I Scream For Everything That I've Loved

Holy fuck. What the fuck even just happened oh my god. 
I was so close to having another of what I found out was an anxiety attack that I could barely tell the guy on the phone our order. Probably the only thing actually keeping me from freaking out was knowing that Alan was drunk, and that he most likely wouldn't remember a damn thing tomorrow morning. That's why I had become so open about the whole situation after a while. I probably wouldn't have told him about the depression and shit, I wouldn't have showed him my legs either. 

There was something different about him this time. He wasn't being his usual pissed-off-drunk; he was being nicer, more caring and understanding. Okay, maybe anyone would have reacted that way, but the last time he had kissed me, I could feel it. I could feel that he cared. 
 Which was also another reason I knew he was drunk; he wouldn't have kissed me sober, wouldn't have taken me back to the room, wouldn't have unbuttoned my shirt, wouldn't have seen what lied disgusting underneath. 
  So while I was glad I had finally gotten everything off my chest and told Alan, I was praying that he wouldn't remember any of it in the morning. Who knows what I'd do if he did. At least he would know somewhere in the back of his mind. 

This just might be the worst decision I've ever made. And I haven't even told him half of it yet. 

Yet. Such a terrible word, it sent shivers up my spine because all it meant was I would have to tell him, come out with everything and probably lose my best friend. 

"I'm gonna go to bed." I said as I made my way to get a drink before going to the bedroom. 

"Me too." And he climbed in next to me. 
Just as I was about to turn over and away from him, his arm swung over me and pulled me close until it was a cuddle. Taking advantage of the night even more, I curled up and settled myself into his chest, breathing in his half-cologne, half-alcohol smell. I felt his hand run down my side, making me shiver. It stopped at my hips, rubbing over the cuts, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good. I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't about to cry. My eyes filled up with tears as I buried my face in his shirt, my breath hitching a couple times. 

"I'm sorry Alan." 

His upper half backed away a bit and he pulled me up to look at him. 

"Why are you sorry? Are you crying?" His thumb slid under my eyes, wiping away the moisture.

"Yo-you know why I'm sorry." 

"But you don't need to be, Austin. You don't need to be sorry. How can you apologize for having feelings?" 

I'd apologize for loving you. 

"I don't know, I-I just, I am." I pulled my fists across my eyes, wiping them. 

"Don't."
He kissed my forehead then we both quieted down until we fell asleep, Alan wiping my eyes every few minutes. 

-&-

I was woken up by the smell of something burning and because my initial reaction was panic, I jumped out of bed, hitting my knee on the corner of the bed-stand with a shout. I rubbed my knee for just a second, checking the damage and finding that it was just a small scrape, before running out into the kitchen to find Alan scraping a pan in the sink. 

"Alan? What's that smell, is everything okay?" 
He turned around quickly, placing the pan back on the miniature stove top. 
"Yeah, yeah I'm good, everything's good."
I laughed not only at him but in relief, watching him spray the pan as black smoke spread through out the room. 

"Alan, may I ask what you're doing?" I giggled out. 
He let out a -extremely sexy, if you ask me- growl, pouring white batter into the burnt pan. 

"Well, I was making you breakfast, because you always make me breakfast so I thought I'd do it. Especially cause I got drunk again last night." He got quieter at the end of his sentence and the reminder of last night sent anxious butterflies through my stomach. Of course I remembered everything, but did he? 

"Ha, yeah, d'you have a nice night?" I joked, secretly hinting at what happened, trying to find out if he remembered at all. 
He turned and looked at me and the look on his face made me feel like all my blood rushed to the floor, leaving me drained of color. Oh no. 
But then it changed to a confused look and he thought before answering, "Don't get mad or anything, but I don't remember shit from last night. Why, did I do something?" 

Ohhh yeah you did. I was so tempted to elaborate but I was still so relieved knowing he didn't remember anything that happened. Not my cuts, not my depression and therapy, not making out with me...
Perfect. 

I almost wish I had been drunk too. 

"No, you were actually really nice this time." I laughed, "you even offered to share your chicken wings." 

He made a confused face as if to say "I really did that?" and then continued cooking the pancakes. 

I laughed again when he took it off the pan and found that the bottom had been burnt black. 

"I think you should eat these," He handed me a plate of perfectly cooked, golden brown pancakes. 
"The rest aren't my best work." He looked back to the plate containing the burnt circles. 

"I'm not that hungry, come share these with me." I smiled, picking up the bottle of syrup and butter then brought the food to the two-seated table. While I set the items on the flat surface Alan had pulled my chair out for me, the small gesture leaving me blushing. Even though he had made them for me, I let him put whatever he wanted on them. 
To my surprise, he had been down stairs already this morning and had brought back vanilla ice cream, those rainbow jimmies, M&M's, and chocolate syrup. 

