┏━━━━ •❃°•°❀°•°❃• ━━━━┓
chapter two
" I am no better
and neither are you
We are the same
whatever we do. "
┗━━━━ •❃°•°❀°•°❃• ━━━━┛

NOW PLAYING: "EVERYDAY PEOPLE" by SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE (1968)

________

GRAHAM: I guess you could say she was our first fan. Not even my mom thought we'd make it out of the garage, but Rory, she...

RORY: I always had faith in Graham. I could tell he wanted it. That spark, the same one that always lit up my eyes whenever I had the perfect idea for a song, it was there in him, too, every time he touched a guitar.

GRAHAM: She looked at me one day and said, "If you want this — if you really, really want this — it is something you have to grab by the throat and don't let go. Because it will thrash and scream and kick and make you fight for it. But you can never give up. Because you have a gift, Graham Dunne."

RORY: I told him it is not a walk in the park.

GRAHAM: "You have a gift." I think that was the first and only time someone's said that to me.

∴━━━ ✿ ━━━∴

BY THE END of 1968, Rory has dedicated a photo album to all of the pictures she has taken of the band. She'd cut out letters from magazines to create a mismatched title glued to the front (and covered with clear tape to prevent water damage): 'THE DUNNE BROTHERS, PT 1.'

Song ideas are no longer just in her notebook. They're taped to her bedroom walls and scrawled on napkins or the back of receipts; inspiration has started to strike her like it never has before now that she has an outlet to pour her creativity into. Even if they aren't playing her songs, she can still share them with Graham, and that's a big step for her.

"Where did you say you were going?" Rory's father questions as he leans against the doorframe of the upstairs bathroom.

When most people see that Papá is a white man, they get confused. Interracial marriages are far from common. And Rory, with her tan skin and dark hair and accent from speaking Spanish exclusively for the first third of her life, supposes she only resembles him in the way her eyes are shaped. She and Mateo take heavily after their mother's side of the family.

Their history is... non-traditional. Her father, Richard Bennett, had been on vacation in Colombia when he met her mother. The two had a fling and Mamá didn't learn she was pregnant until well after he'd gone back to the U.S., resulting in Mateo. Five years later, Papá earned enough money to return to Colombia and find the woman he hadn't stopped thinking about since he left. Then they formally got together and then married, having Rory shortly after.

Papá had stayed with them in Colombia for years, picking up Spanish and their customs quickly. But when Abuelo got sick, they were told they had better treatment options in the States. So, when Rory was five, they left Colombia with her grandparents and moved to Papá's hometown of Hazelwood, Pennsylvania. And so here they have been ever since, even after both grandparents have passed.

It was not so cold in Colombia.

"My friend's house," Rory replies as she drags a brush through her hair. "His mom is making us dinner and we are watching movies."

"What friend?" he asks. "And what movies?"

Having been prepared to be drilled on her New Year's Eve plans, Rory has these answers prepared. "My friend Graham Dunne. His mom is going to be home with us all night. I think we're watching that Batman movie that came out a few years ago and Planet of the Apes. Five of us will be there."

"A boy's house?"

"Papá, I am almost fifteen," Rory reminds him, setting the brush down. "One of the boys is about as tall as me. Another is obsessed with this other girl in our grade. Nothing is going to happen— you can trust me."

"I know," he replies. "I do." He reaches out for his daughter and tugs her into his large chest, planting a kiss on top of her head. "I just worry."

"I can give you a full summary of Planet of the Apes when I get back if you want. To prove we really watched it."

Papá laughs. His scratchy beard tickles her forehead when he pulls away. "No thanks. Is Mateo driving you?"

"Yeah." She slightly bristles at that.

The Dunne family only lives on the next block, but it's December in Pennsylvania and night has already fallen, leaving the temperatures frigid and sidewalks covered in ice. Rory probably couldn't make it down the driveway without almost wiping out. Down the street? Impossible. She would be a human icicle before she got four houses down.

She is not going to some exciting party, but this is the first time Rory has New Year's Eve plans of her own, so she can't help but feel excited butterflies swarming in her gut. She actually has friends. Friends who invite her to things and want to hang out with her on holidays! Friends whose houses she can spend the night at!

It's her first-ever sleepover, and she couldn't be more thrilled.

Her parents can't even say anything bad about her outfit. She had no reason to dress up for the boys she sees every day, so she'd put on a pair of brown plaid trousers and a red sweater, letting her hair cascade down her back in a dark curtain. No makeup. No suspicious compartments in her clothes in which to stash alcohol.

Rory supposes it doesn't help that her first group of real friends is made entirely of boys. Maybe she had jumped the gun on that.

After giving Mamá the Dunne family's phone number and explaining exactly who will be there, she is finally allowed to leave the house. Mateo's car is tense on the short ride over. They sit in silence for a few moments before Rory breaks it with a sigh.

