Hopeless Haze - Vol. II: Sam's Town (Chapter Seven, Part One)
Volume II: Sam's Town
Chapter Seven, Part One: You Have One Saved Message
“Brandon, wake up,” Brandon heard a voice say as he felt a hand gently shaking his shoulder, “It’s your birthday, baby, wake up!”
Brandon groaned and buried his head further into the pillow, “It’s my birthday let me sleep.”
“I have your present ready,” Ronnie kissed Brandon’s cheek, “come check it out.”
“What time is it?” Brandon ignored Ronnie’s invitation and opened one eye, trying to catch a glimpse of his bedside clock, but only being met with a smiling Ronnie hovering over him. Even Brandon, in his daze of morning sleepiness, felt a small smirk spread across his lips.
“It’s like 8:30,” Ronnie didn’t bother looking away from Brandon to catch a glimpse at the clock when he answered.
“Ugh,” Brandon groaned, “why wouldn’t you let me sleep in on my birthday? I’m breaking up with you.”
“Because,” Ronnie dragged out the word with a smile still on his face, “your gift is worth getting up early for. Trust me.” Brandon raised an eyebrow in question, and Ronnie chuckled before defending himself, “I’m serious.”
Brandon rolled his eyes and clung to his sheets, “I don’t want to leave.”
“Look,” Ronnie ran his hand through Brandon’s hair, “I know you hate your birthday, but I promise you’ll love this. I’m trying to make your day better, B.”
“Sometimes,” Brandon shook his head, “you make it so hard to be annoyed with you.” Ronnie smiled and Brandon returned the gesture, “Help me up.”
“You’re only twenty-six,” Ronnie chuckled as he stood up from the bed and gripped onto Brandon’s wrists, pulling him upward, “stop acting like you’re ancient.”
“Ah!” Brandon exclaimed through a laugh, “my aching wrists!”
Once Brandon was up and out of bed, Ronnie turned him around and faced him towards the door. He put his hands over the singer’s eyes and spoke close to his ear, “Walk, we‘re just going out to the living room.” Brandon giggled and cautiously started walking forward.
The couple reached the living room and Ronnie guided Brandon in front of the couch. Brandon heard some movement that he couldn’t exactly identify, but his confusion didn’t last much longer though.
“Okay,” Ronnie was speaking through an obvious smile, “happy birthday.”
The drummer removed his hands from Brandon’s eyes and what Brandon saw quite literally brought tears to his eyes. The most beautiful puppy was sitting on the couch, chewing on a toy.
The puppy was a husky. She had snow-white fur that was so fluffy she truly looked like a cloud. Her eyes looked like nothing Brandon had ever seen on a dog before-the brightest and prettiest light blue he had ever seen. She already seemed immaculately well-behaved, as she remained on the couch even when the couple entered the room. And to top it all off, Ronnie had tied a red ribbon around her collar, making her look like the gift she was.
“Oh my God!” Brandon exclaimed and immediately knelt by her on the couch, “Hi, sweetie!” The puppy started licking Brandon’s face excitedly and the singer actually felt like crying happy tears.
“Isn’t she cute?!” Ronnie asked before joining Brandon on the floor by the couch.
“She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” the puppy was still licking Brandon’s face as he took her into his arms and held her close to him, “thank you so much.”
“I figured she’d add a little more presence to this massive house so that we didn’t feel so alone,” Ronnie commented as he pet the dog’s soft fur.
“What’s her name?” Brandon questioned.
Ronnie shrugged, “Whatever you like. This is your birthday present.”
“I love you,” Brandon leaned over and kissed Ronnie softly before pulling away, “I love you so, so much.”
“Love you, too,” Ronnie answered. Nikita suddenly barked and started licking Brandon again, “I guess she loves you, too!”
Brandon pouted affectionately and looked at the puppy before kissing her on the head, “I love you, too, Nikita.”
“Nikita?” Ronnie smirked, “Is that the name you decided on?”
“I like it, do you?” Brandon looked at Ronnie while stroking Nikita’s fur.
“If you like it, I love it,” Ronnie put on his best baby-talk voice and leaned his face down to the puppy’s, “Welcome to the family, Nikita!” Brandon’s heart swelled when he heard Ronnie refer to the three of them as a “family”.
“And,” Ronnie continued, “happy birthday, Brandon.”
“Nikita!” Ronnie shouted, “Slow down!”
