Not Warriors- Awsten Knight

Chapter 35

"You're a fucking idiot! How do you forgot the song you wrote?" Claire hears someone shouting from backstage, quickly getting up to figure out exactly what was happening.

"I don't know why you're acting like you do so much, you just sit back there and bang on your little drums!" someone shouts back and she now realizes that Chris and Collin were going at it for no discernable reason whatsoever.

"Yeah and you're the big and noble lead singer your life is so hard, how do you carry the weight of being the only person who doesn't play an instrument in the band? You have one fucking job!" Chris yells.

What she couldn't understand was why none of the other boys were trying to put an end to it.

"What the fuck are the two of you doing?" she hisses at them, not wanting to match the same volume that they were arguing at.

"Oh your favorite boy in the world, magically forgot the lyrics to Just Right and doesn't want to play the fucking song anymore." Chris shouts at Claire, and she crosses her arms not intimidated by him at all.

"Chris do me a favor and shut your fucking mouth for once in your life, go with Tyler and Derek somewhere else. Anywhere, I literally don't care where you go just get out of my face." she says calmly, fully understanding why Collin is so caught in his head about this song right now.

"Claire would it fucking kill you to not baby him for once in your life? I mean really, you act like he needs his hand held 24/7 but you have never done the same for the rest of us!" Chris yells, and she raises an eyebrow at him ready to call his bluff.

"Yeah? Who sat by your side everyday for a week straight when your ex girlfriend cheated on you and you refused to leave bed? Who helped you clean your room, do your laundry, and cooked a meal for you multiple times a day to make sure that you ate?" she challenges.

"So like I just asked you, go somewhere. Be back in 10 minutes for the set but you cannot be here right now." Claire tells him calmly, and turns to face Collin who looked so pale that you could practically see through him.

"What's going on Col? I know you know the words to this song." she asks gently.

"What if she's here" Collin mumbles softly, and Claire's breath gets caught in her throat.

It wasn't completely out of the question that Madison could be here today, she truly hadn't put any thought into it because of the fact that she figured her parents would of told her if her sister had come home right?

"Collin-" she starts slowly but is cut off by him.

"What if she's here and she hears Painkiller Weather and Just Right and she just gets mad at me Claire? Those songs make her sound terrible." he cries out, burying his face in his hands.

She takes a step closer to him, wrapping him up in a hug.

"They don't make her sound terrible Col, those are your feelings about a situation that she put you through. You're allowed to talk about your feelings, besides there's no real chance that she'll be here today. You know that." she tells him softly, holding back tears.

"Is it bad that I want her to be here?" he asks quietly, and Claire shakes her head.

"I wish she was here with us every single day, she would be so proud to see what you guys have accomplished." she tells him lovingly, still hugging him tightly.

"I just wish I knew where she was, it kills me every day that we don't know what happened to her. If I hadn't of fought with her this never would of happened she would of just gone to rehab and she'd be here with us healthy. We'd still be together." he says stubbornly, and Claire lets out a deep breath.

"You cannot blame yourself for this anymore Collin. We can't carry the weight of her decisions okay? You need to let yourself heal from this." Claire says in as brave of a tone that she can muster at that moment.

"I still love her, I just wish I could find closure." he says pulling away from Claire, wiping the underneath of his eyes and she nods.

"I know you do, and you'll find it someday I promise. But for right now, you have to go and play. You can do this." she tells him as she hears the boys footsteps behind her.

"You boys ready?" she asks, letting out a deep breath and the boys agree in unison.

"Lets do this. Go kill it boys." she tells him lovingly, and Chris tries to pull her aside before going on stage.

"Claire I'm-" he starts and she cuts him off pulling out her camera.

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say right now, you know what that song is to him and why he's feeling like this and yet you still decided to pick a fight over it. I'm not the one you owe an apology to. Go." she says sternly walking away from him to take her spot in the photography pit.

No matter how many times she watches the boys take the stage she gets the same sense of pride to see them doing what they love and this was no different.

"Hey guys! As some of you may now, we're Sonic Heros. And if you don't know, well hi we're Sonic Heros." Collin says in the mic laughing at his own sentence.

"We're going to open with an new one today, this is called Just Right." he says as the back track comes in strong.

"I drove past your mother's house just to see how it felt. How's it all been since we were kids? Just hope you're doing well."

In all honestly Claire hadn't thought about how it would feel for her to hear this song live for the first time, although her and Collin had been through the same situation is was abundantly clear that the both of them had very different feelings towards the situation as a whole.

"I'd give it all just to feel that alive again, righted my wrongs made my bads feel fine. I'm homesick for you and I don't know why I'd die in your arms and it'd be just right."

"And I'll wonder if our courses cross again, or will they stay parallel? You can blame me for all of it beautifully broke her heart. I was so young back then and Mr. Williams I am so sorry for my words to your daughter before we had to part, left four stains of blood from our knees on your floor"

For a moment she almost forgot that she was supposed to be taking pictures of the boys, she was so caught up in her head about the song that she lost all track of anything else.

Claire felt a soft bump to her hip, and she lowered her camera confused considering the fact she was typically the only person in the pit when the boys would play.

Her confusion quickly melted away when she saw Awsten standing there with a camera that he definitely did not know how to use hanging from his neck.

She shakes her head smiling, "What are you doing?" she yells to him over the music.

"Taking pictures duh." he replies happily, holding the camera only causing Claire to laugh harder.

"Thank you." she mouths to him, knowing exactly why he was here and she was thankful for it.

Awsten shakes his head waving her off, he had told Jawn that he needed his camera and Jawn had reluctantly agreed not knowing exactly what was happening but when Awsten mentioned Claire he figured it was important.

It was important for him to be there, it broke his heart to know that he wasn't there for her through the worst of it but he hoped it was enough he was there now.