The taxi driver was carefully not paying attention.

"You're going to fucking get yourself killed!" Trevor shouted. "You're going to fucking bleed out on the floor of the, the, fucking Joe'sBar and Grill in fucking Buttfuck Idaho while some biker named Chester stomps on your HEAD!"

Billy was wearing a lopsided grin and holding the ice pack to his jaw.

"You're lucky all they wrecked was your fucking bridge, it could have been your fucking neck!"  Trevor whirled in his seat, staring out the window, trying not to think about the way Billy's mouth looked right now.  He hadn't realized that Billy's four front uppers were fake until he saw the twisted metal and enamel thing lying on the counter as the doctor packed Billy's mouth with cotton.  They'd had to put stitches in his mouth, he'd lost another tooth or something; it was all too gross to think about.  

Billy's long guitar-player fingers were swollen from punches and three of his knuckles were split.  There was blood in the grooves of his ring.  His ribs were bandaged and there were old and new bruises all over his chest and arms.

Between the bruises there were scars--cuts from glass, cuts from rings. Fucking cigarette burns.  Billy got his nose broken last time he picked a fight.  Becca was already on the lookout for a new guitarist, figuring Billy was going the way of Buck and Earl.

Trevor punched the seat between them.  "What the hell were you thinking of?"

"Ol' days," Billy mumbled.

"What?"

Billy didn't say anything more.

"You are seriously fucked up.  Seriously.  You are messed up in your head!"  

Billy just snickered, a tiny whuff of air.

The hotel was tall and bland like all the others.  There was a spaceship-looking spire on the top which made it easy to find, though. Trevor gave Billy a hand out of the taxi and gave the driver a big tip. Hopefully this wouldn't make the papers tomorrow.  

Billy leaned against the wall as they rode up the elevator and searched through his pockets slowly.

"Your wallet is missing," Trevor said.  Billy looked up at him and wrinkled his nose.  "There's two beds in my room, you can stay in there.  I'm too tired to go get you another key tonight."

Billy made the a-OK sign.  Trevor fished out his key.  

Billy condescended to lean on his shoulder as they walked down the hall. Probably the painkillers were kicking in.  Shit but he was skinny, just bones and muscle, all burning hot like he had a furnace in his chest.  

Trevor unlocked the door and deposited Billy on the bed.  Billy simply swung his feet up onto the bed and closed his eyes, letting the cold pack rest on the pillow beside his head.  

"Goodnight," Trevor said, but Billy was already asleep.  He shrugged and stripped down to his boxers, slipping under the covers on the other bed and falling into exhausted sleep at once.

He dreamed of playing on stage...Becca was singing, and Christa was drumming, and Billy turned and spit in his face...

Trevor awoke as he was rolled over onto his back.  He mumbled something groggily, but it didn't quite form into an actual question.  

He caught his breath and arched up as something hot and wet engulfed his dick.  Ooh, nice, nothing like a groupie blow job to round off a night...  Trevor thrust up blindly into the hot-wet-hardness, feeling his dick move against soft tongue and slippery--something--lip, probably, but whatever, who the fuck cared, it was a blow job and it was good.

Trevor thrust up hard and came.

When the shudders died away and he could open his eyes, he realized that there was still only one other person in the room, and it wasn't a groupie.

"Billy?" he whispered.  He looked over at the other bed.  

Billy was sitting up, wiping at his mouth.  He wiggled his fingers at Trevor and lay back down slowly.  

Jesus.  Jesus!  He hadn't--not like *that*--okay, maybe he'd fantasized a little, but this was a whole different ball game.  "Why?"

Billy didn't answer.  

"But--"  His teeth--his mouth--didn't that *hurt*?  "Billy!" Trevor sat up and reached for his boxers, which had been pulled down around his thighs.  He touched something sticky and looked down.

Oh God.  Blood.  On his dick.  Blood.  Billy had gone down on him with his torn-up mouth and his missing teeth and left *blood on his dick*--

"Joe always loved that," Billy whispered hoarsely.  "Goodnight."

Trevor looked down at the blood and tried not to puke.  

end.