We were lying in a daze, my body melted naked against the bedsheets and the warmth of his skin. With the tip of my finger I traced his hip, drawing patterns across the bare flesh and watching as goosebumps prickled up in a trail after my touch. With every sleepy breath his ribs rose and fell, fingers twitching where he'd left his hand laid over my stomach, and I couldn't close my eyes against the beautiful sight of him curled around me.
I'm glad I lived to feel this happy.
2D shifted, pulling me closer even as he opened one half-lidded black eye, grinning dopily when he saw me watching him.
"Whatcha lookin' at?" He asked in a tease, languidly reaching out to place his hand over my eyes, "It's rude ta stare."
"I wasn't staring!" I protested with a laugh, pushing his hand away and then holding it warm in mine as I added, "I was admiring."
2D looked flustered, smiling wide even as he fidgeted at my blatant adoration. I smirked at how suddenly shy he seemed, about to point out that we'd gone a little too far now for self preservation when a sound stopped me in my tracks.
The rumbling of the elevator moving down the empty shaft to the B2 floor, followed by the soft bell announcing it's arrival. It rang out across the silent space like the heralding of a wrathful god.
I'm naked.
In vulnerable panic I ripped the blanket out from where it was tangled between 2D and I, the force causing the blue-haired man to be flung off the edge of the bed. He landed with a loud thud of lanky legs and arms, letting out an explosive "oof!", and I gasped out in mortified apology. I sat up to help him off the floor just as the lift doors clunked open to reveal the cyborg Noodle standing motionless within the interior and Murdoc striding out past her, nasally voice projecting out into the room before he even entered it.
"Oi, face-ache! I need that final song finished by today, and all we're waiting on is -" He cut off abruptly as he registered the scene he was walking in on; me holding the rumpled blanket up to myself and leaning down to offer a hand to 2D, stark naked and groaning on the floor. Murdoc's eyes narrowed for just a moment, a split second in time where I could see the light die in his eyes, before his face seemed to reset itself, going cold and mocking as he sneered, "Well well, isn't this just adorable."
2D finally took my offered hand, and I strained hard with what little muscle I had to pull the gangly man to his feet. Without acknowledging Murdoc, he pulled on a pair of briefs he had picked up off the floor, before turning to finally face his bandmate with his expression set in a mask of lazy nonchalance.
"Ever fought about knockin'?" The blue-haired man drawled, standing with his shoulders rounded defensively and bare skin glowing pale in the fluorescent light.
From Murdoc there was no response as he merely crossed his arms, mouth curving into a cruel smirk as he looked between the two of us with the same keen interest of a spider towards trapped flies. I frowned, wrapping the blanket tighter around myself as I stood up from the bed to stand beside 2D, my skin prickling with an uncomfortable agitation I couldn't quite place.
It's the calm before the storm.
2D was heedless of the animosity fizzing like static in the air as he scowled at the green-skinned man from across the room, jaw set in defiance.
"What the fuck do you want, Murdoc? Other than ta come an' try havin' a perv on Sloane."
The words were like a switch, flicking the room from uncertain darkness to bright red light as I watched Murdoc's smirk falter. Something briefly flashed within his mismatched eyes, but was gone too quickly to decipher as his mouth twisted into a wide smile full of crooked teeth.
"Stu..." I murmured, a warning the blue-haired man didn't heed as he continued, emboldened by Murdoc's silence.
"I'm not recording any more soddin' garbage fa you," He declared brusquely, shaking off my placating hand when I pressed it urgently to his upper arm, "So you might as well just leave me in here forever."
Murdoc's smile was sharp, dangerous. I swallowed hard against the panic rising up from my stomach as I glanced between them both, waiting with bated breath for the terrible final word between the two of them.
"Leave you in here forever?" The green-skinned man asked softly, eyes glinting, "Are you sure?"
2D smirked, curling an arm around my waist to draw me in closer as he sealed our fates; too cocky, too thoughtless.
"As long as I have Sloane wiv me, I'd be happy ta live anywhere; in here or hell."
I loved him for the words, felt my heart glow with warmth that he felt that way for me, but he shouldn't have said them. Standing there in threadbare pink Y-fronts, flesh a patchwork of yellowing bruises, he still looked like the closest thing to some sort of saviour I'd ever seen. Lou's angel had been Birdie, mine was a six foot two and barely dressed man-child.
Stu, I love you but you honestly couldn't have said anything stupider just now.
Murdoc was chuckling softly, the sound low in his throat and completely without mirth. My hands tightened in their clenched grip on the blanket, heart thudding hard against the cage of my chest as I watched him shake his head, fixing us both with a smug grin.
"Okay, deal."
