Only By The Night by Another Illusion

Summary: Senior year was just about making it to graduation and making his band more prolific for Jack Mercer… or at least that was the intention anyway. When an agent questions his band’s sound, Jack finds himself facing some difficult decisions and discoveries about how to move on.

Author’s Note and Disclaimer- I am English and as such use British-English spelling. A big thanks as ever to my beta, who is completely awesome.
I would also just like to express that I do not own Four Brothers, nor do I profit in any way from this writing. The chapter title is the title of a Sonic Youth song of the same name and the fic title comes from the Kings Of Leon 2008 album: Only By The Night. I, again, am not claiming to own those either. I do not own the quote at the start which is from Snow Patrol’s Tiny Little Fractures either.

One: Superstar

“If I've forgotten what to say/ It's because all words are dust/ If this is really what you think”

It changed you. There was some secret metamorphosis that occurred the very second you picked up the guitar, had the pick between your fingers, felt the lights on you, and the moment you fought past the waves of nerves and nausea.

Jack Mercer lived purely for the adrenalin rush of a gig.

Of course, the gig wasn’t for seven hours and Jack Mercer still need to make it through an afternoon of school -- and then all the preparation that was necessary just for that short time on stage. Sometimes Jack wondered whether all of the hype before hand, all of the stress, was worth it. Then he would get on stage. It was indescribable, ineffable and utterly incomprehensible. Simply put, it was like he belonged, and it was like an addiction - once he was offstage, he immediately wanted to be back on. He belonged there.

Belonging was definitely not the case for school though. Somehow, Jack managed to get to his senior year and the end was now in sight. He never put much effort into school, so his classes were all pretty easy and he could get away with not doing much. As long as he got that diploma in June, he was fine. He could leave Detroit, leave the past behind, and go somewhere else – New York, or L.A., or somewhere where he could get a break and be more than a Mercer.

“Tim thinks we should play Red Lights tonight,” Casey said in a low voice. Casey was the other guitarist in their band, The Spares, and had been friends with Jack for years. It was Casey and Jack who started the band in the first place, then Tim, the drummer, joined and brought Ollie, the bassist, and Chris, the singer, with him. The band had gelled surprisingly well, especially considering the different backgrounds they all came from; the middle class stereotypical family, the rich parents, the ex-hippies, and of course, the boys’ home.

Jack shrugged. “There a problem with that?” He remembered that he had a great solo in that song.

“Well, I’m bringing my girlfriend, and I don’t know if she’ll want to hear a song about strippers and strip clubs.” Casey bit his lip. “It might freak her out, she’s sort of funny about those things.” Jack raised his eyebrow; Casey was dating Rebecca Roberts, who was not known in school for her chaste ways. Hell, Jack expected that if she heard the song, she’d probably confess to having been a stripper, or stripping at a party, or something. In fact, Jack was almost certain she’d tried to do something like that at Tim’s a few months ago, so if she was going to act offended by Red Lights, which was certainly PG, then she was the world’s biggest hypocrite. Of course, Jack couldn’t tell Casey this; the poor guy was head over heels for her.

“Well, it’s your call, man. Personally, I don’t see a problem.”

“You wouldn’t,” Casey said, rolling his eyes and then slumping further onto the desk. “How long have we got?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Ergh,” Casey groaned, burying his head in his hands. “That’s like forever.”

Jack looked down at his desk; someone had etched their name on the desk with a compass, and there were remnants of several ‘so-and-so loves so-and-so’ carved there too. Jack didn’t see the point in that, in the same way he didn’t see the point in relationships – the second best part of being a musician was the attention from girls, and girlfriends complicated that. He didn’t need all that clinginess, all the drama. Jack thought that it surely defeated the whole point of being a rock musician if you were in some type of deep relationship. Part of the fun of being a rock star was supposedly the ability it had to get you laid.

“I still think Red Lights is the best opener,” Jack said finally, determined to have the last word. “Anyway, do the rest of the guys know what time our practice is?” He hated it when the rest of the band would turn up late, which always happened. It was as though the band was nothing to them, and they didn’t realise that it was everything to Jack. This band was his ticket out of Detroit.

“They should. You’ve only mentioned it a hundred times already,” Casey grumbled. “Y’know, if you put as much effort into organising yourself as you do this band then you could go to Yale.”

Jack laughed as quietly as he could, not wanting to attract the teacher’s attention. “Now you’re really starting to sound like my mother.”

xxx

The first band was only playing four songs, but it felt more like forty. The clashing chords, and off-putting, overly zealous vocals didn’t help matters much either. Jack hoped to God that he had never been that bad when his band had started out.

Jack lit a cigarette and looked at the crowd offstage; there were girls. A lot of girls. Most of them were only there because Casey and Chris had that whole ‘cute’ look thing going for them – not that Jack didn’t have his own share of admirers; girls loved a fuck-up for some unfathomable reason.

