"Following"
By Viridian5
August 29, 2000

RATING: NC-17; Billy/Joe. If m/m interaction bothers you, pass on by. There's m/f here too but only for mindfuck purposes.
SUMMARY: A bad early days gig raises the stakes between Joe and Billy.
FEEDBACK: Hell, yes. Feedback can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: The band members in Hard Core Logo belong to Ed Festus, much as they might wish otherwise. Terminal City Pictures, Shadow Shows, Michael Turner, Bruce McDonald, and Noel S. Baker also have a marker on these folks. (My, but the Hard Cores' asses are owned by many, many people.) "Take a Chance on Me" is by ABBA, this one specifically by B. Andersson and B. Ulvaeus. Trust me; I know what I'm doing. Really. Needless to say, I am none of the above. No infringement intended.
NOTES: There be unsafe sex here, but the time is 1978 and canon has the boys engaging in unprotected sex with groupies into the 1990s.
Thanks to Audra for the read-through and suggestions.

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"Following"
by Viridian5
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Joe kicked that girl back into the crowd for the third time, but she unsteadily climbed right back up to sit on the edge of the stage again. In his space. Nobody does that to Joe, but this bitch was too out of it to have any sense of self-preservation left. I wondered what kind of marks she'd have on her ribs from his steel-toed boots. Just out of curiosity, not because I cared.

Unable to move forward with the girl in the way, Joe leaned back and kicked one of the speakers the last band had left on the stage. For the fourth time. On purpose. He'd already smashed one of the electric guitars there.

Joe was so pissed that he should have popped a vein by now, but he just put more snarl into his delivery of "Son of a Bitch to the Core" than I'd ever heard before. Not that our fifteen listeners noticed or cared. If the organizer's smart as well as a weasel, he'd have skipped town already, way before we're done and Joe gets off stage. Hell, he should get out of the country. Just because we were a "new," unknown band didn't mean that Joe would take shit from anyone.

I just wanted this fucking set to be over. I wanted the whole night to be over. Been wanting that for the last four hours.

Four hours sitting downstairs waiting to go on as every single one of the three bands before us went over their time. I didn't know how many packs we smoked or how many times I looked at the glowing cherry on the end of my cigarette and wished myself that small and elsewhere. Not here, not here. It's gotten me through some bad times. At least a few sessions of "Where's Billy?" interrupted Joe's pacing and cursing for a few minutes at a time. Don't know how much beer we drank either, though I stopped when I started to feel lightheaded. I'd skipped dinner because I just didn't have the money for it. Then the third band went on and on and on, and everything really went to hell.

When we went on stage an hour and a half later than we were supposed to, everybody who wasn't too drunk to leave had already been chased out by how unbelievably bad the third band had been. We had about fifteen people left in the audience, and they turned out to be as responsive as a fucking brick wall. No brain cells left to appreciate music.

For whatever reason, the other bands had left a lot of their shit on stage. Left us no room to move. Pipe was all right since he always sat behind the drum kit, but Joe, John, and I had to stand almost on the edge. Even the house's sound guy managed to fuck us over worse than usual. I mean, sound guys usually fuck you over, but this guy brought incompetence to new levels.

Joe wanted to say "fuck this shit" and storm off, but we were too unknown to blow off a paying performance no matter how badly we got screwed over. We needed gigs and lots of them if we ever wanted to be something more than just another local Vancouver punk band. So we played.

Joe's arm hit my guitar again, though he'd probably see it more as my guitar hitting his arm. He gave me a look that should have struck me dead, while I gave attitude back. Backing down from The Dick even once usually meant he figured you were his bitch for life. Not me.

All we had to do was finish off this last song, "Sally is a Popular Girl." Then I could go home and die. But halfway through the first stanza Joe stopped singing and said, "You don't fucking deserve this. If you want shit, we'll give you shit." Then he started to sing something else. Snarled it, sneered it, really. "If you change your mind, / I'm the first in line / Honey, I'm still free / Take a chance on me..."

While the rest of us were still playing "Sally is a Popular Girl."

"If you need me, let me know / Gonna be around / If you've got no place to go, if you're feeling down / If you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown / Honey, I'm still free / Take a chance on me..."

