It said everything about Billy D. Blayde that his first thought to waking up with a cranium-splitting headache was to consider the rhythm and beat. Da-dum dum da-da-dum. Only after this consideration did the pain gain priority.<br/><br/>The van was toppled over in a ditch, but the music was still screaming from the windows. His mouth tasted of iron and dirt, which was fitting giving that he had apparently been sleeping face-down on the ground, and judging from the sticky, crusty feeling on his head, and the accompanying double dosage of pain when he touched it, he was, or had been, bleeding.<br/><br/>Billy D. Blayde, musician, show-man, and currently complete idiot, shakily got to his feet and tried to remember how everything had gone so completely tits up. He remembered the fear well enough, and he remembered getting into the van and driving off at entirely unsafe speeds. It didn't matter where he drove to, just as long as he got away. What had he been afraid off again? Bermuda-Nazis controlling the government and spying on him through his teeth? Sentient rhomboids propagating through his music? Or was it fear that the government not just controlled everything, but had always controlled him, and only now, with the exact right combination of drugs, had Billy regained his autonomy, and used it to promptly drive off into the night?<br/>Billy did not even dare remember what he had taken last night. It had probably been a cocktail of pills, acid and more pills, all floating in Danny's own moonshine, which had fermented next to a radiator for probably longer than any of them had been alive.<br/><br/>At least the car hadn't caught on fire.<br/><br/>Billy staggered to the back of the van, and leaned against it. He felt his forehead and winced. The blood was dry and he did not think he was concussed, although he could not remember how he had gotten injured. The car tipping over was a pretty reasonable bid, though. His clothes were covered in mud and it was becoming more and more clear that<span style="font-style: italic">his life was officially over!</span><br/><br/>No, don't panic. The hardcore do not panic. Granted, he was currently supposed to be promoting the release of the band's new album,<span style="font-style: italic">The New American Cuntstitution</span>, being interviewed, fucking groupies, and generally just not being stranded in who-knew-where, just because he got paranoid and stole off with his own van.<br/>Best case scenario, he'd be reprimanded, hard, and sent on a detox wellness centre for six months, which meant Danny Dangerous, the hulking drummer and co-founder of their band,<span style="font-style: italic">Sins From Skins</span>, would do most of the talking, and Danny, for all his many admirable qualities, was not a talker. Nor a charmer or singer. Truthfully, he wasn't that much of a drummer, either. Billy was the face of the band, the fuzzy-haired, grinning rebel, who could manage to look bored even while having the time of his life.<br/>Worst case scenario, the studio would drop him like a hot potato. Danny wouldn't, but he would be pissed if Billy ruined their chance to make it big. A broken nose was the least Billy could expect on that front, and a lifetime of regret.<br/>No, no regrets. The hardcore do not regret. Live fast, and die young. Fuck the headache, fuck the blood, fuck the very real possibility that he was seriously injured. In the distance he could hear sounds, a town, and that meant possibilities. The<span style="font-style: italic">sane</span>thing to do would be to call his manager, apologize, beg for forgiveness and face the consequences. Fuck that. The<span style="font-style: italic">Blayde</span>thing to do was to raise the stakes and bullshit his way out of the mess.<br/><br/>He opened the back of the van and entered - more easily said than done since the car was flipped on its side - and looked at his available resources. The instruments had fortunately been removed the day before, but the costumes were still here. The mini-fridge contained a few cans of non-exploded beer, and a bottle of vodka, which he used to clean his face in. It stung on his forehead wound. He lacked a mirror to see how bad it really was.<br/>He changed clothes. He was going to go to town and turn it on its head, make his disappearance mean something, turn an idiot mistake into the publicity stunt of the century, and for that, he needed to not look like a rat drowned in raw sewage. His new outfit consisted of an white shirt with nearly invisible grey skulls on it, opened to show off his bare chest (he washed the dirt off with the vodka) and purple pants that had a significant portion of the lower left leg torn off by Bitch, Danny's Rottweiler, who had the heart and soul of an overgrown puppy, but the look of a particularly savage hell hound.<br/>His sunglasses were intact, which he considered a good sign, and hidden somewhere in all mess, Billy found an unopened packet of cigarettes, but no lighter.<br/>He had his sunglasses, he had smokes, he had mostly clean clothes and golden rings on his finger. In the hidden compartment where the first-aid kit was supposed to be, Billy found the emergency 5000 dollars, cash, that he had stored away for a day just like this. Billy did not like using a credit card; it was one of the ways The Man kept tabs on you.<br/>His phone was missing - likely, he had thrown it out the window several miles down road, if people had kept calling him while he was drugged up and freaking out - but that was not a bad thing. It made it all the easier not to call anyone for help.<br/>He felt more clear-headed than he had any reason to think he actually was. And so, Billy D. Blade set off to take the town by storm. Or, at least, take it by a strong gust of wind.<br/><br/><br/>Well… the town was charming, he had to admit, in a provincial sort of fake way. The kind of quaint little fifties idealization, that would pride itself of being all-American, while shunning anyone even slightly differently-looking, while the women were kept in the kitchen, the blacks run out with pitchforks and literally every single household having its own dark secret.<br/>Okay, not all the women were in the kitchen. There was a flower-lady with her own store, who looked… cute. Billy was not a fan of “cute”, but he was in need of… well, an audience, And a bathroom with a mirror and faucet. He still had no idea how his forehead looked, except that it was almost certainly still bloodied.<br/>He gave the flower-lady his best detached-but-charming smile, raised an eyebrow above the rim of the sunglasses and tried to look like his likely-dishevelled appearance did not concern him in the slightest. He took a cigarette out of the packet and popped it in his mouth.<br/>“Oy, love, chuck us a light?”