Toasted!Zine
presents...

Behind the 'Zines - Season Finalé!

episode thirteen –

today.

"I don't know about you, but I think this whole situation is very ironic, my friend," Darren stated wistfully, "Although, it would be a whole lot more entertaining if you happened to be spooning Scott."

Brandon blinked his eyes open and blearily looked out at his surroundings. Unfortunately his view was blocked by a field of woven gray that contained a small trail of drool in its intricate design.

"Oh God," he groaned groggily, "Where am I?"

"On the ground, man. Guessing from the form of your body, you got loaded off your rocker and, judging by the position of your arms, you took the girly way out and did it with coolers. After that, you stumbled yourself here, passed out on the ground, and now, I'm waking you up," Darren explained to him, "Which also means you've just hit rock bottom."

Brandon peeled his face off of the floor and rolled over. Darren was right. Last night he had gotten drunk out of his mind (off of coolers at that) and he did pass out on his office floor (after all, it was closer than his apartment was to the bar) and—

"Wait a second. Since when did you learn the word 'irony' and what it means?"

"Buddy, anyone who has taken home a girl with an Adam's Apple knows the meaning of the word irony, "Darren said, "But that's beside the point, man. I got some news that'll make you happier than a Viagra commercial."

Brandon rubbed his eyes, "What is it?"

"She's awake, dude," Darren explained, "And she's asking to see you."

two days ago.

There's something sobering about the sound of a gun firing. The shock of it sends a wave of adrenaline pumping through your body, and immediately, you spring into action.

Whatever that action is, often depends on what kind of person you are. The more heroic of us have the tendency to jump into the fray, wherever that may be. The more cowardly of us tend to run for their lives. But nine out of ten of us just issue a statement so that our thoughts can register with those around us.

"Sweet sassy molassy!" Brandon emoted.

"The intern's break room," Scott muttered in shock, "Meagan."

The response was instantaneous. Both of them dove into their office and sprinted towards the floor in the hole that looked into the intern's office. Both peered through the hole.

"Oh my God," Brandon muttered with sullen shock.

He shrunk back from the hole as Scott dove down inside.

"Meagan! Meagan, are you okay?" Brandon heard him yell as the entire world spun around him.

"This isn't supposed to happen," he muttered, "It's not allowed to happen..."

But it had. And it did.

today.

"She's okay?"

"She's okay. The doctors think she'll be fine," Darren explained as the two of them walked out of the front door of the comiXtreme HQ. The receptionist, a cranky, spiteful old man named Ben Grimly didn't make the effort to give Brandon a dirty look as they passed.

"Thanks," Brandon told the curmudgeonous phone jockey.

Ben grunted in reply.

"So, we're going straight there, right?" Brandon asked, "I don't have to endure any games of Ankles for a ride to the hospital or anything?"

Darren laughed, "You know Brandon, there are a few moments in a man's life where he won't take advantage of a friend's moment of weakness."

"And now is one of those times?"

"No. On three, we drop our pants."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah, I'm kidding," Darren stated as they pushed open the door and walked out into the breezy spring day.

The parking lot was, for the most part, empty. The staff had been given a few days to cope with the loss in whatever way they saw fit. Most of them saw it fit enough not to show up, so the only car in the lot was Darren's.

"Irony," Brandon chuckled to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he said, grinning slightly.

A moment of silence passed. Then, Brandon gave a wry look to Darren.

"I could so take you in a heterosexual game of Ankles right now."

Darren laughed, "Bring it on, little man."

one day ago, early morning.

"Do you know what the killer looked like?"

Brandon blinked at the question as it was asked to him. He knew who had done it. Sometime in the middle of the shoving match he and Scott had gotten into hours ago, Greg and Amy had made their way down to the intern's break room, where Meagan was. Greg had pointed the gun at Meagan, and asked if she noticed him now, if she cared about him now.

During the brief exchange that lead up to the firing of the gun, someone said something wrong. Obviously, Greg fired the gun. Afterwards, he had fled through the doorway to the intern's break room and made it past everyone. No one knew enough about what was going on to stop him.

Word, naturally, had gotten around. Brandon knew who pulled the trigger. But barely.

"It was Greg."

"Do you know a last name, sir?"

"Um... no. Not really. He kept on calling himself the uh... the Gregarious Greg or Greg the Gregarious or something stupid like that. He was always wearing some kind of a tunic or a... or a cloak or something."

"Yes, sir, we got that much. But what else can you tell us about him?"