“You know,” Brandon said as he sipped an iced tea, “we haven’t taught her how to understand English quite yet.”
“She’s going to pull my damn arm off,” Ronnie sighed as the dog lunged at the sight of a squirrel. The couple had decided to take a walk in a nearby park with Nikita that morning. The lunchtime picnic rush of people hadn’t stormed the area yet, so for the most part it was pretty peaceful. Besides the puppy’s over enthusiastic attitude towards the outdoors that caused Ronnie to be pulled in whatever direction she wanted.
“Let me walk her,” Brandon said as he motioned for the leash, “she likes me more.” Ronnie wanted to disagree, but it was true. He handed over the puppy to Brandon and the singer beamed, “Hey, pretty girl!” Nikita wagged her tail happily and continued walking.
“Jesus,” Ronnie massaged his aching shoulder, “she’s already behaving better with you.”
“I’ve taught her well,” Brandon winked, earning a shove from Ronnie.
“Well, I’m the one that brought her home,” Ronnie pointed to himself, “so she should treat me with some more respect.”
“You’ll get the respect from her that you deserve,” Brandon went to take a sip from his straw but the cup was taken out of his hand. Ronnie took a sip instead and handed it back. Brandon faked disgust as he examined the cup, “you’ve diseased my straw with your germs.”
“You weren’t too worried about my germs last night when y-”
“Shh,” Brandon laughed and nudged Ronnie before motioning to the dog, “not in front of the kids.” Ronnie chuckled in response, but his expression saddened briefly after. The drummer wished he could wrap his arm around Brandon, but there were too many wandering eyes around them. They were just lucky no interested fan had come up to them yet.
“Oh,” Ronnie suddenly remembered something that brought him out of his thoughts, “Dave called me this morning while you were still asleep. He said he was hoping to get in the studio within the next few days. He had some ideas on how to remaster the old tracks and stuff.”
“Okay,” Brandon nodded, “we can call him when we get back to the house and work something out.”
There was a comfortable silence between them for a moment before Brandon spoke up, “Hey, do you think Dave still has the same home phone?”
“Uh,” Ronnie quirked an eyebrow in confusion, “I mean probably. Unless he had a reason to get a new one.” He was going to let the question be, but he couldn’t help himself, “Why?”
“I have this idea,” Brandon began. His eyes were seemingly avoiding Ronnie as he spoke softly. Ronnie had noticed that this was a common thing for him to do whenever he felt unsure, “if you aren’t comfortable with it we don’t have to do it, but I think it’d be really unique.”
“Well, pitch it to me.”
“You know those voicemails I left on his answering machine? When we were… you know.”
Ronnie felt a slight pang in his chest-of course he remembered, “Yeah, yeah I remember those.”
“Well, I thought it’d be cool if we incorporated the one where I’m singing your song into a track on the new album.” Before Ronnie could say anything, Brandon already began defending himself, “I’ve had some possible lyrics in my head recently that I thought could work with your bit of the song. Only if you’re comfortable with us using it, of course.”
“So,” Ronnie felt a small smile forming on his lips, “you want to strip the exact voicemail from Dave’s machine and use that in the song.”
“Yeah, yeah!” Brandon felt a little more confident now that Ronnie sounded interested, “I was thinking it could be like the intro. And maybe it could fade into a drum fill or guitar riff before we all come in at once.” Brandon shook his head, “It’ll make more sense once we’re all together in the studio but I think it could be really cool.”
“I love it,” Ronnie smiled, “I do.”
“And,” Brandon spoke a little quieter, “on a more personal level, it could turn a really dark time for us into something a little less… dreadful.”
Ronnie snickered, “Yeah, that was a pretty dreadful time.”
“So, you’re fine with us using your song?” Brandon asked, looking for assurance, “We can totally give you a writing credit.”
“We can just say we all took part in it,” Ronnie shrugged, “it’s only a few lines.”
“Yeah, but they’re good lines, Ronnie!” Brandon emphasized, “Just because I’m singing them doesn’t mean you don’t deserve credit for thinking of them.”
“We’ll talk about it when the time comes,” Ronnie finalized, “but for now, we should get back home. It’s getting too hot for Nikita, and we need to ask Dave about his answering machine.”
Ronnie emerged from the stairs into the loft wearing clean clothes and rubbing his damp hair with a towel. He spotted his boyfriend and scoffed, “I was looking everywhere for you.”
