129 - a
anything please (except for defeat)
MCR/Panic gen (some Brian/Gerard, some Ryan/Mikey)
21,642 words, third person, pg-13. This is, essentially, an alternate timeline au - what if, way back in the beginning, Ryan had gone to Gerard instead of Pete? A huge thank you to moorfaerie and kawaii_tenshi27 for betaing for me. You guys are awesome, and any remaining errors are mine.
Also, a huge fucking thank you to wakexthedead, hobbit_sexual, and erode for the fanmixes, and to frek for the fanart. I can’t even begin to thank you guys enough. The fanmixes are here, and the fanart is here. ♥
“What? Oh, geez, kid.” Gerard laughs, and it’s not mean, but the kid half-flinches back, a repressed sort of reaction, mostly suppressed but still visible. Gerard notices for the first time the way the line of his hips is sharp enough to cut paper.
“Ryan,” he says, meeting Gerard’s eyes again. “My name is Ryan.”
Gerard stumbles offstage, adrenaline high and sweat-slicked, makeup running from the corners of his eyes like raccoon-circles. He presses the heel of his palm against his left eye-socket, wiping at his eyelid, leaving black residue on the skin of his palm, trailing up to the base of his thumb. He laughs, a high giggle, and waves to Frank over his shoulder as he starts down the hallway to the dressing room. His shirt is sticking to his chest, and his pants are chafing against his thighs as he walks, and he hasn’t felt this good sober in a long time. The clarity to it isn’t something he ever thought he’d want. He presses his fingers against the white painted bricks, florescent lights above his head, and he’s startled by the waif-thin boy leaning against the wall about twenty feet in front of him.
“Hey,” the boy says, his eyes too large in his face, his bones sharp like Mikey after a hard week. Oh, Gerard thinks, half unconsciously, one of those. Every once in a while a few kids with long, lank hair, and white white skin, and sadness in the set of their mouth will find their way backstage. Gerard doesn’t even really mind. “You’re Gerard Way, right?” He asks like he already knows, and he does. Gerard can tell from the half-awed look on his face, one hand deep in the pocket of his pants.
“That’s me,” Gerard says, scrubbing at his eyes again, makeup on his fingers in a way that makes him want to paint. Or, possibly, run it over the blank canvas of the boy’s skin. He doesn’t.
“Um, I just,” the kid says, looking at his ragged sneakers, newsboy cap pulled down low over his forehead. “Here.” He holds out a CD, homemade case, the words demo songs - 1 written out in sharpie on the plastic cover.
“What’s this?” Gerard asks, mostly curious. The adrenaline is still rushing through his veins, making him jittery, twitchy, and he fiddles with a lock of his hair, pushing it behind his ear.
“My demo - my band’s demo. Sort of.” The kid doesn’t look up, but the edges of his mouth lift enough that his voice sounds wrong - too monotone for what should be excitement. Passion. Something. “Just - do you think you could listen? Tell me what you think. My email’s on the inside cover.” He bites his lower lip, and finally meets Gerard’s eyes, and Gerard tries not to promise anything he can’t keep, so.
“I’ll do my best. We’re on tour, obviously, and that gets a little crazy. But, yeah. I’ll give it a listen.” Gerard just hopes he’s not inadvertently lying.
“I’d just be - really fucking grateful,” the kid says, and the only emphasis at all in the sentence is on the word fucking, just enough for Gerard to know it’s possible, and the kid is looking up at Gerard with hope and something else, something vaguely desperate in his face and Gerard realizes then that maybe, maybe he’s being sort of awkwardly propositioned. “I’d do - basically anything,” the kid says. He looks determined more than anything else.
“What? Oh, geez, kid.” Gerard laughs, and it’s not mean, but the kid half-flinches back, a repressed sort of reaction, mostly suppressed but still visible. Gerard notices for the first time the way the line of his hips is sharp enough to cut paper.
“Ryan,” he says, meeting Gerard’s eyes again. “My name is Ryan.”
Gerard can’t say that, in this kid’s position, he’d have protested sucking a few cocks to get what he wanted. To have the chance at what he wanted. Gerard just never, ever wants to be the kind of person who would take advantage of that.
“I’ll listen to it, then, Ryan,” Gerard says, tucking the CD in the back pocket of his pants.
Ryan nods, and Gerard has to wonder how much Ryan actually believes him.
+
“Fuck,” Ryan mutters to himself as Gerard fucking Way walks away down the hall. “You fucking idiot.” He clenches his hands into fists at his sides, and wonders if he could’ve sounded any more fucking terrified than he actually had. He consciously makes the effort to unclench his hands and wonders when the erratic beating of his heart is going to slow down. He takes a deep breath, and goes to find Spencer.
Spencer’s waiting for him in the parking lot, leaned up against the hood of his mom’s car, hips tilted to the side like they always are. Ryan sits carefully next to him, and Spencer knows him well enough to press his thumb in a careful line down Ryan’s shoulder blade, but not to hug him, not to touch him in any way that means anything real. Ryan appreciates it more than he’s ever actually been able to say - he just has to trust that Spencer knows how to read his silences, the spaces between sentences. He thinks that if he can’t trust Spencer with that, he can’t trust anyone.
“Well?” Spencer asks, and if Ryan didn’t know him so well, he’d say the tone in Spencer’s voice is impatience, but Ryan does, and Spencer is possibly as scared as Ryan is. Ryan knows, the guilt settling low in his chest, that Spencer is still going to be the one who has to tell Brendon and Brent, either way. He nudges Spencer with his shoulder.
“He said -” Ryan starts, “he said he’d listen to it.”
“Yeah?” If Ryan looked over, he knows he’d see Spencer raising his eyebrows. He doesn’t need to. Instead, he stares out at the rows of Camrys and Avalons and Elements in front of him, shivering at the cool night air against the skin of his arms.
“Yeah,” he says.
It’s a start.
+
Gerard almost, almost, almost forgets about it, the CD stowed carefully in the side pocket of his backpack, and feels like an asshole or, maybe, something worse. He’s holding the kid’s dreams between his fingers and can’t even be bothered to treat them with care.
He looks at the handwriting, sharp and spiked, the stroke of the d reaching high, the loop of the g dipping low. Angular and brittle, angry. He’s almost not surprised.
He pops it into his discman, shoving his headphones carelessly over his ears, curling up in his bunk as he listens to all three tracks, bare feet burrowed under his covers, curtains drawn. He hasn’t told anyone about this, yet, and he’s not sure, at first, if he’ll have to. Then he gets to the last track.
“Shit,” he says, out loud, and cups his fingers over the headphones, pressing them closer to his ears. It’s not that they’re fabulous or polished in any sense of the word, just that Gerard remembers this - that feeling that any audience mattered, that the seventeen people who showed up deserved as good a show as the hundred and fifty the evening before, as the fifty-two the evening before that. The feeling that this was what he was meant to say, had to, even, and anyone who would listen was worth it. He pushes the pause button and opens up his discman again, staring at the writing, clear and clean, on the CD’s reflective surface. Then he pulls his cell out of his jeans and presses the third number in his speed dial.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end is scratchy and sleep-deprived, but not entirely without humor - long-suffering, almost.
“Brian?” he says, pressing his fingers against the sharp handwriting, “there’s uh. Something I think you should hear.”
+
The first week of non-response is the worst for Ryan. He spends the first three days of it checking his email obsessively, until Spencer pulls him away with the promise of band rehearsal, hands carefully pressing against his shoulder blades, fingertips ten points of reluctant heat sinking through the cotton of his t-shirt. After that, he stops expecting a reply at all - he knows that he shouldn’t have bothered hoping for that first week, but even he has his moments of optimism, however unfounded. When three weeks go by without any sort of sign, Ryan accepts that he is foolish, and that it was always too much to think that it could be this easy - to think that anyone would want them. Him, actually, if he’s honest about it, and he tries his hardest to be.
Then he gets Gerard’s email.
Or, rather, the email from Gerard’s manager.
Hey, it says, this is Brian Schechter, My Chem’s manager. Gerard sent me your demo, and it sounds pretty good. If you aren’t busy, we should meet up. Drop me a line or give me a call - my number is (609) 882 - 3417.
Like they’d have anything better to do than meet with My Chem’s manager. Ryan would roll his eyes at the thought if he had any emotion left in him to be flippant with. His fingers clutch into the edge of his desk, nails digging into the wood, and he’s looking over his shoulder for Spencer, his mouth soundlessly open.
It takes him a few long minutes to get himself together enough to speak.
“Spencer,” he says, not as loudly as he might normally. He hears the music stop as Spencer pauses his game of Halo in the next room, poking his head around the doorframe. Ryan sees the moment that Spencer registers the expression on his face, and even if he’s not exactly sure what he looks like, he knows Spencer’s over-protective face.
“What?” Spencer asks, his voice wary. “What happened?”
