CHAPTER NINE : daisy jones, daisy jones

( someone saved my life tonight, part iii )

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CHRISTMAS IN LOS ANGELES is the first time that Marilyn feels a true pang of loneliness. Sure, she's there with her brothers, her sister-in-law, her niece, and her best friends, and sure that seems like a lot, but there's a Mama Dunne-shaped hole in the festivities. That's part of the reason Camila rushes away from the decorating party to grab her camera from a drawer.

"Say 'Feliz Navidad,'" she instructs as she points the camera at Warren.

He's busy hanging a stocking on the fireplace mantelpiece. He finishes securing the decoration and grabs his mug of eggnog, beginning to dance his way across the room towards Mari, who's sitting on the back of the couch just watching. "Hey, Feliz Navidad!" He grabs Marilyn by one of her forearms and pulls her to her feet. "Camera, camera, camera. Look how festive my Mari's looking."

Camila turns so that Marilyn is in the frame. An oversized Santa hat rests on her head, nearly drooping over her eyes, lovingly placed there by Karen no more than a minute ago, and earlier in the evening, she'd threaded candy canes through the large gold hoops of her earrings. She can't fight off the grin that plasters itself on her face as her friend wraps his arm around her, nearly spilling his drink on the floor. "Merry, Merry Christmas!"

Warren tuts disapprovingly at her. "No, no. En Español," he tells her.

She rolls her eyes. "Feliz Navidad," she says to the camera, before turning to look Warren right in the eyes, "bájate de mí."

He releases his hold on her and backs away with a gaping mouth, bringing his free hand to rest against his chest with mock offence. Camila uses his movement across the room to seamlessly pan away to Billy, Graham, Karen, and Julia over by their Christmas tree.

Marilyn can't stop smiling at the videotape.

It's not for another couple of hours, when decorations have been hung, presents have been exchanged, and drinks have been drunk, that Billy decides it's officially time to put Julia down for the night. By the time he finally gets her to sleep, everyone else has piled onto the couches and blunts have been passed around to everyone desiring a smoke.

As he pushes his way through the beaded curtain separating the living room from the hallway, Billy announces, "Well, it took forever, but she's finally asleep."

"She's asleep!" Karen repeats, raising her hands to applaud.

Graham fist pumps the air, crying out "victory!", while Warren and Camila grin at the success. Eddie rocks back and forth in his comfy circle seat, and Marilyn, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of Eddie's chair, thumps the floor a few times with the heel of her hands.

"Come and have some fun," says Camila, curled up in the corner of the couch with a blunt pinched between her fingers.

Billy chuckles softly. "Look, I, uh, I'd like to play something for you, if you're open to it. I understand if you're not."

Before anyone has a chance to react, Eddie flops back into the cushion of his seat. "We're not." The cigarette between his lips and his smug little smile makes his words come out a little forced-sounding. He spreads his legs as he leans back, one of his knees nearly knocking Marilyn square in the back of the head as it falls to the side.

Nobody echoes his statement, turning to look at him with frowns and furrowed brows.

"We're not. Right, guys?" Eddie stammers. Still, nobody agrees with him. "I mean... Mari?" He goes so far as to lightly nudge the girl's leg with his foot, as if the only reason that she isn't backing him up is that she's in some kind of daze and physically can't. She shakes her head at him. "Oh, come on. You can't do this. You can't just walk back in here like nothing happened."

Billy's smile has completely fallen from his face. He glances to the ground. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just gonna go check on Julia."

He turns to go, and the second he's facing the doorway again, everyone on the couch and Mari look pleadingly back at Eddie. Marilyn hits his shin with the back of her hand. "Please?" she mouths.

Eddie relents. He can't resist everyone's puppy-dog eyes.

"Hey, asshole."

Billy stops at the beaded curtain.

"Play the damn song."

MARILYN: It wasn't a bad song. The label thought it was, but I didn't think so. I just thought it was missing something— I thought it was missing someone.

WARREN: [Teddy and Marilyn] thought a female vocalist, one with a rougher voice, might give us an edge.

MARILYN: I suggested to Bear that we put Daisy on the track.

EDDIE: We knew she'd been on Marilyn's record but we didn't actually know anything about her.

GRAHAM: Billy... wasn't thrilled.

MARILYN: He was saying, you know, if we have to have a female vocal on the song, why can't it be me or Karen? And Bear told him, everyone told him, our voices don't have that edge. Billy'd only heard Daisy on Castles Crumbling before then, and for that song, she'd basically used every trick in the book to clear up her tone, so we'd blend better. But, because that's the only time that Billy had ever heard her sing...

