fic - PATD - stop thinking love is blind .ii.
The next day passes in a blur. Bren spends most of the drive into Cleveland in her bunk, trying to sleep and failing. As soon as they’re outside of the venue, everything starts moving at a quicker pace. They’re getting off the bus, trying to find time to eat before sound checks, sound checks that are long and hard on Bren’s voice which is getting weaker and weaker. Then it’s the usual waiting game, getting ready, sitting with Ryan perched carefully in her lap while he does her eyeliner.
“You’ll be okay,” he says, brushing his thumbs over her flushed cheekbones.
She doesn’t feel like it, but she will be. She has to be.
The rush of the stage isn’t the same when she’s been knocking back capfuls of Dayquil all day. Her body’s tired. Everything is different, muted and sharpened at the same time. Bren’s never gone onstage drunk, but she thinks this might be what it feels like. Minus, of course, the achy cold symptoms. The crowd is pretty enthusiastic, at least, and they buoy Bren up. She struts around, pushing herself as hard as she can because if she can just make it through this she’ll be fine. She is fine. She’s fucking golden.
Halfway through the set, things start to get shaky. Bren sits at the keyboard, says something about shooting a video for the next song in a few days, sings and sings and when she stands up, the world looks different. Crooked. She can’t stop and take a breath. When she shakes her head to try and get everything in its upright and locked position again, she disguises it as one of her usual stage-tics. Brent and Ryan keep shooting her worried looks and she smiles at them to try and reassure them that she’s okay.
She pushes and pushes and pushes, presses her hands to her own body to keep herself grounded because her brain wants to float away, palms on bare thighs and her skin is too, too hot to the touch. When she grabs onto Ryan, it looks like she’s teasing, flirting, but she’s just trying to stay standing. They make it and maybe it’s an okay show, maybe not. Bren’s voice is wavering, her knees starting to shake, by the climax in Build God.
“Thank you, good night!” she says, waving her hands, dropping the mic, and smiling hard so that nobody can tell that she’s about ten seconds from passing out.
“Hey,” Ryan says, voice hot in her ear, body pressed up close to keep her upright, “you did good, Bren. Okay? Let’s get you backstage.”
They walk off amid the cheers of the crowd but it’s all white noise.
“Whoa, is she okay?” Jon asks immediately.
He’s tuning Tom’s guitar but he sets it aside to help Ryan and Bren make their way to the nearest wall. Bren slumps against it and tries to look at Jon, but she can’t really focus just yet.
“I’m fine,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut and inhaling deep and slow and even.
“Dude,” Brent says, and his voice is echoed by Spencer’s, “you’re really pale.”
“I’m fine,” Bren grits out between clenched teeth, straightening up too fast and swaying forward when her eyesight goes black around the edges. She catches herself with a hand to Jon’s shoulder and bites down hard on her lip, embarrassed.
God, boys never have these problems. They don’t get lightheaded and dizzy and stay sick for weeks. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, Bren is stronger than this. She promised everyone she was, that’s the guarantee she makes every day, that she’s as strong as any of the boys.
“You need to go help set up,” Bren tells Jon without looking up. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not,” Jon says, matter-of-fact. “You should have taken it easy tonight. You were insane up there.”
Bren wants to tell Jon to shut the fuck up, it’s not like he has the right to say anything, but when she opens her mouth it dissolves into a fit of coughing which is probably for the best.
“We’ve got her,” Ryan says, taking Bren’s hand from Jon and folding her arm across his shoulders.
He’s too tall for it to be comfortable, but when Bren tips sideways, Ryan’s arm is strong around her waist and he’s saying, “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
Jon tugs lightly on Bren’s hair before going back to get things set up for the Academy. The rest of them turn and make their way slowly toward the busses. Spencer slips under Bren’s other arm and she turns to snap at him but he’s looking at her, concerned and stubborn, so she sucks her lips behind her teeth and stays quiet.
Nobody says much on the way to the bus and they don’t say anything at all once they’ve piled on. They all separate without a word, Brent and Spencer going one way while Ryan tugs her to the bunks. Bren wonders, idly, if they all communicated telepathically without her noticing. She doesn’t mind so much, but she hates that they all seem to know how to take care of her better than she knows how to take care of herself.
“Sit,” Ryan says, nudging her into Brent’s bunk and then reaching up to rummage through hers.
Bren’s starting to feel a little more clear-headed, but tired now. She could probably sleep for days if they would let her. They won’t. They have another show tomorrow. And then the day after that. And then again. And then a day off and they fly to Japan. She drops her head to her hands and wishes she could get some fucking rest and then wants to smack herself because she’s survived worse, and that wasn’t even fun. This, at least, is fun. It’s her dream.
“Bren,” Ryan says, voice low.
She looks up to see him holding a pair of her pajama bottoms in one hand and one of Spencer’s hoodies in the other.
