Ryden Oneshots

I'll Have My Cake (And Eat It, Too)

.:. Rating : R .:.

Brendon can be very efficient when he wants to be. In the time it usually takes the rest of his band to get dressed before a show, Brendon can have his clothes on, the venue explored, and the free food eaten. He is a master of stealth and time management.

Brendon knows Zack and the rest of the band don't like it when he just eats whatever he happens to come across at the venues. In hindsight, Brendon can see their point, but if he sees beautiful free food lying about, so easy for the taking, Brendon's no idiot. He will take it.

Chocolate cake, Brendon decides, has never tasted so good. There's something special about the cake Brendon finds at ThatOneVenue in Whateverville, Florida. It tastes…different. Sweeter, almost tangy. Brendon has a fleeting moment of consideration on whether or not the cake might be expired, but he shrugs it off in favor of taking another huge bite. If he gets some on his shirt, he has a good excuse. This cake is fucking amazing.

Brendon washes the cake down with water and heads out to meet up with the rest of the guys. The show's going to be awesome tonight.

-

He doesn't notice it at first, when he walks on the stage and meets the deafening applause. He stumbles a bit, but what else is new? Brendon is kind of clumsy. It's only when the show really gets going that Brendon realizes he can't remember what song they just played. The music starts to blend and mesh together to make one long medley. He knows he's supposed to be saying stuff, supposed to be introducing the next song and trying to talk to the fans, but he can barely manage to just play the music on autopilot.

He catches Jon's gaze more than once and he looks confused. Ryan just looks mad, but he gets mad at Brendon a lot anyway. Brendon really isn't in a state of mind right now to figure out exactly what he's done and exactly what's going wrong.

They finish, miraculously, and Brendon's feeling dizzy, too, on top of all the confusion clouding his brain. He wants to be able to think clearly and try to figure out what exactly is wrong, but he's too foggy-brained to even do that.

Backstage, Brendon feels sick with all the faces swimming in his vision. Ryan. Jon, Spencer, Zack, god, fucking everyone is talking to him. Why are they talking to him? Can't they see he's tired? He tells them this. At least he tries to. Brendon doesn't really know what he's managing to accomplish right now. He hears voices, lots of them, all asking him variations of the same thing.

No, he's not okay. He's not o-fucking-kay. That's Gerard's line. Brendon giggles, but he can't hear his usual laugh. He can't hear anything, come to think of it. The faces are all blurring together now and there's nothing left for him to see except black.

-

"Brendon?"

He's sleeping, dammit.

"Brendon?"

Still sleeping. Ryan can be so dense sometimes.

"Brendon!"

If Brendon wakes up at that, it's definitely not because he's scared of Spencer sounding angry at him. Not at all. But why is Spencer angry?

" 'm up," Brendon mumbles. His back is sore, like he slept on the floor instead of his bunk. He feels a little dizzy too, but other than that, he feels fine. It doesn't explain why he opens his eyes to find Spencer, Jon, and Ryan staring at him with such concern.

"What?" he asks Jon, because Ryan's annoying and Spencer is scary.

"You, uh. You passed out after the show last night. And we were all pretty sure you didn't take anything." Huh. Brendon's pretty sure he didn't take anything either. "You were acting really strange, too. You alright, B?"