It was too opulent. Arthur looked around, decided he couldn't stay there on any account because he'd spend his time being too afraid to touch anything. The first moment he got, he'd demand Shannon get him another room. If she didn't, he'd quit. A good plan all around. He'd be released from his obligations. His job too, probably, but at least Stone would leave him be.
A thought that was currently haunting him for the moment. He had put down that last instant of innuendo as the result of an unhinged moment, as someone desperate for touch. But he couldn't help feeling some sort of suspicion over why he was put into a room that had a door linking his sleeping quarters with Tommy Stone's. Not that he flattered himself, but Tommy was either economizing on space in some crazy way or had some agenda.
Arthur suspected the later. So he only unpacked a change of clothes from his suitable and laid them out. He really did need to bathe and change. If he could just find…
"Welcome, welcome! How was your flight?"
The booming joviality made him cringe, but Arthur turned around and glared with all his might. No need to show any kind of apprehension or confusion, he told himself, look tough. So he looked as tough as he could. He suspected that that wasn't very tough at all, but since Stone didn't come any closer he took it as a good sign.
"Fine," he grunted, then turned back and aimlessly trolled through his things again.
"I suppose you're wondering why I put you with me, eh?"
Arthur didn't deign that with an answer.
Stone couldn't help grinning. The man looked so uncomfortable! It was really quite sweet. "With my hectic schedule, I figured it would be good to be close by. You know, for all those searching questions and things. Give you a chance to really know me."
"Stone, I don't want to know you."
"Tommy, kid, Tommy."
"Kid!" Now that really annoyed Arthur. Enough so that he stopped messing with his things and spun around. "I am not," he protested, "A kid." "And I am not calling you by that name," he added.
"And what do you plan to call me- Brian?" The low, rusty British accent was back. "That should be interesting."
"Not for you it won't. Look, this won't work. I refuse to stay in this room, so either get me another or put me on a plane back to New York."
Brian Slade looked him up and down for three long seconds and then turned away with a shrug. "I'll have Shannon arrange it as soon as she can. Can't promise anything." He turned back to flash a smile. "Have dinner with me. Eight o'clock sharp."
And he was gone. Arthur stared in shock at the shut door. It felt as if all the energy in his body had drained away, out the bottom of his bare feet and soaking into the carpet. Thick, shaggy, soft carpet. His arms felt too heavy. He felt too heavy. And the room was suddenly so dark. He couldn't see very much and the weight of the warm air was pressing down into him, trying to fill that void inside of him. Like a vacuum. Only he wasn't a black hole; he was a person. And it hurt to feel his ribs tightening so hard he thought they might crack with the strain.
An hour later Arthur came gradually back to his senses. He was sitting down on that thick, shaggy carpet, his knees pulled tight to his chest to stop the world from cracking his ribs. He was cold, too. But that was okay. It hadn't lasted that long this time.
So he got off the floor, dragged his stiff body up and picked up the clothes that had fallen out of his hands and the bag with his shaving things and he stumbled away to the bathroom, not even noticing the gilt faucets and the bright cream tiles. It only really registered that the water was lovely and warm as it wrapped around him and he could finally let out a long, tired sigh that spluttered through the drops and misted on the frosted glass.
That was okay. He could take that. All he had to do was get ready. Slow. He could go slow, here. He could shave and change and take a nap. Tommy Stone had agreed to get his room changed as soon as he could and that was okay too. There was nothing to worry about. No sense getting worked up over this. No sense at all. So he would do his job, he would take a few pictures maybe of those behind-the-scenes variety and he would write up a singularly formulaic, glowing report on the artist and his artistic lifestyle.
He got out of the shower, didn't bother to dress and went straight to bed.
Arthur was too tired to wait up for anything now.
Stone waited for five minutes. He was not, as it were, used to waiting. So sitting in the lobby and checking his watch was a humiliation beyond what he could endure. So much so that he was in a foul mood as the minute hand crept towards the ten-minute mark. It was an expensive watch. A Swiss watch. Tommy Stone had shelled out a lot of money for that watch. It kept time like all expensive Swiss watches that cost a lot of money- it was never wrong.
Arthur Stewart, therefore, was late.
He got up fluidly and stalked to the front desk, clearly annoyed by something. The girl behind the desk was answering the phone, but her face brightened when she saw the rock star. The phone was hardly back in its cradle before she was smiling at him invitingly and hoping there was no lipstick on her teeth.
"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Stone?"
"Send a call up to Arthur Stewart, please."
She nodded, said something pretty, was ignored and finally settled for being given the man's room number. She contented herself with the thought that it was probably a business thing.
