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Encapsulated in the eerie off-white of an unsizeable dressing room, Peter had trailed along Daniel's side in static isolation. Invasive yellow lights shone overhead, only half of which didn't flicker a few times per second, and had hums nearly drowned by now in the pulsating bass of some distant intermission song completely unbeknownst from over here. Metal rows of lockers lined the walls, several of them, and Daniel sifted through drapes of his clothes along coat hangers, snatching something green and tastelessly festive.
"Really I'm hoping the sound's run better than last night…" Daniel thumbed the top, fastened button of the shirt, yanking it off the hanger. "That bloke had not the slightest clue what he was doing."
"Oh, trust me- this girl tonight is all right, I rang and asked immediately after. And it, it sounds good so far, um, from here."
Arms crossed, tugging the bottom hem of Daniel's shirt on either side, and he slipped his shirt over his head. Shaking his spikes of hair back into place, he pinched a side of fabric and slung an arm against the other side, through a long sleeve. Gaudy green, reminiscent to Peter of the tropically themed and roach-infested hotel carpets in lots they might've stayed twenty-odd years ago.
Fingers trailed from the top downward, slipping buttons through their loops, fastening plastic that glared fluorescent yellow off of the ceiling. With milky ribs poking beneath the halfway-fastened button down, Peter gave a scoff.
"You're wearing that, really?"
Daniel curled into a scowl. "Oh, fuck off." His hand movements became replicas of gestures until all buttons were closed.
Peter hummed, surely in jest, eyeing Daniel up and down; shoes so black and plain, made inconspicuous; trousers that clung to his skinny legs and tight-lined every inch of skin on his lower half, for better or for worse, white stripes fit for active wear lining the sides; a green button down fit to be a textbook's definition of tacky. All around, an ensemble that by no stretch screamed post-punk innovator but rather timeshare salesman.
"This is what happens when you give an e-- an eight year old, an unlimited spending budget for clothes! Horrid, really."
"Oh have a look at yourself!" Daniel called across the room, waving a hand and shifting sharp angles in presentation to a locker-door mirror only sufficient for half of his frame. Perhaps more sizeable for the eight year old Peter had in question. "And do something about that hair, won't you?" . . . Daniel tutted, "Or at least what's left of it!"
"Sssshut up!" Peter shook in place along with his voice. "Shut up! You're only jealous you can't- you can't look, m…marvellous like this, with, with your hair, oh it's all you've got Dan!"
Peter's fingers brushed clipped, pointed tails of hair at the edges of his ears, calculatedly unmoving from his frozen-in-place fringe; the product of half of a bottle of hairspray. A cackle echoed through the room, almost pained by absurdity, and amidst this condescension the sour, moulding cherry on top was that Daniel didn't even give Peter so much as a glance. It wasn't needed, to reaffirm that Peter possessed those flaws or have their eyes meet in the way that gave Peter the time of day. Frantically Peter shook his head, arms dropping to his sides as he promptly turned around, and made an exit with a slammed door.
Pinching fingers twisted the lock shut, Peter stepping back after its metal click, standing idly in anticipation.
The silence was cut by hammering from the other side of the door, pounding metal like crashes of thunder. Knocking fists, perhaps a kick? Strong materials, it was made from, after all. Peter smiled to himself, turning his back on the desperate crashes, prancing down the cemented halls and to a space only a hint too large to be an equally tight squeeze. Aligned before a mirror spanning the wall in its middle length, Kevin sat in a chair before its lining countertop, in anticipation of a woman a bit younger than him who appeared halfway finished in applying his makeup. David leant down and made a point to turn various angles, scanning his mirror image uncomfortably rather than have a seat. Peter held back a laugh.
Seeing as the brothers were preoccupied, Peter had a seat himself, anticipating an unfamiliar face of any a travelling makeup artist Peter should by now recognise. Upon seeing her, he in fact did not, she seemed a complete stranger unzipping cases of thick plastic. She laid out an array of disposable makeup brushes upon the countertop lest Peter contaminate a thing. Twenty years ago he and Daniel were likely backstage, poorly applying makeup borrowed from their mums. Kevin, too, on the odd occasion he'd wear it.
Peter's eyes closed, and wisps of a brush met the tender skin and the eyelashes below them. How these professionally-supplied brushes differed from the ones in makeup compacts; tiny sponge applicators, sometimes double-sided, bound for disintegration. The shops didn't sell these painterly types.
His eyes opened at the brief absence of touch, meeting that of the artist when she turned to face him, brush in hand coated in another colour. She gave him an inquisitive look.
"Where the hell is Daniel?"
Peter clicked his tongue and narrowed his eyes as if the answer weren't a given. "Probably snorting something," he said without a hint of question. "…or shooting something up."
Her lips parted, and her eyes rolled, before returning with the brush to Peter's, circling his eyes' outer corners, in a darker shade he was certain. For depth.
"-they'll say that about me, sometimes, but-"
David's words resounded, caught only halfway by Peter's attention. They drifted back and forth to Peter, whose eyes were still closed. The flick of a metal lighter caught his ear, he then caught a whiff of burning tobacco, and pleasantly inhaled its rich bitterness. When Peter's eyes opened they showed him it was David with the cigarette, taking drags when he wasn't speaking to his younger brother, having makeup applied at his side.
"Quite funny to me, how those Angelfire sites never speak a single word of criticism about you, Kev, I don't wonder why," David mused behind the smoke of a cigarette that wasn't leaving his proximity.
"Perhaps they've forgotten you exist," Peter muttered, tilting his head as the woman at his side brushed the hollow of his cheek with a nude blush.