Brandon opened his mouth to reply, but then realized something. He really did know nothing about Greg. Hair color. Eye color. Height, weight, last name, habits, the whole works. All he knew was that he was a guy. About average height. He always wore some overzealous creation to work, but that was at work.

Where he wanted to be noticed by at least one of his co-workers.

Brandon thought back as far as he could. He never noticed Greg before that day he came back to work after being fired in December. It was only when Amy led him down to the intern's break room that he took note of the medieval language machine that was Greg the Gregarious.

It was a known fact that no one had been hired since Brandon was let go. So that meant, Greg had been around all along. But before, he wasn't wearing the crazy outfits and uttering the long dead language.

Before, he was trying to get noticed in different ways. But it hadn't worked.

The letters. The letters that plagued Meagan back when she wasn't going out with Scott, back when Brandon still had a chance. He had written them, naturally, but he wasn't getting anything from them. Instead, Scott was blaming Brandon for them, Brandon was blaming Scott for them, and Meagan believed both of them in one measure or another.

All other candidates need not apply.

"So why did he start writing them again?" Brandon asked aloud.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry. My mind has gone off on a tangent."

"Yes, well, any information you could give would be helpful."

"He was in love with Meagan. He wrote her letters."

"Is there a way we could see these letters, sir?"

Brandon thought of saying something along the lines of, "You could ask Meagan," but decided against them. Obviously, she was in no condition to be talking to the police about the letters.

"I don't know where they are. Scott Williams might, I guess."

"Thank you for your time, sir."

today.

"Does this whole wearing no pants thing in your car make us gay?" Brandon asked.

"It makes you gay," Darren said, "It makes me comfortable with my heterosexuality."

"You know what? You win," Brandon laughed, pulling up his pants.

"Weak, man," Darren shook his head, "That is so weak."

"I don't think it'd be kosher if I showed up to a hospital without my pants on," Brandon explained, struggling to pull up the waist of the pants below the seatbelt, "For me. Not for you. That's just normal."

Darren sighed with content, "Such is the beauty of Darren Jess."

Brandon smiled a little and shook his head.

"Thanks for giving me a ride," he said.

"Dude, it's just a ride," Darren replied, "It's not like you have to put out or anything."

"Be as distant as you want, Darren. You're doing me a favor and you know it," Brandon stated.

"You know what they say, bro. Deny, deny, deny."

one day ago, late afternoon.

"Where are you going?"

"Drinking," Brandon announced, "If there was a time I needed a drink more, I have no idea when that was."

Amy Johnson smiled at him a bit as they both began to walk out of the Toasted!Zine office.

"You really don't need to do this."

"What do you mean?"

"Drinking your cares away."

"You're saying, that if you were to have your life hanging by a thread, you wouldn't want the person who you could very well possibly have a romantic future with drinking themselves stupid with potential grief?"

Amy's small smile faded a bit, "You know I can't answer that properly."

Brandon slowed his walking pace and eventually stopped. He looked at the ground and then looked back up at Amy.

"What... what is this right now. Between us. I mean... is there anything there, or... what's going on."

Amy sighed, "I guess we'll find out in a little while, won't we?"

Brandon smiled a bit. "I guess we will."

today.

Brandon walked into the waiting area and was greeted by the sight of Amy and Scott. Scott was sitting in a chair, reading a magazine and Amy beamed at him as he arrived. Darren followed him closely.

"Jeeze, could you two be any more gay?" Scott asked, looking up from the mag.

"My pants are still on, Scott," Brandon said.

A silence passed in the room.

"So. What do I do, just... just go in?"

"I think so. She's still awake," Scott said.

Brandon walked forward towards the door and Amy came up to his side as he paused right before the entrance way.

"It's okay," she whispered grabbing his arm lightly.

He took a deep breath and carefully opened the door as Amy's finger's slipped off of him.

Darren gave a look at Scott.

"So. How is Meagan?" he asked.

Scott looked up from his magazine, and paused for a bit, "Excuse me?"

"Meagan. How is she?"

Scott gave a quick sigh, "She's good. Better than she was before, I guess. Although she's still having a hard time with all this."

"That's good," Darren said, looking through the window into the hospital room, "How do you think Amy's doing?"

"The doctors think she'll make a full recovery," Scott explained, "So that's always good."

"Yeah. I guess it is."

OMEGA

Brandon walked up to the bed slowly. As if on cue, Amy's eyes fluttered open a small bit.

"Hey there," he said, smiling.

"Hey," she said groggily, eyes rolling slightly with weakness. She shuffled her body position as much as her state would allow.

