Sidechain

"—ake up! Vivian!"

Vivian jerked partially upright, slouched against the headboard, eyes darting, and tried to catch her breath.

"You were having a nightmare," Delia said, and her voice sounded strained. Pained.

Vivian tried to say 'Holy shit', and 'What the fuck', and 'Oh my god', but what came out was a muddled blur of sounds as her brain was still coming to grips with the shift from restless sleep to full wakefulness. She started to say something half a dozen times, but nothing intelligible came out, and she started to worry.

"Baby," Delia said, grabbing her by both shoulders, and cocking her head back and forth until Vivian stared back at her. "Baby, it wasn't real."

"Iiiiiieeeeee—"

"Breathe with me, okay? Just breathe."

Vivian nodded, eyes watering, and tried to match her breath with the exaggerated motions Delia was making as example, but everything hurt in a way that she couldn't pin down. Her body was wracked with a phantom pain that, only seconds before, had been so real, and none of her muscles wanted to listen to reason. The more worked up she got, the harder it was to breathe.

Delia reached past her, to turn on the lamp on Vivian's bedside, and then immediately came back to help Vivian sit up straight. "You're here with me. You're safe now." Then she repeated those two sentences over and over, as she moved to sit next to Vivian. A warm hand splayed against her back. "You're here with me. You're safe now."

With the other, she interlocked with Vivian's hand, fingers weaving tightly.

"You're here with me. You're safe now."

"You're here with me. You're safe now."

"You're here with me. You're safe now."

It might have taken five minutes. It might have taken ten. Vivian couldn't be sure. She ended up with her head in Delia's lap, on her side, staring at nothing. She felt wrung out, body spent from trying to fight off pure panic. Her eyes stung from crying. Her chest hurt from heaving. The whole thing felt like a bad trip.

"They're starting to get bad again, huh," Delia said, softly, as she brushed Vivian's hair with her fingernails.

Vivian, her gaze still distant, nodded slowly.

"Do you remember what it was about?"

Some of it had still been there, right when she first woke up—light and sound—but it had slipped through her grasp in the tumult. It had been bad, but beyond that there was nothing. Her throat hurt, so she just shook her head.

"That's okay."

After another minute of silence, Vivian's eyes focused enough to be able to read the clock. "You Have To Be Up Early," she said, and was alarmed that her pronunciation was so halting and severe. It had been a long time since her voice had sounded like that. She cleared her throat, and pushed herself partially upright. Needing to say more, so she could be sure it was just a fluke. "Right? In-in a few hours?"

Delia nodded, and her eyelids looked heavy. "Don't worry about me. I went to bed early."

Vivian very much wanted to worry about Delia, but it was beyond her to do more just then. She was so tired, and so worn out, that all she could do was hold up the blanket so Delia could slip back in beside her.

"Roll over," Delia whispered, as she shimmied deeper.

Vivian obliged, spinning in place, and took her first real, deep, healing breath when Delia moved in to spoon her from behind. It was exactly what she needed.

***

"Oh come on," Darren shouted, as he tossed down his Gamecube controller.

Vivian, sitting next to him, rolled her eyes.

Three straight hours playing Soul Calibur II, and he was stuck trying to beat Sigfried. "That's fucking gay."

"Eugh," Vivian said, barely keeping her cool.

He turned on her, eyes like daggers. "Ohh, I bet you love this then. Is this your favorite game?"

Chills up and down her skin. "What? No." Except that she did and it was. With the exception of Ivy, the girl characters were mostly believably dressed, and the weapon moves were fun as hell. She was pretty damn good with Sophitia, good enough to handle Siegfried and that fucking sword, and her Talim was getting better every day...

...but there was a fear that crept in with his suggestion. A nameless, shapeless fear, and the urge to avoid even the suggestion of it, the hint of association, was so sudden and immediate that it caused her physical pain.

She had a lucid moment, there in the dream, wondering if she'd ever played Soul Calibur II after that? Was that the last time she'd used the Gamecube?

***

Vivian was noodling around with a riff that she had in mind for her big backburner project. Track three. The turning point. She didn't have any of her gear turned on, so it was just the raw strings on her six string electric. She didn't need the sound; what she needed was the right fingering to be able to play what she was hearing in her head, and she didn't need any equipment hooked up to give her that.

