fic: Give me more [Panic! at the Disco, 1/3]
Give me more
Panic! at the Disco, Brendon/Ryan, explicit
They called this tough love.
~25,000 words
Thanks to jae_w, runpunkrun, likeadeuce and miella.
ETA: Now also at AO3.
Disclaimer: Why should Ryan Ross be the only one stealing lines from Palahniuk?
For those just along for the ride: This is Brendon. This is Ryan. This is all of Panic!, back in their early years (so, 2005-ish), and here's an early preview of the Ryan & Brendon show. Then there's this. And this is the kind of trouble they were getting themselves into on stage by late 2006.
More specifically for this story: Here, have a live version of Time to Dance. It's a song Ryan wrote based on the novel Invisible Monsters. Maybe you already know that. I've been told not everyone has spent quite so much time comparing the two.
Oh, and: Brendon's not going to teach you about Mormons in his own POV.
You have to tell me about your future.
"What's that song?"
Brendon's mom sets a glass of juice on the counter right at the edge of the Living section. Concert reviews are his own reward for getting through the real news. The OJ is just a conversational bribe.
He's still stuck in Local News, reading about a subdivision planned on the edge of Red Rocks and artifacts that could indicate the site was a native burial ground. "That's what these activists always try as a last resort," said the lead planner on the project.
Brendon wonders whether that's actually true or just an excuse given to the media. Maybe if he'd started reading the paper last year he'd be more sure. Project Brendon is a relatively recent development.
"The song you were humming just now," his mom says, leaning back against the sink. "And earlier, I heard you singing it in the shower."
What she really means is has he bought yet another album whose questionable themes and lyrics will feed her growing concern that Brendon Is Slipping; Steps Must Be Taken While Chance Of Eternal Salvation Remains Good.
Lately his mental Mom headlines are more dire than the paper's. She listens so carefully to his life that she should be able to hear him choking on every question.
Brendon Plans Insurrection, Secession, Abandonment Of Duties To Faith And Family. He thinks it loudly, carelessly, but she doesn't blink. If she can read his mind, he's already screwed.
"It's just this new thing I learned," he says, not lying, not lying yet. He shoves the last piece of toast in his mouth. "For band," he says around the food, and if there's a word missing from his answer that's not a lie either, exactly, he's just trying not to talk and chew at the same time.
*
So he's in a band now.
He says it again and again in his head. Yeah, he's a guy in a band. He's the kind of guy who's in a band.
Project Brendon is all about figuring out what kind of guy he is, and so far he's a guy who is skeptical that anybody on the news tells the whole truth, and a guy who is never going to eat meat again no matter how much the smell of bacon is the most unholy temptation in all the world. He's a guy who never should have tried Red Bull because he likes it way too much not to drink it every day the rest of his life, and a guy who caught a ride with Brent after school to go talk about his favorite records and screw around with a borrowed guitar.
He's a guy who got hit smack in the chest with how much he wanted two total strangers to like him and ask him to come back.
The drummer, Spencer, had licked his lips like he had something to say but wasn't sure it was worth the effort. Ryan, the singer, nodded and pushed his hair out of his face and said, "We have practice Thursday."
"Cool," Brendon said as Ryan stared steadily. Ryan was a little intimidating. He probably started Project Ryan when he was five. Brendon shrugged like it was no big deal, like people asked him to be in bands all the time, and said, "Thursday's cool with me."
*
He tells his mom he and a guy from guitar class are trying to write some music, maybe something for the school concert, not for sure but maybe if they can spend a lot of time getting it perfect. He'll probably get home kind of late a couple nights a week.
"Remember that song you wrote for your sister," she starts, but, God, he was, like, twelve, and it was just a couple of rhyming words and a -- okay, the melody was pretty good, but he was just a kid and he wishes she'd quit reminding him like it wasn't all that long ago. She stops, though, so maybe she remembers how last time she brought it up he threw a not-very-mature tantrum and said all those things out loud. He bites the inside of his cheek like he does every morning and every Sunday and every Family Home Evening.
