So. If you like this fic, you're in luck. I've just decided I'm going to finish this fanfic (12 more chapters to go!) before I go back to any others. I really like this 'verse, okay? I haven't lost enthusiasm for this story. So, yeah, here you go.
The alternate title of this chapter is "Mr. Brightside," so... yeah.
Many thanks to Keefer, DetrimentalHabitsPt4, and r2metoo for your lovely reviews to last chapter! I know I didn't leave you all much time but I JUST LOVE THIS 'VERSE OKAY.
Balthazar threw the Mustang in park in front of the house. Lu was unbuckled and halfway out of the car before he realized Balthazar hadn't moved from his seat or even turned the car off. "You're not coming in?"
"I took my lunch early. I have work until four," Balthazar said.
"You didn't mention that."
Balthazar simply shrugged. "I have to be back in twenty minutes, so if you're getting out, I suggest you do it soon."
Lu nodded, his chest tightening. Crap. Here he'd thought Balthazar had been on his way home anyway, but instead he had to work for another five hours. He'd gone out of his way to help him out and hadn't even had the decency to give him crap for it.
But then there had been the note left in the kitchen, cold as snow and transparent as a brick wall. He didn't know how Balthazar felt about what had happened in just the last twenty-four hours, but it was a pretty safe bet that the no-strings-attached sex actually had some pretty strong strings. Maybe it had been a mistake. One night of fun wasn't worth fucking up the band dynamic.
But Balthazar had to go back to work. There wasn't time to discuss this now, and even if there was, Lu wasn't sure he wanted to. He didn't have the necessary emotional energy after what had been one confusing-as-Hell morning. Later, he told himself. They'd talk later. Before the show tomorrow.
They never did talk before the show the next day, something Lu ended up deeply regretting. He went right back to sleep after he let himself back into the house (his sleeping schedule was getting severely fucked up, but he couldn't summon the energy to care), waking once Balthazar came back home with food from Armageddon. They ate dinner in near silence, both aware of the obvious tension between them but unwilling to openly acknowledge it.
Lu had figured that the sex would have dissipated whatever awkwardness there was between them, but that assumption was clearly wrong. From what he saw, Balthazar barely looked at him the whole time. It didn't help that his mind kept replaying last night over and over and making it incredibly difficult to focus on the gnawing hunger in his stomach. Every time he remembered how it felt to have the singer pressing against him or the hickeys they'd left on each other or clinging to him as he slowly went blind, he shifted in his seat. Not that Balthazar noticed.
But maybe it was for the best. They'd had their fling and, sure, it had been amazing, but trying to pursue something romantic with a bandmate was trouble (as he reminded himself for the hundredth time) and letting go would be better for everyone. And, yeah, they should actually talk about it, but it was difficult when Balthazar didn't even make eye contact.
When the blonde left the house after dinner, Lu knew he should have tried to get him to stay, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything. Instead, he cleaned up and sprawled out on his bed, wondering how he'd managed to do exactly what he'd been trying not to do. This was exactly why he'd been so resistant to having sex with Balthazar in the first place. The moment he threw his inhibitions away was the moment his fears were realized.
After twenty minutes or so of sulking, Lu decided that he wasn't going to improve his situation by brooding, so he went into the living room and started watching Doctor Who on Netflix. He supposed he could have practiced some of the songs or even started working on a new one, but he didn't feel like being productive. What he felt like doing was sitting Balthazar's ass down and figuring this mess out, but the singer was gone and when he wasn't, Lu's nerve failed him, so he settled for the pathetic alternative.
He fell asleep on the couch before Balthazar came home, but when he woke up, he discovered that the TV had been turned off and there was a blanket draped over him. He wanted to shake Balthazar in frustration, but of course, he'd already skated off to work, so that wasn't going to happen.
Finally, he pulled himself together, put away the blanket, made himself breakfast, and called Ray who, mercifully, was not working that day.
Lu and Ray drove around town and just wasted several hours until the time came for them to start heading over to The Garrison for the show. Since Balthazar was nowhere to be found when Ray went to drop Lu off at home, the bassist just grabbed his gear, tossed it in Ray's truck, and went with him to the venue. He called Balthazar once on the way, just to verify that he was safe.
"Hello."
"Balthazar, it's Lu."
"I know."
Lu ground his teeth for a moment. "You know we have a show tonight, right?"
"I know."
T-Mobile needed to figure out how to punch someone in the face via phone call. "Alright, well, will we be seeing you there?"
"I'll be there. Give me ten minutes."
Lu very nearly said, "We need to talk," but was hyperaware of his best friend right next to him. He settled for, "Alright. See you later," and just hanging up.
