Flesh and Blood (Sequel to Poison'd Crüe)

Twelve

The next Morn, poor Bobby was ready to drop by the Time he and his mate even walked outta the airport up in San Francisco. Poison’s next show was right across the Bay in Oakland, so rather than trying to drive all the way from Thousand Oaks, they’d opted to fly up. That’d been a helluvan ordeal, in and of itself, with two newborns who got fussy pretty quick and didn’t seem to wanna settle down. If he’d a nickel for every dirty look they’d gotten from the other first-class passengers–mostly businessmen and -women–he’d easily have nearly a hundred bucks in his pocket right now.

        As they dragged themselves outta the cab they’d managed to get over to his band’s predetermined meeting point, he wasn’t surprised to see said band clamber off the bus. In fact, he was glad to see even CC at the moment–it’d be great to have extra help getting their stuff onto the bus and in the trailer. After all, there was a lotta bags and equipment, what with two grown men and two infants here.

        “Whoa–what the?” Bret asked as they grabbed the boys.

        “Wait till we’re on the bus, please,” the younger bassist begged. The look on his face screamed that it already wasn’t something he was looking forward to.

        “All right, man,” Rockett agreed, nodding as he moved to start grabbing their bags.

        “Get their diaper bags, sweetheart,” his mate said as he took Aidan’s carrier from him. “I’ll get these two settled on the couch and come back for their bases.”

        “Sounds good, love,” he answered, looking up for a quick kiss.

        Between both bassists and the rest of the band, they made quick work of transferring bags and equipment from the cab to the bus’ compartments, or the trailer hitched to the back of it. Within ten minutes, everything was done and Nikki made sure the cabbie got paid before he took off for his next job. Then he turned and headed onto the bus, where he found Bret helping his mate get settled to nurse the boys since it was almost feeding Time again, and he desperately needed the relief. Since the vocalist appeared to be quite capable of helping him, he settled on the couch across from him so he wouldn’t disturb the small trio once the boys were latched on.

        Now came all the questions they knew were gonna get lobbed at them the first chance these three and their manager got. They’d spent half the Night thinking up all the possible questions, and therefore all the possible answers they could give, hoping to be somewhat prepared. This wasn’t gonna be easy on them by any means, and they just hoped the guys could be supportive when they–especially Bobby–needed their support the most. If they couldn’t, they didn’t know what was gonna happen–all they knew was that whatever it turned out to be, it wouldn’t be good.

        “So what’s up with having two babies?” Rockett asked, his brow cocked.

        “Better get ready, ’cuz y’all ain’t gonna believe this,” the younger bassist said, now sitting Indian-style with piles of pillows supporting his arms as he held his boys like footballs.

        “That can’t possibly be good,” Bret mused.

        “Mishy showed up yesterday,” he told them. “Nikki was upstairs napping with Zep, and I was downstairs finishing up some packing, ’cuz we were trying to make that and kit care a round-the-clock thing so we were constantly working on both.”

        “Sounds like a reasonable plan.” The drummer nodded. “Prolly what I’d do, if I were in your shoes.”

        “Well, let’s just say I wasn’t expecting Mishy to show up–with or without a kit–so I damn sure wasn’t expecting what she did next.”

        All eyes were locked on him as they listened Intently.

        “She decided that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother, and that dumping a son I didn’t even know I was gonna have off on me was the answer to everything,” Bobby said, frowning.

        “What?” Even CC was shocked. “Man, that just ain’t kosher!”

        “Tell me about it,” Nikki grumbled, arms crossed over his chest. “She coulda at least admitted her supposed faux belly wasn’t really fake a long Time ago.”

        “Wait, y’all were pregnant at the same Time?” the vocalist asked.

        “Yeah–they were actually born on the same Day,” the younger bassist answered. “Conceived within a couple weeks of each other, though.”

        “Wow, what a coincidence,” Rockett drawled.

        “Well, I’m pretty sure Zep was conceived on February twenty-fifth–if not then, it woulda been sometime that week,” he said, blushing slightly. “Mishy swears Aidan was conceived around March fifth, which’d mean he was right on Time while his big brother was late.”

        “So, what’s this mean–like, have ya got full custody of him or something?” Bret asked curiously.

        “Yeah–she didn’t want anything elseta do with him.” Bobby grumbled as he readjusted the boys slightly since his arms were falling asleep. “I told her that if she waived her rightsta him now, she wasn’t getting them back later. I ain’t letting her flit in and outta his Life on a whim like Peter Pan, just ’cuz it suits her one Day, then doesn’t the next.”

        Every single one of his band mates realized that, if he’d full custody of his younger son, his only two options were to bring the boys out on tour with him till they were older or quit the band. They knew damn good and well the younger bassist wasn’t gonna just bail out on a tour, but Nikki wasn’t gonna be able to come out with them like this all the Time. He’d his own band to worry about, and there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that–with or without Vince–Mötley was eventually gonna put out another album. That was gonna lead to them going out on another tour of their own, and he wasn’t gonna be here to help his poor mate.

        With the tensions between CC and the rest of the band slowly mounting, they didn’t know what was gonna become of their band. They knew they were all gonna ride it out to its End, whatever that End was, however and whenever it came. They’d spent nearly half a decade putting this band together and getting it off the ground–there was too much blood, sweat, and tears poured into it to just give up, ’cuz one of their members practically had twins unexpectedly.

        Once the boys in question were done nursing, Nikki moved to help burp them by taking Zep while his mate moved Aidan to his shoulder. The rest of the guys looked like they wanted to help, so the older bassist set them to finding the diaper bags and bringing them up here. Bret and Rockett gladly moved to do just that since they knew they were gonna need to be changed soon, but both also wanted to get away from their lead guitarist for a minute. Even Bobby knew they were gonna pretend to need a couple minutesta find the requested bags so they could have a private discussion, so he acted like he didn’t notice how long they were taking any more than his mate did.

        Upon their Return, he and Nikki started digging out diapers, wipes, and fresh clothes for the boys, once again working as a team to care for both. As they worked on those tasks, they all decided that they’d see how things went before they decided to just cancel a tour. However, all agreed that they were gonna need an extensive break after this tour was over, or they were all gonna lose their minds.