and the stars will all come out

chapter twenty-three! ☆

THERE WAS ONE BRIGHT SIDE TO DAVE STORMING OUT: Landry didn't have to watch him nearly kill himself again trying to move the soundboard into its new home. 

This time around, they had to get the enormous soundboard up the porch, through the front door, across and then out of the kitchen, down the lengthy basement stairs, and up against the wall Adam had meticulously selected in the weeks of planning that had eventually led to this. This feat seemed to be even harder than trying to get it out of Nashville, and in Dave's absence, she'd had to step up to the plate as mover.

"Okay," she muttered through the hair tie in her teeth as she tied her hair back: her hair had an extremely annoying habit of falling into her face, and she didn't think she'd have the time to push it out if she was struggling with the soundboard. "T, you take that corner,  Adam can take the front of it 'cause he's least likely to pass out, and Nate, can you help me with this side?"

"I nominate Landry as leader!" Taylor exclaimed cheerily as he moved into position at his appointed corner.

"Well, I nominate Adam as leader," she shot right back, now threading the hair tie through her blonde hair. "I don't want to be held responsible for any deaths."

"Nobody's gonna die, guys," Adam chimed in, failing to rouse motivation in the group.

"We should do it in small segments," Landry announced as she rolled up the sleeves of the Cannibal Corpse pullover - during the past week she'd stayed at the cabin in Dave's absence, nobody had questioned why she'd been wearing it 24/7, thank God. "That means when we get it to the porch, we take a break. We get it into the kitchen, we take a break. You get the gist? Make sure to keep water handy. Back in Nashville, Dave and the guys tried to do it all the once and everybody almost passed out. I don't want that. We have the time to take breaks, okay?"

"For somebody who doesn't want to be leader, you're awful good at it," Nate put in sarcastically.

"Shut up, Mendel," Landry said, though she was holding back a smile herself. "So - we all ready?"

☆

THE ACHE WAS BOTH DULL AND SHARP,  AND THE INTENSITY OF HIS PAIN CAME AND WENT.

Guilt was a fire in his lungs, and the regret had burrowed deep into his stomach, which had been writhing in protest ever since he'd arrived in Seattle and would most not likely stop twisting and turning until the anxiety forced him to puke his guts out. Even then, Dave suspected the stomachache would immediately reappear, so what was the point of that? The cycle of ordering food to the room, drinking himself into a stupor, and staring up at the ceiling until he fell asleep only continued.

Alone in the hotel room, sat on the cheap couch and sipping his fifth cup of coffee, Dave watched the sun slip away into the bleak buildings and skyscrapers. The colours of the sunset were awfully pretty, he thought; it was like someone had dipped their fingers into the most pigmented pink and orange paint there was and dragged them across the length the sky. The sun was nothing but a tiny, gleaming red, fiery ball several lifetimes away as it sunk into the horizon.

The sunset was brightly beautiful and serene and everything made him wish that Landry was here in Seattle with him.

Mercilessly, the self-loathing punched him dead in the diaphragm, and as if he couldn't hate himself any more, freezing dread pooled in his veins. He really had no idea how to clean up the mess he'd made. Goddamn, why am I such a massive dickhead?

Dave set his mug down on the coffee table and buried his head in his hands, the vitriol towards himself pounding in his head like a migraine.

You're a worthless piece of shit who deserves nothing. Trying to run from the fact your relevancy died in April 1994.