a city named for us
Title: a city named for us
Author: Telis (theaerosolkid)
Rating: R
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
Summary: Brendon and Ryan and BrendonandRyan and still the bitch of living. Companion to that long in darkness pined.
Word Count: 2565
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake.
A/N: Happy birthday to castoffstarter! Angst for you from me. Thanks a billion to notshybutsly for the beta ♥ Seriously. I could not have written this one without her.
*
Ryan does things slowly, but understands them quickly. His synapses fire and it jolts him sometimes, the sudden flash of comprehension. His reactions are not always reliable in their speeds, but he always, always knows what he's going to do a long time before he does it.
Brendon, it occurs to him, is the opposite way: he does things and then sometimes he understands them.
*
Here is a confession: Ryan knows he wants Brendon to sing for the band weeks before he brings it up with anyone. He carries Brendon's voice inside him carefully, keeping it all his own. Brent always played so fully within himself and Spencer wasn't particularly good at dissembling the differences between singers and Brendon couldn't hear his own voice for how tightly he kept himself bound, so Ryan was the only one to hear it, and Ryan had a problem with selfishness.
But then one day his throat is sore and Brendon's singing louder to compensate, just on impulse, not thinking, and Ryan swallows hard and tells Brendon he should be singing.
Brendon doesn't think to argue.
*
Ryan hates it when people refer to things as accidents, but still he thinks that the first time he and Brendon fuck it isn't anything else.
It is, predictably, the first night Brendon spends after leaving his home -- he wasn't kicked out, he was allowed to make a choice, home and family or Ryan and record deal and he chose Ryan, he chose Ryan, he did -- and of course he spends it with Ryan, and of course he hears Ryan's father come stumbling in. They're huddled in Ryan's room, both in his bed, Brendon's wearing borrowed too-tight pajamas and Ryan keeps leaning into him, trying to be subtle and failing because he just wants Brendon and isn't allowed to have him and Ryan has never been good with just leaving things as they are.
Brendon's always so tactile and it's a revelation for Ryan. Nobody touches him like he's anything other than fragile, not Spencer, not even his father, and if Brendon thinks he's fragile then he doesn't show it with the way he leaves the imprint of his fingers tingling on Ryan's flesh.
Ryan's hands are cold and Brendon's skin always runs so hot, and he tucks his feet beneath Brendon's thighs to warm them. Brendon starts, eyes wide in the almost-darkness, and hardly moves when Ryan leans in to kiss him.
*
The next morning Ryan wakes up sore and bruised and Brendon doesn't say anything, but he climbs out Ryan's window and goes to his house to pick up his belongings.
They spend the day apartment hunting and Ryan pretends that they're five years older and are in between records, that this is their first apartment as opposed to Brendon's first apartment. He imagines that they're holding hands and they have a joint checking account and that they're in this together.
*
Being on tour is rough, for a while.
Brendon's parents aren't changing their stance at all, and he's not -- he's not adjusting well. And Ryan, he's killing himself trying to be there for Brendon but that's so hard when Brendon's not even there with them, not really. Ryan never doubts (never will doubt, not once) that Brendon wants this, wants him, wants it all.
Brendon will fuck him and when Ryan's on his back (the way he likes it best, so he can watch Brendon as closely as he likes) he can see more clearly how hard Brendon is straining to push right through him. Ryan reaches up, cups Brendon's neck and tries to tell him that everything is fine and loses his train of thought as Brendon pounds him into whatever surface they've found.
Ryan always wakes up to fresh pains and dark bruises and would regret them all if it weren't for the way Brendon bends to kiss them. Ryan can read the way he's so contrite in the soft curl of his mouth fitted over the marks.
*
The worst of it is that he should be able to understand whatever it is that Brendon's fighting. He should know what to say when Brendon looks at him like he needs to hear something, like Ryan knows what it is and can say it. When Brendon talks about things like hallelujah and amen and so be it, that's all Ryan can hear, so be it, it is what it is.
Whatever it is, all Ryan wants to do is change it.
*
They've never defined what they are. They've just fallen into each other and Ryan can breathe easier than he ever has before. It's not perfect and it's hardly any good, really, but it's something and that could be enough. Could be everything.
