looks like we made it;
❛ LONG STORY SHORT ❜
❝ it's me ❞
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Camila left the following Sunday morning and Eddie and Ellie have yet to have a conversation about the things Eddie said to her that night at the party. Ellie was sure that she wanted to try and have something with him but he was the only constant thing in her life and somebody she could not bear to live without. If their relationship failed, she would lose her best friend. She did not want to be the one to bring up their conversation because she was afraid that he did not mean it.
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ELLIE: It was impossible for me to pretend that Daisy was okay. She changed somehow. She looked more off the rails than ever. Each night, she got worse. From missing rehearsals and sound checks to doing lines on-stage.
BILLY: She changed. And not for the better.
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Groupies were standing in the small doorway with beers in their hands and smirks on their faces. They were eying up the bandmates, silently waiting for a perfect moment to strike. It almost made Ellie uncomfortable.
A giggling redhead walked over to the band and offered Ellie a drink since she was the only one empty-handed. Ellie gaped at her for a second before she took the cup out of her hand and gave her a thankful tight-lipped smile. Eddie noticed the exchange from next to her and subtly took the cup from her which she gave him without any arguments. She let out a sigh of relief and relaxed once again.
Warren groaned in defeat when Graham brushed past the groupie without sparing her another glance. Eddie sighed, almost sad that he won, "All right, come on, give me twenty bucks."
The drummer passed him a twenty-dollar bill. Ellie chuckled at the astonished look on her little brother's face. He looked between her, Warren, and Eddie in disbelief and asked, "Oh, so that was a bet?"
Graham did not hook up with any groupie the entire tour which lasted for almost a year at that point. During their first tour, he was having a blast with plenty of girls. Warren was with a different girl each night and Eddie sometimes indulged in their company but Graham looked as if someone threw him into a haunted house rather than a bus filled with girls who wanted to sleep with him.
"You know they got medicine now that could fix all that up for you, man?" Eddie teased him with a grin on his face.
"No, nobody has VD for a whole year."
Ellie groaned at Warren's retort and leaned back on the couch. "You guys are the worst. Give him a break."
"Well, then what could it be?" Eddie asked loudly. "Are you into dudes now, or something?"
Graham huffed, his face falling. "Look, I don't have to explain myself to you guys, all right?"
"It's okay if you are, you know." Eddie quickly added, afraid that he sounded a little too judgy. He offered him a sheepish grin. "I'd still love you, man."
Warren nodded, balancing the random blonde woman in his lap. "I mean, me too. Just not like that."
Ellie let out a breathy chuckle while the two (clearly intoxicated) men on her couch cackled like what he said was the funniest thing they had ever heard.
"Guys, he is not into dudes," Karen spoke up, silencing the three of her bandmates and the women surrounding them. "And his dick is...it's perfect."
Excuse me? Ellie's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Karen looked her in the eye despite her anxiety and announced, "We've been screwing since the album sessions." She looked at Warren and Eddie. "In the studio, in the car."
"Karen." Graham scolded her because his big sister was right fucking there and Karen was her ex-girlfriend.
Karen completely ignored him and continued. "On this bus. You guys have just been too up your own fucking asses to notice."
While Ellie was stunned into silence, not believing how her own fucking brother could get into a relationship (if you could even call it that) with her ex-girlfriend behind her back; Eddie and Warren simply burst out laughing. They thought that Karen was just making the story up to save his dignity.
"You don't believe me?" Karen scoffed and got to her feet. Her boyfriend gave her a warning look but she ignored it and kissed him in front of everybody. He leaned against the wall and placed his hands on her waist. The couple was still making out and they were slowly disappearing down the hall as they did.
"Are they fucking kidding me?"
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KAREN: I can admit that it was not my proudest moment.
ELLIE: I was upset because my brother lied to me for more than a year and because he was dating my ex-girlfriend without talking to me about it first.
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Eddie's face fell once he realized that Karen and Graham were, in fact, not just fucking with them. He watched Ellie storm out of the bus and went after her almost immediately.