"You okay there?"
"Just great," Lu said bitterly.
"Balthy being an asshole?"
"Little bit."
"Try not to let him get to you. You just got a job, remember?" Ray said encouragingly.
"Oh, right, I forgot to tell you. Some ass-clown stole my bike while I was at the interview."
"Oh." Ray took a second to shoot him a sympathetic look. "Jesus, man, I'm sorry. So now what?"
"Well, walking is basically out of the question. I can't ask you or him"—here, they both knew to whom he was referring—"and I can't really ask Castiel since he gets his ride from Dean and that has the potential to be awkward, and there's no way I'm bumming a ride from Gabriel. So basically, I can either take public transportation or I'll have to find some way of getting another bike—which, incidentally, won't fit in his stupid fucking car. Of course, that's assuming my insurance company isn't about to cut my check for a new car, which they should have done months ago but still haven't, so I don't see why they would now."
Ray nodded slowly. "Hey, it just occurred to me. Your last day at Oak Ridge was last Friday, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"You should have one more check there, then."
Lu smacked his forehead. "I'm a fucking idiot. Trust me to forget the one check I actually have coming to me."
"Hey. I'll give you a ride over there after work tomorrow, okay?"
Lu sighed and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."
Ray nodded again. "So," he said, evidently weighing his words carefully. "Are you sure you're okay with living with him and everything? I mean, I know he can be a bit of an ass—not like Mikey, but close—so, you know, how are you handling that? You seemed reluctant to accept his offer in the first place."
"Yeah, I know." He was absolutely not telling Ray he'd slept with Balthazar. That would be right at the top of the list of Very Bad Ideas, a list that already had quite a few entries as it was (including sleeping with Balthazar). It wasn't that Ray wouldn't understand, because he surely would—well, maybe not understand, exactly, but he wouldn't freak out. He knew about Lu's latent (well, now, not-so-latent) bisexuality and even if he didn't know about Gabriel, he knew about the ones before him. Still, there was a reason Ray didn't know about Gabriel either, and that was because things would be awkward enough with just Lu and the bandmate he'd fucked aware of what happened. If someone else knew, it was bound to get weirder. Lu wanted to avoid that as much as possible. "It's been… interesting," he acceded, running his fingers through his hair. "He's not a bad roommate or anything. It's just…" He wondered how much to say before he gave away too much. As a rule, he disliked delving too much into his romantic life with anyone, even Ray. The only reason the band had been aware of how shitty things had been with him and Eve was because of how different he was after he'd spent enough time around her. "He knows how to get on my nerves."
"Sounds like Mikey."
"He is nowhere near as bad as Mike." This was one point that Lu would stay firm on. "Mike was just an asshole. Balthazar isn't a bad guy."
"Then what's going on with you two? You seemed like you would've punched him if he were here."
Lu didn't want to flat-out lie to him, but he did. "Honestly, he's been weird for the last few days. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on myself."
He was a convincing liar when he needed to be. Ray nodded in acceptance.
There were not enough curse words in the English or any other language to adequately convey how frustrated and angry Lu was at two the next morning.
At first, he thought it was a harmless little thing. Balthazar had indeed shown up to the venue a few minutes after Lu and Ray arrived, and when the singer stripped off his shirt before the show, Gabriel made the inevitable lewd comment about the bruises along his neck and collarbone (as Lu surreptitiously adjusted his shirt to hide his), which Balthazar shrugged off with a playful leer. And then there had been that gorgeous girl who'd somehow managed to catch the blonde's eye, a blonde herself and just an inch or two shorter than Balthazar. Lu had tried to ignore his rising irritation as he openly flirted with her, but then they launched into a cover of Social Distortion's "She's a Knockout" and Lu fought to not crack his bass over either Balthazar or the girl's head, or even just against the nearest wall. He wanted to break something as he was forced to listen to Balthazar sing the lines, "She's exotic but not foreign, built like an old Cadillac—she's a knockout. Once she's left your life, she ain't never comin' back—she's a knockout. With her black silk stockings and her high-heeled shoes, she's a knockout. Once she's left your life, you'll surely sing the blues—she's a knockout." He was so obviously flirting with her and she was so obviously eating it up that Lu couldn't figure out for whom he was most embarrassed: Balthazar, the girl (he found out later that her name was Rachel), or himself.
But apparently, it hadn't all been idle flirting, because after the show, she was there before Balthazar even had his shirt back on, and they wound up in a corner of the backstage area, drawing dark glares from the bassist.
