It was when she dried her cheeks with her sleeve that Victor plopped on the barstool next to her and said,
“Yo,”
And nothing else. She had to giggle a little bit. Not even a “Are you okay,” or a “How are you doing?” Just that one single word, and yet, it was enough. It was barely even audible against the backdrop of the guitars and the drums and the lyrics, but she somehow knew exactly how he would sound. He asked all those questions and more in just that single word, just by inflection alone, and Waverly was a bit jealous because she also wanted to talk like that, and not have to overexplain everything she said or thought because she felt as though people might misinterpret it, she guessed? Well, that was something to think about later, for sure.
For now, she just grinned, sniffled a bit and said,
“I’m fine,”
And Victor nodded, and smiled his quiet smile, and just stayed with her in case she wanted to say anything else because that was the kind of guy he was.
“I just feel kinda free, you know? I never really felt like that, outside of fighting, I guess, and I thought about that and… yeah. I just kinda felt relieved, I guess?”
She dabbed at her eyes again, but they were dry and a little red and she didn’t want to smear what little makeup she wore, so she left it at that. She did, however reach over the bar, nabbed two glasses, filled them with water, and handed one to Victor before taking a sip from her own. Way better than Wolfsbane, that was for sure.
“This Music, though…” she said after swallowing. “It makes you feel kind of…”
“…energized, like you can do anything,” Victor said, his eyes almost glowing with enthusiasm.
“… calm, like nothing else matters,” she said at the same time, and then they both laughed, loud enough to be heard over the music. Then they both just listened for a while longer, trying to get their dancing spirit back. Victor was bobbing his head along to the beat.
“Do you play an instrument?” Waverly had never asked before, but he was really good at keeping with the beat, and now she was curious.
“The organ,” he said. “Because of my mom. Stopped playing after a while, though.”
Waverly nodded and scratched her cheek. Probably one of Victor’s attempts to get closer to her. For someone so calm and observant, he really was missing a lot of stuff about himself, at least in Waverly’s opinion. But her Dad always said to keep your opinions about how people should live their lives to yourself if they didn’t ask. Of course, he usually said that before telling her to pay more attention at school, or carry up the laundry, or clean up her room, or take care of her siblings, but she still didn’t barge into Victor’s issues.
Instead, she said, “I totally wish I had the time to learn an instrument, too, maybe like the guitar or something but we never had the money to afford lessons. Maybe I’ll try and pick one up now! But like, it could kinda be hard between school and taking care of the brats and everything, you know? Plus, if my parents found out I listened to Metal, they would kick me out of the house.”
“Harsh,” Victor said with a grin, but the way the corners of his mouth curled downward a little told her that he was still thinking about his parents. Maybe he was kinda hoping that they would pay enough attention to him that they’d notice he listened to music that pissed Satan off.
“What are you doing over the break, anyway?” Waverly asked, trying to get broody-face over there out of his funk.
Victor shrugged, and finally, his smile reached his eyes. “I thought about coming down here a lot more often. This is nice!”
Waverly’s tail wagged against the bar at that. He could tell he wasn’t just saying it to be nice, either. He genuinely seemed to enjoy the CrowBar, and enough to regularly ride the Hellevator down from Elysium, too!
“How about you?” he asked while she turned to allow her tail some more space to wag without slamming against hardwood.
“Like I said, I’m like, going to look after my siblings a lot. One of the things about living on campus is that my parents can’t ask me to do to all the time. I mean I love the little rascals, but can’t my brothers do it sometimes? Why does it always have to be the oldest one, aka me? Other than that, probably study! Can’t fall behind on stuff…”
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Victor snorted, and she could tell that while she succeeded in getting him out of his funk, he was going to retaliate with the full force of his elusive, precious snark.
“Fall behind the Seniors, you mean? Waves, you know more about Dungeonomics than the Prof. He’s getting kinda pissy about it.”
“That was one time!” she complained, just when she heard the telltale stomp of hooves against wood that announced Jim coming over.
“Hey, you two. Enjoying the party?” the Minotaur asked as he made his way past them, pulled up that segment of the bar you could pop up to walk through, and then proceeded to mix himself a drink when they both answered in the affirmative.
“How do you stop the neighbors from hearing it?” Victor asked, and Waverly hadn’t even thought about that before.
“Soundproof enchantment,” Jim said. “The crow does it. Not sure how, but it works. Didn’t need to do it in the old days. Had lots of people coming over, just for the music. Live bands, too.”
