The X-Project

In his room, memories resurface because of a song he can't sing.

Sitting on his bed, Jay's fingers idly plucked at the strings, listening to the distinct sound of the guitar in his lap. He silently mouthed lyrics to the song, bowing his head, recalling the last time he had sung his song.

Jay cleared his throat, tapping the microphone. It squeeked and vibrated a low protest before he steadied it. It was habit to do that, like a good luck thing he felt the need to do, right before he was going to sing and directly after. He checked his watch. Three hours had passed by like fleeting moments and he leaned into the mic, brushing his lips over it intimately as he spoke. "This one's for you Terry," he promised and began to play in time to the music through his headphones.

At the soundboard, Terry flashed Jay a grin through the glass and listened to the rock-infused country that had characterized every piece of music that they'd been trying out over the last few weeks. It was a change in his style, a drastic one, but it made sense to her and she hoped that it would continue. The rawness of it suited the lyrics which, hmm, weren't exactly best friend appropriate and once again, she doubted that the song really was, as he'd claimed, for her. No, this album would be for someone else. She was okay with that though. Beside her, Dan was bobbing his head quietly to the beat, his hands flying quick and sure over the board to adjust the levels. Delicate touches, all of them. Terry was grateful that he'd been available for this, she wouldn't have trusted anyone else.

Jay inclined his head, pushing up from the stood as his song deepened into a hearfelt three minutes and fifty six seconds of beauty. He couldn't have played it better than he did the last time, or he thought he couldn't but as he swept up into the final lyrics of his song, a smile spread over his face and he nodded to Dan. His eyes twinkled with delight. "How's that?"

Terry leaned on the intercom but spoke to Dan, impish grin playing about her mouth, "Do you hear that? Smug bastard thinks he's nailed it." She glanced through the window, "How about a bit of a playback and you can decide for yourself, my darling?"

"Damn straight," Jay grinned, plucking hard at two chords before he leaned into the mic and slurred in a sultry harmonized voice. "How about a little--" he swallowed and laughed, breaking his composure. "Did you get that Dan?" This was just what he wanted, but a little more of an unplugged version. Jay liked his voice and music without help, that way, he wasn't far off when he'd play live.

"Got it. Get your headphones back on." Dan nodded at Terry then queued the track.

"It'll be rough yet," Terry warned Jay. They still had levels to adjust and play with. This was the tedious part, she knew from experience but she had a good feeling about this.

He nodded when they were in place, nodding in time with the 8th notes, but he noticed that he missed the 1st and second string and eventually frowned when he caught the last note in the song. "Hey hang on. Play the first bit again. Ah think Ah played in E minor and then ended in E major, which don't make any sense." He thought it sounded really good to start but once he lost himself in the music, he didn't always follow the ground rules. If you started in E Minor, then you finished in E Minor.

They went over the song again, painstakingly, with frequent pauses for notes and adjustments. "We can re-record the instruments," Terry assured him, and shook her head admiringly, "The vocals are inspired, Jay." She couldn't have been prouder if it had been her own music, her own words, her own emotions that were being polished.

"Yeah, Ah'm happy with the vocals. Just not the way Ah played it. Ah dunno. Doesn't that begining and endin' sound weird to you?" He played the begining again and then he skipped through the whole song, plucking right into the ending with an abrupt stop. "Maybe Ah should slow 'er down a little?"

Terry hummed it to herself, slower as he suggested. She glanced at Dan who shrugged back at her with his 'I'm just the sound guy' face on, she made her own face back at him then hit the intercom again, "Let's try that once, just for testing."

"All right. But Ah expect a full standing ovation after this," he grinned and glanced down at the frets. "One sec. Ah need to work this out. Ah think Ah'm gonna change somethin' anyways." He played out two chords and stopped, trying it a different way before he found what he liked. "Ah'm gonna start with E major and flip it so that Ah end in it too. Should close the song out better."

"You're the artist," Terry agreed sunnily. At some point she was going to have to do the sworn duty of all best friends and producers and beat Jay soundly about the head to make him stop fiddling with the song, but for right now they had time and his variations were making it better instead of just more complicated. "Ready when you are, my darling."

Jay started the song then stopped. "Wait, we're doing the whole song or just the instrumental? Cause the vocals were good, weren't they?" It was so like him to get side tracked and off course that he couldn't help himself to stop and ask for directions.

