these darkened stars {andy biersack}

chapter fifteen

trigger warning: mentions of death and suicide"can i—can i tell you a story, alex?" he asked, timid.

she nodded. "yeah, only if you want."

he nodded, too. "when i was, uh, when i was twelve years old..."

andy choked up just thinking about the things he was about to tell her, the people he had lost and how he had lost them. alex's head began to lift from its place at his neck but he pulled her closer, needing the feel of her warm breath on his skin and the closeness of her. she was his only protection against the grief rising in his throat that he'd never dealt with. after endless years of shoving it down and pretending it wasn't there, it was all starting to pour out.

he stopped himself from the sentence and instead starting with something different, eyes fluttering shut.

"my parents' names were chris and amy," he started, "and they were the best parents anyone could ask for. my dad, he liked vehicles. sometimes he would compete in races and my mom and i would go and watch. he worked in an auto repair shop, so sometimes he would bring me there and watch while he fixed up trucks. i admired him more than anyone, i looked up to him."

"my mother, she was a nurse at a retirement home. instead of fairytales, she'd tell me stories of these wonderful people she'd helped when i went to bed at night. one day, she brought me to her work and the people there taught me how to play bingo so i could play with them. she was beyond kind, my mother. i'd always wanted to be like her."

"i loved them both," his voice began to crack, the pain of their memories ripping into him with abandon. "it was just us three, and sometimes my cousin joseph. when—when i was twelve, they were coming home from a night out together. they never got to do that often because of my mom's scheduled, so when my grandparents came down to visit, they promised to watch me."

"it had been storming bad that night, and there were black ice warnings everywhere. app-apparently it was uh, it was snowing really bad on the highway a-and a semi-truck lost control when he hit a patch of black ice. h-he crushed my parent's car underneath it."

"oh my god," alex whispered, feeling the horror of it like slime slinking down her throat. "andy."

he started to shake with silent sobs. she pulled back so she could see his face. his eyes were closed as if he was ashamed of her seeing him cry. tears ran down his face, painting his cheeks wet and red with grief and pain. she reached up to hold his face in her hands, wiping the tears that came with her thumbs and pressing soft kisses to his forehead, one to his nose.

"you don't have to go on," alex whispered, worry lacing her voice. "if it hurts too much, you don't have to tell me."

what she didn't tell him was i'm sorry, because that was one thing she knew he didn't want to hear. i'm sorry did nothing to ease the pain he was feeling, but this, holding him... she hoped he felt safe in her arms like she did in his.

"no," andy shook his head, his hands wrapping around hers, holding them to his skin. his eyes blinked open, looking like the ocean with the tears he held in them and the blue of his irises.

pain. they were full of it. she felt it echo in her heart.

"i moved in with my grandparents a few days later," he continued when he'd stopped crying as much. "i went from living in ohio to living in los angeles, it was-it was tough on all of us. the change. the absence of them."

his eyes shut for a long second, and she thought he would keep it that way, but then he was looking back at her, gaze intense and unwavering. her heart tightened with that familiar feeling again, but she scolded herself. now is not the time for this.