Whoo! More fanfiction for you! Hopefully you like infuriating updates. I got so pissed off for Lu while writing this.
All characters belong to Eric Kripke.
One thing Lu could say for Michael was that he took a punch like a champ. It only took him a second or two to recover from Lu's blow before he was swinging his fist into the side of Lu's head. Even more impressive was that he managed to hold on tight to his bottle of beer. He took a swig but spat it back out as Lu punched him in the stomach. Michael nearly doubled over, finally dropping the bottle, and Lu took advantage of his position by grabbing him by the shoulders and ramming his knee right into his nose.
As Lu released him, Michael suddenly executed an uppercut to Lu's chin, sending the strawberry blonde reeling backward, right into Gabriel, who'd abandoned his guitar and was heading toward them to try to break up their fight. Castiel and Raphael were right behind him, and over Michael's shoulder, Lu could see Crowley running toward them. Lu tried to launch himself off Gabriel and back into Michael, screaming, "Motherfucker!" but the guitarist held him back. No one was holding Michael back, so he was able to take two steps toward Lu, fists raised, but Ray suddenly appeared between the singer and the bassist and grabbed Michael by the shoulders.
"Alright, calm the fuck down, both of you!" Ray said, looking from one to the other. "Gabe, can you take him…?"
Gabriel nodded obligingly and started tugging Lu past Michael, whose blue eyes were alight with fury. The singer tried to charge at Lu again, but Ray had a firm grip on Michael's arms and so was able to keep them separate.
"Jesus Christ," Crowley growled. "It's like trying to work with a pack of animals."
"Fuck you!" Michael yelled at no one in particular as Gabriel continued trying to haul Lu to a different area, but Lu was working on throwing off the guitarist. He had five inches and a good twenty pounds on him, but Gabriel was surprisingly strong. "Fuck every single one of you! No one here fucking listens to me!"
"Maybe we would if you voiced an opinion that wasn't complete bullshit!" Lu called over his shoulder. He ached to slug Michael again, and then he wondered how much damage his bass would have sustained had he cracked it over Michael's head. "I fucking hate that guy," he spat once Gabriel determined they were a safe distance away.
Gabriel half-shoved Lu toward a table with two chairs and took a seat. "I'm not his biggest fan either, Lu, but you fucking assaulted him. Completely unprovoked. What if he presses charges?"
Seething, Lu hopped onto the table and rested his feet on the chair in front of him. "That asshole hit back, and it was not unprovoked. That fucking tool-bag douche-nozzle fuck-tard has been provoking me since the moment we fucking met."
"You swung first. He'd call it self-defense. And he'd be right. Look, I'm not saying the asshat doesn't deserve it," he added quickly at Lu's enraged expression, "but he is definitely not going to be happy. Hopefully Crowley can smooth this shit over."
Still scowling, Lu let out a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes. He clenched and unclenched his fists for a few moments in a nearly futile attempt to calm himself down. For all their trading of barbed comments, they'd never actually traded punches before. It wasn't that they'd never tried—they had, several times—but someone always intervened just in time, worming their way between the feuding pair. Lu was glad that, at least once, he'd been able to punch Michael in the face. He'd been asking for it for awhile now.
"Michael's flipping out," Castiel said from the doorway, appearing out of nowhere.
"Of course he is," Lu spat. "Why wouldn't he be?"
If Castiel was irritated by Lu's sarcasm, he didn't show it. "He walked out in the middle of a show—actually, at the beginning of a show. We need to finish this thing. We really can't afford any bad publicity right now."
"Let the asshole go home and cool off for the night. We'll finish without him."
"Um…" Castiel suddenly looked worried. "And how do you propose we do that? We can't finish our set without a singer."
Heaving a sigh, Lu stood up. "If need be, I'll do it. I don't fucking want to, but I will."
"That'll be interesting," Ray said with a laugh.
Lu knew what he meant. His and Michael's voices were wildly different. Michael's voice was rough, rather like Castiel's, but with an edge that seemed just made for their kind of music. Lu's voice, on the other hand, was kind of nondescript. It could blend with any style fairly well. The problem was that Michael's voice was their big selling point. For the night, it would be okay, but they needed to get Michael calmed down by their next rehearsal. Lu did not want to make this a regular occurrence, no matter how much he hated the guy.