He took a drag and mentally went through what he needed to remember for the gig; chord progressions and key changes flooded through his mind – this was the stuff that actually mattered to him.

“You ready?” Casey asked, the telltale signs of nerves clear in his shaky voice. The kid needed to pull his act together, he got nervous before every single gig and it made Jack feel stressed.

“Yeah,” he said casually. “Good crowd tonight. Lots of girls.” He winked at Casey who shook his head in response. Already Jack had been doing the rounds and talking to groups of girls, asking them to listen to the band, saying that he’d want to hear what they thought afterwards. He didn’t really care too much what they thought, as long as they liked it, but he wanted to try out the rock star routine to see if it could get him a girl.

“Man, you know I can’t. She’d kill me.” Casey paused. “I’m not joking, I think she would really do some serious physical harm over that. Besides, why would I go looking for something else when I’m more than happy with what I’ve already got?”

“Dude –” Jack paused before continuing. Criticising a friend’s girlfriend – no matter how slutty or annoying she was – was not cool. “Alright. More for me,” he said with a wicked smile.

“Thanks, man.” Casey nervously fiddled with the pick in his hands, while Jack tried to enjoy his cigarette – maybe Casey needed to start smoking, surely that would calm him down. Still, Casey was such a worrier and perfectionist that even smoking probably wouldn’t help him. Jack even doubted the heavy dosage of Valium Casey’s mother used to take when he was three would have done anything to help him relax either.

“We’ve played here loads of times,” Jack said in an effort to calm him down. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“We’ve never been the main band up before, though.”

“So?” Jack couldn’t see what the big problem was. The opening band was a bunch of freshman and they completely sucked -- even if The Spares forgot all their lyrics and were all out of tune with one another, it would be a thousand times better than the hideous cover of Wonderwall that was currently playing.

“I think a cat’s dying, or being really badly tortured” Casey said, pointing at the band. “God, please tell me we were never that bad.”

Jack grinned. “I was never that bad.” Or at least, he hoped he wasn’t. “For once, I’m glad we’re in this dive, ‘cause at least I can smoke and I’m hoping that’ll distract me from that shit over there.” He shook his head and took a deep drag of his cigarette.

Casey shook his head. “Asshole. You are such an asshole, Jack, honestly.”

“Takes one to know one, ” Jack replied immaturely before exhaling.

Tim interrupted before Casey could think of an appropriate come-back for Jack. “We’re up in ten.” The first band was now walking off stage to awkward and reluctant applause, and the club’s speakers started to blast out Feeder’s Buck Rogers, which the crowd seemed to appreciate significantly more than the other band.

“Sucks to be them,” Tim mumbled, but Jack noticed that his voice wasn’t too sympathetic and he was grinning widely at the disaster they had just witnessed. Jack had always suspected that Tim was the sort of guy who liked to slow down to see car crashes.

The next few minutes passed in a blur, but finally Jack was on stage. As Ollie introduced them to the crowd, Jack let the adrenalin take him over.

He was nervous, though he’d never admit it, but the adrenalin always saw him through, and once the music started, he loved it.

There was nothing quite like it either. He looked at Ollie for his cue and started to play the opening riff for Red Lights – which the band had decided, much to Casey’s protests, would be their opening song.

Jack was back where he belonged.

When he played it felt like nothing else mattered; he didn’t matter, his past didn’t matter, because all that mattered was the music. He’d never known any high like it, and God knows he’d had a few attempts at replicating it over the years. Nothing ever came close though.

xxx

Jack Mercer walked outside to smoke a cigarette. His head was starting to hurt, and he was beginning to feel a little drunk. It took him four attempts to light his cigarette – whether it was due to the rain or his inebriated state, he wasn’t sure – but he finally lit the damn thing, and took a deep drag.

Jack scowled. “Fucking rain is going to ruin my hair.” He was not going to go back into the club with flat hair – that would be unacceptable. Flat hair was a look that no rockstar should ever be seen with. Plus, when Jack’s hair was flat he looked a little pathetic.

As Jack leaned against the cool, brick wall he noticed a man talking loudly into his phone. It immediately warranted Jack’s attention because the guy looked completely out of the place at the club, whose usual inhabitants were drunk students, high school kids, or stoners. The guy’s phone and clothes looked expensive and that didn’t mesh with the neighbourhood at all.

Jack wondered whether he was an agent, or someone important. Instantly his mind turned to images of success and worldwide – or at least statewide – acclaim. It would be perfect.

Should Jack go over though? He was unsure what to do, and the fact he was feeling a bit wasted really didn’t help matters at all. That seventh shot of sambuca suddenly seemed like a very bad idea – a career ruining bad idea.

