Darker London

Now that Eamon lived at the House of Rock, Quinn felt like his life was shaping up pretty damn well. Sure he still found it in him to engage in a bit of light 'little brother antics' but he never took it very far. Eamon was, after all, the person who had drawn him out of his depression after losing Flynn the first time. And then he had done it again and again, not to mention literally burning his hands to pull an unconscious Quinn out of a burning car. In Quinn's eyes, Eamon could pretty much wear a superhero outfit and not look out of place.

( Check out my fucking writing mojo man! )

It had been a surprise and a relief to discover that someone in their lives wasn't lost forever, but it was now giving Adrina time to think more on the other thing that had been occupying her thoughts in December. Thursday they were both home alone and in the shower, Adrina tried to decide her best wording. But all her attempts sounded either too cheesy or too stale or too trite, and she didn't want any of those things. She was a songwriter, yet she couldn't make this all important statement sound poetic at all!

So she dried her hair and got dressed into something nice and from her drawer she pulled out the little box she'd been keeping there, taking out the contents and wrapping her fingers safely around it.

She found Eamon in the kitchen and, leaning in the doorway, Adrina gave him a smile. "Morning."

Putting out an album without a label meant one truly useful thing - it was easy to push back a release date. So instead Adrina had boxes of CDs in her room that were ready to go and the only thing holding them back was the continued absence of Astrid.

Adrina didn't know Astrid all that well. If someone had asked, Adrina would have called the other girl 'a friend' but they only hung out when other people were around, in social group situations. But who she did love deeply was Deirdre and Flynn, and they both loved Astrid. Besides, Astrid was gone and probably enduring horrors and this was not the right time to drop an album and demand her friends started listening to it and praising her.

So it would wait until Astrid returned.

(Adrina tried not to think of it as if Astrid returned. She wanted everyone to keep hope, but every day it looked a little more bleak. If people were gone long enough it meant they wouldn't be coming back.)

There were other things she was putting off now as well, because they were happy things, good things, and she didn't want them tainted with this time.

Waiting was awful though and Adrina felt guilty that she didn't think about Astrid all that much. She was carrying on with her life, going to work, hanging out with her boyfriend, making jokes with Quinn. But then she'd spot Flynn looking like shit and she'd remember that his friend was missing and that she didn't know how to help that.

Tonight was one of those nights, where she'd sat at the kitchen table with Flynn while he furrowed his brows and talked about the places he might go look tomorrow. Adrina had just nodded along and squeezed his hand, and now she made her way back up the stairs to her bedroom where Eamon was already in bed with his laptop.

"Looking at porn?" Adrina asked him. "Hope it's quality."

Adrina was more than halfway through the number of shows she'd booked herself to do, and she remembered now how much this all made her feel like her. Playing music for an audience was everything, all other things were just an add on to that life.

Her keyboard was serving her so well, being lugged from show to show in the car and - most times - having an Eamon to carry it in for her. Today she was in the covered garden of Caffe Caldesi, the gas heaters running under the tall umbrellas as people drank their coffees. Some didn't even seem to notice her there - they hadn't come to listen to music, just to talk to friends and hang out - but others seemed to have come just for her, and it made Adrina warm inside on this chilly day.

The set she played was similar for most of the shows - some of the things from her old album, some covers, a couple new songs - but she mixed up the actual songs she used, trying not to make it all the same. (A few people she recognised came to more than one of the shows, which was so nice and so thrilling.) One of her shows she even brought in Deirdre Rose to sing with her, a cover of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams. It was wonderful. Deirdre Rose was wonderful.

After today's show she signed a few of the CDs she'd brought for people to buy and accepted compliments and even posed for some photos, which was still odd but rather delightful. Then she smiled over at Eamon and waited for him as she started to pack away her keyboard

The self proclaimed Goth Puppy sleeps like a cat, all curled up and forgetting sometimes that she's sharing a bed with another less tiny being. (Eamon is triceps and biceps and abs and an Apollo's belt that honestly makes Adrina want to weep sometimes. Adrina has no muscles to speak of and the only definition that appears on her is the type created by corsets.)

She's not the easiest person to sleep with: besides her kittenish curling ways, Adrina is a perpetual blanket thief who'll unknowingly build herself a nest and leave her (perfectly sculpted) lover to face the cold.

( a scene apropos of nothing )

It hadn't even been an entire day since Adrina had left his place, but the London sky was stained with evening by the time he headed towards the House of Rock. His body ached from their encounters the night before, but he hardly noticed. His hands were shoved into his pockets and they only came out when he rang the bell of the house that belonged to the girl he loved.

There had to be something they could do to salvage what they were; what they had. Eamon couldn't handle imagining his life without her. And maybe she had gotten to the place where she could, but he was farther away from it now that he had been before seeing her. So he waited for her to answer the door and then gave her an apologetic smile when she answered the door. "I'm really sorry," he said immediately.

She'd been to the Smuggler's Arms a few times with Eamon before and it was a nice pub, as pubs went. Adrina was more of an upscale bar type of girl, or a dark goth club kind of girl - both options a little more obvious from her appearance and demeanor.

But this was certainly the first time she'd been here since she and Eamon had broken up.

She had rationalised this in her head so many times on her way here tonight: Eamon liked this pub. Eamon sometimes came to this pub. But! Eamon couldn't, logically, be in this pub every night and so if he happened to be there at the same time that she was there, then it would be an act of fate and nothing more that brought them together.

She missed him. She missed him like a dull ache deep down inside. No, not dull - there was nothing dull about this ache. It was full-bodied and brightly-burning and psychedelically coloured and it was painting every aspect of her days with pain.

It would be a chance meeting and likely wouldn't happen, and she'd convinced herself so much of it that when she walked in and he wasn't among the people there, the level of disappointment she felt actually surprised her. She felt her body sink into itself with it and her sigh was heavily dragged from her lungs.

She walked slowly over to the bar and leaned against it - in her corset she couldn't really sit comfortably on a bar stool. She'd dressed up far too much for a casual hanging out at the pub, wanting to look her best if he saw her. But now her tightly laced corset and freshly curled hair appeared to be for nothing.

Adrina ordered herself a vodka martini.