Round Here
Title: Round Here
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,500
Disclaimer: Not real, not mine.
Notes: Thanks to infatuatedxmind (and ultimately pinkkchocolate) I listened to two different versions of their Counting Crows cover of "Round Here". This is the "first" one, according to my fic, and this is the softer, sort of redone version.
Summary: Now, it’s like Brendon can't bring himself to sing above a murmur as if he’s afraid it’ll break. As if he’s afraid he’ll break. Or maybe like he’s whispering it in one person’s ear, just for them to hear. To Maria. Except that there is no girl named Maria.
It was a great song, one that they all loved and wanted to play. All the guys agreed on the song and, now, Ryan can’t even remember who suggested it. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t Brendon.
But as he stands with his back against a thin, closed door, he wonders if it really was Brendon or not, because there’s every reason why it could have-should have-been Brendon.
When Ryan had walked down the hall and heard the tiny voice almost fading away against the piano, he had stopped to figure out who it was even though he already knew. Now, for some reason, he can’t bring himself to leave. He listens as Brendon practices “Round Here” in a back room of the venue, probably trying to find some privacy and Ryan feels like he should allow him that. The longer he stays, the more he feels that. He feels like he shouldn’t be here.
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
This is so different. Right away Ryan notices this. He’s used to hearing his guitar and Spencer’s drums behind the voice, propelling it forward, and his own voice coming in a few parts. He’s used to the loudness, the strength. The chaos of the words having practically no tempo or pattern. But now Brendon’s alone with a piano and it feels like an entirely different song. The way he sings it, so meaningful and sincere. There’s this sort of familiarity that his voice seems to have for the words, like he wrote them himself. Ryan would like to say that this is because it’s a solo performance, and there’s always something more intimate about hearing something like that. But it’s not that.
It’s the way Brendon’s voice cracks and wavers, even in the places that don’t need it. The way every word sounds like it was meant to break your heart. It’s the way he shapes the words like pictures of two hands, one reaching over to try to take hold of the other, but the other just remains motionless. He sees a picture of a boy with his eyes downcast, trying to hide them with his hair, hide what might be tears. He sees pictures of noses brushing together above soft, sorrowful smiles. He sees a million images of happiness being smothered by something like hopelessness.
Maria says she's dying
Through the door I hear her crying
Why? I don't know
Where he used to be strong and almost harsh, Brendon is all gentleness and soft whispers. Ryan sometimes has to strain to hear everything. It’s so radically different. And Ryan’s still not sure if he likes that.
She parks her car outside of my house
Takes her clothes off
Says she's close to understanding Jesus
She knows she's more than just a little misunderstood
Ryan wants to shake his head like, no, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It used to be this proclamation. Bitter and angry at the dysfunction, sometimes. Now, it’s like Brendon can't bring himself to sing above a murmur as if he’s afraid it’ll break. As if he’s afraid he’ll break. Or maybe like he’s whispering it in one person’s ear, just for them to hear. To Maria.
Except that there is no girl named Maria.
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she's slipping through my hands
The pictures in Ryan’s mind sharpen. The blurry edges clear and there are faces. Two faces. Sometimes they’re smiling; sometimes they’re relaxed in sleep. Most of the time, they’re glaring or somber. One particularly strong image is the one of a body wrapping its arms around another. Ryan feels something break in him as he sees the other body push it away.
He has to force the pictures out.
Instead, he sees Brendon’s face as he sings the song. Behind his eyelids, he can see those nimble fingers dancing along the ivory keys and plush lips shaping around each sound. His eyes glance down at the piano keys every so often, but they almost stay closed the whole time. His eyebrows are drawn together in an expression that looks pleading one moment and furious another.
She says "it's only in my head"
She says "Shhhhh shut up, I know it's only in my head"
It’s not a rock song anymore, and Ryan thinks that it feels like the music finally matches the words. It was song that was meant to be sung to someone. They had always been playing it like it was about the singer. He still hates the feeling he’s getting from all the elements combining so perfectly.
