My Interests Collided (The Monkees: Mike Nesmith & Davy Jones (friendship/TV personas); Humiliation)
Title: My Interests Collided
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: The Monkees: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones (platonic/friendship; fictional personas from the show only!)
Table: DIY
Prompt: Humiliation
Rating: PG
Summary: Addendum to the "Monkees In the Ring" episode. Unfortunately, Davy's troubles didn't end after that last match...
Cross-posted to FFN and monkeesfic.
Notes: This was pretty much inspired by all the Monkees-induced excitement this week, and based on “Monkees in the Ring,” since there seemed to be one unresolved angle. Hopefully, this’ll tide my readers over until tomorrow’s update of Red Sky.
**************************************
For Mike, it was another one of those nights-those nights where, no matter how tired a person was, sleep just wasn’t within reach. The last few weeks had been like that, actually-ever since Davy had attempted a career in boxing. Mike was convinced that Davy was only going get himself beaten up when he went on that boxing tour that Sholto had taken him on-and there had been little Mike could do other than wait in the Pad with Micky and Peter, realizing just how empty the place was without Davy there. And though the English boy made it a point to call them up whenever he had the chance, it didn’t stop them all from worrying about him.
Of course, the other three found out that they made more than enough reason to fear for their younger friend; not only had Sholto had fixed the fights, but Davy had been subsequently lulled into overconfidence. And then Mike and the others found out that Davy was set to lose against the champ.
Somehow, the other three had managed to outsmart Sholto and his crony in time to save Davy and uncover the scam. And now they were home once again, able to worry about normal things-like where their next gig was coming from.
With Davy safe with them once again, Mike should’ve been able to sleep. But, that night, roommate Micky seemed to be in the midst of a highly intense dream involving bandits running off with his pizza, and Mike found himself waking up every five minutes as Micky cursed the Pizza Bandits in his sleep.
The exasperated and exhausted Texan now resorted to wrapping his pillow around his ears. This finally brought him some relief, but his sleep didn’t last long. Mike eventually found himself being roughly awakened by someone shaking his shoulder. He promptly let out an annoyed groan.
“Mike?” Peter’s voice asked, sounding worried. “Hey, Mike, can you hear me?”
“What?” the vexed Texan asked, still trying to keep his eyes shut.
“Have you seen Davy anywhere?”
Mike now opened his eyes for the sole purpose of glaring at the blond as he stood there in his bathrobe.
“Peter, do you know what time it is?”
“Sure; it’s 5 in the morning.”
“I have spent the last six hours trying to sleep, with limited success thanks to Micky and his Pizza Bandit dream-”
Micky obligingly illustrated the Texan’s point by letting out a quick lament to the fact that the bandits had apparently taken his cheesy bread, too.
“Does it look like I’ve had the chance to see Davy?” Mike continued. “Why are you even asking me, anyway?”
“Because he’s missing.”
Mike sat bolt upright now.
“What?!” he exclaimed.
“I don’t know when it happened,” Peter said, almost frantically. “I just got up to get a drink of water, and he wasn’t in his bed. I guess I thought he went to get a drink, too, but… I couldn’t find him anywhere; he’s vanished-!”
“My deep dish!” Micky howled in his sleep.
Mike gave the brunet a long look.
“Wake him up,” the Texan ordered the blond. “Then bring him downstairs; I’m going to look for clues.”
Peter nodded as Mike grabbed his bathrobe and headed down the spiral stairwell. Neither the front door nor the back door showed any signs of a forced entry. Mike had been worried that one of Sholto’s flunkies that hadn’t been arrested might’ve taken Davy out of retaliation for Sholto’s arrest.
Therefore, Davy must have left of his own accord. But where? And why would he leave without telling them?
Glancing at the table where they usually ate their meals, Mike noticed the early morning paper resting there, open, as though it had been read. The Texan scratched his head, wondering why Davy would find it necessary to presumably go out to get the morning paper, come back, read it, and then leave again; even if there had been some sale, the stores wouldn’t have been open anyway.
