Life In Retrospect [7/?]
Title: Life In Retrospect
Author: Chionophobia
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
POV: Brendon
Word Count: 3271
Summary: Four years ago after a critically acclaimed world wide tour, the Panic At The Disco guitarist Ryan Ross disappeared from his hotel room, leaving no trace as to where he had gone. A few drops of blood and a broken lamp made the police conduct the disappearance as abduction, yet they were never able to find Ryan or make much progress on the matter. Meanwhile the police struggled to find Ryan or his kidnapper, Brendon Urie started his own investigation, an enquiry that after four years had yielded next to nothing, until one day, with the arriving of a postcard.
Disclaimer: This never happened.
Beta theliffey
Previous chapters: Here
Notes: Sorry for the delay, my internet's been broken for a few days.
Chapter Seven
Something was making a hell of a noise.
Brendon stirred in his sleep and the motion sent a shock wave of pain through his head. That was what woke him up fully. He groaned, then became aware, as he stared up at his own ceiling that the telephone was ringing. Or rather, shrieking.
“Fuck,” he moaned and meekly willed the noise to stop. The phone kept on ringing. Brendon grumbled incoherently as he staggered out of bed, feeling disoriented and irritated as he made his way toward the vibrating phone on his desk. Brendon intended to tell the person on the line to call back later, after he had indulged in some aspirin treatment and half a gallon of water.
He was clutching his throbbing head with one hand as he fumbled with the answer button on the phone, speaking a croaky “hello” into the receiver.
“Brendon?”
Brendon's eyes shot wide open, and the tiny movement in itself gave his head another beating, but he barely realized. The thrill shooting up his insides was all he could notice. And the voice. His mouth went dry.
“Brendon? Are you there?”
Dazed now, he forced a hand up to his forehead in a weak attempt to still his mind. This was not real. “Who is this?” He managed to croak, his voice so hoarse and cracked that it sounded much older than twenty-five.
“It’s me,” the voice answered, defeat seeping into the tone. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about me already.” The brave scorn was faint, hurt.
“It can’t be,” Brendon mumbled, dropping into the chair next to him when he felt his knees starting to weaken. “I'm still drunk. This is a dream.”
“No, it it me,” the voice said again. “Ryan.”
Brendon was shaking his head slightly back and forth. No. It couldn’t be. This was a… trick, a joke, a cruel fucking game to someone. But how come that someone sounded exactly like…
“I swear it's me, Brendon.”
The head ache from the alcohol was ruthless, but something about it seemed to help him decide what to think. He didn’t know if this was really Ryan, but he wanted to believe it. He needed to. He quickly grasped onto his own belief. “Where did you go?” He whispered, no strength in his voice, “What happened?”
The voice was quiet for a moment and Brendon panicked silently, his heart throbbing viciously in fear that he’d lost again, but then it came, muted, “I… I can’t get into that right now, but you will know, when it’s safe.”
“Safe?” Brendon echoed, uncomprehending. “What do you-?”
“Look, I have to go,” the voice said, urgent now. “I only called to let you know I’m alive. But go check your mailbox; do it now, before someone else does.” The line went dead with a low click.
Brendon didn’t even hesitate for a second. He got up from the chair, kicking it back several inches across the floor and dropping the phone in his haste to get to the door. The sun was blinding him as the sprinted down the stone path to the mailbox and his heart was still pounding too quickly as he felt around inside, searching for whatever was left for him there. At first, his hand could feel nothing. The disappointment was as instantaneous as it was heartwrenching. And then there was something, something flat and hard. Disappointment turned into eagerness. He pulled out the flat object and examined it. It was hastily wrapped in ordinary brown paper with two rubber bands fastening the wrappings in a crosswise motion. Whoever had done this had clearly been in a hurry.
And then, the sensation of being observed came over him like another tidal wave. He looked up quickly, roaming the seemingly deserted street with eyes squinting in the harsh light. It was quiet. No kids were playing, no one was outside, the windows on the houses were empty. With a strong sense of unease, Brendon stuffed the package into the jeans he'd worn since the day before and pulled the t-shirt down over it, making it invisible as he hurried back up the path and inside the house again.
He felt better as soon as the door was closed and the sun no longer making him partially blind. He stared down the hallway and glanced sideways into the rooms for something, or someone, that wasn’t supposed to be there but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He relaxed and the awful nervous feeling evaporated. He was alone, he could feel it.