Then she looks up at the building
Says she's thinking of jumping
Then Ryan realizes that this isn’t a practice at all. If it had been a practice, then Brendon wouldn’t have tried to be so away from everyone else. He would have stopped in the places he had made mistakes and repeated the lines until he got it right. He would have been concerned about pitch and tempo. But he’s not. He’s just playing it. Just singing it. He’s singing it like he might just collapse if he doesn’t get this out. And then he sounds like he might collapse anyway.
His voice is so soft and delicate that Ryan doesn’t want anyone else to hear but him. He wants to keep this different song tucked away in this back room and never have to share it with the world. This voice he’s not used to hearing is so vulnerable and desperate. He doesn’t want anyone else to know what that sounds like but him. He tries to tell himself it’s because their audience wouldn’t give this new, personal song the respect it deserves.
There’s a pulling in his chest. His shoulder slump as it tugs him down like a weight attached to something inside of his ribcage.
Brendon chokes as he belts out, “Round here she's always on my mind,” and Ryan doesn’t wonder anymore.
There’s a harder tug on his chest and it’s so painful that he squeezes his eyes shut and hugs his arms around himself like he’s trying to hold himself together. Like he’s trying to keep his insides from spilling out on the floor where everyone else can see what he’s feeling.
He tries to reason himself out of the feeling by telling himself that it’s not like the song is even really about that. It’s not about love and wanting to be with someone. It’s not about longing and feeling invisible. Except that it is. It’s about confusion, wanting to help someone who won’t let you, who’s so far gone that it’s practically a lost cause anyway. It’s about loving someone with so many problems. It’s about so much. Everything.
Ryan carefully lays his head back against the door and his lips move soundlessly along with Brendon’s as he sings:
So catch if I'm falling
Catch me if I'm falling
Catch me cause I'm falling down on you
And for a moment, Ryan doesn’t feel like just himself anymore.
I said I'm under the gun round here
The song ends, the notes from the piano floating off slowly, and Brendon doesn’t make another sound. He doesn’t even fiddle around on the piano keys idly. Even though Ryan can’t see him, he knows what Brendon’s doing. He’s sitting on the piano bench with his head bowed and his hands balled into fists on his thighs. His shoulders are hunched and tense, trying not to shake.
At first, Ryan had felt like he shouldn’t be there for this moment, like this was a journal entry he stumbled upon and should just close now. But he understands that he was the only person who needed to be there.
He was who Brendon had been singing to.
He doesn’t even hear Brendon’s feet shuffling for the door, but he feels the door move as it opens and drops him back against Brendon’s chest. The impact is soft but they both gasp like it forced the air out of them. Immediately, Ryan rights himself and turns to face Brendon, but his eyes won’t move from the doorknob. Brendon doesn’t budge from the doorway.
“Hey,” says Brendon. He sounds too startled to say anything else.
Ryan nods a little nervously and says, “Hey,” back.
They stand in floundering silence for a moment until Brendon says, “What are you doing here?”
“Just… listening,” is all Ryan can manage to say. His hand clumsily gestures palm-up to the piano in the next room. He feels like he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.
“What did you think?” asks Brendon. Ryan still doesn’t look him in the eye. He’s afraid to see that vulnerability again and have to answer the question. The real question. He’s afraid of being given that power over that vulnerability again and betraying the trust and hope in those eyes another time.
“It’s really powerful,” Ryan replies. He sees Brendon nod out of his peripheral vision.
“I was experimenting with new ways to play it.”
“Yeah. It sounds really… different.”
“I wanted to try it out for the crowd sometime,” Brendon says timidly. It’s practically a question.
“Yeah, yeah. I think they’d like it,” Ryan said, still unable to manage a casual tone yet.
“Yeah.”
Brendon finally walks out of the doorway and past Ryan. Ryan doesn’t have it in him to watch him as he goes.
* * *
This is how Ryan ends up sitting by himself in the dressing room listening to Brendon’s voice and piano reverberating through the walls and knocking around his chest. Spencer and Jon are already finished with their costume changes and are watching Brendon from the wings. Ryan can’t seem to move yet. He just sits at the edge of the cushy little couch with his legs spread wide and his elbows rested on his knees. His hands dangle between them and his head hangs low. He’d like to close his eyes and get away from this for a moment, but he’s afraid the pictures will come back. Those pictures of Brendon looking so stricken and confused or, the most painful of all, the ones of Brendon looking so indescribably happy.
