the wild one.

03 | the kids aren't alright

While it had been a few days since Harley first encountered Nikki and Mick, when she reunited with the group, Nikki had found them a singer. His name was O'Dean.

The whole band had their collective reasons for not liking O'Dean - Harley didn't really have an opinion of him. The others though collectively made fun of him for refusing to take off this pair of white gloves. Nikki didn't like O'Dean because when they tried to play Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet, O'Dean didn't sound like Brian Connolly and refused to do the clapping with the rest of them. Mick didn't like him because he thought he was a shitty singer and a hippie. Harley would occasionally hear him mutter something about "fucking hippies" whenever O'Dean messed up.

"C'mon man, just do the fucking clapping, it's not that hard." Nikki sighs, exasperated as turns to look at O'Dean.

"I'm not clapping, this is stupid."

"Christ, whatever. Let's just go through "Stick To Your Guns" then, if O'Dean doesn't want to cooperate." Nikki says, ignoring O'Dean's scowl afterward.

After thinking about it, Harley didn't like his voice. To her, it didn't match their style. Most of the bands in their genre had to have something special about their voice, otherwise, it wasn't going to work.

They continued playing through some of the songs Nikki had written, and played a cover of a Raspberries song, "Tonight". Not long after practicing, their tapes went out, and Harley knew they had no extra ones laying around.

"Did we run out?" Nikki questions, getting the signal that they had from the studio. He pauses for a moment, turning to Tommy.

"What? No way dude, I'm not doing that." Tommy protests, instantly getting what Nikki was going for.

"We need more tape," Nikki adds as if trying to convince Tommy.

"Well tough shit, she isn't even attractive." He complains.

"What's going on?" Harley questions, looking at Tommy.

"Nikki's trying to get me to fuck the engineer so we can have more time in the studio," Tommy tells her, and O'Dean makes a face at them.

"Of course. I guess that's one way to do it."

"Just do it, Tommy, it's not that big of a deal," Nikki tells him.

"Okay, fine." He groans, flipping Nikki off as he leaves the studio. Nikki smirks in return before turning to the group.

"I guess we'll either just be on a break or practice more," Nikki tells them.

"Break?" Mick questions. They all agree to settle with that, agreeing to return to the studio in at least an hour.

It left Nikki and Harley together, as O'Dean and Mick went off to their own. Their walk was mostly in silence, as their relationship was fresh and neither of them really knew the other.

It was warmer today since it was getting closer to summer. Harley wasn't complaining because that meant she didn't have to wear her jackets anymore - although she missed her leather jacket, at least it was a chance to show off her new rose tattoo on her shoulder.

"Are you hungry?" Harley questions, looking up at Nikki.

"Are you?"

"Kind of. There's a good quick place by my job if you wanna go." She suggests.

"Okay, let's go." He agrees, and Harley leads them off into the direction of the building.

"Have you played in a band before?" Nikki asks, knowing of everyone else's musical history, but not Harley's.