(no subject)
Title: Intoxicated.
Pairing: Matt/Brian (A7X)
Rating: R.
Summary: It's the worst, coldest, dampest, darkest New Year's Eve ever.
Genre: Weird.
Dedications: xmegalomaniac for being hardcore and everyone who writes MattBrian. Because I swear, without inspiration I am nothing.
Intoxication... intoxication was a funny little term. It meant one was intoxicated. Intoxicised? Toxic substances were in. And all that amazing jazz.
It lead to slurring and stumbling, then to general unconsciousness, then to a headache beyond all headaches! But only if you did it properly, though.
So why, I ask, do people do it? These qualities listed above are more negative than positive, and ergo can't really be cast as a quality at all, more a terrible side effect of a liquid tasting far too sweet...
And yet... again, it doesn't taste too great.
So it doesn't taste nice, makes you feel ill... and yet people still drink it. People such as the band currently partying their skull-printed little socks off, along with more strippers than you'd find in a... uh... strip club.
Why did they drink? In surveys done in places I don't care about with people I don't give a flying toss about, the main reasons people drink are for boosted confidence, relaxation and loss of inhibitions. But these men right here... they had enough confidence to lead to arrogance, they didn't much care about anything, and inhibitions? I snort cola out my nose at the mere thought of them having such things!
Then again, maybe they're constantly drunk?
Then again, maybe this is all a front?
To tell you the truth... in all bitter honesty... I can't bring myself to think about this anymore. It's making me come off as the prissy little straight-edge kid I am. So how about they tell you? Wait... how about they show you exactly why they need the alcohol, and the drugs, and the strippers and cigarettes and parties and the confrontations? The people you care about, the people you want to read about.
Their view.
Their story.
"I hate you sometimes."
"I hate you most of the time."
"Then why the fuck are you in a fucking band with me you fucking fucktard?"
"You can play guitar well. You're a total wad of day old jizz, but you can play guitar well."
"Shove it up your ass, Shads! Seriously. Shit. Why do I bother? All I try to do... all I do is at least try to make this all work. And then you go, pissing off everyone. 'cause everyone's fed up with you, yanno. I'm just the only one with enough balls to tell you to your fucking face."
"Then why don't you just chuck me out?"
"You know why..."
"Answer the fucking question, Synyster!"
"Because... because we need you."
"Exactly. So vent all you fucking want but as long as you guys need me I'm not going anywhere."
Alcohol loosens tongues. It picks away at nerves and brains and muscles and ligaments and God knows what, leaving nothing but a floppy little organ to sway in the breeze of a thousand words thought but not meant.
These words hang insistently in the air, jabbing at the forms of people they weren't even intended for, weighing down at oxygen particles and making it near impossible to even breathe, every inhalation taking with it a tirade of bitter anger formed by the animal within.
People were screaming. It was loud and high-pitched and yet couldn't work its way passed the barriers of inebriation and red hot anger. It was there, taunting bulls, having them snorting steam and kicking up dirt until finally the yells ended with a thrown punch, knuckles colliding with stubbled jaws as women went stereotypically hysterical and men tentatively attempted to pry the two apart.
They were the two largest there. The alphas. And they were battling for their tatters of dominance and it was in no way pretty. No one wanted to interrupt this - no one wanted to move between the collision of bodies and fists leading to a tackle, the broader man on top, though the older put up a good fight with a well position knee and a too-firm shove.
Swearing joint the screaming, a grunt and a groan but he had received much worse in the past. Persisting, blood flowing from a pierced nose and a pierced lip, ripped skin and forming bruises and muscle pressing to muscle as they grappled, carpet burning at the bare skin of knees revealed by ripped jeans.
Then finally, still kicking and screaming like the stubborn bastards they were, two musicians were yanked apart by a variety of struggling males, muscles straining against air tainted blue by vicious obscenities.
Never had such venom passed along the line of friendship, never had such anger boiled to such a point of breaking the glass of the thermometer, red pooling and spiralling in a haze of violence induced by what?
Nothing?
Alcohol?
Brewing hate or brewing... what?
"So that's the only reason you're here? Because we 'need' you? Because we could find another guy to sing the fucking songs."
"You know that's not true."
"Isn't it? We all have our fans, Matthew. We all have our own personalities, our own skills, and we don't need you to back that up. Sure, sales'd drop but at least we wouldn't have to put up with your pussy shit."
"My pussy shit? Right, I get it... just because I don't join you on your binges, just because I only get drunk off tour, just because I stay fucking true to my girlfriend I'm a pussy? Well at least I'm not a cheap whore."
"A cheap whore? Nice, Shads. Real original. At least I'm living my life! She's got you tied down. You're not the man you were. You're not the friend I first made."
"Most of us grow up. I suggest you try it sometime."
There was no supervision. Everyone was equally intoxicated, equally high. They were nothing more than a bunch of over-sized, painfully confused little children. There was no one to guide them, no one to tell them what to do... so they did that naturally programmed thing; they let it be.
Turning backs and shaking their heads, glazed eyes closed for a moment of deep, simple breath if only to bring together stained composure. People considered as friends sharing questioning glances only to shrug tattooed shoulders and resort to teenage antics. Leave them together. A locked door. A darkened room. Have them sort it out.
And even in such immaturity there was sense and carefully honed psychology - they would be forced to figure it out. Because it was physically impossible to dwell for too long in such darkness, in such agony. Relationships would be healed because they would have to be.
"Shit..."
"Pull it the fuck together."
Slam.
Slam.
Slam.
The musky air of the basement was filled with alcohol tainted breaths and that damp that seemed to always linger in such rooms, no matter what building, what country; always the same murky scent of mould and mildew, the dark entwining thickly with the smells to produce the most over-powering of atmospheres. It seemed to cling to their clothes and their hair and their skin, forcing them up off the steps on which they had been bickering, shoving them into some form of action.
Two well built shoulders crashed into the thick wood of the door in perfect synchrony. As easy as melodies wove with vocals on a stage, as chords melded with lyrics on paper. Something so natural that wasn't formed over time, but rather through instant knowledge and recognition of kind.
Bruises would be left, hidden beneath the deep colour of inked lines, broken blood vessels leaking their load atop the surface with every perfectly timed collision, though it were useless. Even their combined, hefty weight was nothing in comparison to dead bolts and steel hinges.
