Chapter Text
Los Angeles 1976
The day they record, "Honeycomb," feels like one of the longest days in Billy’s short musical career. Longer than 5-hour band practices in his mother’s garage, longer than endless road trips to play shows in shit dive bars across the Northeast and the Midwest, longer than 12-hour days in the studio when the band cut its first album. While this day might not have been literally longer than some of those experiences, it certainly felt metaphorically longer, leaving Billy exhausted to the very depths of his soul.
He started the day frustrated and in a bad mood. He knew that he should have been happy that the label was giving The Six a second chance but all he could fixate on was that Teddy was bringing in some stranger to sing with them, some stranger to sing his song.
For Billy, the music was personal. He was the writer, and the songs were so often tied to his personal experiences, the things that mattered to him. It felt wrong to hand off something so personal to someone else, like giving a piece of himself away. But he trusted Teddy’s musical judgment and well Teddy, Teddy trusted this new artist. So here they were.
When he met Daisy Jones, his first impression was a bad one. He thought she was unprofessional, rolling into the studio late without one fucking word of apology. She was wasting his time, Teddy’s time, the band’s time, and the label’s time. The sheer arrogance of her! He was already angry and on edge and here comes this stranger putting Billy and the band’s second chance at risk. Billy could somewhat admit in the privacy of his own mind that he was the cause of The Six’s blown first chance. But he was trying his best to redeem himself now.
The second thing he noticed was her staggering beauty. Daisy was quite possibly one of the most beautiful women Billy had ever seen. Clad in what was obviously a man’s shirt, bare legged, red wavy hair tumbling down her back, unfathomable wide violet eyes in the face of an angel, she had the kind of undeniable beauty that could drive a man to his knees. And the worst part was that she was clearly aware of it. When she entered the studio, looking as if she had just rolled out of someone’s bed, Billy watched every male head turn to notice her. She acted as if that reaction to her was commonplace, and it probably was.
His teeth were already on edge and that was before he realized that she had never recorded anything before. What the fuck had Teddy been thinking?
But when she had opened her mouth to sing, every single thought in Billy’s angry mind fled. He had heard better voices before but hers was unique with a tone and an ability to convey emotion that immediately left him moved. He felt a jolt of static electricity as they began to sing in unison, something urgent and elemental. Well, at least until he noticed that she changed his lyrics and then he was fucking furious again.
After Teddy had put his temper in check and reminded him that he was running out of chances, Billy forced himself to go back into the studio with her. He was still steaming mad about being forced to record Daisy’s version of the song, but she had taken all the wind out of his sails by her comment about loving his voice. He watched her effortlessly charm every single person in her orbit from Teddy to Tobias and didn’t know what to make of her. He was totally baffled and disarmed by the woman in front of him. Billy’s life was carefully controlled. Control over his desires, his vices, and his routine was what helped him navigate his sobriety. When he felt like he was crawling out of his skin desperate for a drink, he went for a long run. He had a routine around his writing and creative process. The daily routine of having a young child and helping around the house kept his shaking hands and addict's mind busy. Control was everything, control meant survival and not destroying the good life he had built. However, everything about interacting with Daisy Jones was the opposite of control, it left him feeling off-balance. He thought it was unwise and dangerous to add this unstable element to his delicate ecosystem.
As they sang into one mic, in-sync, Billy marvelled at the harmony they created together. As many times as he had performed with The Six, he often felt like it was his performance, and they were simply backing him. Yes, there was collaboration between him and one of Warren’s rare drum solos or Graham’s frequent guitar riffs but so much of the band’s performance was carried by Billy as the front man. Singing with Daisy felt not so much like a duet but like a conversation they were having or maybe an argument? It was as if no one else was around as they performed together and they were simply focused on trying to communicate to each other and not an outside audience who might hear what was recorded that day.
He wasn’t lying when he told Camila that the day had been a nightmare. It had felt that way to Billy as he watched his song about the power of second chances, redemption and love be turned into a lament of romantic uncertainty. That song was about his relationship with Camila and their road to happiness post Julia’s birth, his infidelities and trip to rehab. He fucking hated what Daisy had done to it with her rewrite, and he could not make heads or tails of the unpredictable singer-song writer who he had been forced to collaborate with.
Later, after everyone had left the studio save himself and Teddy, he sat in the booth listening to recordings of the day. He told himself it was because this was such an important opportunity for the band, and he wanted to make sure it turned out well. Instead, he spent an hour listening to Daisy’s isolated vocals trying to figure out the mysteries in her voice. Billy had never responded to another vocalist like this, he wanted, no needed to strip down her voice to all its elements to understand its appeal. If only he could understand what it was about her voice, he was sure he could control how he reacted to it. After an hour of listening and thinking that produced no answers, he left Runner Records’ studio determined to leave this strange day and Daisy Jones behind.
In the three months between that day in the studio, Billy did his best to shake off the memory of that day. Teddy called him a week after the session to tell him how pleased he was with what they recorded and aside from the band coming in a few times to re-record the backing tracks, there was no need to come in to polish the vocals. He called again a few weeks later to tell him how much the label loved the track and that they were planning to release it as soon as possible.
Less than three months after that call, “Honeycomb” by the Six (featuring Daisy Jones) was on the airwaves. Suddenly it was everywhere. The song was impossible to avoid, even in his own damn home. Camila loved the new version of the song and turned up the radio every time it played. When Billy was alone and "Honeycomb," was on the radio, he would turn it off immediately. He didn’t want to remember that day or listen to how Daisy casually upended the song, destroying its original meaning.
At first, Camila was sweet, loving, and understanding. She would gently tease him about artistic integrity batting his desire for success, but she could just not understand why he resented the song so much and became increasingly annoyed at his behaviour. He tried his best to moderate his reaction to it after that. He couldn’t be happy at the song’s success because he could not separate it from what made it successful which was Daisy and her presence and rewrite. Being tied to Daisy Jones in any way seemed unsupportable to him.
One night as Camila and Julia lay asleep upstairs and Billy did the last of the dishes in the sink with the radio turned on low in the background, Honeycomb began to play. Billy forced himself to listen to the song all the way through, forced himself to hear Daisy’s beautiful, heartbreaking voice and notice how the rise and fall of her vocals moved in perfect harmony with his. As if she was filling the blank spaces inside his songs that he’d never noticed existed until her. As if he’d been waiting this whole time for her to show up and complete him. As if he was a melody by itself that needed her to form a harmony. And now that he knew these spaces existed inside himself and his art, how the fuck was he ever supposed to go forward with this new knowledge of what he had been lacking?
Every time the “Honeycomb” played; he was reminded of these things when all he wanted to do was look away from them. So yeah, he hated that song and every damn radio that played it.