Descant (3/3)
Previous Part
---
Ryan is excited as he closes the door to his bedroom. The air crackles with his expectations. Brendon knows that when Ryan looks at him, he doesn’t see an angel - he sees his escape from Summerlin. He sees fame.
“You play an instrument too, right?” Ryan asks, as he grabs a hold of his guitar.
Brendon nods. He plays all the instruments - every one that man has ever thought up, and a few that are still to come.
It’s strange being here in Ryan’s bedroom with Ryan holding his guitar so expectantly. There are new copies of all of Ryan’s songs in a neat stack on his desk that Brendon knows are for him. Next to the songs, there’s a glass of lukewarm water, placed there by Ryan like a vocal teacher who is trying to teach their students good habits.
It’s strange because Brendon wants to grab the first song and sing. He wants to play along on guitar or piano or whatever other instrument Ryan throws before him.
Brendon wants to bring Ryan’s music to life, but more than that, he wants to let Ryan hear what real music sounds like.
The thought is selfish. Brendon’s aware. It’s stupid and boastful and so very human, but after a millennia of inspiring others who go on to be famous, lauded as geniuses, Brendon wants just one person - a human, a creature where kindness does not come easily - to tell him that he’s important.
Maybe Greta wasn’t being selfish for wanting to feel something, Brendon thinks. It’s terrifying, yes, but every inch of Brendon’s borrowed body is humming with something that is gloriously unlike the feel of his Grace.
Ryan pulls a couple of the papers off of the stack on the desk and hands them to Brendon. He’s clearly thought about how he wants the practice to go, and how Ryan wants the practice to go is obviously with him in charge.
“How about we just try the first verse?” Ryan says. “Do you want me to play the melody for you first?”
Brendon shakes his head. “That’s alright. I can figure it out,” he says, because notes were the first language that he had learned, and they’ve always carried more meaning for him than the sometimes stilted look of letters.
Ryan frowns. “It’s a rather complex melody,” he says. “You might not be able to get it.” The way that he talks hints at how proud he is of his work, and Brendon can see Ryan’s soul shimmer with the tiniest bit of indignation at Brendon’s insistence that he can read Ryan’s notes without any difficulty.
Just to appease Ryan, to quell his soul, Brendon lets Ryan play the notes of the melody. He listens - not as closely as Ryan no doubt thinks he is - but he mostly watches the way that Ryan’s fingers strum over the strings. He wonders if Ryan’s fingers ever get sore. He wonders what that would feel like.
“You think you’ve got it?” Ryan asks after he finishes the last note of the first verse.
“Yeah,” Brendon says. He holds the sheet music up in front of him, eyes scanning over the notes and words. It’s simple enough that he has it memorized in two swoops of his borrowed eyes, but he keeps the paper in front of him, in case Ryan would take offense.
As Ryan starts the song from the beginning, the six measure guitar solo calls out first, Brendon’s fingers itch to play something, too. He’s unused to a physical body, and now, just standing there, holding pieces of paper seems like not enough.
Before he can get too concerned about maybe asking Ryan if he could drum out a percussion line, his cue sounds, and Brendon sings the first note.
The vessel’s voice, strengthened and made richer by Brendon’s Grace, sounds loudly in Ryan’s small bedroom. There’s a flicker of Ryan’s soul, and Brendon smiles into his song, unsure why he wants to please this human so much but happy that he’s succeeding.
The first song goes by quickly, Ryan stopping Brendon every once in a while to sing a certain part over again with a certain emphasis that Brendon knows isn’t what sounds the best musically, but it seems to be important to Ryan, so he follows Ryan’s lead.
They play all of the songs in Ryan’s stack, and by the end, there’s a soreness in Brendon’s throat that is so new and wonderful, that he wants to continue singing for two more hours just to see what else he’ll be able to feel.
“We’re done?” Brendon asks.
Ryan’s putting his guitar away. He seems happy. There’s a hidden thread of defensiveness still sounding in his soul, one that Brendon knows was triggered because of Brendon’s talent, but that’s also what draws Ryan closer to him, so he doesn’t understand.