Two lithe backs slid down that unrelenting door, two sighs unravelling through that filthy air, meeting in a soft join of breath influenced by the same substances; two shots of Jack, three of vodka, two more Jack, a few rums, then as many beers as was physically possible, followed by that final, coma-inducing glug of Snakebite. A careful routine honed over a decade.
"I hate being down here..."
"Me too."
"Did you just agree with me?"
Hazel eyes turned to staring brown for the first time in response. "Reluctantly."
Black polish was chipped to bitten nails upon the calloused fingers currently pinching the plastic stirrer, jade focused on the swirl of liquid as he moved the fluorescent blue through it. "So, what do you think that was about?" Slightly slurred words holding the most subtle of lisps were uttered as that bleary gaze was finally raised to the opposite male.
"All I caught was a lotta swearing. Seemed kinda... I dunno... baseless to me? Something like that."
"Apparently Brian's been sleeping around and Matt doesn't like it," the live-in porn star beneath Jimmy's arm piped up, carefully batting dark lashes as she sipped at the SoCo held in her hand.
Four sets of eyes turned to her simultaneously; blue, green and two of identical brown, all possessing a perfectly quirked eyebrow and inducing nothing but a shrug from the petite female as she explained.
"I listen between the lines."
"Why are you always so difficult?"
Those eyes were still fixed together, the connection building with every second of contact, the invisible thread between them strengthening as it gathered layer and layer of the emotion falling thick and fast with every hazy breath through parted lips.
"It's easier that way."
"You know that makes no sense, Shads."
"That's exactly what makes it easier."
"You're drunk."
"And you're any better?"
"At least I speak my mind when I'm drunk."
"So do I, but my mind doesn't make sense."
Chocolate gaze was rolled, the connection faltering, but only tearing at the seams just the slightest as he dropped his head back against the wall, staring irritably through the darkness. It still lingered. Unspoken, unnoticed, but there, thriving on the fading anger and developing calm.
"Always the fucking poet... always writing the riddles and speaking the rhymes. Why don't you just be blunt about yourself for once?" the guitarist eventually demanded, long fingers tapping on the concrete step beneath him, the same step currently sending damp through the seat of torn jeans.
Silence, but thoughtful silence this time. A true pondering on frustrated words as hazel remained fixed to the spot, neck still craned and head turned as he scanned the lines and curves of Synyster's silhouette.
"You start."
Eyes snapping back to eyes.
"What?"
"You start. Be blunt with me. I won't even interrupt."
This forced a smirk across Brian's lips. That was the exact problem... Matt never interrupted. He just listened and then he spoke, a habit that enabled him to disguise himself so well, to cushion his words and pad his demands to the point of blank innocence, never displaying the man beneath the glaze.
"You're a fucking zombie. You follow your routine. Two hours of vocal, 45 minutes of cardio, two protein shakes, three hours of writing. What else is there? The fifteen minute run? The hundred pushups? Everything's facts and figures and numbers and names. Even when it comes to the band, to your friends. Syn Gates instead of Brian fuckin' Haner. M Shadows instead of Matt Sanders. 500,000 records, three new tracks already put down for album number four --"
"That's not true."
A raised brow along with that curling smirk. "You said you wouldn't interrupt."
"I lied."
"What? A moment of spontaneity from the robot?"
"You're being fucking harsh, Syn."
"Shut the fuck up with the 'Syn' and the 'Synyster' and the 'Gates'. What's my fucking name, asshole?"
"Don't..."
"What's my fucking name?"
Silence. A stare. Hazel darkening, narrowing.
"You're being a bastard, Brian."
"Why the hell would that bother Matt?" The question was supposed to be of casual interest. She had wanted it to come out like that so deeply, but in her eager attention she had failed, the query only succeeding in sounding mildly desperate, fake, pleading, the slight lift of eyes truly betraying her.
"Search me. Maybe he's fed up of finding his guitarist's skanks passed out in his own tour bus."
"Or of the racket every. single. freaking. night..."
"The panties in the refrigerator may have been the last straw."
"Why were they there anyway?"
"Bri said 'the cold helps stimulate' or something."
"That's pretty ew."
"Yeah."
"Should keep that in mind, though..."
"Yeah."
Three girlfriends could do nothing but stare at this ludicrous banter between guitarist and drummer, blinking made-up eyes at the constant switches from concern to curiosity, from disgust to perversion.
But then again those few terms summed up the entire scenario. They cared and they didn't. They wanted to know while wanting to remain naive. Maybe they wish they hadn't locked two of their best friends in a basement on New Year's Eve, maybe it was the best decision they had ever made.
It was all 'if's and 'but's and 'because's. There were no positives and no negatives. Only neutral unsurity. Because really, the only answers would come when they were brave enough to slip that lock and have the shit beaten out of them by two muscular and rather unforgiving men. And even then, would forgiveness come soon enough for answers to be retrieved? That window of raw vulnerability was brief, and if they were angry enough... possibly non-existent.
Such thoughts made the group's selfish sides scream with frustration, whereas in all reality the act was performed for their band mate’s joint good. To fix something truly broken.
"It's your turn."
"What?"
"You started the whole thing. I told you what's on my mind. Now it's your turn to spill. C'mon," a finger was tapped gently to the larger man's temple, "what sorta bollocks is goin' on inside there?"
A shuddering sigh, so wise and so weary for a man of such few years, fingers tugging at the frays of the pants of another, because that easy intimacy was still so present in Matt's thoughtful absence. His mind was too far away to realise that this was no longer appropriate, that a thumb brushing to bare, carpet-reddened skin and two fingers teasing straying cotton caused the body they belonged to tense with a frown.
It was only when those muscles tightened that the knowledge came with a downward pull of his lips, hand quickly withdrawn like the contraction had scolded him.
"Being down here, locked in a basement on New Year's fucking Eve while my friends, family and fiancé party the night away upstairs should make me want to beat my head against a wall..."
"...but?"
"But..." a deep breath, "being with you... even if we're just fighting... it's not so bad, yanno?"
"Yeah. I know."
Valerie was biting her nails. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were actually her real nails... but they were some form of plastic or vinyl, French polished and glistening, though now being gnawed by pristine porcelains. And even that, even that right there wouldn't have been quite so terrible if it weren't for the words that settled alongside the nervous habit.
