Animosity In The Ranks
Chapter 82
You made it through the night mostly in one piece by strictly keeping to the merch table and wandering nowhere else. You felt it safest to stay in that one innocuous spot then to bother venturing elsewhere. Though it didn’t turn out to be as safe as you’d have liked; you were too famous, too many fans knew your business, or thought they did. The barrage of questions about how you and Jeph were doing started to chip away at the facade you had erected with half a heart to keep your outward appearance calm. You smiled over gritted teeth and handed them their change, nodding to their questions but all together avoiding, in a friendly manor mind you, answering questions with actual answers.
Come the end of the show you were pretty sure you had ground your teeth down into nothing but nubs, unable to chew solid food for the rest of your life. You were surprised that Cherise didn’t actually boot you long before halfway through the night due to your robot impersonation again. But if you had seen correctly, she had that look in her eye. That look like she understood and that it was all right. It almost made you cry.
It wasn’t until load out was practically done and you were carrying nothing more than a small bag of merch from one the local bands that played that night that things got rocky. You were nearing the quiet bus, mulling over in your head whether you were going to be a social party goer tonight or not that you heard it. Laughter. Female laughter. Not only female laughter, but that female laughter. Slowing down your pace you crept along the pavement, making sure not to kick over any larger rocks that would make a sound. Slowly you crept to the end of the bus you were next to and peered around the end. Your stomach turned to a solid cold ball of steel in your gut. There was the new girl laughing for all her worth as Jeph did his best to pirouette like a ballerina. An over six foot tattooed pierced ballerina, but a ballerina nonetheless. You wanted to cry out but no sound escaped your lips as you almost literally felt whatever inside you that had died decay a little more at the sight.
And then you gasped in shock, out loud this time. You were very suddenly drenched in icy cold water. Or what you thought was water until you got whiff of it and realized it was vodka. Turning to sputter at whomever had doused you, accidentally or not, in vodka you felt the cold ball in the pit of your stomach become freezer burned and then start to churn. Like you really needed this too on top of everything else.
“Oops,” was Zacky’s dead pan response.
“Babe when I said I didn’t like that brand of vodka I didn’t mean dump it all over this poor little, um cowboy worker girl,” an air-headed voice pouted from beside Zacky, attached to a body that hadn’t even registered in your line of vision yet as all you could focus on was how much you wanted to slug Zacky and say fuck you to the agreement.
“Don’t worry, she absorbs this stuff right through her skin. Nice hat,” Zacky sneered the last bit at you with an ever so slight toss of his head at yours, as if fully acknowledging it or you was beneath him.
“Good thing you didn’t soak the hat, or it wouldn’t have been me you would have had to answer to,” you hissed at him through clenched teeth, totally forgetting Jeph and the new girl for the moment.
When it came to Zacky and seeing red, you time to time forgot all else in the world around you. Not the best of things to have happen, but not something you had control over and could change. Even if you wanted to. Which you most assuredly didn’t.
“Unlike some people I can fight my own battles,” Zacky smirked through a tight-lipped flat grin with a cocky lift of his eyebrow.
Oh hell no.
Not thinking and just reacting you hauled back and slapped him hard across the face, cupping your hand just enough to get a great resounding ring to knock around in his head. That and so your giant ring wouldn’t damage his face and get you kicked out of the tour, which at this point may not have been all too bad of an idea if it didn’t mean your brother would hate you. It made something inside you twitch a little to see his head ricochet to the side, almost like it wasn’t attached, as he didn’t try to stand against the slap. He went with it, almost as if he knew it was coming and just accepted it. You started to sneer at him, a witty demeaning comeback on your lips ready to be spat at his general direction but stopped when you heard other feet crunch on the ground near you. Two sets of feet to be exact. And then whatever inside you was on the verge of striking Zacky down deflated and fizzed out, leaving you depleted feeling. Like all the wind had temporarily been knocked out of you.
“I hate you,” you seethed through clenched teeth with all the hurt and anger you could muster before turning and running off towards the quiet bus as tears burned at the corner of your eyes.
You left the four standing there wondering who your words were meant for and hoped they never got it as you yourself weren’t sure exactly who it was aimed at. Or if it was solely aimed at one person or another, or at them all. You pounded up the buses steps two at a time and nearly tripped as you stomped back towards the shower. You couldn’t see as the burning tears collected underneath your eyelids and threatened to break free. You ripped off your now vodka soaked and stained clothing, throwing it into a random hamper, fairly sure that your clothes wouldn’t be mistaken as any of the guys when laundry got done next. You wrapped a towel around your waist and gently placed Johnny’s hat on the bunk reserved for him on this bus.
Business done you made it to the bathroom, locked the door behind you and turned on the water full blast as hot as it could possibly go. As the steam filled the small bathroom you wiped off your makeup and watched your hair fall limp from steam in the ever vanishing mirror. As soon as the mirror was fogged over completely you undid your towel and placed it on the hanging bar and stepped into the boiling water. As the steaming hot water beat down on your skin you felt yourself break and the tears burst through their fragile barrier. Tears leaking down your face you slowly slid down the wall of the shower till you were curled up on the floor under the constant heavy stream of hot water. Sitting there you just cried, and cried, and cried, rocking back and forth ever so slightly.