He leaned back against the door and pulled out the flat package, examining it more thoroughly. His hands were trembling. There was no writing, no name, no address, no stamp, no postmark, no inscription of any sort. It meant only one thing. Whoever had sent this, whoever had spoken to him on the phone must have dropped this off in person. Brendon let out a sharp gust of air. What if Ryan… had he done it? Had he dropped it off?
There was a bit of pain now, a dull ache that made his entire body hurt in ways he’d never felt before. He wouldn’t allow himself to think it. No. Ryan had not dropped this off, Ryan had not been just a few yards away at some point during the day, Ryan had not been the sweet voice on the phone.
The desperate assurances didn’t make him feel any better. He took a deep breath and concentrated on the flat object he was holding. His hands were still shaking as he unfastened the rubber bands and let them fall to the floor. He could feel the wrapping paper open slightly under his touch and he couldn’t wait any longer. He had been searching for so long, looking for any little clue that would lead him to some sort of answer, and this, this might be one. It had to be.
He ripped the brown paper off and stared down at the plastic case and the unmarked DVD that was partially hidden under a folded note. He didn’t realize that his heart was beating violently again as he unfolded the small piece of paper that had been hastily ripped off of a bigger sheet. With his back to the door, he slid down to the floor when it seemed to hard to keep upright. There was no question who had written the note in his hand. The soft way letters tied into each other, the B’s, the H’s, the T’s. Ryan. All Ryan.
This is why I left, Brendon. I want you to understand what happened
but I can’t tell you here, not like this. Soon, okay?
Watch the DVD. Hopefully you won’t hate me.
I couldn’t stay.
Ryan
Brendon examined the case with the silvery disc inside, somehow trying to see what was on it. He knew he had to watch it, that there was most likely an answer to this whole mystery on the disc but he couldn’t bring himself to get up and walk over to his computer. He felt like he hadn’t slept for years, he was suddenly so tired. Fucking alcohol. His entire body was throbbing now, and he remembered that he hadn't had time to get the aspirin and water yet. He was too weak to get that as well. Instead, he just closed his eyes and tried to shut out reality as best he could.
When his mind got somehow conscious again, he noticed the blackness around him and the cold. And then the slight pain. He realized that he was curled up on the floor, a stray shoe under his hip and a coat hanger against his head. He pushed himself up to a half-sitting position. It was then that he remembered. The note was in his hand, crumpled up but still readable. He couldn’t believe it. Ryan was alive.
He shook his head to himself and rubbed away the fatigue in his eyes. There was something more. Something he was forgetting? And then his eyes spotted the DVD case. He grabbed it and hurried to stand up straight, his legs hurting slightly from lying in the cramped position for so long, but he didn’t care about that now. There was nothing else on his mind than what he held in his hands. He grabbed his laptop as he entered the living room and sunk onto the couch, popping the silver disc into the hatch as soon as the computer started up. He was anxious and terrified and impatient at the same time and he was sure his heart was beating fast again, though he couldn’t feel it through the thoughts in his head that took up every ounce of his consciousness.
The screen cast a bluish white light onto his face as he double clicked the only file on the disc. The media player started and Brendon leaned in closer, adamant about taking in every little detail.
The outside of a grey building came into view, a shaky camera panning left and right, almost as if searching. Some of the windows were closed, some open, others where the curtains were drawn and some where you could see inside an entire room. Brendon realized that he must be watching a hotel from the outside, the rooms all looked the same. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. The camera slid across a figure, a girl, who was sitting on a bed talking on the phone. Brendon wondered if maybe this was what he was supposed to see but the camera didn’t stop there. Instead, it panned to the right again, passing one, two, three dark windows until it found another dark one. At first, he could see no difference there from the three windows the camera had just passed, but then, as the slightly green light focused, he could make out a person, a male from the look of the posture, starting to open the door to the room.
That was when Brendon’s entire body went rigid.
The fear that welled up inside him was instantaneous. Violent. It was like nothing he had ever felt. Well, he had once, but not since. And now, it rooted him to his seat and froze his motions. Part of him wanted to click on stop, another part wanted to hurl the computer at the wall. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t will himself to act on either impulse.
