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chapter song heart: barracuda "so, this ain't the end, i saw you again, today / i had to turn my heart away"
1985
"We need a manager," Jude groaned into the pillow underneath his head. "We're out our depth here, and I don't know about you two, but I haven't got a fucking clue what I'm doing."
"Well," Del sighed, "we had a manager. Last I heard, she was still out of a job."
"Rightfully so," El glared at her. "We don't need anyone yet. What we need to do is write a fucking album."
"What's the point of writing an album if we don't even have a direction to go in?" Jude pouted as he rolled off the couch onto the floor with a grunt.
"I'm not calling her," El rolled her eyes.
"No one said you had to be the one to call," Del pressed, but El wasn't backing down. "Look," she sat up, "I know you hold this little grudge of Vera because you think she was responsible for all of us spiraling out of control, but you know just as well as I do that it wasn't her fault. At least not anymore her's than it was ours. She knows us, she knows what we need, and we don't have the time or the patience to haze someone new into our bullshit."
El sat in silence for a few minutes, a scowl on her face and the usual cigarette between her lips before she huffed. "Fine, but you can call her."
--
Marriage was about honesty. Communicating with your spouse and allowing them to help you shoulder your burdens was apart of the gig, but this burden was dangerous, lethal, and Nikki would keep it buried in the trenches even if it killed him. He had just gotten El back and there was no way he was going to let her slip away again which is why she could absolutely not know about the bindles of smack he kept in his boot. He had been maintaining fairly well. She showed no signs of being on the up and up about his habit and he intended to keep it that way.
He hated himself for it, and more importantly, he hated hiding a part of himself from El. But this was a dark, ugly side of him and he felt El would only love the pieces she had shined bright and new. In the back of his mind, he knew this wasn't the truth, but the insecurity that burned in the deepest parts of his soul wouldn't let him believe otherwise. Nikki always wanted to be the best for her and he didn't want her to believe that she had married a junkie who couldn't get a grip.
The front door slammed shut and Nikki somehow managed to jump out of bed and into the bathroom despite his slurred state of mind. El was supposed to be preoccupied all day with band stuff, leaving Nikki to his own devices and giving him free rein to get high without the prying eyes of his wife. He cursed to himself and splashed water cold water on his face to try and pull him out of his high as he heard El come into the bedroom.
"Babe, are you here?" She called to him.
"Y-Yeah, in here!" He yelled weakly from behind the closed door.
She furrowed her brows in concern. "You okay?"
"Fuck," he whispered to himself, "yeah baby, I'm just not feeling well. I'll be out in a second." She frowned at his response.
"Okay, I'll be downstairs." She lingered for a moment before heading down to the kitchen to grab a snack.
Nikki let his head fall to rest against the door frame, his blood pressure slowly lowering. He felt like a piece of shit, a liar, a fraud, but he just couldn't stop. Secretly, he didn't really want to stop. He spent the rest of the evening coming up with ways to successfully pull off being a loving husband and a rockstar junkie.
--
"So," Vera hummed awkwardly, "you went through with the wedding." Del managed to get ahold of Vera and she agreed to meet with the band to discuss the possibility of returning to her management position. However, Del and Jude were fashionably late, as always, to the band meeting, leaving El and Vera alone in their rehearsal space.
"I did," El replied with a tight-lipped smile.
"Congratulations," Vera responded with the same smile.
"Yeah, I'm sure you're so thrilled. You were always so supportive of us," she scoffed. Vera glared at that response.
"If you can't be civil then what am I doing here?"
"Oh, I am being civil. I'm touched by your sincerity, truly," El snarled.
"He's no good for you El," Vera warned. "You're gonna learn that the hard way."
"You have no right to say what's good for me anymore. If you're going to work for us, our relationship is strictly business. I don't need your fucking input about my marriage. We're the best we've ever been and I am happy and that is all you need to know about me and Nikki." El always knew how to pack the strength of a sucker punch into her words. Perks of being from the south.
"Oh really? Is that you fucked off the face of the planet on a bender and wound up in a mental hospital?" Vera asked, the tension in the room elevating by the second.
"That had nothing to do with Nikki and you know it," El bit back. "My whole world came crashing down and Nikki was there for me through it all. Where were you? You want to talk about who's not good for me? Take a look in the goddamn mirror," she stormed off the couch and out of the building headed straight for her car. She flew past Del and Jude in a flash so quickly they almost didn't realize it was her. Del caught her arm to stop her and El spun around to face them. "You two fucking talk to her, I'm not doing this. Call me later."
El got in her car and sped down the road and rested her head on the wheel as she reached the stoplight. "I just can't catch a fucking break, can I?"
-
a/n: wow love it 🤠 lmk what u think about vera coming back and as always, i love you all so very much 😚
