The old days
Here I am again with something McFly-/Floynter-related. Seems they're the only ones who inspire me to write something nowadays.
Enjoy!
Characters: Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter (others mentioned)
Pairing: Fletcher/Poynter - Floynter (but this isn’t really slash, rather just friendship)
September 15, 2016: Glasgow
Tom is standing in the lobby of their hotel in Glasgow. They arrived half an hour before, they had terrible traffic on their way up from Manchester and now he can’t sit down anymore, his butt feels so numb. He’s already brought his bags and his acoustic guitar up to his room and has come down again to see what the others have planned for the rest of their day. There’s no show on travel day and they’ll get to the venue tomorrow at midday to check everything out and have some more last-minute rehearsals. That means that the rest of today is free.
His phone beeps and when he gets it out of his pocket, he sees he’s had an e-mail from his publisher about some minor details about the publication of the Christmasaurus. He starts typing an answer when he hears Danny’s booming laugh. Looking up, he sees him trotting down the stairs with Georgia in tow. A few seconds later, on the other side of the hall, the doors of the elevator open and Harry, Dougie and Izzy who has Lola in her arms step out. Harry’s handling their pushchair and takes Lola from Izzy to seat her in it.
Everyone comes over to where Tom is standing.
“Lola needs to get a bit of fresh air”, Harry declares. “We’re going out for a bit if that’s okay?”
“Yeah, sure”, Tom nods but he doesn’t miss the slightly frustrated look on Dougie’s face.
“We’re off as well.” That’s Danny.
“We’re meeting a friend of Georgia’s for dinner.”
“Alright, see you guys later then.”
“Guys, I just wanted to-”, Dougie starts but is interrupted by Lola who starts to cry.
“Sorry, Doug, we need to get moving. She hardly slept at all on the way here. Let’s talk later, yeah?”
“Right.”
The two couples set off and Tom quickly saves the e-mail he had started to write before everyone had come down. There’s a sigh coming from Dougie who’d been standing a few metres in front of him. He now turns around and walks over to Tom.
“Are you alright?” Tom enquires.
“Yeah. D’you have a minute?”
“Sure. There’s no wife, kid or friend waiting for me.”
It’s meant to be a joke but Tom can see from Dougie’s face that might have just kind of addressed the problem here. That is, if there even is a problem. But he can see what it must look like to Dougie: Two of his band mates bringing their family with them on tour and a third one who has his family waiting for him at home while he himself has no one. He doesn’t say anything about it though, doesn’t ask if that’s the reason why Dougie’s seems to be a bit down. Dougie will talk about it in his own time if it only bothers him enough.
“D’you mind going over a song idea?”
“Yes, let’s.”
They take the stairs, their rooms are only on the first floor, after all, and head for Tom’s room. There’s no need for discussion: Tom’s house and Tom’s room have always been their meeting points whenever they all come together. It’s like an unspoken agreement.
“Let me just get my guitar”, Dougie says and quickly dips into his own room.
Tom opens his door and holds it open for Dougie when he appears back in the corridor, guitar in hand. They settle on the bed, facing each other and Tom grabs his own guitar, ready to play along or fill in any gaps or make improvements to whatever parts of this new song Dougie doesn’t feel are good enough yet.
“I haven’t got any lyrics yet”, Dougie says while fiddling with the strings and tuning the high E string. There must be something wrong with that guitar of his for that string is always out of tune but Dougie loves this guitar and has written quite a few songs on it.
“And it’s still missing a middle eight. Maybe you can figure something out.”
Tom grins. “Go ahead, then. I can’t figure anything out unless I’ve heard that song of yours, can I?”
“Alright, here it comes.”
Dougie starts to play then and Tom instantly likes this song. It has a nice flow to it as well as a bit of melancholy and there are some great chord changes in there as well. Tom beams at Dougie who is concentrating on the chords and seemingly doesn’t notice him. When he finishes, he looks up at Tom with a half-smile on his face.
“It still needs a bit of work-“
“It sounds great. I really like it.”
“Well, it’s not complete crap.”
“It’s really good, Doug. When did you come up with that?”
“Yesterday before soundcheck. I was just playing around really and suddenly I was playing the first two lines and then started from there.”
Dougie almost looks a bit embarrassed so Tom is quick to voice his appreciation again.