“Okay,” he says, setting the clothes down and kneeling in the small aisle. “Right foot.”
Bren frowns a little at him and he looks at her evenly for so long she almost forgets what he said in the first place. Then it registers and she extends her leg, letting Ryan slip off one shoe and then the other, his hands warm and steady on her ankles and calves. He rises fluidly to his feet, ridiculously graceful even though he’s gangly and there’s not that much room..
“Up,” he tells her, reaching out to grab her hands and pull her into a standing position.
Standing isn’t really all that fun and Bren sways forward into Ryan’s body before she manages to catch her balance. She flushes a little but Ryan just smiles at her, holds her shoulders still for a moment, and then starts to tug her dress up, all business. Ryan’s just taking care of her because he’s good like that, the best. He glances up, though, catches her eye and there’s something there that makes Bren’s stomach flop over slow and lazy.
It’s not like he’s checking her out, but the way he’s looking at her, like he wants to take care of her, like she’s worth being taken care of . . . it makes Bren’s breath catch in her chest. He glances down, like he’s embarrassed that she saw that and Bren immediately wants to ask him to look at her again.
“Up,” he says again, and she lifts her arms obediently so that he can pull the dress over her head.
He sets it aside, eyes always at her neck or above, and he’s gentle in the way he steadies her long enough for her to be able to pull the bottoms on. He helps her pull Spencer’s hoodie on and smiles at her when her head emerges from the neck, hair in her eyes and flying every which way.
“Better?” he asks, straightening the hem and reaching up to brushing her bangs out of her face with gentle fingers.
“Yeah,” Bren answers, feeling relaxed and taken care of, now, instead of helpless.
_._
Bren paces herself over the next two days, more because Spencer and Jon glare and tease her into submission than anything, but she knows she was being silly before. Not that knowing helps at all. It just makes her feel more useless, a frightening trend since she first got sick. Being on tour, being in this band, has done more for Bren’s self-esteem and independence than anything, and sure, sometimes she still feels like she’s a burden to people who don’t really get her (and even the ones who do), but this? This is ridiculous. She wants to blame it on the fever that just won’t quit or on the sore throat or on the stuffy nose, but she’s not so sure anymore.
Their shows, Columbus and Cincinnati, are good. Not great, certainly not perfect, but better than nothing. Bren gets two days to sleep on the road, two days where her fever makes an attempt at breaking and then comes back with a vengeance, and she tries to enjoy having her band take care of her. For the most part, though, she just feels down. Without the usual excitement of upcoming shows to keep her occupied, Bren goes back to thinking about Audrey and it’s so stupid, she’s being ridiculous over it, but it still hurts a little. A lot. First love is supposed to be painful and she sings the proof every night, but it’s weird infusing Ryan’s lyrics with her own heartache.
She won’t ever tell him, but she doesn’t like knowing how it feels to ache like this, even if their situations are different, even if Bren hasn’t been betrayed. It hurts. She spends the ride into Chicago wishing desperately that it didn’t.
The Windy City is very welcoming which isn’t a surprise. It’s a hometown to most of the people on tour. Bren’s trying to enjoy it, but her voice is practically gone, and she’s feeling so emo it’s pathetic (missing mom, missing Audrey, missing sleep, missing good health). They don’t let her do much backstage at the venue, giving her one last chance to rest, so she dicks around online, laughs at nothing the same way she did the night before and the night before that to let everyone who isn’t her band know she’s perfectly alright.
She isn’t sure how many people are buying it. Jon, in particular, keeps eyeing her closely. But the closer they get to show time, the less she cares about pretending and the more eager she is to get in front of the crowd.
Onstage, everything is noisy and insane again, something she’s missed while being sick and having little but quiet and cough syrup to keep her company. She pushes herself again and she can feel Ryan’s eyes on her the whole time, but she ignores him and sings and sings and sings, sings with a voice she doesn’t have, sings because she has to, because it helps her forget her shortcomings and loneliness. By the end, she has the crowd in the palm of her hand and she’s drenched with sweat.
“Fucking shit,” Spencer groans when she jumps on his back as they walk offstage.
“Think I broke my fever!” Bren says happily, nuzzling her sweaty cheek up against his.
“So you can sweat it out,” Jon teases when he walks past, ever the smartass.
They all groan and Ryan throws a sweaty towel at the back of Jon’s head. Jon just shakes it off and they can hear him laughing as they start to make their way to the dressing rooms. Spencer adjusts his hold on Bren, wrapping his hands around her bare legs and hoisting her up higher on his back.
“You’re so strong,” Bren simpers, feeling on top of the fucking world and better than she has in weeks.
“Yeah?” Spencer says, tilting his head a little to look up at her. “Is it sexy?”