Ryan ends up dating Jac because that's what nice little emo boys with unpredictably successful albums do: they date party girls with mouths that taste like thick makeup and things that might be true if everyone closes their eyes and wishes hard enough. Brendon ends up dating Audrey because he always goes with Ryan and Jac always goes with Audrey. The arrangement is almost too perfect, even if the word itself is clinical enough to make Ryan nauseous.
He can't figure out when it all falls apart, but it does, and it doesn't matter, because Brendon still crawls into his bunk and grinds down like he's got something to prove.
Ryan arches up gratefully into the press and heave of it, thinking, Yes, yes, good, I need you. I believe you, you are good and mine and I --
*
Ryan's father dies and he hates himself for not feeling anything other than relief.
Because it's just so strange: he wants family, he does. Brendon holds the concept of family above all else and something in his blood must have found its way into Ryan's; he wants family now, too, in a real kind of way.
With his father dead he has no allegiances to honor. He can call his mother, he can forgive her. He can talk to his mother like anyone should be able to. He can tell her about touring and writing and playing and being nominated for big important awards that get broadcast on channels like MTV.
"I'm glad you called," she says when he tells her goodbye. "It's been too long."
Ryan disagrees, thinks that it might have been just long enough.
*
Ryan carries his mother's approval of him on the plane back, and when they're settled at another nameless hotel, he tries to talk to Brendon.
"Funerals should probably be happier for people who believe in God," he says, and Brendon tenses up, just goes stiff.
"Maybe," he says shortly, and goes to take a shower. Ryan doesn't bother to remind him that he's already clean. He doesn't wait up, either, and goes to sleep with a pervading chill of failure settling in his veins.
*
"I don't know what to do," he tells Pete one night on the phone. "Something -- something's got him. I have an idea, but. With Brendon, you know, an idea's never enough. You have to know."
Pete exhales. "This is where I have to be an asshole and ask if you guys are going to be all right. Like. Not as people. As a band. I have to know, Ryan."
"We'll be fine," Ryan says with certainty that he really does feel. "Seriously. If in no other way, professionally, we're fine."
"All right," Pete says, and he sounds like he believes Ryan.
"So, I don't -- I don't know," Ryan says quietly.
"Give it time," Pete advises. "Can you wait for him?"
"I can be patient," is all Ryan says.
*
He goes through Brendon's things when he gets desperate, when he's on the edge of shaking Brendon until his ears bleed because it's so frustrating.
He'll find little keepsakes, usually something from Brendon's house that he's smuggled into his bag. Laminated recipe cards. LDS pamphlets. Letters from his family. Once, a C. S. Lewis book Ryan remembers reading excerpts out of in his junior year religion class, back in high school.
Ryan missed the reading on God, because he was too busy dissecting Coupland on his own in the back of the classroom, and still can't decide which would be more useful in dealing with Brendon.
*
Ryan wakes up in the middle of the night and is cold.
This isn't unusual -- Brendon has a tendency to crawl over the covers and shove Ryan aside while they sleep. Still, though, Ryan can usually get at least a little warmth from Brendon curled close by him, if not as close as Ryan wants.
Ryan walks to the window of the hotel room, glances at their tour bus and sees someone sitting out next to it, small flames sparking up at irregular intervals. He presses his hand to the freezing cold glass, draws in a breath. He can't see very well, not at such a distance, but he can watch the repetitive movements of Brendon's limbs as he lights matches and drops them.
He doesn't know how long he stands there watching, but Zack joins him after a while and Ryan pushes harder against the glass.
And, ohh, God, he wants to go down and sit with Brendon and light matches with him and share lighters from every different gas station they've stopped at ever since they pulled off the freeway on the road out to Maryland last summer, last summer when it was warm and he could still be certain that they had years and years, ohh, years left to grow up.
Ryan feels so old, watching Brendon out in the parking lot, and that's wrong because there's still so much that passes his understanding, so much more he needs to know before he can help Brendon. And he wants to, more than anything else.
Ryan draws a shaky breath and drops to his knees, crosses himself like he hasn't since graduation and keeps his eyes firmly on Brendon.
When he wakes up on the floor, nothing is different except he's got a shiver he can't shake off.
*
Keltie is the anti-Brendon, in every way. She is open and free and easy to read and there's nothing Ryan can't figure out. It feels so temporary, and after (along with) the intensity of Brendon, it's refreshing in a strange way.
