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Outside of Brendon's house the world was smiling. It was the early morning of a brand new day.
Birds were twittering as they sat on branches of the emerald green trees in Brendon's garden. The grass on the lawn was long and untrimmed. Weeds grew freely and unrestrainedly.
The sun could be seen as a red semicircle far away, playing with the horizon. It was on its way up to greet the newly born day.
Everything was peaceful on the outside of the singer's house. That couldn't be said about the inside.

On the kitchen floor the famous singer laid. Splayed flat out. Legs and arms twisted together in a tangled mess. He was not yet awake, but on the edge of snapping out of his dreams. Brendon inhaled and exhaled slowly. His chest was moving up and down as a sign and a proof of how alive he really was.
The sleeping man whimpered and moved his arm in his sleep. His face was resting against the cold floor and some drool had trickled down his chin. He practically had his face in a puddle of his own saliva.
After an hour or so, the sun had decided to pay Brendon's kitchen a visit. The sunlight trespassed the house's windows without permission by its owner.

Brendon wrinkled his forehead and groaned. He didn't want to wake up since he knew how bad the hangover would be. "No, no, no." he mumbled and grounded his teeth.
He soon realised that it was too late and that he already was wide awake. Brendon opened his eyes slowly and bit his lip hard to fight the urge to scream because of the pains in his head caused by the sun.
His muscles were sore from sleeping on the hard surface in such an awkward and unplanned position. The bottle which had been the cause of Brendon's stood innocently on a kitchen worktop and Brendon could imagine it laughing at him.

Brendon wiped the drool off of his chin and scrunched his face up. It was certainly not the most pleasant way that Brendon had woken up in his life. In fact, he couldn't recall experiencing a morning this bad.
The singer's mouth felt dry. Desert dry. He let his tongue wander across his teeth and it felt like grains of sand were stuck on them.

Brendon figured that it was time to get up, take some aspirins and brush his teeth. He didn't really want to move his aching body, though.
When he finally set his mind on standing up it required tons of energy to do even such a simple task.

On hobbled steps the brunette man walked into the bedroom. He reached for the new package of aspirins and popped three of the small white pills out in his hand.
Without water they ran down the singer's throat.

The next stop on Brendon's short journey was the bathroom. He refused to take a look at himself in the mirror hanging over the messy sink. Brendon already knew that he wouldn't be in for a nice surprise if he did choose to look at himself.
He quickly brushed his teeth and spat the foam out. It disappeared into the drain as he put the tap on and water flushed it down.

Since the aspirins hadn't started working yet, Brendon went back into the bedroom and laid down on his bed. He felt how he smelled quite bad from sleeping in the same clothes he had been wearing the previous day.
Brendon just didn't bother to either change or take his clothes off. He sighed happily when his stiff neck rested on a soft pillow.

He felt like he could need an extra hour of sleep. In a matter of seconds he drifted off to sleep.

The next thing Brendon felt was something wet on his forehead. What could it be? Brendon opened his eyes slowly and saw an arm with a wet towel in its hand. The towel was the wet thing on his forehead. It felt nice as it was cool.
The arm belonged to... Brendon couldn't believe what he was seeing. The arm belonged to Ryan!
What he had thought at first was that it had probably been the doppelganger playing tricks on him again, but no. It was Ryan Ross who sat on Brendon's bed and patted his face with a towel.

Brendon was at first excited, then worried. Had Ryan seen the empty bottle of booze in the kitchen? Could Ryan sense the smell of alcohol from him?

Ryan smiled worriedly when he noticed that Brendon was awake. "Brendon? Are you okay?" he asked and removed the wet towel. Brendon missed the feeling of it on his warm skin but didn't say anything about it.
"I'm fine." Brendon coughed and forced himself to smile. It was the time to pretend like everything was OK. Either that or get caught.

Ryan shook his head shortly. "Don't lie to me! I know the truth." he said. Brendon froze. Did Ryan know that he enjoyed drinking? The singer inhaled oxygen with his nostrils.
"I...I can explain." Brendon started. Ryan cut him off before he had the time to say another sentence.
The older man sighed and shook his pretty head once again.

"You don't have to explain anything. I don't know why you're doing this, Brendon. Why can't you just admit when you're feeling bad and need help? I'll come over and check on you anytime." Ryan said and smiled. Brendon's mind couldn't grasp what Ryan had said. Check on him? What the hell was Ryan talking about?
"I don't understand." Brendon admitted. The guitarist placed his palm on the side of Brendon's head.

"You are sick. Hell, you're so warm that it's a miracle that you haven't bursted into flames already." Ryan said dramatically. So, that was why Brendon hadn't got told off. Ryan simply thought he had a fever.
Brendon sighed with relief and smiled.

"Really? Thank you for coming over to check on me." Brendon said unaffectedly like the actor he was. Ryan nodded and folded the wet towel and placed it on the floor next to the bed.

"Sorry for just coming over. I tried to call you like a thousand times and I got so worried when you didn't answer." the older man mumbled. Brendon cocked his head to the side. "Ryan, you are a good friend." he said.

When Ryan had left the house a couple of minutes later, Brendon felt empty. Empty because he had lied to Ryan so many times not to get caught. Empty because something within him had wanted to get caught.