Fic: Poets Come To Life
Title: Poets Come To Life. (3/3)
Rating: MA-15.
Fandom: Bandom. P!atd. FOB. THS. (Brendon/Ryan, Pete/Patrick, implied Spencer/Pete, Spencer/Ryan, Spencer/Greta, past-Pete/Ashlee)
*
Blackjack, Ryan writes on Brendon's arm, slots, poker, ricochet, roulette.
Brendon pulls the pen from Ryan’s loose fingers, draws an arrow from poker up to his wrist. Writes, strip and Ryan sighs, huffs out a tired breath on the wayward air in front of him.
Vegas is too much like the popular girl in high school. All trashy clothes and blowjob lips, ego and vanity and an attitude that she doesn’t know what to do with. She carries a mirror in her back pocket, an eyelash curler in her purse. No one loves Vegas as much as Vegas.
She hides anything that humanises her, fills in the shades between black and white and her parks, her elementary schools and book clubs are crammed between the cracks in the walls, the holes in the pavement. Ryan leaves Brendon to the casinos and the whore houses and tries to find every solid patch of grass, wants to visit Vegas’ eyelashes beneath mascara, the part of her that isn’t all surface and skin.
Today, today Brendon comes with him.
“Audrey would never like this,” he says, and they’re both sprawling on the grass outside a local library. “She doesn’t like light unless it could give someone an epileptic fit.”
“She’d like the Strip, then,” Ryan mumbles, and Brendon grins, but there’s something missing, something lacking that Ryan can‘t honestly pinpoint.
“Probably.”
Silence settles like a sheet over a mattress and it’s almost stifling, almost claustrophobic in the way it closes in, bunches at the edges and pulls at Ryan’s fingers. He lies back in the grass, rests his head in leaf litter and tries not to open his eyes, even if he can feel Brendon watching him.
“I don’t love Audrey,” he says. “I wish I did, coz, life, it’d probably be easier.”
“Life isn’t easy,” Ryan replies, and watches the heat beneath his eyelids. “I’d know,” he says, “I’ve been trying.”
Brendon laughs, and it’s soft, catches on the breeze. “Maybe I’ve been taking everything for granted. I don’t know. I’m seventeen, I mean, that’s young, right?”
Ryan shrugs, “I’m four weeks old, so.”
“Jesus,” Brendon says. “Fuck.”
Ryan cracks an eye open, eyes the greenery, Brendon’s legs and back before he sees him move to lie down beside him. “Thanks for coming,” Brendon says. “I wouldn’t have come without you.”
“Wasn’t it for me?”
“Right,” Brendon mumbles, and he takes a deep breath, wait’s a moment to say, “I ran away from home when I was fourteen.”
Ryan doesn’t reply, lets Brendon continue on his own.
“I think I was afraid of being alone.”
“So you left a family behind?”
Brendon sighs, chews on his lip. “There’s nothing worse,” he tries, “than being surrounded by people who are supposed to love you and still being lonely.”
Ryan doesn’t know what to say, but he opens his eyes, sees Brendon staring back, all doe eyes and parted lips. “You’re sorta beautiful,” Brendon says. “And I say that like, totally superficially.”
There’s something in Brendon’s eyes that Ryan can’t place. Something almost soft, hazy around the edges and Ryan won’t be able to hold on to whatever it is in his belly that moves and flutters and aches, but it loses its intensity when Ryan, when he can’t look Brendon in the eye for the rest of the night.
*
Peter, he doesn’t hear anyone come in, doesn’t see anything move until a Styrofoam cup full of coffee is dropped onto the counter in front of him.
“Fuel,” Patrick says and he reaches round, grasps out for Pete’s arm and lets loose this full-bodied grin that consumes Pete’s head, eats at his throat. “Come on, I’m stealing you.”
“What?”
And Patrick, he’s still smiling, his eyes soft and Pete, he doesn’t like this, doesn’t like the way Patrick’s hand is tight around his wrist, fingers leaving white imprints on his skin.
“I have a show,” Patrick says, “like, for real. It’s in Vegas and I want you to come with me.”
“But.” And Pete hesitates, pulls back against Patrick’s tight fingers. “No, I-”
“Come with me,” Patrick says, and he flashes deep, blue eyes that bury into Pete’s head, skull, heart. “No excuses.”
Pete’s pupils dash around the bulbs, dart across the irises. “You don’t understand-”
“I do,” Patrick says and his voice is abrupt, sharp and he moves around to Pete’s side of the counter, lets go of Pete’s wrist and just, he interlaces their fingers instead, holds his hands and Pete, he could write forever about moments like this, about the shades of their skin (tones of the heart). “Nowhere man, please listen,” he sings, mumbles out beneath his breath and Pete, he can’t move, can’t divert his eyes and Patrick, he just presses closer, plays with Pete’s fingers in his hand. “You don’t know what you’re missing. Nowhere man, the world is at your command.”
The silence is all consuming when Patrick stops, eats at the counter, at Pete’s ankles and even Hemmy, who lies flat in the corner, is painfully quiet.
“Please,” Patrick whispers, “I could use the company.”
Pete rocks back a little, feels his back hit the wall.
“I’ll hold your hand,” Patrick says, presses his lips to the side of Pete’s face. “Every step.”
*
If this was a fairytale, there would be a moment of great ethical contemplation. A figure who serves as a moral compass enters the picture, talks and talks and creates and blesses and the protagonist, the hero, this is when his life changes. This is his defining moment.
If this was a fairytale, that moment would be now.
This is not a fairytale.
“Fuck,” the girl mumbles, and she staggers through the window, trips over empty beer bottles and crashes against the wall. “God, Tinkerbell never had this shit.”
The hotel suite is sprawling and bruised, stops in the wrong places and lives in squalor. The girl, she doesn’t remember people falling this far off the rails before, can’t even see the train track from here, can’t see the bandwagon.
