cigarettes and alcohol - blur & oasis

✩ stop crying your heart out

✩ November 2002

It all came crashing down like a broken record. The sweet poetic embrace of their love suddenly surrounded with nuisance, bitter, winter-like drops of scratched pieces of records. What was once a heavenly hymn of the other's presence faded away into the darkness.

In bed, away from London and the overcrowding publicity, the remnants of the two of them collapses in Devon. Damon could hardly find the ability to be swept away into a sleep, and he could sense that Valia was widely awake just as he was, in spite of the fact that all he could see was the back of her head.

It became a taunting nightmare, that the torment of their lives continued to lurk around, even when they tried their best to escape with bravery. But fate was one twisted thing, and their engagement turned into a clouded misjudgment—that perhaps they had rushed into it. It was a lingering question, only neither of them dared to speak it out loud, because if they did, then it would all come crashing down on them.

Damon stared desolately at the girl next to him, who laid breathless and silent, delicately holding on at the edge of a cliff. He reaches out to pull her closer into him, her back brushing against his chest. It didn't surprise him that she didn't say anything, nor responded to his touch. It had been a long one month, and Valia slipped into a soulless entity.

He pecked her shoulder, above the shirt she had been wearing throughout the whole day. "We could go somewhere else. For a month or so. Maybe we shouldn't be in the country."

He knew that everything around them was a reminder of what they had lost. The drugs and the drinks. The bands. Missy. Liam and Noel's children. Jimi and Jude. It was a constant reminder that they had lost the one thing they looked forward to the most——they ventured into their engagement with the hopes that they would start a family one day. And even though they were not aware that they were expecting, it shattered them into a universal despair. They were simply not made for this, and the lives they carried out wasn't habitable.

"And go where?" She murmured, feeling Damon's arm tighten around her waist. He lingered his hand just above her stomach, and she was dragged into an utterly sick predicament. Valia was slowly repulsed by her own body and skin, a tormented emotion caving her whole, screaming that she had caused this. "I don't think I'm feeling it."

He frowned into her hair. "Anywhere. Somewhere quiet. We don't have to do anything, I just want us to be away for a bit."

"You still have to finish up your recording."

"I don't care about that." Damon says in an instant, his chest fury at the fact that Val was still thinking about their careers. "That can wait. I'm not going back until we get through this."

Valia blinked ahead, his breath tickling her from behind. She loosely traced Damon's hand that laid on her stomach. "Here's good enough."

He sighed. "Val, please. Let me take us somewhere."

"For what?" She twisted her head around, eyeing him from the corner of her eyes. Their room was dark, and it must have been in the late at night, if not almost the crack of dawn. But the two of them couldn't sleep, not that they were getting any these days anyway. Not since what happened. "You take me away and then we do what? Damon? Sit around in bed, not sleeping? We can do that here."

Damon loathed that she didn't put in the effort to see that he was trying to help them get out of this mess. It wasn't going to help much, but it would have been nice to step out of the country that doomed them persistently. It was the British media that dragged their engagement under. It was them who wrapped Valia in anguish, who turned her into a villain. It was their acts that pushed her into the heavy habits once more, even when she vowed to take it easy now that they were engaged, for the sake of their future.