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last_pleasureentry #16, sex_____&rocknroll by Isadora Duncan
synopsis: Glimpses into a few years in the life of a rock star.
ratings/warnings: NC-17 - Drug use, brief sexual situations. Strange psychology and halfbaked philosophy. Do not read if you are disturbed by the thought of Hide having been an eccentric man with a few fairly outstanding issues.
entered in: category 1 & 2
this entry uses prompt 5: balcony, saints, fairytales
dartboard: yes
concrit: 3
additional notes: There is a massive list of references and a couple direct quotes from them in the fic. If you want, just ask.
***
NOVEMBER 1981
"You have to wait until Jail Break's walking off, then you boys can come in and start setting up. Make it quick, they won't care if a guitar's out of tune as long as it's loud and fast." The bouncer hesitated, looking again at the boy clutching an angular honey-stained guitar with a white stripe. Dark hair flopped around his face in the freezing wind off the bay and his eyes were huge, darting around, face slacking and tensing like he was trying not to throw up. "You'll be fine."
The bouncer went back inside, shaking his head at the assault of sound. Jail Break's singer might go somewhere eventually, but he wouldn't bet on the rest of the band getting anywhere but this local bar once that guy moved on.
Finally the crowd roared and Jail Break stumbled one by one off the tiny stage into the dark. He peered out to make sure nobody tried to climb up and follow them, noticing a few young ladies with their tits hanging out who saw the curtain move and screamed the singer's name but nothing otherwise amiss. The boys filed in from the side door through stacks of equipment and he turned to eye them up and down. That guitarist still looked as though he'd be off in the corner puking at any moment. He sighed and held the curtain aside, waving them through. The boy he'd been watching was last, and he froze up at seeing the crowd just like the bouncer thought. The tall man reached out a hand to his shoulder, not surprised when he jumped. "Come here real quick. Give that to your friend." He caught the other guitarist's eye across the stage, where he was already setting up in front of the half-full bar, and hooked a finger at him.
Three minutes and two shots later, he pressed a guiding hand to the boy's back and held aside the curtain again. "Take deep breaths. You'll find that once you start playing, it's a lot easier to be standing there. You'll be fine, okay? Fine." The boy heaved in air and nodded, sniffling, eyes still watering from the sting of bourbon. "Now get out there. Wait, what did you guys decide to call yourselves? We've got to announce something - "
"Uh - Saver Tiger. Yokosuka Saver Tiger," the boy stuttered, and the man nodded and shoved him on stage.
***
AUGUST 1987
"-so I was wondering, are you staying here tonight after the live or going on to the next city already?" Hide turned from his attempts to catch the bartender's attention to see a pouf of blond hair and fluttering eyelashes so overburdened with mascara that they looked more like short black sticks of incense than anything growing from a human. He jerked away without thinking and she leaned closer, giving him what he thought was meant to be an alluring smile.
"Sorry, babe." He scrambled up, ignoring her pout but feeling guilty anyway. She was still way too close. He could feel her breath on his arm and it sent cold prickles down his spine. He hadn't had a drink yet, wasn't even awake - he couldn't do this, couldn't-- The panic clouded in and his body trembled for a half second before he forced himself into control. "I have to go, I'm really sorry." He slid around a group of middle-aged men, their drunk laughter not hiding a few comments about his hair, his sunglasses. He ignored them and stretched his arm out to catch the door before it closed behind the couple coming in.
Outside, he took a deep breath and looked around. Normal people, normal traffic, everyone ignoring him as if he too were normal. He spotted another bar down the street and walked that way.
He'd felt it when he woke up this afternoon, that hollow shiver in his gut and tremble of his fingers that marked a bad day for him with people. It was more than nervousness. He was always nervous, always had to have a couple drinks before going out on stage, then a couple more after the live before going out to face the necessary social shit. Half of getting anywhere was who you made nice with, everyone knew that, and he fucking hated it but he knew he could do it. After a couple drinks.
On these kind of days, he'd stand backstage shaking so hard from the what-ifs and circling panic that he had to have a couple drinks before he could even unpack his guitar.
At the parties, when he had his onstage persona wrapped well in place and a bit of adrenaline through his body, he could play off almost anything. The women hanging on him, men stepping up in his face to tell him how great they were and thumping him on the back and pushing shot glasses to his lips - he could just wriggle away once it got to be too much with a laugh and a wink and it was all fine. When someone got to him before he was in that role and had gotten his drinks and his body going, well...
He supposed it was partly his fault for being so touchy-feely with his bandmates. Anyone watching would assume he was comfortable with people in general, since it wasn't like the band had been together for more than a few months.
Really, though, he'd known them all for years. These guys, Pata-Taiji-Toshi-Yoshiki, he'd drank with after lives since before they were all legal. He knew them more than well enough to let the hyper badass personality drop when they weren't in front of new guys or bigwig types. He was used to having them all in his space.
Last year he'd been pleased to see Taiji join X, then even more pleased in January about Pata taking backup after Isao's accident. In March he'd been fucking pissed at the rest of Saver Tiger for driving him to finally give up on levering their asses into anything like a great band, but then he'd been flattered as hell about Yoshiki practically pounding his phone number out of Kyo a week later after hearing Hide cut them loose and quit. He still wasn't flattered enough to join, to believe X could actually make it after everything he'd gone through with Saver Tiger, but Yoshiki refused to leave him alone, called over and over until finally he gave up and said, "Fine."
The decision might have been partly driven by how he'd begun to miss playing. Lives, to him, were as addictive as they were terrifying.
He stepped into the new bar and spotted someone with long hair and sunglasses just like his, sitting way back in a dark corner. Go figure, right? He picked up a glass of Old Crow and an amaretto sour at the bar and strolled over to join Yoshiki.
***
MARCH 1989
"X!" Toshi screamed over the hard pound of double bass drums and Hide spun and dashed to the end of the stage, jumping across cords, over an amp, laughing like a maniac. He spun in circles, lifting his guitar high to swing it out over the heads of the security guys, feeling them look up at him, wary that he might throw himself onto the crowd that was screaming and bouncing, a wave of human hands reaching for them, for all of them, but especially him right now because he was right there and they could hardly believe it and they all loved him and wanted him and shrieked his name so hard he couldn't even hear Taiji's bass from the amp right behind him but could only feel it thumping through his feet, keeping him in the beat, in the song. It was fucking gold, this feeling, it was the greatest high anyone could ever get.
He ran to the other side of the stage, slid up close behind Pata for a minute. Pata grinned at him as their hands shifted in unison, guitars singing harmony as precise as the movements Yoshiki's hands made across the toms behind them. He leaned down with his teeth bared all fierce like he was gonna bite Pata's black leather-covered shoulder and they both laughed.
He loved these guys like brothers. Even when they pissed him off at practice, he still felt that steady throb of love in his chest, the affection that bound them all into something miraculous.
Toshi came up behind him and hung over his shoulder for a while, putting the mike in front of him so they could both sing, faces pressed close. "Last song, can I ride your shoulders?" Toshi said in his ear with a grin after dropping the mike, right before he ran off to center stage, not even looking back for Hide's amused nod.
The song was almost over and he popped the guitar strap off his shoulders, holding his latest baby high by the neck, flipping off the audience with a wicked laugh and then waving them up, higher, louder. They roared in response, screaming his name and Yoshiki's and X, X, X and he thought, There is nothing but this. There is no other feeling. This was a reason for living, no matter how he sometimes hated being trapped in this body.
"We are!"
"X!!"
"We are!"
"X!!"
"You are!"
"X!!"
"You are!"
"X!!"
Toshi pulled him backward, and he looked around confused before remembering he'd agreed to haul the big lug around, and he said, "Why didn't you get Taiji?" but Toshi pulled the guitar back down on his shoulders and positioned him in front of the drum riser and started climbing aboard, so he just held the guitar tight to his body until Toshi's legs weren't kicking around and he'd more or less got his balance. Hide walked forward slowly, starting to play again, hearing Pata's choked laugh when he spotted the two of them, Hide's hair with Toshi hidden behind it - or at least it had to come damn close, right? - and he paced carefully to the edge of the stage where he was almost knocked over by the intensity of the screaming approval from those hundreds of thrilled faces - Toshi held the mike down for him again and he babbled into it happily, grinning.
They went back to the drum riser and Toshi hopped off, running down to grab Taiji around the neck and have him shout X!! with the crowd. Hide could feel Yoshiki watching him between the racks of clear drums and somehow that brought over him a feeling almost as heady as the high inspired by the crowd. "Yoshiki!" he yelled, dark eyes creasing in a wicked grin.
"What?" came the barely audible shout back, between a hard double crash of cymbals. He ran around the side of the set and came up beside Yoshiki, started to headbang and Yoshiki grinned over at him and joined in. They whipped their hair side to side together, and then Yoshiki leaned so far over that Hide was scared he'd slip off the stool and crash into the set, but he only turned his head up to give Hide the sweetest smile he'd ever seen in his life. At that moment Yoshiki looked more adorable than the fluffiest of little kittens but at the same time Hide's eyes had themselves fixed on those lips and on the muscles straining in Yoshiki's arms as he kept drumming on the closest tom, and something just snapped in his head, that was the only way he could describe it to himself. He had this overwhelming desire to lay a long hard crazy kiss on this gorgeous man-woman-drummer-creature laying there flirting up at him, and you know what, he nearly fucking did it, too.
He ducked his head away at the last possible second and could see the surprise in Yoshiki's eyes as he, too, ducked away, and then they were both laughing so hard Hide didn't think Yoshiki must have realized just how close he had been to giving the fans something to really scream about.
Breathing hard, he pulled himself together and grinned at Yoshiki, then jumped back down to the stage.
***
MAY 1990
"And that's how I found him," Yoshiki whispered. His fingers flexed hard around the almost empty glass and Hide feared for a moment that it would break, but it held, and he quietly reached up to fill it once more with dark wine.
"How old were you?"
"Ten. He was thirty-three. I..." His throat closed on the words, and Hide slid his hands over Yoshiki's shoulders, desperate for them to convey the comfort and encouragement he didn't know how to express in words without being obnoxious. "I don't know what I'm... what I'm going to do when I'm older than him?" Yoshiki blinked, eyelashes sticking together with tears, and Hide took a slow breath that sounded harsh to his own ears and tugged Yoshiki down against his chest. Hide's chest was bony, but it had to do, and Yoshiki didn't seem to care anyway.
"What... what bothered me the most," Yoshiki sniffled after a while, picking himself up a little to look at Hide. He stopped for a moment in surprise at the tears flowing down Hide's cheeks, but then went on, "What really disturbed me, and has haunted everything I've done since then, is that after he died... the world just... went on. That sounds so stupid, but I had honestly expected something to change... something beyond myself and my mother, some acknowledgement from the greater world that this man, my father, had lived and loved us and was now dead before he'd done even a quarter of what he wanted out of his life. He did it to himself, but still... I never expected that, in less than two months, everyone but the two of us seemed to have forgotten him like he'd never existed."
Hide's mouth twisted up, and he slid one hand up to stroke the back of Yoshiki's head, hugging him close with the other. "So, is that why you are the way you are? Wouldn't take no for an answer, pushing into the public eye and staying there any way you can, bound and determined to be completely unforgettable...?"
"I suppose so," Yoshiki whispered, and closed his eyes.
Life and death aren't true to him, Hide thought. Just as the physical isn't true to me. He's terrified of dying, that he'll be erased and forgotten; he has no faith in anything but his physical existence and his existence in the memories of others. I don't care what happens to my body, because it isn't me except when it's so alight with sensation that I can't avoid being overwhelmed with it. I only have faith in the me that is independent of this body and I know I'm not going to end when this awkward, ugly shell is cast off.
Now there's an odd couple for you.
***
DECEMBER 1990
X had spent the greater part of the last seven months in Los Angeles, taking turns flying back to Japan to appear at Film Gigs. For the first two months in LA there was nothing for Hide to do but wander around the city, practice whatever he felt like whenever he felt like it. Yoshiki had no time for anything more than a half hour on the phone with him now and then, and the others were occupied with their own obsessions. Hide was left alone and more or less idle.
Gradually he'd begun to fall into a strange, dull depression, a state of mind that drove him further and further off-center in the already unstable relationship his mind had with his body. Much later he realized that it had been withdrawal, whether physical, psychological or both, from the high he felt at lives, but at the time he had no idea what the fuck was going on. He was only capable at rare moments of even seeing that this was not a normal state of mind, of recognizing that it was shitty and that he did not like it. At. All.
