Brian was just left over one of those periods. It wasn’t the first time when he had problems with alcohol and drugs. Lately he felt that he couldn’t keep his head above the water. All those parties, concerts, shallow one-night-stands and relationships drained him out completely. He hadn’t even realized that he was closing on to his limit.

Since his long-term relationship has ended with an English guy, he fell into deep depression. The others tried to take care of him, but when they couldn’t see, he was rarely sober. He lived for his pleasures, poisoning his body. Though they didn’t spot it, because Brian has been always thin, he lost a lot from his weight.

He couldn’t get over that relationship easily either. His two friends knew him well and were clear with the fact that he saw the ends of his relationships like tragedies. So many emotions were swirling in this little man, which would have been enough for all three of them. And his two friends had decided that it was high time to interfere in his life, if they didn’t want to have fatal consequences.

“Stef… here you are! You finally came?” he breathed, taking the guitarist’s face between his hands to kiss him. Stef would have been happy with that if his friend wasn’t in such a state. But he wasn’t here for this now. He wanted to bring him round so he gently pushed away the small hands and grabbed the narrow shoulders.

“Bri! Bri, listen to me! Do you hear me?”

“Yes…” he whispered, but he had to force himself to keep his eyes open.

“You have to stop this!”

Brian just murmured something, but Stef shook him by his shoulders.

“Brian!”

“Get the fuck out of here!” he yelled at him after loosing the last remains of his patience “Leave me here and let me die!”

“No way!” he dragged him up and started pushing him towards the bathroom, while Stef dragged off the dirty black T-shirt and worn-out jeans. It wasn’t difficult for him thanks to the dizzy state Brian was in. In these cases he always used out that he was physically stronger.

Steve was a bit worried as he watched the guitarist opening the tap with one hand and pushed Brian under the ice-cold water.

“Fucking Christ! Let me go! This is fucking cold!”

“You deserve it!”

After the useless tries of breaking free, Brian endured the cold water cooling down his shivering skin, covered with goose bumps. Then Stef dragged the skinny singer to the mirror.

“Look up, Brian! Look up! You like what you see? This is you! Skin and bones.”

He really looked awful. His body was covered with purple bruises, because he dashed at everything in his elated state. His skin had a sick color, and the glistening water drops just highlighted this. With chattering teeth he watched his ribs and hip bones standing out, his thin thighs and shaking hands… He felt ashamed in front of his mates. From the shame he tried to hunch himself as small as it was possible. He slowly slid onto the floor while his tears were silently flowing.

“Are you satisfied? You want to go on with this? You want to destroy yourself? The career we built up and worked for so hard?!”

For a moment anger washed over Brian, but then he realized that Stefan and Steve weren’t worried about their careers, they came just because of him. Somewhere deep this moved him. Steve was about to ask Stef to leave the broken small figure alone, when he saw his taller friend noticing the shaking of Brian’s shoulders. He was sobbing without a sound.

“I hope that by now you’ve realized it on your own too…” he straightened up from his crouching.

“Stef, leave him alone” the drummer whispered “Let’s go…”

Brian was afraid that they’ll leave him alone again with his open wounds so he grabbed Stefan’s leg desperately. He was clinging to him like a little boy would do with the soft skirt of his mother when he fled from the scary monsters.

“Don’t leave… me… alone!” he sobbed and his voice failed him.

It was heartbreaking to see as he buried his face into the tall man’s jeans, grabbing the fabric so hard that his knuckles turned white. Sobbing started to shake his small and slim body even more as he lead himself on. Stef slowly pushed his hands away so he could crouch down again. The desperate singer landed in his neck immediately and held him tight as if he never wanted to let him go. They were sitting there for long minutes on the cold tiles then the taller man took his exhausted mate into his arms and carried him into the bedroom. Meanwhile Steve got rid off most of the bottles, stubs and different kinds of pills. The room was already so to say smoke-free, though the specific smooth scent of pot was still lingering there.

Stef dried Brian with a towel, but the singer stopped him when he tried to put on dry pants on him – he wanted to do that. With shaking hands he managed to pull up the black piece of cloth then let them wrap him into a warm blanket, forcing him to drink a glass of fresh water. He obediently lied back down on the bed, tightly holding Stef’s hand, just to let sleep take over him within a few minutes.

This was the way he started to recover. After all this, one of his friends was always with him during his healing process. Well, he couldn’t bear anyone else near him anyway. Fortunately their concert schedule wasn’t so filled those days – this way their fans couldn’t notice a thing. On the shows Brian performed perfectly, he lived up for the expectations. Slowly his pep came back, just like his appetite.

And now he was standing here on this grey day, but he felt that there was still hope and that he’ll be able to get over this pain too, as he had already done that before. This wasn’t the first time when he realized that he was wrong, but he blamed his weakness and sensitiveness – and he knew that he has to live with these.

Though he was alone now, he didn’t mind it this time. He knew that he will be never truly alone, because despite his stupid things there are still such people who care for him, love him and protect him. And this thought helped him more than any other curing method. This affected his soul, which he felt coming alive again. Now he’ll be able to look into the future, leaving the past behind – but never forgetting it.

He slowly started walking in the light of the friendly stroking beams of the sunset, which broke through the clouds. Meanwhile he was crooning two lines of the song he wrote on the plane: