Love Bites | Joe Elliott x Reader

Chapter 3

After they left, Tammy let out a loud sigh, earning everyone's attention.

"What?" Joe asked her as she kept her eyes on the exit where Y/N and Doug had just gone through.

Tammy didn't answer to start with, prompting Johnny to jump in. "He's always like this with Y/N. He doesn't like her going anywhere without him."

"Bloody hell." Phil murmured under his breath as the rest of Def Leppard looked at them in shock.

"He's also not exactly happy about Y/N working with you. Or us going on tour with you." Tammy eventually spoke up.

"Why not. Surely if he is her boyfriend he wants what's best for her?" Sav asked.

"Well, you'd think, wouldn't you?" Benji muttered as he stared at his drink. He wasn't a man of many words but when it came to his friends he would defend them to the end of the earth.

"So what's his problem then?" Steve asked.

"Well, since Ultraviolet started receiving more attention he has been clinging to Y/N as if she is just gonna disappear. He hates the idea of her not spending time with him." Tammy told them.

The conversation died down after that. Small chatter on plans for the upcoming tour took over but for Joe, the idea that Y/N was with someone who was controlling over her, wouldn't leave his mind.

*

"I know what you're thinking." Sav told Joe the minute they entered the small house that they were renting whilst they were in London.

"Oh yeah. And what's that?" Joe asked him as he looked his best friend in the eye.

Their conversation had attracted their bandmates' attention.

"You can't go after her, Joe. No matter how bad her boyfriend is for her."

"I wasn't going to." Joe told him, though the thought had crossed his mind more than once since he had met Doug.

"He's right Joe, no matter how much of an arse he might seem." Phil chimed in as he looked at the lead singer.

"I won't do anything okay?" Joe looked around him before heading off to bed.

Sav watched his friend go before he sat on the sofa and looked at his bandmates.

"You know that this Doug isn't good for her." Rick pointed out as he sat next to Sav.

"I know but he can't do or say anything. No matter what. We don't know her well enough to get involved." Sav responded.

"I just hope she knows that she deserves better." Steve spoke sitting next to his terror twin. Despite the two not knowing each other for long, the guitarists had clicked the moment they were in the studio together, causing mayhem from the get-go.

*

"Did you have to cause such a scene?" Y/N asked Doug as they shut the front door to their flat.

"Me 'cause a scene?" Doug asked her with rage brewing behind his eyes. "I only asked a question about your jobs."

"You asked stupid questions about our jobs. You know why music videos have to be filmed so close together." Y/N told him, an angry tone in her voice but she refused to raise it at him.

"You're always pestering me to take more interest and then you get pissed when I do."

"I shouldn't have to 'pester' you." Y/N used finger air-quotes around the word pester. "You should just take an interest in what I love to do."

"How can I when I don't understand it? You are obsessed with the idea of running off around the world with a group of people I don't know. You'd rather do this than get a real job to help me pay the bills." Doug yelled at her.

"Wow. Look, I don't spend the money I do earn on myself. Everything I do earn goes into this place. It's not frequent, which is why I save it and use it over time." Y/N told him.

"All I'm saying is that if you have a real job then we wouldn't be struggling for money this much."

"How do you know that? Many people work 'real' jobs." She used the air-quotes again. "And they still struggle to pay rent. I am working hard to build a career for myself that I love rather than working a dead-end nine-to-five job that I will be unhappy in for the rest of my life."

"You think I love my job Y/N? I had dreams and aspirations too, the difference is, I am grown up enough to realise that dreams don't come true."

"Fuck you Doug. You don't have to understand. You just have to support me. Not try to embarrass me infront of a band that I am about to tour with. A band that I am filming their music videos with. If dreams don't come true then how come I am living mine?"

"That's what this is about? You are embarrassed of me infront of all these men that you get to work with now?"

"That's not what this is about. This is not about you. Def Leppard have invited me and the others to play with them in America. They have given me a chance to get my face out there. They are a big deal in America and I don't want to screw up the chance that my band could be too." Y/N took a deep breath as she looked at her boyfriend. The love that she had once felt for that man was long gone. "I'm going to bed." She announced.

"We're not done here Y/N." Doug shouted after her but she ignored him.

This argument was one of many that they had. To start with Y/N had tried to explain to him about why this was all so important to her, but overtime she had enough of his selective hearing. She knew that she didn't love him anymore but she didn't know how to leave. She couldn't face her bandmates who had warned her about him in the first place and she had no family around her anymore to help her out. She couldn't afford to live on her own and she had been with Doug since she moved to London four years ago.

Y/n got herself ready for bed before she settled under the covers. She wasn't sure if Doug would join her or sleep on the couch after their argument. She quietly hoped it was the latter but she knew in her heart he would probably come to bed eventually.

She was right. Within the next few hours, Doug had joined her in bed, smelling like alcohol. He didn't try to cuddle her, he just collapsed on the bed and started snoring. Y/N laid awake for hours, for the first time since they left the pub, she let her mind wander to the green-eyed lead singer. How he was looking at her and how his face fell when he saw Doug walk up to her.

She couldn't help the small smile that came across her face as she realised that maybe he was attracted to her too. She knew nothing could ever come of it but a selfish part of her dwelled on the thought that one day they potentially could be together, no matter how unrealistic it was.