"Maybe we should open the door."
Twin snorts, Zacky and Jimmy staring at her as though she had grown a penis out of her nose.
"Suicide mission. Total fucking suicide mission."
"No... I could do it, they wouldn't hurt me."
"Neither of them would speak to you for a month. You know how stubborn the bastards are. Just leave them be until they calm down."
"They could have calmed down already."
"No, we'll know when they've calmed down..."
"How?"
"Our secret."
If looks could kill the band mates would be rather attractive corpses as the blonde stormed away in a flurry of thrown down hands and a stomped stiletto heel, though the boys couldn't bring their selves to care, instead laughing with each other over the top of the high table, from their positions perched on equally high stools.
"Yanno what the main problem with people is?" The drummer asked once he had recovered, a practiced and universally understood hand gesture indicating a second round of shots to the passing bar maid as he watched the younger gulp down his alcohol, receiving nothing but a vaguely curious shrug.
"They're all too similar. Look at girls... all pissy and wanting their own way. And Matt and Bri - they're two very muscley peas in a handsome pod. They're stubborn and angry and frustrated and total liars."
"Liars?"
"Yeah. As in... they never tell each other the truth. Maybe if they did there'd be some understanding."
"But they're friends, they don't... I... friends don't do that."
"Don't be so naive, Zack. They lie because they are friends."
It was surprising how quickly two forms could sober up from such a limitless supply of alcohol after a fight and the chill of a winter basement. Because oh yes, they were sore, and they were cold, but such trivial things were being tended to. Matt, being the only of the pair with covered knees was kneeling on the step in front of his not-quite-friend, not-quite-enemy, a licked tissue in hand ('ew man! Seriously! Fuck! At least let me lick the thing myself!') as he dabbed at the wounds he himself had inflicted.
Slightly damp tissue touched at the tears in tan skin, crimson immediately seeping through the white of fragile material, staining and flowing, spidering out in the most grainy way, seeping colour through monotony. Matt was watching the path of his hand as Brian watched his eyes, two intense gazes both intense for different reasons, proximity daring, breaths felt with winces and hisses.
"You're such a bitch when it comes to pain..."
The vocalist was so busy making such witty comments that he hardly noticed the skilled hand sliding down and pinching sharply at his bruised ribs, the ensuing surprise and pain having him jumping and yelping, only bringing a knowing little smirk across thin lips.
"I know, right?"
So solitary. That was the only possibly explanation from the very aura radiating from the two men. An entire party was going on outside, noise and bustle flowing through a wall, a hall, a second wall, a door... it showed life and joy and excitement at the new year blossoming, at 52 more weeks of sex, drugs and rock n roll. A new album, a new tour. More months of having only each other.
Solitary.
Alone.
Because even through everything outside in the end it was only them. Surrounded by fans, faced with an audience, it was just them on stage. In a bus, suffocated by their band mates, it was just them pressed shoulder to elbow battling the hell out of each other on their shared and endlessly protected X Box.
In the end, amongst everything, it was just a wall, a hall, a wall and a door. It was just being hidden from a party, alone in a basement, with just the dark and smiles for company.
Smiles and touches and murmured apologies attempting to make up for things said in haste. Things meant but... not meant to be heard.
They may have been the truth but sometimes the truth wasn't right.
Tears were falling thick and fast, smearing eyeliner and mascara down perfect cheek bones, alcohol induced hysteria as twin clung to twin with phlegmy sobs. "I just want to kiss my fiancé on New Year's Eve! Is that too much to ask?"
Gathered in a private room away from the festivities the central group stared on at the unabashed display, some slumped against walls for desperate support, others swaying softly on their heels with glass in hand. The white shoulder of Michelle's dress was stained by the flow of make-up, much to her evident distaste, blonde locks awkwardly patted as an answer for the question was never quite given, forcing the distraught female to sit up straight, pushing her sister away, her tissue thrown down to the carpeted floor of the overly expensive hotel.
"Well?!"
"When they're in they're right mind, they'll be allowed out!"
"We're treating them like prisoners. They're grown men."
"Did you even see them in there? They weren't acting like grown men. They were scrapping like teenagers. They can stay down there until they fucking grow up."
"Who made you boss? It's their party in as much as it is yours!"
By this time Val was squaring up to a relatively sober Johnny, the mohawked bassist doing nothing but sighing in that distressingly calm way before turning on his heel and walking out in search of another Jagermeister.
"He's so...so..."
"Insufferable."
"What?"
"You're insufferable."
"And yet you suffer."
"I do."
"Why?"
"Because it's worth it."
"For what? The cash? The fame?"
"For this."
"For being sat in a basement with your vocalist clinging to you?"
"For being sat in a basement with my best friend clinging to me."
"What are you doing?" was the question quietly delivered as the younger man (though by what? Two dozen days?) pulled away, sliding down the zipper binding the leather of his jacket to his bulky form, a dark gaze lifted as he shrugged out of the garment.
"You're fucking frozen."
A strong hand dropped to his bicep in warning, preventing the jacket from sliding down his arms as Brian's soft stare turned into a glare. "Oh no you don't. Don't get all fucking chivalrous on my ass."
"Why not?"
"Chivalry's all about 'women and children get the life jackets' and all that bullshit. I'm not either, so keep it."
The anger there was dampened, dimmed by something that Matt couldn't quite hear, couldn't quite see, as much as he searched and scanned those stubborn features. "Then again maybe it's just about me being warm, my friend being cold, and me being able to fix that?"
A shame, really, that they were both so persistent. Life would be a lot easier if at least one of them were more willing to cave. But that pride was there, shining brightly, blinding them and guiding them from any form of logic as they glared at each other from their spot on the step.
"And why do you think you're warm, motherfucker? Because you have a jacket, and if you give me said jacket you're going to be cold," he explained like one would educated a kindergartener, all thorough pronunciation and slow intonation. "One of us is always gonna be cold. And I don't see why it should be you - I'm your equal. Remember?"
Matt had no vocal response to this, instead preferring to rather gruffly shrug Brian's hand off in a fit of a beaten man, moving to pull the coat off before hesitating in brief thought. Something flashed through his eyes as the black leather was removed very intentionally, thrown to the step in front of them, leaving the singer in nothing but a button down shirt. It was a silent submission, the jacket symbolising more than simple clothing.