Mike paged through the paper, trying to find some sort of clue. The headlines didn’t reveal anything-neither did the entertainment, business, or editorial sections. And the comics certainly had nothing in them, either.
But as Mike took a closer look, he realized that something was missing.
“Where’s the sports section?” he murmured to himself, looking around for it, but finding it nowhere.
He walked over to the small kitchen area, wondering if Davy had left it there while looking for something to eat. But as Mike’s gaze glanced over the wastebasket, he paused, noticing the crumpled-up ball of newspaper stuffed inside it. It was the sports section, and Mike slowly un-crumpled it to reveal a glaring headline in big, block letters:
"Dynamite” Davy Jones a Sham!
“…Oh, boy…” Mike said, wincing.
The reporter was brutal in his coverage of Davy’s fall from grace, somehow trying to make the English boy seem like a glory-seeker who had somehow put Sholto up to the scam while dodging punishment himself.
Mike was just finishing up with the article as Peter led the bleary-eyed Micky down the stairs.
“Find any clues?”
“Just this,” Mike said, handing them the paper. “Found it in the trash can; Davy must’ve read it.”
“Oh, Man…” Micky said.
“I was thinking along the same lines,” Mike said.
“But where did he go?!” Peter exclaimed.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to have to look for him before something happens to him,” the Texan said.
“Well, I’ve noticed that whenever he gets upset, he usually goes for a walk along the beach,” Micky said, after a moment. “It’s like the ocean gives him comfort. …Must be ‘cause of his name…”
Mike gave Micky a look, wondering why he hadn’t made that deduction himself.
“Okay,” he said. “Pete, you look up the beach. Mick, you look around the boardwalk. I’ll look down the beach.”
“Right!” the others exclaimed in unison.
There was no time to change; still in their bathrobes, the three headed out the back door.
**************************************
For a while, Mike saw nothing as he headed down the beach. But then he heard something from up ahead, just beyond some large rocks.
It was then that Mike realized he had found his missing roommate; illuminated by the light reflected from the setting moon, Davy had his boxing gloves on, mercilessly beating the stuffing out of a homemade punching bag-a small sack filled with sand that he had tied between two large rocks.
The English boy didn’t even notice Mike standing there, and Mike was too taken aback by the sight to say anything; he just stood where he was at, watching as Davy continued to pummel the sandbag, his strikes punctuated by grunts of effort.
The younger boy eventually paused from exhaustion, standing there drenched with sweat as he inhaled and exhaled. His eyes didn’t waver from the sandbag. Only about fifteen seconds had passed before the moonlight revealed his lip curling into a sneer, and he furiously began to pummel the sandbag again.
By that point, Mike had seen enough.
“Okay, that’s it! Stop!” he ordered, running over to him. But Davy either didn’t hear him or just ignored him and kept on beating up the sandbag. Mike now seized the younger boy’s right arm. “Stop!”
“I won’t stop!” Davy snarled back, continuing to wallop the sandbag with his left arm while struggling to pull away from Mike. “I’ll show ‘em all!”
“Show ‘em all what?! That you’ve gone absolutely insane?!”
“That I didn’t lie!” Davy retorted, successfully wrenching his arm free from Mike’s grip and resuming the pummeling of the sandbag. “That I had nothing to do with Sholto’s scheme! That I have talent at this!” He now punctuated the next sentence with a furious punch to the sandbag after each word. “That-” Punch. “I-” Punch. “Am-” Punch. “Not-” Punch. “A-” Punch. SHAM!” The last word escaped his lips as an enraged scream.
Mike now had to take a step back from him, concerned that he was going to take a hit from the flying fists. He could only stare, open-mouthed. What had happened to the Davy he knew? This… this was not his cherished friend and bandmate! He had only told the boy last night that his strength was in who he was inside:
“Maybe you're not a great boxer. But you're gentle and you're kind and you're sincere…”
There was none of that anymore, Mike realized-the dark look in Davy’s eyes… the sneer… the hatred… That had never been there before. This wasn’t the Davy Jones he knew; this was some complete stranger!