“I don’t -” Ryan starts, but realizes halfway through that he has no idea how to finish the sentence, and cuts himself off. He holds out his hand, beckoning Spencer closer. “I got this - Spencer. Look at it.” Spencer throws him an unreadable look, but approaches, leaning over Ryan’s shoulder, his breath tickling Ryan’s hair and the side of his neck, the shell of his ear.
“Holy fuck,” Spencer says. “Holy fuck, Ryan, what the shit.”
“I don’t even fucking know,” Ryan says. He looks up at Spencer, who is still hovering over his shoulder, eyes wide and staring at the white screen. Ryan wraps his fingers around Spencer’s wrist, anchoring himself in space and place, and he sucks in a quick breath through his teeth. “What do I do?” Ryan asks, staring at his fingers against Spencer’s skin, and he can feel Spencer turn to look at him.
“You fucking email him back, dickface,” Spencer says, and there’s a smile in his voice, wide and beaming. Ryan can smell it, taste it, almost, before he looks up and sees it, Spencer grinning at him, saying without words dude, fucking My Chem’s manager. Emphasis on every syllable.
Ryan hits reply, types quickly, hey, yeah, sure. give us a time and place, and we’ll be there.
- Ryan Ross
He’s pretty sure it sounds completely desperate, too much we’ll do fucking anything, we will for comfort, but it’s not like that isn’t true.
They’re fucking desperate. They are.
Ryan just wants to be able to look at Spencer and Brendon and Brent and think maybe, maybe we’re worth it, and have there actually be some chance.
+
It takes Brian about two weeks to work out a suitable time - Gerard knows this because he’s the reason it takes so long. Brian calls him from Brooklyn, a week after Gerard emails him the demo. It’s 9:00 am and way too early to be awake, but My Chem is on the west coast (somewhere between Washington State and California, he thinks), and it’s three hours later where Brian is.
“Hey,” Brian says, “you awake?” Gerard can hear the small smile in Brian’s voice. Brian has always been a sarcastic hardass, berating them for the things that are, yes, technically their fault, but Gerard can’t always help the shit that goes down on tour. Gerard thinks that Brian’s just happy that their problems are now contained to how bad the bus smells and not Gerard puking in the parking lot and snorting coke off the sink in the bathroom. Gerard can see the smirk on Brian’s face, the slight tilt of the right side of his mouth, uneven around his lip ring.
“No, not really,” Gerard says, yawning. He’s on the couch in the lounge, not for any particular reason other than that’s where he happened to fall asleep. He scrubs a hand over his face, tangling up into his dirty hair. He’s been shower-less for five days and counting, and he needs coffee if he’s going to stay awake for any length of time.
“Sorry,” Brian says, and Gerard doesn’t believe him, but doesn’t hold it against him, either. Not after the year they’ve had. Gerard sits up and looks around, but he’s alone in the lounge - the TV is still on, the screen glowing blue, signifying that Frank or Bob or someone had left the DVD player on when they went to bed. Gerard tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder, stumbling over to the makeshift kitchen. “I emailed your kid Ryan,” Brian continues, and Gerard makes a vague noise of affirmation as he spoons grounds into the coffee maker. “They’re up for a meeting.” Gerard refrains from rolling his eyes - of course they are. They’d be sort of dumb not to be. Ryan didn’t appear dumb, only desperate and young, and that’s something Gerard can definitely sympathize with. He leans against the counter, scratching at his stomach and holding in a yawn.
Gerard doesn’t normally pay much attention to Brian’s other musical endeavors. He knows that My Chemical Romance comes first, because while Brian tours occasionally with other bands, among other things, he’s still their manager. That’s about all Gerard needs to know - that Brian will be there when they need him. He has no reason to doubt it so far.
“I want to go with you to meet them,” he says, watching the coffee brew. He can hear Brian breathing on the other end of the phone as he processes, soft and even. “I want to see them play.”
“Okay,” Brian says, after a few moments of silence. Gerard can imagine the furrow in his brow as he thinks about scheduling and organizing, finagling their already too-crowded calendar. “I’ll see what I can do. You guys should have two days off in a row, eventually.”
“Thanks,” Gerard says. He’s not used to being the first awake, and the quiet of the bus makes him not want to talk, to instead sit back and listen to Brian breathe. It’s calming.
“No problem,” Brian says. Gerard waits for the coffee to finish.
+
Brian meets up with the tour procession somewhere in western Texas, and they decide to drive to Vegas. They have two days off and the next show is actually in New Mexico, so it’s not really that out of the way.
Brian insists on doing most of the driving, so Gerard just curls up in the passenger seat and watches Brian. He changes the CD every so often, drinks coffee, tracks the passing of highways and road signs. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly, but Gerard has talked to Brian as little as possible for the past six months or so. He has a lot to make up for, and he doesn’t know how to start, or where - and, somehow, Brian is the hardest out of all of them. Mikey forgave him before he even asked, and Frank wasn’t far behind. Ray had just said never to do it again, and Bob wasn’t band, then, and so it didn’t matter to him. Sometimes Gerard’s grateful to have someone he hasn’t had to ask forgiveness from, yet.
Brian, though, Brian was on the phone with him for hours, half of which he doesn’t even actually remember - thousands of words lost completely, spilled carelessly from his lips, and he doubts he’ll ever be able to retrieve them. He remembers giggling when Brian tried to talk to him, wrapping his fingers in the sleeve of Brian’s shirt and swinging himself in close, tucking his lips under Brian’s ear, against the riot man in blue and red on his neck. Brian never leaned in and never moved away, just stood there solid until Gerard got bored or distracted.
“Gerard,” he’d say, “you have to stop this.” And Gerard would just press his finger against the ring in the center of Brian’s lower lip, and he’d say,
“Shut up.”
Brian’s not saying anything now, though, just staring straight ahead, eyes on the road. Gerard takes a sip of his coffee and rolls down his window, fumbling for a cigarette in the pocket of his jacket. He breathes in as he lights it, watching the end catch and then turning to Brian.
“Want one?” he asks, voice carefully even. Brian glances at him, eyebrows raised.
“Sure,” he says. Gerard holds one out for him, hands him the lighter, watching the relaxing of his shoulders as he gets it lit, sucking smoke into his lungs. Gerard wonders if asking for forgiveness this late in the game is even possible.
+
Ryan writes almost non-stop for the duration of the five weeks, curled up on Spencer’s bed, or at the kitchen table when his father is out, or sitting at the counter in the Smoothie Shack while Brendon is at work. He pushes the streams of unpolished and unedited words at Brendon during breaks and doesn’t meet his eyes. He knows that Brendon treats them with care, always, but he still can’t watch, just in case. Just in case this time is different, and Brendon doesn’t get it - it hasn’t happened yet, but Ryan’s still waiting. He can’t help it.
They practice ruthlessly in the evenings when Brendon gets off of work, and Spencer is finished babysitting. Brent always beats Ryan to the practice space, smiling crookedly and opening the door with one hand, his bass fisted in the other. Brent plays almost entirely by ear, but he remembers his parts and constructs new ones, and when Brendon tells him to adjust the riff by a note or two, he remembers that also. Brendon thinks in piano, in arpeggios and chords, key signatures and eighth-quarter-half notes. He’s the one who writes everything down on neatly lined paper, tiny circles of notes, sharps and flats, and neither Ryan nor Brent can read them, but it doesn’t matter as long as Brendon can. Spencer doesn’t need any of them - he gets it right, he always gets it right, and he sighs, rolling his eyes and waiting for the rest of them to catch up. Some of their songs have drum parts before they have guitar parts, just lyrics and the skeleton of a melody, and a fully formed rhythm section.
They don’t talk about it, but as the meeting draws closer, they spend more time practicing and less time sleeping, less time communicating outside the scope of notes and riffs and verse-chorus-verse construction. They sleep in the practice space when Brendon goes to work, Ryan tucking his head under Spencer’s chin, curled up on a beanbag chair on the floor.
+
By the time the date actually comes around, they have two and a half more songs just about finished, two almost there, and another three just in the beginning stages. Ryan is proud and terrified and he stares at Spencer’s face while he tries to catch his breath, waiting for the door to open - or not, he knows. They might never show.
He can see out of the corner of his eye when Brent reaches over to steady Brendon’s knee, which is bouncing under the table. Spencer sighs and shakes his hair out of his face - besides that Ryan can see his fingers white-knuckled against the tabletop, Spencer’s nerves are almost completely unnoticeable. Ryan is mostly grateful, and a little guilty - it is always Spencer who feels he has to take the brunt. It’s probably true that he actually does, at least about some things. Ryan feels guiltier for this.
When the knock comes, Ryan jolts. He’s pessimistic by nature, and assuming that they’re not going to come is easier than assuming that they are and being disappointed. Ryan will always choose surprise over disappointment; it comes with expecting not to get what he wants. Ryan is really very good at that.
It’s Spencer who stands to get the door, and none of them are surprised. Ryan can feel the bowl of cereal he had for breakfast churning in his stomach, and he breathes in quickly through his mouth, almost a short gasp. Brendon is tapping his fingers rapidly on the tabletop. Brent is staring at the door, his lips between his teeth.