There’s a boy, freckle-faced and off-his-face curled in the corner. Her boy, doll, he’s on the sofa, legs tucked beneath his chin, arms drooping either side of his waist.
“This,” she says, “this is not what I had in mind when I told you to live.”
Ryan, he glances over, pupils flicking over her, over the boy on the floor before he steadies his gaze straight in front of him. “I am living.”
“No,” she says, “this is drinking, dancing, gambling your way to oblivion.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything, turns further away from her until the girl marches over, clenches a fist on his shoulder and spins him around. “You look at me,” she says, “You look at me and you tell me if you feel better here, tell me if you feel the heartbeat, tell me if you’re loving, if you’re being good, kind, just.”
Ryan gets to his feet, clenches his fists at his side and shrugs off the girl’s tight fingers. “I have not been happier.”
He feels it straight away, the tingle beneath his eye, the stretch of something cold, something flowing down his cheek.
The girl, she stares, grins. “You’re lying.”
“No,” he says, “I am happy, I love Las Vegas, I love Brendon, Peter, Spencer. I am good to them and I am fucking honest, so make me live-” The cold, it’s growing, sprawling down his face and he feels it down his chin, sees something bright, colourful dripdripdrip down onto the floor.
“You say one thing,” she says, “but your face says another.”
Ryan, he grimaces at her, but backs off, shivers and the girl, she points him in the direction of the clouded bathroom mirror and he stumbles after it. His reflection, it’s normal; his smooth skin is flawless with the makings of porcelain, wood, but beneath his right eye, paint, perfectly executed patterns, they drip down his cheek, tangled webs of black and green ink, red, purple, blue.
“What is this?” he asks the girl, fingers the paint and she just, she smiles.
“I’m impressed it hasn’t happened already,” she comments, toes the tiles with a bare foot. “I told you to be honest. This is a disclaimer, a contract, I guess.”
Ryan, he flushes, feels his face overheat, feels his cheeks burn and he could fight her, could kick and scream but she just, she presses a finger to his lips.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Point is you’re lying, point is you’re not happy.”
Ryan stops, thinks. “Maybe the only thing I’ve learnt about life is that it isn’t happy.”
The girl shrugs, leans back on her heels. “Happiness is a state of mind, you achieve it, aim for it, think it. You don’t always live it.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan says, “I don’t know how to be what you say I should be.”
“What?”
“Love, good, kind, honest.”
“If you try,” she says, “it defeats the purpose.”
She moves backwards, back to the windowsill and Ryan, he reaches an open hand out after her. “Are you going to fix it?”
“Up to you,” she says, “all of it is. I’ve done all I can.”
“I don’t know if I can on my own.”
“You can,” she says and she grins, smiles like she means it and Ryan, he smiles back, lips tugging up against the swell of his cheeks.
The girl, she pulls herself out the window, but gestures over to Ryan, makes him move in close and Ryan, he wanders over, moves in close and the girl, she hugs his shoulders, breathes against his ear. Ryan, he can hear her lungs draw breath, can hear her heartbeat, her blood beneath the skin.
“He’s still hurting,” she whispers, mumbles through to him, and Ryan, he goes to cast her a questioning glance, but she’s already gone.
*
Brendon wakes up to Ryan’s fingers gentle against his forehead, sweat erupting across his back, chest, thighs and he leans up to vomit on the floor beside them.
“You drank a lot,” Ryan says. “Too much, moron.”
“Yeah,” Brendon mumbles back and there’s a construction crew, a ballroom, a school yard in his head. “Too much.”
Ryan nods, leans back onto the balls of his feet and moves to stand up. Brendon, he can’t pinpoint what makes him do it, can’t control the way his hand reaches up to brush Ryan’s cheek. “You have something on your face,” he says, and he does, bursts of colour that stain Brendon’s fingertips.
“I lied,” Ryan replies, “it was stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” Brendon says, “and you, y’know, you looked after me last night. That’s not stupid, that’s like, it’s really good and nice and stuff and do you know what I realised?”
Brendon, he rambles in the morning, any morning, but when he’s hung over it’s worse and Ryan, he just lets Brendon’s fingers cling, curl against the back of his neck.
“I realised last night, or maybe just then, I don’t know,” and Brendon, he moves closer, is all heavy breath and not-quite sobriety. “I realised how awesome it would be if your life-affirming love was…was me.”
Ryan’s breath, it chokes, catches in his throat, and he tries to lean away, feels Brendon’s fingers loosen against his neck and says, “No,” says, “that, Brendon, would not be awesome.”
The paint, it dripdripdrips its way down his neck.
*
The train station is four blocks from Pete’s house and the whole way across the sidewalk Pete clings to Patrick’s hand like it’s life-support, like it matters.
The sidewalk, its widths and breadths of unease, it’s dark, angry and Pete’s hesitant breaths catch in his throat, heart too fast, too unsteady, rapid blood pulsing through his veins, limbs sweaty and every contradiction, every fluttering bird, every streetlight and crack in the path burns inside his eyelids, makes his head ache and his joints stiff. This is not what he wants.
He pulls back against Patrick’s hand, but Patrick, his fingers just get tighter, and he lets go, too quickly moves his arm to circle Pete’s waist, his lips to brush against Pete’s ear. “Two of us riding nowhere,” Patrick hums, “spending someone’s hard earned pay.”
Pete shivers, leans in closer. “I used to watch you play,” he mumbles. “Sometimes I’d hear you a bit, sounds that would fall in through the window and just, when I realised it was you singing, I was just, like, wow.”
Patrick doesn’t reply, pulls Pete in closer and lets Pete press his lips to his cheek. They’re walking in time, feet hitting the sidewalk at the same moment and when they reach the station, Patrick insists on paying for both of their tickets.