What the hell was he -- I almost choked when I got it. I've seen and heard a lot of things spew from Joe Dick's mouth in all the years I've known him, but ABBA was the last fucking thing I ever expected.

Pipefitter looked confused. John looked like he was wondering if Joe had messed with his meds again. Not that Joe would, having learned better from the first and only time he'd substituted candy for John's pills. The crowd got really confused and even woke up a little as they tried to figure out why they knew the lyrics.

I started to pick the song out on my guitar. Once I had it down, I put as much thrash into it as I could. Joe gave me an approving, razor blade smile as he sang the most sarcastic version of "Take a Chance on Me" that the world would ever hear, backed by me playing it as a punk anthem. Pipe picked up soon after. John's bass still continued doing "Sally..." but it didn't sound that bad.

Really scary thing? We knew the fucking words. I knew exactly where I should sing along with Joe. As we shared a mic, we radiated heat at one another, both grinning maliciously.

He looked sharp and dangerous all over, all the way to his hair. My short spikes just looked normal, but his had this pissed off porcupine thing going. Never understood how he got his to look like that when it was the same fucking cut.

"Oh, you can take your time, baby / I'm in no hurry, know I'm gonna get you / You don't wanna hurt me / Baby, don't worry / I ain't gonna let you..."

The drunken crowd moved sluggishly to the music and didn't understand at all what Joe was going for when he made the "Ba ba ba ba baa, ba ba ba ba baa"s near the end sound exactly like sheep bleating. We finished with a grand bow and Joe snarling, "You're the worst fucking audience we've ever had. Eat shit and die." Some members of the audience actually clapped.

God, there was no way I'd be able to get drunk enough to forget this night.

Joe stalked off stage muttering, "We better get our fucking money, or somebody's gonna get my fist so far up his ass it's gonna take some teeth with it on the way out," while the rest of us took apart our gear. Joe would get our fee, or he'd take it out of someone's hide.

Pipe tried to calm John down as he packed, kind of the blind leading the blind, but John didn't trust me on that stuff since we first met while he was institutionalized. I mean, I was just there as a human guinea pig for pay, not as a patient, but me telling him to find his Happy Place seemed to take him back to a Bad Place instead.

By the time we had everything packed and stowed in our crappy little van, Joe still hadn't returned. I'd probably be elected to go in after him. Oh, joy.

I tasted blood on my cigarette. Fuck, I'd cracked a callus. Playing ABBA. No way I'd ever tell Joe that. He'd brand me a pussy for life. So it was another night, another Band-Aid. Wonder if that's why they named 'em that.

While I was staring at the club door and bandaging my finger, something cold placed against the side of my face made me jump. Pipe smirked as he rolled the beer bottle around on my skin a bit.

"Fucker," I growled.

"Now is that any way to talk to the man who gets you your beer?"

I hated it that I couldn't buy my own fucking alcohol. No matter how much documentation I handed over, nobody ever believed I was legal. At best, I looked fifteen; at worst, thirteen. So trying to buy for myself either got me an endless hassle or some pervert offering to buy for me if I'd sit on his lap or something. Joe once said that having me in his band was a good way of appealing to the pedophile part of the listening population that most bands didn't give a thought to. The black eye I'd gotten had been worth the fifteen stitches he had to get from the damage I did to him for that remark.

"I'll talk nicer when you give it to me."

"Magic words, Billy-boy."

"Please give me my beer, you asshole."

"Close enough."

I was so tired that smoking and drinking at the same time was giving me trouble. The fact that I hadn't eaten much today didn't help. Pathetic. Going in after Joe when I was this drunk and he wasn't...

Stupid. You don't go hunting the wild Dick unarmed.

"John's having a mental meltdown in the front seat," Pipe said.

It would be just fucking wonderful if we had to take him back to the funny farm. I could see us telling the doctors that ABBA had set him off... "Shit. Yeah, I'll go get Joe." Yeah that's me, William Boisy -- sorry, Billy Tallent -- Dick Wrangler. I took my beer bottle with me because I knew Pipe would filch it if I left it behind.

At least the door guy remembered I was with the band and just let me back in. Some door guys reacted to my looks the same way bartenders did. Didn't see Joe near the bar or stage, so I carefully staggered my way downstairs.