“What have they done to you…?” he whispered, more to himself than to Davy.
Davy was oblivious to the shocked, hurt look on the Texan’s face; he continued with his rant.
“They’ll never doubt me again!” he vowed, his eyes ablaze like a man possessed. “They’ll see that I can hold my own, and that I can do it legit!”
“Well…” Mike said, frowning as the words stung him. “If that’s what you really want, then I have to admit that I’m quite disappointed. I would have thought our little talk last night settled all this, didn’t it?” He stared back at Davy, who continued to pummel the sand bag as though Mike wasn’t even there. “Excuse me for thinking that my words actually meant something to you!”
Mike had intended to turn around and leave Davy to his apparently newfound destiny, but he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t bring himself to, knowing that this wasn’t who his friend truly was.
“Look, Man; I know what this is about,” Mike said. “This isn’t about you fulfilling some secret dream of being a boxer. That isn’t you, and you know it! This is about the humiliation that was dumped on you, isn’t it?”
Davy stopped in mid-punch for a moment, and that was enough to confirm Mike’s suspicions. But the English boy soon resumed beating up the sandbag again, furious.
“I’ll make them eat their words!” he howled. “Every-” Punch. “Last-” Punch. “One!”
Before he could land the final hit on the sandbag to punctuate his sentence, Mike grabbed his arm again. Davy tried to pull away again, and Mike responded by drawing the English boy into a hug as a spontaneous, last-ditch attempt to get him to calm down.
To his surprise, it seemed to work. Davy’s anger dissipated from him as he seemed to grasp only now that Mike was standing there in front of him.
“Mike…?” he asked.
Mike released him from the embrace to look at him.
“…It’s you,” he said, softly, recognizing that this was the cherished friend he knew and loved.
Davy looked from Mike to the punching bag.
“I… I’m so sorry, Mike. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do,” the Texan sighed, drawing his arm around the English boy. “Believe me, I know how you feel.”
Davy gave him a skeptical look.
“Oh, come on,” Mike said. “You think I didn’t feel humiliated when I made an idiot of myself in front of Joanie Jans?”
“They didn’t blather about it in the paper with a headline like that, did they?” Davy pointed out. “So that people will read it and look down on you everywhere you go for the rest of your life?”
“Well, no…” Mike admitted. “Okay, maybe I don’t know what you’re going through. I’m sorry.”
“See?”
Mike sighed.
“Yeah, I do see. So… this is what you want, huh? You want to show the world that you can be a prizefighter? I’m just asking since it seems to be your new dream since the last few weeks. I mean… how long has it been since you picked up the tambourine? Or even sang a note?”
Davy looked to Mike in surprise, realizing that he hadn’t even thought about music since meeting Sholto.
“Not since this started…” he admitted.
“You need to ask yourself a very important question, then,” Mike said. “How do you want to deal with what that paper said? You going to prove them wrong by beating people up for the rest of your life? Or are you going to prove them wrong by knocking them out with the power of that voice of yours instead? Because let me tell you something, Davy-what you’ve got here…” He gently placed his finger over Davy’s throat, right where his vocal chords would be. “That’s no sham.”
“I… I guess you’re right…” Davy admitted. “But can I even do that anymore? I mean… they’ll recognize me from the paper and think my singing is nothing but a sham, too, even if it isn’t.” He cringed at the thought. “I’ll drag the band down! I might as well just-”
Mike clapped a hand over Davy’s mouth, refusing to let him continue.
“Look, Tiny,” he said, after releasing him. “Are you expecting me to say, ‘I’m your friend, so I’m going to support whatever choice you make, even if it means quitting the band?’ Is that what you want to hear from me? Well, too bad-because you’re not going to hear it. You’re not quitting the band; I won’t let you.” He pulled the boxing gloves off of Davy’s hands and threw them down into the sand. “And you can’t play a tambourine with those on, so they’ve gotta go; you got that?”
