[cw: self-harm like for real self-harm (not graphically depicted/mentioned but still there), suicidal ideation and talk, yeah uhhhHH this starts us right in the shit. if xiu xiu little panda mcelroy was the 1984 mood, shellac prayer to god is the 1985 mood]

*

I'm going to fucking kill Walter Henderson. I'm going to FUCKING KILL HIM I'm going to stab his fat fucking body with a knife as many times as I fucking can and then slit my wrists. I'm going to strangle him and hang myself. I'm going to get a gun and shoot the both of us in the goddamn skull i'm going to kill him i'm going to kill him i'm going to fucking kill him

*

He ruined my fucking life. What a fucking naive idiot I was near-ten years ago thinking he was saving it when he was toying with me the whole fucking time like a cat playing with its food. The more I pulled away the more he yanked me back, the more I tried to escape him the tighter he gripped me, every time I thought I won against him he was just biding his fucking time waiting for the kill.

Well, Walter. Benjamin's gone from the crew just like you wanted (~conflict of interest~, FUCK you), and he's also out of my life. Two birds with one stone. A real master-stroke. Congratulations. Are you happy? Are you satisfied now that my heart's irreparably shattered in pieces on the floor? Is that enough for you or is there more left for you to take? --God and he probably still thinks this is some comeuppance and just desserts for me taking from HIM, like he could see me slipping through his fingers and had to slam his entire hand down, as if I fucking belong to him, like I'm some piece of fucking property I'm going to KILL HIM.

I didn't cry in front of him, at least. In front of Walter. I couldn't help but cry in front of Ben; sobbed, wailed, begged, clung to him, swore to him that we lived through so much already, fought and WON against so much, and he never fucking trusted me whenever I dared to reached for something more even though it always worked out anyway, and this was just one more thing, I only had one more fucking record left on my contract no matter what he does and then we could be FREE we were so fucking close but he wouldn't fucking hear it. "He's not gonna stop, Julian. And I don't think you're gonna stop either for whatever goddamn reason you have, and you need to, and I know I ain’t gonna stop you." How the fuck can I stop if Walter isn't going to? How can I rest or relent or admit defeat (and to HIM of all fucking people)? When the fuck have I ever?? When COULD I?? He used to love that about me. He fucking told me, swore to me, promised me, to my fucking face, that I could never be too much for him, that he loved all of me, that he was there for me, that he was next to me that he was fighting with me and now he catches one full glimpse of the fucking monster Walter can be and he taps the fuck out?? You like the fight in me but you can't stand the sight of blood, then? FUCKING coward. And after all this fucking time. All this for nothing. All this for fucking nothing I can’t fucking believe it, I still can’t fully accept it, can’t understand it at all.

--And he said that maybe he was being a coward, but he spent the last "goddamn" year and change worrying about me “even more than usual”, trying not to notice or count the pill bottles and baggies I "thought I hid so well" across the house (and why the fuck was he snooping around my house to begin with?); that he tried his best to act like things were normal when I was "tweaking the fuck out" next to him (oh no my hands got a little shaky and my lips got a little twitchy, better call an ambulance) because otherwise I'd apparently "throw it back in his face". And what the fuck can I do if he's worrying about worthless shit that doesn't matter right now?? Christ I did fucking EVERYTHING for him. My fucking world was fucking falling apart and it still is (and now even worse) and I still did every fucking thing I could for him, for US, to make sure we wouldn't fall apart even if the rest of the world couldn't help itself, and he couldn't fucking understand.

And I degraded myself so fucking much trying to talk any kind of sense into him, to get him to stay until I could figure out a way to fix things, because I KNOW I can (and if I can't, Lou can), but it was obvious his mind was already made up. That he'd rather play exactly into Walt's hands and squander everything we've worked for for nearly five years, not even TRY to fight to get his position back (it was OBVIOUS retaliation and none of that shit is going to hold up legally), after such a beautiful time on the road together, after I'd already fixed so much, than tough out just one more rough patch. God, it's always been me trying to convince him to stay, having to remind him of how strong he is; he's always been so damn pessimistic, always sees doom over every fucking horizon and I've all but eradicated all the sources of doom I can and there's really just one more in our immediate lives, and it's always been the biggest one I could bring inside my control and I was finally fucking starting to and that was the only fucking reason Walter pulled this to begin with. Benjamin wouldn't have gotten his position without me!! Hell, he might've not even had the idea to TRY for it without me. He'd still be stuck making pennies sitting behind Sam all night. But god forbid he return the fucking favor. Fuck I'm always the one pouring everything I have into things, always naive enough to think someone would ever want to do the same for me, that someone could ever be as devoted to me as I can be to them, that I could ever be worth that devotion in the first place, UGH I'm such a fucking idiot EVERY single time.

