14-Kit - One Year Ago
(Twenty-seventh of August, twenty twenty-four)
We landed stateside. See you soon, stinker.
I hit send and watch the little blue bubble shoot across the screen. A second later, the phone chimes on delivered. Half-expecting Whitney’s name to pop up straightaway, I stare at it like an idiot.
She and the girls are probably still asleep after finishing up the Masonary tour last night. It’s been months since I’ve seen the Daemonium ladies. Though I’ll never admit it, I miss them teaming up with Louanne like the quartet of sisters I never wanted and tearing me a new one.
Pops ring from me as I crack my neck, the sound swallowed by the engines as they power down. Stale air clings to my clothes, a vile mix of old upholstery and too many people sharing oxygen. I shove the phone into my pocket and follow the slow shuffle of bodies through the plane.
We step into the terminal, and the air tinges with cinnamon from a hot pretzel stand. Signs from luxury stores reflect on the polished floors. People rush past with suitcases and crying kids. Beautiful, anonymous chaos is what I love about America.
People know my name, and some recognise my face. But on an average day, with the paint peeled off, my hair tied back and wearing some joggers, nobody gives a toss about who I am. I can just be Kit. Not Judas. Not the frontman, the fuck-up who nearly tanked the last tour.
I need that.
Judas is brilliant; he gave me the world, but he’s nearly taken me out of it. This tour is twice the size of the last one, and I’m only allowed to do it because I’ve spent a year sober, clawing my way back from the edge.
Having nothing to do apart from treatment, I slept most days, awaking only to write like a man possessed.
The current album was done in a month, with some of the fifth following quickly after.
I composed twenty-plus tracks in a matter of weeks.
Louanne added a few of her own, as well as the four we wrote together when I got home.
Don’t Hurt Yourself Anymore is the first song we wrote together, about my previous attempt, and it became the first single off the second album.
Love Your Reflection came after my overdose and subsequently formed into the title track for the fourth album.
Both are tender, and far too honest. Even now, thinking about them makes my chest tighten like I’m back in that hospital bed.
As of now they’re scrapped from the setlist permanently, simply because I can’t face performing them to an audience.
Being in treatment allowed me a rather dramatic shift of perspective. For one, I never gave Louanne enough credit for how she handled Melody’s death. She’d been Melody’s best mate. I was just her on-again, off-again lover.
It was the kind of friendship that carves itself into your heart. Losing her broke Louanne in ways I didn’t notice until much later. Maybe that’s why she watches me so closely now—afraid I’ll vanish one day like Melody did.
It took months after my overdose before she’d speak to me again.
Sixty-four days of silence and bedevilling guilt.
I begged Silver to help me fix it, but only when I showed up with a folder of songs and laid them at her feet like an offering did Lou finally give in.
I swore to her it would be our biggest album yet.
And it is.
Streams are climbing, merch is restocked constantly, and tickets for this tour sold out in two bloody hours.
“You ready?” Greg asks, clapping a hand on my shoulder.
His rank aftershave seeks me out like a poisonous gas.
Greg’s been watching me like a hawk since we left London, and I don’t blame him.
It’s easier to stay sober locked in a studio.
Out here in America, temptation’s everywhere.
With bars, parties, and fans offering anything and everything to me like I’m a god-damned monarch, there’s a thousand ways for sobriety to slip through my fingers.
Greg knows that I’m absolutely serious this time.
He keeps telling me that if I stay on track, things will only grow.
And he’s never been wrong before. Not to mention, the pesky deviant in my head refuses to let me forget what’s at stake should I fail to meet the requirements of our deal, and apparently death is not an option.
But this is my life, not his. It’s not some divine scavenger hunt. I don’t need to find anyone in order to be complete. I’ve got no interest in love. Losing it nearly killed me, and you couldn’t pay me to go through that again. I’m enough.
I have to be.
Every time I sleep, bits and pieces of Somnium’s past become clearer. Even awake, his presence hums beneath my ribs, like a frequency waiting to be tuned. California pulls me as though there is an invisible thread sewn to my heart.
