Work In Progress | Ben Wyatt/OC

Fade Like You

I know whether you will, or whether you won't
I know whether you do, or whether you don't
Cos you gave me a thrill
And it showed me your soul
You're only happy cos you're losing control
I can see you by the window
And I will fade like you

Fade Like You - Nathan Day

Chapter Text

"Alright Donna, break it down for me," Ember said, hands on her hips. "What happened here. Where is Freddy?" She had officially entered work mode and she wasn't about to be stopped. There was a concert to put on in this park. An already paid for concert, the rest of which was covered by donations. It had to happen. It always happened. It would happen this year, just as it had the last, and it would happen next year too.

"Well, when we initially told him the concert was off, we took another gig in Eagleton....and it's at a library," Donna said, the collective groans of everyone around deflating Ember internally. For some reason, everyone hear hated libraries, which Ember never really understood. She had been a librarian in college, as a part time job. She never would tell anyone here that, though.

"Alright well, it's not over, not yet," Ember said, tapping her foot, thinking as she stared up at the sky. "He's not the only musician we know, is he?" She said finally, as it dawned on her and she turned to look at Andy. Andy had a band. He could sing, and he could play guitar. It was something. It wasn't perfect, but at this point she'd take someone doing karaoke on stage to make this work.

"Oh Ember, I don't know," Andy said with a groan. "I'm not sure I really want to play today. I don't even know any kids songs. What am I supposed to sing up there? They're going to laugh at me. The last song I wrote was called Sex Hair, Ember. How do I sing about that?"

"Why don't just take every time you said the word 'sex' and exchange it for 'pickle' or something like that?" Leslie suggested, and Ember wanted to hug her right then and there, if she weren't such a lack-of-touchy-feely type of person.

"Okay, okay, yea," Andy said, starting to hum along the tune, inserting the word 'pickle' as necessary.

"It still sounds like it's about sex," Tom muttered under his breath, shaking his head. He still had to admit, it was better than no show at all.

"Alright well I'm in!" Andy said excitedly, clapping his hands together. "Let me go get my guitar and I'll be right back to warm up!" He dashed off like a bolt of lightning through the crowd.

"Great," Ember said smiling for once, looking to her team. "See, that's one thing taken care of. We can still make this work today." Suddenly, from behind her was the sound of metal crunching and a scream that sounded distinctly like Andy. The entire group whirled around, looking towards the road to see Andy's motorcycle lodged in front of a car and Andy lying somewhere in the bushes nearby. "Shit," Ember muttered under her breath, immediately jogging over to make sure he was okay. Why did things like this keep happening? Why did she keep jinxing herself?

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The monitor behind Andy beat with a steady rhythm like a metronome numbing Ember to everything going on around her. They had taken him to Ann's place of work to get checked out, only to discover he had two broken bones in his right hand. He couldn't play with broken bones in his right hand. They had no one now.

She could hear Leslie speaking dully to the doctor but the sound was muffled to her. She couldn't quite hear what anyone was saying, as she zoned out, trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together and fix the afternoon. How could she do it, though? How could she make something out of nothing? This whole day she had spent trying to do the right thing for her town, and she wasn't even going to be able to. She was going to be forced to cancel the concert and disappoint all the kids.