Davy stared at the gloves lying on the sand for a moment before looking up at Mike, his expression unreadable. Mike tensed, not sure if any leftover rage would now be directed at him for what he had just done.
But his fears were unfounded; now, it was Davy’s turn to spontaneously hug, and Mike just smiled and hugged him back, glad that he had finally gotten through to him.
“Mike, I’m sorry… I’d wanted a snack, and then I got bored, so I went to get a paper, to read while I was eating, thinking they’d have written about us stopping Sholto’s scheme. I… I didn’t expect such a brutal-”
“Hey, it’s fine,” Mike said. “Just… leave a note the next time you run off somewhere, okay?”
“There won’t be a next time,” Davy promised.
“And I’m glad to hear that, Tiny.”
They were soon aware of Micky and Peter calling for the both of them, who had, obviously, found nothing and had been concerned at losing track of Mike, too. Davy and Mike called back to them, and soon, the four were together again.
“Davy, don’t you ever do that again!” Micky chided. “You had us scared out of our minds!”
“What he means is, ‘Is everything okay?’” Peter asked, softly.
Davy smiled.
“Yes; I believe it is,” he said, as Mike gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “And I promise-no more pre-dawn practice boxing sessions. Actually, no more practice boxing sessions for me at all.”
“And no taking a leave of absence from the band, either-no matter what people will think,” Mike said. “And I’m not the only one who thinks that, right?”
“Of course you’re not the only one!” Micky said. “We won’t let ya quit!”
“If you go, we go!” Peter declared.
Davy cleared his throat, trying to fight against the lump forming there.
“Thanks, fellas,” he said, softly.
It was as though being freed from the gloves had freed him from the cloud he had cast around himself. He was no boxer. And, deep down, he knew he didn’t want to be one. But he hadn’t been sure if he’d have been able to take the whispers and pointing fingers whenever he would have to play at another gig-and he hadn’t wanted to put his bandmates through that, either. But here was Mike, leader and friend, refusing to even consider the idea of Davy taking a hiatus from the band-a decision firmly backed up by Micky and Peter, his two other best friends.
And that had made all the difference in the world.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: The Monkees: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones (platonic/friendship; fictional personas from the show only!)
Table: DIY
Prompt: Humiliation
Rating: PG
Summary: Addendum to the "Monkees In the Ring" episode. Unfortunately, Davy's troubles didn't end after that last match...
Cross-posted to FFN and monkeesfic.
Notes: This was pretty much inspired by all the Monkees-induced excitement this week, and based on “Monkees in the Ring,” since there seemed to be one unresolved angle. Hopefully, this’ll tide my readers over until tomorrow’s update of Red Sky.
**************************************
For Mike, it was another one of those nights-those nights where, no matter how tired a person was, sleep just wasn’t within reach. The last few weeks had been like that, actually-ever since Davy had attempted a career in boxing. Mike was convinced that Davy was only going get himself beaten up when he went on that boxing tour that Sholto had taken him on-and there had been little Mike could do other than wait in the Pad with Micky and Peter, realizing just how empty the place was without Davy there. And though the English boy made it a point to call them up whenever he had the chance, it didn’t stop them all from worrying about him.
Of course, the other three found out that they made more than enough reason to fear for their younger friend; not only had Sholto had fixed the fights, but Davy had been subsequently lulled into overconfidence. And then Mike and the others found out that Davy was set to lose against the champ.
Somehow, the other three had managed to outsmart Sholto and his crony in time to save Davy and uncover the scam. And now they were home once again, able to worry about normal things-like where their next gig was coming from.
With Davy safe with them once again, Mike should’ve been able to sleep. But, that night, roommate Micky seemed to be in the midst of a highly intense dream involving bandits running off with his pizza, and Mike found himself waking up every five minutes as Micky cursed the Pizza Bandits in his sleep.
The exasperated and exhausted Texan now resorted to wrapping his pillow around his ears. This finally brought him some relief, but his sleep didn’t last long. Mike eventually found himself being roughly awakened by someone shaking his shoulder. He promptly let out an annoyed groan.
