Pesy One Shots

Waiting for the end, pt I

A/N: I promised I'd post something today, so here's the start of... something. 

😉

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     I sit on the bed in the tour bus, rolling the little orange bottle between my hands. The tiny tablets inside make tiny tablet noises as they gently collide with the sides of the bottle.

I feel the bus slow, and panic sets in, though you couldn't tell it by looking at me. I just keep rolling the bottle slowly, trying my best to look bored. I stash the bottle in the pouch next to my bed where it lives when I hear footsteps enter the bunk hall.

"Jes?" Paul calls, knocking on the wood of the bed above mine before he slowly pulls back the curtain.

"Time to go?" I ask evenly, even though it feels like the blood in my veins is flowing too fast and I'm wondering if I might just burst into pink, fleshy dust if it doesn't slow soon.

"Yep," Paul says. I can see that he's worried about me, can tell that my act isn't quite so convincing to those who know me well enough.

Paul opens his mouth as if he's going to say something else, but he closes it just as quickly and gives me a tight smile.

Ask me, Paul. Please.

He speaks again, but he doesn't really say anything of consequence.

"This'll be our last stop today, you'll be in the hotel tonight," he tells me. "Have you got your overnight bag ready to go?"

"Always," I remind him, shooting him the biggest smile I can manage with how torn apart I am on the inside.

"Alright, good," he says easily, and I can tell the both of us are missing the levity we used to share.

Gosh, are you ever going to stop making everyone around you miserable?

"All ashore that's going ashore!" The bus driver (a stout, Jolly man named Billy) calls.

I manage a little smile at his overenthusiasm for something so small as us leaving the bus for the night, and wonder if the reason I don't mind dad jokes is 'cos I didn't have a dad to make them. They're still new and fun and silly to me, even though they seem to bother everyone else.

"Be right there, Billy!" I call back, snagging my bag from under my bed and my skinny orange pills in their fat orange bottle from their place in the pouch. Neither of us will be staying in our places tonight.

Paul smiles at me, that same tight smile he's been giving me all day, and I pretend that it doesn't make me sad. Paul's been my manager for years, and even he's still a little afraid of me. It's not that I try to be scary- well, not anymore. In the beginning, I felt like the only options were to be scary or be scared. To either live plagued by nightmares or to become one. I was too young to realize at the time that, in becoming fearless, I was becoming someone to be feared.

I follow Paul out, giving Billy a little nod along the way.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Ginger," he says, giving me an over the top wink and tugging very gently at my hair.

"Until then, Billy-goat," I say, tugging at his beard and giving him a mock salute that has him proper laughing. I try my best to keep my smile pasted on, slipping on my sunglasses so no one can see my sad eyes. Billy finds joy in such silly, daft little things, and it makes me angry. Not at him, but at myself. At my circumstance. At what's made me this way, this sad and empty.

Paul leads me into the venue, and I fall in with the dancers. We're inside now, but I leave my glasses on for the time being.

Claud wraps me in a big hug as soon as he sees me, and I allow myself some comfort in his embrace.