“Totally sexy,” she says, and her voice is fucking gone, low and raspy but she doesn’t care because at least she doesn’t hurt as much. “You’re the sexiest drummer I’ve ever had the privilege of riding backstage.”
Spencer snorts and somehow manages to pinch Bren’s thigh. She squeals and jerks and they teeter precariously, but Spencer regains his balance easily. He carries her as far as their dressing room, making his way through people carefully with Bren yelling for everyone to get out of the way, rockstars coming through.
“Somebody’s feeling better,” Brent muses with a tired smile.
Bren lets Spencer dump her on the couch and thinks that lots of Brent’s smiles have been tired lately and she’s upset that she didn’t notice earlier.
“Little bit,” she says, patting the cushion next to her and smiling when Brent collapses onto it with a long sigh.
“You should probably rest your voice,” Ryan says, eyeing her sternly.
Bren knows he’s right. She pouts anyway and then leans forward, elbows on her knees, and says, “if I promise to behave, can we go out and party tonight? Please?”
Ryan looks like he wants to say no and then he glances over at Spencer who shrugs. “Yeah, okay.”
Bren beams and then stands up and starts tugging them back toward the stage so they can watch the show.
_._
Bren holds pretty strong through the party that they end up at, some gathering at the house of a friend of Andy’s or Tom’s or Bill’s or Mike’s. She doesn’t talk, much, but she’s still full of energy as she lets herself be pulled from room to room, from a round of beer pong to dramatic re-enactments of the tour to where someone is playing some new band’s new song and back to the kitchen where Spencer and Jon have teamed up against Sisky and some girl in another round of beer pong.
She hasn’t had much to drink, just enough to feel the fuzzy effects of tipsiness. She’d feel bad about it because she knows how pissed Ryan gets sometimes, but general rule of thumb is that if Spencer’s doing it, Bren can do it. Ryan argues that Spencer knows his limits, but Bren does too. She just usually ignores them.
Tonight she’s carefully observant of them and it’s not so bad, being pleasantly buzzed instead of wasted. She ends up with some boy that she doesn’t recognize. She tells him she can’t really talk, shouldn’t, she promised she’d be good. He smiles, sly, and says that promises are made to be broken. She changed into jeans earlier but she can still feel the heat of his hand on her knee through the layer of denim like he’s touching her skin.
“Um, I don’t think Ryan would agree with that assessment,” she says softly, gasping when the boy leans forward and nuzzles her neck.
“Hmmmm,” he hums contemplatively, “who’s Ryan? Your boyfriend?”
Best friend, unrequited love, band member. “Guitarist,” she answers, eyes slipping shut because that’s his tongue on her ear and she didn’t realize that could feel so good.
“He’s not the boss of you,” the boy says and then adds, “your voice is fucking sexy. You should talk more. Tell me a secret.”
“I don’t have a lot of those,” she lies, and the boy’s chuckle vibrates against her throat, his hand creeping higher.
“I bet you do,” he says, dipping his head to kiss her jaw.
“No. I’m not really that kind of girl,” Bren whispers, bring a hand up to his shoulder.
“Liar,” he breathes, low and dirty and Bren clutches at him, not sure if she wants to push him away or not.
He kisses her again, lips hot on her cheek and bold against her mouth. He tastes like alcohol, sharp and bitter, and Bren pulls away.
“I don’t-”
He cuts her off to kiss her again, his tongue in her mouth, one hand high on her thigh, the other squeezing her breast and whoa, whoa, whoa, when did that happen? Something that is definitely not arousal pulls tight inside of her and she jerks her head back again.
“I don’t even know you,” she says, a sharp edge to the words because who the fuck is this guy anyway, feeling her up in a dark corner of a stranger’s house?
“So?” he asks, his voice amused and a little dangerous.
“So, I want you to stop,” she says, and fuck, she sounds like a Lifetime Original Movie over here but dammit, she doesn’t want this, not with some asshole who can’t even kiss without punctuating it with a grope.
The boy catches her eyes, his own dark and shining too bright. He’s definitely drunk, more drunk than she is. Bren’s chest goes tight and she thinks she can always hit him if she has to; she’s hoping he’ll just let her go.
“What, are you kidding me?” he says and okay, maybe he won’t let her go. “You started flirting with me. Are you some kind of cocktease or what?”
Bren pushes his hand off of her chest and glares at him. “Maybe. Maybe you just make me sick. Asshole.”
It happens too fast for Bren’s alcohol-and-cold-tinged brain to catch; one second they’re glaring at each other in the small space that they’d tumbled into just minutes earlier and the next he has her pressed up against the wall, hands forming tight, bruising manacles around her wrists. Bren’s breath leaves her in a whoosh when he pushes his body hard against hers. When he leans in to kiss her again, she jerks her head to the side so fast she cracks her skull against the wall.
“You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t calm down,” he says conversationally, lips pressed to her ear.
