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A week later, Slipknot's tour had started and Mel had shoved herself into her work, doing everything she could to just not think about anything other than making sure Joey's setup was everything it needed to be and getting drunk after the shows.
Everyone in the band seemed wary of her, not just Mick and Joey. She wasn't sure what they'd told everyone else, but they'd clearly told them something. She suspected it was probably just Mick telling them to keep a watchful eye on her, which they did. She wasn't ever alone, ever. There was always at least one member of the band or crew seemingly magically at her side. Anytime she did try to go anywhere by herself, someone seemed to materialize out of thin air next to her.
Though she wouldn't have told anyone in a million years and was trying her best to play it off as annoying, she was thankful for it. The idea of being alone wasn't one she was overly fond of, and she knew damn well she was perfectly safe with any member of the band or crew. She didn't feel safer with anyone else, in fact.
She was jumpy, jumpier than she'd ever been in her life, but otherwise she thought she was probably coping fine given the circumstances. She didn't completely feel like she was falling apart, at least, which she tried her best to take as a good sign.
Sure, she was drinking more than normal. Sure, she cried herself to sleep almost every night. Sure, she was having terrible nightmares almost every time she fell asleep. Sure, she still felt small and broken and violated. Sure, she wasn't sure she'd ever feel her version of normal again. She just kind of assumed that was her new normal forming around her and went with it as best she could.
"Mel! Melanie!"
A loud whisper snapped Mel out of her sleep and her hands immediately flew up to protect her face and she cowered, curling into a ball as best she could in her small bunk on the tour bus.
"Mel, hey. Hey, it's me," Joey's soft voice whispered, and she could just make out the shape of his thin arm as he reached above her to flip on the small lamp on the ceiling. Light flooded the small space and illuminated him completely as he knelt on the floor outside her bottom bunk in a pair of sweatpants. His pale chest was bare save for the necklaces that he never took off and his hair was in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. Makeup streaked down his face from the night's show and he looked tired. She'd definitely woken him and guilt panged in her chest for it.
"I was having a nightmare, I think," she whispered, relaxing as she looked at his gentle face. He nodded, motioning to his bunk where it sat empty across from hers.
"I heard. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry I woke you," she told him, taking a deep breath and willing her hands to stop shaking. She'd had quite a bit to drink before going to sleep that night, hoping it would numb her and let her have a good night's sleep for the first time in weeks. Clearly, it hadn't worked.
"Don't be. It's okay," he said, shaking his head and making to stand. Mel reached for him, catching his wrist.
"Please don't go," she whispered, tears rising to her eyes for reasons she couldn't have even explained if she'd tried. Joey nodded and slipped into the bunk beside her, pulling the curtain closed behind himself.
She wanted to talk to him, to tell him all the poisonous thoughts that were ravaging her brain, she couldn't quite manage to. She felt exhausted suddenly, like she'd run out of fuel on the side of the road. His presence was comforting, having a warm body next to her that she knew wasn't going to hurt her, was only going to keep her safe, was apparently at least a step towards the comfort she'd so desperately been seeking.
It helped, of course, that Joey was fucking gorgeous. She'd always been attracted to him - even when she'd hated him, she wouldn't have been able to deny that he was genuinely beautiful. Everything about him from the soft blue of his eyes and gentle plumpness of his lips to his long dark hair and small frame - he had this otherworldly and almost ethereal quality about him that had always been oddly appealing to her.
Usually, especially lately, she tried not to let herself think about it, tried to ignore the pang she felt in her chest when he looked at her just the right way. In that moment, though, that moment of safety and quiet in her bunk on the moving tour bus, she let herself be consumed with it. She let herself fall into his gaze and get stuck there.
"Will you stay with me, Joe?" she asked him, snapping herself out of her reverie and blinking sleepily at him through her lashes. All of her fear had faded and she felt warm and pleasantly buzzed from the drinks she'd had. She could feel her eyelids growing heavier as Joey chuckled quietly.
"Of course I will, but if your brother finds me in here and snaps me in half for it, it's gonna be your fault," he mumbled, and she could tell that sleep was quickly overcoming him as well. She nodded, scooching closer so that she could bury her head in his chest. His arms snaked around her at once and his cool skin was soothing on her cheek.
"I'll make sure you get a really nice gravestone, don't worry," she joked quietly, her mouth feeling like it was full of marbles as she stood precariously on the precipice between awake and asleep. She felt Joey nod above her head.
"That's all I ask," he whispered, and she could vaguely feel him kiss the top of her head as she finally drifted off to sleep.
