It’s a candid, one of those blurry shaky ones taken from the mosh pit that they sell for too much on ebay. It’s close, though, so close I can feel the stage lights just looking at it.

In that picture I like to ignore, I’m the back, mostly not visible behind the drums. I get the feeling that it was a rough night, a work my ass off night, a prove I ought to be here night. The kind where my arms want to fall off and my hands vibrate until the next week or so. I’ve had a lot of those, though, so it’s not like that narrows it down.

In that picture I like to ignore, and in fact the reason I like to ignore it, is Dave. I’m working my ass off behind him, and Dave’s staring into space with his back to me. From the loose grin on his face, I’m pretty sure he’s staring at a pretty girl in the front row. Story of my life, man.

So. The story of my life: I was born in Texas, in January, to two relatively well-meaning folks-

Nah. Fast forward. Rough childhood stories are like assholes to rockstars; everybody has one these days, and only shit comes out. Besides, I’ll end up drawling for the next week. No, tonight I want the Dave chapter, so I can figure out how the fuck I ended up here. Here being nowhere, but at least I have a front row seat. I’d feel better about that if I could stop shaking.

The Dave story: once upon a time, our intrepid hero was backstage after playing “You Oughta Know” for the thousandth fucking time, drinking Gatorade and minding his own goddamn business. Then this dark-haired guy with a nice smile wanders through, but stops long enough to look at our hero and laugh, “let me guess, you’re the drummer.” Our intrepid idiot was charmed, they talked, tall dark and heterosexual left his number behind, and our hero was henceforth fucked for life,

I should’ve hit on him. It wouldn’t have stopped him from calling, since Dave isn’t an asshole, but it would’ve kept me off his list of people to ask over when their last drummer quit. Dave has a firm policy of not fucking where he eats, so to speak.

Then again, no; I wouldn’t have traded this. Maybe the OD, yeah, and the rehab that followed it. Hell in a nice building with pink walls to keep us from murdering each other. It was like drowning in Pepto Bismal. I might trade nights like tonight, where my head hurts and my eyes burn from the smoke in the arena and everything aches and the bus could be used to store meat. I’m not entirely sure what I’d trade in the few bad parts for, though.

Home. Being warm, out by the pool, with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other and the sun on my back. Instead I’m stuck in a cold rolling chrome box, with the night stretching on forever. It’s too late to poke Dave awake, too early to sleep. Quiet time. I was never good with that. Just ask my mom, poor woman.

I miss my kitchen, and my DVD collection, and my bed, and my dogs, and my mom, if we’re going there. I miss a flat surface that didn’t vibrate and not having to worry about getting jarred awake by horn-happy assholes 2 hours after I finally get to sleep.

Okay, so maybe I don’t miss home. Maybe the bus is simply the devil. Or a meatlocker.

I crawl up off the couch, apparently too fast, and have to grab on to the wall to keep from ending up on my ass as the world sways. I’d probably rather it was the bus flipping. Instead, it’s déjà vu all over again.

I’m tired, not high. I’m tired, not high. And if I repeat that enough times, maybe the tiny little part of my brain that apparently sat out on the coma and the rehab and the Kumbaya won’t be disappointed.

This would be where a wiser person would just throw in the towel, curl up and sleep it off. However, I’m not wise. I’m also not fond of sleep. Wasn’t the coma enough?

So. Instead of lying down, I stagger up the hall between the bunks. I don’t trust myself close to the windshield and the steps down, so I stop by Dave’s bunk and yell down at the driver instead. “Dude! Turn the fucking heat up!”

The driver grumbles at me, but reaches over and hits the heater. Which is good.

With a rattle, the curtain over Dave’s bunk opens, and tall dark and heterosexual himself is looking at me with that smile that’s half snark and half genuinely amused. Which is not so good.

Wiping at one eye and having the nerve to look cute, warm and rumpled, Dave yawns hugely enough to make his jaw crack. His voice is still rough from all the screaming when he asks, “You trying to ask our driver, or Chris and Nate’s?”

I should apologize, but fuck that happy shit. I’m really not in the mood. “I’m cold.”

“Well, go shower.” Dave reaches one long arm out and shoves at my head. “There’s still hot water. Do me and the driver a favor.” With a sudden grin, he adds, “Bandmates for Better Drummer Hygiene.”

Yeah, yeah. If he was really into it, he’d get in there with me. I flip him off, mostly out of habit, and pull the curtain closed. I can’t feel too bad about waking him; Dave sleeps in two hour spurts, which means when normal people are asleep Dave and I are stuck sitting on the couch and watching the agricultural report. This isn’t the loud bus, the press favorite bus or the carnivore bus. This is the insomniac bus. This is the “let’s keep Chris from getting so sleep-deprived he becomes psychotic and climbs on a billboard” bus.

Anyway. The prospect of heat beckons, so there I go. It’s small enough in the bathroom that you kind of have to fight the door closed. Bright, too, white light, hospital light, “don’t go towards the light” light. It doesn’t help the headache.

It’s colder in here. I changed my mind; Hell is a 3x4 bathroom with fluorescent lights that hum so loud it drowns out the tires, until it feels like its own little world. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears, in my head. The muscles in my arm itch to move, to drum, to block out the quiet. It feels like a tomb.

Here lies our intrepid hero. He just thought he lived.

I twist on the  water, mostly for noise. My fingers don’t want to work right. Blocks of clay, frozen solid. That’s gonna make it hard to drum tomorrow. I put my hand under the water, but it doesn’t wash away. Blurry, clay to hand and back again.