It was all the answer Lu needed. Clearly, Balthazar had decided that the liaison between them was a one-time-only thing and, not only that, he liked this girl better than he liked him. Lu reminded himself that it was the point, that there couldn't have been anything between them anyway, that it was good Balthazar had found someone else (even if it would only be for the night, which seemed to be the rule for him), that maybe they could put this behind them and just move on.
Maybe in twenty years, he could look back on the early days of the band as a total mess, after they'd gotten all their shit straightened out, and he could remember that he'd fucked both the backup guitarist and the new singer without anyone else in the band finding out. Maybe then it wouldn't cause bile to rise in his throat to imagine Balthazar with that pretty blonde or some other girl (or other boy) wrapped around him as he fucked their brains out.
But that was nowhere close to being in the immediate future, so when Ray suggested he drive Lu home (Anna stretching out on the backseat; she'd been waiting after the show for the drummer), Lu immediately accepted and pointedly ignored the way Balthazar and that girl were still leaning in the corner. He pretended he didn't notice that she already had his jeans unzipped and he hadn't bothered to put his shirt back on, so all the tattoos on his torso were on full display, along with the tantalizing line of his spine. For a moment, he was slammed with the urge to lick his way up Balthazar's back, but he shoved it down and followed Ray out to the truck.
He hadn't expected this crap, either. He got back to the house around twelve-thirty and let himself in using the spare key he hadn't given back. He took a quick shower, went back to his room, stripped down to his boxers, and climbed right into bed, just settling himself in for what would most likely be a quiet night when he heard the front door bang open.
He was immediately alert again, going for the baseball bat in his closet (he sucked at basketball, but he was a pretty decent baseball player) when he heard a female's giggles and murmuring that had a decidedly British bent to the accent.
Fuck! It hadn't even occurred to him that Balthazar would bring her home with him.
Lu stayed frozen behind his door, listening. There was the distinct sounds of kissing, the girl's soft, breathy moans, and then Balthazar's door opening and slamming closed quickly. Lu knew he should put his headphones in and listen to music or something, anything but torturing himself like this, but he couldn't. He could hear the girl's moaning getting louder and he wanted to put his hands over his ears to block it out. The sounds from the bedroom were conjuring images both of their tryst two nights before and what he could be doing to her now, and Lu felt a wave of nausea crash over him. As quietly as he could, he ducked out of his room, grabbed a bottle from the liquor cabinet (he had no idea what was in it, but he'd find out in a minute), and slunk back into his own room, closing the door softly behind him.
He didn't want to imagine what was going on in the other room, but he could hear it. He unscrewed the cap from the bottle and started drinking. Whiskey.
The girl nearly screamed in what was undeniably pleasure, and then there was the sound of Balthazar moaning softly. Lu's gut twisted as she suddenly started murmuring and moaning almost nonstop and Lu finally covered his ears, but it didn't drown out the sounds from the bedroom. He wrenched his hands away from the sides of his head and took a long swig of whiskey. He blinked when he felt something wet hit the back of his hand and looked. Did I spill…?
No. His heart clenched and he shut his eyes. He'd started crying. I am not crying over that asshole. No, fuck him. He can fuck whatever girl he wants to. It's none of my fucking business. But the whiskey finally kicked in and he found himself sinking to his side on his mattress, hands fisted in his hair while tears burned his eyes. He curled in on himself and nearly sobbed, but it came out as more of a hoarse whimper. Every part of him was fighting to scream in anguish—Oh, this is so not good. I cannot be actually crying over him. This is ridiculous—but he kept his mouth shut and cried as quietly as he could.
Balthazar had made it perfectly clear that whatever was or had been between them was only about sex. In his mind, Lu could be easily replaced with anyone. Lu was forgettable. Balthazar had never needed him.
Lu's stomach twisted, threatening to eject the whiskey that hadn't yet flooded into his veins even though he wasn't even that drunk. No matter what he'd tried to tell himself, it was a lie. Lu had wanted to believe that he could handle this with Balthazar. He wanted to believe that maybe Balthazar wasn't just playing some sick game with him. He wanted to believe that Wednesday night had actually meant something.
But it hadn't, and Lu knew he'd made a terrible mistake.
Even after the deed was done (after nearly an hour—Jesus, he hadn't had that kind of stamina; why would Balthazar ever come back to him after he met someone else who could last that long?) and the house fell quiet, Lu stayed awake, staring with a numb sort of acceptance at the wall. He tried to fall asleep, but it was only after another six shots of whiskey that he was able to pass out.
The heat from the whiskey did little to warm him, though, and when he finally did sleep, it was disjointed and nightmarish.
It shouldn't have surprised him, though. His whole life had basically gone to Hell. Now he just had to figure out how to salvage this mess.
So much angst and I am so sorry but next chapter should be slightly less angsty...