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21
Red Lobster was both a blessing and a curse—there had to be a different way of saying that. Turns out she didn't mind shrimp or lobster at all, once she got over how much money they were spending. But that was besides the point.
Because it was her mouth he found himself entrance with. Not like a creep, but rather the words she spoke. She'd say the most profound, wise things with the expression of a child—things he couldn't argue with that made him see the most mundane things in a new light, or take notice that which he took for granted. Sometimes it felt like he was hearing words spoken from another time when the world had a better grasp on itself, if it ever had. Or maybe a time when things made just a little more sense. And then, the moment he'd get comfortable with the conversation, she'd turn and make a new observation about himself or those around them with that same intuition that made him wonder just how much she observed him.
Being reaffirmed that she did actually pay attention to him made something inflate and warm inside him, and got him thinking…hoping.
Hoping to the point that by the time they made it back to her door, he was ready for an opening to try and kiss her good night. But the opening never came. She just waved and vanished with a yawn.
His hope deflated ever so slightly. He could begin to hear the doubts again.
They got louder when he tried to go to sleep, wired and head still spinning with her.
"I was told that you're honest, so I trusted you. And so far, I can see they're right. Never let go of that, okay? Though, one day, you'll find yourself in a dark place and will have to figure out why you really care so much about being honest, and whether it's worth it to you."
It almost sounded prophetic. And he could see what she meant. Hard times brought your true self out. Whether he wanted to see his true self was a different story, though.
And through her smiles, her words, her closed expression as she played through the cords of his heart on the piano, he heard the lyrics again from France: back, back, back to the minaret. Back to swathes of white, tan and gray, paying a soundless homage to the lone voice on the tower—no. To some invisible, all powerful being in the air, who had little reason to care about their petty wants and sorrows.
And if anyone looks round, to stamp out what's left of your sound…
But it was past one in the morning, and he was too tired and thirsty to pay homage to that particular song.
So he got up, pulled a bottle of red wine from the pantry, and set about cirroising his liver and brain. The thought did occur to him that he was going about this the wrong way…whatever this was that kept him up at night, but by then he was too drowsy to examine it. He wasn't going through a hard time, at least not the hard time Tea hinted towards. Yeah, he had to deal with the guilt of his bad choices and losing Rebecca, but it wasn't like they had been real lovers or that it had been that cataclysmic. After all, they got Tea through all that, right?
But, then…he had yet to see if that was a good or bad thing.
Go back to the minaret…
Like every opening to an especially bad day, he was rudely awoken by blinding light and an equally blinding albino. Why couldn't he dye his hair a different color? At least something that didn't reflect the sun like a freaking mirror. And did anyone knock? Or better yet, not break and enter?
"Heard you got a song," he said, gruffly. "Well?"
Atem swore, pressing his hands hard enough into his eyes to push them out the back of his head. Perhaps it would take the aching pain along with them.
"Damn it, you drank yourself to sleep again? Pharaoh, we got health training with the muscles in an hour and Mai's on a warpath to hear whatever funk you played for Joey last night."
"I don't want to play it," he moaned before he could think better of it.
"Just get your ass out of bed."
Bakura didn't give him much choice. With a well aimed kick and a tug of sheets, Atem was sent sprawling onto the floor, cursing Bakura to a circle of hell devoted to child molesters and people who talked in the theater.
"If you can quote third rate sci-fi movies at me, you can get up. Muush."
"Go away."
"Not until you're in the shower."
He saw the clock. 7:13. Last time he remembered was 2:30. "You're such a prick."
"No, I am THE prick who isn't going to let the, quotation fingers, "Band Leader" drink himself out of his responsibilities and leave his band members to make up for him."
"Fine, I get it, can I have a hand?"
Evil smirk. "No. Though I think I've got an extra kick."
Some worming across the floor, hot water, and a gagged down banana later, he was out in the too hot, too bright summer sun, glooping himself into the back of Mai's car just to find himself doing said glooping into a lap that did not smell like Joey's overdone Axe musk. In fact, it was definitely feminine and smelled of vanilla.
He shot up too quick for his stomach, which had been fighting with the banana anyways, and ended up scrambling back out of the car to throw up on the perfectly manicured lawn of their apartment complex.
And right next to Mai's sparkly, designer heels. Granted, he had purposely been aiming for the grass to avoid the sidewalk so that wouldn't happen, but she had been coming up on his rear and got some of the back splash anyways.
