Title: Behind the Prison Tower
Fandom: Tori Amos/nine inch nails
Characters: Tori Amos, Trent Reznor
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Some things die hard. Other things never do.

How this is received will determine if it gets added to the cycle or not.



Ten years. I had been married ten years. It felt like a lifetime... of unhappiness that is. Sure I had been blessed with my daughter due to that union, but I was still very much unhappy. I hid it day to day, only allowing it to surface when my husband wasn’t looking, when I could hide under the mask of someone else. He would never understand that I merely settled for him. Why?

Because Trent wouldn’t have me.

To all outward appearances, we had only been friends, but both of us knew better. He was truly my soul mate in all his blustering bravado and screaming agony. But we could not be together then any more than we could now. It was all her fault too.

So much had changed in the past ten, fifteen years. I found myself wondering more and more about him. I had married, miscarried babies, birthed my daughter, birthed a number of albums and he... for all I knew merely produced more albums. Was he still lost after all of these years? And why did I have this innate need to rescue him?

Because I loved him. Still.

Pushing away from my piano, whose ivory keys I had not caressed in over an hour since his face invaded my thoughts, I decided now was the time. My husband was out with our daughter, bonding in the way fathers and daughters did, and would be away for some time. Now was my time.

Picking up my cell phone, I wondered if his number had changed in the years since our last conversation. I would never know without trying. I scrolled through my phone book, though really I could have dialed the number by heart. So many nights I had nearly done that in hotel rooms, in dreams. But there his name was, towards the end of the list. There was no backing out now as my thumb pressed the green ‘send’ button.

Naturally he had some ringback tone. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so nervous about actually calling him, I would have paid attention to the song, noticed it could have been geared solely to me. But instead I was counting each breath, waiting to hear his voice.

The music suddenly stopped and I felt my heart leap into my throat, block my breaths, hold my voice hostage. Was it a voicemail or was it really him? What the fuck was I doing? I had a husband and a daughter and... I wanted Trent.

“Tori?”

The phone dropped to the parquet floor. Taking a breath I scrambled to pick it up, hearing his worried voice repeating my name. It was him, really him.

“Trent...” I muttered, finally holding the phone steady.

“Tori? Are you okay?”

“Wh-where are you?” I blurted out.

“London. Have a couple of days between concert dates. Why?”

“Where are you staying?”

“Royal Garden, where I always stay,” he responded.

“What room?”

“Tori, what’s going on?”

“What room are you in, Trent?” I repeated.

“616.”

“I’ll be there in few hours.”



Standing in front of a large window, I sipped from the large wine goblet in my hand. As the blood red liquid danced lightly on my tongue, my thoughts drifted back to the fiery redhead who had called me out of the blue. She likely hadn’t known I was in England, that was just chance. Or perhaps it was fate. I would judge that later.

It was rather curious that she would call me out of the blue and with that seemingly panicked thread in her voice. I had not heard anything in regards to her family lately, so I did not think it was that. But then again while on tour I hadn’t really the opportunity to check up on her, read the gossip. As much as I tried to forget her, tried to forget what might have been, I couldn’t. Even focusing my anger and disappointment in the failed relationship upon the one who caused it to implode had not helped. I continued to think and dream and desire her. Even after fifteen years. All relationships after her had failed miserably because I compared them to her, even had a few of my girlfriends and one night stands wear red wigs. Sometimes it was the only time I could even be remotely aroused by a naked woman: when she was a redhead. Even just the consideration of that made my pulse increase, desire snake through my veins. But I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to. I needed to focus on things that were not sexual at all. Things like Courtney Love.

That deflated my passion in a breath.

There really hadn’t been anyone for me since Tori and we never had truly consummated our relationship. We had been playing it slow and traditional, only a few stolen kisses here and there. And yet even back then, when the heroin would course through my veins more often than it should, I knew she was the one for me. But I had been an ass and let that bitch Love get in the way. Every bad thing ever said about her in the press was true and worse. And to think after Tori refused to speak to me any more, I fell into a heroin hell with that junkie-bitch. She really was the cause of my overdose, so I suppose in a way I should be thankful for the bitch, as that opened my eyes and I got clean afterwards. But so much had been destroyed in her sweeping path that I was still teetering from it. But maybe that was changing. Tori was coming to me.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a knock sounded at the door. Slowly draining the rest of the wine glass and setting it on the nearby table, I headed across the plush carpet barefoot, my fingers trembling slightly as I reached to slid the chain from the lock. Perhaps I should have peeked through the peephole to verify it was her, but my soul spoke otherwise. Fingers curling around the brass doorknob, I twisted it, feeling the weight of my fate in that hand.

And there she was.

“Trent,” she muttered, before wrapping her arms around my neck, pushing me into the room so that she could enter. “I have missed you.”

Unsure if I should embrace her, if I should kiss lips I have dreamt about for years, I merely stood there like an idiot, letting her control everything, including apparently my breathing. And then her lips brushed across mine and my world once more existed. My arms slipped around her back, holding her close. But I could not let her consume me, let her know that she was still very much a part of me, let her know she had complete control over me.

Pulling out of a kiss that never deepened, despite the flaring of my passion, Tori looked into my eyes, “For years I have needed you. Where have you been?”

“I am still inside you.”