An alarm on her phone went off, and she blinked. The last hour had gone by very quickly indeed for it to already be so late. She turned it off, and set back to work. She had set the alarm early to give herself time, and really wanted to get this nailed down. The first two fingerings she'd sorted out were hard on her fingers. She couldn't play the first one fast enough, and the second required a chord that she had trouble stretching her fingers to reach.

In the years since the accident, she'd found that her arms had gotten stronger in a way that made her rhythm playing even more rhythmic, sometimes nearly perfect, but her fret dexterity was lower. Practice had helped, and she practiced a lot, but it wasn't quite good enough to reclaim what she'd lost in this one area.

Two minutes later, her alarm went off again to tell her it had actually been five minutes, and she'd lost track of time again. This was, after all, the reason she'd set two alarms, but she grumbled irritatedly as she set everything back and hustled up the stairs toward the second floor. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, and fired off a quick text to Delia. By the time she reached the bathroom, her phone buzzed in her hand.

At mccools with the girls. U gettin rdy?

Yes, Vivian texted back. Then, because she wanted to be clear with Delia, she added a weary emoji. Just as she thought about asking Delia if they could cancel, her phone buzzed in her hand again.

Were not canceling. Get ur cute lil but in gear

Vivian was not prone to grumbling under her breath, or thinking angry thoughts when she otherwise couldn't voice her frustration, but Delia had such a knack for knowing her that it felt kind of unfair sometimes. She put on some more appropriate clothes, one of her nicer button-down shirts and the vest that Delia had bought for her that she'd said would be super cute. It was. Damn it.

Her hair was finally long enough for it, so she pulled it back up into a ponytail. It wasn't as long as it had been before the accident, and it wasn't as short as it was when she'd cut it way back a couple years ago. Sometimes she still thought about going back to the uneven bob she'd had, where it was shaved on the one side. She'd liked it, and Delia had loved it, but maintaining it had been difficult for her. Keeping it above the shoulder, all the way around, turned out to be the sweet spot of maintenance and a metric she referred to in her head as Delia-squee-ness.

It took her exactly thirty-two minutes to get ready, just like she'd scheduled herself for, and she was angling out the door in her navy sport coat right on time. Seven minutes to walk to the bus stop. Five minutes to wait for the bus. Forty-two minutes to ride the bus across town, and as the bus pulled up Vivian spotted a Prius with one of those pink Lyft signs idling twenty yards back.

Delia was backing out of her ride, phone out and laughing, as Vivian got off the bus. She couldn't hear what the driver was saying back to her, but she could hear Delia saying, "Absolutely, absolutely! Thank you so much!"

Given two minutes, Delia could make friends with anyone, and Vivian loved to watch it happen. Sometimes it seemed like all Delia had to do was smile.

Delia had left for work wearing her scrubs, but whenever she and her friends planned to go out for a happy hour afterwards they always brought a change of clothes. Delia was wearing a flowy, bright yellow dress that came down to mid thigh, paired with one of Vivian's old black leather jackets. The jacket was too big for Delia, looking like it was swallowing her, and the whole of it totally worked for Vivian.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, when she finally shut the door and started toward Vivian.

Vivian, with her hands shoved into her pockets, shrugged.

"Are you wearing them?"

Vivian blushed, and looked around frantically to see if anyone was nearby, but Delia darted in close.

"Come on! Are you wearing them?"

Before Vivian could say anything, Delia had slid around beside her and tugged up on her jacket and shirt.

"Stooop," Vivian hissed, fussing at her clothes.

"Ooooo! You are!" Delia said, delightedly, when she finally tugged the shirt and pants far enough to make out the frilly blue lace panties of Delia's that Vivian was wearing. "Ooooo, that's so cute. I love Fridays!"

"You don't see me pulling your clothes off," Vivian said, as she tucked herself back in and smoothed out her clothes.

"You saw what I was wearing before I left," Delia said, giving her a playful slap on the upper arm.

She had. Delia had made sure to parade around in Vivian's boycut underwear and sports bra before finally getting ready for work. It had been hard not to pin her to the wall right then and there.

"Oooo," Delia said, "I'm already thinking about later." She hooked her arm in Vivian's, and together they started down the block. It was six thirty, and they were right on time to be an hour early for dinner. "Can we do a movie in bed later? Something dumb we don't have to pay attention to?"

