Peter went with the vape pen this time, because he needed something sweet on his tongue to settle his nerves into something manageable, but his stomach wouldn't handle something heavy like sugary junk food. Which was a shame because the pints of ice cream he bought to try out looked so appetizing.
But the vape pen worked wonders, the taste of fruity bubblegum trailing behind him and leveling him out to where Peter didn't want to bash in the face of every person who taunted him with his song. Cell phone switched off and shoved into his pants pocket, and his journal of lyrics fitted snuggly into his hoodie pocket, Peter marched right up to the MizFists studio. He could feel the thrumming bass of a new work being born, contingent heartbeats of vocals and digitized beats pounding against the glass door. Just having his hand on the handle felt grounding, like he was truly home. Peter yanked the door open and stepped inside.
A record scratch would have been so fitting in this instance, the way everyone's head swivelled to the entrance and even the bars were cut off as Tarsha spotted him at the door through the booth's glass pane.
Adel and some other guy cut the music, and Mike stood from his perch on the edge of the table. "What the hell are you doing here?" Mike asked. Well,not so much asked as challenged, taking on a bulking hunch in his shoulders as he crossed his arm and stabbed Peter with a glare so heated that it truly looked like he was trying to set the Sealander on fire.
"What do you think?" Peter stood straighter, refusing to be cowed even as the rest of his members crowded around him so closely that he simmered in their fury. He pulled out his notebook. "I came to record my music."
Mike’s eyes widened, his mouth hanging open in a frozen gawk. They all stared in their own form of disbelief, but it was Mike who crossed his arms and let his eyebrow shot up as he said, “Wow... Wow, okay.” He briefly looked down to the floor, then around at the walls as he wiped a thumb across his nose.
“...Walk me through your thought process, Pete, because I’m lost. After you posted that shitty video and dragged all of us under the bus with you, and not only did you refuse to take it down, but you try to keep this petty beef going--”
“Are you done--” Pete tried with a roll of his eyes.
“AND FUCKING GHOSTED US,” Mike raised his voice over Peter’s, just toeing the edge of yelling. Peter’s eyes latched onto that raised hand, bracing for that pointed finger to become a fist or a stiff open palm. It sure was darting about too much for Peter’s comfort. “There wasn’t anything in that line of thinking about fixing this? Or did you just assume shit’s all good and you can come in as you please?”
Peter felt his nose twitch, his nostrils trying to flare. He took a deep breath, sucking in the stench of bubblegum vape oil that clung to his coat. Schooling his features to as close as cool nonchalance as he could muster, Peter shoved his notebook back into his pouch. “No. I assumed that since I’m paying bills for this studio with half of my profits, I have a right to use this studio, too.”
Mike sucked air through his teeth, a sound that was wet and sharp. There was a tick within Peter, a spark that, a moment later, he identified as something wholly inappropriate to this conversation: a laugh. A tiny snicker because, as he watched Mike pinch the bridge of his nose and his face flood with hot redness, Peter couldn’t help but noticed how he sounded like a weird viper.
“Oh, my god, you are so fucking--!” Mike moved his hand to cover up his eyes, turning away. Naseem, up until then had been a hazy figure standing back in the fog of red, was already stepping forward and gently guiding Mike back as Mike said, “Naz, get your boy, because I swear to god--!”
“Alright, let’s chill here, okay?” Naseem turned to Peter, and Peter, goddamn it, refused to entertain that plummeting feeling in his soul when Naseem had the nerve to look like a tired and disappointed parent! “Pete, listen--”
“Nah, you know what? Fuck this!” Mike barged past Naseem, practically shoving him aside, and was right back in Peter’s face. Peter had to soothe the vibrating tether between him and his fort, had to remind himself that Mike was human, Mike couldn’t hurt him in a way that matter, that Peter, you are too strong for your own good, you need to be careful around humans, they break easily, that boy can’t heal as fast as you--
“--and you’re not even listening to me, are you?!”
Peter jolted, feeling the tiny tear of his pants leg as his fingernails gripped into the fabric. It was true, Mike’s voice had softened and muzzled over, blending into a thought that felt so vividly like a dream. Peter didn’t even notice the way Naseem had moved to bar Mike, a hand gripping the crook of Mike’s arm, the other placed higher up on the shoulder. Why did such a sight make him feel like a shark scenting blood? Why did he feel the corners of his mouth twitch into a smirk before he forced them straight as he shot back, “I don’t have to listen to you if you’re going to get all hysterical like your cunt’s bleeding.”
Peter didn’t read the look on Ashira’s blurred face, only registered the vague shape of her arms crossing and her chin slowly tilting up. Whatever she was about to say, (Probably some fourth wave feminist diatribe, like I give a shit, he had snapped in his foggy head), Mike spat back, “You’re damn right I’m pissed! You’re trying to ruin us over your hurt little feelings!”