Bren swallows hard around a whimper at the pain in her head, at the reality of what’s happening to her, and tries to get a leg free so that she can fight him off, kick him, knee him, anything. He’s pinning her to the wall, though, heavier and taller and her buzz is wearing off fast but she still feels like she’s swimming through mud here, trying to get any part of herself free and unable to do more than wiggle ineffectually.
“Let me go,” she says, and it comes out stronger than she thought it would. “I’ll fucking scream if you don’t.”
The boy laughs and says, “you won’t, not unless you want everyone to come running. You want people to see you like this?”
There’s a horrible, shameful flush of embarrassment at the thought and it shouldn’t be like that, this isn’t her fault (maybe, probably isn’t) but still, she doesn’t want them to know she can’t take care of herself, that she’s the kind of girl who gets herself into these situations. She wishes, desperately, for Spencer or Ryan or Brent or Jon or Bill or Mike or anyone, anyone at all. She wishes she’d been sick enough to stay on the bus, miserable and safe and cared for.
“Fuck you,” Bren grates out, bucking her body up ineffectually.
He grunts and shifts, presses a sharp knee between her thighs, shoving her legs apart. Bren does whimper out loud this time, her knees buckling. She’s trying to think of a way to get out of this but her body feels frozen except for where her legs are shaking, and she’s half-convinced that this isn’t happening, that it can’t happen. She’s in somebody’s house, the noises of the party are making her head hurt and her heart beat too fast. There are witnesses except they don’t know what’s happening but they have to figure it out, right? Bren can hear people just on the other side of the wall, just outside of this corner she’s trapped in.
“Hey, shhhh,” he says when Bren croaks out a barely audible word that might be a name or a plea for help. “Hey, it’s okay. You promised you’d be a good girl, right? So be a good girl for me.”
Bren glares at him, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and she’s fucking tired of being fucking useless. Her skin feels cold, she’s so scared, and she can barely bring herself to blink let alone make her whole body move in any particular way, but she knows she’ll have to get herself out of this. She misses a chance when he shifts his hold on her wrists to one hand, but when he reaches between them to start fumbling with buttons and zippers, she arches back and then drops all of her weight with a yell.
She’s not particularly heavy, but he can’t hold on, can’t pin her to the wall with his body fast enough. Bren lands on her side and is hurrying to push herself up when the shadows shift and a familiar voice says, “Bren? What the fuck?”
The boy, whose name she still doesn’t know, backs off, cool as anything, and Bren finds herself staring up at Ryan who is barely listening to whatever excuse her attacker is giving. She flushes, embarrassed, and scrambles to her feet.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asks, his voice so level and cold she shivers.
“Nothing,” she lies, hugging her arms around her chest.
Her breathing is loud around them, uneven and a little harsh with the tears she won’t cry. Ryan stares at her and then looks wildly over at where the guy was standing just a second ago. He must of have snuck away when they weren’t looking and Bren’s a little relieved and a little dissatisfied. She wishes she could have punched him or kicked him or something.
“Can we just get out of here?” she asks and Ryan shakes his head and starts to stalk off with purpose.
Bren hesitates for a moment before chasing after him, catching him halfway through the next room with a hand around his wrist.
“Ryan, leave it alone,” she says.
He spins violently, dislodging her hand and glaring down at her. “He was going to hurt you,” he says. “I’ll rip his fucking head off, I swear.”
Ryan’s not violent ever and Bren knows why, everyone knows, so to see him like this is almost more terrifying than being trapped with that asshole in the first place. She doesn’t need him to run off and defend her honor. She’s not going to be the reason he does something he’ll regret.
“I’m fine,” she says. “He didn’t-”
“He was going to!” Ryan says, and he’s not a yeller, either, but he’d practically shouted that last part.
People are looking and Bren’s so fucking wrecked that she just wants to curl up somewhere by herself and sleep for a million years.
“I can take care of myself,” she says, more angrily than she meant to.
“Yeah? Obviously you can’t,” Ryan shoots back, and she sucks in a sharp breath and fights the urge to smack him across his stupid face.
“Shut up,” she says, the words low and ugly and a little desperate.
They stare each other down in the middle of the living room with people looking on curiously. Ryan’s hands are clenched into tight fists at his sides, his shoulders tense. Bren hates the obligation she feels to reach out and comfort him, like he’s the one who needs it.
“I don’t need your help,” she hisses after a long moment. “I don’t need you to fight my battles. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Then fucking act like it!” Ryan says, voice low and expression furious. He stares at her for a minute and when he says, “you’re so stupid,” the words sound like they cut him almost as deeply as they cut her.
She bites her lip and holds her breath around a sob, but she can’t stop the tears that blur her vision for a tremulous moment before spilling over and down her cheeks. Ryan’s right. She’s stupid and she’s fucked up and she was almost . . .