Brendon, understandably, does not take well to Keltie's presence and withdraws further.
*
"I think I made a mistake with Keltie," Ryan tells Pete.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean. Brendon's not. He's upset, but. He won't talk to me about it." Pete snorts.
"What's new about that?"
"I mean. I asked him directly if he was okay with it and he just said sure. It was weird," Ryan says.
"Do you like her?" Pete asks.
"I guess," Ryan says. "It's kind of nice, not having to work so hard at it."
"God, you're young," Pete says, sounding amused. Ryan rolls his eyes. "Look -- just. You were kind of killing yourself, tiptoeing around him, you know?"
"I guess," Ryan says again. It's true, no matter how much he doesn't want it to be.
"You can't assume responsibility for his sanity if he won't ask for help," Pete says.
"What if he doesn't?" Ryan asks.
"Then you call 911 when he overdoses on ADHD medication, obviously," Pete says. Ryan's throat goes dry and his head spins.
"That's not funny," Ryan says roughly, voice spiked with vehemence.
"I wasn't joking," Pete says. "It's just. I'm trying to say. You can't control how bad things can get, okay? You can't keep him safe if he doesn't want to be."
"What if he doesn't know how to be?" Ryan asks quietly.
"You can't teach him," Pete says with certainty. "I'm not promising anything. But. I think -- I think you should. Get a little distance, okay?"
Ryan doesn't say anything.
"Ryan," Pete says gently. "He's going to be okay."
"He won't talk to me," Ryan says, frustrated.
"Maybe you're trying to talk to him the wrong way," Pete says after a long silence.
*
Time in the cabin moves strangely, like wading through ice-cold river water. It's bracing and a little painful, and Brendon's drifting, directionless. Ryan thinks of writing songs about being on the outside, trying to fix things that might not fit into human hands.
What he ends up doing is writing the most cheerful, simplistic love song he can think to write. It's an apology and an invitation and a promise and a gift, all at once, and even though Brendon is skeptical at the start, in the end, the song turns out exactly like Ryan wanted it to: it is bright and happy and hopeful and still has the bite of Brendon's energy.
*
When they get offstage after Summerfest, there's a voicemail on his phone from Keltie, asking him to call her as soon as possible. He does so while Brendon's rocketing around banging into people.
"New song," she says, sounding interested.
"Yeah, um."
"I like it," she says quickly. "Like, a lot."
"Okay," Ryan says.
"I mean. I think it's really, really great," she says, a little breathless.
"It's not about you," he blurts out. "I wrote it for Brendon."
There's an awkward, uncomfortable pause and then Keltie speaks up. "Well, jeez, Ryan."
"I'm sorry?" he tries weakly.
"Don't worry about it," she says, sounding distant. "Hey, I have to go. I'll talk to you in a bit. Have a safe flight."
*
"I wrote it for you," Ryan says that night, in their hotel room. Brendon tenses up, almost like he did the last time Ryan tried to corner him. There's a difference, though. Ryan thinks he can see a chink in Brendon's armour, an opening.
"I know you're having. A hard time," he says as evenly as he can, trying to sound soothing without being patronizing. "With. With everything, actually. And I tried to pray for you, and. I don't know. I can't pretend to believe in something I don't."
"I don't know that I believe in God anymore," Brendon says, and it aches. He sounds so lost. Ryan forces himself to take a few steadying breaths before responding.
"Do you have to decide right now?" is what he settles on.
"Maybe," Brendon says, and Ryan doesn't hate the word the way he did last time.
*
Even though Brendon scrapped the song and ended up sleeping on top of the blankets again, Ryan can't feel upset, because they start all over, and everything is working.
Each day Brendon is a little more peaceful, and that makes all the stupid reporter questions that Ryan's already anticipating completely worthwhile. He might have given Brendon something he needs that could actually help him, instead of just fucking him up further.
He doesn't break up with Keltie, though, not yet, because he's waiting for Brendon to ask him to. It sounds cruel, but. Well, Keltie's along for the ride and she's happy enough just the way they are. It's all right that Brendon hasn't asked yet, because he will, one day, when he's re-learned his own way to live with himself.
Ryan can wait. He has some time on his hands.
