I Wanna Be Somebody

The show had gone by in a blur.

Individual faces in the audience had melted together after the first couple of songs, their excitement and joy hardly registering in my mind's eye. I played and sang purely on muscle memory, fucking up a note here and there, or changing a vocal melody. I'd cut the latin verse of 'Fall' entirely.

It wasn't a bad performance; far from it. When we left the stage, it had been to chants of praise and demands for an encore, despite everything. I was deaf to it all. The twins had stayed on for a few extra minutes, accompanied by Michael, -Arch Enemy's guitarist- who'd apparently taken it upon himself to fill in for River, but I'd left the stage immediately.

I couldn't recall handing my mic and guitar over to my tech. Couldn't recall navigating the back stage area, following behind Ty. A numbness had settled over me the moment I'd walked on stage and River hadn't been right there across from me, next to me, and that feeling had sunk deeper and deeper into my bones from that moment on.

It was as if a dark cloud had suddenly formed over my head, casting me in shadows that I couldn't shake. As if my blood was ladden with ice, and the blockage was making my heart seize up. I knew something was wrong.

And that feeling only intensified the moment I laid eyes on River's half conscious form hanging nearly limp in Kristian's arms as he carried her out of the bathroom.

I stopped dead in my tracks, eyes scanning over her pale face. Her eyes were barely open, and she was mumbling something, but it was too quiet and too incoherent for me to make out, though Kris responded in that soft spoken, kind tone of his. As he looked at her, a small, sympathetic smile graced his features. River tried to return it, but it came out as a grimace.

When Kris turned his gaze back to Tygo and I, his hazel eyes had taken on a deathly serious glint. One that sparked with some sort of knowing.

"She's pretty sick."

"That's putting it lightly," Ty remarked quietly, words almost lost to the chatter and movement of people around us. "I am going to stay here with the crew-"

The ice in my veins suddenly broke free, burned away by a firey rage as my temper roared to life.

"Tygo-"

"No, Jessii," he retorted, fixing me with a sharp look that said he knew damn good and well exactly what I was going to say. If River was using again, I was going to fucking kill her. "I know what you are thinking, but don't let your assumptions lead you. Don't jump the gun. She's just sick; it could easily be food poisoning."

"It could easily be something else, too," I shot back, paying no mind to the confused expression on Kristian's face. Ty, however, was treading with extreme caution.

"You don't know that, Jess. There's no proof-"

"Then I will find some," I hissed, turning sharply on my heel. I made for the back door of the venue, anger mounting with each heavy step.

I understood where Ty was coming from, what he was saying: don't accuse based on past actions. People change. Give her the benefit of a doubt.

He was right, of course. But he knew as well as I did -as any of us did- that old habits were hard to break, and when it came to walking the line between the light -being healthy, being okay- and the dark, River had always teetered towards the dark, more so than any of us.

I knew something was wrong, and Ty knew it too.

But he hadn't seen the way she'd been acting with Jake. Hadn't seen the unusually chipper attitude, hadn't heard the weird lilt in her voice.

Benefit of a doubt, my ass. If she was using, right under my nose, then what kind of friend and bandmate was I to not stop it? To not intervene? I couldn't stand by and be complicit in her attempts at self-destruction. Not now, not ever.

Maybe she was just sick. Maybe it was just food poisoning. But I had to know, had to be sure.

I had to.

-

It was windy when I stepped outside, and if I wasn't so pissed off, I'd have stopped to appreciate the lights of the city against the clear night sky. I practically marched to the bus, despite still being in heels and stage clothes. Paying no mind to the door slamming shut behind me with a loud, metallic clang, I was just about to turn and head for bunk alley when I realized I was being watched.

Angela sat at one of the tables, munching on some carrots.

"The venue isn't offering anything vegetarian," she remarked in way of explanation with a quiet chuckle. The smile on her face was relaxed, friendly, but quickly changed, morphing into one of concern.

"Is River okay?"

"Yeah," I replied softly, despising how uncertain I sounded. "She's just sick. Might be food poisoning, or something," I continued, falling back on the suggestion Ty had offered in lieu of what we were both suspicious of.

"Maybe so. Hell knows we eat some questionable food when we're out on the road. That's one of the reasons I stick to my veggies." That easy going smile returned as she lifted up the bag of baby carrots, waving them around for emphasis. I tried to fake a smile at her attempts to lighten the mood, but it fell flat.

"I've got plenty of extra vitamin C tablets, if she's interested. They always help get me back on track when I start feeling under the weather."

"I'll be sure to let Riv know. Thanks, Angela." At that, Angela nodded, getting up from her seat. Making her way over to the fridge, she tucked her snack away into the door, and then let out a sigh.

"Well," she started. "I'm off to go see what my guys have gotten into. I'll see you at the hotel, Jess."

"See you later," I replied, already inching my way towards the back of the bus as the other singer stepped outside. The second the door shut, I turned on my heel, going straight for River's bunk.