I’ve gone completely barmy.
“We made it,” Seth says, voice bright as he heaves me into a quick sideways hug.
Louanne sits next to her wife, Alyssa, on a rounded lounger ahead.
Their flight from Dublin landed a few hours ago.
Lou’s arms are crossed, sunglasses perched atop a fresh pixie-cut, expression somewhere between fondness and exasperation; one she contorts especially for me.
Despite the heat, she’s in a striped trouser suit and matching jacket.
I approach slowly, the stuffed carry-on slung over my shoulder.
“I won’t let you down,” I murmur, the space heavy with everything still unsaid between us. “Not again.”
“You’ve never let me down, Kit,” she responds through a heavy sigh. She stands before me, her silver-grey eyes softening. “You let yourself down.”
She kisses me on both cheeks. I swallow hard, blinking back the sting of tears as we make our way to the waiting SUV.
Heat hits me the second I step outside. A proper oven blast, like someone plugged in a hair dryer and pointed it straight at my skull. It’s brittle and sun-bleached, trying to sandpaper my lungs from the inside. Back home the air sits heavy on you. Here, it scorches.
Los Angeles is on the verge of something. A breakdown, or a breakthrough. The City of Dreams; how fitting it’s here that we signed with a major record label for more quid than I could have imagined.
Clean money; hard-earned. Mine. Something my swindling crook of a father could never understand.
I purchased a quaint bungalow in Sutton for mum first thing; a far cry from the two-storey in Westminster, but a wild improvement from the moldy flat in Newham.
At least she couldn’t have it pulled out from under her.
It’s the one thing I’ve done that feels unquestionably right.
Never again.
I crouch into the third-row seat and let my head fall back, exhaling slowly. Seth edges in and anchors his giant frame into place, his shoulder brushing mine. The door seals me inside with a muted thud, the air-con blasting cool relief.
“Ya don’t need ta be perfect.” Seth considers me, a curl falling over his forehead. “Just be here.”
I huff a chuckle, but it catches in my throat. “That’s the plan.”
Seth’s been my rock; a grounding presence that reminds me to eat, sleep, to just bloody exist. He gives me a barely-there nod, saying I’ve got you without needing to voice it. Silver leans from the front seat, twisting to look at me. Their lavender hair catches light like a gossamer skirt.
“You holdin’ up?” they ask, observing more than I’m saying.
I nod. “Yeah. Just tired.”
They aren’t convinced, but Silver never pushes.
Louanne and Alyssa crawl into the second row, Louanne supporting Alyssa’s still-flat belly as she hops in.
They’re quite early in the pregnancy, and I know Louanne constantly thinks of worst-case scenarios.
She begged Alyssa to stay home for this tour, but the lady is relentless when she wants something, and of course, Lou gave in, as usual.
Alyssa’s got a tenacious energy that balances Louanne’s flippancy without dimming it. Louanne storms, and Alyssa steadies. They fit together like rhythm and melody; different textures of the same song. Alyssa’s home for Louanne, and in a way, for the rest of us too.
Greg opens the door to my right and slides in back next to Seth, the leather creaking under his weight.
A fresh wave of bergamot strikes me as he combs his foxy-silver hair into a low ponytail.
Knee bouncing, his pewter-blue eyes scan the terminal through the tinted window.
It’s a habit he picked up from me, or because of me, though he’ll never admit it.
The SUV pulls away from the curb, officially kicking off this tour.
“Y’rite?” Greg asks, the cheap black tea he downed before landing still dense on his breath.
“Just tired.”
A smoggy haze hangs over the skyline. Billboards flash between palm trees like a never-ending advertisement, their silhouettes harsh against the fading sky. Greg rummages through his bag with that focused, slightly irritated energy he always has when he’s around me.
He takes out a stack of black cloth masks. Each one has our band’s emblem stitched across the face in silver thread. Somnium’s mark is simple, but it stays with you.