"Mr. Stone, there is no answer. Would you like me to try again?" she said at last.
The look on Stone's face was priceless. Had Shannon been there, she wouldn't have known whether to immediately arrange for the damage control she would be forced to do, or to let the last not-so-frigid parts of her hidden humanity laugh out loud in sheer amusement. For the first time in forever, someone had stood up the man with the full mouth and the big grey eyes.
"No," he grit out, "Thank you." It sounded more of a curse than a sign of gratitude and her pleasant smile faltered.
But Stone was already gone, storming to the elevators and grimly waiting to step into it. He looked neither right nor left, and from the looks of things he even snapped viciously at the employee in the spacious cubicle as the doors began to shut.
Tommy Stone was upset, no doubt about that.
He was still more upset when he got to the door connecting the two bedrooms and found it unlocked. He was very upset when he opened the door to darkness. The anger melted somewhat when he saw the man huddled under the covers in the bed, naked and flushed.
The sound of the door smacking open made Arthur blink in sudden shock and sit up as the light was switched on.
"Stone?" he muttered hoarsely, "What the 'ell?"
Stone's unreadable face looked at him for a moment and then defeat seemed to settle along the suited lines of his body. "Never mind. Go back to sleep."
Arthur stared at him in confusion, eyes heavy-lidded and his mind still in that numbed place between sleep and dreams. "What's 'e time?" he yawned.
Grey eyes softened somewhat, even though he never noticed it. "Jetlag," Tommy Stone sighed, "Guess I just don't feel it so much any more. Go back to sleep, Arthur. I'll see you when you wake up."
Arthur attempted to think of a reason to fight that. After all, this was Tommy Stone. And he had sworn not to let himself get pushed around by Tommy Stone. But the bed was so comfortable and the pillows were so soft and the air smelt so good…
Stone roughed yanked the covers back up over the sprawling body- trying to be a gentleman about it and feeling like an utter prat about it- and let them fall haphazardly over the sleeping form. He went away before he did something so silly as kiss Arthur's forehead or something.
Honestly! What was he- a nursemaid? The man's mother? He was not making a habit of putting Arthur Stewart, reporter for the Herald, to bed. Bad enough he was fraternizing with the paparazzi; he wasn't going to start welcoming them into the cosier aspects of his life. And especially not a grubby, sullen kid like Arthur Stewart!
The man needed to learn a few manners. He was being paid- literally begged- to do a huge story on a big star. Him- a reporter with no real reputation beyond a quiet respect and a murky connection to that Brian Slade ordeal from a few months ago.
Stone needed a drink. Without even thinking he had taken out the entire bottle and set it at his elbow, unconsciously ready to pour a second measure out before he had even tasted the first.
No, something would have to be done about Arthur Stewart. Shutting him up would not be easy by pandering to his career. The man was so blatantly disapproving! Why should Brian or Tommy or some combination of the two have any kind of apology for what they had or had not done in the past? The past was over. Maxwell Demon went down with a blank bullet and a lot of white feathers. Brian Slade changed his name and emerged from rehab as Tommy Stone. There was no one but Tommy Stone. And Tommy Stone was as he was.
That second measure was poured out and the third one anticipated.
La Glace.
The name popped into Stone's head just as he turned his mind back to the problem at hand. If his career was not the answer, something more potent should be used. Something Brian Slade had been very good at: big grey eyes and soft smile. Pale skin always looked its best in the smoky dullness of a dark club. Softer clothing? Yes, with a flash of skin and a brief touch of fingers.
Tommy Stone spread his hands and looked down at them. They were as steady as they had ever been. He remembered looking down once when he was high as the sun and seeing them tremble uncontrollably. He had spent ten minutes trying to stop them and they just hadn't stopped trembling. No more of that, of course. The coke was gone. The occasional bit of heroin was gone. He didn't even do hash any more. He barely took aspirin he was so tired of little pills.
But Arthur didn't know any of that. He still looked back to those heady, heavy days of Glam Rock. Chances were, he would expect everyone else to do it too. Stone didn't. But Arthur wasn't to know that.
A slow smile began to curve over the full mouth. Curt would have recognized it as smug, nasty, petty self-satisfaction.
La Glaceit would be. Dinner for two. Appeals to his career wouldn't work? He would appeal to his nostalgia.
"It was so beautiful in the beginning," Tommy Stone rehearsed softly to himself, "It meant so much to me. But things got complicated. Maxwell Demon became a monster. He controlled me and I was so scared. I did something I was not proud of. But now I have a new start. It may not seem much, but it's all I have. You can understand that, can't you? We all need second chances."
Yes. That would do it.