My hands shook as I pulled what I knew was her most personal bag of luggage towards me, the anger that my short conversation with Arch Enemy's singer had soothed slightly, roaring back to life. Not thinking twice, I yanked back the main zipper and flipped the whole thing, clothes and a few other items tumbling out. She'd be pissed that her things were in disarray, but she could fix it later. It would give her something to do instead of making close personal friends with yet another bottle of alcohol.

I searched through the pile of clothes, first, and then went to the bag itself, emptying out pocket after pocket.

The dark cloud over my head was getting darker, suspicion not dying even as I came up empty handed on the last pocket. I double checked, and then checked again. If she was using... Right under my nose, and I was too blind to see it...

Throwing the bag down with a snarl of frustration, I was about to go searching through her bunk, through her suitcase, and everything she'd brought with her from home on this tour, when my ears picked up on a soft thunk, and then a muffled rattling noise. My eyes immediately fell back to the bag where it rested against the back wall of her bunk.

Slowly, I pulled the bag back to me, fabric rustling. Again, there was the sound of that rattling. Pulling the bag open, my eyes scanned the bottom, searching for something that I somehow had miraculously missed.

Just as I was about to write the noise off as being my imagination, write it off as selective hearing or whatever the fuck that was called where your mind tricked you into hearing or seeing something that wasn't there, simply because you wanted it to be, I took notice of a tear in the fabric.

No, not a tear. It was a cut, neat and straight. The perfect place to hide something small.

I reached down into the bag, running my hand along the bottom of it, fingers trailing over liner that was smooth and silky-

There.

All I saw was red as my fingers grazed over the small bottle that was tucked far into the left side of the duffle bag, beneath the inner liner. Yanking it free, I twisted the cap off, throwing it to the side as I turned the bottle upside down into my palm.

One look at what was inside told me all I needed to know. And there were only a few left.

Before I could stop myself, I took in a deep breath, seething with absolute rage, with something akin to betrayal, and screamed.

-

River's face was pale. Too pale.

She'd been asleep for hours, now, sleeping soundly through the trip to the hotel and being carried upstairs by Kristian. Ever her guardian angel, he'd kept a close vigil on her. I had stayed close by as well, aside from taking a few minutes to shower and change out of my stage clothes. I'd parked my ass in the chair on the far side of the hotel room next to the window, and hadn't moved since, tense beyond belief. Not even Apocalyptica's cover of Metallica's 'The Unforgiven' could soothe my nerves, dissipate the anger. Kris had told me more than once to stop bouncing my knee, but he wasn't much better; if he thought I didn't notice the worried glances he kept stealing of River from where he sat on the other bed -my bed, not that I'd probably be getting much use of it, tonight- over the screen of his laptop, he was wrong.

Nothing had been out of the ordinary. At least, not yet.

For as long as any of us had known her, River had been prone to nightmares. Her waking up in the middle of the night, nearly screaming, didn't come as too much of a surprise anymore. But she also went for long stretches without any nightmares, too, and if anything was nightmare inducing... Ritalin -one of River's many Kryptonites- would do the trick.

But Riv had been asleep for a while, and she had been fine. Too pale, and obviously sick, but fine.

Maybe Ty was right. Maybe I'd jumped the gun. Maybe I had been wrong, searching her bag...

No. The evidence of Riv's guilt was tucked away in the pocket of my old, well worn and loved Death sweatshirt, weighing heavily with implication.

The bottle was unmarked. It was very obviously, deliberately hidden in her bag, but maybe...

"Jess!"

Kris' sudden, panicked voice cut straight through my inner turmoil just as River let out a long, pained groan. In one instance, she was still, and in the next she was practically thrashing.

"Shit!" My phone hit the floor as I jumped up, rushing to River's side. Climbing on the bed next to her, I reached out to grab ahold of her, to try and wake her up. She swung a hand out just as she did, catching me right across the face.

I jumped back in surprise, nearly falling off of the bed as I did so, my cheek stinging from the force of her slap.

All of a sudden, River's writhing and groaning, her incoherent mumbling -all I could make out was the word 'no'- suddenly stopped.

And then the screaming started.

I looked over at Kris, locking eyes with him as all the color drained from his face.

"Go get Ty!"

I didn't even hear the door slam shut as he left. My only priority was River.

She needed to wake up. She needed to wake up now.

I screamed even louder, calling her name until my throat ached and my voice was hoarse.

"River! River, goddamn it, wake up! Fucking wake up"

Over and over again, I said the words until they became a chant. Wake up, wake up, wake up.

I flinched as a hand suddenly touched my lower back, and tried to push whoever it was away, until I realized it was Ty. A strong, bitter smell wafted up to me suddenly, making me cringe as my nose burned.

Ammonia. Smelling salts.

It took a moment for the foul smell of the ammonia stick to hit her, to seep into her senses and drag her away from whatever horrors she was seeing behind her eyelids and back into the world of the living, but when it did, she shot up from the bed. Wide eyed and with tears streaming down her face, she gagged once, twice, and then started coughing. She was trembling, too, and when another pained noise slipped loose from her throat, I knew then, without a shadow of doubt, that I had been right.

The slightly sheepish, disappointed look on Ty's face told me that he knew as well. Knew even better than I did.