The longest he'd gone between some sort of performance since he was seventeen was two weeks. Two months was enough to have him getting smashed and smashing everything and everyone unlucky enough to be in sight but then still not feeling like there was any reality to anything around him. That pushed his remaining sanity right out the window on gossamer pink sherbet wings and the only thing left to do at that point was call Yoshiki and ask him if he was real.
"Do... I... exist?" he'd ground out, teeth colliding with the receiver of the pay phone, his head knocking against the brick wall outside a club with each word but still not feeling here, real and Yoshiki thought he was joking because, well, he was talking, wasn't he? He was born, he grew up, he bought a guitar that he didn't even know what it was off some broke sailor when he was fifteen, and he played guitar now for Yoshiki when they weren't letting all of Japan simmer in its desire to see X play live in their hometown and just incidentally giving Yoshiki time to tweak the year's singles and start writing the new album, and... "You're joking, right, Hide? You've gotta cut down the drinking, man, this is the fourth time you've called me drunk this week and it's only Tuesday," Yoshiki had laughed. Hide hadn't. Can I come over? he wanted to ask the phone, beg. Can you pretty pretty please let me in your building and up to your apartment and maybe even into your room and make me feel real because you know what, I think fucking you just might be able to do it and it's the only thing I can think of and I don't know what I'm going to do, save me? and he didn't say it.
But he learned from that phone call that Yoshiki, just thinking of him - not even hearing his voice, let alone seeing him, (touching him, he thought for half a second and the shiver of want almost knocked him off his feet) - was the only, if remote, alternative high he'd found yet. So from there he began deliberately entwining Yoshiki into that feeling in his mind, the feeling his body took on during a live, the everything that was all of why he stayed on in the physical world like this at the advanced age of twenty-six.
He called Yoshiki every night, whether he had time to talk or not. Even when he knew Yoshiki wouldn't be home. He called to hear the voice on the machine, to get that little touch of real, here that was holding him together until the time came when they could finally return to Japan for the Christmas and countdown lives and he could piece himself back into something more than base-level functionality. The Film Gigs he did a cameo at helped, and so did finding a new band on one of those trips, which he was working on getting Yoshiki to sign, but...
A few days before they were all set to leave Los Angeles, a casual friend he'd made at one of the plethora of punk clubs along Wilshire took him to see a band called Jane's Addiction. He was still in a high happy daze the next morning when he called Yoshiki. "They're brilliant, they're absolutely brilliant, that's all I can say - you have to see them before we go back, what are you doing tonight? They're playing the Palladium again and that guy Josh can get us tickets - we have to go, I don't care what you planned, you're canceling it and we're going."
"...okay," Yoshiki said, his voice rather faint but not reluctant.
***
JANUARY 1991
The thing was, Hide thought as he walked into the Meguro Rokumeikan live house, they really got along. They got along and they talked a hell of a lot more now than Yoshiki did with Toshi, and he knew that was hard sometimes for Toshi, but that was just how it had gone. Yoshiki was the first person he'd ever thought of calling his best friend. And no matter how odd it made him feel, after the way his tendency toward hanging on people he really liked turned from friendly to something else with Yoshiki, and only Yoshiki - he was helpless against the growth of an unnervingly attractive thought...
Shit, is this being in love?
He didn't know what sexy was except as his body told him so, and he guessed from observation that his body had some kinda fucked up standards compared to the rest of humanity. Like he had a gauge off at birth and everything just got miscalibrated from there. He really didn't know what love was supposed to be. He'd never seen it in his life. But as far as best guesses went, he'd begun to suspect that this was as close as it got. And that was, well... 'a problem' was putting it lightly.
Luna Sea were already on stage by the time he got up in the VIP box, setting up and messing with the crowd. Ryuichi was just visible behind the curtain off stage right, and he wondered briefly if Ryuichi had ever been too afraid of what might be to pass that curtain. If there'd been some tired middle-aged guy with a flask of bourbon and a gruff pep talk for him, too. He looked back to the others again just in time to catch Sugizo waving at him frantically. Ah, god, that fucking idiot, he was going to get the crowd looking up here and then there'd be a riot on the stairs! He winced and flapped his hand, muttering, "Yeah, yeah, I see you." The thin guitarist beamed up at him beneath his enormous hair and miles of fake pearls, and he couldn't help but smile back. The guy was a nutcase, but at least he was a brilliant and entirely too loveable one. He absently hoped that Sugizo had remembered to bring a pipe tonight, because he really didn't feel like sucking straight from a joint.
The screech of feedback and then a low thrum heralded the techs in the box beside him beginning to balance J's bass. He watched J go through each string, tip of a pink tongue flashing out to be held between red-painted lips now and then, and gradually became aware that Inoran was also watching J and his tongue, an odd look on the smaller guitarist's face. For no apparent reason he began to feel uncomfortable and had to look past Inoran to watch Shinya tightening his cymbals.
They were all ready at last, and Sugizo gave a nod, and suddenly Ryuichi burst out to the front whirling like a dynamo and Hide was caught up just like the first time in the throbbing energy that was these particular five people on a stage together - there was something in them, just as there had been something in X even before Hide had joined, that caught the eye and the heart, and brought people to their feet roaring. He'd gotten Yoshiki to sign them to Extasy finally, sight unseen, his enthusiasm and having talked about nothing else every night for two weeks enough to drive Yoshiki into it - for the sake of having a conversation with Hide that didn't revolve around this band Lunacy for once if nothing else, he was sure, but who cared if it got them the opportunity they deserved? Yoshiki hadn't had time while X were all in Japan to meet them, so he and Luna Sea were going to LA in a few days. Somehow he had a feeling that getting used to Yoshiki's unthinking autocracy would take as much adjustment time for J and Sugizo as he could possibly wring from Yoshiki's schedule. They were both pretty easygoing and knew what a great break this was, which helped a lot, but it had taken him over a year to stop gritting his teeth the entire time he was in a recording studio with Yoshiki and since then Yoshiki had lost most of his hesitancy in dictating precisely what he wanted, when and how. Hide did not envy people who were new at working with his best friend; it was hard to fumble your way past the attitude with which the orders were given for long enough to accept how right they generally were.
***
SEPTEMBER 1991
"No," Hide breathed, eyes blank and wide on the dressing room wall. "You - this has to be a joke, I can't believe they - "
Josh from Los Angeles had been calling Extasy all week to leave him messages, Please call me and Hide, you need to call me, I'm sorry but I mean it, and only now had they caught up with him, their second night in Osaka of the Violence in Jealousy tour. He'd called immediately, because Josh didn't mess around saying things like that, and now he wished that he'd waited until after the live, because...
"I can't believe they're breaking up," he shook his head, numb with shock. "When's their last concert?"
"They're doing two nights, the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, in Honolulu," Josh's deep voice said carefully over the hiss and crackle of the phone line. "If you think you can make it, tell me now so I can get you in."
"I can make it," Hide said, voice cracking. "Thank you. I'll call again when I can."
"No problem."
He hung up slowly and turned to Yoshiki, who'd sat staring at him in concern throughout the call. "Jane's Addiction is disbanding. I'm going to their final lives in Hawaii."
Yoshiki blinked. Then his face clouded over, and before he could even begin, Hide held up a hand and said, "I know, okay? I know. I'll figure something out. I promise I won't screw you over. I just... I have to do this."
Yoshiki sighed and nodded slowly. Hide thought, It's damn lucky that I dragged him along to those lives, and he knows just how much they mean-- meant, to me and... He chewed his lip, shaking his head. Still had to play a live himself tonight, had to pull it together... he got up to dig a beer from the small refrigerator by Yoshiki's chair, cracking it quickly to take a long gulp.
The next day on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, he grabbed a schedule and sat down to figure this out. They played Hiroshima on the twenty-fourth. Four hours on the Shinkansen, eight hours' flight. It was yesterday there, so he could arrive on the morning of the twenty-fifth and have time to find his hotel and take a nap before heading out to meet Josh at Aloha Tower.
They played Sapporo on the twenty-eighth. Leave Hawaii in early morning of the twenty-seventh, arrive in Tokyo where it would be the morning of the twenty-eighth, ninety minutes' flight to Sapporo and...
It could work. He would make it work.
~*~*~
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit... He dug his nails into his palms and tried taking deep breaths but it wasn't helping, he was shaking like a leaf and on the verge of tears and he was about to meet Perry Farrell, this was an incredible moment and all he could think about was how fucking nervous he was. He bit his lip hard, and then Josh was pulling him forward and... there he was. P. fucking Farrell, flesh and blood, three feet in front of him getting a blow job from a dark-haired woman who evidently answered to "Casey," since that's what Perry was groaning over and over.
Hide's jaw slacked and his eyes pasted themselves to the wall over Perry's head.
"So he's - " Perry opened his eyes and fastened them on Josh, speech only a little impaired by what was going on in his lap, "He's what? Japanese, you said? Wow, that's cool, man. I had no idea they had Japanese rock stars."
"Yeah," Josh said, far less flummoxed than Hide but still sounding a little odd. "Yeah, they um... they do. And his band is really great, too. They're called X..." Perry arched back, mouth pulled into a silent rictus of ecstasy as Casey's head slammed down hard and her throat worked around his spasming cock. Josh blinked, clearing his throat, and gave Hide an apologetic look from the corner of his eyes. Hide was still staring fixedly at the wall.
"So," Perry said a while later, tucked away and with Casey sitting demurely beside him firing a spoon of heroin. "Heeeeee... day! Yeah, that's cool, man, really cool. Look, Heeee-day, why don't you come along back to the hotel and we'll all get cozy, have a little fireside chat, kinda thing, huh? Sounds great. Ooh, no, baby, that one's all worn out, you've gotta poke one on the other side - " Casey slid a hand up Perry's arm and, finding a vein that seemed satisfactory to all parties, pressed in the needle. Perry didn't move at all, not seeming to notice as she tested that she'd hit, wiggling it around a little. Finally she pressed down the plunger. Perry hissed a little as the needle withdrew and Hide saw a drop of pink-stained fluid fall from its tip.
"Yeah, man," Perry said slowly a few minutes later, a blissed-out smile on his face. "Let's go back to the hotel."
***
LATE JUNE 1992
Rain tapped and rattled against hide's window. The wind off the ocean was strong today, pushing the downpour sideways in sheets and odd gaps. The skies over Santa Monica were a heavy grey, had been for two days and didn't look like they would change any time soon.
He'd walked down to the corner store this morning, and everywhere, street drains overflowed. The sidewalks were flooded in low spots and he jumped the huge puddles as best he could, which had been a lot harder when he was on his way back with a giant jug of orange juice and a case of beer. Only the necessities today. It was good he'd only seen one car and it was going the other way. His hair was already a goner, he didn't need an extra shower with the water that washed a month of dirt and vomit from the sidewalks, oil from the road and piss from the walls to put some fucked up final touch on his misery. He had an excellent umbrella, but that wasn't any help against a tsunami of eau de Los Angeles.
He pulled a handful of hair forward then stared blankly at it for a minute before remembering why. Well, so between bleaching and turning it into a stand of beach grass all the time, it was already screwed, but the humidity didn't help at all. Walking out today had pushed it from fluff to poof. Bogus.
He had sat here in this built-in cushioned bench off the kitchen all afternoon, writing some shit lyrics and dozing by turns. The sound of the rain beat through his head and pressed on the back of his eyes, dulling his brain, killing him. He had no energy now to even go to bed, no energy to do anything but sit here looking out the window, feeling it all around him, cold grey relentless...
The rain washed away his soul drop by drop.
A tall woman in a blue plastic poncho walked by outside. She got to the flooded spot past his window and stood there for a while, looking around at the deeper puddles on the street and the solid fence around his building, before she finally gave up and slogged straight through. Watching the dirty water slosh and slap at the top of her low boots made him wince and think it was good he'd gone out before the flooding was this nasty. A dozen people had passed today but she was the first with a poncho. The umbrellas varied from Tweety Bird to tie-dye to utilitarian black... he'd found himself comparing each one to his, or rather Yoshiki's. It was still the best he'd ever seen, really pretty, like a color version of these crazy walls on a mosque he'd seen in Singapore. Thin lines of gold ran all over it, interlocking at sharp angles, and the spaces between were all deep blues and reds and greens. It'd be like walking under a stained glass window if only the fucking sun would shine.
He had hated using it today. He told himself that was because, duh, he hated rain and an umbrella meant rain. Even if the stuff wasn't pounding directly on his head it was still there, everywhere, inescapable. But it probably had more to do with the last time it had rained, when Yoshiki had left that umbrella here in his rush out the door.
