accompanied | billie eilish

six

a/n: the song used in this chapter is mt washington by local natives :)

~~~

a young girl, clearly before her adolescent years, trudges into the kitchen. her identical counterpart is clutching her hand and the two are dreading the speech they know is about to come that will change their lives forever.

"...has passed away," says their mother quietly. "but, he's left something to each of you. for you to remember him by. matt-" she hands her eldest child a swiss penknife. "sienna-" to her next oldest child, a necklace. "and to the twins, his guitars."

she picks up two acoustic guitars from behind the kitchen table and passes on the red one first, to the cowering twin.

"and to aria," adds their mother,

passing her second twin the teal-blue acoustic guitar.

✦ ✦ ✦

billie

the next evening rolls around and it's time for another show.

"this is our last germany show, you guys excited?" asks mike, the vision's manager as he enters our green room pre-show.

"of course," replies ashley, her hand sliding up and down the neck of her bass as she tunes it.

"oh, yeah, mike, we need to speak to you," says tyler, standing up. "nothing too major but we might fuck with the setlist a little tonight."

mike blinks. "right. okay."

i can hear the auditorium full of the audience slowly filling up, their incoherent chatter seeping through the walls and down the hall to our room. before long, we all stand up, pick up our stuff and nod, and we're heading down the hall and running out onto stage, relishing in thousands and thousands of people cheering for us.

the lighting is dim. we all silently take our places throughout the stage; shay on a podium in the corner on the drums, ashley towards the centre with her bass guitar, stood alongside sam and tyler with their electric guitars, finneas in the front corner with his electric keyboard and me and aria sat on two stools together with wireless microphones.

there's a complete blackout for a moment and when the lights come back on they're shadowy and red. aria begins harmonising, and a moment later everyone begins on the heavy opening tune.

we work our way through the setlist, and when we're near the end we all pause and exchange glances. aria nods, stepping towards the front of the stage, and the crowd falls quiet to listen to her eagerly.

"now this tour hasn't really been going very long at all," aria begins. "this is our last show of germany, but we've barely started. however, this doesn't mean that we haven't been writing and creating new content."

she pauses, allowing the audience to soak that information in.

"now, this song isn't actually titled yet, but this is something completely unheard by the outside world. and all of us onstage, right now, wrote this together."

she walks across the stage to retrieve her teal acoustic guitar before joining me again on the stool next to me.

taking a deep breath, aria looks behind her at tyler, who has switched out his electric guitar for an acoustic, and they nod before beginning the gentle opening chords in unison.

as the intro ends, aria leans forwards into the microphone stand which is now in front of her, and the two of us sing together.

"face, staining the ceiling
why does it keep saying

i don't have to see you right now
i don't have to see you right now"

there's another break, and the other instruments are slowly brought in. by the time we sing again, everyone on stage is contributing something to this song.

"digging like you can bury
something that cannot die

we could wash the dirt off our hands now,

keep it from entering underground

i don't have to see you right now
i don't have to see you right now"

as the vocals break again, i look to my left at aria, whose whole aura is intensified by her concentration. i find that the way that she can get so lost in something as beautiful as music draws me even closer to her.

"lazy summer goddess,
you can tell your whole empire

i don't have to see you right now
i don't have to see you right now"

the song begins to slow down again and the other instruments fade out, leaving only tyler and aria on the acoustic and then he stops too, leaving aria to finish the last chords.

she looks out at the audience with a proud smile when she's finished, as if broken from a trance.

"that was so awesome," i whisper to her and she grins happily back at me.

we finish up the rest of the setlist, which only has a couple of songs left anyway, and leave the stage in high spirits.

we all head to the green room, where everyone is chattering and whooping as normal. the guitarists have their instruments in hand and when aria idly begins the chords of the new song on her teal acoustic, everyone instantly joins in, with shay tapping out the drum pattern on his lap.

after a few moments, mike the manager walks in, not looking impressed.
"what was that?" he asks, eyebrows raised.

"we told you," tyler shrugs.

"it was a one off thing. we won't be performing it again for ages. it doesn't even have a name," shay adds.

"i think we should call it mount washington," aria says placidly, followed by murmurs of agreement from everyone else. "anyway, we won't be recording it or releasing it officially for a while, so you can calm down mike."

everyone proceeds to blank him until he rolls his eyes in exasperation and leaves the room.

everyone breaks out into conversation again; i open my mouth to speak to aria but marcus, who is sat on her other side, beats me to it.

i wrinkle my nose in frustration.