My New Obsession [BxB]

Chapter Twenty-One- Tomorrow We'll Do It Again

 “Fuck.”

 I staggered over to the window and pulled the blind down sharply, shutting out the sunlight which was obnoxiously bright and shining straight into my damn eyes. I slowly raised a hand to my forehead and winced as my brain shook inside my skull with palpable pain. I struggled to open my eyes but then an even more difficult task approached; keeping them open. Every time one eye was okay the other dragged its lid back down and so on and soon I just sat down on the floor with my eyes shut.

 Well, I say I sat down on the floor. In reality, I sat down on a glass beer bottle. Oh, and someone’s arm.

 The beer bottle- which was full- toppled over and the neck snapped. I jumped up and yelped as the room-temperature liquid started to seep through my jeans. The person the arm belonged to rolled over. My eyes- now open- couldn’t detect who the person was, however, as they were lying under a pile of clothes which appeared to have been emptied out of Bryan’s suitcase. Now that I looked around, I could see that, in fact, everyone’s suitcases had been emptied onto the floor and the entire room was in absolute carnage.

 “Holy shit…”

 The mattress had been pulled off the bed and was on the floor. All of our suitcases had been emptied. Every drawer had been pulled out of the chest and were dotted around the place, as were the handles, all of which had been pulled off. The television was missing. George and Matt were lying on the mattress under a blanket of clothes, but I couldn’t see the others. I could only assume that they were hidden under the piles of crap that littered everywhere; clothes, alcohol cans and bottles, bathroom towels…

 The person whose arm I had sat on stirred again and he sat up; Bryan. I watched as he rubbed his eyes and looked around blearily. His eyes locked on me.

 “Oh. Morning.” he said blankly. I stared at him in bewilderment; the room was completely messed up and all he could say was ‘morning’…

 Something caught my attention, and I crossed the room to see that one of the walls had been completely doused in beer. One of the lamps had been smashed.

 “Bryan, d’you remember any of last night?” I asked him, my voice breaking slightly, hoarse.

 “Dude, in five minutes I won’t even remember this conversation…” he told me. I smirked briefly before frowning again.

 I was frowning a lot lately.

 Bryan stood up and took a step forward before tripping up and going headfirst into the chest of drawers. I winced at the noise. Then I saw what he had tripped over; Rich.

 “Dude, I’m sleeping here…” Rich complained. “…d’you think you could- holy mother of Hendrix, what the fuck happened to the room?”

 “We happened to the room…” I told him bluntly. I warily made my way over to the mattress and kicked it until George and Matt stirred.

 When we were all stood up and surveying the damage it took me a while to realise that Jake was missing. We went around the room, picking up all the clothes off the floor and dumping them onto the bed, but he wasn’t there.

 “He’s here, guys!” Bryan called from the bathroom, and we all rushed to the doorway.

 Jake was asleep in the bath.

 “Uh, what’s in the bath? Besides Jake, I mean?” Matt asked.

 “I think… it’s Jack Daniels. Someone filled the bath with Jack, or beer, or whatever- and now he’s asleep in it.” Bryan stated.

 There was a knock at the hotel door and I went to answer it. Eddie greeted me warmly, but then his eyes went over my shoulder and widened as they looked on the mess. He shook his head and I could tell he wanted to shout but he wasn’t that kind of person, so instead he helped us clear up, for which we were thankful. We piled all the clothes onto the bed before clearing up all the other rubbish and then we divided the clothes up according to their owner. Someone took the broken lamp downstairs to the reception and someone else found the TV in the wardrobe- thankfully, undamaged. We put it back in its place and plugged it in and me, George and Matt took our suitcases back into our room whilst Jake got cleaned up and dressed and then we all congregated back in their room.

 “Not again, please, guys,” Eddie told us. “if you’re gonna drink, whatever, just try not to wreck the rooms.”

 We nodded sheepishly and then he left the room, saying that he was going downstairs to get some food. Whilst none of us were hungry, they would probably have coffee down there, so we started to leave. Jake grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me back.

 “Aren’t you coming, Jay?” George asked, holding his hand out to me.

 “In a second, just need to have a word with Jake.” I told him. He dropped his hand and frowned but kissed me on the cheek before leaving and shutting the door behind him. I turned slowly to face Jake and smiled awkwardly.

 “Listen, dude, I don’t remember a lot of last night, but I do remember… y’know…” he muttered.

 “Asking me to kiss you?” I reminded him smugly.

 “Uh, yeah, that. Well, never again, right?” he said.

 “Jake, calm down. It’s fine. It was an experiment- like you said, everything once.” I said, and he grinned at me.

 “Well, maybe we could make an exception. Y’know, for stage-gay.” he said, crossing to the door and opening it.

 “Okay, stage-gay is allowed.” I grinned, and we left the room together.

 When we arrived at the crappy dining hall, Matt was practically bouncing up and down in his seat. I didn’t even want to know how many coffees he’d already had. George was sipping his coffee slowly and flipping through an old, dilapidated copy of Scriveners. Bryan had fallen asleep with his head on the table and Rich was trying to wake him. Eddie was nowhere to be seen. I sat down beside George and he reached out to hold my hand. I smiled at him; we were ignoring what had happened in our room yesterday, then.

 Eventually Eddie joined us with his plate of food and we all groaned and looked away as he ate, the thought of having to digest food turning our stomachs. I averted my eyes from the food and turned my attention instead to George who was looking tired, somewhat sad, and trying to look like he was feeling neither tired nor sad. One day I would make sure that he was nothing but happy. One day.

 “Hey guys!”

 I turned my head to face the doorway as I recognised the voice, and saw David Stone standing in the doorway. He looked way to happy for this early in the morning. Saying that, I didn’t actually know what time it was. It could be mid-afternoon and we had missed our slot at the festival site for all I knew.

 The tour’s set up was such that the first and last days were your average festival set up; various bands and acts performing throughout the door, spread over a large site and many stages. Every day in between was played at indoor venues, some larger than others, and not every band played every indoor day. Luckily, due to Scriveners apparently loving us, we had been booked for every day. Not the prime slots, but still, booked.

 “Hey…” we all murmured incoherently.

 “I see you ignored all of our warnings about drinking last night?” David said. I narrowed my eyes at him and I swear Jake hissed.

 David sat down next to Eddie and they started talking but I couldn’t be bothered to follow their conversation. I felt like I had slept for a week but was also ridiculously tired. I assumed from the smells coming from the food counters that it was, in fact, morning, and we had not slept through the day. I dreaded the thought of going to the festival site; all that noise, all those people, all that mayhem…

 “I am never drinking again.” Jake stated, and everyone looked at him. Even Bryan, who had been asleep, snapped his head up to look at him.

 “Dude… are you serious?” George asked him.

 “No!” Jake started to laugh, and we all groaned and begged him to be quiet.