It just reminds him exactly who put that scared tremble in Brendon’s voice and the despair in those words.
The words themselves mean almost nothing. Brendon has never needed words to communicate like Ryan has. It’s the tiny gasping exhale that slips out after every couple of lines and the shaking in his voice like quiet crying that tears a hole in Ryan just big enough for Brendon to stick his hand inside and take hold of his heart. As Brendon sings quietly, the hand just holds on so lovingly and it makes Ryan hold his breath. Then when his voice bellows clearly through the speakers, Ryan can feel the hand squeezing and twisting so painfully, for both of them.
He hears the crowd scream and cheer sporadically during the first half of the song, and he wants to tell them all to, “Just shut the fuck up. This isn’t the moment to get excited and celebrate. Yeah, yeah, it’s a great song and it’s Counting Crows but that’s not the fucking point.”
He rubs his knuckles over his forehead, wishing he wasn’t wearing so much make up so he could cover his face with both hands, and thinks, “The point is that there’s a boy standing emotionally naked out there, baring his soul for all of you to see.”
It takes everything in Ryan not to cry.
Round here she’s always on my mind
* * *
While Spencer and Jon go with Zack to venture out and see what food joint is open at midnight, Brendon and Ryan retreat to the bus. They go at different times. Ryan is certainly avoiding Brendon but only because he doesn’t know what to say. So he dallies in the dressing room, taking extra time to remove all of his stage make up and change into normal clothes. He follows behind Brendon after a good fifteen minute gap.
When he steps onto the bus, no one is in the front half. No one sitting and watching TV. No one in the kitchenette getting something to eat. The lights beyond the door to the bunks are off, but Ryan has a feeling Brendon isn’t sleeping. The light creeping under the door to the back lounge proves him right.
Ryan opens the door tentatively, peering in through the crack before stick his head in all the way. Brendon looks up right away.
“Hey,” Brendon says quickly. His lips quirk on one side like he’s trying to give a casual smile. It looks painful.
“Hi,” Ryan mumbles. He comes in and sits next to Brendon and Brendon shuts the laptop on his legs and sets it aside.
“What’s up?” Brendon says, bouncing his knee. That’s always annoyed Ryan just a little.
Like so many times before, Ryan doesn’t answer. Instead, he leans in and presses his lips against Brendon’s. It’s soft. Pent up tension flows out of Brendon after a few seconds and Ryan can feel the air change around them. This feeling is so familiar.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan whispers against Brendon’s parted lips.
“I’ll always forgive you,” Brendon whispers right back.
“You deserve better than this,” sighs Ryan. “Better than me.”
Brendon lifts his hand to cup the back of Ryan’s head and pull him closer, harder against his lips. Ryan puts his hand on Brendon’s shoulder, and he feels Brendon go a little tense like he’s afraid Ryan is about to push him away again. But Ryan just squeezes and kisses back harder.
All Ryan can think of as clothes slowly come off is how he wishes this would make everything ok. He wishes that it would be enough to make up for everything he’s done (or hasn’t done). As he listens to Brendon gasping and kisses him all over, he can’t help but think about how badly he wants this. He wants this every day for the rest of his life and he wants to spend every night curled up with this sweaty body as they fall asleep.
The heartbreaking part is that he’s the one getting in the way of having that.
Brendon really does deserve someone better. Someone who can treat him better and love him like he should be loved. Of course Ryan loves Brendon, but Ryan knows there’s something special about the way Brendon loves him that they don’t share. The selflessness and the unconditional forgiveness. Ryan thinks he never quite learned how to love right, but he’d give anything to know now. He’d give anything to know how to love Brendon like Brendon loves him.
“One day I’ll be something worth loving,” Ryan says into Brendon’s skin.
So catch if I'm falling
Catch me if I'm falling
Catch me cause I'm falling down on you
I said I'm under the gun round here
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,500
Disclaimer: Not real, not mine.
