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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.
"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.
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Date: 2014-10-20 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-20 03:29 am (UTC)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?"
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Date: 2014-10-20 03:51 am (UTC)Is he going to get back to his story? Meh, it can wait for later, this is important.
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Date: 2014-10-20 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-20 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-20 04:44 am (UTC)"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.
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Date: 2014-10-20 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-20 05:03 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2014-10-20 05:16 am (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2014-10-20 05:29 am (UTC)"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?"
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Date: 2014-10-20 03:18 pm (UTC)He pays for the meal (cash) and stops at the door to look for suspicious cars. Just in case.
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Date: 2014-10-23 04:23 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2014-10-27 07:52 am (UTC)Soon, they arrive at the last couple turns. "OK, take this last part slow; I want to get a good look before we pull into the lot."
The building is three stories of boring brick, with a parking lot set back from the street. The lot is almost full.
Arthur briefly but very intensely regrets not paying much attention to what cars his neighbors drive.
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Date: 2014-10-28 05:31 am (UTC)Making it safely to her destination is always a win in Erica's book. She pulls in as slowly as possible, but is careful not to just- slow. She's turning her head to look like she's just lost, just looking for the correct house- nothing to see here, nope, she's not acting suspiciously. (If someone calls the police on them for "loitering" or "casing the neighberhood" she is so screwed.)
Finally they get to the lot, and she she pulls in and parks. Very, very carefully. "You okay? What now?"
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Date: 2014-10-28 07:16 am (UTC)And with that, he's up and moving. Through the lobby doors, up the stairs, check the hallway, and... door. It's closed. Is that a good sign? He thinks it's a good sign.
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Date: 2014-11-03 06:00 am (UTC)She keeps an eye out, like he asked, and counts sheep in her head. Wave soon, please, boooored.
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Date: 2014-11-04 06:18 am (UTC)He slides open the balcony door and waves toward the parking lot.
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Date: 2014-11-05 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-05 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-05 05:43 am (UTC)"I'll take these downstairs. You keep packing, you know where you keep things, I'll start ferrying things to the car."
She heads downstairs. How full is the back of the van? There may be some trunk tetris.
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Date: 2014-11-05 05:52 am (UTC)Arthur finishes his message sending (it's all pretty vague) and shuts the laptop. Now to get a bunch of clothes and cash in a bag. Pack, pack, pack.
(He hasn't relocked the door behind him. And he's not looking toward it at all.)
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Date: 2014-11-05 06:10 am (UTC)In the hallway, two men appear. They may be recognizable from the group of four in the restaurant.
They enter the apartment, pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked and even more pleasantly surprised to find it occupied. "Well, isn't this convenient," the taller one says, almost cheerfully. "Two birds, one stone. We were going to look for you when we finished up here, and you've gone and saved us the trouble."
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Date: 2014-11-05 08:28 am (UTC)He turns around, fists clenched. "No, save me some trouble. Where'd you take Suzy?"
(This probably isn't a very good decision either. Not that he's remotely thinking about that right now.)
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Date: 2014-11-12 02:32 am (UTC)The other man looks sour. An observant person might notice a hastily bandaged wrap around his arm. Suzy was not an easy prisoner. "This time, you get the hard part," he tells his friend. "I'm going to go grab their laptops." He heads for the nearest bedroom.
The first man sighs, squares his shoulders, and pulls out what looks like a taser. "You could make this easy," he suggests. "Not struggle. Tell me what you two were planning with your little band."
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Date: 2014-11-13 08:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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