Critical Hellfire
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: Chuck and Morgan are co-hosts of a locally popular streaming channel in which they discuss all things metal while playing video games. Their lives are uprooted when their demo guy hands them THE demo of the ages—a band called Critical Hellfire, fronted by singer and bassist Sarah Walker. AU Charah.
A/N: Thanks again, everyone! I don't have much to say. Buckle up.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or any of its characters. I don't own any of the songs mentioned in this chapter, this fic, or anywhere else for that matter. I am making absolutely zero dollars writing and posting this.
Zondra didn't have to use words. All she had to do was lift her hand and wiggle her fingers and Sarah snorted, tossing the bag of chips in her direction even as she took a big bite out of her Italian sub.
Thanks to long business meetings with Cole Barker and one of his production company's lawyers, this was the first bit of food she'd had since the bowl of cereal this morning and it was currently after nine at night.
They'd agreed on eating subs and watching the newest episode of Games N Rock Sessions.
It was the night before their live performance on the show so they were keen to see what Chuck and Morgan labeled the "big" announcement, their eyes glued to the chat to see how folks were reacting to GnR's first live streaming performance by a band. They'd already sort of mentioned it when she was interviewed the other night, but this was different. They said they were using the bells and whistles. Really making waves with their announcement, releasing huge promos on their social media, paying to send it through the advertising realms on LA's radio stations and on website banners.
They were going big with this one, since the small announcement the other night hadn't garnered much discussion.
Once again, the way these guys were going out of their way was something else, paying she didn't know how much to get promotion out about it tonight… Dylan and Mac had found some of it. And Zondra's cousins heard an announcement on the radio and texted her about it, too.
Sarah giggled around her capicola as Chuck knifed Morgan in the back in whatever video game they were playing, killing him. He tossed the controller up in the air to land on the couch and raised his arms over his head while it clattered to the floor, yelling, "KABLAMMMMMM, MOTHA FUCKAAAAAAAA!"
Morgan set down his controller and took a long guzzle of his grape soda, burping a little, an annoyed frowning line between his eyebrows. "You're a bitch," he said once he finished his burp. "That was bitch behavior."
"Dis bitch shanked yo backside. How'd it feel? Pretty good?"
"Dick," Morgan chuckled, shaking his head. "You camped. You were hiding."
"Oh, so camping's only cool when you do it? I see, I see…"
Dylan laughed. "They're such children."
Smiling, she sipped her water and shrugged. "I'm okay with it. He's only like this when video games are involved and I am very careful to make sure to dodge the video game landmine when we hang out."
"You mean aside from that Guitar Hero sesh?" Mac muttered with a snicker.
"That stupid game can go fuck itself," she snapped.
"Okay, okay…" Chuck picked up the controller from the couch and set it properly on the table in front of him. "We'll pause here, while Morgan's all up in his feelings…"
"Fuck off, man."
Chuck continued as if Morgan hadn't said anything. "…because we actually have a few bits of news we want to share with everybody." He bounced boyishly on the couch cushions. "Should we tell 'em? Should we tell 'em? Huh? Huh?!"
"You tell 'em the first thing, I tell 'em the second thing?" Morgan joined in, bouncing as well. It was almost like they were on a weird see-saw.
"Deal." Chuck stopped bouncing and made a face. "Although, I'm not exactly sure what the first thing and the second thing is. So I'll go with the first thing I wanna say…?"
Morgan pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Whisper it in my ear."
As the bearded man leaned to the side, the curly-haired clean-shaven one put his mouth near his ear and whispered something, his hand blocking it so that she couldn't lip read.
"Mm… Mhm," Morgan hummed, nodding. "Yes. That's the order I was thinking."
"Same page, buddeh!" They high-fived and then turned back to the camera. "Okay," Chuck chirped, rubbing his hands up and down his jeans with the trendy tears in the knees. "You're gonna scream, you guys. Some of you already know this, but we've gone all-out on it this time, sending the news through the cosmos." Sarah felt Mac squeeze her arm. "A few days ago, we had a certain lead singer slash bassist of a certain band on the show. One Sarah Walker from the local badass metal band Critical Hellfire…"
"Oh shit shit shitshitshit, here we go!" Mac hissed.
"Sh!" Zondra shoved at his shoulder.
All four of them leaned in close to her TV screen they'd hooked Dylan's laptop into. Sarah kept her gaze on Chuck, studying the way he seemed to buzz with so much genuine excitement.
