*Day Three*
Jesus fucking Christ. AJ stared at the mirror in front of him, seeing himself for the first time in three days. There was no other word to describe it. He looked like shit. God above, he felt like shit too. Like he’d been hit by a fucking Mack truck and left to rot in the sun.
The bags under his eyes almost looked purple. For the amount of sleep he’d gotten the last 36 hours it should have left him feeling rested. Instead he was left with this feeling of exhaustion, but was unable to go to sleep. That left him with the bags and the bloodshot eyes. Even his nose was red.
When had he gotten so skinny? A month shouldn’t have shown this kind of weight loss. But he’d had to pull hard and tie off the strings on his sweats just to keep them on him. That had been an interesting task. After stepping from the shower he had attempted to dress and found that his hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Instead of calling Brian for help he’d stood there and tried until he managed to get it done. Then he’d just stood in front of the mirror, where he was still at now, staring at his reflection.
Just standing there he could count his ribs in the mirror. Not perfectly, but still. Where was the definition that he’d used to be so proud of? The abs that he’d worked to gain? Where had the body gone that Brian had used to run his hands over and sigh in sheer appreciation? It was all gone now. He was skin and bones. He was surprised that Brian didn’t gag at the sheer sight of him. Who wouldn’t? He looked absolutely disgusting.
There was a soft knock on the bathroom door. “Age? Baby?” Brian called out softly.
AJ stared at his reflection a moment longer, not even noticing the scowl on his face or the way he was itching at his arm again. God, if he could just sneak out of here for like an hour; hell, even fifteen minutes! He could go get a drink to take the edge off. It would make the rest of this easier to deal with.
He felt like he was going crazy. A big part of him knew that he shouldn’t touch alcohol or coke, but the other part of him was craving it like it was air. He knew that it would only make things worse in the long run, but at the same time it would make him feel so good and it would take away these horrible feelings.
But one thought held firm in his mind. The only thing that kept his trembling body from bursting out of the bathroom and making a beeline for the door. Brian. He couldn’t lose Brian. If he broke down and did these things then he would. There was nothing in the world that was worth losing Brian.
“Alex?”
AJ jumped. He had been so lost in thought he’d forgotten that Brian was outside the door. With a wry look at his image in the mirror he called out “Come in, sweetheart.”
The door opened almost hesitantly. Brian looked around the edge before he stepped inside. He shut the door behind him. “Is everything ok?” He asked.
“Oh peachy fucking keen.” AJ snapped before he could stop himself. With a sigh he closed his eyes. “Sorry, Bri. Sorry.”
Hands took hold of his, grasping tightly. “It’s ok, baby. Your temper has never scared me before. I don’t see it starting now.”
“I don’t like snapping at you, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again. I hate this, Bri. I hate feeling like this. I hate thinking that all I need is one drink and I’d be ok. I hate the way my brain rationalizes wanting to go snort a line. I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this.”
“Oh, baby.” Brian moved forward to embrace him. He easily wrapped his arms around AJ’s waist. “You’re so much stronger than you know. You can do this, I know you can. I have faith in you.”
“I can’t find my faith right now, Bri.” AJ allowed himself to bring his arms up behind Brian’s back until he was gripping Brian’s shoulders. He buried his face in the curve of Brian’s neck. Being in Brian’s arms, holding on to him this way, was helping him relax some. The tremors moved from just his hands and ran through AJ’s small frame.
Brian didn’t protest to the tight grip. Indeed, he wrapped his arms tighter around AJ’s waist so that they were shoved against one another. “I have enough faith for both of us, baby.”
Together the two stood in the bathroom and held on to one another, each praying for things to turn out ok.
*Day Seven*
The cravings were down to a manageable level. AJ sat on the patio of their hotel room, smoking a cigarette with a hand that still trembled too much for his liking. It had been a big day for him, albeit a hard one, and right then all he wanted was the quiet of the patio and the smoke in his hand.
Since he had pushed past the hardest of the withdrawal symptoms and had made it a whole week clean, he and Brian had decided that it was time to make a few changes. So they’d done some research and found that there was a rehab center not far from where they were. Not only did it do inpatient, but it did outpatient as well. So they’d discreetly gone down there, under disguise, and AJ had spent half of his day talking with a counselor and then attending an AA/NA meeting.
It had been beneficial. He couldn’t deny that. Inpatient wasn’t the way to go for him, but he could handle going twice a week for the next three weeks until they had to leave again for tour. Once out there, he knew he would find himself meetings to attend wherever he went. Brian would help him do it. The meeting had been surprisingly easy to be at, and very helpful. It was a good feeling to be surrounded by people who had fucked up like he had, and were still going strong from it.
Nick had wanted to go with them but Brian had felt that all three of them would attract too much notice. So Nick had waited back at the hotel and Brian had gone with AJ. Honestly, AJ could have gone alone, and he probably would have. But, neither he nor Brian felt it was quiet safe to let him out alone quite yet. He wanted to get a few more weeks under his belt before he started to get confident.
But one week was still doing good. AJ was starting to find that slight confidence inside of himself. He’d made it a week. He could make it more. He could do this. With Brian by his side, and Nick willing to help so much on the friendship side, he had a support system built around him. Yes, things were going to work out. He was determined.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nick and Brian sat in the living room, watching discreetly out the window as AJ sat and smoked. The door was closed so they couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear them. It was the system they’d worked out with AJ. They didn’t want to leave him alone, but he didn’t want to always feel suffocated. So he would head out to the patio and drink his coffee and smoke and they would stay inside, watching him without hovering over him. So far it worked out.
