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The day after it happens, Shawn claps him on the shoulder. Doesn’t feel like Shawn, though. It’s a hand, rough on his back, pushing him down harder the more he struggles, his sternum digging into the stained coffee table of the dressing room.
He jumps, punching Shawn a bit harder in the arm than he should. The bruises throb from the way he twists around.
Joey shuts himself in the bathroom and stands still. Fists twitching, breathing quick.
~
Corey ruffles his hair as he walks past after soundcheck. It’s been a week, but he’s back there straight away, the hands in his hair, the nails. His puke on the shower floor as blood washed out of his stinging scalp.
Joey freezes, fingers pinching the rough guitar strings he’s toying with. He sits rigid as the discordant notes ring out, submerged in the feeling.
~
Joey dodges hugs for days, ducks under arms flung out for him, tapping the guys as lightly on the arm as he can get away with. He gives the same detached laugh in the face of every perplexed stare, hoping it sounds casual, sounds normal over the hammering of his heart.
Every pre-show huddle feels like walking to the gallows. He’s getting practised at avoiding Jim, the one most eager to envelop him from behind. He dreams about it: Jim’s hulking frame and leering mask, plunging him into the darkness of the huddle. Before he knows it, he’s on that coffee table again, hard edges in his thighs and hands gripping his arms tight, laughter overhead.
So he plants himself on the outside of the circle, placing his arms around the others but just barely grazing the backs of their jumpsuits. Takes the long route backstage after the show, so he doesn’t have to go past the other band’s room. He keeps jumping at every door he passes, imagining he sees them swinging open in his peripheral. Each time, he jerks around and they’re closed, but it’s not quick enough to shake the ghosts of those hands off him.
~
The tour’s finally fucking over. Joey tells Corey he’ll catch up. The rest of them are ready to turn this hotel into one last rager before the long trip home, but Joey’s just happy to be out of the bus again, not having to crawl over each other to get anywhere, or being woken by drunken shouts that have him bolting upright in panic.
Once he’s got rid of Corey, he has a space to himself at fucking last. Maybe he’ll just go the fuck to sleep. What’s the point in showing up if he’s just going to pretend to drink, like all the other nights lately?
He fucks around, figuring out what all the light switches are for in the hotel room and exploring, then giving up on, the minibar. Finally, he drags his cases off the bed and digs through the jumble his bags have become.
In the bathroom mirror, he pokes at the blotches on his torso and arms, which are kind of greenish by now. When he starts feeling too sick, he throws on something long-sleeved and washes his face. It makes the smell go away for a bit, but all his shit smells like tour bus B.O. and smoke to some extent, and it creeps back in as he dries off. He clenches his jaw, throwing down the towel with trembling hands.
Soon. Soon he won’t smell like that fucking dressing room anymore. Maybe he won’t feel it either.
A loud knock on the door makes his heart punch halfway up his throat. The person doesn’t stop, either, the bashing only growing louder. Someone else joins in.
Fuck’s sake. He’ll tell them he’s got a headache; it’s coming true anyway as he stands there, letting the knocking go on.
Finally stomping over to the door, he flings it open. Chris’ grinning face is immediately in front of him, stumbling forwards the minute the door disappears from under his fist.
Joey steps back quickly, and then they’re in his room, Jim looming behind Chris and Shawn the other side, nursing two beers.
“Joey!” Chris cheers. “When you coming to the party, man?”
He spreads his arms out wide, blocking the way out completely, and then Shawn is letting the door swing shut behind them with a clunk.
Joey beelines back into the room.
“I’m fucking tired, guys.”
“It’s the last night of tour, Joe,” Jim says, flopping down on Corey’s empty bed. Joey hops backwards.
“Got weeks to sleep after tonight,” Shawn agrees, holding out one of his beers.
Chris starts rambling on about the stupid plans Corey’s already made, and how fancy the bar downstairs is and how they have to catch up to the others, and Joey makes himself take the proffered beer without looking too reluctant. Jim’s laughing at something Chris says, and Shawn is tipping his bottle against Joey’s with a loud, clumsy chime.
Swallowing hard, Joey sets his down. Before the laughter becomes someone else’s or the clinking glass starts ringing in his ears, like the way they rattled on the coffee table as he thrashed.
“Joeyyy,” Chris protests, trying to press the beer back into his hands. “You gotta come! Tonight’s the night, dude! We fucking did it, let’s go crazy!”