I blanched, too shocked by his calm response to comprehend what was happening as 2D shuffled in surprise, his arms dropping to his sides and releasing me from his embrace as he eyed the other man off.
"Really?" 2D asked carefully, raising a hand to scratch confusedly at the crown of his head, "No tricks? No punishments? You'll leave me alone?"
"Oh yes," Murdoc purred, stepping forward with a hand offered to shake, "I'll leave you alone 2D. You have Murdoc Niccals' word of honour."
Something is off here.
"Stu, don't," I whispered urgently, but 2D wasn't listening as he moved forward dazedly, reaching out to clasp hands with the green-skinned man in agreement of the deal.
Crooked verdant fingers tightened around long pale ones, tugging 2D just a step closer as Murdoc spoke again, mouth moving near the blue-haired man's ear as his hazel eyes looked over his shoulder to meet mine.
"Well it's time to say goodbye to Sloane then."
I watched him grin wide, and closed my eyes against the sight as I realised with a sinking feeling exactly what 2D had just agreed to.
"What? No... no. She's stayin' here wiv me; you promised," His voice wavered, confused and fearful as he tripped over himself to try and comprehend.
Murdoc sniggered, shaking his head, "No, I promised I would be leave you alone in here, forever."
2D wrenched his hand from Murdoc's as if he'd just been bitten by a poisonous snake, the action rippling into the surrounding room like a tidal wave of cause and effect as the tension broke into a flurry of sudden movement. I lunged forward as Murdoc drew his fist back, diving to get between them just as he went to strike out hard and fast for 2D's unprotected face. Eyes wide, hands up, my palms closed around his green knuckles whilst behind me the blue-haired man cried out my name.
Yet Murdoc didn't hit me. His fist flew forward and then stopped dead in the air as soon as I stepped into it's path. Grey eyes meeting tawny ones, no words to say. I looked up at him imploringly as he froze for just a moment under my touch, before his gaze was flicking back to 2D and I knew I'd lost him even before he wrenched his hand from between mine. There was a click, the snap of his thumb and forefinger together and then the small cyborg girl had grabbed a hold of my arms.
"NO!" I cried out, furiously thrashing within the vicelike grip of the inhuman child as I watched 2D lunge towards Murdoc with a snarl.
"You almost hit her! You fucking bastard-"
Whatever litany of insults he had been about to throw in my honour was cut short as the green-skinned man took the opportunity to kick 2D's legs out from underneath him, the gangly man sent sprawling into the bedroom wall with a painful thud.
"Stu!" I shrieked, twisting back and forth in the cyborg's arms as I tried to break free to run to his aid. The blanket wrapped around me was beginning to come loose with my violent motions, but I couldn't care less as I watched him sit up on his knees, palms rubbing over the crown of his skull.
Murdoc looked like a merciless being as he stood over the groaning figure cradling his head on the floor, gaze slicing down like a razor. He pulled back a booted foot, ready to slam it into his exposed ribcage, and I felt my heart leap into my mouth with how fast it was beating from fear.
"Don't touch him!" I spat, before softening, my voice tired and defeated as I reasoned, "You win, Murdoc. Just please, don't hurt him anymore."
The two men looked up at me, and I turned expectantly to the cyborg girl who held me from behind. With another click from Murdoc she released me, and I was quick to catch the blanket as it started to slip free from around my bony form. When I returned my attention to the room's inhabitants, I had three pairs of eyes heavy on mine as they each waited for something from me.
A dark brown pair mostly obscured by her fringe, staring unblinkingly as their owner waited to see whether or not I'd move to attack. A hazel pair, one of which was slightly bloodshot, watching me keenly as the man studied me for answers to a question I had never heard him asking. Then those black eyes, like two ink blots set in the pale angles of his face, big and wide as he silently begged me not to say what I was about to say, what I had to say, to keep him safe.
"Murdoc, I will willingly leave this room with you and leave 2D down here alone, just please, please, stop hurting him."
2D closed his eyes, still hunched on the floor but now shaking his head in misery, whilst Murdoc fixed me with a bored look.
"You think I care what manner you leave the room in?" He asked with a callous laugh that rang out into the room like tendrils of ice, and I felt my stomach twist at how wrong I'd been about him.
How is this the same person who stitched me up yesterday? Who held my wrists and told me they couldn't watch me cry?
It seemed I had been duped, and I was bitterly screaming out "NO" as he snatched the double barrel rifle off the Noodle cyborg, slamming the butt of it into 2D's head so hard that his skull collided with the ground.
NO no NO NO NO NO -
The cyborg girl was viciously tugging me away and I was yelling out every word I knew like a prayer as I watched 2D look up from where he'd fallen, black eyes half-lidded and dazed as they met mine.