He was filled with joy about Critical Hellfire, about this bit of history-making for his show, and for their band. It emanated from him. And she was so enamored with him, it was ridiculous.
Chuck thrusted his hands out to the side, palms down. "Critical Hellfire will be here—in my basement—our basement," he gestured to Morgan as well, "and they'll be performing live. Games N Rock Sessions' first live performance by a band in our history. Tomorrow night at nine o'clock. Right fuckin' here, man!"
Morgan pumped his fists over his head almost violently with a, "WOOOO! YEAH! YEAH, SON! LET'S FUCKIN' GOOOO!"
Sarah found herself giggling a bit manically as they slapped each other on the arm, high-fiving, as if super pleased in themselves for snagging this opportunity.
And then Chuck leaned over and he must've tapped something on the laptop, because the Critical Hellfire logo started bouncing around the screen with part of one of their cover songs from the demo blasting behind it. Chuck and Morgan played air guitar behind the bouncing logo, stomping their feet.
This was the new and improved announcement. Apparently. Because the first one hadn't taken off.
"Lookit lookit lookit!" Dylan pointed at the chat. "They're losing their minds. Holy shit, this is so cool."
She switched her gaze to the chat as the song switched off, and all they heard were Chuck and Morgan making ridiculous mouth guitar sounds.
Most of the responses were in all caps.
"NOOOO WAAAAAY GNR DOIN A LIVE BAND PERFORMANCE HOW I MISS THIS"
"NO I HAVE TO WORK CAN I GET A DOCTORS NOTE CHUCK AND MORGAN?"
"CRITICAL HELLFIRE LIVE? DID THEY SAY THIS BEFORE? I DONT REMEMBER. DOPE."
"WE GET TO SEE THEM WAIL LIVE LEMME DIE"
"PLS FREE BIRD, CRITICAL HELLFIRE" was the one that Mac pointed to, and they all cracked up over it.
"We expect you all to be on the stream tomorrow night, and frankly, we need everybody who saw or heard the other promos we put out to tune in too damn it," Morgan was saying, "to give Critical Hellfire the biggest fuckin' party of their lives. This is their first streaming performance. We need thousands to be here, so grab your friends, you family, your Tía Abuela Nena!"
Chuck turned and pretended to play the drums on his best friend's nogging then. "So that's the first really cool announcement. Morgan? You wanna finish off the stream with our next big announcement?"
"I would be honored." He sat up straighter, fluttered his eyelids primly with a little throat clear: "Eh Heh Heh Heh Hemmm." And then he leaned forward. "Games N Rock Sessions is being promoted. We movin' on up. We won't be on Twitch after tomorrow's big party of an episode."
The chat started flipping out in a bad way this time.
"Oh no, no. Wait. This is good news! We aren't ending the show. The show's just getting an upgrade!" Morgan rushed out. "We'll be taking a week off to prep, but then starting next week, Thursday night, same time, we'll be going live on the content platform site…thingy…Recruit Emperors! This is gonna be huge for us, fam. Massive. And we're really excited about the change."
Chuck nodded emphatically. "It'll look exactly the same! …I, uh, think. Pretty sure. A few things will change. But, um, we'll still be us. Just us. Shootin' the shit about metal, having guests on, playing video games. Only in 4K, woooooo!"
"It'll look so good, you'll be able to see my bloodshot eyes from staying up all night playing Destiny with my pen pal who lives in Iceland."
"How is Jökull Helgason?" Chuck asked conversationally.
That made Dylan chortle, coughing around his sandwich.
Sarah shushed him, grinning at their antics once again.
"He's mjög gott."
"Gott."
"So there it is!" Morgan said, clapping his hands together. "We're movin' on up. Hopefully we get to talk to a lot more people, maybe for a bit longer, depending. And, um, well…we hope you'll follow us over there."
"Please follow us over there? They're already setting up the platform, but the links will all still work, our archive will still be up too. And our social medias are all completely unchanged. Same email address."
"Oh, shit."
Chuck glanced at Morgan. "What?" he asked dubiously.
"I haven't checked that in a while."
"Woops. Well…neither have I. Folks, if you haven't received a response to your email in a week, now you know why," Chuck said with a wince towards the camera.
Sarah laughed, shaking her head.
"Maybe a little structure might help these guys out," Zondra muttered with a smirk.
"Maybe," she muttered back.
"Who gives a fuck about emails?" Dylan asked with a scoff.
"We will once we have a whole-ass car advertisement with us playing in it," Sarah groused. "We're going to have to be on top of it, too, if we want this whole thing to become an ascent."
