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Eddie slowly exhaled, scrubbing shaking fingers up over his face and into his hair as he finally dared to look up and around the space he was in, not remembering a thing he’d seen in the process of getting there.
All he could remember of the last few minutes was sitting by the piano on the open floor of the studio. He remembered a pause turning into a full-on freeze as he tried to decide his next move with the fog gathering in his brain. He remembered glancing up to the gentle suspicion on Noel’s face, asking if he was alright, before he’d been hit with the invisible, physical strike and sense of impending doom that he’d experienced over and over since that encounter with that strange woman he’d met in some town on tour, whom had threatened him and spoken something of witchcraft. Followed by the blind instinct to run, nowhere in particular, other than away.
And there he sat, within the storage closet of the studio, tucked into a narrow, cubby-like indentation in the wall, feeling the space he now saw closing in around him, yet still not fast enough to protect him from whatever it was he still felt the need to escape from. Despite not knowing what exactly it was after weeks on end.
That, he’d accepted he might not ever know. He didn’t care if he never found out. As long as someday, it would all go away.
What perplexed him this time was how it had come on so fast, without the most subtle of warning signs he’d learned to recognize. Almost like the first time it had ever happened, to where he’d been helpless to resist it long enough to even attempt to carry on without such a reaction.
He’d gotten through episodes without any outward sign. He had to on tour, while traveling, or onstage.
Why this now?
I thought we had figured out how to deal with this.
I KNOW how to deal with this.
We were PAST running away like -but this is what’s happened -oh, no. OH, no…
The sight of the room darkened and fuzzed together like black and brown static rising up from the lower half of Eddie’s vision as he tensed further at the realization of footsteps approaching, and a figure moving into sight. While he’d tucked himself into the cubby of cold, metallic wall panels in the back of the walk-in storage closet, housing various retrofitted utilities in that old building, there was nothing blocking him from being seen, once the door itself had been breached.
“I’m not comin’ in any further.” Noel stood beside the doorway along the opposite wall, where he was as far from Eddie as possible within the space, about four meters apart. He leaned his back along the vertical surface, slouching down and resting against it for good measure. “Just here to have a small yarn. Real quick.”
Eddie slowly drew in a breath, held it for a second, and with a shuddering exhale, looked up at Noel, and nodded listlessly. The way he gazed up may have facilitated a sulking look.
At least under just slightly more normal conditions, where there perhaps wouldn’t have been such terror in his eyes, and visible tension through every inch of his body, he could have achieved the sulk he really wanted. Maybe if it weren’t for that, he could have fended off the conversation he wasn’t sure he had the strength for as he was faced with it.
Well, you’re here already… probably not leaving until you say whatever you’ve got, so might as well get on with it.
“Right.” Noel paused, and nodded, shifting back to his normal, deadpan deameanor, if but with the slightest more serious undertone.
“We’re a family. We’ve all said it before. We don’t go carryin’ on shoutin’ about it ‘til it turns into somethin’ weird ‘n all. But, we’re a family, we all care a great deal about each other -an’ probably know more about each other than we know about ourselves, scary as that iz.”
Noel paused, breaking deadpan expression with a smirk once again -something Eddie could tell was an attempt to judge if he was mentally there enough to register any of it, or if wherever Noel was going was even going to be helpful at all, if it could have been.
Whatever Noel was hinting at with his lead-in, it was true. He did appreciate the humor so far, and he tried to smile through whatever had its hold on him. He wanted to, deep down, but he couldn’t, and he hoped Noel’s implications were true enough that he recognized that much.
Whether or not he did, just as soon Eddie’s feeble attempt connected with the subtly, joking grin Noel had, trying to lighten the air, the latter’s dropped back to deadpan seriousness -this time, dramatically so -after a brief pause, taking him with it.
“Right now, we’re not doing so hot.”
Silence.
After a moment of not the slightest sound or motion, Eddie pressed his lips together in a firm, white line and exhaled hard as he nodded his head slowly, like the slightest motion made him dizzy.
No, we’re not. I suppose that’s obvious enough now, too.
“Most of us already know it’s not just Tim havin’ a mare -even though Nathan’s made enough fuss out of that for ‘im lately -and I reckon there’s not much left here in the two of us pretendin’ otherwise.”