“Fuck, Bren,” Ryan says, reaching out to touch her.
She shakes off his hand, can’t stand to have it on her, and runs for it. Brent doesn’t ask any questions when she finds him and says she wants to leave. He just nods and leads the way.
Part Four
“You’ll be okay,” he says, brushing his thumbs over her flushed cheekbones.
She doesn’t feel like it, but she will be. She has to be.
The rush of the stage isn’t the same when she’s been knocking back capfuls of Dayquil all day. Her body’s tired. Everything is different, muted and sharpened at the same time. Bren’s never gone onstage drunk, but she thinks this might be what it feels like. Minus, of course, the achy cold symptoms. The crowd is pretty enthusiastic, at least, and they buoy Bren up. She struts around, pushing herself as hard as she can because if she can just make it through this she’ll be fine. She is fine. She’s fucking golden.
Halfway through the set, things start to get shaky. Bren sits at the keyboard, says something about shooting a video for the next song in a few days, sings and sings and when she stands up, the world looks different. Crooked. She can’t stop and take a breath. When she shakes her head to try and get everything in its upright and locked position again, she disguises it as one of her usual stage-tics. Brent and Ryan keep shooting her worried looks and she smiles at them to try and reassure them that she’s okay.
She pushes and pushes and pushes, presses her hands to her own body to keep herself grounded because her brain wants to float away, palms on bare thighs and her skin is too, too hot to the touch. When she grabs onto Ryan, it looks like she’s teasing, flirting, but she’s just trying to stay standing. They make it and maybe it’s an okay show, maybe not. Bren’s voice is wavering, her knees starting to shake, by the climax in Build God.
“Thank you, good night!” she says, waving her hands, dropping the mic, and smiling hard so that nobody can tell that she’s about ten seconds from passing out.
“Hey,” Ryan says, voice hot in her ear, body pressed up close to keep her upright, “you did good, Bren. Okay? Let’s get you backstage.”
They walk off amid the cheers of the crowd but it’s all white noise.
“Whoa, is she okay?” Jon asks immediately.
He’s tuning Tom’s guitar but he sets it aside to help Ryan and Bren make their way to the nearest wall. Bren slumps against it and tries to look at Jon, but she can’t really focus just yet.
“I’m fine,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut and inhaling deep and slow and even.
“Dude,” Brent says, and his voice is echoed by Spencer’s, “you’re really pale.”
“I’m fine,” Bren grits out between clenched teeth, straightening up too fast and swaying forward when her eyesight goes black around the edges. She catches herself with a hand to Jon’s shoulder and bites down hard on her lip, embarrassed.
God, boys never have these problems. They don’t get lightheaded and dizzy and stay sick for weeks. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, Bren is stronger than this. She promised everyone she was, that’s the guarantee she makes every day, that she’s as strong as any of the boys.
“You need to go help set up,” Bren tells Jon without looking up. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not,” Jon says, matter-of-fact. “You should have taken it easy tonight. You were insane up there.”
Bren wants to tell Jon to shut the fuck up, it’s not like he has the right to say anything, but when she opens her mouth it dissolves into a fit of coughing which is probably for the best.
“We’ve got her,” Ryan says, taking Bren’s hand from Jon and folding her arm across his shoulders.
He’s too tall for it to be comfortable, but when Bren tips sideways, Ryan’s arm is strong around her waist and he’s saying, “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
Jon tugs lightly on Bren’s hair before going back to get things set up for the Academy. The rest of them turn and make their way slowly toward the busses. Spencer slips under Bren’s other arm and she turns to snap at him but he’s looking at her, concerned and stubborn, so she sucks her lips behind her teeth and stays quiet.
Nobody says much on the way to the bus and they don’t say anything at all once they’ve piled on. They all separate without a word, Brent and Spencer going one way while Ryan tugs her to the bunks. Bren wonders, idly, if they all communicated telepathically without her noticing. She doesn’t mind so much, but she hates that they all seem to know how to take care of her better than she knows how to take care of herself.
“Sit,” Ryan says, nudging her into Brent’s bunk and then reaching up to rummage through hers.
Bren’s starting to feel a little more clear-headed, but tired now. She could probably sleep for days if they would let her. They won’t. They have another show tomorrow. And then the day after that. And then again. And then a day off and they fly to Japan. She drops her head to her hands and wishes she could get some fucking rest and then wants to smack herself because she’s survived worse, and that wasn’t even fun. This, at least, is fun. It’s her dream.
“Bren,” Ryan says, voice low.
She looks up to see him holding a pair of her pajama bottoms in one hand and one of Spencer’s hoodies in the other.
“Okay,” he says, setting the clothes down and kneeling in the small aisle. “Right foot.”
