How it Happened is Irrelevant (Mabbell)

Deleted/Alternate Scenes

A/n: Some of the stuff I cut out or changed. Be sure to check out the sequel, Rock Bottom, to be released in the near future.

Deleted Scene 1: (Somewhere between chapters 7 and 8)

TJ's POV:

I was lying there in my bunk with the curtain closed when I heard some shuffling outside. I was tired, but wanted to see what was going on. I opened the curtain just a little bit to see Craig standing there, pulling his shirt over his head. He discarded it on the floor and grabbed another off of his bunk. After watching him slip it over his head once more, he glanced at me. "What're you looking at?" H e asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"Nothing! Nothing!" I looked away, closing the curtain to my bunk once more. 

Deleted Scene 2: (Somewhere either after chapter 21 or chapter 22)

Craig's POV:

We were all drinking and having a good time that night. Robert, as usual, had gone to bed really early. TJ was restringing his acoustic guitar, except he was doing it really drunk. His fingers were starting to get bloody from pricking himself so much. Thrasher, Max, and I were all watching a movie. TJ was on his last string, which he'd just tuned. He lightly strummed all of the strings at once.

Not much happened between then and the end of the movie. Kevin retreated to his bunk about halfway through, and Max left at the end of the movie. TJ took his guitar and got this grin on his face that gave me anxiety. What was he going to do? He strummed it a few times before slamming his pick down on the strings so hard I worried that he was going to break them. "You are so beautiful!" He sang. "You are the kind of guy that has the chemicals that make me fall in love!" He was drunk and belting the notes out so loudly I was between laughter and trying to get him to shut the fuck up. I chose laughter while putting my hand over the strings so they wouldn't ring out. He was too much, but I really did think it was cute.

Alternate Chapter 25:

"YOU DID THIS!!" Craig shouted, shoving his phone at me. Between the light and him shouting at me, my head was bound to split into a thousand pieces.

"Shhh-" I looked at the screen, reading only the headline and viewing the image.

Craig Mabbitt and TJ Bell: Best Friends or Boyfriends?
Last night, we caught these two walking back for bus call. But you'll never believe what happened.

I stopped reading. "No one's gonna believe this," I told him.

"But they do. There's speculation everywhere. We're the scene's hottest topic."

I wanted to say something cheeky like 'Well, you are pretty hot,' but Craig seemed too upset for that. "Can I at least get out of my bunk before we talk about this?"

He stepped aside, allowing me out, but that was all of the let up that I got. "You just couldn't help yourself could you?"

"What's going on?" Max asked, coming back into the bunk area.

"You were just too drunk to think straight!" Craig scolded me. "You promised me! You told me only behind closed doors. Your smoke and mirrors are too much to take, TJ!"

"My smoke and mirrors?" I almost laughed. "Might I remind you that you didn't push me off. You didn't tell me to stop. You were fine with it until you found out that people knew. Why do you want to hide me?"

"I don't want to hide you!"

"Never once have I felt like you weren't embarrassed to be seen with me! Ever since we've.....been doing this......you hide from me in public! You do everything you can to keep your distance. You just can't have anyone guessing anything!"