If Everyone Cared

Lauren has been with the guys since for six hours straight, recording in the studio and they decided to take a 'lunch break'. She was quite surprised when she heard herself sing in the Gunslinger. She knew that her voice wasn't bad, but now she was some sort of proud of herself. And she just fell in love with that song, it made her tear up as she thought about some of her friends that were also one of those men who fought for their country.

She was eating some fruits for lunch, she has never been the kind of gal to eat too much. She loved to eat healthyly and have a healthy life, her only sin was smoking. She tried to quit it many times, but always went back to it. Lauren was snapped out of her trance by sidekick's ringtone which was no other than the Seize The Day. Oh yeah and one more interesting fact about her sidekick...

"Tell me that you don't have a deathbat customized sidekick." chuckled Matt as she read the text she received from her friend, Kati.

"Shut up, I paid $50 for it and I'm in love with this thingy." she said as she waved the phone a bit.

She snickered as she saw what Kati sent her,

Not a waxing virgin anymore, this hurts like hell... Fick dich, schlampe! Ah, ich liebe dich Lulu! Greetings from Berlin. P.S. How's stud muffin doing?

"Sick bitch." she muttered making Matt look at her weirdly and question who she was talking about. "The girl I live with. She went waxing and she blames me for telling her to do it, because right now she's in pain."

"That thing hurts that much?" Matt asked as a frown appeared on his face.

"On your legs, no." she said and that confused Matt even more. "I would say, between them is really painful."

"God." he said simply and hissed, he must've just imagened it. "What you women are capeable of doing."

Lauren gasped and pushed him by the shoulder. "It is our sacrifice for the men, either waxing or dealing with the razors every other oday. And thank you, but I'm not planning on cutting myself."

"You know, that kind of makes me think about you in that way." said Zacky as he entered the 'kitchen'. He shuddered a bit and smirked at her. "Nah, you're too tall for me."

"Afraid of female dominance?" she asked him, making Matt burst out laughing. Mostly at his bandmate's face, but more at the comeback.

"Female dominance is hot, but not when you're almost like my sister."

"The big sister, huh short shit?" snorted Matt and Lauren slapped his arm a bit.

"Asshole, that's Johnny."

An hour later, all of them were done with eating and it was time to record her voice for the Little Piece Of Heaven. She was quite scared, because she has never tried to mock those evil chuckles, more like how a witch does it in the movies for kids. So she just tried to put 120% into her voice.

"Fuck yeah!" she heard Jimmy yell to her and she laughed. "Now, the psycho bitch needs to meet her killer!"

As soon as he said that, the door of the recording room opened and Matt stood there.

Look at those cute dimples, so cute, man. I wish I could just rip his clothes off right now.
Can you shut up? You're lucky that you're not a man, he would notice your boner.
So, he's hot. Just what Jimmy said would be true.
What if it is?

"Lo?" she heard his voice at looked at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just zoned out a bit." Matt went to stand next to her and they were quite too close for her liking. She really had to take a hold of herself, or the angel and the devil part of her on her shoulders would start arguing again.

"Now, let's see what the fucker can do to make her happy!"

The music started and they both tried to make the best out of themselves. As a result, they only had to record the singing once and right after Zacky was done with the priest's voice, or whatever his part would've been, they were just about to get married.

"Let's have a wedding, have a wedding, let's start the killing, start the killing." she whispered, loud enough to the others to hear.

"Do you take this man in death til the rest of your unnatural life?" Zacky's deep vocals sounded and she managed to say a very, very innoncent 'yes, i do'.

"Do you take this woman in death til the rest of your unnatural life?"

Matt growled an 'I do', making it incredibly hard for Lauren to concentrate.

Rip his clothes off, rip his clothes off, rip his clothes off!
She's right! Do it! Do it! Do it!

She couldn't beleive what her mind was telling her. That was sick, she couldn't want Matt this much. She never did. Did she?

"Fucking perfect!"

Lauren was taking her smoke break, taking very long drags of her cigarette. She had to calm down, she can't keep doing this to herself. She either has to stop thinking about Matt in that way, or she'll listen to the chantings of the two inner voices.

"You know that shit kills, right?" she heard his voice and blew the smoke out.

Yeah and your voice is like the lethal drug of our life.
Shut up, she has to say something!

"Basically everything that makes you feel good does." Lauren shrugged and looked at the singer. "Still smoking, Matt?"

"I quit a few years ago, but I could use one if that was an offer." he said and she extended her own to him, which he gladly took.

He smirked as he looked at the red lipstick on the stick, and took a long drag. "Man, this feels better than I thought it would."

He passed it back to her and she gladly took a drag and held her head up so the smoke wouldn't bother them. "Don't you have a little déjà vu?"

Matt nodded and when Lauren extended her hand with the cigarette in it, instead of taking it he just took a drag while it was in her hands. "I kind of blame myself for it, everyday."

"Why? You didn't do anything." she chuckled as she picked the stick a bit. "It's not like I started smoking because of you, Matt."

"If I only knew that 8 years later you would be smoking, I would have never let you try it." he said ans shook his head. "But here we are and you're a smoker because of my stupid teenager head."

"If that makes you happy, I never smoked after that. I've only been doing it for the past year, which was kind of rocky." she said and put the stick out after Matt took the last drag. "Anyways, you gained my respect and trust just by doing that."

"By giving you your very first cigarette? That made you respect me?" he asked laughing at her.

"Yeah, because you treated me like a normal person. And not like the 'Baby Haner'." as she said this, the rain started to pour and she grabbed another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. "I felt like we were equal and you weren't one of the many that thought of me as a kid. Even if I was one."

"You have no idea how long it took me just to work up the courage and talk to you after you got into high school."

Lauren was utterly suprised by that. "Why? I was still the same person? Matt, you guys were already successful with the Avenged, you shouldn't have been 'afraid' of talking to a little high schooler."

"You were the cheer captain and a popular kid. Why would you be hanging out with some rockstar-wanna-be kid?" he asked and Lo looked at him in disbeleif. "You were like, no you were the hottest chick in the high school and you didn't give a fuck about all the shit that the people talked about Brian and us."

"I did give a shit, Matt. I had to spend a month in detention for beating up that asshole that said some not very good things about the band." Matt stood in front of her and snorted after taking the drag.

"And we were proud of you. You kicked a senior jock's ass."

They spent a few minutes in comfortable silence as the rain was pouring, but they didn't get wet under the roof. Lauren didn't know if she should ask the thing that hadn't left her mind since that night or she should just stay quite and live in pure ignorance.

"Did you have a crush on me?"