Birds Of a Feather

21. All night long [part 1]

"The KKK took my baby away, they took her away, away from meeee..." Jeff arrived in front of the door singing the song he was listening to, with his trusted skateboard under his arm; he had just finished his shift at the Raison d'Etre and couldn't wait to have a decent shower.
However, as soon as he had entered the apartment, the bass player stumbled into something: when he discovered that the culprit was a pair of navy Dr. Martens leaning against the radiator in the entrance, he immediately began to curse and shout their owner's name.
Soon after Sara appeared in the hallway, wearing her pajamas and a pair of slippers and complaining about the fact that Jeff had interrupted her study session.
"Yeah, I don't give a fuck about you pretending to study! I was almost killing myself!" he went on with his protest, tryin' to free himself from the grip that the walkman's cable now was giving him.
"Oh, really? Then why didn't you accomplish the mission?"
"Listen, you're just a guest and you're seriously annoying the fuck out of me! Don't play with fire or-"
"So what? Are you going to complain about your failed suicide attempt? With me? You're aware that you're not goin' to get any kind of compassion from me, ain't you?"
"C'MON, FANCINI! IT'S AGAINST THE BASIC SECURITY PROCEDURES!" Jeff finally burst out, and the girl began to shout too.
"WELL, AMENT, ME AND MY ICY FEET, WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT RULES!"
"YEAH, RIGHT! IN FACT YOU WILL BOTH WARM UP A LOT IF THIS APARTMENT IS SET ON FIRE AND THE FRONT DOOR IS BLOCKED BY YOUR FUCKIN' COMBAT BOOTS, HUH?"
"ONLY A FUCKIN' TROGLODITE LIKE YOU CAN MAKE A TRAGEDY OUT OF SUCH A SILLY THING!"
The two of them stood one in front of the other, clenched fists and blood-soaked eyes, as if they were ready to have a fight.
"Cold hands, warm heart" were Jeff's words, pronounced after a while and accompanied by a mocking smirk.
"Woah, look who do we got here! A blossoming stand-up comedian! We lack for nothing" Sara rolled her eyes, then took her precious boots and went back in her temporary bedroom, hoping to find again the will to study.
The bassist shrugged and put his skateboard on a corner, then finally managed to have a shower. When he finished to wash himself, he went in the kitchen, where he found Layla and Eddie intent on putting the grocery shopping away. The girl had apparently stopped by the supermarket on her way home, and his bandmate hadn't noticed the previous fight because he was in his bedroom, listening to the music and reading.
He gave them a hand and, when all the food had finally been put in the sideboards, they decided to chill out in the living room, where they ended up watching MTV's charts.
The television was broadcasting Enjoy The Silence's videoclip when the doorbell suddenly rang.
Eddie reluctantly went to open the front door and, in the blink of an eye, two familiar guitarists burst into the apartment.
Stone immediately jumped in Jeff's arms – who was still sitting on the couch – and faked a perfect make-out session with the horrified bass player, while Mike finally noticed Layla's presence and warmly greeted her.
"Err, sorry for the performance but passion always blinds me" Gossard explained to her, moving away from Jeff and receiving a huge punch from him.
"What are you doing here? Good neighborhood rules, huh?" the other guitarist asked her with a smirk, making her softly laugh.
"Yeah, I guess we can put it in this way"
"OH MY FUCKIN' GOD, I LOVE THIS SONG!" Stone interrupted them by grabbing the remote control and turning the sound up at full volume: U Can't Touch This' notes immediately resonated throughout the loft.
"Oh, don't worry, Stone: please, make yourself at home" was the ironic comment made by Jeff, soon followed by his bandmate's reply.
"Thank you, love of my life: I'll never get used to your infinite kindness"
Layla and Eddie chuckled, and their giggles immediately turned into belly laughs when the two guitarists tried to reproduce MC Hammer's moves.
"Great! Go ahead, Mr. Montana! Your transformation into a perfect rapper is really working out well! Do you want me to choke you with a huge fuckin' gold chain too? I'd love to do that, I swear!"
Everybody turned to see who had talked and, when the culprit finally realized that some guests were there as well, she immediately wished to disappear.
In fact Sara was wearing violet pajamas and her trusted Donald Duck slippers, and had also some of her hair tied into a little, childish pigtail.
"Heeeey, Sara! It's good to see ya! That's amazing, I didn't know you too had come to visit Eddie and Jeff... This isn't typical of you!" Mike enthusiastically exclaimed, while the girl reddened even more than before.
"Mikey's right! I smell a rat... Out with it, c'mon!" the other guitarist clapped his hands, looking at the house owners in an inquisitive way.
Eddie and Jeff exchanged a glance, and finally the singer told them everything.
"Geez, I knew this wasn't a simple friendly visit!"
"I have a feeling that Jeff didn't count too much in takin' this decision... Correct me if I'm wrong!" McCready casually commented, making everybody softly laugh.
"These California guys are so insolent and lacking of good manners, huh?" Stone addressed the bass player "I mean, they come into your house and slowly steal your house owner's throne? How dare they?!"
"Yeah, that's exactly what I always think..." Jeff encouraged him, and his friend went on with his monologue.
"You came into the wrong house, Eddie!" he addressed the singer, who was laughing "He's a fuckin' mountain berserker! We'll see who's going to laugh when he'll have torn your soul apart!"
"But Stone, what with one thing and another, we didn't tell the girls how glad we are that they're goin' to stay here!"
"Oh, fuck, Mikey's right!" Gossard slapped his forehead "This means we're goin' to see you more often... That's great, we enjoy the company of witty and smart women like you"
"I endorse what he has just said, ma'ams" the other guitarist smiled at Layla and Sara "And, ya know somethin'? I think this calls for some well-needed celebrations"
"I'm in! And I'm sure these ladies are goin' to join us... Am I wrong?" Stone addressed Layla, who looked at her roommate.
"I think it'd be fun... Sara?"
"Yeah, why not? Lemme wear somethin' more refined and you can count me in" the girl said, hoping to take off her domestic outfit as soon as possible.
"Wait, I'm comin' too!" Layla exclaimed, joining her.
Stone and Mike exchanged a smile full of complicity and began to do what they could do best: acting like perfect idiots.

