there are nights you say you don't remember [open!]

[tedandroses]

Who: Teddy and (you?)
When: backdated from just post-Event through May (and into the first weeks of June if it works better for where you want to run into Teds!)
Where: Around Solvunn, in the Horizon, Nocwich
What: Post-event feels; May-early June catchall
Warnings: Nothing major: some feelings of derealization. Re-remembering distressing events. If that needs to be upgraded I'll mention in the subject lines.


Teddy opens her eyes, blinking. The sky was falling down, and --

Their cheek is pressed into the dust, hard against the rock, and when they try to push themself to a sit, it feels like they haven't used their joints in -- they were thinking years, but no, that's wrong; the whole thing was wrong. They were trying to wake up. They were trying to...

Oh. Oh god.

It comes crashing back like a wave: the storms, the crater, the fog. And the memories. All the memories Teddy still -- or can now recall -- the terror of knowing they were losing. Pushed roughly to the forefront: not just the things they'd lost but those they'd given up to Sam in desperation to not lose it forever.

Sam -- Teddy shouldn't even know Sam. Much less, feel the instinctive urge to thank him as he's hit by an onslaught of memories of his home and family that tumble over each other so intensely he sits back down hard. He shouldn't know -- so much -- about so many things --

People are moving. People are telling them things; their voices don't feel like real sounds, but some part of Teddy's brain interprets it for her, and she gets back to her feet and allows herself to be directed toward the carts going to Solvunn. Her eyes catch on even more familiar forms, even beloved, heading in other directions, and she knows she's never looked at them here: can feel that her body recalls but does not know being embraced, jostled, laughed with.

That knowing feels like a great wave lifting them off their feet and shoving them underneath the water over and again. (They shouldn't know what the ocean feels like.) They want to be sick. They want to scream. They can't do any of it: just let it roll them over. They sit, silent and finally, blissfully unthinking for the ride. It's not until they're back in Solvunn, safe under blankets, that they burst into stifled, hiccuping sobs until they can't breathe.


Far above, the Abraxas skies are blue and cloudless like Teddy's never seen.

>> HORIZON
>> SOLVUNN
>> NOCWICH

[OTA! If there's nothing that catches your eye/you want something slightly different let me know at wingedvoices and I'll start one!]

Comments

[satanicpanics]

This whole thing is kind of bizarre and difficult to navigate. For example, it’s sort of strange how Eddie can just step into this place and immediately know who it belongs to despite never having been here before, or the fact that he has a relatively good idea of who Teddy is as a person despite never actually meeting. It’s all more than a little overwhelming—especially when it comes to untangling the real memories from the false ones—but he’s managing the entire thing shockingly well.

He beams when Teddy rounds the corner, clearly pleased that they aren’t questioning the strange stringbean of a man in their domain—a pretty good indication that they’ve likely retained some memory of him.

“Well, if you’re anything like my friend Ronnie and the eight years of piano classes her grandma made her take? Probably more than anyone should ever have to,” he muses. He laughs and rolls his eyes as he taps out the right-hand portion of the song. He can do that, at least. It’s just a few easy notes, after all.

“Hey,” he echoes with a grin. “How did that, uh…whole magical mystery tour ordeal treat you? No extra limbs or anything, right?”

feel free to drop if this is too old!

[tedandroses]

There is a sort of -- double-image sense to the whole thing. It might almost be easier that Teddy's totally aware that the house isn't right either, that it's an amalgam (and some of it's made up): but most of the things they've dreamed up still conjure a deep nostalgic home feeling.

It's like that, the way they immediately recognize Eddie. They're aware they haven't met properly, in this reality -- but the echo of -- Jesus. Multiple centuries worth of friendship hovers softly. There's space in Teddy's mind to re-learn who this Eddie is, to be sort of aware that they might have to, but the idea of not recognizing him is almost laughable. Sort of horrible even. The cluster of close friends that are suddenly -- not, one or the other or both -- is like a hole in Teddy's chest that they just have to ignore, all the time, and Eddie showing up on their piano bench feels a little bit magical in comparison.

"Yikes. My mom's a piano teacher, but Heart and Soul was not on her repetoire. Probably she heard it enough with me letting my friends play the piano."
Teddy grins, pleased at Eddie's willingness to play along. It's like a baby version of any kind of playing together: the joy of an audible product of collaboration, just for the second. Music is important -- essential -- to who Teddy is: but playing and writing music with people is a whole different thing.