They were taking advantage of their privacy to discuss how things were going and how they were going to go.
“He did really well out there today. A little jittery, but he talks to them and he went to the meeting.” Brian said softly. His eyes never left AJ. Even just the back of his head was fine for him to look at. “I think that on the addiction side of things he’s starting to get better. Starting to feel better, you know?”
“He looks like it. Some of the cravings seem to have gone down and he freaks out less and less.”
“Yeah. He sleeps a little better too. Less nightmares.”
Something in Brian’s tone caught Nick’s attention. He looked away from AJ and over to Brian. There was some emotion on Brian’s face that Nick wasn’t quite sure what it was. “Bri? Are you ok?” he asked him bluntly. He knew Brian and knew that this was something Brian wanted to talk about, whether he was going to admit it at first or not.
A small flush lit Brian’s cheeks. “It’s just…relationship issues, Nick.”
“Ok.” Nick waited for a minute before he realized that Brian wasn’t going to say anything else. Ok, he was going to have to pry this one out of him. One, because Brian was his friend and he needed to help him; Two, he had promised AJ he would help take care of Brian. “Bri, I’m not going to flinch away from talking about your relationship with Age. So you’re two men? So what? Theory is still the same. I bitch at you about the problems I have with my girlfriends. Unload on me, it’s what I’m here for.”
The light in Brian’s eyes glowed for a moment with his usual humor. Though he kept his gaze on AJ, his fingers trailed down to play with the hem of his shirt. Seeing that made Nick grin. Well, it looked like AJ was starting to rub off on him. Everyone knew that when AJ was nervous or bored he would roll the hem of his shirt between his fingers. So much so that he wouldn’t buy shirts if their fabric didn’t feel right to him.
In the silence of the room Brian started to speak. At first it came out sounding more as if he was talking to himself than anything else.
“He’s pulling back from me sometimes and it drives me crazy. I can almost see the wheels in his brain turning this way and that. I can see him thinking that all of this will have changed how I feel about him. He’s so afraid all the time that I’m going to walk away once he’s better. That I’m only doing this because I can’t turn away a friend who needs me. He really thinks he’s fucked up so much that I wouldn’t want to take him back.”
Brian paused and ran a hand through his hair. Tears were standing in his eyes. Right then there was nothing that Nick could say, so he kept quiet and simply waited. Sure enough Brian continued.
“He thinks I’m sacrificing my own pain for his. That I’m pushing what I feel aside to take care of him. But he doesn’t understand. Yes, I hurt right now. I hurt that he’s hurting. I hurt that I didn’t try to help him sooner. But more than anything else, I feel pride. Pride and love. I’m not sacrificing anything. I would do this a hundred times over, and gladly, just to keep him in my life. How could I hold his mistakes against him when he’s doing everything he can to fix them? I mean, does it make sense to you, what I’m saying here?”
With a smile, Nick nodded at him. “Yeah, it does. I know how you think, though. That’s just the kind of guy you are, Rok. You forgave him, so you’re letting it go and moving on.”
“Exactly!” Brian exclaimed.
Before he could continue on, Nick held a hand up, asking for silence. He wanted to make a point here before Brian said anything else. “Like I said, that’s how you think. But that’s not how AJ thinks. Step back from things as a couple for a minute and look at it as a friend. He hurt you. You can argue semantics all you want, but in the end it boils down to that, right?”
“Yes.” Brian admitted.
“To him, that’s all that’s going to matter. How he did it or why he did it or any other parts of it aren’t going to count. In his world what counts is that he hurt you when he was supposed to be loving you. To him, can’t you see how he can’t get past that? AJ, despite all his temper, has always hated hurting people he cares about. Too many people hurt him, I think. Now he’s here and he’s going through hell with the withdrawals and the sobering up and all that, and he’s snapping at us left and right and going from depressed to ok to sulky to angry and back again like crazy, and to him can’t you see how he would think that he’s still hurting you?”
“But he’s not! All that stuff, it’s not my Alex. I don’t take offense to any of it.” But Brian was speaking a little slower and there was a thoughtful look on his face. Seeing that, Nick knew he had to rpess his advantage while he had Brian thinking about things.
“He takes offense to it, Frick. Look at it like you’re him. Over and over he’s hurt you, one time right after another. Even as he’s trying to get better he’s still hurting you. What good is he right now? He’s shaking and swearing and craving all the time. He feels like a walking nerve ending, as he put it the other day. I heard him mumbling to himself about the weight he’s lost and the shagginess to his hair and all this stuff. Right now he feels like a failure, but worse than that, he feels like he’s less of a man.”
Just as he’d known it would that last comment threw Brian off. His eyes grew confused as his gaze snapped to Nick’s face. “Less a man?”
“Well, sure. I mean, I haven’t heard any noises from y’alls room so it’s obvious you two aren’t getting your freak on at night. He’s become skinnier than ever, with these bags under his eyes that still haven’t faded and a tremble in his hands like an old man. Add on to that his hair looks all scruffy. Hell, he hasn’t dyed it in over a month. His clothes hang off him and he has all the marks from where he scratched a little too hard. He probably feels like the most unattractive thing in the world. So on top of feeling like he hurt you, he’s going to feel like it wouldn’t matter anyways because you’d never want him.”
Brian sat back in his seat and simply stared at Nick. Everything his friend said made total sense. How could he not have seen it before? It was exactly the way that AJ would think. Nick had summed him up perfectly.
He looked at his friend and couldn’t resist raising one eyebrow at him. “When the heck did you get so smart, Nicky boy?”
“Shit, Frick.”