“Hi,” Spencer says when he opens the door. Ryan can see the careful curvature of his shoulders, his back straightened more out of a desire to be presentable than actual natural posture. He doubts that anyone else would even notice.
“Hi,” says a voice from just outside, half gruff and half amused. The man who appears through the entrance is not what Ryan is expecting - he’s tiny, tinier than Brendon, even, and covered in tattoos. His jeans are probably more hole than fabric, and he’s wearing a t-shirt. His smirk bends around his lip ring, saying something that Ryan is pretty sure is close to well, lets get right down to business, shall we?, which doesn’t exactly put Ryan at ease. Ryan watches him, wary, as he shakes hands with Spencer. Spencer is all business - one of them has to be.
Gerard Way, on the other hand, grins as he steps through the door, looking unwashed and disheveled, like he’s been in the car for a few hours with nothing to do, but still remarkably friendly. They both smell like cigarettes. Gerard runs a hand through his hair and waves at them.
“Hiya,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “So. I know that you’re Ryan -” he gestures at Ryan with one loose hand, “- but, um. Not the rest of you. So, hi. I’m Gerard, and this nutcase next to me is Brian.” His smile says hi, I’m here to give you a chance, and Ryan can feel the muscles in his shoulders want to relax, but they have nothing, yet, so he just nods his head and looks at Spencer.
Spencer, who is standing slightly behind Brian, rolls his eyes and smiles - still nervous, Ryan knows, but covering it up, pushing it away. One day, Ryan will be strong enough that he won’t need to. He will.
“I’m Spencer,” Spencer says. “Next to Ryan is Brendon, and then Brent is on the end.” Brendon grins, nervousness in the set of his shoulders and his hands on the tabletop, but not in his face. He says,
“Howdy,” his voice as light and unconcerned as he can fake. Brent manages a nod, but if anyone is particularly bad in new company, it’s Brent. He keeps his eyes cast mostly on the wood grain of the table.
“Well,” Brian says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, “why don’t you play something for us?”
For the first time, Ryan speaks up.
“Yeah, I think we can do that,” he says. He thinks that they can.
+
Gerard knows that he thinks differently than Brian does. Brian, whether he wants to or not, thinks in marketability and polish, thinks in booking and accounting and organizing. Gerard thinks, instead, in impact.
Gerard’s truth is this - they are something. Brendon, Brendon could be dangerous, with just his posture behind the piano broadcasting look at me; look at me, please, now. The lyrics, Gerard is pretty sure, are Ryan’s - it’s in the way he mouths along; he tags in for the backup vocals, but his lips move even when he’s silent, his head bowed over the body of his guitar. He is tense like a weapon, like a bow strung too tight to bend - he is tense enough to break. Spencer is everything stable and loose and comfortable, even if Gerard would guess that half of it is broadcasted, pasted on to look like this doesn’t matter. He is ease and rhythm; he is also the only one who looks like he means it when he smiles, glancing down at them over his drum set. Brendon’s lips curve up, but it is all sharp edges and broken glass; Brendon’s smiles are a challenge, a think you can keep up with me?. Ryan and Brent don’t even get that far. Ryan might lash out before he’ll smile, Gerard thinks, and he really doesn’t know about Brent. Brent doesn’t look up from his bass, his body shifted mostly away from them.
Brian is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, purposefully intimidating. Gerard, though, can see the way he pulls his piercing into his mouth, chews on his lips, and that means that he’s - something. Interested, maybe. Gerard wants to say yes, Brian, say yes, they’re worth it, because Gerard believes this, but now isn’t the time. Instead, he waits until Spencer’s last cymbal crash, the last chord on Ryan’s guitar, the elongated note of Brendon’s voice, and then he smiles. Wraps his hand around Brian’s wrist and says,
“Hey, thanks. That’s great. I’m just gonna pull Brian outside for a minute, okay?” And he can feel Brian’s hand tense, but he’s looking at the way that Ryan glances over his shoulder to Spencer, Spencer’s shrug in response. He thinks huh, and watches Brendon watching them.
“Yeah, okay,” Ryan says, and Gerard tugs Brian with him, out of the door.
+
Brendon says, “Well,” but stops after that, like he’s not sure what to say. Spencer comes over to them from behind the drums, drumsticks stuck in his back pocket. He hooks his chin over Brendon’s shoulder, fingers just touching the hem of his shirt. Ryan can see his lips press together like he’s humming, a drone in the back of his throat, and Brendon closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.
Ryan is pretending that he’s not watching every move that they make, strumming his fingers idly over the strings of his guitar.
“What do you think?” Brent asks, and Ryan assumes that he’s asking Spencer, but when Ryan glances up, Brent just has his eyebrows raised in Ryan’s direction.
“I think -” Ryan says, “I think.” He thinks he doesn’t know. Brendon had sounded even better than usual, but Ryan knows that he messed up a few chords, and if that really matters, than. Than maybe they shouldn’t even be trying.
“They’re going to say yes,” Brendon says, like he’s certain, like he knows, and sometimes Ryan wishes that he could just say what needs to be said like that. Say what people want to hear. Brendon, he’s pretty sure, doesn’t even really believe it himself, but.
“Yeah, dude,” Ryan says, trying for a smile. “Really.”
+
Gerard presses Brian back against the side of the building with the palms of his hands and the tips of his fingers, letting the grin spread across his face like he wants it to.
“Say yes, Brian,” he says. Brian is still like Gerard remembers him always being, not moving into Gerard’s hands, not pushing away. He turns his head to the side, looking over Gerard’s shoulder to the left, and he bites into his lip ring.
“You’re sure they can do it?” is what he asks. Gerard is certain that he knows the answer.
“Yeah,” he says. “Dude, you were there when we started. At least their fucking amps work. It’s there - or, if it’s not, it will be.”
Brian meets Gerard’s eyes, then, squinting as he scrutinizes in that Brian way that he does - like he’s searching for something specific - and Gerard doesn’t dare look away. Finally, Brian nods to himself, and he says,
“Okay. Yes it is, then.”
Gerard knows, then, that he hadn’t needed to bother convincing - Brian only gives in that easily when his mind is already made up.
“Good,” is all he says.
+
Ryan manages not to faint, or puke, or scream when Gerard and Brian come back in. He just sits so, so still and waits until Brian says,
“Honestly, the live performance needs some work - fine tuning mostly, but I think we can deal with that. The songs themselves have potential - maybe some tightening up in the melodies, but. Good, so far.” Ryan looks up from where he’s been staring at the scuffmarks on his shoes. He can’t exactly look Brian in the face, not right now, so he just settles for staring at the curve of his chin, the line of his lower lip arched up, the glint of metal in the fluorescent lighting. “So, if you guys want to take a look at the papers, I think we can work something out.” When Ryan finally manages to work his eyes upward, Brian’s smile isn’t sly, and it isn’t smug, it isn’t I hold the rest of your lives in my hands. It’s - cautiously optimistic, and Ryan balls his hands into fists and presses them against his thighs, his fingernails digging into his palms. He lets himself smile, just a little, and he says,
“Yes.” He says, “Definitely, I mean -”
“Where’re the papers?” Spencer asks, and Ryan sends him a look of thanks.
Gerard just smiles from behind Brian.
+
Later, when Ryan is sitting with their contract - their contract - mostly fisted between his hands, signed and everything, Brian says,
“Our prerogative is to get you guys on tour, as soon as possible.” He’s leaning easily back against the wall of the practice space, certainty in the spread of his feet, the loose lines of his arms.
“But,” Spencer says, sitting close enough that Ryan can feel the heat of him all along his side, “shouldn’t we have an album first? An EP, even.” Ryan’s not even totally sure they have enough songs for an extended set. He looks at the contract in his hands and knows that he’ll do whatever it takes, whatever it takes.
“Eventually we’ll stick you in the studio to record, but we need you to perfect your live performance, first. Can’t be a good band if you don’t play well live, you know?”
“What about,” Ryan says, before he even knows he’s going to start talking. “I mean. What about the demos? We could sell those at shows, right?” He almost winces at the questioning tone to his voice, but manages to suppress it. He knows that half of popularity is word of mouth, and how much easier that is with a CD that can be popped in a car disc player, or put on at parties.
“That’s a good idea, actually, if you feel like buying a million blank CDs.” Brian smiles, and he looks nice. Ryan wonders why he doesn’t smile that often, but - maybe that’s why.
“I’d draw you a cover, if you wanted,” Gerard says from the side of the room, smiling. “It won’t be anything professional, but it’ll be easy to Xerox and better than nothing.”
“That would be - ” Brendon starts.
“Amazing,” Ryan finishes, and he can feel the corner of his mouth lift in half a smile.
“I’ll email it to you guys later, then,” Gerard says. Ryan leans into Spencer’s shoulder and thinks that, maybe, they’ll actually get what they want.
+
Gerard stops by the car, his hand on the top of the passenger side door. He lets his cigarette butt fall to the ground, and he stamps it out, watching as Brian sucks smoke into his mouth, cheeks hollowing with it.
