps while there's still space to move things around near the stage while the other three tune up.

Comments

[sing_for_the_tears]

She snorts. "Understood is a strong word for it, but I'm always good for food." She eyes him warily. "So you never- saw anything, anything weird, happen? When Suze was singing?"

[against_all_trouble]

"Nothing obvious? A little when I've sung, though. Lights flickering, or getting more red or blue or something, at times that were suspiciously appropriate and I knew we didn't have anyone doing booth stuff. A hush in the crowd really suddenly. That kind of thing. Not... vanishing."

[sing_for_the_tears]

"And don't we all wish we knew how they pulled that trick," Erica sighs. "It's probably related somehow, though, yeah."

A thought strikes her. "If you're right, though- about when you're singing, I mean- were they looking for you, then? If they just heard the effects and grabbed for the singer..."

[against_all_trouble]

"Suze just joined the band this week. Unless they started looking since Tuesday, they were looking for me," he sighs, "And they found her instead."

The diner appears up ahead, and Art goes quiet. He waves to the waitress on his way in and asks for "Two lost-puppy specials." He takes the back booth, though the place is almost deserted. Soon there will be coffee and pie.

[sing_for_the_tears]

Comforting things to say to the nice boy buying her food. Comforting things to say. Hm. She's not very good at this, usually. "Well, if they were looking for you, they'll probably just let her go?" she tries.

This does not bode as well for him, but- being comforting. Right. She will leave that part out.

She occasionally glances over to see where the waitress is. She's curious about this "lost puppy" meal, contents thus far unspecified.

[against_all_trouble]

"You saw those guys, they were practically Men in Black in sweatervests. Somehow I don't think they'll just let her walk away."

There's a pause. Coffee and pie arrives, and he thanks the waitress. (Her name is Darla, apparently.) The pie makes him perk up a bit; for once he's the one who felt like a lost puppy.

"What do you know about the singing thing? Have you heard about these guys before?"

[sing_for_the_tears]

Erica shrugs. "I don't actually know anything about Men in Black," she tells him. "My parents went for TV, not movies." TV being a convenient way to ignore a small child until it could Make Itself Useful, whereas movies required work or money to obtain.

She collects her coffee and pie. The coffee she sips slowly; the pie she scarfs down. You never know when the next free pie will be, after all.

"And I don't know anything about them. Scary dudes vanishing people who can 'sing'? I'd've been out the door the instant I saw them, if I knew."

She weighs pros and cons of being straightforward about the singing. She settles on "probably worth it". He already knows about it, he already knows about her, and he can do it too if he's to be believed. It's too complicated a setup to catch her, if that's the goal, the suits could've just snatched her outright. So- she'll be up front, for now. She could use someone to compare notes with. Imagine if she could do it on purpose.

"I can't do much. I just- destroyed a towel, once. Hard to miss. I just," she growls in frustration, "it's not reliable. All I know is I have to be singing, and it helps if I'm upset."

[against_all_trouble]

"Maybe the X-Files? Secret agency that deals with very secret things and cares Very Strongly about the secrets and much less about people's health and happiness. They gave me the creeps, and that's what it feels like, now."

"When I've noticed things has usually been songs that were really important to me, you know? The kind of thing that brings back memories. Some of it was good feelings; when everything went hushed, I was singing a love song to a girlfriend in the audience."

[sing_for_the_tears]

"I'll take your word for it on the love songs," she tells him with a grin.

She's... not going to mention blanking people, yet, she decides. If worst comes to worst, if this is some kind of trap- she needs to be able to do it to him, or at least not have him know she knows it.

She finishes her bite of pie and continues. "But, yeah. Creeps. Hell yes. But what do you do about creeps?"

[against_all_trouble]

"That's the question, isn't it? We don't know anything about them. Hell, maybe they're just creepy, and actually decent guys doing something important," he replies, looking mystified.