Something’s wrong. This feels like… my brain feels slowed down, everything crystal-sharp but fake, like it’s waiting to roll and shift. Bad trip. Not the nice honey-slow gold of the first few times, but the harder edged ones that happened just before I OD’ed. It sucks, but I needed it anyway. I didn’t miss this, but some part of me wants it.

Slipped me something. Somebody backstage put it in a drink, for a laugh. Ought to tell Dave.

Yeah. Like Dave would believe me.

My own laugh sounds really bitter. Distant. My, that other person could use some therapy. Good thing it’s not me.

I pull the door of the shower open and step inside to wash the cold off. That much I can do. The water isn’t hot enough, and this is as high as it goes. Fucking bus showers. Fucking bus. Fucking Dave.

Wishful thinking.

After a minute, I sit down on the floor of the shower. Standing takes too much effort. I tilt my head back into the spray, and for a second it feels like hot drowning. Rock forward, and the water drums into my back.

In, out. Rhythm. I’ve always liked rhythm. Mom’s heartbeat, her old rocking chair that fell to shit a long time ago. The slap of rope and basketball on concrete at recess; the girls had a better sense of timing than I did back then. The tempo of my fist against another guy’s face, with the wet crack of his nose as a counterpoint. Losing my virginity in the back of a girl’s car, the steady thump of her back against the door and her happy moans. The hum of bus tires on road. Pill, bottle, pill, bottle, on too many nights in a row. Dave’s voice in the dark. Life is rhythm.

Profound, coming from the dumb blond rocking in the plastic tomb. Doesn’t make me stop rocking. Does make me reach out and start tapping on the wall. One tap, two taps, a rhythm, a song. The pressure eases up a little, enough that I don’t feel like screaming loud enough to bring the walls down. I can breathe.

Problem is, I can’t seem to stop tapping.
***
(Dave)
I can die a happy man; Agent Scully is looking at me like she wants to eat my face. Not Gillian Anderson, who is fucking hot in her own right, but Scully. First season Scully, when she was still that aloof distant chick nobody could have. Yeah, my therapist had a field day with that one, let me tell you.

If I open my mouth, I’m going to ask her to investigate the contents of my pants. So. I grin at her, instead, that cocky as shit grin that’s gotten me smacked, slapped and laid more times than I can count. The aliens are real, ma’am, and you’re just going to have to convince me otherwise. Preferably with one eyebrow raised like… that. Oh, yeah, baby.

Scully slides off the desk and stands in front of me, arms loosely crossed, five something feet of hot fed. She smells good, like strawberries; not the fake sickly sweet kind, but the real stuff, with acid under the sweetness. Taste too many and your mouth’s raw.

I lean forward, close enough to take a button of her suit jacket in my teeth, and she bends to look at me. The hair slides out from behind her ear to almost touch her mouth. Staring at me like she wants to burn a hole through my forehead, she says, “Here I am, sitting in my tin can.”

Well. Sings, actually. With a very male, very familiar, very muffled voice.

Aigh. Goddamnit, Taylor, you’re going to have to die now.

With a groan, I roll over and jam my shoulder against the wall of the bunk. Stings, yeah, but it tells my dick that the fun’s over for the moment. I could try to put a pillow over my head and go back to sleep, but I’d probably end up with the Cancer Man on my lap crooning “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”, and a guy only needs so much trauma in his life. Besides which, I have to piss.

I slide out of bed and hit the floor with that slap that only bare feet on tiles make. I glance at the driver, who’s carefully ignoring me, then tug the privacy curtain closed. If I’m going to blugeon Taylor to death, I want some privacy when I do it.

Through the bathroom door, I can hear the shower running. Which does not help the piss situation.

I knock twice on the door in warning, then yank it open and step into an apparently relocated Alaskan tundra. Or what feels like one. An Alaskan tundra with lingering humidity, no less, like at one point it had been hot. It’s not like the water just ran cold; it’s been cold. And Taylor’s not bitching.

Okay. Whatever floats his boat. Fucking weirdo.

I knock on the frosted door on my way past, without looking anywhere near it. “No jerking off with me in the room.”

He doesn’t say anything, not even to laugh. But he’s drumming, so he’s probably fine. I’ll worry when he stops. So, I keep going, wander over to take care of nature. It’s more difficult than it sounds with an impromptu live performance of “Suffragette City” taking place not ten feet away. It seems to be Bowie night.

I finish up, run my hands under equally icy sink water. It’s cold, biting cold. Fucking weirdo is right.

Okay. I’ll do the good bandmate thing, otherwise known as the paranoid thing. When I turn around to leave, I look through the door. It’s pretty blurry, thank God, so I won’t be blinded-

Taylor’s on the floor.

And that fast, I forget Scully and Bowie and the driver and Alaska. I pull the door open.

First thing that hits me? The water is cold enough to ache after it bites, colder than what catering calls ice water.

Second thing that hits me? Taylor’s curled up under said cold water, rocking, humming and still in his clothes. Still in his shoes, for fuck’s sake. That’d be about when I crawl under the spray, icy or not, and drop down to his level. I was wrong; he’s mumbling, actually. And slurring.

I’d like to say one of the thoughts ricocheting around in my brain is surprised, but it’s not. Angry, yeah. Stung, fuck yes. But not surprised. I grab his chin and tilt his face up into the spray, holding on probably tighter than I need to. He looks glazed, but… but his pupils flare like they ought to. It isn’t drugs, or at least not the kind from the bad old days.

So, add surprised to that mix after all. And look, it brought its old friend guilty relief.