"I can tell you want to say something," she tells him. "Dilo."

"How do you know them again?" Mateo asks. Though it's dark in the car, Rory can tell that his thick brows are knit together. "These four guys?"

"They are in a band," Rory replies. "Graham's brother is named Billy— you were in the same grade."

"Ay, Díos," Mateo groans, "ese caremonda."

Rory rolls her eyes at her brother's disdain for the guy. As far as she can tell, they're both control freaks. It should have bonded them together.

"That still doesn't explain how you know them."

She slouches in her seat. "I have been helping Graham learn how to write songs."

"What?" Mateo glances at her. "And he... listens to you? About your silly little lyrics?"

"Yes, he does," Rory grinds out through clenched teeth, her face burning. This is why she'd waited so long to tell her family about The Dunne Brothers and her involvement with them. "And he is improving."

"I'm sure," he snorts through a laugh as he pulls into the driveway. "Maybe you could help him rewrite 'Happy Birthday'. Or — what is it — the nursery rhyme about the little star—"

Rory opens the door and practically flings herself out of the car with her bag. "Goodbye, Mateo."

As she slams it shut and hurries toward the house to get away from her brother singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" loud enough for her to hear, she forgets about the hazardous conditions. It happens so fast. Her foot slips on the pavement and her bag's weight yanks her straight down. Rory's elbow slams against the ice, shock traveling up her arm, pain bursting along her tailbone. She scrambles like a turtle on its shell for a few seconds before she's able to get on her feet again.

Does Matteo get out to help her? No. He is laughing.

"Aurora!" Mrs. Dunne exclaims when she opens the front door, smiling wide. "How are— oh, honey, what's wrong?"

Rory blinks back the tears that have gathered in her eyes, her bottom lip trembling when she says, "I slipped."

"Come inside, dear. Are you bleeding anywhere?"

She is. In her attempt to catch her fall, her right palm had been scratched open on the rough ice. She's almost positive her elbow has lost a bit of skin as well.

"Hey! Rory's here!" Warren exclaims from the living room as they pass it, but when all the boys turn and see her holding back tears, his smile quickly drops. "Oh."

"What happened?" Graham questions.

"She fell on the ice," Mrs. Dunne replies over her shoulder. "I'm going to help her clean up a bit."

Rory is led to a bathroom with a green seashell sink that immediately catches her eye, momentarily distracting her from the pain. Mrs. Dunne instructs her to sit on the lid of the toilet seat and rummages through a cabinet. Rory removes her coat, rolls the sleeve of her sweater above her elbow, and notices that it had indeed been scratched open, leaving speckles of blood on the fabric.

"I can put that in the wash for you," Mrs. Dunne offers. "You can wear one of Graham's hoodies— he won't mind." She holds up a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide. "This will sting a little."

Thankfully, Rory never actually cries. Her tears just linger right on the precipice of her lower lids, lining them with silver, growing so heavy that she wonders if the sheer weight of them will force them to spill onto her cheeks. She holds herself together even as her heart clenches at the tender way Mrs. Dunne cares for her wounds. Her mother would have blamed her for falling, using it as a lesson not to run while there is ice on the ground, but Graham's mother doesn't do that at all. And she barely knows the woman, only having met her once or twice.

She joins the boys in the living room once she has Band-Aids over her wounds and is wearing one of Graham's black hoodies. She uses the long sleeves to hide her hands as she inches into the room, preparing to get made fun of.

"Hey, Rory," Chuck greets her with a smile. "We made you a bowl of popcorn, but Eddie ate most of it already."

"Did not!" Eddie exclaims, though the crumbs on his lap suggest otherwise.

"Ice is no joke," Warren says. He throws a piece of popcorn into the air and catches it in his mouth. "Last week I wiped out and still have a bruise on my ass cheek."

"Which one?" Eddie asks.

"Left."

"She doesn't want to know about your ass cheeks, Warren," Graham tells him. To Rory, he says, "You can sit wherever. The movie's gonna be on TV in twenty minutes. There are drinks and stuff in the fridge, and dinner's almost done. My mom said she's gonna be upstairs in her room for most of the night so we'll have the first floor to ourselves."

"Cool," Rory says. "Thanks."

She picks her way over the precarious terrain provided by four growing boys' sprawled-out limbs and finds an empty spot in front of the sofa. Squeezing herself into the small space between Chuck and Eddie, she accepts the spare blanket that Graham tosses at her and grabs her half-empty bowl of popcorn.

A set of footsteps thunders down the staircase. A moment later, Billy appears in the doorway of the living room, zipping his winter coat and fiddling with his curls. His heeled boots make click-clack sounds on the tile.

