Without You, I'm A Disaster

Matt brought her over to the bed that she had slept on the night before and sat her down. She fought against him for a few moments before realizing that it was no use. There was no way that she could try and out-power Matt. She slumped back against him and buried her face into his shoulder as tears continued to flow out of the corners of her eyes. Matt wrapped his arms around her in a protective hug as he kissed the top of her head.
Brendan had finally pried Sal off of Reid and tossed them both onto opposite sides of the room. “Are you guys fucking insane?!” he yelled at the two of them as they wiped the blood from their noses and lips. Neither of the guys said anything, so the bassist took that as his cue to continue. He turned to Reid, “You’re going to drive Crystal fucking insane, you know that right?! That girl loves you more than anything and then you go and pull stupid shit like this that does nothing but hurt her. You better get your fucking shit together, or a busted nose and lip isn’t all you’re going to be getting.”
He turned to Sal. “And you!” Brendan said as he threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, “I get that you care about her and don’t want this little fuck over here hurting her anymore, but do you really think that beating the shit out of him is the best way to go about this? Good lord. You’re Crys’ rock, don’t fuck that up because you can’t keep your fucking temper in check.”
He adjusted his bandana once again before looking back and forth between the two of them. “Clean yourselves up,” he said in an exhausted tone. He picked up his own suitcases and headed out into the hallway to bring them down to the bus.
Brendan slammed the door to the bus shut after he had put all of his bags away. He leaned back against the side of the vehicle and put his hands on top of his head. He sighed and closed his eyes. “Since when did I become the one to run interference with these guys?” he thought to himself.
Matt gently pulled back and brushed a few stray locks of hair out of Crystal’s face. “Hey,” he said gently, “you gonna be okay?” Crystal shrugged as she wiped the tears off of her face. “I just,” she paused and tried to put her thoughts together, “I don’t get how I got myself into all of this shit, you know? I should have never stuck around after Reid and I broke up. Life would be so much easier for everyone if I had just gone back home.” Matt shook his head as he pulled the girl up to her feet. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “I want you to listen to me alright?” he said firmly, yet gently, “You’re important to everyone in this band. If you weren’t, we would’ve told you to get out a long time ago. But we all care about you. So don’t even for a second think about ditching us okay? We all want you here.”
He gave her a hug and then picked up his own suitcases and gestured for her to do the same. “Come on,” he said gently, “let’s just get back out on the road and deal with the rest of this later.” Crystal nodded as she compiled her bags and followed Matt towards the door.
Before she made it out though, Sal came back through holding a tissue to his nose to try and stem the bleeding a little bit. He looked over and saw Crystal staring at him, with pain and tears in her eyes. He felt his own face soften as he looked at her. He brought his hands back down to his sides. “I’m sorry,” he said as he scuffed his feet on the ground in nervousness. Crystal walked over to him and took the tissue from his hand. She found a clean spot and dabbed the blood off of his bottom lip before handing it back to him. “You don’t need to protect me Sal,” she said softly, “not like that.”
Before Sal could say anything in response, she turned on her heel and walked out the door with her things in tow. He sighed as he walked into the bathroom and began to gently get all of the blood off of his face and knuckles. He didn’t know why he had thought that hitting Reid back seemed like a good idea. If he hadn’t done anything, there would still be a chance that Crystal might want to be around him, or with him. But he felt as if he had just trashed that chance.
When they walked up, they saw Brendan leaning on the side of the bus with his eyes closed. He had a nearly-extinguished cigarette in his hand. Brendan had always been a stress smoker. It wasn’t an “addiction” but he also wouldn’t turn one down if he was having a really shitty day. And this, was definitely one of those days.
Crystal pulled her bags up the steps of the bus and closed the door behind her, leaving Brendan and Matt outside together.
The bassist slowly opened his eye before flicking his smoke away. He looked at Matt and raised an eyebrow. “How is she?” he asked concernedly. Matt shrugged, “Let’s just say, Reid or Sal should definitely drive for a while.” Brendan nodded understandingly. He knew that if one of them were driving it would mean that Crystal wouldn’t have to deal with them.
“Hey man,” Matt said as he walked up into the bus with his own suitcases, “thanks for breaking those two up. Lord knows that Crystal would’ve-” But Brendan held up his hand to stop him before he could finish. He adjusted his bandana a little bit, “I know.”
When Matt walked up onto the bus, he saw that Crystal had let her hair out of its braid and was now sprawled out across the pullout couch that they had on the tour bus. Her eyes were closed and her hands were placed behind her head. For the first time all morning, she looked calm. Matt sat down next to her and toyed with the ends of her hair. A small smile spread across her lips. “Walst?” she asked softly. He chuckled, “How’d you know?” The girl smiled and gave a small shrug as she laid there, “I know how much you like my hair.” Matt laughed as his hand slowly strayed down from her hair and drew a light line down her stomach, causing her to shiver a little bit. “I like more than just your hair Sweetheart,” he said simply.
That’s what always confused Crystal about Matt. He could go from acting like a brother to her, to flirting with her and making gestures that hinted at a little more than friendship. But the thing was, even when he made comments, he never said it in an overly flirtatious voice. So Crystal never knew if there was any truth to it or not. Normally, she wrote it off as Matt simply being one of the guys. Nothing special, just the way that they always were with her. But that didn’t stop her from wishing it was a little more serious from time to time. After all, she had been able to trust Matt with pretty much anything and everything since she met them all. It was no secret that they were really good friends. And Crystal knew that it was most likely just her hormones, and the fact that she was surrounded by attractive men 24/7 that made her wish that there was something more going on between her and Matt, so she never said anything about it. After the way things ended with Reid, she swore to herself that she would never date anyone in a band, especially in My Darkest Days.
Matt pulled her so she was sprawled out across his lap. Crystal laughed as she pushed Matt’s messed up blonde hair out of his face as he stared down at her. She smiled up at him, and Matt felt a wave of relief wash over him. It was a genuine smile, a kind that had been far and few between in the months since Reid had broken up with her.
Crystal wasn’t used to Matt looking at her the way he was. She nervously bit her bottom lip and tried to fight back a smirk. Matt’s eyes and smile could make her flustered when she hardly had control of herself to begin with.
When Matt saw her bite her bottom lip, he knew that if he didn’t get her off of his lap soon, things were going to take a very personal, and very awkward turn. He lifted her torso up and leaned her against his side. He gave a mental sigh of relief.
Crystal’s bright green eyes were sparkling as they stared into Matt’s. He had always known that she was beautiful. But aside from the clothing and the makeup, he had never seen something more beautiful on her than her eyes when she was finally feeling okay again. The emerald shades that made up her eyes lit up when she was in a good mood, and it made everyone around her feel a little better as well.
They stared at each other in silence for a moment, but before anything could be said or done, Crystal’s phone started to ring. She pulled it out of her short’s pocket and checked to see who was calling. She chuckled. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she got up off the pullout couch, “It’s Doug.” The singer nodded as he watched her make her way to the back of the bus to talk to the band’s drummer and semi-privacy.
Matt shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. If he hadn’t known how much Crystal still loved Reid, he would’ve thought that she was about ready to kiss him right then.