#gosh Techno is difficult to write (says me who has only tried like three times)

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

Wilbur. Is going. To get a haircut.

[andrea-odown]

Keep on Singing - Chapter 29

A Sing (2016)-fanfic.

Read it on FF.Net and AO3.

Description: A few months have passed since the grand re-opening of the Moon Theater. All in all everything seems to be fine. But under the surface, everyone has to deal with some problems. Ash is facing writer’s block with her new album, Rosita is enjoying her new life as a famous singer, but has less and less time for her family, Mike is still hiding from some angry bears, Meena may has overcome her insecurity when it comes to singing, but interviews are still a challenge for her, and Johnny wants to turn the garage he and his father used to live in into a youth center. And Buster has to keep the theater running while keeping Ms. Crawly from driving the new secretary crazy and writing a new play.

Chapter 29: Johnny

Granted, there hasn’t been one silent moment ever since Johnny entered Rosita’s apartment. The moment he was through the door, three piglets had been clinging to his legs, and he wish he knew why they didn’t do that when Cia arrived. Yes, they tugged her tail a bit when they wanted attention, but they did  not climb all over her body, hanging on to her legs and making it difficult for her to move.

Okay, who is he kidding? He loves it.

He loves that the piglets use him as monkey bars - no pun intended -, he loves that they use him as some sort of a taxi to get from one room to another, and he absolutely loves the fact that there’s always some sort of noise around here - the laughter, the chatter, he loves every bit of it.

However, when it’s time for dinner, the piglets show that they can behave, too. Well, sort of. They do take their seats at the table and they do eat without making much of a mess, but the laughter and the chatter although it softens a bit, it’s still there.

Johnny thinks that it’d even be there in some sort of way when they were completely silent.

It just seems to be so much part of this room, this apartment, this  life, that he can’t imagine a moment without it. Not even a silent moment.

When he had waited for Rosita and Norman to come back from their date, he had felt it for the first time. The piglets had been fast asleep, Cia had already left, but he still heard it.

Somehow it made him feel warm and comfortable and just right.

Yes, the piglets had almost given him a heart attack that day, but they are good kids.

He wonders if things had been any close to this back when his mum had still been alive. He can’t remember, well, not really. He was so young when she died.

If it weren’t for the photographs of her, he wouldn’t even know what she looked like.

But sometimes he remembers things, just small details, nothing important, just the feeling of a hand patting his head or sitting at a table eating his favorite food and feeling surrounded by warmth and love. He can’t really see his mother, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t even see his father, but he knows they’re there.

It’s his favorite memory.

And sometimes, he even hears the laughter and the chatter in this memory, too.

“So, Johnny,” Rosita says as she hands him a plate of spaghetti, “you have to tell me! What was Gunter’s alarm to remind you to leave on Friday? Techno music? The most annoying beeping sound one can think of?”

“No, worse,” Johnny says, almost choking on his first bite of spaghetti because the memory alone almost makes him burst into laughter again. “A foghorn.”

“A foghorn?” Rosita repeats, and he nods.

“Half of us dropped their tools out of pure shock,” he tells her. “Mike darted towards the door, Ash sent her hammer flying. I do think that was on purpose, though.”

Rosita’s lips curl and then she laughs, the piglets and Norman, even Cia, joining.

Their laughter fills the room, only adding to the warmth spreading in Johnny’s chest which now turns into something bubbling trying to break lose.

And so he doesn’t hold back any longer and laughs with them so much it brings tears to his eyes.

He loves every second of it.

When he and Cia get ready to leave - Rosita and Norman still have to bring their twenty-five piglets to bed, so it’s only logical that their guests leave before that - Johnny sees how Cia bends down and whispers something into Rosita’s ear.

The pig’s eyes widen.

“Really?” she says. “That’s all?”

“That’s all,” Cia assures her. “And remember the conditions!”

“I do!”

He must still look rather surprised because when they’re out in the corridor, Cia just shrugs.

“I told Rosita about the bag of wonders,” she explains.

“Hey!” Johnny protests. “You made us swear an oath to never tell anyone about it!”

“And I didn’t do anything to make you break that oath,” Cia says. “Because I told Rosita, not you. Besides, she isn’t allowed to tell anyone or use it for herself.”

“But still,” Johnny says, crossing his arms over his chest. “This might call for a special meeting with the piglets.”

Cia twists her mouth into a smirk. “You really want to meet with all of them  alone?”

“Uhm, no.”

“Thought so!” Cia says before she gives a silent laugh.

They’re out on the street now.

“Okay, I have to go that way,” Cia explains, turning into said direction.

“Want a ride?” Johnny asks, nodding towards his truck parked further down the street.

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “It’s not that far.”