“I love it. What key is it in, is it in F?”
“Yep, it’s in F. Starts off in B though, then it moves to C, to A minor, back to C and then to F. That’s the first two lines.”
Dougie’s started to play the song again, slowly, and names the chords so Tom can play along. Once Tom has the verse down, they move to the chorus.
“I’m not sure how I want it to get back to the verse at that point though”, Dougie admits once they’ve run through the chorus as well.
Tom plays it again and experiments with a few chords at the end of it but none of them feel right.
“What about we move it to D-minor for the middle eight?”, he asks. “Something like this maybe?”
Tom plays a chord sequence but Dougie doesn’t seem entirely convinced. He joins and makes a few modifications.
It takes them a while but eventually they are both satisfied with the music. At least for the moment. Writing a song is a process that sometimes takes months until a song is really finished for good.
“What about lyrics, then?”, Tom asks.
“I haven’t got any yet.”
“Any ideas what it could be about?”
Dougie shrugs. “Maybe something about how everything was better in the old days.”
He sounds bitter suddenly and Tom looks up from where he had been leafing through his lyric book looking for unused lyrics.
Dougie is looking out of the window. All the smiles and friendly banter from before are gone. There is a hard line around his mouth and his fingers are curling over a crease in the bed sheets.
Tom remembers the moment in the hotel lobby that afternoon when Dougie had seemed so unhappy about Harry and Danny setting off on their own.
“What is it, Dougs?”
There was no point in asking if Dougie is alright, Tom thinks, when it’s so clear that he’s not. He gets no answer from him for a moment though. Then, Dougie sighs and turns to look at him.
“Nothing. Sorry. Forget about that.”
“Don’t give me that. What do you mean by old days?”
Tom is fairly sure what this is about - he’s known Dougie for almost half his life, of course he has an idea what’s wrong - but he doesn’t operate on ‘fairly sure’. He needs Dougie to say it, not only so that Tom can be sure of what to say but also because he knows that Dougie will feel better only for having said what’s on his mind.
Dougie looks away again, this time at the piece of paper they’ve scribbled their chords on while working out the missing part of the song.
“Just… This doesn’t really feel like a tour. We used to really enjoy touring. Everything feels different, this time round.”
Of course it’s different, is what Tom thinks at first. After all, they’re all different. They’ve changed over those 13 years they’ve been together as a band, they’ve grown up, they all got other projects going on as well as the band, they’re married now, have kids. Except that Dougie hasn’t, Tom realises. He also realises that Dougie has just admitted, if only very indirectly, that he doesn’t enjoy the tour. At least not as much as others before.
He has a feeling this is going in the same direction as a conversation they had a few months ago. The differences in their lives have an impact on their life on tour in a way that Dougie probably hasn’t anticipated.
Never have they actually spent so much time apart from each other on a tour. They used to be all over each other, used to spend all their time awake together, either in a car, in a hotel room or in their dressing room, even when they were touring as McBusted. This time, it is different because Harry has brought Izzy and Lola along, Georgia has come with them as well, Tom spends quite some time during the day vlogging and writing. Of course, Dougie also has other projects going on but they’re on pause during the time of the tour and he hasn’t really got anything else to occupy himself with other than the band.
Tom understands and he feels like an idiot not to have thought of that before but still doesn’t really know what to say.
Dougie apparently can read exactly that in his face when he looks at him again.
“Sorry. It’s just… crap. Forget about it.”
“No, you’re right. It is different.”
“Yeah, well, you guys moved on. I understand that. It’s fine.”
“It doesn’t look like that”, Tom says carefully. “And I understand what you mean, you know.”
Dougie throws him a somewhat rueful smile. Tom notices how he’s smoothing out the covers they’re sitting on. He is tense. Dougie doesn’t like to talk about himself and it’s taken him a long time and some very unpleasant experiences to learn that sometimes it helps to talk about what’s going on inside you.
“Let’s just forget about it, okay? Sorry I brought it up. It’s not like we’re having no fun at all, is it? Just… less time together, I suppose. Guess that’s normal.”
“You’re right. But we could change that. You-“
And Tom thinks hard about how to phrase that next part of what he wants to say because he doesn’t want to embarrass Dougie anymore than he already seems to be.
