say hello wave goodbye

56: go easy on me (1980)

{{Hoo boy. Back with another update. Please read this before you dive in!

This one is a LOT. Content warnings for discussion of abortion, death, suicide, violence, very minor self-harm, and not entirely consensual sex. Nobody is behaving well.

For those who don't know, Eraserhead is a movie from the late 1970s that I can't in good conscience recommend to anyone. In it, the main character's girlfriend gives birth to this severely deformed baby who's very unwell, then takes off and leaves him with the kid all by himself. He goes a little crazy and accidentally on purpose kills it and it dies a gruesome death. You can find the relevant clips on YouTube but I wouldn't suggest it.

Comments, questions, concerns- let me know. As always, thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!}}

June 1980

Stevie keeps her head down while she walks through the hotel corridors on Robin's arm, as if that would prevent anyone from noticing her. Fortunately it seems that either everyone else is out, or they're just discreetly watching from the peepholes in their doors, because they don't encounter anyone other than the young girl at the front desk. According to JC, Mick's party got broken up not long after hotel security paid her and Lindsey a visit, and a couple of his friends were personally escorted from the building. It was safe to say that Fleetwood Mac would need to find alternate lodgings the next time they came to town.

"Are you hungry?" Robin asks once they make it back to the room. The hospital food was unidentifiable at best, but Stevie had forced herself to choke down a slightly overripe banana when it became clear that they weren't letting her leave until she'd eaten something.

"No. I just wanna shower and go to sleep."

"Do you still feel dizzy? Maybe you should wait."

"I'm okay," Stevie assures her. They'd given her an IV in the hospital, and although they never bothered to tell her what was in it, she was feeling stronger and less lightheaded. "Robbie?"

"Yeah? What is it?" Robin asks, pulling some old clothes out of her suitcase for Stevie to change into. Most of Stevie's own stuff was still upstairs, and she didn't feel like dealing with Lindsey in order to retrieve it right now (and she really wasn't going to ask him to bring it down himself).

"I didn't sleep with him."

"You...wait, what?"

"Lindsey said I fucked Mick's friend and I didn't. I wasn't lying," Stevie says plaintively, drawing out the last word a little.

"I never thought you were," Robin promises, even though she knows she's not the one who needs convincing. She had disliked the blond German man as soon as she saw him and disliked him even more when Stevie immediately gravitated toward him, but experience had taught her that it would be no use trying to pull her away. So she did the next best thing, talking a sulking Lindsey into playing a round of Monopoly with her and a few crew members so that he wouldn't spend the afternoon glowering at Stevie. (She was moderately successful). "But you saw him again after the show?"

It was an honest question, because she still couldn't figure out why Lindsey had been accusing Stevie in the first place. When she had left the two of them the night before to go to her room and go to bed, she had been under the impression that they were going to do the same. But although there was no malice behind her asking, Stevie didn't necessarily see it that way. "That doesn't mean we had sex."

"I know that, hon, I wasn't trying to -"

"He wanted me to blow him and..." She starts to reach for what used to be where she'd rest her hand on her bump, then quickly crosses her arms over her middle. "I dunno, I guess I did."