Humans are so confusing. Fearing the things that they want.
“For today,” Ryan says, and for the first time in a long time, Brendon feels as if he has accomplished something.
---
It becomes a routine. In Heaven, life was run by routine. Brendon knows people’s perception of Heaven - a place of fluffy white clouds and harp music - but it’s wrong. At least, for angels, Heaven isn’t a place of eternal peace and happiness. It’s a place of order.
There are Garrisons and hierarchies and bosses of bosses of bosses. There’s also the ultimate boss, their Father, but Brendon’s been around for longer than any human could possibly fathom, and he’s never seen or heard even a whisper from his Father.
He can’t believe that it’s taken him this long to question whether or not he was wasting his time all those years.
Without him looking down from below, the world still has music. Walking down the streets every day, Brendon hears the sounds of troubadours playing on street corners and children singing made-up rhymes. He hears inane pop blasting from radios and over-wrought tunes playing from iPods.
Down on Earth - down here with Ryan - Brendon is making music. It isn’t the most awe-inspiring work, but Brendon knows awe. He has spent his existence causing music to flourish with a single thought, and it’s nice to have to work with someone to make the notes fit correctly or the syllables to add up.
Here, Brendon doesn’t have to worry about checking with his superiors. He doesn’t have to worry about the lower classes of angels and making sure that they’re not getting into trouble.
All the same, though, there’s a routine here. It’s one that involves far less order, but every day Brendon spends on Earth has a few similar, unchanging elements: there’s Ryan - always looking at Brendon with a mix of gratitude and frustration, and there’s music.
Some days are better than others.
The day that Ryan had dragged Brendon to a mall, thrown him in a cramped dressing room that was poorly lit and thrown heaps of clothes at him because he was ‘sick of seeing you wear the same two shirts all the time, for fuck’s sake’ was a bad day. Brendon hadn’t liked the dark enclosure of the dressing room or the thumping music that had little composition or meaning.
He also hadn’t liked the way that people had looked at him when he came out of the dressing room after Ryan insisted. He could feel the way that people were eying his body - a body that wasn’t really his - and Brendon had all but run back through the heavy fake-satin curtain to get away from the stares of strangers.
There were good days, though, too. There was the day when Ryan had let Brendon play with his guitar and they had laid out in the warm sun of the park, where Ryan had fallen asleep on the grass, a light breeze ruffling his bangs.
Every day, Brendon spends his time making music with Ryan. Together, they work on songs and sounds and instrumentals, and every night, Ryan goes to sleep, and Brendon disappears somewhere not too far away to think.
During his nights, Brendon stretches his Grace out, lets it unfurl completely and takes in all the music around him. Sometimes, he looks for Greta, lets his Grace brush up against her soul, and he wonders if she is ever able to feel him.
Sometimes Brendon thinks of Ryan, of how he is selfish and vain and proud. But he thinks about how good Ryan is, too. How he is patient with his father, even though part of him hates him. How he loves the notes he makes and the words he writes with stupid dedication.
After spending so much time with Ryan, it is hard for Brendon not to like him.
Not just as a Child of his Father. Not just as a soul or a musician. But as a person. As Ryan.
Thinking of Ryan often leads Brendon to thinking about other things. Things that he feels: feels toward music or people they met in cafes and parks. Or toward Ryan.
Brendon is aware of Ryan’s thoughts of him, of the small pangs of lust. Sometimes, when their hands brush or their bodies are pressed close to each other in passing, Brendon wonders what it would feel like to let Ryan act on his inclinations. Sometimes, he wonders what it would be like to urge Ryan on.
Humans are so simple. All it takes is a coy eye, and everything is laid bare.
He restrains himself, though. The body that Brendon occupies is not his own, and even if it were, lust is for humans. Not angels.
