Black holes and revelations
Title: Black holes and revelations
Author:
alles_luege
Pairing: Panic GSF
Rating: PG-13
Summary: This is story about how love can't fix everything.
Warning(s): Vampires, Panic GSF (implied), angst, masturbation, also not a 16 candles AU.
Author’s Notes: Okay, so this is Brent's story (and because this totally is an AU, I can make up my own reasons why he's left the band. Ha!). I think most people don't like him, but I wasn't there for the break-up and I don't care.
Companion piece to 'The art of breathing under water'.
Title stolen from Muse.
Word Count: 1.146
Beta: tygermine
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real.
He isn't freaking out.
Brent is pretty proud of himself about this fact.
So Ryan is a vampire. At first he thought Spencer and Ryan were pulling the best practical joke ever. Until he saw the blood sucking. That sealed the deal for him. At least Ryan doesn’t flit around in a cape and make stupid accents up. That’s more Brendon’s thing. Brent often thanks the deities that Brendon isn’t a vampire based purely on that idea.
He is man enough to admit that he was freaked out at first.
Who wouldn't be?
Ryan is drinking blood.
From Spencer.
Like from his veins.
That is a bit much to look at. But the more disturbing aspect, Brent thinks, is the post blood sucking aura that Ryan seems to give off. It’s as if he’d just been fucked six ways from Sunday or something like that he hasn't exactly the words for it. (Ryan maybe would, but Ryan isn't looking at himself when he's doing it.)
~+~
After a while he settles into it. It becomes routine. They play music, they let Ryan feed on them, they hang out. (Not always in that order.) It isn't a big deal at all. Maybe it should be. But it's not. They are friends and...it's Ryan, Brent thinks, and when he mentions it to Spencer, Spencer just nods. But on the other hand Brent knows there is nothing (short of killing someone maybe, he isn't sure) that Spencer wouldn't do for Ryan.
But it's the same with Brendon. Brendon...unsettles Brent. He can’t get a reading on the boy, like a mood ring, constantly changing colours. He isn't sure if it bothers him.
~+~
Things are going smooth for a band with a vampire he thinks until one day Ryan just freaks out and neither Brendon nor Brent know why.
“It's just weird...” he says to Spencer later that week when they're sitting outside waiting for Ryan and Brendon to arrive. They just want to hang out for a while.
“It's still Ryan.”
“With freaky sex-mojo.” Brent says, because he can feel it now too. He didn't before, but he can feel a slight pull to...he doesn't know, surrender maybe and he doesn't want that, he just isn't into guys.
“Yeah...”
“You don't think that could be a problem?” Brent wants to know, because he thinks that. It's just weird even if it is Ryan. It's like a compulsion. It's not normal...well, according to the literature. Okay, not so much literature as Anne Rice novels, comic books and movies. But they’re not as reliable as a real live vampire living with him to learn from. Still, Brent wishes there was a guide to living with your super sexed up mojo emitting vampire bandmate.
“It's Ryan,” Spencer says again and Brent thinks: That’s not really an answer.
~+~
He is sure he notices even before Brendon. Spencer is too deep into the weird vamp mojo himself to notice, to see it coming. And it's not that Brent is uncomfortable with Brendon pining over Ryan- he has gay friends after all. It's just that Brendon didn't do it before. Before all the craziness started. He somehow knew that this was going to be a problem.
Suddenly he is a guest character in the daily soap that is their lives - in Spanish. Jealousy and fear, sex and secrets, and...things falling apart until he sits them down and makes them sort shit out.
He didn't mean like that...when he told them to get their stuff together.
~+~
Sometimes he aches so hard it's close to unbearable, but he knows he just can't be part of this, because that's not what he wants. It's maybe something Spencer wants, he suspected that much. After all there is nothing Spencer wouldn't do for Ryan and that isn't just plain friendship. Spencer loves Ryan no matter what - maybe this is the excuse he needed. Brent isn't sure. It doesn't matter anyway.
~+~
He knows Ryan doesn't do it on purpose, he just can't control it. He doesn't even try.
“You need to stop doing that.” He says. Spencer looks at him sharply. It's not his fucking fault, he thinks. He just isn't cool with that.
“I try. I'm sorry.” Ryan says in a small voice.
“You're not. You're not trying at all. And I can't take that shit.”
“Than just stay away,” Spencer snaps from the couch.
“Spencer...” Brendon says, he is swaying in Ryan's direction.
“What? He can just stay away...”
“Fine!” Brent snaps back.
~+~
He isn't sure if they just can't recognise it as compulsion or if they don't care. The latter is quite possible. What with Brendon being in love with Ryan and Spencer loving him no matter what. And it's not that he doesn't love Ryan, he does. More than he should, he thinks late at night when he is touching himself and thinking about Ryan's lips, his tongue on Brent's skin, his teeth in his flesh. But he isn't sure he would love Ryan if Ryan wasn't what he is now and that is just not enough for Brent. He thinks it shouldn't be enough for Brendon and Spencer either. But it seems it's not his business anymore.
~+~
It gets worse and he just does what Spencer said. He stays away, because it hurts to be in the same fucking room as Ryan sometimes. It doesn't make things better that Ryan isn't aware of it at all sometimes and tries to stop it when he is - which isn’t often enough for Brent. It's still dangerous ground they're walking on. (He saw Pete...Pete wanted Ryan so bad for a moment that Brent was afraid for them both.) And Spencer still doesn't do anything. Doesn't tell Ryan to try and fucking control this shit, try and explore what he can do, so they know what he is capable of. It worries Brent.
So, he tries to talk to Brendon about it. Maybe, he thinks, maybe Brendon will see sense.
“It's not...he is scared.” Brendon says and Brent knows that.
“He should be, but I'm scared too, okay?” he answers.
“Of Ryan?” Brendon sounds alarmed.
“Of what he does to us.”
“He doesn't do anything we don't want him to do...” Brendon says, but he is pulling the sleeve of his hoodie over the fresh bruise on his wrist.
“Brendon...”
“I can deal with it, don't worry.” Brendon says with a smile.
I can't, he thinks. And knows that something has to happen and soon.
~+~
In retrospect, he thinks that it was the only solution at the time. But he is still angry and disappointed and he feels betrayed, because he loves Ryan too and isn't that enough? Shouldn't it be? The answer is 'no' and he knows that too.
~end~