“I’m not trying to ruin us!” Peter’s throat strained, he tried so hard to keep his voice calm. But he was sure he was loud; he could barely himself over the drumming of his heart. He beat his hand on his chest. “I was defending us against that no-name piece of shit!”
“For all the good that did.”
Peter sharply turned his head at the scoff. Again, that latent feeling of a giggle as he watched Adel, now also developing features through the fog, slightly jump like a kitten spritzed with water. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“While you were in the middle of your internet drama,” Adel said, “Our ratings tanked. We were at three and a half or four-star reviews. Now we’re just floating above one, one and a half if we’re lucky.”
“And almost every single one of those bad reviews are about your online tantrum or that trash-ass TikTok trend you started with your meltdown.” A hand grabbed his shoulder and jerk him around. He could smell the weakened coolness of spearmint in Mike’s breath. “So you better fix this, Kirkland!”
Peter threw Mike’s hand off his shoulder. “Oh, so you’re going to blame me for what a bunch of pre-teens post on that crappy app, too?
A groan, laden with a heavy exasperation. “God, Peter, would it kill you to just admit that you’re wrong for once in your life?”
Peter’s glare cut past Mike’s shoulder straight to Ashira. She had her head slightly bent, fingertips rubbing her forehead. She gasped when Peter shoved Mike out of his way and stormed right in her face, ignoring the awareness of Naseem stepping in as if Peter gave enough of a flying fuck to do anything to the man’s ball and chain.
“And what the fuck do you know about my life?! What the fuck do you know about any of this?!” Peter’s arms flew out to his sides. “Why are you even here? You’re not even a member! You’re just some bored, pretentious poetry-obsessed housewife latching on to your husband’s career! Why don’t you go home to your fucking kids, already!”
Peter felt nasty enough to look forward to Ashira’s reaction, craving that broken sadness that can only come from hearing the truth. Something was there in her face, the gentle knit of her brow and pull at her lips, but it switched, her eyes widening and her mouth hanging open.
It wasn’t brokenness, it was shock, and not even the kind that Peter could enjoy, and that made Peter madder as Ashira looked past him and said, “Oh, god... Naseem!”
Did this stupid bitch think he was going to hurt her? Even more, did she think her oh-so precious pretty boy husband, or any of these men, could stop him? He could laugh, howling like a rusted spout set to burst under all that pressure and tension, if Mike’s voice didn’t shoot out from the haze of Peter’s fury like daggers digging into his back.
“He’s not gonna say he’s wrong. He knows this isn’t about us, this is about how that guy was right!”
Peter spun on his heel, mouth parted to scream in Mike’s face, or bite Mike’s face clean off, he didn’t know, but Mike wasn’t finished.
“You are a fucking lonely, insecure, two-dimensional freak that likes to drag people down with you! You shouldn’t even have as big as an ego as you do!”
There came a pitch in his gut, a plummet as the accusation fell like lead inside him, poisoning him. Was this really the same Mike Peter gazed upon in the ring all those months ago?
“I know you don’t care because this is just a shiny new hobby for you, but we’ve wanted this for too long for you to mess it up like it’s nothing.”
And...
...And...
...And...
...In an incredible feat that would have been magical and awestriking if it weren’t happening to Peter, everything went white.
Crashing upon him were weeks of sleeplessness, months of his worst vices of beer and weed and cigarettes and coffee and poison, just poison, and a lifetime of hurt that ate away at something inside him until it left something weak and withering. In this white world, Peter couldn’t see the hell he was suffering upon his crew members; in this world, he couldn’t hear anything beyond the screeching static, not even his voice! But he knew he was saying something --
“FUCK YOU HOW FUCKING DARE YOU AFTER ALL I’VE DONE --”
--because he could feel his throat straining --
“-- YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO SHAKE YOUR ASS FOR CREEPY OLD MEN TOO CHICKENSHIT TO LEAVE THEIR WIVES --”
--and fury boiling from the deepest pit of his stomach--
“-- I GAVE UP THE ONLY THING GIVING ME PEACE IN MY LIFE FOR THIS --”
--spilling over the edge. In the white, he laughed, because he wondered if the times that he did think of walking away from this made Mike’s assumption right and this great burning that was consuming Peter ironically meaningless? Peter felt his arms flying, his hands grabbing something and throwing, his fists slamming into something else. When he stormed off, he pushed against a barrier, feeling a cracking give under his touch. In the white, he inhaled the cold of outside air and the electric terror of bystanders and passersby who Peter couldn’t see jumping out of his way.
And so, in this way, he escaped deeper into the blindness.