Sometimes when Brendon is by himself at night thinking, he thinks about home. He thinks of Heaven and Pete and Spencer. He wonders if anyone is missing him or if they even notice. Time is so fluid up above, moving with every angel’s whim. They exist outside the reality that binds humans to their present.
It’s possible that no one even knows that he’s gone.
But Ryan would know if he were gone. He would care. He would be angry - cursing Brendon’s name, but at least that’s something.
---
Brendon is on Earth a month before he sees another angel.
It’s a month spent mostly with Ryan and music and an ever-growing list of firsts: first time he laughed, first time he ate French fries, first time he swam in a pool. There was another, more secret list that Brendon liked to keep even from himself: the first time he wanted, the first time he prayed to his Father as asking and not praising.
A month goes by where Brendon feels as though he fuses with his vessel - where the body is now his, and Brendon sees Spencer.
The vessel in front of Brendon is around seventeen with light brown hair, rounder hips than either he or Ryan, and startlingly bright blue eyes. Even though Brendon has never seen this boy before, he has no doubt that this boy is Spencer. Spencer’s Grace radiates from every inch of his being.
Spencer cocks his head at Brendon from across the room where he’s standing. Brendon is sitting at a small round table with Ryan, whose fingers are marked black with the ink from the pen that leaks as he crosses out line after line of lyrics that he had written only the day earlier.
Brendon’s body stiffens as Spencer’s blue eyes meet his, as his Grace reaches out and touches his. Ryan must notice something is off, because he looks up questioningly.
“What?” he asks, following Brendon’s line of vision. When he sees Spencer, Brendon can feel jealousy in Ryan’s soul. “Do you know him?”
There’s never been any competition for Ryan in Brendon’s life. Ever since Brendon has stepped that first shaky step on Earth, Brendon has been here for Ryan.
“Yes,” Brendon answers. “We’re…” but he can’t think of what to say, how to describe what Spencer is to him.
Ryan, in the way that humans always do, gets defensive and assumes the worst, but Brendon can’t worry about that right now. Spencer is here for a reason, obviously, and Ryan’s insecurities can wait.
“I’ll be back,” Brendon promises. He says it because, on some level, he knows he’s trying to convince himself, though the truth is, Spencer could drag him home if he really wanted to.
When Brendon starts toward Spencer, Spencer nods his head at the side door, and together they walk out into the alley, leaving behind a less-than-happy Ryan.
The alley is dingy. It’s dirty, and the dumpster against the wall is overflowing. It doesn’t look anything like where two angels would meet, but here is Brendon, and that boy is definitely Spencer.
“Brother,” Spencer says. His Grace shines so brightly out of his vessels eyes that Brendon is worried that this mere human boy won’t be able to contain the awesomeness of true righteousness.
Brendon bows his head toward Spencer and repeats the greeting. “Brother. Peace be with you.”
Instead of answering his words, Spencer says, “You have been away from home for a long time, Brendon.” The tone of his vessel is hard for Brendon to decipher. He is so used to reading into every syllable of Ryan’s mostly-monotone speech.
“My assignment is taking me longer than I had anticipated,” Brendon responds, and he watches as the corners of Spencer’s vessel’s mouth turn down.
“Angels are not meant to walk on Earth,” Spencer reminds. “Temptation is great here. Evil is everywhere.”
Brendon has been on Earth for thirty-two days, four hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty eight seconds. In that time, such a short amount of time if he thinks of the length of his existence, he has yet to see any true evil.
“Evil often lies hidden within humans,” Spencer says, reading Brendon’s thoughts. He takes a step closer to Brendon, but he doesn’t place a comforting hand on Brendon’s arm or anything of the sort, because angels are not physical beings, and touch is foreign to them. “They’re growing worried above.”
“My Brothers and Sisters?” Brendon asks, frowning. “This doesn’t concern them. I’m doing nothing wrong. I am just finishing up a job. That’s all.”
Spencer asks, “Is that really all, Brendon?” and there’s no use keeping anything from his Brother. Angels are connected. There are no secrets among them.
