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bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue · 10 months

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Bebop Crew July Challenge, Day 2: Summer Nights

Thanks to the @bebopcrew community for the prompt list! This one is, of course, inspired by the song “Summer Nights” from Grease. Takes place post-finale.

Summer lovin’, had me a blast…

Summer lovin’, happened so fast…

Faye swore she usually had more sophisticated tastes than the almost-a-century-old film about teenage greasers in the 1950s, peppily singing and dancing their way through high school friendships and romances. Grease, she admitted, was a bit of a guilty pleasure for her, and she knew she’d probably be subject to merciless teasing if any other members of the crew caught her watching it unironically. But she stood by her love of the movie, embarrassing as it may have been.

She knew, of course—she knew very well from experience—that the real world wasn’t like the one portrayed in Grease; it didn’t have musical numbers and dance-offs and perfect happy endings where people’s cars inexplicably took off flying into the sky. (Although she supposed maybe her Red Tail counted…) The real world was filled with hard times, bad luck, scammers and con artists you couldn’t trust. The real world, put simply, sucked. But sometimes it was nice to pretend.

And at the end of a long, crappy day like today—when her bounty heads had all gotten away, her horses had all lost, and to top it all off, there was nothing good to eat anywhere on the ship—it was nice to watch something calming, familiar, silly, that would let her relax and turn off her brain. Particularly when she was in the optimal viewing position: alone, curled up on her bed, with headphones connected to the TV and jammed firmly over her ears. It especially helped if she had a drink or two to go with it, too. (Because of course the ship had that.)

“Damn, Faye,” came a voice, “didn’t realize you were actually twelve years old.” Faye turned in surprise to see Spike standing in the doorway, a sideways grin on his face.

She was going to destroy these headphones.

“Oh, are you talking about this absolute cinematic masterpiece I’m watching?” she said lightly, taking off her headphones so they hung around her neck, but letting the movie continue to play in the background. She knew this whole song by heart anyway, not that she’d readily admit that to Spike. Now that her headphones were off, she could tell they didn’t block out noise very well—stupid cheap things—and the movie’s sounds were quite easily audible through their tinny speakers even when they were plugged in. The T-Birds and the Pink Ladies crooned faintly underneath her words. Tell me more, tell me more….

“This music is giving me diabetes just from listening to it,” Spike complained.

Faye grinned. “Your tastes just aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate it.” She may have dreaded her crewmates’ teasing, but she could give as good as she got.

Spike made his way to Faye’s bed and leaned over her shoulder to look at the movie. A few minutes passed quietly this way, with Spike furrowing his brow, a vaguely confused expression on his face as he took in the action. Finally, he broke the silence. “There’s no way these actors are high schoolers,” he said, jabbing his finger at Rizzo on the screen. “I mean, how old’s that one? 30?”

“I notice you haven’t stopped watching.”

“I just wanna see how stupid it is,” Spike protested. But, just as Faye said, he didn’t stop watching. He kept looking over Faye’s shoulder, leaning against her bedpost in that casual way of his. He was mostly silent except for the occasional, “Who’s that?” and “What’s with that ridiculous getup?” and “Oh, god dammit, they’re singing again?”

Faye found it strange to watch her designated Movie For Bad Days with Spike in the room, judging it all. But she duly fended off his comments: “That’s Frenchy, she’s one of the Pink Ladies”; “You mean that beautiful getup, and it’s from like 120 years ago anyway”; “It’s a musical, Spike, not a snooze-ical. Now shut up, I wanna hear this.”

At one point, Spike pointed to Danny Zuko and asked, with a sly, joking smile, “You think I could pull off that look?”

“As if there was enough grease in the world to tame your hair like that.”

“Find me a pair of leather pants,” he said, “and I’ll get back to you.”

“The real question is, could you dance like that,” said Faye.

“Could I? Sure,” Spike answered. “Would I? With all those weird-ass pelvic thrusts? You couldn’t pay me.”

Faye smiled; she couldn’t help herself. “That’s kinda what you look like when you’re fighting.”