Kevin furrowed his brows. "Man, really?" he asked with a nervous shrug.
"Er…" Peter tilted his head in favour of the artist tracing his other, gaunt cheek, and faced the brothers, Kevin and a displeased David. "I suppose not."
David flicked a puff of ash into the tray set atop of the counter, sharing a knowing glance with Kevin. Peter held back a laugh when their shoulders simultaneously dropped. David's thin lips fell into a very flat frown, watching Peter's face get powdered in an off-white, his makeup's finishing touches.
"So just where might Danny be?"
Peter cleared his throat in acknowledgement, the sponge applicator trailing his mouth's corners, and waited until the artist pulled it away. "Not a clue." Peter stood from his chair, as the makeup artist at his side already, eagerly began to dispose of it as did nearly all of the makeup artists he'd hired. His hand brushed the counter's corner, pushing himself alongside as he faced away. "I'll be in the toilets."
Peter ran off through cramped, backstage pipeline halls to the washroom, just the level of decay he'd anticipated when metal gritted his skin as he twisted the lock shut. Peter made way through the drab surround, a step above a torture chamber, and stood at the counter before the mirror. He stood on the side where the glass wasn't cracked, gave his vampiric made-up form a satisfied glance, and reached a hand into his waistcoat. Surely somewhere around here, thoughts swished around as his fingers fished along the fabric. One finger clamped atop of another with the plastic of a little bag in between, which he freed from the confines of his stage attire and gave an inspecting look to its white powdered contents, nothing new.
He poured the bag's contents onto a small pile atop of the stone counter, blindly searching his person until his fingers settled upon something sufficient, the cardboard square of the business card for quite possibly the world's shadiest operation. In spirit of the bloke who handed the card over, he would almost certainly approve of, Peter split the cardboard through the tiny mound of cocaine. The card cut equal shares, carefully lined and arranged in distance. to avoid the stone's many cracks.
With a glance over his work, Peter leant down, nose tip pressing against the cold countertop as it grazed across, and his nose stung from the powder he inhaled. Peter grimaced, pressing fingers flatly against his nose as it flared. Closing his eyes, he took a preparing breath, and leant back in for a second line.
Eyes scrunching shut, Peter gave a glance around, biting his bottom lip. Heavy electronic drumbeats caved in on him, a signifier of the sound engineers' slow but sure amplification of intermission music. It was a subconscious way to summon energy, drawing collective adrenaline and spirit right before the main act. Peter was more than enthusiastic to dive in for the third and final remaining line he'd cut.
Water and red stung his eyes when Peter pushed himself up for a look in the mirror. He tilted his head, and it jerked further than what he'd anticipated. The energy surge and pulsating heart drew a smile onto his face, and Peter rummaged for a cigarette he fumbled to light between his lips. He unhinged the lock and walked out.
Distant, heartful screams echoed through the halls atop of canned music. Peter trailed through them, enjoying heavy drags of smoke as he made his way down the route his mind told him was correct, and in this state he had a certainty he could do anything he so desired.
The Haskins brothers were lined side-by-side just before the stage's entrance, which Peter soon approached as well. Behind thick, oval glasses David gave Peter a piercing glare.
"There you are." David looked over Peter's lanky form, up and down. "And where is Dan?"
Peter's lower lip trembled. "He's just gone to grab clothes to change into, after the first- the first few songs."
David stared blankly. "All right. What have you done to him?"
"Nothing!" Peter scoffed, narrowing dilated eyes, and shook his head in disbelief. "Oh Dave, since when were you so paranoid?"
The brothers shared a glance, equally confused on both parts, and David spoke flatly, "Perhaps you've been rubbing off on me. Excuse me---" David cut through that thought to flag down a random bloke he recognised as a stagehand. "Could you please find Danny, er, really quickly? Thank you…" The man muttered something about how unbelievable he found it, the need to search for a band member with such little time.
Peter seized this opportunity to flee, running through the first open door he found, out of line with the dressing room Daniel was soon to be found in. How lucky Peter was, not to be physically needed on stage for the first song thanks to their backstage, live broadcast arrangement for the opening Double Dare. The band would go through an entire song before Peter need be in Daniel's presence. The door clicked shut, and Peter listened, sifting amidst canned music and crowd cheer for a cue.
When yelled curses sliced through the air Peter couldn't hold back a laugh through smoke. Among those he heard his name, with what passion was it yelled! Its cuts through concert hall noise came to a fade, and Peter crept the door back open. A random blond young man stared with uncertainty, certainly regarding that exchange with Daniel seconds ago. Peter flashed a wicked smile and snubbed out his cigarette on a tabletop ashtray.
"Well?" Peter said, gesturing a hand toward the camera held by the blond, and joined his side.
"Nothing, you're, um, ready?" the lad said so much as he questioned.
"Yes," Peter murmured, glancing around at the very-portable equipment in his wake, lights, cameras, wires and the like. An under-head light in a morbid blue flicked, and shadows horrifically cast to paint him like the intended silent-era, otherworldly horrors terrorising innocents in those movies.
The blond screwed various parts, in metal and plastic, to connect the video camera to its stand, shifting wires lest they tangle or become responsible for any delay in the show- a loss he could not afford, nor could Bauhaus themselves!
Shaking the room, the sharp distortion of David's bass shifted Peter's cocaine-racing heart, and light flicked manically in his dilated eyes. He gave a shaky smile at the cue, Double Dare's intro, and the stagehand powered on the video camera for a live broadcast, the camera's distorted flash streaming directly onto the tiny box of a TV screen, backstage to front.
