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vincess-princess · 1 year

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the wild, the wayward and the wicked

Chapter 3

Word count: 2720 Warnings: there is a mention of a potentially triggering subject, but I don't want to reveal it beforehand. i will put the warning in the tags so you can look there if you wish.

“So you want the hunted to become the hunters?” Mick tilted his head. “That’d be one hell of a plot twist.”

“I’ve been saying!” Tommy beamed. “They’d expect a robbery or a theft from us but definitely not this!”

“You ain’t the first to hit upon this idea,” Mick tempered his enthusiasm. “Law-abiding citizens don’t usually possess the experience of hunting down people, y’know. It’s that the price on our heads is much higher than that for this fellow, yet it’s us who intend to bring him to justice. The irony!” he chuckled and took a drag from his cigar. A thin layer of smoke drifted in spirals below the ceiling.

“Are you saying it’s a bad idea?” Tommy’s face fell, to Nikki’s delight. The kid hadn’t yet learned to discern Mick’s attitude from his impenetrable expressions. To be fair, it took Nikki much longer and through a great deal of trial and error, but it didn’t mean he was going to make it any easier for the kid.

Mick gave him a long, tired look.

“I’m saying it’s a horrible idea. Do you understand how much danger we’d put ourselves in? We are practically handing the law a four-in-one package on our own volition. No self-respecting outlaw with a lick of common sense would ever do this.”

Tommy looked like Mick just killed his puppy in front of him. Nikki would even feel sorry for him if he didn’t know Mick well enough.

“You’re right – nobody will believe we’re that crazy,” Mick continued. “Which is why that’s exactly what we are gonna do. Cops will be looking for us among the criminals, not those who turn them in. And the best place to hide is in plain sight.”

Tommy beamed, his eyes lighting up. He sat upright proudly and shot Nikki a triumphant look. Nikki replied with a condescending grin. He knew precisely what Mick would say, but wanted to keep the kid on his toes.

The vodka kicked in and coated everything in gentle haze that diluted the blinding contrasts of life into fluid, smooth color shifts. The sharp edges of his mind that pierced him on the inside softened, and the mood swings evened out. The messy, fragmented thought process was a downside, but not critical.

“They might not look for us on purpose,” Nikki spoke up finally. He knew how Mick would react, but that didn’t mean he agreed with him. “But they ain’t all gonna go blind all of a sudden. Suppose we catch the guy. We bring him to town. And then what – just show up at the sheriff? Our faces are on every town pole – you really think he won’t recognize us?”

“You and Mick – yes. But I’m not yet as famous,” Tommy sighed with feigned envy. “They ain’t got my photographs yet, right? I haven’t been arrested before.”

“They saw you when we were skedaddling from the mayor’s house,” Nikki reminded. “Cops know about you now, and all the police offices probably already have your description.”

“It was two weeks ago,” Tommy jerked his shoulder flippantly. “They’ve already forgot what I look like. But if you are so sca-“ Nikki frowned, “I mean, worried, I can cut my hair. And grow a goatee.”

Nikki ruthlessly dismissed his offer of self-sacrifice. “Still too obvious. They’re gonna take you up just in case, as they often do, and how will we get you out then? Besides,” he taunted, “we’re gonna starve if we’re gonna wait for your goatee to grow out.”

“He’s right,” Mick intervened, effectively stifling Tommy’s attempt to protest. “Not about the goatee, but about everything else. No offence, kid, but do you really think they’ll believe that it was your fifteen-year-old stick-thin self that caught a dangerous criminal all by yourself? They’re bound to get suspicious. And it won’t be hard to dig up stuff on you once they are.”

“I’m eighteen!” Tommy jumped up, bubbling with indignation.

“You look like an adolescent,” Mick shot him down. “And behave like a toddler. No, none of us can show up at the station ourselves. We need outside help, and one that doesn’t know what we dragged ourselves into at that – our old friends won’t help us anymore, not for a price we’re able to offer. Any ideas?”

Gloomy silence hung over the cabin for a couple of minutes. The deeper one gets into the underground, the fewer friends from the world above they have. It’s neither strange nor overly hurtful: most want nothing to do with the dangers such a friendship entails, and one gains new, more useful friends quickly anyway. It’s only in situations like theirs that the downsides of it start manifesting.

Finally, Nikki broke the silence.

“I know a guy,” he said slowly. “We used to do coke together back in the day. He never really got out of it…”

“Neither did you,” Tommy murmured.

“…so he could use some money,” Nikki continued, graciously ignoring him. “He’s a big guy, pretty intimidating, should look convincing enough. Of course, he’s got that cocaine wear and tear, but…”

“How do you know he won’t turn us in?” Mick questioned.

Nikki shrugged. “I don’t. But we used to be pretty good buddies…”

“That’s not a guarantee.”

