Chapter Text
we believed we’d catch the rainbow
ride the wind to the sun
sail away on ships of wonder
but life’s not a wheel
with chains made of steel
so bless me
-
…
Chicago, 1979
It was far too late.
Camila had left. She was most definitely gone. Julia may legally belong to Billy, but that won’t last long. He knows this. And yet, he can’t stop thinking about her.
She’s right in front of him and yet she feels a million miles away. He slowly walks toward her, feeling every second as if it were a thousand hours. He was so close, they were so close-
The crowd cheers and screams and they can hear hundreds of people chant “Look At Us Now! Look At Us Now!”. They nearly pull away, bringing themselves back to reality, but don’t. They know what they’re doing. Billy feels that the weight of his family only pulls him closer. He has so much responsibility, and yet it could be so easy with her. He doesn’t need a family. All he needs is her.
They feel their lips touch, and the first few seconds feel like nothing. They’ve done this before, grazed their lips, felt each other so closely that Billy was basically cheating on Camila. But nothing like this. Daisy pulls him in harder, knowing this is all her. The coke has worn off from her, but she has a new supplier now.
Billy knows she can smell the whiskey off of him, and he can tell she had coke earlier today. And yet, that doesn’t seem to bother her, so why should it bother him? They have each other now. He doesn’t need to drink. He just needs her against him. They don’t care about anything around them. The fact that there are thousands of people watching as well as the news reporters they know will out them doesn’t bother them. The fact that their best friends, their family are watching them betray their lives for each other doesn’t bother them. Nothing matters when you’re in love.
And the kiss feels like forever and nothing at all. It is meant to be, it was going to happen- of course, they didn’t expect it to be here, to be now, but after all this time, they can’t keep their hands off of each other.
Finally, someone breaks the silence.
“You all wanna hear one more song?” Eddie asks the crowd, picking up Billy’s mic. He isn’t going to use it anyway. The crowd goes wild and Daisy and Billy finally break from their trance. They can suddenly feel everyone watching them and judging them. The drugs and alcohol aren’t making it better.
Billy grabs Daisy’s mic and looks at her. He knows what he has to do.
“How about Look At Us Now?”
-
The music ramps up and everyone can feel the tension rising. Eddie is mad at Billy, Karen and Graham are furious with each other, and Warren has no idea how to feel about what he just saw. Billy just betrayed his wife and daughter - his Aurora - for Daisy. And Daisy’s drugs are wearing off.
And, of course, Daisy and Billy are staring at each other the entire time.
“I don’t know who I am / Baby, baby, baby / Do you know who you are? / Is it out of our hands?” Billy sings, and for once he realises Daisy made the song much better. She made the song something that it wasn’t, but she made it something terribly beautiful. She made a song about them. Their wonderful broken love. And it was about Camila. Camila and Billy are done, ruined forever. But Billy singing this song - right here, right now - helps him accept that. They ruined a great thing, but Camila and Billy were already falling out. Ever since he laid eyes on Daisy, he knew that her words rang true.
“Oh, we could make a good thing bad / Oh, we could make a good thing bad,” Daisy sings, looking at Billy. They did just that, and yet she feels pain for feeling relieved of it all. Camila is gone, and she’s never coming back. She just ruined a marriage, no, a family, and yet, here she stands, the winner of Billy’s heart and his creative partner. She doesn’t like to think that she “won” someone over, and yet she can’t stop thinking about the fact that Billy is hers. He can’t run back to Camila anymore. He has to rely on her, just like she has always had to rely on him.
“How did we get here? How do we get out? / We used to be somethin' to see / Oh, baby, look at us now / Oh, baby, look at us now…” They sang in unison, their voices clashing perfectly. Their harmonies are nearly natural, and they both remember singing this part together the first time, knowing it didn’t need much work. They click together and read lyrics thinking of how the other person would sing it, making every note they sing intentional. Daisy thinks of herself and how many people idolise her. People shouldn’t want her life. She got addicted and nearly died. She can barely get out of bed without dropping some acid or taking a whiff of coke. Even these past few days have been difficult while she’s been sober; she relapsed just before the show. When did she become this way? The day she walked onto the Strip? The night she went to see The Byrds and The Doors at the Whiskey, the first time she had serious drugs? The day Teddy said Daisy had potential? Or the day she met Billy?
She can never be sure. Maybe her entire life was leading up to this moment with him. Maybe they are meant to be, or maybe he made the wrong decision by staying with her. I’ll be good to him, she thinks. He won’t regret this.
-
The song ends and the audience goes wild. The Six aren’t sure if it’s because of Daisy and Billy’s kiss, the iconic “Honeycomb” that they just performed, or the fact that they just played the best damn show of their entire career. It was probably a mix of all three.