*Possible triggering warnings towards the end. I love you all so be careful! I originally didn't mean this to have possible triggers in it, but I just went back over it and realized that it had some (My fault, I'm really sorry) and so, just be careful reading this.*

When I came home from work, it was obvious that there was going to be trouble this evening. Papers were scattered over the wood floor and multiple spills of sticky, rank liquid were all over the floor. I knew instantly that it was the stench of alcohol. Stepping around the puddles of sticky messes, the spilled and torn papers, and even the scattered chairs, I quietly made my way to the living room.

Danny Worsnop was sitting in the recliner, a blank stare glazing over his face. We had moved in together in this apartment as our “four year anniversary” milestone for our relationship. I loved him for all four years and had supported him through all the tough struggles, but I had never seen him get drunk.

He had been clean for seven years so far, now he was sitting there, hopelessly drunk in the chair. Recently, he learned that his friend had been killed in a car accident, he was released from his job after they had to let some people go, and now his mother was on the deathbed. Through all of this, I knew it had been exceptionally tough to stay sane in the chaos, but I constantly told him that he always had me and I loved him.

“Finally home again, Kayla?” He sneered. The slur in his words was obvious. I flinched away, not wanting any confrontation.

“Look, Danny, I was just at work.” I sighed. The blue/green eyes flashed angrily. This had never happened before and I didn’t want to see what happened when he got drunk. Beer bottles were scattered all around his chair. The substance was on his shirt, plastered against his hands.

“Sure, sure. What happened to that cute intern you were talking about? Did you sleep with him recently?” He growled, the English accent slipping heavy on the words. I glared at him. This was NOT okay. Yeah, there was an intern, but I was faithful to only one man.

And this man was now accusing me of unfaithfulness.

“Danny, you know I love you, sweetheart. Let’s just go sleep this off.” I sighed, taking a step towards him, trying to brush back the hurtful comments. He stumbled out of the chair, looming closer over me. The eyes flashed with anger. Somewhere, a mind of the a kind man who would never do this was trapped behind the alcohol that shut away that caring boy I fell in love with.

“SHUT UP! I KNOW YOU SLEEP WITH HIM!” Danny accused, now raising his voice to a yell. I shook my head and became furious.

“KNOCK IT OFF, DANNY. YOU’RE DRUNK AND NEED TO STOP!” I screamed back. I could feel tears prick at the edge of my eyes. No, this wasn’t my Danny Worsnop.

“Ugly girl, you need to be taught a lesson on being faithful! YOU’RE MINE!” He growled angrily. Before I could register what happened, I found myself on the floor. A pain shot through my skull. I had hit my head and black spots danced across my vision like tiny ballerinas.

“STOP!” I cried out, feeling the salty tears of agony dot my eyes. Danny snarled above me, still swaying.

“This is what you get for laying other men!” He roared so that the neighbors could probably hear us. I let out a choked sob, wondering what I did to make the world fall down around me. What had happened here?

Pain made us do terrible things. Pain was what Danny was going through.

“Danny, please!” I choked out as he kicked me in the ribs. There would most definitely be a large bruise there tomorrow morning. As I struggled to stand up, a sharp sting bit my cheek.

Danny had just slapped me.

“YOU IDIOT, STUPID GIRL! Just shut up and stop your whining! That’s not real pain! That’s not real pain!” Dan kept screaming to me. I bit my lip hard as I fought back burst out from the terror of what was happening.

All around me, it was just lot of screaming, yelling, anger, and rage.

That’s when I noticed that Danny had started to cry as well. Oh, he didn’t stop punching me if I tried to back away, he just kept on crying. His broken voice muttered about not feeling the real pain, how he just needed it to go away.

What happened to our long walks to the pond in the woods behind our apartment? What happened to falling asleep curled against his chest? What happened to loving each other no matter what?

“Please, stop! Danny, don’t you love me?” I asked through the shattered tears. Danny’s eyes closed and his lips turned to a sneer.