Peter staggered backstage, clinging to the sides of stagehands and any others working with the band in a desperate effort to avoid isolation as he made way toward the exit and located the van. His shoulders dropped and he gave a sigh of relief, opening a side door and making entry to its dark and vast encapsulation. The darkness met him with several other men, David, Kevin, Daniel, who he was thrilled not to be alone with, along with a few crew members present for good measure.
"Tell us you're ready to leave by now!" called the driver as Peter gave a half-blinded search for a seat, and settled behind Daniel.
"I am!" Peter called through a sneer. The vehicle's engine was quicker to hiss after his words than he'd anticipated.
"Well it's about bloody time," the driver grumbled, already making eager efforts to manoeuvre the bulky thing out of the car park, the lot of passengers only swaying the slightest. An improvement from earlier. The van began to lug the band along city centre streets, not terribly far from the hotel, Peter's memory told him.
"Hey, Dan," David called from the mirroring seat in the row. "You've been so quiet, what's got into you?"
Daniel scratched his head, carding fingers between calculatedly spiked and sprayed points of hair. "It's nothing, Dave, But I'm really, really tired," his words tapered off to a murmur.
David left a silence between them, though plenty of city sounds surrounded, drifting by with the lights that David caught glimpses of Daniel beneath flashes. His stare prolonged, then he clicked his tongue and spoke in a timid tone, "Let me know if there's anything I can do."
Half-heartedly Daniel nodded . . . "Thanks…"
Teeth ground together beneath Peter's poorly-hidden smile, and he burst into a fit of laughter. Daniel's exhausted facade couldn't keep Peter contained. The outburst instantly directed all van passengers toward Peter's attention, sharing confused glares with him from all directions. Kevin's eyes were horrifically wide, his grimace tugging at his cheeks' dimples; the horror was shared by David, Daniel, and a few roadies.
"…What?" Peter finally asked, scanning around before his eyes set on Daniel, scoping his every move. Two hours of avoidance in a show that Daniel had by no means made exhilarating couldn't have exhausted him this much.
The brothers shared a look of judgement, and only one of them, David, turned toward Peter. He deeply inhaled, and gave a sigh. "Nothing at all."
"Oh fuck you." Peter crossed his arms, and turned his head to the window to face the night's blur of city lights. Their passing inched him closer to the hotel they'd booked for, and worries scrambled his mind, muffling van chatter, all of the roadie gibberish. Daniel was sure to kick his arse, but just when would he strike? Surely not now, not here, after he'd conjured up this weary facade to present the Haskins, who would glance between he and Peter in suspicion.
The van pulled into the hotel's car park, shaking and swaying the lot of passengers, and Peter's thoughts away. The driver pulled into a desolate corner, a strangely easy find. Usually an omen, regarding hotels. The band were inching to get out of their seats, and collectively sprung up the moment the vehicle was set in park.
A roadie opened the door, and passengers in a line began to exit in a tired effort to get into the hotel. Peter seemed to linger, last to leave the van before another roadie. The rest of the band were, by now, far ahead. Peter sighed and dragged himself toward the hotel, content to take his time walking alongside a young man who kept glancing back at him, though did not speak any of the questions Peter held a suspicion he had.
Clear doors slid open at the motion of Peter's arrival, and he entered an overload of yellow. He crept over to the entourage, slipping back into the circle at the hotel's front desk, where they were exchanging information and room keys. An excess of words overlapped, and Peter only heard snippets.
"Nine…?" Peter repeated.
"Floor nine," said one of the roadies, through the crowd, he could not even see which. Peter furrowed his brows, opened his mouth to question, and a young man placed a keycard into his hand.
The crowd had a collective stroll toward the lift, squeezing in only thanks to the prior stop by to drop off luggage and no more. The green of the lift was the first piece of contrast in colour since arriving in the hotel, which was overwhelming with yellow and tacky gold. Though the green was equally hideous, and the aggressively 70s elevator music distasteful at best. Flashing lights on a tiny screen, it was a similarly unappealing green and its number count couldn't increase quickly enough.
Trembling in overfill, the carriage hesitated, and of all a response Peter could give, his eyes only rolled. Miraculously the lift stumbled upward to the ninth floor, and the doors on either side struggled open though made way. The entourage began to exit in impatient turns, making way onto the ninth floor in all of its yellow, electrically hazardous, soggy-carpeted glory. A crowded stroll not far down the hall had the group disperse, many glancing back and forth between their held keycards and the numbered doors, and in a moment they'd nearly cleared the floor.
Pre-scheduled rooms sat closely together in a line, and the Haskins found their respective rooms. David stood past the doorway to his, head poking out. "Take care, Danny."
Daniel fell into a droopy-eyed smile, and nodded. "Thank you," he said with eyes that trailed from David in the doorway, to Peter at his side, who fumbled with the keycard and his door's lock. It clicked open. "Goodnight Dave." David's door clicked shut- and Daniel spared no time to scramble past the entryway of Peter's room.
"Fucking hell!" Peter yelled, grimacing at the slam of his hotel door, the things that force a lock at each shut, by Daniel's hand an instant from wrapping around Peter's neck. The other immediately did, as well, and Peter hissed now-scarce breath. "Oh, I'll fucking kill you Danny!"
Daniel's fingers quivered in their grasp, giving half of a fearful glance toward the door. "Shut the fuck up! Like, are you trying to get us arrested?! You fucking idiot!"
