A/N Heya, this is the version of Blues, Booze and Attitudes where I'm not an idiot and its all in one story. Maybe there's some fan girl out there who isn't sweet on Elwood, but heavens knows it not me. I love him. He's fken awesome. Read on fearlessly!

He wrote.

He wrote songs and music until his hands hurt, then he picked out tunes on his guitar until those same hands bled. Music was his life.

When at last he was too exhausted to write or play anymore, he bandaged his welted hands and crashed, mind numb, onto the short sofa.

The sofa was one of only three pieces of furniture in the tiny room. It was stained with blood and booze, and battered to within an inch of its long life, infested and lumpy and unforgiving.

A wooden chair was land-marked amongst the long necks that swarmed the floor by a towering stack of papers placed upon it. News papers, auto magazines, note pads, lyrics he'd written, music sheets, coffee cups perched precariously on top of the tediously constructed tower.

The last item was a fridge. Humming with electricity eighteen hours a day, until water dripping from the ground floor level above fried the circuits, or a rat gnawed the cable and cooked itself, or until the taxing need for power in the destitute apartment building blew a fuse.

He owned nothing fancy. The guitar was an old electric he'd picked up second hand from a music store. His few clothes were stacked neatly by the chair, slowly rotting from the damp that rose from the mildew encrusted carpet.

Elwood sometimes wondered if he too was gradually being enveloped by the damp that enclosed everything else in its pestilent jaws. He thought of Jake and his Blues Harp, left behind in Joliet, and felt the end couldn't come fast enough.

For the past six months he had been living in the same worn-out rut, the same mad frenzy of composing lyrics and melodies, the same routine of sleeping fitfully until midday, working until midnight, coming home and writing again until dawn.

The writing, the composing, eased his mind. He poured his hollow soul into pen and guitar and it soothed him, just enough for him to sleep.

His brother, 'Joliet' Jake Blues, would be in the slammer for another three years. Elwood had gotten out only eight months, his good behaviour making a short twelve month term even shorter.

Personally, he'd liked prison. Except of course for Jake, the rest of the band was out now, too. While it had been all ten of them in there, things had been great. Concerts, companionship, and free board. Elwood didn't care about the rest.

And now, only the music mattered. To hell with the fact that he was wasting away in a Chicago basement.

xxxx

It was Monday morning. It must have been Monday. Elwood groaned, doing his best to stretch his lanky frame out on the cramped sofa.

He remembered drinking a hell of a lot the night before, and wondered how he'd got home.

"Young man!" screeched a voice from the top of the basement stairs, "Ya better get y'self to work, or you'll be back on the streets!"

"Yes, ma'am." Elwood grumbled, rolling of the sofa into a clinking battlefield of beer bottles.

He searched the ground for his hat and shoes, only to find he was already wearing both. Elwood stood up, brushed himself off, and loped off up the staircase.

"That's better, Mr Blues." The land lady smirked as he passed her, ragged dog-end hanging from the corner of her thin lips, "You're always so presentable."

"Yes, ma'am." He tipped his hat, just slightly, to her, and headed for the lobby door.

The land lady watched him go. If only she was a bit younger… of course, she smoked eighteen thousand cigarettes a day, otherwise the odor of alcohol and sweat might have put her off her tenant. But unable to smell anything, she quite happily admired his figure, sleek in the worn black suit.

Elwood's shades were already in place as he stepped out into the bright Chicago sun. In his usual long, rhythmic stride, he walked the few blocks to his work place.

Jake would be horrified, Elwood thought. He was too ashamed to even glance up at the other pedestrians, instead keeping his head dipped and eyes on the pavement.

Soon the sign 'Jim Jones' Cowboy Grill' met his down turned gaze.

A four foot high sign had been placed on the sidewalk before the grill. Elwood spun on his heel and ducked inside, opting for a quick escape from the street.

Cowboy Grill. Elwood felt like he was selling his soul just by entering the place.

What he actually did there, however, was a much more heinous crime against his nature. Providing vocals and playing whatever instruments were thrown his way for whatever rag-tag red neck band that showed up was Deadly Sin number One for Elwood. But there he was, every afternoon until midnight, doing six shows a day.

Kato, the only other regular musical employee, greeted him with a friendly grin. "Konichiwa, Blues-san."

As far as any one could figure out, Kato was an exile from his native Japan, and had come to Chicago in the hope of finding work for his considerable musical talents.

He hadn't been able to find work anywhere else in town for much the same reasons as Elwood: an extensive criminal record, and a less than adequate education. Besides that, the Asian didn't speak a word of English.

