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It’s one of those nights tonight.
A pitch black sky dotted with stars served as a backdrop for the lights of Vinyl City that lit up the ground below. Lights that had been shining much brighter as of late, ever since NSR’s ideals had shifted to become more genre-inclusive. And the expanse of it all just so happened to be visible from the lighthouse high upon NSR Tower.
The lighthouse where DJ Subatomic Supernova stood watching. But he wasn’t focused on below.
Stood at the edge of the balcony in an old pullover hoodie that somehow still fit him, Supernova stared up at the starry sky that painted Vinyl City’s backdrop for tonight. The sky full of stars that glimmered at varying intensities, offering mere teasers of what lay beyond the borders of this tiny planet. Stars that felt just like the ones in his own head, as if the galaxy were a mirror staring down at him.
That got him thinking. If the galaxy were a mirror, did that mean Supernova fit its image? Was he truly fit to serve as the image for Earth in the way that the stars served as the image for what lies beyond? Did he really see himself up there?
He shook his head. Of course he did. Of course he saw himself up there, of course he was the perfect fit. He was the only fit. He had to be.
He had no reason to worry about this. So why was he? Why was he suddenly questioning his goals — his purpose — every time the thought even slightly crossed his mind? He already knew what he had to do in order to be remembered in this world. He had no reason to worry, no reason for concern, no reason to doubt himself.
Doubt. What an awful word.
The word tasted foul, tasted like spoiled honey, tasted… incorrect. Honey doesn't spoil. Well, technically speaking, it can under specific circumstances, but who the hell knows that off the top of their head? As far as the public was concerned, honey doesn’t spoil, and DJ Subatomic Supernova doesn’t doubt himself.
Which was what brought him here.
He needed a distraction, needed something else to think about, needed to stop thinking about doubt and get this awful honey taste out of his mouth. He figured stargazing would be his best bet, since he always does that when he’s under stress, but it didn’t seem to be working.
So what now? He couldn’t just keep standing there in an endless cycle of stress and doubt and worry. But what else was there to do other than stand there, look up at the stars and… listen? Listen to the music from the city below, listen to the birds that occasionally flew by, listen…
…to the door that just opened behind him, and the familiar sounding ping that only played when a certain someone detected a heat signature in the area.
“Beat me here again, huh space cadet?”
Neon J.
Supernova looked over his shoulder at the approaching cyborg.
“Evening to you,” he greeted.
“You as well,” J replied, leaning on the railing next to him. “How’s your night watch going?”
“Fairly well. How have you been?”
“Oh, my schedule has been crammed all weeeeeek~,” he sang, “my troops are wanted here, there, and everywhere. You have no idea how it feels to finally get some time off.”
“You certainly sound exhausted,” Supernova said, tilting his head.
J clenched his fist. “Human lungs can only take so much, soldier. But if I have to push them to their very limits for this city’s sake, then that is what I will do,” he said.
“So I take it you’ve been busy.”
“But of coooourse~!” J sang, arms akimbo, “I’ve been hitting district after district. In fact, I think yours is the only one I haven’t stopped by today.” He clenched his fist, looking down at it. “So much running from place to place, so much giving orders, so much—”
“Sounds like a nightmare. I wonder how that feels…” Supernova said teasingly.
J playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “Yeah, yeah, you and your cosmic biology,” he chuckled.
J’s chuckle… a bright strawberry red with the taste to match it. It was one of those things that Supernova noticed and noted in the back of his mind. Like how his stern manager voice when he was barking orders at his boys looked almost blood red and had sprinkles of cayenne, or how the bright red became streaked with white and gold and tasted more like meringue during those rare times when his uproarious laughter filled the room.
It was… nice. Neon J’s voice tasted nice.
Supernova looked back up at the sky.
He always felt weird admitting that, whether it be about J or someone else. But it was true. Comparing J’s voice to his own — blueberry flavoured purple and lavender with the faint taste of sparkling water — he couldn’t deny that the cyborg’s voice tasted good. Better than his, even, and certainly better than spoiled honey.
Oh right. The honey.
His shoulders slumped ever so slightly as the word doubt returned into his mind, as well as the awful taste that came with it. A shame really — for a moment it had seemed he had found the distraction he was looking for. But all good things must come to an end, he supposed.
Seems like Neon J supposed, too.
“Something on your mind?”