They both sit down on the bench, and Pete, he tries to focus on nothing but Patrick’s knee against his, his full-bodied presence beside him. “When I was seventeen,” Patrick starts, “I was walking through that street, and I saw you through the window, behind the till and just, I saw your face and was like wow.”
Pete laughs, shoves Patrick’s shoulder slightly and Patrick grins, reaches for Pete’s hand.
“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Patrick says, “that I chose that street to busk on every day.”
And Pete, he’s not sure what to say to that, but the train pulls up, so he doesn‘t have to say anything.
*
“Ryan,” Brendon mumbles, “look, I’m sorta just - what are you doing?”
Ryan, he’s shoving books, money, clothes into a backpack, grimacing at Brendon who stares with wide eyes and desperate lips. Ryan, he rubs at his cheek, his neck where the paint, the make-up, where it’s starting to burn, make his skin ache.
“Away,” Ryan says, “far enough that I can’t hear you, that I’m not here anymore, I don’t know.”
“No, wait-”
“No, Brendon.” Ryan stops, forces Brendon’s hand off from where it grips too tight onto his arm. “This is not…I don’t fit here, there’s no heartbeat, there’s no life here for me. I can’t be good with you drinking, with the whores and the money and I just, I can’t be here.”
“No.” And Brendon, he’s grasping at straws, at Ryan’s clothes, sleeves, bag. He can’t stay on his own and he can’t go back to Audrey and he can’t handle being alone, can’t take this, but he can make Ryan, can make him see. Ryan, he’s meant to know this.
“Let go!” Ryan growls, pulling from Brendon’s grip and he can’t, he is incapable of meeting Brendon’s eyes, pools of desperation, puddles of mud and anger, chocolate and terror and Ryan, he just - “I can’t love you!”
He feels the paint collect at his collarbone, start to trail down his chest. “I don’t know you,” he says, “and you don’t know me.”
Brendon’s fingers loosen and he stumbles backwards and Ryan, he figures maybe it would’ve hurt less if he’d physically punched the guy.
“I don’t have a heart,” Ryan mumbles, “and this is not a fairytale.”
*
The thing is, Ryan has a plan.
This plan, it’s nothing like any of Brendon’s mapped out ideas, Peter’s stubborn resolve, this, it involves boarding the first train he sees and going to wherever it takes him.
This plan, it involves getting as far away from these people as possible and starting again. Starting the girl’s contract from the very beginning, doing it properly.
“Ryan.” And Brendon, he’s poured out onto the sidewalk, feet pelting against the concrete like he’s bound for war, like Ryan’s his brother, friend, lover, like Ryan matters.
“Fuck off,” Ryan calls back, and the station is an enormous, empty platform, too early in the day for anyone real, anyone conscious, breathing, alive.
“No,” Brendon calls, “you’re being a dick and you…” He loses the words in his throat, “You’re denying me of something awesome.”
Ryan turns too quickly, heads over to the ticket-man behind the counter who’s talking frantically on the phone, whispering mindless, desperate terror over the line and Ryan, he just wants to get the fuck out of here, out of this place, out of his head.
“No, Ryan.” Brendon’s fingers are tight around his wrist, gripping at any thread of Ryan he can.
He can hear the train drawing closer and Ryan, he leans over the counter at the ticket-seller, says, “One to anywhere.”
This, this is the climax, this is the turning-point, this is the twist.
There’s a screech of tires, the desperate chug of an engine, and Ryan, he turns just in time to see a train carriage implode, doesn’t move quick enough to get out of Brendon’s way, who throws them both down beneath the bench, tight against the wall and all Ryan can hear is screaming, the thud of bodies and that body-piercing wail that Ryan, that won’t leave his head, echoes and rings around his skull like a fire drill, like a real, genuine, dying cry.
“Jesus,” Brendon whispers and people are fleeing some of the carriages, prying open doors from a still-rolling train and flinging themselves down onto the tracks. People are crying, dying, for real, dying and Ryan, all he can see is the woman who claws her way out of a broken window, burns and blood and broken skin disfiguring her, breaking her, and she‘s clutching this unmoving child too close to her chest.
Thing is, Ryan thinks, thing is that he’s not alive, but he’s nothing like this child, nothing like this stupid, deaf, dumb, mute, dead kid and maybe that’s what propels him to move, to get up and do something, because these people, they’re all saving themselves, ignoring the three, four, five carriages on fire, billowing with smoke that erupts from the roof, pours from every orifice of the train.
Ryan, he can hear Brendon’s heartbeat over his ribs, where Brendon’s breathing is too intense, too much, too desperate, and Ryan, he’s flinging him off before he can stop himself. He’s not sure where any of this is coming from, how or why, but the thing is, the thing is it’s not about helping someone, it’s about helping everyone. It’s about, and this, maybe it’s a revelation, a realisation, life, being alive, it’s about giving a shit.
Ryan, he can’t get to the train carriages fast enough, is prying open the door, with nimble fingers and throwing himself bodily into the mouthing flames, dragging out manwomanboygirlbaby, pulling out lifeless body after desperate hands, clinging limbs, hysterical wails. Ryan, he’s saving lives and he just, he doesn’t have the time, the energy to thinkdoact any other way.
He can sort of hear Brendon screaming in the background, backdrop, calling him to come back, but Ryan, he just, he needs this, needs to help these people and he does, he drags out bodies until Brendon grips at Ryan’s tired arms, mumbles a stop, mumbles an it’s over and then, then Ryan passes out cold.
*
He wakes up to doe, brown eyes, wide and frantic and the rest of the face, pasty-pale, paint-flecked freckles, just, it’s so close, presses so tight against Ryan’s face and it’s not that he’s being kissed, more that he’s being smothered, suffocated.
The body’s pulled off him, heaved away by Spencer’s big hands and long limbs and his blue eyes, and those, they pierce and ache and Ryan, he can’t look at him after leaving Chicago.
