A Sequel to an Alan Ashby Fanfiction

“Wake up!” Someone shouted at me.
“Victoria! Wake up!” I opened my eyes in a panic and quickly sat up in my bed. I couldn’t say anything, the only noise I made were short whimpers. I stared at the people around my bed; Aaron, Phil, a shirtless Austin, Tino, Jen, Anouk and Amanda all stared worriedly at me.
“Is she cold?” Jen asked. I didn’t notice I was shaking violently until she said that.
“No…” Austin started, concern lacing his voice, “Maybe Jared affected her more than we thought” He whispered so I couldn’t hear.
“Victoria, honey, look at me.” Austin sat down in front of me on my bed, my eyes darted to Austin’s eyes. Austin raised his hand, when he did that I flinched but he gently wiped the tears from my face and didn’t do what my thought he would; which was strike me. Don’t ask me why I thought Austin would hit me, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“Breathe.” He said calmly.
“C-can’t” I gasped.
“Okay, all of you guys, need to leave sorry. I’ll stay here until this ends.” Austin looked at everyone else in the room as they silently but sadly nodded their heads and made their way out of my room, turning my light off and closing the door.
I felt Austin’s hands touch my shoulders, in the darkness I couldn’t see him. I flinched as soon as he made contact with me.
“Victoria, it’s me. Austin. Not Jared, Austin. Jared is gone, he is going to stay gone for a very long time.” Austin’s voice soothed me.
“K-keep talking.” I stammered out. Austin helped me lay back into the bed and he made his own way into the covers. Once he was in the covers I had my head on his chest and his arms around me, tighly. Securely. I felt safe.
“Jared is gone, he will never hurt you again. You have me, the guys, the girls. We will protect you from him until the end. You are safe, and loved.” Austin soothed.
“T-tell me how he w-will burn in h-hell” I sniffed, still shaking and finding it difficult to breathe. Austin chuckled softly.
“When Jared dies, he will die in a stale, dank and dark cell with no one helping him. When he is dead he will go to the deepest part in hell and die a million long, excruciating deaths for what he did do you. And when he has died those million deaths, he will die another million more and so on.”
After about twenty minutes, I stopped shaking and my breathing went back to normal.
“Austin?” I managed to say.
“Yes?” He asked.
“Stay here with me? Please?” I almost begged.
“Of course beautiful.” Austin said as he held me tighter to his chest. I felt safe, I was safe. I relaxed into Austin’s embrace, I never realised how tensed I had been, and fell into a deep sleep.
I woke up at 11am to the sounds of the bus moving, I guess we were already on our way to Lauderdale. I realized I was in someone’s embrace, and that someone was stroking my head.
Alan?
No, Austin. Last night’s events came flooding back to me, night terror about Jared, everyone but Alan and his whore in my room, Austin soothing me. I stretched my legs in bed and sat up.
“Hey” Austin smiled at me. I turned my head to Austin and smiled.
“Hey, how long have you been awake?” I asked him, changing my position. I sat up and tucked my calves under my thighs, so I was kneeling so now I was facing Austin
“An hour or two. I didn’t want to leave you alone.” Austin replied to me.
“Austin, thank you for last night. Usually when that happens it takes me over two hours to calm myself down.” I genuinely thankful Austin had helped me through what happened last night. Austin looked at me, his face a mixture of emotions.
“You mean this has happened before?” Austin looked as if he just mentally slapped himself, “Of course its happened before, it’s normal for that to happen after….” His voice trailed off, insinuating how I was nearly raped.
“Did you get help?” Austin asked me, concern filling his face.
“Um…” I looked down at Alan’s crewneck and played with the hem, “define help.” I said.
“Like therapy, medication, help?!” He asked me.
“Oh that.” I laughed nervously, “Well, I kind of turned to-”
“Please tell me you’re going to say friends” Austin looked me in the eyes.
“Not exactly.” I looked Austin in the eyes, “I turned to alcohol and smoking.”
“Smoking….?” Austin asked, meaning he wanted to know what I was smoking.
“Crack.” I said sarcastically. Austin looked at me, he looked like he wasn’t sure if he should believe that or not, never mind the fact that I had been sarcastic.
“No you spastic” I said, my face full of disgust, “Cigarettes!” I explained. Austin’s face instantly relaxed and he laughed.
“Just checking!” he said with his hands up in the air, signalling he had surrendered. Austin then changed back to being all serious;
“Did you talk to anyone? Did anyone help you through that?”
“No… I cut everyone off as soon as the last tour ended.” I explained.
“So how did you get through your panic attacks? How often did you have them?” Austin asked me.
“Well at first, I had them every night and at first they would last for over four hours. Then I learnt how to deal with them, which was to cry and to check every room in the house 5 or 6 times with whatever I could use as a weapon. But then I started getting them less and less to where I only got two or three a week and then they would last just over two hours. But I haven’t had any since I’ve been on this bus.” I explained to Austin.
“Vic, that’s horrible.” Austin looked speechless as he tried to find the words to say to me. Suddenly he made eye contact with me and started speaking quickly.
“Do you think that Alan was stopping you from having them??” Austin’s words took a while to process in my head.
Was Alan the reason why I stopped having panic attacks? The first night on this bus I didn’t have any and Alan and I were in the same bed. But tonight, the first night that Alan wasn’t in this room I had a major panic attack.
“Could be. It’s definitely plausible.” I said nodding to Austin, a little bit in shock to find that Alan could comfort me in that way. “But maybe I had one last tonight because I was a bit upset about Lauren.” I said her name with disgust.
“Yeah, I’m not sure what’s going on there either. She definitely isn’t Alan’s type though that’s for sure. Are you upset that you aren’t with Alan?” Austin asked, although I’m sure we both knew the answer.
“I- yeah, I think I am. Well that night I was actually planning on talking to Alan when he got back… about how I thought I was ready to be with him… but then Lauren came.” I was trying not to cry, images of Lauren and Alan having sex were appearing in my mind, causing a tear to slide its way down my cheek. After that, many more followed. Austin instantly wrapped me in his arms and held me against his chest.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Alan will come around. He will ditch Lauren once he sees how disgusting she is. I can already see it happening, he is getting bored of her.” Austin said as he rocked me back and forth.
“He said he would wait forever for me, he said he would wait until I was ready” I sobbed into Austin’s shoulder.
“I know, I know” Austin said as he tried to soothe me. I didn’t need to see his face to know that he was slightly shocked at how broken I was.

Notes