The next ten minutes were bleary, humiliating, painful hell. If it weren't for the overwhelming stench of alcohol, perhaps Mai would have bought the stomach flu excuse. But since she didn't, he was hauled bodily from the car by his ear as though he were some child and her a merciless British nanny.
"Get a hold of yourself! How old are you? How many people have you known who lost their careers because they couldn't control their drinking? Do I need to sign you into rehab? Do you have any idea what rehab would do to your career now? You're at a critical moment where you can either go up or down—and really? After you just finished an international tour? What could possibly be attracting you to drinking yourself to this state? Honestly, grow up and get a hold—stop whining! No, I won't let go of your ear until you act like the grown man you happen to be! Honestly, and right in front of poor Tea."
Since when had Mai prefaced any of their names with 'poor?' Why such motherly concern for Tea when Mai was so utterly, well, unmotherly?
He already knew the answer. It was the same one to why he found himself so caught up in Tea too.
Mai dumped him ungracefully on the floor of his apartment.
"Clean up," she growled. "When I come back, you better be bright eyed and every speck of booze in a box by the door."
Through the sparking pain of his humiliation and tortured ear, he managed to splutter, "You work for us—"
"I work for Kaiba," she spat. "As do you. When you lot are famous enough that you can have your pick of your own producer and manager, you can swipe out that card all you want. Until then, detox, pack ALL your booze by door, I'll be back at ten to pick you up for the interview."
"What interview?"
That got him a glare to boil blood into a crisp. Or freeze it.
She slammed the door behind her. The silence that followed her buzzed as loudly as her words.
Hugging his stomach, hand to his ear, he got to his feet and headed for the bathroom. Best get rid of whatever was left to hurl and start from scratch. Experience told him he'd feel better after that. Though there was no cure for a shattered dignity, which left the overall malaise stick around longer than it would have normally.
After he'd done all he could to make up to his body, he drifted through his kitchen, putting away the mini-wheats, doing what little dishes he had, then caught his own reflection in his chrome fridge, or rather, the blurred basics of his reflection. His usually stylishly wild hair had gone flat. So he sighed, put away the broom he'd been about to use, and went back to the bathroom to take care of it, as well as add on his basic eyeliner and scrub his mouth a second time through.
As he watched the mint bubbles swirl in the marble sink, he could hear the whisper of a tune in the back of his mind. It wasn't unique. It was one of the default ones: the call to prayer he'd heard in Egypt, and refreshed from Youtube when he'd returned to the States.
Nevertheless, he found himself at his goldenwood cello with his notebook besides him on the piano bench. He didn't bother tuning, but jumped into it. The gentle vibrations of the cello's body against his abused stomach felt good. His usual humming along even added to it.
Tea had said something about his playing. Back when she had asked—was it the first time? When had it been…she hadn't been really conscious—ah, yes. That she wanted to hear his prayer.
He paused, his bow lax on the thick C string. He glanced over to his notebook, where he'd scribbled various notes and lyrics.
Calling to a pretend heaven, with your face to the ground…
He scoffed at the words. Did Tea influence him to be more religious? Because that wasn't happening. He didn't get the point to it anyways, other than to help you feel better when someone you love died or other such bad things happened, and even then it was only if you 'believed' hard enough.
The doorbell dinged over the house speakers. He groaned and set his cello down. He'd forgotten to root out all his booze. Monster Mai would not be pleased.
"Coming," he called out, not bothering to sound enthusiastic, as he shuffled his way to the door. He didn't exactly hurry. There was nothing to look forward to, and what kind of person pulls on other ears? Who did that anymore? Did even British nannies do that? Hell, he didn't know.
He braced himself, opened the door—
Tea. Once more in a flouncy knee-length skirt, this one yellow with pink poka dots, but a rather old looking T-shirt. She looked a bit mismatched, in his opinion, but he wasn't about to say anything about that, no way. And no way was he about to comment on the enormous, 50's style yellow bow on her head either.
"Tea?"
She smiled and held out a paper bag. "I convinced Mai to let me corral you. We don't have to leave for another twenty minutes, so I picked up some stuff that I thought might help you feel better."
He blinked owlishly at the bag before taking it from her. "Thank…you?"
At his hesitance, she flushed. "I'm sorry, was that too weird?"
"No! No, not at all! I'm just not use to someone being so thoughtful, wait, that sounds bad. Um, the guys and Mai are thoughtful all the time, just not…" Yeah, he didn't know where he was going with that. "Would you like to come in? You could play with my instruments some more."
Bingo. Her face did that lighting up thing that kept making his insides dance.
"Can I play with the flute again?"
"Yep. I was even playing myself."