Brendon, he’s babbling, talking in circles and just, all it is is fuckfuckfuck and it makes the busker, makes him smile in the corner, this thing that stretches over his face, pushes at the swell of his cheeks. Peter, he’s there too, all bleary-eyes and tight-smile and Ryan, he churns out a grin, watches as everyone visibly loosens, visibly relaxes. This, he doesn’t know what it is, can’t explain any of it until Brendon, until he punches him in the face.
"Fuck, you asshole,
I told you to fucking stop, because, like, you’re a doll and then you’d catch on fire and all that wood in you would just like, poof out and you’d be a walking, talking bonfire and just, Jesus fuck, I had to call Spencer and everyone and just-”
Pete, he leans closer to the bed, (and yeah, the walls are a blearing white and just, Ryan, he thinks he’s in a hospital), does a dramatic, stage whisper, “I think he’s glad you’re okay.”
Spencer rolls his eyes, grins a little and mumbles out an, “Oh, you think?”
The busker laughs again, smiles and wraps an arm around Pete’s waist, pulls him back in and Ryan, he sees Spencer wince, sees Brendon wail still at the bedside, and behind them all, leaning tight back against the wall, the girl smiles, waves, tugs on her plait which is long and pliant over her shoulder.
The doctor slides in through the doorway, tells everyone to leave and Ryan, it kinda clicks together in his head that the rest of the people, that Peter and the busker and Spencer and Brendon, that none of them can actually see the girl who moves closer to the bed as the doctor leaves too.
The girl, she pulls back the sheets and slides in beside him. “A friend of mine once told me that if you stumble out of the forest after a plane crash you’re a survivor. If you come out carrying someone on your back, you’re a hero.”
She laughs, leans her head back onto the pillow and stares up at Ryan through captured sky eyes and strands of gold, threaded honey hair. “You’re sharper than me,” she says, “you should see where this is going. Living isn’t just about you, it’s about a whole lot of people: family, friends, strangers. There will always be people you love, people you don’t and there will always be people you don’t know. Does that make them less of a person?”
She sighs and Ryan, he can hear the beat of her chest, pulse, heart, can hear the strain of her trying to figure out what it is exactly that she’s trying to say.
“Here’s the thing,” she says, “You’re like, you’re this hero now. The guy who ran onto the train after the bombing, the guy who dragged out thirty-eight bodies, saved twenty-one lives. You’re on the front page of the paper as the boy who died doing the right thing.”
Ryan, he flinches, curls further down in the bed. “My heart?”
“You passed out and all the doctors, they couldn’t find the beat, huh? Imagine their surprise when Brendon and Peter, when they tried to explain you flat out.
Ryan,” the girl says, “Ryan, I told you to love indiscriminately, I didn’t say to love one person, I didn’t say to be in love, I just told you to love. I just told you to be good, to be kind, brave, to be honest. That last one, it’s all that’s holding you back.”
Ryan, he shivers, moves down the bed sheets and huddles close to where the girl is curled up tight and gentle. “Who do I need to be honest with?”
The girl stares for a moment, tilts her head. She slides a hand around Ryan’s waist, tucks her fingers in beside him. “Me,” she says, “but mostly just yourself.”
“Right,” Ryan says, “okay.”
And maybe this is it, this is the final scene, sketch, act and all he needs, all he has to do is finish this.
“I want to be alive,” he says, “more than anything in the entire fucking world.”
“Yeah,” the girl comments, “I got that.”
“I want to be alive and I want Peter, I want him to be happy, but I don’t think that that’s my responsibility anymore. I want Spencer to fall in love with someone that isn’t Peter and isn’t me, I want him to love someone who loves him back. I kinda think that person, I sorta think that could be you.”
The girl starts, blinks, clenches her lids too tight over blue eyes. “I am a doll,” he says, “but maybe I won’t be for much longer.”
“I’m not in love with Brendon,” Ryan says, “but I think that I could learn to be.”
The girl, she just smiles back at him, a slinky thing that edges across her face like spilt milk. “And that’s the winner, huh?”
“What?”
“Let’s do this properly.” She tightens her fingers around him, mumbles the words into his chest. “My name,” she says, “my name is Greta and you are Ryan.”
“Yeah,” he replies, and Greta, she sits up in the bed, moves closer until their knees are touching beneath the sheets, the green dress that clings to her chest, waist, thighs, it rides up, the straps falling down her arms.
“This is it,” Greta whispers, and she moves her lips to hover over Ryan’s, is too gentle as she presses against him. “Happily,” she whispers, and kisses him, feather light, but it’s something familiar and Ryan, he remembers her kissing him before, remembers the once. “Ever.” She moves back, kisses him again, harder, faster and when she leans back, her eyes are half-lidded and her smile is sprawling, reaching for forever. “After,” she says, and when she kisses him this time, it means something, it matters and all Ryan can feel, all that happens is this consuming heat that burns beneath his skin, erupts in his cells, veins, lungs and he’s choking on air, choking on oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, life and he just, he writhes, squirms, gasps amongst the sheets, over the bed.
There’s something in his chest, this weight, force, presence and he just, he can’t explain it, can’t handle this and Greta, she’s staring at him, backed off after the kiss. His blood, it’s getting faster, getting more desperate, pumping through beneath the skin and the force, a sandbank on a coast line, an island in the sea, it’s growing until, until that first beat, that first ba-dum which is like movement after a lifetime of being paralysed, that unfamiliar thing that sends his body shaking, rupturing, writhing and it’s all he can do not to bolt, not to scream, wail, move.
Greta, she stares with wide eyes, reaches out and holds his fingers too lightly in hers, grasps them in her paper-white, cloud-white flesh (matches the hospital walls, gown, sheets). “It’s okay,” she mumbles, “this is it. This is ever after.”