Terry collapsed back into her chair and buried her face in her hands to stifle the resulting peals of laughter. For several seconds, all she could do was giggle, shoulders shaking with Dan looking at her like she'd lost her mind. The long-suffering nature of this look suggested that it wasn't all that unusual a circumstance. "The vocals were lovely, darling. You're just giving us the instrumental track again. Honestly, what would you do without me?"

Later, Jay stopped by to see Terry and a lot of things that should have been said weren't.

Jay stopped short of one door in passing through the hallways and he backtracked to one he was very familar with, but hadn't knocked on for almost five months now. It struck him strange that he hadn't thought of it up until now and a brief knuckle knock had him waiting in front of Terry's door, just to hear if there was any movement behind it.

"Ter?" he called out, just on the off chance that it was her weird roommate and not her.

Terry set aside the laundry she was folding and climbed up off the sofa. "Door's open, Jay," she called back, wondering what brought him by. She didn't really know what to say to her supposed best friend. She couldn't recall the last time they'd spoken. It's been too long and this feels more awkward than it should be.

He opened the door at the invitation and brushed a hand through his hair just before closing it again. "Sorry. Ah didn't wanna bother you or nuttin. Just wonderin', you know, how's uh, things? Ah reckon you're doin' all right yah?"
Terry summoned up a smile, reminding herself that time didn't always mean drifting apart. "It's no bother at all. Come in." She finished moving her folded laundry back into the basket, clearing off the sofa cushions. "Sit down. Can I get you a drink?"

"Sure just water, or somethin'," he said, hooking his hand on his neck and took a seat. The awkward in the room was off the charts and he wondered vaguely if it was him that was feeling that vibe or were they both feeling it? Maybe it was because of him? "So?"

She busied herself in the kitchen, getting out glasses and bottled water, letting the tenor of the room settle a bit. "So, how have you been?" she asked as she came back. She'd realized at the last second that it was stupid to give him a glass with his bottle of water so just handed him off the bottle and a napkin for the sweating plastic. "I've been busy myself, school and such, you know. Nearly done."

He shrugged to the question posed to him. He wasn't busy at all but saying that made people worry. "What'cha gonna do once you're done?" It was weird for him. She was nearly finished and he had barely gotten his foot off the ground before everything went down. Things should have been different, not this way, where he sat in a room, longingly looking at her guitar while awkward filled the space inbetween them.

He hadn't answered the question and it didn't escape her notice. She didn't push though. "I've an application in at Interpol. If I don't get that, then I suppose here or home for a bit. I've got...some things that're coming up." Why didn't she want to tell him her news? Why was she afraid that he'd react badly? Terry pushed her hands into her hair and gathered it up into a twist, pinning it in place with a loose pencil. "The next year looks busy."

Jay's hands fiddled with the bottle, turning it upsidedown and around, noticing that she jumped his own question in her own way. Avoiding any deep conversations was the game here and he stuck to it like rules rather than guidelines. "Sounds good, Ah think. If yer headin' home, Bobby'd be excited huh?"

"So he says. I think he's beginning to enjoy the bachelor life again, myself," she joked, like nothing was wrong. Like nothing was strange. She had no idea if it sounded as flat to his ears as it did to her own. She opened her own water and drained half of it off in a few swallows.

A hollow smile lifted across his face and he chuckled, brushing a hand through his hair. Did she notice the extra strain in that chuckle, the creases at the corners of his eyes or the shadows beneath them? It was hard to tell with the colour of his skin, it made him seem so young at times. If only he could say how old he felt in his twenty one year old skin. "He's just tryin' to get you home, that's all. Can't blame the man, prolly gettin' lonely in that big ol' castle."

He sounds tired. Not physically but in the way that she felt after he and the others had vanished. All they'd had to do was wait. She didn't even know how to begin to understand what he was going through. "Well, he'll have a fair bit of me soon enough. You should come visit some time. It's peaceful right now. Loveliest time of the year."

He nodded though he didn't commit. He couldn't commit to anything, couldn't get his act together enough to even visit his own mother. How could he visit his bestfriend when he could barely sit here and talk to her? "Yeah," he agreed on how it was nice, even though he had no idea what the weather was like over there. "Lucky guy. What would he do without you?"

Terry grinned and shrugged, "I'm sure that he couldn't. That's why I married the poor man after all." It felt like pulling teeth, her own teeth, just trying to come up with something to say. Even talking about Bobby--and he her favorite subject--even that was nearly impossible. How had they come to this?