Souls Like the Wheels 2/2
Part One
---
“It’s strange,” Ryan admits to Spencer. “There are times when I almost forget, as if I could,” he says bitterly, “but there are times when I almost fool myself.” He sighs. “It’s just getting so complicated.”
“Ryan, of course it’s complicated,” he answers. “Did you honestly expect for this whole thing to be simple?”
Ryan shakes his head vehemently, the harsh motion vibrating through his body, sloshing the coffee in his cup, spilling out over the edge towards Spencer. “I know that I was stupid, okay, Spencer? I know that it was stupid to think that he would come back to me.” Ryan reaches for some napkin and lays them across the spill, watches as the white of the napkin absorbs the dark coffee. “I know now that he won’t come back.”
His throat is tight and the words don’t come easily. It’s the first time that he’s admitted it out loud, the first time that he’s even really admitted it to himself, but it isn’t like it’s suddenly some giant weight lifted off of him. On the contrary, he feels more bogged down than before, because even now, he doesn’t really believe it.
“Ryan,” Spencer says, but Ryan doesn’t want his sympathy. He doesn’t want to mourn. He can’t, not when Brendon is still here. At least in some form. “Maybe it would be better if Brendon moved back on his own,” Spencer suggests. “I don’t know if you two living together is a good idea.”
“I can’t have him leaving me, Spence,” Ryan says softly but firmly. “I need him to stay with me.”
Spencer sighs. “Ryan, I know it’s hard, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it is for Brendon, but the way things are, how the situation is, it’s probably just confusing him even more.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan asks, frowning.
“You’re still in love with him,” Spencer says sadly. “You love someone who isn’t there anymore, and Brendon, the Brendon who is Brendon now is the one who is suffering for it. Can’t you see how confusing it must be for him? I’ve seen the way you look at him, Ryan. I’ve seen the hope in your eyes and the way that sometimes, sometimes you look at him just like you always did. But Ryan, he’s not the same person.”
“I know that,” Ryan says, breaking. “Spencer, I know that.”
“Do you?” Spencer questions, and Ryan doesn’t respond.
---
Once in a while Brendon sings lines of old Panic songs, the ones that he’s heard through the DVDs he watches and the CDs he listens to. He doesn’t remember them from before, just learned them from the constant replays.
Sometimes though, sometimes Ryan will hear Brendon humming fragmented parts of melodies that he and Brendon had been working on only days before the crash.
Ryan had never gotten around to getting lyrics together, but sometimes, Brendon’s humming will transition and he’ll sing quiet and low, just to himself.
Ryan can never fully hear the words.
---
It’s nice outside, almost actually cool. Well, not cool, but it’s bearable, especially considering that it’s the middle of summer and they’re in Las Vegas.
“One time you told us all that you wanted to be a hairdresser and almost quit the band,” Ryan says lazily from where he’s lying on the semi-scratchy grass in the backyard, Brendon lying next to him, his forehead tilted up against Ryan’s forearm.
“That’s ridiculous,” Brendon answers, words muffled against the cotton of Ryan’s shirt. And against Ryan’s bare skin. He can feel it. “You’re making that up, Ryan.”
“I couldn’t make shit like that up,” Ryan replies, rolling a little so that he’s facing Brendon now, so that their faces are closer together when he shimmies down in the grass, the blades cutting into him a little bit with each wriggle. “You were actually pretty good at hair,” he continues. “I used to let you do mine before shows.” He smiles, remembering how Brendon used to straddle Ryan’s lap, swearing up and down that it was the only way to properly mold the famed Ryhawk.
“And you did my makeup,” Brendon says, his words startling Ryan.
There’s a flicker. “You remember that?” Ryan dares to ask.
Brendon’s eyes are so big, so deep, and Ryan wonders if somewhere in there, the real Brendon is hiding, maybe just lost and looking for a way to come back.
Ryan really wants Brendon to say that he does remember, wants the stupid spell broken, but Brendon just sighs a little wistfully. “I saw a picture,” he admits, but then he takes a moment, a breath or two, flutters his eyes closed, and tilts his head up, exposing more skin to the beaming sun. “But when I saw the picture, I could almost feel the touch of the brush against my eyes, I could almost feel the way that your hand held my face.”