"The ascent to stardom," Dylan said breathily, "is paved with blood."
"Oh. Wow. That's real nice," Mac drawled sarcastically.
"Until tomorrow!" Morgan said, waving at the camera.
"Yep. We'll see you at nine sharp, folks. And we'll be here with Critical Hellfiiiiiiyaaaaaa," Chuck wailed, sticking his tongue out and making devil's horns with both hands.
He was still in the middle of the note when Morgan reached over to turn it off.
The stream stopped, leaving Sarah sitting in silence with her band.
"That's kind of crazy. Their last stream on Twitch will be our performance. Feels kind of monumental. Am I nervous? I might be nervous," Mac said, setting down his sandwich and fanning his armpits. "I'm sweating."
"Not to change the subject, but did you see the mixed reactions from the viewers when they told them they were moving onto a bigger platform?" Zondra asked, gritting her teeth. "Awkwarrrrd."
Sarah glanced at her, putting her own sub down. "What do you mean?"
"Some of them seemed really excited for them and proud, and then a lot of them seemed kind of pissed. Like Chuck and Morgan are moving onto a bigger platform and leaving them behind." Rizzo shrugged.
"That's not fair," the blonde groused. "They're not leaving anyone behind, it's still going to be free to watch unless you want to pay to subscribe, or…whatever it is you do on Twitch to send money."
"Right, but there's the fact that being on a bigger streamer means there's a potential to forget about the people who were there in the beginning, those first supporters, with Chuck and Morgan through thick and thin for years. They seemed kind of worried. You know what I'm talking about. Your sponsors start flooding in and they become the priority, not the viewers or fans. You see that guy say something like, 'Well there goes GnR. Corporate shills gonna get all commercial and this'll suck now.' Other people were saying similar stuff, I was looking at it while they were announcing the changes. I'm not saying it's fair!" Zondra added when Sarah felt a spike of defensiveness rise in her chest.
"I know you aren't, but what the hell? You can't say you support them and want them to succeed and then when they get an opportunity like this, be like 'COMMERCIALIZED TRAAASH!'", she bellowed, shaking her fist at the ceiling.
"Yeah, if your man ever wants to not live in a basement, he's gonna have to take opportunities from Cole like this," Mac said. They all gave him a look and he winced. "I didn't…mean it like that. Sorry. Nothing wrong with a basement."
"He doesn't…live in the basement," Sarah snapped defensively. "He has his own bedroom. But he owns that house with his sister. That's their house. Nothing wrong with that."
"No, no, no. I know. Um, just forget I said that. I mean, if he wants to be able to…go places, just in general, make enough to live and pay his bills and go on…vacations…I'm digging myself a ditch here and maybe I'm just gonna shut my mouth, yeeeaaahhh…" Mac shoved half his sandwich in his mouth to stop himself from talking as she glared a little.
Sarah shrugged. "Look, that's bound to happen. Some people can't be pleased no matter what. And especially when there will be changes made to their favorite streaming show, I get being wary. But it's basically gonna be the same. They'll see once they watch the new iteration of Games N Rock Sessions."
"You mean Games N Rock?" Dylan scoffed. "Still don't see why the producers are making the guys drop the Sessions part."
"Who knows? We aren't producers. We don't have successful entertainment companies," Mac mumbled, finally having swallowed what he bit off.
Sarah was still deep in thought when Dylan fished his phone out of his pocket. "Oh. Speak of the devil. It's Mr. WoofWoof himself."
Mac gave Sarah and Rizzo a confused look. "Mr. WoofW—Oh. Barker. …idiot."
"H'lo? …Ah, Mr. B. How are ya?" Dylan climbed up to his feet and stood in front of the band, almost as if he had to be standing to have a business conversation. Men were strange. He frowned suddenly. "Wait, huh? What do you mean?"
Sarah sat up straighter.
"What?" Mac asked, concerned.
Dylan waved at him frantically to shut him up. "That doesn't even make sense. Why wouldn't you want Critical Hellfire to get extra promotion? You want more eyes on a band you're promoting, right?" He paused, anger in his face. "That's stupid. I mean, no offense, but that's really fuckin' stupid." He began to pace. "Yeah, I know. It isn't just that we're friends with them, though. We're doing this for us. You see the extra promo the guys put out there about us? Even got Z's cousins texting her 'cause they heard the announcement on the radio. This is going to be thousands of people watching us for the first time ever. Not like the gig last night where there were only, like, two dozen people there. What the fuck does that help us do?" Another angry pause. "Sure, yeah. A car commercial will be even more, but—It is only LA, but LA is huge and so is the metal scene here! Okay, yeah, so we don't, sure. I feel like a simple fix to that problem is you approve it now." He mouthed a curse at Sarah, more upset than she'd seen him in a while.
