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He Always Seems Bigger Because of His Bounces	By : luna65 Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Pink Floyd Views: 729 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Pink Floyd. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-He always seems bigger because of his bounces
- 1
“And that’s the whole poem,” he said. “Do you like it, Piglet?”
“All except the shillings,” said Piglet. “I don’t think they ought to be there.”
“They wanted to come in after the pounds,” explained Pooh, “so I let them. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” said Piglet.
- A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Juliette greeted David with a sort of nervous smile, as she sided with Rick that recent developments weren’t exactly to the couple’s liking. David was aware of her ambivalence, but gave her that smile he knew was charming: opened doors and erased doubts.

And there was so much in doubt, the day David came to Richmond Hill to visit. He trudged up the stairs, wrinkling his nose at the sour smells, heard off-key strumming. A gentle knock elicited a sweetly-voiced “Yeah?”

And there he was, all enormous eyes and tousled hair, and it didn’t seem so bad, not now.

“Hey you.”

“Oi Fred, wot’s the skinny?”

“Just thought I’d pop ‘round. Nothing doin’ today, maybe a film?”

Syd looked out towards the window on his left, which was surprisingly unshuttered. “Oh. Hmm. Too nice a day for a dark cinema.”

David pursed his lips in surprise, thinking he was very lucky to find the other lucid. “All right. What would y’like then?”

“Dunno. Why don’t we ponder it a bit, hmm? D’ya want to hear me song?”

David didn’t want to shut the door, as it would be altogether too tempting to then lock it and spend an afternoon matching wits with his creature, as he’d come to think of Syd in all the time they’d been apart. A unicorn, or a chimera. Something which seemed a distant dream and a return to the forest with adult eyes rendered the landscape dark and wan compared to what had been transformed with the sight of imagination, fancy, and hope.

“You don’t help him, y’know,” Peter asserted, for what was probably the tenth time that afternoon.

“We try, we really fucking try,” Roger argued, “but he won’t listen!”

Rick forestalled his tongue against what he meant to say, which was how could Syd listen to all that shouting and sniping. He wasn’t meant to be spoken to that way, he required delicate encouragement. So instead his friend considered a more diplomatic response.

“I think Syd wants to write, it’s just that his tastes have changed. I don’t know that he could write a song like ‘Emily’ anymore.”

“I understand he’s five steps ahead, as always,” Peter replied, “but we’re in a jam, growing more terrible by the moment.”

“As if we’re responsible for you not having any bloody idea ‘bout how to manage a band?!” Roger cut in, and Peter frowned. It just wasn’t done, this type of harangue. Roger could be such a bullying fecker.

“We’re all,” Peter said, doing his best to keep his tone level, “doing the best we can. ‘Cept Syd. And that is where we need to help him. Because he is the hub ‘pon which this enterprise turns.”

“I rather think that wheel is going wonky,” Nick quipped, but his expression remained neutral.

“Nicky, if you’ve nothing constructive to say, then –“

“He’s absolutely right, y’know,” Roger retorted, and the whole shouting match began again. Rick took a deep drag on his cigarette and wondered how long he’d be stuck at Blackhill and where in the world was Dave?

“That’s interesting, Syd. Truly. But do ya think it’s right for the Floyd?”

“You can’t think like that, Fred. That way lies madness.” This last was gravely intoned, in that fanciful sort of way Syd had sometimes, where he would emote rather than converse, complete with different intonations, accents, and the occasional sound effect.

David tried not to laugh at the purported irony, though he didn’t believe at the moment that Syd was mad. He was just…tired. Tired and overwhelmed. Without truly knowing why.

“But don’t you want to be able to do what you want? Sometimes that means doing things you’d rather not, it’s the price of freedom.”

“What are you on about? An artist never sacrifices his integrity.”

David smiled, shaking his head gently. That line was oft-spoken, back when Syd had his salon in the basement of his mother’s house. They all had compelling arguments to back up their positions on whatever the issue was, but Syd could obliterate all of them with a well-chosen sentence, and combined with his absolutely compelling delivery, nothing else seemed to make sense. But this man in front of him, sitting on the floor, hunched around his guitar, this was not the creature he knew.

“Shall we go for a walk, Syd? Get some fresh air?”

“Don’t you want to hear me song, Fred?”

“Y’played it for me, dear.”

“Did I? Are you sure? That seemed like rather a different song, not the one I intended.”

“Well how would I know, dear? Can’t see inside your head, y’know.”

A sad smile, and those eyes, those enormous eyes which were delving into David’s soul even now, even as he kept himself at the discreet distance of sorrowful ambivalence.

“You used to, Dave. You used to be able to see everything.”

The Louvre was so bloody big, David thought, trailing behind Syd as the pair received strange stares from other patrons, they were rather more grimy and unkempt than the usual art student. And Syd was bouncing down the marble corridors in that way of his, endlessly eager, as David struggled to keep up.

“Oh oh, here’s the Poussin!” Syd exclaimed, even as a couple standing in the same area made shushing sounds at him, but Syd was blissfully unaware of the displeasure. David murmured pardonnez-nous with a nod of his head as Syd pulled him close, swiveling his head towards the painting.

“Very important,” he said, and David gave a shush of his own.

“Not so loud, Syd! They’ll give us the toss!”

Syd suddenly turned paranoid, looking around. “Arrest us?” he whispered.

“Nah. Just kindly but forcefully ask us to leave and never return.”

“Oh good. I didn’t like it, being arrested.”

