An Unhappy Birthday?

Peeling his eyes open, Brian was greeted by the dark interior of his bunk. He rolled over, pulling back the corner of the curtain to check for daylight. It seeped through the window at the far end of the bus and cascaded down the length of the vehicle, forcing his eyes shut before they could become accustomed to its brightness.

He reopened his eyes and rubbed them as they stung their protest, relieved, at least, that he was not hung over. A small smile formed at the corners of his mouth as he caught sight of the calendar hanging on the wall opposite. Someone had already crossed off the previous day, July 6th.

Stretching as best he could in such a confined space, Brian yawned and swung his legs out of the bunk before dropping to the floor and heading for the living area, where he found Zacky finishing a mug of coffee and flicking through a magazine.

“Hey, Baby,” Brian greeted his boyfriend as he stood behind where the shorter man sat and slung his arms around his neck.

“Afternoon,” Zacky grinned, nodding at the clock which informed them that it had just passed midday.

Brian just laughed softly, leaning down to press a kiss to Zacky’s hair. “Where are the others?”

“Matt’s having a session with his vocal coach and Johnny and Jim went into town in search of bass strings and coffee.”

“Oh. So is it just you and me, then?”

“I’m afraid it’s just you, love. I’ve got some VU stuff that needs tending to,” Zacky replied, biting his lip apologetically before draining his mug and walking over to the sink.

Brian pouted but accepted Zacky’s embrace and kissed back when Zacky pressed their lips together. Pulling away, Zacky placed his hand flat on Brian’s bare chest and gazed up into his eyes, mumbling, “I love you,” before connecting their lips once more.

“And I love you back,” Brian smiled as they broke apart again, his hand trailing down the length of Zacky’s arm as the younger man pulled away.

“Obviously,” Zacky responded casually, grinning at his lover. “I’ll see you later.”

“See ya.”

Brian stood watching Zacky’s back as he left, smiling faintly until he remembered that their conversation had lacked a birthday greeting. Had he really forgotten?

He slid into the seat which his lover had vacated and sighed, disinterestedly beginning to flick through the magazine which had been left on the table as his heart dropped a little within his ribcage.

~*~

“Hey, dude. ‘You alright?” Matt asked as he sauntered down the hallway to where Brian was sitting.

“I ‘spose so… You?”

“Just peachy! My throat’s fucking killing me, though,” he replied, his voice sounding a little hoarse as he set about making himself some coffee. “Want one?”

“Well, seeing as you’re offering… I’m just gonna go get my laptop.”

Walking slowly to the back of the bus, he eyed the calendar discretely as he passed it. He was unsurprised to find that only the venue for that night's show was written into the box, the band having long since decided that it was no longer necessary to be prompted about each others birthdays. Flicking his eyes down to the box for the 31st, he checked for signs of injustice, but only the relevant venue location was present within the lines.

‘Perhaps they do still need reminding,’ he thought as he knelt in front of his bag and removed a t-shirt, slipping it over his head before lifting his laptop out of its carry case and returning to Matt.

“There ya go,” Matt said after a minute as he placed a cup on the table in front of his friend.

“Cheers.”

“What’re you looking at?”

“I’m just checking my e-mails… Hey, what date is it?”

“The 7th, why?”

“I’ve got an e-mail here for an event that happened yesterday. Dumbasses!”

Matt laughed. “I’ll leave you to it. Have you seen Zacky?”

“Yeah. ‘Said something about sorting some Vengeance Uni stuff out…”

“Ah, well… See ya,” Matt called over his shoulder as he took his cup and left the bus.

Brian leant back in his seat, absent-mindedly tapping a reply at arms length into the computer. It wasn’t that he wanted them to make a big deal of his birthday or go to any special effort to make it interesting, but some acknowledgement that it was the anniversary of his birth wouldn’t have gone unappreciated.

He hit ‘send’ and watched as the page changed before returning to his inbox and opening up the next e-mail. From the far end of the bus, he heard voices and footsteps as Johnny and Jimmy entered its confines.

“Hey, Bri! Whatcha doing?” Jimmy asked, sitting beside his band mate and peering at the screen.

“Oi, nosey bastard! I’m reading my e-mails.” Brian laughed, bending the screen forward so that it hovered just above the keyboard, before pushing the machine away from him slightly. “You’ve had a good morning, I take it?”

“Yup.”

“Brian! Ha-” Johnny started as he joined them at the table, pausing to cough before starting again. “Have you seen Zacky?”

Brian sighed. Was it Zacky’s birthday? No, one look at the sun and absence of rain outside of the bus told him that it was definitely not December. And besides, Zacky would have let him know if it was his birthday; he wasn’t one to let it pass them by.