Jack decided he couldn’t act, or look too eager. No, he would just smoke his cigarette and prepare for the inevitable disappointment he was sure was heading his way.

“You were with that band, weren’t you? The Spares?” the man suddenly asked, now off the phone.

“Yeah,” Jack said slowly, adrenalin pumping through his veins.

“I’m Terry Wallace. I’m a talent agent.” Jack tried to not show how excited he was. “Oh, shit, don’t get your hopes up, kid.”

”Oh.” Once again Jack cursed himself for his high hopes – he should have remembered that it was better to never think he could be better than he was now; he should have remembered to not listen to his mother, Evelyn. She was always filling his head with hopes and dreams and he’d figured out long ago that, while she meant well, he was better off ignoring her. The disappointments and screw ups were easier to handle that way.

“You weren’t that bad though,” Terry said. “I’m not approaching you guys, okay, but I figured you might want some advice? Man to man?”

“Sure,” Jack said, trying not to sulk like a spoiled kid. He already hated Terry, he seemed like the type of guy who would wave candy in front of toddlers and then pull it away just as they reached to take it. In fact, Jack was already beginning to doubt whether or not Terry was a real agent because he definitely seemed unprofessional if he was.

“Your sound -- can I be crude?” Jack shrugged and Terry continued, “Okay, it’s so unoriginal, it’s actually almost uninspiring. You’re fairly talented musicians, and you’re better than a lot of the shit out there, but I don’t hear a unique sound. I can’t hear anything that separates it from anything else, and that is your problem.”

“Oh,” Jack said, not sure what to say – was he supposed to defend his sound at this point? To be honest, what was their sound? It was just what they felt like, though he knew Casey was inspired by all that shitty pop-rock stuff, and sometimes, which was even worse, Ollie mentioned those bands that relied on screaming more than actual music. Still, Jack had tried to steer them away from that, and while they may not have had some pure, perfect, pretentious sound, he wouldn’t say that were uninspiring or not original.

“You want my advice? Stick at it, but try and find a sound, something special. ‘Cause that’s what will get you signed. Trust me, you’ll be glad I told you this now rather than five years from now when you either sell out, or end up hating the music because you won’t get anywhere sounding like you do now.”

“Thanks,” Jack said more gruffly than he meant to.

“Finally,” the man cried out, pointing at a taxi pulling up by the curb. “Bye kid.”

It wasn’t until he had left that Jack realised the guy hadn’t even asked him his name.

He was about to go back inside and have a few more drinks to drown his sorrows when he heard a voice from behind him. “That guy was wrong,” The voice was female, light and casual. It had a slight whiff of intoxication, but didn’t seem too drunk.

“Thanks,” he said, with a small smile, as the girl moved closer to him.

“Got a light?” she asked, waving a cigarette at him.

Jack wordlessly lit her cigarette for her and watched her take a deep drag. He tried to hold onto the silence for as long as he possibly could, wanting to take in the moment as well as seem cool and mysterious.

“I’m Kate,” she said slowly, over-pronouncing each syllable drunkenly.

“Jack,” he replied simply.

Kate wasn’t ugly. In fact, she was very good looking – she was leaning more towards pretty than sexy. Kate didn’t have too much make-up on, her hair wasn’t dyed some fake shade of blonde, and she looked good. Okay, her perfume was slightly overpowering, but nobody was perfect. Her eyes were a deep shade of blue and Jack, well, he had definitely kissed worse looking girls.

“You go to my school, don’t you?” She paused and swayed slightly. “I think I’ve seen you around. You hang around with Casey and well, your band.”

“It’s possible,” Jack said, aiming at sounding mysterious, but ending up quite certain that he had failed miserably. Instead he just sounded like some stupid kid who didn’t even know where he went to school.

“So, how long have you been in the band?” she asked, apparently undeterred.

“A little while.” There, he thought to himself triumphantly, that worked the whole mystery angle much better.

“Cool.” She stretched the word cool out to about five more syllables than necessary and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “You know, you asked me before the gig to tell you what I thought.” She moved slightly closer to him and smiled.

“And what was that?” Jack asked softly.

“That you were pretty damn good, Jack, that you were pretty damn good. Like, real good.”

“Well, thanks,” he said, determined not to break eye contact with her.

She smiled seductively. “So, have you got any plans for the rest of the night? Celebrating?”

“Not really.” But he might have some plans now, Jack thought to himself, breaking the eye contact and looking out at the road.

The dark clouds had dissipated from his mind and he already felt more relaxed. Jack looked at her again, taking a careful note of her facial expression. He took a drag of his cigarette to hide his grin. He didn’t want to seem too eager. Mysterious. Gotta remain mysterious.

Oh, yeah, he was a hot rock star again. Definitely a hot rock star.