“Brian?” he asks, and Brian looks up at him with raised eyebrows, pulling the cigarette away so he can breathe out, tendrils of white smoke brushing against his skin and hair. “Think we could maybe get them to open on our next tour? A three or four song set, maybe, just at the beginning?”
Brian ashes his cigarette, and cocks his head to the side, giving Gerard a calculating, almost quizzical look.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because -” Gerard starts, and sighs. “They remind me of - us. Back at the very beginning.” And Ryan, he doesn’t say, reminds Gerard of Mikey, on the hard days.
“You’ve taken quite the interest in them,” Brian says, dropping his cigarette and pulling the driver’s side door open.
“Yeah,” Gerard says. “I guess.” It’s true. He doesn’t normally care much about other bands - not that he doesn’t like them, he’s just never taken interest in a band like this before.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Brian says, and then slides into the car.
+
Gerard’s sketching on the couch in the lounge when Brian calls. He’s been at it for the past few days, trying to figure out what to put on Panic’s CD cover. They’ll be happy with whatever they get, he knows, as long as they can say Gerard from MCR drew this for us. Gerard doesn’t like to think it, really, but he knows it’s true. He hopes he never gets used to other people’s over-appreciation of him.
“Your cell phone’s ringing,” Frank says, popping his head out from the bunk area.
“What?” Gerard says, looking up from his sketch. “Oh.” Frank grins and rolls his eyes - he doesn’t have to say wow, Gerard, space cadet, much? for Gerard to know he’s thinking it.
By the time Gerard actually finds his phone amid the dirty clothes and discarded pencils and rumpled bedclothes, he’s missed the call. He takes his phone back into the lounge, and continues his sketch while he calls Brian back.
“Hello?” Brian says, “Gerard?”
“Yeah,” Gerard says. “What’s up?” Gerard tucks the phone between his shoulder and his ear, thinking that this is why he doesn’t get a newer, smaller cellphone. The tiny ones just don’t stay right. Mikey wanders over with a cup of coffee, and trades him for the sketchbook.
“I got Panic a few local gigs,” Brian says, ignoring all normal preamble, “and when the new tour starts up next month, they’ll get a short, four or five song set at the very beginning, for the first leg, at least.” Gerard takes a sip of Mikey’s coffee, which is too sweet and creamy for him, but it’s caffeinated, so it doesn’t much matter. Mikey is tracing the lines on his sketchpad, light enough so that he doesn’t smear the pencil.
“Cool,” Gerard says. “You’re pretty much made of magic, you know that, right?” Gerard isn’t entirely sure that he doesn’t mean it. Brian pretty much is made of magic. He and Bob together could stop world hunger, Gerard is almost positive. Mikey nods along, half paying attention to the conversation as he studies the drawing.
“Yeah, I know,” Brian says. He sounds amused, which is a positive. Someday, Gerard will find the right words to apologize, but until then, he’s at least going to make sure that Brian knows he’s appreciated.
“You think I’m joking,” Gerard pushes. “But I’m not, Brian.”
“I’ll see you in a few weeks.” Brian hangs up before Gerard can say goodbye, but that’s normal Brian, getting back to business.
Mikey looks up from the sketchbook, placing it carefully on Gerard’s lap, and taking back his coffee. He doesn’t even seem to mind that there’s only about half left. Mikey’s always been good about sharing with Gerard.
“This them?” he asks, his voice curious.
“Yeah,” Gerard says, looking down at the figures sketched roughly on paper. “You’ll see what I mean when you meet them.”
+
Ryan’s sitting at the computer in his room when he gets the email. Spencer is reading a magazine on his bed, lying on his stomach with his feet in the air. Ryan can hear the slick sound of laminated paper as Spencer turns the page, vaguely, like a sound from far away, and he can’t look away from the computer screen. His fingers clench at the edge of the desk, and he says,
“Hey, Spencer?” His voice is soft to his own ears, but he can’t tell how much of that is the real quietness of his words, and how much of it is the shock. He turns to look at Spencer, who has glanced up from the magazine. Ryan can see the moment Spencer processes the expression on his face, wariness settling across his features.
“What?” he asks.
“Gerard sent us the CD cover,” Ryan says. For half a second, Spencer’s mouth is an ‘O’ of surprise. Then he collects himself, scrambling off the bed, hurried, and leans over Ryan’s shoulder as he looks at the computer screen.
It’s all thick, sharp black lines and accentuated features - Brendon is in the front, slightly to the left of center, wide grin spread across his full lips, leaning forward onto the cane in his right hand. He’s got a sixteenth note trapped, squirming, under the point of his cane. Ryan’s further to the left, sitting on an ornately patterned drum, his legs crossed, and his hugely exaggerated guitar in his lap, dwarfing him. He’s looking down, hair covering more than half of his face, but his one exposed eye is exotically painted, a second sixteenth note drawn, carefully, on his cheek. Spencer is behind Brendon to the right, seated behind a shrunken version of his drum kit, using two quarter notes as drumsticks. His grin is wide and happy, entirely Spencer-like. Brent is farthest to the right, his body half twisted away, hair completely obscuring his expression. His bass is in the shape of another quarter note, fingers pressed to the strings. In the corner, written in simple cursive, it says Panic! At The Disco - Relax, Relapse.
“Awesome,” Spencer says, nodding.
“Think we can get your mom to buy us some blank CDs?” Ryan asks. It’s pretty much fucking perfect.
+
Gerard’s used to only having about a week off between tours. At least this time, he thinks, he has something to look forward to besides performing - Panic will be joining them in a few days. Gerard’s not sure what to do, exactly, with his irrational affection for them, except to roll with it and see what happens. He curls up on the couch in the lounge with his sketchbook and his ridiculously large mug of coffee, but he can’t think of what to draw. He doodles a few tiny dancing skeletons, and sketches the contour of hands pressing piano keys, but nothing worth making into a larger piece. He sighs, and puts his pencil down. What he wouldn’t do for the room to bring his paints on tour with him. He’s got a few watercolor sets stashed around, but he misses the thick quality of paint - he always feels like he’s getting something done when there are swathes of paint involved.
“Hello, Mr. Space Case,” Frank says, plopping down next to him on the couch. He giggles that high-pitched giggle of his and steals Gerard’s mug. Gerard bats at his hands, and tries to reclaim his hard-won caffeine, but Frank’s always been a wiggly bastard, and manages to get a few good gulps in.
“Hey,” Gerard says, scowling. “Get your own.”
“Gerard,” Frank says, seriously, “your mug is the size of your head. How do you not have to piss like a racehorse all the time?”
“Maybe I just have a really big bladder,” Gerard says. His fingers are itching for a cigarette in that way they always do when he’s not drawing. Eventually, he supposes he should go outside and smoke. Frank pokes him in the belly and sighs.
“I’m not going to have to separate you two, am I?” Mikey asks from the doorway to the bunks, yawning and scratching at his scalp.
“I don’t think we’re really fighting,” Gerard says, smiling and holding out his mug to Mikey. He hears Frank’s offended snort, but Mikey is his brother. Mikey gets special caffeine privileges. Mikey shoots him a grateful look and folds himself up on one of the chairs, his knees somehow fitting below his chin.
Gerard has good feelings about this tour.
+
The van is, quite honestly, a piece of shit; Ryan knows this, but he really, really doesn’t care. He throws his bag in the back and climbs into the passenger seat, waiting for Spencer and Brendon to get back from the convenience store attached to the gas station. Brent is fast asleep in the last row of seats, snoring softly, and Ryan is envious. He’s been driving for almost four hours straight, and he stares out of the window, wondering if he will even possibly be able to fall asleep.
Tomorrow they’re starting on the tour. Tomorrow they are opening for My Chem. Ryan’s not sure how this is his life, but he doesn’t want to close his eyes, just in case it all goes away. It’s not that, logically, he thinks that’ll happen, but he’s never been good at applying logic to his life. There’s too much room for error between logic and reality.
Spencer’s got a six-pack of Red Bull and a tube of Pringles swinging from a plastic bag on his wrist when he leaves the store. Brendon’s already eating a Slim Jim, and Ryan can see the bag of M&Ms sticking out of his back pocket as he climbs into the van.
“Spencer’s driving,” he says, still chewing loudly.
“Thus, the Red Bull,” Spencer adds, sliding into the driver’s side seat. He pops out Take This To You Grave, and puts in Your Favorite Weapon instead. They have a silent agreement not to put on Brought You My Bullets for the entire ride. Ryan already feels like enough of a fanboy - he gave Gerard their demos at a show, a show he was honestly really excited to see - and he knows that Spencer feels similarly. He’s not sure how long this will last for, but he’s also not sure it matters.
“Ready to go?” Spencer asks, glancing in the rearview as he starts the car.
“Yeah,” Ryan says, mouthing, and if you ever said you miss me then don't say you never lied along with Jesse Lacey - the speakers are shit, just like the van, but it doesn’t matter. He sees Spencer looking over at him, and he smiles, just a little. Spencer pulls out of the parking lot.
