Damaged Saints

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“Great, this is just fuckin’ great! You cannot seriously think we can perform with a cultist and a cri….” Aaron’s voice lowered to a whisper before he uttered the final words, “guy in a wheelchair!”

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Kelly shoved away from the desk, swiveling, and slamming his knee into the stone and wood coffee table he typically kept on the other side the room for this exact reason. Pain shot up his leg, the kind that whites out everything else but the need to double over and cringe. It didn’t even rattle the half empty bottle of tangerine soda resting on the shimmering grey granite, but it sure as fuck sent a wave of agony surging through Kelly.

 

“OWE God fuckin’ damnit! I thought I told you not to pull that over here!” Kelly grumbled, grimacing, and wincing as he tried to rub the throbbing ache out.

 

“And I thought you heard me doing it,” his longtime friend and bandmate replied, never glancing up at him.

Aaron’s wavy, shoulder-length purple hair lay over his cheek, obscuring the side of his face, but not his hands or what he was doing with them. It explained Kelly’s slightly rearranged living room. Aaron had produced a rolling try from somewhere and was breaking up a nug of bright green bud shot through with yellow tendrils.

 

“Oh hell no, you are not lighting that up in here!” Kelly snarled, shooting him a cross between a glare and a grimace. It was the best he could manage with his knee still feeling the way it did.

 

Aaron didn’t even bother to grace him with a glance of acknowledgement, he was so focused on his task. “No, I’m rolling it in here. I will be sure to smoke it when you and your newfound sobriety aren’t around.”

 

“Last I checked, you were supposed to be maintaining your sobriety too.”

 

“I’ll have you know I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since we struck our deal, and I won’t. But I will smoke as much of this as I chose ‘cause I’ll be damned if I’m doing this little jam session of yours without something in my system.”

 

“Way to embrace this thing with open arms,” Kelly grumbled beneath his breath, eyes narrowing at Aaron. “Now, as for your original question, I know that I can perform and make amazing music with Micah and Declan. I would also like to keep on making it with my best friend, but if you ever use those two words to describe them again, it’ll be the last time we ever speak.”

 

This time Aaron did glace up, but only to narrow his eyes before he went right back to rolling. “Don’t get your panties twisted, I’ll make sure I pick a language you don’t know.”

 

“How about you just don’t say anything derogatory at all?”

 

Growling, Aaron smacked his hand on the table hard enough to rattle his rolling tray. “How about you come to your senses and admit this is a bad idea!”

 

Snorting, Kelly grumbled a few things beneath his breath before gracing Aaron with an answer. “Can’t admit what I don’t believe.”

 

Aaron slid lower, groaning in frustration as his knees banged the underside of the coffee table. “Mark my words, you will before this session is over.”

 

Maybe it was petty but seeing him wince brought a sick sense of satisfaction to Kelly, whose own knee was still pulsing with painful little reminders of his own encounter with it. “Look, if you’re gonna go smoke, then go out on the balcony and get it over with, then come back in and at least try to be nice. You loved their playing when you first heard them.”

 

“And you were being an underhanded prick when you insisted we hold blind auditions.”

 

“And just who would you have chosen if we hadn’t done it that way?”

 

“That’s easy,” Aaron said as he finished rolling a nice-sized joint that Kelly wouldn’t have minded a few tokes off if he didn’t know exactly what even a little would do to his efforts to keep away from the harder stuff. “Kazzy Malone and Reid Davis.”

 

“You’re fuckin’ shitting me right now! Kazzy Malone? The guy knows one speed. He’s got no versatility. If it isn’t pure thrash he tries to make it that way! Hell, he makes the dirt sheets every other week! He’s exactly what we don’t want. What don’t you

understand about building a whole new image?”

 

“The part where new equals turning us into a band of soft Christian rockers with a god damned message in every song. We’re not going to get many invites to tour or play festivals if we get a reputation for being….”

 

Kelly watched Aaron mentally going through words, occasionally mouthing one, sighing heavily, or scowling as he rolled the joint back and forth on the tray.

 

“At least Kazzy would keep things interesting,” Aaron offered, sounding lame as hell, at least to Kelly’s way of thinking. That just meant Aaron knew he was wrong and was desperately trying to avoid admitting it.

 

“Haven’t you had enough of his particular brand of interesting?”

 

“Meh,” Aaron muttered as he stood, joint held between his fingers as he headed for the balcony door.

