Who Can You Trust?

Insomnia, my friend. How nice to spend another night with you.

I'm up reading at three in the morning. As much as I'd like to go play around with my guitar, the others really need their sleep tonight. We've got a big day tomorrow, a show to play and interviews to do and fans to meet. I could use some sleep too, but that argument never quite convinces my brain to sleep. It's okay. I can live with exhaustion. I just would prefer not to.

But it's about ten past three and I hear a gasp for air across the room. Dan shoots up in his bed, panting and rubbing his neck.

"Dan?" I whisper, putting my book down. He flinches, then finds me in the darkness and sighs in relief when he sees he's not in danger.
I get up and move to his bed, sitting next to him. "What's wrong?"

He shakes his head.

"C'mon, it's okay. Bad dream?"

He swallows and nods, trembling.

This isn't out of the ordinary for him. I don't know if it's an anxiety thing or what, but he gets the most intense, terrifying nightmares out of anyone I've met. I've seen him wake up literally screaming, I've seen him cry in his sleep, I've had to wake him up in the middle of the night because he wasn't breathing quite right.

"What happened in it?" I ask him.

"It was...a-about Gold."

"Our song?"

"Yeah. I...it was real. Everything I touched turned to gold. We were onstage playing it and my mic turned gold and then the floor turned gold and my drum...and then the whole audience was turning to gold and there were more of them, like they were just completely filling the room. And then I was backing up because I was afraid and I ran into Ben and he turned to gold...and then Platz came up and was screaming at me like 'Look, look what you did, you killed him!' and then I think he accidentally touched me and he turned to gold...and then I was so scared and I went to you and you tried to hug me and you turned to gold and then everything was melting and I was turning to gold and my throat was closing up and then I was all alone and I was made of gold and I couldn't speak or breathe, but then I just saw all these people around me, all my old friends and my family and you guys and Aja and Arrow and some of our fans and...and you were all melting."

Ah. That dream hits him in his weak spot, guilt. Feeling like he's wrecking everything.

I rub his back, trying to calm him down. "I think that's the kind of dream that means something."

"What does it mean?"

"Well, what is the song about?"

He's quiet for a while. "The dream was about losing all my friends, wasn't it? About losing everyone I love...the whole 'who can you trust' thing."

"Sounds like it. Have you been worrying about that lately?" I say.

"I don't know, it just keeps getting worse...I'm just so paranoid. I can't even talk to people anymore, I get so anxious."

Fake friends really aren't that hard to tell from real ones. But if you're insecure and shy, it's just another added problem to the already existing problem of making and keeping friends. And I think that's why it hit the two of us so hard, because we had enough trouble making friends before all this crazy stuff happened.

"I know I don't understand a lot of your problems, but this one I do. I feel like that too. It's...it's all in our heads, I think," I say.

"I know. But...I just can't be social, I can't stop worrying about it. And in the dream, it was that and then also this other fear of getting too caught up in everything and not caring about anyone anymore. I just...I just wish we weren't famous sometimes," he whispers.

I do too. Sometimes I just want to feel comfortable with my old friends. Sometimes I just want to go hang out with fans after the shows and not have to make it a paid event, and sometimes I just want to go out to dinner with the other guys without anyone recognizing us. But we can't complain. We have everything we ever could have wanted.

"We're so, so lucky, Dan."

"I know! I know, I know, I'm an ungrateful asshole, I just wish I wasn't so messed up. I just want to be normal," he says.

I sigh at the pain on his face. I hate seeing him sad, I always have. But back a few years ago there were ex-girlfriends and douchebags in the audience and parents to blame when he got hurt, and now there's no one. We're just battling our own minds. Depression for both of us and anxiety for him have always been there, of course, but there was never this veil over reality.

I knew what was real a few years ago.

"Look," I say, still trying to stay positive. "You've lost a whole bunch of friends and that sucks, I know. But we're not going anywhere, and your family's not, and Aja and Arrow aren't."

"But I don't know that! I don't know anything!"

"You should. Look at me."

He lifts his head and looks me in the eye. His eyes are a little glassy and I realize there are tears in them.

"No matter what happens to us, I'm here. I'm real. And it really is true that Ben and Platz and your family and Aja and Arrow are real too, but I know you're not going to believe me so I just want you to believe me that I'm real. I've loved you when you were broke, when you were sick, when you were depressed, when you were drunk, when you were stupid, and I still love you right now. For you, not the band. I'm not made of gold."

He hugs me, burying his face in my shoulder. "I'm so, so, so, so lucky that you're my best friend."

"I'm lucky you're mine." We pull away from each other and he lies back down. I stand up to go back to my bed.

"Hey Wayne?" he whispers.

"Yeah?"

"Will you...stay here?"

We're about as close as friends can get after all this time. And I've shared a bed with him often enough that it's not weird anymore. My insomnia keeps me up, his anxiety keeps him up, and we've both had periods of time when we're just so damn sad and lonely. So when we can't sleep on the bus and we want comfort or security or just the feel of another heartbeat, we crawl into each other's beds. And I think sometime last year we started to cuddle a little when we did it too.
Call me weird. Call me gay. Whatever. At the end of the day, I love him and he loves me back and neither of us feel the need to spoil it with "no homo" and I think more guys should be like that.

So I smile and tell him, "of course" and climb in next to him, putting my arm around his shoulders.

"I love you," he mumbles.

"I love you too."

He yawns. "Guess my heart's not turned to gold quite yet."

A/N: Awww. I'm not sure what this is, just a little thing I wrote. Hope you enjoyed. :3