Power Trio

Content advisory: This chapter contains a depiction of a non-named character experiencing a drug overdose.

“I don’t know why it’s just not clicking,” Thekla says. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. But everything else has flowed like water, and that song is like getting a cemented denticle out.”

“Can I be an ignorant pinkskin and admit I don’t know what that means?” Evan says.

It’s Friday evening, and there’s seven rehearsals left until Glorie’s. Today they knocked out a fast, straightforward thrasher called Escalate, and then spent the second half fruitlessly bashing their heads into Trapped like Rats again. They’re falling behind.

Thekla and Evan are on the way to an old cannery in South Wharf, the monthly location for Tvnnel, an infamous industrial shindig thrown by a subfaction within Sion’s ocean of partners. Thekla loves a Sion party, as long as you get out before 2:30 AM when the pants come off. Evan, perennially underdressed, has got a raggedy hoodie on, the kind with thumbholes; it’s the only thing he owns that’s black enough. Her outfit is a lot less comfortable, a little more see-through, and much squeakier when she moves. She has a poofy red faux-fur jacket that always makes her feel a little silly when she breaks it out, but it’s a chilly night, and she’s glad she summoned the courage to bring it.

“It’s that thing where you’ve got a tooth that’s old and ready to come out, but the new one grows into it funny, and it won’t come off the jaw.” Thekla opens her serrated mouth and indicates.

Evan’s brow furrows. “Your teeth just fall out?”

“Yeah,” Thekla says. “I thought I heard human teeth do too.”

“They do, once,” Evan says. “But then you get your adult teeth and that’s it.”

“So weird. Like, you have the same teeth your whole life?” The thought gives her an involuntary shiver. “That sounds so unhygienic.”

“Huh.” Evan squints into the evening. They’re in the flat, industrial area of South Wharf now, outside of the pockets that developers have decided are upcoming. “You’re not exactly wrong.”

It’s Thekla’s turn with Evan—Sion has fobbed off the rotation for now while he deals with some kind of penthouse polycule drama. The human has brought that big old duffel bag with him again, after extracting a promise from Sion that he can stash it on an upper floor. Thekla has noticed he never likes to be very far from his stuff, that he gets kind of wriggly when his bag isn't in his field of vision.

“How dedicated are we to Trapped like Rats, exactly?” Evan asks.

“I’d give up on it, for this cycle at least, but it’s Sion’s song.” Thekla says. They pass a guy sleeping something off on the front steps of an old machine shop. “He’s never the one to bring new stuff in. He writes his own parts, and he helps iterate, but Trapped is his baby in a way that no other song is.”

“I totally see the Sion all over it now that you mention it,” Evan says. “Everything about him is so spiky.”

“Spiky,” Thekla says. “That’s a word for it. I think you two should reserve an hour for yourselves at some point. It takes some time to get on his page, musically. He’s kinda the last member you need to master counterplay with.”

Evan’s fallen silent.

Has she said something wrong? They’re clicking now in the Smoke Shed, but she never knows how to talk to him outside it. Kell is out tending bar; Thekla wishes, not for the first time tonight, that the orc was here to take point in the conversation. “Not that you two aren’t making it work. I just notice you mirror each other sometimes instead of finding those harmonies, and I think you can get more—”

“Hold on.” Evan interrupts. An unfamiliar urgency in his voice.

“Evan?” Thekla looks up just in time to see Evan jog purposefully back the way they came.

“Hey. Hello. Excuse me!” Evan is approaching the guy they walked past, the one sitting on the stairs. “Sir. Sir.” He’s yelling now.

“Evan!” Thekla doubles back and runs after him, trying to keep up with the stiletto boots she’s wearing tonight. “Do you know this guy? Evan, hey what the fuck?” She grabs his pant leg.

“Thekla, be calm, okay?”

“You’re the one making a fucking scene.” Thekla’s eyes dart around to the street. It’s a Friday night, and there’s plenty of partygoers headed the same direction they are. People are looking over. “What is going on?”

Evan extracts himself from her grip and crouches next to the man on the stoop (maybe too young for the word, actually, he looks to still be in his teens), who makes no sign of seeing him. In fact, he hasn’t moved at all. “I need you to be calm when I tell you this,” Evan says. “I think this guy is having an overdose.”