Come the end of the show you were pretty sure you had ground your teeth down into nothing but nubs, unable to chew solid food for the rest of your life. You were surprised that Cherise didn’t actually boot you long before halfway through the night due to your robot impersonation again. But if you had seen correctly, she had that look in her eye. That look like she understood and that it was all right. It almost made you cry.
It wasn’t until load out was practically done and you were carrying nothing more than a small bag of merch from one the local bands that played that night that things got rocky. You were nearing the quiet bus, mulling over in your head whether you were going to be a social party goer tonight or not that you heard it. Laughter. Female laughter. Not only female laughter, but that female laughter. Slowing down your pace you crept along the pavement, making sure not to kick over any larger rocks that would make a sound. Slowly you crept to the end of the bus you were next to and peered around the end. Your stomach turned to a solid cold ball of steel in your gut. There was the new girl laughing for all her worth as Jeph did his best to pirouette like a ballerina. An over six foot tattooed pierced ballerina, but a ballerina nonetheless. You wanted to cry out but no sound escaped your lips as you almost literally felt whatever inside you that had died decay a little more at the sight.
And then you gasped in shock, out loud this time. You were very suddenly drenched in icy cold water. Or what you thought was water until you got whiff of it and realized it was vodka. Turning to sputter at whomever had doused you, accidentally or not, in vodka you felt the cold ball in the pit of your stomach become freezer burned and then start to churn. Like you really needed this too on top of everything else.
“Oops,” was Zacky’s dead pan response.
“Babe when I said I didn’t like that brand of vodka I didn’t mean dump it all over this poor little, um cowboy worker girl,” an air-headed voice pouted from beside Zacky, attached to a body that hadn’t even registered in your line of vision yet as all you could focus on was how much you wanted to slug Zacky and say fuck you to the agreement.
“Don’t worry, she absorbs this stuff right through her skin. Nice hat,” Zacky sneered the last bit at you with an ever so slight toss of his head at yours, as if fully acknowledging it or you was beneath him.
“Good thing you didn’t soak the hat, or it wouldn’t have been me you would have had to answer to,” you hissed at him through clenched teeth, totally forgetting Jeph and the new girl for the moment.
When it came to Zacky and seeing red, you time to time forgot all else in the world around you. Not the best of things to have happen, but not something you had control over and could change. Even if you wanted to. Which you most assuredly didn’t.
“Unlike some people I can fight my own battles,” Zacky smirked through a tight-lipped flat grin with a cocky lift of his eyebrow.
Oh hell no.
Not thinking and just reacting you hauled back and slapped him hard across the face, cupping your hand just enough to get a great resounding ring to knock around in his head. That and so your giant ring wouldn’t damage his face and get you kicked out of the tour, which at this point may not have been all too bad of an idea if it didn’t mean your brother would hate you. It made something inside you twitch a little to see his head ricochet to the side, almost like it wasn’t attached, as he didn’t try to stand against the slap. He went with it, almost as if he knew it was coming and just accepted it. You started to sneer at him, a witty demeaning comeback on your lips ready to be spat at his general direction but stopped when you heard other feet crunch on the ground near you. Two sets of feet to be exact. And then whatever inside you was on the verge of striking Zacky down deflated and fizzed out, leaving you depleted feeling. Like all the wind had temporarily been knocked out of you.
“I hate you,” you seethed through clenched teeth with all the hurt and anger you could muster before turning and running off towards the quiet bus as tears burned at the corner of your eyes.
You left the four standing there wondering who your words were meant for and hoped they never got it as you yourself weren’t sure exactly who it was aimed at. Or if it was solely aimed at one person or another, or at them all. You pounded up the buses steps two at a time and nearly tripped as you stomped back towards the shower. You couldn’t see as the burning tears collected underneath your eyelids and threatened to break free. You ripped off your now vodka soaked and stained clothing, throwing it into a random hamper, fairly sure that your clothes wouldn’t be mistaken as any of the guys when laundry got done next. You wrapped a towel around your waist and gently placed Johnny’s hat on the bunk reserved for him on this bus.
Business done you made it to the bathroom, locked the door behind you and turned on the water full blast as hot as it could possibly go. As the steam filled the small bathroom you wiped off your makeup and watched your hair fall limp from steam in the ever vanishing mirror. As soon as the mirror was fogged over completely you undid your towel and placed it on the hanging bar and stepped into the boiling water. As the steaming hot water beat down on your skin you felt yourself break and the tears burst through their fragile barrier. Tears leaking down your face you slowly slid down the wall of the shower till you were curled up on the floor under the constant heavy stream of hot water. Sitting there you just cried, and cried, and cried, rocking back and forth ever so slightly.
Notes
Again, lame ass filler and for that I apologize.Talk about shit just getting. . . well shittier.
Out of all the fanfics this is the one I've read through 3 times through all 108 chapters. This is one of the best Zacky fics I've read and I still hope it'll be continued one day ; v; a very good read for any Zacky fan.
5/3/18