They hadn't really spoken since. Three weeks.
He didn't need to think about that. He absolutely did not need to think about that. His dull eyes turned to the kitchen counter and spotted the phone by his spider plant, a sheet of paper stuck to the wall beside it, scribbled solid with names and numbers. Hi, I'd like a large order of emotional refreshment... Yeah, delivery. Greeeeat.
~*~*~
THREE WEEKS EARLIER
"Yeah," Hide laughed, "I'll see you later then. Thanks, J. Yeah, hi to Sugizo, I know he'll pout if - yeah." He snickered, swinging the refrigerator door shut behind him, hands full with leftover Chinese food and a pair of beers, the phone wedged in his shoulder. He set the carton of Kung Pao chicken on the counter in front of Yoshiki and nudged him, nodding at it. Yoshiki took the beers from his other hand and popped both caps before fishing a set of chopsticks out of the drawer and starting in. Hide smiled at the back of Yoshiki's head, eyes misting up, and hung up the phone gently. "I missed you. How did the other lives go?"
"Really well," Yoshiki mumbled around a slice of bell pepper, nodding, eyes wide in emphasis. He swallowed and said, "They did just as great the other three nights as they did for the debut. You should've stayed."
"Yeah," Hide sighed, tipping his head down to study his hands held before him, one foot pulled up to tap his toes on the linoleum. "I wish I could've, but we only had that warehouse for that one day..."
Yoshiki shrugged, smiling. "I think they forgave you. Me, on the other hand - I might never forgive you for depriving me of getting to watch you bounce around in the VIP box as if it were the pit, and screaming your head off just like the rest of the crowd and making me join in - " He dodged the light cuff Hide aimed at his head, and they sat and grinned at each other.
Hide recollected himself after a minute and said, "Here, I get some of that too." He pulled out another set of chopsticks and began stealing pieces of chicken and peanuts around the jabs and feints of Yoshiki's sticks that tried to trap and yank away his. They were laughing so hard after a while that Hide couldn't take a bite for fear of choking, and he slapped his chopsticks down on the counter and said, "Fine, you win!!" He grabbed Yoshiki by the back of the head and pulled him close, planting a smacking kiss on his forehead and then gave up all pretense of coolness and latched on with both arms to hug him hard. He held Yoshiki so tight it felt that he'd break his own ribs, and Yoshiki's arms slowly came up behind him to wrap around his body and squeeze back. His head was buried in Yoshiki's neck, the scent of lavender rising warm to his grateful nose and he hoped belatedly that Yoshiki wouldn't feel the tears that poured from his eyes, soaking into the smooth blue cotton of an expensive shirt collar.
"What's wrong?" he heard Yoshiki say, voice muffled by his lips being pressed to Hide's hair. He didn't answer. They stood in the kitchen of Hide's apartment just like that for a long time.
Eventually he began to realize that Yoshiki's cologne had given him a wicked hard-on. So he sighed and pulled away, sniffling and wiping his eyes, hair a long fluffy mess around his shoulders. "I thought you wanted to go to the beach?"
"Yeah." Yoshiki eyed him, a mixture of happiness and worry fighting over his face. "I've got a whole half-day off, after all. I'm not going to fucking miss going to the beach for some stupid little storm."
Hide shook his head, grinning despite himself, and put away the rest of the chicken. They drank their beers quickly and Hide started digging around for jackets, because no matter what Yoshiki said, Hide knew he'd still be whining like crazy as soon as he got all wet and cold, and that thin suede jacket he'd come over with was not going to cut it.
They walked down the alley from Hide's building and stepped onto the broad sidewalk that edged the beach. Raindrops splashed as they hit the concrete, puddles everywhere and the wind whipping off the ocean. They walked north toward the pier. Brown trash bags and plastic tarps here and there beneath the palm trees betrayed the presence of the few bums who'd been too unlucky or too stubborn to get a place in the shelter. Hide exchanged nods with the three who were alert to their passing, recognizing them. Yoshiki gave him a funny look when he noticed, but didn't say anything.
They passed along Muscle Beach, abandoned even by the hardiest of die-hards in this miserable downpour, and Hide knew when Yoshiki spotted the dragon because he stopped dead and got this giant crazy grin. "Don't--" Hide spoke for the first time since they'd left the apartment, throat muted and rusty but his voice sounded odd in the rain, breaking its hiss like the shattering of a bell. "Don't you dare run off - " He was too late. Hide was left umbrellaless as Yoshiki ran squeeing like a little girl for the dragon. "Damn," Hide sighed, slowing to a halt. He dropped his head to make his hair fall down around his face, attempting to shield it from the rain, and stared at his soggy shoes in pure misery.
A few minutes later he heard footsteps. Yoshiki's shiny dark boots came into view in front of his torn-up yellow All Stars just as he felt the thud of raindrops on his neck cease and a hand gently touch his shoulder. Hide let his arms drop from where he'd wrapped them around his body, a sad defense against the ick, and looked up. Hair matted into ropes by the water fell into his face and he gave it a half-hearted glare, eyes crossing.
"You look like an abandoned cat," Yoshiki said, breath catching in a quiet laugh. "Sad and bedraggled in an alley somewhere. Should I take you home?"
One corner of his mouth lifted in a reluctant smile and he shook his head, still blinking water out of his eyes. Yoshiki held the umbrella higher and with a look of sober concentration, pushed Hide's hair back, combing it away from his face with narrow fingers. "Fuck. Sorry, I..." he glanced back at the dragon and his cheeks began to get pink, "I got a little too excited?"
"I know. You do that." Hide's eyes crinkled in a hidden smile.
"I'll buy you dinner to help make up for it." Yoshiki slid an arm around him, other hand keeping the umbrella steady between them.
"You were going to do that anyway." Hide glanced at him and smirked.
Yoshiki shrugged with that peaceful grin that was Hide's favorite. "But now we'll go somewhere better than McDonald's."
"Ass," Hide mumbled. His arm crept up around Yoshiki's back. Cool damp hair tickled his hand as it swung with each step they took.
Their feet splashed in the small pools collecting in every step up to the pier. Hide's toes were going numb from the cold despite how he kept wiggling them and the wind was worse up here. He shivered, hand clutching the neck of his jacket close and the arm around Yoshiki convulsively tightened. Yoshiki looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. "You okay? We really can go back, I don't mind."
"Nah. It's cool." He forced himself still and steered them toward the north side of the pier before Yoshiki could spot the midway and coerce him into spending a fortune on some rigged game to win a shitty stuffed animal.
"I don't think you have to worry," Yoshiki said, "it looks like they're all closed up anyway." Hide eyed him and Yoshiki blinked in mock innocence.
"Yeah, okay."
"I do pay attention, you know. It may not always seem like it..." Hide coughed a little, and Yoshiki elbowed him then went on, "But I do know you pretty well by now." His arm tightened and he dropped his cheek to Hide's head in a half-hug. "Ew. I forgot your hair's all wet."
"That's what you get," Hide told him with a poke in the ribs.
Half the shops they passed were closed. The rain had driven all but the fishermen to stay inside, nice and warm. Even the fishermen were reduced to the fewest Hide had ever seen out here. They strolled along the rail, Yoshiki pulling at him now and then to the edge, staring down at the beach and then at the muddy frothing waves once they got above water. The boards creaked and groaned beneath their feet and the smell of salt water and fresh creosote was almost overpowering in gusts from beneath the pier.
Hide nearly didn't notice the single vendor stand that was occupied, half-covered as it was with a blue tarp. They passed behind it, with Yoshiki dragging him to go faster because he wanted to get on the other side of the arcade buildings and look at the Ferris wheel. But the slightest thread of a very familiar scent led Hide to look around, and there she was, just visible in the gap between the backing wood and the tarp tied down along the booth's side; one of the hispanic family that he'd seen rotated in manning this one.
He pulled loose from Yoshiki with some regret and ducked away as quick as he could, gritting his teeth against the cold water pelting his skin. Yoshiki stared after him, looking puzzled, and he waved him off. "I'll be right back." He rounded the corner. "Please," he said carefully, and leaned over the counter on the heels of his hands until his head was just beneath the tarp. The woman inside looked up. "How much?" he asked her.
"One is five dollars," she said with as much care as Hide had used, and they smiled at each other. That was an outrageous price, but the weather was, after all, complete shit today and he wasn't poor anymore. He gave her a fifty and gestured to keep it. She beamed at him and said, "I hope your girlfriend likes."
He coughed a little over a snort and grinned like a maniac. "He will. Thank you."
Her little surprised look and smile were cute. There were enough fags around here, she should be used to it by now... He walked hastily back around the stand and looked for Yoshiki and his brilliantly colorful umbrella.
He spotted the umbrella first, closed and set on a bench, then his eyes found the man hanging halfway over the damn rail on his stomach, trying to check out the supports beneath the pier - or something, it didn't matter, Hide practically jumped out of his skin darting over to yank him down. "You fucking idiot! What the fuck do you - "
"Look, there's barnacles," Yoshiki said in glee, and Hide blinked at him.
"So you're taking your idiotic life into your hands, leaning over a slippery rail in a rainstorm because - " He stopped there, shut his mouth with a snap and slapped a hand over his eyes, then shook his head in fierce disgust.
He felt the rain cease over his head once more and he opened his eyes after a minute to find Yoshiki peering in at him. "You really do hate the rain, don't you?" Yoshiki said.
"You know I do," he muttered, helpless to stop his breath catching at how close they were now, close enough that he could feel Yoshiki's warm breath on his lips.
"But you're out in it anyway because you love me." Yoshiki smiled like a deranged cross of the Buddha and the cat that got the cream.
Hide felt his cheeks go crimson in a rush, and abruptly regretted his purchase. "Don't joke..." he sighed under his breath.
"Huh?" Yoshiki leaned in even closer, and as Hide was reciting childhood baseball statistics in his head to keep himself from pulling Yoshiki that final half inch forward, Yoshiki spotted that he was holding something behind his back. "Hey, what's that?"
"Oh," he stuttered, "it's just... well," he yanked it out from behind his back and shoved the thing in Yoshiki's face, cheeks fully renewed in their burning. "Here."
Yoshiki took the single deep red rose from his hand, and pressed his nose to it to inhale deeply. "Hide..." he said quietly.
"Hmmmm?" Hide fidgeted, pulling on his hair and bumping the umbrella off-kilter.
"I love you."
His jaw dropped. Tears sprang to his eyes and he threw himself forward, arms sliding in a rush around Yoshiki's back, popping to his tiptoes to bring them together at last in a long, intense, absolutely goddamned perfect kiss. Everything from the holey soles of his worn out shoes to the frizzy hair sticking straight up from his head buzzed and shone with incandescent happiness.
And then...
And then Yoshiki pushed him away and stuttered, "What the fuck?!"
~*~*~
LATE JUNE
The phone rang. Sugizo bolted awake, sat for a moment swaying and then stretched a long arm across the still heavily passed out Ryuichi to pick it up. "Mosh-- er, hello?"
"Sugi," a voice croaked, and he placed it after some thought as Hide's. "Come over."
"Okay," he blinked at the wall oozing in circles across from him, "do you want me to bring anything?"
"Not J," Hide said, and Sugizo knew then precisely what they'd be doing.
~~~
"I've lost my pen lid again... Su, Su, Su, Sugi where's my pen lid?" Hide giggled, flopping back to make faces at him upsidedown. The rain still poured, but they were dedicating themselves to blotting it from Hide's mind, as he'd said he wanted when Sugizo washed up on his doorstep, extensions soggy but smile bright.
"What do you need it for anyway?" he said, tongue clumsy and thick. "You're going to use it, right... write stuff, right, write..." He played with that in his mind for a long dreamy timeless time, rain tapping a black diamond hum all around that blended and washed every other sound he could see.
"But I have to have it," Hide was saying when Sugizo finally paid attention to the tugging on his arm. "It isn't right if you don't have the lid, it gets aaangry and I can't write anything but angry with an angry pen and I don't wanna be angry right now, I'm sick of it - " He stopped and collapsed in a rush into Sugizo's side. "I just want to be happy. Can't I do that, Suuuuugi?" Hide tilted his head up, searching for Sugizo-didn't-know-what in his face but he tried through the flowing haze to channel the appropriate expression to be what Hide needed to see right now and maybe he did all right, because Hide reversed in his unhappy-spiral with a blurring suddenness and said, "Let's listen to something!"