“Well, you sure found me,” Brandon was sitting on the small couch they had brought from the apartment. The singer couldn’t bare to part with it, but he agreed with Ronnie when he pointed out that it’d look awkward in the spacious living room. So now it lived in the loft upstairs where Brandon often sat on it to write-just like he was doing now. He wasn’t exactly sitting on it, though. His legs were hanging off the back of the couch while his head was on the seat. He was, simply put, comfortably upside down.
He wasn’t alone, though, as Nikita was curled up in a ball sleeping next to where he was writing.
“Doesn’t laying like that hurt your head?” Ronnie asked, making his way over to the couch.
Brandon shrugged and shook his head, “Not as much as you might think.”
“What’re you writing?” Ronnie tried to peek at the notebook in Brandon’s hand before sitting down next to him but he couldn’t make anything out.
“Just jotting down some ideas,” the singer sighed, “I have a song name in mind.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s called Who Let You Go?”
“Oh,” Ronnie nodded with a look of fake wonder, “fascinating.”
“It’s based off another song you sang to me once,” Brandon’s eyes were squinted slightly in thought, “I can only remember the first line of it though… “ The younger man took a small breath before singing softly, “Someone must’ve loved you, not the way that I do.”
“You’re missing what I’m tryna say,” Ronnie grinned, “ain’t nothin’ getting in my way.”
“That’s the rest of it!” Brandon exclaimed and scribbled the lines on the page.
“I mean, it is my song. I hope I’d remember the lyrics to my own song,” Ronnie scoffed, “I guess you just love using my ideas.”
“Stop being so talented and maybe I won’t take them from you,” Brandon turned his head and gave Ronnie a quick peck on the cheek, “just kidding, we still have time to work out the song credits and stuff.”
“Speaking of time, when do we leave for New York to do the Tranquilize shoot?” The band was scheduled to film the music video for their new single soon, and Ronnie was somewhat eager to get out of the town again. That was something he and Brandon would never agree upon. Ronnie seemed to be a natural-born traveler. Brandon just loved his bed.
“Next monday,” Brandon felt an involuntary pout form on his lips. A trip to New York meant five-and-a-half hours on a plane, “I called in my prescription for the plane ride. If you go out later, can you grab it please?”
“Well,” Ronnie grinned, “maybe we can both go out. For dinner… ,” Ronnie sighed, “I don’t want to cook.”
“Where were you thinking?” The younger man turned his head and looked at Ronnie who was biting his bottom lip in a smile.
“I’ll give you a hint,” Ronnie began, “it’s open twenty-four hours a day all year an-”
“Waffle House?!” Brandon exclaimed, “We haven’t been in so long!”
“Exactly!” Ronnie laughed, “God, you really do love that place.”
Brandon hopped off the couch and made his way towards the stairs. Nikita barked and followed him eagerly, “I’ll be ready to go in, like, five minutes!”
Ronnie shook his head as he watched his boyfriend practically catapult himself down the stairs with his dog close behind him. There was no one quite like him.
“So,” Dave said, leaning back in one of the studio’s chairs, “what do we need to work on tomorrow?” The guitarist was pretty occupied throwing a rubber ball in the air. For the past half an hour, he seemed more interested in bouncing it all over the studio and tossing it in his hands than he was in doing in any actual work.
“Uh,” Mark muttered before taking a glimpse at the whiteboard next to him, “we mainly need to mix Daddy’s Eyes and re-record the guitar for Move Away.” The quiet man turned back to the rest of his band, “then we just need to work on finishing touches, really.”
Brandon, who was lying on the studio’s couch with his head in Ronnie’s lap suddenly spoke up, “When are we expecting to release it?”
“November 9th,” Ronnie answered, “we have time.”
“Well, for recording yeah,” Brandon responded in a slightly nervous tone, “but we still need to plan out how the CDs and vinyls will look, and get them made in time.”
“Speaking of that,” Dave stopped bouncing his rubber ball for a moment and looked at Brandon, “I have a vague idea. You know, for the art and shit.”
“Pitch it at us,” Ronnie muttered and Brandon nodded.
“Well, we had cameras in all of our faces for the past three years,” Dave continued, “even Ronnie started taking pictures of us when he saved up and got his first good camera. I think it’d be cool if we found some funny ones and put them on the album.” The guitarist was quick to defend himself, “Before you call me a dumbass-it’d be so fitting! All of the pictures would be from the past which is where we got a majority of the songs on this album from. And it’d be entertaining for the fans to see.”
