The World Will Stain Us

Ribcage

A/N: Yeah...it's that chapter. The angst beginneth...

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Later on, Andy could look back on that night and laugh at his own stupidity.

Later on, he could recognize that he'd been drunk off his ass and that if he hadn't been, it might not have happened.

But in the moment, he wasn't laughing at all.

He was aware of the fact that he was drunk as he walked onto the stage. How could he not be―Ashley had brought a lot of alcohol, and the five of them had wasted no time diving into it. Andy wasn't even going to question where Ashley kept getting the alcohol-infused blood, or if he made it himself, where the excess was coming from―though he wasn't going to pretend it wasn't a little worrying, after the first few drinks it didn't matter.

The affection they'd exchanged backstage had only added to the fog in Andy's brain, a blissful haze of alcohol and his boyfriends' kisses to drown the exhaustion of the last few days of signings and local shows. Warped started in a week, and they'd been throwing themselves full stop into promoting this new era and the fact that they had indeed been accepted into this tour. As vampires, they didn't need to sleep, but CC did, and he hadn't gotten much more than the vampires had in the last few days. But that hadn't made them any less affectionate; in fact, the human had only become more clingy with the sleep deprivation, and the vampires never objected.

And so he walked onto the stage at Hollywood & Highland with his head fucked up by blood and whiskey, already searching for a way to make this the most memorable Black Veil Brides performance ever.

He barely paid attention to where the others were, though he did spare part of his attention to greet the crowd even as he searched for something dramatic to do. He'd been jumping off of things and acting like a lunatic onstage for a while now, but tonight was release night―he had to make it perfect, dramatic, something everyone would remember.

He scanned the stage, and almost instantly his eyes lighted on a couple of random elephant statues. Perfect, he thought. I'll climb those and leap off, back onto the stage―they'll never forget that!

It didn't occur to him that this would be near-impossible with his inebriated state and the fact that he was wearing cowboy boots with no traction. His only thought was to make it dramatic.

They started to perform, Andy's focus only vaguely on the lyrics he was singing, trying to scout his way to the top of one of the statues. When do I do it? When will it be dramatic enough? He thought he spotted a few decent hand- and footholds, and resisted the urge to nod in satisfaction; he was in the middle of a song, how strange would that look?

That said, middle of the song notwithstanding, Andy couldn't take the waiting. If he was going to do something dramatic―dramatic, dramatic, always dramatic―he was going to do it now.

Still singing, Andy made his way towards the other end of the stage and hopped off, heading for the statue. As far as he knew, none of the guys could see him―there were pillars in the way, after all―but all that did was give him the thought that it'd be even better to surprise them when he jumped off. He was sure they'd be impressed―CC had mentioned something about hardly being able to believe he could do so much crazy shit without hurting himself, and this would definitely leave its impression on the human at the very least.

Andy smiled to himself a little distractedly at the thought of his human. Warm and beautiful and lively―gods, I've forgotten what it feels like.

He reached the base of the statue and began to climb, realizing almost immediately that this was much less of a good idea than he'd initially thought. What he'd taken to be decent hand- and footholds actually weren't, and his boots couldn't find much purchase anywhere.