Dane and Zion

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

~Dane~

       I was a bit surprised the school was giving both me and Zion permission to miss the classes after lunch to prepare for tonight's concert. Well, if I was being completely honest, I knew they were going to give me permission. They had done it many times before but normally, if you want permission to miss classes for a reason that wasn't a doctor's appointment or something like that, you need a good record.

       Now, I wasn't saying Zion's record was bad or anything, but he was extremely notorious for getting detention at least twice a week. Once if he was lucky. Well, it was normally for small reasons like not wearing his school uniform properly, sleeping in class, or even wearing his pyjamas to school. At least he never did anything severe like get into a fight or anything.

       We did have enough time to get to the soundcheck if we left school when it actually ended, but Zion really wanted us to rehearse before the soundcheck since I hadn't played live music with others for a long time. In fact, I didn't even remember the last time I played live music with others. It was always on my own, doing each instrument individually to get a song together.

       I was glad when Zion suggested that we miss the second half of school to rehearse it before the soundtrack. I didn't have stage fright or anything, so it wasn't like I was nervous about performing. I just didn't want to mess up this amazing opportunity for Zion. He deserved to have the best performance of his life.

       "What time do you have to be home tonight?" Zion asked as he was driving us to the Mementos' recording studio since they had a space for singers and bands to rehearse, and we booked it for our rehearsal.

       "I don't," I said. "I told them I was spending the night at your house. I think they probably  tuned me out though, like they always do when I mention you."

       "I'm not sure if I should feel sorry for you that they tuned you out or insulted that it's whenever you talk about me," Zion said.

       "I wouldn't feel either of them, to be honest," I said. "I've gotten used to my parents acting like this. They have been ever since I came out. Maybe even before that. Sometimes, it was like they favoured Carrie over me."

       "They should just adopt her then."

       "Right? But really, it doesn't bother me. The way they treat me. I could have been worse. Besides, if I'm being honest, I... kind of have hope that they'll get over it eventually. My dad's close to it. My mom... She has these 'slip ups' for forgetting I'm gay, so... I might have to wait a bit longer for her."

       "Well, I hope they do get over it soon. In the meantime, you're welcome to crash at my house any night you want."

       I smile at him. "I know. But just know that when I do stay over, I will be making sure you get all of your homework done."

       "On second thought, I don't want you to come over anymore."

       "You'll survive, Zion. And if you want to continue leaving school whenever we have something like this, you are going to have to keep your grades up. And not get in trouble. So I don't think you should show up to school in your pyjamas anymore."

       "You can't tell me what to do."

       "Yeah, I can if you don't want to get detention and miss any of your gigs."

       Zion sighed. "Fair enough."

       We soon got to Memento's studio, and Zion must have been excited for rehearsals because he did a horrible job at parking. I looked out the window, seeing that he was way over the line. "Zion, you're going to have to do a better job than that."

       "Oh, come on, the parking lot is barely busy this time of the day," Zion said.

       I gave him a flat look. "Zion, I get that you're excited for rehearsals, but parking like this and not bothering to fix it is a really asshole thing to do."

       "Fine, fine," Zion said, pulling out of the parking spot to do a proper job at parking. Once he, finally, did a better job, he quickly turned off his car before getting out. 

       I got out of the car as well and once it was locked, we went into the building and headed straight to the rehearsal space. The rest of the band wasn't going to to get here for a bit because I wanted to make sure I knew the song first before playing it with others. I mean, of course I knew it since I wrote it, but I wanted to be confident that I could play it on my own.

       Zion was going to be performing five songs at the concert, so it did take some time to run through all of them to make sure I could perform all the songs confidently. I made sure I did the best I could. There was no way I was going to ruin Zion's performance. I wanted to prove that he was going to make it far in the music industry.

       As soon as I was confident with my playing, Zion decided that we should take a break before the rest of the band got here. I didn't want to overplay and he didn't, in his words, wanted me to strain my fingers.

       "I'm not going to strain my fingers from playing, Zion," I said.

       "You don't know that," Zion said. "One wrong move and then you won't be able to play."

       "That's still not going to happen. And even if it does, there's always the backing track. I know that's not how you want to perform, but it's better than nothing. So, are you excited for tonight?"

       "Excited. Nervous. A whole mix of emotions. I still can't thank you enough for getting me this gig, Dane."

       "You don't have to thank me. I told you, I'm going to get you far in the music industry. You can count on that."

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i missed these two <3

i was going to have this chapter be the concert, but i really wanted to write that in zion's pov so we got a chapter of fluff instead.