Brandon nodded slowly, “We could put like framed borders around them and make them look like they’re hung up somewhere.”
“Yeah!,” Dave laughed in agreement, “I just don’t know if that’s a good cover.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be the cover,” Ronnie noted, “we could put it in the booklet or something.” All four of them nodded and agreed without saying a word-they were all tired.
“Ronnie, you probably have a majority of the pictures,” Mark commented.
“Yeah, I basically have a whole hard drive dedicated to the ones I took on the road. I printed a majority of them, though, along with ones that other people took.”
“Aw!” Brandon tilted his head back and smiled at Ronnie, “we can look through them together when we get home!”
“Just don’t slip in any of your sex pictures into the batch. It wouldn’t go over too well with the press, I don’t think,” Dave teased.
“We don’t have any, Dave,” Brandon glared at the guitarist.
“We should,” Ronnie said with a lingering smirk.
Brandon looked at Ronnie again with a grin, “The night is still young- ow!”
Dave had thrown the ball at Brandon, hitting him right in the ribcage, “You can flirt around me all you want but I don’t want to hear about how you are going to take pictures of you rimming each other.”
Ronnie scoffed and cackled while Brandon just blushed.
“Are we done for the day?” Mark finally broke the silence that followed, which was unusual for the bassist.
“Yeah,” Brandon said before pointing to Dave, “I just have one question.”
“No, Brandon, I’m not telling you how I know what rimming is-”
“No!” Brandon rolled his eyes, “I need to know if you have the same home phone as you did when Ronnie stayed at your place and if you’ve deleted any of the messages.”
“Yes and I don’t think so,” Dave quirked an eyebrow, “why?”
“I want to use part of one of the voicemails in Show You How. We need a better intro for that song.”
“Oh, and a forty second soundbite of you sobbing will be the perfect intro?”
“Trust me!” Brandon begged, “It’ll be good. It should be the last one I sent. No tears. Just text one of us when you get home and let us know if you still have it.”
“Will do, weirdo.”
That’s how Ronnie Vannucci Jr. found himself sitting on his bed with his boyfriend sitting with his back against his chest with pictures laid out sporadically amongst the bed.
“Aw,” Brandon cooed and showed Ronnie the picture he was holding, “look at this one. I miss my bedazzled keyboard.”
Ronnie rested his head on Brandon’s shoulder, “Then bedazzle your new keyboard.”
“I think this one should be taken into consideration,” Brandon ignored Ronnie’s previous comment as he placed the photo in the designated “maybe” pile, “don’t you think?” The drummer merely hummed in agreement, too tired to form a legitimate opinion.The couple looked through some more. A few more photos were added to the “definitely” pile, including one of Mark on the beach with an incredibly large stick and another of Brandon laying on the ground.
They also added a picture of Dave from 2004 looking handsome, just because Dave would take any opportunity he could to show off how handsome he could be.
But then Brandon came across what he thought was the Holy Grail of all pictures.
“Oh my God,” Brandon laughed.
“Hm?” Ronnie had since let his eyes close as his head still rested on Brandon’s shoulder.
“Why wasn’t I here for this?”
Ronnie could tell by the way Brandon was talking that he was on the verge of a complete laughing fit, so he opened one eye at a time and blinked before taking a look at the picture Brandon had found.
There Ronnie was, falling while water skiing.
“No, really,” Brandon was losing it now, “where the fuck was I when this happened?”
Ronnie, suddenly awake, took the picture out of Brandon’s hands, “You weren’t feeling well and wanted to rest up before our show the next night. But the guys and I went out on Dave’s friend’s boat. You don’t remember this?”
“No,” Brandon was still chuckling, “but I would have gone if I knew you were going to eat shit.”
“I did not eat shit,” Ronnie said, looking at the picture of him doing just that, “I just… fell off.”
Brandon had tipped over onto his side with laughter, “Put that… in the ‘definitely’ pile. Now.”
“Fine,” Ronnie rolled his eyes before putting the photo in the pile and laying next to Brandon, wrapping his arm around him, “only if we can go to sleep.”
“But we need to bring more options to show the guys tomorrow!” Brandon whined.
“We don’t need to be at the studio again until three, baby,” Ronnie kissed the back of Brandon’s head, “we can finish looking through these tomorrow.”
Brandon huffed, “Okay, but the next embarrassing one I find with you in it is definitely going in.”
“Fine by me.”