I love you.
I might have said it, mouthed it, or perhaps I was silent as I was dragged into the elevator, as the two of us watched each other disappear from sight.
Murdoc joined his cyborg and I in the crowded lift box, a man made of ice as he looked at me with barely concealed loathing. The button for his upper level study was pressed, and the doors closed.
"What the fuck was that about?" I asked into the silence, receiving no answering sound within the confined space except that of the lift rumbling as it rose.
It was only when there was the usual chime of us arriving at the upper floor that the green-skinned man deigned to respond, his voice flat and disinterested.
"He's here to contribute to the band, not to... not to mess you around."
Mess me around? Doesn't he mean, "mess around with" me?
"Wait," I said slowly, blinking as I tried to comprehend what was being said, "So you just tried to beat the shit out of 2D because... what? We slept together?"
Murdoc rolled his eyes, stepping from the elevator and into his study without a backward glance. The cyborg girl frogmarched me after him, before abruptly releasing me at click of his fingers.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? This is what you wanted, this is the whole reason you brought me to this radge island," I snapped at his retreating back, watching as his shoulders tensed at the sullen words.
"Well, I changed my mind!" He spat back, before blinking slowly, his face settling back into nonchalance as he added, "As have you, it seems. Don't seem to hate good old face-ache so much anymore, hmmm?"
I ignored his jibe, holding the blanket tighter around myself as I followed him over to where he'd sat down at his desk, neatening papers as he waited for my answer.
"You constantly treat 2D like shit, always pushing him around and putting him down, but today was too far, Murdoc," I told him calmly, trying to understand what exactly it was that had flipped the switch and turned him into the cold bastard that sat before me.
The man raised a single brow, it disappearing under his fringe as he disinterestedly intoned, "Is that so?"
"Yes," I said through gritted teeth, feeling my patience waning.
"That's interesting," Murdoc drawled, reaching over to take an unopened bottle of red wine from the edge of the desk and twisting off the lid, "Because I could have taken it much further."
He watched me, gaze distant as he took the bottle up to his lips and tipped it back, the burgundy liquid staining the corners of his mouth as he gulped it down.
"Why are you like this? Why do you act so violent and hateful when we both know you can be better than that?" I demanded, watching him drink with that same bitter disappointed feeling that I'd felt yesterday.
His Adam's Apple bobbed as he swallowed, lip curling in a sneer as he looked coldly up at me.
"You don't know me at all."
Despite myself, I felt a grin spread across my face at his angsty words, my tone light and teasing as I replied, "Yeah I do; you're the big grumpy lion from that old story, the one with the thorn in its paw."
Murdoc frowned slightly for a moment, before his expression faded back into one of boredom.
"Oh yeah? Mmhegheh and I suppose you think you're the little mouse come to pull the prick out?" He goaded, his tone one of bitter condescension.
"No way," I said, still grinning as I refused to take the bait, "I'm the poacher out on safari who's still figuring out whether or not to blow the lion's brains out with my hunting rifle."
For a moment I thought I might have managed to melt his wall of ice, my gaze on his mouth as I waited for a smile, perhaps even a smirk. Murdoc's lips twitched, his teeth for a moment on display, but it seemed I had fallen too far out of his good graces as he instead scowled.
"The only one in danger of getting their brains blown out is 2-dents if he doesn't stop wasting our recording time with you," He drawled, then added with a cruel laugh, "Though of course, I'm not entirely sure he has any brains to get blown out."
He's being so needlessly cold, for no reason at all. Maybe this is what Stu was trying to warn me about this whole time.
I felt tired and crushed as I looked down at him, wondering how I always seemed to read people so wrong.
"Fuck off, Murdoc," I murmured quietly, exhausted from all the conflict as I added in a sigh, "Just stop trying to hurt 2D and make him any more sad than he already is, or the next time you hurt him I'm gonna have to kill you."
We glared at each other in silence, the cyborg girl looking on from the corner of the room whilst the sunlight streamed golden through window panes. The green-skinned man's gaze was frosty, burning cold against my skin when he finally spoke, mouth twisting as he nodded despite the fact nothing had been said.
"So that's your conclusion? You're choosing him, despite how clearly incapable he is of ever making you happy," Murdoc drawled flatly, lips curled in a sneer that made me clench my jaw defensively.
Choosing him? A choice between Stu and who else exactly?
"Stu does make me happy," I snapped, crossing my arms, "He's a much better person than you or anyone else is willing to give him credit for."
Murdoc was silent for a moment, long nails scratching the length of his jaw as his hazel gaze lowered towards the grooved surface of the oaken desk he stood behind.
