Hammers and Strings (A Lullaby)
Title: Hammers and Strings (A Lullabye)
Author: longerthanwedo
Beta: melody_so_sweet <3
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Rating: PG-13
POV: 3rd
Summary: But then the dreams had started fading. They’d become less defined, seemed less real, and Ryan had been terrified. He knew that his mind was finally moving on, forgetting his past without his permission, and he was so scared. He was so scared to forget.
Disclaimer: Not true, and I hope it never comes true.
Author’s Notes: This is based largely off the song “Hammers and Strings” by Jack’s Mannequin, and I suggest that you go listen to that song if you haven’t already heard it, just because it’s so beautiful. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, and comments are always lovely!
Ryan hasn’t slept since it happened.
It’s not that he can’t sleep, it’s because he’s afraid of what waits behind his eyelids.
Before it had happened Ryan had dreamt, and it had always been the same three faces in his nighttime world. He knew that it wasn’t healthy; he knew he should try to forget everything they’d had, everything they’d given up. But he couldn’t. Ryan couldn’t chase their faces out of his mind. He couldn’t even try. Those dreams were the only things that reminded Ryan of who he really was. They were the only things that kept him going.
But then the dreams had started fading. They’d become less defined, seemed less real, and Ryan had been terrified. He knew that his mind was finally moving on, forgetting his past without his permission, and he was so scared. He was so scared to forget.
He had held on to those dreams for so long, because they reminded him that it had all been real. He had made it, he was going strong, and they were finally making it, getting what they’d always hoped for. He was at the top; he was as close to happy as it was possible to be. And he had three people in his life that he’d thought he could always count on.
But the dreams faded, just like their friendship had. And Ryan. Ryan forgot who he was.
But Ryan knows better now. He knows whose face would haunt his dreams should he finally sleep tonight. And he’s afraid of that, too. This time he needs to forget. He needs to forget what happened, because if he remembers than that makes it real, and Ryan knows that, right now, he can’t deal with this if he knows it’s real.
Ryan needs to forget, so he just doesn’t close his eyes.
He needs those old dreams and those old people more than ever right now, and since sleep isn’t an option, he picks up the phone.
***
Memories.
They’re smooth, cool under Brendon’s fingers as he sits at the bench. Sits, thinks, but doesn’t play. He hasn’t played, not in months. He’ll sit there for hours at a time, letting his fingers skim soundlessly over the keys, afraid to press down and open the door into that life that he still can’t quite believe is over.
Brendon misses the music, he really does. But he’s afraid to play. He knows that the first note to come out of that old piano would tear him apart. Because it wouldn’t be the music he remembers. It would only be one tiny fourth of the music he remembers; the music he used to live for and breathe life into.
He doesn’t play, because he’d rather live with nothing than live with a ghost of the music he’d loved.
The piano stands silent and empty, Brendon stands with his thoughts, brooding and swirling, and somehow, Brendon knows who is calling the moment the phone starts to ring.
***
Ryan’s breath leaves his lungs silently when Brendon’s voice meets his ear. All the hundreds of times he’s seen Brendon’s face in his dreams, imagined him up on that stage, microphone in hand. All those times and he hasn’t heard Brendon’s voice. And, god, he’s missed that voice so much.
“How are you?” Ryan’s words come out in an almost-whisper when he has enough oxygen to speak. Small talk. Not the real reason he called Brendon, not at all, but for now Ryan just needs to hear more of that voice he loves so much.
He lets Brendon’s words flow over and through him, re-learning the sound of his voice and solidifying all the memories that had been fading from his mind.
There’s nothing special in Brendon’s speech, and from his words alone, he’s doing fine. But Ryan’s always been able to hear a lie from his friend’s mouth. Ryan thinks about the real reason for his call, and Ryan thinks I miss you.
Brendon says, “I miss you.”
And Ryan says, “My brother died.”
And Brendon is silent.
Ryan misses his music.
***
It only takes three words coming out of Ryan’s mouth, and Brendon knows what he needs, knows exactly what’s wrong.
Brendon knows that Ryan’s tearing himself up. He ripped himself to pieces for the band, and he’s making all those fragments smaller over his brother. Brendon knows that right now all Ryan needs is something solid, something to believe in, something to hold together his broken self just long enough so that he can breathe. And Brendon can’t do that himself. He’s not whole, he can’t even begin to fix someone as broken as Ryan.
Ryan needs the music more than Brendon does. Brendon feels that every time he sits down at that piano. He can feel Ryan’s presence, can picture his figure bent over the keys, imprinted into his memory from the few times he’s seen Ryan play the instrument.
Ryan whispers into the phone, “Write me a song.”
Ryan needs music. Music to him was stronger than any god, any person, or any tangible thing in his life.
And he gave up music when we gave up the band. But Brendon knows he never forgot. Ryan is even more hopeless than him without music. He can’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, and he doesn’t smile.
And right now Brendon knows exactly what Ryan needs.
Brendon says, “I’ll write you a lullaby.”
And it’s only when the line stays dead that Brendon realizes Ryan hung up.
***
Ryan didn’t know that people still saw him.
People like the ones he sees when he bothers to go in to work. People who he didn’t think cared, not even a little bit. Nameless people who are apparently observant enough to notice that Ryan’s losing his will to do anything with the least bit of normality.
People like the woman who slipped him the business card of a psychiatrist.
A psychiatrist that Ryan calls, goes to see. Ryan lets the doctor shower him in questions; pry into his mind, into the things that Ryan never says out loud. The professionals never let themselves imagine the worst, Ryan thinks. They look at a person, listen to them talk, and diagnose them with something far less complicated than broken dreams and a bruised ideology.
They prescribe pills for things written in books, pills to fix a broad range of symptoms. Ryan doubts that a medication exists to fix a shattered friendship and a lost family.
But he doesn’t say any of this when the doctor fills out the forms.
He picks up his prescription, and he can’t explain to himself why he takes the pills when he knows that nothing substantial can ever, ever, help pull him together.
His mind doesn’t give him answers.
So he calls Brendon.
***
Brendon can’t touch the piano yet, he knows that. It sits, dusty as ever, in the corner of his room while Brendon curls up with his battered notebook.
But he doesn’t need to play to be able to write. The memory of the music is strong enough that his hand supplies the correct notes without much help from his mind. The only thing he really needs to come up with the perfect combination is the knowledge that Ryan needs this.
Ryan needs his song, but Brendon knows he won’t play until Ryan’s there to hear it.
***
Ryan hears their old music coming from inside every dark venue, from every sold-out show of every band that he hasn’t bothered to listen to.
It seems that anything, anything at all, can bring out a memory, and in a way, he’s happy.
He’s beyond relieved that he’s managed to remember all these details without the help of the dreams that he used to rely on to keep him sane. Any sound, any face, any billboard screaming money and drum machines reminds him of what they used to have.
And all Ryan can think is how glad he is that he’s finally going. He’s finally going back to one of the pieces of his past, the one part that he knows will help more than hurt him.
Through a state and across a border, over dust and bumping along roads he’s travelled many times before, Ryan’s almost happy.
***
Brendon keeps the door unlocked.
He throws it wide open, even, and sits down at his piano.
He waits as if for a cue, and when the sound of footsteps tapping up the steps reaches his waiting ears, he positions his fingers. And when there’s more than one set of breaths in the room that’s been lonely for so long, Brendon presses his fingers down for the first time in a year and three months.
And he’s glad that this is the first song he plays, and that Ryan’s the person he plays it to.
A lullaby.