"Okay, I'm in control now." Lu hopped off the table. "Let's go take care of that ass-clown. Why'd he fucking walk, anyway?"
"He didn't say," Castiel said. "I think right now, he's still fuming. Crowley's trying to calm him down and I think Ray went out to keep the crowd under control."
"Fuck. Fuck." Lu rubbed his eyes. "Okay. We have to get this back on track." He headed out of the room with Gabriel and Castiel close behind him.
As it turned out, Castiel was correct. Crowley was talking quietly to Michael in a corner and they could hear Ray yelling things at their audience. Michael was nodding, appearing to be placated despite the blood dripping from his nose onto his chest. Good. Maybe we can get back onstage in a minute. The last thing he wanted was for the crowd to go home pissed.
Although seeing Michael's bloody, possibly broken, nose filled him with an unwarranted sense of pride.
And then Michael caught sight of him. "Hey, fuck you!" he yelled, attempting to shove past Crowley, but their manager was stronger than he looked. He managed to restrain Michael, glancing anxiously at Lu like he was about to charge at them. But he hadn't lied when he said he was back in control. When his temper got the better of him, it was absolutely chaos, but once he was calmed down, it took a lot of pushing to send him back over the edge. Michael, apparently, hadn't quite regained his composure.
Lu just stood there in between Gabriel and Castiel, arms crossed over his chest as he glowered. He was silent as Michael continued yelling and Raphael rushed backstage with a now what? look on his face.
The drummer looked from Lu to Michael before saying, "Mike. Chill out, man. You're the only one here freaking out anymore."
"No! Fuck this! You know what? I'm fucking sick to death of your fucking bullshit, Lucifer!" Michael spat, and Lu felt another surge of annoyance wash over him. Michael only used his full name when he was actively trying to irritate him, and it usually worked. "You're always giving me shit about how annoying I am, how much I whine, but you do it, too! I don't have to put up with this shit! You guys fucking need me—I don't need you! Without me, you don't have a fucking voice!"
"Michael," Crowley started, a note of warning in his voice, but Michael refused to stop shouting.
"You know what? Fuck you all! I fucking quit!"
For a several long moments, the sound of silence filled the air, only broken by the noise of the crowd waiting just offstage. Even though they were suddenly without a singer and now they would either have to pick one from the four of them or hold auditions for a new one, Lu felt nothing but relief. Michael quit. He could only pray that Crowley wouldn't talk him out of it.
The manager did try, though. "Michael, you can't just—"
"No, let him go," Lu said coolly. "It's better this way. Sure, it'll suck—for all of about ten minutes—but we'll get over it."
Michael sneered and jerked himself loose of Crowley's grasp. In one fluid motion, he donned his shirt and stormed out. "You're a fucking idiot," Crowley snapped at Lu while watching the singer leave.
"We can do the show without him. I'll sing. We just need to have auditions for a new singer very soon. Like tomorrow."
"Great. Fine. This time, when you pick a singer, make sure it's someone you can all tolerate, yeah?"
When the four remaining members of Blue Archangel returned to the stage, the crowd roared—with pleasure or fury, Lu couldn't tell. He picked up his bass guitar and reluctantly approached the microphone stand that Michael had vacated. "Well, people," he said, blinking in the sudden harsh light, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news—well, actually, it's not really bad news—but Madman just quit." There was a low rumble and the sounds of hushed whispers. "We're still gonna finish our set, but you're just gonna have to put up with hearing me sing." He tossed a glance over his shoulder and motioned quickly for Gabriel to move to the other side of the stage. Their usual configuration had Michael in the middle and Ray right in the back with Lu on the right side of the stage and Castiel and Gabriel on the left. Without Michael and with Lu front and center, the whole setup looked lopsided.
"We're gonna have auditions tomorrow for a new singer, tomorrow at The Warehouse at four. Be there if you want to help us out. Male or female, we don't care—as long as you can sing." Well, it's now or never. "One, two, three, four!" The now-quartet launched into their next song, "Dirty Faces."