“He went to sort some VU stuff out…” Brian replied monotonously, already bored with repeating the statement, missing the death glare that Jimmy had shot the bassist before his coughing fit.

“I’ll go find him, then… I need to talk to him about tonight…”Jimmy decided.

“Tell him I said that if he wears that sodding t-shirt again tonight, I will personally dispose of it- it needs a wash!”

Jimmy grinned, content that Brian had believed ‘tonight’ to mean the show. “Sure thing, boss.”

He strode off, Johnny not far behind once he’d excused himself to re-string his bass.

Waving his arms in defeat, Brian returned to his laptop, noticing a message from his father which bid him a happy birthday. “Ooh, at last!” He muttered. “Someone’s remembered. It’s definitely the right day, then…”

~*~

That night, Brian stood alone at the side of the stage watching the support act. The singer glanced across at him as they came to the end of a song.

“Who knows what date it is?” He asked the crowd who screamed back at him. “Anyone know whose birthday it is?” His question was met with more screaming, to which he grinned. “Yeah, I thought you might. I’m not gonna call him up here, because we don’t want him to steal our thunder, but happy birthday to Mr Synyster Gates.”

The crowd erupted into further screams as Brian laughed and shook his head. He looked across at the vocalist and nodded his appreciation, before the band launched into their last song of the night. Sighing, he wandered towards the dressing room in order to make some last minute alterations to his appearance and to join his friends in their pre-show ritual.

The show itself passed by without any hitches. They played and Matt interacted with the crowd between songs, but his four band mates seemed oblivious to the scattering of ‘Happy Birthday, Syn’ banners throughout the audience, with nothing prompting them to say anything themselves.

“Anyone fancy going out for a drink?” He asked as they scuttled off stage at the end of the encore.

“Nah, not me. Val’s gonna get my ass if I don’t call her tonight.”

“I don’t really feel up to it- I’ve got a killer headache,” Jimmy informed him, rubbing his temples, a pained expression in his eyes. “I’m gonna locate some painkillers and go to bed.”

“Yeah… Dude, you look like crap,” Johnny mused, his eyebrows knotting a little as he tilted his head to one side and looked at his friend. He placed his hand on the taller man’s shoulder, squeezing it as the drummer began to walk away. “I’m gonna go keep an eye on him. Ya know, check he’s not coming down with anything…”

“Zee? What about you?” Brian asked, wrapping his arms around Zacky’s midsection.

“Not tonight, baby, I’m knackered. I’m just gonna go back to the bus and chill out for a bit, then turn in. Tomorrow, yeah?” Zacky suggested.

“Yeah, alright,” Brian muttered, bowing his head and pulling away.

“Try the Berry’s… They’re always up for a drink!” Zacky smiled, sympathy creeping into his eyes. He pulled his boyfriend back towards him, standing on tiptoes to place a kiss on his lips. As much as he wanted to, however, Brian couldn’t find it within himself to kiss back, allowing the kiss to disintegrate when Zacky realized he wasn’t co-operating.

“See you guys later,” Brian mumbled as he walked away, trying his best to hide the forlorn tinge in his voice.

~*~

“Brian, I think we should head back…”

“I’ve not even finished my first pint, yet! We’ve only had one round…”

“I know,” Jason pouted. “It’s regrettable, but we have an early start tomorrow…”

“Oh, what?”

“I know, dude. It sucks, but the tour manager says, so we’ve gotta obey,” Matt replied absent-mindedly as he punched a message into his phone.

Brian looked from Jason on his left to Matt on his right and groaned, crossing his arms on the bar and resting his head on them. His friends laughed, patting his head and telling him to finish his beer. He complied before allowing them to pull his reluctant body from the stool, dragging him from the bar as he begged them to allow him just one more drink, desperately seeking something to brighten his day.

“No!” Matt laughed. “If you went back for another, you’d have more than one- because you’re in one of those moods- and in the morning some poor sod would have to wake you up. And being tired and hung over, you’d be a bitch to them.”

“Yeah, and we can’t go to sleep tonight with that on our consciences!” Jason joined in, pressing his fist to his chest and putting on a serious face, symbolising his loyalty to the rest of the band and crew.

Shaking his head, Brian whimpered, “I hate you two!”

“Nah, you don’t…”

“No, perhaps you’re right. I really hate you two.”

~*~

Back at the bus, Brian found Matt at the table chatting animatedly on the phone, the loving tone in his voice suggesting that Val was on the other end. Walking past him, Brian made his way to the bunk area, observing the closed curtains of the remaining three band members as an indication that they were asleep.

