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be my angel | three - september 1991

warnings: swearing

word count: 3.6k

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Standing in front of the Bell Tower, Teddie suddenly feels awfully nervous. She hasn’t spent a lot of time with Nick alone and now that she thinks about it more, asking him to help with the photos feels like a dumb idea. Nick had been the one who had brought it up – asking about how and where she gets her films developed. And now – a few days later – Teddie isn’t so sure what had convinced her to tell him to join her in the darkroom if he wanted to.

She can’t quite see into the bar, but she can hear the music they’re playing. It’s loud and harsh, and Ted feels a little overwhelmed with it. She gives herself another moment, before she makes her way inside. The sound hits her like a brick wall, and she has to reorient herself before she feels good enough to really enter the bar. She can’t immediately spot Nick, and she stands idly in the middle of the bar for a good minute. Ted considers her options, but before she can decide on a course of action, Nick emerges from a door behind the bar.

“You’re early.” he states blankly, setting down the tray of clean glasses he’d been carrying.

“It’s four.” Ted offers, suddenly unsure if that was actually the time they had agreed on.

His face falls a little when he rushes to check the watch on his wrist. The quiet swear that falls from him almost disappears under the still thundering music.

“Give me five minutes. Sit, do you want something to drink?” the words come uncharacteristically rushed.

Nick tosses a small back of chips her way before he vanishes into the back of the bar once again.

Teddie feels like a child waiting for her parent. She doesn’t belong here and without Nick - or Noah - to ground her in this place, she feels more and more like an intruder with every minute that passes. But the bag of chips sustains her until Nick returns, stuffing a set of keys into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Alright,” Nick announces as he comes to stand in front of her, “Lead the way.”

Her fear that the walk would be quiet and uncomfortable seems to be unfounded. Nick is surprisingly easy to make conversation with, even without Noah being present to bridge the gap between them. And while it’s light and surface-level, Ted learns a few new things about him. Nick also grants her a few more entries on the seemingly never-ending list of music she wants to catch up on. Contrary to Noah, he doesn’t make a big scene when she doesn’t recognise a title he tells her about. Not that Noah's upset was ever meant seriously, but sometimes his antics do get to her.

By the time they reach the building that houses the photo studio and dark room, Ted’s list has grown by a good few items. And while she isn’t entirely sure what Nick is gaining from this, she can’t deny that she is at least a little excited to spend more time with him.

Nick walks a few steps behind her when they enter the building, and Ted can’t decide if it’s because he doesn’t know where he’s going or because he too feels a little out of place. She leads him up the winding stairs of the stairwell that’ll take them to the darkroom quickest.

“Are you here a lot?” Nick asks as they make another turn through the unchanging hallways.

“Not that often. The drawing rooms are in a different building, I only come here for the dark room and the printer.” Ted explains.

Nick asks about what she actually studies, claiming that Noah hadn’t really made a lot of sense. Teddie can’t exactly blame him because she knows that Noah is prone to jumbling facts around, and who really knows what Noah actually told him.

Through a little bit of sweet-talking, she had managed to convince the guy who usually hands out the keys to the non-photography students to let her keep one of the keys, allowing her to come and go whenever she pleased. Teddie doesn’t like that she can charm her way around people like that, but with how easily some people placed stones in her way, it’s only fair that she also plays the game.

Nick quietly follows her into the antechamber. He remains by the door while she takes off her jacket and tosses it over one of the chairs.

“You can leave anything you don’t need in here. The door doesn’t open from the outside.” she explains, pulling her hair out of her face with the little red and white plaid seersucker hair tie her mother had made for her some months before she had left.

Nick shrugs off his denim jacket, hanging it over the back of the same chair hers is lying on.

“Anything I need to know?”

“Room has to stay dark, or your photos are gone. Don’t touch anything and don’t taste anything? Noah tried to dip his finger into the fixer one time when I took him. I would not recommend that.”

From the way Nick shakes his head, she gathers that he isn’t exactly surprised.

“Got it.” he replies, still quietly laughing to himself.

Nick follows her into the actual dark room.