Jagged fingernails dug into Daniel's sweaty flesh, just above his elbows seared and he grunted. Peter's shoe slammed his leg and arms fell forward- Daniel toppled against the wall. Bony hands clamped on his skinny body, and against the wall it slammed. Once more, another time- he bumped his head on the third.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Daniel groaned, his gaze clouded by pain as Peter gave yet another shove, thieving his breath. "You locked me in a room for an hour!"
"Well, it should've fucking been for longer!" Peter snapped back, and Daniel's skin reddened beneath the slice of his nails.
Daniel's open-scratch stinging arms trembled to return Peter with a push, away from the cramped entryway, what a blessing their similar stature was, and didn't struggle to jam adrenaline-rushing hands against sharp shoulder blades.
A step back wasn't enough to land on, Peter trembled, scrambling for a proper step and his back hit the counter top's corner and an array of hotel amenities, a basket, cups, organised boxes of tea. These things, fell with him onto the floor, and something shrill shattered beneath Peter- and Daniel learnt one of the counter's items had been a coffee pot. Peter stumbled lying on his back in a pile of decorations and shattered glass, a hilariously pitiful sight Daniel didn't hesitate in the slightest to kneel over and straddle.
Peter dove in and from below, bit down with a searing slice into Daniel's shoulder- Daniel groaned, quivering from atop when a blindly searching hand digging along the carpet slammed something sharp and rounded to Daniel's skin, the bloodied remainder of the coffee pot, clear shards stabbing through skin and fabric, staining milky white and tacky green. In blistering pain Daniel trembled, skinny legs falling limp as he collapsed, barely able to roll himself off of Peter's body and pathetically along his side.
Large hands, now weakened, dug clipped nails into Peter's skin, drawing red lines until a cut against his other hand's fingertips found him a broken shard of glass he shakily dragged across Peter's arm. The white fabric tore with the skin beneath it, berry shades of red melded with sickly yellow and parted way for the thick and hard, off-white centre.
"You cunt!" yelled Peter, shaking at his own bloodshed, profuse scarlet tinging cloth and skin thickly and wet like the pulp of a bruised fruit, strained and milked. His view and judgement clouded with adrenaline, a shaking hand balled into a fist and hit Daniel's face.
With eyes scrunching shut Daniel fell back, head hitting the carpet and flashing white at a pound to his hollowed stomach. "What the fuck?!" Daniel yelled, his features scrunching together, a line of blood blotching his lips fully in red as he spoke, tinging his mouth in its stream. He coughed in its overflow.
"Could've missed if your nose weren't so fucking big," Peter said through breath and a trembling, manic smile, teeth creeping out between shaky inhales that seemed no distraction.
"Fucking…" Daniel did his best to say breathlessly, "Pete…oh…you…fucking…" He groaned, shaking with shut eyes and a shard of glass in a hand he kept still. His chest rose desperately, the same way Peter's did, Peter learnt when he finally gave a glance to the frail man right along his side lying atop that disgusting yellow carpet in a pile of shattered glass and discarded hotel-supplied junk, rendered completely useless the same way Daniel was.
Shards of glass poked out of Daniel's skin and his green button-down Peter despised, their bloodied edges wet and thickened like strawberry jam and the uncut flesh yet littered in a sickly blend of yellow, purple, and blue. Blood spilled from his nose and past lips parted in Daniel's desperate pants for breath, his ageing features all scrunched together with shut eyes glossy at their crinkled corners. Not a hint of makeup remained. The glass slipped from his fingers, dragging up in a laboured effort to his stomach, attempting the faintest semblance of a caress.
"Oh, oh my god," Peter choked as he lay facing Daniel, scanning him over in his bruised and bloodied horror, the only acknowledgement a poor attempt to shake his head. Lips spit blood and clamped shut.
Peter's heart slammed against his ribs at what looked a dying sight, maimed at his hands in a seedy hotel's discounted, rotting suite.
"Danny…"
Tears streamed through scrunched eyes, opening at the call of his name. He barely inched away, the best he could do, a bloodied arm falling limply over his torso, the hollow between his ribs and the sharp bones of his hips.
Peter's softened voice shook, cutting spoken breaths. "Oh gosh…I'm sorry, love, I'm so sorry…"
Daniel's eyes narrowed, head shaking as though the physical reaction dictated itself at Peter's absurdity. He scoffed, and bloody, trembling lips scrunched shut, then his eyes flickered when on Peter, bruises spanning his skin with chips of glass stuck in between slices of red, the same colour splashed all over his once-white shirt. "Oh…oh god," he whispered.
The air became thick with fear and regret, both men dreadfully eyeing one another and the damage they'd inflicted upon the other's gaunt, ageing, bloodied bodies. How Peter yearned to reach out and pull Daniel's against his, bruises pressing together with leaking wounds, and how Peter abhorred providing such affection. Not to a close friend, but one who many years ago refused entirely to return the same, and more than ever would appreciate the fact now; in those affections Daniel so generously provided in this reunion, arms around the waist, foreheads pressed together, gentle whispers of loving words. All things which back twenty years ago, Peter had done and Daniel wilfully rejected, at times outright ignored. These things which had taken Daniel fifteen years to return even once, to deprive him of them gave Peter a horrific pleasure. What a thrill it was to share the heartache! Though perhaps not with the pitiful sight he'd rendered vulnerable and strewn in wounds.