“Please.” Spike shook his head and turned away. “Zucchini or whatever his name is wishes he could do it like me.”

At another point, he blurted out incredulously, “You have this shit memorized?” and Faye realized she’d been unconsciously mouthing the lyrics to one of the songs, matching it word-for-word. She hadn’t even noticed she was doing it.

“You know the exact order of all those tracks on Jet’s favorite Charlie Parker album,” she rejoined.

“I’d better,” Spike grumbled, “after he’s subjected me to it all those times.” Then he looked at her, his brow furrowed again. “How many times have you watched this?”

“Maybe I’m just a genius,” she said, “with a photographic memory. And I can learn things by heart after only seeing them once.”

Spike snorted. “And that’s why you’re so great at blackjack.”

“Screw you, Spike,” she said, taking another swig of alcohol and turning her attention back to the screen.

A few minutes of silence passed before she spoke again.

“I watched this as a kid,” she said, her voice quieter as she reminisced. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Spike leaning in a tiny bit closer to listen. “My friends and I did a cheerleading routine to Greased Lightning one year, and we performed it at our school’s end-of-year exhibition.” Her face split into a surprisingly soft grin at the memory. “One of my friend’s moms showed us the actual movie, and after that we watched it so many times that we memorized all the songs, not just Greased Lightning, and we’d act them out when we were bored. God, we made up whole dance routines to them.” She gave a small laugh. “We must have looked so ridiculous. There weren’t enough of us for all the roles, so usually one of us was all of the T-Birds at once, and one of us was all the Pink Ladies. It’s one of the memories that came back.”

She wasn’t usually this unguarded, especially not when she talked about herself, and especially not when she recalled another snatch of memory about her past life. It usually just brought back what had been taken from her, what would never be again. It felt like physical pain, like jabbing at a bruise or a gunshot wound that hadn’t fully healed.

She wasn’t sure what had changed today. Maybe it was the alcohol. Or maybe it was as if the wound was finally starting to scar over. Her past memories no longer always came with the sharp pang of the reminder of what she didn’t have. Now, she could recall the happiness of back then, too, and just appreciate it for what it was.

Or maybe it was because she wasn’t entirely friendless anymore. Although she’d never consider doing a choreographed dance routine to Greased Lightning with the friends she had now. (Then again, it did make her laugh to imagine Spike forced into what he’d called “that ridiculous getup,” a deep scowl on his face as he halfheartedly performed the movements.)

What mattered was that her friends were there. In a way, they’d always been there, there on the Bebop—the place she’d flitted into and out of at will, the place she’d refused to ever truly consider a home, the only place left for her after every place she remembered from her childhood was destroyed. After spending so long on the ship with Spike and Jet and Ed and Ein—these people who didn’t abandon her, even if they left for a while—she was just beginning to appreciate that.

Spike appeared to consider her words for a while, looking surprisingly thoughtful, pensive. Faye wondered if he was imagining what she must have looked like as a kid, twirling and dancing around with her friends. She’d only been a year or two younger than when she’d recorded the VHS for her future self, after all.

Then, abruptly, his face snapped back into its usual cool, lazy expression. “So…you’re not a genius with a photographic memory.”

“Maybe I just had to watch it once back then to memorize it,” she said, her light tone returning as well. “And how do you know I’m not a genius? Sixty years is a long time to keep something in your head, you know.”

That was another sign she was recovering from having lost her memories and then gotten them back. She could joke about it. The wound didn’t feel too fresh, too raw. The realization made her heart feel light.

“Now shut up,” she said, a faint smile on her face. “I wanna watch.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but obligingly shut up. But he did elbow Faye, prompting her to scooch over, and then clambered onto her bed next to her, leaning over to see the screen without touching her. Faye didn’t kick him off.

And together—Spike with his knees drawn up to his chest, Faye mouthing and sometimes softly singing all the lyrics she could remember, both of them taking alternating swigs from the bottle between them—they watched.

Summer dreams ripped at the seams,

But oh, those summer nights….

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