The movie on the screen that scared him to this extent was exactly the same thing that had gotten him through the last years on his own.
He managed to blink, and the action seemed to unfreeze the rest of him. He stared, horrified and strangely expectant at the images on the screen. At his own back, at his arm as it reached out to open the door, at the door as it opened, at Ryan’s body as it flung itself against the four years younger Brendon. He knew what would happen next.
The most amazing night of his life, the most intimate and personal thing Ryan and he had ever shared hadn’t been as private at they had thought. Someone had filmed them. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
“Oh my god,” Brendon mumbled, unable to tear his eyes off the screen. They were kissing now. He was watching his younger self and the perfect image of Ryan holding each other and touching everywhere. It brought everything back. He could remember the exact feeling of Ryan’s hands sliding down his back and running his own fingers through Ryan’s hair. It was like he was experiencing it again, right now.
Unthinking, he pulled on his shirt, exposing the skin of the neck and letting his hand glide along the smooth skin, mimicking Ryan’s hand on the screen. It didn’t feel nearly as good as it had, but it made him feel slightly better.
Now that he was past the initial shock of finding out that they had been filmed, he began to really watch the video, watching Ryan and sometimes himself as they made it over to the bed. Of course there was no sound, but he could hear it all in his head so it didn’t matter. Surprisingly, the picture quality was good, despite it being filmed at night. He could see everything. If this got leaked, there’d be no doubt which celebrities were having sex. This was crystal clear and… professional. Who the hell had done this? Who could even have known? He himself hadn’t even known that it was going to happen.
It must have taken him a minute or two of intense watching to start to feel the aching pain inside him again. He pushed his eyebrows together, trying to force the pain back where it had come from. He didn’t need this now, he just wanted to watch and remember. But the ache didn’t go away. That was when he realized that the pain wasn’t real pain, not the kind that had tortured him all this time, but another kind, a pain that went deeper, a pain that hurt in the wrong way. As soon as he looked down, his hunches were confirmed. His jeans were tight.
It had been so long since he’d cared about sex or anything even remotely related. It was like that part of him had been slipping away too. He figured that would probably scare any other man to death, but to him it didn’t matter. There was no one he wanted to have sex with other than Ryan anyway. So, it was strange to now have an erection. And it was ridiculous, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Of course he wanted to take care of it, and the feeling pushing him to do it was getting stronger by every second that ticked by and from every kiss his younger self placed on Ryan’s body. But he should already have known that he wouldn’t. He clicked on pause and got up, opting for a drink of water.
The kitchen was dark, but the fridge lit up the floor as he opened it and grabbed a transparent bottle. Darkness again. He twisted the cap until it was separated from the bottle and took a swig, walking toward the window. The street was still as empty as it had been a few hours ago, but there was a soft orange light coming from the window of the house next to his. He saw Jessica in the kitchen, her eyes turned downward, he could see her quite clearly. She was probably doing the dishes. She didn’t know that her neighbor had almost jerked off to a four-year-old sex-tape starring a much happier version of himself and a missing guitarist. He sighed. This was messed up.
There were so many questions in his head, and for once, they didn’t swirl and blend into each other, but remained solitary. He could pick them out easily. Why had they been filmed? Was it simply by accident? If so, then why did it seem so planned? Who was behind it? He took another mouthful of icy water as he pondered the next question, the one that was burning a thousand times more fiercely than the others. What had Ryan meant by ‘this is why I left’?
From the note, Brendon had understood that the DVD would hold an answer, but it had only served to confuse him. And make him horny. He frowned and adjusted himself. He didn’t understand Ryan’s words now at all. ‘This is why I left,’ and ‘this is why I couldn’t stay.” What? Because they had sex and he regretted it? Or because they were filmed? He felt like the latter was more probable, but deep down inside, he knew it was just his mind trying to protect him from some part of the truth that he couldn’t bare expose himself to. He was terrified of ever finding out that Ryan had left because of him, because of those acts. Brendon had loved it, every second; there had been no regret for him, none whatsoever. He could not bear being responsible for ruining Ryan so bad that he felt like he needed to leave.