She goes about her usual preparations, getting all of the solutions and developers out of the shelves. Nick looks a little out of place, but putting him to work is turning out to be a little trickier than she had expected.

“Can you get the scales? Should be in the cupboard on the right.” she points vaguely towards where they should be.

After a little rummaging, Nick places the digital scales on the workbench next to her.

“Do you have to measure all of this?” She nods, “Ratios need to be right or else we’ll end up with something indistinguishable. And you only really get one shot with this.”

Teddie doesn’t know how much Nick actually cares about any of this, but she explains the process anyway. Noah’s disinterest had been much more obvious.

“The longest part is the drying. I have three rolls, but it shouldn’t take much longer than an hour or so – clean up included.” “I thought this would take at least half a day.” Nick sounds a little surprised, “But then again, I don’t know anything about this.”

Ted gives a chuckle in reply.

Nick hovers behind her while she continues to prepare the rolls of him. She manages to sneak a glance at him. In the harsh red light, his features look much more exaggerated. Ted briefly wonders if he’d let her take more pictures.

The actual developing goes smoothly. Nick hovers a little, but she hadn’t expected anything else from him. He’d come to help and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do except hanging lengths of film up to dry while Teddie continues to work on the next batch. At least he’s more helpful than Noah had been the last time she’d brought him. Working with Nick like this feels surprisingly easy. It’s almost as if they’ve done this a thousand times already. He asks a few clarifying questions, but for the most part, he seems to have figured out what she needs him to do fairly quickly. And while they work in silence for the most part, Ted does enjoy the brief exchanges they have.

“How long have you been here now?” Nick asks after a while.

“Little over a year.”

Ted just sees him shaking his head as he laughs, “I could have sworn that Noah said you just moved here.”

“Feels a little like it.” Ted admits quietly, “I haven’t really felt like I’ve arrived here before I moved in with him.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Dorm. The people I lived with were new too, and it was all a little – sedentary. I think living with Noah has been good for me. I get out a lot more.”

He gives a knowing nod in response, “Noah’s good for that. That boy knows just about everyone that you need to know. He’s a little – oblivious, I guess – sometimes, but he means well.”

Ted hands him the last section of film to hang up. She thinks that she knows what Nick means. Noah has an interesting way of thinking about finances sometimes. She’s sure that he doesn’t make enough at the record store to finance the place they live in. Even with the additional money she brings in, it should be impossible to for them to afford the loft. The portion Ted gives to the rent cannot be large enough to cover the rest.

“It’s hard to hide that you come from money when most of the people you hang out with have at some point questioned how they’ll buy groceries.” Nick finally adds, “He’s trying, but sometimes it’s just very obvious that he’s never really had to worry about a thing.”

The way Nick talks about him makes it sound as if Ted should be aware of Noah’s upbringing. But whenever they’d talked about their families so far, he had been quick to dismiss the conversation. Noah had told her more than once that his relationship with his family just wasn’t good, and Teddie had never thought to dig much deeper.

“Where did you say you’re from again?” Nick asks then, as he hands her one of the bowls they’d used.

“Place called Brevard. North Carolina.”

“You’re a long way from home, huh? How’d you end up here?”

And so Ted tells him about how she’d always seen New York on the TV and thought that it was the best place for an artist to go. Another girl from her street had gone to New York to become a writer, and when she’d come back she’d told them all how great it had been there.

Nick’s amused look tells her that he’s heard this tale a thousand times before.

“I thought that the best place for a guy who wants to be in a band was the Bay, so I get it.” There's an awfully sentimental – and almost sad – look on his face then, “Sometimes it works out, and sometimes you have to crawl back home with your tail tucked between your legs.”

Ted wonders if she should dig deeper, but with Nick, it’s always so hard to know. She watches as his front teeth dig into his lip for a moment.

“But you like what you’re doing here? Fine arts.”

The little accent he puts on makes Teddie laugh out loud.

“I do. It’s nice.”

Nick fixes her with a curious look, but ultimately doesn’t push further.

It does feel a little like a lie.