She pauses behind that hey for a moment, but Eddie takes it in stride, smiling.

"Nooot that I've noticed...?" The answer comes with a slightly unsettled laugh. "Um. Actually? I did come home with something new." They turn on the seat so they're facing oppositely, left side toward him. "Now, don't make this weird," they add, teasingly, as if in hundreds of years they haven't seen pretty much everyone they know in every form imaginable.

Teddy pulls their arm out of the sleeve of their t-shirt and tugs just that side over their head to show him.

Like a mix between the way Teddy used to let plants grow all over him and the tattoos he'd replace them with around mortals: ivy and ferns, in soft realistic shades of ink, cascade from his neck around his shoulder; they curl around other designs. Down his ribcage, though partly covered by the cropped binder he's wearing, there's a scattering of turkey tail mushrooms.

She pulls her shirt the rest of the way back on, hoping it wasn't, in fact, too weird. "So yeah, not exactly an extra limb, but pretty cool --"

Teddy pauses and turns back to Eddie, realizing something. "Wait. You -- say cheese," she demands, half accusatory and half delighted.

never too old!

[satanicpanics]

“Yeah, well, Ronnie was a better drummer than she was a piano player,” he snorts, finishing off his portion of the song with his best attempt at a little flourish. “But she’s probably graduated from NYU now, so I guess someone’s gotta be the one to share all her embarrassing failures with the world before she becomes a big shot lawyer.”

For someone who talks so much and wears so much of himself on his sleeve, Eddie is usually pretty tight-lipped about anything truly personal. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable with sharing (he isn’t--mostly), it’s just that music and D&D usually take total precedence. Either way, he doesn’t think he’s mentioned Ronnie Ecker to…literally anyone here in Abraxas, and she was his best friend. It speaks volumes, really, that he feels like he knows Teddy well enough to share that information without a second thought. He’s been struggling to understand where to place his experiences in the crater, but at the end of the day, maybe he needs to accept that it was real enough.

Besides, it’s not like there isn’t physical evidence as well. Eddie doesn’t even seem fazed when Teddy half-pulls their shirt off. He’s experienced weirder—in the past few months alone.

“Hey, at least you got some sick ink out of it. Which—if you’re looking for more and haven’t found the tattoo place in Nocwich yet? You should definitely seek it out. I’m practically a regular.”

He arrived with tattoos, and he’s obtained a few more in his time in Abraxas—lots of little ones that evoke the macabre, all in black linework aside from a tiny pink bat that’s been inked into the colony of them on his arm. When Teddy asks him to say cheese, he’s taken a little off guard, but he grins, flashing all of his teeth. “Uh...cheese?”

It only takes him a moment to realize Teddy is aiming for a better look at his brand new fangs—his own souvenir from they time in the crater.

“Oh! these? I’m pretty sure they’re purely cosmetic. I mean, the sun hasn’t turned me to ashes yet and I haven’t felt the insatiable urge to bite my roommate, and I didn’t need an invite to walk through your door, but uh…interesting, definitely.”

[tedandroses]

Teddy grins widely at that, and the fondness clearly underlying the snark. "I'll be sure to pass the word around," she deadpans, smirking. "Bandmates back home?" It's a guess, but the drummer comment seems like it's probably a good one.

"Yeah?" Teddy lights up a little, but then he follows up on their request with an appropriately cheesy grin and they blink at his fangs, jaw dropping just a little in a delighted wow.

"Uh, hell yeah, interesting," Teddy says, with a huff of a laugh. "For the record, if you do feel the sudden urge to drink blood, please warn a person. Damn, that's kind of badass." He ponders. "Also, I mean. They can't be purely cosmetic. Like. They could do some damage if you wanted --"

Teddy pauses there, brows creasing in is that edging closer to an implication than I meant or am I just a pervert and moves on. "So wait, which tattoos did you get here? I did see that shop in Nocwich. And I mean."

They make a little spread-hands gesture that's also a little bit of a wry turn over of their arms -- the various sizes, qualities and amounts of meaning or lack thereof; from a stick-and-poke Tetris piece to a carefully shaded and realistic piece of company scrip and things larger and smaller.