“Then allow me to walk you home.” There might be a lot of things people can say about his father, but he at least taught Johnny how to treat a lady, something Johnny is always going to remember as one of the good things he learned from him.

Cia shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

For a few moments they walk in silence, until curiosity gets the best of Johnny. He’s probably not supposed to talk about it, heck, he isn’t even supposed to know about it, but still, he has to ask.

“How are things going on the heights-front?” he asks, and because he isn’t  supposed to ask, he quickly adds, “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Cia sighs. “So far, I managed to steer around any heights-problematic situations,” she says. “It asks for a bit creativity sometimes, but it’s okay.”

“When I’m around you can always ask me for help.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do after your help with the piglets.”

Cia smiles at him, but there’s something in her eyes that doesn’t quite match the smile, something sad and hurt, and Johnny decides to lighten the mood.

“And you have to see it that way,” he says. “Things could be worse.”

“They could?”

“Yes, your last name could be Clawson,” he explains.

He expects her to frown at him, to ask who this Clawson is, but instead she bites down her lip and avoids his eyes.

And it hits him.

“Oh my gosh, your last name is Clawson!” he calls out, mentally slapping himself for making this supposed-to-be joke when he did  not know what her last name really is. “You’re related to Frederic Clawson, the world’s most famous free climber?”

He didn’t mean it to come out as a question, but it does.

“He’s my father,” Cia replies, and Johnny’s heart sinks.

Yes, this joke definitely went down like a lead balloon.

“Ouch,” he says. “That’s tough.”

“Does he … does he know?” he asks further.

Really, what’s gotten into him? He usually doesn’t ask that many questions, let alone when it comes to such a tricky topic!

“He does, and he’s fine with it. My brother’s the climbing talent, so it’s okay.” Cia still isn’t looking at him. Johnny prepares himself for a few moments of awkward silence, but Cia keeps talking.

“My family still wants me to take over the climbing school one day,” she says. “Just the administration, though, and my brother the action part.”

“And you don’t want this?”

“No.” She slightly shakes her head. “That’s why I came here. To find my own way. My family doesn’t know, though. They think I just took a year off before I start working at the climbing school. Never had the heart to tell them the truth.”

“I see.”

Now it’s Johnny’s turn to lower his eyes. He can relate to that. It took a lot to make him finally tell his father that he didn’t want to be in his gang.

And then he remembers something else.

He digs into the pocket of his jacket.

“Well, this makes so much more sense now,” he says, holding out the piece of paper to her.

“Is that my poem?” she asks.

“Yes,” he replies. “You dropped it at the garage. It’s good.”

“You read it?” Her eyes widen.

“I … I didn’t mean to! It’s just I didn’t know what it was, so I started reading it and then I couldn’t stop because the words really spoke to me and …” He breaks off to take a deep breath. “Here.”

Cia looks from him to the piece of paper than back to him.

“If you really like it that much, you should keep it,” she finally says.

“Really?”

“Really,” she repeats before she sighs again. “It was one of the things I thought I could make a living of - my poems. Unfortunately, no publisher was interested.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Johnny says, putting the piece of paper back into his pocket. “And they must have been blind, by the way. It’s really good.” He hesitates for a moment. “Or maybe I’m just saying that because I can relate to what you’re saying in this poem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” - he takes a deep breath - “what you told me about your family and what you’re saying in this poem, I’ve been through something similar.”

“It’s not easy, huh?”

“No.”

He doesn’t like how dark the mood is right now, such a big difference to the light and full-of-laughter atmosphere back in Rosita’s apartment.

“You’re making it really hard for me to pay you back, by the way,” he says. “First, you help me with the piglets, now you give me this poem. Reeeeeally hard, I might say.”

He hopes she gets that he’s exaggerating here. Well, not really, but he wants to make it sound like he is.

It seems to work because a little smile tugs at the corners of Cia’s mouth. “You don’t have to pay me back anything, Johnny.”

“But I want to!” He really does. There must be something he can do. “Hey, how about this? I know I said I’ll help you with your fear of hei … of falling down whenever I’m around. But what about I help you work on it? My father showed me a few tricks when I was a kid and starting climbing all over the garage. Although I do think, that’s a gorilla-thing to do.”

“I don’t know.”

“Please?”

Cia sighs. “Okay.”

“Awesome!”

Well, Cia doesn’t look like she thinks it’s awesome, but she smiles nonetheless. Johnny’s fine with that. He wants to help her like she helped him.

When he’s back at his apartment, he takes out the poem from his pocket and reads it again, amazed by how much these words still speak to him after reading them so often.

And then he finds himself humming a melody, a melody he’s never heard before.

Yes, he said he’d help Cia with her fear of heights, but maybe he can help her with a little more than that.

He quickly reaches for his phone.

“Hi Ash!” he says when the porcupine answers the call. “It’s Johnny. I need your help with something.”