Office scene!

He slumped back in his chair with a sigh, left hand raising his drink to his lips, while the other fiddled with his mobile phone. Relishing the quiet of his office, Dillian was more than a little annoyed when Shane barged in without so much as knocking.

"Yea. I got your message, what happened?"

Wordlessly, Dillian navigated to the text message in question, and tossed the phone to Shane, who, after reading it, looked as if he could not decide if he wanted to be sympathetic or to burst out laughing.

He sat down across from Dillian and lit a cigarette, sliding the phone across the desk as he did so.

"So this was yesterday?"

Dillian grunted in reply.

"Tried calling or messaging her?" Shane raised an eyebrow.

"Naturally."

"Any word?"

"Nope."

"Mm...Y'know? This is totally unexpected. Who would've thought?"

"Yea. Total riot. Hilarious."

And with that sarcastic retort, Dillian swive;ed in his chair to look out the window, his back towards Shane. On the street below, people scurried for shelter as raindrops the size of dollar coins fell from the menacing clouds. Tridents of light ran along the underbellies of the mercurial clouds, followed closely by thunder.

"Like one bloody cosmic fart," Dillian mumbled darkly.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Is Steph ready or not?"

"No, duh. You know her. Hey you know what? I know this song that would be really apt for your situation now, man." Shane started humming the tune to a song about being blind-sided in a relationship.

"Look, just shut up, okay? And put out that bloody cigarette!" Snapped Dillian.

"Whoa, chill out, boss. No point blowing your top off. It ain't productive," Shane took one last drag from his cigarette and offered it to Dillian, who at this time was thumbing through the messages on his mobile phone.

"Here, you could use this. And stop reading those, before you tear everything in this studio up."

"You know I don't smoke..."

"You used to," Shane cut in. "Come on, you know it helps."

"You're not exactly helping, you know," Dillian mumbled as he shoved his mobile phone into his pocket, and reached for the proffered cigarette, which was almost down to its filter.

He drew deeply from the cigarette, feeling the familiar slow drag as the poisons slowly snaked their way through his body. He held it in, savouring the high as it came to him. Dillian looked sideways at his friend as he grimaced through a cloud of smoke.