"I don't have too much in terms of actual money, though..." She stands up and stretches. "You know Solvunn." There's a question there: how did you go about that?

"--You want to chill downstairs while we talk? It's a little more comfy." Teddy wants to see Eddie's reaction, a little, so they're not giving away exactly that it's a practice space/extremely tiny venue/makeshift studio, if only for within the Horizon. "Also a little more imaginative than the living room."

[satanicpanics]

“Mmm,” he hums thoughtfully. “Sort of an ex-bandmate? There was no Fleetwood Mac-level blowup or anything, but I mean, difficult to make it to practice when you’re about ten hours out of state. But she remains one of my best friends—when I’m not about ten thousand lightyears out of state.”

He doesn’t mention that he’s unlikely to ever return home because he’s very, very dead, but after those eight hundred years, that feels like something most people know now. It causes him a great deal of anxiety to literally have one foot in the grave and no knowledge of if his second chance will ever come to an end, but it is what it is.

“Uh, yeah, Teddy, for the time being? I think I’m gonna refrain from biting anyone.” Even as an ordinary human, Eddie still has a flimsy concept of personal space, and takes this opportunity to lean in close and whisper theatrically. “You’ll be the first one to know if I do, though. Or the second.”

With a grin, he breaks away, and rolls up his sleeves to begin comparing tattoos with Teddy. It was rare to run into people with tattoos in small-town Hawkins, and it remains a little uncommon here as well. He’s managed to talk some of his friends into getting one or two, though, and he’s happy to send more business to the tattoo shop in Nocwich.

“Uh—well, this one—and this one—the pink bat is a new acquisition…” The majority of his tattoos decorate his arms and hands, so it’s not difficult for him to point them out to Teddy: a graveyard, a skeletal hand, a sword, and the pink bat mixed in with his older, much more poorly inked bats. “The graveyard glows in the dark which is all kinds of sick. I dunno how they do it, but—definitely recommend a trip.”

“As for money—I distribute some incredibly potent weed for a woman out of the Free Cities. I probably can’t get you in on that, but you would be surprised how well Nocwich takes to busking. Just make it more interesting than whatever’s going on on the stage—not hard, most days—and you’re golden”

He feels like he does more of that than distribution anyway, especially these days when the factions are feeling even more separate and things are just rough. He rolls down his sleeves, gives a few of the piano keys one last tap (it’s always so hard to resist, and straightens up with a grin.

“It's your house,” he answers. “Where you lead, I will follow.”

[tedandroses]

"What, you mean she doesn't fly back for rehearsal," Teddy deadpans and huffs a laugh. "That's fair, yeah. Very cool. That you're still best friends, I mean. Or, you know." She trails off. She generally doesn't think -- tries not to think -- about the fact that maybe the world is going on without them completely. Teddy hovers, a little on the edge of saying something, or asking Eddie what he thinks happens at home, but it feels a little like it would spiral into a Very Serious conversation.

Which he wouldn't mind; it wouldn't be the first time they've talked a little more honestly. At least, theoretically. But it's just -- this is nice, it's easy and fun. So back to laughingly comparing notes it is, and if Eddie notices that little uncertain pause, he doesn't say anything.

Teddy huffs a laugh when Eddie leans in, and tips their head a little. "I guess second's okay," they tease, all faux consideration. "I'm not the jealous type."
They grin and move on. Actually, it's reassuring, here as they are in the liminal space of re-meeting outside that other universe. Teddy tends to start out a little careful of boundaries, polite, formal in the space they take up. Once they're surer someone won't react badly, that mien drops: they spread out, gesture more widely, get tactile and openly affectionate -- earlier and more readily than many people, if it's welcomed -- perform a little. Eddie leaning right into their space in this reality (or...more or less) reminds them that the over-half-century of being likeminded in that regard isn't a lie.

"Oh, those are badass," Teddy says, smiling and leaning in to see each new one, grinning widely at the horns-sign skeletal hand. "Wait, really?" She glances up at the mention of glowing in the dark. "That's sweet as fuck. I wonder..." That has gears turning in her head. "I'm definitely going to have to talk to them."

"And I thought Solvunn were the farmers," Teddy teases, about the weed. "Noted. I'm...probably not the most connected middleman, anyway. Although, I might want in on that, sometime, if you'd actually recommend it. Sometimes pot helps with post-seizure bullshit."