It’s not like Ted doesn’t enjoy the program she is in right now, but she also can’t deny that she loves taking pictures. Swapping programs just like that feels a little daunting, though. She’s never been one to just give up on something, just because it feels a little tricky at the moment.

“When will you know if you’ve won this contest?” Ted asks, instead of dwelling on the matter for much longer.

“End of October.” Nick replies, “We have a friend who’s getting the zine for us before it officially releases, so we should know before the end of the day on the 31st.”

“Have you played over there before?”

Nick shakes his head, “We’ve been around the states a few times, but that’s it. It’s been a little slow.”

“So what I’m hearing is no pressure at all.”

Nick laughs in response, shaking his head.

“Whatever happens, happens. If we win that’ll be great and if we don’t – at least a few more people will know about us.”

“Assuming you win, what happens then?”

“Ideally, we figure out a way to get to Europe, play a bunch of festivals, make some money and new fans, see some new things.” he explains, “Don’t get me wrong. The album is selling so much better than expected, but Europe would change everything. I didn’t think that we’d sell more than a hundred units at all, and now they’ve told us that we might have the bestselling debut on that label. I don’t even want to think about how many more it could be if things go ideal with this contest and the festival.”

Nick looks as if the excitement about this all is bubbling just beneath the surface of his skin, but he’s not quite allowing himself to feel it properly. She can see the beginnings of a smile twitching at the corners of his lips, but it never becomes more, and Ted wonders if he doesn’t show it because he doesn’t know her well enough or if he actually won’t allow himself to be excited about this. Judging from how reserved he usually is, she’s inclined to believe that the latter is true.

The tomato shaped timer rings.

The blaring noise of it tears through the momentary silence that had spread between them.

Ted quickly moves towards where they’d hung up the strips of film, to check if the first ones had already dried.

She picks one of the dried strips up, holding it up in front of her face. She brings the strip over to the enlarger, sliding it under the lens. Ted fiddles with dials for a moment. And once the image has cleared up, and she’s faced with the test image she’d taken of Noah just before they had left or the show, she steps away from the device again.

“Do you want to have a look?”

Nick steps forward, mimicking what Ted had done a moment ago. Ted starts to move the film toward showing the remaining photos on this strip. He remains stoically silent the entire time, almost making Ted believe that he doesn’t like a single one of the pictures.

When she’s reached the end of the strip, Nick steps away from the enlarger again.

“Ted.” he says after a long moment of silence, “I don’t know what to say.”

Ted wrings her hands together, nervously awaiting Nick’s judgement. Somehow, this more nerve-wracking than she had expected. She understands now how much actually rides on these pictures, and she really does not want to be the thing that ruins their chances at winning this contest.

“If the rest are anything like this, we’re practically in Europe already.”

And this time she sees a little bit more of a smile on his face.

“I’m sorry that we doubted you like that.” he sounds so very sincere in his apology, “These are incredible, Ted. I think we stand a real chance now.”

They have made a preliminary choice to take back to the rest of the band. Nick understandably doesn’t want to make this decision on his own.

Ted thinks that the batch that they’ve marked for printing is really good. She’s proud of how the pictures have turned out, especially considering that she’d never taken pictures of a concert before that. And hearing how impressed Nick had been with the pictures had lifted her mood even further.

“Have you ever thought about doing this? Like full-time?” Nick asks as they’re putting their jackets back on, “I know a couple of people that could need a photographer – and they’d probably be able to pay you in real money and not store credit for a Blockbuster and stale sandwiches.”

“I don’t know, Nick.”

“I mean it. Half of the pictures in magazines look the same, but you could add a breath of fresh air. Show some old dudes how it’s supposed to be done.”

The trace of excitement in his voice is almost infectious.

Ted can’t deny that she had thought about it before, but her parents had always insisted that she needed stability. She had seen first-hand what could happen if someone loses their job. During the brief period when her father had been out of work in 1985, they had only managed to come by because her mother had decided to work again. Fortunately, they’d only had a few months when things had looked truly dire, but other families in the community hadn’t been that lucky.

The experience had left her with a lingering fear, though.

