There wasn't enough angst in this story. Don't worry, I fixed that. My apologies for the brevity. The next chapter will be longer.
Many thanks to IslanderBib, Kathrin J Pearl, Chloe JP, kb18142, KitCat 1995, Sexy. Lil. Emo, and egyptian1995 for your reviews to last chapter!
Apparently, nine and a half hours wasn't enough to undo the severe fuckery the last week had wreaked on Lu's sleep cycle, because when Balthazar's alarm went off at six-thirty, the strawberry blonde just groaned and rolled over. "Don't make me get up," he grumbled.
"We have to." He had to admit, he was tempted to just hit the snooze button and spend the whole weekend just lying there with Lu in his arms, but Crowley would no doubt be pissed. He could be a demon when he was angry and Balthazar didn't care enough to infuriate him right now. "Come on, we just have to get through the next few hours and then you can sleep until Monday."
Lu made a pleased humming sound before rolling over. His eyes locked right on the lock around Balthazar's neck. "Oh. I thought I dreamed that." He looked up at the singer. "Things got kind of surreal at the end there."
"Oh." Balthazar's heart gave an unpleasant lurch but he fought to keep his face neutral. "Did you want to take it off?"
Lu shook his head and reluctantly climbed out of bed. His stomach gave a loud rumble and Balthazar felt a grin slip across his face.
"There will be food there," he said teasingly.
The bassist shot him a brief glare before yawning abruptly. "Alright, I'm gonna get changed then." He reached for his jeans and boxers, which had been tossed to the side. He yawned again. "What time did you want to leave?"
"By seven-fifteen. If you want to shower, do it now." Balthazar sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. It was starting to curl around his ears—part of him wanted to cut it, but most of him felt far too lazy for it. "I definitely need a shower."
He saw Lu grin to himself as he slunk out of the bedroom and to his own.
Lu waited in the kitchen for Balthazar to finish getting dressed. He took a swig of a now-half-empty bottle of Dr Pepper and glanced in the mirror again.
He didn't like suits, but that was mostly because he didn't like wearing neckties. Without a tie, suits weren't completely terrible. This one was entirely black and he wore a black dress shirt underneath it with a pair of black Converse. He didn't think he looked half-bad, actually.
There was a jingling of car keys and Lu looked up.
"Ready?" Balthazar asked.
Lu's throat went dry, but he nodded. Balthazar had deemed leather pants that looked like they'd been spray-painted on his body to be appropriate attire, and even though his shirt was a button-down and, therefore, not a V-neck, he'd kept the top four buttons undone to mimic the effect. The lock of the bike chain rested right underneath the hollow of his throat and all Lu could think of was how absolutely fuckable he looked right then.
He followed the singer out of the house and locked the front door behind them, sliding into the passenger's seat of Lindsey as Balthazar got into the driver's seat. "You can sleep on the way there, if you want to," the blonde added.
Lu nodded again. "I planned on it." He notched the seat back to its full reclined position and closed his eyes. Unseen, Balthazar shot him a quick, fond smile before starting up the car and heading to the hotel.
By the time they arrived at Elysian Fields, Lu had fallen into a rather heavy doze. Balthazar managed to poke him awake, but the strawberry blonde was annoyed by being woken up for the second time before he was good and ready, so he glowered at everyone that crossed his path. As Balthazar wandered away to let Crowley know they'd arrived, Raphael appeared.
"Damn, you okay there?" he asked, visibly trying not to laugh. He was dressed more casually than Lu in black jeans and a ripped Misfits shirt with his leather vest (the one with SIZZLER stitched across the shoulders on the back), and Lu wondered what memo he'd missed when he'd shown up wearing the better part of a suit and everyone else was dressed in show attire.