"Then I'd rather we both be cold."
"I love the irony in this," Jimmy muttered as he watched his rhythm section companion bound around the room like he was on crack.
Which, on further thought, he probably was.
"He's all 'oh my god, they should totally grow up!', then he's all...like...like..."
"Johnny?" Zacky supplied helpfully, murmuring around the straw perched between his pierced lips. The entire gathering was yet to see him without a drink in his hand, the tipple varying in colour all through the night - who would've thought the hardcore little musician would opt for the cocktail side of the bar every time? - but hey, he had chipped in for his fair share of the expenses, therefore he could drown his nonexistent sorrows for as long as he so desired.
"Exactly! Johnny!"
Really, with the easy commentary passing between them you wouldn't think they were both sat upon a struggling female in an attempt to keep her away from releasing a pair of highly charged beasts.
Frustration was setting in. Brian could see it in the way Matt began to fidget. That was always the key tell tale sign, when he began to squirm, tug at the frays of his clothing, scratch at a tattooed forearm, then look around the room. It was a perfect subconscious pattern that the guitarist not only analysed too deeply, but in turn knew off by heart.
"I can't believe they'd do this to us..."
"I can."
"How so?"
"Because they did do it to us?"
"Stop being so fucking smart."
"One of us has to be."
"Then why don't you work on getting us out of here?"
"How the hell am I meant to do that? It's not like we could call them or --"
"Sometimes I worry about the intelligence of our band."
"Yeah. Ya'd think logic would kick in soon enough for them to realise Matt is actually in possession of that rare little treat known as a 'cell'..."
"But their stupidity is our salvation. You know they only think when their sanity crawls back with its tail between its legs."
"Mhm, but it's taking them a long time. Must've been pretty bad."
"Nyah, they're just drunker than usual."
The conversation ended right there, the snap of their necks to the side enough to bring them whiplash, eyes meeting with something resembling utterly incredulous shock.
Simultaneously they swore and dove for the jacket, two broad bodies moving in the same direction leading to a few bumps and Matt's collision with the wooden banister, only earning Syn a cuff around the head before hands still recovering from the bane of alcohol eventually fumbled for the cell in the pocket.
Matt flipped the gadget open, flashing his friend one of those trademark, truly devasting grins as the reception bar crept up, thumb reaching for speed dial one --
"Wait."
That hand was on his bicep again, the simple contact immediately freezing his movements, leaving him only able to look up with an expression of quizzical annoyance.
"Look at the time," Syn explained, jabbing a surprisingly slim finger to the glowing display.
11:59.
One minute.
Not even that.
"They won't even hear us. And even if they did they wouldn't get us the fuck out on time to do anything worthwhile at that God-forsaken hour."
"So leave them to have their little moment?"
"Exactly."
"They locked us in a basement."
"We deserved it."
5...
"One fight. Just one. We never fucking fight, we need at least one vent in a blue moon."
4...
"Doesn't make it okay, Matt. It doesn't make it any better or any easier."
3...
"I hate this feeling."
"What one?"
2...
"Like there's something in the air. Like its there... and I can feel it but only you can see it, but you won't explain. You won't warn me."
"What's the fun if you're warned?"
"But it's not a bad something. That's what scares me most. It's a good feelin --"
Everything exploded in a true frenzy of riotous noise, party poppers sending glitter fireworks spiralling through the air, cut foil shapes raining down on them amid a cacophony of singing, shrieking and general congratulations.
Good job for getting through the year.
Congratulations at surviving through this shitty existences.
2006 has been pretty fucking great.
Heres to the next endless period of crap.
Hugs were delivered, warm bodies colliding, clinging in laughing embrace as the clock set with such grandeur above the fireplace chimed with every jolly swing of the pendulum beneath.
Such classical, ancient beauty was stained with modern chaos, the glamour of the hotel perverted with miniskirts and ripped jeans, cocktails and Doritos, wandering hands and wandering tongues.
Though in the end, across distances of time, they were the same as the people who celebrated last year, last decade, last century. Simply happy to be alive and happy to be happy as cheeks were kissed and the joyous songs near deafened.
It was all influenced, you see. Influenced by the never ending intoxication. By the drinks flowing freely from the bar and the touches and glances stolen. By the anger of bust-ups and the exhilaration of omg, a rock star’s party.
That's all years and months and days came down to - the exhilaration. Because that was the side that was trivial. The adrenaline could be so easily effected by such useless things because it didn't matter. Because the stuff that did was so deeply programmed that it couldn't be affected by any amount of Jack and Coke.
Things like New Year's kisses in hotel basements.
Warm lips silenced words in a kiss so immediately accepted that Brian almost froze from the surprise. Eyes watched eyes in shock for the briefest of moments before instinctively falling closed, minds lulling into the languidity of the action, hands tentatively raising to cup a perfectly angled cheek and lace in too-short hair.
Both men refused to start on such negative ground. Refused to have a life long friendship tainted on this new slate so early on. They wanted the claim in 365 days that the year had been amazing, perfect even. That they hadn't fought once, that wounds didn't matter.
So apology was needed. Unspoken 'sorry's in a tongue soothing a bust lip, in fingertips caressing sore ribs. In friendship and the things gathering in the air, in things thick and dark and fine and bright though tingling with the electricity passing between two men of such differences and similarities. It stole at breath and shivered at very bones, leaving them gasping and panting though refusing to pull away, instead doing the exact opposite, denying and satisfying their bodies simultaneously as they blanked out the need for oxygen and instead pressed closer, kissed deeper, all tongue and heat, and shared taste tainted with too much whiskey.
Because right now, in that moment, the hours of dark and cold and arguing were gone, replaced and erased with the warmth of strong arms and a skilled tongue. Pointless fights holding no base, instead existing only to vent the pinicky little trivialities that built over the time of a too-easy friendship vanished, disappeared, leaving the air clean for something new to build and develop among touches and lips and tangled hands, pressed hips and a squirm into a lap. Clinging and desperate and groaning and hardly pulling away, even as a door swung open and a woman wished she had listened to two highly intoxicated and rather heavy musicians.