He's in a band. He's in a band. If he's grounded he'll have to sneak out for practice and inevitably get caught by his mom or someone from the ward will notice and call his dad and he wants this, this band, his band, more than he cares about what his mom thinks in this moment.
"It's no big deal," he says, and she smiles and touches his nose before going upstairs.
He knows why he's lying, but he's not sure why he feels so shitty about it. He's not very invested these days in impressing the prophet or Heavenly Father or anybody at church. He quit praying last year, even before Project Brendon, because it's not fair to ask for something from someone he's pretty sure doesn't exist, especially when he doesn't want to feel obligated in any way to owe something in return.
Lying, though, feels like one of those things that shouldn't be about God. It's just wrong, and he keeps doing it anyway, keeps acting like a scared little boy. He doesn't want to be a guy who lies just because it's harder to say, hey, I'm ready for my life to start now, please prepare to be disappointed in how I've turned out.
*
One day during practice Brendon is playing around with the harmony, pushing it higher and lower and yeah, he's showing off a little what he can do but only because he really wants to contribute something more than rhythm guitar, something that will make these guys need him like he needs this.
Ryan twists sideways, still strumming, mouth open a little but not singing anymore. His chin tilts up a notch, like a nod, like keep going keep going and so Brendon drops down a third and takes over the melody, stretching it until his voice actually breaks.
Ryan's hand skids along the frets, screaming to a halt. Brent plucks his bass at half-strength and Spencer just stops, arm still flung up in the air, and says, "Shit."
Brendon coughs and swallows and Jesus, his voice hasn't broken like that in years, and of course it has to be now when --
"Yeah," Ryan says, laughing under his breath, but he's nodding. "Shit, no shit, why am I still pretending I should be the singer here?"
*
So now he's the lead singer in a band. He's his band's lead singer. He has a band.
He's the frontman.
He tries not to think too much about that part. It's still Ryan's band, Ryan and Spencer's really, Ryan's lyrics and Spencer's pulse and the two of them will be in bands together the rest of their lives no matter who else comes and goes. He and Brent talk about it once in the car, about being replaceable, but even Brent's known them since they first started playing.
Brendon still doesn't want to give them a good excuse to look for someone else, so for the first month of practice he tries hard not to be a total freak, to sound smart and like he knows what the hell he's talking about when it comes to anything but music, which he obviously does know more about than all the rest of them put together.
But Ryan keeps talking about books Brendon's never even heard of, writers and artists so far off the approved list of good little Mobot texts that Brendon can't begin to act like he knows what Ryan's talking about. Ryan and his tiny t-shirts from shows he went to when he was in, like, eighth grade, bands whose bass players remembered his name at the merch booth, bands on tours like Ryan says they could be playing, should be playing in a year if things go the way he's planned.
Brendon sits through every family dinner full of barely checked fury, full of envy and wrath and rage at his parents and their carefully constructed cell of righteousness designed to protect his eternal soul even if it leaves him fumbling blind. There's a whole fucking world out there full of words and music and people living their lives how they've decided is righteous and good, not just because some man who supposedly hears the word of God said so.
"So it's all about this, like, transsexual, you know, and she's --"
They're on the lawn outside Spencer's grandmother's house, waiting because she's making Spencer try on a suit for a wedding, and Ryan looks up from the grass he's tearing into long narrow strips.
"You should just read it," Ryan says. "I think you -- of anyone you would like it. Really it's about what happens when people hate themselves. When you let the world make you believe you should hate yourself."
Brendon sits up. "I don't hate myself."
Ryan ties two splinters of grass in a knot, his long fingers looping around and his lips pulled tight.
"I don't," Brendon says, and cringes at the whine in his voice. "No, really, I don't know what kind of guy you think --"
"I think," Ryan says, and puts his hand on the ground an inch from Brendon's leg. Brendon can feel his own kneecap tingling against his jeans, like he's some kind of bionic monster. "I think you want something new to believe in."
Ryan pushes up, brushing dirt off his pants like he hasn't just summed up the last year of Brendon's life in a heartbeat.
"C'mon," Ryan says, and holds out a hand. "Let's go save Spence."
