Author's Note: Mild crudity and insinuated darker themes of uncontrolled violence to furniture and self mutilation. The next chapter is up! How fabulous! I've finally gotten around to writing again!

"Shannon, when is this going to end?" Tommy whispered.

The blond took a business-like look at her watch. "Another five minutes."

He sighed and reluctantly agreed to do whatever it was the photographer was screaming at him to do. He flapped, scowled, grinned, did every pose short of turning cartwheels, and was finally released. The photographer grumbled and muttered beneath his breath in Croatian.

The rock star was free to get out of the room as fast as he was able, already querulously demanding a change of clothing. Shannon provided the needed clothes and left him alone, entrusting him to the care of chauffer. The chauffer, a big burly African American that detested his job, was more than willing to deposit the rock star at his hotel and take the night off.

So it was, and so it was done.

Brian Slade, a.k.a Tommy Stone, was in his hotel suite in an hour's time, picking up the pot of cream and lathering it irritably over his face. Cotton came away off his skin streaked with rust colours and reds. He made a face and cleaned the rest of it off. It wouldn't do to greet Arthur Stewart with the make-up still on. The younger man was liable to hit him again.

Music?

He mused on that for a second and decided not to tempt fate by playing music. His tastes were varied but anything he played was bound to have some kind of negative effect. So, no music.

Dim the lights?

He blinked at his reflection in a mirror. Why would he ever have thought of such an insane thing? After all, he wasn't seducing the man, was he? They were going to talk, and argue again in all probability. But it wasn't like that, was it? He was done with that sort of thing. Had been for years.

Stone refused to remember the young stagehand that had caught his eye not two months ago. Shannon had paid him off and sent him packing, efficiently 'taking care' of everything, as was her wont. But one night stands aside, neither Tommy Stone nor Brian Slade had had any proper male lovers since Curt Wild.

And both personas knew very well how well that had gone!

Peculiar, the fact that Curt Wild had broken both their hearts. Stone was vaguely aware that he had downed his first drink and was even then pouring another out. It was all right. It was just a few, after all. No harm done if he steadied his nerves…

Arthur was sent in not an hour later and gasped in shock.

The room was a shambles. Furniture was lying in various prone attitudes and some of it had been chipped or broken. The room stank of alcohol, and the wet stains of the carpet said why. Curtains had been ripped down and strewn around the rooms. Glass shards littered the glittered from where they had been smashed against the wall. There was, even harder to comprehend, a cracked patch of plaster on the wall that said someone had gone insane with the battered side table.

Frighteningly enough, the windows were open. The sound of cars and crowds filtered up into the vandalized space, sounding disturbingly normal in such chaos.

"Um, Mr. Stone?" Arthur cleared his throat and tried again, walking a few more steps into the room. "Mr. Stone?"

No answer.

Arthur uselessly picked up a shredded cushion. A sliver of the porcelain that had been used to rip it open caught on his thumb and he cursed as he dropped the ruined thing to suck on the tiny wound. "Bloody 'ell," he sighed, looking around.

There was no way that something like this could have been a burglary. Was it even possible for anyone to break into a place like this without anyone noticing? Arthur dropped down bonelessly on the couch and continued to stare around him. By rights he should go down and talk to the hotel staff; call the police and the like. If anything had been taken, it wouldn't help to cool his heels here. And then again this was the jealously guarded private life of Tommy Stone. Maybe he should call Shannon. But he didn't know where she was.

The sound of footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. The ornate clock was still ticking, even thrown halfway across the room to lie next to the bar. The sounds combined and Arthur looked up as the door opened, morbidly expecting the clock to start chiming.

"I was expecting you," Stone murmured. He was leaning against the doorframe, eyes cold and blank still as he held a towel wrapped around his arm.

Bruises, Arthur noticed. It made him wonder. Was this just something he shouldn't bring up? Maybe Stone had had to meet his bookie or his supplier and things got ugly. That wasn't something he wanted to know about. "Shannon said to wait in here," he answered neutrally.

Blue eyes flicked vaguely around and then settled back on his shoulder. "I see. Give- give me a minute and I'll get dressed. Can't go down for a drink dressed like this, eh? People will think I've been in the wars."

Arthur found himself radically changing his decision. "Stone, what happened, here? It looks like you've fought the bloody wars in your living room!"

Stone looked down at the shirt pressed to his forearm and shrugged. "Things happen," he said, turning around to go back into his bedroom, "I'll be quick."

The door didn't close, though, and Stone stumbled to the bed and sat down, still staring at his forearm. Arthur was sitting directly opposite him, albeit in the other room, and couldn't understand what was happening. He watched the slender fingers peel away the shirt from his arm and drop it negligently to the floor. The flash of red and russet mixed with crimson. Not make-up! Blood?

Arthur Stewart was in far too deep for his liking. He was not someone who knew very much about empathy or sympathy. He knew facts and words. But his parents had always told him there were certain things you didn't do, and one of those was intruding on other people's private pain. Poking your nose in to what you don't understand was dangerous, his mum had always said.

