Busted Lips and Lust-Bruised Hips

The only problem with a tour is that it's over before you truly begin to enjoy the experience and, after the plumes of smoke and flickers of neon lights illuminating silhouettes with ephemeral glory, the only thing waiting for you at the other end is normality. Strip away the bouts of adoration and pressurised schedules, replace them with loosely-fitted agendas and the people that know the human in you, rather than just the celebrity. How easy is it to adjust? Not very, but that's exactly what you're supposed to.

The wallpaper was the same, the bedcovers hadn't changed and every piece of furniture remained stubbornly in its allocated place. It was like Pete had never been away and yet he had. He stood in the midst of his belongings and childhood memories, too afraid to move in case any pressure he applied would wrinkle the scene. No, nothing had changed and yet he had developed. It was the same and yet it wasn't and he was attempting to make sense of it all. Pete's phone ringing through his confusion was almost like a blessing to him, a thread of the normality he was accustomed to acting as a comfort for him. Smiling at the display name, he pressed the phone to his ear. "Hello, baby." he greeted.

Patrick's laugh echoed through the receiver. "Hello, honey," he replied. "You got back ok then?"

"Yeah," Pete answered, sitting on the edge of his bed. "It feels weird being home though."

"It does," Patrick agreed. "It's going to take some time to adjust, but it's nice to finally have some time off."

"Uh huh. I've missed this." Pete scrolled his eyes over his room, taking in the scattered memorabilia of his childhood and realising the sincerity in his tone.

"Me too," Patrick echoed, drawing Pete back to the conversation. "Well, I'd better get started unpacking. That's the only bad thing about a tour. I could so live out of a suitcase."

Pete laughed. "You'd look so good in wrinkles." he told the guitarist.

"I know I would," Patrick enthused. "Well, speak to you soon, honey."

"All right, baby. See you." Pete hung up his phone and turned his attention back to his bedroom. With a slight smile, he settled heavier against the bed in contentment. He had made it. He was home.

"It would be so much easier to live out of a suitcase." Pete murmured to himself as he slung yet another shirt into his wardrobe. The case gaping on his bed wasn't even half-empty yet and he was already growing bored of his chore. He couldn't remember packing so much but, somewhere between the last hotel and home, his clothes had seemed to multiply to an annoying amount. With a sigh of resignation, he turned back to the suitcase, determined to finish his job before it at least got slightly dark.

Distracted by the routine he found himself in, Pete didn't notice the photograph on the floor until he had crunched it beneath his foot. He placed the hoodie he was conveying onto his spare bed before bending down to release his foot's prisoner. The train-wreck his heart became was somewhat predictable as he glanced at it. A polaroid of a time when he preferred the life unravelling before him over the memories in his head, a time when he felt a connection beside the one between his pen and the paper he was writing on.

"Peter, darling, do you need me to wash any clothes?" Pete's mother stopped in the doorway, her gaze tumbling down to her son who was slumped on the floor in a defeated mess. It was a pose she had seen him in numerous times before and could probably guess the cause of it too. Sure enough, as she edged closer to see the Pandora's box clutched in Pete's hand, she noticed the cropped, blonde hair and brown eyes that had provoked this kind of reaction too many times before. "You've really got to give her up." she told her son with gentle determination.

"Jeanae," Pete responded bluntly. "She has a name."

"Name or not, darling. She's no good for you." Pete's mother sat on the edge of her son's bed, watching the raw emotions create crevices in his forehead.

"Then why do I still love her?" Pete questioned, looking up at his mother briefly with a child-like innocence.

Pete's mother smiled faintly, brushing his hair from over his eyes. "Because you were always all heart and no rationality, baby." she answered. Watching Pete lower his head in personal shame, she trailed her hand to his shoulder. "Give it some time. It'll pass."

"How do you know?" Pete asked, his gaze fixated on the photograph once again.

