Stay With Me

41

The smell of morning coffee hit Euronymous just the right way. Of all the pain he'd had to deal with, the pain of black coffee was one he enjoyed.

As he sipped on the bitter drink he mulled over pamphlets and venues prices, going through what had become the daily routine of figuring out how in the hell he was going to make this all come together nicely.

He stops as he holds the poster for a transilvanian venue,

"Dumbass..."

He didn't mean to say it outloud, almost as if getting an answer, the phone rings.

"Hello?"

Without so much a breath between his greeting, the voice on the line practically screams at him.

"Euro! it's Dead, he's woken up but..."

It was Hellhammer. but he sounded like someone was dying.

A knot forms in his gut, Euronymous felt it would tear him in half if Hellhammer didn't spit out what he was trying to say.

"Fuck sake man spit it out! What's wrong with him this time?!"

Euronymous couldn't tell if he was pissed that dead was causing them more trouble, or scared that trouble was about to end.

"He's gone, the nurse at the front desk said he ran out of the building."

A sense of panic washed over him.

"Did he say anything?"

Euronymous could hear his heart beating in his ears, why was he so damn anxious about this?

"We asked, but they only heard him say 'stop being a coward', I've got no clue what it means or what he's thinking right now."

Euronymous went to speak but was cut off by the sound of the front door. His head jerked around, ready to fight the intruder, stopped when he saw Dead standing in the doorway.

"Hey, um, you can probably tell the doctor he's fine," he stammered.

"The hell are you talking about? Do you know where he went?"

"He's standing right in front of me. I'll see you guys later."

Without giving Hellhammer a chance to respond, Euronymous hung up the phone, turning his full attention to Dead.

"You have two second to start explaining why the fuck you pulled this stunt," he demanded, but even he knew there wasn't any conviction in his tone. He was honestly just happy to see the man was still alive.

Dead shook his head, his eyes seemingly glued to the floor. "I've been a coward. I've been trying to off myself just because I'm mad at what I did. I'm done. I want to be where we need to be, where she knows we are. I had a vision in the hospital, spoke with Vera. She told me that she's seen what's waiting for me, said she saw Vanessa and...our family. I don't know if it's true or not, I don't know if she really can see what's ahead, but I'm going to find out for myself."

Euronymous tried to hide the pain at the mention of Vera's name, holding onto the slight hope that one day he would be able to go back and save her the way Vanessa had done for Dead. For now though, he needed to focus on the present.

"That's good to hear," he scolded. "That still doesn't explain why you just left the hospital like that. I mean hell at one point you were dead and we didn't think you'd be coming back."

Dead shrugged. "Spur of the moment I suppose. I don't want to waste more time than we already have."

"Right. Well, for future reference, please don't do that shit again or I will personally send you to the grave."

Dead smiled and nodded. "Deal. So, what are we planning?"

"You are gonna plan on taking a shower. You freaking stink. I'm gonna call up an old friend and see what I can arrange and go from there. If they say yes, which I'm sure they will, we'll have a pretty decent starting point. I'll fill you in after."

Euronymous watched as Dead made his way up the stairs, his anxiety from before slowly coming down. His mind ran through the memories of before Vanessa had dropped into their lives. The venues they had played at, the dumb things they had done, his persistant taunting of the blond. A small part of him almost felt sorry for it. Dead had never really done anything wrong to him, had never really provoked him. Euronymous had just wanted to make sure he knew who the leader was.

Some leader I've been.

Shaking the thought from his mind he went back to the phone. A small knot formed in his stomach as he picked up the phone once again. It had been a while since he had last talked to Fenriz, the last time hadn't been the best conversation from what he remembered. Still, he had to at least try and reach out.

After the fourth ring, he was about to hang up when a deep voice finally answered.

"Hey, Fenriz, it's Euronymous," he started. "I was wondering if I could ask a huge favor of you."

"Sure, what's up?"