Out Of Control 18

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AnCatKatie

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Oh my, it just got a lot more confusing, didn't it? ^^

There'll be another '86 chapter after this, I think.

"Womanfish" in here—even though it's a brief mention—is most definitely based off of the drunken performance of it in '86. Oh yes. ...This was quite, quite fun to write.

More music and women and explanation in the next chapter. Hmm. :)

***


1986​

The shaky, lost feeling left Bono once he had to concentrate on the road. He’d tried as best he could to become a better driver, after Ali said he had to because of Ciarán—Ali, it all came back to Ali…he shook his head slightly.

The landscape swept a stillness around him, the road roaring past. He only really realized he was singing when Ciarán giggled, and hearing came back:

She’s running to stand…still…

Bono swallowed hard. To distract himself from thinking of Ali again—there were only so many times he could regret walking out of the house like he had—he spoke over his shoulder to Ciarán; the road was empty on their lane.

“Sorry we left so fast. I should have packed.”

Ciarán commented with infinite knowledge, “People pack before they go on trips, they can’t do it while they’re happening,” and then proceeded to stick his face out the window, squinting when the wind whipped across it.

“Please don’t press the window button on accident,” Bono asked of him, wincing.

“Why, what’d happen?” Ciarán asked curiously, popping his head back in.

“Nothing good,” Bono insisted, rolling his eyes. “Just don’t.”

Ciarán began to look out the window again and leaned forward. Bono sighed and before his son could protest, hauled him under the arms from the backseat into the shotgun seat and kept him far away from the window switch. Ciarán now busied himself with trying to see over the dashboard and out the windshield, since he was a bit too small still to do so; he had to lift himself up with his hands to do it, and once there, grinned enormously.

“We’re going fast,” Ciarán said gleefully. “I can’t even see the signs, we’re going so fast!”

Bono glanced down at the speed and indeed, they were going fast. There was no-one on this road, though. He’d slow down later. It was probably all that uncomfortable energy from what had transpired between him and Ali pushing his foot on the gas.

Ciarán fell silent as he could, and Bono forgot Ali briefly, his troubled eased by the vast lightening of the sky and the wide-open emptiness marred only by the highway. It was near noon, and needle-thin clouds raced above, throwing faint endless shadows over the bare land. The few houses and buildings and gas stations that dotted the side of the highway occasionally, maybe even towns, punched past in a blink, little white blurs.

He sang again, to fill the absence and the faint euphoria the blurred landscape infused through him. It was something Edge was beginning to work on—the guitarist was struggling with the complicated merging of two different parts of the song—but which Bono had begun the bare bones of lyrics for:

…I want to feel
sunlight on my face…

I see the dust cloud disappear
without a trace

I want to take shelter
from the poison rain…

where the streets have no name…


The energy of the song thrilled through him and lingered until the sun began to dissipate. The road was less empty now, the land less angry red or dusty gold, patched with trees, the air heavier and darker. He slowed down his driving and squinted at the roadsigns proclaiming SANTA BARBARA: N 85 MILES. 50 MILES. 30 MILES.

They arrived finally, Bono yawning, his eyes tired; it had been a 5 hour drive. He spent the next 45 minutes looking for the place Larry and the rest were staying in, and ended up finding them in a bar called the Blue Café.

His recollections of that night became hazy and disjointed, but that was probably because he drank. A lot. Until his head was buzzing and everything around him seemed suspicious and then wonderful, and after that until he couldn’t remember what had happened with Ali. Someone in the bar figured out who the bandmembers were and requested they play a song.

Bono blinked. His head felt fuzzy. The bar seemed awash in either darkness or blinding light that shot through him. He felt he'd been filled with bursts of intense momentum.

“Sure, we’ll play something,” he grinned, and clapped a hand on Edge’s back. “Edge?” Edge rolled his eyes and followed.


He didn't recall singing, or making a fool of himself, two things he did more or less naturally.

Bono was told later, actually, that he’d been kicked out of the bar temporarily to get himself more under control. He also had no idea what Ciarán had been doing at the time—maybe sleeping, maybe getting into the mischief or otherwise endearing himself with the more sober of the bargoers.


He plunged back into awareness when he felt water slap cold against his face. Bono blinked and coughed sharply as some went into his mouth when he opened it, and felt the sting of water into his eyes. His head was raised by someone's hand. The sharp, ungodly smell of chlorine filled his nose, and in front of him in the darkness Edge glared rather judgmentally, disapproval keen in his eyes even in the darkness. There were little lights in the pool swimming into Bono’s vision and throwing blue light and shadows all around.

“What?” Bono asked, feeling awake now. He shivered; water dripped onto his shirt, and it was colder here than he expected.

