Red and Grey Is Not the New Black

“I don’t know. Take your shirt off, let’s get this going,” he mutters, suddenly quiet again as he drops his hand and turns back to his small table.

“That could be taken so wrong,” I state, trying to lift his mood.

He looks over at me from over his shoulder and smirks at me, “you know what I like baby,” he states, winking.

I can’t help the laughter that flows from my lips as I pull my shirt off, glad to have the regular Trent back, and not the confusing moody one, though his words were still running through my head.

“Alright Sparky, bend over,” Trent demands, swiveling his chair around with a large grin on his face.

“What the fuck?!”

We both turn around, shocked to find that the curtain has been pulled aside and Brian is standing there, a look of absolute rage on his face. I bite my tongue to keep from shouting at him as he takes in my shirtless figure on the chair, before flicking his gaze over to where Trent is sitting with his left eyebrow raised and his gloved hands in the air, poised with a felt marker and the sketch. He huffs out a sigh, and his face turns from murderous to annoyed as he turns back to me.

“I’m in the middle of something and you can’t be back here,” Trent tells him, his voice strained and controlled.

“I just… I just want to talk to Blaise,” he mutters sadly.

“Synyster, get the fuck out of my back room,” Trent growls, standing up.

“Hey! Syn, come on dude; come check out Leana’s tattoo,” Zacky calls from a few feet away.

Brian gives me a torn look before shutting the curtain, his footsteps fading away as I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I turn back around and lean back over the chair, sighing heavily as I rest my head on the soft leather.

“Now I just want to make you scream just to piss him off,” Trent growls, rolling his chair over to me.

“Come on don’t make me laugh, I don’t want the tattoo to look funny,” I tell him, chuckling as he starts to clean the area off.

“I’m not trying to make you laugh, I’m being serious, we should fuck with him,” Trent states, placing the paper on my back.

“I’m really not that mean,” I state, rolling my eyes, even though I know he can’t see me.

“Awe come on Sparky, just a little bit?” He asks, teasing me as he peels the paper off my back.

“No Trent,” I mutter, standing up and turning around to look over my shoulder, “looks good.”

“Alright, sit your ass back down and bend over baby,” he states rather loudly.

I groan, but keep my mouth shut as I climb back onto the chair, leaning forward with my arms down while he chuckles behind me. I bite my lip as I watch him from the corner of my eye, his hands carefully opening the packages and putting them on the sterilized table.

“Make a little bit of noise, just for the hell of it, and let him find us in a compromising position and I can make this go really fast and easy,” he suggests off handedly.

“Trent,” I mutter, turning my head to look at him.

He smirks and shrugs his shoulders, “your choice baby.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake already Trent, how do you want to do this?” I ask him, sitting up and crossing my arms.

“I figured we’d make out a little bit, I’d kiss your neck, you can over exaggerate a few moans, he comes in to find us and leaves,” he states casually, as if this was something we did often.

“Oh yeah, because that’s completely casual,” I mutter rolling my eyes.

“Alright, your choice, not mine,” he mumbles, shrugging while glancing over at me.

“Fine; fuck. Get over here Trent. You’re lucky you’re hot,” I growl at him, swinging my other leg over the chair so that I’m sitting sideways on it.

The grin on his face is impossible to miss as he stands up, pulling his gloves off and tossing them on the table. I roll my eyes as he walks over and stands between my legs, his hands on the table on either side of me.

“You’re going to enjoy this,” he mutters before crashing his lips onto mine.

I try not to enjoy it. I try to think of Brian, but the more I think of him, and how much he hurt me, the more I enjoy it. Trent moves his hands to my hips and pulls his lips away from mine for a fraction of a second, and in that second, I see the same emotions Brian’s eyes used to hold, my heart begins to beat furiously as he breaks eye contact and latches onto my neck, biting down gently, making me cry out softly, surprised at the soft love bite. I can feel him smirk against my neck before he places gentle kisses up my neck to my ear, where he pauses.

“I’m going to do something, and you have to be really loud,” he whispers, his breath tickling my ear.

I nod my head and bite my lip as he slowly travels back down my neck, down my shoulder, and comes to a stop on my collar bone, making me suck in a breath as he starts to kiss across it until he reaches a spot that makes me wiggle against him. He smirks again as he tightens his grip on my hips and bites down, hard. The moan that slips past my lips, startles even me as he begins to suck on it, my eyes sliding shut as I grab his shoulders, leaning my head forward to rest against his shoulder as he gently licks the spot before lightly biting it again, eliciting another, much lighter, moan from me.

“Trent,” I try to use a strong tone, but it came out more like a whimper as he was sucking on that spot again.

“What the fuck?!”

Trent immediately steps back, hands thrown up as we both look at the door, startled, though we should have known it was coming, only to see Brian with Val and Zacky behind him, all looking at us with shock on their faces.

“I can explain,” Trent states.

I can feel his eyes on my face as tears prick my eyes at the look of complete heartbreak on Brian’s face, and no matter how hard I try to push the feeling of guilt away, I can’t help but feel like I’m as bad as him for cheating on me, even though I’m not cheating, and we haven’t been together, and what he did was much worse.

“Just fucking forget it,” Brian growls, turning around and storming out.

Zacky gives me one of his ‘we’re going to talk later’ looks, before turning around and following his friend out the door. Val just grins and leans against the wall, “if he’s not done with your tattoo by the time Darrell finishes mine, he can give you a ride home,” she states, chuckling.

“Val I’m such a bitch,” I mumble, tears leaking out of my eyes.