And Ryan, he breathes.
Rating: MA-15.
Fandom: Bandom. P!atd. FOB. THS. (Brendon/Ryan, Pete/Patrick, implied Spencer/Pete, Spencer/Ryan, Spencer/Greta, past-Pete/Ashlee)
*
Blackjack, Ryan writes on Brendon's arm, slots, poker, ricochet, roulette.
Brendon pulls the pen from Ryan’s loose fingers, draws an arrow from poker up to his wrist. Writes, strip and Ryan sighs, huffs out a tired breath on the wayward air in front of him.
Vegas is too much like the popular girl in high school. All trashy clothes and blowjob lips, ego and vanity and an attitude that she doesn’t know what to do with. She carries a mirror in her back pocket, an eyelash curler in her purse. No one loves Vegas as much as Vegas.
She hides anything that humanises her, fills in the shades between black and white and her parks, her elementary schools and book clubs are crammed between the cracks in the walls, the holes in the pavement. Ryan leaves Brendon to the casinos and the whore houses and tries to find every solid patch of grass, wants to visit Vegas’ eyelashes beneath mascara, the part of her that isn’t all surface and skin.
Today, today Brendon comes with him.
“Audrey would never like this,” he says, and they’re both sprawling on the grass outside a local library. “She doesn’t like light unless it could give someone an epileptic fit.”
“She’d like the Strip, then,” Ryan mumbles, and Brendon grins, but there’s something missing, something lacking that Ryan can‘t honestly pinpoint.
“Probably.”
Silence settles like a sheet over a mattress and it’s almost stifling, almost claustrophobic in the way it closes in, bunches at the edges and pulls at Ryan’s fingers. He lies back in the grass, rests his head in leaf litter and tries not to open his eyes, even if he can feel Brendon watching him.
“I don’t love Audrey,” he says. “I wish I did, coz, life, it’d probably be easier.”
“Life isn’t easy,” Ryan replies, and watches the heat beneath his eyelids. “I’d know,” he says, “I’ve been trying.”
Brendon laughs, and it’s soft, catches on the breeze. “Maybe I’ve been taking everything for granted. I don’t know. I’m seventeen, I mean, that’s young, right?”
Ryan shrugs, “I’m four weeks old, so.”
“Jesus,” Brendon says. “Fuck.”
Ryan cracks an eye open, eyes the greenery, Brendon’s legs and back before he sees him move to lie down beside him. “Thanks for coming,” Brendon says. “I wouldn’t have come without you.”
“Wasn’t it for me?”
“Right,” Brendon mumbles, and he takes a deep breath, wait’s a moment to say, “I ran away from home when I was fourteen.”
Ryan doesn’t reply, lets Brendon continue on his own.
“I think I was afraid of being alone.”
“So you left a family behind?”
Brendon sighs, chews on his lip. “There’s nothing worse,” he tries, “than being surrounded by people who are supposed to love you and still being lonely.”
Ryan doesn’t know what to say, but he opens his eyes, sees Brendon staring back, all doe eyes and parted lips. “You’re sorta beautiful,” Brendon says. “And I say that like, totally superficially.”
There’s something in Brendon’s eyes that Ryan can’t place. Something almost soft, hazy around the edges and Ryan won’t be able to hold on to whatever it is in his belly that moves and flutters and aches, but it loses its intensity when Ryan, when he can’t look Brendon in the eye for the rest of the night.
*
Peter, he doesn’t hear anyone come in, doesn’t see anything move until a Styrofoam cup full of coffee is dropped onto the counter in front of him.
“Fuel,” Patrick says and he reaches round, grasps out for Pete’s arm and lets loose this full-bodied grin that consumes Pete’s head, eats at his throat. “Come on, I’m stealing you.”
“What?”
And Patrick, he’s still smiling, his eyes soft and Pete, he doesn’t like this, doesn’t like the way Patrick’s hand is tight around his wrist, fingers leaving white imprints on his skin.
“I have a show,” Patrick says, “like, for real. It’s in Vegas and I want you to come with me.”
“But.” And Pete hesitates, pulls back against Patrick’s tight fingers. “No, I-”
“Come with me,” Patrick says, and he flashes deep, blue eyes that bury into Pete’s head, skull, heart. “No excuses.”
Pete’s pupils dash around the bulbs, dart across the irises. “You don’t understand-”
“I do,” Patrick says and his voice is abrupt, sharp and he moves around to Pete’s side of the counter, lets go of Pete’s wrist and just, he interlaces their fingers instead, holds his hands and Pete, he could write forever about moments like this, about the shades of their skin (tones of the heart). “Nowhere man, please listen,” he sings, mumbles out beneath his breath and Pete, he can’t move, can’t divert his eyes and Patrick, he just presses closer, plays with Pete’s fingers in his hand. “You don’t know what you’re missing. Nowhere man, the world is at your command.”
The silence is all consuming when Patrick stops, eats at the counter, at Pete’s ankles and even Hemmy, who lies flat in the corner, is painfully quiet.
“Please,” Patrick whispers, “I could use the company.”
Pete rocks back a little, feels his back hit the wall.
“I’ll hold your hand,” Patrick says, presses his lips to the side of Pete’s face. “Every step.”
*
If this was a fairytale, there would be a moment of great ethical contemplation. A figure who serves as a moral compass enters the picture, talks and talks and creates and blesses and the protagonist, the hero, this is when his life changes. This is his defining moment.
If this was a fairytale, that moment would be now.
This is not a fairytale.
“Fuck,” the girl mumbles, and she staggers through the window, trips over empty beer bottles and crashes against the wall. “God, Tinkerbell never had this shit.”
The hotel suite is sprawling and bruised, stops in the wrong places and lives in squalor. The girl, she doesn’t remember people falling this far off the rails before, can’t even see the train track from here, can’t see the bandwagon.
