The fourth part of the trilogy!...
Well, this is part three of what would appear to be turning into a multipart postfilm Billie Tallent fic, entirely by accident. Here's part one:echoes and part two: resonance. Billie's 18 in this- there are, of course, spoilers for the film.
Fandom: Hard Core Logo
Rating: R, for swears and sex
Length: 1300 words
Notes: Thank you so much, nos4a2no9 , for a sterling beta. I'm sure we're pretty far beyond offering firstborn by now- I don't know when I'll find the time to produce so many though...
So she lives with him now. Her dad. He’s too fucking fond of being right, massages the knuckles on his left hand when there’s a storm coming, has slept with far too many women for her mom to have meant anything to him (but won’t talk about any of them) and plays sad songs on his acoustic instead of apologising when they have a fight. She cooks for them both now, out of a recipe book with no cover, with the word ‘cuntface’ written in the margins of pages 23, 65, 139 and 200 (bread, halibut, scones and chowder) and ‘shithead’ on 311 (the index, chicken to lemoncake).
They haven’t mentioned Joe.
John Oxenberger came for a visit once. He stuttered and didn’t meet her eyes directly at first. She made them both soup and watched her father slowly let his guard down. John stopped stammering as much, and looked her straight in the eye as he said goodbye. His smile was childlike, and she felt the strangest urge to gather him close and soothe him. She shook his hand, and watched her father walk with him to the car. That night he cooked, not speaking as he chopped the vegetables with neat viciousness. She didn’t have the words to ask what was wrong.
She remembered the tape, the documentary but didn’t know how much of the story that was.
It’s been three months since then. They haven’t talked about John. Not once.
Billy doesn’t have an amp. He finger picks rather than playing chords a lot of the time, and one of his guitars has a set of gut strings. She takes the bus into the nearest town, finds a club and stands next to the speakers, feels it rumble through her body. The sound goes through her: it’s a wave crashing into the shore, the rise before the drop into an orgasm. She’s missed this, missed the shitty beer, the dancing, the smell of sweat and smoke. The guitarist’s good- well, the rhythm guitarist is, an old school shredder with a ripped t shirt and nearly indecent jeans. She raises her bottle to him when he looks over in her direction and his grin curls, wicked and promising.
They fuck in the alleyway. He kneels, holds her hips still and licks her clit until she’s biting hard on her hand to keep from whimpering, fingers her with long, callused fingers, strong and sure. He only fucks her after she’s come once, supporting part of her weight as she holds onto a beam that sticks out of the wall, foot on a packing crate. He kisses her, whispers into her ear, half nonsense, half obscenities. She’d told him her name when he bought her a beer, and he uses it now like a spell, a cantrip. After he’s come, they sit on the ground, backs against the wall. She leans his head on his shoulder, twines their fingers together and they talk about which dinosaur is cooler: tyrannosaurus or velociraptor.
Her dad’s sitting at the kitchen table when she gets back, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. His eyes flick from her feet to her face, taking everything in, then he grins, a grin she’s only seen on the video Joe showed her. “Good gig?” he asks with a smirk. She sticks up her middle finger, steals his coffee. “Fucker,” he says, and it sounds like her mom sounds when she says stuff like ‘sweetpea’.
They sit in silence for a while, then he looks her in the eye, frowning a little. “You used a condom, right?”
“Of course. I’m not--”
Not like you. Not like mom. Not stupid. Not a groupie.
She bites her tongue. His smile is dark, a little sad, but he drops the topic.
The next day, he puts a guitar in her lap, sits opposite her with another guitar, plays chord sequences, seeing what she can follow and teaching her slowly when he gets to a chord she doesn’t know. He gets an old bass out of the attic, because ‘it pays to know both’, and talks vaguely about soundboards and levels, and which amps are the best. She doesn’t ask him why, because it’s interesting, and she doesn’t know if she’d even get an honest answer out of him. The lessons continue sporadically, happening whenever he feels like it. He sometimes leaves for days, doing recording work, and comes back surprised she’s still here.
Her dad’s on tour when he comes, with some hot new kids on the scene whose rhythm guitarist got in a barfight, broke his wrist. Billie grinned at him as he told her this, bumped her shoulder against his as they stood peeling carrots into the sink. His laugh was rueful. ‘I was more careful than that,’ he had told her, and she’d let it drop.