“No, no sweetie don’t cry,” she tells me, her smile dropping as she rushes over to me and pulls me into a hug.

“I’m going to go talk to Brian,” Trent mutters before walking away, shutting the curtain behind him.

“I am a bitch though, I totally did that to piss Brian off,” I mumble into her shirt, more tears leaking slowly down my cheeks.

“No. Stop it, that’s ok to do. He deserved it,” she states, chuckling.

I shake my head, “no Val, he didn’t. I am still so in love with him. I… Val I want him back,” I whimper, a sob breaking through as I hug her tighter.

Val sighs and tightens her grip on me, as if I was going to fade away into all this pain. Thoughts of Brian and Michelle came crashing over me and I began to sob harder. Val pried my arms off of her and stood me up as the tears cascaded down my cheeks and sobs shook my body as she held me up by my shoulders, “Le! Leana help me out here!” She calls out.

A few seconds later, Leana appears behind the curtain, her chest glistening where her new tattoo was proudly being displayed, but her curious look quickly turned into one of worry as she took in my red, puffy, watering eyes and my ragged breathing.

“Shit, Darrell, I think you need to call an ambulance!” Leana calls out.

“What? Fuck, what’s going on?” He asks, running over with his phone out.

And that’s when I felt it. My heart began to hurt; it wasn’t the same ache as when I saw Brian and Michelle, or Jimmy on the floor, dead. My heart was painfully thumping in my chest, erratically beating against my ribs, racing faster and faster against my will for it to slow down. Gritting my teeth seemed to be the only thing I could do as I realized the consequences of my early morning actions, were finally taking place, and I didn’t know if I would make it through.

I didn’t notice Brian, Zacky and Trent running towards us as Darrell carried me out to the table, Val sweeping an arm over it to clear everything as Leana spoke in quick, panicky tones to the 9-1-1 operator. The pain was beginning to be the least of my worries as my eyes began to slowly shut and I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead dripping down the sides of my head as I lie on the table, my body feeling colder and colder by the minute.


Brian

“She’s overdosing! Fuck, that’s what’s happening!” Zacky shouts, shoving everyone away from her.

I bite my lip hard, not knowing what to do as I stood back and watched my best friend rip the phone from Leana’s hand and spoke rapidly into the phone. Suddenly the world was spinning and I didn’t feel as good as I caught a glimpse of Blaise’s rapidly deteriorating condition. Her pale skin and glazed eyes were obvious hints at an overdose. And I couldn’t even do anything as I was pushed to the side by arriving paramedics; couldn’t do anything as they lifted her onto the gurney and wheeled her away, shouting codes at one another and rushing off speaking to only Zacky and Leana, leaving Darrel, Trent and Val alone with me in the shop, to stare after them.


Blaise

It was like the world had suddenly stopped making sense. There were bright lights above me, and faces without faces were above me, looking down at me, observing. My eyes were wide open, but I wasn’t seeing what was there. I could feel my skin at the crease of my elbow prickle and tingle before it stopped; it was followed by a warm sensation of liquid gold being poured into my veins, making my body heavy, and slowly, ever so slowly, forced my eyes shut.

I could hear things. Making the words out was easy, but the sentences didn’t make any sense in my head.

“Is she going to be alright?”

I’m fine. I’m completely comfortable. I feel no pain. There is no ache.

“Is she going to wake up?”

No. There’s no need to wake up. I am awake.

“Doc, is she going to live?”

“She’ll be fine. She should be waking up soon.

“I am awake.”

What the fuck was that? Where the fuck did that noise come from?

“Blaise, can you hear me?”

Of course I can fucking hear you, you imbecile.

“Blaise, if you can hear me, I want you to open your eyes.”

Open my eyes? I don’t have to fucking do anything.

“Light.”

There it is. That fucking rasping animal. What is that? Is that me? Do I really sound like a dying frog?

“The lights are off now Blaise, open your eyes.”

Slowly, my eyes began to slide open, and the further they open, the easier it is to blink them, clearing my vision as I look around the room. I notice Brian sitting closest to the bed on the right side, and Leana on the right, looking sick.

“Le smile.”

Leana looks up at me, shocked, and blinks her eyes, so I blink back at her. Finally, a small smile comes to her face, not lighting up her eyes, but it’s not a frown either, so I turn my eyes on the man standing above me reading charts. When he notices me looking at him, he smiles, “Blaise how’s the pain?” He asks me with that bright smile.

“Not…” I lick my dry lips and try to swallow the desert in my throat before continuing, “…not bad. Hurts. Desert.”

“Ah. Nurse can you bring in some water for her?” He asks before turning back to the machine.

“Blaise, you overdosed on Meth, did you know that?”

Meth? No. No I wasn’t doing meth… It wasn’t meth. It was Adderall. I bought Adderall to make myself better. Adderall works much better than any anti-depressant to get you going again. Makes you want to get up. You have to get up.

“Blaise, stay with us. Did you know it was Meth?”

“Adderall. No Meth. I didn’t do Meth.”

I wince at my raspy voice and close my eyes for a second, opening them to find a large cup of water being sat next to me on the table, so closing my eyes again, I grit my teeth and force myself to sit up and ignoring the pounding in my head, I open my eyes, reach out and take the glass, gulping down half of it before slightly shaking my head and looking at the doctor.

“I was depressed. I was getting Adderall to try and fix it. I used to use it recreationally when I was in high school. Hyped me up, had me going for days,” I explain to him, my throat still slightly sore as I take a breath in.

“So you’re saying that someone traded your Adderall’s for meth?”