"Well what a shame then," he sniggered, looking back up at me with a cold cruelness, "That you'd turn out to be just as pathetic as any of those other girls that always used to moon after what has to be the most dimwitted pretty boy to ever front a band."
I could feel myself getting riled up despite the voice of reason inside my head telling me not to take the bait. Something in his voice was too flat, too nonchalant. I had noticed yet paid it no mind as I felt my forehead wrinkle into a frown, eyes burning and teeth just beginning to bare.
Then, the words.
"I'm not mooning after him, I'm in love with him."
The man ever so slightly raised his eyebrows, the green skin over the Adam's Apple in his throat bobbing as he swallowed. For a moment I thought I saw something flicker in the depths of his hazel eyes, something fathomlessly lonesome, before it was gone behind his wall of prickling defence.
"What a pity; he'll be getting rid of you soon then," Murdoc sneered, nonchalant as he turned his attention to picking out dirt from beneath his long nails. I curled my lip in disgust, bristling at his callous prediction.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Unfazed, his smile was sharp and sadistic as he purred, "We'll see, hehhegh."
My mouth tasted bitter as I stepped forward, placing my hands on the surface of the large desk and leaning over so that our faces were mere inches apart. There was a sadness to it all, as if I were somehow losing a friend as I snarled my answer to his goading condescension.
"I have loved that man since I was seventeen years old; he's the only person I've lost who's ever found their way back to me. You can't stand there in all your bitterness and tell me it won't work out this time."
His sneer didn't falter, gaze dipping for just a moment to my mouth before settling lazily back on mine. I was close enough to see the slim circle of gold in the flecks of brown and green of his irises, watching the dark pupils at their centre blow wide as they dilated. There was something in there, somewhere behind all his pretence and posturing, and yet I couldn't look past all the masks he wore to see what lay beneath.
Without taking his eyes off mine, he grabbed the bottle of red wine off the desk once more, taking a long slug of it before finally responding.
"That little snivelling moron only bedded you for one reason, and I'll give you a clue Sloane, it wasn't because he loves you in return."
"Don't you dare -" I began but he kept speaking, voice a mocking rasp.
"He's a bloody borderline sex-addict and he hasn't had a lay in months, yeahh? You're not his star-crossed lover, darling, you're just an easy target."
"Fuck you," I spat, the words sour across my tongue as I felt angry tears begin to prickle across my vision, "Fuck you and all your bitterness."
He laughed, a caustic sound between us, smirking as he leaned closer to speak softly, dismissively.
"Listen here love, I don't know how all this between you two got started, but I know how it ends: face-ache lying drowned in a pool of his own sick ten years from now, completely surrounded by fit birds who are all mourning the death of the lead singer of Britain's best band. None of whom, are you."
We faced each other off, my anger a wild animal racing uncaged through my bloodstream. Breathing hard, I stepped back, drawing myself up to my rather unimpressive full height to stare him down.
"In ten years, Stuart Pot will be alive and well," I told him through gritted teeth, determined for him to be wrong, "And it doesn't matter how much you hate me, I'll still be there standing right beside him."
"Alright, then why don't you run along down there to floor B2 and confess your oh so sweet love to him if you're so sure I'm not right?" He goaded, and I felt my jaw set as he gestured lazily towards the elevator with his wine bottle, sniggering, "Well, go on."
Why would I do that? Go and say what he surely already knows just to prove to Murdoc that 2D is capable of loving someone? That he's capable of loving me?
I went to snap that our lives weren't a game for him to amuse himself by playing with, but something stopped me, something niggling under my skin like maggots in decaying flesh. I felt my hands itch to scratch open the sore and reveal it, even as the rational part of my mind begged for me not to.
Murdoc gestured again to the lift doors, sneering at my failure to respond, and in sudden fear I felt myself rip back the layers of self-protection and pull out the terrible thought that dwelt below.
Has 2D at any point, in all the years I've known him, ever said he loved anyone? His parents, Noodle, making music...? Has he ever even once said that he loved anything at all?
I suddenly didn't know.
The terrible doubt was icy poison in my bloodstream as I stood there shivering, my hands white-knuckled as they clutched at the blanket wrapped tightly around me. I was too small and vulnerably naked to manage a response as I instead felt panic starting to rise up my throat like bile.
He fucked so many girls back at the fairgrounds; a different woman every night with no interest to ever see them again afterwards. What makes me different from any of them? And why now - here in this place - where there is no one else to compete with for his affections?
"He loves me."
I said it like a child, hearing my own voice waver into the air like I had somehow regressed back to adolescence. Insecurities whispered in my ears, and I felt my hands shake as I lifted them to try to block out the hateful sounds.
