Title: Truth or Lie
Fandoms: Hard Core Logo
Pairing/Characters: Joe Dick, Billy Tallent (not really any slashier than canon)
Rating: Mature (foul-mouthed characters, also a brief but disrespectful mention of sex)
Length: 1130
Author Notes: There's probably happy-fluffy HCL fic out there somewhere (and if you know where it is, give me a pointer!), but this is not it.  For future badge bookkeeping reference, this is my first attempt at Hard Core Logo fic.
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, I don't own them, I derive no profit from their use.
Summary: Joe and Billy play various games to kill time, and for other reasons.

They’ve always played stupid games, him and Billy.  To kill time, mostly.  They had a lot of time to kill, as kids; seemed like the weekend afternoons were endless, stupidly boring when they weren’t getting themselves into trouble.  And then of course, touring with the band is long stretches of waiting around, spattered with a few hours of glorious full-color magic.  They also play games to try to get a rise out of each other, or sometimes to keep from punching each other’s heads in.  And yeah, for other reasons, but the point is, they don’t talk about that shit; if they did, they wouldn’t have to play so many fucking games.

Which is why they gave up on Truth or Dare before they even made it to high school.  It became really fucking obvious, Joe and Billy being who they were, that neither of them was ever going to pick anything but Dare.  And hey, that was good fun for a while, but not very different from the shit they did when they weren’t playing anything in particular.

They switched to Lie or Dare for a while, and that was better, until they figured out that telling lies when the other guy knows you’re lying is not much different from telling the truth, just a little harder to interpret.  Or else it’s just bullshitting, which, once again, is not real different from their normal conversations.

“How about Truth or Lie?” Billy suggested one time.

“That’s just stupid, Billiam.”  Joe sucked in a mouthful of smoke and blew it at the ceiling.  He was trying to make rings, but all he got was a cloud.  “It’d pretty much be just like playing Lie or Lie.”

“Nah, see, the point is, you wouldn’t know.  You ask me a question, right, and I have to answer, bam! right then, no stalling.  And it has to be either totally true or totally false, no fucking around in the middle.  But you don’t know which it is.”

“I’d know,” said Joe automatically, and then realized he’d risen to Billy’s stupid challenge, just like always.

Billy grinned with all his teeth and blew a half-way decent smoke ring into Joe’s face.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Ask me, then.”

“Are you—”

‘Truth or Lie, you’ve got to say Truth or Lie.”

“Fine, Truth or Lie.  Why’d you dump Melissa?”

“Because she gave lousy head.”  Billy flashed a grin.  Then he said, “Actually, she dumped me, but fuck if I’m going around telling people that,” with exactly the same smile, and then, “She wanted to bring me home for dinner with her parents.”

Then he crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall, and took a long, smug drag on his cigarette.

“Which one was it?” asked Billy.

“One of them was true?”

Billy shrugged.  “What do you think?”

“Maybe they’re all lies,” said Joe.

“Can’t tell, can you?”

“Fuck you.”  Joe grinned and plucked Billy’s cigarette stub from his fingers.  Billy didn’t fight him for it, just licked his lips like a cat as he watched Joe suck on the butt.

“Good game?” Billy asked.

“All right, fine,” grumbled Joe, trying not to sound too eager.  “You ask me one.”

It’s not something they play regularly, more like once in a while one of them will say out of the blue, “Truth or Lie,” and then ask some dumb question.  Well, not always a dumb question.  Truth or Lie can be a mean game, because Joe and Billy both have a mean streak a mile wide.  That’s one reason they’re best friends, still, after umpteen years and quite a bit of bullshit.  Not many people around who get either Joe or Billy like they get each other.

Of course, another reason they’ve lasted so long is that Joe has a hard time remembering what a miserable fucking bastard Billy Tallent can be when he wants to.

“What the hell does that mean, you’re leaving?” Joe yells. 

They’re in some shitty little diner, because apparently Billy thought that it was necessary to drop his fucking bombshell on Joe in public, first thing in the morning, without Pipe and John around.  Maybe thinking Joe wouldn’t be in any shape to make a scene, or wouldn’t want to embarrass them in public, or something.  Only Billy fucking well knows better than that.

“Just what it sounds like.  I’m done.”  Billy tosses back the remains of his coffee and fishes his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Done with what?”

“Done with this.  Hard Core Logo.”  Billy tosses a twenty onto the table.

But Joe’s not letting him get away so easily, no fucking way.  He grabs Billy’s wrist, pinning it to the table between them.  “The fuck you are.”

“You.  I’m done with you.”

“The fuck you are.”

Joe twists Billy’s wrist, hard.  He sees Billy’s other arm cock back, and for a second he’s got him, almost got him, as his body tenses up in anticipation of Billy’s fist.

But then Billy sighs and drops the fist.  Drops his face into his hand instead and scrubs at his face like he’s trying to wash the lines off, wash off all the years since he was a scrawny little kid trying to wrap his fingers around a guitar and shake a miracle out of it.

“Let’s not do this, Joe, okay?” he mumbles into his hand.

Leaving it up to Joe to be an asshole all by himself, or. . .not.  Bastard.

He lets go of Billy’s wrist, and Billy looks up and gives him the kind of smile you give the fiftieth fan who wants to spend all night telling you how great you are when you’re dead on your feet and all you want to do is find somewhere with a horizontal surface to fall down on.

And see, the thing is, Joe is an asshole. 

“Truth or Lie,” he snaps out.  “Why are you quitting?”

“’Cause a gypsy woman cursed me that the next time I play guitar, my dick will fall off.”

“Truth or Lie.  Why are you quitting?”

“Because my mother’s dying of cancer.”

“Fuck you, play the fucking game, Truth or Lie.”

Billy looks him in the eyes and shows his teeth.  “Because I’m in love with you and it’ll kill me one of these days.”

He lets his smile soften into something warm and sad and vulnerable that’s the most human look Joe’s seen on Billy’s face since. . .he’s not even sure when, since ever, maybe.  A smile you can’t help but kiss, no one could help it.

But just as Joe starts to lean forward, Billy’s face goes all sharp edges and pointed teeth again.

“You never were any good at this game,” he says, and walks out.