Happy New Year, Sweethearts ♥
Pairing: Matt/Brian (A7X)
Rating: R.
Summary: It's the worst, coldest, dampest, darkest New Year's Eve ever.
Genre: Weird.
Dedications: xmegalomaniac for being hardcore and everyone who writes MattBrian. Because I swear, without inspiration I am nothing.
Intoxication... intoxication was a funny little term. It meant one was intoxicated. Intoxicised? Toxic substances were in. And all that amazing jazz.
It lead to slurring and stumbling, then to general unconsciousness, then to a headache beyond all headaches! But only if you did it properly, though.
So why, I ask, do people do it? These qualities listed above are more negative than positive, and ergo can't really be cast as a quality at all, more a terrible side effect of a liquid tasting far too sweet...
And yet... again, it doesn't taste too great.
So it doesn't taste nice, makes you feel ill... and yet people still drink it. People such as the band currently partying their skull-printed little socks off, along with more strippers than you'd find in a... uh... strip club.
Why did they drink? In surveys done in places I don't care about with people I don't give a flying toss about, the main reasons people drink are for boosted confidence, relaxation and loss of inhibitions. But these men right here... they had enough confidence to lead to arrogance, they didn't much care about anything, and inhibitions? I snort cola out my nose at the mere thought of them having such things!
Then again, maybe they're constantly drunk?
Then again, maybe this is all a front?
To tell you the truth... in all bitter honesty... I can't bring myself to think about this anymore. It's making me come off as the prissy little straight-edge kid I am. So how about they tell you? Wait... how about they show you exactly why they need the alcohol, and the drugs, and the strippers and cigarettes and parties and the confrontations? The people you care about, the people you want to read about.
Their view.
Their story.
"I hate you sometimes."
"I hate you most of the time."
"Then why the fuck are you in a fucking band with me you fucking fucktard?"
"You can play guitar well. You're a total wad of day old jizz, but you can play guitar well."
"Shove it up your ass, Shads! Seriously. Shit. Why do I bother? All I try to do... all I do is at least try to make this all work. And then you go, pissing off everyone. 'cause everyone's fed up with you, yanno. I'm just the only one with enough balls to tell you to your fucking face."
"Then why don't you just chuck me out?"
"You know why..."
"Answer the fucking question, Synyster!"
"Because... because we need you."
"Exactly. So vent all you fucking want but as long as you guys need me I'm not going anywhere."
Alcohol loosens tongues. It picks away at nerves and brains and muscles and ligaments and God knows what, leaving nothing but a floppy little organ to sway in the breeze of a thousand words thought but not meant.
These words hang insistently in the air, jabbing at the forms of people they weren't even intended for, weighing down at oxygen particles and making it near impossible to even breathe, every inhalation taking with it a tirade of bitter anger formed by the animal within.
People were screaming. It was loud and high-pitched and yet couldn't work its way passed the barriers of inebriation and red hot anger. It was there, taunting bulls, having them snorting steam and kicking up dirt until finally the yells ended with a thrown punch, knuckles colliding with stubbled jaws as women went stereotypically hysterical and men tentatively attempted to pry the two apart.
They were the two largest there. The alphas. And they were battling for their tatters of dominance and it was in no way pretty. No one wanted to interrupt this - no one wanted to move between the collision of bodies and fists leading to a tackle, the broader man on top, though the older put up a good fight with a well position knee and a too-firm shove.
Swearing joint the screaming, a grunt and a groan but he had received much worse in the past. Persisting, blood flowing from a pierced nose and a pierced lip, ripped skin and forming bruises and muscle pressing to muscle as they grappled, carpet burning at the bare skin of knees revealed by ripped jeans.
Then finally, still kicking and screaming like the stubborn bastards they were, two musicians were yanked apart by a variety of struggling males, muscles straining against air tainted blue by vicious obscenities.
Never had such venom passed along the line of friendship, never had such anger boiled to such a point of breaking the glass of the thermometer, red pooling and spiralling in a haze of violence induced by what?
Nothing?
Alcohol?
Brewing hate or brewing... what?
"So that's the only reason you're here? Because we 'need' you? Because we could find another guy to sing the fucking songs."
"You know that's not true."
"Isn't it? We all have our fans, Matthew. We all have our own personalities, our own skills, and we don't need you to back that up. Sure, sales'd drop but at least we wouldn't have to put up with your pussy shit."
"My pussy shit? Right, I get it... just because I don't join you on your binges, just because I only get drunk off tour, just because I stay fucking true to my girlfriend I'm a pussy? Well at least I'm not a cheap whore."
"A cheap whore? Nice, Shads. Real original. At least I'm living my life! She's got you tied down. You're not the man you were. You're not the friend I first made."
"Most of us grow up. I suggest you try it sometime."
There was no supervision. Everyone was equally intoxicated, equally high. They were nothing more than a bunch of over-sized, painfully confused little children. There was no one to guide them, no one to tell them what to do... so they did that naturally programmed thing; they let it be.
Turning backs and shaking their heads, glazed eyes closed for a moment of deep, simple breath if only to bring together stained composure. People considered as friends sharing questioning glances only to shrug tattooed shoulders and resort to teenage antics. Leave them together. A locked door. A darkened room. Have them sort it out.
And even in such immaturity there was sense and carefully honed psychology - they would be forced to figure it out. Because it was physically impossible to dwell for too long in such darkness, in such agony. Relationships would be healed because they would have to be.
"Shit..."
"Pull it the fuck together."
Slam.
Slam.
Slam.
The musky air of the basement was filled with alcohol tainted breaths and that damp that seemed to always linger in such rooms, no matter what building, what country; always the same murky scent of mould and mildew, the dark entwining thickly with the smells to produce the most over-powering of atmospheres. It seemed to cling to their clothes and their hair and their skin, forcing them up off the steps on which they had been bickering, shoving them into some form of action.
Two well built shoulders crashed into the thick wood of the door in perfect synchrony. As easy as melodies wove with vocals on a stage, as chords melded with lyrics on paper. Something so natural that wasn't formed over time, but rather through instant knowledge and recognition of kind.
Bruises would be left, hidden beneath the deep colour of inked lines, broken blood vessels leaking their load atop the surface with every perfectly timed collision, though it were useless. Even their combined, hefty weight was nothing in comparison to dead bolts and steel hinges.