Supernova looked over at him again, drumming his fingers on the railing. How does he explain this one? Even though J already knows about his goals in life, he’s still going to think that Supernova’s too full of himself. What does he say? How does he explain this without making it obvious that his mind has been flooded with nothing but foul tasting doubt?
Wait. Why was he worrying about this? If he shouldn’t be worrying about this, then nobody else should either. Honey doesn’t spoil, remember.
“Nothing all that important,” he finally said.
“Are you certain? You’re not talking much tonight, space cadet. That’s rather out of character for you,” J replied.
“Sometimes I just like to let the stars do the talking. Constellations tell stories better than any one person could, don’t you know?”
J crossed his arms. “I feel like you’re lying to me.”
Supernova tilted his head, feigning confusion. “And why would I do that?”
“Supernova, I’m a veteran. I know stress, I know worry, I know anxiety like the back of my own hand,” he said with a wave, “and I’ll be damned if I don’t know how to spot it in others. What is troubling you?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Supernova said, waving the cyborg away.
“Supernova.” J stood on his toes and peered down at the DJ as if he were trying to interrogate him. Supernova sighed. J was already taller than him anyway, why does he feel the need for this?
“If it’s nothing I need to worry about, then you don’t need to worry about it either.”
“Fine!” He dropped down to his regular height. “You may be too stubborn to tell me how you feel, but I’ll still find a way to cheer you up! That’s a proooomiiiiise~!”
Supernova crossed his arms and looked at the other man, shifting his weight onto one leg. “One, I’m not being stubborn, two, how do you plan to do that?”
J paused. “Give me a moment.”
“...Did you not think this far ahea—“
“I said give me a mooomeeeent~!” he sang again, shushing the DJ with a finger. “Hmmmmm… hmm hmmm hmmm…”
Supernova lightly pushed J’s hand away from his face as the cyborg kept humming while tapping his foot. Supernova initially brushed it off as him being a bit too deep in thought, until he noticed that J’s humming became a bit more… rhythmical. Almost… musical.
He was humming a song, and the tapping of his foot acted as a metronome to keep him in time. That wasn’t out of the ordinary for him — he often sang the last word or two of his sentences and was the voice behind 1010 — but what was a little off was that the tune he was humming sounded oddly familiar.
Supernova listened a little closer, trying to not get distracted by the taste of J’s voice as he tried to decipher where the hell he had heard this before.
And then it hit him.
Of course he knows this one. Of course J knows it too.
It’s his music. Supernova’s music.
And he’s humming it right here.
…
...may as well take a listen. It’s his music, after all, who wouldn’t want to sing along?
He leaned on the railing as he listened to J’s humming. The song by itself tasted sickeningly sweet — it was a collaboration with some indie artist from Cast Tech, and one of his only pieces with proper lyrics (which were the other artist’s idea) — but J’s humming made the flavour a bit more tolerable. It helped that J was a pretty good singer. Even when calmly humming his voice still had its usual bombastic sound.
Supernova continued to watch the stars as the sound and taste of J’s humming took over his senses. The sound served as a nice, calming soundtrack to the skies above, but the DJ couldn’t help but think that something was missing from it. Not like a cherry on top kind of something, but more like a filling. A filling to fill a massive hole in the recipe that was this song—
Oh. Of course. The bassline.
One of his best basslines, in fact. Even if he had to stick with the sweetness of the rest of the song, it was still something to be proud of. He was just glad that his speakers didn’t make it taste like coffee grounds. Gross.
But the point still stood — it was one of his best. He couldn’t just let J hum the lyrics without something behind it…
…
...It was an audience of one. He could allow himself to sing along. Just this once.
He listened for where J was in the song — almost at the bridge right before the last chorus — and waited to count himself in before joining J in his humming. He stayed quiet (he wasn’t much of a singer anyway), but just loud enough for J to maybe hear him.
Lucky for Supernova, he did.
Whatever kind of hearing upgrades J received during his reconstruction must have been serving him very well, because almost immediately he turned his head to look at Supernova as his lower register filled the air alongside J’s higher one. Supernova turned his head slightly to look back at J.
And they just stood there. Looking at each other as they kept humming the song right through to the end. They dragged out the last note, right until J signalled the cutoff. Then it was silent, for only but a moment, until J spoke again.
“That was good,” he said.
“It’s my music. Of course it was,” Supernova replied, gesturing to himself.
“No, I meant your singing. I didn’t know you sounded like that.”
Supernova crossed his arms. “I was merely humming the bassline.”