Taylor jerks his chin away, almost hissing, but he doesn’t lose the rhythm on the wall. His hands are shaking, but he drums. His lips are nearly blue, but he keeps humming. Trust him to be… persistent.

“Hey.” I think that came out louder than I meant it to, because he twitches. I tone it down. “Hey. Look at me. What’re you doing?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he shakes his head. Apparently he only knows about half of Suffragette City, because he switches to Another One Bites the Dust. Appropriate, anyway.

I watch him for another minute, trying to figure out what the hell to do with him. My hands are starting to feel numb, so I should probably do whatever it’s going to be soon. First thing, get him out of the shower. “C’mon. Up and out. Let’s go get some nice boiling tea and talk about this, huh?”

Taylor… well, ignores me is something of an understatement. He tips his head back, and if I wasn’t blocking the water he’d get a faceful. I wince on his behalf, part because of the cold, part because I can only see whites in the slit of his eyes.

“Okayyy. How about I get you out of the shower, then.” Taking a minute to gauge, I lean forward and hook one arm around him to pull him up. Awkward as hell, yeah, but it’s the best I can-

Motherfuck!

His elbow hits me in the sternum about the same time his head hits my chin, and both knock me back on my ass in half an inch of standing water with an armful of drummer to contend with. He snarls, fighting so hard I’m half afraid he’s going to jerk an arm out of socket. The other half is afraid he’s going to roll over and strangle me.

Should’ve gotten solo buses. Or one big bus. Having our resident boxer Chris on hand to pry Taylor off might have come in handy. Instead, I get to wrestle him away from the glass and the wall until he wears himself out. Hopefully he’ll wear out first. I’m trying not to remember that he’s stronger than he looks. It would help if I wasn’t nearly drowning.

Somehow I get an arm free long enough to turn the water off, which I’ll be paying with in bruises, and just like that Taylor stops fighting. Unfortunately, ‘just like that’ apparently includes making a hitching noise that makes me feel like the universe’s largest jerk. He squeezes his eyes shut and hums, frantically, so loud I can feel it through his back.

“Easy,” I mutter, though I’m not entirely sure which of us I’m talking to. I’m not good with the talking down shit, I never have been. “It’s okay.”

He’s not relaxing. He’s wound, actually, which is the normal post-concert resting state for Taylor, but never this tight. I have to fight to get him sitting up, against the door. His hands drum on his knees. While he’s distracted, I take the moment to stretch and grab a towel off the counter, then to drape it around his shoulders. Then, grabbing my own towel between my teeth, I haul him up off the floor and out of the shower. He wobbles, but doesn’t open his eyes. I can’t tell what he’s humming.

I spit the towel out as soon as we clear the bathroom, leveraging Taylor against the doorway so I can put it on the table. Thank God I closed the privacy curtain, because I’m pretty sure me dragging Taylor out of the bathroom, both of us drenched, is new even on our tours. I dump Tay on an uncomfortable plastic chair for the moment, then go get my suitcase. I walk into no less than three walls along the way. Note to self: next time, don’t stare at Taylor, watch where you’re fucking going.

Anyway. I pull out a handful of clothes, mostly sweats, and fuck I’m glad now I let Mom nag me into habitually packing for all weathers. I doubt she foresaw this one, but with my mom, you never know.

When I come back, Taylor has his head down on the table and is shivering in earnest, the kind that looks like it hurts mostly because the person in question is fighting them back. Even half conscious, Taylor covers. Pretty impressive, actually. You can take the boy out of repressed macho Texas, but you can’t take the repressed macho Texas out of the boy. That could be a greeting card.

He’s still drumming, one hand hitting the table without much energy. It looks more like desperation than fun, a bit like a swimming because you’re drowning versus swimming for the hell of it. I don’t know exactly what to do with that, so I pull the towel off his shoulders and scrub at his hair. At least that can be dry. When I pull back, his hair looks… well, about as orderly as usual, which is to say not.

He lifts his head to blink at me, blearily. Little kid sick and miserable. Never mind that most kids look expectantly trusting, while Taylor just looks resigned.

I want to call my mother. I won’t, but I want to. What should I be doing? What did she do when I was little? Should I call a doctor, make a big scene and freak him out more, or calm him down and go from there?

Yeah. Yeah, that second one sounds good. I need a breather before I can wrestle him again.

“Do you want some tea?” Desperate? Why, yes. “Gatorade? Anything?”

That earns me a stare, with absolutely no recognition behind it. Fuck. I almost wish it was drugs; at least then I’d have someone to be angry with.

I reach across the table and grab one of his wrists. Before he can jerk back and hit me again, I clear my throat. Been a while since I did a private concert of Bowie’s greatest hits, but hey. Voice torn up and raggedy sounding, I sing. “Baby, I’ve been breaking glass in your room again, listen…”

Taylor blinks at me, but stops humming, and leaves his wrist in my hand. The look of slow relief that dawns on his face hurts to see, but I don’t pull my eyes away until after the last notes die out. When I let go of his wrist, he keeps his hands still.

Naturally, I get to be the first to crack the silence. “You okay?”

Eyes slanted half-closed, he nods. I don’t know if he’s all there, but any answer that isn’t a hiss or snarl is an improvement at this point.

“Okay.” I stand up and take a careful step back. “I’m getting tea. I’ll make you some.”

He nods, then ignores me completely in favor of watching his fingers curl and uncurl, one corner of his mouth curving. Fun for the feverish. I think that’ll keep him occupied for a minute or so.