Thekla sees the blue lips. The waxy face. The world pauses, desaturates, and suddenly slams back up to speed.

“Thekla. Thekla. Hey. Look at me.” Evan’s blue eyes seize on hers and drag them to his face. “I need you to call 911 and tell them there’s a man on Troutbrook and 11th who isn’t breathing. No name needed, nothing else, just say that. Can you do that?”

“What? Yes.” Thekla gets her phone out, drops it, curses and picks it up, dials the emergency number. She presses the phone to her ear and watches in disbelief as Evan squeezes the kid’s nostrils shut, tilts his head back, and starts giving him mouth-to-mouth.

She babbles her way through the call, gives their locations. Evan is doing chest compressions like he’s some kind of action hero. One group slows down as they pass, sees the tableau, speeds up again. What the fuck is happening?

“Thekla?” Evan says.

“Yeah?”

“In my bag there’s a little box. It’s got a purple label. It says naloxone on it. Bring me that.”

Thekla digs through his stuff. I’m touching his underwear, she thinks, and the absurdity forces a panicky little laugh. Just an expulsion of air, really. She finds the box, somewhat squashed under his bass, and shoves it toward Evan, who tears it open, pulls a little plastic nozzle thing out of it, and jams it up the unconscious boy’s nose.

Thekla feels like she’s going to faint.

“Hey.” Evan’s hand on her arm. Gently, he says, “You’re doing good. You are saving this guy’s life. He’s gonna be okay.”

“Okay.” Her voice sounds far away from her.

“One more thing we need to do, and then the hard part is over and we just stay with him for a while. Do you think you can help me move him?”

They lay the kid on his side, prop his knee up and his arm under his head. At some point—Thekla has no idea how much time has passed, but she hears a siren getting closer—the kid must wake up, because Evan’s talking quietly to him, asking his name. “Do you have a phone?” he’s asking. “Is there anyone we can call?”

A small crowd gathers. Someone’s filming, and when Thekla taps Evan on the shoulder and points them out, he flips his hood up. A very nice elf in a blue coverall is crouching with them now, taking with the kid while Evan introduces himself to someone on the phone. “He’s fine. He’s awake, he’s talking. They’re taking him to the hospital. I’m gonna pass you to the paramedics and they’ll keep you with him, okay, sir? Of course. No, I was just passing by. I understand, sir. Right. No, that won’t be necessary. It’s Evan. Uh…” He locates Thekla, sees her watching. “Evan H.”

And then the kid and the nice elf and the sirens are roaring off down the street, leaving in their wake a cloud of rubbernecking partygoers in black.

“Jesus. Some night off.” Evan zips his duffel back up. “Good thing we were here, right?”

“I didn’t even see him.” Thekla is returning to herself. “How did you know how to do that? I mean, I seriously didn’t even see him.”

“You pick things up,” Evan says. Someone slaps him on the back; he gives a little smile and a wave-off to a strappy shirted couple trying to congratulate him. “It’s easy to learn. I could teach you. Well, maybe the mouth to mouth I’m not the ideal instructor.” He laughs and Thekla joins him, her frayed nerves scrambling to re-knit. “But the spray is just point and click. The first time, uh…” he cuts himself off. “It’s good knowledge to have.”

“Fuck, Evan!” Thekla shivers. “I was just going to walk right past him.”

“Don’t think about that. He’s alive because of you and me. You know that? That’s something you’ll always have now.” Evan crouches down to her eye level, puts his hand on her arm again, hesitant now. His touch is an anchor back to the ground. She leans into it, and he solidifies his grip, gives her a little squeeze on the bicep. She feels the calluses on his index and middle from plucking those thick roundwound strings. “You still want to hit that party, drink Sion’s booze?” he asks. “We sure as hell earned it.”

“Yes. Yeah,” Thekla says. Her unreasonable little slice doesn’t want to lose the comfort of his touch. She breaks away anyway, and leads him down the sidewalk, walking back into the real world from the thriller movie they just lived through. “God. Next time warn me before you make out with a dead guy, ‘kay?”

His laugh carries the same sense of delirium she’s feeling. “No promises.”