England's Not Breathing

It becomes regular when others don’t know and all is glossed up to believe whatever we should be saying and we are not, the tunes we actually listen to are different and we all make our own scene and all becomes revolting which the government dictates, but we don’t even speak properly amongst ourselves. 

We scrap at the pasts we wish we’ve had. 

And we know we cannot build the futures we would want to. 

Neither we can drink ourselves there so at times we just rattle ourselves there, with alcohol and not. It seems the oddest of places to even discuss what the fuck Pete even wants, but he’s got the night in his hands with a fucking ushanka on his head, claiming that his great gran whatever would be proud and I’m not sure she was there at the time, but that’s besides the fact and he already gets us two pints, as the bar fills up and I quickly glance at the queerly (naturally) attractive singer, which had been filling up the gay bar with his band for the past few weeks, making all of us think a bit deeper. 

I pause on him, as he seems unaware of the beauty of his own voice, until Pete yanks me by the t-shirt and just shows me the lyrics he’s been working on. I have no idea how he had even managed to already get drunk, but I presume he just stocked up back home as well, as he keeps talking and I’m barely reading his scribbles upside down until he hands them over.

“Yeah, I think I’ll... come up with something.” I mutter as he just nods, approvingly before lighting a cigarette and turning towards the stage. I keep my eyes fixed on the singer, which has been quite a regular and I notice that Pete traces my eyes, smirking and scribbling some more, as I wonder if the singer even has a boyfriend, as I’ve barely even seen him do anything. I’ve seen him with someone who could’ve been a partner and once played with their band instead of him and I wondered briefly on the singer’s sexuality, since he were in a gay bar. They seemed very on and off, from what seemed to be. 

“Would you play it live with me, though, Graham?” Pete asks suddenly before I look at his deer eyes, shaking my head, smiling.

“No, no, it’s your solo, I’m just helping you find the right way. It’s ok, don’t worry.”

“You could be a support band of sorts.” Pete smirks, blowing a smoke ring and widening his eyes, as more crowd fuel singing starts as people start recognizing songs which might’ve managed to leave Camden and make it to the charts or some local shop, since I heard they got signed or released some EP. I wondered how much would it even be able to make it, the world still seemed very obscure in all it’s matter, maybe not all due to depression, but it still seemed awfully idle and today it was bathing in glitter and some fluttery crush feeling, because you associate the songs with the singer. 

“I’ll be happy enough if you let me do your cover art.” And that’s when Pete shakes my hand and the set ends for the night to remind us, that frankly we gay people should be listening more to Pet Shop Boys than some punk music, as I stab the cigarette against the ashtray, as Pete keeps looking at his scribbles, but he doesn’t pay attention as I dutifully watch every inch of the equipment get taken away by the band themselves.

“Why don’t you talk to him, though?” Pete says, forcibly digging his pen into paper to cross out some glorified capitalized FUCK in the middle of the song with a few people dancing around it.

“Excuse me?”

“You drag me here every night to see that bloke and he’s...” Scribble, scribble and now it’s a hole in the paper. 

“Off for the night and he could be in your bed and all you do is pray that he’ll be playing tomorrow. It’s not like you even like pubs that much. You’d usually buy beer downstairs and drag me with you to your room or something.” Pete tries to catch my eye. “Just... saying.”

I just shake my head. Pete sighs, taking out another notebook, already half scribbled and tearing a piece of paper out of there, as he watches Scarfo frankly start to actually vanish into the small crowd. He taps his fingers on the table.

“I know a bloke who’s friends with the singer, if you’re interested, now that I think of it.” I raise my eyes at my friend. He continues watching the stage until Pet Shop Boys reminds us that we’re all sinners. I keep silent, as if I weren’t interested. 

“I’ll ask him, maybe then he can arrange something, it’s not like we’re in kindergarden. Although...” He looks at me. “You’d at least maybe ask to play in his sandbox then-”

“Fuck off.” I shove him, taking the ashtray in my hands. “It’s not like I only come here to watch them live-”

“Yeah and that’s why you only drank a pint.” As he says it, I glare at him, flipping the ashtray over without thinking, ending up all covered in ashes. I curse, swatting it off my jeans, sulking and feeling myself redden but I try to tell myself that the crowd is either too high, too drunk or too dancing to even care, but it doesn’t work as much as Pete hands me a napkin. 

“I’ll ask Damon to ask for you. Happy? Or you can ask Damon.”

“Who’s Damon?” I ask, trying to go over in my head in the poor list of Damons but all I can think of is maybe some dad’s mate he was friends with due to work back when we lived in Germany. 

“Ok, I’ll bring Damon over here tomorrow, since we’re stalling poor Scarfo here for no good shagging reason.” And soon enough the bar is left with some sinners leaving.

“Can we get beer?” I ask or rather state, as I pull Pete into the small newsagent right next to the dormitory, as if reminding students to take their daily intake of alcohol to drunk to forget what growing up is supposed to feel like or rather remind it, before I even let him say anything, I’m already near the fridge, looking at the beers, as if wondering what would a choice of tonight be.

