Feed the Fire

After stops in Atlanta and Raleigh the tour pulled into Washington D.C. on the 11th of November and it was in total chaos. Green Day's sound and light crew refused to work with Sabrina until she made a set list; which she did for the sake of harmony, but her stage show suffered as a result. Beth and Mike were back to feuding with each other as well as Beth and Sabrina on the warpath with Jill and Tre. Billie kept having strange things happen to him, like having his shampoo replaced with white glue and his luggage coming up missing. Everyone was miserable and the main players in both bands were barely talking.

One of the few times everyone was in the same room was during dinner. The craft services room always had a bustling crowd since everyone needed to eat. The room was starting to resemble a high school cafeteria; everyone in their own little groups. Sabrina, Beth, and Toby were at one table, while Mike, Billie, and Bill sat at another. Tre and Jill kept to themselves in a corner of the room. Sabrina's band and the remaining Green Day band had no problem with each other and were always found to be sitting together.

This particular day found the bands in their normal cliques. Beth had just come into the room and started to go through the line. Mike had just finished eating and went back up to grab a cup of coffee; which was located at the end of the buffet line. Beth had her plate in her hand and was looking back to find where Sabrina was sitting so she wasn't paying attention to where she was walking. Mike turned around and collided with Beth which resulted in his coffee flying out of his hands and some landing on his clothes.

The whole room went silent much like the prelude to a gun fight in the old Wild West. People took in the sight of Mike with coffee dripping from his clothes and Beth just standing there with her tray of food without a morsel displaced. "Assnut," she muttered to the man in front of her.

As Mike stood there feeling the coffee burn through his clothing and onto his skin, he began to see red. When he heard her mutter, he thought that she couldn't be THAT stupid, but alas she was. Something inside of him snapped and he snaked his arm out and smacked the food tray out of her hands. The sound of it clattering to the floor sounded like a gunshot throughout the room. "Assnut? What the fuck is an Assnut? You dumb piece of shit; you just spilled my coffee on me...fuckin' cunt!" he snarled to the woman standing with in front of him.

Beth stood there stunned for a minute; Mike's obvious anger had caused her to be speechless, which wasn't a bad thing for that moment in time. She looked at the man in front of her and saw that he was clenching his teeth while fisting and unfisting his hands. His normally blue eyes were dark and she could see that he was visible shaking. In a spilt second she had to decide if it was worth it to comment back or just shut up and walk away.

Instead of deciding on either of those choices, she fell back on a third which never seemed to fail her. Hauling her right hand back, she brought the palm of her right hand smacking so hard across his face that it caused his head to physically snap to his own right as the sound echoed off the walls.

The look on Mike's face was priceless. It took him a split second to react with his own slap to her face. Now on her lily white face was a nearly identical red hand print that matched the one on his. The fire burned in her eyes as she raised her hand for another go around. She aimed and threw her slap only to have him catch her wrist before she could get contact. When she realized her arm was trapped she snaked out her foot to connect with his shin and smiled when she heard his loud exhaled breath. By now Mike was acting out of instinct as he shoved her hard away from him and delivered a stinging back hand to her face.

She stumbled backwards from the force of his back hand. When she was able to stop herself from falling she propelled her body forward and tackled the man. They fell to the floor in a pile of arms and legs as Beth started swinging wildly trying to connect any of her hands and feet with some soft part of his body.

Mike roared as he felt himself go down to the ground. She had gotten a few lucky shots until he overpowered her with his brute strength. He grabbed a hold of her wrists and deftly flipped her over and himself on top. He held her arms pinned with one hand over her head as he scoured his eyes over her.

Just as he was about to kiss her, he felt himself being lifted from off of the woman. Somehow Billie and Tre found the strength to each grab an arm and haul him to an upright position. As soon Beth felt his weight leave her body, she went to lunge for him again but found herself stopped by Sabrina grabbing her by the waist. She felt herself being pulled away and upright by the much stronger older woman. Beth went to struggle but somewhere in the back of her mind remembered Sabrina being pregnant so she just went along and didn't fight.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Toby yelled. "I don't know what's happening but you both need to separate and chill the fuck out."