"Like what?" Sugizo smiled, lips all loose and silly-feeling. "Oooh, do you have that demo of the new single here?"
"No." Hide reversed again, the happy grinding to a halt just as fast as it'd zoomed out, and Sugizo blinked at him in bewilderment and tried to catch up. Too slow. "I can't listen to that, not now. You want to ruin everything? Make me listen to that. I can't, it's too much... he's too much, I don't understand it..."
You're too much and I don't understand you sometimes, he thought. "Tokyo Yankees."
"No." The gloom increased. A flash like black lightning washed through Hide's aura. Sugizo blinked.
"...Luna Sea?" He gave a weak laugh as Hide peeked up through his front section of light pink hair to scowl and then smirk.
"Jane's Addiction. Have you heard them? Fucking brilliant - "
Of course I've heard them, Sugizo thought, you played them last time we did this, but there was no reason to say that, now was there? I should have thought of that, they'll set him right.
A long smoky brown bass line. A voice speaking over it at the edge of hearing. Acoustic guitar, shimmering gold-orange. Then the high voices started, sang in slow harmony and he remembered now just which song this was and -
"Hey, Hide, I'm gonna... I'm gonna go take a shower, okay? Sorry, but this stuff's making me sweat like mad and..." he shrugged. Hide nodded, already off in that private universe.
Sugizo shut himself in the bathroom, hesitating over the lock for a moment before leaving it off for safety's sake. His or Hide's, he didn't know. Both, really. The tap ran with a cold green plinking sound and he shivered.
He had to run the water for a long time to get the right color out. It took a lot of debate between the screaming juicy bronze-blue or the deep crimson that glowed like the red red roses of Yoshiki's spirit totem, but he finally went against the bathing-in-Yoshiki idea (at least right now, since Hide was out there so distressed over something to do with the man like always, and who knew how he would react to Sugizo coming back in the room all slicked down and rubbed around with what amounted to pure distilled essence of Yoshiki?). That decided, the actual shower didn't take long at all.
He stepped out into a strange charcoal hum. No more song pulsing from the speakers in arches of Rainbow, version Sad. He stopped suddenly, cocked his head sideways and...
...listened for the ebb and flow of fuschia breath, and did not...
...see...
...it?
The towel dropped from slack fingers and he ran for the living room.
~~~
"He's - " Sugizo choked on his tongue, rushing air out in an emerald gasp and screamed, "Yoshiki, just HERE, now, COME--"
A rasp of tiny bubbling burnt pink sounded behind him and he whirled, leaving the phone to echo questions that grew in volume and urgency as he ignored them to grasp Hide by his shoulders and push him onto his side, babbling in soft lime, "I'm an idiot, I'm so sorry, I should have known better - should have, shouldn't have left you, should have known - " The puff of air on his fingertips stained them blue and he looked more closely, realized that the face near his fingertips was growing slowly tinged with the same shade and he began frantically digging through his brain for the CPR they'd all learned before the tour, because you can't be too careful right, and nothing had happened to any of them but something had happened now to Hide-nii and Sugizo did not, could not, did not have a clue what to do. But sit by him in the hushed crash of the black rain that fell beyond the window. And wait.
~~~
"What happened?" Shocks of blood veined the frozen purple of Yoshiki's voice. Sugizo widened his eyes with a frustrated, impotent half shrug, petrified out of speech.
"Help me carry him out. We'll... I know where we'll go. Help me!" Sharp yellow soaked through with the drops of clear black, falling, falling, unable to stop. "Get his feet."
Cold grey poured endlessly on the windshield, pulling a cloud of horror through his eyes and teeth.
Yoshiki swore constantly. The sports car whipped around everything else fool enough to be on the road and lost traction every other minute, hydroplaning through stop signs and red lights and past shocked pedestrians who Sugizo would have sent up a small prayer for if he were not focused with every breath of energy in his soul on the man in the passenger seat in front of him who gasped harshly, drowning on air and too quiet for every small gurgling breath.
Shivers ran continually down his spine and he shook in silence.
The car stopped. Yoshiki got out and he heard a hoarse blue shout for help, green flame licking hard up its edges.
The nice people in white coats brought him to a chair and bade him stay.
Rain poured over the arms and the rails of his chair. Over the bed in this private clinic where Hide took shallow hard breaths and would not open his eyes.
~~~
"Sugizo?" something croaked, the yellow brown of baby shit.
He opened his eyes, unkinking his neck with a pained gasp. "Huh... Huh? --Hide?!"
"Yeah." Hide gave a weak sigh.
That jolted Sugizo out of his chair to bounce hard onto the bed, catching himself at the last moment before he joggled the arm with the IV drip. He clung hard to every part of Hide that seemed safe for clinging. Hide made a little choking burbley sound and Sugizo realized it was a laugh. He pulled back, looking down. "You're not okay yet, are you."
"I'm a hell of a lot better than I could be."
A throat cleared behind them, and an obsidian voice whipped out, "Yes. Yes, you are." Shards of black glass words hung in the still air.
"Sugizo," said Hide slowly, "Why don't you go sit down now."
~~~
He huddled in the chair, curling with a whimper as tight as he could manage, tighter. Let him become a speck, a miniscule mote of dust that could roll away and disappear and not ever know it was a witness to this day.
He felt as a small child, hiding beneath the bed while his parents savaged each other with words, the world stripped dead white and crashing down around his head.
"The band - " Hide rasped out, "We have layers on layers of twisted everything between us that led to this - and all you want to say is, How could I do this to the band - "
"I won't say it again," Yoshiki whispered, eyes clenched shut and knuckles white on the bed rail. "There is no confusion about - "
"Fuck you," Hide said.
Silence.
"I won't say it again," Hide said, and his voice was calm, meditative. "There is no confusion about the lie you want to live for the sake of - of public memory - " He stopped, took a shaking breath.
"Don't," Yoshiki said, helpless.
"We could be happy." A long pause. Another labored breath. "You know?"
***
"Don't," he whispered.
Blank eyes stared beyond him. A body that hated its own existence tore apart with racking dry sobs.
***
synopsis: Glimpses into a few years in the life of a rock star.
ratings/warnings: NC-17 - Drug use, brief sexual situations. Strange psychology and halfbaked philosophy. Do not read if you are disturbed by the thought of Hide having been an eccentric man with a few fairly outstanding issues.
entered in: category 1 & 2
this entry uses prompt 5: balcony, saints, fairytales
dartboard: yes
concrit: 3
additional notes: There is a massive list of references and a couple direct quotes from them in the fic. If you want, just ask.
***
NOVEMBER 1981
"You have to wait until Jail Break's walking off, then you boys can come in and start setting up. Make it quick, they won't care if a guitar's out of tune as long as it's loud and fast." The bouncer hesitated, looking again at the boy clutching an angular honey-stained guitar with a white stripe. Dark hair flopped around his face in the freezing wind off the bay and his eyes were huge, darting around, face slacking and tensing like he was trying not to throw up. "You'll be fine."
The bouncer went back inside, shaking his head at the assault of sound. Jail Break's singer might go somewhere eventually, but he wouldn't bet on the rest of the band getting anywhere but this local bar once that guy moved on.
Finally the crowd roared and Jail Break stumbled one by one off the tiny stage into the dark. He peered out to make sure nobody tried to climb up and follow them, noticing a few young ladies with their tits hanging out who saw the curtain move and screamed the singer's name but nothing otherwise amiss. The boys filed in from the side door through stacks of equipment and he turned to eye them up and down. That guitarist still looked as though he'd be off in the corner puking at any moment. He sighed and held the curtain aside, waving them through. The boy he'd been watching was last, and he froze up at seeing the crowd just like the bouncer thought. The tall man reached out a hand to his shoulder, not surprised when he jumped. "Come here real quick. Give that to your friend." He caught the other guitarist's eye across the stage, where he was already setting up in front of the half-full bar, and hooked a finger at him.
Three minutes and two shots later, he pressed a guiding hand to the boy's back and held aside the curtain again. "Take deep breaths. You'll find that once you start playing, it's a lot easier to be standing there. You'll be fine, okay? Fine." The boy heaved in air and nodded, sniffling, eyes still watering from the sting of bourbon. "Now get out there. Wait, what did you guys decide to call yourselves? We've got to announce something - "
"Uh - Saver Tiger. Yokosuka Saver Tiger," the boy stuttered, and the man nodded and shoved him on stage.
***
AUGUST 1987
"-so I was wondering, are you staying here tonight after the live or going on to the next city already?" Hide turned from his attempts to catch the bartender's attention to see a pouf of blond hair and fluttering eyelashes so overburdened with mascara that they looked more like short black sticks of incense than anything growing from a human. He jerked away without thinking and she leaned closer, giving him what he thought was meant to be an alluring smile.
"Sorry, babe." He scrambled up, ignoring her pout but feeling guilty anyway. She was still way too close. He could feel her breath on his arm and it sent cold prickles down his spine. He hadn't had a drink yet, wasn't even awake - he couldn't do this, couldn't-- The panic clouded in and his body trembled for a half second before he forced himself into control. "I have to go, I'm really sorry." He slid around a group of middle-aged men, their drunk laughter not hiding a few comments about his hair, his sunglasses. He ignored them and stretched his arm out to catch the door before it closed behind the couple coming in.
Outside, he took a deep breath and looked around. Normal people, normal traffic, everyone ignoring him as if he too were normal. He spotted another bar down the street and walked that way.
He'd felt it when he woke up this afternoon, that hollow shiver in his gut and tremble of his fingers that marked a bad day for him with people. It was more than nervousness. He was always nervous, always had to have a couple drinks before going out on stage, then a couple more after the live before going out to face the necessary social shit. Half of getting anywhere was who you made nice with, everyone knew that, and he fucking hated it but he knew he could do it. After a couple drinks.
On these kind of days, he'd stand backstage shaking so hard from the what-ifs and circling panic that he had to have a couple drinks before he could even unpack his guitar.
At the parties, when he had his onstage persona wrapped well in place and a bit of adrenaline through his body, he could play off almost anything. The women hanging on him, men stepping up in his face to tell him how great they were and thumping him on the back and pushing shot glasses to his lips - he could just wriggle away once it got to be too much with a laugh and a wink and it was all fine. When someone got to him before he was in that role and had gotten his drinks and his body going, well...
He supposed it was partly his fault for being so touchy-feely with his bandmates. Anyone watching would assume he was comfortable with people in general, since it wasn't like the band had been together for more than a few months.
Really, though, he'd known them all for years. These guys, Pata-Taiji-Toshi-Yoshiki, he'd drank with after lives since before they were all legal. He knew them more than well enough to let the hyper badass personality drop when they weren't in front of new guys or bigwig types. He was used to having them all in his space.
Last year he'd been pleased to see Taiji join X, then even more pleased in January about Pata taking backup after Isao's accident. In March he'd been fucking pissed at the rest of Saver Tiger for driving him to finally give up on levering their asses into anything like a great band, but then he'd been flattered as hell about Yoshiki practically pounding his phone number out of Kyo a week later after hearing Hide cut them loose and quit. He still wasn't flattered enough to join, to believe X could actually make it after everything he'd gone through with Saver Tiger, but Yoshiki refused to leave him alone, called over and over until finally he gave up and said, "Fine."
The decision might have been partly driven by how he'd begun to miss playing. Lives, to him, were as addictive as they were terrifying.
He stepped into the new bar and spotted someone with long hair and sunglasses just like his, sitting way back in a dark corner. Go figure, right? He picked up a glass of Old Crow and an amaretto sour at the bar and strolled over to join Yoshiki.
***
MARCH 1989
"X!" Toshi screamed over the hard pound of double bass drums and Hide spun and dashed to the end of the stage, jumping across cords, over an amp, laughing like a maniac. He spun in circles, lifting his guitar high to swing it out over the heads of the security guys, feeling them look up at him, wary that he might throw himself onto the crowd that was screaming and bouncing, a wave of human hands reaching for them, for all of them, but especially him right now because he was right there and they could hardly believe it and they all loved him and wanted him and shrieked his name so hard he couldn't even hear Taiji's bass from the amp right behind him but could only feel it thumping through his feet, keeping him in the beat, in the song. It was fucking gold, this feeling, it was the greatest high anyone could ever get.
He ran to the other side of the stage, slid up close behind Pata for a minute. Pata grinned at him as their hands shifted in unison, guitars singing harmony as precise as the movements Yoshiki's hands made across the toms behind them. He leaned down with his teeth bared all fierce like he was gonna bite Pata's black leather-covered shoulder and they both laughed.