“Mike?” Peter’s voice asked, sounding worried. “Hey, Mike, can you hear me?”
“What?” the vexed Texan asked, still trying to keep his eyes shut.
“Have you seen Davy anywhere?”
Mike now opened his eyes for the sole purpose of glaring at the blond as he stood there in his bathrobe.
“Peter, do you know what time it is?”
“Sure; it’s 5 in the morning.”
“I have spent the last six hours trying to sleep, with limited success thanks to Micky and his Pizza Bandit dream-”
Micky obligingly illustrated the Texan’s point by letting out a quick lament to the fact that the bandits had apparently taken his cheesy bread, too.
“Does it look like I’ve had the chance to see Davy?” Mike continued. “Why are you even asking me, anyway?”
“Because he’s missing.”
Mike sat bolt upright now.
“What?!” he exclaimed.
“I don’t know when it happened,” Peter said, almost frantically. “I just got up to get a drink of water, and he wasn’t in his bed. I guess I thought he went to get a drink, too, but… I couldn’t find him anywhere; he’s vanished-!”
“My deep dish!” Micky howled in his sleep.
Mike gave the brunet a long look.
“Wake him up,” the Texan ordered the blond. “Then bring him downstairs; I’m going to look for clues.”
Peter nodded as Mike grabbed his bathrobe and headed down the spiral stairwell. Neither the front door nor the back door showed any signs of a forced entry. Mike had been worried that one of Sholto’s flunkies that hadn’t been arrested might’ve taken Davy out of retaliation for Sholto’s arrest.
Therefore, Davy must have left of his own accord. But where? And why would he leave without telling them?
Glancing at the table where they usually ate their meals, Mike noticed the early morning paper resting there, open, as though it had been read. The Texan scratched his head, wondering why Davy would find it necessary to presumably go out to get the morning paper, come back, read it, and then leave again; even if there had been some sale, the stores wouldn’t have been open anyway.
Mike paged through the paper, trying to find some sort of clue. The headlines didn’t reveal anything-neither did the entertainment, business, or editorial sections. And the comics certainly had nothing in them, either.
But as Mike took a closer look, he realized that something was missing.
“Where’s the sports section?” he murmured to himself, looking around for it, but finding it nowhere.
He walked over to the small kitchen area, wondering if Davy had left it there while looking for something to eat. But as Mike’s gaze glanced over the wastebasket, he paused, noticing the crumpled-up ball of newspaper stuffed inside it. It was the sports section, and Mike slowly un-crumpled it to reveal a glaring headline in big, block letters:
"Dynamite” Davy Jones a Sham!
“…Oh, boy…” Mike said, wincing.
The reporter was brutal in his coverage of Davy’s fall from grace, somehow trying to make the English boy seem like a glory-seeker who had somehow put Sholto up to the scam while dodging punishment himself.
Mike was just finishing up with the article as Peter led the bleary-eyed Micky down the stairs.
“Find any clues?”
“Just this,” Mike said, handing them the paper. “Found it in the trash can; Davy must’ve read it.”
“Oh, Man…” Micky said.
“I was thinking along the same lines,” Mike said.
“But where did he go?!” Peter exclaimed.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to have to look for him before something happens to him,” the Texan said.
“Well, I’ve noticed that whenever he gets upset, he usually goes for a walk along the beach,” Micky said, after a moment. “It’s like the ocean gives him comfort. …Must be ‘cause of his name…”
Mike gave Micky a look, wondering why he hadn’t made that deduction himself.
“Okay,” he said. “Pete, you look up the beach. Mick, you look around the boardwalk. I’ll look down the beach.”
“Right!” the others exclaimed in unison.
There was no time to change; still in their bathrobes, the three headed out the back door.
**************************************
For a while, Mike saw nothing as he headed down the beach. But then he heard something from up ahead, just beyond some large rocks.
It was then that Mike realized he had found his missing roommate; illuminated by the light reflected from the setting moon, Davy had his boxing gloves on, mercilessly beating the stuffing out of a homemade punching bag-a small sack filled with sand that he had tied between two large rocks.