Rage over took all worry as I looked down at her.

"You bitch!" I snarled. All eyes moved from River, to me. All except Tygo's. His gaze was fixed to the floor.

"How fucking dare you, River! I thought you were done with this shit! For good, this time."

"I don't know what you're talking about," River rasped, though the confusion on her face was far from convincing.

"Oh, you don't? You sure about that?"

"No, I don't," River answered. "I'm just not feeling we-"

"Bullshit," I snapped unsympathetically, "you're a fucking liar."

Digging my hand into my pocket, I yanked the bottle (I'd flushed the few pills that'd been left before we'd even left the venue) out, holding it up for River to see.

Her eyes immediately dropped to her hands, which were still shaking.

"It was an accident," she muttered out, voice not much louder than a whisper.

"There's nothing accidental about it, River. You promised me. You promised me. Never again, that's what you said. And I told you that I would never let you destroy yourself. And here you are, right back to this shit. Again!"

"What the fuck am I supposed to do, Jess," the blond retorted.

"Not overdose, for starters," I spat back.

At that, the blonde narrowed her sky blue eyes at me. They were lit with rage. I didn't care.

"Oh, don't you dare fucking play that high and mighty card with me! I'm not perfect, and neither are you!"

"I'm not saying I'm perfect. But I'm not the one who went and swallowed more than half a bottle of fucking pills!

"Alright!" Ty cut in, voice suddenly booming out of him, louder than both of us as he finally lost his cool. It wasn't something that happened often. Usually, there was only one person who could make Ty lose his temper, and that person was his ex wife.

"A screaming match isn't going to fix this situation," Ty said, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, before his gaze turned to me. "Jess, go take a walk, and cool off."

"Bu-"

The glare that immediately crossed Ty's face at what he knew would be nothing but bullheaded resistance on my part was enough for me to swallow the words I was about to say.

Letting out a huff of frustration, I sent another death glare in River's direction before turning and storming out of the room, pushing past a visibly concerned Kris, Avaalon and Oblivion. I slammed the door shut behind me, setting off down the hallway with no particular destination in mind. I'd abandoned my phone to the floor, but I didn't really give a shit.

After a few minutes of simply wandering the halls, I found myself in the elevator, bound for the top floor. From there, I made my way to the rough.

It had cooled down to a pleasantly warm temperature, and that light breeze from earlier was still blowing. Making my way over to the edge, I leaned against the stone wall that made up the perimeter and let out a long sigh. The lights of the city glittered both above and beneath me, completely irrelevant to the inner turmoil and frustration I felt. Watching the cars down on the street far below as they passed by, letting them lull me almost into a trance as I tried to clear my mind.

Tried to lower my damn blood pressure.

I don't know how long I was there, simply gazing, but by the time I heard familiar footsteps, I had no more fight left in me.

Hands rested on my shoulders, pulling me back into a warm embrace that I couldn't help but welcome.

"She's okay, right?" I asked quietly, referring to River.

"She will be fine, yes," Ty answered. "She's going to feel like shit for a few days, but she'll be fine."

"Good," I growled out. "Serves her right for doing something so fucking stupid."

Suddenly, there was a sharp tug to my hair, and I spun around with a yelp, smacking Tygo's chest. He just smirked, pulling me into a hug with an arm around my waist. Tangling his fingers into my hair, he leaned down, pressing his forehead to mine.

It had been a while -a few years, really- since the two of us had embraced like this. The bond that he and I shared had always been a close one, one that had blurred the line between being friends and being something more, but at the end of the day had always been about support. We had both been much more broken back then, and so very alone. Through thick and thin, we'd had each other, to be a voice of reason, to be a loving embrace. Whatever the other needed.

Things had changed over the last few years, had been so much better, and so, without any hard feelings, we had shifted back into the realm of friendship. We hadn't stepped outside of that in the years since then, either.

"Don't be so hard on her, Jess," Ty murmed softly. "She needs you right now."

"Yeah, I know. I know."

Rather than replying to the frustration I was sure was evident in my voice, Ty pressed a kiss to my forehead, lacing the fingers of his free hand that wasn't running through my hair with mine. Pulling my hair much more gently this time, I easily gave into his coaxing, tilting my head back to look at him.

"Why don't you stay with me tonight? We should really get some sleep; it's getting late, and we have an early morning."

"Is sleeping all you have in mind," I questioned, smirking. Our faces were so close together, now, it wouldn't take much to close the distance between us.

A grin broke out on Ty's face.

"That depends on if you're asking for more than that, or not."

"What would you say if I said yes?"

Suddenly, his grip on my hair tightened, and Ty's mouth was on mine, practically melting me with a searing kiss, one that left my head spinning, left my mind blank.

Yeah, I needed more of that, after the shit storm tonight had been.

When he broke the kiss, I smirked, trying not to reveal how heavily I was breathing. The glint in Ty's silvery blue eyes said he'd already noticed. Tightening my grip on his hand, I slowly backed out of his embrace. His eyes were on me, watching my every move as I moved back towards the rooftop entrance, slowly pulling him with me.

We were going to be so tired tomorrow.