Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Alice

"Ey up what have you two been up to then?" Grinned Bondy taking his hands out of his pockets to light a cigarette as we approached Benji and Katie.

They were sitting at a picnic bench outside the cafe we'd left that morning, stacking 2p coins up and counting.

"Benji won us a load of coins didn't he," smiled Katie, biting back a smile as she looked from me to the the lads and then back to her stack of coins, too shy to flash Benji a smile.

"So thats where you've been? Down the penny arcade?" Chuckled Bondy earning a laugh from me and a bemused smirk from Saffron.

"The penny arcade?" She asked screwing her face up, "alright grandad its not the 19th century anymore you know," she giggled her smile only fading out temporarily when her phone began ringing. "Sugar lamb," she smiled, "whats the craic?" She sounded relieved, like she hadn't been expecting Fliss, like she'd been expecting Rhys instead. "Man thats fuckin mental shit," she smiled into the receiver humming along with whatever crazy story Fliss was relaying on the end of the line. "Wait are you alright? Radical," she grinned back and then moments later her grin disappeared and she began to shift from one foot to the other a little uneasily, chewing her lip and shaking her head. "I, I dont know Fliss, I mean the others might but I really can't can I, Rhys is really upset.... hey!" She frowned a little wounded, "Don't say that, he's only human," I swallowed hard, whatever Fliss was trying to pull here now wasn't the time and whatever she'd just said was only going to make the situation worse, I could see that and I'd broken our no drugs policy last night. I could see it despite the comedown I'd been doing my best to hide all day, but Fliss had the shortest temper I'd ever seen when it came to people she cared about and she had a tendency to see things very black and white when they weren't happening to her.
Rhys was either good or bad, wrong or right, and he was good, or right.

"What's up buttercup?" I asked as she slipped her phone into her back pocket, her last words to fliss, "ill think about it."

"She's staying at Vans tonight and she wants us all to stay too..." she said laughing when I raised my brow and pulled a face, "its nothing like that!" She gasped giggling away for a moment when the others joined in teasing, "its about... you know when she was a kid and her dad used to take her on holiday and they used stay in that b&b? Well that b&b is fucking Van's house... She's known him her whole life and both of them were too fucking stupid to realise!" She said impressed apparently by our friends apparent idiocy.

"Shit," whistled Bondy, "thats some fuckin voodoo level weird shit going on..."

"Yeah," breathed Katie, "is she ok?" She looked at Saff with wary eyes, the same wary eyes Saff had blinked away minutes before.

"Grand from the sounds of it... but she wants to stay there the night and like...."

"We should stay," said Katie a little quicker than id expected. "Be fun," she said and the lads agreed without knowing the pressure they were pushing down on Saffys shoulders.

"Well thats the thing like, I'd love to but..."

"Saffy," I sighed, "if you'd love to stay here you should stay here, regardless of whatever anyone else has said to you..." I tried my best to my gentle and kind but it was difficult. I wasn't much better than fliss when it came to seeing my friends get hurt.

"He's really upset Ally," she said quietly, I could see the guilt in her eyes and it hurt just to look into them, but I held my gaze and held my ground.

"Turn your phone off Saff," I said bluntly, her eyes went wide and she shook her head and suddenly she was half the girl she used to be. "If you can't hear him, he can't hurt you..."