The English boy didn’t even notice Mike standing there, and Mike was too taken aback by the sight to say anything; he just stood where he was at, watching as Davy continued to pummel the sandbag, his strikes punctuated by grunts of effort.
The younger boy eventually paused from exhaustion, standing there drenched with sweat as he inhaled and exhaled. His eyes didn’t waver from the sandbag. Only about fifteen seconds had passed before the moonlight revealed his lip curling into a sneer, and he furiously began to pummel the sandbag again.
By that point, Mike had seen enough.
“Okay, that’s it! Stop!” he ordered, running over to him. But Davy either didn’t hear him or just ignored him and kept on beating up the sandbag. Mike now seized the younger boy’s right arm. “Stop!”
“I won’t stop!” Davy snarled back, continuing to wallop the sandbag with his left arm while struggling to pull away from Mike. “I’ll show ‘em all!”
“Show ‘em all what?! That you’ve gone absolutely insane?!”
“That I didn’t lie!” Davy retorted, successfully wrenching his arm free from Mike’s grip and resuming the pummeling of the sandbag. “That I had nothing to do with Sholto’s scheme! That I have talent at this!” He now punctuated the next sentence with a furious punch to the sandbag after each word. “That-” Punch. “I-” Punch. “Am-” Punch. “Not-” Punch. “A-” Punch. SHAM!” The last word escaped his lips as an enraged scream.
Mike now had to take a step back from him, concerned that he was going to take a hit from the flying fists. He could only stare, open-mouthed. What had happened to the Davy he knew? This… this was not his cherished friend and bandmate! He had only told the boy last night that his strength was in who he was inside:
“Maybe you're not a great boxer. But you're gentle and you're kind and you're sincere…”
There was none of that anymore, Mike realized-the dark look in Davy’s eyes… the sneer… the hatred… That had never been there before. This wasn’t the Davy Jones he knew; this was some complete stranger!
“What have they done to you…?” he whispered, more to himself than to Davy.
Davy was oblivious to the shocked, hurt look on the Texan’s face; he continued with his rant.
“They’ll never doubt me again!” he vowed, his eyes ablaze like a man possessed. “They’ll see that I can hold my own, and that I can do it legit!”
“Well…” Mike said, frowning as the words stung him. “If that’s what you really want, then I have to admit that I’m quite disappointed. I would have thought our little talk last night settled all this, didn’t it?” He stared back at Davy, who continued to pummel the sand bag as though Mike wasn’t even there. “Excuse me for thinking that my words actually meant something to you!”
Mike had intended to turn around and leave Davy to his apparently newfound destiny, but he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t bring himself to, knowing that this wasn’t who his friend truly was.
“Look, Man; I know what this is about,” Mike said. “This isn’t about you fulfilling some secret dream of being a boxer. That isn’t you, and you know it! This is about the humiliation that was dumped on you, isn’t it?”
Davy stopped in mid-punch for a moment, and that was enough to confirm Mike’s suspicions. But the English boy soon resumed beating up the sandbag again, furious.
“I’ll make them eat their words!” he howled. “Every-” Punch. “Last-” Punch. “One!”
Before he could land the final hit on the sandbag to punctuate his sentence, Mike grabbed his arm again. Davy tried to pull away again, and Mike responded by drawing the English boy into a hug as a spontaneous, last-ditch attempt to get him to calm down.
To his surprise, it seemed to work. Davy’s anger dissipated from him as he seemed to grasp only now that Mike was standing there in front of him.
“Mike…?” he asked.
Mike released him from the embrace to look at him.
“…It’s you,” he said, softly, recognizing that this was the cherished friend he knew and loved.
Davy looked from Mike to the punching bag.
“I… I’m so sorry, Mike. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do,” the Texan sighed, drawing his arm around the English boy. “Believe me, I know how you feel.”
Davy gave him a skeptical look.