Then his expression hardens. "But. I need to find Suzy. We've had each other's backs for too long, I can't - won't - abandon her now. She might be okay, but I have to know."

He pauses a moment, then continues with an small, ironic smirk, "This might be easier if we dated. Just try 'hope my girlfriend comes back' songs for hours until something works, there's enough of them."

[sing_for_the_tears]

"We could look online," Erica suggests thoughtfully. "See if there's anything about this, about them, about any of it." Her brain whirls. "We should do it at a library though, or something like that. Not your own computer, nothing we have to sign into, or we could give a fake name if we needed to. Maybe phrase it like we're looking for X-Files? And just click on relevant-looking things as well as the show links."

Erica is very, very used to hiding her secrets from her parents. She sees no reason not to be cautious about this too. Best case they're harder to find, worst case it's a trap and he already knows where she is, there's nothing to lose.

[against_all_trouble]

"That's a good idea! Maybe a little extra paranoid, though. If they were really clever, they wouldn't have come looking for me and only taken her. But I'm not going to be performing soon after this, so I have time to spare on paranoia."

This worries him, though just a bit. Where'd she get good at spy things? She isn't, like, drawing him out to talk about other singers or anything. But still.

"That's all something to do in the morning. I think I want to wait a few more minutes before going to my house, so... I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours?"

[sing_for_the_tears]

She has a summarized version she doesn't mind sharing. (Much.) He's not getting enough detail to find out how to send her home, though. Nothing to find her parents, or connect her to a police report, if her parents filed one- nope. She's not going home. She's turning eighteen and getting Tommy, and never seeing her parents again.

However, first things first- she does not like the plan as proposed. "Exceeept. If anything's wrong, if they've figured out it was you and not Suze- they'll be at your house, by now," she points out.

[against_all_trouble]

"That's why I wanted to wait. Unless they tracked the car-" he glances out the window "-and if they did, they haven't parked nearby, then if they do know where I live, they've gotten there and found no sign of me. Maybe even left, by now. So we can go in quietly, check whether things have been disturbed, and have the car still running in case of trouble. It's not exactly James Bond, but short of never going home until we steal a car or something, I'm not sure how we could do better. And I don't think I'm scared enough to go on without planning first."

[sing_for_the_tears]

This seems flawed, to Erica- most notably, there's no good way to tell how long it would take them to determine a) Suze is the wrong person and b) Art is- but she leaves it for now. They're not looking for her yet, as far as she knows, it's not her risk to take. And whatever happens, she will learn things about the scary men; how they operate, how fast they operate, maybe even what they're looking for.

She's aware that this is probably manipulative and selfish of her, compared to Art who has been nothing but nice and helpful to her. She decides not to care. She'd rather be paranoid than sorry.

"If they tracked your car, they probably wouldn't have had to grab her at a concert," she theorizes instead. "I mean, if they already knew where you were, no reason to find you in public." She shrugs. "What kind of planning were you thinking?"

[against_all_trouble]

"Oh, I don't know. Gathering cash and valuables, spare guitars to either play or sell, sending messages to old friends - old band members who moved away, people like you I helped in the past, I keep in touch - that I'm traveling and might pop up on their doorstep, selling this car and getting a station wagon or a cheap camper-van... I'd have to think about it, is the point. Did you leave home blind?"

Is he going to get back to his story? Meh, it can wait for later, this is important.

[sing_for_the_tears]

"Sort of yes, sort of no? I mean, I didn't just up and leave, or anything. I planned for months to get out. But I was planning to get out, y'know? I didn't really have a plan past 'get to Atlanta.' I've been improvising." She nods at her backpack, lying next to them on the floor. "S'why my bag comes with me everywhere."

[against_all_trouble]

"I can understand that, I might have done the same in your place. But I'm used to being the one who thinks about how things will go wrong and plans for it; Suzy's worst than most, but try to join a band yourself and you'll see, it's basically everyone who's scatterbrained and overoptimistic. Every time I thought it might have been excessive, it wasn't. It's part of how I've helped my past 'lost puppies', actually. I give them a place to rest and think, and help them figure out a direction they can go."