“I simply didn’t notice ‘cos I’ve been so wrapped up in writing. But you’re right. We’ve always said that touring is the best part of our job and that wasn’t only because we all love playing shows. There’s more to enjoying a tour than just having a good time on stage.”
Dougie looks away again and nods slightly. He doesn’t say anything else, but he seems a bit more relaxed when he turns to look at Tom again. The hard line is gone.
Tom senses that the topic is closed. For now. They’re both silent for a moment but it feels good. Settled. Even if nothing’s changed, it helped to talk about it. To admit how they feel and to establish that they both feel that way even if Tom hadn’t realised before. They need to make the band their full-time job during the tour.
“Let’s get back to those lyrics”, Tom says. “Shall we stick with the old days for a moment, see what’s gonna come of that?”
Dougie nods and plays the verse again, stringing words together to go with it. They work at that for a while and they are almost satisfied with their first verse when Tom’s phone beeps and announces a facetime call.
“It’s Gi”, Tom says and accepts the call. Giovanna comes into the picture. She’s sitting on the living room floor, holding Buddy and Tom can hear Buzz playing his drums in the background.
“Hi honey”, he says.
“Hi.” Gi moves around and Buzz comes into the picture as wel. As soon as he spots Tom, the drums stop and he comes scrambling into Gi’s lap and Tom gets a very close-up shot of his face.
“Hi Buzz. What are you up to?”
Gi holds her phone away from Buzz’ face so all three of them are visible again. Buzz holds up a picture he’s apparently drawn earlier.
“For you.”
“Wow, thank you Buzz.”
Tom moves to sit next to Dougie so they both can see the picture and can be seen on the other side of the call as well. Still bearing in mind their earlier conversation, he doesn’t want Dougie to feel left out.
Gi waves at the camera.
“Hi Dougie.”
Dougie waves back and Tom can hear him trying to suppress a giggle as he watches Buddy copying his mummy’s movement.
“Harry and Danny are out and have left us behind so we’ve been in my room working on a song.”
Tom makes a face even though he isn’t angry at Harry and Danny at all but it makes Buzz laugh.
“A new one? Can you play it for us?”, Gi asks and Buzz chimes in.
“Play song, dada.”
Tom looks at Dougie. After all, it’s his song and he gets to decide if it’s ready to be presented to the public. Even if the public means Gi and his sons.
Dougie shrugs. “Yeah, why not.”
“It hasn’t got any lyrics yet, though”, Tom explains before they start.
Dougie plays the melody while Tom tries to accompany him as best as he can. They play the song twice through. It’s still a bit rough at some points but Tom likes it more the more often he hears it.
“Play song”, Buzz laughs and runs over to his drums again. A moment later, his bangs fill their ears again and Buddy starts to whine at the sudden noise.
Tom casts a glance at Dougie and sees him smiling brightly. Gi doesn’t seem quite so cheerful as she tries to get Buzz to play a bit more quiet. Tom feels a sudden pang of missing, missing his wife and above all his sons while he looks at the three of them on the screen of his phone.
Eventually, Gi turns back to them.
“Sorry, I think Buddy wants a feed and also, it’s almost bath time. Just wanted to quickly check in and say hi.”
“Actually”, Dougie turns to Tom and throws him a half-smile, “I could do with something to eat, too.”
Tom nods. “Food sounds great.”
He looks back at the screen when he hears Gi tell Buzz to say good-bye to him. Buzz comes back to her and attempts to kiss the phone which Gi can only prevent by holding it up so high that Tom and Dougie can only see the carpet for a moment.
Then the picture moves, Tom suspects Gi is standing up from the floor and he is proven right only seconds later.
“We've got to go now, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay. We’re going to get us something to eat, too.”
“Bye dada”, that’s Buzz.
“Bye Buzz. Bye Buddy. Love you.”
“Bye.”
When the screen has gone black, Tom looks sideways at Dougie who is still smiling softly and Tom thinks that he can even spot a trace of longing on Dougie’s face. There must be a reason none of Dougie’s past relationships have lasted too long even though neither of them know what that reason might be exactly. But Tom suspects that there’s a side to Dougie that wants this for himself: A long-term relationship, a wife, kids.
The moment is broken when Dougie puts his guitar to the side and stands up from the bed.
“Right. Food.”
“Room service?”