Ryan swallows. “Brendon,” he says, voice tight again, and he hates how emotional he gets, hates that Brendon can do this to him with a simple phrase. Hates the hope that he still has.
Brendon’s eyes open - - those familiar eyes. “Why do you do it?” he asks.
“Do what?” Ryan inquires, watching as a stray leaf tumbles down, falling into Brendon’s hair, and he reaches a hand up to brush it out, suddenly feeling the similarities that it holds with the way that he used to brush against the curve of Brendon’s cheek.
Brendon leans against the brush of Ryan’s hand. “Do this,” he whispers. “Why do you stay with me? I know that it’s hard for you.”
Ryan quickly pulls his hand back, turning onto his back, looking up into the bright sun, and it’s really strange how it’s not burning, scorching them like it should. He doesn’t really know what to say, but finally he manages to croak out, “I can’t not be with you. I can’t not be with Brendon.”
“Am I really that different?” Brendon asks hesitantly. “From before? Am I really that different?”
“In some ways you’re so different that it’s painful,” Ryan admits, squinting up into the sun until finally he relents and closes his eyes, the rosy hue still filtering through his lids. “And in other ways you’re so similar that it almost kills me.”
It seems like Brendon doesn’t know how to respond to that, but that’s okay, because Ryan doesn’t think that he could say anything more. The truth takes a lot out of him.
---
“How are things?” Jon asks when he calls Ryan. It’s the same conversation every third day, every time that Jon calls. “How is Brendon?”
“Good,” Ryan replies, not even thinking anymore, always just answering Jon’s questions with the most succinct answer he can manage. “Everything is fine.”
He can hear Jon sigh into the phone. “Is he remembering?”
Ryan hates how he always has to answer with a no.
---
“This is so strange,” Brendon says, grabbing a hold of Ryan’s arm. Ryan doesn’t verbally agree, but he lets his fingers intertwine with Brendon’s and squeezes tight. “Should I really be here? I mean, it’s not like she remembers me and I sure as hell don’t remember her,” he whines and Ryan wonders how much Brendon keeps tucked inside, how much he’s not saying because Ryan knows how much he keeps hidden. But Ryan has always been somewhat withdrawn. But Brendon. He’s used to Brendon’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions always being right out there.
“Your sister asked you to come,” Ryan says, shrugging his shoulder. “Well, she asked me to have us come. Stupid Urie guilt trip,” he grumbles. “Plus, birthday parties can be fun. Even if they are for your two year old niece.”
Nodding to Ryan, Brendon knocks on the front door, other hand still holding onto Ryan’s grasp. “This is going to be awkward,” he mutters before the door swings open and Brendon’s mom is standing right in front of them.
“Oh, my baby,” she says before pulling Brendon into a hug, tearing apart Ryan and his hold on each other. Of course, Brendon’s parents had visited him in the hospital, had called him frequently, stopped by even, but Ryan knew that it was still so strange for Brendon. It was funny though: Brendon had difficulty dealing with his parents, yet he clung to Ryan, someone who was so in love with him, with who he was. Comfortable with someone who would never let go. Someone who never did.
Brendon leans a little bit into the hug, and allows his mother to pull him into the house, hand flying backward to grab Ryan’s wrist to pull him in too.
Immediately, Ryan is struck by the mass amount of people there and he worries for Brendon. All these people who know him but who he has no idea about. Mrs. Urie, however, seems to have already set out a game plan, directing Brendon around the room, introducing him to everyone with a little paragraph of who they are.
“This is Kyle,” she directs while Brendon shakes the hand of the man in front of him. “He’s your cousin. In real estate now. When you were four he stole your teddy bear and you wouldn’t talk to him for a week.”
Brendon nods along to whatever his mom says, but his eyes keep darting back towards where Ryan is.
“Lisa. She lived next door and gave you chicken pox in the first grade,” Mrs. Urie informs the room.
Ryan watches it all, watches as Brendon is bombarded with information about people that he used to know, and even though he knows he should be standing there next to Brendon, he slips out of the room, breath coming out stilted, and he makes his way towards the kitchen, hoping to get himself a glass of water.