"What have, what have I done to you?…" Peter asked, heart betraying mind as his skinny arm reached over Daniel's limp frame. He strained to drag himself upward, a leant position that ached his back, and hauled Daniel jointly, propping his friend against an edge of the bed frame he collapsed against, closely enough that their skinny bodies splayed out like a mannequin with its joints loosened and discarded on the roadside. "I'm so sorry I've hurt…hurt you…oh gosh…Danny…"
Furrowing his brows, Daniel glanced Peter's entire frame, laid back as limply as his own. "Pete, you locked me in a fucking room, for an hour…" he murmured, lips parted longer than what he'd needed seemingly out of confusion. His voice had come out of him much more quietly than he'd anticipated, how weak. A weakened hand trailed its way to Peter's bruised, bleeding arm, made way to be seen by glass-torn sleeves. The least of the damage Daniel had inflicted. Two of his fingers, middle and ring, curled along a thick red clump along Peter's skin, dipping into one of many a pool of blood. Surrounding this were blotches of purple, circled in a yellow brown at soft and tender edges. "How have I done this?…" His clammy skin was littered in the things, just like Daniel's own, and he was displeased to consider what their clothed state could hide. Reddened fingers found a gash, cleanly split with pomegranate insides he made an effort not to touch. "Oh this is such a deep cut, Pete…"
Chest rising with heavy strains of breath, Peter remained still, not flinching in place with the horrid wounds that one accidental slip of Daniel's fingers would penetrate. At Daniel's words he only shook his head, and pressed their foreheads together, skin clinging with sweat at clumsy adjustments when their noses bumped. They exchanged the heat of panting breaths, and delicate fingers left Peter's arms in favour of trembling as they pressed to either side of his face, holding him in fearful place.
"You're…um…you're…" Neither Daniel's lungs nor his mind were treating him kindly now with this struggle for words. "You're done, aren't you?"
Peter inched enough away that they could share a glance, his horrifically sharp eyes softened with a teary gloss, and Daniel's were dark in all the ways they could be. His cheeks were thinly lined in cloudy smudges of black, kohl liner he'd effectively cried off. His throat pulsed as he gulped, lips pressing flatly together, surely tasting blood in their reddened state. An involuntary hiss escaped his lips when they opened.
"Shhh…" Peter whispered, and graced a shaky kiss onto Daniel's forehead, dampened with sweat and hair soaked and sticking as a result.
Daniel's eyes shut, and opened once again on the red-splattered and torn mess that was Peter's skin, a result of his own doing entirely. "I'm sorry, Pete. I guess we're, um, even..."
"We're even," Peter parroted, even the breathy rasp was shared in his voice. At Daniel's nod he leant in, brushing together his trembling lips with Daniel's, glazed in blood that filled his mouth with copper. He parted with a frown. "Oh my god, I've got to get you cleaned-- cleaned up, love, these wounds are horrid."
In his feeble slouch on the floor, Daniel only gave a nod when long stretches of maimed arms pushed Peter to a stand, and a limp with which he carried himself across the carpet, grimacing at its soggy yellow sloshing beneath. How like a sponge. Daniel watched in yellowed blurs, a slender figure of mostly black and white blotched in red trailing around the lonesome-fit hotel room.
"Surely it's not, not that lacklustre of a hotel that they'd not include er, first aid, right?" Peter called, receiving back something grumbled and incomprehensible from Daniel. He couldn't find himself able to anticipate good news regarding his wound care, and doubted Peter could either.
Any a thought was hazy at best in this right state, but Peter couldn't help but to wonder whether or not first aid kits were a thing hotels were held under legal obligation to provide…and in Scotland, no less. Scavenging all but the place typical in his experience, which he'd place blood loss as its blame, Peter's delayed act found the familiar plastic white container. Returning down from tip-toe, Peter shut the closet's doors with the hand not preoccupied holding the first aid kit.
"I've found it, um, I've found the- the first aid," Peter called, and hauled himself in shaking steps to the bed's edge, looking down at his dear friend. Still awake, he noted, and sufficiently alert. Peter's offered hand assisted to lug Daniel's gaunt and pained body out of its pathetic resting state upon the carpet. The two men trailed off one another's balance on the brief walk to the en-suite, with Peter nudging Daniel for a seat, which he took, on the porcelain edge of the bath.
A droplet trail of red specked the tile, like an overripe cherry catching the light Peter flicked on, and scoffed at its sight.
Daniel groaned. "It'll be an easy cleanup,"-he gestured an unsteady hand toward the shiny tile and its glossy splatter of many a tiny blood pool-"like, more than this…" He then gestured toward himself, his wound-soaked shirt, arms bruised and slashed.
"Tell me you're not tired." Peter allowed himself a seat on the porcelain right beside Daniel.
"Erm, of course I am…"
"Well don't sleep!" The white container snapped open in Peter's lap, and he peeled the top off to an array of single-serving care tools. Plastic-sealed alcohol wipes and a hundred variations of gauze and other bandages filled the packaging to its brim. Daniel just shook his head and placed his fingers at the highest, clasped button of his shirt, a couple down from the top, leaving bloody beads of condensation upon the plastic. The peripheral glimpse he caught told him that Peter was doing the same.
Peter smudged his shirt in fingerprints at each button he unclasped, tiny clusters of polka dots along the hemmed line of fabric, otherwise soaked in long stretches of sanguinary colour. "My shirt's completely fucked."
Daniel's lips fell into a pout. "Mine is too." Loose on either side, he slipped an arm out of long, artificially smooth sleeves with holes his fingers brushed. He tossed the thing on the floor, a tattered and damp mound of green and red.