But the man was bleeding!

Arthur sighed and stood up. Brian Slade- or Tommy Stone, whichever he was at the moment- didn't move a muscle; he was still transfixed by the cuts on his arm. And from what Arthur could see, they really were beauties.

"Come 'ere," the younger man groaned, "Let's have a look." He walked into the bedroom, closing his eyes to the pristine order and the smell of cologne and hairspray. "What'd you do, you daft bugger?"

A cracked chuckle broke from the slender throat, enough that Arthur questioned his own sanity again for getting involved.

It was clear enough what he had done. The wounds were too clean and precise to have been anything but intentional. Someone- and he suspected it was Brian himself- had taken something sharp and pointy and dragged it over the soft flesh again and again. The reporter clucked like his mother before he thought, blushed in embarrassment and got swiftly to his feet.

"Stay here," he ordered, "I'll get something to clean it."

He hunted through the bathroom cupboards and finally found a First Aid kit. Adding a bag of cottonwool and a mug of water to the mix, he made his careful way back into the silent bedroom. Slade was still in shock, gazing inwards with his eyes fixed on the carpet under his bare feet. Arthur made a mental note to check under his feet for anything he might have stepped on.

The cuts were deep but not fatal, thank God. Most of them had already stopped bleeding. There would likely be scars, but they'd be the thin white ones that no one really noticed. Pretty much like the ones already on the soft underside of that delicate arm.

Arthur stilled his hand and looked down again. "Done this often?" he asked ironically.

Slade shrugged again. He might have looked like a sulky teenager if he hadn't had a black eye and a bruise on his forehead the size and colour of a plum. His grimy white shirt stank of whiskey. There were scratches on his neck, and some of them looked as if they needed to be cleaned out as well. His tan trousers had once been neatly pressed but they were now crumpled, as if he'd spent some time crouched on the floor and crawling.

A soft hiss greeted Arthur's shaking fingers as he tipped some of the antiseptic over the arm.

"Sorry," Arthur said, mentally whacking himself on the head for it.

"S' okay," came the softer reply.

Grey eyes flicked up questioningly and met blue ones. "Want me to bandage 'em? Or should I call a doctor?"

"Just- just wrap the gauze. It should be fine."

It should be? Arthur didn't like shoulds. They were dangerous things. There was always the possibility that what he wanted to happen, wouldn't happen. "I'll wrap 'em up for now and you can go to the doctor tomorrow. I think I should call Shannon, though. Tell 'er about all this."

Brian Slade laughed again, this time weakly and sanely. "Tell her what, Art? That I got piss-drunk and smashed the furniture? That I got a few cuts and bruises? She's patched me up before, Art; I don't need to explain anything to her."

"Don't call me that!" Of all the ridiculous nicknames, Arthur detested that one. His cousins used to call him that; his first girlfriend had called him that. A few of his colleagues over at the Herald called him 'Arty'. It had always sounded to him like a joke at his expense that he could never really grasp. "And stop talking shit."

"I am merely indulging in self-pity," Slade sighed, American accent falling away to a London drawl, "Got no one else to fucking pity me, do I?"

"Yeah. You keep driving them away."

The right hand took a firm hold of his shirt as the gauze wound stingly around the arm. "You believe everything you read, Mr. Stewart? I'd have thought a reporter would know all about the stories the press makes up."

"If you're looking for me to tell you I pity you," Arthur snapped, "I am not going to oblige! You're a drunk and a liar and you've got no call to blame anyone but yourself if you've got hurt."

The fingers moved up to clasp his shoulder as the slender man leaned forward precariously. "Maybe. But you called me beautiful too."

Arthur let go in a hurry and backed away. "You can do the blasted bandage yourself, you know. I'm going home."

Hands caught him again and pulled him hard against a hard body. "Home? To an empty bed and a cold apartment? Stay. I'll keep you very warm." The hard body began to wriggle ever so gently.

The younger man gulped and grabbed Brian by the shoulders and pushed. The rock star went sprawling backwards into the bed, almost falling to the floor but managing to catch himself. To complete the surreal feeling, Brian burst out laughing again, not attempting to untangle his limbs from their inelegant spread.

Arthur was fast coming to realization that his mum had been right. Emotional people were dangerous. And Brian Slade was an asp about to strike. "You're mad," he remarked, "I'm going."

"No, no," Brian giggled, wiping a hysterical tear from the corner of his eye, "Stay and have a drink, Art." He dissolved back into mindless hilarity.

"You're disgusting," Arthur added, knowing very well why narrow hips had pushed up so insinuatingly with the words. "You can take your deal and shove it. I'm done with you!"

And he left, kicking a mess of mangled objects from his way he went away, storming through the hotel lobby with his shaking hands rammed as deep into his pockets as they would go. Arthur wasn't going to let himself get sucked into that dangerous world any more. He had had it with Brian Slade. Never again. Never, ever!