“Ohhhhh,” Waverly said, mouth wide open with excitement. “That must have been uh-mayzing! I bet the place was packed for that sort of stuff!”
“T’was,” Jim agreed.
“But like, I don’t really get it. So we stopped listening to this stuff just because it makes Satan sad? How does that work?”
To her side, Victor nodded and added, “Yeah. Satan may be the ruler of hell, but he’s not a dictator. He’s always pretty chill, actually.”
Jim gave him a look at that. “You know him?”
Victor got very still for a second, and Waverly drew in a sharp breath before she could help herself. He was so busted, and she knew that it meant a lot to him to not be known as “the rich kid”, so she was frantically wracking her brain for something to say when he sighed and shrugged.
“Yeah. Seen him at a bunch of parties. He lives down the street, I think.”
And Jim said, “Huh, yeah, I can see that.” And then, as if Victor had just told him he met nice people down in the fifth circle on vacation, Jim changed the topic.
“Anyway, it’s a ripple effect. Satan hosts Hellfest. You win, everyone in your band gets a free Wish, that’s how it works. 2006 comes around, the thing happens, Satan gets super upset every time he hears a single note that comes out of an amp. That’s the thing they use on Guitars to give them that sound?” He looked at the two of them as if asking if they’d heard of it. When they both shook their head, he sighed.
“…And this happens. They stopped allowing Metal bands into Hellfest first. That was a huge upset, but people just… kinda went with it. And then some super-satanists from the upper circles started brown-nosing and went all public with an announcement they’d no longer play Metal in mass. Then the religious sort kind of understood that as forbidden, the Infernal Lords tried to appease them in the next hellection, proposed bans on public listening of Metal. Never got enacted, but still, people started seeing it as taboo. Imports dried up after that. Nobody wanted to get caught shipping a giant crate of AC/DC Vinyl, you know? Especially after the market for it went dead…”
He sighed again, a heavy breath that Waverly could feel against her ears.
“Long story short, by the time you lot were born, Metal was dead, and listening to that stuff is like singing Kumba-ya in front of your local satanic church, or getting tattoo removal as a politician. Absolute career suicide. And you young folk don’t get to listen to the glory anymore, except in circles like this. Even here we have the rule that you need to be high enough level. Prove you can get at least some job, even if they blacklist you from the Dungeons, for listening to the Forgotten Tapes.”
“Huh,” said Victor, and Waverly had to agree.
“But like, still it doesn’t make much sense. People should still listen to it in private, right? I mean, like, something that taboo should have made a huge splash in high school, if just because it’s forbidden, but I never even heard about “Metal” until tonight. How can that be?”
“Fucked if I know,” Jim said. “All I know is that people don’t feel good talking about it unless you do it a lot. Probably just a tinge of anxiety, I guess? You noticed it today, at the start. Everyone just sat around. We usually have to go through a few songs, discuss them, and then the show gets going.”
“No live bands?” Victor asked, and Jim snorted in amusement.
“If there are any bands that play Metal in hell, they don’t come knocking here. Perhaps in one of the higher Circles.”
“Oh!” Waverly said, tail drooping. She had been kinda looking forward to maybe seeing one of the bands that played these cool songs, like maybe DragonForce or Soilwork, but if they didn’t have Metal bands in hell, it made sense that they were probably all humans.
She caught Jim smirking at her, and squinted in fake annoyance. “Hey okay, yeah, I liked it, and I want to listen to more, what about it?”
Jim’s laughter shook the bar. “No! No! This is good! I’m happy you enjoyed it. The last time was a while ago, is all. Tell you what, ask Balthazar about his special stock before you leave, and when he asks which one, ask for the strong stuff. It won’t be live tickets, but he’ll get you set up.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” Waverly said, wagging her tail enthusiastically. Victor perked up, too.
Jim slapped his huge hands on the bartop and said: “And now go back in there and mosh. We only got a few more songs before we gotta close up. You should enjoy it while you can. I’ll have the crow put on some Metal Hellsinger.”
He paused. “Ugh. People are going to call me a nerd.”
“Why would they call you a nerd?” Victor asked, even as he got up. His feet were already tapping to the beat, which Waverly thought was kinda cute, and more ammunition to tease him with, later.
“Doom and Hellsinger are Human video games. Not produced by us, as far as we know. So, not connected to V.D.O.”
When they both stared at him like the nosy young monsters they were, he rolled his eyes and made a shooing gesture. “Less ogling, more moshing.”
Waverly bumped Victor with her shoulder and raced off to the impromptu dancefloor. She was going to see if she could find Ssseth…