“I was curious,” he admits.
Spencer nods, as if he understands, but he says, “Do you not remember the garden? Curiosity leads to destruction. Things that are forbidden are so for reasons.”
Brendon doesn’t see the connection between himself and Eve. There is no snake edging him on, only Ryan’s words.
“You’ve spoken with Greta,” Spencer says. He shakes his head. “Our Fallen Sister, Brendon. Do you intend to follow her path?”
“Can’t you see my Grace?” Brendon asks, because he is not Fallen. He is not like Greta, who Fell out of boredom and to try something new. He’s accomplishing something here. He’s helping. “How can you say I’m Fallen when my Grace remains intact?”
Spencer gives Brendon a look that makes Brendon want to take a step back, but he doesn’t. He stands his ground. “There are many ways of falling,” Spencer says.
He looks back toward the café, and Brendon looks with him.
In front of them, a dirty brick wall is standing, but Brendon knows that Spencer is seeing beyond that, reaching his Grace out to sense the people inside.
“The boy isn’t worth your Grace,” Spencer says, and his vessel’s voice is quiet. “You are still young, Brendon. Inexperienced in the ways of humans. They are so distant from our Father, so in denial about their true purpose that they only care about themselves.”
Brendon knows that Spencer has walked on the Earth far more often than him. Spencer is one of the higher angels, entrusted to keep order above, but he’s free to move below as he pleases. Brendon knows this, but he doubts that Spencer has ever really let himself feel what humans feel. He doubts that Spencer has ever eaten or sang with a human. Though, Brendon figures, that’s exactly Spencer’s point.
“Brendon, you were given your gift for a reason,” Spencer reminds. “To bring music and spread joy to God’s Children.”
“I am still honoring Him,” Brendon argues.
“Are you?” Spencer asks. “Or are you honoring a human? Be careful, Brother. I have seen the way your Grace lights up around the boy. Do not confuse duty with love. And don’t think that your human will confuse love for himself with love for you.”
Brendon wants to tell Spencer that he’s wrong. He wants Spencer to know that Brendon isn’t wasting his time, and he’s certainly not Disobeying. While before he used to help hundreds in minutes, now he’s just…focusing.
Ryan is special. It doesn’t mean that Brendon is going to give up Heaven for him, but he knows that he’s walking a thin line. He knows that Ryan wants so much from him - more than he can give him.
Though part of him wonders.
“Come home, Brendon,” Spencer invokes. “The boy will be okay without you. He needs to find faith in something other than himself, and he’ll be fine.”
Something very much like defensiveness flairs within Brendon. “He’s not selfish,” he says, even though he knows that his words aren’t true.
Spencer’s blue eyes look sympathetic. “Brendon. Come home.”
“I will,” Brendon promises. “I just need to finish this.” He looks down at the dirty ground of the alley, where trash litters the edges where the brick meets the concrete. He doesn’t want to look Spencer in the eyes any more. Even through a vessel, Brendon can feel Spencer’s judgment, deserved or not.
“And when will you ever be finished with him?” Spencer asks.
Brendon opens his mouth to answer, but when he looks up, Spencer is already gone.
He stands there for a moment, his Grace shaking, and he feels his vessel’s heart beating fast.
---
As Brendon opens the heavy wooden door, he tries not to think about how this is all probably due to Spencer. What other reason would he have for taking Ryan to a church?
Brendon has never been in a house dedicated to his Father before. After all, he had been in his Father’s true house since his beginning, but the church is beautiful. It’s old, made of gray stone that has the faintest hint of smog creeping up from the bottom. The inside is all dark mahogany, and at the front of the chapel, there’s an organ sitting magnificently.
“I once watched this movie where a guy said that his first blow job was in an organ box,” Ryan says as Brendon closes the door. His words echo in the abandoned chapel.
Brendon doesn’t comment on Ryan’s words.
He had told Ryan that he had left something here earlier: his first lie, but he had done it for a reason. Spencer’s words had been haunting him.
