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 Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 9:44 am
Two weeks back in the real world and Fletcher was finally starting to feel more like himself again. Like the man he'd been before Malaise had fractured the band. Before the drugs and the drink and the sleepless nights of trying desperately to forget the way the other man tasted on his tongue or the warmth and safety of two sets of warm arms holding him. His overdose had been his own doing; he'd bought the drugs, he'd tied the tourniquet and pressed the plunger on the needle. He'd taken responsibility for that, but he wasn't the only one to blame for the events that'd led up to that. If they'd still all been together.. It was in the past. He was trying to move forward. And over a hundred days sober now things were getting easier. Lacey's presence helped. God bless the drummer, and her tough love and support. She'd saved his life, he knew that, and now he wanted to do whatever he could to prove it was worth it. That the pain he'd put her through wasn't just a waste and he could drag himself out of that abyss and be more than what he'd been when she'd cried over him. He never wanted to make her cry again. Which was why he'd been working through his days alone while Lacey was at work, updating and expanding the equipment in the music room in her town house. He'd added another laptop loaded with the top of the line mixing software, a server with his extensive sound sampling database, and straightened up the wiring that criss-crossed the layered carpet floor so everything ran back to the walls and round to a central powering hub. It'd kept him busy, which was the point. He didn't like the places his mind wandered sometimes when he was alone in the house. But now the work was done. Everything set up and polished, the entire room cleaner and more organized than he'd ever seen it. So, with nothing left for him to do, he'd taken a seat at the keyboard. It'd been a while since he'd practiced, let alone really played, and his fingers work felt a little rusty. Scales to start, and a few songs written for simplicity, but when he'd gotten his barings again he'd settled into the doeful and calm notes of 'Hallelujah'.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 1:39 pm
She had not told Fletcher.
Not because she didn't think it was necessary (though she didn't) but because she had spent the last two weeks making sure that Fletcher didn't do anything shitty or stupid. Two weeks of keeping an eagle eye on his progress outside of the rehab facility. Two weeks of watching as he slowly poked at the keys of the keyboard, though he hadn't really played anything. Two weeks of monitoring his phone, because as much as she wasn't his parent or babysitter, he was living in her house and had agreed to her rules, and she was not about to watch him throw his ******** life down the drain again.
Two weeks of also sometimes letting him into her room, and into her arms because that was what they needed.
And now she was about to throw a wrench into all of it.
In truth, it was partially for selfish reasons, because they owed her, but it was also because a part of Lacey was afraid that if she didn't drag Malaise's a** back with her to the townhouse that he was just going to ******** right off again. And she was not about to let that happen, not when there was a chance of things not being completely shitty anymore.
The garage door opened as the car slid in and Lacey, still dressed in her things from the day before, got out. She was wearing a pair of tight waisted sweatpants and a cropped sleeveless top that showed off a rather nice stomach and a silver belly button ring. More bracelets were looped endlessly up her arms, and as she got out, she turned to look at the passenger, also climbing out.
"If you run off, I will rip that piercing off your d**k," she told him cheerfully. "Got it?"
She padded up the stairs, closing the garage door behind her with a press of the key fob, just in case he got any ideas, and then pushed open the door.