Bren frowns a little at him and he looks at her evenly for so long she almost forgets what he said in the first place. Then it registers and she extends her leg, letting Ryan slip off one shoe and then the other, his hands warm and steady on her ankles and calves. He rises fluidly to his feet, ridiculously graceful even though he’s gangly and there’s not that much room..
“Up,” he tells her, reaching out to grab her hands and pull her into a standing position.
Standing isn’t really all that fun and Bren sways forward into Ryan’s body before she manages to catch her balance. She flushes a little but Ryan just smiles at her, holds her shoulders still for a moment, and then starts to tug her dress up, all business. Ryan’s just taking care of her because he’s good like that, the best. He glances up, though, catches her eye and there’s something there that makes Bren’s stomach flop over slow and lazy.
It’s not like he’s checking her out, but the way he’s looking at her, like he wants to take care of her, like she’s worth being taken care of . . . it makes Bren’s breath catch in her chest. He glances down, like he’s embarrassed that she saw that and Bren immediately wants to ask him to look at her again.
“Up,” he says again, and she lifts her arms obediently so that he can pull the dress over her head.
He sets it aside, eyes always at her neck or above, and he’s gentle in the way he steadies her long enough for her to be able to pull the bottoms on. He helps her pull Spencer’s hoodie on and smiles at her when her head emerges from the neck, hair in her eyes and flying every which way.
“Better?” he asks, straightening the hem and reaching up to brushing her bangs out of her face with gentle fingers.
“Yeah,” Bren answers, feeling relaxed and taken care of, now, instead of helpless.
_._
Bren paces herself over the next two days, more because Spencer and Jon glare and tease her into submission than anything, but she knows she was being silly before. Not that knowing helps at all. It just makes her feel more useless, a frightening trend since she first got sick. Being on tour, being in this band, has done more for Bren’s self-esteem and independence than anything, and sure, sometimes she still feels like she’s a burden to people who don’t really get her (and even the ones who do), but this? This is ridiculous. She wants to blame it on the fever that just won’t quit or on the sore throat or on the stuffy nose, but she’s not so sure anymore.
Their shows, Columbus and Cincinnati, are good. Not great, certainly not perfect, but better than nothing. Bren gets two days to sleep on the road, two days where her fever makes an attempt at breaking and then comes back with a vengeance, and she tries to enjoy having her band take care of her. For the most part, though, she just feels down. Without the usual excitement of upcoming shows to keep her occupied, Bren goes back to thinking about Audrey and it’s so stupid, she’s being ridiculous over it, but it still hurts a little. A lot. First love is supposed to be painful and she sings the proof every night, but it’s weird infusing Ryan’s lyrics with her own heartache.
She won’t ever tell him, but she doesn’t like knowing how it feels to ache like this, even if their situations are different, even if Bren hasn’t been betrayed. It hurts. She spends the ride into Chicago wishing desperately that it didn’t.
The Windy City is very welcoming which isn’t a surprise. It’s a hometown to most of the people on tour. Bren’s trying to enjoy it, but her voice is practically gone, and she’s feeling so emo it’s pathetic (missing mom, missing Audrey, missing sleep, missing good health). They don’t let her do much backstage at the venue, giving her one last chance to rest, so she dicks around online, laughs at nothing the same way she did the night before and the night before that to let everyone who isn’t her band know she’s perfectly alright.
She isn’t sure how many people are buying it. Jon, in particular, keeps eyeing her closely. But the closer they get to show time, the less she cares about pretending and the more eager she is to get in front of the crowd.
Onstage, everything is noisy and insane again, something she’s missed while being sick and having little but quiet and cough syrup to keep her company. She pushes herself again and she can feel Ryan’s eyes on her the whole time, but she ignores him and sings and sings and sings, sings with a voice she doesn’t have, sings because she has to, because it helps her forget her shortcomings and loneliness. By the end, she has the crowd in the palm of her hand and she’s drenched with sweat.
“Fucking shit,” Spencer groans when she jumps on his back as they walk offstage.
“Think I broke my fever!” Bren says happily, nuzzling her sweaty cheek up against his.
“So you can sweat it out,” Jon teases when he walks past, ever the smartass.
They all groan and Ryan throws a sweaty towel at the back of Jon’s head. Jon just shakes it off and they can hear him laughing as they start to make their way to the dressing rooms. Spencer adjusts his hold on Bren, wrapping his hands around her bare legs and hoisting her up higher on his back.
“You’re so strong,” Bren simpers, feeling on top of the fucking world and better than she has in weeks.
“Yeah?” Spencer says, tilting his head a little to look up at her. “Is it sexy?”
“Totally sexy,” she says, and her voice is fucking gone, low and raspy but she doesn’t care because at least she doesn’t hurt as much. “You’re the sexiest drummer I’ve ever had the privilege of riding backstage.”
