Better Every Day - A Jonathan Davis Fanfiction

Chapter 17- The Bottomless Pit

5 months later...

Everything had changed. Everything.

In all my life, in all the cruelty I had suffered at the whims of people I was supposed to trust, nothing had ever hurt quite this bad. I had never felt quite this alone. Maybe it was because, for the first time in my life, I had lost something that was worth having. I had it so good, but now I had nothing.

The things I had once believed in had been shattered by the reality of a rockstar's life. My relationship with Jonathan had fractured perhaps beyond repair, yet we pretended it was normal for the sake of keeping some vague thread of sanity; for the fear of losing our minds completely.

Jonathan eventually fell into the bottomless pit of alcoholism, drinking like it was oxygen. He drank more than everyone else, and I had finally witnessed what the boys had meant all that time ago, when they said he was a mean drunk. He was not the Jon I used to know, the Jon I fell in love with. Through this, I had set sail back into the sea of insufferable nothingness. As time went by, more and more shows were played. Audiences fell further in love with Korn, but Korn fell further into the depths of depression and addiction.

I was back in the place I was before I met Jon: I couldn't eat for fear of gaining weight, I couldn't smile genuinely, I couldn't force myself to care about things I used to and it was a struggle just to get out of bed in the morning.

It hurt to watch the guys suffer like this, but my efforts to help were futile; I was suffering too. Because of this, we continuously grew further and further apart, drowning alone in our own heads. We had lost our ability to lift each other up, to give each other strength. Now, all we did together was drink. We couldn't even keep a conversation up anymore- it just felt empty.

Tonight, the boys were playing a sold-out arena, while I was alone drinking in the tour bus. I used to go to all their shows, but lately, I couldn't even leave the bus. I was unaware of how much time had gone by, but the boys were arriving back at the bus, so their show must have already been over.

"How was the show?" I asked, my small voice sounding like I just rose from the dead.

"The audience was insane! Like, the craziest one we've ever played for," Head told me.

"Oh, cool," I tried to smile. "What, uh, what did you think?" I looked at Jon.

"It was great. You should have been there," Jon said, looking past me.

"Really?" I asked, and he looked down as if he was ashamed of himself. A wave of guilt flushed over me so I tried to make up for it. "I, uh.. I'll come to the next one," I said. He nodded.

"You could cut the tension between you guys with a knife! And I ain't talking sexual tension," Fieldy said, but neither of us said a word, we just looked at each other. You could say we looked like wounded birds- fragile, eyes dark but scared, with a hint of crazy.

"Okay... you know, I think I have the solution for you guys. A party!" Fieldy exclaimed. This sounded like a terrible idea to me. The last thing I wanted was to go outside the bus and have to deal with the world but for some unknown reason, I felt compelled and said, "okay."

I put on a fake smile for Fieldy and tried to seem happy, and nobody was sober enough to see through me. The perks of having alcoholic friends.

So, we went to the party. It was on another bands bus, but this one was 2x the size of Korn's. It was huge, big enough for both the bands to tour in it together, in fact. As we sat down on the couches, the guys offered us some food. I initially said no, but Head noticed I hadn't eaten in a long time and pushed the food on me. He watched me as I ate it, but it just made me feel sick. Not sick to the stomach- just sick about myself. I was looking at Jon's face as he took a swig of his beer. He was talking to the drummer from the other band. He was so perfect, his features so delicate but also sexy. He was never the most masculine-looking man, but I loved this about him. He was so poetically handsome. I shook the thoughts of him being so perfect because he wasn't anymore. He had become a stranger to me. I had to remember that.

Even though I told myself this, I couldn't help letting my imagination wander- imagining that the man across the room from me was still the Jon that I fell in love with. Imagining that he would come over to me any minute just to check on me or kiss my forehead, that he might reassure me or let me reassure him. But then, I remembered what happened last time. I had been crying in the bathroom over my relapse into forcing myself to throw up and I just needed him to be with me. My mistake was believing that he might want that, too.

~Flashback to 3 months ago~

I finally pulled my fingers out of the back of my throat as I realised what I had just done... I had ruined everything. All my progress, all gone. I had just condemned myself back to the life that I once led- the one that made me want to die. The last time I felt this way, Jon was the only person that could help me, so I decided I would tell him.

I walked slowly to our bedroom and found Jon on the floor after injecting himself with methamphetamine. He was conscious, just staring at the ceiling.

"Jon?" I asked, but he said nothing. "I need to talk to you"

"Yeah, well I need something too," he said calmly.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"To be fucking left alone"

"But I need you, Jon. I did something... I-" I choked back tears. I could see him struggling to get words out, struggling to hide his emotions.

"Just fucking talk to someone else," tears fell out of his eyes as he tried to push past me.

"What's wrong?" I asked, putting myself in his way. He didn't look angry, but scared, as he shoved me into the door and held me against it. I panicked as he had one of his hands on my throat, pushing slightly.

"Jon!" I yelped. He didn't move, he just looked at me with his fragile eyes. He looked so wounded and scared. He was defensive and lashing out at everyone- but I had never been scared of him before today.

"Let me go! Please, Jon, you're hurting me"

His eyes widened as he realised what he was doing, and he immediately let me go. He fell to the ground and put his head in his hands. "I'm so fucking sorry, Mia," tears fell out of his eyes again. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Just stay away from me"

"Just talk to me, Jon," I pleaded, crying.

"You're the last person I want to talk to right now," he said so I left, shaking.

This was my first time seeing Jon as anything but sweet, and it scared me more than I had ever been scared in my life. Not scared for me, but for him. He was a danger to himself, not anyone else. He was a wounded soul underneath, but the drugs and alcohol turned him into a different person. One that I didn't like.

~Back to present~

After that incident, I spent every day trying to help him but eventually I had to come to terms with the fact you can't save someone who isn't ready to be saved. He didn't want me- so that's just how it was now. He hadn't talked to me since and I just had to accept it.

The time went by as I watched the boys interacting with the other bands. They made it seem so natural, I almost believed they were okay- that they weren't the broken people I had seen them become. I got lost thinking about how they make it look so believable when I heard my name. I looked up to see those gorgeous brown eyes that I always used to dream about.

"Can I talk to you?" Jon asked, and nodded his head towards the door. His eyes still looking into mine, I hesitantly nodded. I followed him outside and shut the door behind me, looking at him with my arms crossed in anticipation.

"Well?"