Tony’s POV

“Hey, baby can I talk to you for a second?” I walked up to Nootje who was sitting in the corner on the couch, curled up underneath a corner and a laptop on her knees. She was typing something and took her eyes off the screen slowly before closing it.

She bit let go of the lip she was biting from concentrating, “Yeah, what’s up?”

If I didn’t know better I would have guessed she was fine. She looked like her normal self: happy, optimistic, smiling. But I could see that she wasn’t getting any sleep. I don’t think she knew I knew because I had left it alone for so long. Everything was probably going wrong in her eyes.

I was going to ask her a specific question that had been on my mind for the last couple of days. But I hadn’t thought it all through yet, even though I knew I wanted this. I really did, but now wasn’t the time to ask. It would only add to the stress. I quickly changed my topic.

“Are you ok?” I asked, knowing there were many things she could talk about.

“Yeah, I guess,” She sighed, “I can’t believe Annika tricked me like that. Sure, I might get tonnes of questions about us, because we were slow dancing together, but at least it isn’t as bad as all the fans knowing we were together. I really thought she posted the picture of us kissing. All I can do now is neither confirm or deny the rumours and hope it will all fly by. I’m going to stay away from social media for a while.”

It wasn’t exactly what I hoped she would answer, but it was better than the normal ‘I’m fine’ or the occasional shrug. I was actually pretty relieved that her sister hadn’t posted a picture of us making out. Noortje was right, the fan’s knowing about our relationship would probably be the end of us. We just wouldn’t have any privacy left and interviewers would possibly ask us at least 2 questions in every single interview we did. To put it differently, our relationship would be under a tonne of pressure, making us crack.

“Ok, I’m also going to do that, but for now I’m going to go to bed.” I walked up to her and kissed her forehead, lingering before standing up straight again, “Are you coming?”

“You go, I’ll be there in a bit.”

I sighed. She always did this. I even made her promise she would come to bed, but she never did. The other side of the bed was always empty and cold. I never knew I could miss somebody not sleeping besides me every night.

“Please come with me,” I pouted.

“I’ll be there in a second, I promise.”

I wasn’t going to take this anymore, I had been patient and accepting for so long. All I wanted was for her to get better, but she was so stubborn. We always talked to each other, but she wouldn’t do that anymore. Maybe this was what was going to break our relationship.

“Fucking hell, Noortje. I just want to help! I can’t fucking do that if you won’t let me!” I shouted when turned around as I was walking out of the living room to the stairs.

“What do you mean? Why would I need help?” She said through gritted teeth and betrayed eyes.

“Just talk to me! You’re not talking to me! Am I doing something wrong here? Am I fucking doing something wrong!”

“No!” She screamed, “I just need to finish-”

“You keep avoiding me whenever I ask you what’s wrong! I just want to help! You used to tell me everything!”

“I know, Tone, I know I should talk to you-”

“Then why the fuck aren’t you!”

She stopped and glared at me, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her voice was calm and breaking every other worse, “I can’t. It scares me too much. The images keep repeating and can't get out out my head,” her voice turned into a scream, “They won’t leave me alone!”

Before I could react she stormed past me and into the study, slamming the door behind her. I tried to go after her, to tell her I was sorry and that I really did want to help, but the door wouldn’t open. Of course she would lock it. All I could do was bang on the door, calm my voice, and hope she would open the door to talk to me. But she didn’t didn’t. Instead all I heard was loud sobs. Fuck. I couldn’t fuck this up again. There was only one other person she might talk to in these situations, so that’s who I called.

----

Vic’s POV

I entered the house without knocking and found Tony looking distressed, walking up and down the corridor. He saw me and jogged up to me. His hair looked messy and his eyes were wet and bloodshot, as if he had been crying.

“Vic, you need to help me. I fucked up badly. I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself,” Tears started forming in his eyes again.

I looked at him in silence, trying to figure out what had happened. All I had received was a phone call from Tony that only asked me to come over because he needed help. He hadn’t told me any details, or anything remotely useful. But the only thing I noticed were the sobs coming from the closed door next to us. I swear, if he fucking hurt her.

“What the fuck did you do,” I growled.

“S-she’s been having n-nightmares and hasn’t been sleeping a-at all for weeks n-now. I was just trying to help, Vic. I didn’t want to get mad at her, i-it just happened. Please help me, she won’t talk to me anymore. She used to tell me everything. I feel so useless.”

I couldn’t get angry any further at him anymore. If he hadn’t looked to upset and genuinely scared, I would have probably blown up in his face. But I didn’t come here for him, I came here for Noortje. She obviously needed more help, and it seemed like there was a lot she needed to talk about.

I nodded and went to the door, knocking the door softly, “Noortje? It’s me Vic. Can you let me in?”

There was no movement from the other side of the door, nor did the crying quite down. I looked over at Tony with sorry eyes, before carefully telling him it might be better if he went to another room while I tried to get in. Noortje probably wasn’t going to talk if Tony was here. Tony afflicted, but still did as I asked him. He would do anything for Noortje.

