Paint You Wings

"I'm sorry Jack, I really have to go. I really need you to do this for me." Alex spoke urgently through the phone to hos best friend. It'd been four days since Jasey's withdraws had fully hit her, and things weren't looking to ease up.

She was up all night in pain, throwing up, writhing, sobbing from the pain all around her. Alex was sure that she was in so much pain that she was completely unaware of her surroundings.

Truth to be told, Alex was smothering the poor girl. Through the splitting shock waves that surged through her head, Alex continued on with his questions, his touching, his nagging. It was so much that Jasey almost always found herself in tears while begging him for just a few moments of silence.

"No, there's no way. Get Rian and Zack to do it." Jack tried.

"Rian is doing stuff for glamour kills and Zack is visiting his family. I really have to go lay down these tracks and figure out tour with Matt, please Jack." Jack sighed and ran a hand over his tired face. The last thing he wanted to do was be around Jasey.

"Look- she won't even know you're there. She's in so much pain right now that she probably won't even know I'm gone."

"Wait, you're not telling her?" Jack asked incredulously.

Alex paused, not sure what to say. He didn't want to admit the truth. He didn't want to admit that things were getting too much for him. He was getting no sleep because of her constant screams at night. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't sleep, Alex was at a dead end and he just wanted a break.

"Please Jack," Alex begged. Jack sighed, really hating that he had to be around the one person he couldn't stand the most.

"Whatever, I'll be in tonight." Alex sighed with relief.

"Thanks Jack, really. I'm leaving early tomorrow and it'll only be a week. It's fly by, I promise."

The two friends talked for a little while longer before hanging up. Alex laid his head down on the cold marble counter top in the kitchen. His shoulders ached with the stress he was under. Alex began to doubt himself, which worried him. He was always so confident in everything he did, he was always so sure. Now he was just a hopeless mess.

Interscope was threatening lawsuits for the band's departure while Hopeless Records waited around with open arms. The band screwed up, and Alex was the main person to blame for the whole fiasco.

Alex cleared his throat and shook his head back and forth, trying to compose himself. He went one by one turning all the downstairs lights off, making sure to cover his tracks. He walked upstairs sluggishly for sleep was calling to him in waves of whispers he couldn't avoid. Once at the top of the stairs, he turned towards the corridor Jasey's room was on. His padding feet echoing all through the halls.

He passed Jasey's room, coming to the conclusion that he actually wanted to sleep tonight. Her short and shallow breaths could be heard through the door as he passed, but he was too tired for it to phase him. Entering the master bedroom he'd found while searching around as a teen, Alex shuffled to the bed. He slid in and sighed as the heavy blankets weighed down on him, wrapping him in warmth.

"I'll never leave you alone again...."

Desperate conversation.

Alex's eyes snapped open wide. He'd done it again. Alex wanted to break down as he realized the predicament he'd placed himself in.

Now there's an aching in my back, a stabbing pain that says I lack,
the common sense in confidence to bring an end to promises
that I make in times of desperate conversation..

Alex had fallen for it again. He'd promised something he couldn't keep, promised something that he'd never be able to do. Jasey always seemed to do that to him. Make him desperate.

Needless to say, Alex was restless that night.