Thanks to whoever read this!
Warning: There's no Muse in this chapter. So, if you also like Placebo, it's fine; but if you don't I'm afraid you'll find it pretty boring and I apologize for that, but, please, hold on, it's a necessary step for the story…
Summary of the chapter : Brian Molko is way too stressed out due to work and needs a holiday… but he doesn't know it yet.
An airplane. The umpteenth one and practically his second home.
If someone had asked him how many airplanes he had taken in the last four years, well, Brian Molko wouldn't have been able to give an answer.
After all, when you're a rockstar, ocean crossings or simply little travels from one town to another one become just routine.
And Brian was the leader of one of the most successful band of the moment. Their three albums had risen up the European charts and beyond; well, at least their first two albums had. The third one had been out for just a few months, but was getting on pretty well.
With only the thought of fulfilling all those frantic promotional activites, their manager Alex was telling them about in every single detail, Brian felt sick.
In the last three days they had already met the fans in a Music store, held a press conference, been on the set of two photo-sessions and they had even performed a concert, the first one in a long series and it had worn him out.
Those few weeks of break that they had taken after recording the album seemed to have blown by; especially because he had spent those weeks in Sweden, with Stefan.
As a sort of gut reaction, Brian turned towards the 'object' of his thoughts: Stefan, who sat at the opposite side, all engrossed in listening to Alex with the same attitude as students who want to excel in their class.
It was typical of Stefan who, as a matter of fact, excelled in Brian's heart, too.
Feeling his eyes upon him, Stefan turned in Brian's direction, meeting his gaze with a fleeting smile.
They would have liked to do something more, but that wasn't the most proper moment or the proper place.
"Alex, you gotta hurry up with the schedule you're showing to us; those two are already at the 'moony-eyes' phase!" Steve joked from behind them.
"It's not true, I have two eyes and I can aim them at whomever I bloody please!" the petite frontman justified, pretending indifference, before he turned behind just to look daggers at his friend.
Brian detested nosey parkers.
"This is such a lame excuse, Brian, you could do much better!" Alex stated as she temporarily took off her glasses and took a break from her work. After all, she had the unpleasant feeling that no one was listening to her, no one but Stefan, of course.
"Well, if Stefan and I were alone and undisturbed, hell yeah, I could do much better!" Brian struck back, before looking at Stefan.
"Well, people, could you please leave Brian and me alone for at least forty minutes?" the bassist politely asked, since Brian's look had awakened a savage instinct in him.
"No way, guys, don't you even try! You gotta wait for that until we arrive at the hotel. You're not going to turn this airplane in your personal realm of lust!" the woman reprimanded them.
"You had bad luck, love birds, I'm sorry!" teased Steve.
Brian didn't care; after all, he was already happy because both his drummer and his manager approved his romantic relationship with Stefan, which they had prudently kept hidden for a long time.
Brian recalled as if it were yesterday the special after-show of a couple of years before and the adrenalin that night was imbued with, the way Stefan and he kept eyeing each other up, their mutual desire of discovering if there could be something that was beyond friendship and the languid and passionate kiss they exchanged in the Swede's dress room, a kiss that had so pleasantly proved them right.
Since that night they had never stopped believing in what was between them and every day found the pair more and more in love, and the fact that finally they didn't have to hide anymore was just marvellous.
"Guys, I understand that now you're so in love and happy, but you should be careful. I've already found a photo on the web where you are busy kissing each other... in the middle of a gig! And I already know it's not a photomontage!" Alex warned them.
"So? People will think it's an advertising gimmick, something to make the media talk about me... as if they already didn't that enough!" Brian shrugged, not worried at all, which calmed Alex down, too.
A little bit shyly, a hostess pulled the curtain aside that divided the cockpit from the passengers, and made her entrance as she held a tray with a mug in the middle, and walked towards the singer.
Brian was already glaring at her from afar. He detested interruptions.
The girl advanced cautiously, trembling a little bit, as a few drops of sweat surrounded her forehead. The mug was filled to overflowing and she would have rather die than spill it.
