DAMN YOUR KISS; ryden

Chapter Four: Or Was It God Who Chokes In These Situations

When was Eye Of The Tiger never not an epic song?

Never, that's when.

And here Brendon was, massive pink sunglasses on, a black and white tie knotted around his head, shirtless, bare feet, unable to sit still.

There was a number of things his jitteriness could be put down to, but Brendon told himself it was the energy drink, coffee and sugar intake he'd had for that day. Lord, he'd like to believe that. Because it so wasn't the whole 'oh by the way, Ryan, yeah, that Ryan, you know the one, the one who left the band, your ex best friend, yaddayaddayadda, well, he's coming by to visit. Totally just thought you should know that.'.

Who was he kidding? Not himself, that was for sure.

Coffee was the last thing he needed, but here he was, flicking the machine on, hearing the bubble and hiss, thinking maybe it was time to replace it as he washed out the dregs from his last cup, wiping it clean, and spooning the grounds, when, with a fizzle that sure didn't sound good, and a screech, the lights flickered, and –

The machine fucking died. It died.

"No!" Brendon wailed, throwing the spoon down, the grounds scattering all over the counter – Zack would no doubt explode about that – and running over to the machine. He used the flat palm of his hand to whack the side. And again. It only resulted in the loose rattling and a few sludgy bits of coffee from last time dripping on to the pan. He kept doing so until it was way past the point of being obvious that that wasn't going to work, and it was gone.

And with a sad, sad sigh, Brendon removed his stinging hand, to pat the top of it gently. "May you rest in peace, little giver of liquid life."

It was a bad day not to have a back-up kettle.

He supposed he could call someone, but ...

"This sucks." Brendon blew a raspberry as he threw himself down on the couch again, hugging a pillow to his chest and pouting into it. Forget heartbreak he thought glumly this is the real culprit of angst. And Eye Of The Tiger didn't seem so much fun now.

The buzzing of a text made him dig his cell out his pocket, to see a text from Dallon. "Oh, goody." Brendon said sarcastically, reading it with little interest.

You didn't burn the place down yet, right?

Brendon snorted.

You ask me that every time you leave me on my own, anywhere. And no. But the coffee machine has given up the ghost.

Almost instantly, Dallon replied, which told Brendon that he had probably managed to escape baby daddy duty (thereby lumping Breezy with it, thereby meaning no sexytimes for Dally boy tonight, thereby meaning he'd probably be crabby the next day).

Aw, poor you. First world problems.

Seriously, Dal, it's not funny. Come save me!

Go fuck yourself. Oh, and have a nice rest of the afternoon :)

Brendon didn't bother replying, instead curling up into a ball, and slumping sideways. The couch smelled funny.

He missed his old place, with a passion. Nothing would ever be as good as the feel of his own bed, that he paid for. Break-ups were a bitch, especially with self-important, you-owe-me-this-at-least people. Well, in her defence, she had said he could stay at the house until he found a new place, but he'd said no, both on moral and dignity grounds.

Plus, he was pretty sure that if he stayed, they'd end up having that weird, break-up sex that neither of them really enjoyed, but couldn't help but do. He didn't need that shit.

So here he was. In a studio he wasn't sure how long he was calling home for. And he was sure that all the other's had scheduled to only do sessions in the morning so that he would be cripplingly lonely throughout the afternoon and night.

You could always go out they said

I don't wanna he'd said petulantly.

Ah, lazy problems. Being bored out your skull, frustrated, but unwilling to actually do anything else.

He supposed he could write some more, but lately Dallon had gotten a stick up his ass about the whole writing with him, or his input. And anything he wrote, went under strict scrutiny, before being 'modified'. He didn't blame Dallon, because his songs were generally shit, compared to his, but still...

He could always hit up the soft porn channel, or even boot up the old computer and find some sites with badly pixelated videos that stopped and buffered every once and a while, killing the mood, and waste time doing that.

Instead, he thumbed a text to Spencer and laid flat on the couch, arm dangling down so that his knuckles brushed the floor, feet in the air as they dangled on the armrest, balancing his cell on his forehead, one hand on his chest.

He'd drifted off when he got the reply, and yes, nearly shit his pants.

What time is Ryan coming? Um.Today.

Then a minute later

Um ... Any time now actually.