She was a few steps ahead of him and barely registered him getting out of the bus to go after her. The blonde took out her cigarette and lighter before sitting on a small wall on the side of the road. She looked up at him and sighed. "I'm not jealous or upset." He nodded and shuffled on his feet before sitting down next to her in silence. "I'm just angry. Why couldn't he just tell me? I'm his sister, for fuck's sake. I would have been happy for him but this just pissed me off. Does no one trust me with important things anymore?" She scoffed and brushed her hair away from her face. "Did I just become this volcano who people constantly walk on eggshells around because they think that I am ready to burst at any moment?"
"No." Eddie immediately shook his head. "You're not fragile and you are not a ticking bomb. Graham is just a pussy who probably didn't want Karen to tell anyone anything. He thought that he was going to hurt you."
"He only did that because he kept that a secret," Ellie stated. "I have been over Karen for ages. I would not have cared."
"You have every right to be angry at him for hiding his feelings."
Ellie's breath hitched at his words and she stayed quiet for a moment. She wanted to be completely honest with him even if that meant that things would never be the same after that.
"You do too," Ellie said, causing his eyebrows to raise. He opened his mouth to ask her what she was talking about when she interrupted him. "Last Friday, you asked me if you ever had a chance with me and I didn't give you an answer. But you do. I was just terrified of the possibility that we would no longer be friends in the future. Because I can't live without you. You are too important to me."
Eddie's smile was bigger and more genuine than she had ever seen. He cupped her cheeks with both of his hands and kissed her. The cigarette in her hand fell onto the ground and her hands wrapped around his neck. The kiss was nothing short of sweet. So many years of longing, desire, and love were pushing into it. After Eddie spent so many years pretending not to be in love with her, he was finally at peace.
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"You can't tell me you don't see it," Billy whispered to Ellie when he sat down to sit next to her in the stadium cafeteria. "She's tripping on stage, she's mixing up the lyrics."
Ellie sat down her fork and said, "Billy. You and I are the only sober people on this tour. That means that we notice things that others clearly don't. But what am I supposed to do about it? She isn't going to listen to me. She fucking hates me."
"Well, do you hate her?"
The question stunned her. She resented Daisy for a long time. She resented her for being a better version of her but still being messed up enough to let their relationship crash and burn. But did she hate her yet? She was not so sure.
"Hate is a big fucking word, Billy." Was all she said, her gaze glued to the full plate before her. She did not dare to look him in the eye. Billy was emotionally dull but he could still read her like an open book.
"Do you hate her enough to let her do this to herself? At least talk to Nicky about it."
Ellie's short and silent look was enough of an answer for him. She huffed and got up from the desk to head toward Nicky the second Daisy left the room. She doubted that Daisy would listen to her. She knew that she would not listen to herself back when she was in the same boat as Daisy, which was why she figured that talking to Nicky would be the safer option. However, a small part of her believed that he was the one pushing her limits when it came to drugs.
She walked up to him and did not even sit down when she said, "She needs to lay off the drugs. She looks half-dead every second of every day and everybody can see it when she performs."
Nicky surprised the blonde by giving her a mocking laugh in response. He did not even both to look at her. "Don't act like you care."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Nicky got up from his seat and pushed past Ellie. He turned around so he had her cornered between his chair and the table. Ellie's breath hitched but she met his gaze with a glare of her own.
He chuckled at the fact that she was immediately getting defensive. "You just want her to need you. That's all you care about. You see, she doesn't need you. It must kill you, doesn't it?"
"She does not need either of us, Prince Charming." Ellie deadpanned. "She needs help. She needs to get clean before this gets worse. This isn't about you. This is about her."
Nicky grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her aside. "You need to leave."
"Don't fucking touch me." Ellie almost hissed and slapped his hand away. Her voice was louder than intended so it was quick to catch the attention of her bandmates. Billy was on his feet the second he saw Nicky lay his hands on his sister.
"Or what?" Nicky taunted.
Billy walked up to them from behind Nicky. His jaw was clenched when he grabbed Nicky by the shoulders in order to pull him off of Ellie. Nicky's eyes flashed in surprise at the sight of him and he tried to take a step back but was stopped when Billy grabbed him by his collar.
"Or I will knock your fucking teeth out, that's what."
Nicky laughed in his face and nodded in a mocking manner. "Okay."
"Oh, is that funny?" Billy raised an eyebrow. Nicky nodded and he took a step closer. "Is that funny? You think you're somebody because of your silk shirts and your fancy shoes. You're shit man. You're nothing. And you'd be no one without her."