As soon as I turn, I hear the chair scrape back and unsteady footsteps. I glance at the reflection in the microwave and watch him stumble as his knees almost go. I can’t see it, but I can just picture his mouth thinning into a hard line, the ‘I will do this even if it kills me’ line. Then he starts wriggling out of the shorts, and I very quickly look away. If I hear a sickening thud, then I’ll turn.

Tea is good, though it’s not the rock star thing to drink after a concert and makes me feel like Angela Lansbury. I don’t like so much the taste, since most of it tastes like grass with artificial flavoring, but the ritual is good. Two cups in microwave, four minutes, honey, spoon, teabags, stir. I know he probably won’t drink it, but it calms me down some. That way I can remember that, oh yeah, there’s a thermometer above the sink. Go me.

When I turn again, both hands occupied with tea and the thermometer, Taylor’s shorts are in one corner and the rest of him is huddled up on the couch. It’s so rare he actually sits on one the right way (ie, not upside down doing his damnedest to imitate a spider monkey) that it looks strange. All that show around the blanket is a tangle of hair and bare feet. Cute, in a weird way.

I sit down on the other side of the couch and hand him the thermometer. “This first.”

Oh, look, there’s a hand under all that. Taylor reaches out, takes the thermometer, and retreats under the blanket again. I can see eyes, now. The fact that they’re fixed everywhere but on me, including just past my shoulder, is not so good.

“I’m gonna change.”

A startled blink, then he nods and rolls over on to one side, away from me. Curls up. Even his feet disappear under the blanket that time. He’s not exactly small, Taylor, but he’s compact. Fits in overhead storage bins. And yes, I mean that literally. The things you do on tour to get an hour’s sleep…

Anyway. Clothes. Dry clothes, good. Dry clothes, less likely to freeze dick off.

Something beeps under the blanket, behind me… and damn it, is he humming again?

I drop back on to the couch, shaking the loose water off my hair, and grab the nearest safe body part in reach. Turns out to be an ankle. He’s still shivering, but not as badly. Warming up. He pokes his head out from under the blanket and blinks again. “Oh. You stayed.”

Ouch. Man, he certainly knows how to make a guy feel like shit. “Yeah, I stayed. Hand me that?”

Taylor turns the thermometer and frowns at it. “It beeped.”

“They do that.” I swipe the thermometer out of his hand. His temp’s not too bad, not too great, but nothing to call the hospital over. What would they do, give him aspirin and throw him in an ice bath? That’s been done. Besides, neither of us wants to deal with what the press would do with that.

I squeeze his ankle. “You need anything else?”

The lump under the blanket shakes his head, and yet I have the feeling that if I get up he’ll start humming again. Okay, then. I stay. Just note that this would be infinitely easier if I didn’t want to rub his head and call him pet names. He’s… quiet. And cold. And smaller, somehow, without the constant fidgeting. And this certainly has nothing to do with lingering guilt or anything. And for that matter, I saw Elvis in my fridge mold.

Which of us is the feverish one, again?

“You can go.” Too-bright eyes burn over the edge of the blanket at me as Taylor rolls over, almost off the couch. “Back to bed. Or I’ll go to the bunk. Lemme just-“

“Or you’ll stay put. I’m not leaving.” Some low, petty part of my brain makes me mutter, “I’m not the one who almost left.”

Taylor’s laugh is suddenly brittle. “No. There was no ‘almost’. You did leave.”

So much for under my breath. “I won’t apologize for needing space.”

 “Fine. You’re right. I’m sorry I expected the Dave Grohl to....” Taylor cuts himself sharply off, turning over to face the back of the couch. Then, from under the covers comes a loud, off-key rendition of the Muppet Show theme. Mature. Really. Reaching up, I flip the covers back so I can glare at him properly. The shirt is hiked up to his ribs already, with all the twisting. He shivers so hard it’s almost a flinch and grabs at the covers, snarling “Fuck you.”

I hold on, gamely. I had an older sister, I’m good at this game. “Expect me to what? And what’s with the humming?”

Getting a hold of the blankets, he yanks them out of my grip and hides under them. Oh, excuse me, covers up. And I’m avoidant? “You don’t want to know, Dave.”

Trust Taylor ‘Freddy Mercury wouldn’t have to put up with this’ Hawkins to be a belligerent invalid. Why the hell are we on the same bus, so we can tear into each other without outside casualties? “I asked, didn’t I?”

“You ask a lot of questions you don’t want the answer to,” he says, flatly.

I think it’d hurt less if he’d screamed it. Instead, it takes a second to hurt, like all the really bad ones do.  I take my hand carefully back and watch him pull in even tighter on himself. When I keep staring, he turns to stare at the blank TV.

“Would you rather I go?” I ask, and try not to notice that there are a thousand landmines under that question. Would he rather this be it? Would he be better off without the road and its temptations and its stresses? Did I lose him the second he hit the hotel floor two years ago in London?

His mouth thins, then relaxes. For a second, he just looks tired and sick as he shakes his head ‘no’.

I’m such an ass. “I’m sorry.”

A small, humorless smile. “You said you weren’t apologizing.”

“I’m apologizing for a lot of other things. You’re sick, and I yelled at you.”

“Didn’t yell, exactly. And don’t bother.” That smile turns rueful.  “If you apologize, and I apologize, we’ll be here all night having a fucking intervention or some shit.”

“We’re gonna be here all night anyway.” I tilt my head  at him. “You sound better.”

“Yeah, a little. My head hurts, though, so it’ll come back.”

“Probably. But I’ll be here to block the shower and sing the soundtrack from that bad 80s Bowie movie.”