And he left after some big long spiel about how I really WAS too much, even for myself, and that I'd have to figure that out myself before I ended up dead. So you think I'm going to die but it's fine to just LEAVE me to it (of course he’d leave me to it, all he fucking knows how to do is leave me to it)?? I felt so much at once I thought I was going to spontaneously combust, but as soon as my front door slammed behind him I just crumpled to the floor. I wanted, more than anything, to scream, but that never happens. Barely anything would come out of my throat besides panicked breaths, and what did was more despairing than angry. I dug my nails into my shoulders. Squeezed my eyes shut. Curled up tight. Then, a few minutes later, I just got up, fixed my hair and face, put a wall between myself and my feelings for awhile and drove to a hardware store (signed Jules Riley’s signature on a few peoples’ things as a matter of course), bought enough other things to make the razorblade purchase inconspicuous. Just doing a home project! I mean, it was a project of sorts, and I was doing it at home-- I wanted something more precise than Mom's old kitchen knives. The scars’ll be ugly this time despite that increase in precision, because I admittedly didn’t have much control over myself for the first part of it all and because I'm not seventeen anymore, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I was beyond worrying about things like that. It was like when I tried swimming out to the center of that pond. I want to vomit even looking down at them now, patched up as they are, but I'm just not looking down.

I cried so much with Ben, hurt myself so much afterwards, that even though seeing Walter made me shake that was all I had left for him. Benjamin understood devastatingly little in the end but he was right about one thing-- I can't stop and I won't and I can't apologize for it. I could have apologized for other things, but never that. Walt will never see me do more than shake. He wants to break me so damn bad and he has, he fucking has, but he'll never fucking see it. He's not getting anything from me anymore, at least not for free. I'm taking. And I'm not going to feel even a little bit bad about it.

*

GOD Lou is incredible. I still feel so awfully about how much he's had to put up with from me, but he's been so good to me despite it. I couldn't help but collapse into tears in his office and he was so patient, waited for me to be able to explain to him all of what's been going on, and the first thing he did was ask me what I wanted to do about it. It was hard to think rationally. All I had was anger, and it surged through me yet I was so ashamed of it, it felt so ugly, and he just told me he wouldn't judge me for whatever I needed to say. "Mr. Henderson has put you through quite a bit over the years, hasn't he?", he'd said. There's just something about him... how calm he always is, how he can take so much of me, still takes care of me regardless-- I know it's his job, that I'm literally paying him to do it, but he's never been resentful of any of it. It makes him so easy to trust, and I don't easily trust as a rule. But in any case, it meant I was honest with him. I told him that I wanted Walter to feel exactly what he’d done to me-- and again, Lou didn't judge me for it. He'd been leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with his pen the way he always does, and then he leaned forward with a tiny smile (I've never seen him with a wide smile, actually) and told me that he could help me arrange that. "Figuratively, of course. If that's enough for you."

I was feeling so terrible-- I still am, but so much less lost, now. The feeling of actually having someone so much in my corner, who believes me, who understands exactly why I'd be so upset and why I could never just submit to it all, who doesn't want me to... and then, to have that be my fucking lawyer, not the man who said he loved me, the man I was stupid enough to have loved for four and a half years. What a fucking joke.

*

Walter was SO cute today, thinking everything was just going to go back to normal, that he crushed me under his heel and I'd just sit there and let myself be crushed. Maybe Jeffrey would stay crushed under there, but not me. He thinks he's such a fucking genius, that he's the mastermind behind every single facet of our success and that means he can lead us around like his adoring pack of circus monkeys (or The Monkees, for that matter). The one good thing about anything this year so far is that Walt was finally enough of a freak to me to make Jeff and even NATHAN uncomfortable. Everyone always thought I was overreacting about him before or causing trouble for the sake of it or purely for my own gain, and he finally couldn't help but blink first.

Of course, they all know about me now. Sam did already, Nate knew enough, Jeff and Rory likely had their own suspicions, but everything with Ben sealed it. Obviously it's far better that they know than the general public, but that was apparently going to be the next step. Like it wasn't enough to humiliate me, he had to try and ruin Ben's life, too. He was just enough of a gloating idiot to make it obvious where some people of mine were around to hear and I could undercut him, beat him to most of it, talk/plan with Lou about it. Benjamin's an idiot, too-- if he stuck around for just a little longer the situation would've been fixed, just like I expected. MORE than fixed, really. But he didn't have faith that I could fix things in a way he deemed proper; my poor little drug-addled brain just can't handle it anymore, apparently. Fucking asshole. And ironically, an example of the reason I DON'T talk about my drug habits to anyone.