Edge just gave him that disapproving stare and went back inside, saying Bono could come back when he had his wits more about him and wouldn’t make himself a total ass. Bono began to keenly wonder what that was about. He shivered again, ran his hands through his wet hair in an effort to dry it, and when his hands seemed oddly disjointed from his body, decided he needed the cold water again. He submerged his face briefly—the water was warmer this time, caressing his skin—and closed his eyes so the chlorine wouldn’t burn across them when he went out. Tipping his head to get the water out of his ears and consequentially splashing more onto his shirt—yep, cold again. Edge, you bastard—he heard a splashing sound and squinted open his eyes. He gawked.

The soft bluish lights and the water seemed to have condensed into a woman. He blinked again, getting his wits about him, and able to see now, noticed she was…well…mostly naked. He couldn’t tell whether that was a swimsuit or undergarments. She rose smoothly up from the bottom of the pool, breathing in, her hair dripping around her shoulders. The lights reflected strangely off a few strands of hair towards the front, almost greenish gold. Her eyes were deep and bright and quite amused as she surveyed him, crossing her arms over the edge of the pool.

The smell of chlorine again cleared his senses, though he was still rather shocked by…well…her.

“H…hello,” he stuttered, still dripping. “I didn’t know you were here.”

She raised her eyebrows sarcastically, and he bit back a laugh. “Turn around,” she told him firmly, and when he looked confused, crossed over to the side of the pool and reached out with her wet hands, swinging his shoulders so that he looked in the opposite direction. Not soon enough; he gave a little half-grin. Not a swimsuit; she had been swimming naked.

He heard the sound of fabric, and when there was silence, glanced back. She had a shirt on now, and jeans, and looked more real than she had seemed, unearthly, underwater just a moment ago. She walked barefoot towards the back door to the bar, where her shoes were, and on the way leaned forward—he caught a green flash of those eyes again—and out of the blue slapped his cheek. He winced.

Ow,” he muttered wretchedly, staring after her.

“Sober up!” she called behind her, grinning. “I heard that last song. I think they’ll be wanting better than—what was it?”

He scrunched up his face, trying to remember. Oh good lord, he had danced onstage.

“Womanfish,” he said with a bit of question in his voice. And then gave a waterlogged laugh.

She nodded at him from the doorway. He still couldn’t move, riveted to the sight of her eyes. Something about them seemed…

“Well, good luck,” she said, and when she was gone, Bono still couldn’t think, but for a different reason.


When he came back inside, he crossed his arms behind his head and leaned against the wall, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

“What the hell?” Adam asked Edge, who looked equally dumbfounded.

“Met a mermide in America,” Bono shot at them, raising his eyebrows.

Edge sighed, “Not again…” He hoped and dreaded he'd have to get Bono sober again.

“And what did this woman do?” Adam asked, his shoulders shaking.

“She slapped me..."

Adam finally succumbed to laughter and Edge, sighing, gave up.
 
STREEEEEEEEEEEETS. I LOVE THAT SONG. :heart:
(And who doesn't, you ask?)
Yeee! Drunk Bono is good Bono. :lol:
Hahahaha... this was a good chapter, a welcome change from the really tense 78 ones. Can you show me this performance you mention? :D Funny, I've never even heard that song before.
 
Yeah, that was a much more fun chapter. But Bono's being a bad dad getting drunk like that. Plus, no one wants to deal with a child hungover.
 
I haaaaad to put Streets in! I had a very different idea of what would be happening when I had it, but I was figuring I'd be focusing more on Eve and Larry in '86, and I didn't, so...

Drunk Bono is *not* a good Bono! I felt like facepalming all when I was writing this. I half wanted him to fall into the pool and magically get un-drunk.

It's ok, Grace, someone else will be/has been dealing with the kid. Other than that, I am giving no hints. But what's coming next will be at least partially not what anyone's expecting ^^

Here, Blue:

YouTube - U2 - Womanfish (Live TV Gaga 1986) HD

Only my favorite video ever of recent. Hey, he acts like Red Rocks Bono! Maybe Bono was drunk a whole lot more when he was younger? Hmm...
 
.............okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay........ My only response to the video- out of all the things I could have noticed, my mind was fixated on Adam's hiar. It's brown in the video! I thought he was a blond! :rolleyes:
Fun to read, weird to write? (And I didn't get why there was a pool. Hee...)
Oh yeah, I was wondering about Ciaran too... but I knew he wouldn't be left alone. Now that's bad parenting.
 
Oh weird! I wasn't noticing Adam's hair before :lol: It wasn't outrageously poofy or anything...

Yeah, pretty much. And Iiiiii just felt like putting a pool in ^^ my stories tend to make so much sense like that.

I think someone needs to smack Bono upside the head...oh wait...
 
Totally out of nowhere, but I found the best pic ever for this chapter while going through the stuff on photobucket...

bonoharleyshirt.jpg


:giggle:
 
No...yay Blue!

Seriously...this would be drunk Bono staring off in the distance going 'oh shit. I know this woman...wait...eh...who?'
 
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