*
Author: Telis (theaerosolkid)
Rating: R
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
Summary: Brendon and Ryan and BrendonandRyan and still the bitch of living. Companion to that long in darkness pined.
Word Count: 2565
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake.
A/N: Happy birthday to castoffstarter! Angst for you from me. Thanks a billion to notshybutsly for the beta ♥ Seriously. I could not have written this one without her.
*
Ryan does things slowly, but understands them quickly. His synapses fire and it jolts him sometimes, the sudden flash of comprehension. His reactions are not always reliable in their speeds, but he always, always knows what he's going to do a long time before he does it.
Brendon, it occurs to him, is the opposite way: he does things and then sometimes he understands them.
*
Here is a confession: Ryan knows he wants Brendon to sing for the band weeks before he brings it up with anyone. He carries Brendon's voice inside him carefully, keeping it all his own. Brent always played so fully within himself and Spencer wasn't particularly good at dissembling the differences between singers and Brendon couldn't hear his own voice for how tightly he kept himself bound, so Ryan was the only one to hear it, and Ryan had a problem with selfishness.
But then one day his throat is sore and Brendon's singing louder to compensate, just on impulse, not thinking, and Ryan swallows hard and tells Brendon he should be singing.
Brendon doesn't think to argue.
*
Ryan hates it when people refer to things as accidents, but still he thinks that the first time he and Brendon fuck it isn't anything else.
It is, predictably, the first night Brendon spends after leaving his home -- he wasn't kicked out, he was allowed to make a choice, home and family or Ryan and record deal and he chose Ryan, he chose Ryan, he did -- and of course he spends it with Ryan, and of course he hears Ryan's father come stumbling in. They're huddled in Ryan's room, both in his bed, Brendon's wearing borrowed too-tight pajamas and Ryan keeps leaning into him, trying to be subtle and failing because he just wants Brendon and isn't allowed to have him and Ryan has never been good with just leaving things as they are.
Brendon's always so tactile and it's a revelation for Ryan. Nobody touches him like he's anything other than fragile, not Spencer, not even his father, and if Brendon thinks he's fragile then he doesn't show it with the way he leaves the imprint of his fingers tingling on Ryan's flesh.
Ryan's hands are cold and Brendon's skin always runs so hot, and he tucks his feet beneath Brendon's thighs to warm them. Brendon starts, eyes wide in the almost-darkness, and hardly moves when Ryan leans in to kiss him.
*
The next morning Ryan wakes up sore and bruised and Brendon doesn't say anything, but he climbs out Ryan's window and goes to his house to pick up his belongings.
They spend the day apartment hunting and Ryan pretends that they're five years older and are in between records, that this is their first apartment as opposed to Brendon's first apartment. He imagines that they're holding hands and they have a joint checking account and that they're in this together.
*
Being on tour is rough, for a while.
Brendon's parents aren't changing their stance at all, and he's not -- he's not adjusting well. And Ryan, he's killing himself trying to be there for Brendon but that's so hard when Brendon's not even there with them, not really. Ryan never doubts (never will doubt, not once) that Brendon wants this, wants him, wants it all.
Brendon will fuck him and when Ryan's on his back (the way he likes it best, so he can watch Brendon as closely as he likes) he can see more clearly how hard Brendon is straining to push right through him. Ryan reaches up, cups Brendon's neck and tries to tell him that everything is fine and loses his train of thought as Brendon pounds him into whatever surface they've found.
Ryan always wakes up to fresh pains and dark bruises and would regret them all if it weren't for the way Brendon bends to kiss them. Ryan can read the way he's so contrite in the soft curl of his mouth fitted over the marks.
*
The worst of it is that he should be able to understand whatever it is that Brendon's fighting. He should know what to say when Brendon looks at him like he needs to hear something, like Ryan knows what it is and can say it. When Brendon talks about things like hallelujah and amen and so be it, that's all Ryan can hear, so be it, it is what it is.
Whatever it is, all Ryan wants to do is change it.
*
They've never defined what they are. They've just fallen into each other and Ryan can breathe easier than he ever has before. It's not perfect and it's hardly any good, really, but it's something and that could be enough. Could be everything.
