Rock Bottom (Sequel to How it Happened is Irrelevant)

13

A/n: slight sexual content warning? It stops before anything explicit happens but I figure I may as well tell ya now.

TJ's POV:

When Craig and I came back onto the bus, hands linked and fingers laced, I think we rendered Robert absolutely speechless. 

"You- You- guys a-a-are back- back- back- back together?!" Thrasher asked, stammering through the entire sentence. 

Craig nodded for both of us.

"YES!!" Both Robert and Kevin cheered, raising their hands into the air and giving each other a double high-five. Thrasher hugged the drummer and the two of them bounced around for a minute. Craig and I stared at the two of them in absolute awe.

The cheering stopped just as soon as it had started. Robert dusted himself off and Thrasher looked at his feet with embarrassment. "We'll never speak of this again," Robert said.

"Agreed."

I shook my head, trying to keep myself from laughing. A small craving filled the back of my throat. Oh, God, it's barely been an hour and it's already starting. How many of those pills have I taken? I recalled acquiring a second bottle, then a third. I think the third one's almost gone, and I just got it a week ago. I glanced at Craig. I guess he was my addiction before.... Maybe I hadn't noticed my problems back then.

We were staying in this city for two nights, and despite management's protests against it, Craig and I were sharing a hotel room. It's hard to have sex in a tour bus, let me tell you. I've not idea how Asking Alexandria did it so much. Craig and I tried it maybe...three times? I don't really remember because I think I was drunk most of the time. Hence why you shouldn't have sex on a tour bus. Sobriety just isn't in the cards when surrounded by alcohol. 

But nonetheless, I'd missed this deeply. A small voice in the back of my head told me it was a bad idea, paving the road for a new addition. I decided that was ridiculous and ignored it. Even if I was, there's no way that Craig would mind, right? I continued to light the candles surrounding the room. I'd said no to the idea of champagne. I was probably still drunk from the gallons and gallons of alcohol I'd poured into my system over the last month. It's too bad neither of us are femboys, else we could totally cash in on the sexy lingerie factor. Instead, I tried to get as close to that as I possibly could without crossing the invisible line I'd drawn in the sand. Which meant a button down shirt with only the buttons from my stomach to the end of the shirt done, the hardest pants to unbutton that I owned, and, of course, to make it even more difficult, a belt. Fuck, was Craig going to be surprised. I never, never, never ever let him....top. By God, he'd probably think that something was wrong with me. 

The water to the shower shut off, so I dropped the lighter and leaped, stomach-first, onto the bed. I put my legs up, ankles crossed, bent at the knees, and waited patiently. I was nearly asphyxiating myself with the amount of cologne I'd put on combined with the scent of all these candles. It wasn't exactly kind to the senses. Fortunately, the headache I was getting from these scents in combination felt something like a high. The craving I'd had for pills was temporarily satisfied. 

Craig walked out of the bathroom. "God, what smells so absolutely...." His voice trailed off as he entered the room. He took a look around before looking at me. Something about that annoyed me. Though it didn't annoy me as much as the fact that he was fully dressed. "Wow, T. You've really outdone yourself."

"No, outdoing myself would be if I made all of those candles," I shook my head. I sat up a little and his eyes trailed downwards. 

"How do you always manage to look so impossibly hot all of the time?" He whispered, running his fingers through his hair. I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards me, a route which he seemed ecstatic to take. Craig climbed onto the bed and gave me another once-over with his eyes. I could see in the dim candlelight that they were starting to get hazy. I kissed his lips gently, and he returned the kiss, making sure to keep me close to him. The room temperature grew warmer as lips, tongue, and teeth clashed against each other more and more aggressively. I let Craig pull my shirt off, which he paused over for a moment. Told you he'd be surprised. He continued anyways, pushing me down onto the bed while I pulled his shirt off too. "Is everything alright?" He asked me finally.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't stop," I told him quickly, brushing away his question. Everything was more than alright. My craving was satisfied, I was with the man I just couldn't stop loving, and I was as close to sober as I'd been in years. I was great. 

I am not great. I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling really sick. Somehow, my insomniac lover was asleep. His phone went off several times, and he stirred. Why wouldn't he silence it for the night? Craig sat up and looked at his phone, not noticing that I was awake. He shook me while he read the messages. "TJ, wake up. We have a situation," He said. 

"Mmmm," Was the only sound I could manage. 

"Wake up!" He told me shaking me more furiously. "Kevin has food poisoning, Robert's taken him to the emergency room. It's really bad."

The words coming out of his mouth were English, thought they may as well have been Scandinavian. I didn't know what he was saying, and frankly, I didn't care. I needed pills. Now. Craig told me something else, but he sounded so faraway that I couldn't make them out. He was talking to me urgently, practically shouting, but his voice echoed and shook to my ears. I felt out of my own skin as I got out of bed and wandered over to the trash can in the room, right before vomiting into it. 

"Oh, T, we don't have time for this!" Craig complained. 

"I need pills," I whined, sitting up.

He got out of bed and found my clothes, strewn about through the room. I could barely remember the events of last night at all. "Please just get dressed," He told me. He knew I couldn't do it myself though, so he started to dress me. 

"I need pills," I whined again, louder this time in case he hadn't heard me before. 

"Why?!" He snapped, frustrated. He started to put his own clothes back on. "Why did you start this damn addiction? Why do you feel the compulsion to fill your life with destructive substance?! Why, TJ?! Tell me!" He shook me. "WHY?!"

"I'm sorry I'm broken," I sobbed, breaking the rules of apology. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I said over and over and over. 

He took a deep breath and came closer to me, putting his arm around me. I leaned into his shoulder. "You're not gonna help anyone like this," He told me. 

"I'm sorry."