“Do you have faith?” Brendon asks. His vessel’s voice is lower than Ryan’s, but still, it carries across the pews and back.
The look that Ryan gives him is confused, and Brendon can see Ryan’s soul moving in so many different directions.
“Sure,” Ryan says. He shrugs his shoulders. He dismisses the question like he does anything he doesn’t want to deal with. “You want to get what you left, Bren? This place is creeping me out.”
“It’s a house of the Lord,” Brendon says. “There is nothing to fear here.”
Ryan laughs, sharp, and it makes Brendon want to take a step back. “Yeah. Right.” He shakes his head. “Come one, just grab your shit and let’s go.”
Brendon wants to make Ryan slow down. He wants to reach his vessel’s hand out and force Ryan to look around him, see the beauty of not just the humans who carved the wood or painted the windows but of his Father.
Brendon wants Ryan to prove himself worthy. To prove to Spencer and the others watching - because Brendon knows that they’re watching - that Brendon isn’t straying from the Path.
Ryan’s stance is set, though. He looks uncomfortable. Out of place. Brendon doesn’t want Ryan to act out at him like he’s done before in the past - all it takes is one wrong word - so he just nods and grabs the nearest hymnal.
“Okay,” Brendon says, and Ryan raises an eyebrow at Brendon taking the hymnal, but he doesn’t say anything, which Brendon appreciates. He couldn’t explain if Ryan had asked.
They make their way out of the church, and the second that they step out onto the grass, crunching underneath their footsteps, Brendon feels Ryan relax.
The walk back to Ryan’s house is in relative silence. Brendon can’t help but think about what his Brothers and Sisters are most likely saying: Brendon helping a boy who can’t even stand to be in a church.
He’s so caught up in his thoughts, in wondering for the millionth time why his Grace would lead him to a person whom other angels deemed unworthy, that Ryan’s voice takes him by surprise.
“I do have faith,” Ryan says. He’s looking down at his feet as he walks and not at Brendon, even when Brendon looks at him. “It’s not in some man in the sky. But I have faith.”
Brendon wants to ask Ryan who he has faith in, but truthfully, he’s worried about what Ryan’s answer would be. Ryan finds comfort in Earthly things. In food and cds and… and Brendon.
“I have faith in myself,” Ryan says, and Brendon feels something sink within him. “That’s all I need.”
---
Ever since Brendon had talked to Spencer, it seems like the other angel is always there.
During practice, when Ryan stops his playing, looks over at Brendon, and says, “For God’s sake, is it that hard to sing the lyrics like I asked you?” Brendon thinks about what Spencer would say.
Ryan is bossy. He’s a perfectionist. He wants everything exactly like he envisions them, and he rarely listens to Brendon.
Once in a while, he’ll seek Brendon out. Ask his opinion about a certain arrangement of notes or phrasing of words, but when Brendon volunteers his opinion, Ryan shuts down.
There are times when Brendon is singing that he can feel waves of resentment roll off of Ryan, who is jealous of Brendon’s voice. It’s times like these that Brendon wishes he could give Ryan the boost he needs to just sing the words for himself so that he doesn’t have to go through the sharp pangs of hurt that are still so new to him. But he can’t. Brendon’s already breaking enough rules for Ryan.
But the third time that Ryan stops playing one rehearsal and sighs in frustration, Brendon’s had enough. He leaves with a slam of Ryan’s front door, and before he realizes what he’s doing, Brendon’s in front of Greta’s house.
He hadn’t talked to the other girl since he called her selfish, and even now, Brendon doesn’t understand how she could let her humans desires - desires that are still so muted in Brendon - take her away from her rightful place.
He finds her easily enough. She’s in the backyard again, but she’s not on the swing. Instead, she’s lounging in a lawn chair, letting the sun shine on her face.
“Isn’t it strange how Heaven is always sunny, but you can never feel the warmth of the rays?” Greta asks instead of a greeting. “When I think of Heaven, I often remember how cold it was.”