"I figured we could have ice cream later or shakes or something..." He said as he placed spoonfulls of ice cream on the pancakes, then the syrups and candies. 

"That sounds almost as awesome as these pancakes look." I grinned. 

We ate our breakfast in relative silence, making small conversation every once in a while. I think it was mostly my fault; feeling as awkward as I did, it was hard to make conversation, hard to think enough to concentrate on what we were both saying because of all of his and I's words of last night swarming through my head. Even though I felt awkward, the silence it's self was not. 
I think that's why it was so easy to love him, and to just get along with him. Alan was a kind of quiet guy, but in a different way than I. He was the kind of quiet where if you didn't know him you'd think he had some huge grudge against you. He may come off ignorant or just plain shy.  I think he sometimes felt awkward too, especially when it came to the fans and interacting with them. But give him ten minutes at a signing and he was good to go; talking to everyone, joking around, taking pictures. But I still- and always would- enjoy how he got more comfortable when around just me. 

 "Austin, what's that?" He questioned, looking to what felt like my ear. I reached up to touch my ear, looking at him confused. 
"Uh, my ear? Why, i-is there s-something wrong with it?" 
He mumbled under his breath what sounded like "shit." 
"No, under your ear. That's..." He sighed heavily and I went to the bathroom to look at myself in the large mirror. 
"Shit" was right. Even though I hadn't been drunk I had forgotten about the mark that Alan had made on my neck. While we made out. Oh, I remembered now. 

What was I supposed to do about it now? If I went anywhere with people that knew me it was sure to be questioned.
 Wait, did Alan realize he did it? Did he remember any part of last night, and that's why he seemed distraught when he found the bruise beneath my ear? 
No matter how much I loved it and no matter how hot it was, this was not good. But I still walked out of the bathroom giggling. 

"It goes with my tattoo!" I pointed to the kiss-mark tattoo I had behind my ear. 

"You picked up a woman last night? I don't remember that." He chuckled and held his hand out for a high five, which I returned, blushing. 

"Uh, y-yeah we um, we just...She didn't come back here, though. I just, we uh, you took me back here with you so I just left her. Whe-when we got your chicken wings. Yeah." Well there's another to put in my book of lies lately. At least he didn't remember. 

"Awe man, I'm sorry. You could have taken her back here if you wanted, I could have left." He smirked. 

"No this is our vacation, I'm staying with you. It's fine." I smiled. "Would have been pretty awkward in the morning," I laughed. "So yeah, this is our little vacation and I-I'm spending time with you." I ducked my head, sitting back down. 

"Maybe. What'd you do to your knee?"
What? 
"M-my knee...? What do you mean?" I looked down and sure enough there was a little drop of blood sliding it's self down my shin. 

"Oh, that haha, I um hit my knee on the stand in our room when I thought we were going down in flames." I laughed. 

"Hey, I tried!" He laughed. "Come here." He rose and lead me to the bathroom. He opened the door made of mirror above the counter and started rummaging around until he pulled out a little strip of paper, telling me to sit down. I set myself atop the granite counter, my feet barely brushing the floor, and waited. He peeled the paper away and used one of the white cloths to wipe away the blood, leaving it stained before pressing a bandaid to my skin with a smile. 

"Good as new." He chuckled. 

"Why thank you, sir." I swung my legs off the counter and we were finally able to finish our breakfast. 

-&-

The ride home was less awkward- but really, why would it be? It was just my mind making it awkward, there wasn't really reason to be considering he showed no sign of knowing anything I told him. 

  "We should stop at burger king next exit, yeah?" 

"You're the one driving," I mused back. Alan insisted on driving us home because apparently my "driving antics are going to get us in trouble." 
I don't think swerving the truck to scare Alan was such a bad thing, especially when there weren't any-or, many- cars around us. I had control of the truck. 
And apparently it wasn't funny to go over the rumble strips while Alan was trying to sleep in the passenger seat, but I thought his reactions were hilarious. I'm seriously surprised that he even tries to sleep with me driving any more. He would jolt up in his seat, hands gripping the arm rests and would sometimes even shout.
Classic. 

He pulled into the lot and we got out. He told the cashier his order then I told mine, wishing to be little again so someone else could speak for me. 
Once ordered we were to wait, sitting in the back, where we took up the curved booth that could fit a whole family. 

"Maybe we should have sat at a small-" 
I was cut off by Alan almost yelling, his legs outstretched just as mine from his corner of the semi-circle booth. 

"I DON'T THINK SO."
He just stared at me for a minute, both of our eyes blown wide at his volume until we both broke into laughter. 

"I didn't mean to say that that loud." He laughed. 

