Work Text:
The tour bus rattles down some nameless Midwestern highway, its engine humming like a lazy housefly against the summer heat. The fields blur by, golden with oats. Billy sprawls across the leather bench seat, one boot propped on Eddie’s thigh, picking at the rhinestones peeling off his jacket with the focus of a bored housecat. Eddie’s got his guitar across his lap—always the guitar, even when they’re technically off the clock—but his fingers aren’t moving.
"You know me, Eddie," Billy says, flicking a loose sequin at the window. It bounces off with a sad little plink. "I don’t take any shit." He stretches, arching his back like he’s about to pounce, then collapses sideways onto Eddie’s shoulder. "You know what I say to my haters?"
Eddie doesn’t look up from tuning the low E string—it’s been bugging him for miles—but his mouth twitches. "What?"
Billy grins, all teeth and mischief, the same expression he’s been wearing since they first crashed into each other backstage in ’84. He leans in, whispering like it’s some grand secret: "I say: Please don’t hate me, I’m really nice."
Eddie’s fingers freeze. He tilts his head, slow, like he’s waiting for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, he exhales through his nose. "William Michael Albert Idol." His voice is flat, but there’s laughter tucked into the corners. "You do not."
Billy’s laugh ricochets off the bus walls, loud enough to startle their drummer awake in the back. He rolls onto Eddie, pressing their foreheads together.
"You wound me," he gasps, clutching his chest like a Victorian widow.
Eddie shoves him off, but he’s grinning now, too—because Billy’s full of it, always has been, and that’s half the reason Eddie loves him. Billy steals Eddie’s pick mid-strum, and the argument starts all over again.