Right! Some of you will recognize this from I'll Take You Deeper. I had been toying with the idea of turning this one in particular in its own fanfic, and it wasn't until a lovely reader showed some interest that I made up my mind.

The title comes from Revolving Doors. It's cheesy af, but I had been trying for the longest time to think of something to name this, and I decided to settle for it. It works, I think.

Enjoy!

i

Stuart sat in the waiting room, idly thumbing through a music magazine on the coffee table set before him as the receptionist typed away at her computer, filling the room with a clicking noise. He did not mind the waiting; he had a beautiful view that overlooked the city and the place was quite nice, mostly white decorated with blacks and reds. The room smelled of coffee, and the sofa felt soft beneath his weight. He flipped another page and pursed his lips, resisting the urge to check his phone and send his friend a message.

Russel was his best friend, they knew one another since college when they were roommates and the friendship persisted to this day. They used to go to concerts and talk about music all the time back then, but now with their busy schedules and jobs, it was hard to find the time to talk in person. So they settled for text messages and some occasional calls, and Russ would often tell him that he was singing more frequently and in different places. They were not very young, both of them were way past thirty, but they managed to follow their dreams even if it took them some time.

Stuart had felt the impulse of ditching his current record company and agent, and did so with the intent of seeking out another one, one that was said to have one of the worst men to work with as its owner, but that could make your career skyrocket. Russel had advised him against it, and for a while, Stu did as his friend told him, but eventually his intuition pushed him to throw caution to the wind and do this without thinking or planning things through.

Therefore, now he sat here, in the waiting room of Murdoc Niccals' record company, El Diablo Records... The name did not help much with his reputation as Satanist, and Stu did not know how to feel about it.

The receptionist pushed away from her chair and walked over to the singer, keeping her gaze vacant as she examined him from head to toe before turning around. "Mr. Niccals will be seeing you now."

He rose to his feet and followed her, thanking the woman when she opened the door to the office and stepping inside with little hesitation. The room was foggy and smelled of cigarette smoke, there was a statue of Pazuzu in the corner and an ox skull hung on the wall directly across from him, above the desk. He tried not to think of the rumors as he gave the man a wavering smile and approached his desk with papers and objects haphazardly strewn about.

Murdoc was a man with green tinted skin, black hair with matching thick eyebrows, dark circles under his eyes, and a nose that seemed to have been punched a fair amount of times in the past. "What? Yer Stuart Pot?" He slapped Stu's portfolio, which he clearly had never opened, on the only empty space of the desktop. His yellowed fingernails were long and uneven.

Satanist? Stuart felt like he was making a deal with the devil himself.

"Tha's me, yeah." He swallowed; suddenly, he regretted not following Russel's advice.

"Yeh don' 'ave tha looks o' a rockstar. What tha fuck 'appened to yer face? Why's yer hair blue?"

Stuart considered answering to the man's angry inquiry, but not even his extreme unluckiness could explain how he managed to get himself involved in many accidents in his younger days, which resulted in injuries he sustained for a long while. Falling off a tree, getting into two car crashes and few other incidents such as a having a baseball bat hit him square in the mouth when his parents took him to America as a kid could explain part of it, yes, but Murdoc was not interested in any of that, thankfully.

"Ehh, doesn' matta. We'll jus' wait fo' my daughter."

"D-Daughter?"

"Yeah, my daughter. I 'ad 'er with my ex – uh... Ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex-wife – yeh get tha drill." Murdoc dismissed it with a wave of his hand and started picking underneath his nails. "Anyway, she's tha one tha's got a real eye fo' talent an' stuff, so yeah, we'll see what she thinks o' ya."

The singer shifted uncomfortably on his seat. Clearly, he had not expected that. He had imagined that he would have to please this stranger so he could have a contract – a music contract – and he had few friends that gave him tips and whatnot to make Murdoc happy... But none of them ever mentioned his daughter. Oh God, he could imagine it now, a little girl most likely, with the same skin tone as her father and his nose before it got too fractured for wear, would waltz into his office and look Stu in the face for only a split second before deciding that he was not cute enough for her standards. She would tug on her pigtails, even, or maybe cry because his hyphema made him look too creepy.

Or worse, she would be a teenager and would deem him too scrawny and not hot enough, not exactly the underwear model type she liked. She would listen to him for five seconds and dismiss him completely, because his voice was not deep and overly masculine, and he would leave the office feeling ridiculed. Honestly, he felt humiliated now as he thought that two imaginary girls would turn him down solely based on his looks, which never once had bothered him before.

The door of the office opened and Stuart tried not to flinch. Footsteps echoed around him as Murdoc greeted the newcomer, and the singer was not ready to look at his doom in the face just yet... But he had to. Bravely, he inhaled through his nose and lifted his eyes to look at the person standing beside the producer – only to find that it was not a child or a teenage at all. She was a full-grown woman with pale skin and slanted eyes. Asian, she was Asian and she looked nothing like Murdoc as she peered at him with black eyes that were hidden partially behind a messy fringe. Her hair was choppy, wind-swept, she was short and thin with gentle curves in the right places. He had seen her face in the TV once or twice, if he was not mistaken.

"Stuart, this is my daughter, Noodle. Don' ask me why she picked this awful stage name." Murdoc gestured between them and turned to the woman dressed in a striped shirt and high-waisted shorts. "Love, this is tha man yeh'll interview. Now if yeh will excuse me, I got somewhere else to be."

Stu remained mute as the producer stood from his leather chair with a groan and grabbed a pack of cigarettes before leaving the two of them alone. He picked at the hem of his shirt as Noodle made herself comfortable before him, trying to arrange the chaos that was her father's work desk. She eventually gave up with a click of her tongue and pushed things out of her way as far as they would go without falling off the edge, and finally reached over for his portfolio, breaking the seal and opening the file.

"Alright, Stuart Pot," she started as her gaze roamed over his basic info, and locked eyes with him, smiling. "Let's begin."