In My Dreams It's Me And You

“Well fuck you, you bitch!”

I laughed and walked across the stage at sound check. “I wouldn’t let you touch me with a ten-foot pole,” I retorted, Brian rolling his eyes at my reply. “Besides, you weren’t that great anyway, honey.”

That caught Brian’s attention, the scale he was playing screeching to a halt. “Oh yeah?” he asked, strolling toward me with a smirk on his face. “I couldn’t have been that horrible, considering the way I had you screaming my name and begging for more every night. In fact, I remember one night in particular where you pleaded with me not to stop. You even got on your knees -”

Face reddening, I cut him off. “Shut the fuck up, asshole,” I muttered.

Brian snickered and walked away. “That’s what I thought, baby,” he said. I screamed ‘fuck you’ at the top of my lungs, the echoes reverberating throughout the arena, and Brian gave me a victorious look. “I do believe we just discussed that issue, darling, and you said you didn’t want it. If you’ve changed your mind already, however…”

“You’re a fucking moron, Haner,” I growled and stomped off stage, technicians moving out of my way as I did so. I heard Johnny mumble to Jimmy and I turned around to glare at him. “It is not fucking funny, Christ! That man drives me so crazy, I could just… urgh!”
Not allowing him to respond, I continued stalking… walking to the dressing room we had been assigned.

Perhaps I should explain how Brian and I came to be at odds once again. Well, as the pattern seemed to be as of late, Zack played a role in the further disintegration of our relationship. This time, however, Brian was the one I placed the blame on - not Zack.

“You WHAT?!” Brian shouted, making me cover my ears. “You seriously did not forgive Zack; tell me I heard you wrong.”

Folding my arms across my chest, I replied, “You didn’t hear me wrong, Brian. I forgave Zack, but I have a good reason.”

“And what reasoning could you possibly have for forgiving the man who put us in this fucked up position in the first place?” Brian gave me a skeptical, curious, but disbelieving look and gestured for me to explain.

I sighed and dropped my arms, clasping my hands in front of me and toying with my fingers. “I’m sick of the tension in the band, Brian. I figured that if I forgave Zack, then maybe that would help you -”

“Just stop right there, Natalie,” Brian interrupted me, holding a hand up. He then sighed and shook his head, looking up at the ceiling. I could tell by the look he gave me when he returned his gaze to me that we were about to break that ‘No arguing’ agreement we’d made. “Did you seriously think that you forgiving him would make things better?” he asked incredulously.

Putting my hands on my hips I sarcastically replied, “Yes. I thought that everything would magically go back to being rainbows and butterflies as soon as I talked to him. No, you idiot, I didn’t think it would make everything all right.”

“Hey, don’t fucking call me the idiot,” Brian barked, “I’m not the one who just let the douche who fucked up our relationship walk away scot-free.”

“You’re as much to blame as Zack is, Brian! Need I remind you that you’re the one who broke up with me without first having found out the full story? What Zack did was wrong, yes, and he’s suffered enough. Matt gave him a concussion for Christ’s sake!”

Brian muttered something under his breath and I told him to repeat himself. “Of fucking course you’re defending him,” he said. “Figures.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I questioned, suddenly feeling the urge to chuck something very heavy at Brian’s head. I knew what he was implying and I couldn’t believe he was going there.

The little decency he seemed to still possess at that time must have kicked in, because Brian retracted his statement. “That was out of line, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “But it still fucking pisses me off that you went and forgave him just like that.”

“I thought maybe it would be a first step to fixing our relationship, if we could get all the outsiders actually out, but I guess I was wrong,” I told him. “I can never do anything right, can I Bri?”

Rolling his eyes, Brian answered, “Now you’re just being childish. I never said that and you know it’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, well, I’m tired of you fucking reprimanding me every time I try to do something to help fix this relationship,” I replied. “I’m sorry if you don’t like the way I go about things, but I don’t like having grudges or regrets hanging over my head.”