The first thing Marilyn hears as she leads Daisy into the recording booth is Billy complaining, which is not all that out of the ordinary. He's pinching the bridge of his nose, while Teddy desperately tries to rectify the situation before the guest of honour arrives.

And, then the guest of honour arrives.

Daisy marches right on in like she owns the place, having noted Marilyn's prior warning about Billy's uptightness but simply not caring about it.

"Hi."

Teddy points a finger on one hand at Daisy, "Daisy Jones," and a finger on the other hand at Billy, "Billy Dunne."

Daisy turns to Billy, while Marilyn leans against the far wall. "I like your song," Daisy tells him. Billy stares for a long moment before he turns and walks out of the booth.

     BILLY: [chuckles, looks down at the ground]

     DAISY: [smiles]

     MARILYN: [laughs, shakes her head] Ah, shit.

     ME: [teasing] Good memories?

     MARILYN: You know the thing about a snowball rolling down a hill?

Billy storms out of the recording booth after only two takes. The first time had been cut short by Daisy requesting the 'audience' ( Graham, Warren, and Eddie ) not be there to watch her, and the second by the two of them singing conflicting lyrics in the chorus.

Someone didn't tell Billy that his precious lyrics got changed.

As her older brother all but shoves past her to get out into the lounge area, Marilyn flashes a thumbs up to Daisy — still waiting in the booth. "I think this is going great!" she calls out. Daisy nods back in mock agreement.

Teddy, Karen, and Tobias follow Billy out of the studio, leaving the girls alone in the room. Marilyn shoves the door to the booth open and leans against the frame. Daisy widens her eyes at her, slipping her headphones down to rest around her neck. "You've survived twenty years with him?"

The blonde laughs. "He's not that bad!" After a moment, though, she adds, "when you're used to him." She reaches out and grabs Daisy by the hand, pulling her towards the door. With her free hand, Daisy removes her headset altogether and rests it over the top of her microphone before following her friend out into the hallway.

"I'm either gonna kill her, or you, or myself, where do you think I should start?" Billy growls. The second Daisy's firey mane of red hair appears in his line of sight, he flits his eyes to her for just long enough to tell her, "We need a minute, thanks," before he turns his attention back to Teddy. "Teddy, can we— uh."

He turns and walks down a short hallway. Daisy pivots to face Teddy. "Is this the part where the men figure out the solution?"

"I highly doubt it," Teddy replies, following Billy down the hall and into the room that the younger boy has just thrown open the door to.

Warren narrows his eyes and tries to peer down the hall after them. "Did he just go into the closet?"

Daisy checks for him. "Yes."

MARILYN: So, Daisy never met the rest of the band while we were recording. I had them come in to do their parts, and then Daisy and I were alone with just Teddy and Tobias because I knew she'd be more comfortable like that, y'know, for her first time in a studio. So, I took the opportunity while the boys were fighting to do proper introductions. [she laughs] When I introduced her to Warren, he tried to cartwheel and fell flat on his face because he wouldn't put down his joint so he couldn't balance.

Even after the proper introductions are done, the boys are still hidden away, arguing with each other. Tobias and Daisy had already long returned to the studio, watching television became boring, and even Debbie — usually happy to fuck around with the guys during their downtime — had taken to reading a magazine instead of interacting with anyone.

"I don't know, man. First, we're letting him back in like it's nothing, now he's got us singing songs with some chick?" comes Eddie's hushed voice from across the room. The word 'chick' is enough to break Karen and Marilyn from their bored dazes.

Karen's head perks up. "Who are you calling chick?" She reclines against the couch and gestures over to Mari, who's leaning against the wall next to Warren. "We're chicks."

Eddie squints and nods his head to the side as Teddy reappears from the storage room. "Yeah, but not really."

"What the fuck?"

"Marilyn, Tweedledum," Teddy begins, nodding at Warren and the girl by his side, effectively stopping the argument-slash-debate that was bound to begin between Mari and Eddie. "Heartbeat of the track. Good work."

With a self-assured smile, Mari nods as Teddy continues past them. "Wait," she says, stopping Teddy in his tracks. "Who's Tweedledee in this exercise?"

The older man shrugs as if it's obvious. "Eddie."

Marilyn laughs, while Warren, oblivious and only focused on his own praise, grins and nudges her side. "Hey, that's nice, man. Nice to know someone's listening."

