That night Alex was still on the roof, Juanita had gone home, she didn't want to leave Alex on the roof but he refused to budge. Nat come up the stairs and kicking his way through the mess of soda bottles and can's gave Alex a light nudge.
"Don't bother me, I drank to many lemon lime sodas, I need to sleep" Alex groaned.
"Alex I brought a friend to see you" Nat replied ignoring his brothers request.
"I just want to be left alone," Alex groaned and rolled over.
"Come on Alex he wants to help you," Nat insisted and motioned for the person to come over. "I'll leave you two alone."
"Hey Alex you're a mess." The person said.
Alex rolled back over.
"Hey Tony," Alex said recognising him as his friend from the sodaholics at sea cruise. "What are you doing here?" he mumbled holding his head.
"I'm here because of you Alex, I thought we were going to be milk buddies for life" Tony said sadly.
"We…" Alex said unable to finish the sentence
"We pinkie swore" Tony continued sadly
"It's too hard," Alex said sitting up and leaning back against a wall.
"Why didn't you call me? I could have helped you" Tony said sitting beside Alex.
"I don't know" Alex moaned
"We need to get you off soda again" Tony said looking around at all the cans "You drank all these!"
"What's the point, Nat hates me, I don't have a band to go to," Alex said looking for a full bottle of soda.
"Alex, your brother doesn't hate you, he was the one that called me" Tony said, absentmindedly giving Alex a full bottle of soda.
Alex took the bottle and began drinking it before Tony realized and took it back.
"Nat would do that?" Alex asked
"Your brother would do anything for you," Tony said.
"He kicked me out of the band" Alex said loudly.
"mmm" Tony mumbled thoughtfully and after a minute asked "so Alex, are you going to get of Lemon Lime soda?"
But before Alex could answer he collapsed into a deep sleep, the days binging had drained all his energy.
Tony weakly smiled as he stood up and picked up Alex and took him down to the apartment and laid him down on the couch.
"How'd it go?" Nat asked nervously as Tony came in.
"I don't know, he doesn't seem to want to give it up," Tony said looking at the half drunken bottle he was still holding.
"He said No?" Nat said feeling more depressed.
"He collapsed before he could," Tony said still looking at the bottle, "Who's this friend who has been with him the most?"
Nat took the bottle of the Tony and threw it in the bin.
"Juanita… why?" Nat replied inquisitively.
"Maybe she can help, can you talk to her?" Tony said looking longingly at the bin, but then shaking his head and looking at Nat.
"She's another one not talking to me because I've what I did to Alex" Nat replied solemnly.
"Oh. So ah what exactly did you do to him," Tony asked finally.
Nat told him, and a few minutes after Tony left, he would try to talk to Juanita tomorrow.
Nat looked down at his brother, whose hair was untidy and looked in generally scruffy and dirty, Nat picked up a blanket of the floor and threw it over his brother before going to bed himself.