Anyway, Walter's been naming and picking the art our albums since the beginning and he still thinks that makes him some creative hotshot, he thinks that's part of what makes this "his" band. He still thinks he's included in "we" despite doing everything possible to remain as far above us as he can. So I brought Lou in to finally fully correct him of those notions-- he had faith in me, and I didn't squander it. Imagine that! Watching him work is beautiful. He can make people squirm and sweat with surgical precision; he has so much power and the smarts to use it well. What can I say? I'm a fan of seeing things wielded properly. I'm ever glad to have him as a weapon. So we're naming the album. We're choosing the cover artist, the engineers, the studio, and Walter doesn't have more power on the financial side of things than any of the rest of us do anymore. I mean, he would always go on about wanting to run things like a democracy, right[60]? What should he have to be upset about? :) I suppose I'm more for direct democracy than he is. Lou understands.

I feel numb to near-everything but ugliness. Walt really did think that ripping my heart out would make me EASIER to control. HA. Moron. Good to realize that he doesn't ACTUALLY know what I am, despite all his threats to the contrary-- it'll make this process of him finding out all the sweeter.

PS: All the healing cuts on my legs have made it difficult to walk without a limp, and I tried, but some of the cuts kept reopening. Ugh. Jeffrey's asked about it because he's always been a fucking busybody, and I just said I twisted an ankle running.[61]

*

I can tell they're all a little afraid of me now and I don't give a damn. Jeff and Sam're trying to be extra nice to me like that's going to change anything. He was the only one who knew about me and Ben. --Sam, that is, of course. I gave him so many chances just because he was kind of like me, because he'd opened up to me and I wanted to honor that, but what did I get for it? Fucking nothing. Typical. Less than nothing, if Walt was able to bribe him into spilling, and with how much of a fucking coward Sam is-- and the similarities of the things Sam's hiding-- I wouldn't doubt it. It’s easy to think you can just hunker down and do what you’re told and make it out okay when that’ll always be a comfortable option for you.

Rory's doing what he does best and trying to make everything into a joke. He's a thirty-seven year old man and he still thinks that works with anything. Beyond that he’s just stuck in the seventies. Wants to play psych or blues rock or whatever, thinks it’s a personal insult to play on anything remotely pop-like from this decade. Was whiny about what little we’ve already written sounding like the stuff I’d done by myself. It says something good about me, I think, that I haven't thrown anything at him yet.

Meanwhile, Jeff and Nate and myself have been trying our best to write. Jeffrey's gone through his own little heartbreak and is a pathetic mess because of it-- he can afford to be like he could always afford everything else in his blessed life (and no, Jeffrey, slumming it for awhile in LA to see how the other side lives doesn’t fucking count), people will understand, people won't make it into a fucking joke or recoil in disgust. Lucky him. The good part about all this for me, outside of the schadenfreude[62], is that Jeff needs this record to succeed if he wants his blessed life to stay as blessed as he's used to. He needs to make up for what he lost. So he's been quite the dedicated co-writer. Not that this was some masterminded anything-- Walt probably thinks so; I wish I was as much of a criminal genius as he apparently thinks I am-- just a nice side-effect.

Nathan’s been more sulky (not to use a Jeff word, but it's accurate here) than helpful, but that’s to be expected, unfortunately; even now he thinks Walter deserves some kind of forgiveness, as if he hadn’t already put me through hell and still thinks it was the right thing to do, as if I hadn’t already been far too fucking nice to him (and here was the result of THAT!). We haven't talked to each other outside of the strictest terms of business. ...He still smells amazing. And looks... ugh. Well, it doesn't matter, because he hates me and he'll never fucking understand why I had to do what I did. Walter made a "mistake" and I went nuclear on the poor innocent thing and it's a miracle the band itself didn't just explode and of course any threat of that happening is all my fault. UGH.

*

God I can’t believe my fucking legs jesus fucking christ why the fuck did I do this to myself again I’m too old for this

*

[60]It was either a family or a democracy depending on his mood, but I never bought the “family” shit and frankly I can’t have as much respect for those among us that buy it, even Nathan-- which means, on the flip-side, that I have to hand it to Jeff on understanding that much.

[61]And I DO hate that it’s made me unable to run-- I’ve so rarely missed even a single day, it feels so wrong-- but at least my appetite’s low enough I haven’t gained any weight at all. Might lose some muscle, but oh well. I'll just work a week of double-laps in somewhere when I can.

[62]And it was truly nice that Teri got something decent out of that whole mess; she isn’t from nearly as well-off a family as Jeff is. He said she cheated on him, but I could never feel any love between them when I was over his house and she was around. Awkward at best, tense at worst. Like he was trying to use those stupid songs of his to make up for what he couldn't actually give her. Pathetic. So I can't really blame her, is what I'm saying.