Brian threw his hands into the air and exclaimed, “And now we get to the heart of it! You think I’m bitter about something, don’t you?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I responded, “Bitter, paranoid, it’s all the same when applying it to you.” Brian demanded I elaborate and I explained, “You’re bitter because your sorry attempts to seduce me when I first moved into Matt’s house failed, and Zack was with me first. You’re still - unreasonably - paranoid that I have feelings for Zack, and that drives you to act irrationally. The way I see it, and I’m no psychologist but I think it’s pretty obvious, is you need to sit down with him and seriously talk about all this shit. He knows just as well as you do that what we had is over, and will never happen again. Maybe if you heard it from him you’d actually believe it.”

It might have been true, but that little reflective look on Brian’s behavior is what brought us to where we are right now. From that moment on it was all-out war, and if you didn’t know any better you would swear we had never been together in the first place. In a lot of ways, we had reverted back to square one of our relationship - if that was what you’d call the interaction Brian and I had when I first arrived at Matt’s last spring.

“Whoa, what’s got you so pissed off, Nat?” Zack asked as I strode into the dressing room, slamming the door behind me.

Val snorted and replied, “Do you even need to ask? Her and Brian have been at each other’s throats for weeks now.”

Knocking back a beer and shrugging his shoulders, Zack came back with, “Oh yeah, my bad.” I sent a nasty look in his direction and he cleared his throat. “So what did you guys argue about this time?”

Plopping onto a couch and grabbing a beer, I answered, “His guitar solo. He went to practice the solo in ‘Afterlife’ and totally fucked it up, so I commented. You can infer from past incidents what happened from there.”

“No offence, but that sounds like you just being a bitch, Nat,” Matt commented. “I think you were looking for that fight.”

Jimmy traipsed into the room as Matt finished speaking and came to sit next to me. “Hey don’t be too hard on my girl Natalie. She just needs to get laid,” he defended, making me blush as the others laughed. “You all would be horny, whiny bitches if you hadn’t been fucked in a while, too.”

“Okay Jim, that’s enough,” I said, trying not to laugh at the truth of the statement. “Thanks for defending me though, bro.”

Cracking a smile, Jimmy responded, “I’ve got your back, Nat. No worries.”

Brian, Johnny, and a few others joined us in the green room a few moments later, spreading out and finding places to sit or stand. Brian stood across the room from me and even though I wasn’t looking at him, I knew he was looking at me. “You know what?” I asked, addressing the room full of people. “James has a point, for those of you who were present to hear what he said, and I think we should fucking party tonight after the show. Who’s with me?” Knowing by the volume of the shouted agreements that my proposition had been accepted, I smiled widely and raised my beer in a toast. “Tonight, -”

“ - we shall party like rock stars!” Jimmy finished for me, causing everyone to laugh and raise their glasses.

We stopped that night after the show in a town in Germany, going absolutely wild in the top floor suites of our hotel. Bruce Dickinson and the guys of Iron Maiden had bought us a box of wine, two bottles of Grey Goose vodka, three bottles of Jack Daniel’s, and a case of beer to celebrate having made the halfway point of the tour. Needless to say, we were putting the generously donated liquor to good use.

“And Johnny Christ loses another hand of Hold ‘Em!” Matt jeered, a shot of Jack in his grasp. “You know what you have to do now, Christ.” Everyone in the room watched in drunken delight as Johnny stripped down to nothing and ran around the room naked, stopping to give a disgusted Jason Berry a brief lap dance. “Good job, bro,” Matt congratulated as Johnny redressed, “now play me and Val another game.”

I laughed and wandered away from that group as a very drunk Johnny did as he was told. Jimmy was off in one corner of the room telling stories to a group of our friends/technicians and Zack, who had passed out at the two A.M. mark after a shot-slamming contest with Johnny, was asleep in another room. Looking around, I wasn’t able to find Brian and I asked everyone I happened to stumble into if they knew where he was. I didn’t have the best of luck getting answers out of anyone, considering we were all very heavily intoxicated.

Slowly making my way out of the room, I walked carefully down the hall to the second large suite our group had rented. I closed and locked the door behind me, deciding that if I couldn’t find Brian in here, I would sleep the night in this room as opposed to the other. The floor of this suite, thankfully, wasn’t littered in plastic red cups and beer cans, and I was able to navigate it much easier than I had been able to in the other room. Further inspection of the suite told me that the bedroom, as well as the closet, bathroom, and kitchen, was empty.