Taylor gives me that awkward, little boy smile that takes care of ‘thank you’ without it having to actually be said aloud.

With my best sympathetic smile, I shrug. “You probably won’t remember this in the morning. Lucky bastard.”

“Whee. Free ticket to insult.”

“Not quite.” I eye him, leaning heavily against the armrest and looking a little less kicked but still wary. As frontmen go, I think I suck. Maybe… “You want a hug?”

That gets me eyes so wide I can see the whites. Taylor frowns, then feels his own forehead, muttering something about how he didn’t think he was that feverish.

Okay, this is what nice sensitive touchy-feely 90s guys get: awkward silence and a great gift for backpedaling. “Oh, wait. We’re not supposed to do the guy bonding thing when at least one of us is in our right minds.”

He relaxes, a touch. “How could we tell?”

“Damned if I know.” Starting to get up, I brush imaginary dust off my knees. I should really go get aspirin. Or Gatorade. “I mean, fuck, what might happen if the couch thought we swung that way? Mass chaos, man.”

Taylor, the bitch, waits until I’m on my feet before musing to himself, “It’d be half right.”

I sit down hard on the arm of the sofa. My ass is going to hurt, but hey, small sacrifices in the name of closet doors swing open and hitting me in the face.

There’s some comfort in the fact that Taylor looks just as startled. He sits up sharply, eyes huge. “Fuck. Tell me I didn’t just…”

“Um.” This is when I ought to be supportive. Which probably involves closing my jaw and not yelling ‘you are not!’ at him. I settle for dragging a hand through my hair and laughing. “Jesus, Tay.”

The mouth firms again, and Taylor starts to wobble upright. “I can, if you’d rather, or you can get the fuck off the couch, but don’t fucking look at me like it’s contagious, you hypocritical-“

“Hey, hey! No.” I get up, grab his shoulders and sit us both back down. At least he stops wobbling. “It’s not that. Just give a guy a fucking minute to be startled, okay? Jesus.” I look him over, pale under the tan and the flush, too hot. Still Taylor. Still quick-tempered and too fucking stubborn for his own good. Still too much like me. Who he fucks, hell, what he fucks if it came down to that, it wouldn’t matter.

Okay.

I grin at him, finally, and watch the relief pull his shoulders down like somebody dropping a puppet string. “Okay, asshole, now we’re having a guy bonding moment whether you like it or not. Come here.”

Taylor pulls back, looking at me warily. “M’ still sick. I’ll get you sick.”

“Oh, what the fuck ever. I have the immune system from hell. Look, this is a big moment here. Indulge an old man, huh?”

“What am I supposed to do, dip you?” But Taylor crawls over, tangled in the sheets, and stops just short of actually touching. Chicken. I feel completely justified in reaching over and tugging him off balance. Not nice, I suppose, but it gets me what I wanted.

It’s weird, really. I get to do this with complete strangers, groupies, execs, even Nate and Chris, who put up with it as a quirk or an aversion to handshakes. Taylor, though… he almost never lets anybody get away with this. He moves too fast, fidgets too much, flashes that crooked smile and jokes it away. So I have to wait for it, sneak it up on him.

I can feel him breathe. He’s too warm, too skinny, smells like fever, but he’s solid under my hands and he isn’t fighting to go elsewhere, on to another hit, another needle, the sour smell of junkie-sweat and gunmetal. He isn’t standing so still I almost have to check pulse and breathing to be sure he’s still alive.

I’m projecting. I know that. I’ve heard enough therapists say it. I project, and I shy away from that memory, but… well, as memories go, it’s not something I’d like to relive. Sucks to be a martyr, but it sucks even more to be standing on ground zero when the martyr decides to take that last step off the gallows.

But Taylor’s fine. The weight of that hits me hard in the middle of the chest. Funny; I’ve told so many people that, the press, his family, my family… why do I get the feeling that it’s taken me this long to believe it? That I was still sitting back and waiting for him to fall?

Same reason I’m projecting, I imagine. Same exact reason: because once upon a time, a fucking idiot made a bad choice and I ended up in the middle of it. Once upon a more recent time, another fucking idiot (ie, me) made another bad choice to hide behind the first idiot, and Taylor ended up… like he ended up. Thinking the aforementioned second idiot might toss him out on the highway.

Once upon a midnight in a bus, an idiot made a choice to get the fuck over it already. Guess which idiot that would be?

“Ow,” Taylor notes, his voice muffled by my shoulder. “Ribs.”

“Sorry,” I say, meaning more than just the ribs. But never mind. Apologies mean jack and shit unless I back them up. To his credit, Taylor doesn’t squirm away when I loosen up. He must be sick, to put up with this. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew. Or didn’t particularly care.” Taylor glances down at the suddenly fascinating tattoo on my finger. “I’m a little tired of being the resident fuck up.”

I squeeze him again, so hard he ‘umph’s and starts fidgeting. “You’re not,” I tell him, like stern tone counts for anything.

Another of those jagged laughs. Did Taylor laugh like that before he joined this band? “Tell it to the rest of the Western world.”

“Fuck them. Since when have they mattered?” I let him go, but only enough so I can grab his shoulders instead. “You should’ve said something.”

Taylor smirks. “Complaining about being the fuck-up just makes me a whiny fuck-up.”

“Well. That doesn’t make sense to me, but then you are very blond.”

“Fuck you.” Punching me in the shoulder, weaker than usual, Taylor laughs a tired laugh.

“You’re not a fuck-up, Tay.” Sheer repetition and staring at him has to get me somewhere, damn it.

