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Stack had never fully understood why Remmick had been so fixated on his little cousin Sammie all those years ago. He could play, play the best damn music Stack had ever heard before or since, especially on that night. The electric guitar of Sammie’s - and the world’s - more recent music didn’t have the same soul he remembered, and any recordings from that time weren’t worth shit. Firstly they weren’t Sammie, secondly the garbled quality made them even more useless.
But sat here, in this bar, with a guitar exactly the same as his father’s, that only Sammie had ever made truly sing, with exactly the same words from so long ago, he started to feel it.
Something deep within his chest was being drawn towards his cousin, reverberating with every pluck of a string, and damn if he didn’t want to bottle that feeling and take it with him.
“I could save you,” he opened his eyes again to stare at Sammie, standing up to put a hand on his shoulder, resisting the urge to just take because this was his baby cousin and he’d survived that night. “Make it so you could play forever…”
Sammie turned on his stool, leaning against the bar, gesturing for Stack to sit again as he pondered. His deft fingers strummed the guitar reverently, as if it wasn’t simply a guitar like any of the ones he’d played everyday of his life, as if it meant as much to him as it did to Stack to hear him play it.
“To play music forever is quite the temptation,” he said gently, accompanying the sentiment with a flourish on the guitar that made something in Stack’s chest ache. “But I think I’ve had enough of life.”
The instinct to simply take flared again. To explain that you may not have the sun but you were alive to everything else. That it was freedom, true freedom, being offered with no provisos or ulterior motives. But the argument died on his lips as Sammie changed up the song and took Stack’s soul with it.
“I can respect that,” he managed to say, and Mary placed a hand on his leg, attempting to smooth out the loneliness that had settled within him.
The guitar suddenly stopped and Stack looked up from Mary’s hand to find Sammie staring hard at him, the scars of Remmick’s claws across his face, the memory and feeling of committing the act through Remmick’s eyes flitting across his mind.
“But I do have something I can offer you, if you’re willing to stay a little further into the evening.” The offer felt heavy, deathly serious, as if Sammy had thought on it since the last time they’d seen each other.
“We’d love to,” Mary smiled, answering for both of them. Neither Stack nor Mary knew whether it was a way to say goodbye, if they needed to see Sammy in a circumstance not stained with blood, or if they just wanted to hear more of Sammie’s music while they could. All those feelings swirled between them and around them, they were just two rocks within the stream of thought and memory that had once been a torrent.
Sammie grinned, suddenly looking younger, and Stack saw the ghost of his baby cousin as he slung the guitar strap over his shoulder and stood up from the bar.
“Damn, I have gotten old,” he muttered as he started heading towards the stage, but he turned back to face them before he reached it, poised to play.
A private concert would be a fitting send off was the thought forming in Stack’s mind but at the first strum it was cut off. A spark ignited within Stack’s chest, burning with warmth and home and calling, calling, calling as all he could do was stare. He felt the fire licking the inside of his ribs, inside Mary’s ribs, all around them, consuming everything in a giant beacon, calling, calling, calling.
It was that night.
It was the juke.
This was… This was everything.
It was that backroom with Smoke, a quiet moment shared between them.
It was scolding, support, anticipation, it was his brother swirling around him, alongside him, as real as Mary was, but warmer, stronger, everywhere. It was Smoke’s relief at his life, it was Stack’s happiness at his peace with Annie, it was victory against the klan, it was the thrill of blood on your teeth, it was the quiet, bone-deep emptiness at their separation.
His little cousin Sammie had summoned the spirit of his brother just for him.
The music began to fade, and suddenly Stack saw the bar again, the guitar hanging loosely around Sammie’s neck, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, breathing heavily.
God he needed it.
The fire was fading in his chest, but Sammie could reignite it whenever he wanted if he just took, just saved, just bit and drained.
Mary leapt while he was still deciding, before he knew what he wanted, the tears in her eyes even as the claws and teeth went to rip and tear.
Stack was still quicker, still stronger. One hand gripped her wrist, one hand wrapped around her throat, holding her still as she strained to reach Sammie.
“We could have it Stack,” she pleaded. “We’d never be alone again. The whole ocean alive and burning with everyone we ever loved, will ever love, never again two stones lost to the water again!”
And Stack understood. Already he was feeling the empty space Smoke had always filled, the absence made raw by the touch of his ghost.
But Sammie was here, and he was family too.
“That’s Sammie, my little cousin, not an ‘it’,” he growled, the remnants of the blaze burning in her eyes as well as his own. He squeezed her throat and it was finally enough to get her to look at him. “He said no,” he said firmly.
“We could save him,” she wheezed out, not fearing the hand around her throat, not trying to remove it, trusting the feelings swirling off him.
“You can’t save me any more than my Pop could,” Sammie chuckled, sat on the edge of the stage. Her gaze slid back to him as he started to hum a gospel hymn, suddenly brought back by the talk of being saved, and the embers finally flickering out in her eyes, and Stack felt safe to release her.
“I’m gonna miss you Sammie,” she said quietly. “ We’re gonna miss you somethin’ dreadful.”
“Appreciate it Miss Mary,” he smiled, lifting the guitar off his neck and resting it on his knees. “I don’t have the strength to do that again, but I hope this can help keep me close.” He let out a long exhale. “That’s the best I can do.”
Stack came closer, Mary, hanging back, not trusting herself in that moment. Sammie was Stack’s family after all, it was his choice. Stack placed a hand on the guitar’s strings, and Sammie took his hand, running it down the strings, creating a strange shuddering sound together.
“Thanks Sammie,” he said, truly meaning it.