Ryan ends up dating Jac because that's what nice little emo boys with unpredictably successful albums do: they date party girls with mouths that taste like thick makeup and things that might be true if everyone closes their eyes and wishes hard enough. Brendon ends up dating Audrey because he always goes with Ryan and Jac always goes with Audrey. The arrangement is almost too perfect, even if the word itself is clinical enough to make Ryan nauseous.
He can't figure out when it all falls apart, but it does, and it doesn't matter, because Brendon still crawls into his bunk and grinds down like he's got something to prove.
Ryan arches up gratefully into the press and heave of it, thinking, Yes, yes, good, I need you. I believe you, you are good and mine and I --
*
Ryan's father dies and he hates himself for not feeling anything other than relief.
Because it's just so strange: he wants family, he does. Brendon holds the concept of family above all else and something in his blood must have found its way into Ryan's; he wants family now, too, in a real kind of way.
With his father dead he has no allegiances to honor. He can call his mother, he can forgive her. He can talk to his mother like anyone should be able to. He can tell her about touring and writing and playing and being nominated for big important awards that get broadcast on channels like MTV.
"I'm glad you called," she says when he tells her goodbye. "It's been too long."
Ryan disagrees, thinks that it might have been just long enough.
*
Ryan carries his mother's approval of him on the plane back, and when they're settled at another nameless hotel, he tries to talk to Brendon.
"Funerals should probably be happier for people who believe in God," he says, and Brendon tenses up, just goes stiff.
"Maybe," he says shortly, and goes to take a shower. Ryan doesn't bother to remind him that he's already clean. He doesn't wait up, either, and goes to sleep with a pervading chill of failure settling in his veins.
*
"I don't know what to do," he tells Pete one night on the phone. "Something -- something's got him. I have an idea, but. With Brendon, you know, an idea's never enough. You have to know."
Pete exhales. "This is where I have to be an asshole and ask if you guys are going to be all right. Like. Not as people. As a band. I have to know, Ryan."
"We'll be fine," Ryan says with certainty that he really does feel. "Seriously. If in no other way, professionally, we're fine."
"All right," Pete says, and he sounds like he believes Ryan.
"So, I don't -- I don't know," Ryan says quietly.
"Give it time," Pete advises. "Can you wait for him?"
"I can be patient," is all Ryan says.
*
He goes through Brendon's things when he gets desperate, when he's on the edge of shaking Brendon until his ears bleed because it's so frustrating.
He'll find little keepsakes, usually something from Brendon's house that he's smuggled into his bag. Laminated recipe cards. LDS pamphlets. Letters from his family. Once, a C. S. Lewis book Ryan remembers reading excerpts out of in his junior year religion class, back in high school.
Ryan missed the reading on God, because he was too busy dissecting Coupland on his own in the back of the classroom, and still can't decide which would be more useful in dealing with Brendon.
*
Ryan wakes up in the middle of the night and is cold.
This isn't unusual -- Brendon has a tendency to crawl over the covers and shove Ryan aside while they sleep. Still, though, Ryan can usually get at least a little warmth from Brendon curled close by him, if not as close as Ryan wants.
Ryan walks to the window of the hotel room, glances at their tour bus and sees someone sitting out next to it, small flames sparking up at irregular intervals. He presses his hand to the freezing cold glass, draws in a breath. He can't see very well, not at such a distance, but he can watch the repetitive movements of Brendon's limbs as he lights matches and drops them.
He doesn't know how long he stands there watching, but Zack joins him after a while and Ryan pushes harder against the glass.
And, ohh, God, he wants to go down and sit with Brendon and light matches with him and share lighters from every different gas station they've stopped at ever since they pulled off the freeway on the road out to Maryland last summer, last summer when it was warm and he could still be certain that they had years and years, ohh, years left to grow up.
Ryan feels so old, watching Brendon out in the parking lot, and that's wrong because there's still so much that passes his understanding, so much more he needs to know before he can help Brendon. And he wants to, more than anything else.
Ryan draws a shaky breath and drops to his knees, crosses himself like he hasn't since graduation and keeps his eyes firmly on Brendon.
When he wakes up on the floor, nothing is different except he's got a shiver he can't shake off.
*
Keltie is the anti-Brendon, in every way. She is open and free and easy to read and there's nothing Ryan can't figure out. It feels so temporary, and after (along with) the intensity of Brendon, it's refreshing in a strange way.