She made a happy little noise that elicited his first smile from him and bounced inside, as though nothing at all had happened that morning and they were the best of friends.
The best of friends…
As he mentally took a butcher knife to the part of his brain trying to replay how he had face planted in her lap that morning just to duck out and barf on their manager's shoes, he went to his kitchen island to investigate her gift as she flounced away to the music room. First was a bottle of pink stomach medicine, some Sprite, and…a lamb, pita sandwich?
At the site of only the best food in the whole damn world, his absent appetite poked its head up enough to wet his mouth. How had she known? She'd probably asked Joey, or something. Just to play it safe, he took the stomach medicine first before taking his first bite. Even as he chewed, he wondered where she could have gotten it. A Greek food joint had been the first thing he'd looked for when he moved in here. He hadn't found one.
He brought it and the Sprite with him to the music room, where she had the flute and was trying out notes with a narrowed look of concentration.
"Where'd you find this?" he asked, jerking his chin to the sandwich.
"Oh, I dropped into a grocery deli next to the health trainer's place. Joey told me you liked…what are those sandwiches called? By the way, having a health trainer is the weirdest, coolest thing in the world." Her eyes went big with childish wonder. "He made this most amazing burrito thing that tasted like tuna, but wasn't tuna at all! It had pomegranate in it and nuts—and then we did this really cool yoga and…" she turned sheepish and looked back down at her flute. "Sorry, you're probably use to this."
"Hardly," he took his place on the beanbag again, washing down delicious lamb chop with Sprite. Yes. This so did the trick. If he didn't love her before, ho boy, he sure loved her now. Did that mean he was simple?
He listened to her go on about her adventures with the health trainer and finding decorative knickknacks to make her apartment more like home. Despite her initial excitement, the flute was all but forgotten in her hand. She even let it go onto the music stand of the upright piano to take his cello and pluck at it a bit. She was going to sit down on said piano bench when she noticed the notepad and his scribbled song.
"What's this?" The nails of her left hand picked at the cello's strings as her right picked it up to her face.
"Just some brainstorming, you know. We do have a single due at the end of the month."
"Yeah, I was told…"
As her bright eyes scanned the words, for he knew now she cared little for staffs of notes, he wondered if he should be embarrassed. He was uncomfortable, yes, but it wasn't quite embarrassment. More like…apprehension.
"I love how these words seem to already have a beat to them. And..." she hesitated, glancing at him over the pages. "Why a minaret?"
He shrugged, not entirely knowing himself. But…he swallowed his mouthful. "When I visited Egypt that one time, I sort of got fascinated by the call to prayer they did. It's a Muslim country, so they have these tall minaret's where this guy goes to the top of and does this kind of singing—you know, right?"
"Yeah, I've heard bits of it, you know, on documentary films." She put the notebook down by her side, her nails on the cello strings still. "It must have been something to hear the whole thing in person. Did everyone really stop what they were doing and kneel towards mecca?"
"In most places, I suppose. Of course it wasn't everywhere, but it was kind of alarming the first time, because I was outside and everyone just suddenly dropped and I didn't think fast enough."
"And…what, you got attacked by the prayer patrol?"
He let out a short laugh. "No. I just found myself standing there, looking down at everyone, while this crackly speaker blasted out my ear. I liked the music, though." He paused, scratching a piece of lint off his designer jeans. "But I guess that might be just me."
She frowned and opened her mouth to say something, probably to deny it, but then she hesitated, cocking her head to the side as she considered him.
"What?" he asked.
"It's not the music that's bothering you," she said, in that weird clairvoyance of hers. "You know your music doesn't have a problem with conforming to popular taste." She paused, fidgeting and looking down at her shoes. "What are you afraid of?"
He gave a chuckle and a swallow of pop. "That came out of nowhere. Where to begin? I have this weird phobia of a candle tipping over while I'm asleep and setting my house on fire. And cockroaches. Definitely cockroaches. Spiders are fine though, don't know why. Maybe it's because they don't crunch when you step on them."
The way she glanced up at him through her lashes and started plucking at the cello told him she didn't buy it. But, then, what did she expect him to say after being served such a loaded question? Weren't people often afraid of everything? And wouldn't it be redundant to say that he was afraid his music career might plop, that his drinking might be out of control, that he was failing his bandmates to the point they would stop being friends after so many years; that he'd never get a chance with her—or worse—do to her what he did to Rebecca…
He said none of that. Just finished his sandwich to the tug and pull of her cello playing. The Irish flute remained forgotten on the piano.