And now that she is living somewhat on her own, she doesn’t want to risk losing the little bit of income she has. Crawling back home because she can’t afford to live here anymore sounds like the last thing she wants. Just the idea of having to admit defeat to her brothers is enough to make her want to stay in her lane.

“How about this, next time you come around the Bell Tower I’ll introduce you to a couple of people. And if you feel like you can, you do the show. No one says that you have to jump into the deep end of the pool and go full-time immediately. I’ve been in bands for years, and I still have to take multiple jobs in between tours to keep myself over water.”

Ted tries to find a fault in his reasoning, but his logic seems sound.

By the time they’re back at the apartment, Ted as agreed to his offer.

If Nick was willing to extend her grace and trust with something as important as these pictures, she should be able to do the same.

Ted hadn’t realised just how much time they’d spent in the darkroom until they step back out onto the street. The sun is already significantly lower in the sky.

Their conversation continues on the way home, and while Ted still feels as if he’s holding her at an arm’s length, she thinks that she’s starting to get a little bit of a better picture of who Nick is.

The route he shows her back to the apartment is quite a bit shorter than the one she’s been taking so far, and Ted tries her best to memorise it.

They’re greeted by music and laughter as the elevator door slides open. Ted unlocks the grate, letting them into the main space of the apartment. The music is too old to be something Noah has picked, so she assumes that Jesse has come home with him after work. Ted doesn’t mind it at all. Jesse feels like a little piece of home in this big city.

“There you are.” Noah exclaims as he exits his room, “I was starting to get a little worried.”

“Just a little?” Nick asks as he throws his jacket over the back of the sofa.

“Between you two, you��d be fine.” he shrugs, “You’re just in time, though. I guilted Jesse into cooking.”

Ted hangs her jacket up on the little rack next to their door, before she does the same with Nick’s.

“What’s he making?” she asks, as she toes off her shoes.

“You’ll have to ask him. All he said is that you’d be happy about it.” Noah replies.

Nick shakes his head, and Ted is sure that Jesse had told him what he’d be making. It wouldn’t be the first time that Noah just stopped listening to a conversation.

Ted pushes past him into the kitchen.

As soon as the smell hits her, she finds herself back in her grandmas' kitchen.

“Chicken and dumplings. Thought you could use a little bit of home.” Jesse says, without turning away from the stove, “I know I did.”

Ted comes to stand next to him, trying to get a peak into the pot.

“You’re an angel.”

She can’t stop herself from wrapping Jesse up in the tightest hug. Jesse gives a chuckle in return. He pats her back softly.

“Almost done. You wanna get some plates out?”

Maybe she’d tried a little too hard to remove herself from home in the attempt to feel less homesick. But even after being here for a little over a year, she still feels herself longing for the comfort of her mother's kitchen.

The conversation around the table is comfortable. Noah’s account of the guy who tried to scam them with counterfeit Queen tapes makes all of them laugh — Nick included.

Once dinner is cleaned up, and Noah is done complaining that he had to help with the dishes, the four of them reconvene in the living room. Before Ted even has the time to say something, Noah is digging through her bag for the photos.

Ted is glad that Nick convinced her to get all of the pictures printed instead of just the ones they’d use for the contest. Getting this moment of looking back at that night together makes her feel a little more grounded in the group. When she’d taken the pictures, she was fully convinced that Nick would never speak more than a few words to her.

“If you don’t take this one, I’m throwing you out. Both of you.” Noah argues, waving a close-up of Nick in Ted’s face, “I’m not saying that this is the best one, but – Jesse, help me out here.”

“I’m staying out of this debate —”

The conversation quickly escalates into a half-hearted argument with Noah and Ted on one side and Nick on the other, who is adamant that he doesn’t want to be the face of the band. Nick doesn’t yield though, but at the end of the day, Ted knows that she can always just slip the picture into the batch when he’s not looking.

From their they eventually turn to lighter topics and Ted allows herself to sink into the background for a moment.

She watches them talk and laugh and joke, and maybe it’s then that she realise that she feels as if she’s a part of this group.

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