Nicky never faltered. He raised his chin and looked between the oldest Dunne siblings. "I guess that makes three of us then, doesn't it?"
Ellie did not even get a chance to blink before Billy threw the first punch. He hit the asshole straight across the face and he responded with two punches of his own. She jumped out of the way and watched her brother throw Nicky onto the table with wide eyes. The table broke and everything on it came flying in front of Warren's feet, including Nicky. Instead of helping or getting involved, Warren kept chewing on his meal.
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WARREN: I'd been wanting to punch that royal prick since Tulsa.
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"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Daisy asked, running into the room to see Nicky lying on the floor as Rod pulled Billy off of him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Everybody calm down." Rod cooed like they were a bunch of children. "We still got a show to do."
"Fuck this." Billy muttered and walked out of the room. Ellie wordlessly followed after him.
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ELLIE: We were in Miami that night and it was a fucking disaster. Daisy was a walking corpse and I had to keep as much attention off of her as I could. As you know (laughs) that is pretty hard.
GRAHAM: Something was off from the beginning.
WARREN: I mean, he did punch her husband in the face and Ellie did take his side.
KAREN: It was really bad energy. We just needed to get through it.
ELLIE: She almost fainted during The River. Billy dragged her off the stage and I had to finish the song alone. People started chanting her name and, for a moment, I felt like I was never going to make it as a solo artist because people were always going to compare me to her after Aurora. The crowd cheered when she ran back onto the stage but I almost threw up because she was bleeding from the new wound on her leg and she looked like an entirely different person.
She shushed the crowd and my blood ran cold when she opened her mouth. She started singing Look At Us Now. Everyone was stunned because that song was not on the fucking set-list. Billy was pissed because she was spitting in his face after everything he did to try and help her addiction. So, he stormed off the stage.
When we got to the hotel, Billy was ready to kick her out of the band without speaking to the rest of them about it. I promised him that I would talk to her and make her get her shit together.
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"I need to talk to Daisy." Ellie told Nicky when he opened the hotel room door halfway.
"Everything is fine." He panted. "Okay. She's fine. Just go." It was only then when Ellie read the panicked look on his face. She and Rod shared a concerned look. Nicky pleaded, "Go, please."
Ellie glared at him and pushed the door open further before she brushed past him and walked inside. Her blue eyes were wide in panic and she called out Daisy's name fearfully. She frantically looked around the room in hopes that she would be there, looking at her with an annoyed look on her face. Instead, she saw her lying on the floor of the shower. Unconscious and on her back.
She muttered her name under her breath and ran toward her. She cupped her face in the palms of her hands and tried to shake her awake. "Daisy. Wake up. Come on, this isn't a joke." When she did not move an inch, Ellie yelled, "Rod call the fucking ambulance! She isn't breathing!"
Her voice broke midway through her sentence. She wondered if that was how her friends, her family felt when she would blackout.
Ellie did not register anything that happened after. She heard Rod make some sort of phone call, but that was it. She could only focus on Daisy's face which showed no signs of life.
"Come on, Daisy. Stay with me. Stay with me."
Her skin was cold despite the middle of summer. Ellie's vision was getting blurry from the tears in her eyes but she swore that she would never forget the sight in front of her. It would haunt her nightmare for years to come.
She took a deep breath and looked up to see Rod pacing around the room. For a second, she wondered where Nicky ran off to but then she realized it was better if he ran off like a coward. When she looked down, Daisy's dull eyes were open and looking up at her. She looked like she thought that she was dreaming or dead.
"It's you." Daisy muttered in awe and Ellie felt like a weight came off of her shoulders.
Ellie rested her forehead against hers and whispered, "It's me."
At her words, Daisy completely relaxed. She sunk into the warmth of Ellie's body and closed her eyes once again.
a/n: Camila and Eddie taking Ellie and Billy's drinks is a barely noticeable moment but I put it there to point out just how similar their relationships are. and, yeah, Camila is way too good for Billy but, in the end, she's the love of his life and his rock. She might not be the person who understands him the most but she's the only person who he can't live without. The same goes for Ellie and Eddie
This is peak Billy and Ellie, okay? It only gets worse after this.