Sabrina let go of Beth and in the blink of an eye, the younger woman lunged at Mike. The bassist shoved at the men holding his arms and met the woman in the middle. Beth hauled back her arm and landed a solid punch to his cheek. Mike blinked back his surprise of her upping the ante and before he could think about what to do another punch caught him in the right eye. Without even thinking he delivered a punch back to her jaw that knocked the younger woman on her ass.

When Beth hit the floor Sabrina moved herself in the middle and shoved Mike back towards Tre and Billie. "Get him the fuck out of here," she screamed to the men who were just standing there with mouths agape at what was going on. Hearing Sabrina screaming at them seemed to finally light a fire under the men who quickly each grabbed an arm of the taller man and literally pulled him from the room.

Beth pushed away the people who flocked over to her in an effort to help. "Get the fuck away from me, I'm gonna kill that asshole..." she muttered shoved people out of her way as she exited the room. Within a minute the sound of a slamming door rang out in the hallway and signaled Beth's retreat.

The remaining people in the room were still shocked as what had just transpired right in front of their eyes. Soon Billie and Tre returned to the group themselves still dazed and confused over what had just happened. Somehow Sabrina thought that this wouldn't be the last time that this would happen between the two.

Beth was still fuming in the spare dressing room she had taken shelter in. She paced in front of the mirror and would occasionally stare at her jaw which had the beginnings of a wonderful bruise. Her checks still had the imprints of his hands. She was just seething at the older man and was ready to kill him. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't hear the open being opened and closed or the sound of the lock sliding home. When she stopped again to glance at her jaw was when she realized that she wasn't alone in the room anymore.

The tall man stood behind her and started into the mirror watching her. She saw the hand print on his check and the start of a shiner around his eye. His eyes were this bright brilliant blue that she had never seen before. The desire was more than evident in those bright blue depths that she found herself getting lost in them. She turned around and they met together in the middle of the room staring each other down. A battle of the wills was transpiring and neither Beth nor Mike wanted to be the first to give any quarter.

Suddenly it was as though a mental message went between the two people because at the same time they both lunged at each other except instead of a slap or a punch, the choice of weapon was their lips and a kiss was the outcome. They hungrily came together in an almost primal way. Like every sense of decorum and modern thought was erased and what was left was the basic primal instinct of sexual survival that came from the medulla oblongata.

He grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked back her head as he savagely attacked her neck. He could feel her moan vibrate through her neck muscles as he kissed and nipped his way up and down her tender skin. He smiled when he pulled back to view her face and saw that her eyes were almost rolled back into her head as she was overcome by the sensations that he was giving her.

She opened her eyes to find him staring at her. With a growl that could have matched his own she turned the tables and launched her own assault on his body. She ran her hands up under his shirt and dragged her nails down his sides and then around to his back. She smiled at the power of her own movements and the result they drew from the tall man. She grabbed a fistful of his own hair and pulled him into her again to have their lips collide in a force that took both of their breaths away.

They sank to the floor again in a tangle of limbs that was not unlike the earlier battle but resulting this time in a much more different outcome.

That night after the show had ended and everyone was backstage drinking and celebrating the performances it was realized that they had 2 days off until their next show on the 10th in East Rutherford. Sabrina smiled as she decided to go home for a few days and not home to New York but rather home to her childhood home in Secane, Pa which was about 10 minutes from Philadelphia.

A quick call to a car rental place at the airport returned the result of a car being delivered to The Patriot Center for Sabrina's use. She talked to Toby and decided that she would drive to the next few shows in New Jersey and Philly and then meet everyone in New York on the 15th for the Madison Square Garden gigs.

She ran to her bus that she shared with Beth and grabbed a bag to pack some clothes for the time she would be gone. She was finishing up when she heard the bus door open and steps signaling that someone had boarded the bus. She looked up in surprise when she heard an unexpected voice.

"Hey."

"Tre, what are you doing here? You better leave before your girlfriend finds out and cuts off your remaining ball," Sabrina muttered as she continued to pack her items into her bag.