Huh. Has he ...told Eddie about epilepsy? He must have. In hundreds of years? Teddy can't remember, though, if they got to be friends before or after the symptoms of a seizure were largely relegated to the first moments of an Echo. At some point in forgetting everything, he sort of lost how all of it worked, it had been so long; only that it wasn't being spoken to by Gods and that, as such, he had an extra duty to the children people prayed for him to protect.

Teddy adds, "But busking! That's a great idea. Busking I can do. My band used to, the last one I was in, we were kind of a ...folk punk band, sort of?" They can't think of anyone in the 80s that does what Scrip does: usually they say things like You know the Dropkick Murphies? Appalachian, not Celtic. But he'll at least know folk. "We took the classics everyone had heard and just amped it way up." Teddy hmms. "I don't want to compete with you, though..."

"I like that attitude in a person," Teddy says with a little curl of amusement at one side of her smile. Both on their feet now, she gestures back toward the kitchen in a little formal wave. "I feel like I should give you the grand tour, or something. To your left! You'll see...uh, where you came in. And also the stairs, where there's a bedroom with a way bigger bed than I actually have, and a second bedroom because ...my brain put in space for my parents', I guess, but also, why the fuck not have company. If we keep going straight, there's the kitchen and the table." Teddy pauses to poke her head in and let Eddie do the same if he wants. It, like everything else, is about half way accurate and half wishful thinking. "And if...someone dreamed up a grocery for some reason...we can cook nearly anything. If you go out the back, there's a yard a lot like my house as a kid had, and a vegetable garden just like my grandmother's. But, back here on your left:"

The other side of the staircase, of course, going downstairs. Just an inset, plain wooden door that, when opened, swings at a slight angle to reveal concrete steps going downward and a light that Teddy flicks on. It's funny, how things work here because they should.

"The basement." Teddy heads in, pausing to glance behind themself "In real life, which this layout is kinda? this goes straight down and it's just a little root cellar. Probably had a generator and like, hot water heater, and theoretically us if there was ever a tornado, which I think there might've been all of once." As they go down, though, the stairs turn, and on the landing there are books of all kinds stacked. "But here..."

Teddy turns on another light at the last few steps, and it flickers on to show a much bigger room. Nearest them are beanbags, a worn but comfy looking couch, some speakers connected to a stereo, and a small TV with a very old Nintendo console underneath. Behind that, on top of a rug: three guitars of varying kinds and a bass on a long stand, a drumset, and mikes, with cords snaking to amps on either side. To one side there's a minifridge.

Teddy grins. "...Et voila. I dream big."

[satanicpanics]

“Yeah, I know,” he echoes dryly. In his state of semi-living, he’s not convinced he can go home at all, and even dreads the possibility of that being offered to them because he knows that he can’t just keep people from returning to their lives. He’s well aware that there’s a pause—that Teddy would clearly discuss it with him if he were to open that door, but he’s learned that he just can’t dwell on these things or he ends up in a spiral of nerves and anxiety thinking about the what-ifs and maybes, and it is very hard to get out. Toss those eight centuries into the mix and it’s not really something he’s prepared to talk about again just yet. Maybe next time.

He’s quick to grin, though, and carries on easily, breaking out of Teddy’s personal space once he’s made his point about his new teeth and any future biting of others—unlikely, but always a possibility, he supposes. Eddie Munson has never known personal space, not when he decides he likes someone enough to befriend them, or dislikes someone enough to torment them. In this case, it’s the former.

He remembers something about epilepsy, enough that he just…doesn’t need to ask what they’re talking about, and it feels odd to have that information at all, but he rolls with it easily, no questions asked.

“Oh yeah? And to think it’s illegal back home,” he snorts, rolling his eyes. “Not that it ever stopped me, but uh…Come with me next time,” he insists, doesn’t ask, as if they really have been friends for years. “We’ll make it a whole thing. I’ll hook you up with a free weed sample, make enough money for a little ink, you let me hear your tunes, I let you hear mine—no competition, just typical freak behavior.”

He allows Teddy to lead him through the grand tour, answering with the occasional quip, and he really is impressed. He replicated his uncle’s little trailer rather effectively, but that was one bedroom and little else—he can’t imagine replicating something like this. The noise he utters when he spies the mystery room at last—the guitars! The amps! The mics! Even a Nintendo, something he could never afford in a million years—well, it’s high pitched and a little embarrassing.