“…and I’ll just tell him I’ll kill him if he rats us out.”

“And make the psycho face!” Tommy clapped his hands gleefully.

Nikki rolled his eyes, but did stretch his lips into his signature grin, a little bit too toothy and broad for comfort; together with wide, unblinking eyes it gave its witnesses unforgettable memories. As much as Tommy tried to replicate it, he never managed it quite right: his looked more like the face of a village idiot. He didn’t get too upset over it, though; “village idiot” was his brand, and a damn convincing one at that.

“Yes!” Tommy laughed. Mick pressed his lips together tightly and looked away, and the grin on Nikki’s face quickly faded. Mick always told Tommy to “stop encouraging it” when he thought Nikki couldn’t hear, and Tommy always promised and then asked Nikki to pull the face again once the old man was out of sight. He was smarter than the two of them combined, but still just a human that could sometimes get hung up on trifles like this.

“So,” Mick said loudly, clearly trying to steer the conversation away from the shaky ground, “and how much do you think he’ll ask for?”

“Fifty dollars should be enough. It’ll keep him busy for a month at least. And junkies don’t look that much farther into their future.”

“That we can spare,” Mick nodded. “You’re not much of a negotiator – don’t get pissy, that’s true - so I’d make this a starting rate. But don’t offer more than twice of that. You can’t let him know how much money really is in the game – the more money, the higher the stakes, and the higher the stakes, the bolder people get.”

“Do I have to do it?” Nikki winced. “I really doubt I could pull it off better than you.”

“Yeah? How long do you think it’ll take him to figure out that ratting on us will be much more profitable than helping us? Your friendship is a key factor here. He knows you, he’d be much more inclined to help you than some random man.”

“That makes sense,” Nikki sighed. “But if I fuck it up, don’t blame me. I warned you.”

“Don’t fuck it up then,” Mick cut him off harshly. “We don’t get this guy to do it, we’ll have to shell out considerably, and we can’t afford that. You think five grand are a fortune? Well, just you see how quick they run out just on food and lodging in Nevada. And it ain’t gonna be a luxurious vacation either, mind you. It will be enough to get us back on our feet only if we spend it wisely.”

“We going to Nevada? It’s a shithole,” Tommy pursed his lips. A very dumb move, as far as Nikki was concerned, but his opinion was firmly on the last line of a long list of fucks that Tommy didn’t give. “There ain’t a single big city there where we could practice our business. It’s a fucking desert! What are we gonna do there? Mine silver?”

“Where there’s silver, there’s always money,” Nikki said hastily to let Mick, who looked outright murderous, collect himself and reconsider strangling Tommy right there and then, however appealing it seemed to both. “Nobody’s gonna force you into the mines, T-bone… although that might do you good. That silver ain’t sitting there on one spot, y’know. It’s gotta move in some way, and Nevada doesn’t have a railroad. All the money goes in stages and freights. You see where I’m going?”

Tommy didn’t look particularly overjoyed, unknowingly yet successfully sabotaging Nikki’s efforts to keep him alive till the end of the conversation. “Yeah, I see that we’re gonna become simple highwaymen,”

“It’s either that or the gallows,” Mick reminded him, his voice on the verge of a yell. “Chain gang, in your case. Big cities are a no-go for us now, at least for a few months.”

“He just doesn’t wanna learn to shoot properly,” Nikki scoffed. The best way to distract Tommy from complaining about something was to make him sore about something else. “Scared of getting his hands dirty. Lifting is child’s play, of course he wants to stick to it.”

“Hey, that’s bullshit!” Even in the dim light of two candles and Mick’s cigar butt Nikki could see Tommy’s ears redden. “I can shoot just fine! I just let you do it because you clearly get the kick out of it.”

“Oh yes, you’re always hiding behind my back solely for my sake!”

“At least that way you can’t shoot me with your withdrawal-shaking hands!”

“That’s enough.”

Mick never raised his voice, but it always cut through Tommy’s and Nikki’s arguments like a knife through butter, no matter how heated they were. For a while they wallowed in silence so thick it clogged every orifice on Nikki’s body, suffocating him.

Finally Mick spoke, and the acridity of his voice made the silence seem sweet as a chocolate pudding.

“We’re smack in the middle of a city teeming with cops on our tails, trying to figure how to play out our only opportunity to save our asses,” he began, every word a spear, “and you decide it’s the ideal time to drag out each other’s dirty linen and wave it before my eyes. You two seem to not understand what dire straits we got ourselves into, and that’s outright dangerous. If you behave like this now, how can I be sure you won’t start a petty fight at a critical moment?”

“How can you be sure he won’t pee his pants and bolt at the sight of a gun?” Nikki demanded, still riding the high of his rage.

“How can you be sure he won’t wander off spaced out on coke?” Tommy followed, his ears somehow even redder than before.