He loved these guys like brothers. Even when they pissed him off at practice, he still felt that steady throb of love in his chest, the affection that bound them all into something miraculous.
Toshi came up behind him and hung over his shoulder for a while, putting the mike in front of him so they could both sing, faces pressed close. "Last song, can I ride your shoulders?" Toshi said in his ear with a grin after dropping the mike, right before he ran off to center stage, not even looking back for Hide's amused nod.
The song was almost over and he popped the guitar strap off his shoulders, holding his latest baby high by the neck, flipping off the audience with a wicked laugh and then waving them up, higher, louder. They roared in response, screaming his name and Yoshiki's and X, X, X and he thought, There is nothing but this. There is no other feeling. This was a reason for living, no matter how he sometimes hated being trapped in this body.
"We are!"
"X!!"
"We are!"
"X!!"
"You are!"
"X!!"
"You are!"
"X!!"
Toshi pulled him backward, and he looked around confused before remembering he'd agreed to haul the big lug around, and he said, "Why didn't you get Taiji?" but Toshi pulled the guitar back down on his shoulders and positioned him in front of the drum riser and started climbing aboard, so he just held the guitar tight to his body until Toshi's legs weren't kicking around and he'd more or less got his balance. Hide walked forward slowly, starting to play again, hearing Pata's choked laugh when he spotted the two of them, Hide's hair with Toshi hidden behind it - or at least it had to come damn close, right? - and he paced carefully to the edge of the stage where he was almost knocked over by the intensity of the screaming approval from those hundreds of thrilled faces - Toshi held the mike down for him again and he babbled into it happily, grinning.
They went back to the drum riser and Toshi hopped off, running down to grab Taiji around the neck and have him shout X!! with the crowd. Hide could feel Yoshiki watching him between the racks of clear drums and somehow that brought over him a feeling almost as heady as the high inspired by the crowd. "Yoshiki!" he yelled, dark eyes creasing in a wicked grin.
"What?" came the barely audible shout back, between a hard double crash of cymbals. He ran around the side of the set and came up beside Yoshiki, started to headbang and Yoshiki grinned over at him and joined in. They whipped their hair side to side together, and then Yoshiki leaned so far over that Hide was scared he'd slip off the stool and crash into the set, but he only turned his head up to give Hide the sweetest smile he'd ever seen in his life. At that moment Yoshiki looked more adorable than the fluffiest of little kittens but at the same time Hide's eyes had themselves fixed on those lips and on the muscles straining in Yoshiki's arms as he kept drumming on the closest tom, and something just snapped in his head, that was the only way he could describe it to himself. He had this overwhelming desire to lay a long hard crazy kiss on this gorgeous man-woman-drummer-creature laying there flirting up at him, and you know what, he nearly fucking did it, too.
He ducked his head away at the last possible second and could see the surprise in Yoshiki's eyes as he, too, ducked away, and then they were both laughing so hard Hide didn't think Yoshiki must have realized just how close he had been to giving the fans something to really scream about.
Breathing hard, he pulled himself together and grinned at Yoshiki, then jumped back down to the stage.
***
MAY 1990
"And that's how I found him," Yoshiki whispered. His fingers flexed hard around the almost empty glass and Hide feared for a moment that it would break, but it held, and he quietly reached up to fill it once more with dark wine.
"How old were you?"
"Ten. He was thirty-three. I..." His throat closed on the words, and Hide slid his hands over Yoshiki's shoulders, desperate for them to convey the comfort and encouragement he didn't know how to express in words without being obnoxious. "I don't know what I'm... what I'm going to do when I'm older than him?" Yoshiki blinked, eyelashes sticking together with tears, and Hide took a slow breath that sounded harsh to his own ears and tugged Yoshiki down against his chest. Hide's chest was bony, but it had to do, and Yoshiki didn't seem to care anyway.
"What... what bothered me the most," Yoshiki sniffled after a while, picking himself up a little to look at Hide. He stopped for a moment in surprise at the tears flowing down Hide's cheeks, but then went on, "What really disturbed me, and has haunted everything I've done since then, is that after he died... the world just... went on. That sounds so stupid, but I had honestly expected something to change... something beyond myself and my mother, some acknowledgement from the greater world that this man, my father, had lived and loved us and was now dead before he'd done even a quarter of what he wanted out of his life. He did it to himself, but still... I never expected that, in less than two months, everyone but the two of us seemed to have forgotten him like he'd never existed."
Hide's mouth twisted up, and he slid one hand up to stroke the back of Yoshiki's head, hugging him close with the other. "So, is that why you are the way you are? Wouldn't take no for an answer, pushing into the public eye and staying there any way you can, bound and determined to be completely unforgettable...?"
"I suppose so," Yoshiki whispered, and closed his eyes.
Life and death aren't true to him, Hide thought. Just as the physical isn't true to me. He's terrified of dying, that he'll be erased and forgotten; he has no faith in anything but his physical existence and his existence in the memories of others. I don't care what happens to my body, because it isn't me except when it's so alight with sensation that I can't avoid being overwhelmed with it. I only have faith in the me that is independent of this body and I know I'm not going to end when this awkward, ugly shell is cast off.
Now there's an odd couple for you.
***
DECEMBER 1990
X had spent the greater part of the last seven months in Los Angeles, taking turns flying back to Japan to appear at Film Gigs. For the first two months in LA there was nothing for Hide to do but wander around the city, practice whatever he felt like whenever he felt like it. Yoshiki had no time for anything more than a half hour on the phone with him now and then, and the others were occupied with their own obsessions. Hide was left alone and more or less idle.
Gradually he'd begun to fall into a strange, dull depression, a state of mind that drove him further and further off-center in the already unstable relationship his mind had with his body. Much later he realized that it had been withdrawal, whether physical, psychological or both, from the high he felt at lives, but at the time he had no idea what the fuck was going on. He was only capable at rare moments of even seeing that this was not a normal state of mind, of recognizing that it was shitty and that he did not like it. At. All.
The longest he'd gone between some sort of performance since he was seventeen was two weeks. Two months was enough to have him getting smashed and smashing everything and everyone unlucky enough to be in sight but then still not feeling like there was any reality to anything around him. That pushed his remaining sanity right out the window on gossamer pink sherbet wings and the only thing left to do at that point was call Yoshiki and ask him if he was real.
"Do... I... exist?" he'd ground out, teeth colliding with the receiver of the pay phone, his head knocking against the brick wall outside a club with each word but still not feeling here, real and Yoshiki thought he was joking because, well, he was talking, wasn't he? He was born, he grew up, he bought a guitar that he didn't even know what it was off some broke sailor when he was fifteen, and he played guitar now for Yoshiki when they weren't letting all of Japan simmer in its desire to see X play live in their hometown and just incidentally giving Yoshiki time to tweak the year's singles and start writing the new album, and... "You're joking, right, Hide? You've gotta cut down the drinking, man, this is the fourth time you've called me drunk this week and it's only Tuesday," Yoshiki had laughed. Hide hadn't. Can I come over? he wanted to ask the phone, beg. Can you pretty pretty please let me in your building and up to your apartment and maybe even into your room and make me feel real because you know what, I think fucking you just might be able to do it and it's the only thing I can think of and I don't know what I'm going to do, save me? and he didn't say it.
But he learned from that phone call that Yoshiki, just thinking of him - not even hearing his voice, let alone seeing him, (touching him, he thought for half a second and the shiver of want almost knocked him off his feet) - was the only, if remote, alternative high he'd found yet. So from there he began deliberately entwining Yoshiki into that feeling in his mind, the feeling his body took on during a live, the everything that was all of why he stayed on in the physical world like this at the advanced age of twenty-six.
He called Yoshiki every night, whether he had time to talk or not. Even when he knew Yoshiki wouldn't be home. He called to hear the voice on the machine, to get that little touch of real, here that was holding him together until the time came when they could finally return to Japan for the Christmas and countdown lives and he could piece himself back into something more than base-level functionality. The Film Gigs he did a cameo at helped, and so did finding a new band on one of those trips, which he was working on getting Yoshiki to sign, but...
A few days before they were all set to leave Los Angeles, a casual friend he'd made at one of the plethora of punk clubs along Wilshire took him to see a band called Jane's Addiction. He was still in a high happy daze the next morning when he called Yoshiki. "They're brilliant, they're absolutely brilliant, that's all I can say - you have to see them before we go back, what are you doing tonight? They're playing the Palladium again and that guy Josh can get us tickets - we have to go, I don't care what you planned, you're canceling it and we're going."
"...okay," Yoshiki said, his voice rather faint but not reluctant.
***
JANUARY 1991
The thing was, Hide thought as he walked into the Meguro Rokumeikan live house, they really got along. They got along and they talked a hell of a lot more now than Yoshiki did with Toshi, and he knew that was hard sometimes for Toshi, but that was just how it had gone. Yoshiki was the first person he'd ever thought of calling his best friend. And no matter how odd it made him feel, after the way his tendency toward hanging on people he really liked turned from friendly to something else with Yoshiki, and only Yoshiki - he was helpless against the growth of an unnervingly attractive thought...
Shit, is this being in love?
He didn't know what sexy was except as his body told him so, and he guessed from observation that his body had some kinda fucked up standards compared to the rest of humanity. Like he had a gauge off at birth and everything just got miscalibrated from there. He really didn't know what love was supposed to be. He'd never seen it in his life. But as far as best guesses went, he'd begun to suspect that this was as close as it got. And that was, well... 'a problem' was putting it lightly.
Luna Sea were already on stage by the time he got up in the VIP box, setting up and messing with the crowd. Ryuichi was just visible behind the curtain off stage right, and he wondered briefly if Ryuichi had ever been too afraid of what might be to pass that curtain. If there'd been some tired middle-aged guy with a flask of bourbon and a gruff pep talk for him, too. He looked back to the others again just in time to catch Sugizo waving at him frantically. Ah, god, that fucking idiot, he was going to get the crowd looking up here and then there'd be a riot on the stairs! He winced and flapped his hand, muttering, "Yeah, yeah, I see you." The thin guitarist beamed up at him beneath his enormous hair and miles of fake pearls, and he couldn't help but smile back. The guy was a nutcase, but at least he was a brilliant and entirely too loveable one. He absently hoped that Sugizo had remembered to bring a pipe tonight, because he really didn't feel like sucking straight from a joint.
The screech of feedback and then a low thrum heralded the techs in the box beside him beginning to balance J's bass. He watched J go through each string, tip of a pink tongue flashing out to be held between red-painted lips now and then, and gradually became aware that Inoran was also watching J and his tongue, an odd look on the smaller guitarist's face. For no apparent reason he began to feel uncomfortable and had to look past Inoran to watch Shinya tightening his cymbals.
They were all ready at last, and Sugizo gave a nod, and suddenly Ryuichi burst out to the front whirling like a dynamo and Hide was caught up just like the first time in the throbbing energy that was these particular five people on a stage together - there was something in them, just as there had been something in X even before Hide had joined, that caught the eye and the heart, and brought people to their feet roaring. He'd gotten Yoshiki to sign them to Extasy finally, sight unseen, his enthusiasm and having talked about nothing else every night for two weeks enough to drive Yoshiki into it - for the sake of having a conversation with Hide that didn't revolve around this band Lunacy for once if nothing else, he was sure, but who cared if it got them the opportunity they deserved? Yoshiki hadn't had time while X were all in Japan to meet them, so he and Luna Sea were going to LA in a few days. Somehow he had a feeling that getting used to Yoshiki's unthinking autocracy would take as much adjustment time for J and Sugizo as he could possibly wring from Yoshiki's schedule. They were both pretty easygoing and knew what a great break this was, which helped a lot, but it had taken him over a year to stop gritting his teeth the entire time he was in a recording studio with Yoshiki and since then Yoshiki had lost most of his hesitancy in dictating precisely what he wanted, when and how. Hide did not envy people who were new at working with his best friend; it was hard to fumble your way past the attitude with which the orders were given for long enough to accept how right they generally were.
***
SEPTEMBER 1991
"No," Hide breathed, eyes blank and wide on the dressing room wall. "You - this has to be a joke, I can't believe they - "
Josh from Los Angeles had been calling Extasy all week to leave him messages, Please call me and Hide, you need to call me, I'm sorry but I mean it, and only now had they caught up with him, their second night in Osaka of the Violence in Jealousy tour. He'd called immediately, because Josh didn't mess around saying things like that, and now he wished that he'd waited until after the live, because...