“Love you? No, you were just another play thing.” He growled. I stood up, dodged a messy swing, and ran to the door.

No, he had never loved me. Being drunk made him say things that he never had the courage to say. This state of being made him reveal the truth. So this was it. Did he really not love me?

I never stayed to find out.

In the evening light that died like my heart, I ran down three flights of stairs. One of my friends lived in this apartment complex. I knocked on Anna’s door. Without a single word, she opened it up, and pulled me into a hug.

“What happened?” She asked me softly. Her hand tugged me sitting down on the couch. With multiple times where I just broke down, I eventually got the whole story out to her.

“He doesn’t love me. I thought he did.” I was sobbing like a manic. The yelling, the screams, the relationship drama that was portrayed on TV wasn’t anything like real life.

This was our own brand of relationship drama, tears and all.

But could you really have a relationship if one person doesn’t love the other?

No.

“Oh dear Kayla, Danny would never say that to you.” She wrapped her arms and let me cry myself out on her shoulder. Her hand rubbed my back soothingly.

“No! He said that!” I countered.

“Kayla, you have this all wrong. Look, we’ve all been through pain and had our ways to handle it. Danny just made a choice today to try to help through the struggles he’s been through. Haven’t we all done something we regret?” Anna asked me. I nodded, thinking back to my youth and all the stupid decisions that I had made.

“So?”

“Go up tomorrow morning and check on him when he’s sober. Things will be better, I promise.” Anna squeezed my hand. I told her that I would check out the room in the morning and see if he was sober.

Anna let me sleep on the couch for tonight. I rolled around, trying to find a comfortable spot to lay back on without rubbing against my bruise. Eventually, sleep won out and I started to drift away.

All I heard in my head was a continuous nightmare of Danny yelling at me, hurting me, saying that he never wanted to see me again.

In the morning, I woke up bright and early. I heard someone walk down the stairs to the bottom floor as I rubbed my eyes open. Bolting upright, I realized the illusions in my dream weren’t mere pictures, but actual memories.

Without another word, I ran upstairs, wanting to make sure the man was okay. It didn’t matter if he said he never loved me, Danny had been my best friend since I was in seventh grade. I needed to make sure my friend was okay.

As I reached the floor, I saw that the door was cracked slightly. Had Danny stumbled out in the middle of the night? No, it couldn’t be. Pushing through the white painted doorway, I walked inside. The bottles hadn’t been picked up and I wrinkled my nose at the stench.

I checked the living room where I last saw him. No, he wasn’t there. But a note was left in his place. Curiously, I walked over to read the large hand writing. At least he had been sober when it was written. I couldn’t imagine it was that long ago.

Dearest Kayla,
What I did was so wrong, I can’t believe that I let myself relapse into the drinking. No, I didn’t mean a single word of whatever I said yesterday. Most of it was fuzzy, but I knew I said I didn’t love you. That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told. You’re the light of my life and you probably hate me right now. I don’t blame you. I’m ashamed of what I did, but I just can’t do this.

Kayla, I really can’t keep holding on any longer. This is all too much and I can’t push my anger and sadness on top of your shoulders. I slipped up, I screwed up way worse than ever before. I just can’t live with the shame.

I love you, darling, but I’m so sorry. I can’t with this pain anymore.

-Danny

I could barely finish without trembling. He should’ve told me! I would’ve helped him through it and now he thinks I hate him! No, Anna was right. We all screw up some times, but we just need someone to get through it with.

And I knew the place he was going to end it all.

Sprinting down the steps, I didn’t care who I woke up. My boy was in trouble. I don’t care about whatever “relationship drama” we went through last night. I don’t care my bruise was flaring up and my face still stung.

As soon as my feet touched the pavement, I took off like a bullet behind the building. Those footsteps I must’ve heard when I woke up would’ve been his. I sure hope I wasn’t too late.

“DANNY!” I shouted as soon as I took off on our favorite path in the woods behind the buildings. He would go to that pond where we always used to sit under the trees and stare at our reflections. My gut told me I would find him there.