Brendon took another mouthful of water, then set the bottle down hard on the counter. Purposefully, he walked to his laptop, keeping his eyes steered away from the screen to avoid being lured into the temptation that was re-experiencing one of the most fantastic moments of his life, and closed the lid fully. He couldn't watch it anymore; not when there were so many questions left that needed answers. It was just too much, too fucking much for one person. Too much for him. He wasn't strong; not like he had been. He was weaker than he'd ever thought possible. He thought that loosing Ryan had been the very bottom of his life and that things could only be travelling on a one way street upwards. But life had a few more shitty surprises coming his way. Could it have been his own fault that Ryan left? Something inside him was stinging so bad that he had to clutch his chest to attempt for it to easen. How much could one person take? How much could he take before he crashed and did something stupid?
There was so much to take in that he wasn't sure what would happen if he started to ponder everything that had just hit. Was there even a point? He'd never know for sure until he heard the answers coming directly from Ryan.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly, pressing his fingers hard into them until it started to burn. There was just too much about this whole thing that wasn't right. He still wasn't sure if Ryan was the one who had sent both the postcard and the video. The writing was Ryan's, but someone could simple have lerned to write like him. They'd filled out plenty of quiz forms for magazines that were printed, and any loser could have copied those. Was this whole thing, these mysterious messages from Ryan simply a deranged joke that some idiot with too much free time had put into action? Or was he just an idiot? The voice on the fucking phone had been Ryan's, hadn't it? He knew he believed so deep down.
But what about the sex tape? Brendon felt a cold shudder slice through him at the very thought. The sex tape. Someone had filmed him and Ryan having sex. It wasn't just demeaning and hurtful, it was a potential disaster looming ahead. If the video of the two of them ever got out, Brendon's life would be destroyed. His family would disown him. The video would spread online like wildfire, appearing on porn sites and entertainment sites all at once. The mos private thing he had ever experienced would become viewable to every single person on earth with an online connection.
He felt absolutely wrecked. Warm and salty tears were escaping his eyes for the first time in forever. He attempted to wipe them away but more were coming faster and he didn't waste more energy in trying to force them away. Giving in completely to the frustration, he sat there and cried, wishing for nothing more than Ryan back with him. Ryan would know what to do, how to solve the shitty mess that they were both stuck in. Ryan would hold him and make sure he knew that everything was going to be okay.
But Brendon was alone.
Author: Chionophobia
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
POV: Brendon
Word Count: 3271
Summary: Four years ago after a critically acclaimed world wide tour, the Panic At The Disco guitarist Ryan Ross disappeared from his hotel room, leaving no trace as to where he had gone. A few drops of blood and a broken lamp made the police conduct the disappearance as abduction, yet they were never able to find Ryan or make much progress on the matter. Meanwhile the police struggled to find Ryan or his kidnapper, Brendon Urie started his own investigation, an enquiry that after four years had yielded next to nothing, until one day, with the arriving of a postcard.
Disclaimer: This never happened.
Beta theliffey
Previous chapters: Here
Notes: Sorry for the delay, my internet's been broken for a few days.
Chapter Seven
Something was making a hell of a noise.
Brendon stirred in his sleep and the motion sent a shock wave of pain through his head. That was what woke him up fully. He groaned, then became aware, as he stared up at his own ceiling that the telephone was ringing. Or rather, shrieking.
“Fuck,” he moaned and meekly willed the noise to stop. The phone kept on ringing. Brendon grumbled incoherently as he staggered out of bed, feeling disoriented and irritated as he made his way toward the vibrating phone on his desk. Brendon intended to tell the person on the line to call back later, after he had indulged in some aspirin treatment and half a gallon of water.
He was clutching his throbbing head with one hand as he fumbled with the answer button on the phone, speaking a croaky “hello” into the receiver.
“Brendon?”
Brendon's eyes shot wide open, and the tiny movement in itself gave his head another beating, but he barely realized. The thrill shooting up his insides was all he could notice. And the voice. His mouth went dry.
“Brendon? Are you there?”
Dazed now, he forced a hand up to his forehead in a weak attempt to still his mind. This was not real. “Who is this?” He managed to croak, his voice so hoarse and cracked that it sounded much older than twenty-five.
“It’s me,” the voice answered, defeat seeping into the tone. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about me already.” The brave scorn was faint, hurt.
“It can’t be,” Brendon mumbled, dropping into the chair next to him when he felt his knees starting to weaken. “I'm still drunk. This is a dream.”