"Blues! Late again! We're about to begin the lunchtime show, ya know? Go on and get your ass up there!" Jim Jones, owner of the Cowboy Grill, gave Elwood a shove in the direction of the stage, where he'd been headed anyway.

"Got a big lunchtime rush, Blues! We can't disappoint the customers." Jones called after him, obviously startling the only four patrons in the grill.

Elwood climbed on stage, and prayed for Jake. How was he going to live through another three years of this hell? The record deal the brothers had been offered had been put on hold until Jake got out, so not even that could save him.

"Oh, Lord, save me." He said to himself, taking in the day's band.

"Hey, boy!" one of the cowboys called, "Can you sing 'Hold On Tight'?"

Typical of a red-neck, the man had settled on 'bellowing' for his voice level, although Elwood was standing right beside him.

"Sure." The Blues brother muttered, taking a death hold on the microphone.

"And 'How 'Bout Us'?" another red-neck, this one with a battered banjo, shouted from three foot away.

"Yep."

"Right, we'll start off with those two, then." The banjo carrying yokel gave a sneering smile, and plucked the first few chords.

Elwood wondered if God would forgive him murder just that one time. Then, as the songs and hours passes, he thought of Jake, and counted the months until his brother's release. Forty months, two weeks, five days.

He looked at his Timex. And thirteen hours. Then things could get back to normal.

Eight hours later, drenched with sweat, half drunk and almost overcome with nausea, not even the thought of only having two more shows to do could make him go on.

"Come on Blues, four more hours." Jones slapped him on the back and flashed his tobacco blackened teeth in a horrible grin.

Elwood groaned. The stage was starting to resemble his basement room: covered with long necks and spilt alcohol. Two of the six red-neck performers had collapsed, drunk, leaving Elwood to play back up guitar as well as doing the vocals, while Kato altered between banjo and key board. Through a sort of sign language they'd developed, he and Kato had a bet going on who would be the next yokel to go down.

Kato signaled he thought it would be the lead guitarist, while Elwood had his money on the drummer. Both were swooning.

So was Elwood. He was trying to figure out how many times they'd played 'Hold On Tight'. It seemed to be popular amongst the whooping crowd. In the despair of drunkenness and arithmetic, Elwood sunk down on the edge of the stage, microphone discarded.

"Blues-san?" Kato perked from behind the keyboard.

He was supposed to be singing something. Elwood groaned and refused to so much as look at the other musicians.

The patrons were cheering, eager for more music. The grill was packed. The Blues brother tried to block it out. Noises, scuffling, a few shouts, came from the stage behind him. Nothing piqued his interest until someone cried;

"Sweet Home Chicago!"

"Huh?" Elwood looked over his shoulder.

There, in centre stage, holding a Blues Harp in one hand and a microphone in the other, was Jake.

Joliet Jake Blues. Short, chubby, angelic faced Jake Blues. Wearing his old familiar black business suit, his black fedora hat, his dark shades. Elwood's exact uniform in larger sizes.

"Hey brother," Jake called to him, a broad grin on his usually stoic face, "Are you performing or pitying yourself?"

"Jake?" Elwood dragged himself up, "What are you doing here? Is it really you?"

"Who else would it be, you bum?" Jake's grin broadened, "Stop ya gaping."

Elwood, in his bewilderment, stumbled over a electricity cable and fell into Jake's open arms.

"Take it easy, man." The older Blues laughed, embracing the other, "Anyone would have thought I'd died!"

"It feels like it, man," Elwood pulled back from Jake, his eyes shining, "Why are you out so early?"

"Hey, Blues!" Jim Jones shouted from the bar, "You're not getting paid for get-togethers, you know!"

Most of the patrons looked amused. Some were giving the brothers knowing looks. The escapades of Jake and Elwood were widely known in Chicago, even in the red-neck community.

"Who the hell is this, man?" Jake demanded, thrusting his thumb in the direction of Jim Jones, "You just gonna take this shit from some cow-riding gopher-shooting jackass? Where's your pride?"

Elwood stared at Jake. Who was the one here without pride? Jake had been known to grovel, beg, cheat, plead and lie his way of even the most shameful of situations. Where was Jake's pride?

"Gees, okay, okay," Jake stepped back from his brother, "I got your Harp. Can we leave now?"

The younger Blues nodded, taking his Harp from Jake. As one, they turned for the stage stairs and walked off, leaving the yokel patrons staring in wonder.