They have about three hours left to go.
continued in part two
MCR/Panic gen (some Brian/Gerard, some Ryan/Mikey)
21,642 words, third person, pg-13. This is, essentially, an alternate timeline au - what if, way back in the beginning, Ryan had gone to Gerard instead of Pete? A huge thank you to moorfaerie and kawaii_tenshi27 for betaing for me. You guys are awesome, and any remaining errors are mine.
Also, a huge fucking thank you to wakexthedead, hobbit_sexual, and erode for the fanmixes, and to frek for the fanart. I can’t even begin to thank you guys enough. The fanmixes are here, and the fanart is here. ♥
“What? Oh, geez, kid.” Gerard laughs, and it’s not mean, but the kid half-flinches back, a repressed sort of reaction, mostly suppressed but still visible. Gerard notices for the first time the way the line of his hips is sharp enough to cut paper.
“Ryan,” he says, meeting Gerard’s eyes again. “My name is Ryan.”
Gerard stumbles offstage, adrenaline high and sweat-slicked, makeup running from the corners of his eyes like raccoon-circles. He presses the heel of his palm against his left eye-socket, wiping at his eyelid, leaving black residue on the skin of his palm, trailing up to the base of his thumb. He laughs, a high giggle, and waves to Frank over his shoulder as he starts down the hallway to the dressing room. His shirt is sticking to his chest, and his pants are chafing against his thighs as he walks, and he hasn’t felt this good sober in a long time. The clarity to it isn’t something he ever thought he’d want. He presses his fingers against the white painted bricks, florescent lights above his head, and he’s startled by the waif-thin boy leaning against the wall about twenty feet in front of him.
“Hey,” the boy says, his eyes too large in his face, his bones sharp like Mikey after a hard week. Oh, Gerard thinks, half unconsciously, one of those. Every once in a while a few kids with long, lank hair, and white white skin, and sadness in the set of their mouth will find their way backstage. Gerard doesn’t even really mind. “You’re Gerard Way, right?” He asks like he already knows, and he does. Gerard can tell from the half-awed look on his face, one hand deep in the pocket of his pants.
“That’s me,” Gerard says, scrubbing at his eyes again, makeup on his fingers in a way that makes him want to paint. Or, possibly, run it over the blank canvas of the boy’s skin. He doesn’t.
“Um, I just,” the kid says, looking at his ragged sneakers, newsboy cap pulled down low over his forehead. “Here.” He holds out a CD, homemade case, the words demo songs - 1 written out in sharpie on the plastic cover.
“What’s this?” Gerard asks, mostly curious. The adrenaline is still rushing through his veins, making him jittery, twitchy, and he fiddles with a lock of his hair, pushing it behind his ear.
“My demo - my band’s demo. Sort of.” The kid doesn’t look up, but the edges of his mouth lift enough that his voice sounds wrong - too monotone for what should be excitement. Passion. Something. “Just - do you think you could listen? Tell me what you think. My email’s on the inside cover.” He bites his lower lip, and finally meets Gerard’s eyes, and Gerard tries not to promise anything he can’t keep, so.
“I’ll do my best. We’re on tour, obviously, and that gets a little crazy. But, yeah. I’ll give it a listen.” Gerard just hopes he’s not inadvertently lying.
“I’d just be - really fucking grateful,” the kid says, and the only emphasis at all in the sentence is on the word fucking, just enough for Gerard to know it’s possible, and the kid is looking up at Gerard with hope and something else, something vaguely desperate in his face and Gerard realizes then that maybe, maybe he’s being sort of awkwardly propositioned. “I’d do - basically anything,” the kid says. He looks determined more than anything else.
“What? Oh, geez, kid.” Gerard laughs, and it’s not mean, but the kid half-flinches back, a repressed sort of reaction, mostly suppressed but still visible. Gerard notices for the first time the way the line of his hips is sharp enough to cut paper.
“Ryan,” he says, meeting Gerard’s eyes again. “My name is Ryan.”
Gerard can’t say that, in this kid’s position, he’d have protested sucking a few cocks to get what he wanted. To have the chance at what he wanted. Gerard just never, ever wants to be the kind of person who would take advantage of that.
“I’ll listen to it, then, Ryan,” Gerard says, tucking the CD in the back pocket of his pants.
Ryan nods, and Gerard has to wonder how much Ryan actually believes him.
+
“Fuck,” Ryan mutters to himself as Gerard fucking Way walks away down the hall. “You fucking idiot.” He clenches his hands into fists at his sides, and wonders if he could’ve sounded any more fucking terrified than he actually had. He consciously makes the effort to unclench his hands and wonders when the erratic beating of his heart is going to slow down. He takes a deep breath, and goes to find Spencer.
Spencer’s waiting for him in the parking lot, leaned up against the hood of his mom’s car, hips tilted to the side like they always are. Ryan sits carefully next to him, and Spencer knows him well enough to press his thumb in a careful line down Ryan’s shoulder blade, but not to hug him, not to touch him in any way that means anything real. Ryan appreciates it more than he’s ever actually been able to say - he just has to trust that Spencer knows how to read his silences, the spaces between sentences. He thinks that if he can’t trust Spencer with that, he can’t trust anyone.
“Well?” Spencer asks, and if Ryan didn’t know him so well, he’d say the tone in Spencer’s voice is impatience, but Ryan does, and Spencer is possibly as scared as Ryan is. Ryan knows, the guilt settling low in his chest, that Spencer is still going to be the one who has to tell Brendon and Brent, either way. He nudges Spencer with his shoulder.
“He said -” Ryan starts, “he said he’d listen to it.”
“Yeah?” If Ryan looked over, he knows he’d see Spencer raising his eyebrows. He doesn’t need to. Instead, he stares out at the rows of Camrys and Avalons and Elements in front of him, shivering at the cool night air against the skin of his arms.
“Yeah,” he says.
It’s a start.
+
Gerard almost, almost, almost forgets about it, the CD stowed carefully in the side pocket of his backpack, and feels like an asshole or, maybe, something worse. He’s holding the kid’s dreams between his fingers and can’t even be bothered to treat them with care.
He looks at the handwriting, sharp and spiked, the stroke of the d reaching high, the loop of the g dipping low. Angular and brittle, angry. He’s almost not surprised.
He pops it into his discman, shoving his headphones carelessly over his ears, curling up in his bunk as he listens to all three tracks, bare feet burrowed under his covers, curtains drawn. He hasn’t told anyone about this, yet, and he’s not sure, at first, if he’ll have to. Then he gets to the last track.
“Shit,” he says, out loud, and cups his fingers over the headphones, pressing them closer to his ears. It’s not that they’re fabulous or polished in any sense of the word, just that Gerard remembers this - that feeling that any audience mattered, that the seventeen people who showed up deserved as good a show as the hundred and fifty the evening before, as the fifty-two the evening before that. The feeling that this was what he was meant to say, had to, even, and anyone who would listen was worth it. He pushes the pause button and opens up his discman again, staring at the writing, clear and clean, on the CD’s reflective surface. Then he pulls his cell out of his jeans and presses the third number in his speed dial.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end is scratchy and sleep-deprived, but not entirely without humor - long-suffering, almost.
“Brian?” he says, pressing his fingers against the sharp handwriting, “there’s uh. Something I think you should hear.”
+
The first week of non-response is the worst for Ryan. He spends the first three days of it checking his email obsessively, until Spencer pulls him away with the promise of band rehearsal, hands carefully pressing against his shoulder blades, fingertips ten points of reluctant heat sinking through the cotton of his t-shirt. After that, he stops expecting a reply at all - he knows that he shouldn’t have bothered hoping for that first week, but even he has his moments of optimism, however unfounded. When three weeks go by without any sort of sign, Ryan accepts that he is foolish, and that it was always too much to think that it could be this easy - to think that anyone would want them. Him, actually, if he’s honest about it, and he tries his hardest to be.
Then he gets Gerard’s email.
Or, rather, the email from Gerard’s manager.
Hey, it says, this is Brian Schechter, My Chem’s manager. Gerard sent me your demo, and it sounds pretty good. If you aren’t busy, we should meet up. Drop me a line or give me a call - my number is (609) 882 - 3417.
Like they’d have anything better to do than meet with My Chem’s manager. Ryan would roll his eyes at the thought if he had any emotion left in him to be flippant with. His fingers clutch into the edge of his desk, nails digging into the wood, and he’s looking over his shoulder for Spencer, his mouth soundlessly open.
It takes him a few long minutes to get himself together enough to speak.
“Spencer,” he says, not as loudly as he might normally. He hears the music stop as Spencer pauses his game of Halo in the next room, poking his head around the doorframe. Ryan sees the moment that Spencer registers the expression on his face, and even if he’s not exactly sure what he looks like, he knows Spencer’s over-protective face.
“What?” Spencer asks, his voice wary. “What happened?”
“I don’t -” Ryan starts, but realizes halfway through that he has no idea how to finish the sentence, and cuts himself off. He holds out his hand, beckoning Spencer closer. “I got this - Spencer. Look at it.” Spencer throws him an unreadable look, but approaches, leaning over Ryan’s shoulder, his breath tickling Ryan’s hair and the side of his neck, the shell of his ear.
