Someday soon, John thought, he'd have no choice but to commit homicide. And he'd get away with it too because clearly, not a single judge in the world would blame him for strangling Harrison with the power cord of the amplifier the insufferable git just plugged in. After some feedback, which in and of itself was like nails on a chalkboard, the familiar arpeggiated chords he'd been listening to for days on end started to blare through the flat. John groaned loudly, tried to block out the sound of that bloody guitar solo George had practised every day for the past week by covering his head with his pillow, and failed. Too much noise, not enough pillow. Life was unfair.
John sighed in defeat as he extracted his face from the warm skin of the bloke snoring softly in his arms - Brad? Eric? No, Xander. No wait, that was last week. Dimitri, that's it... - and released the lad's thin frame to grab the alarm clock. He wasn't wearing his contacts yet and would be damned if he put on his glasses so John held the thing about an inch from his nose and squinted hard, eventually reaching the conclusion that the numerous red dots formed the numbers 8:27. With a frustrated yell, John threw the clock at his bedroom door. It never even reached that far and softly landed on a discarded pile of clothes, from where it seemed to mock him. Such, John lamented silently, was his life: one failure after the next on such an absurd level that he couldn't even wreck his own possessions when he tried.
"Get up," he finally murmured at the comatose figure to his right. If John wasn't going to be sleeping anymore, then neither would his latest fling. It took a few efforts, ending in John giving the lad a good, firm slap on his bare arse when none of the more gentle pokes and prods seemed to cause much effect. That, at least, elicited a response, even if it was little more than an aroused-sounding moan which brought back fond memories of the previous night's kinky tryst. "Oi, Dimitri. Wake up, you lazy cunt."
The blond mop of hair shifted, and a pair of bleary green eyes blinked slowly at John. "Who the fuck is Dimitri?"
"Erm... You?"
"I'm Gareth, John. Fucking hell." Shaking his head in unveiled disapproval, the bloke slowly got out of bed, clearly still overcome with sleep, judging by the way he'd teeter to the point of nearly losing his balance every few seconds.
Little by little, he shuffled through the room, picking up clothes until finally, John began to remember chatting him up. It was the sight of Gareth - what a stupid name, anyway - putting on the faded tank top with a picture of Bob Dylan that refreshed his memory: the main reason John had noticed him in the crowded club. They didn't seem to have a lot in common but John thought him rather cute so he pulled him anyway, as one does. He hadn't had any complaints, in any case.
After having momentarily disappeared from view to gather and put on his Vans, Gareth eyed John and grumbled, "I guess you won't be texting me, then?"
"I reckon not," John confirmed, flopping back down onto the bed. Well, he might have if he actually had Gareth's number. Then again, he probably wouldn't. The shag was great and all, and it was certainly a nice change of pace to fuck someone with a pain kink, but the lad didn't look half as good in daylight (in other words: when seen through sober eyes) as he did last night at the club (meaning: when John was drunk and randy) and frankly, John had his fill of posers who pranced around in band T-shirts without being able to mention three of their songs. There ought to be a law against that, he thought as Gareth walked out of the room - and, going by the loud slam of the front door, straight out of the flat - without so much as looking back. Fucking rude prick.
"Dimitri not a keeper then, is he," George smirked upon John's arrival in the tiny kitchen, interrupting his playing long enough to make sure John would hear the little taunt.
John cast him a threatening glare, which sadly didn't seem to impress his young flatmate. Quite the contrary, in fact, since his dark expression was met with one of George's huge, fanged smiles. John rolled his eyes and grumbled, "his name's Gareth. And no, we didn't hit it off."
"Could've fooled me, the way you went at it," the younger bloke chuckled merrily. "Liked to be slapped around, that one then, did he?"
"Stop listening in, you little pervert."
"Couldn't help but hear, mate. I reckon half of Liverpool got the gist of it," he sniggered, adjusting the tuning peg on his B-string whilst John ambled over to the cupboard, from which he pulled the cornflakes. Empty. Frowning at George, John slowly turned with the box in hand, only to receive a lopsided smirk in return from the guitarist, whose dark brown eyes followed John through the cramped space whilst he deadpanned, "we're out of cereal. Eggs, too."
"You don't say," John snapped, waving the empty carton in George's general direction. "And you thought putting back the empty containers would achieve what, exactly? The food you stuff your gob with doesn't reproduce itself, Hazza!"