“You just opened the gates to heaven,” he utters with true awe and reverence. “Holy shit. All we had was a garage.”

[tedandroses]

"Eddie! You? Illegal activities?" They clap a hand to their chest with a faux-gasp, smirking. They're about to continue, but Eddie goes on to invite them -- or demands their presence -- and Teddy blinks, surprised into a more genuine smile, fully warmed by the casual declaration.

"Fuck yeah," they agree, nodding, and lift a hand to bump knuckles, or whatever Eddie ends up interpreting that as (did people do that in the 80s? Teddy's investigations into the past have never included casual hand gestures of enthusiasm). "I am all for more typical freak behavior."

"Did anyone tell you it is legal now?" Teddy adds as they head down the stairs. "Pot. Well, kinda. Some states have it totally decriminalized, and some of them are, you know, West Virginia." She snorts. "But the medical stuff is, back home. Taxed to shit, which I think they finally figured out."

They grin widely at Eddie's little squeak. Truth is, they've been waiting to show this part off to someone, and Eddie's the best person to show it off to: there's no point in having a fairly equipped little practice area and guitars you could never afford and a little den full of cushions and music and books if you don't have company.

"That's me, Saint Peter," Teddy says, spreading his arms theatrically.
He grins at we just had a garage. "Shit, you're telling me. One of our best practice spaces was an old barn. This? Is basically the coolest moodboard ever, yanked out of my head. I think the rug is from a venue we played once, and the guitars are from ...a lot of hours in music stores...and the stereo setup is probably just from me being a geek, honestly --"

They spread their hands in a little scale gesture. "What'll it be, playing something or someone else playing something? Your choice."

[satanicpanics]

“Imagine that, right?,” he quips with a grin, knowing full and well that he just has the look of someone who’s an expert at distributing illegal substances—because he is! He did it back home too, because gigs in a small town really don’t pay. It was something he chose to do to make sure he wasn’t seeping into his uncle’s tiny paycheck too much. Luckily, being from the 80s hasn’t impeded Eddie’s ability to interpret a fist bump. He returns the gesture easily, without a thought.

“Uh, no, no one told me that,” he confirms, rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ, of course they did, because even the police were using it. Let me guess—Indiana was a hold-out, right?”

Because Indiana is always the hold-out, at least from where Eddie stands. To him, the whole state is dull and behind the times, but it is still home, and he can talk shit about it as much as he want. But for now, it doesn’t matter

“Oh, we’re playing something.”

He turns toward Teddy again, his eyes wide, intense, and serious. It’s clear that he won’t be swayed and he’s leaving no room for argument. They can absolutely listen to something later, but for now, they are playing something.

“So long as you allow me access to one of these beauties, of course,” he continues, gesturing grandly to the guitars.

[tedandroses]

It’s less that Eddie has the look of a dealer: maybe he does, in some stereotypical way, but a good half or more of the kids Teddy grew up with — and their parents — have exchanged drugs and money in one direction or another. There’s no ‘look’. Nah, the joke is more vibes. Eddie and Teddy seem in many ways cut from the same cloth, and drugs totally aside, ‘is it legal’ has never been Teddy’s main consideration about …a lot of things, really.

It takes Teddy a minute. “Oh, you mean — someone here who’s a cop back home? And yeah, I’m pretty sure their governor got all soapboxy and hasn’t even legalized medical.

“I know so little about Indiana? Like — I was born and lived 10 years in the state next door and just a hop over, after that, but about what I got is…’oh, it’s the other state you go to if you’re in a dry county in Kentucky and you need beer’. Or fireworks, according to my friends in Louisville,” she laughs. “It’s got…NASCAR? I don’t know.”

Teddy watches with a beam as Eddie takes in the surroundings; it only gets wider when he turns back with an intent look. They’d been hoping, really, that he’d say that. There are like 3000 songs he’s missed out on so if he had wanted to explore Teddy’s choice of music they’d have completely understood. But.

“Fuck yeah we are.”

Nothing really compares to playing with someone. Even writing and performing solo, they usually miss playing with a band and like to rope in collaborators; it’s more just that it doesn’t fit Scrip’s…whole thing.

