[One-shot Fan Fiction] Legends

'Legends'

"Time passed on and as the music scene changed for the rock and roll world, new players took the stage and redefined everything. It was the end of the first decade of the present millennium and names like The Spares and Red Riot were now household names.

To understand the history of the classic The Spares, who some music experts consider equivalent to the level of the Beatles - though none would ever dare to speak out as such in front of one of them for the justified fear of being roughened up - it is important to know about how the core couple, Keely Staub and Seth Michael Vaughn (then known as Seth Ryan), originally formed." I read the pages, devouring the story I had read up a thousand times so far. It felt special to hold this precious book, Grandpa's book, in my hands so long after Grandma had left me as well. Hold those tears, girl, I chide myself, or there would be one hell of a rebuke to handle from her later when we meet again. Instead of stopping the tears, however, the thought makes them fall faster and I have to make sure I keep the book far away from them. This is Grandma's personal copy. It is worth far more than anything else in this family.

To remind myself of her strength, I recall that day when she told me her great romantic story, of how young love gave her the strength to stand against what she had otherwise simply accepted. Of how she had been lost in the roles she was supposed to play for the sake of others. And then, she had met him, a guitar playing social pariah, and had found something worth looking forward to. She didn't know when exactly did she fall in love but she did remember that he, and his older friends and his lovely grandma, made her free to be anything she wanted. Gone was the perfect version that she was supposed to be and the real Allison had emerged. She had remembered being struck with jealously when another tried to make a move on him just for the fun of it (but he didn't seem to have cared) and had taken up piano lessons to show how much she cared about him in front of everyone during one of those high school recitals.

The girl smiled as she recalled how Grandma liked to exaggerate about how horrified people in her life were. They were barely willing to look away from their friendship but love? That was just plain unacceptable. Grandma didn't even get to see him before she was sent off to a boarding school and then college. There wasn't any more choices or freedom given to her. She had to study what her mother wanted and give up on her love of photography. But, she remembered Grandma tell her in a rebellious whisper, what her mother couldn't know, she couldn't do anything about. And in college, far from anyone of her high school 'perfect' life, she kept on auditing photography courses while writing letters to Noah. He never left their hometown after graduating, settling for the job in a garage nearby to make sure he was always close to his grandma - who had... dementia, she guessed since she had already forgotten that detail. Letting go of the book, she jumped and hurried to find a notebook to pen down it all before she forgot more.

And as she wrote, she remembered how fondly Grandma had mentioned them building a friendship on the love of good music. The love story behind the main duo of The Spares or the wild (as it was rumored to be) love between Jude Turner and Cameron Harrison was already something like the stories (almost) every girl wished for herself. Well let them vie for theirs, I would settle for one like Allison and Noah. For it was not a separation brought on by fears of hurting people in a love triangle or being in a toxic relationship but one imposed by the society. In the first letter, in the very first line, he had declared that he liked her too and that he missed her. But good things don't stay hidden for long and her mother and old friends intervened again, separating them with misunderstandings and lies, with so much cruelty that Grandma didn't even know that his grandma had passed away, that he was the only one standing beside her grave even as she lowered in it or that her last unfulfilled desire - in a moment of lucidity - had been to see her again.

Some hurts are never going to heal and years later, when the two met again, this hurt is what tore them apart. "Never together, never apart." Grandma had said about those years. 'Our Remains', just like its predecessor 'The Spares', was already a legend by then with the reunited couple taking the world by storm. And then began a friendly rivalry of theirs with 'Feet Both Sides', led by the wild Harrison couple. The men would as easily start a bar fight as they would be seen after the fight to be smoking together while bragging about their hits. Grandma, infuriated by the way the people had controlled her life, broke all contact with them and giving up something she hated now - only because it reminded her of them - and  starting her own photography business. Remembering Grandma's crazy tales about them all, the young woman smiled as she pushed away the notebook and returned to her Grandma's book. Her fame had risen so much by then that she was hired to be the chief photographer by both the bands. As the girl looked at one of her Grandma's pictures of the two bands performing together in a club - that resulting in complete demolition of the place as the night went on - she smiled at how Allison often boasted about being the cause of several bar fights when they both wanted her at the same time. Seth always won them but not because of his strength. Keely would always let the fight begin before pointing out that after taking up reins of UAE, they barely got a chance to perform and so should be able to hire Allison. There was also the matter of drinking challenges the four of them often got up to and those two always saved a lot of them for such cases.

Grandma didn't see Noah for a long time as she lost herself in her first love. But then, the meddling friends did their meddling again and with the help of their men, the two brought him back into her life. It was like push-and-pull between the two of them for sometime, which everyone around them took great pleasure in. Finally, one night the two realized their idiocy and promised to let go of the past. At least that's what they had planned but knowing Grandma and Grandpa, they never kept that promise.

And as she flipped the pages of the book, she came across the old photograph kept among the pages. It was a photo of the six of them having dinner somewhere. Grandma was the only one looking up to take the photograph of the scene reflected in the mirror while Grandpa watched her with amusement and the other four talked, or more likely, bickered. And on the back of that photograph was the quote of Grandpa's that ultimately gave inspiration to the book title.

"What are legends if not people like us?

What are dreams if not our deepest desires?

This time will pass too, like a grain in the desert,

And we'll be gone, gone far, far away."

"Ugh, I always do this." The girl mumbled as she let out a deep breath. "Now, let's relive the stories once again." And with that, I dive back from where I left of, starting the story of how a girl meets a boy who'll become her life and all the people they met and the amazing lives they all had even with all the pain and grief along the way. "Someday," she whispered to Grandma, hoping she could hear her words, "I'll find my own family like the one you finally had in the end."

*****

A/N: This was a long-forgotten unfinished draft among the rest of works. To be honest, I had actually planned this (when I started work again) to be a JWIN-BOTR tribute but the words led me to IIF. This piece is good but definitely not like the others. And I know lots of it is fantastical or improbable... but hey, this is my rendition of one of the possibilities. This is not the best-case scenario or the worst, just one of the many. I'll return here someday and re-edit this piece to add more stuff (because it looks so very small) but the bare bones are here. Thanks to @chooseitwisely for this amazing world of characters and thanks to all fellow followers for helping her be motivated to keep pushing out these chapters as soon as she can. This one's for all of you.