Carry Me Through
Title: Carry Me Through
Author: alifeofourown
Pairing: Alex Gaskarth/Jack Barakat (All Time Low) [IMPLIED]
Rating: Teen, for angsty thoughts.
Summary: He's no longer able to carry me through the grief and the pain that comes my way.
Warnings: Angsty thoughts, fail!first person
Dedication: None. No one should want this dedicated to them.
Disclaimer: If I owned Alex Gaskarth and his thoughts, they wouldn't be like this. I'd make them happy.
Author's Notes: Where this came from, I don't know, but it exists, and I felt like sharing. I'm not sure if this will just stay a oneshit or not, but for now, that's what it is. First person in Alex's point of view. Enjoy.
Cut lyrics and title are from Crawl (Carry Me Through) by Superchick
Hateful words, they bubble up like vile acid in my stomach, and each new one that I hear makes me hurt even more, cry out just a little more for the attention that I’ve learned not to crave, but to live by. Those people who call me too fat, too ugly, disturbing, bad dresser, every one of those insults hits me with a dagger of emotional shame, and I formulate myself to fit around those, force them under a tent of arrogance and professionalism that I shouldn’t have at this stage of the band. They still attack me though, no matter how hard I try and change. I’ve followed their insults so far that I’ve damaged my body, my mind, my emotions so much that they haven’t been able to turn them back yet and probably never will.
Those times when we stop to take a break and visit home have never actually had to do with home. I don’t allow breaks on our tours, and we’re always going straight from one tour to the next with little to no time at home. No, those times when we’re off, they’re off. Me, I’m not sharing in a vacation with them, I’m getting over some new addiction or sobering from a drug that I know I never would have tried if I had been in my right mind, but I don’t know where that is anymore.
Their words have made me remake myself so many times. I’ve gone through the phases; emo kid, fake gangster, pop phemon, scene boy, high school cutie, whatever, you name it and I’ve probably done it. I’ve been hospitalized three times for these ‘makeovers,’ but those were easily passed off as a vacation to the Bahamas or something foolish like that. Our manager knows how to put us in the spotlight in a good way, even when I’m slowly destroying myself on the red carpet.
“Does he look thinner to you? He does to me. I love it.” Ribs are beautiful, or at least the fans think so. There is so much pressure there to look perfect, and since I’m the one that everyone talks about, I have to be perfect, not just seem like I am. They can see through all my flaws and all of my impurities that I’ve worked so hard to get rid of, but with each new perfection comes a new impurity, and that just makes for more disasters along the way. Their eyes are always on me, watching, waiting, knowing that I’ll slip up eventually and that they’ll be there to watch me fall from the top of my game to the lowest of the low.
Everything that I do, I do for them. I need to win the fans over, I need to make them love me. Attention was never something I wanted, not even as a little kid. I thought that attention was overrated back then, but these days, it’s all that I want. Hearing the fans scream my name, beg for me as if I’m a rare gem that they would pay thousands of dollars to own, it’s all that I need these days. Their words motivate me to become everything that I’m not and to lose myself in more ways than I ever realized were possible.
I’ve tried everything to live to their standards. I’ve lost weight, I’ve bulked up muscle, I’ve pushed for every single kind of skin care, hair care to find the perfect one, but I have yet to succeed. My wardrobe changes constantly, and hell, my band mates don’t even know what to expect from me each time we have a new ‘tour.’ The fact that they still put up with me, that he still puts up with me, it’s amazing.
He’s the one who’s always watching me. He’s been there to stand by me and make sure that I don’t end up back in the hospital for something as stupid as anorexia, bulimia, suicide attempts. He makes sure that at the beginning, middle, and end of the day that I’m sane, or as sane as I can be these days, and that I’m healthy (although I don’t agree with his definition of healthy). He watches over me, asks me if I’m okay in between songs, and he makes sure that the fans shoot as few of those sharp, invisible daggers as possible, even if it means that more of them get aimed at him than me.
Every night, when we press up against each other in his bunk, he tells me I’m beautiful, and every night, I deny it. I know he wants me to believe him, but where he sees beauty, I see failure. He says I’m priceless, irreplaceable, perfect, but I don’t see any of that. I don’t know how he can be so optimistic in a profession that’s clearly supposed to spout pessimism from every angle and degree of a person’s thoughts and speech, but he does, and I’m grateful for it. He carries me through the bad times and revels with me in the good, and I don’t know what I could ever do to show him how much it means to me.
He tries so hard for a failing person with no hope or future for himself, but that doesn’t stop him. It doesn’t even slow him. He just pushes forward for me, and I push back with every passing minute of the day. I’m failing him, and he knows it, but he still tries to fix me, to make me better, happy, understanding in the fact that perfection can’t be achieved no matter how hard we try, but I’ve become deaf to his pleas of understanding. I love him, or at least I think I do, but with each day, my heart grows cold, and the words that I sing become meaningless.
I’m falling apart at the very seams, and no matter how quick he goes, or how strong the threads are, he can’t sew me back together.
I’m failing him, and that’s what hurts the most.
He’s no longer able to carry me through the grief and the pain that comes my way.
I’m dying in a living shell of empty.
