Duplicity [h.s]

01

a suggested song to use for this introduction

March 11th 2017
2 years ago

"Where the hell is Styles! You're on in two minutes!" The stage manager busts through the door with his clipboard and cigarette dangling between his demanding lips, hollering at the band as they were sat with lit joints being passed around within each other. The room was slightly fogged from stagnant smoke debris, all of the band members kicked back on the couches with their feet up. The essence of cockiness drowning the small area.

Niall, who was shuffling playing cards in his hand while leaning forward on his knees, looks up at the stage manager with the thick smoke trailing out of his mouth between the rolled joint.

"He always makes it Sal, fuckin' relax." He shakes his head and looks back down at his cards being shuffled within his skillful inked fingers.

"Well go get on stage while you wait for him!" Sal demands before slamming the door.

Meanwhile striding through the back entrance on the other side of the building, the missing band member made his way in his dirty black converse. He was supposed to be on stage in approximately ninety seconds, but like usual he had one more thing to do before the show began.

Harry Styles, the lead singer and guitarist of the band 'Duplicity' paced through the crazy backstage area with leather fingerless gloves on his tatted hands and a black t-shirt with a hole ripped near the collar, black sunglasses on his face and a cigarette between his lips. The man that was right on time took a sharp left into the graffitied unisex washroom, shutting the door behind him.

He walked right up to the sink counter with the lit cigarette between his lips, taking off his sunglasses and throwing them on the counter carelessly. He then quickly takes off his leather fingerless gloves to see the red blood staining both palms and the back of his hands. He turns on the leaky faucet and starts to attempt scrubbing his tainted skin in the sink, trying his hardest to get the crimson dye off him but was not succeeding.

"C'mon.." He muttered between the dwindling cigarette, vigorously scrubbing his skin raw. With a frustrated cuss between his clenched teeth, he gave up and just put the gloves back on— hoping no one would notice the small evidence of blood stains trailing up his fingers as well.

With little time left he dived his hand into his black jean pocket, retrieving the tiny individual plastic bag of narcotic and sprinkling it in a line on the dry counter top. He used his necklace pendant to straighten out the line, wasting no time to hunch down and inhale it through his nose. His head shot back up to see his reflection, his lips parted as the burn slowly tapped into his bloodstream.

His hollow sockets were dark, his hair a mess, and his eyes themselves were bloodshot. The tattoo sleeves covered him from shoulders to hands, black bar shoved through the end of his left eyebrow. The counter was clean from any form of the narcotic powder as he stuck the cigarette back into his mouth to let the smoke airate through the small room.

"Hey!" The same stage manager busts open the door to see Harry standing there facing the mirror. "I've been looking everywhere for you! You're on in thirty seconds!" He beckons through the small smoky bathroom, his voice being a never-ending misery to Harry's selective hearing.

"I'm a busy man Sal." The nineteen year old smirks sadistically while fluffing his nose, walking by him and with the cigarette between his pink lips still.

He saunters through the busyness of backstage crew preparing for the show—one that was starting in approximately twenty seconds. Harry knew of his crunched time frame, but like usual nothing ever made the cocky teenager hurry. His nose was burning with coke but he knew in a few moments he would be on that high he needed to get through the duration of the gig. His sneakered feet walk up the couple steps to the stage, arriving to where his bandmates were ready to go with their instruments.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Niall says with the guitar pick in his teeth, his eyebrows lowered as Harry grabbed the neck of his black electric guitar.

"Fuck off I'm here aren't I?" He says between the cigarette, throwing the strap of his guitar around his neck.

"Is that blood on your fingers?" Quincy questioned from his seat at the drum set.

Harry looked back at him with nothing but a sadistic smirk, an expression that was a million answers in its own. His cigarette between his cherry lips on its last puff.

"Are you guys set?" Sal spoke his last words before curtain, all of them nodding.

Harry takes his cigarette remains out and drops it on the floor in front of him, crushing it with the soul of his sneaker as the curtain draws opens and everyones cheering became incredibly loud. With the first strum of his black electric guitar and the bright white lights shining down on him, the show began.

"She worked her way through a cheap pack of cigarettes—"

//