There’s a boy, freckle-faced and off-his-face curled in the corner. Her boy, doll, he’s on the sofa, legs tucked beneath his chin, arms drooping either side of his waist.
“This,” she says, “this is not what I had in mind when I told you to live.”
Ryan, he glances over, pupils flicking over her, over the boy on the floor before he steadies his gaze straight in front of him. “I am living.”
“No,” she says, “this is drinking, dancing, gambling your way to oblivion.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything, turns further away from her until the girl marches over, clenches a fist on his shoulder and spins him around. “You look at me,” she says, “You look at me and you tell me if you feel better here, tell me if you feel the heartbeat, tell me if you’re loving, if you’re being good, kind, just.”
Ryan gets to his feet, clenches his fists at his side and shrugs off the girl’s tight fingers. “I have not been happier.”
He feels it straight away, the tingle beneath his eye, the stretch of something cold, something flowing down his cheek.
The girl, she stares, grins. “You’re lying.”
“No,” he says, “I am happy, I love Las Vegas, I love Brendon, Peter, Spencer. I am good to them and I am fucking honest, so make me live-” The cold, it’s growing, sprawling down his face and he feels it down his chin, sees something bright, colourful dripdripdrip down onto the floor.
“You say one thing,” she says, “but your face says another.”
Ryan, he grimaces at her, but backs off, shivers and the girl, she points him in the direction of the clouded bathroom mirror and he stumbles after it. His reflection, it’s normal; his smooth skin is flawless with the makings of porcelain, wood, but beneath his right eye, paint, perfectly executed patterns, they drip down his cheek, tangled webs of black and green ink, red, purple, blue.
“What is this?” he asks the girl, fingers the paint and she just, she smiles.
“I’m impressed it hasn’t happened already,” she comments, toes the tiles with a bare foot. “I told you to be honest. This is a disclaimer, a contract, I guess.”
Ryan, he flushes, feels his face overheat, feels his cheeks burn and he could fight her, could kick and scream but she just, she presses a finger to his lips.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Point is you’re lying, point is you’re not happy.”
Ryan stops, thinks. “Maybe the only thing I’ve learnt about life is that it isn’t happy.”
The girl shrugs, leans back on her heels. “Happiness is a state of mind, you achieve it, aim for it, think it. You don’t always live it.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan says, “I don’t know how to be what you say I should be.”
“What?”
“Love, good, kind, honest.”
“If you try,” she says, “it defeats the purpose.”
She moves backwards, back to the windowsill and Ryan, he reaches an open hand out after her. “Are you going to fix it?”
“Up to you,” she says, “all of it is. I’ve done all I can.”
“I don’t know if I can on my own.”
“You can,” she says and she grins, smiles like she means it and Ryan, he smiles back, lips tugging up against the swell of his cheeks.
The girl, she pulls herself out the window, but gestures over to Ryan, makes him move in close and Ryan, he wanders over, moves in close and the girl, she hugs his shoulders, breathes against his ear. Ryan, he can hear her lungs draw breath, can hear her heartbeat, her blood beneath the skin.
“He’s still hurting,” she whispers, mumbles through to him, and Ryan, he goes to cast her a questioning glance, but she’s already gone.
*
Brendon wakes up to Ryan’s fingers gentle against his forehead, sweat erupting across his back, chest, thighs and he leans up to vomit on the floor beside them.
“You drank a lot,” Ryan says. “Too much, moron.”
“Yeah,” Brendon mumbles back and there’s a construction crew, a ballroom, a school yard in his head. “Too much.”
Ryan nods, leans back onto the balls of his feet and moves to stand up. Brendon, he can’t pinpoint what makes him do it, can’t control the way his hand reaches up to brush Ryan’s cheek. “You have something on your face,” he says, and he does, bursts of colour that stain Brendon’s fingertips.
“I lied,” Ryan replies, “it was stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” Brendon says, “and you, y’know, you looked after me last night. That’s not stupid, that’s like, it’s really good and nice and stuff and do you know what I realised?”
Brendon, he rambles in the morning, any morning, but when he’s hung over it’s worse and Ryan, he just lets Brendon’s fingers cling, curl against the back of his neck.
“I realised last night, or maybe just then, I don’t know,” and Brendon, he moves closer, is all heavy breath and not-quite sobriety. “I realised how awesome it would be if your life-affirming love was…was me.”
Ryan’s breath, it chokes, catches in his throat, and he tries to lean away, feels Brendon’s fingers loosen against his neck and says, “No,” says, “that, Brendon, would not be awesome.”
The paint, it dripdripdrips its way down his neck.
*
The train station is four blocks from Pete’s house and the whole way across the sidewalk Pete clings to Patrick’s hand like it’s life-support, like it matters.
The sidewalk, its widths and breadths of unease, it’s dark, angry and Pete’s hesitant breaths catch in his throat, heart too fast, too unsteady, rapid blood pulsing through his veins, limbs sweaty and every contradiction, every fluttering bird, every streetlight and crack in the path burns inside his eyelids, makes his head ache and his joints stiff. This is not what he wants.
He pulls back against Patrick’s hand, but Patrick, his fingers just get tighter, and he lets go, too quickly moves his arm to circle Pete’s waist, his lips to brush against Pete’s ear. “Two of us riding nowhere,” Patrick hums, “spending someone’s hard earned pay.”
Pete shivers, leans in closer. “I used to watch you play,” he mumbles. “Sometimes I’d hear you a bit, sounds that would fall in through the window and just, when I realised it was you singing, I was just, like, wow.”
Patrick doesn’t reply, pulls Pete in closer and lets Pete press his lips to his cheek. They’re walking in time, feet hitting the sidewalk at the same moment and when they reach the station, Patrick insists on paying for both of their tickets.