He tilts his head so the hair falls in his face. Good escape mechanism, there. He’s lucky if I don’t hack it off. With that tone that implies ‘yeah, right, nice try’, he says, “You’re a good guy.”

“Thanks. But I’m not nice enough to spend an hour trying to talk down a guy who beat the crap out of me in the shower if I thought he was a fuck-up.”

Glancing up through his hair, Taylor mutters something that sounds distinctly like “no, you save that for your girlfriends.”

Which would make Taylor comparable to- eek. Shutting that thought down now and sticking it in the back storage closet of my brain.

Closet. Damn it.

Taylor sways, suddenly, which gives me a good reason not to think about that. I steer him towards the cushions and glare for good measure. Bad drummer, bad.

“You,” I tell him, “stay. I’m getting you aspirin.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he nods, though he manages a weak token “woof”.

Well, you know, the more barnyard noises the better. As I get up, I inform him, “Mew. And moo.”

“Baa.” Then, moaned, “Oh, yeah, fuck me harder.”

 My hands strangely decide not to work, and I drop the aspirin with a clatter. Jesus.

A pause, then Taylor peers over the back of the couch to ask, “Problem?”

“Um. No. We hit a bump.” Weird. Must pick up aspirin. Must not entertain confusing thoughts about sexual orientation. I get the feeling most people’s to-do lists don’t look like this. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

“I didn’t feel it.”

“Of course not, fucknut, you’ve got a fever.” I pick up the aspirin, carefully, and take out three, carefully. In a minute I’m going to go carefully beat my head into the wall. On second thought, maybe four aspirin would be better. “What was that last noise?”

“Horse.”

“Horse?”

“Welsh horse.” Grinning at me a touch woozily, Taylor holds out his hand. “Gimme.”

“You’re sick, Hawkins.” I hand him the aspirin, and watch him take it dry. Swallow it dry. The aspirin. Aw, damn it-! “You’re insulting the tea.”

“The tea sucks,” Taylor says, almost primly if you ignore the profanity. “I don’t know why you drink that shit.”

“All the cool kids are doing it.”

“If they jumped off a cliff…”

“I’d wait and try to land on top of the pile.”

“Mmm.” Dropping his head back against the couch, Taylor sighs. “So. Late night TV on mute.”

I grin at him. We really were fucking separated at birth. “Your mom too, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. Anytime I was sick or couldn’t sleep or my dad… yeah. Whatever. And then she wonders why my electricity bill is so high when I’m home alone.”

“Tell her it’s the dogs, man.” I turn on the TV and start flipping idly. Stupid show, stupid show, heyyyy. Gillian Anderson. One of the old episodes. “This okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Thanks.” Taylor fidgets for a minute, trying to get comfortable. There’s not room on this couch for one person stretched out, let alone two. I start to get up, watch him tense, and sit again. Taylor looks sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Eh. Whatever. Listen, you want to put your feet over here? I, um. Or I make a decent pillow. Probably.” This is me carefully not telling him to put his head in my lap. I’m confused enough already, world, but thanks for asking.

Lifting his head, Taylor just looks at me. The fever’s spiking again; I can see it in his face, the slow focus look to his eyes. Still, “you’re skinny” is not the response I was expecting.

“Yes. And so are you. So there.”

Taylor takes a moment to digest that, then says slowly, “I’d need a pillow.”

“Oh. Right.” Braintrust moment. I pull the pillow out from under my ass and drop it in my lap. “Okay. Bed ahoy.”

Another long moment as Taylor eyes me, then asks, “You’re sure you’re okay with this?”

“By the time you make up your goddamn mind, I’ll be too old and decrepit to care.” I make a big production of rolling up my sleeve. “Circle circle, dot dot, now I have the cootie shot. I’m immunized. All right? C’mere.”

So he comes here and, haltingly, settles. His shoulders are heavy on my legs. I put on hand on his head, in lieu of anywhere else safe to put it, and ask, “Okay?”

“Mm.” His forehead is hot, and the dragging quality is going back into his voice. In and out of it; I guess that’s what they mean by fever spikes. “Which episode is this?”

I squint at the screen. “I think it’s the one with the glowing carnivore bugs.”

“Fanboy. Is this the one where Mulder figures out he has the hots for Scully?”

Oh, boy. This argument again. “I don’t think he had the hots for her. They were just friends.”

Taylor turns his head to look at me and ask, “You blind?”

“You see it your way, I’ll see it mine.”

“Yeah, whatever. Denial is not just a river in Egypt infested with fluke-men.”

I grin at him. “Who’s the fanboy?”

“M’ not a fanboy. I’m an unfortunate victim of your obsession.” Waving an arm at the screen, Taylor snorts. “You’ve watched it all this time without even thinking about it?”

“They had enough going on in their lives without that kind of bullshit. Besides, they were too much alike in the end; they’d probably kill each other. It’d be a marriage counselor’s nightmare.”

“Yeah, yeah. You romantic, you. Always thinking the best of things.”

“It’s called realism.”

“Yeah. Maybe so. I don’t like your version of real, though.”

Sometimes I’m not too fond of it either. But I won’t say that. I tug at his hair, just a touch. “Fine, o great philosopher. Make up your own.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

“Touché.”

“Yeah. You know that’s French for ‘fuck you’?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

Taylor laughs, but doesn’t say anything more. We fall into that not uncomfortable three AM quiet, me watching the TV and him getting slowly heavier. When I glance down, his eyes are closed, but as the light changes with the ads he does an admirable job of fighting them open. I have to smile, and it shows up in my voice. “Hey.”