Brendon frowns, because Heaven is anything but cold. Their Father’s love radiates everywhere. She’s right about the sunlight, though. It was never anything but a bright light.
“I see that you’re still on Earth, Brother,” Greta says. “Have you found what you were looking for?”
He doesn’t answer her. He doesn’t know if he could answer her, even if he tried.
“How can you not miss Heaven?” Brendon asks instead. “I’ve been on Earth for over a month now. I can see the good here. I see how wonderful God’s Creation is, but I can also see what’s missing. How can you be happy in a place where lies are everywhere? Where everyone is out for themselves? How could you be happy here when you know true peace?”
Greta gives Brendon a small smile. It’s almost sad, in a way. “There can be no real peace without something to compare it to,” she says. “You’re right, Brendon. Earth isn’t perfect, but that’s why I love it so much.”
Brendon shakes his head. “It’s too hard. I try so hard to make everything right, but it doesn’t matter.”
“People are difficult,” Greta says knowingly. “But they’re worth it.” She closes her eyes against the sun. She looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world. Brendon envies her. Another first.
“Spencer wants me to come back,” he says. Greta doesn’t say anything, so Brendon goes on. “I think he’s right.” He’s sick of the confusing way that Ryan looks at him. He’s sick of having every thing he does picked at and scrutinized by a boy whose soul is clouded with sin.
Greta stands up from where she’s lounging on the lawn chair. Her movements are graceful, but not as much as they once were. “Brendon,” she says, her voice soft, “you need to do what’s right for you.”
Brendon starts to say something, but Greta keeps going.
“Before, you only did what you were told. You were obedient. And now? Are you doing what’s right for you here on Earth?”
Brendon thinks of Ryan. Thinks of his sometimes harsh words. He thinks of Ryan’s need for him, too. He thinks of the way that sometimes he looks at Brendon with something so different from the love that he sees shining in Heaven but it makes his Grace want to sing. It makes his true voice want to be heard.
It’s all so confusing.
“No,” Brendon hears himself say. “I don’t know what’s right for me.”
Greta reaches her hand out, her sun-warmed skin touching Brendon’s cold hand. “You won’t be happy until you find the answer yourself.”
---
Before Brendon knocks on Ryan’s door that night, he prays to Spencer. He prays for guidance from his Brothers and Sisters. From his Father. He doesn’t know if what he’s about to do is the right thing, but he knows that he can’t stay here singing songs for a boy that loves himself better than anything else.
Brendon is an angel. He’s meant to serve. He’s meant to praise his Father and love His Children. He isn’t meant to play singer with some human. He’s meant for more than that. He was Created for a purpose.
Ryan opens the door with a look of hesitant repentance on his face. “I may have been a little too harsh earlier,” he says.
He lets Brendon into the house, leading him straight back to his room, even though his father isn’t home yet. Hasn’t been home for days.
That’s the thing about humans, Brendon thinks: they are all so lost. Maybe it’s natural that he feels the same way, too, bound in this mortal body.
“Do you want to practice some more?” Ryan asks. He looks over toward where he has his music set up, and Brendon can see a beginning of a new song there, but he shakes his head.
“That’s not why I’m here, Ryan,” he says. The music calls to him, but Brendon knows that he is meant for so much more than just this. He remembers that he’s meant for so much more for this. He doesn’t know how he could have forgotten - how he could have let swirling human emotions blind him so much.
“I said I was sorry,” Ryan snaps, still defensive, but he calms himself down, stilling his soul with a couple of deep breaths. “You’re still mad. I get it. It’s fine. We can just hang out. Watch a movie or something, yeah?”
All around Brendon, he can see traces of his life here for the past several weeks. There are pizza boxes still there from when he and Ryan had eaten an entire pizza each during a movie marathon that Ryan had dubbed “The Essentials”. There are guitar picks littered everywhere and pieces of paper mixed with Ryan’s messy scrawl and the loopy writing of Brendon’s borrowed hand.
