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Post by Ice on Dec 29, 2011 19:13:23 GMT 1
Ice stood in front of Balthazars door. He was nervous, more so than usual. They hadn't seen each other in a long long time, not since.. Since the band split up. It had crushed him. The one secure thing in his life, gone. Just like that. He'd fled back to England, to Nick. Who was always there for him, but now had got tired of his moping and kicked him out. 'Come back when you've seen him, or don't come back at all!' he'd shouted and banged the door shut right in his face. That had been embarrassing. Most of all Ice had wanted to bang at the door and yell at Nick to let him back in, but he hadn't. It'd be waay to embarrassing. So he hopped on a bus, and another, and another, and finally he was here.
He wondered what Balthazar would do. Shout at him? Bang the door in his face? Maybe he wouldn't even recognize him. Sure, he'd changed, but surely not that much? His hair was shorter, and the natural blonde he'd covered up before, with some black stripes for good measure. He'd also got force-fed by Nick to the point that he didn't look like someone from Auschwitz any more. Some meat on his bones. He'd also been working on not being so freaking shy all the time, but that was hard. Really hard.
He looked down on his army striped converse shoes and fingered the zipper on his black leather jacket. Nick had also forced him into some style, a mix between his 'anything found on the floor' and the uncomfortable gothrock style he had in photo shoots and concerts. Comfortable military pants and a matching military green t-shirt and palestina shawl. The dogtag was a nice touch, as well as the black pilot sunglasses. He tried not to wear caps anymore, but he liked the anonymity. Plus, it was a really bright day.
But he was stalling. Could he really show up like this? Unannounced, out of the blue, no warning. Also, no contact at all. Still, it wasn't as if Balthazar had been the one in love, if you could call it that. The familiar heat crept up his face and he knew his face was as red as a tomato. Gods, how he hated that.
He forced himself to ring the bell before he could change his mind. Oh, no, too late. He waited a few seconds and then quickly turned away. Good, no answer, he could walk away and tell Nick he tried. Quick, quick, quick!
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 29, 2011 19:28:27 GMT 1
The sun was still up, but so was Baz. He hadn't managed to sleep much since the "break up" with Simone. He worried to much. Leo slept like a baby though.
When there was a knock on the door, Balthazar just stared surprised at the door for a moment, wondering who that could be. Everyone he knew, also knew he was a vampire. The sun would set soon though, but still. There were no salesmen, they were stopped by the entrance if they even got to there.
He got up from the sofa he had been half laying on, in just a pair of old grey pyjama pants and a black tank top. To solve the mystery of who was standing outside the door, he looked through the little hole in the door, and immediately there were a hug smile on his face, and he opened the door as quickly as possible, and hugged Ice. He let go when he realized he might have been hugging him to hard in the excitement.
"Ice!"
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Post by Ice on Dec 29, 2011 20:10:11 GMT 1
Ice had managed to half turn away as the door opened, so he got the full blast of an awkward side hug.
"Ba-bazz." he managed to squeak through crushed lunges and took a deep breath as Balthazar finally let go.
"Er.. H-hi." he said awkwardly and studied his oh so interesting toes. Then he summoned all his courage, took of his sunglasses and managed to look Bazz straight in his eyes.
"H-how.. how've you been?" he asked nearly without stutter and none of his usual hesitation. He had a very determined expression on his face and he'd forced most of the red colour out of his face. Just a very faint blush remained as he stared manically into Bazz' eyes, determined not to look away or blush or stutter och run away or blink. Well, maybe blink. If you didn't know better he nearly looked angry and ready to fight.
He mentally ran the rest of the conversation in his head, to prepare himself. 'Great', Bazz'd say. 'You?' 'Yeah, just fine', he'd reply. 'So what've you been up to? Except hold audition, of course, read about them in the papers.' 'Little of this, little of that', Bazz'd reply. 'You?' 'Same, same..' 'How's the band coming along?'. Yeah, he'll do fine. He'd practised in front of the mirror a hundred times.
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 29, 2011 20:25:25 GMT 1
Balthazar noticed Ice didn't stutter as much, and the blush he had noticed when he hugged him was almost gone. An improvement since last time he had seen him, but he also noticed the concentration behind it.
He didn't answer his question quite yet, but instead showed him inside. Standing to the side making a gesture with his hand, he said:
"Come one! Come in!"
The room was quite dark. The blinds were shut. White though, so it could have been darker, but there were only a candle burning on the table by the sofa. Not a problem for Balthazar's vampire eyes though.
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Post by Ice on Dec 29, 2011 23:42:36 GMT 1
Ice ducked his head as passed the door - not because he needed it, but from habit - and looked around curiously. The place hadn't changed much since last he was here. It was dark, but Ice was used to it. He'd closed himself into Nicks spare room with the blinds closed for quite some time after the breakup. He'd even quit playing music, until Nick janked him out of his misery and made him get out and play in the park.
