Brian had called several times.

Trent knew it; since he had first become interested in the band, he had practically had Brian's number memorized.

Since the night with the party and the coke, he had been screening any calls that came from that number. And still, they kept on going.

He probably thinks that I'm dead, Trent thought somewhat bitterly as it popped up for what must have been the millionth time.

Even if that was what was going on in Brian's head, he apparently hadn't given up hope yet.

Sighing, Trent looked towards the closed door of his studio and picked up the phone. There was no way Tori would notice; she was on the other side of that door, safe from him and his endless screwing up.

Because of this, he figured there wouldn't be any major harm in picking up. If things got uncomfortable, he could just hang up, right?

"Hello?" he answered, making sure to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

No letting on that anything is different, he told himself. Anything that goes on between Tori and I isn't anything that he deserves to know about.

"Jesus Christ. You're alive."

Trent rolled his eyes, smirking to himself. He had always known that he and Brian knew each other quite well.

"Of course I am," he replied easily. "Just because I don't pick up for a day or two doesn't mean you should start planning my damned funeral."

Brian scoffed on the other line. "Bold of you to assume I'd throw you a funeral."

"Asshole."

"Bitch-face."

This sort of exchange wasn't anything  out of the ordinary for the two of them. In fact, Trent found it rather amusing, a comforting return to the norm.

That jovial feeling faded away when he realized Brian wasn't laughing along with him.

"You still there?" he asked.

"Would you care if I wasn't?"

Trent frowned. So, Brian was being bitchy.

Maybe answering was a mistake.

"What crawled up your ass and died?" he asked quietly.

"I hadn't seen or heard from you in days," Brian quickly reiterated. "I don't know if you've forgotten, but I'm not the actual Antichrist. I have feelings, too. So, when you toss me and my band aside for some random, redheaded bitch--"

A flash of anger shot through him then, -- and for all the wrong reasons. He bit his tongue, trying to control his temper, -- it seemed his fuse had gotten even shorter over the past few days.

"Don't call her that," he muttered.

Regardless of how quietly he must have said that, Brian had undoubtedly heard it. He paused for a moment before sighing loudly.

"Whatever," he said. "Just... that shit hurts, you know? The fact that my boss, -- who I consider my best friend, -- would just up and leave without even bothering to get back in touch with me afterwards. All because of some girl he's fu--"

"That's not right," Trent interrupted.

"What isn't?" Trent could see Brian spitting out those words, full of venom. He knew that on the few occasions when Brian wanted to hurt someone, he had plenty of venom to spare.

Despite any petty squabbles that they might have had, (and one almost-fist-fight with the entire band, but that destroyed bass had been Scott's problem, really,) he had never been on the receiving end of this particular kind of poison before.

He didn't know how to deal with it.

He cleared his throat before clarifying  just what he had meant. "Me and Tori," he said. "We don't... we're not... We're just friends."

Brian snorted. "Yeah," he replied lightly. "Apparently much better friends than you and I are. But we're just business partners, right?"

Despite the anger still boiling within him, those words caused Trent to recoil as if he had been slapped. It stung.

It also gave him the keen feeling that he just might have been the bad guy here.

"Brian..." he tried, only no decent words followed.

Why couldn't he think of anything useful to say? How could he fix this, without admitting the truth?

Oh, yeah, that would go well.

My new female friend that I am totally not sleeping with saw us doing a line together and informed me that you were a bad influence. Oh, and she also told me that if I didn't stop now, I'd be dead in five years. Turns out she's a clairvoyant.

If he said that, Brian would just come over and kick his ass. When he put it that way, even mentally, Trent figured there was probably something in the midst of all those words that would warrant a good ass-kicking.

His internal argument with himself was interrupted by a distorted yell from somewhere on Brian's end. He assumed that another instrument-smashing fest was occurring for a moment before Brian spoke again. 

"Hold on!" he shouted at the other unknown party, close enough to the speaker to hurt Trent's ears. After a moment, he attended to the current call once more.

"Sorry about that," he said, sounding overly-formal in a way that made Trent want to hunt him down and wring his neck. "Jeordie just finished something we've been trying to work out for days. I've gotta go listen to it." He paused, causing Trent to believe that he had hung up, just before he got in his final snide words. "You should come listen to it, too, at some point."

"Yeah," Trent replied, although at this point he was only halfway aware of what was going on. "Maybe."

His blood was rushing in his ears, and the onset of that truly unbearable feeling was overtaking him. His hand that wasn't holding the phone shook; the skin of his arms itched, like he wanted to rip it off.

He was getting to that point again. The point where nothing felt right at all, and the only seemingly productive thing to do was explode.