I'm glad I never committed ta you, Sloane Mcleod.
The memory of his words like a knife and then suddenly Birdie's, echoing out through the darkness as her final piece of advice to a seventeen-year-old nowhere girl.
Be careful with 2D, Slo. Any guy that has gone around fucking that many girls without a second thought to their feelings mustn't feel much of anything at all.
And hadn't he said? Even then, that there was nothing between us? I scrunched my eyes closed against the terrible memory of it all, my insides twisting at the thought that maybe I was wrong again, maybe I was always going to be wrong about 2D and everyone else when it came to understanding how they felt towards me.
When I finally opened my eyes, Murdoc was watching me with an unreadable expression, half-risen out of his chair as if he had been about to approach me. The wine bottle hung limp from his hand, the man seemingly no longer intent on me making any sort of loving declaration to 2D as he raised a single brow questioningly.
"You're wrong," I said flatly, lips trembling as the heavy words dropped from them like stones. Together we watched them sink through the silence that followed, echoing into the sunlit room with the shadows of my own self-doubt.
Is he? Is he?
"If you're so sure, love," Murdoc smirked, and stood upright, grabbing a bottle of dark brown spirits from his desk drawer as he did so, "I'll escort you back down to your lover's bedchamber then, shall I?"
I scowled, turning my back on him as I stalked angrily back to the elevator and pressed the "down" button. Barely turning my head to speak to him, I snapped my response over my shoulder whilst the lift doors clunked and jerked open.
"That won't be necessary."
"Ohh, I insist," Murdoc sneered, stepping into the space beside me and lounging against the graffitied wall as he continued, "Otherwise how else am I going to know to come save your snivelling beloved from certain death when he once again rejects you and you pull your jilted lover routine by trying to murder him again? Hmm?"
I rolled my eyes, muttering, "crusty radge cunt" under my breath as I reached out to press the button for B2. The green-skinned man finished the remainder of his red wine, wiping the back of his mouth with his knuckles before placing the empty bottle neatly in the corner of the lift and cracking the seal of the bourbon lid open.
"To the happy couple then; may you both live long and healthy lives hehgheh," He slurred slightly, raising the bottle up towards the flickering fluorescent light before taking a swig of the brown liquor inside.
I could remember how it had tasted at seventeen, fizzing bitter on my tongue while I watched 2D disappear from me. The memory made my mouth turn sour, and I frowned, turning from the display with my heart becoming a hard lump in my throat.
Fuck having to feel like that, like I shouldn't have felt how I felt and that I couldn't even tell him for fear he'd leave me. He left anyway; whether with my love or without it.
I could feel Murdoc's gaze burning against my skin as I resolutely ignored him, the elevator shuddering to a stop. There was the now-familiar chime as the doors slid open achingly slow, and I was slipping my body between them as soon as the gap was wide enough to accomodate me.
Only my arm remained within that limbo of the threshold between the lift box and 2D's room beyond when I felt Murdoc's hand close around my wrist, pulling me back to him with such force that I almost lost my grip on the blanket as I stumbled into his side.
My back was to 2D as I was caught flush against Murdoc's chest, gasping out in shock when the bare skin of my shoulder slammed into his sternum. His mouth close beside my ear, I could feel the rapid fire pulse of his heart as he began to speak in an urgent whisper.
"Look, Sloane-"
"I'm going to tell him," I cut him off, jerking violently from his grip so as not to feel the heat of his skin as I added bitterly, "So I hope you can think a little better of us both when he proves you wrong."
Murdoc blinked at my angry recoil from him, face set perfectly neutral as he replied in a quiet murmur, "Then I'll stay right here, just in case either of you needs to make a swift retreat."
Fuck off you bitter condescending cunt.
I rolled my eyes, stalking from the lift as I muttered, "Just install a fucking lift panel in 2D's room and save yourself the effort."
2D was standing shaking in the centre of the space, expression flickering from terror to hatred as his head turned from staring out the porthole at the gigantic eye of the white whale to instead fix Murdoc with a glare. I felt my heart jolt painfully in my chest as I saw the fresh bruising around his left eye and swollen temple, burst blood vessels like spiderwebs across the skin below.
"Sloane, are you awright?" He asked tentatively, his black gaze briefly resting on my face before narrowing as they slid back over to the man in the elevator behind me. The large eye at the window receded into the dark water.
"I'm fine," I assured him, crossing the space between us to pull him into a hug, before turning to shoot Murdoc a glare of my own as I added through gritted teeth, "Murdoc was just leaving."