“You just couldn’t drink up in the bar, could ya?” He smirks, as he leans against the fridge as if waiting to catch my eye to judge me again. I try to avoid Pete as much as I can, as I get anxious, as if I hadn’t known that Pete would keep giving me the side-eye since we ended up being sidekicks and had both checked out gay bars just to be disappointed until I had seen Scarfo perform and then I felt hooked, I was interested but I could never do anything, besides walk out on a guy who took out his dick in front of me in the loo. He continues in his own thoughts.

“You know, we’ve got this person in our literature class. They read out their story, the idea was that the mom of the kid was a witch and made a potion or whatever and that’s how she created a soulmate for her son. The soulmate was another boy, that made me smile and I wonder to this day, what happened on after their first meet. The person stopped going to class. I honestly wonder what’s the ending and the idea... it keeps growing in my head. I wish I had done it, y’know.” Pete smiles, sadly as I stop choosing the no choice of beer, as I watch him, the possibilities running through his head, as his hat is still in tact reminding of some soft sadness. 

-

As ironic as it is the title comes from what I thought was a Jamie quote to then be pointed out by Callie that it's a line from Scarfo's Skinny, so it was left as such, corrected and etc.

I just added the last paragraphs as I had wanted it in, I felt bad that since I've never written from Graham's point of view before it was challenging even if it's my first ever band pairing and they opened me to the world of bandfic. 

Basically I wasn't even planning to do Gramon frankly, but I got asked to do Gramon and frankly because I love Blur with all my soul and I used to be a huge Blur fan and I ship Gramon with all my soul to this day, I recalled that frankly when I was researching Scarfo I found out that (this is public knowledge, so fuck it) they would play in this specific gay bar in Camden where Blur would visit along with Pulp, Suede, Elastica and etc and supposedly it was known as were "Britpop" was born so that was fascinating to me, because I love Blur and thinking of Gramon making out to Scarfo made my weeks. But I left it as such, so I had found that out literally accidentally and well confirming I guess Damon/Graham if you must.

So when I got asked about Gramon I fangirled imagining frankly this AU with Graham being all shy and listening to Scarfo as he and Damon have shenanigans, so it was frankly another way for me to squeal over what I had randomly found out and I think it's even up on wiki or something. I frankly keep my sources shut, but it's all google, I never really e-mailed anyone or anything or stalked anyone. All is first page google. Don't forget that I work with SEO so that helps me a lot xD But then we've all raided and found whatnot, so here we are

So that's how the idea was born

Also I love Pete's solo and the fact that he had Graham help him makes it even more special to me, so I wanted them as friends here and I really love Pete and obviously I have a soft spot for him because I lived a fair amount in the UK and we both have Russian blood so there's that xD 

I tried my best to describe Scarfo live and here am I.

I dunno my experience of British Gay Bars always narrows down to Gaga, del Rey and Pet Shop Boys and the said gay bar I mentioned had a framed poster of PSB, so here we are. I just love the mentions to them for some reason here xD I was awfully anxious writing this whole thing and I calmed down by reading it out to Callie, frankly as she laughed through the whole thing, because well, I wanted to make it funny and capture both Graham and Pete darling.

Ah, yes, the idea of I know this bloke Damon who knows Jamie was so appealing and here it is. I dunno, I just get flared up with an idea and I can't stop until it's out even if I've written like 1.5 k of To Miles earlier today xD

I rarely talk about other people's fanfiction and besides I think maybe Gagging Order (which in my opinion is the best love story ever written, it's Radiohead fanfic and I usually re-binge it through in a day and it's huge), well this story it only ever had one chapter and after Gagging Order it ranks my second best ever fanfiction or written piece. It was one post on one LJ blog, one fucking chapter and that was it. I read it back when I was like what 14? 15? No fucking idea even xD anyway, I spent the past hour trying to find it. I just wanted some homage to it because I never touched that idea and I just really loved it, so here's my ode to it. It was an AU and I miss it and it was beautiful and I can't find it anymore T___T 

I really hope you liked it and I'm awfully shy now because it's odd that I've never really written Gramon before and here I am with my fucking new Britpop and Blur knowledge and I used it xD because I tend to research a lot on Scarfo and whatnot and hey, that was useful elsewhere xD

Anyway, I've got to think more on the Damon/Graham bit and I love it

I ship them and I've always shipped them and it's lovely to be back with them even if they make me think of this near-ex I've had, some other girl in the past which I was female with, so yeah, she was a big Blur fan and we would fangirl over Damon and Graham a lot, as we would with the Manics, so it's quite nostalgic in a way of, shit, that was ages ago and I'm finally writing about them sort of way

Anyway, I'm back and Blur is back for me and I missed them and here's to more Gramon from me now apparently xD

PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU LIKED IT XD

Originally it was going to be from Damon's point of view but I shifted after a few paragraphs as Graham seems easier to write to me >.> think of all the Jamie stories I've written, I wouldn't handle Damon and I love Graham and I had the best of time revising him as I reread the articles about Blur in gay clubs with Scarfo and Graham interviews as well as squealing over Pete

Thank you

<3

Jamie