OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

one-hundred-thirty-one.

JUNE, 2001, LOS ANGELES, CA

DAVE FELT GOOD and that feeling alone came with the barest trace amount of guilt. It had only been two months since he and Reagan had officially ended things, for good this time, and yet the heaviness that had followed him around like a shadow from the first time was fading.

As he stood next to Taylor inside of the Sunset Marquis with a drink in his hand, he found that he couldn't complain in regards to that night. He felt weirdly alive, like he'd come out of a months-long coma and was being welcomed back into civilization.

Those first few weeks after his and Reagan's final goodbye had been rough. He'd retreated into a shell that he rarely hid beneath, but only because he'd been barely able to hold it together. Taylor had been the one to lure him out into the world again, always having been difficult to say no to. His insatiable energy had worked its magic perfectly on Dave this time around.

The only shitty thing was having to still see Reagan. He saw her often because of Gracie and it hadn't been an easy transition, slowly trying to give each other space while also pleasing their daughter. Gracie had been seriously in to the bond they'd rebuilt but even Dave couldn't deny that it was too much being around Reagan, too soon. There was no way in hell he'd sit over a homemade dinner in her dining room, staring at her and longing to do more than just be polite.

He'd wanted to kick the shit out of his forced politeness. In the early days of Divorce Round Two, as he privately called it, it had been difficult for him not to touch her when he saw her or at least consider the idea of it.

She'd just looked so . . . lost. It didn't help that Richard was facing an illness with no cure. Dave had wanted and still wanted to make it better, albeit in a different way now. At first, all he'd been able to think about was grabbing her face and kissing her, holding her in his arms until she cried herself ragged. It was fucked up that he was willing to be there for her in every way, but the relationship had still ended, all because he'd had to go and pick up a fucking guitar in his youth.

Dave didn't blame his success as much as he blamed the universe for willing it. He blamed Black Flag and The Beatles and Naked Raygun. He blamed his cousin Tracey and he even blamed his mom for having let him manifest the early beginnings of what he was now, as much as he loved her.

He especially liked to blame John Bonham.

Fuck you Bonham, he thought scathingly, lifting his drink to his mouth.

It was true that those experiences had paid off, but they'd also flipped a proud middle finger up in his face with a saccharine smile.

He huffed to himself. When he thought about it along those lines, he could sometimes hear Reagan's voice in his head, chiding him for being so stupid. She'd go off on the same routine spiel about 'destiny' and he would silently question how his destiny could possibly mean shit if she wasn't a part of it.

But that had been then. That had been before the quasi-method of healing he'd taken up, mostly involving a lot of liquor and playing his guitar until his fingers bled. It had taken two weeks to smile. Four to enter public spaces accompanied by friends. Six to stop thinking alcohol-induced thoughts about Reagan that were way out of the control of his sober brain and mostly centered around how badly he wanted to be inside of her again, fucking the sadness out of both of them.

Dude, Taylor had said, cringing after Dave revealed that little morsel of thought. Did you just say you wanna' fuck the sadness out of her?

Sloppy drunk, Dave had sighed. It might work, he'd said.

I don't think your dick is gonna' make her dad's Alzheimer's go away, dick. It ain't THAT fucking life-changing.