Lining the walls of the Urie household, there are many pictures. Pictures of the family together. Pictures of just the kids. Pictures of Brendon, and Ryan dusts a finger over the glass frame. His Brendon.
When he hears a noise behind him, Ryan scampers off down the hallway, not wanting anyone to find him staring longingly at a picture. He doesn’t want someone to stop and talk to him. He can almost envision one of Brendon’s siblings trying to have a heart to heart with him, trying to talk with him about how hard this all is. Ryan scoffs at the idea. They don’t even know.
Sure, they lost their brother, but they didn’t lose a part of themselves.
The kitchen is just as Ryan remembers it from when Brendon had brought him over last, and he recalls the time that Brendon had brought his mother and father into the kitchen and had held Ryan’s hand, bold as anything, above the table and told them point blank that Ryan was the one he wanted to be with.
Ryan opens one of the cupboard doors and pulls out a glass, quickly filling it with water and gulping it down. He’s on his second glass before he hears a noise behind him, and almost immediately he feels a hand rest on his shoulder, startling him, and when he turns, he finds Brendon’s wide eyes staring back at him.
“Is my family always this overwhelming?” he asks, and Ryan can’t help but laugh.
“Yeah,” he answers. “Always.”
Brendon cups his hand around the cool glass still raised to Ryan’s lips and sets it down, uncurling Ryan’s fingers and putting his own in the place of the glass. “You want to show me around my childhood home?” he asks.
Ryan cocks his head. He’s a little unsettled because it’s moments like this when he can’t ignore the fact that Brendon is so empty of himself, but he relents and nods, pulling Brendon past the overflowing room and up the stairs straight towards Brendon’s room.
It’s the same, pretty much unchanged since when Brendon had last lived there, and it’s so comforting to Ryan that he immediately settles down on the bed.
“My parents are pretty religious,” Brendon notes, chin pointing to Book of Mormon lying on the bedside table that Ryan knows Brendon didn’t leave behind there. “It’s cool though that they accepted you and me.”
Ryan hums, unwilling and not wanting to get into how things really went, how there was an awkward period, a time when Brendon had told him that he had felt like he was seventeen and kicked out all over again. “They’re good people,” Ryan murmurs, the comfort of Brendon’s bed already calming him down, yet somewhere, in the back of his mind, it also sparks something long forgotten.
“We had our first kiss here,” Brendon says, joining Ryan on the bed, body flush up against his.
“No,” Ryan responds. “We didn’t.”
“Oh,” Brendon breathes. “I thought maybe it was a memory.” He sighs. “I was almost certain…” He shakes his head, brushing against Ryan. “But I have kissed you here,” he prompts.
“We should get back to the party,” Ryan suggests, getting off the bed quickly, moving towards the door.
“I think I’ll just stay here for a little,” Brendon says, closing his eyes. “I’m going to try and remember.”
There’s a lump in Ryan’s throat as he watches Brendon on the bed, laid out there for him, and all he wants to do is join him back on that bed. All he wants to do is kiss him. All he wants is for it to be right for him to kiss him.
“I’ll just meet you back downstairs then,” Ryan says. “Don’t want to miss the cake.”
---
Ryan rarely answers the phone when Pete calls. It’s almost always about band business, about how he wants to get Panic back up and running again. Ryan doesn’t know if Brendon can play the guitar still, but whenever the other boy sits down at the piano, it haunts him.
He does know, however, that Brendon’s voice is the same. Exactly, but Brendon isn’t ready for Panic to start up again. Ryan isn’t either. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be.
That part of his life is over.
---
It’s strange to Ryan how domestic he and Brendon have become. How normal, how almost right they’ve become despite it all.
“Do you want to wash or dry?” Ryan asks, picking up the dirty plates from the table and heading towards the sink.
Brendon shrugs. “I’m good with drying,” he says. He’s been a little quiet these past few days, a little more reserved, and a little more befuddled, always saying things that he thinks are true, things from the past.
He’s rarely right.
Ryan turns on the hot water, plugging the sink up and adding some soap before laying the dishes in, listening to the soft clink as they touch down against the metal bottom. The soap bubbles up and Ryan lifts up a handful and blows it in Brendon’s face, laughing as Brendon sneezes and squints his eyes.