She comes down for breakfast on the fourth morning of the tour and he’s sitting there, Joe, looking as young as he had before. He hasn’t changed; not even his clothes are any different. He looks at her with blowtorch blue eyes and smiles. His lips are a little reddened with blood; a drop has collected at the side of his mouth. She hears the crackling of amps, smells whisky and gunpowder on the air. “Missed me?” he asks, and she laughs.
“Depends what you’re here for,” she tells him and fixes coffee- two cups, because she’s never been sure how much of a physical presence he has. Her back’s to him, but she can sense him. It’s different from when she was a kid; she has a sharper sense of wrongness, of something not belonging. She accepted him when she was younger, thought of him as something she saw, not something she shouldn’t see but still did. It’s a distinction that makes her something that’s close to scared, but closer to thrilled. Excited. She’s grown up now.
“So you’re turning into quite the groupie,” he drawls, his voice harsh, too loud for this peaceful kitchen in the middle of nowhere.
“I fucked one guitarist. By your standards, that makes you sort of a groupie yourself,” she says quietly. He saw. Watched? She sets down the coffee in front of him, sits with her own, wrapping her hands around the mug for warmth, for protection of a sort. Joe grins, gives her the finger.
“Was fucked by, little Billie. Like father, like daughter.”
“It meant something.”
She’s looking down at the table now; she gave away more than she intended to. Joe snickers. “It can mean something and still be you getting screwed in an alleyway, Billie fucking Tallent.”
When he sneers, he sounds like a tool, the worst kind of cuntrag on the school bus, the snotnosed brat who pushed her down and stole her sweets. His eyes, though, are gentle, sad. Wise, a little. “I didn’t love him, though,” she says, more guessing than anything- some sort of instinct. He salutes her with his mug of coffee, takes a sip- so he can, then- and gives a short soft laugh. “That why you’re here?”
He taps the side of his nose.
She spends the day with him on the porch, playing her dad’s nylon string guitar. He fades sometimes, and sometimes seems more solid than a living person, a hulking solid force, hunched over in a black trench coat. She fumbles with chords, and sometimes just sketches out the melody without anything supporting it. There’s no acoustic; it’s outside, so the sound is carried away on the breeze, doesn’t have any echo to improve it. Tuning could use work, too. It feels right, though. Feels good. Perfect.
Fandom: Hard Core Logo
Rating: R, for swears and sex
Length: 1300 words
Notes: Thank you so much, nos4a2no9 , for a sterling beta. I'm sure we're pretty far beyond offering firstborn by now- I don't know when I'll find the time to produce so many though...
So she lives with him now. Her dad. He’s too fucking fond of being right, massages the knuckles on his left hand when there’s a storm coming, has slept with far too many women for her mom to have meant anything to him (but won’t talk about any of them) and plays sad songs on his acoustic instead of apologising when they have a fight. She cooks for them both now, out of a recipe book with no cover, with the word ‘cuntface’ written in the margins of pages 23, 65, 139 and 200 (bread, halibut, scones and chowder) and ‘shithead’ on 311 (the index, chicken to lemoncake).
They haven’t mentioned Joe.
John Oxenberger came for a visit once. He stuttered and didn’t meet her eyes directly at first. She made them both soup and watched her father slowly let his guard down. John stopped stammering as much, and looked her straight in the eye as he said goodbye. His smile was childlike, and she felt the strangest urge to gather him close and soothe him. She shook his hand, and watched her father walk with him to the car. That night he cooked, not speaking as he chopped the vegetables with neat viciousness. She didn’t have the words to ask what was wrong.
She remembered the tape, the documentary but didn’t know how much of the story that was.
It’s been three months since then. They haven’t talked about John. Not once.
Billy doesn’t have an amp. He finger picks rather than playing chords a lot of the time, and one of his guitars has a set of gut strings. She takes the bus into the nearest town, finds a club and stands next to the speakers, feels it rumble through her body. The sound goes through her: it’s a wave crashing into the shore, the rise before the drop into an orgasm. She’s missed this, missed the shitty beer, the dancing, the smell of sweat and smoke. The guitarist’s good- well, the rhythm guitarist is, an old school shredder with a ripped t shirt and nearly indecent jeans. She raises her bottle to him when he looks over in her direction and his grin curls, wicked and promising.