I felt so shitty. We hadn't been playing in public for too long, but I already had a near addiction to that glowing high you get after a great performance. What I had now, after dealing with the assholes upstairs, was worse than anticlimax. I felt fucking cheated. It left me lower than low, lost in the crash without even getting the high first.

The dark red bulbs used downstairs made it look like I was wandering through hell. No Joe in this room, no Joe in that room. No Joe in the skankiest men's room I'd ever seen, and that's saying something. Women's room was only slightly better but equally Joe-less. Saw some people from the other bands hanging around, though, so we should probably get our asses out of here before they saw what Joe had done to their gear.

Hall in front of me was so dark I couldn't see anything, but I heard some muffled moaning and a kind of low rumbling growling, like the sound lions make in those nature shows while they're eating. The lion noise left me relieved. Room with a guy long enough, and you get to know the sounds he makes while he's fucking. Mystery solved.

I leaned against the wall and wondered how long he'd be. When he was really angry, he tended to be cruel but fast with his fucks. Showed how tired and drunk I was that I didn't even care about my own lack of groupie action.

"Billiam, that you? Ah, yeah, I see you. Sally, meet Billy Tallent, my guitarist. Nobody plays a meaner ABBA than he does," Joe said, sounding a bit breathless. It bothered me that he could see me until I realized I was standing near one of the red bulbs. "Come closer."

"You offering me sloppy seconds? Don't want 'em." But I was already moving forward anyway.

I stopped when I stood close enough that I could see their shapes. It didn't take long for my eyes to get used to the dimness. The woman had her arms and legs wrapped tightly around Joe as he fucked her into the wall. Because his ass was still covered I figured he must have only unzipped and yanked open his fly, pulled his dick out, and started sticking it to her. She had her head thrown back against the wall, but I could tell she had something stuffed in her mouth to muffle the noises she was making.

My own dick was starting to remember what it was for and showing a few signs of interest. I had my own live action porn here after all. My cigarette flared as I took a deeper breath on it.

"You like this?" Joe purred. His hand reached out, slid slowly down the front of my sweat-damp T-shirt, and settled on the growing bulge in my jeans. My breath caught. "Yeah, I see," he said as he stared at my face.

What the fuck was this? "Joe--"

"Sally here doesn't mind, do you?"

"I don't think Sally can say anything, Joe."

"Sally thought my kicks in her ribs were foreplay and didn't care when I gagged her with her own panties, so I don't think she'll mind."

He started to fuck her harder -- to her vocal yet muffled delight -- but his eyes and stroking hand stayed on me. "Stop it, asshole," I gasped, but I couldn't move away. It felt too good; I felt too lightheaded...

"Stop me."

I managed to start moving backward, but his hand gripped my dick through the denim, making me moan. I sucked harder on my cigarette. "I don't want this."

"Could have fooled me." He was making those rumbling noises again. "I love it that fucking with you looks like child abuse."

"Sally" cried out through her gag and squeezed Joe with her whole body. He gripped my dick tighter as he came, almost getting me to shoot my wad, and his eyes never left my face.

When I could breathe, I said, "I didn't come."

"You're too drunk to be good for much tonight," Joe said as he let "Sally" sag off him. I think she hit the floor, not that he cared. She'd been a toy, a prop, for him, and now he was done. "But your jeans are damp."

Shit. "Fuck off. Like you said, I'm drunk."

"And you'll be drunk other nights too."

I swung at him with my bottle, sloshing beer around, but he just caught it and took a swig. "You're a good buddy, Billy. How about a drag off that fine cigarette dangling off your lip?"

I leaned against the wall and stubbed the cigarette out. "Get your own."

Smiling, he tucked himself back in, then put a slick finger against my bottom lip before he walked away, casual as anything, into the red-lighted section of the hallway. Joe Dick as Satan. So fucking confident I'd lick my lip to get a taste of him that he didn't even stay to watch. I rubbed it off with my arm instead, but I could still smell him...

I untucked my T-shirt to cover my crotch before I followed him out. But there was no way in hell I'd follow him like this forever.

**********************THE END***********************

The sequel to this story is "Watch Your Back."