"Fletch?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 2:41 pm
Thankfully, Malaise had people to bring clothes for him - and more importantly, make-up, or this would have been even harder than it already was. He didn't let on that he was tense, verbally, but his leg had been bouncing in place all morning, and the itch in his wrist kept coming and going, a nervous tick that'd gotten him scolded by Lacey once already. He had a lot of little ticks. So sue him. It'd also been awhile since he'd had a hit, which wasn't really helping the ticks any. Some of this would've been resolved by the bottle in Lacey's purse, but he knew better than to ask for it. They were abiding strictly by the label on the bottle until he found a way to reclaim it, unfortunately. He was wearing sunglasses, which helped, although that was mostly for the headache that was still lingering. Not that it was killing him or anything - with the painkillers, it felt more like those 'I-slept-too-long' deals instead of like something had beamed him in the head. His side hardly even bothered him unless he moved the wrong way. The thing that kept getting him was the inevitable question he knew he'd be asked: why? Why had he freaked out and broken away, why had he cut all ties - and the worst thing was, he didn't really have an answer for them. Nothing they'd be satisfied with. Part of him hoped Fletcher would be angry, really wanted him to be. Anger was hard, but easier to swallow in the long run. He could take the bitter pills Lacey gave him, no matter how hard they were to swallow and no matter how much he fought them. Fletcher, on the other hand... he'd never seen Fletcher really mad at him. He wished he would be. Just this one. He hoped he was okay. He hoped Fletcher wasn't too broken. He hoped he could come back from what had happened to him. Even so, even if Malaise winced and made a face, the warning was super merited. The urge to run was high, and he'd fought with it when he'd woken up early that morning, staring over at Lacey and wondering whether or not he could really do this. But here he was. No take-backs. Never any take-backs. So, he followed.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 3:04 pm
The sound of the piano filled the house, but Fletcher didn't hear the door open or close but he did catch the sound of his name in Lacey's voice as she called to him and it had him glancing up from the keys briefly. Not that he could see her from where he sat in the house. The music room was tucked off from the living room, not in immediate view from the kitchen, and considering Fletcher didn't know who else ad walked in with the drummer that was probably for the best. He kept playing, the flicker of a smile brightening his face as he reached his favorite part of the song just by happenstance. It had a lot of tricky finger work, rises and falls that hit something deep inside him and brought back a little of that old excited fire. "I'm back here," he called back to her, eager for her to join him so she could see just what he'd been getting up to over the last week and change. He'd showed her some of the things he'd written while he'd been in the clinic, bits and pieces of songs that had bounced around his head on his better days that he knew had potential, and was actually looking forward to work on. It'd been a long time since he'd done any real composing, and it was high time he got back into it. And with Lacey's drumming and Lacey to add to it, he knew they could make something amazing. It wouldn't be the same as it had been, but they could make something new.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 7:19 pm
Malaise had fallen asleep holding her hand, and she had let it happen because she hadn't really wanted to pull away, and because they had both needed it. And in the car on the way over, as he'd jittered and hummed and tapped his fingers on the door and the middle armrest and everywhere else, she had reached over and put a warning hand on his thigh, since she couldn't turn and look at him.
She wasn't nervous. Lacey was not the sort of person who got nervous, or who tried to sugarcoat things. The only thing she knew was that she was going to do this the way that it felt to rip a bandaid off - doing it one full tear, rather than ease it off gently or take her time. That wasn't how things worked, not now. Fletcher was fragile, and Malaise was damaged, and she, Lacey, was stuck trying to manage the both of them, but if she was going to play the middleman, she was going to ******** do it at her own ******** house.
They needed each other. The past was not gone, but she was going to make them face it and learn from it even if it killed her.
It probably would. She kicked off her shoes in the kitchen, and reached behind her to take hold of Malaise's wrist, because she knew he would lurk behind her like a ghoul otherwise, or try to flee upstairs, and she was not going to let him just ******** off to Never Never Land.
Keys on the side table and her purse on the kitchen counter, Lacey pulled Malaise through the kitchen and into the living room, towards the music room. She could hear piano music, and the light tone to Fletcher's voice, and she hated she was about to ******** that up, but it was a necessary ******** up.
She dropped Malaise's wrist and pushed the door to the music room open more fully.
"Fletch," she said, and there was a warning note in her tone he would recognize. The door was still mostly shut, so at present, all he would see was her. "Two things. One - I need you to not panic. And I need you to not do anything stupid. And two..."
Lacey pushed open the door, letting it swing open to reveal the man standing behind it.