“Ass,” Brendon chastises but Ryan just sticks his tongue out and starts soaping up the plates.
“Jon’s coming in town tomorrow,” Ryan reminds Brendon, slowly circling the plate with a soapy rag. “I told Spencer that we could pick him up at the airport. Well, I can go, you don’t have to come with, of course,” Ryan says.
“No, I’ll come,” Brendon replies, taking the soapy plate from Ryan before running it under the faucet and drying it way more meticulously than Brendon in the past would have. It used to be that all of Brendon’s cupboards were moist with undried plates and bowls.
“Okay, if you want to,” Ryan says, and he zones out a little bit, scrubbing the plates, humming a little tune, so when Brendon speaks again, he’s not expecting it. And he’s really not expecting the words.
“I know this is weird,” Brendon starts quietly, eyes firmly focused on the rubbing circles of the cloth on the wet plate, “but I can’t keep it inside anymore. Not this. I keep so much inside.”
“What?”
Brendon puts the plate down on the counter and looks up at Ryan. It’s pained, as if it’s actually hurting Brendon to keep eye contact, but he does it. “I love you,” he says, words soft but firm.
Ryan tenses up immediately, rag slipping on the plate, sending it clanging down into the water-filled sink. “What?” He hears what Brendon is saying, of course he does, but it’s so different from all the other ‘I love yous’. From all the ones that matter.
“I love you,” Brendon repeats. “And I know it’s hard for you. Confusing, but it is for me too. And we’ve never really talked about it, not really, but I can’t help the way I feel, Ryan. I can’t stop lying about what I want, what I need.”
It’s too much for Ryan, way too much, and he shakes his head. “You don’t mean that. That isn’t you.”
Brendon laughs a sharp jolt. “This is me,” he insists. “I can’t help it. I love you.”
“Please,” Ryan breathes, and he feels so weak, so stupidly pathetic. “Please don’t say that.”
“Ryan,” Brendon invokes, and a wet hand comes up to run across Ryan’s cheek. Instinctually, he leans into the graze, and that seems to be all that Brendon needs and he brings their lips together.
Ryan gives in and kisses back, so desperate for this, so desperate for Brendon, but once his mind catches up with his body, he pushes Brendon away. His hands are firm against Brendon’s chest, and he separates them.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says. “Brendon, I can’t.” He turns and leaves the kitchen, the plates half clean, the water still warm, Brendon still waiting for something, waiting for someone to give him the answers to everything he’s searching for.
---
Ryan’s room has never felt more suffocating. He’s tried to call Spencer. He needs to talk to someone, needs to have someone help him figure out what’s going on because of the kiss. Oh God, the kiss.
Brendon’s lips on his. Those lips. It was just like he remembered. Just like he has been wanting.
He’s sick of waiting.
---
Ryan doesn’t even bother to knock on Brendon’s door and opens it, shutting it quickly behind him, just him and Brendon in a small room. Brendon is lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, but when he hears the shutting of the door, his head quirks up.
“I’m sorry for kissing you,” Brendon says, voice sounding so sad, so unlike what Ryan wants.
“Don’t,” Ryan stops him. “I just…” He breaks off, unsure of how to say this, but he needs this, he really does, he needs Brendon, so instead of messing things up with words, he crosses the room until he’s standing by Brendon’s bed. Ryan’s hand ghosts down the expanse of Brendon’s arm until he encircles Brendon’s wrist and pulls him up. “Please, Brendon. I need this,” he admits, and he crashes his lips down.
Brendon doesn’t hesitate and opens his mouth up to Ryan, making it easy for Ryan to slide down and straddle the other boy, grind down against him, moaning already because it has been too long and he wants this too much. He’s missed this too much.
Ryan’s tongue tangles with Brendon, and Brendon kisses the same. His tongue still fights for dominance, teasing and unrelenting against Ryan’s, cutting off hot kisses with sharp little bites.
“Is this okay?” Brendon asks after he playfully nips at Ryan’s lower lip.
“God, yes,” Ryan growls, because it’s more than okay, it’s what he remembers.
