Sold to Franz Ferdinand

Drives and meetings.

I hear the gritty, nasal sound of that one Gallagher's voice through the car's CD player. Alex starts headbanging. Bob is still leering at me, all contemptful looking.

"Ready?" he finally asks. "It'll be quite a long ride, so if you need a piss or something, there's some bottles under your seat."

That is fucking disgusting. I look under my seat and, what do you know, multiple half-filled bottles spinning around (why are they spinning?) with their contents splashing about. Dear God.

"Why the fuck do you have piss bottles if you guys are rich," I ask. "You could literally buy a brand new car, one that isn't shit like this one, with a fucking toilet included!"

Before either of them can even reciprocate, we hear a knock on the front passenger's window. A homeless-looking guy, in his fifties, apparently wants some spare change. Alex, being the legend he is, slowly rolls open the window. He would've done it faster, but the car physically could not take that. After what feels like ages, the window is finally open.

"'Scuse me, gents, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation and I think I have the right answer to what you've just asked, Y/N." The man outside the car asks in his Northern accent. Actually, a Scottish accent should be seen as more Northern than this one, right? So this guy's accent should be considered as Northern to Southerners and Southern to us, because we are in Scotland, I think. Wait, how does he know my name? I open my mouth to ask him about it, when suddenly the Northerner reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a medium-sized synthesiser. He plugs it into the car's designated synth plug and starts playing a recognisable riff.

"They wanna live like common people!" The homeless man belts out. He repeats this two more times before ending the song, bowing down gracefully with a smile on his bearded face. I make use of this moment to take a better look at him, and notice that he's wearing some ugly fucking spectacles. Somehow they fit him.

"Yo, Jarvis, my dude!" Alex declares loudly with a forced, youthful tone. Ah, it's that Cocker guy! Hang on, I'm a fan of Pulp... I should ask him to sign my left knee.

"Wow, if it isn't Alex Kapranos! Bob Hardy as well?! This is my lucky day!" the Cocker Man exclaims enthusiastically.

"Come on in, dawg, we've got company in the backseat too!" Alex tells him.

Jarfish climbs in next to me and Bob decides that now is the right time to fuckin' floor it.

* * *

Bob actually isn't that bad of a driver. Well, if you choose to ignore the three, or was it four, pedestrians he hit in the last 20 seconds.

"They were asking for it!" He tries to reason.

"Bob. They were telling you to slow down, not speed up!" Alex reasons reasonably, as he carves four stripe-shaped lines into the dashboard.

"Well, how 'm I supposed to know? I couldn't hear them, I was driving too fast! And- "

"Shut up. Why do you own this car anyway?" I interrupt.

"This is our baby princess queen The Death Machine. D'you wanna know why it's called that?" Alex says. Before I can even voice my opinion, he explains it. "So, we got this car back when Nick was still in the band. Nick if you're reading this, babe, please come back. I haven't been the same without you, I need to hear your voice, please, Nicholas. Anyway. He bought this car for us with his first paycheck as a stripper." I choose to ignore that since I've always assumed he'd have been in that industry.

Alex continues. "And well, he was quite popular back then, an' he had to drive like super super carefully, 'cause otherwise he'd run over our fans. Then our precious Nick decided he was too cute to drive, and ever since Bob's been our main driver. But, unlike McCarthy, he doesn't care about the fans. He just drives."

"You wanna know how the car got these scars?" Bob asks me jokerly, whilst pointing at the dashboard where I could see at least three scratches next to each other. I nod eagerly.

"Well, if you'd count them all, there'd probably be about 146 of them. The line thingies count our victims. It's not my fault, of course! They were asking to be run over."

"That sounds lovely, Robert," Jarvis says, "but I would much rather listen to Wonderwall in silence, thanks."

I can't.

* * *

We've been driving in and around the country for about 45 minutes now, and Jarvis has stooped to the disgraceful level of using the wretched piss bottles.

I decide I've had enough of listening to Wonderwall with a man pissing in bottles right next to me, so I try lunging towards the CD player. Without much success, of course. I'm wearing a seatbelt, dipshit. I don't think I would still be alive if I wasn't wearing it, thanks to Bob's antics. Time for Plan B.

"Bob, my dear friend, would you pLEASE PUT ON ANOTHER SONG, I'M LOSING MY MIND, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" I shout with all my fucking might. I'm only a little bit upset about this whole situation.

"Wot? Can't hear you over this marvellous song!" he says loudly. I'm now glaring at Jarvis, purely out of disgust, who's actually counting the damned bottles of piss and out of my peripherals I see Alex fiddling with the CD player, eventually turning it off. I love that man.

"Finally! I've been trying to turn it off for ages now, can't believe it took me this long to figure it out," says Alex. "Apparently you just need to press the off button, silly me!"

The car stops. We've reached our destination.

"I'm going to kill myself," mutters Alex. Poor bloke's been trying to end the Wonderwalling for almost an hour now, and just when it ultimately works, we need to leave the car anyway! I'd almost feel bad for him if he hadn't just bought me for not even five quid.

As Jarbis and I climb out of the car, I take a look at our surroundings. It's quite lovely. There's only one house nearby, quite a large one at that. Many windows, even more bricks. The road towards the house reminds me of Minecraft gravel blocks. Trees surround the area with their trunks and leaves and I can spot quite a few flowers between them. Spring! It's spring! I love spring. It's just so... springy.

"That was quite nice, lads, but I've gotta go. See ya!" Jarvis states, after which he runs away like one of those people pretending to be a wolf. He's quite good at that, actually.

Ah, fuck, I forgot to ask him to sign my right knee! Or was it left? He's gone anyway.

I follow Bob and Alex into the house. We enter through a door with hinges and a doorknob. That in itself is already more expensive than anything in my ex-house. I look away from the beautiful brass hinges and see three other people inside the house. It's the band!

Audrey greets me first, with a firm handshake. To be expected from her, really.

Next up is Dino. I like Dino. He's cool. I have a ring like he does: silver, in the shape of a skull, on my right ring finger. He welcomes me with a brief hug.

Last, but not least, is Julian the cat man! He opts for a clean high-five, it produces an almost perfect slap sound.

They're all waiting for me to introduce myself, so I do.

"Hi, I'm Y/N and apparently I've been bought by you!"

They're all smiling at me and I feel slightly uncomfortable.

"Well, let's do what we came for," Alex announces. "It's about damn time."

I am scared.