Sometimes, he wondered what had possessed him to accept that walking rubbish bin into his flat. The thought that out of all the people who emailed him about the advert he'd posted on various message boards, this idiot was the least offensive one was, quite frankly, depressing. For a few moments, John could only stand there, contemplating the sorry state of his life as he scrutinised the other bloke. 'Atomic Bomb', his tatty T-shirt said. Ironically, the name had been inspired by a comment John had made, that one time he innocently walked into George's bedroom, which had resembled what he'd imagined Hiroshima might have looked like after the blast.
The worst part was, that George had only been living there for three weeks at the time. John had come this close to kicking the lad out, and would have if he had been able to afford the rent on his own. But, with his (long-term, much older, permanently employed) ex-boyfriend long gone, John's inability to keep a job, and George's willingness to pay his share and put up with the constant stream of one-night stands and the noisy sex at all hours of the day and night... Well, kicking the kid out was a luxury John couldn't afford. Not that he was particularly tidy, mind. But George, the leader of an up and coming band which hadn't settled on one definitive sound yet, was in a different league altogether.
Then again, what could anyone expect from someone who straightened and dyed his hair - which had probably been dark brown and curly once upon a long ago - jet black with one big, bleached section near the front, which basically had a different colour each week? If anyone kept Manic Panic from going under, it would have been George. Currently, The Streak was a violent shade of pink. A fortnight ago, it had been neon green and sadly, so were the bathroom tiles. The dye always washed out of George's hair soon enough. If only John could be sure the tiles would ever be white again, too...
There was never any certainty about what George would be wearing. His current outfit of purple leggings with a galaxy printed on them, paired with one blue-with-colourful-polka-dots and one yellow sock, a black T-shirt with a mushroom cloud and the name of the band in bright, spiky lettering on the front, and a pair of pink headphones shaped like cat ears on his head was actually one of the more conservative outfits John had seen on the lad. There was, after all, that time he'd gone out in a pair of pyjamas. Hello Kitty pyjamas, no less. Though, admittedly, he had been pissed as a fart, then. Not to mention high as a kite. Which may or may not have been caused by the magic brownies John had fed him as revenge for eating the last tub of Ben and Jerry's... But even so. The mere fact that a bloke in his early twenties even owned Hello Kitty pyjamas was bad enough...
Considering how odd Geo was, his habit of eating everything within a five-mile radius and putting back the empty containers was easily one of his more normal habits. How someone like that had managed to not just find a girlfriend, but a pretty one who appeared to be completely normal, was anyone's guess.
Probably, John reluctantly admitted to himself, because George was cool. Nobody was more himself and nicer about it than that walking skeleton, and on top of that, he didn't have the slightest problem with John's sexuality. They could walk in on each other naked, and neither would mind. Although, if he was truly honest, John would prefer not to have witnessed George in the act of having sex. As open minded as he was, straight people going at it didn't really tickle his fancy. He liked his partners to have matching naughty bits, and loads of body hair if possible...
Seemingly unaware of John's inner turmoil, George stuffed a spoonful of soggy cornflakes into his mouth and mumbled around the food, "it's your turn to go to the shop."
"But you bloody ate everything!"
"I didn't make the rules, mate," he shrugged, jerking his head at the brightly coloured sheet of paper on the fridge, which contained the house rules neither of them ever really abided by. "Your day off, so you do the shopping. Besides, I had to listen to you shagging. You owe me for the mental scars."
John supposed that was fair enough. He had, after all, come in at an ungodly hour when George had already gone to bed, and proceeded to have ridiculously loud sex for the better part of an hour. He sighed in defeat and dejectedly bit into a rice cracker, but not before he said, "Fine, but you're cleaning the bathroom. That dye has to come off."
"It won't. I tried."
"Have you tried bleach? I'm not looking at green tiles another day, George." John hoped that would work, anyway. If anything, he could kiss his deposit goodbye if he was ever to move out of the flat and leave the bathroom looking like that.
"Fine. I'll try that, then," George shrugged, swallowing the last of his cereal. After putting the bowl on the worktop, he looked up at John with a suspicious glint in his eyes. "John?"
"What?"
"We need bleach." And with that, he plugged the headphones into his amplifier and started to play. Sighing, John went to find his shoes and the key to his bicycle, wondering for the millionth time if anyone would be genuinely upset if George would simply disappear someday...