Fuzzy Blue Lights

I exhaled a large breath and continued to look at the clouds over head. The usual calming noises of the beach was all that reached my ears- the seagulls, the ocean lapping against the shore, the wind as it pushed around and reshaped the sand dunes... All was perfect. The cold that I could vaguely feel nipping at my exposed arms was all that kept me from falling asleep then and there.

"Hey, Candy?" a feminine voice from beside me questioned. I kept my gaze on the clouds, but directed my attention at this voice.

"Yes Sammy?"

"You won't... You won't really be leaving us for good, will you?" I sighed at the question and closed my eyes. Yeah, it was a well known fact by now that I would be leaving. Everyone was worried that I wouldn't come back. Why wouldn't they? There wasn't a soul living in this town that didn't know of my burning desire to leave.

"No, not forever. I'll be back, eventually," I finally responded after several beats of silence. Why was it always on the beach that they asked me these questions? I turned to my left look at Sam for a moment with a quirked eyebrow. She was sitting up, staring out at the foamy waves. Her hair was uncharacteristically natural colored at this moment- usually it was some extravagant shade of blue, purple, and sometimes even green. But not now. Now her hair was about the same color as the sand beneath us.

"You promise?" I hesitated for a moment on that one.

"Sure."

"You won't forget me and Vin, will you?" she inquire without missing a beat and stared down at me.

"No, I won't forget you and... Vin," I had to force his name out of my throat, just about. Just as I said his name, I heard something thud down next to me. The whole beach look suddenly changed in front of my eyes. When Sam had just been sitting was taken place with a tree. My breath became ragged and uneven as I lifted a hand to my head. My lip was in pain and bleeding. My body quaked all over as I slowly looked to my right to see whatever it was that had fallen beside me and--

I could hear something screaming. I shot up right and out of the grip of whatever was holding me. Whatever had just screamed had clearly woken me up. I could feel myself shaking and sobbing a bit and realized that I was the one that had screamed. I leaned forward a bit and cradled my head in my hands and closed my eyes. I decided against keeping them closed when the image showed up on the back of my eyelids and nearly made me scream again.

The next thing I felt were two arms wrapping around me again and someone making cooing noises. The words that were spoken were in German, though I don't think the person speaking noticed- nervous and startling situations like this tended to make people not pay attention to the language that they were speaking. They pulled my head into their chest and continued to mutter those comforting sounding words in German.

"...It's alright, Candy. Just a dream," Bill- I finally had the sense about me to recognize the voice- cooed into my ear, switching from German to English in the middle of his sentence. I stiffened a bit, wondering why Bill was there in my room with me in the first place. Whenever I would try to think why he was there, the image of that bloodied and beaten person would resurface and just make things worse on my part.

It had been forever since I had thought of Vin. I mean, I had been forcing those thoughts out of my head since the day that it happened. This was just another sign, another reminder, another warning, of how I couldn't let myself become what I had been. I focused as best as I could on Bill's words and made myself calm down. We sat there in silence as my sobbing and shaking slowly lessened and stopped- or, at least, almost stopped.

"Is this something common for you?" I heard Bill ask softly. I looked up at his worried and very much so frightened eyes. I could safely assume that he meant the waking up screaming part, which I was certain didn't happen often.

"No..." I started slowly, looking back down. Well, this would be the second time that he's seen me cry, both times were caused by a dream. Maybe it was common? I usually don't remember my dreams, anyway, and when I do it's because it was just that horrible. Like now. I shuddered and forced the thought as far away as I could. I didn't need to bring up the face again.

"Perhaps we should get you into your bed, rather than the couch...?" Bill offered. I thought for a moment be for nodding. I went to go stand up, but he stopped me. I stared at him, confused, as he stood up from the couch and positioned me so that I was sitting up normally. Then, he put my arms around his neck, one of his arms under my knees, and the his other arm he put around my back.

"I can walk, you know," I complained as he lifted me up. He stuck his tongue out at me and began to carry my to the bedroom part of my hotel room.