Sighing, Peter turned to his side, a ruffle of white and red fabric in hand as he faced the tap. Its metal squeaked when twisted, and the pipes hissed at the rush of water's flow. It spilled out the tap, lukewarm, and soaking fabric spilled wetly around the edges of Peter's hand as he held it beneath the flow. His hand and shirt dripped red, then a pink which he held in place with a half-hearted squeeze, and another until it dripped clearly. With a balled fist Peter wrung it out, and finally gave a proper glance to what he was dealing with. Daniel's arms and torso were bare and much too thin, as was Peter's, anaemically pale with ribs threatening to poke out of thin skin. Blurs of blue, brown, and purple horrifically covered him, along with torn lines, partings of skin with their thick overflow glistening like a rotting strawberry.
Shakily raising the fabric, with clear beads slowly dripping at the corners, Peter frowned. "Tell me if this hurts…"
"Oh I will…" Daniel grumbled, pressing his lips thinly together in anticipation. Its sting shot into his nerves at the touch, at a skin-and-bone bicep, and he hissed.
"I'm sorry," Peter said in a hush, as though to lower his voice would lower the impact, too. "I've really got to clean this before-- before it dries. That…um, that'll hurt so much worse, Danny…"
With a long sigh, Daniel nodded his head, glazing eyes began to trail around all in view, the green tinge faulty lights washed the whole room in, white walls and matching tile floors blotched in stains, all of indeterminate nature save for their newest addition; specks of blood. His eyes also fell onto Peter, and those which peppered his skin as well, leaking at the edges and pouring at the stretches to reach out and care for those on Daniel. His breath hitched, bony chest rising at the mere notion of Peter prioritising his wound care, and only flashes played in his mind of their fight which culminated in this, and all of those before this which had yet to cause this much harm. This one, though, was sure to scar.
Peter was horrid, or at least according to Daniel was well capable of being so and found difficulty in treating him otherwise. Peter shoved him into the mess that was this evening, trapping him at the second he twisted that lock. Though now he seemed determined to drag Daniel out of it, with his own bleeding arms. Even the spaces of skin not sliced, or splattered in blood from that which was, was irritated with purple puffing its edges. Daniel's eyes twinkled in their gloss, complementing his frown rather nicely.
"Pete," he said with a breathy bitterness, like the thought tasted sour. "How did we even manage to do this to one another…?"
An invasive cloth pulled from Daniel's fresh, burning wound, and Peter stilled. His lips parted as his eyes gleamed with something uneasy, faltering upon Daniel. Peter closed his mouth, only shaking his head, and his hand found a thing from the kit. A roll of gauze apparently, with its end he pressed to the least bruised edge of skin he could find on Daniel, beginning to unfurl it in a wrap around Daniel's upper arm. At its first, full loop Daniel jerked, grimacing at Peter's tight pull.
"Fuck, I'm sorry," Peter murmured, "y…you can push through this, love."
"It- it can't be worse than the fi- ah, the fight was, I guess," Daniel muttered, interrupted by bursts of pain. He snorted in discomfort, the wetness of blood at his nose triggering anticipation for its gush-
Nothing new came of it. Daniel would have sighed in relief if not overridden by pain. Tearfully spread makeup, and a thick line of blood between his nose and lips, the mental image of how Daniel must look instantly dragged him so low. He raised a clammy hand, and the pad of his fingertip gave a dampened spot of his lip the lightest press, pulling it back for a curious view of the faintest, blur of a red dot.
"Get a tissue for that…or something." Peter's words seemed halfway-present, centred now lower, on Daniel's forearm with his discarded shirt pressed to it. Already he'd run it under the tap once more, straining it of all blood absorbed, and wetting it until once again sufficient. Peter's hands, wet by the fabric, and his face, were the only visible stretches of skin not bloodied, bruised, or a mixture of the two. He looked back up to Daniel, intent as he gave another glance to his nosebleed. "It doesn't look bad, though."
Daniel didn't know whether to laugh or whether the act would hurt. Hitting Peter would go into consideration for a response if he'd not just spent an absurd degree of his energy and time doing so. He went with no response, at the sudden, now-familiar burn of gauze encircling the open wound that spanned his entire forearm. Eyes scrunching shut, he whimpered, drifting past laboured hitches of breath.
"Oh, darling," Peter whined, "I'm so sorry." Fingers trailed bruises and tendered edges of gashes nearly impossible to miss. "Danny, there's just so, so much- I- ah…" he trailed off. How hopeless it was when he'd single-handedly created each one of these upon Daniel's skin.
The reminders of what was Peter's doing entirely, were intrusively abundant. They'd dug into Daniel's skin, and did once more when Peter ran bunched up fabric across tender skin, grazing beneath the surface of the cuts and penetrating beneath the flesh. He'd whisper apologies and tender words when Daniel cried out, and Daniel only watched through beads of tears glazing his eyes at Peter's attempt to tidy the mess he'd made. Though Daniel had bitten back, soon-to-be scars littered Peter's arms as well, along with his bare chest with the bones threatening to poke through, still raggedly rising up and down at each breath. No less was what Peter had coming to him, equally blood-spattered and distraught with searing wounds, but oh was the sight pitiful. An inner elbow's corner parted either way with a thick burgundy spilling out at each harsh move.
With a sniffle, Daniel brushed the remaining tinge of blood off of his Cupid's bow. "Pete, let me…" he started to say, gesturing toward a cut it surprised him not to be lethal. Its traces gently imprinted pads of red upon the gauze Peter was adjusting, not so differently from how they had to wear the other's harm, now Peter's blood coated even the soonest attempt to heal. Peter's arms dropped to his sides and Daniel snatched the shirt, twisting the tap to soak it once again for himself and his urgent occasion. "This one is horrific, you've got to be so lightheaded…"
Peter only smiled with eyes that gleamed with melancholy, and then grunted when textile wet his skin, cold against warm and fresh blood. With breath teetering through his lips, Peter zipped his lips shut.
