Oh Captain
happy birthday
Sebastian didn’t really know the extent to which his upbringing was different until he was actually thrown into a more conventional setting.
This may seem eccentric to most but is coming from someone who called their father Captain, because, hey, everyone else did. It does something to you, living side-stage when it’s supposed to be bedtime because most eight year olds had school in the morning. At the time, his school was a tour bus.
What was odd was how much of a small, confined space he could be raised in yet get so lost in so quickly. The way girls would strut around topless despite his presence, the way every night he would inhale the scent of booze and drugs while doing homework backstage during the shows he didn’t watch. Seeing his father adorning feather boas and teased hair, sometimes kissing his single band mates during a set and strip teasing- sure, he noticed that all of this was so different from the norm and it confused his for a while. But it also enthralled the young boy, beginning to suck him into a musical vortex that his loving, drug altered father didn’t know how to shield him from.
His grandparents ending up being the ones to pull him out and stick him into third grade. At this age, no one knew of the controversial glam-rock band S.O.S, and even as he got older it didn’t matter because his very low social standing stuck and outweighed his father’s semi-stardom.
Sebastian didn’t miss touring then because he was kind of like the band’s annoying little brother- they’d rather him not be there but would protect him with their lives. And they treated him how their teenage selves would’ve wanted to be treated had they been able to tour with their idols as a kid. He was forgotten a lot though, and even at the end of his year run of touring as an extension of the band, he still received unwelcoming looks from anyone who entered the bus that didn’t play an instrument- as if he was a torn in their side to ruin the fun.
He thinks of this every time he starts to miss it or when Captain calls at ungodly hours and says he’s alone on the bus with an extreme case of homesickness, but mostly right before they all come back.
Lately, homecomings and birthdays coincided. The thing is that between the months of December and May, not a birthday outside of the band occurs. So while they didn’t enjoy being away for that long without so much as a day to see their families, it was thought of as being special that after such a such a long leg of touring, his birthday is what they stop for. Sebastian, he thinks of it as an unnecessary interruption and has never wished for the delay of the occurrence of his sixteenth nearly as much as on the day of.
It was always quite the opposite, but today just couldn’t be worse.
Not from the view of anyone other than him, though. Like, for his almost-cousin, Kate- she got her ears pierced two days ago and is excited that her dad can see them right after the swellings gone down. Or from his grandfather’s point of view who’s glad that the nighttime storms stopped so he wouldn’t have to battle mosquitos while trying to barbeque in the damp outside. His grandmother and Aunt Tessa are relieved that almost-Aunt Micah hasn’t burned any of the dinner in her desperate efforts to help.
It seems like everything it going according to plan without a hitch. Uncle Will is questionably watching SpongeBob while nursing a beer that cousin Robert keeps stealing sips of when his father goes to taste-test side dishes. Grandpa sits under almost-cousin Kara and tries to have a sincere conversation with the three-year-old about cars. Grandma Rosa, Aunt Tessa, and Ursula are trying to find a way to get Micah out of the kitchen with the help of all the other adults awaiting not burned food from the card table. Cousin Tyler and almost-cousin Kate and Alec sit on the porch of the modest California home, worn from two generations being raised in its confines.
This in itself is a rarity and honestly, Sebastian doesn’t want to be the one to ruin it all this year.
He fidgets all over the place in the backyard- his legs bouncing up and down and feet rolling from ball to heel as he pinches at his jeans. He’s only moments from starting to pace. It doesn’t even stop the hurting, but it’s distracting as hell. To everyone around him, even, and this is why he was sent out in the first place.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here!” Sebastian exclaims.
“Oh. Well, I really am sorry, Seb. Seriously, I didn’t-“
“How the hell can you not notice gonorrhea?”
It’s hard trying to keep his voice down and make Cody realize how angry he is via phone and it’s frustrating that they’re never in the same place anymore.
“Well I don’t have symptoms, fuck, I don’t even know how long I’ve had it-“
Sebastian hangs up because Cody’s obviously not getting how pissed off he is with hushed tones, and even though there’s a goddamn fire inside him, he’s not expecting sympathy. Sebastian honestly doesn’t know Cody very well but people who give infected blowjobs backstage in the school’s theater didn’t seem like the give-a-fuck type. And he knew this wasn’t a good idea, Cody was a curiosity turned infatuation…turned infection.
