Archive of Our Own

Aleksi let the hotel room’s door slam shut behind him. He tiptoed inside the room, even though he was the only person there, so he could make as much noise as he wanted and it wouldn’t bother anyone. He just wasn’t in the mood. Jeans and the shirt he had on in the gig they had played came off easily and Aleksi didn’t have to search much to find an oversized hoodie and sweats from a bag. He picked up a bottle of red wine and a wine glass, before making his way into the bathroom.

Aleksi climbed into the bathtub and exhaled, closing his eyes. He let all the worry and anxiety he had pushed away the whole day come and take over him. In the morning, right after waking up, he had felt that uncomfortably familiar feeling in his chest. And because they were in the middle of a gig weekend, he couldn’t just deal with the feeling when he had first noticed it. Aleksi himself thought it was great that over the years he had learned to push his feelings, especially the negative ones, away like this. If the anxiety hit, like it always did, on a busy day, he knew he could get his tasks done, and when everything on his to-do list was completed, he could break down. Simpler paraphrasing: Aleksi scheduled his breakdowns, like it was an event.

Aleksi opened his eyes. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason why he was this anxious. This wasn’t normal nervousness or the normal anxiety he felt. This was more like, can’t breathe deeply, help I feel like suffocating - type of anxiety, but not like a panic attack. Aleksi couldn’t bring himself to think that he, himself, might be the reason the anxiety was that bad, because he had pushed the feeling away and ignored the tight feeling in his chest all day long. That avoid until it becomes impossible - strategy might not be the best nor the healthiest option for this kind of problem, even though it had worked for him for so many years. He simply turned a blind eye towards it and ignored the chance.

Aleksi eyed the wine bottle he had brought with him. It was tempting. The dark red wine would get his shoulders to drop and that tightness that had spread from his chest to every part of his body as the morning had slowly moved to the night, ease. He craved that kind of release the wine had to offer. But there was one thing stopping him. The wine wouldn’t actually solve anything. If he drank enough, he could just simply forget his anxiousness, but when he woke up the next morning, hangover from the wine and muscles aching from the tension he held inside of him, it would still be there. Aleksi picked up the wine glass and a part of him wanted to let it slip from his fingers. He wanted to see the glass break into a million little pieces on the shiny bathroom floor. It would look so cool, almost aesthetically pleasing. But instead of doing as the impulse thought in his head told him, he put the wine glass back to the floor, next to the bottle.

The black nail polish he had in his nails was partly faded. Aleksi’s thoughts slipped into thinking about painting his nails, instead of figuring his current problem out. Everything was okay, so why he was sitting in a bathtub, obsessively thinking about drinking wine to forget his problems? He was supposed to be having fun, enjoying his life whilst being young, not letting opportunities slip through his fingers. And that’s when it hit. Aleksi took a breath and counted, one, two, three, in his mind. He was so anxious, that it could also be described as a fear that if he took his eyes away from the prize, it would be taken away from him. And what’s the prize in this context, you may wonder? This. The life he lived right now, the band, the gigs, the fans, the music they made and the music he made by himself. This past year, he had been working more than doing anything else. Going days with little to no sleep, pushing himself to be better. If someone had asked Aleksi what he was trying to get or be better at, he would’ve probably screamed or either cried, depending on who that someone was. Aleksi hadn’t figured it out himself either. He just knew that he needed to keep doing, keep going, keep pushing and that’s what he did. He was afraid that if he was easier, softer, or even a bit kinder to himself, the things he had earned through hard work and pushing himself wurther, would slip away his fingers, like he had thought the wine glass would slip, if he had let it.

Aleksi didn’t even notice it at first. He was pinching his tight and only when it started to hurt, he realized what he was doing. He relaxed his fingers and tried to snap himself out of it. Aleksi had never actually harmed himself, in the most known way at least. Pinching parts of his tights or one part in the palm of his hand, precisely between thumb and index finger, became a habit somewhere along the way, when the anxiety made a permanent nest in his chest instead of randomly coming and going, like ocean waves in stormy weather. Aleksi didn’t actually consider it self-harm, when he accidentally put the burning cigarette to his hand or wrist and let it sit until it got too much and his reflexes kicked in and forced him to drop the cigarette. Aleksi smoked less nowadays than he had before, so those incidents happened less. He had searched it once, like actually typed in the search bar of his phone: “is burning yourself considered self-harm?” and he had closed that tab almost as fast as he had opened it. Because if he didn’t acknowledge the fact that a habit of burning yourself with cigarettes when you’re too anxious is considered self-harm, he could keep it as a coping mechanism, if things in his head got really bad.

Aleksi caved and picked up the wine glass from the floor again. But this time it was filled with wine. The first two sips of any kind of alcohol are the best ones. The stronger the beverage was the better the first sips felt. Aleksi was so focused on his wine tasting, that he didn’t notice that he wasn’t alone anymore. There was a “click” - sound coming from the bathroom door and as Aleksi turned his head just to see Joel, leaning against the doorframe, holding his phone to, apparently take a photo of the situation in hand, and a pizza box in his other hand.