The moons are sharp, like blades sculpted of marble.
Etched beside the phasing crescent curves are a combination of Elder runes that symbolise death, cycles, potential, wisdom, enlightenment, and transformation.
It’s on everything now, but it’s more than branding.
The sigil’s a reminder that Somnium isn’t just a band.
We wear them when entering and leaving venues and hotels, basically anywhere we can get swarmed. It saves us from having to paint our faces every time we step outside.
“Right,” Greg says, tone clipped as he hands one to me, Louanne, Seth, and Silver. “Security’s set up, but fans are going to go crazy over you lot. Keep things controlled. Keep safe, and for Heaven’s sake, don’t ‘pop out for a walk.’”
“In my defence,” Silver raises a hand, rings clanking each other as their bony fingers wiggle. “I was hungry.”
“You wandered into a crowd of two hundred people,” Greg deadpans.
Silver shrugs. “Worth it.”
“It’s not about hiding,” Greg says quietly, stern expression slipping just a fraction. “It’s about choosing when you want to be seen.”
Lately, I never want to be seen. I trace the stitching. It’s stupid, but something about the tiny buffer settles me.
“Yeah,” I respond, slipping the mask over my face.
The car slows as we approach the hotel. It’s tall, glass-fronted, with gold accents and a revolving door that spins too fast. Fans linger near the entrance with their phones out, watching every car that parks. A frenzied chatter buzzes through the windows.
“Remember,” Greg says, giving my sternum a rub with his big hand, “they’re here because they adore you.”
The spandex absorbs my shaky exhale. “Doesn’t make it easier.”
“No,” he agrees. “But you’re not alone in this.”
His words should comfort me, but they only stir up the memories I try hard to bury.
I got doxxed last winter without warning.
One day my address was just there, online for anyone to find.
A flood of letters and packages came shortly after.
Someone even left a taxidermied fox outside my flat.
Another sent me a box of teeth. Human, I think.
I didn’t open it, Greg did, and he nearly chucked it.
After someone broke in, I finally moved.
They insisted they didn’t steal anything, that they only wanted to “observe me in my natural habitat.” A total stranger laid between my sheets like they belonged there.
Like I was a fucking zoo exhibit; an obsession they purchased with their support.
It took weeks for their scent to fade from my mattress, and now, lavender makes my skin crawl.
I love my fans. I do. They’ve saved me more times than I can count. But that’s not adoration, it’s possession. It’s entitlement dressed up as devotion. I stopped being Judas and became a commodity.
People started shouting my full given name at concerts as if they unlocked an exclusive secret. I spent years carving Judas out of myself, so that he could be whatever they needed him to be. Judas is theirs.
Kit is mine.
That was the deal, but lately, it’s like they want both. I don’t know if I can give them the last piece of my humanity and survive.
The noise outside swells, and my palms go slick, breath thinning. My pulse thuds, steady but too loud. The car door opens. I remind myself that I’m still here; alive and sober.
For now.
“Breathe, mate,” Seth murmurs. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”
Silver gets out first, waving before they even shut the door.
Louanne and Alyssa follow, calm and collected.
Seth and Greg stride out next. I step onto the pavement, and the crowd erupts in a wave of cheers.
Fans surge forward until security begins to usher them back.
My throat constricts, but I try to keep going.
“You don’t have to be afraid of them,” Louanne whispers beside me.
“I’m not,” I interject.
“Kit.” Her petite frame rises and falls with a heavy sigh. “They’re here because they love the music.”
I swallow, blinking against the sting.
“Come on,” she says gently, “let’s get inside.”
We walk through the revolving door and into a frigid blast of lobby air.
Polished wood, citrus cleaning spray, and expensive perfume fill the space.
Marble flooring gleams beneath our feet, the chandelier casting warm light across it.
I rub my sternum, trying to ease the ache, but it doesn’t help.
A low hum stirs beneath my ribs, faint but insistent.
Something in California calls, and Somnium’s dying to answer.