“Even so! If I could still be caught off guard, I would have been just now. Deeper voices always get my a-tten-TION~!” J gave a salute. What was he trying to do now?
“Is that because you’re a tenor who made a boy band of five other tenors using your own voice?”
J raised a hand as if to say something, but paused.
“...maybe. But that’s not my point. My point is that you’re a good singer,” he said.
“My singing is nothing to write home about. I’m a bass, you’re a tenor who is routinely surrounded by a group of other tenors. You’re simply not used to hearing a register as low as mine actually singing anything.”
“Do you know how hard it is to find a good bassline in this day in age? It is but a treacherous search, looking high and low to find just the right sound,” J said, clutching a hand to his chest.
“You really think so, hm?” the DJ asked, tone of voice nearing disbelief territory.
“One! Hundred! Per-ceeeent~!” J sang. “If that’s how you sound just humming, I can only imagine how you would sound actually singing the words to the song.”
Oh.
Oh.
He knew what J was doing. He knew what kind of reverse psychology the cyborg was trying to pull, using flattery to try and get him to sing and lighten up from his state of funk earlier, when he was thinking about stress, and his legacy, and, ew, doubt.
...Had he forgotten about all that already? Just from humming along and bantering with Neon J? Was this man’s on-the-spot plan to cheer him up actually working?
Well, J was nothing if not talented, or at the very least full of surprises.
“Hello? Are you there, space cadet?” J waved a hand in front of him to get his attention.
“Hm?”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re still worried.”
“I was never worried to begin with,” Supernova insisted.
“You can keep telling yourself that. Or, you could just sing with me! It’s just us!”
He was right. It was just them. And Neon “Stage Fright” J was singing with no problem, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. J’s compliments were rather nice, and if just humming got that spoiled honey out of his mouth for a bit…
...maybe he could humour him. Just for tonight.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the DJ said, turning towards the sky again.
“I knew you’d come around. On my count, ready? And a-one, and a-two, and a-one, two, three…”
And the song began.
The first verse came naturally to the both of them, J taking the helm in terms of the words, while Supernova mostly stuck with the harmonies behind him. The song played out as normal, albeit with no actual instrumental, but as their duet progressed, Supernova couldn’t help but notice something.
Listening to the strawberry red of Neon J’s voice and its accompanying taste was nice enough on its own, and his singing had those streaks of white and the faint taste of meringue that his laughter carried. But something about pairing it alongside the purple and lavender hues and blueberry flavour of Supernova’s own voice made it… better. Someway, somehow.
J had raised his voice by the time they reached the second chorus, and Supernova slowly raised his volume behind him. The bombast in J’s voice continued to lead the song no doubt, and Supernova couldn’t help but listen to them both and look at it all.
He couldn’t remember the last time he found himself singing like this, but he couldn’t stop himself, nor did he want to. The flavours of J’s voice mixed with his own was like a sundae — confidence in both strawberry red and blueberry lavender. A kind of confidence he hadn’t sang with in years. Not to mention the fact that the two aforementioned colours blended together to create a sweet orchid colour in the middle.
It was… beautiful.
This was them. Him and Neon J, him and one of the only people in this company that he can stand, blended together. They made this, and it looked… beautiful.
...
...Supernova secretly wished that J could see it too.
He found himself slowly looking over at J as their duet came to its end — turns out he had gotten so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed the song was almost over. Supernova was the one to cut off the last note this time, taking a deep breath right after. Inhale, pause, exhale.
And the silence returned, once again for just a moment. J was the one to break it again.
“Job well done, I’d say,” he said, leaning on the railing.
“I could say the same for you. Your lead has never been hard to follow,” the DJ replied.
“You flatter me.” He turned to face Supernova. “Are you feeling a little better, starstorm?”
Starstorm. There was one he hadn’t heard before. He hadn’t heard it the same way his heart totally hadn’t skipped a beat just then. Nope, definitely not. Answer the question, Supernova.
“...I think I just might be. Thank you for your assistance,” Supernova replied. Admitted.
Neon J pumped his fist. “Mission accomplished. I have taken a vow to make sure this city never loses its shine, you know, and that includes the people within it,” he said proudly.
“You’re a dedicated man of your word, J.”
“I’d be damned if I weren’t.”
Time passes, and they stare up at the stars again, before Neon J says one last thing.
“You know,” he says, “I think we should collaborate one day.”
Supernova didn’t pause before his answer this time.
“I’d like that,” he said.