He stomps around to the front yard and just as he steps on the porch Kate lets out a yelp and points down the street to which their eyes follow and see the white van with a single anchor on the side dangerously barreling onto the street at a questionable speed. The horn starts to honk and hands fly out of the window in waves. While Sebastian’s cousins jump up to frantically wave their arms as if they’ll miss the house, he walks in.
When he opens the door, the noise announces their arrival and the family rushes the small foyer. He hears the sliding of the van door, the welcome homes, the claps and damn near cheers. He almost has to push through a forming crowd of family to get to the entryway of the kitchen. The four men walk in and they look taken aback for maybe a split second, Sebastian thinks they’re startled a bit like they’re fans- they’ve been gone for so long, but he can see them visibly relax at the sight of their faces from his place behind the crowd of his family crammed into the entranceway.
They hugged with closed eyes as they breathed in the scent of home and took in the warmth of familiarity. This was the place where they weren’t at all expected to be as they acted on stage, where they weren’t called Captain, Zabra, BluePeter, Bee, and Jack. Well, the exceptions could be Captain and Jack, but it still seemed different coming from family. He couldn’t help but grin hard at the sight of welcome and clutch at his forearm to stop from flailing. He’d never get over the excitement from homecomings, but this gesture was also from the searing pain.
And Captain knew the second he barged through the door and saw the one person he was most excited to see over the shoulder of Grandma Rosa as she bombarded him with tight hugs and messy kisses. Well, at least Sebastian thought he did.
Captain had a way of making Sebastian shrink under his gaze when Sebastian had at least a good three inches over him.
“God, ma, this house. Hell, I feel sixteen,” Captain says as he detaches himself from the clinging woman. And he keeps eye contact with Sebastian until he’s suddenly in front of him. His blonde hair forever needs to be cut, and the remains of show makeup linger in the creases of his brown eyes that are heavier than Sebastian remembers, but he hugs him tightly like he does remember and Captain’s smile is as big as his and shows all these big, white teeth. His voice is kind of raspy from the singing, but Grandma’s got a pitcher of tea for that and his clothes are shiny, gleaming just like his too-many teeth.
“Happy birthday, Sebastian.”
This may seem eccentric to most but is coming from someone who called their father Captain, because, hey, everyone else did. It does something to you, living side-stage when it’s supposed to be bedtime because most eight year olds had school in the morning. At the time, his school was a tour bus.
What was odd was how much of a small, confined space he could be raised in yet get so lost in so quickly. The way girls would strut around topless despite his presence, the way every night he would inhale the scent of booze and drugs while doing homework backstage during the shows he didn’t watch. Seeing his father adorning feather boas and teased hair, sometimes kissing his single band mates during a set and strip teasing- sure, he noticed that all of this was so different from the norm and it confused his for a while. But it also enthralled the young boy, beginning to suck him into a musical vortex that his loving, drug altered father didn’t know how to shield him from.
His grandparents ending up being the ones to pull him out and stick him into third grade. At this age, no one knew of the controversial glam-rock band S.O.S, and even as he got older it didn’t matter because his very low social standing stuck and outweighed his father’s semi-stardom.
Sebastian didn’t miss touring then because he was kind of like the band’s annoying little brother- they’d rather him not be there but would protect him with their lives. And they treated him how their teenage selves would’ve wanted to be treated had they been able to tour with their idols as a kid. He was forgotten a lot though, and even at the end of his year run of touring as an extension of the band, he still received unwelcoming looks from anyone who entered the bus that didn’t play an instrument- as if he was a torn in their side to ruin the fun.
He thinks of this every time he starts to miss it or when Captain calls at ungodly hours and says he’s alone on the bus with an extreme case of homesickness, but mostly right before they all come back.
Lately, homecomings and birthdays coincided. The thing is that between the months of December and May, not a birthday outside of the band occurs. So while they didn’t enjoy being away for that long without so much as a day to see their families, it was thought of as being special that after such a such a long leg of touring, his birthday is what they stop for. Sebastian, he thinks of it as an unnecessary interruption and has never wished for the delay of the occurrence of his sixteenth nearly as much as on the day of.
It was always quite the opposite, but today just couldn’t be worse.
