Trigger warnings: Disordered eating, depression, weight.

The tour is in three months.

Andy is making a late dinner at almost midnight, despite everything inside telling him not to, that he should bin it and go without, just this once. Yes, just this once. The same as that time before, and the one before that. Always just this once. He keeps convincing himself that he's over this - whatever this is, but every time, he's wrong, and part of him knows he always will be. How could he be over this? How, when his entire being seems to be constantly consumed with these mean things? He couldn't imagine, now, ever being over it, no matter how much he wishes he was. Wouldn't it be such a lovely thing to wake up and smile at the thought of breakfast, rather than to smile at the thought of what he didn't eat the day before? To smile at the rumble of his stomach, isn't that just so awful?

As he pushes a wooden spoon around in the stir-fry, he notices the shaking of his hand, the dread building like a great stack of black bricks. It makes him upset. How is it that food has this effect on him? He watches the spoon sliding over the non-stick pan and realises, for what must be at least the tenth day, that this is pointless. A waste of time. He's not going to eat this. He won't tip it onto a plate and sit down with it. There's no use in any of this, so he turns the stove off, picks up the pan, and scrapes its contents into the bin.

Then, he smiles.

* * *

They take a week off from rehearsing to catch up on sleep, and for the entirety of that week, almost every meal of Andy's, all half-made, are disposed of before consumption, before he has a chance to change his mind, not that he would. He's sure of that - it's going well, he couldn't ruin it all.

On the Friday before they return to the studio, Andy spends the best part of two hours in the gym. He works on his core muscles of course, but spends the last half hour running on a treadmill and causing a harsh sweat and a harsher dizziness which he's sure is a good sign. That is, until the dizziness worsens into the inability to see things clearly, and he barely has time to press the emergency stop button before he falls, collapsing onto the machine.

When he gains consciousness, there's a small group of people around him, clearly concerned, as anyone would be. He's been moved and is now lying on one of the cushioned blue mats. He sits up and blinks until he feels more like himself.

"Are you alright?" Someone asks. She's wearing a shirt with the gym's logo on.

Andy nods, smiles. "Yes, I'm fine," he says. "Must've not been drinking enough." He shrugs with innocence. It must be working if you fucking collapsed, Andy! You can't stop now! You're already lost a whole stone, imagine how much you could lose by the time the tour begins!

"You look ill."

"Naturally pale," he says, thinking up the excuse on the spot. "Really, I'm okay. Thank you." To prove his point, he gets up. His head is still swimming and his limbs could be someone else's, but he stands nonetheless. You must come back tomorrow. Think of the progress you're making, Andy!

That evening, he begins the same routine of making dinner as though he might actually eat some of it this time, stirring it round on round until it makes his dizzy once more, though that's probably because he hasn't had anything since a week ago, or something. He's lost track, but that doesn't matter because whenever it was, it won't happen again.

It's as he's contemplating whether or not to throw it away that Lonny turns up at his door. "Hey man," the bassist says. "You doing anything tonight?"

Andy shakes his head. "No, why?"

"Wanna watch the new season of The Vampire Diaries with me?"

Inwardly, Andy cringes, though says, "Oh, sure. Yeah. Right now?"

"Yeah."

"Sure. Uh...yeah, come in. Come in." He steps aside and those mean things yell at him to push Lonny out again.

"Whatever you're cooking smells good."

There it is. You've done it, Andy. You've ruined it. You fucking idiot, you! Well fucking done! "Oh, thanks. It's just stir-fry. There's enough for two if you want some?" Don't offer him some, what are you, an idiot? Now you're gonna have to eat it with him. Oh, well done, you fucked it all up. You've ruined everything.

Unfortunately, Lonny accepts the offer, and so Andy serves the meal onto two plates, giving the bassist as much of it as he can without it being noticeable. Then they sit, one couch each, and turn on the television. Andy has no choice other than to eat, and silently inside, he breaks apart. All that work, all those hard hours in the gym, gone. Just like that, he's back to square one, and the worst part?

The worst part is that he has no one to confide in about it.

Hours later, after Lonny has left and the food is being digested, he sits weak in the bathroom and he cries. No, he sobs, and he sobs hard. Sobs until his body aches and his heart stings for more air than he can provide it with. He hopes, all the while, that it might make him feel better, that releasing some of these emotions could fix this, but all it does is remind him over and over, every time he sucks in a breath, that this is really happening. And no one even fucking knows, which is the cruellest part of it all. No one knows, and until they do, this will continue.

And even after they discover this self-destruction, who's to say they could make it stop? Who's to say, other than the mean things bashing ruthlessly into his brain? Who's to say, if not for the mean things that desire nothing more than for the man in which they torment to fall far, to hit the ground, and to break into pieces so miniscule that fixing him would take a lifetime and more?

Yes, who's to say?