Notes: Thanks to infatuatedxmind (and ultimately pinkkchocolate) I listened to two different versions of their Counting Crows cover of "Round Here". This is the "first" one, according to my fic, and this is the softer, sort of redone version.
Summary: Now, it’s like Brendon can't bring himself to sing above a murmur as if he’s afraid it’ll break. As if he’s afraid he’ll break. Or maybe like he’s whispering it in one person’s ear, just for them to hear. To Maria. Except that there is no girl named Maria.
It was a great song, one that they all loved and wanted to play. All the guys agreed on the song and, now, Ryan can’t even remember who suggested it. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t Brendon.
But as he stands with his back against a thin, closed door, he wonders if it really was Brendon or not, because there’s every reason why it could have-should have-been Brendon.
When Ryan had walked down the hall and heard the tiny voice almost fading away against the piano, he had stopped to figure out who it was even though he already knew. Now, for some reason, he can’t bring himself to leave. He listens as Brendon practices “Round Here” in a back room of the venue, probably trying to find some privacy and Ryan feels like he should allow him that. The longer he stays, the more he feels that. He feels like he shouldn’t be here.
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
This is so different. Right away Ryan notices this. He’s used to hearing his guitar and Spencer’s drums behind the voice, propelling it forward, and his own voice coming in a few parts. He’s used to the loudness, the strength. The chaos of the words having practically no tempo or pattern. But now Brendon’s alone with a piano and it feels like an entirely different song. The way he sings it, so meaningful and sincere. There’s this sort of familiarity that his voice seems to have for the words, like he wrote them himself. Ryan would like to say that this is because it’s a solo performance, and there’s always something more intimate about hearing something like that. But it’s not that.
It’s the way Brendon’s voice cracks and wavers, even in the places that don’t need it. The way every word sounds like it was meant to break your heart. It’s the way he shapes the words like pictures of two hands, one reaching over to try to take hold of the other, but the other just remains motionless. He sees a picture of a boy with his eyes downcast, trying to hide them with his hair, hide what might be tears. He sees pictures of noses brushing together above soft, sorrowful smiles. He sees a million images of happiness being smothered by something like hopelessness.
Maria says she's dying
Through the door I hear her crying
Why? I don't know
Where he used to be strong and almost harsh, Brendon is all gentleness and soft whispers. Ryan sometimes has to strain to hear everything. It’s so radically different. And Ryan’s still not sure if he likes that.
She parks her car outside of my house
Takes her clothes off
Says she's close to understanding Jesus
She knows she's more than just a little misunderstood
Ryan wants to shake his head like, no, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It used to be this proclamation. Bitter and angry at the dysfunction, sometimes. Now, it’s like Brendon can't bring himself to sing above a murmur as if he’s afraid it’ll break. As if he’s afraid he’ll break. Or maybe like he’s whispering it in one person’s ear, just for them to hear. To Maria.
Except that there is no girl named Maria.
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she's slipping through my hands
The pictures in Ryan’s mind sharpen. The blurry edges clear and there are faces. Two faces. Sometimes they’re smiling; sometimes they’re relaxed in sleep. Most of the time, they’re glaring or somber. One particularly strong image is the one of a body wrapping its arms around another. Ryan feels something break in him as he sees the other body push it away.
He has to force the pictures out.
Instead, he sees Brendon’s face as he sings the song. Behind his eyelids, he can see those nimble fingers dancing along the ivory keys and plush lips shaping around each sound. His eyes glance down at the piano keys every so often, but they almost stay closed the whole time. His eyebrows are drawn together in an expression that looks pleading one moment and furious another.
She says "it's only in my head"
She says "Shhhhh shut up, I know it's only in my head"
It’s not a rock song anymore, and Ryan thinks that it feels like the music finally matches the words. It was song that was meant to be sung to someone. They had always been playing it like it was about the singer. He still hates the feeling he’s getting from all the elements combining so perfectly.