"I'm fucking exhausted, what do you think?" Lu snapped. He glanced around—there was Anna chatting by the DJ, and near the pool were Gabriel and Sam, and not too far from them were Castiel and Dean. Every single one of them was dressed far more casually than he was. Even Anna's dress was haphazardly torn just above the knee and her black studded jacket seemed purposely big on her. Then Lu realized that was because it was Raphael's. "Did everyone bring a date?"
Raphael shrugged. "Crowley said we should. Looks like you and Bizarre were the only ones who didn't."
Lu rolled his eyes. "I feel ridiculous," he said, indicating his suit.
The drummer smirked. "That's what happens when you go four and a half days without sleep for the Hell of it."
The strawberry blonde flipped him off just as Crowley came over with Balthazar right behind him. "You look like Hell," their manager said.
Lu very nearly threw his hands up in the air and turned around, but over Crowley's shoulder, Balthazar was giving him a look that might as well have been Calm down and, surprisingly, it worked. Instead, he said icily, "I don't know why you expected anything different."
"Well, take a minute and pull yourself together. There's some people from the press here looking to talk to you boys and some of the executives want to meet you."
All the snark drained from Lu's body. "Wait, what?"
Crowley raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Yeah. Believe it or not, the news of a local punk band getting signed to such a major label has made quite the impact."
Lu swallowed hard as their manager turned around and waved for Castiel and Gabriel to join them. He couldn't pinpoint the cause of his sudden nervousness, but he assumed that lack of sleep had made him irrational. Normally, he was okay with dealing with fans.
Then again, they weren't about to meet fans, they were about to meet people who would tear them apart the first chance they got if the tide turned against them.
"You okay there?" Balthazar asked softly twenty minutes later.
Crowley had been right again. Four different columnists for various music magazines had approached them and asked questions. Three had gotten group photos of the band. Balthazar had stayed right by Lu's right side, and Raphael was on his left. He was relieved to have both of them with him and Castiel and Gabriel on Balthazar's other side, but he was getting too tired to deal with all of it.
"Just peachy," he hissed back.
The most stressful part of the night so far came later, though. A fifth columnist pulled Balthazar aside and started grilling him about being the newest member of the band and what it was like to work with four guys who'd known each other for up to eleven years already. But the bottom nearly dropped out of his stomach when he heard the reporter say, "Nice chain, by the way. Very Sid & Nancy."
"Thanks," Balthazar answered.
"Just a statement, or does it mean anything?"
Lu didn't know if he wanted to flee or inch closer. His heart was racing and he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was panic over Balthazar's response. They had barely talked about them and he didn't know how they'd classify their relationship. Were they committed? Friends with benefits? Oh, Jesus, what if they didn't want the same thing?
This was a mistake. We shouldn't have done this. It would have been better for both of them, better for the band, if Lu had been able to keep it in his pants, to resist Balthazar better. And, yeah, the blonde wasn't exactly blameless in this situation, but Lu should have been able to tell him they couldn't get involved.
How fucked-up was he, when he avoided problems until they blew up in his face and there was nothing he could do? No matter what, someone was coming out of this hurt and it was his fault. He had been so desperate for anyone that he latched onto the smallest scrap of affection like it was a declaration of devotion, and now he'd gotten so deep, fucked things up so badly that he'd somehow managed to do exactly what he'd been trying not to do.
"No, it's not just a statement."
"So what's it mean?"
"I'd rather not discuss it right now," Balthazar said quietly but firmly.
Lu unconsciously ran a finger over the chain around his own neck. After a moment, he slipped it off and into his pocket before heading right for the bar.
"What happened to you?" another voice asked.
Lu glanced to his left. Sam Winchester was standing there, a drink in hand. "Gabe didn't tell you? I had a psychotic breakdown and didn't leave the studio all week." Crowley's words to the executives earlier in the night floated through his head. "Pellegrino here is a little worker bee. He's been making sure the tracks sound perfect. He was at Leviathan all week."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "No, he didn't mention that. Just that you'd had a rough few days."