Vivian spent exactly one second thinking that thought through to completion before nodding emphatically. "Yes. Yes, please."

Delia hugged her arm, squeezing it, and giggled.

"We're here," Delia called, announcing their presence as they marched right in the front door. "I brought wine!"

"Oh, wonderful," came an older woman's voice, from deeper within the house. "Wonderful. Right on time." She bustled through the house, shifting chairs. "I'm so glad. I could really use your help with the potatoes, Delia sweetie."

"Of course!" Delia shrugged out of her leather jacket, and took Vivian's jacket with a little nudge to urge her forward just as Gladys Van Nuys came around the corner at the end of the hall.

"Vivian! It's so good to see you!"

"Hi Gladys," she said, giving the older woman a much stronger hug than she'd done the first time they met. "How're you doing?"

"Oh, fine, fine." That was how she always answered. She slipped out of Vivian's arms and gave Delia an equally maternal hug. "You look so pretty, sweetie."

"What are we doing with these potatoes?" Delia asked, eagerly, as the three of them headed deeper into the house.

"We're gonna mash 'em. I've already got the butter out, getting soft. It's over on the counter."

Vivian moved along behind them, content to just listen while they talked about food things. She opened up the bottle of wine and poured each of them a glass, and puttered around in the living room getting out the dishes and silverware.

Her eyes caught on a picture frame in the corner and lingered on the LP inside. One of Insanity Hall's live albums. Blackout. Damn good album. The art was a shot of all three of them, taken from the rafters. As with most of their band photos, it focused on Kevin, with Lucia and Vivian further toward the back of the stage.

"We've got five coming tonight," Gladys announced, as Vivian was getting the napkins. "Ethan is bringing a girl to dinner!"

"Whoa," Delia said. "Is this the same Kelly that you mentioned a couple weeks ago?"

"She's as shy as a mouse," Gladys said, as she put a tray of croissants in the oven. "She might not say too much tonight, but Ethan said she was the one who wanted to come. It was her idea. I think she already met Lucia."

For just a moment, everything tensed. Vivian was glad she was in a different room, because she hated the way she reacted whenever Lucia came up and she really hated having that reaction in front of Delia.

Vivian said, with all the composure she could muster, "Oh?"

"Yeah, I think he goes to that bar of theirs sometimes. Thank god he's not a drinker like his father!" Gladys made a few unsettled sounds, verbal twitches that didn't quite amount to words. "He gets that from me. He can just have one or two, you know? A social drink, with friends."

"With friends," Delia said, and there was the sound of glass clinking against glass.

Vivian got back to work, pulling out an extra one of everything. Usually they sat two to a side at the table, but with five she had to sit and think for a minute before putting one of the place settings at the head of the table for Gladys. With herself at the corner, because sometimes Gladys liked to reach over and grab her hand. Which Vivian liked.

Vivian was big on touching, for the most part, but with Gladys it was different. She was closer to Gladys than almost anyone. Gladys' house felt safe.

She was also a good cook. She didn't strictly need the help in the kitchen, but when they'd started coming regularly Delia had insisted on arriving early and finding ways to help. Over the five years they'd been coming, every other week, they'd both found routines to contribute, and hers was in the organizing and cleaning. She could get every fork, spoon, and knife lined up with the same precision that she applied to her music, and afterwards she would hand wash everything before it went into the dishwasher that Gladys didn't trust to do anything right.

***

After dinner, Vivian was sitting at the table across from Ethan and his girlfriend, Kelly. Gladys and Delia were in the kitchen, ostensibly preparing dessert but probably also gossipping. Delia had a preternatural way of figuring out the things others want to talk about but maybe don't always want to say outright. The combination of Delia's extroversion and Gladys' loneliness made for lively conversation whenever the two of them found themselves in the kitchen.

Ethan's girlfriend cleared her throat, breaking a gentle silence around the table, and said, "Can I ask you a question?" Kelly had medium brown hair that was wavy almost to the point of being out of control. It periodically shrouded her face if she moved just right, but it didn't look like she was hiding. She had small features, a tiny nose and a small mouth, with narrow eyes.

Vivian nodded slowly, and reached for her wine glass to give her hands something to do.

