Demons

The beginning of the ride home was silent, save from the generic rock music playing quietly in the background - a CD which Andy had slid in once the silence between us became too heavy. A dull ache seemed lodged in my ribcage, painfully thumping alongside my pulse, leaving a cool tiredness to cling to my bones. Whether it was from the exercise or life in general, I didn’t know. For the most part I kept my eyes trained out of the window, although my subconscious urged me to throw a couple of slanted glances in his direction and drink in his defined features, lit up by the dingy yellow light cast by the street lamps. A few times his gaze met mine, and he shot me a small smile.

At the third simultaneous glance his pale, slender hand reached to turn down the volume. A tiny jolt shot through my body as his voiced sliced through the now silent air. “I’m sorry for going off on you like that,” he apologized once again, though his voice lacked no sincerity. A strained smile crossed my face briefly, and I waved him off without a reply. “I’m not mad, you know. You can talk to me. Have a conversation, like people normally do during car rides,” he added with a wink that accentuated his smile so perfectly, it somehow eradicated the protective barrier I had put up between him and I. “Oh yeah?” I asked, my voice surprisingly steady. “What do you want to talk about?” A small voice nagged in the back of my skull, telling me to shut the hell up, that he didn’t really want to talk to me, but the rational part of me decided to take a metaphorical dive into the conversation. It was out of my comfort zone, but it felt good.

Andy shrugged off-handedly, although his eyes soon lit up with the promise of an idea. “We could get to know each other. Ask questions and all that, you know?” I lifted an eyebrow in curiosity, but quickly decided to just roll with it. “Alright. Uh… Favorite color?” He rolled his eyes before sending me a brief reprimanding glance that had me blushing and smiling sheepishly simultaneously. Had anyone else sent me a similar glance, I would have retreated back into myself out of shame, but Andy managed to make it playful and encouraging. The tip of his tongue darted out to moisten his lips before he replied, and for a few seconds I found my gaze transfixed on the way his lip ring caught the light. “You can do better than that. What about… Music? What music do you like?” A smirk tugged at the corner of my lips, and I made a point to take an exaggerated look at a metaphorical watch on my wrist. “How much time do we have?” To my surprise, his deep, gorgeous laugh rang out through the silence of the car, and I felt the vibrations of his voice all the way from my spine to my heart-beat. I wouldn’t mind if that was the only sound I would ever hear for the rest of my life. It was gorgeous.

“Alright, alright. Genre then. Have you listened to our band?” he snooped as he briefly turned to look at me, while still managing to pay attention to the road. “Lucy said you were kinda starstruck when you heard about Tina and CC,” he added with a wiggle of his eyebrows. Heat rushed to my face, and I turned to look out of the window shyly. Despite him being able to coax me out of my shell, I was quick to retreat back into my safe haven. “Uh, you know… I’m a fan,” I answered lamely. In the silence that followed, I reprimanded myself for being such a chicken, and with a newfound (albeit rocky) confidence, I cautiously ventured into the unfamiliar territory again. A solemn look rested upon Andy’s features when I looked up, and he nodded slowly, in an understanding fashion. A wide smile stretched across my face. “Look in the glove department. I’ve got some CD’s in there.” My hands fumbled with the latch in the darkness for a few moments before I heard the satisfying click. A pile of CD’s lay messily scattered, and I grabbed the first one without glancing at the cover, and slid it in the player.

My eyebrows rose in surprise as the first chords of The Outcasts spilled through the speakers, and I turned to see a cocky smile on Mr. Biersack’s face. “You listen to your own music when you drive?” I asked curiously. “I am quite full of myself, I must admit,” he joked. An unattractive snort made its way out of my mouth, and I covered my face in shame. Cold fingers reached out to pry my hands apart, and I soon heard his deep voice. “No, don’t do that. You’re beautiful when you blush,” he mumbled. The amount of blood in my cheeks all but tripled at his voice, and I slowly removed my hands to place them in my lap where I awkwardly played with my fingers. Andy didn’t seem bothered by his own comment at all, and began humming along with the song in the background. A silence enveloped us once again, but this time it was comfortable.

“I’m not tired at all,” he said suddenly as we were at a red stop a few blocks from Tina’s house. I tucked my feet underneath my body to be in a more comfortable position before I turned to look at him. “Is that so?” He hummed deeply in agreement, and I closed my eyes to revel in the soft sound. “Would you mind if we just… Parked somewhere and chilled?” I opened an eye to look at him, and to my surprise, he seemed uncertain. As if his confidence had stopped flowing through his veins for the briefest moment. So I made myself more comfortable and slid off my shoes before replying: “That would be cool.”

Andy pulled into a practically empty parking lot a few moments later, where he pulled the key from the ignition and clicked off his seatbelt, prompting me to do the same. Their CD was still playing softly in the background as he reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. “Want one?” he offered, and in my moment of weakness, I accepted. “Thanks,” I mumbled around it before he lit it up for me. For a few minutes we relished in the relaxed silence, only broken by the muted burning of the cigarettes at our inhalations. My joints were slightly aching from the way my legs were overlapping, and Andy must have sensed my discomfort, for he grabbed one of my ankles and pulled it onto his lap, followed by the other. So now I was stretched across the two seats with my back against the window, and it was the most comfortable position I had been in in a while. “Well, this is nice,” I mumbled with a smile, suddenly overcome with a drowsiness that clung tightly to my bones. “It is,” he agreed quietly.

His free hand started going in absentminded circles on my shin, and I all but fell asleep at the motion. A chuckle reached my ears once again, but I was too tired to blush. After a final drag of my cigarette, I threw it out of the window and nestled myself into a little ball. “Hey, don’t fall asleep on me,” he murmured, although his voice sounded just as tired as mine. “I thought you said you weren’t tired?” I asked, followed by a yawn. “Well, I wasn’t this comfortable before.” My voice had given up on me, so I merely nodded, already half-asleep. Through my blurry eye-sight I could make out the time on the fluorescent light on his dashboard. It was 1:04 a.m. A few of Andy’s joints popped as he stretched, and the engine rumbled to life as he turned the key in the ignition. I tried to stay awake, but the alluring sense of sleep was too heavy. With my feet still in his lap, I succumbed to the peaceful darkness.

I was half-asleep when Andy picked me up. His familiar, comfortable scent invaded my senses, and I instinctively tucked myself closer into his chest, feeling its vibrations as a chuckle brewed in his chest. His strides were long and steady, most likely as to not wake me, and I closed my eyes until we were in my temporary room once again. With a strained sense of calm, he placed me onto the cool mattress, where I immediately wrapped myself in the soft comforter. As he turned to leave, my sleep-muddled brain could no longer be held accountable for its actions, and I reached out to him and beckoned him to sleep next to me. Whether it was appropriate or not, I didn’t know. I didn’t really care. I just didn’t want to sleep alone. It took him a mere few seconds to make up his mind, before his leather jacket slid to the floor. While still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he climbed in next to me.

As the gentleman he was, he kept a respectable distance, but I slowly migrated closer and closer, seeking the warmth he emitted, until I was enveloped in his arms once again. “G’night,” I mumbled into the fabric of my pillow. Andy placed a soft kiss at the crown of my head before tightening his grip around me. “Goodnight.”

Notes