"So wh-what've you been up to? Except hold aud-audition, of course. Read about them in-in the papers." He ran through the next part of the conversation, without stopping for breath. He grimaced. It really sounded rehearsed. But it was all Bazz fault, for not keeping up his end. He was starting to panic. Not good. He told himself to keep cool, but he could do no more than to stop himself from running out of the apartment.
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 29, 2011 23:55:31 GMT 1
Balthazar closed the door behind them and walked into the apartment too. And he shrugged just out of habit.
"Leo and Jean has come back too. As a matter of fact Leo is sleeping in one of the guest rooms."
He pointed just into the apartment, cuz he didn't really know in what room he was.
"Other than that, not much."
He didn't really feel like bringing up Simone right now.
"How about you?"
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Post by Ice on Dec 30, 2011 0:12:59 GMT 1
Ice relaxed and gave a small smile. Finally Bazz was following the manuscript. Although that part about Jean and Leo needed some thinking about. He'd heard the rumours, of course, but still.. Not now, though. Now he needed to concentrate.
"Same, same. How's the-the band coming along? Found any-anyone?" That last part he improvised. He felt it had been going so smoothly, he could experiment some. 'You're doing great', he told himself. Now make small talk for another thirteen minutes, then leave. In times like this he could really appreciate the upbringing that told him with total clarity that a social call such as this was to last fifteen minutes, no more, no less. Bazz upbringing probably told him the same, born in old England as he was. Though Ice didn't like to think about that, it made Bazz too... alien.
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 30, 2011 0:22:19 GMT 1
Balthazar could feel Ice relaxing but not nearly as much as he had hoped. It had been too long since they had seen each other, he wasn't used to him, as he had been.
"Relax!"
He said with a big smile and a gentle rubbing of Ice's shoulder.
"It was thought we would just start over, with Jean and Leo, but that didn't seem to happen, so I can't really bother to try anymore right now."
Balthazar made a gesture towards the leather sofas, for them to sit down.
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Post by Ice on Dec 30, 2011 0:33:43 GMT 1
Ice jumped a bit when Bazz touched him.
"I-I'm trying." he said and smiled at Bazz' shoulder, but he was unsuccessful. At relaxing.
"O-oh. I, uh... So-sorry, I gu-guess." He sat down gingerly and then flailed a bit as the sofa seemed determined to swallow him. After some moving around he decided that it was starting to get ridiculous and stopped moving. He got stuck in some kind of half sitting, half lying position and did his best to seem comfortable. "S-s-so, uhm... Wh-what will y-you do now?"
He moved his roving eyes to Bazz face and locked his eyes to his.
"J-just give up?" His tone was challenging. He felt he was making big progress here, he'd never said anything like this to Bazz before.
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 30, 2011 0:43:17 GMT 1
Balthazar sat down too after having looked amused at Ice moving around on the sofa. Ice's questions startled him.
"No."
He said with overconfidence, obviously lying. Right now, he wouldn't mind of the sofa would just swallow him. No band, no Simone. He felt quite sorry for himself.
"So, what are you doing here?"
He wrinkled his forehead slightly.
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Post by Ice on Dec 30, 2011 0:50:39 GMT 1
"Uhm, I, uh... Y-you kn-know, was in th-the neigb-neigbourh-hood." Ice said uncomfortably and squirmed around some more. He nearly said 'You?' but stopped himself in time.
"I, uhh... So, h-how are y-you?" He was really going off the rails here. Maybe he should just be quiet. Yes, quiet. Good idea. Shut up Ice. You're good at that.
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 30, 2011 0:59:41 GMT 1
"Right."
He didn't really believe that, but sure. In the neighbourhood.
"I'm fine."
Still not wanting to think about Simone and how he really felt. A good ol Fine would have to do.
"And you?"
He gave him an encouraging smile. Although he still was quite uncomfortable and awkward, Balthazar noticed improvements.
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Post by Ice on Dec 30, 2011 1:08:17 GMT 1
"Ye-yeah. Just sp-spiffy." Ices smile could only be called ironic. As the silence grew Ices smile faded and he started fidget around again. He felt that everything was awkward, but mostly him. He was awkward. An awkward, awkward boy. Why did he even come here? Oh yeah, the Nick thing. But if he'd only stood there, refusing to leave, Nick'd surely have let him back in. Like a bad puppy that peed everywhere.
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Post by Balthazar on Dec 30, 2011 1:12:56 GMT 1
"Somehow I doubt that."
He looked at Ice knowingly, and was almost about to tell him about Simone, just to break the silence.
"Oh, I'm sorry, not often I get humans visiting. Would you like anything to drink?"
Obviously Baz had forgotten how terrible a drinker Ice was.
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Post by Ice on Dec 30, 2011 1:25:06 GMT 1
Bazz' answer only made Ice squirm more. This had been a bad, bad idea.
"Uhm, y-yeah. A c-cup of t-tea would be n-nice." Good, it was moving along again. Back to etiquette, a nice cuppa in rose plaited cups, a slice of lemon, no sugar, clinking of spoon against cup. Simple. Only fifteen minutes. Or ten minutes more, now. Good good.
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