They both sit down on the bench, and Pete, he tries to focus on nothing but Patrick’s knee against his, his full-bodied presence beside him. “When I was seventeen,” Patrick starts, “I was walking through that street, and I saw you through the window, behind the till and just, I saw your face and was like wow.”
Pete laughs, shoves Patrick’s shoulder slightly and Patrick grins, reaches for Pete’s hand.
“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Patrick says, “that I chose that street to busk on every day.”
And Pete, he’s not sure what to say to that, but the train pulls up, so he doesn‘t have to say anything.
*
“Ryan,” Brendon mumbles, “look, I’m sorta just - what are you doing?”
Ryan, he’s shoving books, money, clothes into a backpack, grimacing at Brendon who stares with wide eyes and desperate lips. Ryan, he rubs at his cheek, his neck where the paint, the make-up, where it’s starting to burn, make his skin ache.
“Away,” Ryan says, “far enough that I can’t hear you, that I’m not here anymore, I don’t know.”
“No, wait-”
“No, Brendon.” Ryan stops, forces Brendon’s hand off from where it grips too tight onto his arm. “This is not…I don’t fit here, there’s no heartbeat, there’s no life here for me. I can’t be good with you drinking, with the whores and the money and I just, I can’t be here.”
“No.” And Brendon, he’s grasping at straws, at Ryan’s clothes, sleeves, bag. He can’t stay on his own and he can’t go back to Audrey and he can’t handle being alone, can’t take this, but he can make Ryan, can make him see. Ryan, he’s meant to know this.
“Let go!” Ryan growls, pulling from Brendon’s grip and he can’t, he is incapable of meeting Brendon’s eyes, pools of desperation, puddles of mud and anger, chocolate and terror and Ryan, he just - “I can’t love you!”
He feels the paint collect at his collarbone, start to trail down his chest. “I don’t know you,” he says, “and you don’t know me.”
Brendon’s fingers loosen and he stumbles backwards and Ryan, he figures maybe it would’ve hurt less if he’d physically punched the guy.
“I don’t have a heart,” Ryan mumbles, “and this is not a fairytale.”
*
The thing is, Ryan has a plan.
This plan, it’s nothing like any of Brendon’s mapped out ideas, Peter’s stubborn resolve, this, it involves boarding the first train he sees and going to wherever it takes him.
This plan, it involves getting as far away from these people as possible and starting again. Starting the girl’s contract from the very beginning, doing it properly.
“Ryan.” And Brendon, he’s poured out onto the sidewalk, feet pelting against the concrete like he’s bound for war, like Ryan’s his brother, friend, lover, like Ryan matters.
“Fuck off,” Ryan calls back, and the station is an enormous, empty platform, too early in the day for anyone real, anyone conscious, breathing, alive.
“No,” Brendon calls, “you’re being a dick and you…” He loses the words in his throat, “You’re denying me of something awesome.”
Ryan turns too quickly, heads over to the ticket-man behind the counter who’s talking frantically on the phone, whispering mindless, desperate terror over the line and Ryan, he just wants to get the fuck out of here, out of this place, out of his head.
“No, Ryan.” Brendon’s fingers are tight around his wrist, gripping at any thread of Ryan he can.
He can hear the train drawing closer and Ryan, he leans over the counter at the ticket-seller, says, “One to anywhere.”
This, this is the climax, this is the turning-point, this is the twist.
There’s a screech of tires, the desperate chug of an engine, and Ryan, he turns just in time to see a train carriage implode, doesn’t move quick enough to get out of Brendon’s way, who throws them both down beneath the bench, tight against the wall and all Ryan can hear is screaming, the thud of bodies and that body-piercing wail that Ryan, that won’t leave his head, echoes and rings around his skull like a fire drill, like a real, genuine, dying cry.
“Jesus,” Brendon whispers and people are fleeing some of the carriages, prying open doors from a still-rolling train and flinging themselves down onto the tracks. People are crying, dying, for real, dying and Ryan, all he can see is the woman who claws her way out of a broken window, burns and blood and broken skin disfiguring her, breaking her, and she‘s clutching this unmoving child too close to her chest.
Thing is, Ryan thinks, thing is that he’s not alive, but he’s nothing like this child, nothing like this stupid, deaf, dumb, mute, dead kid and maybe that’s what propels him to move, to get up and do something, because these people, they’re all saving themselves, ignoring the three, four, five carriages on fire, billowing with smoke that erupts from the roof, pours from every orifice of the train.
Ryan, he can hear Brendon’s heartbeat over his ribs, where Brendon’s breathing is too intense, too much, too desperate, and Ryan, he’s flinging him off before he can stop himself. He’s not sure where any of this is coming from, how or why, but the thing is, the thing is it’s not about helping someone, it’s about helping everyone. It’s about, and this, maybe it’s a revelation, a realisation, life, being alive, it’s about giving a shit.
Ryan, he can’t get to the train carriages fast enough, is prying open the door, with nimble fingers and throwing himself bodily into the mouthing flames, dragging out manwomanboygirlbaby, pulling out lifeless body after desperate hands, clinging limbs, hysterical wails. Ryan, he’s saving lives and he just, he doesn’t have the time, the energy to thinkdoact any other way.
He can sort of hear Brendon screaming in the background, backdrop, calling him to come back, but Ryan, he just, he needs this, needs to help these people and he does, he drags out bodies until Brendon grips at Ryan’s tired arms, mumbles a stop, mumbles an it’s over and then, then Ryan passes out cold.
*
He wakes up to doe, brown eyes, wide and frantic and the rest of the face, pasty-pale, paint-flecked freckles, just, it’s so close, presses so tight against Ryan’s face and it’s not that he’s being kissed, more that he’s being smothered, suffocated.
The body’s pulled off him, heaved away by Spencer’s big hands and long limbs and his blue eyes, and those, they pierce and ache and Ryan, he can’t look at him after leaving Chicago.