"Can you tell us a story about Ethan's brother?"

"Um," she said, blinking, "sure." Her brain started racing.

"Babe," Ethan said. "I—"

Kelly shifted on her chair, sliding a little closer to Ethan and reaching for his hand under the table, but her gaze was on Vivian. "Ethan really looks up to him, but he doesn't really have that many stories about him."

"Yeah," Vivian said, "he was, what, ten years older than you?"

Ethan nodded, and didn't look up.

"Yeah, he was in a hurry to get out of your dad's house. I mean, I know your dad and Gladys didn't divorce until later, but that was how he always put it. He and your dad did not get along."

"I don't think Dad got along with anyone," Ethan said, very softly.

"I wasn't there, so, you know... take this one with a grain of salt, but... your dad just sorta... left one night, right?"

He nodded.

"Kevin told me once that he chased your dad off. He wanted to come home to see you to show you a demo he'd made for some band he was in. I forget which one. Not ours. He'd tried to come home to talk to you before, other times I mean, but your dad always chased him off. So this one time, Kevin knows it's gonna be difficult, so he did a line in the neighbors yard. Not here," she said, pointing around. "I think it was someplace else. He gets real high, so it won't hurt as much, cus your dad was a big guy, right? Anyway, he kicked over a trash can, and when your dad came out to see what it was Kevin jumped him with a bat. Beat the shit out of him, told him to just go and never come back."

Ethan just stared at her.

"He said..." Vivian squinted, trying to get the words right. "He said that afterwards, he was ashamed to be high in front of your mom, and... the CD with the demo on it got cracked, so he just... left. He said that after that, it got hard to come and see you guys. Like a domino effect. That was why he sent money and cards and stuff."

"He used to send us a lot of money," Ethan said, leaning toward Kelly.

"That makes sense," Vivian said. "He was always... poor. Like, we never made a ton of money, but he was very broke. Always bumming off of me and... off of us. Eatin' our food. Sleepin' on our couches. We lived together sometimes. All three of us. Sometimes not. I always just assumed that he spent all his money on coke, but he never seemed to have as much as he should've."

"They told us he had coke in his system when he died, but... I didn't know he'd been doing it for that long."

"He used," Vivian said, staring down at the table, "but he had this uncanny ability to only do just enough to get right. Like, he'd just become himself again. He got wasted a lot, we all did, especially after shows, but most of the time he was just keeping up. Your dad left some scars on him."

Kelly gave her a tight look, and Vivian cleared her throat.

"What I mean is," she said, scrambling to try to get to her point, "that he'd seen some things. He'd been through some stuff long before he met... us. Kevin wasn't just some junkie. I've known junkies. Kevin was... He was trying to deal with some stuff, even if he didn't always make the best choices. He had good intentions."

At this, Ethan began to nod, and the corners of his mouth perked up just a little.

"We made some good art together. It was different for each of us, but we were all using our pain to do something meaningful. Make it worth something."

For just a second, Ethan's face hardened. "Speakin' of that—"

"Baby," Kelly said, leaning in a little closer. "No."

"No, I wanna know."

Kelly leaned forward, one hand held up very hesitantly to forestall him. "We were at Lucia's bar on Tuesday."

Every muscle in Vivian's body went rigid, as if tensed, and Vivian sent up a silent prayer that Delia wasn't there to see it.

"She said you did all the songwriting," Ethan said, his voice a little colder, "but Kevin used to play stuff for me and tell me he wrote it. Was he lying?"

Kelly was giving her that tight look again, and Vivian licked her lips to buy herself an extra second. "With any song, you've got... you know, songwriters, performers, engineers, and producers, and depending on what your contract looks like you get paid differently for those things. We always told everyone that we all did everything, so we'd all get paid the same." She paused to shrug, and catch her breath, which was suddenly very short. "Yeah, I did a lot of the writing, but Kevin and... and, you know, they did all of the engineering and producing. They would change stuff around, and make it into something different after the recording. At some point, that's them rewriting it, right?"

"Maybe," Ethan said, reluctantly.

"I mean, he wrote some songs. On Methbender, he wrote Empty Bottles and Bad Luck in its entirety. That was all him. He wrote a couple others too, but we played Empty Bottles in every single show. We usually closed with that one. It's a great song."