“No, it it me,” the voice said again. “Ryan.”
Brendon was shaking his head slightly back and forth. No. It couldn’t be. This was a… trick, a joke, a cruel fucking game to someone. But how come that someone sounded exactly like…
“I swear it's me, Brendon.”
The head ache from the alcohol was ruthless, but something about it seemed to help him decide what to think. He didn’t know if this was really Ryan, but he wanted to believe it. He needed to. He quickly grasped onto his own belief. “Where did you go?” He whispered, no strength in his voice, “What happened?”
The voice was quiet for a moment and Brendon panicked silently, his heart throbbing viciously in fear that he’d lost again, but then it came, muted, “I… I can’t get into that right now, but you will know, when it’s safe.”
“Safe?” Brendon echoed, uncomprehending. “What do you-?”
“Look, I have to go,” the voice said, urgent now. “I only called to let you know I’m alive. But go check your mailbox; do it now, before someone else does.” The line went dead with a low click.
Brendon didn’t even hesitate for a second. He got up from the chair, kicking it back several inches across the floor and dropping the phone in his haste to get to the door. The sun was blinding him as the sprinted down the stone path to the mailbox and his heart was still pounding too quickly as he felt around inside, searching for whatever was left for him there. At first, his hand could feel nothing. The disappointment was as instantaneous as it was heartwrenching. And then there was something, something flat and hard. Disappointment turned into eagerness. He pulled out the flat object and examined it. It was hastily wrapped in ordinary brown paper with two rubber bands fastening the wrappings in a crosswise motion. Whoever had done this had clearly been in a hurry.
And then, the sensation of being observed came over him like another tidal wave. He looked up quickly, roaming the seemingly deserted street with eyes squinting in the harsh light. It was quiet. No kids were playing, no one was outside, the windows on the houses were empty. With a strong sense of unease, Brendon stuffed the package into the jeans he'd worn since the day before and pulled the t-shirt down over it, making it invisible as he hurried back up the path and inside the house again.
He felt better as soon as the door was closed and the sun no longer making him partially blind. He stared down the hallway and glanced sideways into the rooms for something, or someone, that wasn’t supposed to be there but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He relaxed and the awful nervous feeling evaporated. He was alone, he could feel it.
He leaned back against the door and pulled out the flat package, examining it more thoroughly. His hands were trembling. There was no writing, no name, no address, no stamp, no postmark, no inscription of any sort. It meant only one thing. Whoever had sent this, whoever had spoken to him on the phone must have dropped this off in person. Brendon let out a sharp gust of air. What if Ryan… had he done it? Had he dropped it off?
There was a bit of pain now, a dull ache that made his entire body hurt in ways he’d never felt before. He wouldn’t allow himself to think it. No. Ryan had not dropped this off, Ryan had not been just a few yards away at some point during the day, Ryan had not been the sweet voice on the phone.
The desperate assurances didn’t make him feel any better. He took a deep breath and concentrated on the flat object he was holding. His hands were still shaking as he unfastened the rubber bands and let them fall to the floor. He could feel the wrapping paper open slightly under his touch and he couldn’t wait any longer. He had been searching for so long, looking for any little clue that would lead him to some sort of answer, and this, this might be one. It had to be.
He ripped the brown paper off and stared down at the plastic case and the unmarked DVD that was partially hidden under a folded note. He didn’t realize that his heart was beating violently again as he unfolded the small piece of paper that had been hastily ripped off of a bigger sheet. With his back to the door, he slid down to the floor when it seemed to hard to keep upright. There was no question who had written the note in his hand. The soft way letters tied into each other, the B’s, the H’s, the T’s. Ryan. All Ryan.
This is why I left, Brendon. I want you to understand what happened
but I can’t tell you here, not like this. Soon, okay?
Watch the DVD. Hopefully you won’t hate me.
I couldn’t stay.
Ryan
Brendon examined the case with the silvery disc inside, somehow trying to see what was on it. He knew he had to watch it, that there was most likely an answer to this whole mystery on the disc but he couldn’t bring himself to get up and walk over to his computer. He felt like he hadn’t slept for years, he was suddenly so tired. Fucking alcohol. His entire body was throbbing now, and he remembered that he hadn't had time to get the aspirin and water yet. He was too weak to get that as well. Instead, he just closed his eyes and tried to shut out reality as best he could.