"I can't believe they're breaking up," he shook his head, numb with shock. "When's their last concert?"
"They're doing two nights, the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, in Honolulu," Josh's deep voice said carefully over the hiss and crackle of the phone line. "If you think you can make it, tell me now so I can get you in."
"I can make it," Hide said, voice cracking. "Thank you. I'll call again when I can."
"No problem."
He hung up slowly and turned to Yoshiki, who'd sat staring at him in concern throughout the call. "Jane's Addiction is disbanding. I'm going to their final lives in Hawaii."
Yoshiki blinked. Then his face clouded over, and before he could even begin, Hide held up a hand and said, "I know, okay? I know. I'll figure something out. I promise I won't screw you over. I just... I have to do this."
Yoshiki sighed and nodded slowly. Hide thought, It's damn lucky that I dragged him along to those lives, and he knows just how much they mean-- meant, to me and... He chewed his lip, shaking his head. Still had to play a live himself tonight, had to pull it together... he got up to dig a beer from the small refrigerator by Yoshiki's chair, cracking it quickly to take a long gulp.
The next day on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, he grabbed a schedule and sat down to figure this out. They played Hiroshima on the twenty-fourth. Four hours on the Shinkansen, eight hours' flight. It was yesterday there, so he could arrive on the morning of the twenty-fifth and have time to find his hotel and take a nap before heading out to meet Josh at Aloha Tower.
They played Sapporo on the twenty-eighth. Leave Hawaii in early morning of the twenty-seventh, arrive in Tokyo where it would be the morning of the twenty-eighth, ninety minutes' flight to Sapporo and...
It could work. He would make it work.
~*~*~
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit... He dug his nails into his palms and tried taking deep breaths but it wasn't helping, he was shaking like a leaf and on the verge of tears and he was about to meet Perry Farrell, this was an incredible moment and all he could think about was how fucking nervous he was. He bit his lip hard, and then Josh was pulling him forward and... there he was. P. fucking Farrell, flesh and blood, three feet in front of him getting a blow job from a dark-haired woman who evidently answered to "Casey," since that's what Perry was groaning over and over.
Hide's jaw slacked and his eyes pasted themselves to the wall over Perry's head.
"So he's - " Perry opened his eyes and fastened them on Josh, speech only a little impaired by what was going on in his lap, "He's what? Japanese, you said? Wow, that's cool, man. I had no idea they had Japanese rock stars."
"Yeah," Josh said, far less flummoxed than Hide but still sounding a little odd. "Yeah, they um... they do. And his band is really great, too. They're called X..." Perry arched back, mouth pulled into a silent rictus of ecstasy as Casey's head slammed down hard and her throat worked around his spasming cock. Josh blinked, clearing his throat, and gave Hide an apologetic look from the corner of his eyes. Hide was still staring fixedly at the wall.
"So," Perry said a while later, tucked away and with Casey sitting demurely beside him firing a spoon of heroin. "Heeeeee... day! Yeah, that's cool, man, really cool. Look, Heeee-day, why don't you come along back to the hotel and we'll all get cozy, have a little fireside chat, kinda thing, huh? Sounds great. Ooh, no, baby, that one's all worn out, you've gotta poke one on the other side - " Casey slid a hand up Perry's arm and, finding a vein that seemed satisfactory to all parties, pressed in the needle. Perry didn't move at all, not seeming to notice as she tested that she'd hit, wiggling it around a little. Finally she pressed down the plunger. Perry hissed a little as the needle withdrew and Hide saw a drop of pink-stained fluid fall from its tip.
"Yeah, man," Perry said slowly a few minutes later, a blissed-out smile on his face. "Let's go back to the hotel."
***
LATE JUNE 1992
Rain tapped and rattled against hide's window. The wind off the ocean was strong today, pushing the downpour sideways in sheets and odd gaps. The skies over Santa Monica were a heavy grey, had been for two days and didn't look like they would change any time soon.
He'd walked down to the corner store this morning, and everywhere, street drains overflowed. The sidewalks were flooded in low spots and he jumped the huge puddles as best he could, which had been a lot harder when he was on his way back with a giant jug of orange juice and a case of beer. Only the necessities today. It was good he'd only seen one car and it was going the other way. His hair was already a goner, he didn't need an extra shower with the water that washed a month of dirt and vomit from the sidewalks, oil from the road and piss from the walls to put some fucked up final touch on his misery. He had an excellent umbrella, but that wasn't any help against a tsunami of eau de Los Angeles.
He pulled a handful of hair forward then stared blankly at it for a minute before remembering why. Well, so between bleaching and turning it into a stand of beach grass all the time, it was already screwed, but the humidity didn't help at all. Walking out today had pushed it from fluff to poof. Bogus.
He had sat here in this built-in cushioned bench off the kitchen all afternoon, writing some shit lyrics and dozing by turns. The sound of the rain beat through his head and pressed on the back of his eyes, dulling his brain, killing him. He had no energy now to even go to bed, no energy to do anything but sit here looking out the window, feeling it all around him, cold grey relentless...
The rain washed away his soul drop by drop.
A tall woman in a blue plastic poncho walked by outside. She got to the flooded spot past his window and stood there for a while, looking around at the deeper puddles on the street and the solid fence around his building, before she finally gave up and slogged straight through. Watching the dirty water slosh and slap at the top of her low boots made him wince and think it was good he'd gone out before the flooding was this nasty. A dozen people had passed today but she was the first with a poncho. The umbrellas varied from Tweety Bird to tie-dye to utilitarian black... he'd found himself comparing each one to his, or rather Yoshiki's. It was still the best he'd ever seen, really pretty, like a color version of these crazy walls on a mosque he'd seen in Singapore. Thin lines of gold ran all over it, interlocking at sharp angles, and the spaces between were all deep blues and reds and greens. It'd be like walking under a stained glass window if only the fucking sun would shine.
He had hated using it today. He told himself that was because, duh, he hated rain and an umbrella meant rain. Even if the stuff wasn't pounding directly on his head it was still there, everywhere, inescapable. But it probably had more to do with the last time it had rained, when Yoshiki had left that umbrella here in his rush out the door.
They hadn't really spoken since. Three weeks.
He didn't need to think about that. He absolutely did not need to think about that. His dull eyes turned to the kitchen counter and spotted the phone by his spider plant, a sheet of paper stuck to the wall beside it, scribbled solid with names and numbers. Hi, I'd like a large order of emotional refreshment... Yeah, delivery. Greeeeat.
~*~*~
THREE WEEKS EARLIER
"Yeah," Hide laughed, "I'll see you later then. Thanks, J. Yeah, hi to Sugizo, I know he'll pout if - yeah." He snickered, swinging the refrigerator door shut behind him, hands full with leftover Chinese food and a pair of beers, the phone wedged in his shoulder. He set the carton of Kung Pao chicken on the counter in front of Yoshiki and nudged him, nodding at it. Yoshiki took the beers from his other hand and popped both caps before fishing a set of chopsticks out of the drawer and starting in. Hide smiled at the back of Yoshiki's head, eyes misting up, and hung up the phone gently. "I missed you. How did the other lives go?"
"Really well," Yoshiki mumbled around a slice of bell pepper, nodding, eyes wide in emphasis. He swallowed and said, "They did just as great the other three nights as they did for the debut. You should've stayed."
"Yeah," Hide sighed, tipping his head down to study his hands held before him, one foot pulled up to tap his toes on the linoleum. "I wish I could've, but we only had that warehouse for that one day..."
Yoshiki shrugged, smiling. "I think they forgave you. Me, on the other hand - I might never forgive you for depriving me of getting to watch you bounce around in the VIP box as if it were the pit, and screaming your head off just like the rest of the crowd and making me join in - " He dodged the light cuff Hide aimed at his head, and they sat and grinned at each other.
Hide recollected himself after a minute and said, "Here, I get some of that too." He pulled out another set of chopsticks and began stealing pieces of chicken and peanuts around the jabs and feints of Yoshiki's sticks that tried to trap and yank away his. They were laughing so hard after a while that Hide couldn't take a bite for fear of choking, and he slapped his chopsticks down on the counter and said, "Fine, you win!!" He grabbed Yoshiki by the back of the head and pulled him close, planting a smacking kiss on his forehead and then gave up all pretense of coolness and latched on with both arms to hug him hard. He held Yoshiki so tight it felt that he'd break his own ribs, and Yoshiki's arms slowly came up behind him to wrap around his body and squeeze back. His head was buried in Yoshiki's neck, the scent of lavender rising warm to his grateful nose and he hoped belatedly that Yoshiki wouldn't feel the tears that poured from his eyes, soaking into the smooth blue cotton of an expensive shirt collar.
"What's wrong?" he heard Yoshiki say, voice muffled by his lips being pressed to Hide's hair. He didn't answer. They stood in the kitchen of Hide's apartment just like that for a long time.
Eventually he began to realize that Yoshiki's cologne had given him a wicked hard-on. So he sighed and pulled away, sniffling and wiping his eyes, hair a long fluffy mess around his shoulders. "I thought you wanted to go to the beach?"
"Yeah." Yoshiki eyed him, a mixture of happiness and worry fighting over his face. "I've got a whole half-day off, after all. I'm not going to fucking miss going to the beach for some stupid little storm."
Hide shook his head, grinning despite himself, and put away the rest of the chicken. They drank their beers quickly and Hide started digging around for jackets, because no matter what Yoshiki said, Hide knew he'd still be whining like crazy as soon as he got all wet and cold, and that thin suede jacket he'd come over with was not going to cut it.
They walked down the alley from Hide's building and stepped onto the broad sidewalk that edged the beach. Raindrops splashed as they hit the concrete, puddles everywhere and the wind whipping off the ocean. They walked north toward the pier. Brown trash bags and plastic tarps here and there beneath the palm trees betrayed the presence of the few bums who'd been too unlucky or too stubborn to get a place in the shelter. Hide exchanged nods with the three who were alert to their passing, recognizing them. Yoshiki gave him a funny look when he noticed, but didn't say anything.
They passed along Muscle Beach, abandoned even by the hardiest of die-hards in this miserable downpour, and Hide knew when Yoshiki spotted the dragon because he stopped dead and got this giant crazy grin. "Don't--" Hide spoke for the first time since they'd left the apartment, throat muted and rusty but his voice sounded odd in the rain, breaking its hiss like the shattering of a bell. "Don't you dare run off - " He was too late. Hide was left umbrellaless as Yoshiki ran squeeing like a little girl for the dragon. "Damn," Hide sighed, slowing to a halt. He dropped his head to make his hair fall down around his face, attempting to shield it from the rain, and stared at his soggy shoes in pure misery.
A few minutes later he heard footsteps. Yoshiki's shiny dark boots came into view in front of his torn-up yellow All Stars just as he felt the thud of raindrops on his neck cease and a hand gently touch his shoulder. Hide let his arms drop from where he'd wrapped them around his body, a sad defense against the ick, and looked up. Hair matted into ropes by the water fell into his face and he gave it a half-hearted glare, eyes crossing.
"You look like an abandoned cat," Yoshiki said, breath catching in a quiet laugh. "Sad and bedraggled in an alley somewhere. Should I take you home?"
One corner of his mouth lifted in a reluctant smile and he shook his head, still blinking water out of his eyes. Yoshiki held the umbrella higher and with a look of sober concentration, pushed Hide's hair back, combing it away from his face with narrow fingers. "Fuck. Sorry, I..." he glanced back at the dragon and his cheeks began to get pink, "I got a little too excited?"
"I know. You do that." Hide's eyes crinkled in a hidden smile.
"I'll buy you dinner to help make up for it." Yoshiki slid an arm around him, other hand keeping the umbrella steady between them.
"You were going to do that anyway." Hide glanced at him and smirked.
Yoshiki shrugged with that peaceful grin that was Hide's favorite. "But now we'll go somewhere better than McDonald's."
"Ass," Hide mumbled. His arm crept up around Yoshiki's back. Cool damp hair tickled his hand as it swung with each step they took.
Their feet splashed in the small pools collecting in every step up to the pier. Hide's toes were going numb from the cold despite how he kept wiggling them and the wind was worse up here. He shivered, hand clutching the neck of his jacket close and the arm around Yoshiki convulsively tightened. Yoshiki looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. "You okay? We really can go back, I don't mind."
"Nah. It's cool." He forced himself still and steered them toward the north side of the pier before Yoshiki could spot the midway and coerce him into spending a fortune on some rigged game to win a shitty stuffed animal.