“Mm.”

“Why the humming?”

He sighs, but it’s more tired than impatient, and doesn’t answer for a minute. I ruffle his hair to get his attention, and hear something that sounds distinctly like ‘know I’m alive’. I stop rumpling. Fuck me.

“What was that, Tay?”

“Humming. Drumming. Can’t be dead if there’s music.”

It’s my turn to squeeze my eyes shut. My voice sounds tight. “You do this a lot?”

“Hmm. When it’s bad.”

An answer without an answer. Nice trick. “But you stopped when I started.”

“Don’t have to do it. Not with you around.”

Taylor’s right. I ask a lot of questions I don’t want answered. “Why not?”

“Safe with you.” One corner of Taylor’s mouth curves up into a bitter smile. “Fucking stupid, right?”

That Dr. Seuss line about a heart growing three sizes? Yeah. It hurts like a bitch. I can feel my pulse hard, scared-hard, against my ribs.

Taylor’s not the fuck-up. No, I reserved that right all for myself.

“No. It’s not stupid.” I take a deep breath, let it out slow. “Go to sleep. You’re safe.” With me. I don’t have it in me to add the second part and jinx it. Since when have I ever been able to hold anything together?

But Taylor, apparently, believes me. Because he breathes out, and closes his eyes, and doesn’t open them no matter how many times the ads switch. He breathes slow, sleep-easy. Which leaves me, the village idiot with my heart pounding in my head.

Revelations of the evening:
a) Taylor’s bi;
b) Taylor thinks he’s the fuck-up;
c) I’m a fucking, fucking, motherfucking clueless idiotic cunt, goddamn it;
d) Mulder might’ve had the hots for Scully. Might.

Pretty decent revelations to chew on. So why is my brain stuck on a memory, instead?

August, 2001. A tiny hospital room. 46 hours into the 48 or so Taylor spent out cold, with the doctors making ominous predictions and his hand cold in mine. He got a mini-concert, then, of all the songs I know. I’m bad with lyrics, so I hummed. David Bowie, the Muppet Show, Queen.

How long has he been doing this?

On my lap, Taylor sleeps so hard even potholes don’t get a twitch. My brain circles itself, thought after thought after thought until it all becomes one big mess too big to even pay attention to, so I end up staring blankly at the screen.

Scully and Mulder in a tiny white room, hooked up to wires and life support. Blinding white. He turns his head to look at her, the platonic look that suddenly seems splintered. It could go both ways, really. They could be just friends, really close friends, die for each other friends. (But who looks at their friends like that?)

Or they could

(love’s like spun glass)

or they could

(pretty, but it’s made to break sharp)

or they could…

No. Safer the first way.

Besides, it’s just a fucking TV show.
****
(Taylor)
I lay still for a moment, eyes closed, and test. Always have, at least as long as I’m counting always these days, which is to say after I became the born again fuck-up. Nothing like waking up for two months to the same white walls to make a guy skittish about mornings.

Warm. There’s light coming in from everywhere; not in the bunk. Feels like the couch. My head feels fuzzy, not just post-sleep fuzzy. I feel sweat-sticky. My head feels like it was hit by a  truck, and my arms are going to fall off last night. Christ, what did I do last ni-

Drummed. Drummed in the shower. Because… because somebody slipped me something backstage. Fuck. Fuckity fuck.

I pry my eyes open and sit up, probably too fast. The room and my stomach spin at two different speeds in two different directions, and falling off the couch is a close thing. But it’s the bus, not the side of the road, which is where I think Dave would drop me if he knew. I might be safe. After I cling to the couch for a minute. Damn, the couch is bony. And hairy. Damn, that’s not a couch.

Well. Hi, Dave, how the hell are you this morning?

I jerk my hand back, off Dave’s… thigh. I’m gonna hope that was thigh. The rest of me jerks back to the other side of the couch, so that Dave can stare at me properly in that sleepy, yet amused, yet snarky way.

I should cover, but all that comes out was, “I didn’t-“

“Well, actually, you did.” Planting both feet on the floor, Dave stretches from calves up, popping several times along the way, and yawns hugely. “Jesus, wait until you buy somebody breakfast before grabbing their dick, will you?”

Oh, great. Fabulous way to start off a day of getting thrown out. “No, I mean last night, I wasn’t- I didn’t take anything!”

“Yeah, you did. Two aspirins, in fact. You dissed my tea, though. Don’t think I won’t make you pay for that.” Dave leans closer and squints at me. “Dude. Breathe. You look like you’re gonna puke on the couch.”

Ah, yes. The chicks dig Dave because he’s sensitive. I breathe, though, and feel a little better for it. A little dizzier too, actually. Which does not explain why Dave reaches over and presses the back of his hand to my forehead.

Please don’t let my breath have caught there. I am not a teenaged girl. I’m sweaty and grungy and I’m soon to be unemployed. The words spill out. “I’m sorry.”

Dave takes his hand back. “You don’t remember last night.”

“Part of it. I was high-“

“No. No, honey-“

Honey. What the fuck? Who died? Why in the hell am I in Dave’s clothes? And why the fuck are Nate and Chris suddenly standing in the hallway looking at us both like we grew second heads?

Well. Chris is, anyway. Nate’s just kind of Nate-ing in a moderately concerned way.

“Did we miss the orgy?” Chris asks finally, leaning against the wall.

Dave’s grin is just as bright and easy as ever. No death, then. “Taylor just grabbed my dick.”

I glare at him. “If I grabbed your dick, you wouldn’t still have it.”

