Hiding Behind a Mask
Title: Hiding Behind a Mask (SA)
Author:
kc_love131
Pairing: Ryden (kind of…)
POV: 1st, Brendon
Rating: G/PG. slightly angsty
Disclaimer: If this was real… do you think I’d know?? That is the whole purpose of a mask, after all
Beta:
boi4elizaThank youuu!!!
A/N: Based off 'Iris' by Goo Goo Dolls
and inspired by a comment left on my last fic =)
Summary: When you put on your mask and become who people want you to be… how do you know what’s for real? What is the truth, and what is a lie? And finally… when it’s gone… who will you be?
You hide behind a mask. I know you do. The make-up, the costumes, the guitar - it’s all a mask, a disguise. Your cool, calm, stand-offishness. Everything about you is a mask. And everyone knows it.
Do you know what a true mask is, though? I’ll tell you what. Its happiness. Hiding behind a smile, laughing when you just feel numb. To pretend joy, to fake happiness. That is the true mask. Welcome to my life.
I can see you watching me through half-lidded eyes, passing your own silent judgment. And sometimes, I think you know. I think you know that this is all just an act. As I jump over the back of the couch and land sprawled across Spencer’s lap, giggling. I can feel your eyes on me and I can feel my body stiffen. And then Jon leans over and attacks me with his fingers until I’m reduced to a crying, laughing mess on the floor and you just smile and go back to your book. I think you know, but then you go and confuse me. Do you not understand and I’m just fooling myself into believing that maybe you do? Or do you know but brush it off? Do you know and understand, or do you not care at all? And does it mean less to you than I thought it might? The fact that this, the Brendon you all see every day, isn’t who I really am?
I am not sick. I am not depressed. Technically, there is nothing wrong with me. But I still hide away. I don’t cry when I’m alone, I don’t have anything to hide. But I do anyway, and I don’t know why. I’m not fighting the tears, because they don’t come. There is no truth because it is all a lie. I don’t live for the past. I have no interest in the future. All that I am, all that matters. All that I care for is right here and now, in this particular moment, because it’s where you are. And sometimes, sometimes I think I might lose my mask, shed my disguise. Let you see me for who I am. But as soon as that thought comes it dies away, and my defenses rise as I put my shield back up.
What makes a guy give himself up so freely? I’ve often wondered that. Why can Jon be so genuine and friendly with everyone? Why, once you work past Spencer’s hard exterior, does he feel he can open up and let you in? And Ryan… Ryan is the most open of all. Talking to him, seeing him tense and give a tight-lipped smile you might think you’ll never get in, you’ll never break him down to understand how he works. But his words, his songs, that’s him. Every last bit of him, bare and spread open, for others to pick apart.
Is that why I sing? Why I’m the frontman? Probably. To everyone else, I am open and genuine. What they see is me, Brendon Boyd Urie. What they see, onstage and off, is me exactly as I am, and they all think they know. Is this why everyone see’s Ryan as the background, why they see him as closed off and shy, hesitant and unwilling? Because he doesn’t say the words he feels? Maybe, but they’re still his words. I am only open, I only have the strength, because someone else is feeding it to me. Set me on my own, leave me to fend for myself and I crumble. I fall apart. But then I put on the big, beaming smile and they all think that this is me.
What they see is a lie, and what they believe means nothing. All that I am, all I give, all that I can be, is what Ryan gives me. Without him I am nothing. This is all that I have. His life is all that I breathe. And someday, when this is over, I’ll miss it. I‘ll miss him. I’ll miss the person he allows me to be, because it is he that gives me this mask. Without Ryan… what am I?