When his mind got somehow conscious again, he noticed the blackness around him and the cold. And then the slight pain. He realized that he was curled up on the floor, a stray shoe under his hip and a coat hanger against his head. He pushed himself up to a half-sitting position. It was then that he remembered. The note was in his hand, crumpled up but still readable. He couldn’t believe it. Ryan was alive.
He shook his head to himself and rubbed away the fatigue in his eyes. There was something more. Something he was forgetting? And then his eyes spotted the DVD case. He grabbed it and hurried to stand up straight, his legs hurting slightly from lying in the cramped position for so long, but he didn’t care about that now. There was nothing else on his mind than what he held in his hands. He grabbed his laptop as he entered the living room and sunk onto the couch, popping the silver disc into the hatch as soon as the computer started up. He was anxious and terrified and impatient at the same time and he was sure his heart was beating fast again, though he couldn’t feel it through the thoughts in his head that took up every ounce of his consciousness.
The screen cast a bluish white light onto his face as he double clicked the only file on the disc. The media player started and Brendon leaned in closer, adamant about taking in every little detail.
The outside of a grey building came into view, a shaky camera panning left and right, almost as if searching. Some of the windows were closed, some open, others where the curtains were drawn and some where you could see inside an entire room. Brendon realized that he must be watching a hotel from the outside, the rooms all looked the same. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. The camera slid across a figure, a girl, who was sitting on a bed talking on the phone. Brendon wondered if maybe this was what he was supposed to see but the camera didn’t stop there. Instead, it panned to the right again, passing one, two, three dark windows until it found another dark one. At first, he could see no difference there from the three windows the camera had just passed, but then, as the slightly green light focused, he could make out a person, a male from the look of the posture, starting to open the door to the room.
That was when Brendon’s entire body went rigid.
The fear that welled up inside him was instantaneous. Violent. It was like nothing he had ever felt. Well, he had once, but not since. And now, it rooted him to his seat and froze his motions. Part of him wanted to click on stop, another part wanted to hurl the computer at the wall. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t will himself to act on either impulse.
The movie on the screen that scared him to this extent was exactly the same thing that had gotten him through the last years on his own.
He managed to blink, and the action seemed to unfreeze the rest of him. He stared, horrified and strangely expectant at the images on the screen. At his own back, at his arm as it reached out to open the door, at the door as it opened, at Ryan’s body as it flung itself against the four years younger Brendon. He knew what would happen next.
The most amazing night of his life, the most intimate and personal thing Ryan and he had ever shared hadn’t been as private at they had thought. Someone had filmed them. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
“Oh my god,” Brendon mumbled, unable to tear his eyes off the screen. They were kissing now. He was watching his younger self and the perfect image of Ryan holding each other and touching everywhere. It brought everything back. He could remember the exact feeling of Ryan’s hands sliding down his back and running his own fingers through Ryan’s hair. It was like he was experiencing it again, right now.
Unthinking, he pulled on his shirt, exposing the skin of the neck and letting his hand glide along the smooth skin, mimicking Ryan’s hand on the screen. It didn’t feel nearly as good as it had, but it made him feel slightly better.
Now that he was past the initial shock of finding out that they had been filmed, he began to really watch the video, watching Ryan and sometimes himself as they made it over to the bed. Of course there was no sound, but he could hear it all in his head so it didn’t matter. Surprisingly, the picture quality was good, despite it being filmed at night. He could see everything. If this got leaked, there’d be no doubt which celebrities were having sex. This was crystal clear and… professional. Who the hell had done this? Who could even have known? He himself hadn’t even known that it was going to happen.
It must have taken him a minute or two of intense watching to start to feel the aching pain inside him again. He pushed his eyebrows together, trying to force the pain back where it had come from. He didn’t need this now, he just wanted to watch and remember. But the ache didn’t go away. That was when he realized that the pain wasn’t real pain, not the kind that had tortured him all this time, but another kind, a pain that went deeper, a pain that hurt in the wrong way. As soon as he looked down, his hunches were confirmed. His jeans were tight.