Looking down at the jeans and t-shirt which adorned his body, he muttered ‘fuck it!’ to himself before slipping, fully clothed, into his bunk. He lay atop the covers, not wanting to overheat during the night, and sighed as he glumly pulled the curtain across the gap. He lay facing it, his eyes glazed over and unseeing as the fog of sadness thickened in his mind.

“Brian?” A small voice asked from the other side of the curtain.

He said nothing, hoping Zacky would assume him to be asleep and leave him be. The left handed guitarist had other ideas, however, and dragged the curtain back leaving much of the bunk unhidden.

“What?” Brian asked softly, allowing his voice to show his annoyance for the first time that day.

“Hey,” he smiled weakly. “Are you okay, baby?”

“Yeah, Zee, I’m just great.”

“You don’t sound just great…”

“Zack, fuck off, yeah?”

“That’s no way to talk to your boyfriend…” Zacky pouted. Brian scoffed. “Did you have a good time with Matt and Jase?”

Brian sighed heavily. “Yeah… I had hoped to go out and get completely wasted, but no! They barely even let me finish my first beer.”

“Why did you wanna go and get wasted?” Zacky queried, his expression unreadable.

“Because… Just because.” He stated. Zacky raised an eyebrow in question and Brian finally added, “I felt like crap, okay?”

“Not because you wanted to celebrate your birthday…?”

“Actually, it wasn’t… Wait! What?”

“You didn’t think we’d forgotten, did you?” The younger man asked, watching Brian’s face innocently.

“I- You-”

Zacky turned his head to look down the row of bunks, winking at Jimmy and Johnny whose heads stuck out from the curtains. As Zacky turned the other way to share a glance with Matt- who leant against the doorway, the Berry’s watching the two guitarists from behind him- Brian noticed his boyfriend close his eyes momentarily and nod in response to the vocalist’s questioning eyes. He turned back to Brian and pulled his left lip ring into his mouth as he took a deep breath and looked into his boyfriend’s eyes.

“We’ve been working hard for days in order to pull this off so, you know… I hope it’s worth us being bitches to you all day. We’ve got booze and Johnny even made it all the way back from the store without dropping the cake, so there’s food as well. I made some mix-tapes of your favourite songs so the music’s covered and Matt’s spent virtually all day reminding our crew that we’ve had a party planned so there’s loads of people waiting to give you birthday hugs, but first, I’ve got something that I wanna give you…”

Brian said nothing, instead simply staring at his lover with his mouth agape. His eyes darted to his friends who beamed at him, satisfaction evident in their eyes.

A light pressure on his jaw drew his eyes back to Zacky who had placed his hand under his lovers chin in an attempt to close his mouth. “I’m not going to kiss you when you swallow a fly,” he said, placing a small, wrapped package onto the pillow beside Brian’s head.

His mouth now closed, Brian swallowed and glanced from the gift to his lover, who whispered ‘open it’, before both moved their eyes back to the gift. Hesitantly Brian moved his hand to the box and picked at the tape holding the paper together, before sliding the small, rigid box from the wrapping.

Zacky nodded at him, encouraging him to open the box. With shaking fingers, he did so, his mouth twitching as he caught sight of its contents, before falling fully open as he looked, once again, to Zacky who whispered, “Will you marry me, Brian?”

Resting his crossed arms on the edge of the bunk, Zacky watched his lover closely as his mouth opened and closed. “Say something, Brian, please!”

“I- Oh, God! I’d…” Brian mumbled, struggling to form a coherent sentence. He raised his eyes to meet Zacky’s, finding them heavy with hope and fear.

His heart swelled with feelings for the man in front of him who, he noticed for the first time, was knelt on the floor. Tears began to prick the backs of the older man’s eyes and, without needing to think about his answer, he began to nod, finally managing to form the single word that he wanted to say. “Yes.”

The left handed man choked out a laugh, his voice weakened by the relief and ecstasy flowing through his body. “Really?”

“Of course,” Brian sniffed, a wide smile breaking out on his face. Zacky threw himself forward, wrapping his arms tightly around his lover, tears seeping across his eyes as he pressed kiss after kiss to Brian’s face.

“Thank you!” Zacky breathed, pulling away to gaze into his fiancé’s eyes before dipping his head to press their lips together.

“Zack! You said you were gonna propose to him, not make out with him!”

Removing a hand from his lover’s face, Zacky stuck his arm out behind him, waving his middle finger at Matt as he continued to explore Brian’s mouth with his tongue.

“I think we’ll leave you to it. Come join us when you’ve finished,” Jimmy laughed, ushering the others away so as to leave the two guitarists alone.

“I love you, so fucking much!” Zacky said, holding Brian’s face in his hands and kissing his lips between each word. “I’m sorry for today.”

“You’re forgiven because you’ve just made me the happiest man alive,” Brian replied, wrapping his arms around Zacky’s neck and pulling him closer.

