By Pip
(Rated PG)

    It was the tangy-sweet scent of Patchouli, he would tell himself later, the heady rush of being thousands of fans center of attention. He would blame his guitar, the amps, the notes and chords still buzzing in his ears. He would blame the summer's heat, and they would both end up blaming it on the simple movement of his head tilting the wrong way. The right way?
    He wondered as their lips parted and met again. Memories, stray thoughts and sideways glances, hasty costume changes, because when the infamous Steven Tyler picked your clothes, they were costumes; he saw it coming like a blind man. Later, he would wonder how they missed it, with that much electricity on stage.
    A kiss, for the cheek, a child's congratulations on a job that was no job, on a show that was more than a show, on doing what he loved best; Steven's way of showing happiness. He'd turned his head at the slender man's entrance, caught on his lips a kiss that was meant for his cheek. It was Hendrix playing with the King, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, it was all the beauty of the drugs and all the wonder of sobriety.
    It was thoughtlessness.
    The soft insistence of his lips, lips he'd irrationally thought would be as battered and rough as his fingertips, the ferocity, the brazen way that was Steven was overshadowed by need, the need to taste, touch, absorb, it was a new drug and a new outlet to be explored, enjoyed. And it was over in the blink of an eye, rather, the opening of two.

    "Man, Joe, what do you think about when you play?