[sing_for_the_tears]

Erica considers. "Okay," she says, "how's this. We make a plan here: everything we need to hide by ourselves, and everything we'd need to hide with Suze. Then we go to your place, gather everything we can, and then- try to sing her back. Somehow."

"If that doesn't work, we take off, try to hunt them down. Make a new plan if and when we find her. If it does, we take off with her, and figure it out from there."

She wants, more than anything, to include Tommy in these plans somehow. She's telling herself it's "for his protection." If she can do this, surely her brother could, too? But she knows it's just because she's missing him, and it will just endanger him. So she won't mention him, or try to plan around him.

She'll just miss him.

[against_all_trouble]

Arthur cocks his head to the side for a few moments and stares at a point over Erica's shoulder. "Yeah, sounds right. K, what do we need? Money, transportation that they haven't seen before, contacts... instruments? Busking would be risky, at least in Atlanta.. "

[sing_for_the_tears]

"Your ID, as many forms of it as you can get," she contributes. Her need for a fake ID is vivid in her memory. "Basic traveling stuff- y'know, clothes, whatever. Phones, eventually, but it doesn't matter unless we split up."

She thinks about the busking problem, humming slightly out of habit. "We might want to head for Nashville? It's not that far, and one more set of buskers wouldn't raise any eyebrows."

[against_all_trouble]

"More travel things than the usual if we can manage it; I can dump the medicine cabinet into a bag. A couple sleeping bags; don't have more camping gear. Food is easier to buy than carry, unless we're in the serious sticks - mhm, I'll want to avoid using my credit card when I can."

"Nashville's a good first place to go once we have her back, I have an old bandmate or two there. If we move around more after that, the same's all true for New York, but Nashville's closer."

[sing_for_the_tears]

Erica has no intention of moving as far as New York without Tommy, but that's a worry for a later time. There are too many variables here for it to be worth bringing up. Will they find Suze or not, how much of a problem are these creeps, how will they manage in Nashville- she'll worry about it all later.

"We probably shouldn't use the cards at all, until we know more about those guys. Do you need to pay them off? You should do that before we leave, if it's not automatic."

She begs a pen and a piece of paper- which turns out to be a torn part of a receipt paper roll, but it's paper- off the waitress, and takes notes. "Okay. Anything else? Want to get moving?"

[against_all_trouble]

"That's the important stuff. Stuff for writing notes, and my laptop. I'll need to use the cards some, at least to get cash. But yeah, we should get moving. You want to drive? If we need to get away quickly and I'm the one checking my apartment, you'll want to have used this car before."

He pays for the meal (cash) and stops at the door to look for suspicious cars. Just in case.

[sing_for_the_tears]

"Sure, makes sense," Erica agrees brightly. She gathers up her stuff and follows him outside.

No suspicious cars, at the moment. Not much of anything; it's very late. Erica shrugs and follows Art to his car.

She's not quite a bad driver. She's not stopping on highways and reversing to catch a missed exit, or driving the wrong way on a one way street, or anything truly insane like that. But she's still not a very good driver. Stop lights may be uncomfortable for a while.

"Sorry," she apologizes after the third abrupt halt. "I don't drive much."

That happens to be patently untrue- she got her permit as soon as she was 15, and she had to drive to work every day- but her parents never bothered to actually teach her. This is, frighteningly, a vast improvement over previous Erica-driving. She does improve, incrementally, it's just that the 'figure it out yourself' aspect slows her down.

But she doesn't feel like explaining any of this to Art, and if she was the age she was pretending to be, she would like to think she'd be better already. See, there's her excuse. She has to lie to maintain the masquerade of her purported age.

Now that she thinks about it- this is the most legally she's ever driven. Fake driver's license proclaiming her "age" aside, she does actually have her permit under her real name, and she's driving next to a licensed adult. Score one for her.