The green-skinned man sipped slowly at the bottle in his hand, watching us with a smirk for a few moments longer. 2D's arms tightened around me, pulling my smaller frame closer as he rested his pointy chin on my head, still glaring over at his band mate. Finally, a lazy green hand reached out, and Murdoc winked at me as he pressed the button to make the doors close.
2D immediately relaxed, softening against me the moment Murdoc was out of our sight, and I couldn't help but feel slightly relieved that he hadn't realised what I had: the was no rumbling sound of the lift moving from the B2 floor.
"He's such a bastard, nuffink good in him whatsoever," the blue-haired man sighed into the silence, kissing the crown of my head before leaning back to look at me, "He didn't hurt you, right? 'Cause I'll have ta kill him if he did."
I shook my head and smiled, but the expression felt wrong as I looked up into his earnest face, tracing the dark circles beneath each of his black eyes and wondering how it was that I could even have doubted for a moment that he loved me.
"We just had a little chat, about how he's not going to abuse you anymore" I murmured, standing on my toes to lean up and kiss him softly.
2D made a sound low in his throat, lips parting as they pressed against mine so that I could taste the sweetness of his mouth. One of his hands reached up to cup the back of my skull, tenderly holding me in place as his other hand slowly pulled the blanket from my vicelike grip.
Naked to the air, a shiver ran across my bare skin alongside the warmth of his fingers tracing down my ribcage, smoothing into the dip of my waist. I wanted it to matter, but I could only hear a voice, a long-gone and lost voice that called from the past. My eyes were closed, but I could see the matchstick in my hand, feel the cigarette hanging from between my lips. Lou behind me, standing in the Spring sunlight on the caravan steps but I hadn't turned around at the time.
I now wished I had, just to know what his face had looked like as he'd said those flat cold words, mad after our disagreement.
Stay away from that guy Slo, I don't know what he is but it isn't good news.
I wanted to go back and tell him he was wrong, that he was so completely wrong, but at the time I had said nothing and I always said nothing and I needed 2D to know this time that I didn't want to be silent. I didn't want to go quietly into the big bleakness of the world without having told him that I loved him and I was glad he hadn't given up on me because I was never gonna give up on him.
2D was guiding me over to the bed, mouth still pressed hard to mine as his tongue ran along the inside of my lower lip, fingers clenching against my flesh. I gasped at the sudden almost-pain but only pulled him closer, hands fisting in the tangled blue mess of his hair.
I love you.
Yet I still wasn't saying it as he gently tried to lay me down on the waiting bed, with me going rigid as I refused to move an inch towards it. Panic was starting to flutter beneath my sternum, insects taking flight to only beat themselves bloody against the unyielding bone.
I yelped in surprise when he scooped me up in his lanky arms, him snickering at the sound before I was playfully dropped onto the bed, the mattress squeaking in protest at my sudden weight.
I looked up at him, all blue hair and bruises, his entirely black eyes crinkling slightly in the corners as he smiled in slight bemusement at my wide-eyed expression.
"Stu," was all I could manage to say, before my throat felt like it was seizing up and I choked on the rest of the words.
The blue-haired man's smile faded, quickly replaced by a frown of concern as he stooped to sit beside me on the narrow mattress, watching my face in confusion as he responded tentatively, "Yeah? Everyfing awright?"
No. Nothing's ever going to be alright, but I think I can handle that as long as I have you.
Yet I didn't say it. He reached for my hands, clasping them warm in his own and I felt anxious tears well up bright and hot in my eyes, vision beginning to waver.
"Hey now, don't cry," 2D was rushing to say, trying to pull me in close to his side in a one-armed embrace but I was shaking my head, tears spilling down my cheeks as I leaned away from the touch I craved.
It was as if I had known the end before the end; some warning whispered to me whilst I'd slept by his side, drifting down through the layers of my skin and into the marrow.
My heart with it's many mouths; a terrible, wanting thing, that shredded stitches from skin and begged for the past like a wound that would never heal. I was still the violent nowhere girl, but I was no longer naive as I looked across him and stuttered out three terrifying words I couldn't remember saying to anybody but Lou and Birdie, not once, in all my life.
"I love you."
He was both the blue-haired boy of the past and the man of the present as he froze, black eyes falling closed whilst he slowly exhaled. In one moment he was my 2D, my dearest Stu, and then suddenly so decidedly not. Walls rose up between us, hurried and clumsy brickwork which I couldn't hope to move past, and I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as I felt my hands slip cold from his.
"I shoulda known this would happen."
His reply came out in a tired sigh, empty and broken as he shifted ever so slightly away from me. I closed my eyes against the sight, feeling the tears streaming down my cheeks in long wet trails as I finally understood why it was that I had been warned by everyone, everyone in the fucking world, about Stuart Pot.