"We have a guest," she said, and there was a slight flat note to her voice; a hard edge that said she was not going to let anything break her.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 7:38 pm
Malaise was as grateful as he was annoyed by the hand on his wrist: annoyed because, again, some part of him defensively wanted to argue that he was not a child, and, honestly, it did inhibit his ability to flee, which made it much harder not to think about running away (oh the inner workings of the mind); grateful because it kept him tethered and present and it was something else to focus on, that undeniably soothing touch. It was like waking up from a dream, being back here in Lacey's space after everything, everything he'd said, everything he'd done, everything he'd never apologized for - he felt as comfortable as he did sick to his stomach, tasting bile on the back of his throat, and his hand had a stupid tremor to it that he couldn't seem to shake, which was irritating given that it was the one hand Lacey was holding onto. He didn't look good enough. He wasn't ready enough. He could hear Fletcher's voice, hear him striking the keys, and it terrified him as much as it called to him. He gave some resistance to Lacey's hand, but forced himself through it - cowardly even for him. Would he look sick? Would he be the same? He sounded the same. Malaise had never been much good with hospitals. He'd been calm the night before. More medicated than this. And he'd been in a private room, with only himself to worry about. No easing into it. He should have expected not, his heart pounding too much in his ears as he stood there, exposed, shoulders tight and eyes somewhat wide like a rabbit caught in a headlight. This was very like Lacey. And so then there he was, facing Fletcher, words abandoning him entirely as his mouth drew dry as a desert. What was he even supposed to say? - to do? Fletcher looked so tired. Yell at me. Hate me. Reject me.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:17 pm
He heard the door opening and lifted his head from the keyboard to flash a bright smile at the girl but it was a short lived thing, that warning in her voice cutting through the eagerness and pride to settle like a hard weight in the pit of his stomach. It made his fingers still, smile wilting around the corners and brows creasing as he looked up at where she stood in the door. And those indigo eyes were all for him, and didn't seem to take in the room or the changes at all. His immediate thought was what the ******** did I do wrong, and he wracked his brain, going over the last two weeks trying to pinpoint where he might have crossed a line or fell short of an expectation, but nothing was coming to mind. Thankfully, or maybe unfortunately, she didn't give him much time to worry over that possibility. Instead she gave him another one to chew on with very nearly the first requested being that he not panic. The second was not to do anything stupid. "O-okay..." It was wary, and he brought his hands down from the keyboard to tuck into his lap. The door he hadn't really realized she'd opened only wide enough to stand in it herself was pushed the rest of the way open and baby blues flicked to her left to see who had come with her, then widened as painful recognition squeezed his heart. A lump formed, moisture burning his eyes as he took in the dark haired singer staring wide-eyed back at him, but he couldn't talk, wasn't entirely sure if he was actually breathing or maybe just breathing too hard, too fast. And Fletch knew that every conflicting emotion he felt flew across his features unrestrained because he had an absolute s**t poker face. Shock, hurt, anger, shame, longing, love. Pulse thundering in his ears he looked back at Lacey, a dozen different questions written in the lines of his face. He didn't move, because he didn't quite trust what he'd do if her got up. The impulse to slam a fist into Mal's startled face was as strong as the one to run to him.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:00 pm
She was watching Fletcher more than she was watching Malaise, not because she thought more of either one, but because out of all of them, Fletcher was the most fragile in some ways - those ways including the bottle of narcotics currently in her purse. Lacey did not want another repeat.
She couldn't handle it. She couldn't even think about it.
She pushed the memory away, back into the box where it belonged and leaned against the door frame of the music room, her arms folded across her chest. They were a unit - all three of them, needing each other so much - but Fletcher and Malaise had known each other first. It was the two of them that had come together first - physically - and then they had found her and become what they were now. They had a connection that she did not share.
Sometimes she wondered if things would have been different if she did share it. Or if she'd started seeing Fletcher first. Or if things would have even turned out the way they had if things between herself and Malaise had never started, never caught fire.
She tried not to think about the disparity between everything, otherwise her head went in circles. Lacey's gaze flickered from one to the other, her expression carefully neutral, though she could see that all of the expectant happiness had drained from Fletcher's face. Malaise, on the other hand, looked as though he was going to be sick.
She hated every second of this. She hated them for doing this to her in the first place.
And she loved them.
"Okay, enough staring," said Lacey flatly. "New house rules. You are both going to be living here for now. This is my house, so you get to follow my rules. I own the air you breathe while you both stay here, and that's that. You listen to me and you don't pull s**t. Got it?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
"The point of all of this is for you guys to get. Your. ********. s**t. Together. There is no running away. There is no drugging yourself up so much you start seeing trees in dresses. There is no doing breaking anything in my place. You break it, I'll break your balls."