Dougie nods and they make quick work of deciding what they want for dinner and placing their order via the phone.
The food comes quickly and they both delve in. While they eat they talk about everything, excelling at finishing off each other’s thoughts and sentences. Unimportant stuff, funny anecdotes and somehow they end up at ‘have you had an idea for dino poop yet?’
Tom laughs and shakes his head. He’s been too busy writing his other stuff and he says so to Dougie.
“So is that what you do when you’re hiding in your room all day?”
“Yep. I’m working on a new book at the moment.”
“Is it a sequel to your Christmasaurus?”
Tom almost chokes on the bread he’s just stuffed into his mouth.
“A sequel? The Christmasaurus is not even published yet.”
“That’s not a reason. It’s good, you really should do another book of that.”
“Maybe I will, one day. But I wanna wait and see how people like the first one before I decide to continue down that road.”
“So what is it you’re writing now, then?”, Dougie asks.
“It’s set in a very small village in Cumbria and-“
“Why in Cumbria? Why not Essex?
“Because Essex isn’t remote enough by far. I needed somewhere isolated.”
“What for?”
“For the setting. Christ, Dougie, if you want to know what it’s about, then let me explain.”
Dougie just grins at him and loads his plate with salad again. Hoping that will be enough food to keep Dougie silent for a moment, Tom goes on to tell him what his second novel is about.
“So, it’s set in a very small village and it’s basically about this old man who’s lived in that village for all his life but decides that now that he’s almost eighty he wants to see the world. But he can’t afford to travel so he gets lots of travel guides and BILDBÄNDE from lots of different regions and towns and countries and he travels there in his imagination. Sometimes he takes some of the village’s kids with him on his travels and they make lots of discoveries and solve secrets that have been secrets for hundreds and thousands of years and-“
While Tom has talked, Dougie has finished his food and can now interrupt him again.
“So is it a children’s book?”
Tom shrugs.
“Not really sure. I’d like to think it’s something in-between, like the Christmasaurus is, too. But also, I’m still in the early stages, there’s a lot that can change still.”
“It sounds fun”, Dougie says and he looks sufficiently intrigued that Tom can’t help but just has to offer.
“D’you wanna read a bit?”
Dougie’s whole face lights up at that and he nods keenly.
Tom gets up to fetch his laptop and on the way back to the bed he draws the curtains because it has started to get dark outside and also, he finds it much more cosy like this. He opens the text document and scrolls to the latest chapter.
“Here, this is the latest part so far. You should get into it easily enough without having read the beginning itself.”
As Dougie starts to read, Tom makes himself comfortable on the bed and checks his Twitter and Instagram for updates. Then he takes a quick snap of Dougie and posts it on Instagram, captions it ‘Dougie and me hanging out in the hotel in Glasgow while the other two are off on family duty’.
When Dougie is finished he looks up with a big smile on his face.
“This is fantastic. What happens next?”
“That’s just the thing”, Tom says and sits up. “I don’t know yet. Well, I mean I do know where I have to go next with it but I’m not sure yet how to make the transition.”
“What are your options then?”
And Tom explains the different ways he has already thought about but none of them really appeal to him, none of them feel right. Dougie adds his own opinion to the mix, he asks questions that make Tom think of even more ways the story could develop into and he gets so many new ideas from talking the story over with Dougie that he finally has to get out a notepad and write them down.
Tom enjoys brainstorming with Dougie like this immensely and feels incredibly inspired and motivated. It helps that they know each other so well, know each other’s ways of thinking which sometimes are very similar and at other points differ greatly. They bounce ideas off each other the same way they do when writing a song - which to be honest hasn’t happened in a very long while now. Tom suddenly realises how much he has missed working with Dougie in this way and he can tell from how chatty and excited and enthusiastic Dougie is that he feels the same.
It’s only when more and more yawns interrupt their talking that they realise how late it is. They decide to stop for today and get some well-earned sleep.
When Dougie is already half out the door, he turns back to Tom once more.
“It’s not true what I said earlier. I still really do enjoy this tour.”
Tom leans against the door frame.
“It’s just different. Doesn’t mean it has to be worse than the old days, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. It isn’t.
“See you for breakfast tomorrow?”
“Sure thing. Good night.”