Two lithe backs slid down that unrelenting door, two sighs unravelling through that filthy air, meeting in a soft join of breath influenced by the same substances; two shots of Jack, three of vodka, two more Jack, a few rums, then as many beers as was physically possible, followed by that final, coma-inducing glug of Snakebite. A careful routine honed over a decade.
"I hate being down here..."
"Me too."
"Did you just agree with me?"
Hazel eyes turned to staring brown for the first time in response. "Reluctantly."
Black polish was chipped to bitten nails upon the calloused fingers currently pinching the plastic stirrer, jade focused on the swirl of liquid as he moved the fluorescent blue through it. "So, what do you think that was about?" Slightly slurred words holding the most subtle of lisps were uttered as that bleary gaze was finally raised to the opposite male.
"All I caught was a lotta swearing. Seemed kinda... I dunno... baseless to me? Something like that."
"Apparently Brian's been sleeping around and Matt doesn't like it," the live-in porn star beneath Jimmy's arm piped up, carefully batting dark lashes as she sipped at the SoCo held in her hand.
Four sets of eyes turned to her simultaneously; blue, green and two of identical brown, all possessing a perfectly quirked eyebrow and inducing nothing but a shrug from the petite female as she explained.
"I listen between the lines."
"Why are you always so difficult?"
Those eyes were still fixed together, the connection building with every second of contact, the invisible thread between them strengthening as it gathered layer and layer of the emotion falling thick and fast with every hazy breath through parted lips.
"It's easier that way."
"You know that makes no sense, Shads."
"That's exactly what makes it easier."
"You're drunk."
"And you're any better?"
"At least I speak my mind when I'm drunk."
"So do I, but my mind doesn't make sense."
Chocolate gaze was rolled, the connection faltering, but only tearing at the seams just the slightest as he dropped his head back against the wall, staring irritably through the darkness. It still lingered. Unspoken, unnoticed, but there, thriving on the fading anger and developing calm.
"Always the fucking poet... always writing the riddles and speaking the rhymes. Why don't you just be blunt about yourself for once?" the guitarist eventually demanded, long fingers tapping on the concrete step beneath him, the same step currently sending damp through the seat of torn jeans.
Silence, but thoughtful silence this time. A true pondering on frustrated words as hazel remained fixed to the spot, neck still craned and head turned as he scanned the lines and curves of Synyster's silhouette.
"You start."
Eyes snapping back to eyes.
"What?"
"You start. Be blunt with me. I won't even interrupt."
This forced a smirk across Brian's lips. That was the exact problem... Matt never interrupted. He just listened and then he spoke, a habit that enabled him to disguise himself so well, to cushion his words and pad his demands to the point of blank innocence, never displaying the man beneath the glaze.
"You're a fucking zombie. You follow your routine. Two hours of vocal, 45 minutes of cardio, two protein shakes, three hours of writing. What else is there? The fifteen minute run? The hundred pushups? Everything's facts and figures and numbers and names. Even when it comes to the band, to your friends. Syn Gates instead of Brian fuckin' Haner. M Shadows instead of Matt Sanders. 500,000 records, three new tracks already put down for album number four --"
"That's not true."
A raised brow along with that curling smirk. "You said you wouldn't interrupt."
"I lied."
"What? A moment of spontaneity from the robot?"
"You're being fucking harsh, Syn."
"Shut the fuck up with the 'Syn' and the 'Synyster' and the 'Gates'. What's my fucking name, asshole?"
"Don't..."
"What's my fucking name?"
Silence. A stare. Hazel darkening, narrowing.
"You're being a bastard, Brian."
"Why the hell would that bother Matt?" The question was supposed to be of casual interest. She had wanted it to come out like that so deeply, but in her eager attention she had failed, the query only succeeding in sounding mildly desperate, fake, pleading, the slight lift of eyes truly betraying her.
"Search me. Maybe he's fed up of finding his guitarist's skanks passed out in his own tour bus."
"Or of the racket every. single. freaking. night..."
"The panties in the refrigerator may have been the last straw."
"Why were they there anyway?"
"Bri said 'the cold helps stimulate' or something."
"That's pretty ew."
"Yeah."
"Should keep that in mind, though..."
"Yeah."
Three girlfriends could do nothing but stare at this ludicrous banter between guitarist and drummer, blinking made-up eyes at the constant switches from concern to curiosity, from disgust to perversion.
But then again those few terms summed up the entire scenario. They cared and they didn't. They wanted to know while wanting to remain naive. Maybe they wish they hadn't locked two of their best friends in a basement on New Year's Eve, maybe it was the best decision they had ever made.
It was all 'if's and 'but's and 'because's. There were no positives and no negatives. Only neutral unsurity. Because really, the only answers would come when they were brave enough to slip that lock and have the shit beaten out of them by two muscular and rather unforgiving men. And even then, would forgiveness come soon enough for answers to be retrieved? That window of raw vulnerability was brief, and if they were angry enough... possibly non-existent.
Such thoughts made the group's selfish sides scream with frustration, whereas in all reality the act was performed for their band mate’s joint good. To fix something truly broken.
"It's your turn."
"What?"
"You started the whole thing. I told you what's on my mind. Now it's your turn to spill. C'mon," a finger was tapped gently to the larger man's temple, "what sorta bollocks is goin' on inside there?"
A shuddering sigh, so wise and so weary for a man of such few years, fingers tugging at the frays of the pants of another, because that easy intimacy was still so present in Matt's thoughtful absence. His mind was too far away to realise that this was no longer appropriate, that a thumb brushing to bare, carpet-reddened skin and two fingers teasing straying cotton caused the body they belonged to tense with a frown.
It was only when those muscles tightened that the knowledge came with a downward pull of his lips, hand quickly withdrawn like the contraction had scolded him.
"Being down here, locked in a basement on New Year's fucking Eve while my friends, family and fiancé party the night away upstairs should make me want to beat my head against a wall..."
"...but?"
"But..." a deep breath, "being with you... even if we're just fighting... it's not so bad, yanno?"
"Yeah. I know."
Valerie was biting her nails. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were actually her real nails... but they were some form of plastic or vinyl, French polished and glistening, though now being gnawed by pristine porcelains. And even that, even that right there wouldn't have been quite so terrible if it weren't for the words that settled alongside the nervous habit.
