Becoming

Running Free

After snuggling together for a few moments, Dave gave Ade a soft kiss and slid out of bed, padding to the loo and cleaning himself up. On his way back, he grabbed a couple of beers and handed one to Ade as he slipped back into bed beside his lover.

"Thanks, baby," Ade said, taking the beer and stealing a kiss to go with it. He clinked his bottle against Dave's before taking a deep drink.

Dave smiled and stole that kiss right back. "You're welcome, love," he said. "I didn't get a chance to mention it earlier, but you've got some solos to learn. Steve let Denny go, so it's going to be just the two of us as guitarists after all." He took a drink as well.

"What happened?" Ade asked.

"Well, seems Steve had some doubts about Denny from the first – he was the best of a mediocre lot, Steve said, a good guitarist, but more prog than metal," Dave explained. "Pink Floyd rather than Black Sabbath, you know? But then Denny went and changed up Phantom of the Opera onstage, doing something Steve earlier told him flat out not to do during a show. I don't mean mucking about with his solo, I mean he went and changed up the hook and all. Mind, Steve's willing to listen to suggestions as long as they're made respectfully and during rehearsals; I don't know if he wanted to wait to consider any changes to the music after the tour, or if he plain didn't care for the change Denny wanted. But either way, he said to leave it the way it was written during the shows and Denny didn't. He obviously wasn't gonna sack the bloke in the middle of the tour, but once the tour was done, yeah. Even asked me to drive one of the vans back up to Maryland Point from Dover with Clive and Paul as my passengers, so that he and Rod could speak with Denny in private. Clive and I both figured he must be sacking Denny, because usually Steve makes sure Paul and I don't ride together when it's not the whole band together in a tour bus." He finished his beer and set the empty bottle on the floor.

Ade nodded and did likewise. "Yeah, I remember you saying that you and Paul never really got back to being more than just civil after the Lily incident."

Dave shrugged. "Yeah, we both lost respect for each other that night. Which reminds me, I found out that Paul's another one who'll beat the shite out of anyone he believes is a fairy, so that's something we're gonna have to be really careful about within Maiden. Got himself arrested in Paris, the stupid arse, because he attacked a couple of drag queens performing at a club."

"Bloody hell, and here I was being happy I didn't have to worry about Andy anymore," Ade sighed. "I mean, I know we can't admit we're together, but I had hoped at least we wouldn't have to listen to some berk bragging about beating up on poofs."

"Well, Paul hasn't bragged on it," Dave said. "But I was there when he did it. Clive and Denny both think he was high, not just drunk, and for whatever reason, he took offense to the performance. It was a strip club, only the drag queens came out to do a kind of a parody of the actual strippers, in between the girls' sets."

"Still, you're right that we're gonna have to be bloody careful around him," Ade said, frowning. "More than just the usual, I mean."

Dave reached out and twined his fingers with Ade's. "As much as I don't wanna say this, to be safe, we probably should think about doing more than just snogging the groupies sometimes," he said softly and reluctantly. "What's more, we're gonna have to manage to chat up birds in front of each other, too, without letting on that we're jealous."

Ade looked stricken. "Are you... are you saying we should fuck the groupies?" he asked, sounding hurt.

"No," Dave hastened to say, pulling Ade into his arms. "I don't think we have to go quite that far. The... the excuse I used for not wanting Lily should work – that we're not interested in fucking anyone who'll slag about, for fear of catching something nasty. But blow jobs, maybe. Thing is, especially at places we play on the regular, we see a lot of the same birds from show to show – and if they're anything like Lily, they're likely trading stories about us in between shows."