“Night”, Tom murmurs and watches Dougie enter his room next door. Different, that’s what it is. Not worse.
Enjoy!
Characters: Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter (others mentioned)
Pairing: Fletcher/Poynter - Floynter (but this isn’t really slash, rather just friendship)
September 15, 2016: Glasgow
Tom is standing in the lobby of their hotel in Glasgow. They arrived half an hour before, they had terrible traffic on their way up from Manchester and now he can’t sit down anymore, his butt feels so numb. He’s already brought his bags and his acoustic guitar up to his room and has come down again to see what the others have planned for the rest of their day. There’s no show on travel day and they’ll get to the venue tomorrow at midday to check everything out and have some more last-minute rehearsals. That means that the rest of today is free.
His phone beeps and when he gets it out of his pocket, he sees he’s had an e-mail from his publisher about some minor details about the publication of the Christmasaurus. He starts typing an answer when he hears Danny’s booming laugh. Looking up, he sees him trotting down the stairs with Georgia in tow. A few seconds later, on the other side of the hall, the doors of the elevator open and Harry, Dougie and Izzy who has Lola in her arms step out. Harry’s handling their pushchair and takes Lola from Izzy to seat her in it.
Everyone comes over to where Tom is standing.
“Lola needs to get a bit of fresh air”, Harry declares. “We’re going out for a bit if that’s okay?”
“Yeah, sure”, Tom nods but he doesn’t miss the slightly frustrated look on Dougie’s face.
“We’re off as well.” That’s Danny.
“We’re meeting a friend of Georgia’s for dinner.”
“Alright, see you guys later then.”
“Guys, I just wanted to-”, Dougie starts but is interrupted by Lola who starts to cry.
“Sorry, Doug, we need to get moving. She hardly slept at all on the way here. Let’s talk later, yeah?”
“Right.”
The two couples set off and Tom quickly saves the e-mail he had started to write before everyone had come down. There’s a sigh coming from Dougie who’d been standing a few metres in front of him. He now turns around and walks over to Tom.
“Are you alright?” Tom enquires.
“Yeah. D’you have a minute?”
“Sure. There’s no wife, kid or friend waiting for me.”
It’s meant to be a joke but Tom can see from Dougie’s face that might have just kind of addressed the problem here. That is, if there even is a problem. But he can see what it must look like to Dougie: Two of his band mates bringing their family with them on tour and a third one who has his family waiting for him at home while he himself has no one. He doesn’t say anything about it though, doesn’t ask if that’s the reason why Dougie’s seems to be a bit down. Dougie will talk about it in his own time if it only bothers him enough.
“D’you mind going over a song idea?”
“Yes, let’s.”
They take the stairs, their rooms are only on the first floor, after all, and head for Tom’s room. There’s no need for discussion: Tom’s house and Tom’s room have always been their meeting points whenever they all come together. It’s like an unspoken agreement.
“Let me just get my guitar”, Dougie says and quickly dips into his own room.
Tom opens his door and holds it open for Dougie when he appears back in the corridor, guitar in hand. They settle on the bed, facing each other and Tom grabs his own guitar, ready to play along or fill in any gaps or make improvements to whatever parts of this new song Dougie doesn’t feel are good enough yet.
“I haven’t got any lyrics yet”, Dougie says while fiddling with the strings and tuning the high E string. There must be something wrong with that guitar of his for that string is always out of tune but Dougie loves this guitar and has written quite a few songs on it.
“And it’s still missing a middle eight. Maybe you can figure something out.”
Tom grins. “Go ahead, then. I can’t figure anything out unless I’ve heard that song of yours, can I?”
“Alright, here it comes.”
Dougie starts to play then and Tom instantly likes this song. It has a nice flow to it as well as a bit of melancholy and there are some great chord changes in there as well. Tom beams at Dougie who is concentrating on the chords and seemingly doesn’t notice him. When he finishes, he looks up at Tom with a half-smile on his face.
“It still needs a bit of work-“
“It sounds great. I really like it.”
“Well, it’s not complete crap.”
“It’s really good, Doug. When did you come up with that?”
“Yesterday before soundcheck. I was just playing around really and suddenly I was playing the first two lines and then started from there.”
Dougie almost looks a bit embarrassed so Tom is quick to voice his appreciation again.
“I love it. What key is it in, is it in F?”