“Come on- I can’t keep the birthday boy all to myself, can I? We should go be with the others…”

Brian nodded, swinging his legs out of the bunk as Zacky moved back to give him some room, their hands remaining linked together the whole time. “Was this all your idea?”

“Yeah, you can lay all the blame on me, though the others chose their own excuses for not going out for a drink with you... I was just going to propose to you, but I was nervous about it and figured that if your day sucked, at least my proposal wouldn’t seem like a let down…”

“You needn’t have worried about that… You could never disappoint me…”

“I do what I can,” Zacky grinned. “Now move it- I can hear the booze calling!”

~*~

“So you had no idea that we’d planned all this?” Jimmy asked incredulously.

“None whatsoever.”

“I would have thought that you’d have at least been suspicious, especially with Johnny nearly giving the game away by starting to say happy birthday!”

The bassist smiled innocently, as the drummer narrowed his eyes at him, then attempted to bite the older man’s arm as he caught him in a headlock and ruffled his hair.

“Aww, Jim! Leave the imp alone,” Brian laughed, taking a swig of his beer, glad that he’d been informed that the Berry’s had been in on the planning and there was, in fact, no early start the following day. Only a day off and a hangover was to greet them when they awoke, with Brian and Zacky intending to head off in search of an engagement ring for Zacky when they finally saw it fit to get out of bed.

“Hey, Syn!” Called a voice from behind him. He turned to find himself face to face with the singer from the support act. “I hear congratulations are in order…”

“Yeah, I guess so…” he replied, his cheeks colouring with pride as he thought about his lover’s proposal and fiddled with the ring now residing on his finger. “I suppose you were in on all this, as well, weren’t you?”

The vocalist nodded, his long hair falling forward from where it had been tucked behind his ears. “Congratulations, mate.”

He leant forward and engulfed the guitarist in a hug, which Brian returned with a ‘thank you’.

“Hey, he’s mine!” Zacky fake-pouted as he approached the hug, laughing happily as the two men separated and Brian allowed Zacky’s arm to snake around his waist.

“I’ll leave you two love birds be. Oh, and don’t forget my invite to the wedding,” the vocalist grinned, patting the couple’s shoulders as he walked away.

“You and me are going outside,” Zacky informed Brian as he seized his wrist and marched him down the length of the bus, dodging the smokers loitering around the door and heading off in search of some privacy.

“This’ll do,” Zacky decided, lowering himself to the grass beneath a tree and pulling Brian down beside him.

It had passed midnight and the stars were visible in the dark, cloudless sky. The music being played on the bus was still audible, but far enough away that it was only background noise and not too overwhelming.

Sighing contentedly, Zacky lay back, propping himself up on his elbows and glancing across at Brian as he settled into a similar position. The older man lifted the mouth of his beer bottle to his lips and tilted his head back as he drank, before resting the empty bottle on the grass and raising his eyes to the sky to study the stars.

“Have you had a good day?” Zacky asked eventually, also staring up at the constellations above him.

Brian thought for a minute, his mouth twitching with consideration. “No, the day sucked. The evening was pretty fucking amazing, though…”

Zacky smiled warmly at his lover, rolling over to slide his arms around Brian’s muscular body. The older man did the same, pulling Zacky’s small frame to his larger one so that they could snuggle together and share in each other's warmth.

The lovers kissed. Brian sucked at Zacky’s upper lip as the younger man kneaded his lower lip with his tongue, seeking an entrance in to his lover’s mouth. Finally granting him his request, Brian parted his lips and Zacky slipped his tongue between them, playing with Brian’s own in the confined space behind his teeth. Brian laughed softly and Zacky retracted his tongue, allowing the kiss to return to a locked-lip affair, his hand resting on the back of Brian’s head.

Teasing the older man’s hair with his calloused fingers, Zacky earned himself a soft moan. His partner ran his hand down the soft skin of his side, his fingers lingering on the bone of his hip where they lightly stroked the pale skin.

Moving his hand to Brian’s cheek, Zacky brushed his thumb over the angular cheekbone and the pair just lay there for several minutes, innocently caressing the other's skin. Their eyes were free of lust; both were simply content with being in each other's company.

“Happy birthday, baby?” Zacky whispered, moving his head slightly so that his nose touched Brian’s.

The lead’s voice was similarly quiet as he replied, “It’s a bit late for that- my birthday was yesterday.” The sky above them had slowly begun to brighten and Brian lifted his hand to place it against Zacky’s chest. “But it’s okay because you’ve just given me the most amazing present…”

Both men closed their eyes, their feelings soaring higher than ever before until they mingled with the dying light of the stars and lulled them into a sleep whereby only something more than bliss could take them.