Eddie tried to physically show the smirk he felt inside at the mention of that. Yeah… whatever he’s trying to imply of Tim, I’m glad he’s not yet dared to try with me. It’s already enough without all that…
“We’re not gonna go makin’ a big deal out of it. But, we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.”
Panicked with the realization of just how lost he was for an answer to that, Eddie faltered, finding his voice through his state of terror, rubbing his temples hard and squeezing his eyes closed for focus as he tried to find words.
“I-I don’t -I still don’t know what this is, Noel. I don’t want to talk about it -wouldn’t know how to if I did.”
Thought I was finally figuring out what to do about it, but apparently not…
“And I’m not askin’ you to.” Noel paused and smirked, once again shifting seamlessly from serious to silly. “You can. I wouldn’t tell you no if you did want to. But I wouldn’t expect it, anyway, knowin’ you.”
Eddie winced out a pathetic attempt at a laugh. True.
“Though, I think it’d be unfair to expect you to play through this, when there’s not somethin’ we’re tied up in this very moment, and it’s not as though we’ve got to be here.”
And just as fast as Noel became serious again, the weight was back hard as ever on Eddie’s chest, and the oxygen had been sucked out of his lungs.
What do you mean, we’ve not got to be here?
“If you want to stay, you’re welcome to stay.” Noel shrugged, tone sliding back into his more casual drawl. “I’ll go out ‘n find something to do around the place, wait ‘til you’re ready to get back at it, whenever that iz. Or, if you want to leave, we can do that -forget about tryin’ to come up with any instrumentals ahead of everyone else, take it easy, and figure this out tomorrow.”
No, no. You’ve HAD time to figure out how to deal with these things, whatever the hell it is.
I want to get out of here, I’ve got to get- No, we DO have to stay. We’ve GOT to stay, not having a show or deadline is beside the point.
If we leave, Nathan’s going to be on your case in an instant. He hasn’t even got Tim here to hover over right now -he’s got nothing to distract him. It’s only a matter of time before he dares to feel up for revenge.
Nigel’s supposed to be here later.
We TOLD Tim and Neil we’d try to have some instrumentals to try to work around when they come back, and we’ve only got but so much time left until they do, and…
We can’t leave.
We’ve got to stay.
…I don’t know if I can today.
Eddie desperately wished he could have articulated his thoughts as they came. As messy as the rush through his head was, talking was useless by comparison, emerging as stuttered, borderline-gibberish that he only heard muffled, and with a lag between that and when he felt his lips moving, as if the sound were moving through water.
“But, we -if we leave- if -Nathan -he’ll -and Nigel, and Tim ‘n-“
He wasn’t even entirely sure if the disjointed syllables he heard his thoughts translated to were what he was actually producing, if anything at all.
Whatever was the case, he was only grateful that Noel seemed to understand it, smirking weakly and holding up his hands as if to signal him to stop struggling through it.
“I can call Codge. You know how he iz -he’ll probably be happy to not hav’ta come in later. And I doubt Nathan’s gonna dare givin’ ya a hassle anytime soon, still, but if he tries, I’ll tell him somethin’ -the blame’ll be on me. Tim ‘n Neil, I dunno what they’re gonna come back here with, or if we’ll get caught up before they get back if they come up with a lot, but if that’z not happenin’, we’ll get caught up with’em when they’re here. Neither of ‘em need to know this had anything to do with it -that’s what I can say for sure. Everything’ll get figured out -I don’t know how, or when, but it will.”
You’ve only got one real answer you want. I know what it is. Though I won’t call you out on it if you want to be stubborn and choose otherwise.
Eddie finally managed to lift his head from his hands that he’d clutched to its sides, meeting Noel’s eerily calm, yet concerned gaze with his dull, sunken eyes, standing out against his ashen, clammy features.
“I-I can’t be here right now.”
“Alright.” Noel pushed himself off the wall and turned to go back into the control room. “I’ll let you have whatever time you need to get up outta there. Everything’ll still be here for us tomorrow -this place isn’t goin’ anywhere.”
“‘M sorry,” Eddie managed, trying to breathe deeply against the sudden head rush he got as his body seemed to finally adjust to how hard his heart was pounding, faster and harder at the anticipation of climbing up from the semi-safe position he’d assumed.