“Yep, it’s in F. Starts off in B though, then it moves to C, to A minor, back to C and then to F. That’s the first two lines.”
Dougie’s started to play the song again, slowly, and names the chords so Tom can play along. Once Tom has the verse down, they move to the chorus.
“I’m not sure how I want it to get back to the verse at that point though”, Dougie admits once they’ve run through the chorus as well.
Tom plays it again and experiments with a few chords at the end of it but none of them feel right.
“What about we move it to D-minor for the middle eight?”, he asks. “Something like this maybe?”
Tom plays a chord sequence but Dougie doesn’t seem entirely convinced. He joins and makes a few modifications.
It takes them a while but eventually they are both satisfied with the music. At least for the moment. Writing a song is a process that sometimes takes months until a song is really finished for good.
“What about lyrics, then?”, Tom asks.
“I haven’t got any yet.”
“Any ideas what it could be about?”
Dougie shrugs. “Maybe something about how everything was better in the old days.”
He sounds bitter suddenly and Tom looks up from where he had been leafing through his lyric book looking for unused lyrics.
Dougie is looking out of the window. All the smiles and friendly banter from before are gone. There is a hard line around his mouth and his fingers are curling over a crease in the bed sheets.
Tom remembers the moment in the hotel lobby that afternoon when Dougie had seemed so unhappy about Harry and Danny setting off on their own.
“What is it, Dougs?”
There was no point in asking if Dougie is alright, Tom thinks, when it’s so clear that he’s not. He gets no answer from him for a moment though. Then, Dougie sighs and turns to look at him.
“Nothing. Sorry. Forget about that.”
“Don’t give me that. What do you mean by old days?”
Tom is fairly sure what this is about - he’s known Dougie for almost half his life, of course he has an idea what’s wrong - but he doesn’t operate on ‘fairly sure’. He needs Dougie to say it, not only so that Tom can be sure of what to say but also because he knows that Dougie will feel better only for having said what’s on his mind.
Dougie looks away again, this time at the piece of paper they’ve scribbled their chords on while working out the missing part of the song.
“Just… This doesn’t really feel like a tour. We used to really enjoy touring. Everything feels different, this time round.”
Of course it’s different, is what Tom thinks at first. After all, they’re all different. They’ve changed over those 13 years they’ve been together as a band, they’ve grown up, they all got other projects going on as well as the band, they’re married now, have kids. Except that Dougie hasn’t, Tom realises. He also realises that Dougie has just admitted, if only very indirectly, that he doesn’t enjoy the tour. At least not as much as others before.
He has a feeling this is going in the same direction as a conversation they had a few months ago. The differences in their lives have an impact on their life on tour in a way that Dougie probably hasn’t anticipated.
Never have they actually spent so much time apart from each other on a tour. They used to be all over each other, used to spend all their time awake together, either in a car, in a hotel room or in their dressing room, even when they were touring as McBusted. This time, it is different because Harry has brought Izzy and Lola along, Georgia has come with them as well, Tom spends quite some time during the day vlogging and writing. Of course, Dougie also has other projects going on but they’re on pause during the time of the tour and he hasn’t really got anything else to occupy himself with other than the band.
Tom understands and he feels like an idiot not to have thought of that before but still doesn’t really know what to say.
Dougie apparently can read exactly that in his face when he looks at him again.
“Sorry. It’s just… crap. Forget about it.”
“No, you’re right. It is different.”
“Yeah, well, you guys moved on. I understand that. It’s fine.”
“It doesn’t look like that”, Tom says carefully. “And I understand what you mean, you know.”
Dougie throws him a somewhat rueful smile. Tom notices how he’s smoothing out the covers they’re sitting on. He is tense. Dougie doesn’t like to talk about himself and it’s taken him a long time and some very unpleasant experiences to learn that sometimes it helps to talk about what’s going on inside you.
“Let’s just forget about it, okay? Sorry I brought it up. It’s not like we’re having no fun at all, is it? Just… less time together, I suppose. Guess that’s normal.”
“You’re right. But we could change that. You-“
And Tom thinks hard about how to phrase that next part of what he wants to say because he doesn’t want to embarrass Dougie anymore than he already seems to be.