What is it? she mouthed back.
"Just-Just a second. Let me just tell the band. Hold on."
He lowered his phone, tapping mute most likely, because he was not quiet when he barked, "These fuckers aren't letting us do GnR tomorrow."
"What?!" Sarah snapped, lunging to her feet. "What the fuck?! Why not?"
"Apparently, in our cute little contract, it says we agree not to do any shows not approved ahead of time by CB Productions."
"Where was that?! I didn't see that!" Zondra asked loudly, crossing her arms. "I went through the whole fuckin' thing. I didn't see that."
"He says it's there."
"Where'd we put the—?" Mac was already headed for Sarah's makeshift office.
"Top drawer in the filing cabinet," Sarah said.
"Thanks."
"So why doesn't he just approve it now then?" she demanded, feeling a desperate sort of fury starting to build in her chest. They weren't doing this to her. They weren't doing this to the band. To the guys. Chuck…
This wasn't happening.
"He won't, the fuckin' prick," Dylan said. "I asked the same thing. He said their show is too…loosey-goosey, whatever the fuck that is."
"Loosey-g—Okay, give me the phone. Let me talk to him." She reached out for the phone and Dylan handed it over. She took it off of mute and put it to her ear. "Cole, it's Sarah. Explain it to me like I'm eight."
"Ah. Sarah. You're who I wanted to talk to, as you're the most…shall we say, mature member of the band." She felt the heat of rage rise from her collar. But before she could stick up for her band, he rushed on. "Why didn't you answer your phone?"
"I didn't hear it. We were watching the Games N Rock Sessions stream to see them announce us being on the show tomorrow. Which we will be doing."
"Oh. Sarah. I'm sorry to say, you won't be. Not if you want to stay within the bounds of the contract you all signed."
"Screw this. What's your reasoning? They're our friends, yeah. But this is a huge opportunity for us, Cole. Huge. Massive."
"Well, I think you're doing them a favor more than you're doing yourselves one. At this point, your star is brighter than theirs. You have the forward momentum and they're a bit…weird, you know? Static. Don't tell them that, of course. I'm not supposed to play favorites."
If she wasn't drowning in the indignity and anger of this whole mess, she would've heard the flirtation in Cole Barker's voice.
"Fine. Then we're helping them. Good. We want to do this. For us. But also for them! This is huge for all of us! Why won't you let us do this performance?"
"I watch their stream when I can, Sarah. And I was watching tonight because I was told to by an assistant who heard about it on the radio, apparently. That was how I knew you were performing tomorrow because none of you actually told me. I have to say, that's not great. But I'll overlook it this time." She clenched her jaw. "There's a lack of…structure on their show. You don't know what they'll say, how they'll say it. Some of it could offend. Or they support things your new brand shouldn't be affiliated with—"
"Like what?!" she snapped. What could possibly be so offensive about two nerds gaming and talking about metal? What, they supported indie bands and indie game creators? How awful!
"—That's something of a liability in this business, and that makes us nervous," Cole continued, ignoring her entirely.
"Who's us?" she asked.
"Me, Farrelly, Rogers, Lock, Dawson…the rest of my producing team. Without us being able to control the conversation tomorrow, and there is no way to control those two we're realizing pretty quickly in our meetings with them—"
What in the hell was this? This felt like a complete betrayal of the guys. He couldn't control them? What was happening in those meetings? Chuck hadn't talked about any problems. He seemed to think those meetings were fine.
"—or what happens in that chatroom, we really don't want our band who will be the faces and sound of our new Ocelot sports sedan to be connected to that."
"Connected to that," she groused. "That sounds like bullshit. It's a fun show that people in LA absolutely adore, Cole. Who cares what happens in the chat? Nobody's gonna associate that with a car. Nobody cares!"
Cole continued again as if she hadn't said anything. "From this point forward, you need to be squeaky clean, and we're going to have prime control over where you go, and, sorry, who you perform for."
Sarah frowned darkly. "Is that in the contract, too?"
"It's here," Mac said miserably. She glanced over. He'd flipped through their copy of the contract. He slumped onto the edge of the desk. "Shit, he's right. It's right here."
"Fuck," she heard Rizzo snap. "Fuckin' janky-ass lawyer."