I was ready to crawl into the plush, king-sized bed in the middle of the bedroom when something moving on the balcony outside the room caught my attention. I could just make out the figure of someone standing outside and the light from the end of a cigarette glowing against the night sky. It was Brian.

“There you are,” I said quietly, sliding the balcony door shut as I joined him outside.

Brian turned around to look at me and then turned back to gazing at the city laid out before us, smoke streaming from his lips as he exhaled. “I wasn’t aware you were looking for me,” he answered just as softly.

I set my beer down on the table closest to me and walked up behind Brian, watching as he continued to lean against the railing. Wrapping my arms around his torso, I felt it as his entire body stiffened and then relaxed. “I couldn’t find you in the other room and I was worried,” I whispered, turning my head and resting my cheek against his back.

Brian’s hands covered my own as they lay just above his belt buckle. “Why would you worry about me?” he asked.

My drunken brain managed to understand the hidden meaning of his question and I sighed, leaning my forehead against his back. I pressed a kiss to the muscles below the fabric of his shirt and responded, “Because none of this is your fault. You tried so hard and I pushed you away. Where we are right now is my fault.”

Turning around, Brian continued to lean against the railing as he pulled me against him. I buried my face into his chest and inhaled the scent of cigarettes, cologne, and whiskey. One of Brian’s hands remained on my side, holding me in place, while the other rested at the back of my neck, his fingers burrowing into my hair as he carefully lifted my head up so he could look at me. “Where we are is both our faults,” he corrected quietly. Brian nuzzled his nose against mine and closed his eyes, letting out a shuddering breath when I pressed myself closer to him. I ran my hands up his back and slowly dragged my nails down, Brian holding me tighter as I did so. “I’m so sorry, Natalie,” he whispered.

I opened my eyes and stared into his, the breath hitching in my throat as the proximity of our bodies struck me. “I’m sorry too, Brian,” I replied, tilting my head down out of nervousness.

Brian lifted my head up again and pressed his lips against mine, making stars explode behind my eyelids. “I love you, Natalie,” he murmured, sliding his hands down my body to grip my legs and force them around his waist. I groaned and buried my face in his neck when he lifted me up past his growing erection, the friction between our bottom halves making heat pool in between my legs.

“I love you too, Brian,” I told him, kissing his jaw as he walked through the suite to the bedroom. Pulling him down on top of me as he laid me on the bed, I captured his lips with mine and held tightly to his arms that were positioned on either side of my head.

Temporarily lifting himself off of me, Brian tore his shirt over his head before helping me do the same to mine. The feeling of his skin on mine made the hairs on my body stand on end and Brian ran his hands all over me, his calloused fingertips and smooth palms making me arch myself against him wherever he touched me. Our lips met again in a passionate kiss, Brian locking my hands above my head as his tongue danced with mine. I was able to free my hands when Brian dragged his lips from mine to bite and nip at my neck; I took that freedom to reach down and completely undo his jeans, tugging at the fabric once I was done. Brian returned the favor, freeing me of the dark washed, destroyed jeans I had been wearing.

The moment Brian entered me I felt myself tighten around him. I had been craving his touch since the night we first ‘broke up’ and I knew it wouldn’t take me long to achieve orgasm. Each stroke brought me closer to sweet release and I more than willingly let Brian know how I felt, whispering into his ear all the things I wanted to say and what he needed to hear. Sweat from Brian’s body dripped onto my chest and mixed with mine, glistening in the faint moonlight that filtered in through the window. Our labored breathing and passionate, whispered words were the only sounds that filled the room as Brian and I pushed each other closer to the edge.

When his body started to shake I knew that Brian didn’t have long to go and I begged him to go deeper, my own orgasm quickly approaching. He fulfilled my request and I moaned in ecstasy as waves of pleasure were released and sent throughout my body, Brian spilling into me almost instantaneously. As our bodies began to recover Brian kissed me gently on the lips and wrapped his arms around me, my head propped up on his chest and my arms around his torso as we both gave in to our exhaustion.