“Holy fuck,” Spencer says. “Holy fuck, Ryan, what the shit.”
“I don’t even fucking know,” Ryan says. He looks up at Spencer, who is still hovering over his shoulder, eyes wide and staring at the white screen. Ryan wraps his fingers around Spencer’s wrist, anchoring himself in space and place, and he sucks in a quick breath through his teeth. “What do I do?” Ryan asks, staring at his fingers against Spencer’s skin, and he can feel Spencer turn to look at him.
“You fucking email him back, dickface,” Spencer says, and there’s a smile in his voice, wide and beaming. Ryan can smell it, taste it, almost, before he looks up and sees it, Spencer grinning at him, saying without words dude, fucking My Chem’s manager. Emphasis on every syllable.
Ryan hits reply, types quickly, hey, yeah, sure. give us a time and place, and we’ll be there.
- Ryan Ross
He’s pretty sure it sounds completely desperate, too much we’ll do fucking anything, we will for comfort, but it’s not like that isn’t true.
They’re fucking desperate. They are.
Ryan just wants to be able to look at Spencer and Brendon and Brent and think maybe, maybe we’re worth it, and have there actually be some chance.
+
It takes Brian about two weeks to work out a suitable time - Gerard knows this because he’s the reason it takes so long. Brian calls him from Brooklyn, a week after Gerard emails him the demo. It’s 9:00 am and way too early to be awake, but My Chem is on the west coast (somewhere between Washington State and California, he thinks), and it’s three hours later where Brian is.
“Hey,” Brian says, “you awake?” Gerard can hear the small smile in Brian’s voice. Brian has always been a sarcastic hardass, berating them for the things that are, yes, technically their fault, but Gerard can’t always help the shit that goes down on tour. Gerard thinks that Brian’s just happy that their problems are now contained to how bad the bus smells and not Gerard puking in the parking lot and snorting coke off the sink in the bathroom. Gerard can see the smirk on Brian’s face, the slight tilt of the right side of his mouth, uneven around his lip ring.
“No, not really,” Gerard says, yawning. He’s on the couch in the lounge, not for any particular reason other than that’s where he happened to fall asleep. He scrubs a hand over his face, tangling up into his dirty hair. He’s been shower-less for five days and counting, and he needs coffee if he’s going to stay awake for any length of time.
“Sorry,” Brian says, and Gerard doesn’t believe him, but doesn’t hold it against him, either. Not after the year they’ve had. Gerard sits up and looks around, but he’s alone in the lounge - the TV is still on, the screen glowing blue, signifying that Frank or Bob or someone had left the DVD player on when they went to bed. Gerard tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder, stumbling over to the makeshift kitchen. “I emailed your kid Ryan,” Brian continues, and Gerard makes a vague noise of affirmation as he spoons grounds into the coffee maker. “They’re up for a meeting.” Gerard refrains from rolling his eyes - of course they are. They’d be sort of dumb not to be. Ryan didn’t appear dumb, only desperate and young, and that’s something Gerard can definitely sympathize with. He leans against the counter, scratching at his stomach and holding in a yawn.
Gerard doesn’t normally pay much attention to Brian’s other musical endeavors. He knows that My Chemical Romance comes first, because while Brian tours occasionally with other bands, among other things, he’s still their manager. That’s about all Gerard needs to know - that Brian will be there when they need him. He has no reason to doubt it so far.
“I want to go with you to meet them,” he says, watching the coffee brew. He can hear Brian breathing on the other end of the phone as he processes, soft and even. “I want to see them play.”
“Okay,” Brian says, after a few moments of silence. Gerard can imagine the furrow in his brow as he thinks about scheduling and organizing, finagling their already too-crowded calendar. “I’ll see what I can do. You guys should have two days off in a row, eventually.”
“Thanks,” Gerard says. He’s not used to being the first awake, and the quiet of the bus makes him not want to talk, to instead sit back and listen to Brian breathe. It’s calming.
“No problem,” Brian says. Gerard waits for the coffee to finish.
+
Brian meets up with the tour procession somewhere in western Texas, and they decide to drive to Vegas. They have two days off and the next show is actually in New Mexico, so it’s not really that out of the way.
Brian insists on doing most of the driving, so Gerard just curls up in the passenger seat and watches Brian. He changes the CD every so often, drinks coffee, tracks the passing of highways and road signs. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly, but Gerard has talked to Brian as little as possible for the past six months or so. He has a lot to make up for, and he doesn’t know how to start, or where - and, somehow, Brian is the hardest out of all of them. Mikey forgave him before he even asked, and Frank wasn’t far behind. Ray had just said never to do it again, and Bob wasn’t band, then, and so it didn’t matter to him. Sometimes Gerard’s grateful to have someone he hasn’t had to ask forgiveness from, yet.
Brian, though, Brian was on the phone with him for hours, half of which he doesn’t even actually remember - thousands of words lost completely, spilled carelessly from his lips, and he doubts he’ll ever be able to retrieve them. He remembers giggling when Brian tried to talk to him, wrapping his fingers in the sleeve of Brian’s shirt and swinging himself in close, tucking his lips under Brian’s ear, against the riot man in blue and red on his neck. Brian never leaned in and never moved away, just stood there solid until Gerard got bored or distracted.
“Gerard,” he’d say, “you have to stop this.” And Gerard would just press his finger against the ring in the center of Brian’s lower lip, and he’d say,
“Shut up.”
Brian’s not saying anything now, though, just staring straight ahead, eyes on the road. Gerard takes a sip of his coffee and rolls down his window, fumbling for a cigarette in the pocket of his jacket. He breathes in as he lights it, watching the end catch and then turning to Brian.
“Want one?” he asks, voice carefully even. Brian glances at him, eyebrows raised.
“Sure,” he says. Gerard holds one out for him, hands him the lighter, watching the relaxing of his shoulders as he gets it lit, sucking smoke into his lungs. Gerard wonders if asking for forgiveness this late in the game is even possible.
+
Ryan writes almost non-stop for the duration of the five weeks, curled up on Spencer’s bed, or at the kitchen table when his father is out, or sitting at the counter in the Smoothie Shack while Brendon is at work. He pushes the streams of unpolished and unedited words at Brendon during breaks and doesn’t meet his eyes. He knows that Brendon treats them with care, always, but he still can’t watch, just in case. Just in case this time is different, and Brendon doesn’t get it - it hasn’t happened yet, but Ryan’s still waiting. He can’t help it.
They practice ruthlessly in the evenings when Brendon gets off of work, and Spencer is finished babysitting. Brent always beats Ryan to the practice space, smiling crookedly and opening the door with one hand, his bass fisted in the other. Brent plays almost entirely by ear, but he remembers his parts and constructs new ones, and when Brendon tells him to adjust the riff by a note or two, he remembers that also. Brendon thinks in piano, in arpeggios and chords, key signatures and eighth-quarter-half notes. He’s the one who writes everything down on neatly lined paper, tiny circles of notes, sharps and flats, and neither Ryan nor Brent can read them, but it doesn’t matter as long as Brendon can. Spencer doesn’t need any of them - he gets it right, he always gets it right, and he sighs, rolling his eyes and waiting for the rest of them to catch up. Some of their songs have drum parts before they have guitar parts, just lyrics and the skeleton of a melody, and a fully formed rhythm section.
They don’t talk about it, but as the meeting draws closer, they spend more time practicing and less time sleeping, less time communicating outside the scope of notes and riffs and verse-chorus-verse construction. They sleep in the practice space when Brendon goes to work, Ryan tucking his head under Spencer’s chin, curled up on a beanbag chair on the floor.
+
By the time the date actually comes around, they have two and a half more songs just about finished, two almost there, and another three just in the beginning stages. Ryan is proud and terrified and he stares at Spencer’s face while he tries to catch his breath, waiting for the door to open - or not, he knows. They might never show.
He can see out of the corner of his eye when Brent reaches over to steady Brendon’s knee, which is bouncing under the table. Spencer sighs and shakes his hair out of his face - besides that Ryan can see his fingers white-knuckled against the tabletop, Spencer’s nerves are almost completely unnoticeable. Ryan is mostly grateful, and a little guilty - it is always Spencer who feels he has to take the brunt. It’s probably true that he actually does, at least about some things. Ryan feels guiltier for this.
When the knock comes, Ryan jolts. He’s pessimistic by nature, and assuming that they’re not going to come is easier than assuming that they are and being disappointed. Ryan will always choose surprise over disappointment; it comes with expecting not to get what he wants. Ryan is really very good at that.
It’s Spencer who stands to get the door, and none of them are surprised. Ryan can feel the bowl of cereal he had for breakfast churning in his stomach, and he breathes in quickly through his mouth, almost a short gasp. Brendon is tapping his fingers rapidly on the tabletop. Brent is staring at the door, his lips between his teeth.