Brendon, he’s babbling, talking in circles and just, all it is is fuckfuckfuck and it makes the busker, makes him smile in the corner, this thing that stretches over his face, pushes at the swell of his cheeks. Peter, he’s there too, all bleary-eyes and tight-smile and Ryan, he churns out a grin, watches as everyone visibly loosens, visibly relaxes. This, he doesn’t know what it is, can’t explain any of it until Brendon, until he punches him in the face.
"Fuck, you asshole,
I told you to fucking stop, because, like, you’re a doll and then you’d catch on fire and all that wood in you would just like, poof out and you’d be a walking, talking bonfire and just, Jesus fuck, I had to call Spencer and everyone and just-”
Pete, he leans closer to the bed, (and yeah, the walls are a blearing white and just, Ryan, he thinks he’s in a hospital), does a dramatic, stage whisper, “I think he’s glad you’re okay.”
Spencer rolls his eyes, grins a little and mumbles out an, “Oh, you think?”
The busker laughs again, smiles and wraps an arm around Pete’s waist, pulls him back in and Ryan, he sees Spencer wince, sees Brendon wail still at the bedside, and behind them all, leaning tight back against the wall, the girl smiles, waves, tugs on her plait which is long and pliant over her shoulder.
The doctor slides in through the doorway, tells everyone to leave and Ryan, it kinda clicks together in his head that the rest of the people, that Peter and the busker and Spencer and Brendon, that none of them can actually see the girl who moves closer to the bed as the doctor leaves too.
The girl, she pulls back the sheets and slides in beside him. “A friend of mine once told me that if you stumble out of the forest after a plane crash you’re a survivor. If you come out carrying someone on your back, you’re a hero.”
She laughs, leans her head back onto the pillow and stares up at Ryan through captured sky eyes and strands of gold, threaded honey hair. “You’re sharper than me,” she says, “you should see where this is going. Living isn’t just about you, it’s about a whole lot of people: family, friends, strangers. There will always be people you love, people you don’t and there will always be people you don’t know. Does that make them less of a person?”
She sighs and Ryan, he can hear the beat of her chest, pulse, heart, can hear the strain of her trying to figure out what it is exactly that she’s trying to say.
“Here’s the thing,” she says, “You’re like, you’re this hero now. The guy who ran onto the train after the bombing, the guy who dragged out thirty-eight bodies, saved twenty-one lives. You’re on the front page of the paper as the boy who died doing the right thing.”
Ryan, he flinches, curls further down in the bed. “My heart?”
“You passed out and all the doctors, they couldn’t find the beat, huh? Imagine their surprise when Brendon and Peter, when they tried to explain you flat out.
Ryan,” the girl says, “Ryan, I told you to love indiscriminately, I didn’t say to love one person, I didn’t say to be in love, I just told you to love. I just told you to be good, to be kind, brave, to be honest. That last one, it’s all that’s holding you back.”
Ryan, he shivers, moves down the bed sheets and huddles close to where the girl is curled up tight and gentle. “Who do I need to be honest with?”
The girl stares for a moment, tilts her head. She slides a hand around Ryan’s waist, tucks her fingers in beside him. “Me,” she says, “but mostly just yourself.”
“Right,” Ryan says, “okay.”
And maybe this is it, this is the final scene, sketch, act and all he needs, all he has to do is finish this.
“I want to be alive,” he says, “more than anything in the entire fucking world.”
“Yeah,” the girl comments, “I got that.”
“I want to be alive and I want Peter, I want him to be happy, but I don’t think that that’s my responsibility anymore. I want Spencer to fall in love with someone that isn’t Peter and isn’t me, I want him to love someone who loves him back. I kinda think that person, I sorta think that could be you.”
The girl starts, blinks, clenches her lids too tight over blue eyes. “I am a doll,” he says, “but maybe I won’t be for much longer.”
“I’m not in love with Brendon,” Ryan says, “but I think that I could learn to be.”
The girl, she just smiles back at him, a slinky thing that edges across her face like spilt milk. “And that’s the winner, huh?”
“What?”
“Let’s do this properly.” She tightens her fingers around him, mumbles the words into his chest. “My name,” she says, “my name is Greta and you are Ryan.”
“Yeah,” he replies, and Greta, she sits up in the bed, moves closer until their knees are touching beneath the sheets, the green dress that clings to her chest, waist, thighs, it rides up, the straps falling down her arms.
“This is it,” Greta whispers, and she moves her lips to hover over Ryan’s, is too gentle as she presses against him. “Happily,” she whispers, and kisses him, feather light, but it’s something familiar and Ryan, he remembers her kissing him before, remembers the once. “Ever.” She moves back, kisses him again, harder, faster and when she leans back, her eyes are half-lidded and her smile is sprawling, reaching for forever. “After,” she says, and when she kisses him this time, it means something, it matters and all Ryan can feel, all that happens is this consuming heat that burns beneath his skin, erupts in his cells, veins, lungs and he’s choking on air, choking on oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, life and he just, he writhes, squirms, gasps amongst the sheets, over the bed.
There’s something in his chest, this weight, force, presence and he just, he can’t explain it, can’t handle this and Greta, she’s staring at him, backed off after the kiss. His blood, it’s getting faster, getting more desperate, pumping through beneath the skin and the force, a sandbank on a coast line, an island in the sea, it’s growing until, until that first beat, that first ba-dum which is like movement after a lifetime of being paralysed, that unfamiliar thing that sends his body shaking, rupturing, writhing and it’s all he can do not to bolt, not to scream, wail, move.
Greta, she stares with wide eyes, reaches out and holds his fingers too lightly in hers, grasps them in her paper-white, cloud-white flesh (matches the hospital walls, gown, sheets). “It’s okay,” she mumbles, “this is it. This is ever after.”
And Ryan, he breathes.