. show off

[lily mccarthy]

There's no place like home. As cliche as it sounds it's something Lily's continued to cling to as the years passed before her. The definition of home had changed over time - New Mexico, Los Angeles, the warmth of her own bed...but the familiarity had become her comfort in the chaos. Joe's studio offered further refuge - the closeness of family had brought her down from the highs of her tour, tucked comfortably in the corner of his sound booth as an artist finished rehearsing across the glass. Her dark gaze flickered quickly from the guitar being tuned to her brother in huddle with the producer to the glow of her phone, deleting e-mails and tapping quick replies to her manager and Sammy and Cleo. She barely notices the door to her left swing open, but can't avoid the double take as Zac makes his presence known. Guilt immediately stirs in her stomach - because she's tuned to looking for signs if he's high or not, because there's been such little communication between them lately, because she's secretly seen the tabloid gossip about his whereabouts? Lily can't place it, drawing her arms around her legs to try to stifle it as her chin rests on her knees. She feels the gaze on her before she finds it, half expecting it to be as cold as it was the last time she hazily remembered it. "Hello," Lily greets, ever polite and ever aware of her brother still in the room. "Finally coming back to the studio?"

[isaac mcavoy]

There was no denying that six months meant something. Six months of sobriety and it was the first Isaac had actually felt normal, less like someone pretending to be a healthy person and more like a version of himself he had thought was long gone. Six months and he had finally started to fully expel the toxins in his body, his skin brighter, his eyes clearer. Now when people asked how he was and he told them he was good it felt like less of a lie, the possibilities of his life finally unfurling before him in a way he had denied they ever could since that fateful day his father had died. He felt good, good enough to see through the fog and want to start recording music again. The studio is a familiar space, a safe space, and just being here puts Zac further at ease. He had been concerned about his relationship with Joey, as he was with his relationships with everyone, though he knew Joey had been hurt badly by his behaviour. Even worse, he knew the schtick he had with his sister would have complicated things, throwing up his best friend's defenses even further than even his addiction had. So he's surprised when he enters the booth and sees the familiar girl there, as whilst it was her turf just as much as his, he didn't think Joe would let their sessions coincide. He smiles widely at the fact he was wrong, ignoring any tensions between them, or perhaps just forgetting they were even there in the first place. "Well, well, well. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he grins, throwing a hesitant arm around her whilst she sat for an awkward half-hug. "How are you?"

[lily mccarthy]

He really does look lighter. It's the first thing she thinks when she sees him, even amidst the high strung tension that catches in her throat. Being in such close proximity for so long Lily'd been unable to clock the changes but now, after being away from each other for enough time - it was the first time in a long time he'd entered a room and she recognized the captive energy that held fans hostage on stage. She also recognized the immediate distance that still existed between them, unwinding her arm to clasp over his shoulder with a ghost of a smile. She didn't have much effort in her body for fake niceties, but anything obvious would throw up warning signs for her brother and the last thing she wanted was to derail any momentum for either of them. "Happy to be having a little downtime," she finally pulls back to answer, leaning against the wall as the studio emptied out for presumably Zac and Joey next. Lily's eyebrows shoot up - she'd been half kidding when she expected him to be there to record. "Am I really about to witness Isaac Mcavoy's return to the mic? My tour aside, this is gonna ignite a frenzy."

[isaac mcavoy]

There was a stiffness to Lily's body language that let him know things had shifted between them. Zac had long struggled to understand the fundamentals of their relationship, the truth of what was between them that lay behind his years of veering between brotherly support and the flowing flirtation. The showmance had given him something to appeal to, a backbone to his approach, but he'd lost that now and the tension of their last conversation lay heavy between them. He does what he does best and ignores it. Nodding to Joe, he pulls up a chair beside Lily and lays his guitar down beside it, flopping down and immediately sinking into its depths, kicking his feet up onto the panel in front of them. Easier to look ahead at the artist beyond the window pane than to look at her when he replies. "Oh, just for fun. Nothing serious. What about you, you thinking about your next album already? You're a workaholic."