“Are you having a party or an existential crisis?” Joel tried to hold his laughter. Aleksi sipped wine as an answer. The black haired boy really didn’t want company. He wanted to sip his wine in peace and drown in his thoughts. But knowing Joel, Aleksi knew that he could forget his quest to be alone, because when Joel noticed something or someone being off, he didn’t let it go. Aleksi really appreciated that “hey just making sure you’re okay” - side of Joel a lot, but right now, he didn’t want it. Because if, or rather when Joel was about to ask what was going on, he could only answer with broken sentences which had open endings. Because Aleksi wasn’t exactly sure, didn’t know enough or simply; didn’t want to admit.

Apparently Aleksi had gotten so lost in his own thoughts, because at that time, Joel had moved from the door right next to the bathtub. And now it was looking clearer than ever, that the all legs and limbs lanky man was about to get into the bathtub, which was already occupied.
“This is my bathtub”, Aleksi opened his mouth.
“I don’t care, it looks comfortable”, Joel said.
“And I brought pizza”, Joel added. So Aleksi didn’t have a choice, but to put his wine glass down and make room in the small bathtub.

“So what’s going on?” Joel asked, when he had settled into the bathtub and now had a glass of wine in his hand and a slice of pizza in the other.
“You already got into my tub, so can we just drink and eat in silence?” Aleksi sounded a bit harsher than he was meaning to.
“We could’ve, but not after that”, Joel replied.
“You’ve been on the edge all day and now you just snapped at me over nothing, so no, I’m not dropping this”, Joel explained. Joel’s definition of snapping was definitely loose, but considering Aleksi was usually the definition of calmness, Joel was right.
“Yeah, you're lying on top of me in this goddamn bathtub and you want to talk about what, feelings'' Aleksi spit out.
“Not feeling good enough?” Joel guessed and somehow managed to be right. The look in Aleksi’s eyes must’ve been confused, because Joel hurried to explain:
“You’re not the only one. I’ve always thought that if I was just busy enough, I would also be happy. And I’ve worked myself to a burnout or two over the years, but I still have this thought that if I just manage to do more, I would feel that I’m good enough, to me.” The last two words from Joel’s mouth were almost non-audible. Aleksi felt like crying and honest to God, he was way too tired to try to stop them coming.
“You all make it look like you have it all together”, Aleksi managed to say between the crying and sipping wine.
“Oh God no, we’re just good at pretending that we’re not falling apart, except Tommi, but I think he’s not a human, I think he might be a robot”, Joel laughed.
“Fuck, if I got to choose I would love to be a robot. Life would be so good if I didn’t have these stupid breakdowns slowing me down”, Aleksi mumbled.
“You wouldn’t have breakdowns if you didn’t ignore your bad feelings when they surface”, Joel said.
“You’re helping, but somehow you suck at it”, Deep, deep down Aleksi knew Joel was right, but he didn’t want to give the older one that satisfaction.
“And emotions aren’t even good or bad, they’re like signals, telling us to pay attention to the events that create them”, Joel added.
“Someone’s been to therapy”, Aleksi hit below the belt.
“Someone should go to therapy”, Joel hit back.

And then it was quiet. The only sounds in the bathroom came from Aleksi when he poured more wine into their glasses. Aleksi felt Joel staring at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at his friend to see if the gaze was understanding or pitying. Aleksi bit his lip, like he did every time he was nervous and somehow he started to think about needing to buy lip balm next time he went to the store.

“Burnout isn’t a badge of honor, you know?”, Joel broke the silence and dragged Aleksi back to the reality.
“Is that your next Instagram caption?” The wine was getting into Aleksi’s head. Joel didn’t even bother to reply.
“Rest isn’t something to be earned, none of the things necessary in life are. And if you don’t feel good in your own skin now, you won’t feel good after whatever it is that you’ve set up as, when I have achieved this, I’m complete, - goal”, Joel had a point.
“Yeah, I was here, resting, and now I’m here with your feet almost in my mouth, listening to you, which is the opposite of resting”, Aleksi tried. The bathtub wasn’t made for two people, especially when the other one was as tall as a light pole. Joel became quiet again and Aleksi felt bad, because he didn’t exactly want to hurt Joel. The black haired boy just didn’t want to admit that Joel was kind of right about everything. Can’t have a problem, if you don’t admit it, right?

“And what if I have used working as a way to run away from my problems for years? It started as it’s hard to be sad and anxious if you don’t have time to be, because there’s always a meeting or a scheduled studio time or a project to consult on. And now it’s like my self-worth is tied to how much I achieve in a day. And I’m scared shitless that if I slow down I’m going to lose everything. So how do you plan on fixing that?” The words came out of Aleksi’s mouth so fast that he felt that he wasn’t making any sense, or maybe it was that and the wine he had downed.
“I don’t know exactly, but one thing is sure, you don’t have to figure this out alone”, Joel answered.
“I’m not going to save you, but I’m going to hold your hand while you save yourself”, Joel said.
“Is that another Instagram caption you’re planning on using?” Aleksi laughed, even though instead of the earlier tightness in his chest, he now felt a bit of warmness in there.
“Fuck you”, Joel gave the finger.

And then Joel, who’s body mainly consisted of long limbs, managed to turn himself over in that not made for two - bathtub, so that instead of his feet in Aleksi’s mouth, he was now facing Aleksi. And in someway that only God knows, Joel managed not to spill any wine anywhere in that process. Joel put his empty glass on the floor and wrapped his hands around Aleksi as he let his head fall into the younger boy’s chest.
“I’m going to tell you all these great things about yourself, so you can build your self-esteem around them instead”, Joel whispered to Aleksi’s ear.