"You just about carried me all over the place earlier. Let me return the favor," he countered as he set me down on the bed. Quite frankly, I was just a bit too afraid to go back to sleep. There was not doubt of that. With much hesitation, Bill started to walk out of the room. Before he even got passed the end of the bed, he turned around and sat down on the edge of the bed, near my feet. He was about as frightened to leave as I was to go to sleep, it looked like.

"Bill, you need to get on over to your hotel room. You need the sleep more than I do. Besides, I'm a big girl. I'll be just fine." Of course, this is Bill that I'm talking to. He wasn't going to buy that. And he didn't. He sat there, staring back at me, ever so unmoving.

"I don't trust you alone. Not after that," he stated plainly. I sighed and shook my head.

"Fine, whatever. Just go to sleep. You definitely need it," I commanded as I closed my eyes and rested my head on the pillow. I was doing my best to think of anything and everything except for that image, and, who would have guessed it, I did eventually fall asleep again.

...This time, it was dreamless, just how I like it.

I had a camera currently stuck in my face. Why? Because the guys were doing their little Tokio Hotel TV thing, or whatever it was, and there would periodically be staff with cameras on the bus, video taping just about anything that the guys did that could be viewed as amusing. Of course, this whole thing was rather frustrating for me, because everyone started speaking in German.

Needless to say, I was lost. Befuddled, I was. And, after Georg had said a few rather loud words in German, and now I had a camera pointed at me. Tom and Bill were laughing at my clueless expression, and Gustav just frowned from where he sat. He said something to the guys, who stopped laughing. Tom just smirked in an amused way, but Bill had a guilty look on his face. I, of course, was still as clueless as ever.

...And it really didn't help my nerves that there was still a camera in my face.

"I'm just going to go take a nap, if that's fine with you guys," I muttered quickly as I got up to go flee back to my bunk. Before I could successfully do so, a hand caught my arm an pulled me back. I landed in someone's lap and, on turning to look at who it was, I came face-to-face with the still smirking Tom.

"You're just too predictable. Are you going to introduce yourself to the fans, or what?" Tom mused. My face burned bright red as I looked down for a moment. When I looked back up, I had a pout on my face.

"Aw, do I have to?" I whined a bit. Tom rolled his eyes and gripped my waist tighter so that I couldn't stand up. Bill gave me a rather serious look and crossed his arms.

"You are Bill's personal Hair and Make-up artist. I think our fans deserve to know just who it is that keeps him looking as amazing as he does now," Gustav chimed in sarcastically. I wasn't sure if I should have taken that as an insult or what, so I just shrugged it off. Bill clearly agreed with it and showed he did so with a nod of his head.

"Fine..." I sighed and looked down. When I looked back up, the camera was pointed in my face again. A huge Cheshire cat- like grin spread out on my face as raised my hand and wiggled my fingers. "Hi there, everybody~! I'm Candy and, as of just a week and a half or so ago, I became apart of this band's crew. And that's all any of you are getting out of me."

With that, I unlatched Tom's arms from around my waist and fled to the bunks, where I hid in my own personal bunk- the one that Andreas and I had shared while he was still on tour with us- and waited out for the camera men to leave, if they ever left. I heard people talking in German, and laughter, and felt instantly paranoid. I would have to learn some better German here soon, lest I start thinking that everyone was out to humiliate me, or to make fun of me while I couldn't understand.

...Wow, now I really did know how Tyler and my stepmom felt whenever we would talk Russian about the house.

Knowing that I would have to wait a while, I pulled my small laptop that I had been hiding and began to play random games on the internet. Yeah, lame, but I was bored. When I got bored of the time killing games, I switched to watching videos. With headphones, of course. Wouldn't want the guys to get suspicious, now would I?

That eventually got boring as well, so I shut off my laptop, rolled onto my back, and just stared at the top of my bunk. I looked over at the curtain that was technically my only privacy from the rest of the tour bus for a moment before looking back up at the top of the bunk. I wasn't tired- no, I was far from tired. In a short matter of days- since that freakin' plane ride, as it turned out- sleep had become my enemy.

...And to think that this is how a giant portion of the tour would go. Just one prolonged state of perpetual boring until it came time for the moment of truth, when I would have to go back to America for those two short weeks of a break.

I most certainly hadn't been prepared for this. Why wasn't anything ever easy?