“No worries. It’s not anything to apologize for,” Noel said, shrugging nonchalantly as he made his way out. “It’s just what’s happenin’.”
And just as soon, he was out of sight, leaving Eddie by himself in that closed in space again, alone to grapple with whatever force had taken over his whole state of being.
The drive home was going to leave him feeling incredibly vulnerable, still, but it was short, and the prospect of getting home safe was enough to deal with that much, even with this setback.
Finally having worked up the will, and the strength to stand up, Eddie found it in himself to cross back through the rest of the studio toward the back exit to the car park. He fought as usual against the phantom weight on his body, and the sensation of walking in slow motion against an invisible wall that made every step forward a challenge, and made even the shortest distance feel longer than it ought to have. This part, at least, had become predictable, and easier to handle for that much, as unpleasant as it always was.
Through muffled, ringing ears, he heard the very tail end of Noel telling Nigel over the phone something to the effect that they were in enough of a creative slump that there wasn’t much point in him coming out to see what they’d gotten done, and that they were going home to see if the change of scenery gave them anything to come back with for tomorrow.
No fake, made-up excuse that might be hard to prove later if anyone tried to call bluff, nothing untruthful, yet no mention of what had happened. Not even so much as the downplayed mention of anyone simply not feeling up to it.
Only that they weren’t managing to be productive, and they were going home. Cut and dry, and no willingness to entertain any tentative demand for more explanation.
He was just getting through the exit when Noel placed the phone down with a click, and his words, now aimed at him, broke through the effects of the episode on his hearing once again.
“Not one word of this gets outta here unless you’re the one who takes it out there, got it?”
Eddie paused in his tracks and managed a weak nod of appreciation that someday, he’d be able to express, though for the moment, he could only settle for feeling and meaning it more than he could place in words, or physically convey.
Thank you.
The rest was as every previous episode prior, making his way home, just as it had been in the studio. Every segment of the brief drive home, he saw as it happened. He registered every turn, and yet, despite recalling every time he’d acknowledged if every intersection and portion of the road in between he went through was clear, he was still somehow unable to recall what he’d seen of any of it once he was at home. Same as it would have been in the times he’d run home or back to a hotel on foot, and something he still saw as a measure of the physical impact as he retreated behind the closed door of his bedroom until he could regain enough of his bearings to attempt to carry on moving about the house, with the walls themselves being enough of a safety barrier.
Never before had Eddie lasted, sitting so long in anyone’s sight during a spell in which he’d been unable to internalize by sheer force of will, or perhaps with the adrenaline rush of knowing he had no other choice when it would come over him onstage. His worst nightmare -the very thing he’d dreaded the most with each episode as he either forced himself to breathe rigidly through it, or made an immediate exit toward privacy -had finally been realized. And yet, nothing about it was what he’d feared.
No major fuss, finger-pointing, blaming him for past decisions, speculation of what was wrong with him right under his nose, or conflicting, unsolicited advice slung his way in every direction. Everything he’d anticipated and dreaded would come with it had, to a different feeling of shock, been entirely absent.
No explicit mention, weird looks, or blatant eggshell-walking to make just how screwed up he felt real.
Perhaps because Noel was eccentric enough, he’d been able to respond while acting almost as if everything was normal, which had never ceased to amaze Eddie for how many crises they’d somehow gotten through and Noel had helped hold them together, just the same way. And because of that, somehow, there, in the emptiness of the house, replaying the jumbled and blurred images of the view inside the storage closet Eddie had sat in, even as strong as the weight of the terror on his mind and body felt, perhaps, it felt just the smallest bit less scary.
Something not quite so shameful. Something not quite so strikingly abnormal and wrong. Something that would not attract some horrendous scrutiny about him -because it wasn’t worth that. Rather, as Noel had put it, it wasn’t anything but just what was happening. And for just that much, whether Eddie would ever know what exactly it was, it was less scary to anticipate the eventual next time as well.
Just the smallest bit easier cope with. And he could not have been more grateful to Noel for that as he waited out the terror at home.
Still intense, miserable, and far too long, yet not quite so impossible to fathom an eventual end to. Until whenever, or how the last episode would come about and run its course, and he could finally make sense of it all.