He tackles Joey in a hug. His arms tighten, scooping Joey almost off the ground as he sways happily, and they’re laughing, they’re all fucking laughing and they won’t stop touching him, can’t get their hands off–
Joey shoves Chris’ chest, hard. The beer bottle smashes on the ground between them.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”
The shattering echoes in his ears, the same way it had when they shoved him onto that stupid fucking table.
None of them are laughing anymore, but Joey can’t hear the silence.
“Get off–”
The words choke off and his back hits the corner. It doesn’t feel like the hotel room.
They won’t listen to him. It hurts, and he shouts down at the stained carpet until someone shoves a hand over his mouth, and he kicks and bucks against the hands, holding him, trapping him, but the table just jolts mutely against the ground. The bursting pain inside him. Fingers, and then more, and they’re laughing and now it hurts more when he struggles, and the tears are hot and itchy and humiliating in his eyes and–
“Joey–”
And someone’s saying his name.
His hands curl over his head, but the shield is useless. The scratches sting against his palms, their fingers already there, tugging and scraping at his scalp, knotting up his hair. Why won’t they get off?
“Joey, it’s okay–”
Joey presses himself harder into the wall, gasping, drowning, waiting. He can feel the hands, sense the fist suspended above him, bracing for the blow to hit.
The doorway, the grip on his shoulder, the room tilting as they drag him in, the table, the glass, the carpet–
“Breathe, Joey, fuck!”
His chest spasms open, air rushing painfully in. He tightens his hands in his hair.
“Can you hear me? Shit, it’s okay, Joey. I’m sorry, I’m sorry– breathe, it’s fine.”
There are tears on his face, thick and clinging. His skin tingles. Blinking, now, willing the blur from his eyes, he feels his prickling, shivering skin all over.
No one’s touching him. No hands. Just bruises. They ache, pressing in, mocking him, there to bite him at every angle, and they make his stomach churn.
He clenches his fists. There aren’t any hands.
He chokes in a gasping breath. It spills out all too fast, and he keeps panting, choppy and rushed like before, but he sucks down air determinedly where he can.
“That’s it. Just breathe. Breathe in, you got it.”
He tries. His throat hurts. Somewhere along the way, the crashing of blood in his ears gets a bit less loud, and he can hear how noisily he’s breathing. His throat tenses, closing for a second, and then he’s gasping even louder. He pushes his face into his knees, cringing at the sound.
“Joey, dude, you’re okay. I didn’t mean to…”
It’s Chris, somewhere in front of him.
Shit. Chris hugged him. Chris saw this whole thing. And the others, they were in here…
Still letting his head hang on his knees, panting rapidly like he’s just run a mile, Joey lifts his eyes. Chris is on his knees a couple steps away, and he sees the toes of Shawn’s sneakers behind that.
Joey’s still shaking. He doesn’t remember getting on the floor, but now he’s curled up like a fucking kid in front of the three of them. Another shudder runs through him, the memory, the hands that won’t leave him alone, and he hates it.
Heat creeps up his cheeks. He wishes they would leave. Why couldn’t he fucking keep it together?
“Joey, say something, man. Are you good?”
He gargles a kind of laugh in his throat. Does he look like he’s good?
“Fuck,” he groans in the end.
He only jumps a little when someone sets something next to him. Finally lifting his head a fraction off his knees, he finds the cup from next to the bathroom sink sitting by his foot.
“Water alright?” Shawn asks, voice frighteningly normal.
Joey reaches for it, surprised when his arm functions. It shouldn't be foreign, his body still trembling, light and heavy all at once, but it’s just a glass of fucking water. He picks it up and drinks it.
He eyes the glass until it’s back on the ground next to him. Nothing else offers itself as a distraction. Hands fidgeting between his knees, he finally lets himself look up.
Three pairs of eyes are staring back at him, near enough identical versions of nervous shock in each one.
Joey runs a hand down his face.
“Just go have the fucking party without me.”
“No, no–” Shawn’s shaking his head. “What the fuck was that just now?”
Joey stares mutely at the floor.
“I don’t exactly wanna leave you alone after that, Joe,” Chris says uneasily.
“Maybe you should,” Joey grits. “Was all you had to do in the first fucking place.”
Chris looks crushed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, no, you haven’t been right with any of us for ages!” Shawn cuts in. “When did this become his fault?”
“He’s right, I shouldn’t have grabbed him,” Chris defends, turning to look up at Shawn. “He said he didn’t wanna come.”
“Why, Joey? This isn’t… you’re freaking me out, man. What’s going on?”