It had been so long since he’d cared about sex or anything even remotely related. It was like that part of him had been slipping away too. He figured that would probably scare any other man to death, but to him it didn’t matter. There was no one he wanted to have sex with other than Ryan anyway. So, it was strange to now have an erection. And it was ridiculous, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Of course he wanted to take care of it, and the feeling pushing him to do it was getting stronger by every second that ticked by and from every kiss his younger self placed on Ryan’s body. But he should already have known that he wouldn’t. He clicked on pause and got up, opting for a drink of water.
The kitchen was dark, but the fridge lit up the floor as he opened it and grabbed a transparent bottle. Darkness again. He twisted the cap until it was separated from the bottle and took a swig, walking toward the window. The street was still as empty as it had been a few hours ago, but there was a soft orange light coming from the window of the house next to his. He saw Jessica in the kitchen, her eyes turned downward, he could see her quite clearly. She was probably doing the dishes. She didn’t know that her neighbor had almost jerked off to a four-year-old sex-tape starring a much happier version of himself and a missing guitarist. He sighed. This was messed up.
There were so many questions in his head, and for once, they didn’t swirl and blend into each other, but remained solitary. He could pick them out easily. Why had they been filmed? Was it simply by accident? If so, then why did it seem so planned? Who was behind it? He took another mouthful of icy water as he pondered the next question, the one that was burning a thousand times more fiercely than the others. What had Ryan meant by ‘this is why I left’?
From the note, Brendon had understood that the DVD would hold an answer, but it had only served to confuse him. And make him horny. He frowned and adjusted himself. He didn’t understand Ryan’s words now at all. ‘This is why I left,’ and ‘this is why I couldn’t stay.” What? Because they had sex and he regretted it? Or because they were filmed? He felt like the latter was more probable, but deep down inside, he knew it was just his mind trying to protect him from some part of the truth that he couldn’t bare expose himself to. He was terrified of ever finding out that Ryan had left because of him, because of those acts. Brendon had loved it, every second; there had been no regret for him, none whatsoever. He could not bear being responsible for ruining Ryan so bad that he felt like he needed to leave.
Brendon took another mouthful of water, then set the bottle down hard on the counter. Purposefully, he walked to his laptop, keeping his eyes steered away from the screen to avoid being lured into the temptation that was re-experiencing one of the most fantastic moments of his life, and closed the lid fully. He couldn't watch it anymore; not when there were so many questions left that needed answers. It was just too much, too fucking much for one person. Too much for him. He wasn't strong; not like he had been. He was weaker than he'd ever thought possible. He thought that loosing Ryan had been the very bottom of his life and that things could only be travelling on a one way street upwards. But life had a few more shitty surprises coming his way. Could it have been his own fault that Ryan left? Something inside him was stinging so bad that he had to clutch his chest to attempt for it to easen. How much could one person take? How much could he take before he crashed and did something stupid?
There was so much to take in that he wasn't sure what would happen if he started to ponder everything that had just hit. Was there even a point? He'd never know for sure until he heard the answers coming directly from Ryan.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly, pressing his fingers hard into them until it started to burn. There was just too much about this whole thing that wasn't right. He still wasn't sure if Ryan was the one who had sent both the postcard and the video. The writing was Ryan's, but someone could simple have lerned to write like him. They'd filled out plenty of quiz forms for magazines that were printed, and any loser could have copied those. Was this whole thing, these mysterious messages from Ryan simply a deranged joke that some idiot with too much free time had put into action? Or was he just an idiot? The voice on the fucking phone had been Ryan's, hadn't it? He knew he believed so deep down.
But what about the sex tape? Brendon felt a cold shudder slice through him at the very thought. The sex tape. Someone had filmed him and Ryan having sex. It wasn't just demeaning and hurtful, it was a potential disaster looming ahead. If the video of the two of them ever got out, Brendon's life would be destroyed. His family would disown him. The video would spread online like wildfire, appearing on porn sites and entertainment sites all at once. The mos private thing he had ever experienced would become viewable to every single person on earth with an online connection.
He felt absolutely wrecked. Warm and salty tears were escaping his eyes for the first time in forever. He attempted to wipe them away but more were coming faster and he didn't waste more energy in trying to force them away. Giving in completely to the frustration, he sat there and cried, wishing for nothing more than Ryan back with him. Ryan would know what to do, how to solve the shitty mess that they were both stuck in. Ryan would hold him and make sure he knew that everything was going to be okay.
But Brendon was alone.