"Billy's going to a party," Graham informs the others with a mischievous grin. "The girl he likes is gonna be there."

This causes a chorus of "oooooooooooooh" from the other boys. Billy rolls his eyes and turns to them. "Hi. And Goodbye."

"Don't have too much fun!" Eddie says.

Warren makes obnoxious kissing noises up until Billy slams the front door shut behind him.

"I can't believe we won't see him until next year," Chuck says in a fake somber tone, struggling to fight the grin off his face.

Eddie boos and throws a piece of popcorn at him. "Those jokes are never funny."

After being stuffed with Mrs. Dunne's fabulous homemade pot roast, finishing Batman, and posing for photos, Warren reveals a secret.

"Guys," he says, keeping his voice hushed as he searches through his overnight bag. He pulls out a bottle. "I brought alcohol."

"Do you even know what kind that is?" Chuck asks. The brand and name of the beverage are written in some fancy script that Rory can't decipher, so she wouldn't be able to tell what it was if she tried.

Warren shrugs. "Doesn't matter, does it? It's booze." He produces a white box as well. "And cigarettes."

"I heard those mess up your teeth," Chuck says.

"Wow, I didn't know we invited my mom," Eddie teases with a roll of his eyes. "You got a lighter for those cigs?"

Rory merely watches as the boys struggle to open the bottle of mystery booze and light their cigarettes. She laughs when Graham puts his in his mouth backward and Warren has to turn it around for him. It takes several tries for Warren to spark a flame, but once he does, the rest of the boys (except Chuck) cheer.

"You want one?" Eddie asks, holding out the box to her.

"Oh, no," Rory declines politely. "I'm asthmatic."

It's like she yanked a cord out from the wall. Warren and Graham's heads snap up mid-light, their eyes going wide. Warren yells out, "What?!" and appears to panic. He smacks the cigarette out of his mouth and tries to slam his palm on it to extinguish the flame, only for it to catch his blanket on fire.

Eddie screams. Graham scoots away from the small fire and then pushes himself to his feet, bolting toward the kitchen. He returns with a glass of water that he pours onto the flame. His cigarette gets extinguished in the small bit of liquid that remains in the cup.

After the fire is out, the group is silent. Rory stares at the charred bit of fabric with her mouth open in a gape. That could have been very, very bad.

∴━━━ ✿ ━━━∴

GRAHAM: Warren almost burned my house down once. And he says it didn't happen because Rory doesn't have a picture.

∴━━━ ✿ ━━━∴

"Why didn't you tell us sooner, Rory?" Graham asks.

She twiddles her thumbs in her lap, her voice small when she replies, "I didn't want to spoil the fun."

"It's not spoiling anything when it comes to your health," he assures her. "You could've, like, started dying or something."

"I have my inhaler in my bag," she says. "I think."

"You can't have an asthma attack," Warren says. "We need our songwriter."

"It's not like Billy even lets you perform what I write for you, anyway."

"Don't take it personally." Graham waves his hand dismissively at the mention of his brother. "He's very particular. I don't think he even likes his own songs and that's why we're still doing covers. Better to practice ones people already know for graduation party season so it gets them moving— we're already booking performances for June and July."

"It'll be weird not playing in the garage," Chuck says.

"It'll be great." Eddie reaches across Rory to ruffle Chuck's neat, black hair. "Actual people will watch us."

Rory crosses her arms over her chest indignantly. "Am I not an actual person?"

"Er — you know what I meant."

At 11:59 p.m., the kids watch the clock on the wall, their eyes tracking each tick of the second hand across its face as it gets closer and closer to midnight. Their voices start as whispers and then rise to shouts: "Five, four, three, two, one— HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Warren takes a humongous gulp of the mystery booze in celebration. Rory hugs each of the boys with a smile on her face, already having forgotten about the lingering pain at the base of her spine or the bandages on her hand. It must be a superpower that they have; the ability to make all of her troubles wash away, distracted by their goofiness and their genuine interest in her as a human being.

"To The Dunne Brothers!" Eddie exclaims. "May we actually reach our one-year anniversary this October and blow the audience away with our live shows."

"And never give Rory an asthma attack," Graham adds.

They all chime in, "And never give Rory an asthma attack!"

________

a/n:

ok the fact that BOTH rachel zegler AND alberto rosende are mutuals with sebastian chacon is really messing with my brain. what. what are the odds. ALSO LOOK AT THIS INTERACTION

rachel comments under so many of his posts like 😭 she is me fr bye

sadly this is the last chapter with the Teeny Tiny Baby Dunne Brothers because they'll start growing up so fast so soon! i just want to protect them all from the world and also slap mateo with la chancla

—kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Dilo: Say it

Ay, Díos, ese caremonda: Oh God, that dickhead.

( word count: 2.8k )