A.N.:Hey y'all! Here I am with yet another Deyna fic when all I should be doing is studying. Oh well. I don't know where inspiration came from for this new story, all I know is that once the muses were done with me I felt like I had just woken up after a open-heart surgery. I wanted to explore their relationship and look at it from Deacon's point of view and his third Thursday's performances at the Bluebird seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that. I don't know if there'll be more chapters to this or not yet, I guess that is pretty much up to you guys, so please hit the review button below and let me know what you think of it. Before I leave you to your reading though, I must thank SparklyMichelle for being so patient and lovely and amazing and everything in between to me. Boo I adore you.
Okay, without further ado, here's Twenty Years. Enjoy!

PS: The song that I used in this chapter is neither mine or Deacon's, It's the beautiful Twenty Years by The Civil Wars.

Applause and whistles echo across the room as my pick touches the last string on my guitar, signaling the end of the song. I look up and smile to the small crowd in front of me. Scarlett nods her head and smiles one of her megawatt smiles clapping her hands gleefully. It's one of those quiet winter nights. The bar is not packed as usual, It's a lot quieter and a lot cozier. I like it. The raindrops decorating the glass windows outside, explain why my guitar sounds a whole lot louder tonight and my niece's face drops everytime her eyes land on the almost empty tips jar on the far end of the counter. I work with my right hand on positioning exactly the capo on the seventh fret and then move closer to the microphone to introduce my next song. The people in this room don't need to know when this song was written or why. They probably don't care and I don't care to explain. It's one of those song. Which songs? Well, those songs you get inspired for after a meeting where the new entry in the group asks you to tell the story about your first trip to rehab. Again. And so you stand up, confined in that little circle of chairs and weepy eyes, and tell that story again. A thousand memories start playing back along with a never-heard-before melody. By the time I got to my car in the parking lot that afternoon, I had already mentally written the first verse. Yeah, I guess it's just one of those songs. It's the first time I perform this song live, actually It's the first time I perform this song ever. Whether I like it or not people are going to realize who this song is about before I'll get to the chorus. They're going to talk about it tomorrow. And I can't help but smile with satisfaction as the realization hits me, that one of those whispers may reach the Country Club doors and make someone choke on his drink. The thought one of those whispers could reach her ears is disheartening on the other hand and makes me second guess my choice. But people are looking at me expectantly and so I start strumming my guitar. And in the five seconds intro that separates me from the microphone right before me, I regret it. I regret it all.

There's a note underneath your front door
That I wrote twenty years ago

I asked the cab driver to make a little detour from our original destination. A quick stop on my way to hell. I knew she wouldn't be home when the car stopped in front of that too much familiar building. An album signing, rehearsal, wardrobe fitting or something along those lines was the opportunity I jumped at. I thought about taking the stairs but decided against it, scared that climbing eight floors would grant me enough time to change my mind and turn on my heels. There's no uncrossing certain lines, there's no going back. My moments of sobriety were few and far between at the time already. They usually came around in association with racking remorse and strong nausea. And I had to make the best of them. So that cold January afternoon I slipped a note underneath the third door on the right and then left.

Yellow paper and a faded picture
And a secret in an envelope

I don't know what finally pushed me over the edge. I told my friends I was just following through on my new year's resolution, no big deal. Everybody makes promises they'll probably never keep at the stroke of the midnight hour on December 31st. It was just that mine required to pack a suitcase and closing myself off to the world for six weeks. I told my sister I just wanted to get my shit together and become a better man, so that the next time our father would have a heart attack our mother would have to find somebody else to cast the blame on. But the actual reason I was stepping foot into that grey foul-smelling building was trapped between a panel of wood and a blue grimy carpet. I folded it into a square and closed it into an envelope with a black and white picture I had carved out of a page of The Tennessean, a treasured memory of our very first sold out show in Nashville. A bleached out version of us and the way we were next to a secret that came in the form of a silver coin, a one-day-sober chip to mockingly remind us of the way we are now.

There's no reasons, no excuses
There's no secondhand alibis

I'd squandered all my apologies and I'm-sorry's over the course of the six months that led me to that moment. She'd heard them all: the ones mumbled in between retches, the ones whispered at the crack of dawn in my sleep, the ones yelled right to her face in the middle of yet another post sound check fight. I had nothing more to say, except admitting that I was a drunk and needed medical help. And telling her I loved her more than anyone and anything. Because It was true and because there's no squandering when it comes to expressing your feelings I've been told.

Just some black ink on some blue lines
And a shadow you won't recognize

We are songwriters, far from good talkers but decent listeners. That day I couldn't have talked to her or listened to her. So I left a note instead, a few lines hastily scrawled across a ruled piece of paper with an address, a phone number and a date underlined three times. February 9th. That's when I would be allowed to receive visits, in three weeks, when hopefully I would have become a shadow of the man I used to be.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting
For twenty years and twenty more

I spent those twenty-one days dreaming at night about the day she would walk through that door and into my arms. And on the twenty-first day she did appear like a vision at the foot of my bed. Then again, on the twenty-first day of my second stint in rehab. And on the third and the fourth. Until the twenty-second day passed and I realize there wouldn't be a fifth twenty-first day hug and a fifth twenty-first day kiss and a fifth twenty-first day 'I can't wait for you to come home' this time around. It's been twenty years and I still dream about that day, only now she's slamming a bigger than life wooden door in Belle Meade and running into my waiting arms at the end of that pebble stone driveway. I'll probably spend the next twenty years waking up every day coursing under my breath because I'm still twenty-one days away from her.

I'll be praying for redemption
And your note underneath my door

I've never blamed her, not once. I've never held against her the walks down the red carpets clutching a hand that wasn't mine, or the birthdays parties with hideous clowns and pink balloons I wasn't invited to, or the bare Christmas tree in my house, or the underpaid gigs at the Bluebird every third Thursday of the month. It's what I deserve for putting her through all that shit for a number of years. But It's also my redemption. For every E! Red Carpet Live event I get through without touching the glass of whiskey that stares at me from across the room in a bar, I redeem myself. For every birthday present slipped inside her handbag when she's not looking during a five minutes break in rehearsal, I make amends. For every 'Rayna' stocking I've hung upon my fireplace over the years, I've learned my lesson. And even now that I'm singing this song to this unwonted small crowd, I wait for them to grant me redemption in the shape of an applause.

And your note underneath my door

And they do. Until their hands turn red on their insides. I smile and thank them all, wishing them goodnight before I leave the center stage. I know later I'll head home, turn the key in the locket and let my eyes linger on the threshold for just a second. There'll be no notes underneath my door.