"It is, in fact, in the contract, Sarah. I'm sorry. I thought you were all aware of everything when you signed."
"What about the gig yesterday? We didn't get your approval for that one."
"We knew about that gig and we were okay with it. Small venue, just a few dozen people. MacKenzie's has a good reputation. No rebel-rousers, no bikers. And in a nicer part of the greater Los Angeles area. More nuclear families live in that neighborhood."
What in the hell was that about? Nuclear families? Nicer part of LA?
She shook herself. "…And if it wasn't, you would've had that cancelled, too…"
"Precisely."
Sarah let out a long sigh. "Cole, this isn't right. You know it isn't right. They set this all up for us, they announced it to their people, they paid to promote it and get people excited about it. How are we supposed to bring this problem to them? What do we even say?"
"Unfortunately, you have to tell them you can't perform tomorrow night. I know. It's a huge let-down. Only, I wish you would've talked to me first before agreeing to it and that might've solved the whole problem."
"Why would I think I'd have to do that?" she demanded to know, thrusting her free hand out to the side. "We've made our own decisions about where and when we play and who we play for since we got together a few years ago. It's always been that way, Cole."
"They're your friends. I understand that. We always hate to disappoint friends—"
"Chuck is my boyfriend," she interrupted. "This isn't just Critical Hellfire doing our pals a favor. My boyfriend set this up, announced it to his viewers and fans, thousands of them—even more than that because I'm sure it's all over the metal threads in LA and people's social media. This was huge for us, and for him and for Morgan."
Cole cleared his throat. "Nothing I can do, Sarah. You're all just going to have to break the news to them. I mean, I could give Chuck a call and do it if you'd prefer—"
Sarah ruffled her hair in annoyance, gritting her teeth. There was a thick bubble in her throat and her eyes stung. "Absolutely not." She shut her eyes altogether. "There's something you can do, Cole. You can let us do this one…last…unapproved…performance."
"If you perform on that show tomorrow, I promise you no matter how much I try to stick up for you to the rest of the CB producers board, they'll deem the contract severed. No Ocelet commercial. No big break for the band. I understand if that's your choice, but you do have to make a choice now." He sighed heavily, as if this was paining him. "Anyhow, I have a plane to catch. Please text or call if you have any concerns, questions… But I will see you next week, eh?"
Sarah knew she was being childish by just hitting end on the call.
She slapped the phone back into Dylan's hand as she pushed past him. "Fuck this!" she snapped, going to the kitchen, reaching up to the cupboard, and pulling down a half-full bottle of whiskey.
Not bothering with a glass, she opened it and took a swig, leaning against the counter.
"So?" Mac asked from the desk.
They were all watching her expectantly, all of them furious. With good reason.
She didn't say anything, because she knew what the answer was. It was the same priority they'd always have, always would have. And they all knew it…
But Dylan finally voiced it, his tone numb. "We have no choice. We have to cancel with Chuck and Morgan tomorrow.""Fuck off!" Zondra said. "No! That's so fucked! No! They dropped their reps with their community and some dough on this! For us!"
"I know," Sarah said miserably, rolling her head back and blinking at the ceiling. "But we have to talk about it because he was adamant that if we do the performance tomorrow, our contract's kaput." She lowered her chin and looked at all of them, letting the gravity of it all sink in for a moment. Their faces all fell. "Done. Incinerated. And when will we get an opportunity like this being in this advertisment again?" she asked with a shrug. "I don't know if we ever will."
She was going to cry. She was pissed off and she was going to cry.
Dylan crumbled up the rest of his sandwich in the wrapper and threw it violently into the trash bag. "Weirdly enough, I'm not hungry anymore. I'm going home."
"Don't you think we should discuss this? As a band?" Mac asked.
"Discuss what?" their guitarist snapped. As he leaned down to tug his boots on, his two braids fell forward over his shoulders.
"Whether we're performing tomorrow or not…" Mac tried.
Dylan straightened up again, his boots on, and he snagged his jacket. "Oh, come on, Mac. Wake up. This is our big break. We're not playing for our boys or their viewers tomorrow. As much as I'd love to say we're all big heroes who'll put our friends before our big break and do the right thing, which is playing tomorrow and telling Cole Barker and his producers to fuck the fuck off, we all want the same thing. Don't we? Stardom. A record label offering us an album deal. Ruining our first contract isn't gonna do that, so we're gonna throw our fuckin' friends under the fuckin' bus," he snapped, looking sickened with himself. All of them.