Spencer snorts and somehow manages to pinch Bren’s thigh. She squeals and jerks and they teeter precariously, but Spencer regains his balance easily. He carries her as far as their dressing room, making his way through people carefully with Bren yelling for everyone to get out of the way, rockstars coming through.
“Somebody’s feeling better,” Brent muses with a tired smile.
Bren lets Spencer dump her on the couch and thinks that lots of Brent’s smiles have been tired lately and she’s upset that she didn’t notice earlier.
“Little bit,” she says, patting the cushion next to her and smiling when Brent collapses onto it with a long sigh.
“You should probably rest your voice,” Ryan says, eyeing her sternly.
Bren knows he’s right. She pouts anyway and then leans forward, elbows on her knees, and says, “if I promise to behave, can we go out and party tonight? Please?”
Ryan looks like he wants to say no and then he glances over at Spencer who shrugs. “Yeah, okay.”
Bren beams and then stands up and starts tugging them back toward the stage so they can watch the show.
_._
Bren holds pretty strong through the party that they end up at, some gathering at the house of a friend of Andy’s or Tom’s or Bill’s or Mike’s. She doesn’t talk, much, but she’s still full of energy as she lets herself be pulled from room to room, from a round of beer pong to dramatic re-enactments of the tour to where someone is playing some new band’s new song and back to the kitchen where Spencer and Jon have teamed up against Sisky and some girl in another round of beer pong.
She hasn’t had much to drink, just enough to feel the fuzzy effects of tipsiness. She’d feel bad about it because she knows how pissed Ryan gets sometimes, but general rule of thumb is that if Spencer’s doing it, Bren can do it. Ryan argues that Spencer knows his limits, but Bren does too. She just usually ignores them.
Tonight she’s carefully observant of them and it’s not so bad, being pleasantly buzzed instead of wasted. She ends up with some boy that she doesn’t recognize. She tells him she can’t really talk, shouldn’t, she promised she’d be good. He smiles, sly, and says that promises are made to be broken. She changed into jeans earlier but she can still feel the heat of his hand on her knee through the layer of denim like he’s touching her skin.
“Um, I don’t think Ryan would agree with that assessment,” she says softly, gasping when the boy leans forward and nuzzles her neck.
“Hmmmm,” he hums contemplatively, “who’s Ryan? Your boyfriend?”
Best friend, unrequited love, band member. “Guitarist,” she answers, eyes slipping shut because that’s his tongue on her ear and she didn’t realize that could feel so good.
“He’s not the boss of you,” the boy says and then adds, “your voice is fucking sexy. You should talk more. Tell me a secret.”
“I don’t have a lot of those,” she lies, and the boy’s chuckle vibrates against her throat, his hand creeping higher.
“I bet you do,” he says, dipping his head to kiss her jaw.
“No. I’m not really that kind of girl,” Bren whispers, bring a hand up to his shoulder.
“Liar,” he breathes, low and dirty and Bren clutches at him, not sure if she wants to push him away or not.
He kisses her again, lips hot on her cheek and bold against her mouth. He tastes like alcohol, sharp and bitter, and Bren pulls away.
“I don’t-”
He cuts her off to kiss her again, his tongue in her mouth, one hand high on her thigh, the other squeezing her breast and whoa, whoa, whoa, when did that happen? Something that is definitely not arousal pulls tight inside of her and she jerks her head back again.
“I don’t even know you,” she says, a sharp edge to the words because who the fuck is this guy anyway, feeling her up in a dark corner of a stranger’s house?
“So?” he asks, his voice amused and a little dangerous.
“So, I want you to stop,” she says, and fuck, she sounds like a Lifetime Original Movie over here but dammit, she doesn’t want this, not with some asshole who can’t even kiss without punctuating it with a grope.
The boy catches her eyes, his own dark and shining too bright. He’s definitely drunk, more drunk than she is. Bren’s chest goes tight and she thinks she can always hit him if she has to; she’s hoping he’ll just let her go.
“What, are you kidding me?” he says and okay, maybe he won’t let her go. “You started flirting with me. Are you some kind of cocktease or what?”
Bren pushes his hand off of her chest and glares at him. “Maybe. Maybe you just make me sick. Asshole.”
It happens too fast for Bren’s alcohol-and-cold-tinged brain to catch; one second they’re glaring at each other in the small space that they’d tumbled into just minutes earlier and the next he has her pressed up against the wall, hands forming tight, bruising manacles around her wrists. Bren’s breath leaves her in a whoosh when he pushes his body hard against hers. When he leans in to kiss her again, she jerks her head to the side so fast she cracks her skull against the wall.
“You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t calm down,” he says conversationally, lips pressed to her ear.
Bren swallows hard around a whimper at the pain in her head, at the reality of what’s happening to her, and tries to get a leg free so that she can fight him off, kick him, knee him, anything. He’s pinning her to the wall, though, heavier and taller and her buzz is wearing off fast but she still feels like she’s swimming through mud here, trying to get any part of herself free and unable to do more than wiggle ineffectually.