Joey stares back at Shawn, mouth open. He can’t make it move.
Jim’s voice, quieter than the others, saves him the trouble.
“We all heard him.”
“…Heard what?” Joey asks. His voice sounds thin, even to his ears.
Chris eyes him sadly for a moment.
“You said… you wanted them to get off. Joey, did… did someone touch you?”
Joey hates the way his body tenses, muscles locking him in that corner, bruises aching. He doesn’t open his mouth.
He jolts when Shawn curses, turning away from him. Joey watches as he fumes at the ceiling, before letting his head hang. No one speaks as Shawn’s shoulders rise, then fall, and he turns his head.
“You haven’t gone near their dressing room for weeks.”
Joey’s gonna be sick. He just wants the hands to stay off him. If only he could stop seeing that fucking dressing room…
“You’re all good, just breathe, yeah? Stay with us, Joe. No one’s gonna touch you.”
Chris’ voice brings him back to the hotel room. His breathing is spiralling again. He lowers his head as another tear breaks from his eye.
A hundred things he could say, and not one makes it out. His tongue is glued in his mouth.
“What do you wanna do?” Chris asks.
“I don’t know…” He shoves his hands into his hair again, hissing at the tender patches.
“Tonight, I mean.”
Joey shakes his head, not looking up. He doesn’t know, doesn’t know about any of it.
“You guys should go to the bar. The others are gonna be fucked up already.”
“Yeah, starting to give less of shit about that right now,” Shawn says.
“What do you want me to say?!” Joey throws his hands out. With a rough sigh, he lets them droop over his knees. “I feel like shit, alright? And I don’t fucking know what… just… you guys can’t sit here staring at me all night. ‘S freaking me out.”
Shifting, he folds his arms.
“You really want us to leave you alone?” Jim challenges.
“…One of us could stay,” Chris offers, “y’know… if you want. Don’t exactly feel like partying anymore.”
“Have a couple more beers, you’ll be fine,” Joey says drily.
“Fucking hell, Joey.” Shawn scrubs his hands over his face. “You really want us to just walk out of here?”
Joey bites his lip. His knees are starting to complain from being crunched up to his chest in this corner, and the rest of him just wants to sag down into it and let sleep take him. If only it would take him somewhere good for once.
“I’m just gonna sleep, dude. But fine.”
“Fine?”
“Two of you can fuck off now. One of you can fuck off after I knock out in five minutes.”
The others share a look. Joey can’t see Chris’ face, but Shawn sucks his cheeks and sighs.
Then he’s leaving with Jim.
The door closes around the corner, and Joey can’t bring himself to wonder if they’re actually going downstairs, or if they’re gonna stand around talking about him. He takes a deep breath and lets his head fall backwards.
Chris is still kneeling there, a couple feet away.
“I really am sorry, dude…” he tries.
“Stop it, man, fuck...” Joey mutters tiredly. “My fucking problem. I’m sorry.”
Chris looks doubtful, watching him like some kind of nervous dog that’s been told to sit and stay. He clears his throat.
“So… you gonna get some sleep?”
Probably not. But Joey makes his legs move anyway, wobbling upright on hollow-feeling bones. He traipses over to his bed and throws himself into it, bouncing there for a second. Already melding with the mattress, he gives up on any hopes of a shower or of brushing his teeth.
Chris quietly sets to work getting a towel and attempting to mop up the beer and glass in the middle of the floor. Joey’s glad he’s not just watching him. Makes it easier, closing his eyes, listening to the rustling not far away.
Chris hasn’t fucked off by the time the nightmare wakes Joey. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Joey gets to hear that same voice telling him it’s fine, and he doesn’t spend such a pathetically long time forgetting how to breathe, this time around.
When he can’t settle, he quietly admits that he can’t stand the smell. The way it surrounded him from the minute he woke up, the memory that won’t leave even after the dream does.
Chris grins, big and dopey, and proudly brings Joey the hotel’s ridiculous towel robe. It hangs off him, swallowing him from his neck to his knees, but it doesn’t smell like dressing room and drinks and hands, so he lets Chris laugh at him. It’s better than seeing him wince at Joey’s bruises.
They’ll hear all the wild stories from the others in the morning. Corey doesn’t come back to the room, which says enough about what kind of night it is. Joey and Chris are happy enough with some corny action movie on a random hotel channel.
Joey’s eyelids are drooping again. He looks over at Chris, propped against Corey’s headboard.
“Hey, man, can you… you wanna come over here?”