Her eyes were laser cut glass, chips of ice. Lacey's expression was hard.
"And most of all you are not going to <******** run away again. Either one of you."
Her voice was so laden with an explosion of terrible meaning behind it that it was a miracle the townhouse didn't erupt into flames. Lacey's tone brooked approximately zero argument, as though the first person to disagree with her would find themselves a pile of ash.
"You can sleep wherever the ******** you want. The guest bedroom's storage or some s**t, but there's a bed in there, or you can sleep down here. I told Fletch he can use the bathroom in there or the hall, mine is off limits to you both."
She didn't mention her bedroom. Her eyes were still fiery.
"Got it?" she asked, and there was something furious behind those two simple words.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:16 pm
At first, Malaise couldn’t tear his gaze away from Fletcher, desperately following the series of emotions that flashed across his face, scouring him for changes - eyes misting, though, for even if he did try and blink it away, he’d missed him, he’d missed him a lot, and ever since Lacey had said what had happened to him the day before - he still didn’t know what to say. What he had any place saying. If he even wanted to say anything now that he could at least see Fletcher was in one piece, if entirely too tired looking and drawn out. “Fletch.” Then Lacey laid out her conditions, and immediately, he felt like he’d walked into a trap. His face paled somehow more than it had been to begin with, and he stared at her, wide-eyed and a little slack-jawed. “Are you ******** serious? Lacey, I can’t ******** stay here, I - I’ve got a place of my own, I’ve got - I can’t just ******** leave my dogs, “ which probably sounded pathetic, except they were sort of the most precious things he’d had in his life without his band in it. Which he’d also just let. He had a feeling he was opening himself up to that one, and he sighed, hissed, and tried again. “And for the record, my s**t is plenty together.” Never mind he was already jittery. If he didn’t get home, then - <******** class="quote"> kuropeco
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:53 am
His name from Malaise's lips snapped his attention back to him like a rubber band snapping a wrist, it hurt, and he waited for for whatever might have followed, not sure what he expected or what he wanted from the other man. when he'd shut them out and fractured the band Fletcher had chased after him, tried to get him to come back, begged him to stay before Malaise had pushed him away and snapped at him. Even that hadn't been enough to keep the redhead from trying to reach him. He'd called, texted, even tried to get messages to him through their manager, but Malaise had ever received a single one of them they hadn't been returned, and not long after the number had been disconnected. At that point Fletcher would have done anything just to have the singer back, to piece back together what had fallen apart and fix it. Because even now he still didn't know why it had broken. That might have been why it had hurt so bad, still hurt. They hadn't gotten a real answer. But what did he want now? He didn't really have time to think about it. Lacey's patience wore out and her voice cracked into the silence like a whip, and it stung, made Fletcher flinch to hear it as he jerked his head back to her. "You are both going to be living here now." It struck like a tuning fork, and there was a flash of something conflicting in blue eyes as they flicked briefly to Mal and back again, happy, apprehensive, and even a little frightened. It was what followed that hurt the most, the anger in Lacey's voice cutting to the bone at with a reminder of former ******** ups. Guilt dropped to the pit of his stomach like a stone, rounding his shoulders and making him drop his gaze to his bare toes. Like a dog that'd been caught shredding the morning paper. And at the back of his mind, as she went over house rules for the second time in as many weeks, came the spike of not knowing if he'd just been banished from her bed. Malaise protested, bringing up Yogi and Bear and and insisting he had his life together, but Fletcher didn't say anything. He kept his eyes done, his hand coming up to curl into the t-shirt over his chest the only move he'd made since they'd appeared in that door.
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 6:13 pm
Lacey turned her head slowly to face Malaise, her arms folded across her chest, her expression as icy as glacier.
"As long as they don't pee on the rugs, you can bring them here," she said, in a tone that brooked approximately zero argument. "You lost your right to make your own choices when you <******** ran out on us."