He couldn't do that, however... at least, not now. So he forced himself to be civil, seemingly calm, even when his insides were contorting into the most sickening type of whirlwind.

"Well, Brian," he said. "Thanks for checking on me. I'll talk to you soon?"

He hated that the last part sounded like a question, though he guessed that was really what it was.

"Yeah." Brian's voice was so flat, so emotionless, that it made him sad more than it pissed him off. "Maybe."

With that, the mechanical hum of a dropped call replaced his friend's voice, and he was all alone. Again.

Trent sat the phone down and ran a shaking hand through his hair, trying to keep his breathing under the control.

He tried his best to convince his body that he wasn't upset, his brain to move away from some coked-out jackass and back towards what was important: work.

His own work. Not anyone else's.

Yet, this vessel that he had been dealing with for so long still wouldn't listen to him.

Truth was, the simple act of talking to Brian made him crave a fix. Whether this was correlation or causation, he wasn't sure.

He just knew that that wasn't truly what he needed. Not really.

With this thought in mind, he got up from his seat and headed out of the studio, down the hallway.

Just as he had hoped, Tori wasn't hard to find.

She was sitting on the sofa, Maise asleep at her feet, both of them illuminated by sunlight. He could keep that studio as dark as he wanted to, counting on the fact that she'd have every window in the rest of the house in, as if they were flowers that needed that light in order to grow and change.

From afar, she looked to be in the running for the title Most Peaceful Person on Earth, the slowly dying daylight drifting through the window over her, seeming to cast the illusion of a golden halo above her head.

The beautiful serenity of that moment made Trent want to stop where he was, careful not to disturb her, ruin her peace.

When he resisted this urge and came closer to her, however, he realized that all of it might have just been some strange sort of mirage. From this angle, she didn't look as peaceful as she did melancholic. Shameful as it was, this provided him with a sense of relief, -- regardless of what they were, he knew that she had things that made her sad, too.

She still smiled at him when her eyes drifted all the way open, though.

"Good evening, my dear." She yawned, stretching her pair of pale, willowy arms over her head. "I was hoping I'd see you sometime soon. Want something to eat?"

He shook his head as he sat down beside her. "Not hungry."

She cast a stern glance his way. "You're never hungry."

Once she seemed to take note of his expression, she dropped the issue.

"Oh, no." She sighed, reaching over to gently place a hand against the side of his face. "What's with the stormy look?"

Trent didn't reply for a moment, surprising himself by leaning into her touch. He didn't mind her physically affectionate nature so much anymore; in fact, it was sort of nice.

"Nothing much," he finally replied. "Just tired." He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to drift away from all of it.

When he couldn't do that, he laughed quietly, bitterly. "Damned Brian," he muttered.

"We're not going to worry about him." Tori said this decisively as she pulled away, a look of determination on her face.

"You have much better things to think about," she continued brightly. "Like your music. And..." She stopped and giggled, her eyes lighting up.

"Your birthday is this coming Monday!" she chirped. "Twenty-eight! Do you feel old yet?"

He couldn't help but offer a half-assed grin at her enthusiasm. "Sometimes."

She smiled at him, sympathy flashing in her eyes.

For the second time in an hour, someone else's mannerisms sent a physical pain through him.

Oh my God, he thought. She knows everything.

He was startled by the sudden feeling of her fingers tangling with his, followed by a reassuring squeeze.

"The sun's setting," she told him, her voice even softer than usual. "Maybe we should go catch it."

♡

Ever since he had moved into this place, Trent hadn't spent hardly any time outside. When he did, however, it didn't take him long to become awed at how stunning it was.

Up there, he could easily believe that he was on top of the world. How could he not, when everything was so far below him?

If he allowed himself to be fanciful, revisit the make-believe games he played when he was just a lonely child, he could easily believe that he was the king of something, looking down on something that he could control with his voice alone.

And by his side stood his all-knowing queen, made even more impossibly beautiful by the shades of scarlet from the sunset, reflected in her wild, flaming hair.

He didn't know which would be best to look at: the sky, the ground, or her.

He decided it was the sunset; after all, it was what she had beckoned him out here to see.

As soon as that great star had vanished beyond the horizon, however, he was quick to look her way, watching as the violet and blush hues made her seem truly cherubic.

It wasn't until she swiped the back of her hand beneath one cerulean eye that he realized that she was crying.

Not saying anything, he made the first move for once.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her against his side, just as she had told him her father had done to her mother, somewhere in the past. She returned the gesture, holding onto him as if she were afraid he'd vanish otherwise.

"Another day, gone," she whispered to him. "We'll never be able to stop it, will we?"

He contemplated this as he helped to brush the tears from her cheeks.

In the end, he could only counter it with a question of his own.

"Why the hell would we want to?"