“I simply didn’t notice ‘cos I’ve been so wrapped up in writing. But you’re right. We’ve always said that touring is the best part of our job and that wasn’t only because we all love playing shows. There’s more to enjoying a tour than just having a good time on stage.”
Dougie looks away again and nods slightly. He doesn’t say anything else, but he seems a bit more relaxed when he turns to look at Tom again. The hard line is gone.
Tom senses that the topic is closed. For now. They’re both silent for a moment but it feels good. Settled. Even if nothing’s changed, it helped to talk about it. To admit how they feel and to establish that they both feel that way even if Tom hadn’t realised before. They need to make the band their full-time job during the tour.
“Let’s get back to those lyrics”, Tom says. “Shall we stick with the old days for a moment, see what’s gonna come of that?”
Dougie nods and plays the verse again, stringing words together to go with it. They work at that for a while and they are almost satisfied with their first verse when Tom’s phone beeps and announces a facetime call.
“It’s Gi”, Tom says and accepts the call. Giovanna comes into the picture. She’s sitting on the living room floor, holding Buddy and Tom can hear Buzz playing his drums in the background.
“Hi honey”, he says.
“Hi.” Gi moves around and Buzz comes into the picture as wel. As soon as he spots Tom, the drums stop and he comes scrambling into Gi’s lap and Tom gets a very close-up shot of his face.
“Hi Buzz. What are you up to?”
Gi holds her phone away from Buzz’ face so all three of them are visible again. Buzz holds up a picture he’s apparently drawn earlier.
“For you.”
“Wow, thank you Buzz.”
Tom moves to sit next to Dougie so they both can see the picture and can be seen on the other side of the call as well. Still bearing in mind their earlier conversation, he doesn’t want Dougie to feel left out.
Gi waves at the camera.
“Hi Dougie.”
Dougie waves back and Tom can hear him trying to suppress a giggle as he watches Buddy copying his mummy’s movement.
“Harry and Danny are out and have left us behind so we’ve been in my room working on a song.”
Tom makes a face even though he isn’t angry at Harry and Danny at all but it makes Buzz laugh.
“A new one? Can you play it for us?”, Gi asks and Buzz chimes in.
“Play song, dada.”
Tom looks at Dougie. After all, it’s his song and he gets to decide if it’s ready to be presented to the public. Even if the public means Gi and his sons.
Dougie shrugs. “Yeah, why not.”
“It hasn’t got any lyrics yet, though”, Tom explains before they start.
Dougie plays the melody while Tom tries to accompany him as best as he can. They play the song twice through. It’s still a bit rough at some points but Tom likes it more the more often he hears it.
“Play song”, Buzz laughs and runs over to his drums again. A moment later, his bangs fill their ears again and Buddy starts to whine at the sudden noise.
Tom casts a glance at Dougie and sees him smiling brightly. Gi doesn’t seem quite so cheerful as she tries to get Buzz to play a bit more quiet. Tom feels a sudden pang of missing, missing his wife and above all his sons while he looks at the three of them on the screen of his phone.
Eventually, Gi turns back to them.
“Sorry, I think Buddy wants a feed and also, it’s almost bath time. Just wanted to quickly check in and say hi.”
“Actually”, Dougie turns to Tom and throws him a half-smile, “I could do with something to eat, too.”
Tom nods. “Food sounds great.”
He looks back at the screen when he hears Gi tell Buzz to say good-bye to him. Buzz comes back to her and attempts to kiss the phone which Gi can only prevent by holding it up so high that Tom and Dougie can only see the carpet for a moment.
Then the picture moves, Tom suspects Gi is standing up from the floor and he is proven right only seconds later.
“We've got to go now, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay. We’re going to get us something to eat, too.”
“Bye dada”, that’s Buzz.
“Bye Buzz. Bye Buddy. Love you.”
“Bye.”
When the screen has gone black, Tom looks sideways at Dougie who is still smiling softly and Tom thinks that he can even spot a trace of longing on Dougie’s face. There must be a reason none of Dougie’s past relationships have lasted too long even though neither of them know what that reason might be exactly. But Tom suspects that there’s a side to Dougie that wants this for himself: A long-term relationship, a wife, kids.
The moment is broken when Dougie puts his guitar to the side and stands up from the bed.
“Right. Food.”
“Room service?”
Dougie nods and they make quick work of deciding what they want for dinner and placing their order via the phone.
