Arcane Guardian ↣ Avenged Sevenfold

31 ☼ sleep

FEBRUARY 2009

"You need to get out of bed." Matt shoved Brian. Brian mumbled incoherently, pulling the pillow over his face. "It's four in the afternoon, dude. We have a contract to commit to. You have to be a fucking person eventually." 

Things had only gotten worse since the funeral, if that was possible. Noelle was an unsolved murder case and her ashes were being kept with Mandy's at Jim's place. She had never really wanted a funeral so they honored that wish. After it was ruled an unsolved murder Brian essentially said fuck sobriety and took his drinking from coping to drowning levels. Every day he woke up in the middle of the day, each time more hung over from the last. There wasn't really a break between days. He just sat in his big empty house and blasted music, but honestly a lot of the time he just did it in silence. His live was a revolving door of pills and alcohol, but he hadn't really stooped to the level of sleeping with random people yet because the one time he tried he saw a dead body and wanted to throw up.

Thellessany hadn't visited. She knew better, he thought. 

"Shut the fuck up," He groaned at Matt. "Are you all seriously here right now?"

"Call it an intervention." Zack ripped the pillows off which made Brian give a slightly louder muffled groan. "You need to get off of your ass, and not just to black out every night."

Brian lifted his head and looked around. "Where's Jim?" 

"He's gone missing. He'll probably be back with half of our next album. You know the one we're contractually agreed to? And the last one, that we need to finish touring?" Matt crossed his arms.

"I didn't even consent to be in a band." Brian said. "The universe just decided so." He didn't have the energy to argue further.

"Matt, grab him." Zack said, as Matt tossed the pillow and picked him up out of bed. Brian shrieked, kicking and screaming. 

"WHEN DID YOU GET SO FUCKING STRONG!?" 

"When did you get so skinny." 

Zack laughed for the first time in a while as they walked to the kitchen where Matt not so gently sat him down on a stool beside the island. Zack tossed him a cold wash cloth, that Matt proceeded to smack onto Brian's face which made him jump. 

While Matt was scrubbing his face with the cloth, Zack poured a bowl of fruity pebbles into a bowl of milk, quickly stirring it up with a spoon. The second the cloth was taken off of Brian's face, an Advil was shoved down his throat, washed down with the bowl of cereal. 

"OKAY OKAY!" Brian shouted at the rush, shoving them both back as fruity pebble flavored milk dripped down his chin. "I get it! It's just fucking sucked these last two months, okay? And I need to cope in the way that feels right." 

"Killing yourself slowly feels right?" Matt furrowed his eyebrows. "Is this what they would've wanted?" 

"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT THEY WOULD'VE WANTED!" He yelled again, his head pounding. "This is what I want! And what I want is for you to climb off my dick and leave me the fuck alone!"

"We're scared we're gonna find you dead too, fuckface." Zack crossed his arms. "With the path you're going down, you're not too far off." 

"What if she's in purgatory?" Brian said quietly, looking away from them. "What if they're suffering, like we were? What if that's why I haven't seen..." He ran a hand through his hair. 

"Shut the fuck up." Matt mirrored what Brian had said earlier. 

"What if they're being tortured, every single day, god, IT'S AN UNSOLVED FUCKING MURDER!"