He's yet to meet a respectful journalist and he's been in the spotlight for twenty one years now, having faced all the faux glitz and taxidermy glamour that comes along with the Warbeck name. Over the course of his life, Eros' character has been eroded and weathered by the most bizarre, invasive questions since the very day his mum had brought him out into the all consuming spotlight. He's come to realise that they love to pry apart his life for their gossip columns, for those five minutes of fame that would come with their cleverly constructed lies about him. He can't even leave the house these days in the fear of the hidden cameras bombarding him the very second his boots graze the pavement, the flashing lights blinding his senses. He can't afford to risk vulnerability. Never again.
He sits silently on his bed, still unmade from that morning, as the paper stares up at him. He watches the sepia photograph under the headline as it squirms rapidly within the frame, the convict's pearly whites bared and eyes lit up with a crazed look Eros had only ever seen described in literature. The scruffy face he looks upon is almost unrecognisable compared to the one he had seen only a few mornings before. Humanity laid bare, turned animalistic. It definitely isn't the first time that Sirius Black has made front page news.
'GUITARIST OF THE FAMOUS BAND, EROS & THE MUSES, CONVICTED OF MURDER!'
He doesn't know what to think.
Would his Sirius really be capable of betraying their friends, of betraying him? It doesn't make any sense. His heart has been aching from the confusion since Halloween night, leaving him lost in the train wreck that has become his life. Every day he wakes up in a pool of his own regret thinking: it should've been me that night. All he can bear to do upon waking is float about as if he's a ghost, lingering in dark corners and rotting in the once-comforting. He can't quite remember the last time he avoided being the centre of attention for this long. He really doesn't miss it.
That scarlet red guitar stares at him from its stand on the wall, out of tune and taunting him from the day-old fingerprints imprinted on the strings down to the lettering of S.B carved into the shiny plastic. Eros had binned all of his sheet music a few minutes after the news had broken out across the nation. Once he saw the humble beginnings of something great in the messily scribbled notes, now all he can see is wasted potential. This time when the tears begin to flow, he's completely numb to them until they begin to plaster stains onto the crumpled paper. He has countless missed calls from his mother, and yet he jumps when the telephone rings with another one, the voicemail repeating in his head until it's all he can hear, even when the line goes dead. Driving him to madness. He still can't bear to answer it.
The worst part of the entire situation is that, despite knowing what he's guilty of, Eros still misses his love.
He can't help but think that Sirius would know how to make things better at a time like this. He could soothe the hurt and dissolve the incessant worries that nag at Eros' brain, kissing away the perpetual frown on his lips or saying something daft to ignite a smile.
He ends up burning the newspaper to a crisp, yet the satisfaction is minimal. He's left shaking in anger, a furious tremor in his hand that wouldn't subside. No, not until he could beat the living daylights out of Sirius Black for the misery he's putting him through. Not until he could inflict all that pain personally.
The thought alone makes him sob.
For once, Eros doesn't feel beautiful — a blotchy mess drowning in his own sobs, eyes puffy and ribs aching. His vanity fails him in the blur of his mourning and everything about his appearance is distinctly off. The bags under his eyes are evident, the knobs of his spine visible under thinly stretched skin. He curls into himself for a kind of comfort that won't be brought, trying to believe that this is all a nightmare that will fade away into a horrid memory. Sirius would always comfort him after his nightmares. Who's supposed to do that for him now?
He buries his face in his hands to block out the world around him, warming them with his scorching hot tears. What had happened to him? Where had he gone wrong? The strong willed spirit that burned inside of him has long since fizzled out, that eternal flame snuffed out by the corrosion of his heart. The last time he sung was on Halloween. He couldn't bring himself to do it again, not for a long time.
It seems that once again, Icarus has flown too close to the sun and acts surprised when he gets burned.
AUTHORS NOTE
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