Then she looks up at the building
Says she's thinking of jumping
Then Ryan realizes that this isn’t a practice at all. If it had been a practice, then Brendon wouldn’t have tried to be so away from everyone else. He would have stopped in the places he had made mistakes and repeated the lines until he got it right. He would have been concerned about pitch and tempo. But he’s not. He’s just playing it. Just singing it. He’s singing it like he might just collapse if he doesn’t get this out. And then he sounds like he might collapse anyway.
His voice is so soft and delicate that Ryan doesn’t want anyone else to hear but him. He wants to keep this different song tucked away in this back room and never have to share it with the world. This voice he’s not used to hearing is so vulnerable and desperate. He doesn’t want anyone else to know what that sounds like but him. He tries to tell himself it’s because their audience wouldn’t give this new, personal song the respect it deserves.
There’s a pulling in his chest. His shoulder slump as it tugs him down like a weight attached to something inside of his ribcage.
Brendon chokes as he belts out, “Round here she's always on my mind,” and Ryan doesn’t wonder anymore.
There’s a harder tug on his chest and it’s so painful that he squeezes his eyes shut and hugs his arms around himself like he’s trying to hold himself together. Like he’s trying to keep his insides from spilling out on the floor where everyone else can see what he’s feeling.
He tries to reason himself out of the feeling by telling himself that it’s not like the song is even really about that. It’s not about love and wanting to be with someone. It’s not about longing and feeling invisible. Except that it is. It’s about confusion, wanting to help someone who won’t let you, who’s so far gone that it’s practically a lost cause anyway. It’s about loving someone with so many problems. It’s about so much. Everything.
Ryan carefully lays his head back against the door and his lips move soundlessly along with Brendon’s as he sings:
So catch if I'm falling
Catch me if I'm falling
Catch me cause I'm falling down on you
And for a moment, Ryan doesn’t feel like just himself anymore.
I said I'm under the gun round here
The song ends, the notes from the piano floating off slowly, and Brendon doesn’t make another sound. He doesn’t even fiddle around on the piano keys idly. Even though Ryan can’t see him, he knows what Brendon’s doing. He’s sitting on the piano bench with his head bowed and his hands balled into fists on his thighs. His shoulders are hunched and tense, trying not to shake.
At first, Ryan had felt like he shouldn’t be there for this moment, like this was a journal entry he stumbled upon and should just close now. But he understands that he was the only person who needed to be there.
He was who Brendon had been singing to.
He doesn’t even hear Brendon’s feet shuffling for the door, but he feels the door move as it opens and drops him back against Brendon’s chest. The impact is soft but they both gasp like it forced the air out of them. Immediately, Ryan rights himself and turns to face Brendon, but his eyes won’t move from the doorknob. Brendon doesn’t budge from the doorway.
“Hey,” says Brendon. He sounds too startled to say anything else.
Ryan nods a little nervously and says, “Hey,” back.
They stand in floundering silence for a moment until Brendon says, “What are you doing here?”
“Just… listening,” is all Ryan can manage to say. His hand clumsily gestures palm-up to the piano in the next room. He feels like he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.
“What did you think?” asks Brendon. Ryan still doesn’t look him in the eye. He’s afraid to see that vulnerability again and have to answer the question. The real question. He’s afraid of being given that power over that vulnerability again and betraying the trust and hope in those eyes another time.
“It’s really powerful,” Ryan replies. He sees Brendon nod out of his peripheral vision.
“I was experimenting with new ways to play it.”
“Yeah. It sounds really… different.”
“I wanted to try it out for the crowd sometime,” Brendon says timidly. It’s practically a question.
“Yeah, yeah. I think they’d like it,” Ryan said, still unable to manage a casual tone yet.
“Yeah.”
Brendon finally walks out of the doorway and past Ryan. Ryan doesn’t have it in him to watch him as he goes.
* * *
This is how Ryan ends up sitting by himself in the dressing room listening to Brendon’s voice and piano reverberating through the walls and knocking around his chest. Spencer and Jon are already finished with their costume changes and are watching Brendon from the wings. Ryan can’t seem to move yet. He just sits at the edge of the cushy little couch with his legs spread wide and his elbows rested on his knees. His hands dangle between them and his head hangs low. He’d like to close his eyes and get away from this for a moment, but he’s afraid the pictures will come back. Those pictures of Brendon looking so stricken and confused or, the most painful of all, the ones of Brendon looking so indescribably happy.
