AN: I'm having a creative blockage on my other story, so here's a short oneshot about Brian Rosenthal... You might not get what's going on because this was originally a drabble thing I posted in a StarKid RP I'm in. Basically, Brian was in love with this girl he met in his senior year of high school (her junior year). They ended up in UofM together and they never officially dated, but they both knew they were in love. Super cute fluff and then in Brian's senior year of college (her junior), they're visiting Chicago to say hi to her parents and she calls Brian freaking out because she's out with a friend and they're being followed by some guy and it's night time. There's shots, Brian runs to find her on the streets, he does, and she dies in his arms. He's obviously scarred and hasn't been able to let go since. The three boxes are filled with a ton of memories and little notes they passed back and forth, pictures, etc. (you get the idea). He had a breakdown because he was singing the girl's song to Jaime ("Out of My League" by Stephen Speaks). He ran out onto the streets, stumbling around, and finding himself on the street she died on. He was texting Lauren as he stumbled around, so she went looking for him, found him, and drove him home.

I REALLY hope that made sense because this oneshot's more tragic if you know the backstory.

Enjoy~

oOo

Brian had sworn off drinking in excess back in college, simply because he didn't want to be a victim of the temptations that alcohol presented when consumed in large quantities. He would still drink a beer or two with the guys (or the girls, for that matter), but he never allowed himself more than two. And he had broken that personal pledge, despite all his best efforts to avoid doing so. Brian couldn't remember exactly everything that had gone on while he had been drinking two nights ago. He did, however, have a pretty good idea as to where he had traveled, mostly based on the locations the pictures he had posted on Tumblr were taken at.

From what he had gathered, Lauren had dropped him off at his apartment, per his request, after his breakdown in the streets of Chicago. He had spread out everything that was in the feared triad of boxes on his bed, nearly had another breakdown, and immediately gone for the stash of alcohol the woman in the neighboring apartment room kept in the storage basement they shared. He vaguely remembered walking to the arcade and taking the picture of himself with the fake gun, but the rest was a blank spot in Brian's usually unimpaired memory. From there, he assumed he had walked home and that's when he created the mess that was before him now.

Brian had woken up a day after his drinking session, with vomit on the front of his shirt and a headache pounding away mercilessly at the inside of his skull. Not having the will to get up and clean himself off, he had stripped down to his underwear (which had somehow ended up inside-out) where he lay in the middle of his living room floor, tossing his clothes onto the couch with reckless abandon. He had fallen back into a hung-over sleep, only slightly more comfortable without his filthy clothes on, and not woken up until today (two days after the actual drunken episode and a day after taking off his clothing).

Now he stood in his living room, still in his underwear, trying not to step on anything he had broken. If Brian wasn't poor enough before, he was really living in the dirt now. His best, and only, set of dishes lay in ruins on the floor, alongside practically everything else he owned that could shatter when thrown. He pivoted on the balls of his feet, scanning the ground for a path to the kitchen that wasn't littered with debris. After all, he was barefoot, and he didn't really want to be walking on anything sharp. He had to leap around a bit, sometimes balancing on one foot and looking utterly ridiculous, but he finally made it to the small kitchen where an even worse sight awaited him.

The floor in there wasn't covered with broke glass and porcelain, as his living room was, but it was sure was layered with a lot of the food Brian kept in his refrigerator and the small bit he stored in the cupboards. The tragedy of the destruction he had wrought in his own apartment caused a slight involuntary gasp to escape his lips. His toes curled as he accidentally stepped in something cold and slimy; raw eggs mixed with tainted leftovers that were starting to rot already as they sat on the floor undisturbed until now. Both the stench of the food around the room and the realization that he more than likely had nothing left to call his own were enough to draw tears to Brian's eyes.

He wiped his feet off on the hideous green carpet in the hallway as he made his way into the only room he cared about anymore - his bedroom. He pushed the door open a crack and leaned his head inside, his heart pounding in his chest and his head beginning to throb again. The tears flowed more freely as he saw his untouched room laid out in front of him, just the way he had left it before getting wasted. His heart rate steadied itself as he stepped into the room shakily, but picked up again as he approached his bed, which still had the contents of the three boxes from his closet spread out on it. He checked everything over and put it all back in the boxes, careful not to smudge or ruin anything, no matter how small. He shut the boxes, but didn't seal them this time.

Unsure of what else to do or where to go, Brian sat himself on the edge of his bed, staring out the window in front of him, right into the sun that reflected itself off the windows of the large skyscraper that stood across the road from his apartment. He hadn't the money to afford new dishes or groceries, and he sure as fucking hell hadn't the heart to give up on the girl whom had caused all of this in the first place, no matter how long she'd been dead for now. She was all he had left now and he wasn't about to let that go.

Brian needed a job, especially now, but he could never find work. Sure, he was an okay singer and an average actor, but mediocre theater skills didn't buy you shit in the real world. Especially not in the Windy City.

Brian felt like a poorly constructed building with a weak framework.

His life was Mother Nature, relentlessly throwing him one natural disaster after another.

And in that moment, the poor building was just trying really damn hard not to cave in.