“Oh, come on,” Mike said. “You think I didn’t feel humiliated when I made an idiot of myself in front of Joanie Jans?”
“They didn’t blather about it in the paper with a headline like that, did they?” Davy pointed out. “So that people will read it and look down on you everywhere you go for the rest of your life?”
“Well, no…” Mike admitted. “Okay, maybe I don’t know what you’re going through. I’m sorry.”
“See?”
Mike sighed.
“Yeah, I do see. So… this is what you want, huh? You want to show the world that you can be a prizefighter? I’m just asking since it seems to be your new dream since the last few weeks. I mean… how long has it been since you picked up the tambourine? Or even sang a note?”
Davy looked to Mike in surprise, realizing that he hadn’t even thought about music since meeting Sholto.
“Not since this started…” he admitted.
“You need to ask yourself a very important question, then,” Mike said. “How do you want to deal with what that paper said? You going to prove them wrong by beating people up for the rest of your life? Or are you going to prove them wrong by knocking them out with the power of that voice of yours instead? Because let me tell you something, Davy-what you’ve got here…” He gently placed his finger over Davy’s throat, right where his vocal chords would be. “That’s no sham.”
“I… I guess you’re right…” Davy admitted. “But can I even do that anymore? I mean… they’ll recognize me from the paper and think my singing is nothing but a sham, too, even if it isn’t.” He cringed at the thought. “I’ll drag the band down! I might as well just-”
Mike clapped a hand over Davy’s mouth, refusing to let him continue.
“Look, Tiny,” he said, after releasing him. “Are you expecting me to say, ‘I’m your friend, so I’m going to support whatever choice you make, even if it means quitting the band?’ Is that what you want to hear from me? Well, too bad-because you’re not going to hear it. You’re not quitting the band; I won’t let you.” He pulled the boxing gloves off of Davy’s hands and threw them down into the sand. “And you can’t play a tambourine with those on, so they’ve gotta go; you got that?”
Davy stared at the gloves lying on the sand for a moment before looking up at Mike, his expression unreadable. Mike tensed, not sure if any leftover rage would now be directed at him for what he had just done.
But his fears were unfounded; now, it was Davy’s turn to spontaneously hug, and Mike just smiled and hugged him back, glad that he had finally gotten through to him.
“Mike, I’m sorry… I’d wanted a snack, and then I got bored, so I went to get a paper, to read while I was eating, thinking they’d have written about us stopping Sholto’s scheme. I… I didn’t expect such a brutal-”
“Hey, it’s fine,” Mike said. “Just… leave a note the next time you run off somewhere, okay?”
“There won’t be a next time,” Davy promised.
“And I’m glad to hear that, Tiny.”
They were soon aware of Micky and Peter calling for the both of them, who had, obviously, found nothing and had been concerned at losing track of Mike, too. Davy and Mike called back to them, and soon, the four were together again.
“Davy, don’t you ever do that again!” Micky chided. “You had us scared out of our minds!”
“What he means is, ‘Is everything okay?’” Peter asked, softly.
Davy smiled.
“Yes; I believe it is,” he said, as Mike gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “And I promise-no more pre-dawn practice boxing sessions. Actually, no more practice boxing sessions for me at all.”
“And no taking a leave of absence from the band, either-no matter what people will think,” Mike said. “And I’m not the only one who thinks that, right?”
“Of course you’re not the only one!” Micky said. “We won’t let ya quit!”
“If you go, we go!” Peter declared.
Davy cleared his throat, trying to fight against the lump forming there.
“Thanks, fellas,” he said, softly.
It was as though being freed from the gloves had freed him from the cloud he had cast around himself. He was no boxer. And, deep down, he knew he didn’t want to be one. But he hadn’t been sure if he’d have been able to take the whispers and pointing fingers whenever he would have to play at another gig-and he hadn’t wanted to put his bandmates through that, either. But here was Mike, leader and friend, refusing to even consider the idea of Davy taking a hiatus from the band-a decision firmly backed up by Micky and Peter, his two other best friends.
And that had made all the difference in the world.