 

“Is that a meh you’re right or meh it’s taking too much effort to think of an interesting excuse for why you haven’t gotten all the party boy, live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse bullshit out of your system! Weren’t you the same guy talking about how empty everything was and how pointless bouncing from after-party to after-party had become? What was that, two months ago? Why the sudden change of tune?”

 

“That was before I realized empty and meaningless were all that was in the cards for us.”

 

Kelly gritted his teeth, sick and goddamn tired of the back and forth between his closest friends. “For fuck’s sake Aaron, get over yourself and while you’re at it, tell Hawk you’ve been pining after him like a schoolgirl with her first real crush! I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing it far more than I have.”

 

“I’m not pining…I’m just…”

 

“Pining!” Kelly declared, silencing all of Aaron’s attempts at protesting. “And I’m god damned tired of it. You two should never have broken up in the first place.”

 

“Don’t you mean broken up again?”

 

“That too,” Kelly grumbled as he bushed the hair from his eyes.

 

He could feel a headache brewing, which only made him crave the green Aaron was rolling even more. Damnit, those two were good together and not just when it came to the music. They sure as hell were happier and far more pleasant to be around when they were a couple too, but for whatever god damned reason, one would do some shit to deliberately fuck things up, like they were afraid that being happy together wouldn’t let them make the angsty, anger fueled music they were known for. At this point, Kelly would have preferred changing their sound to dealing with their on-again, off-again bullshit.

Aaron whirled around to face him, fury making his brilliant green eyes narrow to tiny slits. “Then you should be saying it to him, not me! I never wanted to split with him in the first place. He made that decision for the both of it when he decided that

I wouldn’t be able to handle helping him raise his brother’s kids!”

 

“In all fairness, it’s a hell of a lot for him to take on as suddenly as he was forced into it,” Kelly replied, keeping his tone even in the face of Aaron’s latest freak out. “Asking someone else to commit themselves when it wasn’t their responsibility….”

 

“We’re not talking about just someone else! We’re talking about me.”

 

“Yes, pre-rehab you, which, much like pre-sober Hawk, was one shit show after another waiting to happen.”

 

“Thanks a lot, captain pot.”

 

“Which is actually why I can say that shit and know what I’m talking about.”

 

Sighing, Aaron huffed and glared at him, the look one that Kelly knew meant he agreed and just didn’t want to say it.

 

Kelly watched his gaze bouncing between the floor and the wall where something shimmered against the swirling brown paint.

From where he sat, it looked like a streak of glitter, only Kelly couldn’t imagine how it had gotten there unless he or Aaron had brushed against the wall with glitter dusting their hair, which was highly probable.

 

“Look. You and Hawk, you make magic when you create together, and that never changed no matter what the parameters of your relationship. Fuckbudies, dating, you damn near gave the rest of us whiplash with how inconsistent you’ve been these past few years and let’s face it, the relationship wasn’t without its turbulence, though it never affected your ability to create together. In fact, there were times when it only seemed to enhance it. The way you guys were draped around one another at the end of the last tour, well, I thought you’d finally worked shit out and committed yourselves to giving it a real go.”

 

“We had…until the accident.”

 

Kelly winced. Yeah, that wreck had done a number on more than just Hawk. When he’d gotten the call to say his brother and sister-in-law had been killed, they’d all known he’d be gone for a while, but none of them had ever expected that he wouldn’t return at all. Being named guardian of his nieces and nephew had meant big changes for Hawk, but the fallout had blown their once close-knit band all to hell and they were still picking up the pieces. Hawk no longer being a member of the band didn’t change the fact that he and Aaron were better together than apart. In fact, Kelly suspected that Aaron, with his affinity for all things small, cute and helpless, would adapt well to helping care for the precocious trio who were forever begging him to come visit them.

 

“I guess you’d better get busy working to change his mind,” Kelly said, and left it at that.

 

Aaron shot him a double bird, a sure sign that he’d hit a nerve. He was pacing too, free hand bouncing as his fingers moved like they were dancing over invisible strings.

 

“You think I haven’t tried?”

 

“I think you should try again and keep on trying until you get it right. You two were meant for one another. Anything else is just a meaningless hookup…haven’t you been the one saying that for years?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Then figure out what you need to do to convince him that you are ready, willing, and able to be everything he needs right now, and for fuck’s sake, chill out and relax tonight, please and don’t go playing the part of the asshole you’re known to be when forced out of your element. You do remember how to relax and not be a dick, don’t you?”

 

“We’ll see,” Aaron said, waving the joint in his direction. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go high-drate.”

 

“Yeah, you do that,” Kelly grumbled.

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