“I don’t believe anyone does,” David whispered in return, suppressing an urge to put his arms around his beautiful boy. “Now, what’s so great ‘bout a painting of blokes in a field?”

“It’s very important ‘cause it renders an important philosophical notion. The memento mori. That even as we live, we are reminded of death. And they think death is it, y’know, the way to Paradise, but Paradise is here, man. It’s now.”

“And you get all that from this?” David asked, extending a hand towards Poussin’s canvas.

It’s called ‘Et in Arcadia ego,’ it means ‘I am even in Arcadia.’ Arcadia is like Eden, y’see, and the shepherds find this tomb, it’s got the inscription, and they wonder what it means. But look at the landscape. It’s got this kind of wild beauty to it, the cloudy sky, the trees, the mountains. But they’re all beautiful and strong, because they’re the products of Paradise.”

“I see. Well one never really knows what one has, does one?”

“And that’s what the painting teaches us, that we’ve got to remember that.”

“I get it, though I daresay you get it better than me. But you always do.”

“Oh hush, you’re plenty clever, y’know.”

“Why thanks, dear, I was rather afraid I was actually stupid.”

“Prat,” Syd teased, tugging a handful of beautiful thick hair. They giggled even as they looked around for anyone wishing to throw them out of this artistic idyll which Syd was utterly happy in, he had an overwhelming urge to stay forever, gazing at all of the productions of inspiration even as his own was spurring him on with wild romantic whimsy.

“C’mon, let’s see if we can find the Impressionists.” And as he bounced away yet again David pondered that notion, the one of Paradise, wondering if the great philosophers would allow for the concept to be literally personified, rather than strictly by way of metaphor.

“I’m not going to do it, I’m not going to endure this horribly black comedy any longer,” Roger muttered. “He could be sick, he could be perverse, he could just be out of his tree, but I’m not going off the cliff with him, not this boy.”

Nick was non-committal as usual, as they passed a joint between the three of them sitting around June’s desk. She always rolled the best ones, and had performed the task before going on errands and a lunch date with that Marc Feld chap.

“Where is Dave?” Rick asked again, this time out loud.

“Who bloody cares, it’s nothing to do with him any road,” Roger rejoined.

Rick looked over at Nick for support but as usual their drummer remained maddeningly taciturn.

“I just wish we could help him somehow,” Rick said quietly.

“We bloody tried!”

“I know, I know. I don’t know what else we could do, but –“

“Rog, we’re feeling bad, y’know. Don’t you?” Nick finally asked.

“Oh you don’t know what I’m feeling, alright? You’ve no idea the misery I’m going through!”

Oh we might have some idea, was Nick’s retort, but he wisely kept it to himself.

“If the doctors can’t help Syd, then I don’t know what can be done.” Roger said, as if such a pronouncement was the final word on the issue. That was his way, to speak decisively, but Nick knew it was a front, a shield to hide the likely abject terror he was feeling at the uncertainty of the band’s existence.

“Maybe because I live with him it seems so much worse,” Rick mused.

“But you’re helping to keep him out of trouble, and that’s a good thing,” Nick reminded him.

“I s’pose.”

They continued to blunt the pain of their collective guilt in a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, the future as murky as its’ obscured perspective.

They ended up on the mattress, a familiar terminus.

“Hello you,” Syd murmured, wide eyes blinking with shy gravitas, his sweet way of luring admirers when he chose. Skin met skin, once again, raw silk worn by considerations of age, but ever-soft, ever the way they had met in the idyll of the past.

“Hello lovely,” David said, fingers seeking transit through the umber curls.

“I knew,” Syd said, between kisses, “I knew that’s why you’d really come. Couldn’t keep away, could you? That’s why you’re here now, every time I turn around there you are, Dave, because you’ve missed me terribly, haven’t you?”

“I have, dear boy. I thought you might need me.”

The bubbling laugh, like the way the river Cam burbled over the rocks.

“You need me, you always have. Could never be serious ‘bout anything without my example to follow.”

David tried not to grimace even as he ran his hands over the too-thin body of his friend, his lover, his creature. He knew the braggadocio was meant to be playful, yet still strange, as the Syd he once knew was never so arrogant, not even in jest.

“You’ve always led the way, dear, that is true.”

More kisses, in that meandering way Syd had of seduction. A kiss could last an hour, but within the action all of the nuances of emotion could be felt: the longing, the pleasure, and even the regret of parting once it was through.

But David had not been sad till he had been reunited with that face, and the beautiful dark eyes did not see him, did not recognize the one who had loved him, adored and admired him, as they all had. A creature too wondrous for words, too difficult to describe in terms which would do justice to his grandeur.

For what they had been pondering, for what they would ultimately decide to do, David was here now, to enact penance.

“D’ya ‘member, Syd, that time you told me Paradise was here, and now? D’ya still think that?”

A comical furrowing of the brow, an indulgent smile.

“Wot? When was that, on a trip?”

A smirk. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Oh well, I s’pose one could look at it that way. But sometimes – just sometimes, mind you – I think it might be Hell.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But let’s keep that between us Fred, hmm? Don’t wanna be dragged off again to some strange person, poking and prying.”

David kissed the fragile face, all over, all thoughts of mere satisfaction fleeing in the pain which felt like a spike in his chest, at the sight of that fearful gaze.

“To the grave, lad,” he whispered, then put his arms around his friend, feeling the heartbeat pulse like a fluttering bird, like the bounce of a creature the world has yet to understand.
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He Always Seems Bigger Because of His Bounces