Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

"I'm so drunk an in love with you," I sang gazing halfheartedly out at the lights on the stage, my eyes set just above sea level. I saw the shadows of a thousand or more people and I saw them all moving in time, but my eyes were to remain looking at the architechture that lined the balcony, the peeling gold paint like some forgotten west end theatre crumbling around us.

When we skipped off the stage Larry and Van were still marding around with one another,  but the others seemed to have returned to their brighter selves. I flashed Bondy a smile as he turned to the fridge knowing exactly what i wanted, and when I fell down beside him he laughed at the melodrama of me entrance.

"Anyone would think youd done a whole set," he teased drawing a laugh from Blakes who was beside him, waiting for Kitty so that they could disappear again, out some different fire exist for a ciggy.

"Fuck off you cheeky git," I grinned back nudging him playfully in the ribs, my smile falling when I caught Vans eye.
He was watching me over larrys shoulder, his expression sullen with his fringe in his face and his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.

I thought about wandering over, but the room seemed to get colder the longer I looked him over.

"You need to help me Fliss," mumbled Bondy with a cheeky chink in his throat, "he's been miserable as sin for days, nothins snapping him out of it,"

"What an you think I havent been trying," I smirked watching Van as he skulked away to a different room.

"I don't know, jus reckon yous could probably sort him out is all," I rolled my eyes at him then, leaning back in my chair thinking over my response.

Perhaps I could snap him out of it, put a smile on his lips, but for how long and to what end? And then again, what if I couldn't, what if my presence could only make it worse, what if everything coming down on Ben and Katie lately, the last person he wanted to see, hear or touch, was me?

I sighed, smiling back at Bondy as I pushed myself up.

"As you wish,"

I heard him laugh behind me as I wandered out the green room door and down the corridor towards the little room he'd been talking with Larry in before.

At first when I pushed the door to and peered inside I thought the room was empty, the lights were on and gleaming white on the scratched lino floor, but it took me a moment to see Vans shadow stretched out in the corner across the floor.

"You know the emo phase usually occurrs when youre 13 and you listen to my chemical romance for the first time, not when youre 23 and you've got two albums of your own behind yous," I offered him a dry smirk, he said nothing but he smiled softly and held out his arm.

I shrunk down the wall beside him, snuggled into his side and rested my head on his chest beneath his chin, waiting for him to say something, but for a long time he didnt.

"You'll be on in ten yous know, they'll be looking for you," I sighed after another 15 minutes.

Still he said nothing, placing a kiss in my hair and confusing me.

I tilted my cheek to look up at him, to try to see him and the sulk which surrounded him, in a little more detail.

"Fliss," he said quickly, his voice cutting the air around us in slices. He wasn't looked at me, he was looking at our legs stretched out in front of us. At our shoes and my scummy laces coming undone. "I need to tell you something alright, and you cant tell anyone about it, you're gonna want to but you can't..."

I looked at him a little confused, his lashes fluttered but he didn't look back.

"Okay?" I asked slowly, "I pinky swear it..."