Love, Save the Empty

"I can't believe I'm doing twirly, ballerina shit." Brian groans to himself as he holds his head in his hand, sitting on the cushioned round-shaped couch that all the other moms are seated at. Actually, just about all fifteen of them are fighting over each other to crawl into his lap. Brian likes females, he'll admit that without hesitation, but he doesn't go for the MILFs and soccer moms. Besides, he has Michelle, and she's just enough spunk and spice for him to handle without choking on the taste.

There's one mom, one he wouldn't mind getting to know better if it weren't for Michelle, that he's just now realizing he knows.

"Ambur?" he asks, brows furrowed as he looks at the familiar brunette. She looks up from her magazine, ears perked and her head turns in his direction.

"Do I know you?" she asks snottily, scrunching her nose in his direction. Brian chuckles and pushes away all the other mothers to sit beside her.

"Ambur, it's me, Brian."

Ambur wears a confused expression before the not-impressed looks turn to one of awe. "Oh my god, Brian!" she screams softly, before dropping her magazine onto the couch and wrapping her arms around the larger man. Brian laughs and hugs her back.

"Hey there, Azazael, how's the milf life working out for ya?"

The brunette scolds him, but the smirk is evident. "It's good. Lee finally put a ring on it," she jokes, flashing off her left hand that holds a moderate sized diamond and silver wedding band. "Lori's mine," Ambur says before putting to a very timid looking brown haired girl. She has a pair of glasses slipping down her nose every few minutes, and hurries to push them back up so not to miss the dance lesson.

"So, Syn, what are you doing here?"

"Audrey is mine," he mumbles, pointing to the happy blonde girl that is his nine year old daughter. Ambur wears a shocked expression.

"How?" she whispers, ducking her head to look him in the eye.

"Nina didn't tell me."

Ambur's expression deadpans and she sighes. "Knew it," she mumbles before leaning back against the couch. Brian looks at her with a confused look on his lips. Ambur shakes her head before Brian leans back against the couch beside her. Both keep their arms crossed. Eyes follow their daughters, watching as they learn the art of Ballet.

"I heard the band's going along really well," Ambur brings up suddenly, causing Brian to smirk and look over at the woman.

"Well, you were there as a roadie for the first four years, I'd think you would know exactly how well the band is going."

Ambur full out laughs, causing the teacher, Aleca, to flash her a look, and the rest of the mothers glare at her. They were not comfortable with how comfortable the new tall-dark-mysterious dad was getting with the outcast of the group. The brunette mother with tattoos and piercings that put all the guys to shame.

"I was not a roadie! I was a technician!" she yells softly at him, but swears she still hears him say 'roadie'. "It feels so weird being called Azazael," she says, musing at past memories of working with the band before she settled down with her husband, Lee, and had little Lori McKinnon.

"The guys aren't going to believe me when I tell them I saw you today," Brian tells her, and they smirk at each other.

"How's Val and Matt? Still batting eyelashes at each other?"

"He proposed back to her in April," Brian says with a monotone voice, looking down at his tattooed knuckles. "They're getting married in about a week."

"No shit!" Ambur exclaims, getting glares from both the mothers and the teacher. "No fucking way," she whispers once feeling the glares. "Is she knocked up?" Brian gives a full out laugh.

"No, not that we know of. But with the way those two go at it, it wouldn't be much of a surprise."

"A little mini Shads... I can't help but 'aw' at how cute they'd be. Mouths wide open, snoring up a storm, drool covering their faces..."

Brian wrinkles his nose at this. "You call that cute?"

"Yes!"

"Mrs. McKinnon, if I have to ask you to be quiet one more time, you will be asked to leave!" Aleca exclaims sternly, causing Ambur to flush in embarrassment and hide her face behind her magazine; Lori slinks into a back corner of the group, not wanting to be affiliated with the woman that gave birth to her six years ago.

"We'll catch up later," Brian whispers to her, sharing a grin before leaving the room as he gets a call from Matt.



Matt, Zacky, and Brian all sat around the computer screen, staring at the lyrics that just weren't turning out like they wanted. They had the tone, and the mood, and the beat, but the words weren't flowing and Jimmy wasn't helping by his constant yammering over the playing television on the other side of the studio. Something about politics and the new Hitler and who knows.

"Rev, seriously! Shut up!" Zacky yells, turning to chuck a sofa cushion pillow at the tall man. Audrey giggles from her spot in the spinning computer chair, a new Bridgett clutched in her arms like a life line. The day after her start of dance lessons, Brian had been pounced on and given a beaten by the guys. After such, they took Audrey out for ice cream, bubblegum like always, and raided the Bridgett Doll store in the mall. Officer Deidra Taylor was there, but the guys kept Brian in line while he sported a blackening eye and sore jaw bone.

"Shut it, Zee! You'd be saying the same thing if you cared!" Jimmy yells, going into a never ending spat about politics and Obama ruining the country and- well, Brian didn't really care about the rest.

Audrey continues to giggle, causing Brian, Matt, and Johnny to smirk.

"They shoulda known," she starts, stopping the spin of her chair. "That's the price of evil."

Matt instantly perks at this before he's rushing back over to the computer to type and switch around lyrics. The next thing the band knows, Matt is shoving pieces of paper in their hands and grabbing a random guitar that's just laying around.

"Okay, listen to this real quick," he says, strumming along to the beat and tone they had agreed on, adding a few more notes to accent the words as he sings.

"You should have known, the price of evil, and it hurts to know you belong here - yeah. No one to call, everybody to fear, your tragic fate is looking so clear, yeah. Ohh- it's your fucking nightmare!"

Jimmy is instantly bouncing from his seat, spitting out lyrics left and right. Audrey stares with wide eyes, not sure of what's gotten into her newly-acquired uncle Jim Jam. Brian sits back, his Schecter laying across his lap as he watches the Rev and Shadows go into their lyric writing mode. The number of times he's seen this mode is more than he has hairs on his head. Sometimes at the most random of times (one of them being while waiting for a rollercoaster at Disneyland when they took McKenna, and instantly their snatching napkins and writing on their arms. The girl at the gate thought the lyrics were actually tattoos) they think of the best lyrics. It's brought forth from the most random things too.

Audrey moves from her chair and walks past the absorbed looking Matt and Jimmy, and crawls into Brian's lap. He moves his guitar off to the side, smiling as she sits on his right thigh, her head resting on his shoulder. They watch the other band members fiddle around the room, Johnny and Zacky thinking of riffs as Matt and Jimmy do lyrics.

The week had been rough, with Brian getting his shit together and Audrey slowly adapting to the life that her father lived.

The life, that was so totally different from her mother's.

And then Brian's phone begins to ring. He does not hear it, do to the noise in the studio. And if he had answered it, he would know that Michelle was on her way to the airport in New York. And that she would be arriving home at 6:30 that night.

But Brian did not hear it. And Michelle didn't leave a message...