But would he be dead or alive?

“Danny, please answer!” I started to break down. I couldn’t lose him. No, I wouldn’t let him feel alone anymore.

My feet felt like lead, but I kept on walking. Through it all, I managed to push on through the early morning light to the pond.

I saw Danny with his back to me, staring at the reflection. All I could hear was the choked up sobs and shaky breath. In one hand, he curled his fingers into a fist.

The other held a gun.

“Danny Worsnop, you turn around right now.” I stood six feet behind him, just enough for his head to slow rotate and face me. I saw the tears that stained his face and grey shirt. The light colored tussled hair was messy and unkempt. I swallowed any tears left and stared him down.

Neither of us moved.

“Danny, why didn’t you tell me it was getting to be too much?” I asked him softly, feeling myself start to break. I was scared, so scared I was going to lose him.

“I’m not going to force my issues on you.” He responded, tearing up at the words. I took a few steps forward, coming towards him.

He put the barrel of the small gun up to his head.

“No, Danny, please! Stop! Stop! STOP!” I begged as he closed his eyes. I could feel the fingers twitch on the trigger, but it hadn’t been pulled yet.

“Kayla, I can’t do this anymore. I just want to be with Tristan again. I don’t want to see mom die. I can’t make a living to take care of you. I’m a failure and this pain is more than I can handle.” He sobbed, completely falling apart.

“Yes, you can make it through, Dan. I believe that if you held on this long, you can keep on hanging on.” I whispered, starting to stutter through the sadness. Danny didn’t even open his eyes to look at me. All he did was shake his head. I knew that time was running out before that bullet would leave the gun and take my best friend away from me forever.

“No, but Kayla I don’t want to hang on anymore. Everyone’s got to fall at some point.” He sobbed, pressing the barrel harder against his tussled hair.

“What if I were to help you hang on?” I asked slowly, trying to plead to him. Danny opened his eyes and clung to mine.

“But I hurt you. I said those nasty things. Why would you want to help me?” He asked, trying to make sense of what seemed like a nonexistent reason.

“Because I love you, and you’re my best friend. I’m not about to let you try and figure this out all by yourself.” I whispered, stepping closer. He just stared at me as if I was crazy.

“No, you can’t-“ He stuttered, not believing it.

“Shut up.” I told him and wrapped my arms around his neck. It was a risky move, being so close to the gun and him being so sensitive right now.

But the gun was at his side.

He went limp in my arms and just wept into my shirt. I wrapped my arms tighter around him while one hand snuck down to slowly pry his fingers away from the small weapon. He let it drop into my grip and I tossed it into the pond.

It splashed and sank into the bottom.

I tangled both hands up around him like a prison.

“Danny, I love you, sweetheart. All you have to do is tell me what’s going on, okay? Can you promise me that?” I made him swear to that. He sniffed a little.

“Okay.” He nodded. I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to detangle it.

“Let’s go back inside and we’ll have some tea and watch Breaking Bad, how about that?” I asked him. All he did was smile, intertwine his fingers with mine, and let me pull him away from what was about to be his final resting place.

As soon as we got back, I started to boil water and made us tea. The entire time, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. We popped in the discs of the television show. I was shaking the entire time as I cleaned up and watched Danny mess with the buttons on the TV remote and swear softly. Once I was finished, we took our tea and sat on the couch together. I curled up next to his side as the opening started.

Despite everything that happened today, the tea was still delicious.

Notes

So this one-shot is for the always awesome DrummingAngelofSilence who wanted a chapter with Danny Worsnop of Asking Alexandria! He (or she, I really don't know XD) gave me a lot of free reign with this chapter so I hope you enjoyed it and found it dramatic enough for you! :D I really had to think of an idea that would be good enough to make into a nice one-shot, and this was the best that came to mind!

Like always, don't forget to message me if you want a one-shot! I'd appricate anything, any plots you have, or any stories you want me to make up with any band members!