Fluttering eyelashes at me, Dave croons, “Aww, but pookie-bear, that wasn’t what you said last night…”

Oh, fuck. “What did I say last night?”

With a toss of his hair, Dave sniffs, “Isn’t that just typical. You say you’ll respect me in the morning, and suddenly you’ve got selective amnesia.”

Right. If I was gonna do that, I’d respect him all night and through most of the following week. I’d respect him through the fucking mattress. I’d… so stop that line of thought right there, because everybody’s looking at me. So I’ll look at Dave, and say with as much ass as I can fake with my knees wobbling, “Dave.”

That fast, the grin slips and he’s serious again. Looking past me, he informs Chris and Nate, “Taylor had a fever, spent most of the night out of it, slept it off on the couch.”

That fast, part deux, I have two new people staring at me like I’m going to swoon off the couch. I might, mind, but it’d be relief. I drop back against the armrest and try not to look it. Yep, fever. Knew that the whole time. Fuck. “I’m okay.”

Chris points one finger at me and warns ominously, “Sit.”

“I am sitting.”

“Well, stay that way.”

“So are you going to carry the couch off to go the interview?”

“Nope. You’re not doing the interview.”

Oh. Wait… that’s not a good thing. “I can do those interviews in my sleep. You hate doing them. It just makes- oh, don’t you fucking wave me off, bitch!”

With a grin, Chris looks to Nate. “Feel like doing some press shit?”

I look at Dave, and most certainly do not whine. “Dave, c’mon…”

“Sorry. You’re stuck with me. They’re doing the press thing today, and you’re taking a day off, because I was in Nirvana and I say so and I’ll sit on you otherwise.” Dave then turns his back on me and talks to Nate, instead. “Go ahead into the restaurant, call Gus, get the schedule. Try not to get this DJ talking about tourbus masturbation, because seriously, you’ll never get him away from the subject. Fucking perv, man.”

Chris shoves at Nate’s shoulder. “Yeah, no discussing Moby Dick.”

“I’ve never in my life met Moby, let alone seen his dick. Perhaps they ought to talk to Eminem.”

Dave blinks at him, then says, “Please don’t get us put on a hitlist. We just got here.”

“Aww,” Chris mutters, but doesn’t look too rebellious about it, and lets Nate steer him back towards the door without much of a fight. The bus door closes on Chris asking, “What the hell town is this again?”

Nodding after them, Dave muses, “They’re good guys.”

“Yeah. But I could’ve-“

That only gets a finger waggled at me and a warning. “Don’t start. It’s a day off.”

“In which I can nap. And be bored. And bore you. Hey, good times.”

Dave grins and swats my head in passing the couch. “If I thought you were boring, I would’ve gone.”

I glare at his back. “You just didn’t want to deal with the DJ who won’t shut up.”

“That too. You want some breakfast? Had the drivers stop at an IHOP so you could get, like, soup and shit.”

“Sure.” In that food makes my stomach roll, but that’s no reason for Dave to starve. I push the blankets back and stop. Wow. These are so Dave’s clothes. That is so not a little twinge of satisfaction and, yeah, need burning deep. Guess which of the last two sentences is a lie. I look up at Dave, and I know my eyes are huge. “Just give me a minute to change.”

“Don’t bother. It’s not like IHOP has a dress-code.” Holding out an arm, covered in a battered and old Led Zepplin tour shirt, Dave shrugs. “Besides, we match.”

Well, as much as clothes that don’t really match anything match. But I nod, anyway. Hey, man, I get to spend the day smelling Dave’s cigarette and cologne lingering on the shirt. Twist my fucking arm. Which brings to mind… “How did I end up in your clothes?”

Dave gives me the infuriating ‘I’m Dave Grohl, I was in Nirvana’ smile and turns away, humming. Bowie, I think.

Okay. So I’m not getting an answer out of him. I can pick my battles, thank you. “Okay. At least help me up, you lazy bastard.”

“Yeah, yeah. The fucking gratitude. I nursed you through your rambling hours, dude-“

Rambling hours. Fuck. I dig my fingers into the arm of the chair, so hard it hurts, but I manage to keep my voice light. “Hear anything interesting?”

Dave hesitates just long enough to scare the fucking hell out of me, then shakes his head. “Weird shit, man. Feverish things. You know, the banana is black, I don’t want any chocolate, take an umbrella if you’re going outside. I worry about your subconscious.” Crossing to the couch, he bends down and grabs my hand, tugging me upright. Once I’m there, he honest to God pats my head. “So. Soup. Tea. No, you can’t have a cigarette, before you even ask.”

I swat his hand away. “Fucking tyrant.”

“Yeah, I’d heard that.” Somehow, Dave manages to convey steering without actually touching me, herding me down the hall and out the stairs. His hands hover like I’m going to faceplant, which I very well might. It feels… yeah. Safe. Same old story.

I will not harbor stupid hopes. So he stayed. So he’s hovering. So what? So I’m Kurt Cobain Jr. to him, somebody to save so he can feel better and I can delude myself. I fuck up and he’ll be off again, with plenty of reasons to keep him running- oh, excuse me, ‘finding himself’- with another band.

Stupid, self. Really lame. You’re a cocksucker, not a groupie. Freddy Mercury did not have simpering Stockholm crushes.

Yet when Dave puts one hand low on my back to steer me through the door, all the nerves in my body draw tight and humming, and it’s suddenly complex to breathe.

So. Story of my life, addendum: tall dark and heterosexual picks up our intrepid hero in order to drop him on his ass. Again.

But boy, our hero sure does like it when he smiles.
****
End.