*
Spencer and Ryan take him shopping, with two hundred bucks of Brendon's carefully hoarded savings and a single-minded mission: "Buy Brendon better clothes." Spencer doesn't even apologize for how that sounds a little mean. It's worse because he's right. Brendon's mom says anything that didn't come down through his brothers is a luxury a family of five kids with one income can't afford. God forbid he doesn't actually want to dress just like them, if he has his own idea of what first impression he'd like to make.
"I'm sure you have a sense of style," Spencer says. "Somewhere."
Somewhere turns out to be Nordstrom's, even though Forever 21 has a rack of jeans in the doorway that Ryan flips his fingers through like he's shuffling a deck of winning cards.
Spencer touches Ryan's arm, shaking his head. "He's going to have to try them on. And we're probably going to have to help."
"I am capable of dressing myself," Brendon points out. "And also I'm standing right here. I'm practically in the same conversation you're having about me."
Ryan spares a predictably derisive glance for Brendon's outfit. "If that's what you call dressing yourself." Then he says, "Fine. Department store."
They pick out eleven pairs of jeans from the junior's section for Brendon to try on before Spencer leads them to the "more socially appropriate dressing rooms." A man in a shirt and tie frowns at their selection and starts to protest when Ryan follows Brendon into the cubicle. Brendon hears Spencer say, in this fake-pity voice, "We promised his mom we'd help, but he's so --" Huge sigh. "Special." Apparently shopping is Ryan and Spencer's idea of fun, which sort of makes sense given that they don't drink, like not at all. Brendon knows plenty of kids who spend Saturdays getting wasted and Sundays in church. This band is clearly a different kind of trouble.
Ryan shuts the door and perches on the edge of the bench. Brendon does okay until he tries to get the first pair fastened, and after a minute or two he bites his lip and throws up his hands. "Ross, for God's sake, how do you --" Ryan's hand darts out, yanking and tucking the tiny metal button inside its hole. If only he had a corset and a powdered wig and a small army of ladies-in-waiting Brendon would feel like a proper princess. It's the kind of off-kilter crazy idea he gets a lot around Ryan lately and he tries to suppress his giggle.
"Hmm," Ryan says, and leans against the wall. "Those fit okay. I guess. Let's show Spence."
He pushes Brendon out through the corridor of dressing rooms, past a half-open door where a man is folding the tail of a tuxedo shirt into shiny black pants. Brendon is presented to Spencer like a prize show dog and Spencer circles around him and goes, "Hmm," just like Ryan, and then shakes his head non-committally. "Try the other ones."
So he does it again, and again, Ryan trooping back with him every time until Brendon jokes, "What, are you scared to be left alone with creepy attendant guy?"
"No," Ryan snaps, but the next time out to Inspector Spencer, Brendon notices how carefully the guy watches Ryan, like he doesn't trust him, like somehow in his own skinny girl jeans Ryan's going to steal something or maybe already has. The guy keeps staring at Ryan's tiny back pockets, as if anything else could fit in there, could be smuggled out in the millimeter of space between his skin and pants.
"Creepy fuck," Brendon whispers to Ryan as they cycle back for the last round of tryouts.
"Sometimes," Ryan says, a low, suddenly serious warning, "they're worse."
Brendon's not really sure what that means. They're crammed together in this weird hushed confessional and he almost thinks he could get Ryan to explain for a change, but then they're confronted with a hard choice of washes and button flies and Brendon gives up and puts Spencer in charge of final selection and they end up spending every penny Brendon has on him.
"That's okay," Brendon jokes as they walk out to the car with just one little bag holding all his hard-earned jeans. "It's not like there's any room in them for money anyway."
*
They never have a conversation about it, but it's like Ryan discovers the top secret blueprints for Project Brendon and makes it his business to accelerate the takeover. He supplies a steady stream of books and blogs and zines written in Sharpie on duct tape and sold only in dingy skate stores. He says one day at practice, deadly dry and terrifying, "I'm just not sure I can be in a band with a guy who hasn't seen the special edition of Moulin Rouge."
