Brütal • Mötley Crüe •

Five • Reunion

Warnings: Vulgar and Smutty Language, Heavy Drug Use

August 20th, 1982

It had been an excruciatingly long six months for Nikki.

He'd been on the road for the majority of the summer on a slummy Canadian tour that Mötley's sketchy manager had scheduled before it ultimately ended in financial disaster two months early.

He'd been in and out of investigation rooms and airport jails on several haphazard attempts at PR stunts that actually- surprisingly- worked in getting Mötley Crüe's name out into the world.

He'd played dozens of shows and traveled thousands of miles to see screaming fans finally singing his songs back to him somewhere other than the Sunset Strip.

He'd snorted line after line of cocaine and drank shot after shot of any hard liquor he could get his hands on, fucked every girl that was even mildly interested, and did his absolute best to throw himself into writing new music for their next album.

Mötley Crüe was finally gaining the recognition they deserved and that was everything Nikki had wanted since they played their first show one year and nearly four months ago exactly.

But even with his newfound success, the dull pain of regret that Halston had left imprinted on his brain still popped up every once in a while to bring him down.

He had picked apart his mind on why that stupid jacket had single-handedly ruined his chances with her and he always came up empty.

Sure, a swastika wasn't exactly the most comforting of symbols, but that's why he had worn it. He liked the way it made people cringe and got them talking. He had always been a big fan of the shock factor and that's what Mötley Crüe was based on.

In Nikki's opinion, the best way to get people's attention was to make them uncomfortable.

He hadn't considered that it might mean something totally different to Halston than it did to most when he put it on that night to follow her down the Strip, but he quickly figured out that she must have a darker connotation of it for her to have such a completely volatile reaction.

Her outburst had only served to make him even more curious about her.

He had tried to pound on her door and get her to come back out after she had left him stranded on the curb, but she didn't answer. He had tried to go talk to her at Jimmy's several times in the couple of weeks after, but she just turned around and walked in the opposite direction- she even let him take off with a few candy bars. He had also tried to get to her through Jenny, but Jenny wanted absolutely no part in it and basically told him to fuck off.

He had no choice but to let it go, and when Crüesing Through Canada began he expected it to help turn her into nothing more than a past thought.

It had only half worked.

While touring was a great distraction for the most part, there was still plenty of travel time that he had nothing better to do than sit and think.

Every time he had a quiet moment, his mind would end up slowly wandering back to her.

It was so out of character for him to be this hung up on a chick that it was as if he'd been possessed by some unknown entity, and he hated every fucking second of it.