I tried knocking it again, “Noortje, please? Tony isn’t here anymore. I promise I won’t do anything without asking you first.”

I was quite surprised when I heard the door unlock and footsteps walk away from the door. For some reason I hadn’t expected this to actually work, normally it would have taken a lot more. Tony and I had broken down doors before, so I wouldn’t have hesitated to do it again.

I slowly opened the door and saw Noortje. She looked like mess. Hair tangled, blotched face, bags under her eyes, just simply terrible. I had never seen her this bad, this was a whole new level.

“Hey,” I said, barely a whisper, and slowly walked up to her. She looked up at me, her mouth twitched slightly, telling me she was trying to smile, and tears still stained her cheeks.

“Do you want me to beat him up, ‘cause I will happily do it, even though he’s one of my best friends,” I tried cheering her up, which succeeded slightly. She let out a giggle, but I wasn’t sure if it was forced or not.

“It isn’t his fault. He’s just concerned… which he probably should be…” she trailed off.

“What? Why?”

She looked at me as if I was supposed to know. At first I didn’t understand what she meant and I was about to ask again, but I put everything together before I could do that. It was the reason why I came here to talk to her. So I technically didn’t know what exactly it was, but I was soon going to find out.

“Ohh… yeah… umm… I actually came here to talk to you about that…” I stumbled over my words.

“What!” she snapped her head back up at me once again, “Did Tony tell you to come! I’m fine, I don’t need any help.”

She was so stubborn. It was obvious that she needed help, yet she kept telling herself she didn’t. Once she sets her mind to something she won’t let anybody change her mind, and it could get dangerous, just like now. If I made the wrong move I could send her over the edge and ruin a life.

“Well… you did open the door for me, so you probably do want to talk, but don’t want to admit it,” I retorted.

“Maybe,” she whispered, unsure of herself.

“Ok then,” I sat down beside her on the small couch. She had her head rested in her hands, her elbows pushing into her legs. I looked at her for a bit and continued, “I will listen and only talk when you want me to. This is about you, not me. Just take your time.”

“Ok,” She took a deep breath and started, not moving from her position, “so, this has happened to me so often. It happened before I moved to San Diego, it happened when I was a teenager, and it happened when I was a child. Only those times it just stopped, but it’s been taking longer this time. It just won’t go away, Vic, it won’t fucking go away!”

I wanted desperately ask her what didn’t want to go away, but I kept to my promise and kept my mouth shut. I would probably be able to make out what it was further in in her ‘story’. She gripped her hair and stayed quiet for a while. I thought I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her, but she started again.

“Whenever I close my eyes similar images go through my head, each one a new scenario in which something hurts both myself and someone I love. It could either be a suicide, words, running away, disappearing, leaving, or something I can’t make out. I don’t want anybody to die because of me; I don’t want Tony to shoot himself because I disappointed him, I don’t want you to leave me when I need you the most and only seem to annoy you, I don’t want my brother disappearing from my life forever because I’ve ruined everything for him, and I don’t want to kill myself because of all of these things. But it always seems to happen, no matter how I try to stop it. Before I know it, it will become reality. I- I don’t want that, Vic.”

She looked at me and I saw how terrified she was. I nearly felt scared myself, or more like as if I had to be scared. Nobody would ever want their friend to feel like this.

“The worst part is that most of my, for the lack of a better word, nightmares include Tony in them. But it’s not just in some random setting. It always starts with me waking up and then everything happens. I don’t know the difference between dreaming and sleeping. How could I know if both always started the same? The only way to know what reality is, is to stay awake and hope I don’t drift off…”

I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. It looked like she wanted me to talk, like the silence consuming us was her telling me to say something. I really hoped my thoughts weren’t wrong, because I took my chance and started talking.

“It’s not the only way,” I assured, “I know that Tony will help you through this. I might not know how, but he’s gone through some shit in his own life. He will understand and do everything to help you. Just talk to him, maybe hearing him talk about it will stop the nightmares. Your subconsciousness will know he wouldn’t ever do what you brain is telling you. I promise.”

She nodded and I watched the tears roll off her cheeks and fall onto the floor. All I could do was hope I had actually helped a bit. Maybe it wasn’t directly, but indirectly. I knew that I couldn’t talk her out of the things Tony would do in her nightmares; only Tony himself could do that.

I kissed her forehead, “How about we tell Tony now? I could do the talking if you want.”

She nodded once again and I left her alone for a bit to call Tony into the room. He looked worse than before. it must have been killing him not knowing what was going on and what we were talking about. So I made sure he was no longer out of the loop. He kept looking past me at Noortje while I was telling him what was going on. I had never seen him so upset and worried in my life. He really loved Noortje. When I finished talking he ran past me to Noortje. I watched as he crouched in front of her and grabbed her face, making her give him an occasional. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but it ended with Tony crashing his lips against hers. That was when I decided to leave. I didn’t say goodbye, nor did I announce I was leaving; I just left the room and the house before climbing into my car and heading back home.

Notes

I feel like the story's moving to fast now, but I don't have any good ideas for filler chapters. Is there anything you guys would like to read before I start the sequel?

- DSN