"I'm so sorry if this hurts," Daniel leant in to say. He'd patted the wound, initially, but it was proving to be eager and profuse.
"It's all right," Peter said in a hiss. "I don't mind…"
Daniel did his best to hold back a laugh. Evidently his best wasn't perfect. Prolonged presses to the torn skin were proving much more palatable for Peter than himself. Daniel would push in a strenuous attempt to slow the flow of blood, and the lad would hiss through a manic smile. With his left hand pushing down on the cloth and bluing Peter's skin beneath the pressure, his right reached into the plastic kit for the same roll of gauze Peter had wrapped him in. He released the pressure upon Peter's skin and returned it with a long line of gauze on either side, stretched in each hand with one beginning to encircle his arm in it, the protruding curve of his elbow bone. It washed its first, skin-tight layer in red, and Daniel wrapped around it once more, then followed after for good measure.
Fingers slipped beneath the thick dressing and secured its end beneath itself, watching the rise of Peter's chest slow as Daniel finished his care.
"There we go," Daniel said, almost as though he was speaking to a wounded child. Then he clicked his lips, glancing around with a hint of confusion in his eyes as though toward himself. "Um. I really had to take care of that one."
Peter smiled flatly. "It's nothing. Now, let me…" he said, and reached over Daniel's lap for the cloth he'd lain at his side. Daniel let his arms fall on either side of his body, resting on the tub's edge along with him. With a hand on Daniel's shoulder, his other pressed the cloth to his chest, a rounded gash surrounded in bruise. Daniel's teeth pinched his bottom lip, eyes shutting along with shifts of the cloth. Clear droplets slid down his bare chest, though Peter loosened his grasp. "You know, in the time I've known you…" he started to say, reaching for words as he watched Daniel's tender skin bleed onto the pressed cloth, blooming onto the white fabric in flowers of blood. "This is never a way I though I'd see you."
Daniel laughed. "What about when it's your fault?"
"Oh, fuck off." Peter shot a glare, though it seemed rather soon to dull. "No, no…it's not a good sight, no- um, no. You don't look bad, Dan-" he stammered hopelessly, as Daniel's expression fell at his further words, and his exhausted heart sped up. The last thing he needed now, truly. "I just meant that I don't- I don't like to see you so…er, hurt." A laboured breath punctuated the cut to Peter's words.
"I could've died," Daniel mused. "If you weren't so fucking weak, like, like me…"
"Well…" The backing off of a sizeable plaster squeaked as Peter peeled it off. He pressed it to a torn patch of skin, and rolled his fingers over the plastic coating to stick it to Daniel's bony chest. "It is a good thing…"
Slowly blinking to ward off any remnants of tears, Daniel sniffled as he watched Peter's hands and his eyes which never left them, dipping his fingertips in red in the process. Nearly impossible to miss. Daniel had fallen into a pout. "We're hopeless if we can do this to each other. Um, we'll get through the tour, won't we?…"
The makeshift rag stilled against Daniel's chest with Peter's hand. "I think so." Peter nodded, almost as though to convince himself. He wasn't doing a very good job at holding back his smile, and he tutted. "Afterwards, though…"
Peter trailed off, and he and Daniel both gave one another a glance, sharing a nervous laugh. Neither were particularly fond of that thought, and they flashed back between one another, as Peter set another plaster onto Daniel's skin. The final one needed, he'd decided, and examined his work and its durability. No leaks nor gushes of blood broke out, nor did any pained or even stifled cries come from Daniel. He gave a nod, and then took the cloth from Peter's hand, yet another exchange, and another time it got run beneath the tap as well.
Hissing as the cloth met his chest, Peter then steadied his breath. A lesser pain than the gash to the arm, after all only that had been so deliberate in the bitter drag of a glass shard across his skin. This was more manageable, after all, he reminded himself. Still, his lips thinned in his grimace, baring teeth and all.
"Pete, sure you'll be able to sleep without taking anything?"
"No," Peter said flatly.
Daniel broke into a laugh, "That's fair. I hope you don't lose rest over these." He gestured a free and blood-soaked hand around to the equally red scene of their skin. "God you're a cunt when you're not well-rested."
"You're always a cunt."
"Fuck you." Daniel said, strangely in contrast with the gentleness of his nurturing hands on the fabric they'd so violently improvised with.
Peter rolled his eyes, forcing his chest to still in its desperation to tremble. The caress of cloth ran Daniel's fingers along his soaked skin, Peter's hopelessly protruding lines of bone on his chest, connecting rows between his collarbone and ribs that most people aren't sickly enough to display. Fingertips lingered on a collarbone's edge, and traced from outer to inner. Lingering. Oh how skinny Peter was, not so differently from himself, Daniel knew, but it was a thing he quite fancied. Affections had come so easily in these past few weeks, winding back some fifteen years when the two were a presence in one another years. Make it twenty years, and then they'd been living together in these periods that seemed a lifetime ago. Both of which comprised of desperation-fuelled affections Daniel narrowly avoided. The same he'd found some regret in doing so now, the same which had sparked Peter's utter bitterness and avoidance of any and all of Daniel's twenty-year-delayed attempts to reciprocate
Awe sparkled in Daniel's eyes, and Peter watched it wane as Daniel eased back down to earth. His hands and gaze finally fell from Peter's sickly frame. "I'll bandage it."