“Hi,” Spencer says when he opens the door. Ryan can see the careful curvature of his shoulders, his back straightened more out of a desire to be presentable than actual natural posture. He doubts that anyone else would even notice.
“Hi,” says a voice from just outside, half gruff and half amused. The man who appears through the entrance is not what Ryan is expecting - he’s tiny, tinier than Brendon, even, and covered in tattoos. His jeans are probably more hole than fabric, and he’s wearing a t-shirt. His smirk bends around his lip ring, saying something that Ryan is pretty sure is close to well, lets get right down to business, shall we?, which doesn’t exactly put Ryan at ease. Ryan watches him, wary, as he shakes hands with Spencer. Spencer is all business - one of them has to be.
Gerard Way, on the other hand, grins as he steps through the door, looking unwashed and disheveled, like he’s been in the car for a few hours with nothing to do, but still remarkably friendly. They both smell like cigarettes. Gerard runs a hand through his hair and waves at them.
“Hiya,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “So. I know that you’re Ryan -” he gestures at Ryan with one loose hand, “- but, um. Not the rest of you. So, hi. I’m Gerard, and this nutcase next to me is Brian.” His smile says hi, I’m here to give you a chance, and Ryan can feel the muscles in his shoulders want to relax, but they have nothing, yet, so he just nods his head and looks at Spencer.
Spencer, who is standing slightly behind Brian, rolls his eyes and smiles - still nervous, Ryan knows, but covering it up, pushing it away. One day, Ryan will be strong enough that he won’t need to. He will.
“I’m Spencer,” Spencer says. “Next to Ryan is Brendon, and then Brent is on the end.” Brendon grins, nervousness in the set of his shoulders and his hands on the tabletop, but not in his face. He says,
“Howdy,” his voice as light and unconcerned as he can fake. Brent manages a nod, but if anyone is particularly bad in new company, it’s Brent. He keeps his eyes cast mostly on the wood grain of the table.
“Well,” Brian says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, “why don’t you play something for us?”
For the first time, Ryan speaks up.
“Yeah, I think we can do that,” he says. He thinks that they can.
+
Gerard knows that he thinks differently than Brian does. Brian, whether he wants to or not, thinks in marketability and polish, thinks in booking and accounting and organizing. Gerard thinks, instead, in impact.
Gerard’s truth is this - they are something. Brendon, Brendon could be dangerous, with just his posture behind the piano broadcasting look at me; look at me, please, now. The lyrics, Gerard is pretty sure, are Ryan’s - it’s in the way he mouths along; he tags in for the backup vocals, but his lips move even when he’s silent, his head bowed over the body of his guitar. He is tense like a weapon, like a bow strung too tight to bend - he is tense enough to break. Spencer is everything stable and loose and comfortable, even if Gerard would guess that half of it is broadcasted, pasted on to look like this doesn’t matter. He is ease and rhythm; he is also the only one who looks like he means it when he smiles, glancing down at them over his drum set. Brendon’s lips curve up, but it is all sharp edges and broken glass; Brendon’s smiles are a challenge, a think you can keep up with me?. Ryan and Brent don’t even get that far. Ryan might lash out before he’ll smile, Gerard thinks, and he really doesn’t know about Brent. Brent doesn’t look up from his bass, his body shifted mostly away from them.
Brian is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, purposefully intimidating. Gerard, though, can see the way he pulls his piercing into his mouth, chews on his lips, and that means that he’s - something. Interested, maybe. Gerard wants to say yes, Brian, say yes, they’re worth it, because Gerard believes this, but now isn’t the time. Instead, he waits until Spencer’s last cymbal crash, the last chord on Ryan’s guitar, the elongated note of Brendon’s voice, and then he smiles. Wraps his hand around Brian’s wrist and says,
“Hey, thanks. That’s great. I’m just gonna pull Brian outside for a minute, okay?” And he can feel Brian’s hand tense, but he’s looking at the way that Ryan glances over his shoulder to Spencer, Spencer’s shrug in response. He thinks huh, and watches Brendon watching them.
“Yeah, okay,” Ryan says, and Gerard tugs Brian with him, out of the door.
+
Brendon says, “Well,” but stops after that, like he’s not sure what to say. Spencer comes over to them from behind the drums, drumsticks stuck in his back pocket. He hooks his chin over Brendon’s shoulder, fingers just touching the hem of his shirt. Ryan can see his lips press together like he’s humming, a drone in the back of his throat, and Brendon closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.
Ryan is pretending that he’s not watching every move that they make, strumming his fingers idly over the strings of his guitar.
“What do you think?” Brent asks, and Ryan assumes that he’s asking Spencer, but when Ryan glances up, Brent just has his eyebrows raised in Ryan’s direction.
“I think -” Ryan says, “I think.” He thinks he doesn’t know. Brendon had sounded even better than usual, but Ryan knows that he messed up a few chords, and if that really matters, than. Than maybe they shouldn’t even be trying.
“They’re going to say yes,” Brendon says, like he’s certain, like he knows, and sometimes Ryan wishes that he could just say what needs to be said like that. Say what people want to hear. Brendon, he’s pretty sure, doesn’t even really believe it himself, but.
“Yeah, dude,” Ryan says, trying for a smile. “Really.”
+
Gerard presses Brian back against the side of the building with the palms of his hands and the tips of his fingers, letting the grin spread across his face like he wants it to.
“Say yes, Brian,” he says. Brian is still like Gerard remembers him always being, not moving into Gerard’s hands, not pushing away. He turns his head to the side, looking over Gerard’s shoulder to the left, and he bites into his lip ring.
“You’re sure they can do it?” is what he asks. Gerard is certain that he knows the answer.
“Yeah,” he says. “Dude, you were there when we started. At least their fucking amps work. It’s there - or, if it’s not, it will be.”
Brian meets Gerard’s eyes, then, squinting as he scrutinizes in that Brian way that he does - like he’s searching for something specific - and Gerard doesn’t dare look away. Finally, Brian nods to himself, and he says,
“Okay. Yes it is, then.”
Gerard knows, then, that he hadn’t needed to bother convincing - Brian only gives in that easily when his mind is already made up.
“Good,” is all he says.
+
Ryan manages not to faint, or puke, or scream when Gerard and Brian come back in. He just sits so, so still and waits until Brian says,
“Honestly, the live performance needs some work - fine tuning mostly, but I think we can deal with that. The songs themselves have potential - maybe some tightening up in the melodies, but. Good, so far.” Ryan looks up from where he’s been staring at the scuffmarks on his shoes. He can’t exactly look Brian in the face, not right now, so he just settles for staring at the curve of his chin, the line of his lower lip arched up, the glint of metal in the fluorescent lighting. “So, if you guys want to take a look at the papers, I think we can work something out.” When Ryan finally manages to work his eyes upward, Brian’s smile isn’t sly, and it isn’t smug, it isn’t I hold the rest of your lives in my hands. It’s - cautiously optimistic, and Ryan balls his hands into fists and presses them against his thighs, his fingernails digging into his palms. He lets himself smile, just a little, and he says,
“Yes.” He says, “Definitely, I mean -”
“Where’re the papers?” Spencer asks, and Ryan sends him a look of thanks.
Gerard just smiles from behind Brian.
+
Later, when Ryan is sitting with their contract - their contract - mostly fisted between his hands, signed and everything, Brian says,
“Our prerogative is to get you guys on tour, as soon as possible.” He’s leaning easily back against the wall of the practice space, certainty in the spread of his feet, the loose lines of his arms.
“But,” Spencer says, sitting close enough that Ryan can feel the heat of him all along his side, “shouldn’t we have an album first? An EP, even.” Ryan’s not even totally sure they have enough songs for an extended set. He looks at the contract in his hands and knows that he’ll do whatever it takes, whatever it takes.
“Eventually we’ll stick you in the studio to record, but we need you to perfect your live performance, first. Can’t be a good band if you don’t play well live, you know?”
“What about,” Ryan says, before he even knows he’s going to start talking. “I mean. What about the demos? We could sell those at shows, right?” He almost winces at the questioning tone to his voice, but manages to suppress it. He knows that half of popularity is word of mouth, and how much easier that is with a CD that can be popped in a car disc player, or put on at parties.
“That’s a good idea, actually, if you feel like buying a million blank CDs.” Brian smiles, and he looks nice. Ryan wonders why he doesn’t smile that often, but - maybe that’s why.
“I’d draw you a cover, if you wanted,” Gerard says from the side of the room, smiling. “It won’t be anything professional, but it’ll be easy to Xerox and better than nothing.”
“That would be - ” Brendon starts.
“Amazing,” Ryan finishes, and he can feel the corner of his mouth lift in half a smile.
“I’ll email it to you guys later, then,” Gerard says. Ryan leans into Spencer’s shoulder and thinks that, maybe, they’ll actually get what they want.
+
Gerard stops by the car, his hand on the top of the passenger side door. He lets his cigarette butt fall to the ground, and he stamps it out, watching as Brian sucks smoke into his mouth, cheeks hollowing with it.