“I’m not staying,” Brendon says. He watches as Ryan’s soul falls. Watches the defenses grow. “I’m leaving.”
“For the night?” Ryan asks, but Brendon knows he knows the truth.
“Ryan, I’m leaving.”
It’s quiet for a moment, as if Ryan doesn’t believe Brendon’s words. Brendon almost doesn’t believe it himself - a decision made so seemingly rashly (so like a human), but he knows that it’s right. Life with Ryan has been more than he could have expected from Earth, but Brendon is not meant to walk on the ground. Not for anyone.
Brendon sees what’s going to happen a second before Ryan decides, but he doesn’t do anything to stop the other boy. Ryan grabs a hold of his wrist, and pulls Brendon close to him. His eyes are desperate and seeking. Brendon knows that this has been building for weeks - this oh-so-human desire - and he doesn’t resist when Ryan says, “You can’t go,” and kisses him.
Brendon has been alive since the first human’s voice broke free and slipped into a melody. He has seen wars and discoveries. He’s seen the best and worst of humanity. He’s seen millions upon millions of people kissing: kissing for love or sex or greed or hatred, but he’s never felt it before now.
Ryan’s lips are pleading against his own, and Brendon reacts on instinct, letting Ryan take the lead like he always does.
He knows that Ryan is trying to get him to stay. Even if only for this, for the press of their lips against one another. But Brendon knows that he won’t be happy with just the touch of his borrowed skin against Ryan’s.
Ryan can’t even hear his true voice. He could never see his true form, lest his eyes would burn out, and Brendon could never really be his true self with Ryan. It would always be a lie.
Brendon isn’t human, and he wasn’t meant to be.
When Ryan was little, he used to dream about destiny - Brendon has read it on his soul. Ryan used to dream about vanquishing dragons and rescuing maidens or damsels in distress. As he grew up, Ryan’s dreams were all about being known. Being important. He still dreams of destiny, but the endpoint is always the same. There are no damsels. In the end, Ryan wants that one thing that Brendon could never understand.
To Ryan, Brendon is a voice. He is a vessel, too, one with lips that Ryan is currently biting. But Brendon is only someone to help Ryan to his destiny. Ryan wants fame. He wants recognition and love that he thinks he never got and always deserved. The music is just a side-note in Ryan’s journey, and Brendon doesn’t understand how it took him so long to see that.
He doesn’t know how a human with such messy emotions was able to trick him, an angel.
He doesn’t know for sure, but Brendon can guess.
Brendon pulls away from Ryan’s mouth. He takes a step back, moving away from Ryan’s arms looped around him, and he takes a deep breath, though he doesn’t really need it.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he reaches up to press two fingers to Ryan’s temple.
Upon the first graze of his fingers on Ryan’s skin, the other boy falls limp, and Brendon catches him easily; watches as Ryan’s hair falls in front of his eyes and his mouth goes slack.
There isn’t any other way to do this - he’s already in far too deep, and if he stays, Brendon knows that he wouldn’t be able to leave. There’s something pulling him toward Ryan every second that he’s here, something terrifyingly human.
He needs to stop it now.
With gentle hands, Brendon pulls memories from Ryan. He weaves new ones in, trying to explain five weeks and eight new songs the best that he can. But he takes himself out of Ryan’s thoughts. Erases himself completely.
“It wasn’t meant to happen like this,” Brendon whispers, and when Ryan’s breath has evened out into that of a deep sleep, Brendon leaves with a soft flutter of wings.
He doesn’t look back - he can’t. Instead, he leaves everything behind and returns home.
---
Every day, Brendon and Spencer look down at Earth. They see how people live their lives. They watch love and betrayals and everything else there is to being a human.
They watch with a sense of detachment. They watch as observers.
Sometimes, when Spencer is busy, Brendon will look down and find Ryan among the masses of souls.
Sometimes, when he finds Ryan, he senses another familiar soul with him, too: the soul of his vessel, and Brendon wonders if he had done the right thing.
He wonders about destiny.
----
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