Oneshots | Ryden

South of the border

Brendon is going mad.

He's been listening to the same short tune for the past hour now. It took him a while to recognize it as the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but after the sixty-third time he finally placed the music and after a subsequent three-hundred twenty run-throughs, he swears he can see alien ships forming on the horizon.

"Spence?" he whispers to the boy seated next to him. "I think the aliens might be coming. I think I see them."

"That's it," Spencer says, getting up from the couch he's been seated on for eight hours a day for the past few months. He turns from the panoramic window (a sight which lost its charm after the first hundred hours of staring out it-mountains may be beautiful but they're boring as fuck) to face the living area and address the source of his frustration.

"Ryan, give it a fucking rest, you're scaring Brendon. He thinks the aliens are coming."

"He's an idiot," Ryan mutters, removing his hands from the piano keys.

"I'm not an idiot!" Brendon huffs. The angry ships have turned back to distant clouds now that the music has stopped and he's quite relieved.

"It's all I can think to play right now, I'm blocked," Ryan explains, answering the unasked questions on his band mates' lips.

"Nothing is better than the same thing over and over and over and over and over and-"

"I get it Brendon!" Ryan snaps, interrupting the obnoxious boy. Brendon instantly recoils at Ryan's harsh tone, lower lip quivering between his teeth. "I'm sorry dude, I'm just real stressed," Ryan apologizes, not having meant to upset the singer.

"You're always stressed now," Spencer says. "Doing the same thing day after day isn't doing shit for our new album, we're stuck."

"We are not stuck," Ryan insists. "We're just...uh..."

"What, we're practicing for a Steven Spielberg tribute compilation?"

"Fuck you," Ryan spits at Spencer, rising from the piano bench. "I don't need your criticism."

He makes to leave the room but Spencer is next to him, grabbing his arm so he has to turn back around.

"Dude, I'm not fighting with you so stop acting all pissy. I'm just saying that maybe we should take a break, get out of the cabin for a while so we don't fall into a rut."

"We kind of already have, huh?" Ryan admits ashamedly.

"Kind of. But that's natural, we're beating this new album thing to death and we need to just get our minds off it for a while," Spencer says.

"Like a vacation?"

"Road trip!" Brendon yells at the top of his lungs. Jon comes running from another room and appears in the door jamb, clutching the frame as he catches his breath.

"Road trip?" he pants. "Did I hear...road trip? We're...fuck out...of here?"

"You'd think you were in prison, Jon," Ryan mutters. Nevertheless, he thinks a vacation would be a great idea. Being reduced to playing themes from blockbuster hits has taken a toll on his fragile ego. He needs some new inspiration before he loses all hope in himself.