"A little cynical, don'tcha think?" Rizzo muttered, looking sad more than angry all of a sudden.
Sarah could only watch it all unfold as Dylan shrugged his jacket on.
"Am I? Okay, let's do a vote. Like we usually do when we're trying to decide what to get delivered for dinner during band practice. Yeah?"
They all nodded, frowning.
Sarah just stood still, the bottle of Jack in her fingers. She didn't want food, or this alcohol, all of a sudden. She just wanted to crawl under her bed into the darkness where light couldn't reach her and cry. Sob. The disappointment was like a frigid icicle lodged behind her breast, stabbing through her major organs, one in particular.
This was so unfair, she couldn't even breathe from it.
"Raise your hand if you want to protect the contract we signed with these fuckwads and bank on this car advertisement CB Productions is handing us, which will most likely lead to a record deal we've all talked about wanting more than anything in the world?" Dylan asked.
He raised his own hand. And then Mac did after a few long moments, keeping his eyes downcast, shame in every last inch of him.
And finally Zondra Rizzo did, her sad gaze right on Sarah, as if wondering if the blonde would feel betrayed by her band members.
She didn't feel betrayed.
She was hurting.
Bad.
But they weren't the ones hurting her.
"Raise your hand if you think we need to show up at the Bartowski house tomorrow to perform," Dylan said then. "In spite of everything. Potentially tossing our big break in the dumpster because fuck Cole Barker."
Licking her lips, Sarah raised her free hand up high.
"Three to one, Sar. Sorry." Dylan looked pissed still, shoving his hands in his jean pockets. She'd never seen him this angry and she loved him, he was one of her favorite people in the world, but he did get angry about a lot of things, more than any of them—and had enough reason to, granted. But she'd never seen him like this before.
Mac pushed off from the desk, moving a bit closer to Sarah as she dropped her arm to her side. "Hey, uh…Walker, you don't…hate us, do you?"
She was already picturing the look on Chuck's face when she told him. And she would have to tell him as soon as possible. Now, even. To give him a head's up. So that he and Morgan had time to figure out how to address this. They'd made an announcement. Multiple announcements. Some they'd paid for. Their fans were stoked. They'd have to crush that excitement. And it wasn't going to look good for them. At all. Their reputations would take a hit, as unfair as it was, even though it wasn't anything they could control.
Still trying not to cry from the crushing disappointment, she shook her head.
"Of course I don't hate you. I know you're right. I know we can't afford to fuck this up with these producers who are handing us this massive break that'll set us on a potential path to stardom, something we've all wanted for years. This isn't your guys' fault."
Dylan huffed in annoyance, his features dark with anger, hard and taut, his brow furrowed. Then he turned on his heel and made for the door of her loft that led outside and down the stairs to the street where he'd parked their van that he came in.
"I'm outta here. I need a drive," he said as he went.
"What are we doing tomorrow?" Mac called out.
"Best if we all get some space," Dylan called back, grabbing the handle for the door and whipping it open. "We need it after this bullshit. At least I know I do."
And then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him.
She knew Dylan wasn't angry at them… And then he was angry at them, and at himself especially, all at the same time.
She got it.
She was incensed. She was pissed they didn't have the guts to kick this TV ad to the curb and embrace their friends.
And she was so close to letting the tears come.
"Yeah, he's right," Rizzo said. "I'm gonna spend tomorrow kicking the shit out of a bag. We all need to get our heads back on straight. Because if we go into that music video like this?" She pointed to her furious features. "Not gonna be great. And throwing our friends under the fucking bus will have been for nothing. We should take some space for ourselves."
She swooped in and hugged Sarah tight.
Which was not great for keeping the tears at bay. And as they finally fell, she pressed her lips tightly together, meeting Mac's eyes. Her drummer stepped up and put his hand on top of her head, squeezing. He wasn't great with feelings. Not this kind, anyway. So he was trying to get her to laugh, she knew.
She merely sniffled and smiled at him. Miserably.
"I'm just pissed," she explained as Zondra pulled back, rubbing her arm comfortingly. "It's gonna hurt Chuck. Destroy him even. And Morgan. And for what? Just the shittiest reason for not letting us do this. There was no reason."
"Mhm. Well." Mac shrugged. "Welcome to big leagues, I guess. The guys with the power and money don't need a reason to fuck people."
Big leagues, indeed.
God damn it.
A/N: And the other shoe drops.
Please review and I'm totally prepared for folks to yell at me. I'm a big girl, I can handle it, I probably deserve it this time.
-SC