It just reminds him exactly who put that scared tremble in Brendon’s voice and the despair in those words.
The words themselves mean almost nothing. Brendon has never needed words to communicate like Ryan has. It’s the tiny gasping exhale that slips out after every couple of lines and the shaking in his voice like quiet crying that tears a hole in Ryan just big enough for Brendon to stick his hand inside and take hold of his heart. As Brendon sings quietly, the hand just holds on so lovingly and it makes Ryan hold his breath. Then when his voice bellows clearly through the speakers, Ryan can feel the hand squeezing and twisting so painfully, for both of them.
He hears the crowd scream and cheer sporadically during the first half of the song, and he wants to tell them all to, “Just shut the fuck up. This isn’t the moment to get excited and celebrate. Yeah, yeah, it’s a great song and it’s Counting Crows but that’s not the fucking point.”
He rubs his knuckles over his forehead, wishing he wasn’t wearing so much make up so he could cover his face with both hands, and thinks, “The point is that there’s a boy standing emotionally naked out there, baring his soul for all of you to see.”
It takes everything in Ryan not to cry.
Round here she’s always on my mind
* * *
While Spencer and Jon go with Zack to venture out and see what food joint is open at midnight, Brendon and Ryan retreat to the bus. They go at different times. Ryan is certainly avoiding Brendon but only because he doesn’t know what to say. So he dallies in the dressing room, taking extra time to remove all of his stage make up and change into normal clothes. He follows behind Brendon after a good fifteen minute gap.
When he steps onto the bus, no one is in the front half. No one sitting and watching TV. No one in the kitchenette getting something to eat. The lights beyond the door to the bunks are off, but Ryan has a feeling Brendon isn’t sleeping. The light creeping under the door to the back lounge proves him right.
Ryan opens the door tentatively, peering in through the crack before stick his head in all the way. Brendon looks up right away.
“Hey,” Brendon says quickly. His lips quirk on one side like he’s trying to give a casual smile. It looks painful.
“Hi,” Ryan mumbles. He comes in and sits next to Brendon and Brendon shuts the laptop on his legs and sets it aside.
“What’s up?” Brendon says, bouncing his knee. That’s always annoyed Ryan just a little.
Like so many times before, Ryan doesn’t answer. Instead, he leans in and presses his lips against Brendon’s. It’s soft. Pent up tension flows out of Brendon after a few seconds and Ryan can feel the air change around them. This feeling is so familiar.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan whispers against Brendon’s parted lips.
“I’ll always forgive you,” Brendon whispers right back.
“You deserve better than this,” sighs Ryan. “Better than me.”
Brendon lifts his hand to cup the back of Ryan’s head and pull him closer, harder against his lips. Ryan puts his hand on Brendon’s shoulder, and he feels Brendon go a little tense like he’s afraid Ryan is about to push him away again. But Ryan just squeezes and kisses back harder.
All Ryan can think of as clothes slowly come off is how he wishes this would make everything ok. He wishes that it would be enough to make up for everything he’s done (or hasn’t done). As he listens to Brendon gasping and kisses him all over, he can’t help but think about how badly he wants this. He wants this every day for the rest of his life and he wants to spend every night curled up with this sweaty body as they fall asleep.
The heartbreaking part is that he’s the one getting in the way of having that.
Brendon really does deserve someone better. Someone who can treat him better and love him like he should be loved. Of course Ryan loves Brendon, but Ryan knows there’s something special about the way Brendon loves him that they don’t share. The selflessness and the unconditional forgiveness. Ryan thinks he never quite learned how to love right, but he’d give anything to know now. He’d give anything to know how to love Brendon like Brendon loves him.
“One day I’ll be something worth loving,” Ryan says into Brendon’s skin.
So catch if I'm falling
Catch me if I'm falling
Catch me cause I'm falling down on you
I said I'm under the gun round here