He doesn't know how to let people love him.
"I've loved you since you lay beside me to wait for Lou, and brought me sandwiches in the rain," I told him, voice ragged as I finally looked at his face and saw how miserable he was at my words, uncomfortable as I tried to lightly ask, "Did you somehow not realise?"
He shook his head, azure blue locks of hair flicking with the violent movement.
"I'm slow in the head, remember? I'm fucking stupid."
"No you're not," I snapped, before softening, reaching out for his hand and feeling my heart lurch painfully in my chest as he recoiled from me. I could feel the heat beginning to rise to my cheeks as I added in gentle murmur, "I really want you to stop saying that about yourself; it's just not true."
2D stood abruptly from the bed, fists clenched as he stepped away, before turning back to speak to me as I sat there small and dejected on his bed.
"Well you know what I want? Ta be able ta exist in the same space as you without seeing all the ways I failed ta be enough laid out between us."
"You are enough, you've always been enough," I protested, but he wasn't listening, pacing back and forth with his hands fidgeting.
"Clearly not! Why have you not changed, not even in five years??" He ranted, lilting voice almost shrill with a panicked kind of frustration, "You're never happy wiv what we are, always asking fa more."
I wanted to reach out past his body to touch what lay beneath, to place gentle hands upon his frantic mind and ask it to calm, ask him to breathe. Yet I only sat there uselessly, body limp as I tried once more to help him understand, heart hoping even whilst I spoke with a mouth that tasted of ash.
"Saying I love you isn't asking for anything more, it's just saying exactly that; I love you and I want... you. For as long as you'll have me."
But he was shaking his head, hands ripping through his hair and then returning to their twitching at his diaphragm.
"Im not what you want, Sloane. Look at me, look at what I've become. You said it yourself; I'm not him, I'm not the boy you knew," He whispered across the space between us, voice a rasp that was all tears and terrified regret, "I've never been able ta make it work wiv anyone, never once in my life. Why are you askin' me ta ruin what we have on a whim?"
I blanched, the colour leaking from my face as I gaped at his words, feeling them as a hot lump in my throat that I had to somehow try and swallow. Rising from the bed, I stood before him nude and shivering as I managed to choke out my reply past it all.
"My love isn't a whim."
I watched as he tried to hold himself together, as he continued stacking up his defensive walls until there was no warmth in the world that could find it's way through.
"A few days ago you hated my guts, I'm sure you can switch back ta that easily enough," he murmured, mouth curled at how bitter his own words must have tasted on his tongue.
"I didn't hate you; I hated myself. When I first arrived and you ran to hug me like nothing had changed and you hadn't left, I was furious, but I didn't hate you," I explained, desperate for him to understand, "And I know I scorned you for it at the time, but you were right about us, back at the fair; I was too young. I wasn't ready to stand here and say the words I need to, which are that if I must live then I want it to be with you."
His black eyes were sad as they lifted to meet mine, my best friend stepping away from me with a slow shake of his blue-haired head.
"You can't put your life on me, Sloane, it's not fair."
"That's not what I m-" I began to protest the misunderstanding, but he cut me off.
"I can't be what you want."
My eyes stung as tears welled up at his words, the age-old sensation of having terribly misunderstood his feelings like the kiss of a razor to my skin.
"So you can sleep with me but you can't love me?" I heard myself ask quietly into the silence, my voice trembling over each word, "You can save my life but you can't share it with me?"
He sighed, hand tugging through his messy blue locks as he turned away for a moment, staring out through the porthole window. There was no longer any whale to see out there, just the inky black of the ocean stretching out forever around us. Then his gaze was back on me, softening as he opened his mouth finally to speak.
"In my head all I ever see is that image of you standing on the roof of the carousel waiting fa me, like some Trapeze Swinger just about ta jump," he murmured, reaching out to run his knuckles gently across my tear-stained cheek, "But I'm not strong enough ta catch you, Sloane, I never have been. I can barely even hold up myself."
I closed my eyes against the warmth of his hand, heart a raw agony as it shredded itself against the knifelike words echoing inside my chest.
I love you and you can't love me, what a useless and bitter thing to feel.
"Then don't worry, I won't ask any more of you."
I jerked away from his touch, watching as his face went slack and open with misery.
"Sloane-"
"No, Stu, this time it's me who gets to leave. I get to walk out that door and not look back, and this time it can be you that lives with the regret of words you did or didn't say," I said, and my voice didn't tremble. I looked at him and held my hands out helplessly as I spoke into the hush, "I won't apologise for loving you."