"I guess I deserve that... " he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, I just wanted to say... "

"What? You wanted to say what? You wanted to say that you have been a royal fucking asshole? To say that you have made a mistake about Jill? To say that you want me? What Tre... spit it out man, I don't have all night."

"Can you just stop for a minute and look at me?" he asked.

Sabrina stopped what she was doing and looked at the man standing before her. She placed he hands on her hips and cocked her head at him while she waited for him to find his voice.

"Thank you," he sighed and ran his hand through is hair, "I'm sorry for being a royal asshole in Miami. It wasn't right nor was it fair. What you do is your own business. I just... well I saw you two at the party and I got a feeling that I hadn't had before... I don't know, like the feeling of my heart being yanked out. Hearing about you and Mike was one thing but to actually see you with another man... well it was a bitter pill to swallow."

Sabrina just looked at Tre with an incredulous look on her face. "I feel for you Tre, but I just can't quite reach." She shook her head, "Welcome to my world Tre. I have had my heart stomped on since September when I first saw you with her and everyday since the beginning of this tour. I can't feel for you... sorry. You made my life a living hell and now YOU'RE sorry? You denied the children from seeing me, you bullied me into changing my will, you flaunted HER in my face, you let her DISRESPECT me everyday... and you want me to forgive YOU?" She slammed things into her bag as her anger crept into her bones. "Fuck you Tre... and that little bitch who rides you in the hot tub!"

She zipped her bag shut with a force that almost broke the zipper apart. She grabbed the bag and started to leave the room of the bus but found him standing stubbornly in her way, blocking her exit. "Wait, Can't we talk about this?" he said with a pleading tone in his voice.

"Talk about what Tre; you've moved on, I haven't... end of talk."

"Wait... what do ya mean?" he asked her as he erased the distance between them. He was right in front of her almost nose to nose, "What do you mean by 'you haven't'?"

Sabrina closed her eyes at the thoughts swirling around in her head. She so desperately wanted to tell him about the baby, but something stopped her which she couldn't explain. The feelings that she still held out for him pushed away any rational thought she had as she leaned into Tre and claimed his lips hungrily with her own.

Tre let out a grunt of surprise and thought about breaking the kiss, but when his body responded to hers and the feelings he had for her flowed through him; he threw caution to the wind and wound his hand through her hair at the base of her neck and roughly pulled her closer to him.

The two lovers quickly found themselves in a place that was familiar to them as he kissed her neck. When she moaned for him, his desire became like a primal urge which blocked out all thought except one; to make love to this woman till she screamed his name.

When all was said and done, Tre quickly got himself into a more presentable condition. He started to walk away but was stopped as he heard Sabrina's voice filter through the bus. "So now what Tre? Was this just a 'Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am'?"

Tre closed his eyes at the tone in her voice; it was fragile like a child's voice that couldn't take another hurt. "Nothing has changed... between us... I'm with Jill." He didn't look back at all as he walked off the bus and away from Sabrina.

Sabrina sat there stunned on the floor of the bus where he had left her. His comment from months ago resurfaced in her head, 'I want to give you a different kind of bone.' The woman mentally smacked herself for doing what she did, in the bottom of her heart she knew this was going to be the outcome; she knew it and that's why she didn't say anything about being pregnant. She looked down at her body, which wasn't showing much change yet aside from being a little thicker in the middle than normal; her body still looked the same and Tre hadn't noticed the slight difference.

She got herself up and got redressed as the tears fell from her eyes. She grabbed her bag and left the bus and the tears kept coming. Her gaze was pointed at the ground and she didn't notice when she almost ran into Billie. She shoved by him without so much as a 'Bye your leave'. He heard her muffle a sob and then saw the wetness on her face. Billie turned and followed her to the rental car and stopped her from closing the driver's side door.

"What happened; why are you crying Sab?"

She snorted her disgust at herself. "Nothing Billie, it's just me being a fool as usual." She got behind the wheel and put her hand on the door handle to close it. "See you in a few days in New Jersey, Billie."

He realized that she was done talking so he let go of the door and watched her slam it shut. Within seconds the rental was started and she was pulling out of the parking lot for the few hours that she needed to drive to get where she was going.