Peter only nodded, suddenly straining for motion in this dense air between him and his bandmate. The rip of plaster separating from its waxy backing cut in the air, and Daniel made no rush to apply it to Peter's chest, a red crevice over lines of thin skin and bone. Though Peter's hands were similarly sized to Daniel's, their touch couldn't help but enamour him in their gentle yet firm caress, wringing out stray air bubbles as they applied the second, oversized slab of plaster. Peter's eyes shut, rendering him reliant on, and suddenly much too aware of the touch, which he realised to be the opposite effect of what he'd anticipated. His eyes opened at the third time Daniel pushed for the adhesive underside to stick to yet another torn patch of skin.
Almost clinically, how appropriate it was, Daniel's hooded and drooping eyes studied his own amateur attempt at wound care, scanning for hazards, mistakes and the like. Peter sighed.
"Is it all right?"
"It is." Daniel nodded, and too suddenly Peter stood.
Hazily Daniel looked up, with ageing eyes and pressed together, paled lips.
"Slow, Danny," Peter said, then grimaced at his own words. "Get, um- get up slowly, I mean." A hand reached out lowly as an offering.
The offer, Daniel reluctantly accepted, easing his gaunt frame upward with his friend's help in a slow effort not to override his senses-- or whatever the thing was called which he hadn't a clue. He only knew that it clouded his vision with holes of grey and made his head so light as though his mind were rotted sugar straining to sift. He couldn't help but fall into a smile at Peter's consideration.
"Let me know if you can't walk all right."
Daniel shot a glare, or at least the shadow of one which his energy could muster up. "My legs are bruised from being kicked."
A deep inhale, and Peter sighed. "I know. I'm sorry." He slipped an arm around Daniel, a lower reach to compensate for his friend's exhausted slouch. Daniel's lips pressed together in a pout, lying more sharply in their shape with how he's aged. How lovely he'd done so. Peter dragged himself and the lovely friend at his side, their equally wounded and gaunt bodies, out of the en-suite, meeting with a product of their horrific fight in the form of littered hotel amenities, broken decor, and shattered glass all scrambled in an assorted pile they'd fought atop of. Both had stopped for a discomforting glance at it. "Er, do you want to sleep in here?…" Peter offered.
"I'm fucking exhausted," Daniel said through breath. "Promise not to kill me in my sleep…?" he asked, cracking into a laugh hardly halfway through.
"I promise, darling," Peter said in a laugh he couldn't help but to share, narrowly avoiding cracks of glass and litter strewn about his path. He half-heartedly guided Daniel to do the same, then dropped into an upright seat on the edge of the bed. With a kick, and a few more, Peter wriggled out of his shoes, discarding them somewhere across the room he'd learn of later, and then finally collapsed proper onto the mattress.
Firm and much-too-high and questionably sterilised, as applied to nearly all hotel beds. The fitted sheet zipped beneath the motion of his skin, gliding with discomfort at each adjustment. Peter frowned, lay on his back, and turned his head to face Daniel, who was preoccupied with a blank gaze on the ceiling. Daniel's pupils dipped to a corner, catching Peter once again until he finally caved in to tilt his head and face the man. Their bodies curled into a parallel.
Peter watched the spark in Daniel's eyes when theirs met, the only thing unchanged amidst the droop of his eyes time had brought on, lines at their corners, especially when he smiled and Peter was lucky enough to catch sight. Both were stilled, taking in one another's familiar and ageing features they'd still both found to be so beautiful, along with their skinny bodies curled up and bruised, and plastered in bandages. Daniel's was proving easy to linger upon.
"This night has got me terribly exhausted…" Peter whispered in his proximity to Daniel.
"Me too." Daniel's gaze drooped down Peter's injured frame, and then his own. He sighed. "Pete, we've really got to start acting more decently, with each other…"
Peter shook his head. "Oh Danny, you know we won't be."
"Well, fuck. You're right. Hm…"
The two shared a glance, lingering and melancholy in thick air.
"But, we can't do this to one another again," Daniel continued.
A hand pressed to Daniel's cheek, and Peter nodded, intent in a gentle caress. Lips parted at the contact, and the hand trailed down to his bare waist, fingertips narrowly avoiding to brush against a bruise.
"We could stand to be a bit more gentle," Daniel whispered.
"You're right. I really am sorry, Danny." Cold fingertips brushed clammy skin. "I hope the wound- the wound treatment, is all right enough, er…I really hate to see you like this."
"Me too." Daniel inched a hint closer, his efforts dragging. "But you feel nice like this."
Peter sighed, and his eyes glittered with the stars he saw, staring at Danny. "I've forgotten you can be this way," he whispered, and brushed his gently smiling lips against Daniel's. There was a soft click, then another, followed by a pleasant sigh. "You know, Danny, I've always liked your lip shape."
"Shhhh…" Daniel poorly held back a laugh, and leant back in, their lips meeting lazily, in tired kisses, none of which lingered. Parting, he pressed their foreheads together, then backed his way, face to face nonetheless. "I've really got to sleep."
"So have I." Peter leant into his own pillow, adjusting for a sleep he was sure to succumb to in minutes.
The same went for Daniel, hands adjusted around his head to frame it as comfortably as the hotel would allow. His eyes shut, and his skin was comfortably brushed in Peter's steady breaths.
"I'm right- I'm right here, if you need anything…" he heard Peter say, in a laugh.
A skinny arm encircled Daniel's body, and in the darkness of closed eyes at the entryway to sleep, Daniel could only accept his luck with a tired smile.