All Of You

The Beginning

Hello to my lovely readers, I know some of you have read this - or parts of this before - but I really wanted to add to it and make it a separate story. This has been going round in my head for weeks, which is why you haven't had a proper chapter on H&H yet. I just had to get this out of my head first. I would love it if you could please vote and comment on it. Rx

The picture at the side is of punts sailing up and down the River Cam, this is what Nick was trying to steal in his drunkeness.

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God what a bloody performance!
Everything had gone tits up, some of the lights had failed, Pete's mic had failed, Stevie kept missing his cue, his mind on other things like why his long standing girlfriend had unceremoniously dumped him with a text ten minutes before showtime. There would be words about that afterwards and the performers mantra 'the show must go on' echoed between them all.

Gabriel crashed his cymbal and glanced up at his frontman Nick. He could tell just by the expression in his eyes that he was livid, that, and the fact that he was strutting around the stage like a fusion of Mick Jagger and some outraged cockerel - although there wasn't a great deal of difference once Mick got going.

Nick glanced at him, trying to send signals to him to get a move on and hurry the song, but Gabriel never missed a beat, this wasn't a song that be hurried. Another verse and then Pete did his guitar solo and they could have three minutes backstage to put dry shirts on and have a drink.

The lights went out before a single spotlight on Pete, and Gabriel ran backstage, ripping his t shirt off as he did so. Someone put a towel around his shoulders and dried the sweat running like a river down his back. Someone else pressed a bottle of water into his hand half of which he drank and the rest went over his head. He pulled the towel up and rubbed his hair and face dry. Gary his assistant passed him a clean shirt and replaced the water bottle with a glass of Grey Goose.

"Cheers mate." Gabriel took a swig of the vodka and looked around for Nick he could hear his voice snarling at the stage manager. The poor man would be having nightmares for weeks after Nick's dressing down.

Stevie looked abysmal, his tech was checking the strings on his guitar and trying to reassure him that Karen would be back,

"It's just a girl thing mate, you've been away and she needs reassurance that you aren't shagging your way around Europe."

"Get me a flight now, I don't care how much it costs," was Stevie's only reply. "Hire a fucking plane if you have to," he said snatching the guitar back. He pushed past Gabriel and went to stand at the edge of the stage, he like to watch Pete and was always ready to rib him on his performance.

Gabriel judged he had another ninety seconds before he had to be back on stage, he went to see if he could rescue the stage manager before Nick either had him in tears or before he really lost his temper and thumped him.

"Come on mate," Gabriel said pulling Nick away, and handing him the rest of his drink.

"Fucking stupid arsehole," Nick muttered as he brought the plastic glass up to drink the vodka, he downed the drink and helped himself to more from the bottle of Grey Goose sitting on the top of a drum case. He downed that one too, filled the glass again and walked on stage still drinking he parked it on top of the piano, and glancing over his shoulder to see if Gabriel had reached his drums he then began the intro for the next song.

Gabriel prayed that nothing else would go wrong, the things that had happened were really just minor things, but it caused a reaction in them. They were the ultimate perfectionist where shows were concerned, and these incidents made them all jumpy, and instead of being relaxed and enjoying doing the show they were now tense and anxious which didn't improve the playing.