The pathway that seemed endless to the girl finally ended and she victoriously placed the mug on the tray that protruded from the seat in front of Brian.
He observed her better: she was a very young girl, maybe not even twenty years old, and she could hardly stand in front of him, her too slender legs weakening second by second. She kept playing nervously with a lock of her long, bright blond hair, without being able to aim her hazel eyes at his iridescent emeralds.
She's a fan of mine! he thought, slightly amused.
"Yo... your... co... coffee, Mi… Mister Molko!" the girl stuttered, trying her best to show him a smile, but instead grimacing in an embarrassing way.
When the Airline she worked for let her know that she would be his personal hostess, she couldn't believe her luck, but now that she was dealing with her beloved idol for real and the icy way he was looking at her was making her rapidly change her mind about him.
"Thank you," he said quietly. Then he snapped "Too bad that I had asked for that something like *a month ago*!", before grabbing the mug, bringing the edge to his mouth, taking a little sip and putting it back on the tray in a heartbeat, rudely.
"Shit! It's hot as fucking hell!" he roared, glaring at the poor hostess.
"I'm so sorry, Mister Molko! Here, let me care about it immediately!" she apologized, panic-stricken. She took the mug back and disappeared from his sight with an abnormal quickness, still without letting a drop spill. She had some surprising capabilities at the very end.
"Bri, did that seem to you the proper way to treat that poor, dear girl?" Stefan scolded him as he got up in order to sit closer to Brian.
"Incompetents must realize what they are, even from their earliest years!" his boyfriend struck back, annoyed.
"You should know better: coffee is usually hot, unless you don't ask for an iced one!" the bassist patiently pointed out.
"Well, mine was way too hot. I could have screwed my vocal chords up!" the singer melodramatically justified.
"You should pay more attention, then. Since you're not exactly phenomenal with the guitar, you'd better preserve your voice in the best way possible!" the drummer teased him again, earning Brian's umpteenth icy glare.
"Steve please, be good; can't you see that he's not in a good mood today?" the bassist made him notice.
"Why? Does it mean that there are days when he's in a good mood?" the drummer insisted.
Stefan and Brian exchanged an understanding look.
"Believe me, there are!" Stefan assured his friend.
Alex confined herself just to observe them.
In the meantime the hostess came back, holding another tray with another mug that she gave to the frontman of Placebo. If the girl was nervous before, right then she was utterly terrified.
Brian thanked her, took the mug and…
"So, bloody admit it, you're kidding me! Now it's too cold. Here, have a taste of this rubbish, you, nitwit!" he snapped, throwing the cold coffee at her.
The poor girl had a more than reasonable breakdown; she let the tray fall on the floor and ran away, whimpering, as she took a mental note to get rid of all the posters and CDs of that band.
She wished that she had listened to her mother, when she tried to convince her to work with her sister in their family laundry. At least there, she would have never had the awful chance to meet the terrible Mister Molko!
"Gee, Brian, what the hell has got into you? Poor girl, you scared the hell out of her!" Stefan stated as he looked at Brian, puzzled.
"I… I just don't know. I lost my temper and I did what I did!" he justified.
"Okay, you're not in a good mood today, but that doesn't allow you to treat people like shit!" Steve asserted, looking at him disappointedly.
"Guys, I just don't understand why you're so surprised by that..." Alex finally said, since she had kept silent even for too long.
"This is not the only episode of hysteria that happened in the last days. Just think about the way Brian treated the technician at your last concert two days ago, just because a cable wasn't plugged in! Or yesterday at the photo-shoot! He was about to beat the photographer only because he hadn't framed him in the right camera light!" she went on.
"It's not my fault if I'm surrounded by incompetents!" Brian crossed his arms over his chest.
He detested feeling under examination.
"No, Brian, it's not just that. It's something more worrying!" the manager insisted. "Remember the schedule I was telling you about?"
"You mean the schedule you've been boring the shit out of us with since the airplane took off?" asked Steve as he rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, exactly that one. Fine, forget about it, at least for now!"
