eerieindiana | Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Explicit Lyrics

A direct sequel to Bright Lights. If you want to know more about Cosmo, you can find him here.

The last melancholic howls faded away. Three tails beat a slowing rhythm on the dusty boards, and a single spotlight swung in a wide arc across the stage, coming to rest finally on the three-headed Hellhound who looked anxiously out at the audience with twelve slit-pupilled eyes that brimmed with emotion.

"Yay!" cried Simon, jumping to his feet and clapping wildly. He glanced down at his companions and made hasty rising gestures before returning to his raucous applause.

"That was actually pretty good," Dash whispered. Marshall nodded, clapping apace with the other two.

"I know," he whispered back. "I was a hundred percent prepared to nod along to 'how much is that doggy in the window', sung off-key and with the words mixed up." Louder, he said, "Good boy! Good boy, Sparky!"

Sparky barked happily as he scrambled down the short flight of steps that led off-stage, long black talons clicking as he came. In the wings, Steve Konkalewski scribbled something on the clipboard in front of him. He didn't look happy, but then, Marshall thought, he hadn't ever looked happy when they were kids, and one side of his face being a web of scar tissue probably didn't leave him much room for expressiveness.

"Well?" said Simon expectantly, flinging his arms around the broad shoulders of his dog.

"Is that what you were planning on singing?" asked Steve.

Simon frowned at the note of censure in Steve's voice.

"Uh... yes?" he said, a little defensively.

Steve grimaced, or at least he tried to.

"None of you speak Latin, do you?" he said, his inflection making it clear it wasn't a question. "You have no idea what that third head is saying."

"We prefer to say the left head," Marshall corrected, but stopped as he saw Simon shoot a suddenly suspicious look at Sparky.

"Why?" asked Simon, slowly. "What's he saying?"

Steve looked down at his notes.

"I didn't get the whole thing," he said. "The melody is admittedly lovely, and it distracted me enough that I didn't realise what I was hearing at first."

"Go on," Simon urged him.

Steve sighed.

"Well, essentially it's about a man who leaves his lady love in search of fame and fortune, taking his pleasure in many whores as he goes - and yes, your dog said the word for whores, not prostitutes or any of the hundreds of nicer terms he could have used - then contracts syphilis and slowly goes mad while his parts drop off and his faithful girlfriend pines to death waiting his return. It goes into some pretty specific details about the rot affecting various bits of the main character's... anatomy." He held out his clipboard for Simon to inspect.

Simon gasped.

"WERD-TV wants Pupstars to air at 6pm," Steve went on. "You can't have those kinds of songs on before watershed. If this was a different kind of show, it might not matter, but they're really going for the families eating dinner as their target audience, and it's just not appropriate for that time-slot."

"Of course not," said Simon, faintly. He looked back at Sparky. "Bad Sparky! Shame on you!"

"He can learn something else," said Marshall, putting a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "It's not that big a deal."

"I don't need your final set lists for another three days," agreed Steve. "Just pick something without any explicit lyrics and you'll be fine."

"I don't know where he even learned those kinds of words!" Simon lamented. "If it was in English, I'd blame these two, or Melanie, or too much late-night television, but-"

"Hey!" said Marshall. Simon looked at him, and he sagged before admitting, "No, that's fair."

For his part, Dash didn't even bother refuting the accusation.

Steve's mobile phone rang. He pulled it from his jacket pocket, read the name on the illuminated screen, and sighed.

"Sorry, guys, I have to take this," he said, already turning to walk away. "If you want my advice, either stop letting your dog hang out with mermaids and ghost-pirates down at the lake, or prepare to have the hard conversation about what's acceptable under the sea versus what's okay on land."

The three of them watched him go, snatches of his conversation floating back towards them through the empty theatre.

"Hey, Cosmo. Yes, I'm still... no, it is still only for dogs. No, I don't think they'll change their... Well no, I don't think that's homo-sapiens-phobic. Because that's stupid, Cosmo." An annoyed huff that Marshall remembered well from their brief acquaintance as children, followed by a loud, "Sit down, Cosmo!"

A door slammed somewhere in the dark, and the voice cut off.

Sparky said something in Latin. Simon glared at him.

"That better not have been rude!" he said.

Sparky grinned a doggy grin.

Microwave-verse

Bonfire by