"I don't think anyone else did either." I smirked, looking around, embarrassedly at the people about the store. 
"You deal with your stares, I'm gonna go get some ketchup." 
His fist hit my leg lightly, playfully, as I walked to the other side of the restaurant. 
I wasn't really getting ketchup. Well, I wasn't really JUST getting ketchup. 

"Hi, um, I'm paying for order 37." I smiled, holding out the dollar bills tucked neatly in my hand. 

"Sure," she smiled. "It'll be ready in a few minutes." She took the money and gave me back my change and I gave her a nod before going back to the table with the ketchup. 

"Hey hey. I'm gonna go pay, I'll be right back."

"No need." I slid his little cup of sauce to him. 

"No need for what?" 

"I already payed." I stuck my tongue out, squinting my eyes shut. 

"Shut up, why?" 

"My treat." I smiled. 

Soon enough "number 37's order is ready" came from the counters and I let Alan go get it, since he had wanted to pay. 

I handed Alan his cheese burger and fries, making sure the boxes were perfectly lined up with his tray before he returned with his soda. 

"You enjoying your fries and shake?" He asked-sarcastically-as I dipped the fries into the frozen drink. I pointed at him with it, "Hey, don't diss what you don't know. It's good, you ought to try it." I popped it into my mouth while Alan was busy giving me a dirty look. 

"I think I'll pass. That's all you got, no burger, not even any chicken nuggets?" 

I looked down to my shake and fries, realizing that hey, it really wasn't much, was it?
I didn't know why either, so I played it off with a joke. 

"Yeah, I'm on a diet gotta get rid of all this." I pinched my tummy through my shirt. 

And we don't judge grown men on wether they call it a tummy or not.

"What, your bones?" Alan raised an eyebrow, grinning. 
So. Fucking. Cute. 

"Yeah, I guess." I laughed, looking back down to my shirt and sighed. 

-&- 

"Hey Austin :) how are you doing?" my phone screen read. A text from Jessica. 
We hadn't talked in a while, she had been talking to me about everything that was going on, and I was really thankful of that because on a few occasions, she had convinced me not to hurt myself. So it made me feel real guilty realizing how long it'd been since I'd talked to her. 

"Hey Jess :) I'm doing okay I guess. Just went back to the hotel with Alan. Much to tell you! Heading I to the studio right now. So sorry it's been so long :/" I sent back, pushing open the door to the small area that was closed off for recording in the house. Right now, our "studio" was in a very close friend or the whole band's livingroom. For every cd or any song we had put out it had always started here before moving on to record labels. 

 "You ready Austin?" Aaron asked me from outside the booth. I nodded and gave two thumbs up, waiting for him to turn on the microphone. Aaron always helped me because we both worked with vocal recordings. Of course I helped him in turn. 

Even though he hadn't been with us for the whole Of Mice and Men career, I thought of him as a brother, someone I could even go to at three in the morning to help me bury a body. 

 Needless to say, me and Aaron were close. 

  I heard the static from the microphone just as my phone vibrated in my pocket again, but I had to ignore it this time as I was already screaming into the small speaker, lyric sheet on the table outside because the words were already printed into my brain. 
 These were the words I had spoken almost every day for years now. These were the words to the fans, along with all of the thanks that could never show just how grateful I was for each and every one of them. The were my back bone, my crutch, when nothing else was. 
  Because not even Alan, or my friends, or therapy could fix some of my problems.
 Especially when they were the cause of them. 

 I honestly loved them all more than anything. Yes, even more than Alan. Because its not definite that Alan would always be there, but the fans- the true fans, would. And everyone needs something definite in their lives. 

  There were arms around my shoulders before I even realized I was crying. I took the half-second before I buried my face in a shoulder to recognize the body as Aaron. 
  See what I mean. Great guy. 

"Are you okay, Austin?" He whispered. I nodded back, wiping my eyes as I pulled away again, giving him a shy smile. 
  "Yeah, I-I just always get a l-little emotional in the studio." I chuckled. 

"I know that. But I mean...lately. In general."

I just stared at him for a minute, taking a deep, long breath. 

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine." I smiled. 

"Alright..." He said cautiously, walking back out, and I resumed my position at the mic, ready to let the world know how I really felt. 

 It was great because, I could let everything out; I could tell the world that I was not okay, I could tell the world that I hated myself more than anything and I could tell them absolutely why... but it would just be music. 
  It would just be noise coming from kid's speakers, giving them something to consume their time with and relate to. 
 But nobody would really understand that this was all me, all my deepest thoughts and feelings. Nobody would see any of this as a search for help if I needed it. 
  It would just be music. And while this music may be someones entire life, someones hero, it still didn't specifically say that that was exactly what I needed, too.
  Sometimes, I wish it would. But I know that there was no hero to my story. 
  My only hero could be myself, and I don't think I'm up for the job