[lily mccarthy]

Did she regret it? It was the question she fumbled with most in the dark, silence overtaking the space their midnight conversations used to roam. Playing into the are they, aren't they dynamic had been good for optics, for press pickup and album conversations and streams. But was that her? Was that them? Lily hadn't wanted to rely on associations to make a name for herself, but it had felt almost too easy to slip into something that oscillated wildly with their moods. Their closeness had terrified her as much as it eased her, and her high strung heart had lost out to a mind that wasn't big on rash decisions. Her easygoing stage presence often felt like a facade all its own. Chewing idly on her nail, Lily willed her racing heart to still as Zac settled in next to her. She half expected Joey to make some snarky comment about the stories, but he wasn't that type of person and nothing had happened anyway. Right? Her mind reels again, gaze focused on the glass impressions of the trio until she realizes another question's being directed to her. "What? Oh, no...just here to listen. Spotlight can shine on someone else for a little while.". Lily works to relax her shoulders, pushing her hair behind her ears as she eyes his guitar. "Are you two about to torture me with 30 minute guitar solos?"

[isaac mcavoy]

When Zac had just started down the road to fame, he had been starstruck by the people he got to mix with. Invites to VIP parties behind closed doors had opened him up to a world beyond the facade of fame, where he learnt just how different recognisable people could be from their public personas. It was this intoxicating access that had led to him cheating on his wife with a stratospherically famous teenager, that let him believe that everyone had addiction issues so it was no big deal, that allowed him to justify a life of excess to himself because after all, that's just what famous people do. Sitting with Lily, it's the first time he's felt the splinter between public and private with her, leading him to wonder how much of the private Lily McCarthy he really knew. Joe gets a phone call and slips out of the room, an act Isaac can't help reading into. Did he trust them alone together? Did he know something Zac didn't, had she said something to him about how he needn't worry? Trying to push these thoughts from his mind, he laughs, shaking his head. "No, no, just going to feel it out." He glances at the guitar, his stomach churning with anticipation and nervous energy. "Truth be told, I'm pretty scared."

[lily mccarthy]

The hint of reverb buzzes in Lily's mind as her brother steps out, numbing and sweet against the anxious energy that seems to radiate between her and Zac. It's frustrating to feel this way after being so close for so long, a trusted companion that'd crashed out of their daily conversations as easily as he'd slipped in. Another faint echo in her brain, the melody she couldn't shake off as her fingers drifted to his guitar. Plucked chords absentmindedly, lip pulled into her mouth in concentration. Quiet, it was too quiet between them now. "Why, is this too intimate of a setting?" she asks, knowing how raw studio sessions can become, how countless mistakes and honest conversations turn mayhem into magic. She slowly drops her hand, knit cardigan falling over slender fingers as she turns to face him properly. Honest, be honest. "Are you afraid to be close to me now?"

[isaac mcavoy]

All of Zac's relationships with women were laced with duplicity. Whether he was cheating on them with another, or lying to them about his substance abuse, he had become so accustomed to lying that he had forgotten what it felt like to be truthful. That is, until these last few months with Lily. "Oh, no, this is my safe space," he says, gesturing to the room though he really meant his best friend's entire New Mexico property. The last time they had been here, recording the album that he hoped would be his last as a hopeless addict, he had finally found the peace he had always been chasing at the end of a needle. The desert had a calming effect on him, the stillness and the flatness letting him feel insubstantial in a way that gave him true relief. But making music scared him. These last six months had been an exercise in discovery; discovering what it was like to go a week without drugs or alcohol, then a month, then three, etc. Discovering who he was at parties without a beer in his hand, how it felt to text back regularly and without making anyone wait weeks, how it felt to wake up clear-headed and ready for a jog. These had been mixed experiences and though he had performed with Lily, the truth was she had been his safe space, and he didn't know what it would be like without. Though maybe he didn't have to discover that just yet. He stiffens as she turns to face him, knowing her well enough to brace himself for a direct question. It comes quickly and he's relieved that it's an easy one. "You? I could never be afraid of that, Lils. Why would you think that?"

