✏️ Under One Roof

12. Two Chances

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Ross, with thanks for all your support!

A week had passed. To start with, Tegan had been waiting for a letter from Moistville every morning, but she couldn't keep up that intensity of hope for too long. Instead she filled her hours with music, so that she could at least tell herself she was creating something beautiful.

To start with, she had thought about learning the instruments which managed to create such beautiful sounds in the songs she was listening to; or finding musicians she could gather together so that she could direct them with her impressive knowledge of production and arrangement. But the drums were there in front of her the moment she woke every day, and she knew that sooner or later she would have to learn to play them. She couldn't sell them without hearing those songs performed live at least once, and the more she listened to the files Ness had given her, the less willing she was to wait until she found someone with the talent to do that performance. She would have to try it herself.

It was hard. Tegan had played the drums before, sure. But she'd used them to mark time, and to give a tempo that someone on a keyboard or guitar could use to keep the right pace. They'd never been the main instrument, except for a very short passage in the bridge, and she'd never seen them as a way to really express yourself. Now she was trying a different style of music, although she wasn't entirely sure what the genre was properly called, and she was finding that every instrument was the core of the band. They all had their moment to shine, even the drums.

This morning, she was sitting behind the drums with her arms already tired. She had been trying to beat out the complex syncopated rhythm of Ballad of the Jester's Faith for an hour, and it felt like an intense workout. It wasn't just the speed of the piece, but the constant changes. She would look at the sheet music, try to hear it in her head, and then give up and listen to the mp3 before continuing. And then she repeated the same thirty seconds over and over, until she could come out with something even remotely similar to what she heard. It was a lot of effort, and she knew that she would be doing this for months before she figured out what she was missing. But she was getting better. Even if it was small, she was getting closer to performing a small part of the incredible sound she had heard. And every time she noticed an improvement, it gave her a new determination to do this properly. No matter what the world threw at her, she would at least be able to play these songs. Heck, if it came to that she would teach herself until she could properly master the clarinet, glockenspiel, trombone, and whatever other instruments showed up for one song on that album, and then record all the parts together so she could show the world her performance on FriendSpace and Clatter.

"You know you can't play that?"

She almost dropped the drumsticks when she saw Ness leaning on the wall opposite her bedroom door. She had assumed that he wouldn't hear her, but of course he still needed to leave his room to use the bathroom. And with the disparaging way he spoke about her musical ability, of all things, she knew that he was trying to hurt her. Well, that was a decision that practically made itself; Ness would be waking up in a wet bed tomorrow, and hopefully that would help him to learn that her ego wasn't so easy to stop on.

"Excuse me?" she answered, glaring out at him as she interrupted her current performance.

"The super fast cymbal part at the end of the bridge," he answered, as if that impossible pattern was so easy to him. "You can't play it."

"I missed two notes!" she snapped. "Just needs practice. I'll get it. And seriously, dude, have you ever tried playing drums? You're not in a place to criticise if you don't know how hard it is. That section is practically impossible."