"Why am I Tweedledee?" Eddie mutters, but Teddy's already wandered right back into the studio.

It becomes clear pretty quickly that even with Teddy out of the room, Billy still isn't planning on getting back into the booth any time soon, so Mari flips a lock of dark brown hair over her shoulder and follows Teddy into the studio. "I have an idea," she announces.

It stops Teddy in his tracks. He turns around, resting his hands on the edge of the mixing desk behind him. "Which is?" From the look in his eyes, Marilyn can tell that, despite his disinterested, nonchalant tone, he's desperate for some kind of solution to their problem.

"Put me in the booth, get me to sing Billy's part."

Teddy sighs. "Why?" he asks. He shifts his weight so that he's no longer resting against his right hand, which he then uses to exasperatedly rub his eyes.

Marilyn raises her brows, surprised that Teddy — who's usually extremely quick to figure out where she's going with things — hasn't got it yet. "He's possessive of his shit. Best case scenario: he realises what I'm doing, storms in, kicks me off, and does his part just to prove a point."

He considers this for a moment. "And worst case?"

"Daisy and I have another duet."

Teddy raises his brows and shrugs back at her. "Fuck it. Go on."

Happy to have won his approval, Marilyn skips into the booth, where Daisy's standing behind her mic with her headphones around her neck. She slips Billy's set of headphones over her curtain of light hair, leaving one ear uncovered for the time being, and glances towards her friend. "You ready?"

Daisy nods, already seeming more comfortable than when she was alone in the small chamber with the eldest of the Dunne siblings. "Let's do it."

They get just over halfway through the song before Billy comes barging into the room and starts waving his arms around like a madman. With a smug smile, Marilyn stops singing and shifts her headset off her ears. She raises her eyebrows at Teddy, whose nod is enough for her to accept as a "thank you, your plan worked."

"Are you ready to record something or do you want to fight more? I'm fine either way," Daisy says, making Marilyn turn away from the window to snort-laugh at the face her brother instantly makes.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," comes Billy's exasperated voice.

Mari sets the headphones over Billy's mic and strolls out of the booth. Daisy's voice follows her out, coming through the speakers the second she's alone in the room. "Hello? Hello, Tobias. Hello, Tobias. Hello..."

"What the fսck is a Tobias?" Billy asks as he lights a cigarette.

Tobias looks up from where he's been fiddling with knobs and switches. "I'm Tobias."

"Testing, one, two, three, four, five—"

Billy forces himself to ignore Daisy's constant sound-checking to complain once again. "Look, Teddy, I trust you. But I don't think you're right about this."

"I'm more than happy to go back in there," Marilyn says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No."

The older man shrugs. "Well, I guess we're just gonna have to wait and find out."

Marilyn reaches over and forcibly turns Billy towards the doorway to the booth, plucks the cigarette out from between his fingers, and shoves him square in the back to make him start walking. Teddy's outstretched hand falls in front of her for her to deposit the cigarette into.

"She has a perverse sense of humour," Tobias comments once Billy is safely inside the recording booth. With no need to join in on Teddy and the Dunne's discussion, he'd taken to listening to Daisy's German rambling.

Teddy and Marilyn chuckle. "You'll have to translate for me," Mari tells him.

Tobias flashes a thumbs up.

"Hey, Billy," Teddy calls out once Billy has got himself set up. "There's a rattle in your mic, so we're just gonna put you two together."

"Perfect!" Daisy calls out.

Billy looks like he's about ready to kill someone, but Teddy sits down as if nothing is wrong.

"There's no rattle," Tobias says, leaning closer to the older man.

Teddy leans forward and strokes his beard, mulling over the situation for a moment. "I know."

"You also have a perverse sense of humour."

     MARILYN: To this day, I still kinda wish we got to do it as our duet. I mean, that we got to record it that way. All's well that ends well, though, right? Well—

"Okay, folks, this is Honeycomb, take four."

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translations:
Feliz Navidad — Merry Christmas.
En Español — In Spanish.
Bájate de mí — Get off me.

a/n:
lowkey considering writing, like, at LEAST two other djats fics bc i'm so in love with warren and eddie like.... thoughts??

i'm posting this at like 4am and i'm TIRED so i'll edit this tomorrow, i promise. i just REALLY wanted to get it out tonight because it's officially been over a month since the last chapter went live.

published : august 27, 2023
word count : 2.6k