Rat King | GN'R

prologue

2010

"What the fuck has my life come to, eh?" Max said out loud to himself as he sat on his overzealous couch, his arms gracefully leaning over the back of it. His hair was already greying at the ripe ol' age 48, and he had already started experiencing back pain.

The television was on some random channel with some idiotic late-night chat show host, seemed like it was someone promoting their new movie or something. It didn't look too bad or even seem like a bad idea for that matter but maybe he could alter the idea.

His hand blindly reached for the mobile on the side table next to him ignoring the "Are you awake??" text from a certain redhead and before he knew it he was calling his former bandmate's number without hesitation.

Max paused as he listening to the dialing tone. Should he really be doing this? And especially at 3AM? Maybe it was-

"What the fuck kinda time do you call this, you lanky bastard?" The raspy voice of his former bassist croaked out. "Some of us might actually be sleeping, asshole." Kevin snapped.

Max felt a grin pull at his face at the casual insults Kevin shot out, he enjoyed the familiarity of it. Kevin had always been known to have absolutely-zero-filter he said what he wanted when he wanted to despite him being socked in the face more than once for it. It's what Max always admired the other man for, probably because he knew that he could never do that himself.

Max sheepishly shrugged even though he knew that Kevin wouldn't be able to see him. "I just wanted to throw around an idea. That's all."

"What, did your mid-life crisis come early?"

"Shut up." He grumbled, just wanting to get his point without any more interruptions. "I was thinking we could like, I don't know, write a book. That could be fun! Maybe bring the band back together?" The blond anxiously fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt as the call suddenly went quiet as a mouse.

Well, that was risky.

"I should hang up on you right now." Kevin chortled almost offended that the other man would even consider bringing something like this up. "What about little drummer boy?"

"I'll talk to him." And with that Max abruptly hung up, his nerves getting the better of him.

Little Drummer Boy was Jesús, their drummer, of course. Neither of them had had much contact with Jesús since the band had made like a banana and split.

Max let his head fall back against the back of the couch and sighed, the earlier text especially forgotten by now. He definitely had his work cut out for him.