[lily mccarthy]

This is my safe space. Lily hums in agreement, dipping into the well of memories this place held for her. The satisfaction on the day it was completed, buying Joe a cheesy keychain that still hung, worn and dirty, on the ring. Recording her first EP here, naive to the world she was exposing herself to. Witnessing greatness beyond the glass, sometimes just happy to be part of someone else's experience. When she looked to Isaac now, full of color and soberly cautious, gratitude flooded her system to have been along for their meteoric rise. But she also knows the dangers she'd subtly entertained at times, late night hours and the only functioning souls in the room. So much left unsaid, it unsettled her now that they'd lost touch so abruptly. "Because after one night, and one call, it...I don't know. I don't feel like I have the right to ask you how you feel anymore."

[isaac mcavoy]

Somewhere on the shelves behind them there were notebooks with Zac's handwriting scrawled across them, first, second and third drafts of song lyrics that eventually ended up on their early albums. In the margins would be Lily's delicate handwriting, scrawled notes with question marks in the earlier books, turned to decisive crossing out in later versions. She had more of a part to play in the inception of Cats Cradle than they gave her credit for. Whilst Joe wrote most of the music and Zac the lyrics, it was Lily who had a talent for both, and she who could cast a critical eye over their work and improve it with a few flicks of her indigo inked pen. He swallows thickly at the mention of the call. That. He scratches at his stubble, his eyes having broken away from hers as he resisted the urge to squirm in his seat. "You'll always have that right. I wouldn't be here without you," he says, gesturing at the room though he really meant here, on Earth. He brightens, suddenly becoming animated as he thinks of an easier conversation. "Oh wait, I wanted to show you this," he says, reaching over to start rummaging in the side pockets of his backpack. After a short search he finds what he's looking for, a glittery blue chip circled in gold, the words 'Recovery Month 6' emblazoned on its front. He flicks it in the air as if flipping a coin, catching it and holding it out to her. "Here. Have it."

[lily mccarthy]

This studio may as well be an archive. The history of Cats Cradle, of Lily's own personal fascination with music turned full blown career, of sorrow and love and disagreements strewn so blatantly over pages it wrote a history that no television special ever could. Lily half wondered if they'd ever donate those notebooks somewhere, if she'd be that tenuous line in the margins of overwhelming success. Thousands of what ifs being speculated by strangers. What if Lily'd opened for them? What if she was in the band? What really happened between her and Isaac? A very uncomfortable phone call, she wants to answer back to the whispers she doesn't even hear firsthand, the double tone of the phone call ending after a little too much silence. It wasn't a breakup but it felt like a break of some sort, a theory she doubles down on as he briskly changes the subject. Offers her something more than the little coin that warms in his hand. Lily gently takes it for inspection before placing it back in his palm, fingers lacing over his as she closed it in his grasp. "I can't take that - you did the work on your own. And deserve the little reminders that you've come this far - I'm really proud of you, Zac." Something clicks in her brain suddenly, gesturing back to the studio before smoothing her hand down her skirt. "Is that why you're nervous? Because you're back in a studio completely sober? "

[isaac mcavoy]

Joe might have left the room but the heat of his presence is felt heavily on Isaac's back. His disapproval for the match, however insincerely it was presented, radiated off of him, so much so that he had made it difficult for anything to bloom. But chemistry was chemistry, and at some point Isaac's brotherly instincts had waned into something else, something indefinable. The protectiveness remained but the brotherly element had stopped, the ease with which he could turn flirty, or how he'd slip an arm around her waist when someone asked for a photo, it had made the sibling like relationship the three of them shared turn awkward. His throat runs dry as her smooth, soft hand finds his, both of their fingers calloused from guitar playing. He gives it a little squeeze, his eyes fixed on their interlaced fingers and not her dark gaze, the coin warmed between their palms. "No, really, have it. They give you these all the time, it's actually offensively easy." At some point she had become a regular subject of his NA meetings, something that those in the know put down to his alleged relationship with her, though even he couldn't lie about that in that room. He didn't have to, the way he spoke about her was so filled with genuine love and affection that it sold the story for him. A grin can't help but creep across his face. "How'd you do that? Know what I'm thinking without me having to say it?"