"Because, under all that emo insistence, you're a fighter, baby." Pete's mother replied. She offered a pacifying smile before placing a reassuring kiss on his forehead as she stood up. Pausing outside the door, she looked back at her son whose gaze was etched with a dependance that almost made her see him in his eight-year-old form once again. "I have to go out, darling. I promise I'll be back as soon as I can." she told him as he watched the other woman in his life walk out on him.

His mother's words shadowed Pete as he wandered around the house, using the normality around him as a backdrop in an attempt to absorb the truths his mother had just presented him with. "All heart and no rationality." There was no effort needed to accept that. It was a truth he was aware of in himself, a trait he had recognised for years. It was just overcoming it that was the problem. The doorbell echoing through the house shunted his attention to the four walls around him once again. Carving a rut in his bottom lip, he edged towards the door nervously. Pulling it towards him, he took a deep breath, prepared for anything but what was waiting on the other side of the door.

"Jeanae."

Jeanae shuffled nervously on the treshold as her eyes shifted up from her feet. "Hey, Pete," she greeted. "Just thought I'd come round and see you since you're home." Every word swarming in Pete's mind died on his tongue. Instead, he stared back at Jeanae in disbelief as she glanced around her, trying to overcome the awkward situation. With a lightly forced laugh, she tilted her head to the side. "Are you going to invite me in or no?" she asked.

"Oh yeah." Pete replied suddenly, recovering himself from the shock. Stepping aside, he smiled tensely. "Come in." He desperately tried not to flinch or fall as Jeanae stepped past him, gently brushing against his arm as she did. Pressing his lips together, he followed her to the main room, repeating Joe and Patrick's words in his mind as a guideline for this encounter.

"You need to move on. This whole thing is killing every good thing
about you."

"You need this time to just realise that you're hurting each other more than you love one another. Yes, you need someone, but not her."

Pete stood in the doorway and watched as Jeanae surveyed the room with a satisfied confidence. He didn't bother to count how many times she had paced the floorboards or how many memories they had sealed into the walls in their innocence, their belief that they were meant for each other. He just observed as she spun on her heels and sat with a grace that belonged entirely to her. A smile warmed on her face as she looked up at him with those eyes that had captivated him too many times before. "It must be so nice for you to be back." she said softly.

Pete massaged the frown from his forehead, stepping into the room with a conviction that frightened even himself. "What do you want, Jeanae?" he questioned.

There was a sliver of a pause as Jeanae took in Pete's sudden aggression with a slight pout. Settling back into the couch, she focussed on Pete with an air of determination. "You." she stated simply.

"What?" Pete asked, his expression written in surprise.

"You're the one who wanted to speak plainly," Jeanae told him. "I'm just playing along." Allowing her words to sink into Pete's turbulent mind, she danced her fingers along the edge of her t-shirt. "The only reason I came over here was to see you, to grovel." she admitted. Raising her eyes cautiously, she pierced Pete with her sincerity. "And I'm willing to grovel all night if I have to."

Stepping back in aggravation at the situation and repetitions the two of them found themselves in, Pete shook his head. "Jeanae." he pleaded.

"What?" Jeanae pressed in exasperation. "I'm sick of pretending, Pete. How long are we going to keep building up this distance between us when we're just ignoring what we're feeling?" Pushing herself up from the couch, Jeanae slowly crossed the room to Pete, pausing at a close enough distance to feel the slight tremor of his body heat, but far enough to enable their composure was in tact enough to continue the conversation. "I miss you, I love you and I know you can't say you don't feel the same way." Pete's lips fluttered open wordlessly in protest against what Jeanae was stating, his mind determined to oppose every statement she made, his heart adamant to accept and conform to every syllable. The smile on her face was enough to silence him with its knowledgable confidence, but her finger was applied to his lips for safety anyway. "I know what you're going to say," she informed him. "How many arguments are you going to find before you realise you're fighting the wrong war?"

Not enough. Pete thought, capturing her reassuring and inviting scent as he swept in her enticing eyes and lips that were parted with a suggestion. I never meant to crawl back to her, he told his mind as every conviction he owned was crushed between her lips and his.