Heavy Wears The Crown

Eleven

"Don't you ever tame your demons, always keep them on a leash"

------- Arsonist's Lullaby - Hozier -------

"Hey."

I glanced up from the couch to Holden who was lingering beside me in a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pajama bottoms and a plain t shirt. "Hey."

"Mind if I sit?"

I pulled the ice cream off my spoon, letting it linger for a moment too long on my front teeth, the cold instantly bothering them. "It's your bus." I said and scooted over to give him room. I ran my tongue back and forth along my teeth fighting against the cold, the moment my teeth stopped bothering me I dug into the container for another bite.

"May I?" He asked holding out a spoon.

I scooted a bit closer to him to share the ice cream.

"You're up late." He said taking a bite.

He was right. I was up late. Everyone else on the bus was asleep, well, I thought everyone was asleep. Apparently Holden was the exception. It was almost four.

"I know." I agreed and took and extra moment to dig around for a piece of cookie dough in the ice cream. "I stayed up with Nolan until he calmed down and naturally, now I need a bit a time to calm down too." I sighed.

Nolan was exhausting. Today had gone much the same after the tampon fiasco. I mean, I had chocolate and Midol, so it wasn't quite as traumatic, but still. The drive, the sound check, the prep, sick Nolan, the concert, the sėx. Well, for Nolan that is, sėx for Nolan and the girl he'd apparently met at the store and given a back stage pass as he purchased three gallons of ice cream, two bags of chocolate and tampons and she didn't bat an eye. If the animalistic sounds she was making were any indicator, I would have to guess the sėx was good. Anyway, we loaded back onto the bus around one, Nolan was bouncing off the walls and pacing around the bus talking a mile a minute until almost three when he said he wanted to lay down. He'd laid on his bottom bunk and I'd laid on my top. He asked for his five minutes and three minutes in had fallen asleep.

Unfortunately for me, I needed a little cooling down time as well. Which left me on the couch with a gallon of cookie dough ice cream at my disposal and several hundred television channels to flip through.

"Not quite as glamourous and amazing as you'd envisioned, is it?"

"Well, to be honest...it's actually not as bad as I had." I admitted and chuckled. "I was seriously contemplating jumping out of the plane at the idea of being stuck with Nolan in this tiny bus and sharing hotel rooms with him at every stop. I didn't think I'd be able to do it."

"And now?"

I shrugged.

"That's actually kind of what I was hoping we could maybe talk about." Holden said it so casually, but I didn't miss the fact that he kept his eyes glued to the ice cream as though it was the most interesting thing he'd seen all night. I'd seen a bra fly onto the stage, delicious as it may be, ice cream was so not the most interesting thing he'd seen tonight.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I just...well, we like you Carter. The band and I."

"I like you guys too." I smiled slightly.

"And we don't want you to get hurt."

My smile fell. "Hurt?" I repeated.

"By Nolan." He said in a low tone. After a moment he moved the ice cream to the side and turned to face me completely, I did the same. "Nolan is...well..."

"He's Nolan. He's arrogant, over the top, egotistic horned up rich kid-"

"Bored."

"Oh."

"He can get bored. He likes that he can get every girl he wants with a wink and head nod, but he's bored. He likes games, and challenges, and bets."

"He's a little out of control...I know." I sighed.

"Carter. Don't get attached to Nolan. Don't open up to him. Don't sleep with him. Nolan was my best friend for a hell of a long time, okay? I know him. He's always been like this. Looking for new toys. He's not nice and thoughtful to be nice and thoughtful, okay? There's always some kind of motive behind these acts."

"Relax Holden. I'm not going to fall in love with the guy just because he bought me ice cream." I rolled my eyes. "Hormones aside, I'm not an idiot. He's still Nolan."

"Just don't forget that. He's pretty persuasive. He can be manipulative, not afraid to lie. You know all this. Just don't forget that. Who he pretends to be is not always who he is."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course." He said picking the ice cream container up and putting it back on his lap to get another spoonful.

"You know something you aren't telling me, don't you?"

He stopped, spoon dug into the ice cream, and looked up to meet my eye. "About what?"

"Nolan and his intentions."

He glanced back down. "Look. All I'm saying is don't sleep with him, alright? And for that matter, just assume whatever he tells you is a lie. Because it probably is."

He wasn't telling me something, but I heard the warning loud and clear. "Can I ask you something else?"

He shrugged and took his soon along sides of the container to gather the melting ice cream.

"You said Nolan was your best friend, but I've gather the two of you aren't so crazy about one another now." That was an understatement. Even on stage where the band seemed to connect in every way Nolan mostly ignored Holden. He would occasionally play games with the other members, but never Holden and vice versa. Sometimes Holden would say something to Nolan and Nolan would blatantly ignore him until Finn repeated the question.

"And you'd like to know why."

"Well, yeah."

He handed me the ice cream and stood up. "You make it to the end of this tour and I'll tell you everything."

"I've made it this far." I muttered and watched him head back to his bunk.

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TGIF! I know, this update is really short! To make up for that I'll have another update let's say Tuesday. Make sure to leave lots of votes and comments until then! I'd love to see this hit the rankings sometime soon and to do that it needs to get more reads, votes, comments, and recommends. That's where you lovely readers come in! (:

Also, give the song on the top a listen. In a nice sick and twisted way I think it fits Nolan well.