Ryan breaks away from Brendon’s mouth, greedily eyes those plump lips, and swoops down to bite at Brendon’s collarbone, wondering if it’ll still make him whine, wondering if it’s still the same, and when Brendon bucks up a little at the pressure of Ryan’s teeth, Ryan can’t help but grin against the skin of Brendon’s neck before making his way up to tug at Brendon’s earlobe.
Brendon’s hands are desperate on Ryan, tugging at his clothes, pulling and unbuttoning, and his hips surge up over and over again, pressing Brendon, hard already, against Ryan, but Ryan can’t blame the other boy. He’s hard too. Has been since their lips first touched.
Long fingers join Brendon’s own fumbling digits to undress them both, and Ryan lavishes each stretch of Brendon’s skin as it becomes exposed.
“Fuck,” Ryan breathes out, air hot against Brendon’s skin. “I’ve missed this.” He laps at one of Brendon’s nipples, arching back so that he can take his own shirt off. “I want to be inside you,” Ryan groans out as Brendon’s cock thrusts perfectly up against his own. “Need to be.”
“Yes,” Brendon chants. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Brendon whines a little when Ryan pulls off, but his frown stretches up when Ryan starts to quickly undo his pants, and Brendon wriggles out of his own, leaving him completely naked and laid out before Ryan.
The body is the same. The lines and the planes - - the same. The look in Brendon’s eyes is familiar too, so dark and needy, and when Ryan strokes a hand down Brendon’s thigh and Brendon’s breath hitches, that’s the same too.
Ryan can’t stop himself. It’s been far too long, so his preparation is minimal, thrusting into Brendon as soon as he thinks that the other boy can manage it. It may have been a little rushed, but Brendon grunts up against Ryan, curling his legs around Ryan’s body and pulls him closer.
It feels the same, and sweating below him, Brendon is gloriously familiar, but Ryan can’t help but wonder if it’s the same for Brendon. He can’t help but wonder if the feel of it all is the same, if it’s the way that Brendon has always felt.
Ryan can’t help but wonder if maybe he’s changed a little in these past months, not the outside, just like Brendon, not the outside, but within. He wonders if his Brendon would be able to tell the difference, but all thoughts are thrown out of his head when Brendon surges up and bites at Ryan’s neck.
Ryan bucks hard because God, that’s just what he needs. He needs this distraction. He needs Brendon hot and needy under him, all around him. He just needs Brendon.
“Fuck, Brendon,” Ryan moans, getting lost in this feeling, getting lost in all of it.
“Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan,” Brendon repeats over and over, his words, Ryan’s name slurring together until it’s nonsense, until it isn’t really Ryan anymore, but that’s okay, because Ryan knows that it’s not really Brendon either.
It’s so much, the emotions boiling over, the ones that even now, when he’s pounding into Brendon, he’s trying to keep at bay. There’s so much with Brendon beneath him, wanting him, loving him, and he moans out Brendon’s name as he comes, shuddering when he feels Brendon release against him, and he didn’t even notice Brendon’s hand jerking himself off. He was too lost in the moment. Actually, he was too lost in moments just like that - - moments of the past.
Brendon snuggles up against Ryan, kisses the side of Ryan’s neck, soothing his tongue over what Ryan expects is a pretty nasty bruise of teeth marks. “I love you,” Brendon says, wrapping his arms around Ryan.
Something wells up inside Ryan. Something that he’s not sure that he can define, but he allows Brendon to pull him close, and threads his hands through Brendon’s hair, kissing the top of his head, and he whispers “Brendon,” hoping that maybe that’ll say it all.
---
When he wakes up and Brendon is in his arms, curled into him, Ryan forgets for a moment. He smiles down and kisses Brendon’s hair, relaxed and happy, but then he remembers, and he can’t help the way his body jerks up, jolts, but thankfully Brendon remains sleeping. And really, that’s just another thing to remind Ryan, because his Brendon never slept this much.
Ryan crawls out of bed and grabs his boxers on his way out the door, not bothering to pick up the rest of his clothes.
He doesn’t know what to do, he really doesn’t, so he just throws himself down on the couch, but it’s so violent that it knocks against the side table, causing it to crash to the ground. Ryan stills and listens, sure that the noise woke Brendon, but he doesn’t peek out from behind the corner, and Ryan sighs, relieved. He doesn’t know what to do yet.
