This is dedicated to my lover Steve, the fallen angel whose wings were too broken to get fixed again. In a memory of him I'm gonna describe the day we first met.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 1982

My phone was ringing. I didn't know that a call could change my life forever. But apparently it could.

"Collen here, hello?" I asked a little sleepily, not sure what to say if I didn't even know who I was talking to.

"Hey Phil, it's Joe. Can you remember me?" A voice from the other side of the line asked hopefully. Of course I did remember him, he was the front man of Def Leppard, Joe Elliott himself.

"Of course I remember you, what's up?"

"Well, we've got a big problem. Pete quit. He just fucking quit and now we're here and not knowing what to do. Well, you once told me you would be a guitarist, so I just thought I could call you and ask you to join the band" Now I was completely awake. Joe fucking Elliott was asking me to join HIS band?! That was just a dream come true for me.

"Well, um, we could try out if you guys want"

A squeal was heard on the other side of the line at my words and I smiled, waiting for Joe to say something again.

"Oh dude, you would really do that for us?"

"Sure man" I could just chuckle at the big amount of relief he was showing.

"Excellent!! Well, could you come over to the studio we've met each other then, maybe at three p.m. today?" Joe asked and I nodded, before remembering he couldn't see me.

"Yeah sure. See y'all later then!!"

With those words I hung up and laid the phone down, not really believing what had happened. If everything was working out well, I was going to be a part of Def Leppard and touring the world. This just sounded so incredible and unreachable for me at first, but coming to think about it, it was just in front of me and I only had to reach out to get it.

~~~~~

At point three p.m. I stood in front of the studio, my guitar case leaned on the wall next to me as I waited for the band to arrive. For a while I just closed my eyes, letting the wind blow through my hair and letting myself just become one with the nature around me for a while. And yeah, I know that sounds creepy.

After a while I heard footsteps approaching me and my eyes snapped open, letting me see three men who walked towards me.

"Hey man, great to see you here"

One man with curly dirty blonde hair went over to me and held his hand out for me to shake. I knew who that was. It was Joe Elliott, the one who had phoned me earlier.

"Hey, I figure you're Joe?"

"Yeah, that's right dude"

He gestured the other two to come up to us as well and as they did so, he told them to introduce themselves to me.

"Hey Phil, I'm Rick Allen. I'm the youngest here, I'm turning nineteen this November and I play the drums"

A very friendly looking man, even though he still kinda looked like a teenager, held his hand out for me to shake and I took it, squeezing it lightly and letting go of it again. Rick had messy brown curls and a never fading smile on his face, it affected me directly.

"Hello, I'm Rick Savage. You might be a little confused if you call us both Rick, so you can just call me Sav. I play the bass by the way"

The last of the three men held out his hand which I took and shook, and then we headed inside.

Sav and Joe were both very determined musicians, who really wanted to see their records in the number one slot of the charts. Rick was talented as well, but he was seeing the things about business much easier and tried to break the tension in the studio, when something didn't work out, with just a motivating statement or a simple joke. I always thought that Def Leppard needed someone like him pretty much.

Anyways, I was just sitting on an amp and tuning my guitar, as someone bursted through the door, totally stressed out. With one first blink I could only see a mane of light blonde hair, but after looking for the second time, I could get a better view.

A man in his twenties was standing next to Joe and eyeing me curiously. His light blonde hair fell over his shoulders, some strands of it also falling in front of his face. His skinny body was covered with bright blue, high waisted denim jeans and a white blouse, letting him look like an angel.

Finally he came over to me, a soft smile on his face.

"Hey man, I'm Steve. Steve Clark"

I was just hooked on him from the moment I first laid my eyes on him. His voice just matched his being, it was soft and loving, just like you would imagine the voice of an angel.

"Hey Steve, I'm Phil. Joe asked me to fill in for Pete for a while if I do good"

He smirked at me and finally sat down on an amp in front of me to be on the same height.

"Well, I figure that we have to work together then" Steve whispered and laid one hand on my shoulder, causing me to shiver at his touch. I found myself lost in those beautiful blue orbs, it felt like I was drowning in all that beauty. One edge of Steve's mouth was lightly tugged up into a soft smile, while we just sat there and gazed deep into each other's eyes, erasing everything around us.

"Um, boys?" Joe's voice took us out of that trance.

Fuck, I think I'm getting something like an obsession with my soon-to-be bandmate...

Steve finally pulled away and blushed slightly, then reaching to his belt and pulling a little bottle from the side. He downed the thing which was in it in one single gulp. Afterwards he sighed and licked his lips, winking at me before he went to get his guitar.

"Well, Phil? Can I talk to you for a sec?" Joe asked and I nodded, following him out of the room.

"Phil, this is really important. Steve has a big alcoholism problem, it has turned so big, that he sometimes even faints without drinking something. Phil, I don't know, but maybe you can try to help him a little, since you're the new guitarist and you're going to write on the guitar parts with him"

My mouth opened slightly at Joe's words, me not wanting to believe them. That beautiful angel was an alcoholic? I would never have thought that that was even possible. But apparently it was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was the day I met Steve, and we soon turned to something more than friends. The chemistry between us was just perfect, as a guitar duo and also as the lovers who we became. I loved Steve and I will forever love him, no one is ever going to fill his place again. I lost myself the day I got the message of him being found dead in his hotel room. Ever since then, I've never drunk something again, I've never been giving in to the murder of Steve for one more time in my life. The only thing I did was writing songs, I wrote them to remember him and to imagine him telling me what I needed to change and how he thought it would be better in another way.

I miss him. My White Lightning, Steve Clark, the Fallen Angel.