“Brian?” he asks, and Brian looks up at him with raised eyebrows, pulling the cigarette away so he can breathe out, tendrils of white smoke brushing against his skin and hair. “Think we could maybe get them to open on our next tour? A three or four song set, maybe, just at the beginning?”
Brian ashes his cigarette, and cocks his head to the side, giving Gerard a calculating, almost quizzical look.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because -” Gerard starts, and sighs. “They remind me of - us. Back at the very beginning.” And Ryan, he doesn’t say, reminds Gerard of Mikey, on the hard days.
“You’ve taken quite the interest in them,” Brian says, dropping his cigarette and pulling the driver’s side door open.
“Yeah,” Gerard says. “I guess.” It’s true. He doesn’t normally care much about other bands - not that he doesn’t like them, he’s just never taken interest in a band like this before.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Brian says, and then slides into the car.
+
Gerard’s sketching on the couch in the lounge when Brian calls. He’s been at it for the past few days, trying to figure out what to put on Panic’s CD cover. They’ll be happy with whatever they get, he knows, as long as they can say Gerard from MCR drew this for us. Gerard doesn’t like to think it, really, but he knows it’s true. He hopes he never gets used to other people’s over-appreciation of him.
“Your cell phone’s ringing,” Frank says, popping his head out from the bunk area.
“What?” Gerard says, looking up from his sketch. “Oh.” Frank grins and rolls his eyes - he doesn’t have to say wow, Gerard, space cadet, much? for Gerard to know he’s thinking it.
By the time Gerard actually finds his phone amid the dirty clothes and discarded pencils and rumpled bedclothes, he’s missed the call. He takes his phone back into the lounge, and continues his sketch while he calls Brian back.
“Hello?” Brian says, “Gerard?”
“Yeah,” Gerard says. “What’s up?” Gerard tucks the phone between his shoulder and his ear, thinking that this is why he doesn’t get a newer, smaller cellphone. The tiny ones just don’t stay right. Mikey wanders over with a cup of coffee, and trades him for the sketchbook.
“I got Panic a few local gigs,” Brian says, ignoring all normal preamble, “and when the new tour starts up next month, they’ll get a short, four or five song set at the very beginning, for the first leg, at least.” Gerard takes a sip of Mikey’s coffee, which is too sweet and creamy for him, but it’s caffeinated, so it doesn’t much matter. Mikey is tracing the lines on his sketchpad, light enough so that he doesn’t smear the pencil.
“Cool,” Gerard says. “You’re pretty much made of magic, you know that, right?” Gerard isn’t entirely sure that he doesn’t mean it. Brian pretty much is made of magic. He and Bob together could stop world hunger, Gerard is almost positive. Mikey nods along, half paying attention to the conversation as he studies the drawing.
“Yeah, I know,” Brian says. He sounds amused, which is a positive. Someday, Gerard will find the right words to apologize, but until then, he’s at least going to make sure that Brian knows he’s appreciated.
“You think I’m joking,” Gerard pushes. “But I’m not, Brian.”
“I’ll see you in a few weeks.” Brian hangs up before Gerard can say goodbye, but that’s normal Brian, getting back to business.
Mikey looks up from the sketchbook, placing it carefully on Gerard’s lap, and taking back his coffee. He doesn’t even seem to mind that there’s only about half left. Mikey’s always been good about sharing with Gerard.
“This them?” he asks, his voice curious.
“Yeah,” Gerard says, looking down at the figures sketched roughly on paper. “You’ll see what I mean when you meet them.”
+
Ryan’s sitting at the computer in his room when he gets the email. Spencer is reading a magazine on his bed, lying on his stomach with his feet in the air. Ryan can hear the slick sound of laminated paper as Spencer turns the page, vaguely, like a sound from far away, and he can’t look away from the computer screen. His fingers clench at the edge of the desk, and he says,
“Hey, Spencer?” His voice is soft to his own ears, but he can’t tell how much of that is the real quietness of his words, and how much of it is the shock. He turns to look at Spencer, who has glanced up from the magazine. Ryan can see the moment Spencer processes the expression on his face, wariness settling across his features.
“What?” he asks.
“Gerard sent us the CD cover,” Ryan says. For half a second, Spencer’s mouth is an ‘O’ of surprise. Then he collects himself, scrambling off the bed, hurried, and leans over Ryan’s shoulder as he looks at the computer screen.
It’s all thick, sharp black lines and accentuated features - Brendon is in the front, slightly to the left of center, wide grin spread across his full lips, leaning forward onto the cane in his right hand. He’s got a sixteenth note trapped, squirming, under the point of his cane. Ryan’s further to the left, sitting on an ornately patterned drum, his legs crossed, and his hugely exaggerated guitar in his lap, dwarfing him. He’s looking down, hair covering more than half of his face, but his one exposed eye is exotically painted, a second sixteenth note drawn, carefully, on his cheek. Spencer is behind Brendon to the right, seated behind a shrunken version of his drum kit, using two quarter notes as drumsticks. His grin is wide and happy, entirely Spencer-like. Brent is farthest to the right, his body half twisted away, hair completely obscuring his expression. His bass is in the shape of another quarter note, fingers pressed to the strings. In the corner, written in simple cursive, it says Panic! At The Disco - Relax, Relapse.
“Awesome,” Spencer says, nodding.
“Think we can get your mom to buy us some blank CDs?” Ryan asks. It’s pretty much fucking perfect.
+
Gerard’s used to only having about a week off between tours. At least this time, he thinks, he has something to look forward to besides performing - Panic will be joining them in a few days. Gerard’s not sure what to do, exactly, with his irrational affection for them, except to roll with it and see what happens. He curls up on the couch in the lounge with his sketchbook and his ridiculously large mug of coffee, but he can’t think of what to draw. He doodles a few tiny dancing skeletons, and sketches the contour of hands pressing piano keys, but nothing worth making into a larger piece. He sighs, and puts his pencil down. What he wouldn’t do for the room to bring his paints on tour with him. He’s got a few watercolor sets stashed around, but he misses the thick quality of paint - he always feels like he’s getting something done when there are swathes of paint involved.
“Hello, Mr. Space Case,” Frank says, plopping down next to him on the couch. He giggles that high-pitched giggle of his and steals Gerard’s mug. Gerard bats at his hands, and tries to reclaim his hard-won caffeine, but Frank’s always been a wiggly bastard, and manages to get a few good gulps in.
“Hey,” Gerard says, scowling. “Get your own.”
“Gerard,” Frank says, seriously, “your mug is the size of your head. How do you not have to piss like a racehorse all the time?”
“Maybe I just have a really big bladder,” Gerard says. His fingers are itching for a cigarette in that way they always do when he’s not drawing. Eventually, he supposes he should go outside and smoke. Frank pokes him in the belly and sighs.
“I’m not going to have to separate you two, am I?” Mikey asks from the doorway to the bunks, yawning and scratching at his scalp.
“I don’t think we’re really fighting,” Gerard says, smiling and holding out his mug to Mikey. He hears Frank’s offended snort, but Mikey is his brother. Mikey gets special caffeine privileges. Mikey shoots him a grateful look and folds himself up on one of the chairs, his knees somehow fitting below his chin.
Gerard has good feelings about this tour.
+
The van is, quite honestly, a piece of shit; Ryan knows this, but he really, really doesn’t care. He throws his bag in the back and climbs into the passenger seat, waiting for Spencer and Brendon to get back from the convenience store attached to the gas station. Brent is fast asleep in the last row of seats, snoring softly, and Ryan is envious. He’s been driving for almost four hours straight, and he stares out of the window, wondering if he will even possibly be able to fall asleep.
Tomorrow they’re starting on the tour. Tomorrow they are opening for My Chem. Ryan’s not sure how this is his life, but he doesn’t want to close his eyes, just in case it all goes away. It’s not that, logically, he thinks that’ll happen, but he’s never been good at applying logic to his life. There’s too much room for error between logic and reality.
Spencer’s got a six-pack of Red Bull and a tube of Pringles swinging from a plastic bag on his wrist when he leaves the store. Brendon’s already eating a Slim Jim, and Ryan can see the bag of M&Ms sticking out of his back pocket as he climbs into the van.
“Spencer’s driving,” he says, still chewing loudly.
“Thus, the Red Bull,” Spencer adds, sliding into the driver’s side seat. He pops out Take This To You Grave, and puts in Your Favorite Weapon instead. They have a silent agreement not to put on Brought You My Bullets for the entire ride. Ryan already feels like enough of a fanboy - he gave Gerard their demos at a show, a show he was honestly really excited to see - and he knows that Spencer feels similarly. He’s not sure how long this will last for, but he’s also not sure it matters.
“Ready to go?” Spencer asks, glancing in the rearview as he starts the car.
“Yeah,” Ryan says, mouthing, and if you ever said you miss me then don't say you never lied along with Jesse Lacey - the speakers are shit, just like the van, but it doesn’t matter. He sees Spencer looking over at him, and he smiles, just a little. Spencer pulls out of the parking lot.
They have about three hours left to go.
continued in part two