"I don't think you have to worry," Yoshiki said, "it looks like they're all closed up anyway." Hide eyed him and Yoshiki blinked in mock innocence.
"Yeah, okay."
"I do pay attention, you know. It may not always seem like it..." Hide coughed a little, and Yoshiki elbowed him then went on, "But I do know you pretty well by now." His arm tightened and he dropped his cheek to Hide's head in a half-hug. "Ew. I forgot your hair's all wet."
"That's what you get," Hide told him with a poke in the ribs.
Half the shops they passed were closed. The rain had driven all but the fishermen to stay inside, nice and warm. Even the fishermen were reduced to the fewest Hide had ever seen out here. They strolled along the rail, Yoshiki pulling at him now and then to the edge, staring down at the beach and then at the muddy frothing waves once they got above water. The boards creaked and groaned beneath their feet and the smell of salt water and fresh creosote was almost overpowering in gusts from beneath the pier.
Hide nearly didn't notice the single vendor stand that was occupied, half-covered as it was with a blue tarp. They passed behind it, with Yoshiki dragging him to go faster because he wanted to get on the other side of the arcade buildings and look at the Ferris wheel. But the slightest thread of a very familiar scent led Hide to look around, and there she was, just visible in the gap between the backing wood and the tarp tied down along the booth's side; one of the hispanic family that he'd seen rotated in manning this one.
He pulled loose from Yoshiki with some regret and ducked away as quick as he could, gritting his teeth against the cold water pelting his skin. Yoshiki stared after him, looking puzzled, and he waved him off. "I'll be right back." He rounded the corner. "Please," he said carefully, and leaned over the counter on the heels of his hands until his head was just beneath the tarp. The woman inside looked up. "How much?" he asked her.
"One is five dollars," she said with as much care as Hide had used, and they smiled at each other. That was an outrageous price, but the weather was, after all, complete shit today and he wasn't poor anymore. He gave her a fifty and gestured to keep it. She beamed at him and said, "I hope your girlfriend likes."
He coughed a little over a snort and grinned like a maniac. "He will. Thank you."
Her little surprised look and smile were cute. There were enough fags around here, she should be used to it by now... He walked hastily back around the stand and looked for Yoshiki and his brilliantly colorful umbrella.
He spotted the umbrella first, closed and set on a bench, then his eyes found the man hanging halfway over the damn rail on his stomach, trying to check out the supports beneath the pier - or something, it didn't matter, Hide practically jumped out of his skin darting over to yank him down. "You fucking idiot! What the fuck do you - "
"Look, there's barnacles," Yoshiki said in glee, and Hide blinked at him.
"So you're taking your idiotic life into your hands, leaning over a slippery rail in a rainstorm because - " He stopped there, shut his mouth with a snap and slapped a hand over his eyes, then shook his head in fierce disgust.
He felt the rain cease over his head once more and he opened his eyes after a minute to find Yoshiki peering in at him. "You really do hate the rain, don't you?" Yoshiki said.
"You know I do," he muttered, helpless to stop his breath catching at how close they were now, close enough that he could feel Yoshiki's warm breath on his lips.
"But you're out in it anyway because you love me." Yoshiki smiled like a deranged cross of the Buddha and the cat that got the cream.
Hide felt his cheeks go crimson in a rush, and abruptly regretted his purchase. "Don't joke..." he sighed under his breath.
"Huh?" Yoshiki leaned in even closer, and as Hide was reciting childhood baseball statistics in his head to keep himself from pulling Yoshiki that final half inch forward, Yoshiki spotted that he was holding something behind his back. "Hey, what's that?"
"Oh," he stuttered, "it's just... well," he yanked it out from behind his back and shoved the thing in Yoshiki's face, cheeks fully renewed in their burning. "Here."
Yoshiki took the single deep red rose from his hand, and pressed his nose to it to inhale deeply. "Hide..." he said quietly.
"Hmmmm?" Hide fidgeted, pulling on his hair and bumping the umbrella off-kilter.
"I love you."
His jaw dropped. Tears sprang to his eyes and he threw himself forward, arms sliding in a rush around Yoshiki's back, popping to his tiptoes to bring them together at last in a long, intense, absolutely goddamned perfect kiss. Everything from the holey soles of his worn out shoes to the frizzy hair sticking straight up from his head buzzed and shone with incandescent happiness.
And then...
And then Yoshiki pushed him away and stuttered, "What the fuck?!"
~*~*~
LATE JUNE
The phone rang. Sugizo bolted awake, sat for a moment swaying and then stretched a long arm across the still heavily passed out Ryuichi to pick it up. "Mosh-- er, hello?"
"Sugi," a voice croaked, and he placed it after some thought as Hide's. "Come over."
"Okay," he blinked at the wall oozing in circles across from him, "do you want me to bring anything?"
"Not J," Hide said, and Sugizo knew then precisely what they'd be doing.
~~~
"I've lost my pen lid again... Su, Su, Su, Sugi where's my pen lid?" Hide giggled, flopping back to make faces at him upsidedown. The rain still poured, but they were dedicating themselves to blotting it from Hide's mind, as he'd said he wanted when Sugizo washed up on his doorstep, extensions soggy but smile bright.
"What do you need it for anyway?" he said, tongue clumsy and thick. "You're going to use it, right... write stuff, right, write..." He played with that in his mind for a long dreamy timeless time, rain tapping a black diamond hum all around that blended and washed every other sound he could see.
"But I have to have it," Hide was saying when Sugizo finally paid attention to the tugging on his arm. "It isn't right if you don't have the lid, it gets aaangry and I can't write anything but angry with an angry pen and I don't wanna be angry right now, I'm sick of it - " He stopped and collapsed in a rush into Sugizo's side. "I just want to be happy. Can't I do that, Suuuuugi?" Hide tilted his head up, searching for Sugizo-didn't-know-what in his face but he tried through the flowing haze to channel the appropriate expression to be what Hide needed to see right now and maybe he did all right, because Hide reversed in his unhappy-spiral with a blurring suddenness and said, "Let's listen to something!"
"Like what?" Sugizo smiled, lips all loose and silly-feeling. "Oooh, do you have that demo of the new single here?"
"No." Hide reversed again, the happy grinding to a halt just as fast as it'd zoomed out, and Sugizo blinked at him in bewilderment and tried to catch up. Too slow. "I can't listen to that, not now. You want to ruin everything? Make me listen to that. I can't, it's too much... he's too much, I don't understand it..."
You're too much and I don't understand you sometimes, he thought. "Tokyo Yankees."
"No." The gloom increased. A flash like black lightning washed through Hide's aura. Sugizo blinked.
"...Luna Sea?" He gave a weak laugh as Hide peeked up through his front section of light pink hair to scowl and then smirk.
"Jane's Addiction. Have you heard them? Fucking brilliant - "
Of course I've heard them, Sugizo thought, you played them last time we did this, but there was no reason to say that, now was there? I should have thought of that, they'll set him right.
A long smoky brown bass line. A voice speaking over it at the edge of hearing. Acoustic guitar, shimmering gold-orange. Then the high voices started, sang in slow harmony and he remembered now just which song this was and -
"Hey, Hide, I'm gonna... I'm gonna go take a shower, okay? Sorry, but this stuff's making me sweat like mad and..." he shrugged. Hide nodded, already off in that private universe.
Sugizo shut himself in the bathroom, hesitating over the lock for a moment before leaving it off for safety's sake. His or Hide's, he didn't know. Both, really. The tap ran with a cold green plinking sound and he shivered.
He had to run the water for a long time to get the right color out. It took a lot of debate between the screaming juicy bronze-blue or the deep crimson that glowed like the red red roses of Yoshiki's spirit totem, but he finally went against the bathing-in-Yoshiki idea (at least right now, since Hide was out there so distressed over something to do with the man like always, and who knew how he would react to Sugizo coming back in the room all slicked down and rubbed around with what amounted to pure distilled essence of Yoshiki?). That decided, the actual shower didn't take long at all.
He stepped out into a strange charcoal hum. No more song pulsing from the speakers in arches of Rainbow, version Sad. He stopped suddenly, cocked his head sideways and...
...listened for the ebb and flow of fuschia breath, and did not...
...see...
...it?
The towel dropped from slack fingers and he ran for the living room.
~~~
"He's - " Sugizo choked on his tongue, rushing air out in an emerald gasp and screamed, "Yoshiki, just HERE, now, COME--"
A rasp of tiny bubbling burnt pink sounded behind him and he whirled, leaving the phone to echo questions that grew in volume and urgency as he ignored them to grasp Hide by his shoulders and push him onto his side, babbling in soft lime, "I'm an idiot, I'm so sorry, I should have known better - should have, shouldn't have left you, should have known - " The puff of air on his fingertips stained them blue and he looked more closely, realized that the face near his fingertips was growing slowly tinged with the same shade and he began frantically digging through his brain for the CPR they'd all learned before the tour, because you can't be too careful right, and nothing had happened to any of them but something had happened now to Hide-nii and Sugizo did not, could not, did not have a clue what to do. But sit by him in the hushed crash of the black rain that fell beyond the window. And wait.
~~~
"What happened?" Shocks of blood veined the frozen purple of Yoshiki's voice. Sugizo widened his eyes with a frustrated, impotent half shrug, petrified out of speech.
"Help me carry him out. We'll... I know where we'll go. Help me!" Sharp yellow soaked through with the drops of clear black, falling, falling, unable to stop. "Get his feet."
Cold grey poured endlessly on the windshield, pulling a cloud of horror through his eyes and teeth.
Yoshiki swore constantly. The sports car whipped around everything else fool enough to be on the road and lost traction every other minute, hydroplaning through stop signs and red lights and past shocked pedestrians who Sugizo would have sent up a small prayer for if he were not focused with every breath of energy in his soul on the man in the passenger seat in front of him who gasped harshly, drowning on air and too quiet for every small gurgling breath.
Shivers ran continually down his spine and he shook in silence.
The car stopped. Yoshiki got out and he heard a hoarse blue shout for help, green flame licking hard up its edges.
The nice people in white coats brought him to a chair and bade him stay.
Rain poured over the arms and the rails of his chair. Over the bed in this private clinic where Hide took shallow hard breaths and would not open his eyes.
~~~
"Sugizo?" something croaked, the yellow brown of baby shit.
He opened his eyes, unkinking his neck with a pained gasp. "Huh... Huh? --Hide?!"
"Yeah." Hide gave a weak sigh.
That jolted Sugizo out of his chair to bounce hard onto the bed, catching himself at the last moment before he joggled the arm with the IV drip. He clung hard to every part of Hide that seemed safe for clinging. Hide made a little choking burbley sound and Sugizo realized it was a laugh. He pulled back, looking down. "You're not okay yet, are you."
"I'm a hell of a lot better than I could be."
A throat cleared behind them, and an obsidian voice whipped out, "Yes. Yes, you are." Shards of black glass words hung in the still air.
"Sugizo," said Hide slowly, "Why don't you go sit down now."
~~~
He huddled in the chair, curling with a whimper as tight as he could manage, tighter. Let him become a speck, a miniscule mote of dust that could roll away and disappear and not ever know it was a witness to this day.
He felt as a small child, hiding beneath the bed while his parents savaged each other with words, the world stripped dead white and crashing down around his head.
"The band - " Hide rasped out, "We have layers on layers of twisted everything between us that led to this - and all you want to say is, How could I do this to the band - "
"I won't say it again," Yoshiki whispered, eyes clenched shut and knuckles white on the bed rail. "There is no confusion about - "
"Fuck you," Hide said.
Silence.
"I won't say it again," Hide said, and his voice was calm, meditative. "There is no confusion about the lie you want to live for the sake of - of public memory - " He stopped, took a shaking breath.
"Don't," Yoshiki said, helpless.
"We could be happy." A long pause. Another labored breath. "You know?"
***
"Don't," he whispered.
Blank eyes stared beyond him. A body that hated its own existence tore apart with racking dry sobs.
***
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Date: 2007-01-14 01:25 pm (UTC)When I first read it (I read it several more times trying to consider what I would say), I felt like I was being pulled in several directions. The synopsis is right on the mark at describing it. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I think that the fic would be more compelling and more readable if the author gave one strand of plot or one particular theme precedence over the others, so there was something more driving the fic than the sequential narration.
On the other hand, read like that, I just feel like I'm listening to a continuous bassline because all the details have equal weight, as it's really dense with them, and it does give me the feeling of hide's state of mind, that state of dull depression. So it works too, as atmosphere. There's really a lot to take in in this fic.