"Maybe we should open the door."
Twin snorts, Zacky and Jimmy staring at her as though she had grown a penis out of her nose.
"Suicide mission. Total fucking suicide mission."
"No... I could do it, they wouldn't hurt me."
"Neither of them would speak to you for a month. You know how stubborn the bastards are. Just leave them be until they calm down."
"They could have calmed down already."
"No, we'll know when they've calmed down..."
"How?"
"Our secret."
If looks could kill the band mates would be rather attractive corpses as the blonde stormed away in a flurry of thrown down hands and a stomped stiletto heel, though the boys couldn't bring their selves to care, instead laughing with each other over the top of the high table, from their positions perched on equally high stools.
"Yanno what the main problem with people is?" The drummer asked once he had recovered, a practiced and universally understood hand gesture indicating a second round of shots to the passing bar maid as he watched the younger gulp down his alcohol, receiving nothing but a vaguely curious shrug.
"They're all too similar. Look at girls... all pissy and wanting their own way. And Matt and Bri - they're two very muscley peas in a handsome pod. They're stubborn and angry and frustrated and total liars."
"Liars?"
"Yeah. As in... they never tell each other the truth. Maybe if they did there'd be some understanding."
"But they're friends, they don't... I... friends don't do that."
"Don't be so naive, Zack. They lie because they are friends."
It was surprising how quickly two forms could sober up from such a limitless supply of alcohol after a fight and the chill of a winter basement. Because oh yes, they were sore, and they were cold, but such trivial things were being tended to. Matt, being the only of the pair with covered knees was kneeling on the step in front of his not-quite-friend, not-quite-enemy, a licked tissue in hand ('ew man! Seriously! Fuck! At least let me lick the thing myself!') as he dabbed at the wounds he himself had inflicted.
Slightly damp tissue touched at the tears in tan skin, crimson immediately seeping through the white of fragile material, staining and flowing, spidering out in the most grainy way, seeping colour through monotony. Matt was watching the path of his hand as Brian watched his eyes, two intense gazes both intense for different reasons, proximity daring, breaths felt with winces and hisses.
"You're such a bitch when it comes to pain..."
The vocalist was so busy making such witty comments that he hardly noticed the skilled hand sliding down and pinching sharply at his bruised ribs, the ensuing surprise and pain having him jumping and yelping, only bringing a knowing little smirk across thin lips.
"I know, right?"
So solitary. That was the only possibly explanation from the very aura radiating from the two men. An entire party was going on outside, noise and bustle flowing through a wall, a hall, a second wall, a door... it showed life and joy and excitement at the new year blossoming, at 52 more weeks of sex, drugs and rock n roll. A new album, a new tour. More months of having only each other.
Solitary.
Alone.
Because even through everything outside in the end it was only them. Surrounded by fans, faced with an audience, it was just them on stage. In a bus, suffocated by their band mates, it was just them pressed shoulder to elbow battling the hell out of each other on their shared and endlessly protected X Box.
In the end, amongst everything, it was just a wall, a hall, a wall and a door. It was just being hidden from a party, alone in a basement, with just the dark and smiles for company.
Smiles and touches and murmured apologies attempting to make up for things said in haste. Things meant but... not meant to be heard.
They may have been the truth but sometimes the truth wasn't right.
Tears were falling thick and fast, smearing eyeliner and mascara down perfect cheek bones, alcohol induced hysteria as twin clung to twin with phlegmy sobs. "I just want to kiss my fiancé on New Year's Eve! Is that too much to ask?"
Gathered in a private room away from the festivities the central group stared on at the unabashed display, some slumped against walls for desperate support, others swaying softly on their heels with glass in hand. The white shoulder of Michelle's dress was stained by the flow of make-up, much to her evident distaste, blonde locks awkwardly patted as an answer for the question was never quite given, forcing the distraught female to sit up straight, pushing her sister away, her tissue thrown down to the carpeted floor of the overly expensive hotel.
"Well?!"
"When they're in they're right mind, they'll be allowed out!"
"We're treating them like prisoners. They're grown men."
"Did you even see them in there? They weren't acting like grown men. They were scrapping like teenagers. They can stay down there until they fucking grow up."
"Who made you boss? It's their party in as much as it is yours!"
By this time Val was squaring up to a relatively sober Johnny, the mohawked bassist doing nothing but sighing in that distressingly calm way before turning on his heel and walking out in search of another Jagermeister.
"He's so...so..."
"Insufferable."
"What?"
"You're insufferable."
"And yet you suffer."
"I do."
"Why?"
"Because it's worth it."
"For what? The cash? The fame?"
"For this."
"For being sat in a basement with your vocalist clinging to you?"
"For being sat in a basement with my best friend clinging to me."
"What are you doing?" was the question quietly delivered as the younger man (though by what? Two dozen days?) pulled away, sliding down the zipper binding the leather of his jacket to his bulky form, a dark gaze lifted as he shrugged out of the garment.
"You're fucking frozen."
A strong hand dropped to his bicep in warning, preventing the jacket from sliding down his arms as Brian's soft stare turned into a glare. "Oh no you don't. Don't get all fucking chivalrous on my ass."
"Why not?"
"Chivalry's all about 'women and children get the life jackets' and all that bullshit. I'm not either, so keep it."
The anger there was dampened, dimmed by something that Matt couldn't quite hear, couldn't quite see, as much as he searched and scanned those stubborn features. "Then again maybe it's just about me being warm, my friend being cold, and me being able to fix that?"
A shame, really, that they were both so persistent. Life would be a lot easier if at least one of them were more willing to cave. But that pride was there, shining brightly, blinding them and guiding them from any form of logic as they glared at each other from their spot on the step.
"And why do you think you're warm, motherfucker? Because you have a jacket, and if you give me said jacket you're going to be cold," he explained like one would educated a kindergartener, all thorough pronunciation and slow intonation. "One of us is always gonna be cold. And I don't see why it should be you - I'm your equal. Remember?"
Matt had no vocal response to this, instead preferring to rather gruffly shrug Brian's hand off in a fit of a beaten man, moving to pull the coat off before hesitating in brief thought. Something flashed through his eyes as the black leather was removed very intentionally, thrown to the step in front of them, leaving the singer in nothing but a button down shirt. It was a silent submission, the jacket symbolising more than simple clothing.