♣♦♣

Layla was frantically rummaging into her wardrobe, when she finally found what she had been looking for for the past 10 minutes: she observed the denim mini and smiled in a satisfied way.
"And that remainder of fabric that you're gonna dare to call 'skirt' from where the fuck comes from?" Sara asked her, astonished by the fact that her flatmate owned an article of clothing worthy of a starlet's wardrobe.
"Don't be so horrified! I bought it some months ago, and this isn't the first time I wore it!"
"Yeah, sure – do you really think I wouldn't have noticed it? I mean, hellooo? If you had already worn it, you would have left an entire trail of dead men behind you and I'd surely have noticed that!"
Layla chuckled: "God, you're always so overdramatic! It's a simple miniskirt, that's all"
"Yeah, that's what First World War was too: 'it's a blitzkrieg', they said... Tell that to all those dead soldiers and citizens!"
"See? I'm talkin' about skirts and you immediately compare them to wars and destruction..." her friend smirked, while looking for a pullover to wear "Anyway, there's nothing wrong with dressing to impress, every once in a while... You should let down your guard too, ya know?"
"Yeah, right, the dialed number is wrong or doesn't exist... Try again, you'll be luckier!" her friend stuck her tongue out, then went in her bedroom to get changed.

♣♦♣

Eddie and Jeff watched the two guitarists as they were enthusiastically head-banging to the notes of Faith No More's Epic and they both shook their heads: none of them was happy about the guitarists' relationship with the girls; the singer was still worried about the way Stone always approached Layla: all that brilliant irony... God, what if it had hidden something deeper, like some interest in her?
Jeff wasn't enthusiast as well: all that kindness and fuckin' nicety towards the two psychopaths really got on his nerves.
They were enemies, for fuck's sake! And those spineless guitarists only reasoned with their dicks... tsk, they were hopeless.
Soon after the girls came back and Mike welcomed them with an amused whistle.
Layla had opted for the infamous denim mini, a black pullover and a pair of boots that wouldn't have cut a poor figure on a vamp: she looked great, a perfect mix between her habitual simplicity and a new seductive side that she had never showed before.
On the other hand, Sara was wearing a white shirt, a pair of pretty tight jeans and her Doctor Martens: she had tied her long hair in a braid she had quickly made, so a few locks were free to slip out of place and she was forced to pull them away with her hands or huffing like a locomotive.
"McDreamy, mark this day on the calendar: we're goin' out with two masterpieces!" Stone added, making Layla chuckle and Sara quickly reply with a "Ugh, Gossard, years pass but your ability to pick somebody up is always at death's door..."
The guy heartily laughed and pinched her cheek.
"Then I hope you two will be the ones to reanimate it! Oh, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is highly recommended"
"C'mon, shithead, cut this crap!" Sara laughed and pushed him away, while Mike addressed the other guys, who still had their jaws dropped by the girls' shocking metamorphosis: "Are you two couch potatoes in?"
"Leave them alone, Mikey: they clearly prefer to spend the evening jerking off together, instead of partying with us..." Stone added, then he turned to face Jeff "I knew that our love story wouldn't have lasted so long... You're a pig!"
The bass player finally told him to fuck off but, soon after, he and Eddie followed them out of the apartment.

{ title credits: All Night Long by Lionel Richie }