Why Don't We One Shots

Voices - Jachary

3RD PERSON

"No, you don't understand! I'm sick and tired of disappointing everyone! It's all my fault!" Zach yells at Jack, tears stinging his eyes. But he wouldn't cry. He couldn't.

Because the truth was, Zach was so scared. Zach was scared of losing Jack. He thought he was too weak for him, that he could never be as strong as Jack was. Jack deserved someone that was going to be just as strong and beautiful as he was.

And Zach thought that he could never be that for him.

"Zach, calm down baby," Jack says softly. "You're just stressed, but I promise, everything is going to be okay. I'm right here." He knew that the voices in Zach's head were messing with him, trying to get him to give up. And Jack couldn't let that happen.

Because the truth was, Jack was so scared. Jack was scared of losing Zach. He worried that one day, the voices in Zach's beautiful mind would drown everything else out, leaving Zach in their black hole of negativity. And Jack couldn't lose Zach.

Not to those damn voices.

"You're always making excuses for me!" Zach yells, shaking his head. "Like I'm some little kid! I can handle myself Jack! I don't need protecting! God, why can't you understand that?!"

Jack raises his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. But-"

"No!" Zach screams, having a full-blown meltdown. "You know what? I'm done!" He grabs his coat and keys and dashes out the front door, taking the car and going God knows where.

"Zach!" Jack yells running out after him. "Zachary Dean Herron!" But he was too late.

Zach had yelled at Jack that he was done. But he didn't mean with the relationship. He meant with life. The demons in Zach's head, the ones that had always silenced around Jack, were coming back, fast and full-force, and he couldn't take it anymore. He was weak. He was done.

That night, Zach drove two hours away from everyone, everything he loved. Jack. The boys. His career. It was all too much for him. And there, at two in the morning at some crappy bar in some crappy neighborhood, Zach drank to forget. He forgot maybe a little too much.

Like his name.

How he'd gotten to the bar.

The reason he was still alive.

How to breathe.

And yet, among all the voices shouting in his head, all the monsters he'd try to outrun for years, one voice whispered, louder than all the rest. And that was the one that caught his attention. Jack, it whispered. Don't forget about Jack.

Trouble was, Zach was so drunk he'd forgotten a Jack. He didn't know who that was or why he seemed so important. And before he could figure it all out...

Darkness fell.

Now, poor Jack certainly hadn't forgotten his baby, his love, his one and only until the end of his time. He'd rounded up the rest of the boys, all of them searching for the lost boy. After checking Zach's favorite places, the places he liked to hide, and calling him a dozen times to no avail, still nothing. Nothing was leading them to the other half of Jachary. So Jonah called the police.

Jack, now sitting terrified on the couch, Corbyn and Daniel on either side of him, Jonah speaking softly to the police, could only think of what could've happened to his baby.

What if he's dead?

What if he never comes home?

What if he decides he's done with me? With us?

And then, Jack comes across a thought that hadn't occurred to him before that moment.

What if the voices in his mind finally won?

Jack jumps up, grabs the keys to Jonah's car, and runs out. In that moment, there was one place they hadn't checked yet. And Jack was hoping like hell Zach wasn't there.

He was hoping Zach hadn't ended up in the hospital. Where the demons might've led him.

~