“Obviously,” Teddy scoffs. “What’s the point of three guitars that only I can touch? The one on the far end’s a twelve string hollowbody,” she adds, gesturing as they make their way to the ‘stage’,

“and then there’s — the one in the middle’s more like a Super Strat, got a sweet 24 fret setup with a thinner neck so you can shred all day,” she sneaks a grin at Eddie: pretty sure this will be his choice, though, who knows! “And the one on the near end’s essentially my dream version Les Paul, with the humbuckers and that rounder sound. Just like — my kid in a candy store wishlist, basically.”

[satanicpanics]

“Here? Jesus Christ, no. I literally mean the cops back home. An officer searched my van once, found a joint, and no joke—I saw the guy smoking it in his own patrol car thirty minutes later.”

Short of the alternate dimension that lurks beneath Hawkins, Indiana isn’t particularly noteworthy. Eddie has spent all his life with that belief, an he refuses to change his mind now. “Yeah, that’s one good thing about it. Beer is like…crazy easy to get,” he concedes. “I was working at a dive bar—heavy emphasis on the dive—before I was eighteen.”

But that was the 80s, and Eddie is still unaware just how much may have changed twenty years later. Chances are, a seventeen year old wouldn’t be hired as a bar back, and he wouldn’t be able to slip his friends drinks any time the owner wasn’t looking.

“But besides that? Not a whole lot about Indiana worth mentioning, so…”

Besides the alternate dimension beneath his small town, but he trails off, taken in by the guitars and literally everything else about this cozy space Teddy has created. He and Nanaue have a good thing going on with Goat Destroyer, and Nanaue came back from the emergent reality with some crazy drumming skills, but Eddie misses playing with other people, just jamming and figure out what works and what doesn’t. He still plays solo more often than not, and there’s something sort of sad about that. But now is his moment to fix it.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

With a grin, he steps right up and reaches for the middle guitar—the Superstrat, just like Teddy expected he might. He’s a free spirit, sure, but when it comes to some things, he’s very predicable.

“She’s beautiful,” he sighs, immediately beginning to pick out an old blues riff. Start off slow, start off easy, launch into the shredding after a bit of a warm-up. He paces the “stage” as he plays, and this is clearly Eddie in his element.

“Man, you have good taste in guitars. I wanna hear the others too. Get up here and join me.”

[tedandroses]

Teddy doesn't quite follow that all the way to the being told about marijuana legalization part, but it's fine; they're distracted by laughing at hypocritical cops. "Of course you fuckin' did. Jesus. Real subtle." They roll their eyes. "I feel like half of cops are just the guys from high school who fucked with anyone half interesting, because they don't know what to do with themselves when they get out of school and find out you can't just get paid to do that in most other jobs, and they can pass the physical."

It's a respectable job, and a better alternative to some others, but even in places as half-step-from-desperation as the places Teddy grew up in, and as many chances as she had to not be both as privileged and lucky as she is, she's pretty sure she could never be a police officer. Not for fucking long, anyway.

Teddy laughs, lifting their eyebrows. There were some places they played at 18 where they had to get big sharpie x's on their hands just entering; the idea of someone serving alcohol at 17 is pretty insane. They have no idea whether that's an Indiana thing or an 80s thing: both seem possible.

She grins when Eddie picks up the Superstrat, both glad to be right and genuinely pleased to see what he does. The grin relaxes into something like impressed delight, nodding along as Eddie starts with a blues progression and kicks the performance up a notch.

(If Eddie had his own character sheet, they're pretty sure they'd be able to SEE the Charisma stat spin up a few numbers.)

They almost jump a little when he gestures them up.
"Helps to have absolutely no limits but my imagination," Teddy smirks to hide that they're pleased by the remark. It's a very subjective thing, but it does bode well for them playing together that the things they like in guitars are things he likes too. "It'd be my honor." They do a little flourish at him and head over, frowning at the guitars in a half second of indecision -- this or that? -- and goes for the 12 string; almost checks the tuning before realizing they don't imagine their guitars out of tune so it never ends up being a problem.

Teddy picks up the chord progression Eddie was riffing through after listening for a moment, taking the role of rhythm at first. She adds a little oomph with the strum pattern to give him a foundation to riff around, picking a few walking notes between chords to add a little syncopation and take advantage of the paired strings.