Brendon, understandably, does not take well to Keltie's presence and withdraws further.
*
"I think I made a mistake with Keltie," Ryan tells Pete.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean. Brendon's not. He's upset, but. He won't talk to me about it." Pete snorts.
"What's new about that?"
"I mean. I asked him directly if he was okay with it and he just said sure. It was weird," Ryan says.
"Do you like her?" Pete asks.
"I guess," Ryan says. "It's kind of nice, not having to work so hard at it."
"God, you're young," Pete says, sounding amused. Ryan rolls his eyes. "Look -- just. You were kind of killing yourself, tiptoeing around him, you know?"
"I guess," Ryan says again. It's true, no matter how much he doesn't want it to be.
"You can't assume responsibility for his sanity if he won't ask for help," Pete says.
"What if he doesn't?" Ryan asks.
"Then you call 911 when he overdoses on ADHD medication, obviously," Pete says. Ryan's throat goes dry and his head spins.
"That's not funny," Ryan says roughly, voice spiked with vehemence.
"I wasn't joking," Pete says. "It's just. I'm trying to say. You can't control how bad things can get, okay? You can't keep him safe if he doesn't want to be."
"What if he doesn't know how to be?" Ryan asks quietly.
"You can't teach him," Pete says with certainty. "I'm not promising anything. But. I think -- I think you should. Get a little distance, okay?"
Ryan doesn't say anything.
"Ryan," Pete says gently. "He's going to be okay."
"He won't talk to me," Ryan says, frustrated.
"Maybe you're trying to talk to him the wrong way," Pete says after a long silence.
*
Time in the cabin moves strangely, like wading through ice-cold river water. It's bracing and a little painful, and Brendon's drifting, directionless. Ryan thinks of writing songs about being on the outside, trying to fix things that might not fit into human hands.
What he ends up doing is writing the most cheerful, simplistic love song he can think to write. It's an apology and an invitation and a promise and a gift, all at once, and even though Brendon is skeptical at the start, in the end, the song turns out exactly like Ryan wanted it to: it is bright and happy and hopeful and still has the bite of Brendon's energy.
*
When they get offstage after Summerfest, there's a voicemail on his phone from Keltie, asking him to call her as soon as possible. He does so while Brendon's rocketing around banging into people.
"New song," she says, sounding interested.
"Yeah, um."
"I like it," she says quickly. "Like, a lot."
"Okay," Ryan says.
"I mean. I think it's really, really great," she says, a little breathless.
"It's not about you," he blurts out. "I wrote it for Brendon."
There's an awkward, uncomfortable pause and then Keltie speaks up. "Well, jeez, Ryan."
"I'm sorry?" he tries weakly.
"Don't worry about it," she says, sounding distant. "Hey, I have to go. I'll talk to you in a bit. Have a safe flight."
*
"I wrote it for you," Ryan says that night, in their hotel room. Brendon tenses up, almost like he did the last time Ryan tried to corner him. There's a difference, though. Ryan thinks he can see a chink in Brendon's armour, an opening.
"I know you're having. A hard time," he says as evenly as he can, trying to sound soothing without being patronizing. "With. With everything, actually. And I tried to pray for you, and. I don't know. I can't pretend to believe in something I don't."
"I don't know that I believe in God anymore," Brendon says, and it aches. He sounds so lost. Ryan forces himself to take a few steadying breaths before responding.
"Do you have to decide right now?" is what he settles on.
"Maybe," Brendon says, and Ryan doesn't hate the word the way he did last time.
*
Even though Brendon scrapped the song and ended up sleeping on top of the blankets again, Ryan can't feel upset, because they start all over, and everything is working.
Each day Brendon is a little more peaceful, and that makes all the stupid reporter questions that Ryan's already anticipating completely worthwhile. He might have given Brendon something he needs that could actually help him, instead of just fucking him up further.
He doesn't break up with Keltie, though, not yet, because he's waiting for Brendon to ask him to. It sounds cruel, but. Well, Keltie's along for the ride and she's happy enough just the way they are. It's all right that Brendon hasn't asked yet, because he will, one day, when he's re-learned his own way to live with himself.
Ryan can wait. He has some time on his hands.
*