The food comes quickly and they both delve in. While they eat they talk about everything, excelling at finishing off each other’s thoughts and sentences. Unimportant stuff, funny anecdotes and somehow they end up at ‘have you had an idea for dino poop yet?’
Tom laughs and shakes his head. He’s been too busy writing his other stuff and he says so to Dougie.
“So is that what you do when you’re hiding in your room all day?”
“Yep. I’m working on a new book at the moment.”
“Is it a sequel to your Christmasaurus?”
Tom almost chokes on the bread he’s just stuffed into his mouth.
“A sequel? The Christmasaurus is not even published yet.”
“That’s not a reason. It’s good, you really should do another book of that.”
“Maybe I will, one day. But I wanna wait and see how people like the first one before I decide to continue down that road.”
“So what is it you’re writing now, then?”, Dougie asks.
“It’s set in a very small village in Cumbria and-“
“Why in Cumbria? Why not Essex?
“Because Essex isn’t remote enough by far. I needed somewhere isolated.”
“What for?”
“For the setting. Christ, Dougie, if you want to know what it’s about, then let me explain.”
Dougie just grins at him and loads his plate with salad again. Hoping that will be enough food to keep Dougie silent for a moment, Tom goes on to tell him what his second novel is about.
“So, it’s set in a very small village and it’s basically about this old man who’s lived in that village for all his life but decides that now that he’s almost eighty he wants to see the world. But he can’t afford to travel so he gets lots of travel guides and BILDBÄNDE from lots of different regions and towns and countries and he travels there in his imagination. Sometimes he takes some of the village’s kids with him on his travels and they make lots of discoveries and solve secrets that have been secrets for hundreds and thousands of years and-“
While Tom has talked, Dougie has finished his food and can now interrupt him again.
“So is it a children’s book?”
Tom shrugs.
“Not really sure. I’d like to think it’s something in-between, like the Christmasaurus is, too. But also, I’m still in the early stages, there’s a lot that can change still.”
“It sounds fun”, Dougie says and he looks sufficiently intrigued that Tom can’t help but just has to offer.
“D’you wanna read a bit?”
Dougie’s whole face lights up at that and he nods keenly.
Tom gets up to fetch his laptop and on the way back to the bed he draws the curtains because it has started to get dark outside and also, he finds it much more cosy like this. He opens the text document and scrolls to the latest chapter.
“Here, this is the latest part so far. You should get into it easily enough without having read the beginning itself.”
As Dougie starts to read, Tom makes himself comfortable on the bed and checks his Twitter and Instagram for updates. Then he takes a quick snap of Dougie and posts it on Instagram, captions it ‘Dougie and me hanging out in the hotel in Glasgow while the other two are off on family duty’.
When Dougie is finished he looks up with a big smile on his face.
“This is fantastic. What happens next?”
“That’s just the thing”, Tom says and sits up. “I don’t know yet. Well, I mean I do know where I have to go next with it but I’m not sure yet how to make the transition.”
“What are your options then?”
And Tom explains the different ways he has already thought about but none of them really appeal to him, none of them feel right. Dougie adds his own opinion to the mix, he asks questions that make Tom think of even more ways the story could develop into and he gets so many new ideas from talking the story over with Dougie that he finally has to get out a notepad and write them down.
Tom enjoys brainstorming with Dougie like this immensely and feels incredibly inspired and motivated. It helps that they know each other so well, know each other’s ways of thinking which sometimes are very similar and at other points differ greatly. They bounce ideas off each other the same way they do when writing a song - which to be honest hasn’t happened in a very long while now. Tom suddenly realises how much he has missed working with Dougie in this way and he can tell from how chatty and excited and enthusiastic Dougie is that he feels the same.
It’s only when more and more yawns interrupt their talking that they realise how late it is. They decide to stop for today and get some well-earned sleep.
When Dougie is already half out the door, he turns back to Tom once more.
“It’s not true what I said earlier. I still really do enjoy this tour.”
Tom leans against the door frame.
“It’s just different. Doesn’t mean it has to be worse than the old days, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. It isn’t.
“See you for breakfast tomorrow?”
“Sure thing. Good night.”
“Night”, Tom murmurs and watches Dougie enter his room next door. Different, that’s what it is. Not worse.