CAPTURED BEAUTY (Peter Steele x Reader)

FIFTEEN: Why Hide?

The fight with Vivian seemed like a distant memory as you began to focus on other things. Your projects were no longer about appeasing your high strung boss but rather your boyfriend's lovely and very rambunctious family. Nieces, cousins, aunts and sisters were showing up to your place of work about every other week usually with a side hustle that would get you moving. Sometimes it would be school pictures. Other times it would be for an upcoming band that needed an album cover. They swore they had a vision that was almost unattainable but you always understood.

That's why they always came to you.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if my family likes you more than me," Peter says on the other line with a chuckle.

"C'mon, Pete," you snicker, "That's not true. I do think I'm climbing the ranks though. One of your sisters did say I got them front row to a little show at L'Amour."

"So you're spoiling them?'' He asks and you can hear the smile in his tone.

"Yeah, well, no but-"

"Easy princess," he laughs, "I'm just fuckin' with you. I think it's great you're helping these people out. I uh...wish I was there to see it all."

Peter sounds a bit saddened by the fact he's all the way stranded out in Europe crammed with concert dates and interviews. Surely that mess wasn't the easiest to deal with.

"You'll be home soon and I'll make sure we'll all get a picture together. Your mother's orders."

"Sounds great to me, sweetheart."

–

While you were being the savior of everyone in Peter's beloved Brooklyn borough, Peter had fallen on harder times. It was completely over your head and Peter would have kept it that way.

Peter's incessant partying left him to rot in the rubble of his struggles. Show after show the temptation of all kinds of women weaseled inside his brain. He wouldn't cheat, though. With Elizabeth, it was different. He was unhappy. Peter was more unhappy with her than he was with himself. The way she haunted and mentally tormented him rattled his bones with a buzz not even cocaine could subdue. He'd like to think the reason why he stayed was because he felt like he deserved that hurt. The hatred within had only amplified with her presence and yet with you, it completely shifted.

There was the absolute bullshit diagnosis of bipolar disorder he'd receive after a suicide attempt. One of many that riddled his wrists, scarring his flesh across the large veins. At one point in time, he'd believe he would die of a broken heart, as cliche as it sounded. His anger and all these conflicting feelings that made Slow, Deep and Hard were no longer bottled up but carved into a record vinyl and wrapped in cassettes. The only thing that remained bottled up and physical was his body and the prescription bottle that sat next to his bedside.

The thought of taking his medicine went against his thought of nature. He believed wholeheartedly that he was engineered this way and nature would have benefitted from his towering testosterone and height. Peter imagined himself in the arenas of life, ripping people to shreds and throwing them in large pits to suffer. Only then would he throw himself in with them after the fight was done. That's where he also believed culling of humans was necessary. A plague. A sickness. A hopeless sea of never ending tragedy he'd find a way to be financially stable off of.

But you? Oh, you.

It was a heavy realization that he couldn't let you down. The way you had so easily fit into his life was uncanny. He could already tell that back home, you were thriving. As far as he knew, his family seemed to like you almost effortlessly. So to imagine how you would look at him right now, strung out on drugs and drowning set a guilt in his heart he'd hope to sleep off. Though, all attempts were futile when each time his head pounded, all he could do was hate himself more as the image of you plastered in the forefront of his jumbled mind.