Might As Well Be On Mars // Motley Crue

Rehearsals

Sorry, a bit of a short chapter this time. To make up for it, I'll be posting again on Thursday instead of next Monday.
Also, sorry if these last few chapters have been a bit boring/uneventful. Things will really start to pick up in the chapters I post next week!

And finally, if you read the last chapter in the first eight or so hours of it being posted, you may have noticed the ending was very abrupt. That's because I'm an idiot and accidently only posted half the chapter. If you haven't checked it since, please go back and finish it!

Onto the story:

Nikki froze when he saw her. The first thing he felt was rage. Why was she here? What right did she think she had coming in here and encroaching on their space, watching them do their drugs? It was none of her business what the guys did in their free time, and she sure as hell didn't have any right to judge them for what they did.

Of course, Evie hadn't even opened her mouth yet, so Nikki had no way of knowing whether she was judging them, wanting to join them, or thinking about unicorns, but that didn't matter to him. Even in his drugged out state, he knew that Evie always hated when he drank and did drugs, and in his drugged out state his only reaction to that was defensiveness.

Evie recoiled when she saw the look of anger on Nikki's face. What had she done wrong? She had seen him twice already, once on her first day in Massachusetts and then again this morning at the band meeting. Both times he had either been neutral towards her or ignored her completely. Why was he suddenly mad at her?

Mick stepped in when he realized what Evie had stumbled into. "Come on," he said, his hand on Evie's back to guide her away. He glared at Nikki, who flipped him off and went back to what he was doing.

Over the course of the next two hours, Evie had trouble focusing. For the first half an hour, Mick was trying to show her when and where to move the equipment and how and when to tune the guitars and what the different cables were and where they needed to be connected, but Evie just kept glancing over at the red couch, where she could only see the backs of Nikki and Tommy's heads.

She tried (and failed) to listen to their conversations and her head was swimming with thoughts about Nikki. When did his drug usage become so extreme, she wondered. Had he been like that when she knew him and she was just so blinded by love that she didn't notice? Did the drugs make him mean, like alcohol used to make Mick mean? Was that why Nikki was so angry at her, or did he really not want her on this tour? Did she really want to be on this tour? And finally, the most pressing question that had burned in her mind for a long time: had they really gotten over each other?

Mick could tell by the distressed look on her face and the quick glances she gave to the other side of the room that Evie's mind was not on Marshall stacks and guitar tuning. For the first time, he began having doubts about asking Evie to come on the tour. Sure he had missed her, but was his own selfish desire to be near her worth the job she would be giving up, the education she would have to pause, and the heartbreak that she would be reminded of?

Mick did his best to trudge through the training as if this were a completely normal thing for a person to ask of their daughter.

After twenty minutes, it was time for practice to commence. Mick was up and ready, with all of his equipment having been properly prepared by Evie. The other guys had to set up their own shit. Stony, Tommy's drum tech, wouldn't get to town for another week. Nikki refused to pick a bass tech, telling Zutaut that both options presented to him sounded like and looked like nerds. Vince, of course, didn't have to do anything. The sound tech simply set up his mic, and that was that.

Because the most intoxicated person in the room had to set up his equipment himself, practice was delayed a little. Evie stood timidly near the speakers while Mick talked with Zutaut, Tommy talked with Vince, and Nikki sludged around the room, moving objects that weighed more than Evie. More than once, she considered offering help, but based on the way he had looked at her earlier, she decided it wouldn't have been welcomed.

But Nikki wasn't angry at her anymore. He couldn't even remember that he had been angry, much less why he would have been upset. He still had enough sense, though, to know that things between him and Evie were a bit awkward.

That was why he waited until the last possible moment to plug his bass into the speaker setup, because Evie had apparently taken a liking to the exact spot where he needed to stand. When there was nothing left to do he finally walked over there, his head hung low and his hair almost completely covering his eyes. Nikki held his end of the plug and pointed to where it connected into the speaker. Evie took the hint and backed away, not taking her eyes off of him the entire time. Nikki plugged the right cords into the right spots, and then glanced up at Evie.

She was looking at him in a scared, insecure way. It reminded Nikki of a memory he had not thought of in a long, long time. It was her birthday, and Nikki had gotten so drunk that he forgot Mick had called off practice. He showed up to their house, and while he was talking to Mick, Evie appeared behind him to tell Mick to let him in. She had the same look on her face then as she did now. Afterward, Nikki played a song while Evie stood awkwardly against the garage wall. He was so worried about impressing her that he had failed to notice how beautiful she was until Mick started talking about how talented she was.

Nikki pulled himself back into the present and nodded slightly at Evie. He turned away and rehearsal began for real.

Evie mostly stood towards the back, out of sight of the guys until it was time to tune and/or switch the guitars. It was still a bit hard for her to focus on her new job, though. Not because she was thinking about Nikki (she was only doing that a little bit), but because the band sounded incredible.

When it was over, it was time to undo all the work they did an hour ago. Evie helped Mick clean up his gear while Tommy moved his drum kit. Nikki had made a bad habit of leaving his shit where it was after rehearsal for other people to pick up. Before, that meant Doc and the sound tech. Now, it meant Evie.

It wasn't until the seventh and last rehearsal that Evie was a part of that she realized how symbolic this was of her and Nikki's relationship. He did what he wanted while ignoring her and she cleaned up his messes without a single thanks.