[lily mccarthy]

He won't even look at me. Lily has no idea if it's guilt or thoughts he refuses to let out of his own damn mind, gaze tracking down to the lighthearted squeeze he offers before they unravel. She half wishes he'd say it, sometimes - over time Isaac had perfected escape plans for every kind of serious conversation, so much so that when he indulged her, toes over an edge, she'd fall head first just to pull on the threads of something more. "It's not, though. That's a long time, it's nice to have all the reminders," Lily argues back, simultaneously pocketing the chip. She'd probably have a field day with overthinking it later, instead choosing to drag his guitar into her lap and strum out a few mindless cords. It eventually morphs into the opening notes of one of the songs they'd sung together, a sly grin pulling at her lips both at the memory and his words. "It's almost like we spent a lot of time together or something," she jokes, shrugging her shoulder before the smile grows and she nods her head toward the studio before her. "It's just me, you did my whole tour this way. Pretend like nothing's changed?" As if it was that easy.

[isaac mcavoy]

The artist beyond the glass seems to be collecting their things and getting ready to go. It pained Zac to realise he had no idea who they were, that Joe and Lily and Chloe and everyone he knew had continued with their lives whilst he shuddered his away in a rehab facility. It was a frequent discussion point in group therapy and then in NA on the outside, how stunted and left out recovery could make you feel. There were people Isaac couldn't mix with for fear of relapsing, and then there were people who didn't want to mix with him due to their fear of his relapsing. He understood that this was one of the many consequences of his actions, but it still hurt. It was also the primary wedge between he and Lily, he knew that too. He wanted to give her every chip he had been awarded, holding them out like No-Face bribing Chihiro with palms full of gold. But like No-Face, he knew it would take more than a few chips for their worth to be real, and even as she pockets it he imagines it turning to dirt in her pocket, a meaningless if not taunting gesture if he slipped back into old habits. "We did," he agrees, smiling at the memory. He finally looks at her as she starts strumming a familiar tune, his heart longing to be back on stage with her at one of those early shows. "I'll get in there when Joey gets back," he says, forcing an air of casualness against his sweaty palms and increasing heart rate. He leans back, watching her fingers deftly stroke against the strings of his guitar. "It meant a lot to me that you still hung out with me, by the way. I know it must be hard to trust me and most people didn't, but you did."

[lily mccarthy]

Lily can’t even imagine what it must have been like. Though she wasn’t as strait laced as she used to be, growing up naive in this world until heartbreak set in on her young love, there were depths that she’d likely never touch. It was why she struggled sometimes with Zac, with Xander, even…addiction and those adjacencies could be so nuanced, so impossible to explain to someone not going through them. It was why she’d started cataloging signs. Over the years Zac had had his tells, little moments that Lily had pocketed much like the chip that sat there now. It was how she knew he’d been using again before his mother called her, confessing what he’d been too cowardly to admit. It still hurt and angered her now, sometimes, but his progress seemed promising and it was in her nature to take it to heart. See the best in people, even when they burned her. "I didn’t, for a while…for the record. But you also never had to believe in me, brotherly forces aside, and you did anyway. And look at us now.” A home studio, new stabilities, awards and nationwide tours and whatever was coming next. It warms Lily’s heart, gratitude spilling through her chest and up into her genuine smile, final notes filtering through her fingers. "Fake breakup aside, I think we’re doing alright."