Not from the view of anyone other than him, though. Like, for his almost-cousin, Kate- she got her ears pierced two days ago and is excited that her dad can see them right after the swellings gone down. Or from his grandfather’s point of view who’s glad that the nighttime storms stopped so he wouldn’t have to battle mosquitos while trying to barbeque in the damp outside. His grandmother and Aunt Tessa are relieved that almost-Aunt Micah hasn’t burned any of the dinner in her desperate efforts to help.
It seems like everything it going according to plan without a hitch. Uncle Will is questionably watching SpongeBob while nursing a beer that cousin Robert keeps stealing sips of when his father goes to taste-test side dishes. Grandpa sits under almost-cousin Kara and tries to have a sincere conversation with the three-year-old about cars. Grandma Rosa, Aunt Tessa, and Ursula are trying to find a way to get Micah out of the kitchen with the help of all the other adults awaiting not burned food from the card table. Cousin Tyler and almost-cousin Kate and Alec sit on the porch of the modest California home, worn from two generations being raised in its confines.
This in itself is a rarity and honestly, Sebastian doesn’t want to be the one to ruin it all this year.
He fidgets all over the place in the backyard- his legs bouncing up and down and feet rolling from ball to heel as he pinches at his jeans. He’s only moments from starting to pace. It doesn’t even stop the hurting, but it’s distracting as hell. To everyone around him, even, and this is why he was sent out in the first place.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here!” Sebastian exclaims.
“Oh. Well, I really am sorry, Seb. Seriously, I didn’t-“
“How the hell can you not notice gonorrhea?”
It’s hard trying to keep his voice down and make Cody realize how angry he is via phone and it’s frustrating that they’re never in the same place anymore.
“Well I don’t have symptoms, fuck, I don’t even know how long I’ve had it-“
Sebastian hangs up because Cody’s obviously not getting how pissed off he is with hushed tones, and even though there’s a goddamn fire inside him, he’s not expecting sympathy. Sebastian honestly doesn’t know Cody very well but people who give infected blowjobs backstage in the school’s theater didn’t seem like the give-a-fuck type. And he knew this wasn’t a good idea, Cody was a curiosity turned infatuation…turned infection.
He stomps around to the front yard and just as he steps on the porch Kate lets out a yelp and points down the street to which their eyes follow and see the white van with a single anchor on the side dangerously barreling onto the street at a questionable speed. The horn starts to honk and hands fly out of the window in waves. While Sebastian’s cousins jump up to frantically wave their arms as if they’ll miss the house, he walks in.
When he opens the door, the noise announces their arrival and the family rushes the small foyer. He hears the sliding of the van door, the welcome homes, the claps and damn near cheers. He almost has to push through a forming crowd of family to get to the entryway of the kitchen. The four men walk in and they look taken aback for maybe a split second, Sebastian thinks they’re startled a bit like they’re fans- they’ve been gone for so long, but he can see them visibly relax at the sight of their faces from his place behind the crowd of his family crammed into the entranceway.
They hugged with closed eyes as they breathed in the scent of home and took in the warmth of familiarity. This was the place where they weren’t at all expected to be as they acted on stage, where they weren’t called Captain, Zabra, BluePeter, Bee, and Jack. Well, the exceptions could be Captain and Jack, but it still seemed different coming from family. He couldn’t help but grin hard at the sight of welcome and clutch at his forearm to stop from flailing. He’d never get over the excitement from homecomings, but this gesture was also from the searing pain.
And Captain knew the second he barged through the door and saw the one person he was most excited to see over the shoulder of Grandma Rosa as she bombarded him with tight hugs and messy kisses. Well, at least Sebastian thought he did.
Captain had a way of making Sebastian shrink under his gaze when Sebastian had at least a good three inches over him.
“God, ma, this house. Hell, I feel sixteen,” Captain says as he detaches himself from the clinging woman. And he keeps eye contact with Sebastian until he’s suddenly in front of him. His blonde hair forever needs to be cut, and the remains of show makeup linger in the creases of his brown eyes that are heavier than Sebastian remembers, but he hugs him tightly like he does remember and Captain’s smile is as big as his and shows all these big, white teeth. His voice is kind of raspy from the singing, but Grandma’s got a pitcher of tea for that and his clothes are shiny, gleaming just like his too-many teeth.
“Happy birthday, Sebastian.”
♠ ♠ ♠
sorry, alithank you, christian