She had almost said me, but Fletcher was in this too, and by the looks of it, about to pass out. Or possibly go to pieces, and she didn't want that to happen, not now, not when she'd finally gotten the two of them back in the same place again. Malaise had that trapped expression on his face and Fletcher was holding his shirt over his heart. Her eyes moved over him, briefly, head turned to watch him.
She knew they had s**t to work out. And she also knew she couldn't be the one to make that better. They had to want it on their own, and again, she felt that strange and unpleasant reminder; the dissonance that they had existed before she had, and had a world together she had not been a part of until later.
She pushed it aside, firmly, and with control and focused on the facts.They had shattered her world, had broken something crucial inside of her, and yet Fletcher was looking devastated and Malaise was looking like a ******** hot mess and insisting he was fine, and it was taking every ounce of strength Lacey had not to slap the s**t out of him just on principle.
Something on Lacey's face melted away. It was replaced by a cool, calm, and collected expression, something that was seen only when Lacey's anger had bubbled over so much that it was near boiling point. The two of them would have seen it before, but only rarely, and neither time had it been directed at either of them.
She took a step towards him, almost smiling. Then her hand shot out, lightning fast, and nails dug in violently hard in a place that no nails should ever be.
" 'Your s**t is plenty together?' " Lacey repeated lightly, and then, in a voice of utter fury, "Do you want to try that again, you ******** shitbag?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 7:07 pm
Malaise knew what he'd done to Fletcher - to both of them. If anything, maybe he just hadn't realized how deeply it would hurt - or how lasting it would be. Even then, seeing the brief, fluttering sign of something that might be happiness despite it all in Fletcher's eyes tugged at the singer's heartstrings. He wanted to touch him, but knew he shouldn't. Under most circumstances, that icy look would've been enough to make him stop whatever he was doing immediately - he'd gotten that one a few times, and it was usually more than enough to make him back down. In this case, though, he was cornered. He was feeling claustrophobic. Trapped. And somehow, it felt like some kind of skewed intervention that he'd never asked for. The thought of being away from his things, all the stuff that he had tucked away at home, all the drugs, the pills, everything, was immediately enough to make the craving for it a thousand times worse. "Bear's huge! You'd really be fine with him stomping around and making a mess again? And Yogi's going to bark again, and - " He tried to think of all the little things that might have driven Lacey nuts, even knowing she hadn't hated the dogs; the opposite, really. He could still remember sheepishly coming home with Bear in tow one day, with no warning, an apologetic grin on his face and fully expecting to get into trouble. The icy look was one thing: that second look, the one he'd never gotten before, should have been enough of a warning sign. Then, abruptly, she lashed out, grabbing him right where it ******** hurt, and his yelp resounded through the home louder than any dog barking would've. "<********>." Like David and Goliath, that was all it took to double him over, one hand reflexively going to his bruised and cracked side, sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he alternated between pleading and demanding that Lacey <******** let him go.
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:19 pm
The bickering, if you could really call it that given everything they'd all been through together and after, continued between Lacey and Malaise--protests about the dogs being in the house again, as if that was an actual argument. It wasn't--but Fletch was quiet through it all. Kept his head down as if not seeing either of them right that second would actually help. The more they talked the more it felt like the bolts were twisting away from the gears and all at once one of those bolts jumped the threads it'd been barely clinging to to go shooting off deeper into the mechanism as Lacey's hand shot out to grab Malaise by the front of his jeans. It was the older man crying out in pain that jerked Fletcher out of his own head and onto his feet, and he'd taken three big strides forward before he'd even really realized he'd moved. Then he stopped, because what exactly did he think he was going to do here? Mal deserved to hurt, an ugly, angry little voice in his head insisted on that as he winced at the sight of tanned fingers half hidden in the front of black pants. Despite that though, and despite everything else Fletcher really didn't want to see the man hurting. Call it lingering love, call it stupid, but it was fact. "Lacey," he said it softly, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm but it slid up to her shoulder as he stepped behind her, the other hand coming up to mirror the first, only for both to curl in until he was hugging her from behind, his chest pressed into her upper back. He kissed the back of her head, nuzzled his cheek into her her hair as he murmured, "Let him go, please." Not a demand, but a gentle request. And over those violet curls he lifted his eyes to Malaise.