And he knows…
Author: alifeofourown
Pairing: Alex Gaskarth/Jack Barakat (All Time Low) [IMPLIED]
Rating: Teen, for angsty thoughts.
Summary: He's no longer able to carry me through the grief and the pain that comes my way.
Warnings: Angsty thoughts, fail!first person
Dedication: None. No one should want this dedicated to them.
Disclaimer: If I owned Alex Gaskarth and his thoughts, they wouldn't be like this. I'd make them happy.
Author's Notes: Where this came from, I don't know, but it exists, and I felt like sharing. I'm not sure if this will just stay a oneshit or not, but for now, that's what it is. First person in Alex's point of view. Enjoy.
Cut lyrics and title are from Crawl (Carry Me Through) by Superchick
Hateful words, they bubble up like vile acid in my stomach, and each new one that I hear makes me hurt even more, cry out just a little more for the attention that I’ve learned not to crave, but to live by. Those people who call me too fat, too ugly, disturbing, bad dresser, every one of those insults hits me with a dagger of emotional shame, and I formulate myself to fit around those, force them under a tent of arrogance and professionalism that I shouldn’t have at this stage of the band. They still attack me though, no matter how hard I try and change. I’ve followed their insults so far that I’ve damaged my body, my mind, my emotions so much that they haven’t been able to turn them back yet and probably never will.
Those times when we stop to take a break and visit home have never actually had to do with home. I don’t allow breaks on our tours, and we’re always going straight from one tour to the next with little to no time at home. No, those times when we’re off, they’re off. Me, I’m not sharing in a vacation with them, I’m getting over some new addiction or sobering from a drug that I know I never would have tried if I had been in my right mind, but I don’t know where that is anymore.
Their words have made me remake myself so many times. I’ve gone through the phases; emo kid, fake gangster, pop phemon, scene boy, high school cutie, whatever, you name it and I’ve probably done it. I’ve been hospitalized three times for these ‘makeovers,’ but those were easily passed off as a vacation to the Bahamas or something foolish like that. Our manager knows how to put us in the spotlight in a good way, even when I’m slowly destroying myself on the red carpet.
“Does he look thinner to you? He does to me. I love it.” Ribs are beautiful, or at least the fans think so. There is so much pressure there to look perfect, and since I’m the one that everyone talks about, I have to be perfect, not just seem like I am. They can see through all my flaws and all of my impurities that I’ve worked so hard to get rid of, but with each new perfection comes a new impurity, and that just makes for more disasters along the way. Their eyes are always on me, watching, waiting, knowing that I’ll slip up eventually and that they’ll be there to watch me fall from the top of my game to the lowest of the low.
Everything that I do, I do for them. I need to win the fans over, I need to make them love me. Attention was never something I wanted, not even as a little kid. I thought that attention was overrated back then, but these days, it’s all that I want. Hearing the fans scream my name, beg for me as if I’m a rare gem that they would pay thousands of dollars to own, it’s all that I need these days. Their words motivate me to become everything that I’m not and to lose myself in more ways than I ever realized were possible.
I’ve tried everything to live to their standards. I’ve lost weight, I’ve bulked up muscle, I’ve pushed for every single kind of skin care, hair care to find the perfect one, but I have yet to succeed. My wardrobe changes constantly, and hell, my band mates don’t even know what to expect from me each time we have a new ‘tour.’ The fact that they still put up with me, that he still puts up with me, it’s amazing.
He’s the one who’s always watching me. He’s been there to stand by me and make sure that I don’t end up back in the hospital for something as stupid as anorexia, bulimia, suicide attempts. He makes sure that at the beginning, middle, and end of the day that I’m sane, or as sane as I can be these days, and that I’m healthy (although I don’t agree with his definition of healthy). He watches over me, asks me if I’m okay in between songs, and he makes sure that the fans shoot as few of those sharp, invisible daggers as possible, even if it means that more of them get aimed at him than me.
Every night, when we press up against each other in his bunk, he tells me I’m beautiful, and every night, I deny it. I know he wants me to believe him, but where he sees beauty, I see failure. He says I’m priceless, irreplaceable, perfect, but I don’t see any of that. I don’t know how he can be so optimistic in a profession that’s clearly supposed to spout pessimism from every angle and degree of a person’s thoughts and speech, but he does, and I’m grateful for it. He carries me through the bad times and revels with me in the good, and I don’t know what I could ever do to show him how much it means to me.
He tries so hard for a failing person with no hope or future for himself, but that doesn’t stop him. It doesn’t even slow him. He just pushes forward for me, and I push back with every passing minute of the day. I’m failing him, and he knows it, but he still tries to fix me, to make me better, happy, understanding in the fact that perfection can’t be achieved no matter how hard we try, but I’ve become deaf to his pleas of understanding. I love him, or at least I think I do, but with each day, my heart grows cold, and the words that I sing become meaningless.
I’m falling apart at the very seams, and no matter how quick he goes, or how strong the threads are, he can’t sew me back together.
I’m failing him, and that’s what hurts the most.
He’s no longer able to carry me through the grief and the pain that comes my way.
I’m dying in a living shell of empty.
And he knows…