“Let me go,” she says, and it comes out stronger than she thought it would. “I’ll fucking scream if you don’t.”
The boy laughs and says, “you won’t, not unless you want everyone to come running. You want people to see you like this?”
There’s a horrible, shameful flush of embarrassment at the thought and it shouldn’t be like that, this isn’t her fault (maybe, probably isn’t) but still, she doesn’t want them to know she can’t take care of herself, that she’s the kind of girl who gets herself into these situations. She wishes, desperately, for Spencer or Ryan or Brent or Jon or Bill or Mike or anyone, anyone at all. She wishes she’d been sick enough to stay on the bus, miserable and safe and cared for.
“Fuck you,” Bren grates out, bucking her body up ineffectually.
He grunts and shifts, presses a sharp knee between her thighs, shoving her legs apart. Bren does whimper out loud this time, her knees buckling. She’s trying to think of a way to get out of this but her body feels frozen except for where her legs are shaking, and she’s half-convinced that this isn’t happening, that it can’t happen. She’s in somebody’s house, the noises of the party are making her head hurt and her heart beat too fast. There are witnesses except they don’t know what’s happening but they have to figure it out, right? Bren can hear people just on the other side of the wall, just outside of this corner she’s trapped in.
“Hey, shhhh,” he says when Bren croaks out a barely audible word that might be a name or a plea for help. “Hey, it’s okay. You promised you’d be a good girl, right? So be a good girl for me.”
Bren glares at him, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and she’s fucking tired of being fucking useless. Her skin feels cold, she’s so scared, and she can barely bring herself to blink let alone make her whole body move in any particular way, but she knows she’ll have to get herself out of this. She misses a chance when he shifts his hold on her wrists to one hand, but when he reaches between them to start fumbling with buttons and zippers, she arches back and then drops all of her weight with a yell.
She’s not particularly heavy, but he can’t hold on, can’t pin her to the wall with his body fast enough. Bren lands on her side and is hurrying to push herself up when the shadows shift and a familiar voice says, “Bren? What the fuck?”
The boy, whose name she still doesn’t know, backs off, cool as anything, and Bren finds herself staring up at Ryan who is barely listening to whatever excuse her attacker is giving. She flushes, embarrassed, and scrambles to her feet.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asks, his voice so level and cold she shivers.
“Nothing,” she lies, hugging her arms around her chest.
Her breathing is loud around them, uneven and a little harsh with the tears she won’t cry. Ryan stares at her and then looks wildly over at where the guy was standing just a second ago. He must of have snuck away when they weren’t looking and Bren’s a little relieved and a little dissatisfied. She wishes she could have punched him or kicked him or something.
“Can we just get out of here?” she asks and Ryan shakes his head and starts to stalk off with purpose.
Bren hesitates for a moment before chasing after him, catching him halfway through the next room with a hand around his wrist.
“Ryan, leave it alone,” she says.
He spins violently, dislodging her hand and glaring down at her. “He was going to hurt you,” he says. “I’ll rip his fucking head off, I swear.”
Ryan’s not violent ever and Bren knows why, everyone knows, so to see him like this is almost more terrifying than being trapped with that asshole in the first place. She doesn’t need him to run off and defend her honor. She’s not going to be the reason he does something he’ll regret.
“I’m fine,” she says. “He didn’t-”
“He was going to!” Ryan says, and he’s not a yeller, either, but he’d practically shouted that last part.
People are looking and Bren’s so fucking wrecked that she just wants to curl up somewhere by herself and sleep for a million years.
“I can take care of myself,” she says, more angrily than she meant to.
“Yeah? Obviously you can’t,” Ryan shoots back, and she sucks in a sharp breath and fights the urge to smack him across his stupid face.
“Shut up,” she says, the words low and ugly and a little desperate.
They stare each other down in the middle of the living room with people looking on curiously. Ryan’s hands are clenched into tight fists at his sides, his shoulders tense. Bren hates the obligation she feels to reach out and comfort him, like he’s the one who needs it.
“I don’t need your help,” she hisses after a long moment. “I don’t need you to fight my battles. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Then fucking act like it!” Ryan says, voice low and expression furious. He stares at her for a minute and when he says, “you’re so stupid,” the words sound like they cut him almost as deeply as they cut her.
She bites her lip and holds her breath around a sob, but she can’t stop the tears that blur her vision for a tremulous moment before spilling over and down her cheeks. Ryan’s right. She’s stupid and she’s fucked up and she was almost . . .
“Fuck, Bren,” Ryan says, reaching out to touch her.
She shakes off his hand, can’t stand to have it on her, and runs for it. Brent doesn’t ask any questions when she finds him and says she wants to leave. He just nods and leads the way.
Part Four