They fuck in the alleyway. He kneels, holds her hips still and licks her clit until she’s biting hard on her hand to keep from whimpering, fingers her with long, callused fingers, strong and sure. He only fucks her after she’s come once, supporting part of her weight as she holds onto a beam that sticks out of the wall, foot on a packing crate. He kisses her, whispers into her ear, half nonsense, half obscenities. She’d told him her name when he bought her a beer, and he uses it now like a spell, a cantrip. After he’s come, they sit on the ground, backs against the wall. She leans his head on his shoulder, twines their fingers together and they talk about which dinosaur is cooler: tyrannosaurus or velociraptor.
Her dad’s sitting at the kitchen table when she gets back, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. His eyes flick from her feet to her face, taking everything in, then he grins, a grin she’s only seen on the video Joe showed her. “Good gig?” he asks with a smirk. She sticks up her middle finger, steals his coffee. “Fucker,” he says, and it sounds like her mom sounds when she says stuff like ‘sweetpea’.
They sit in silence for a while, then he looks her in the eye, frowning a little. “You used a condom, right?”
“Of course. I’m not--”
Not like you. Not like mom. Not stupid. Not a groupie.
She bites her tongue. His smile is dark, a little sad, but he drops the topic.
The next day, he puts a guitar in her lap, sits opposite her with another guitar, plays chord sequences, seeing what she can follow and teaching her slowly when he gets to a chord she doesn’t know. He gets an old bass out of the attic, because ‘it pays to know both’, and talks vaguely about soundboards and levels, and which amps are the best. She doesn’t ask him why, because it’s interesting, and she doesn’t know if she’d even get an honest answer out of him. The lessons continue sporadically, happening whenever he feels like it. He sometimes leaves for days, doing recording work, and comes back surprised she’s still here.
Her dad’s on tour when he comes, with some hot new kids on the scene whose rhythm guitarist got in a barfight, broke his wrist. Billie grinned at him as he told her this, bumped her shoulder against his as they stood peeling carrots into the sink. His laugh was rueful. ‘I was more careful than that,’ he had told her, and she’d let it drop.
She comes down for breakfast on the fourth morning of the tour and he’s sitting there, Joe, looking as young as he had before. He hasn’t changed; not even his clothes are any different. He looks at her with blowtorch blue eyes and smiles. His lips are a little reddened with blood; a drop has collected at the side of his mouth. She hears the crackling of amps, smells whisky and gunpowder on the air. “Missed me?” he asks, and she laughs.
“Depends what you’re here for,” she tells him and fixes coffee- two cups, because she’s never been sure how much of a physical presence he has. Her back’s to him, but she can sense him. It’s different from when she was a kid; she has a sharper sense of wrongness, of something not belonging. She accepted him when she was younger, thought of him as something she saw, not something she shouldn’t see but still did. It’s a distinction that makes her something that’s close to scared, but closer to thrilled. Excited. She’s grown up now.
“So you’re turning into quite the groupie,” he drawls, his voice harsh, too loud for this peaceful kitchen in the middle of nowhere.
“I fucked one guitarist. By your standards, that makes you sort of a groupie yourself,” she says quietly. He saw. Watched? She sets down the coffee in front of him, sits with her own, wrapping her hands around the mug for warmth, for protection of a sort. Joe grins, gives her the finger.
“Was fucked by, little Billie. Like father, like daughter.”
“It meant something.”
She’s looking down at the table now; she gave away more than she intended to. Joe snickers. “It can mean something and still be you getting screwed in an alleyway, Billie fucking Tallent.”
When he sneers, he sounds like a tool, the worst kind of cuntrag on the school bus, the snotnosed brat who pushed her down and stole her sweets. His eyes, though, are gentle, sad. Wise, a little. “I didn’t love him, though,” she says, more guessing than anything- some sort of instinct. He salutes her with his mug of coffee, takes a sip- so he can, then- and gives a short soft laugh. “That why you’re here?”
He taps the side of his nose.
She spends the day with him on the porch, playing her dad’s nylon string guitar. He fades sometimes, and sometimes seems more solid than a living person, a hulking solid force, hunched over in a black trench coat. She fumbles with chords, and sometimes just sketches out the melody without anything supporting it. There’s no acoustic; it’s outside, so the sound is carried away on the breeze, doesn’t have any echo to improve it. Tuning could use work, too. It feels right, though. Feels good. Perfect.