"That's putting it mildly." He ordered a Jack and Coke and turned back to Sam. "Not counting today, I think I got three hours of sleep this whole week. Balthazar—" His throat constricted for a second and he swallowed to clear it. "He brought me home and basically forced me to sleep."
"Yeah, that's a bit crazy. Why were you there all week?"
Lu sighed as his drink appeared next to his hand. Grateful for the open bar, he downed a huge gulp. He needed to be way more drunk to deal with this. "I really don't even know. I guess I was pursuing the unattainable ideal." He shrugged.
"Well, they are your songs, aren't they?"
"Yeah."
"I guess it makes sense that you'd be a bit… possessive of them, I guess. Making them want to sound as good as possible."
He had to admit that Sam had a point. "You're probably right." He grabbed Sam's wrist to check his watch and sighed. "Hopefully Crowley says we can get out of here soon."
Sam grinned sheepishly. "Don't want to be here?"
"I just want to sleep some more. Did you miss the part where I got maybe three hours of sleep over the course of four and a half days?" He took another swig of his drink. "Besides, this party isn't really my thing. I know Gabe's always excited to be around people, but…"
"Don't like publicity?"
"It's not that. I like publicity. It's great. I just don't like being under the microscope of four dozen people looking for the latest scoop."
"Seems to make sense." Sam looked around nervously, and Lu got the feeling the conversation was getting a bit awkward. He turned back to the bar and finished his drink, allowing the other man to make a graceful getaway. In his peripherals, he saw Sam sidle away, and he ordered another drink.
"Good thing I decided not to drink tonight," Balthazar murmured, suddenly appearing next to him.
"Yeah. Sorry," he added quietly.
"I'm assuming you heard what that bloke asked?"
"Yeah."
Balthazar gave a small nod. "I guess we should probably talk about that, then."
Lu swallowed. "Yeah."
The older man's shoulders seemed to slump and Lu immediately felt bad. His one-word answers probably weren't the best to hear. He didn't blame Balthazar for being disappointed. It seemed that all he was good for was playing bass and disappointing people.
"I'm probably not going to like where that conversation will go, am I?"
Lu ran his fingers through his hair. "I… I don't know." Honestly, it wouldn't be so bad to be with him if there was a guarantee one of them wouldn't break the other's heart. It might even be nice. But he had no idea what Raphael would think, or Castiel, or Gabriel. Or Crowley, or anyone else, for that matter. But he did know that if Balthazar hurt him, he wouldn't be able to forgive him and it would suck to work with him.
And what if he hurt Balthazar? They wouldn't be able to look at each other. Their bandmates might feel like they had to pick sides. It could rip the band apart.
"This isn't the place, though," Lu said finally. "Too many ears."
Balthazar nodded. "We'll talk tomorrow. After you've gotten a little more sleep."
"Yeah," he said hoarsely. He finished off his second drink. "Yeah, we'll talk then. Speaking of which, when are we allowed to leave?"
The corner of Balthazar's mouth twitched up in an almost-reluctant grin. "I'll go ask, love. Maybe he'll take pity on you and let us go."
Lu registered the use of the endearment love and, no matter how much he didn't want to jeopardize his band, couldn't help thinking that he liked it when Balthazar called him that, too.
Maybe this could work. Maybe, against all odds, they could actually be together throughout the duration of the band and make their relationship work and not be a horrendous mistake.
He downed a glass of water, turning around to see Crowley nodding and Balthazar smiling and turning back toward him.
I guess we can go home, then. He slid off his seat and went to meet him. The sooner he got home and got to sleep, the better.
You can blame the angsty brainwave on IslanderBib. She jinxed the whole thing by saying, "No stupid 'we won't even start because it's doomed to go wrong' talk!" Sorry, but there are eight more chapters and they can't all be sunshine and butterflies (especially because this is a punk band!AU).
*cackles madly*
(Just remember, aside from "The Family Business," all of my fics have happy endings.)