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:35 pm
There was something morbidly satisfying about hearing Malaise screech in pain, bent double Lacey's unflinching grip. She could honestly have done more, but this seemed to be effective enough, because Mal was both swearing and shouting, obscenities ringing throughout the townhouse.
And he deserved it.
She was vindicated in getting a bit of her closed off, shut down anger out in a way that was both beneficial and appropriate, all things considered. And she would have kept holding on for much longer, at least until he retracted his statement about having his s**t together, were it not for Fletcher.
Fletcher, she hadn't heard move until hands were on her shoulders, and then sliding around her from behind, Fletcher's chest pressing against her back. His lips were in her hair, and his face was by her face, and she wanted to scream with the knowledge that they had hurt her and now they wanted her to stop hurting them even though this was only a fraction of what they had done to her.
She let go. Not because Fletcher had asked, though that was a part of it. The other part of it had to do with her own searing anger that was pulsing through her like a wildfire, sudden and hot, and her ability to keep everything tamped down and under wraps was beginning to fray at the edges.
She felt almost violently out of control of herself.
Lacey jerked herself out of Fletcher's grasp, stumbling a few steps forward towards the countertop. Her fingers dug around in her purse for a second and then she came out with the little bottle that had Malaise's medication in it, the warning label blaring out Narcotic: do not take with alcohol right on the front.
She almost dumped them all down the sink. Instead, she turned to stare at the two of them, her chest rising and falling, her eyes sparking, the bottle clenched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles were ******** you both," she said, and her voice was hoarse. "Get your s**t together. You ******** owe me, and you ******** - " There was a tremor in her voice, but no tears in her eyes, her expression icing over. She made a visible effort to control herself.
"I'm the one you two left," Lacey said, in a voice of deadly calm. "I'm the one you two ******** over. So you don't get a choice now. You don't get to decide you can do that to me again."
It wasn't entirely fair to include Fletcher in this, and a part of her desperately wanted to reach for him again, but she couldn't. Not when things were so royally screwed.
She couldn't handle being broken. Not again.
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 2:47 pm
Even in the situation he was in, the fact that Fletcher was kissing and nuzzling Lacey didn't slip past him - not that there was any reason to think they weren't still together. Malaise had been the one to cut out and run, after all. They were all involved, it would be their right to just carry on without him.
He'd honestly half-expected the band to go on without him, too. Selfishly, he hadn't wanted it to - had been relieved when it hadn't. But he knew it probably would've been a stronger project without him if they'd had half a mind to take it on. But they hadn't.
But they'd stayed together. Shared all this time together, and even knowing he'd kissed Lacey just the night before, he felt oddly twisted up about it. Stupid. It was stupid to be upset by that. Some more rational voice in the back of his head quipped that she'd been talking to Fletcher, too, when she'd talked about leaving, but...
Malaise met Fletcher's gaze when he lifted it, as grateful for his intervention as pained to see him so run down as pained to see him at all.
Then she was jerking away and it took effort for Malaise to remain on his feet, teeth gritted, but eyes locked on her as she rummaged in her purse for - oh. That. He swallowed hard at the sight of the pills, not because he needed them, exactly - although no, that was part of it - but it felt like she was showing him a sign. Whether Lacey knew or not, and maybe it was stupid to think she didn't, having dealt with Fletcher and how careless Malaise had sometimes been even before the end, but it felt like a sign. A visible stigma, an accusation, I know. And the quiver in her voice cracked him, quietly, both solidifying his belief and aching. The last thing he'd wanted to do was hurt her, even if it was the first thing he'd done and he knew it.
You two left.
So they hadn't carried on without him - that should really be the last thing he was concerned with. a*****e.
"Okay."
He held up a hand, sighing, and he would not apologize. Malaise rarely did. Rarely could. But at least he could make an effort.
"I'll do it. I'll stay. I'll - I'll try." Not with regards to staying, which he could, but he hoped she understood the deeper meaning without him having to lay it all out.
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