"Alex, what the fuck are you blathering about?" Brian snapped.
"Brian, can't you see? Right now you're not in the proper state to face any of this stuff! I was already a little bit suspicious in the last couple of days and had already thought about a solution, but now you've just confirmed my theory. It's evident that you're way too stressed out, dear; you're on the edge of a breakdown!" the woman explained as she approached to him, in order to face him better.
"Am I really on the edge of a breakdown?" the frontman repeated, unsure.
"Yep, just look at you constant mood swings. I mean, sure, you've never been Mr. Easy-Going, but now it's getting to be too much!" she kept her pleading.
"Honey, you are a little bit stressed-out." Stefan admitted as he held Brian's hand in his and stared at him with pure concern in his dark eyes.
"Maybe you're right!" Brian said as he began facing the facts.
"So, what are we supposed to do now? Screw everything up and go back home?" Steve wondered.
"Yes and no…" Alex replied. "I mean, all the schedule for now is delayed, I'll warn all the media about it. But about the going back home part, no; our dear Brian needs a holiday… and I've found the perfect place for him, an oasis of peace and quiet. That's where we are going now. We'll stay there for several days and see if you like it or not, Brian. You need some tranquillity in order to relax, and then you'll be able to come back to work, utterly reinvigorated!"
"Sounds good. Just tell me, which is the place that is supposed to work this magic on me?" he asked curiously.
"We're going to Devon. More specifically to Teignmouth." she informed him.
"I've never heard about that town." Brian shrugged.
"I'm sure you'll adore it!" she smiled at him.
"We'll see. Anyway, Alex, if you really wanna help me, you have to give me a gig. I mean, delay all the stuff you need to delay, but at least set a gig for us." the singer urged her.
"Why not? Forget London, it's way too chaotic for you and you wouldn't be able to bear such a stress, but… you could play in Teignmouth, it would be just perfect. If my guys wants Teignmouth then they're gonna get it. Just give me two weeks and I'll have you perform there!" she assured her band, drawing out her trustworthy mobile.
"So, would you really manage to delay our agenda and set up a concert from nothing… in just two weeks?" Stefan repeated, astonished as the other two band mates.
"I'm your manager, am not I?" she winked at them.
"You're the best one ever!" Brian smiled at her.
"Alright. Now, let me do my job, it's gonna take me a while." she warned them, before isolating in a corner.
"That's cool. After all, a holiday can't do any harm to us, can it?" Brian said, turning to the other two. The idea of a holiday excited him a lot.
Alex wasn't wrong. Brian adored that little, lost town from the first moment he saw it.
The quietness and the peace of that place were indescribable to him.
Since it was summer there were also tourists, but they weren't anything too unbearable, and things would improve once the high season was over.
After just a couple of days, which he spent in the most discreet way ever, Brian had already taken an important decision. Stefan was the first one he had told about it, mostly because he was part of that decision.
"Oh, Stef, I love this place so much, but I can't stand staying two more weeks in a hotel. So, I was thinking... what about buying a house here? You know, as our special shelter whenever we feel the need to take a break from the chaotic and frantic life we lead, just like now." he had suggested him as they walked down an isolated alley.
Stef had welcomed his idea with a very enthusiastic kiss.
"Alright. Now we just have to find a real estate agency!" Brian rejoiced, his determination rare to see.
BLOCKQUOTE
Chapter End Notes:
Just let me strike a blow for 'this' Brian: I guess he could have been even eviler, at least he hadn't thrown the hot coffee at the girl!
Well, you know, it's just that the idea of a very stressed Brian amuses me… especially if I think *whom* he will have to deal with! ;)
By the way, did I mention that in this story Chris's mom happens to work in… a real estate agency?
Uh! I didn't tell you anything! ;P
Hope you'll still like it and didn't find this chapter boring…since there were no Muse… but they will be back in next chapter (where the story will start for real), with the Placebo's concert and much more stuff… stay tuned! :)
P.S: The title of this chapter is taken from 'Ruled by Secrecy' lyrics, by Muse.