Under Mick’s heavy gaze both felt their determination cave in, but then came a sudden and much more unnerving change of tune: he chuckled, leaned back onto his chair and put his feet up onto the coffee table. “Well,” he said almost merrily, “you said it, not me. Looks like I have to look for more reliable mates.”

Nikki’s rage that seemed so sturdy underneath him shattered like fine china, hurling him downwards towards the ground.

“What?!” he and Tommy exhaled in unison.

“You’re no good to me if you only see each other’s weaknesses,” Mick readily explained. “You won’t trust someone without any redeemable qualities with your life, will you?”

“But we’d never-” Tommy began, but Mick callously brushed him off.

“How can I know that you’re not saying stuff like this about me behind my back?” He took a slow drag from his cigar, as if purposefully stretching the dispirited silence. “You’re already shitting all over each other in my presence. My turn might come quicker than we all expect.”

This was when Nikki finally crashed into the ground, leaving him aghast and breathless. Tommy also didn’t fare all too well, all color gone from his face and at a loss for words, which was never the case with him. The cigar tip once again looked tempting.

Mick was waiting for an answer rather patiently, but Nikki couldn’t suppress a feeling that he would get up and walk out the door at any second. He hurried to herd his jumbled emotions together so he could formulate a coherent answer.

“Sorry,” he finally said, pushing words out with effort. “I never thought of it this way. We always bicker like that, you know.”

“And it has always been unnecessary,” Mick said sharply, “but now it may be outright deadly. We’re facing a very rough patch, Nikki. If we want to make it out in one piece, we have to change our ways.”

“I understand. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Tommy, who up until now was engrossed in studying a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling, also chimed in.

“I hope so,” Mick finished the cigar with one drawn-out drag and dropped the butt into the ashtray. “Think it over very thoroughly tonight, both of you. You won’t have time for that anymore starting tomorrow – it’s gonna be busy if we want to get going the next night. With that bounty, there’ll be lots of aspirants for this guy’s head, so we’ve got to hurry.”

“Got it, boss.” Nikki rose from his chair on unsteady legs and headed to another room, dragging Tommy with him. “We’re gonna hit the hay then. You be staying up much longer?”

“Need to think some more.”

“Alright. Night, then.”

“Sleep well. We might not get another chance in the nearest future.”

Nikki and Tommy quietly closed the door behind them and curled up on their sleeping mats. For a while the only sound in the room was their breathing.

“Hey, bitch.” Nikki finally said. “Shooting ain’t that scary once you get the gist of it. We could practice a bit once this is over.”

“I’m not scared of it!” Tommy protested in a fierce whisper. “I just don’t want to do it when it’s not needed.”

“Then you gotta pick a different walk of life. You can’t do without a gun here.”

“I know, I know…” Tommy heaved a sigh, turned over on his mat and fell silent. But soon a suspicious rustle came from his direction, and Nikki opened his eyes just in time to see the little bastard shove his hand under his blanket, and then – the sound of skin rubbing against the fabric. Now? Seriously?!

“Don’t you fucking dare-“

“Oh god, relax! I’m just scratching an itch!” Tommy groaned. “I could be doing anything, why’s that the first thing that comes to your mind? That raises some questions about you, you know?”

“What questions?” Nikki pulled up the edge of his blanket defensively.

“For starters, is that really ladies you’re lacking?”

If Nikki’s freedom of movement hadn’t been limited by a blanket, Tommy would have gotten the shit kicked out of him there and then. Fortunately for the kid, it took Nikki long enough to throw the blanket away and roll over towards Tommy for him to free his arms as well. They struggled for a while, but it turned out swinging punches and pulling at each other’s hair while trying to stay quiet was no more productive than a catfight. Nikki and Tommy got so carried away that they barely managed to spot Mick’s shadow looming in the gap under the door, and only had a couple seconds to restore status quo. But it was far from their first time fighting behind his back, so when the door opened, letting in dim light and even thicker cigar smoke, they were already in the opposite corners of the pantry making not very convincing sleeping noises. Tommy was facing the wall to hide his split lip and Nikki wrapped himself in a blanket from head to toe to conceal a few missing strands of hair.

“Bastards,” Mick murmured. He got no reply, but they all knew the warning reached its destinations.

#motley crue #motley crue fanfiction #nikki sixx #tommy lee #mick mars #outlaw au #the wild the wayward and the wicked #tw: drug use mention #tw: addiction mention #you thought nikki is just suicidal? ha! he's also a fucking junkie #currently sober tho #this is really just a fleeting mention not a spoiler nothing game-changing. idk why i dont want to reveal it in the warnings but i dont #this is longer than usual for this fic but much shorter than is typical for me. it took me like a week to edit tho jeez.#have this already i can't look at this chapter anymore #my writing

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