Brandon let a few seconds pass as he let the fact that Amy was still alive filter through his head and become cemented. Then, he spoke, "I've been thinking about you all day."

"If I weren't in the hospital, I'd think you were being sweet on me," she stated, smiling and almost laughing at her own joke.

Brandon smiled with her.

"You scared the hell out of me," he told her, "I mean, you could of at least had the dignity of working things out between us before you got shot."

She smiled again, "You boys and your comic books. You always expect a resolved ending that'll tie everything up in a nice and neat package."

"What? I can't expect myself to live my life wondering what it would be like if you were still alive. If we... if we had a chance. It would drive me nuts," Brandon explained.

"It would be like I never left," Amy said weakly. She coughed and winced a bit.

"Everything still hurts, I bet," Brandon told her.

"That would be a smart bet," she replied.

A moment of silence passed between them. Brandon took a deep breath.

"You know... I've been thinking."

"Brandon, you don't have to do this now," Amy said to him, "I don't think my little heart can take much more."

"Look. I know its kind've selfish of me, but I have to get this out there," Brandon told her, "It's been messing with my head pretty bad these last couple of days."

Amy's eyes fluttered a bit as she moved her body around under the covers of the hospital bed again, "Okay. What do you have for me?"

Brandon closed his eyes, "When... when you got shot. It was like accelerated Soul Searching for Dummy's or something. A real... a real slap to the head, I guess. I just... after I got over the shock and everything, I began to think about you and about Meagan and about me, and about... all of it. And... and I realized something.

"Maybe it was just the stress of this whole situation, or maybe it was my mind trying to conjure up a happy ending or something, but I just... I came to realize that... you... you're not the perfect girl."

"Brandon, please..."

"No, hear me out. You'll want to hear me out. Trust me."

She closed her eyes and tears flowed from them. She didn't say a word.

"I came to realize... that... that you're not the perfect girl. That in my head, in my mind, Meagan is the perfect girl. But... but perfect isn't what I need. It's... it's not what I want.

"I want someone... I need someone, who's perfect for me, Amy. Not some impossibly flawless vision of anything. I need... I need you. I need your little jokes, I need your ability to tell me I'm being stupid and immature, I need... I need you."

Amy smiled through the tears and her body convulsed with a tiny laugh. She sniffled her little nose.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Brandon just kind of smiled. He would've told her that she was welcome, but he hadn't really done anything. She had done it all.

"I think I'm going to get some sleep now," she told him, "You'll be here when I wake up?"

"Believe it, beautiful," he told her. He bent down and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Her eyes fluttered shut.

The heart monitor started beeping erratically and her body began to shudder and convulse.

All the color drained from Brandon's face.

He bolted to the door and yelled, "WE NEED SOME HELP IN HERE NOW! SOMETHING'S WRONG!"

Almost immediately, the nearest doctor and nurse raced into the room. They began to mutter a few urgent words that were lost on Brandon, and the next thing he knew, he was being lead out of the room by an insistent nurse.

"Don't let her die," Brandon said frantically, "You can't let her die. She was fine, she was good..."

"I know sir, but the doctors need room to work," she said, "We'll call you in when everything settles."

"What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong!"

"Sir, we don't quite know that yet, if you'd please just have a seat, we'll get right back to you when we're done here."

"Please, help her," Brandon whispered, "Please..."

The door shut in front of him.

...

...

...

Amy died shortly after.

Her little heart couldn't take it.

And that day, Brandon cried.

But he didn't drink.

She wouldn't have liked that very much.

He thought the least he could do, was show the girl who was prefect for him the respect that she deserved.

The funeral took place a few days later.

Brandon stood in front of the assembled and recited a song he felt captured the moment.

Softly now.

You owe it to the world.

And everyone knows

That you're my favorite girl.



But there's some things in life,

That are not meant to be.

I'm not meant for you

And you're not meant for me.



Here's to our problems

And here's to our fights.

Here's to our achings

And here's to you having

A good life

From me.



Softer now.

You owe it to yourself.

And don't think that you

Will be left on the shelf.



Cause there's someone for you

And there's someone for me.

Like me you'll meet them

Eventually.



Here's to your lover,

And here's to my wife.

Here's to your children

And here's to you having

A good life.

From me.



Louder now.

You've lost all your pain.

You're married with children

And happy again.



And now I'm regretting

The moves that I made.

Fatal mistakes are so

Easily made.



Enough of my problems,

They only cause fights.

Forget that I had you

And promise you'll have such a

Beautifully happy

And painlessly romantic...



Good life.

From me.



He left the funeral early.

And no one stopped him.

the end.