Sliding off the couch, Ryan carefully makes sure that he doesn’t sit on any of the pieces of broken glass from the lamp littering the floor. The drawer has also fallen open, and loose odds and ends have disseminated around the room, forming an almost semi-circle around where Ryan is sitting.
Carefully, Ryan lifts the table back up, and pulls the now loose drawer towards himself, picking up things around him, mindful of the glass, and he puts them back into the wooden drawer. He doesn’t really look at what he’s throwing in, but when his hand hits the edge of something cool and metal, something with a note attached by a string, tied at the very top of the loophole, he pauses.
It’s the key. The one that Ryan had been planning on giving Brendon those many months ago, and he really hasn’t thought about it. Sure, Brendon had his own key now, but that was arranged by Spencer, presented without any flourish or deep meaning.
Ryan’s fingers play with the edges of the notes.
There, in Ryan’s messy scrawl, messy even though he tried so hard to write it neat, are the words that Ryan wrote months ago, the words he wrote for Brendon, printed boldly on the white slip attached to a long forgotten key.
You are the only one that I’ve ever let in. The only one that I want to.
And that’s it. That stupid note, that one little key is all it takes, and suddenly, it all collapses. Everything that Ryan has been building up, all the walls, all the protection, all the repressed memories and endless internal mantras of It’ll be okay…it all falls away and all Ryan can think about is Brendon and how he’s gone. How he’s really gone.
Harsh sobs wrack through Ryan’s body, shaking him, and he crinkles the paper up in his hand, slamming his fist down, slicing the side of his palm against a shard of glass from the lamp, but he doesn’t care. The tears flow and the gasps escape. It all comes down because he misses Brendon.
Ryan pulls his knees towards himself and rests his head against his folded arms, tears leaking down to meander down his skin.
Flashes play before him, feelings hit him full blast. All of it Brendon. All of it what he no longer has - - what he lost.
Ryan doesn’t remember the last time that he cried like this. He doesn’t know if he’s ever cried like this, but the reality of everything has finally hit him and he can’t stop, his sobs already transforming into shuddering hiccups, and that’s when he feels it, the arms around him, the hand in his hair.
“Don’t,” Ryan barks, recoiling from the touch. “Don’t,” he sobs. “I can’t. I just can’t. It’s too much,” he breaks. “It’s too much and I can’t.”
Ryan pushes away from Brendon, but Brendon pulls him back towards him, curling Ryan against his chest, humming low and soft in Ryan’s ear.
---
The tears are still flowing. They’re just careless drops of falling water really, leaking down, but Ryan’s still crying.
Brendon is lying next to him on Ryan’s bed, spooning him from behind, holding Ryan close, singing songs in Ryan’s ears. It’s a combination of everything, everything that Ryan loves and Brendon loves too. Everything that ever meant something to them, and Ryan wonders if Brendon remembers the significance to each song or if he just listened to whatever was on his iPod playlist and so the songs stuck with him.
Brendon hasn’t said anything, not yet, and talking is too hard for Ryan, but he allows Brendon to hold him close.
They lie there together for a good while, just breathing with each other, when finally Ryan voices it, finally tells Brendon. “I miss him,” he whispers. “I really miss him. I miss you. The real you.”
Ryan’s voice is rusty and rough, unpolished but honest like his words.
Behind him, Ryan can feel Brendon stiffen, and when he speaks, it has the same rumble of weighted feeling that Ryan’s has. “I’m still Brendon,” he chokes out. “I might not remember our real first kiss, but I remember the time in the kitchen. I remember how well our lips fit together. And I may not remember everything we’ve ever shared, but I remember when we watched the concert DVD together and all the stories you’ve told me. And I may not remember the first time we said ‘I love you’, but I feel it now. I love you, Ryan.”
Another tear falls, and Ryan takes in a shuddered breath. “And I love him.”
“I know,” Brendon says quietly. “I know you do. But Ryan, I….I love you,” he repeats, his voice growing thicker with each word. “I can’t be who you want me to be. Not fully. I can’t.”
“I know,” Ryan somehow manages to get out. “He’s gone.”
“Yes,” Brendon agrees, arms tightening around Ryan. “He’s gone, but maybe I can be enough.”
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