Rob laughed as Jane further explained the murder mystery playing out on their screens. 

“Karma’s a bitch,” he said softly. “She deserves to get murdered if she’s ditching her boyfriend for him.” 

As the time passed, he could feel Jane’s body beside him, growing antsy and loose. He knew he had been running a great risk by being with her on this couch like this. He had essentially told her off because of her actions holding him on couches and hotel beds. But now…even if it make him suffer, he wanted that closeness with her. He enjoyed it, even if a little part of him felt slightly stilted, being pushed to the blurred line between the sensual and platonic in this fashion.

Eventually, Jane moved as she inevitably did, embracing the warmth that Rob was willingly, consciously offering. He felt her pillow on his lap, and the weight of her head on top of it. Her body curled and cradled beside him, and she seemed to close her eyes. Rob’s hands moved to her her hair and waist, holding her as she rested. 

He felt along her entangled hair, letting his hands move, trying gently to remove the knots without pulling too hard. The rest of her long locks spiraled outwards, covering the top half of her torso and leaping off the blankets onto Rob’s forearms, brushing and ticking slightly as they did so.

He looked down at this lap and saw her head resting, and couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted to desperately to peer inside. What was going on inside that head of hers? What was she thinking? How was she feeling?

He thought of a quote he had remembered from Gone Girl, the film he had watched in his angst and anger at the woman who slept on him:

[i]What have we done to each other?[/i]

He relaxed, laying his head back, and slept for a bit, content for just a fleeting little moment once more. 

He awoke to her leaving him, once again. He watched from the couch as she milled about the room, packing her things, removing her identity from the room. He slowly crawled out of the hole their bodies had created on the couch, slipping into his own room and preparing his own clothes.

He always packed diligently, cleaning the lint off of everything with a roller, before tightly balling up clothes not needing to fold, and tightly rolling outfits that could afford to be. He had such a minimalist style with his outfits, but it had never been out of pretension. Only functionality. Most things in his life involved him making sure that everything that needed to be there stayed, and everything that needed to leave his life, he let them fade away with time. 

And then there was Jane. An anomaly. A constant in his life that the farther he grew, the more confused his life became. Yet, she was something he never wanted to loose, no matter how much she confused and conflicted him. 

He watcher her small frame float about the room and he wanted to do was take her back to his bed. Make no mistake about Jane and her own perceived selfishness; Rob was just as selfish as she, if not far, far more. 

“I’m ready,” Rob said, after finishing his packing and slipping on tonight’s performance outfit. He made it to Ground Control without any further conversation.

To clear his mind, he made his way to their (newly expanded) merch table. He enjoyed having casual conversations with fans. It had seemed like there were two types of them; new fans, driven in by the single and drawn to the eclectic sound they had been developing towards, and fans of their older, more progressive and heavy work. 

“Anything in odd meter is fucking awesome,” one of the fans said, referring to an old B-side of theirs Rob had taken pride in writing in 5/4 time. 

These were the fans that Rob enjoyed to talk to, and these were the fans he played for. The ones he wanted to please. And once the show started, Rob looked to these fans in the audience, pointing a stick at them for just a moment, before launching into the cacophony of noise they had created together as In Bloom. 

The show had gone off without a hitch, and Rob ended up throwing the sticks towards that specific fan from much earlier. He looked up to his merch guy across the room and cast a finger to the specific fan. 

“Get that fucker some merch!” he shouted into a mic set up as the rest of the members slipped out. He was enthralled to be heard across the screaming people below him, who applauded as he said the words. This feeling was intoxicating; no wonder Jane relished in it. 

He grabbed the rest of the band and moved all of them to the merch table, making sure to sign as much as he can and give that singular fan anything he wanted for free. He was so incredibly thankful for everything. For the tour, for Jane…all of it. Every moment he wanted to absorb, before the world came back to reality for him, or before he grew jaded at the faceless mob that adored him. He stayed a full hour after their set, talking to guys and picking up a few CD’s from them, promising to listen to them.

His days seemed to be emotional waves. A day was spent in ecstasy, and the other in anguish. Yesterday had been one of the worst days of the tour, and the next? Maybe the best.

He tried to push away the thought that that had meant tomorrow might hold colder moments than this, and tried so hard to enjoy the moment. Now would be the envy of his future self.