Fortunately, the rest of the set went by much more smoothly than the beginning, and forty-five minutes later, they were heading backstage. Lu managed to keep his eyes from raking over the crowd too much—he felt himself hunting for that blonde he'd seen earlier. This is definitely not good, he reminded himself. He had a weakness for bad blondes, which explained how he ended up with his current girlfriend, Eve Campbell. She had trouble written all over her—literally and figuratively; she'd gotten "TROUBLE" tattooed down her side for her twenty-first birthday—and Lu couldn't help himself, even though he sometimes hated both of them for it. But this other blonde, the one he'd seen in the crowd, he was definitely trouble.
He was trying to avoid that right now.
But that blonde's eyes always seemed to be on him whenever he happened to glance at him. It was disconcerting.
Backstage, Gabriel and Ray were toweling the excess sweat off their faces, but Castiel had somehow managed to stay absolutely flawless, as always. He was the only one in the band who didn't sweat buckets during shows, and it was one of the few things Lu genuinely envied him for. He felt like a hot mess, in desperate need of a shower. As soon as the gear was packed up in Ray's truck, he hopped into the passenger's seat as Ray slid into the driver's seat.
Eve had totaled his car two months before, and the insurance company hadn't coughed up for repairs or a replacement yet, so he was pretty limited in terms of transportation. Ray was his usual ride and a lot more reliable than Eve. She went out almost every night and didn't come home until three or four in the morning, and she never came to the shows. She didn't like their music and that fact alone was enough to make Lu toy with breaking up with her.
"Good singing tonight," Ray said abruptly as he pulled to a stop in front of Lu's apartment complex.
"Thanks. Hopefully I won't have to do it again."
"Yeah. Have a good night, okay?"
Lu nodded, hopping out of the truck and grabbing his bass and amplifier from the backseat. He slung the strap of his guitar case over his shoulder and headed inside, punching in his code and waiting for the door to open. He went right to the elevator and hit the button for the fifth floor. When the doors opened, he shuffled in before collapsing against the side.
Tonight had just fucking drained him. He was ready to just fall into bed and sleep for twelve hours. It was only midnight and, if Eve kept to her schedule, he would be dead to the world by the time she came back. This thought pleased him greatly. Feeling a bit better, he exited the elevator and started down the hall toward his apartment.
That's weird… There was a pile of stuff in the hall right in front of what looked like his door. But that can't be—FUCK! That was his vinyl collection for sure. Piled up next to it were several trash bags filled with what looked like his clothes, and that was definitely his backpack with his laptop and—
"Jesus!" He quickly set down his amp and bass and dashed down the hall. "Fuck!" He fumbled for his key and started to fit it into the lock when the door opened and Eve, that beautiful blond bitch, was on the other side. "What the fuck?" he demanded.
"I don't think it's working out, Lu," she said sweetly. "It would be better for our relationship if you moved out."
"So you throw my shit in the fucking hallway? Anyone could just take it! How long has this been out here?"
She shrugged. "About an hour. Not too long." She appeared to think for a moment. "Oh, sorry about Mike, by the way. I heard he quit."
"Yeah, he—how did you hear about that?"
"He told me."
The fuck—? "Since when are you on speaking terms with that asshole?"
She gave him a scathing look. "Maybe you never noticed me, but he did. He is not an asshole, and you can go fuck yourself!"
"Wait, were you fucking him?" Lu demanded as the door slammed in his face. And locked. The lock on the doorknob, then the deadbolt, and then the rattling of the chain.
He should have beaten Michael senseless. Even though he wasn't too upset about the breakup itself, the fact that he'd been fucking his girlfriend was more than enough to piss him off. And then she went ahead and threw all his possessions in the hallway. God only knew if the bitch had gotten everything or if someone had come by and picked up some of his stuff. Fuming and muttering darkly, he pulled out his phone and called Ray.
"Hey, man, what's going on?"
"The bitch kicked me out. Apparently, she was fucking Michael."
Ray let out a low whistle. "Damn. Alright, I'll come get you in a few. I just need to unload real quick. Good thing I have the truck, huh?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"So it's over with you and her?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Good. I never liked her anyway."
Lu rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just hurry up, okay? I'm exhausted."
Can you tell I just had the brainwave for Eve last night? I was like, "What if Lu was dating Eve?" And then I was like, "Well, he has to get kicked out, so she was cheating on him. ERMERGERD, SHE WAS FUCKING MICHAEL!" I knew that would just piss off Lu so much. I had to... I'm sorry!
All chapter titles are Social Distortion songs, by the way. I love Social D so much...