Some random things:
At that moment Yoshiki looked more adorable than the fluffiest of little kittens but at the same time Hide's eyes had themselves fixed on those lips and on the muscles straining in Yoshiki's arms as he kept drumming on the closest tom, and something just snapped in his head, that was the only way he could describe it to himself. He had this overwhelming desire to lay a long hard crazy kiss on this gorgeous man-woman-drummer-creature laying there flirting up at him, and you know what, he nearly fucking did it, too.
The fluffy little kitten analogy is a bit incongruous. I feel it interferes with the sexual mood. Is there another way to show adorable that adds to the mood instead? It is also a really long phrase, which makes the sentence draggy.
There are things that I feel are redundant in this paragraph. I've tried to show what I mean below. I feel that there's a fair bit of this in the fic, and it would make the fic more powerful & precise if they were cut out.
At that moment Yoshiki looked more adorable than the fluffiest of little kittens [?I am not sure what else that could be used in place of this] but
at the same timeHide's eyes had themselves fixed on those lips and on the muscles straining in Yoshiki's arms as he kept drumming on the closest tom, and something just snapped in his head,that was the only way he could describe it to himself.He had this [an?] overwhelming desire to lay a long hard crazy kiss on this gorgeous man-woman-drummer-creature laying [lying!] there flirting up at him, andyou know what,he nearly fucking did it, too.The 'laying' thing is something that occurs frequently in many fics I read but I am unsure why. From dictionary.com: Lay and lie are often confused. Lay is most commonly a transitive verb and takes an object. Its forms are regular. If “place” or “put” can be substituted in a sentence, a form of lay is called for: Lay the folders on the desk. Lie, with the overall senses “to be in a horizontal position, recline” and “to rest, remain, be situated, etc.,” is intransitive and takes no object. (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/laying )
That said, I appreciated the last part of the fic most.
No more song pulsing from the speakers in arches of Rainbow, version Sad. He stopped suddenly, cocked his head sideways and...
...listened for the ebb and flow of fuschia breath, and did not...
...see...
...it?
The towel dropped from slack fingers and he ran for the living room.
This, and everything in a similar vein, was a wonderfully unique way of presenting the situation. It was strange, novel, and sad all at once. I felt like the author had really hit his/her stride here, and everything came together beautifully and the fic hit a high. (Is this a pun? I'm sorry!)
My apologies about not dartboarding.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-14 11:09 pm (UTC)As far as the sequential narration: I changed it to that at the last minute. Before, it opened with Hide staring into the rain, the woman passing by, the umbrella, the calls. Then it went on, not in order but close - and several things weren't given a part of their own, but just said. So that's something I'm really glad I changed, putting more actual scenes instead of, "Hide had done ___ and felt ____ and that made ____ happen", all boring... which, since there's even now too much of that anyway, would have made it even more unreadable... anyway, then the fic closed with the Sugizo POV, same way. But I looked at it again and began to feel that if I did it that way, it would lose something - here you are going from depressed!Hide, into hyper, nervous, happy, hyper, confused, sad for Yoshiki, deliriously in who-knows-what, and then... very shortly back to what you have a feeling might have led into the beginning's depressed!Hide, but only maybe, and you immediately cut to Sugizo, who has no clue. And I wasn't sure if it would work, without the memory of the beginning's Hide fresh there to underly(lay?lie? um... >.>;;) what Sugizo sees as just, you know, a bit moody cause of the rain, or he's listening to that song which makes Sugizo uncomfortable but for other reasons than what a person who's still thinking from Hide's pov knows are probably what's really going on in his mind... yadda. Anyway, it's definitely open to revision, resequencing, etc. Your comments are great, thank you so much for taking the time to read this big lunk (several times!! o_o) and to give the detailed examples.
I just feel like I'm listening to a continuous bassline That's a perfect picture. It hasn't got any sparkle or evident reason for what it's saying until the end, this way, and doesn't really suck you in with a fascinating mystery/enigma/whatever... doesn't really have a plot. -_-; It's enough to have you shrug and be willing to keep going, unless you're really not into this kind of story... but there's at least that constant line going one way or another, though it pulls up or down between sets of info to lead from scene to scene, and it goes on right down and down eventually into this end. (Which needed to have a little bit more space in it; I think that it's the best-written, most effective part, but it bothers me that there's so little that they're driving, when it seems to take ten years in my mind; and then they're there, and it's only a little and Hide wakes up - I want to make it more, and I'm not sure how to do that without making it too much, the balance of which is a particular weakness of mine. -_-;;)
and the fic hit a high. (Is this a pun? I'm sorry!)
That made me laugh my ass off. (Hell yeah, the fic had to have been high as a muthafuckaaaa, with all the pot and LSD it'd seen by then! XD) ...So it did manage somehow to come together at the end? I'm glad to hear that. o_o Relieved.
RE the kitten thing, I can totally see what you're saying. ...there's a lot of sentences that are very draggy. -_-;; I was going with whatever popped out, in many places, just to go on and praying I'd get it done, and editing at lightspeed after. So there's also run-ons from hell. Going back to Yoshiki, I think I was trying too hard to capture that exact moment in the Blue Blood dvd, where he pops over and looks up, Hide darts down and they're an inch from a kiss, and how frickin' fluffy/adorable/sweet/happy Yoshiki looks but just as powerful/hot too, and that breaks the brain. But the hot needs to rule, and if it breaks the hot, then the cuteness has gotta step aside. If I pulled that to somewhere a little before... something... argh *pokes brain*
No worries on the not darboarding, it was of course optional. ♥
Thank you!!!
no subject
But...wow, X fic...fucking awesome X fic. (Like I said, *can't detach* :P) And god, parts of this were really painful, I don't even want to read anything else now, I just want to let this sit in my head working over (er, like I have the last few hours).
hide...I feel a bit like this pulls his image inside out and shows us strictly the painful parts...I feel that a bit. Like...he's always so bright but this is just ouchy. I'm not saying this as an objection to the characterisation though, because it still feels so much like him...like BAM, HIDE DESHITA. The alcohol, the drugs - everything about that just seemed so damn realistic to me...and the gratifying thing was the extent of the realism; not just that there were drugs and alcohol but the careful portrayal of their effect. The way it led towards the end, the sharpness of the descent, it all seemed so damn plausible.
And LS...the part Sugi played was very realistic (although I can't help but remember how J and hide were infamous drinking buddies...). And...LS!!!111!!!!! [/fangirl]
The fact of it was very, very nicely done, and I really love fics that interweave like this (hm, I don't even know why I've made this comment anon, I think it's pretty obvious who I am XP). I mean, I feel that really, fanfiction is mostly a test of whether you can get it, just from the image and the fractured images and the rumours and the masks...and this really seemed to achieve that.
Most painful...just hide and Yoshiki...you really tugged at the reader...I just wanted it to end alright, but somehow knew it wouldn't. The storm...I'm not a terribly visual reader but I was seeing it... Yoshiki...half-perfectionist, the stern forceful leader and then playful - and yet I had no trouble seeing Yoshiki the whole way...the roots of his ambition and the way he avoids really dealing with hide, sort of avoids resolution....the contrary opinions of him and hide about their own existence...and their closeness....
What is my point? Er...it just felt so real...
A very careful speculation/character study of hide...maybe not "this is completely hide!111!!" but "this is very, very plausible" and yeah....I love you♥~chuu~.
I was just completely drawn in.
Okay...now I'm going to dartboard...and try to not say 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!
BLUE: 32/35
Episodic - had to sort of readjust and remember what happened when IRL when moving from section to section so the flow was a little interrupted by this. Grammar and spelling = fine.
RED: 34/35
It had me the whole way through. Not many things do that. (Whether I should be judging it as such...well, I don't mind if someone challenges me on this point because I'm too "X FIC X FIC *brain dead*".)
YELLOW: 28/30
Hopefully I've explained this above...
PERSONAL
+12 (with subtractions for a little bit of stiltedness...)
...*nods sagely* (hey, seriously though!!!!)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-18 06:53 pm (UTC)^_^b Yuuuup!! I'm already working on that, and a very kind person has been working on an (even-more-)in-depth beta, as well...
for some reason I get disoriented by hide with a capital
I think I would be, too, just reading it. *g* Why I initially did that was as the slightest attempt at ambiguity on who wrote it. (Haha.) Another part was... to some degree, I feel that "hide" is his free-to-be-wacky public persona... the one all the fans fall in love with. And then there's Matsumoto Hideto. Also, Yoshiki capitalizes it, and I've been rolling that around in my head for a while. I may put a note at the top when I post this in the general comms.
(although I can't help but remember how J and hide were infamous drinking buddies...)
XDDD Yes. So I was reading this interview (http://www.geocities.jp/urban_lemon/media/Jxhide.html), and I'd already set down most of the timing, right? But not the LS, at least not to specific months. J says they all got real friendly around LS's major debut, I look at their live schedule... beginning of June was the end of their tour in Japan that time. And later he says, "That June was fatal" and for some reason it clicked into seeing hide look over a little and laugh a bit forced, because he's thinking, "If you just knew..." And then I was thinking, well, J loves his booze (and cigs) but seems like he wouldn't be too interested in drugs beyond that, definitely not in the spiritual sense that I can see for Sugi. XD J seems pretty comfortable with this world. He's a goofy motherfucker, and likes to put on the cool but can't help just being his dorky self for the most part, and hide was like that, too, and I can see how they'd really click and get along. But there's also the side of hide that talks all deep at the drop of a hat, how he doesn't understand religion love "sexy" etc. and... it seems like that's where he'd connect with Sugizo. So it seemed appropriate to me to lay it down like, when they're drinking it's J, or J and Sugizo (and whoever, yadda). But after a couple times early on, J bowed out of being around when Sugizo and hide were smoking up, partly cause it didn't do much for him and partly cause they'd be having these rambling conversations about the astral plane and their chakras and shit, and, well, I could be totally wrong about J, but... yeah. XD And over time Sugizo got to liking the occasional LSD, too, but hide tried it a few times and then ran into an entity that scared the crap outta him, so he just stuck with booze and pot after that. Aside from, you know, heroin with P. Farrell. -_-;; And nobody ever bothered to tell him, in this oh-so-great AU, that if you've had any alcohol at all, the tiniest amount of heroin can react with it to depress respiration to the point of death. So...
So back to J not knowing about it, besides just why he wasn't there - they're like brothers, but there are some things you don't tell even the closest of friends unless they have to know... and Yoshiki would've made it very clear to Hide and Sugi that nobody. will. know. :-S
It's kind of sad that I've been thinking about this for months and months, but then I can't actually write it until, you know, the day before the contest ends. XD;; So now I look at it and there are sentences that make my eyes hurt, words that need changing, things that need to be de-stilted XD as much as I can... and I want to expand a couple things to their own small parts, and streamline the rest a bit... but I'm really glad that it turned out as well as it did right now, that it's not perfect but it did work, and I didn't do badly by hide. I was really worried about getting flamed for the drugs. (Hey, he cleaned up after this! >.> XD;; Er, mostly?) And yes... JxINO OTP!!1!!11 XD That was indeed an especial side nod for a certain someone, which I hope wasn't too distracting or odd in the flow of the story.
Thank you for the comments!! ^________^
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 07:19 pm (UTC)The general impression that I got from this fic was it was "excerpts." It felt like someone had gone through hide's journal and pulled little two or three paragraph excerpts from it and formed it into a mini-diary of sorts. The good about that is that all your description was so vivid and in the moment. I liked the time and date labels, which were almost clinically detached. The fic itself is so filled with emotion that I think that those section headers are a nice touch, to pull the reader away and give them a break. The bad about your format was that I felt that it made the fic rather choppy. I would be almost getting into one section and then it would abruptly end and segue into another.
I wasn't sure what this fic was highlighting exactly - was it focusing on hide's relationship with Yoshiki? Was it chronicling the making and breaking of a friendship? Was it simply leading up to the events of what made hide die? Again, your descriptions are brilliant and hide and Yoshiki and Luna Sea and the rest of X are superbly done, but I didn't feel as connected to them as I thought I could have. I especially think that as a fic about a member of a band as tightly knit as X was, the other members didn't appear nearly as much as I thought they would.
I LOVED the inclusion of Luna Sea. Enough said.
Overall, a really great piece of work that could be simply fantastic in your next draft, if you decide to do one. (I know for most of my fanfic I just leave them in first draft format, because by the time I get around to editing I'm already moving on to the next fic XD. But I know some people love to edit and edit.)