"Then I'd rather we both be cold."
"I love the irony in this," Jimmy muttered as he watched his rhythm section companion bound around the room like he was on crack.
Which, on further thought, he probably was.
"He's all 'oh my god, they should totally grow up!', then he's all...like...like..."
"Johnny?" Zacky supplied helpfully, murmuring around the straw perched between his pierced lips. The entire gathering was yet to see him without a drink in his hand, the tipple varying in colour all through the night - who would've thought the hardcore little musician would opt for the cocktail side of the bar every time? - but hey, he had chipped in for his fair share of the expenses, therefore he could drown his nonexistent sorrows for as long as he so desired.
"Exactly! Johnny!"
Really, with the easy commentary passing between them you wouldn't think they were both sat upon a struggling female in an attempt to keep her away from releasing a pair of highly charged beasts.
Frustration was setting in. Brian could see it in the way Matt began to fidget. That was always the key tell tale sign, when he began to squirm, tug at the frays of his clothing, scratch at a tattooed forearm, then look around the room. It was a perfect subconscious pattern that the guitarist not only analysed too deeply, but in turn knew off by heart.
"I can't believe they'd do this to us..."
"I can."
"How so?"
"Because they did do it to us?"
"Stop being so fucking smart."
"One of us has to be."
"Then why don't you work on getting us out of here?"
"How the hell am I meant to do that? It's not like we could call them or --"
"Sometimes I worry about the intelligence of our band."
"Yeah. Ya'd think logic would kick in soon enough for them to realise Matt is actually in possession of that rare little treat known as a 'cell'..."
"But their stupidity is our salvation. You know they only think when their sanity crawls back with its tail between its legs."
"Mhm, but it's taking them a long time. Must've been pretty bad."
"Nyah, they're just drunker than usual."
The conversation ended right there, the snap of their necks to the side enough to bring them whiplash, eyes meeting with something resembling utterly incredulous shock.
Simultaneously they swore and dove for the jacket, two broad bodies moving in the same direction leading to a few bumps and Matt's collision with the wooden banister, only earning Syn a cuff around the head before hands still recovering from the bane of alcohol eventually fumbled for the cell in the pocket.
Matt flipped the gadget open, flashing his friend one of those trademark, truly devasting grins as the reception bar crept up, thumb reaching for speed dial one --
"Wait."
That hand was on his bicep again, the simple contact immediately freezing his movements, leaving him only able to look up with an expression of quizzical annoyance.
"Look at the time," Syn explained, jabbing a surprisingly slim finger to the glowing display.
11:59.
One minute.
Not even that.
"They won't even hear us. And even if they did they wouldn't get us the fuck out on time to do anything worthwhile at that God-forsaken hour."
"So leave them to have their little moment?"
"Exactly."
"They locked us in a basement."
"We deserved it."
5...
"One fight. Just one. We never fucking fight, we need at least one vent in a blue moon."
4...
"Doesn't make it okay, Matt. It doesn't make it any better or any easier."
3...
"I hate this feeling."
"What one?"
2...
"Like there's something in the air. Like its there... and I can feel it but only you can see it, but you won't explain. You won't warn me."
"What's the fun if you're warned?"
"But it's not a bad something. That's what scares me most. It's a good feelin --"
Everything exploded in a true frenzy of riotous noise, party poppers sending glitter fireworks spiralling through the air, cut foil shapes raining down on them amid a cacophony of singing, shrieking and general congratulations.
Good job for getting through the year.
Congratulations at surviving through this shitty existences.
2006 has been pretty fucking great.
Heres to the next endless period of crap.
Hugs were delivered, warm bodies colliding, clinging in laughing embrace as the clock set with such grandeur above the fireplace chimed with every jolly swing of the pendulum beneath.
Such classical, ancient beauty was stained with modern chaos, the glamour of the hotel perverted with miniskirts and ripped jeans, cocktails and Doritos, wandering hands and wandering tongues.
Though in the end, across distances of time, they were the same as the people who celebrated last year, last decade, last century. Simply happy to be alive and happy to be happy as cheeks were kissed and the joyous songs near deafened.
It was all influenced, you see. Influenced by the never ending intoxication. By the drinks flowing freely from the bar and the touches and glances stolen. By the anger of bust-ups and the exhilaration of omg, a rock star’s party.
That's all years and months and days came down to - the exhilaration. Because that was the side that was trivial. The adrenaline could be so easily effected by such useless things because it didn't matter. Because the stuff that did was so deeply programmed that it couldn't be affected by any amount of Jack and Coke.
Things like New Year's kisses in hotel basements.
Warm lips silenced words in a kiss so immediately accepted that Brian almost froze from the surprise. Eyes watched eyes in shock for the briefest of moments before instinctively falling closed, minds lulling into the languidity of the action, hands tentatively raising to cup a perfectly angled cheek and lace in too-short hair.
Both men refused to start on such negative ground. Refused to have a life long friendship tainted on this new slate so early on. They wanted the claim in 365 days that the year had been amazing, perfect even. That they hadn't fought once, that wounds didn't matter.
So apology was needed. Unspoken 'sorry's in a tongue soothing a bust lip, in fingertips caressing sore ribs. In friendship and the things gathering in the air, in things thick and dark and fine and bright though tingling with the electricity passing between two men of such differences and similarities. It stole at breath and shivered at very bones, leaving them gasping and panting though refusing to pull away, instead doing the exact opposite, denying and satisfying their bodies simultaneously as they blanked out the need for oxygen and instead pressed closer, kissed deeper, all tongue and heat, and shared taste tainted with too much whiskey.
Because right now, in that moment, the hours of dark and cold and arguing were gone, replaced and erased with the warmth of strong arms and a skilled tongue. Pointless fights holding no base, instead existing only to vent the pinicky little trivialities that built over the time of a too-easy friendship vanished, disappeared, leaving the air clean for something new to build and develop among touches and lips and tangled hands, pressed hips and a squirm into a lap. Clinging and desperate and groaning and hardly pulling away, even as a door swung open and a woman wished she had listened to two highly intoxicated and rather heavy musicians.
Happy New Year, Sweethearts ♥