2D looked hunched and small as he blinked slowly at my words, before his defences came back up, his terrible pride stepping in to grant him that mask of indifference he'd always so loved to wear. My hands clenched to fists as I watched him rearrange his face, evolving into a stranger as he tried to distance himself from my love.
You can't stand there in all your fear and tell me it's my fault for mattering.
He made no response, standing cold and silent long enough for me to snap. Casting about the room in wounded fury, a familiar smug face caught my eye, and I felt my jaw clench. Striding over to where his spiderman cardboard cutout sat propped against the wall, I snatched off the long-nosed mask that hung over it's face and held it out to him in a violent jerking motion. The man flinched, and my chest ached to know it was me who had caused it.
"Well here you go then! Since you love masks so much; wear this one," I spat, voice cracking on every syllable, "It even has a long Pinocchio nose. That suits you right? You love lying to yourself and everyone else."
"Fuck you, Sloane," He muttered, hurt flickering across his expression briefly as he crossed his arms, refusing to take it from my trembling hand.
"No, we already did that," I bit back in response, blinking back angry tears as I carelessly tossed the smiling mask at his bare feet.
Finding my jeans and underwear where they'd been left crumpled on the floor, I didn't look at him as I pulled them on to cover my suddenly vulnerably naked body. Unable to locate the borrowed black turtleneck, I was shaking as I picked up my old purple ringer tee instead, tugging it on and ignoring the way it smelt like him.
When I looked back to 2D he was watching me from beside the bed, face pale and withdrawn in the fluorescent light. It was like holding a knife to my own throat as I felt through the darkness of my heart to find that candle-bearer with their lamp lit for the man who wouldn't allow himself to love me, and with tears drying salty down my cheeks, snuffed out the flame between the crush of both my hands.
I could see him in my mind's eye just as he'd been that morning, licking orange juice from his fingers and grinning all boyish at me, the two of us rolling skin on skin together and laughing at clashed teeth. Days like that forever, as warm and full as I'd imagined them at seventeen. Yet my heart was a fruit he had gladly bitten into, devoured from the palm of his hand and then spit out the pit without care, without thought for the girl lying dead at his feet.
Enough now.
"You were right," I murmured, turning to the elevator and slamming my fist against the steel as I blinked away bitter tears, "You were right! Open the fucking lift doors."
And they rumbled open, 2D's head jerking up in horrified shock as he saw Murdoc leaning smug against the back wall of the elevator box, taking a swig from his bottle.
"Of course I'm right, I'm Murdoc bleeding Niccals aren't I?" he wheezed, derision dripping off his tongue.
"Right about what? What the fuck has he been saying??" 2D was demanding in disoriented anger, but I only shook my head, unable to meet his gaze.
Murdoc laughed bitterly, waving with false cheer to his bandmate whilst I walked as one condemned to the threshold, my body hollow and cold. I heard a muted sound of grief from behind me, and turned to see the blue-haired man standing there with his hands held out helplessly, his body drooped in defeat.
"Don't go, Sloane, not like this," 2D pleaded, dark eyes wide as he took only one step towards the lift, seemingly able to go no further.
For a moment I faltered as I was faced with the agony written raw across his pale face, fingers trembling as they reached out to touch me and yet I knew now that was all I'd find there; flesh against flesh until he was sated and I was left bruised and bleeding in my search for something more. I could lie to myself and say it was worth living for, that it didn't hurt like a wound reopening over and over again, but for what? To not have to be alone?
I can't do it. I can't cling to somebody who can't own up to their own emotions.
"I have to. I can't stay if you can't love me," I murmured, miserable as I finally stepped back to take my place beside Murdoc within the rumbling carriage, "That's a certain kind of torture I won't put myself through."
I met his gaze as if from a distance much greater than the one we both stared across at each other from, wanting with all my heart yet finally unable to walk any further into the hellfire with him. His lips were trembling when they parted, his words formed of tears not yet fallen.
"But you could stay here... we could be happy."
I wish, forever and ever my love.
"Not this time, Stu."
I watched him break, dissolve to fragments that I had no hope to ever help reform into something whole.
"Why? Please, Sloane. Where will you go?" He was stumbling towards the open doors, tears streaming down his face.
"Back to DeWitt, beg him for my life," I laughed, bitter so bitter, "Since you don't want to share yours with me."
"No no no-"
Murdoc punched the button for the lift to shut, and it began to slowly rumble closed. Clanking, grinding, my beloved Stu a coward standing frozen just outside the doors long before the gap grew too narrow for him to pass through.
"Goodbye Stu," I whispered across that final uncrossable space between us, "I hope you find someone who you're not so terrified of loving."
And then the door closed, and whatever answer he may have had to give, his chance to say it was over.