Brent kicks the top of his case closed. "Again?"
Spencer rolls his eyes in Ryan's direction and says, "Yeah, how about tomorrow?"
Tomorrow's Saturday. Brendon's big plan consists of beginning to fake a cough in preparation for ditching church on Sunday.
"You can be excused," Ryan says, but only to Brent, which is okay because Brendon doesn't want to be excused, he almost pathetically wants to be included in this, in everything Ryan plans, in everywhere they're all going to go.
"What time?" Brendon asks.
*
Brendon watches Satine fly across a theatre and the world and is pretty sure that if required at this moment he too could dance to the moon and back. He tries to pay attention to everything on screen at once and then realizes he's just going to have to watch this again and again and again. Fuck family-friendly Disney musicals he's sat through with his nieces and nephews a million times. Those songs are good but they're not real, they're just cotton candy, fake and sugary watercolor paintings of a world with an impossibly perfect price of admission. This is real shit, real screaming and fighting and fucking and dying.
"No more Red Bull for Brendon," Spencer says after Brendon jumps a half-foot in the air at the first punch thrown in Fight Club. Ryan's walking in from the bathroom, still buttoning his pants, and he sits back down on the couch with Brendon. "Maybe your people avoid caffeine for a reason. Maybe you're genetically incapable of processing it."
"If you, Spencer James Smith the fifth, the man with the most Mormon name in all of Las Vegas, are referring to my devoted brothers and sisters in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints --" Brendon starts, and stops when Ryan laughs. He made Ryan laugh, Ryan and his utterly calm, cool stare like the world is only barely managing to keep him from dying of boredom. Brendon totally forgets what else he was going to say.
Spencer stretches out on his side on the carpet and yawns and says, "This is the part where Ryan tells you how the book is so much better."
Ryan totally does just that, but Brendon doesn't mind. He's got so many books he wants to read now that unless Ryan is waving his own crumpled copy with notes scrawled in the margins and talking about how it changed his fucking life, man, seriously, Brendon, you have to, it still goes on the end of the list. Occasionally the book-vs.-movie commentary is interrupted by Spencer talking about the Dust Brothers or a half-hearted debate about Helena Bonham Carter's hotness or Ryan changing his mind again which of Brad Pitt's fur coats he wants most.
When it ends, Brendon goes into Ryan's kitchen and calls his mom and tells her Brent's parents are dropping them at a movie. His Sunday cold is just going to have to be a sudden onset thing. He comes back and Ryan is leaning forward to talk quietly with Spencer. Spencer rolls his neck back on the couch and says, "I don't know, if you think so, it's your --"
Ryan turns to look at Brendon, blinks once slowly and sort of drags his eyes from Brendon's face down along the new pair of jeans Brendon finally had the balls to wear clear from his own room past his mother and her squinting eyes.
"You like Bowie, right?" Ryan asks, and Brendon says yes, he always says yes to Ryan's questions like that, especially when it's actually true. Ryan shrugs at Spencer, like why not, and Spencer gets up and puts in another DVD.
"Velvet Goldmine is a freaky mind-fuck of a movie," Ryan says, low, leaning in to talk in Brendon's ear. "Just look at those pants, Jesus," he says later, and then, dismissively, "Arthur's such a fan." Once, a little louder: "I think you're right, Spence. This movie can't actually get any gayer."
This is a test, Brendon realizes with a sharp snap when Ryan's wristbone bumps his again. This is only a test. If this were an actual meaningful moment in his actual life it would be louder, it would be more obvious. This is only a test.
This is his test, Ryan and Spencer's test for him, for the Mormon, for the new guy.
It's just a movie, a movie about these guys obsessed with each other in different ways at different times and for a few minutes Brendon thinks maybe he's gotten the hang of it, thinks maybe he'll stop flinching inside every time a guy licks another guy's shoulder or runs a hand down his body and squeezes the crotch of his silver pants.
But then it's down to two guys on a roof, Curt the rock star and Arthur his biggest fan and they're so, so sweet almost, touching each other's faces gently and smiling at each other, so happy to have this tender quiet moment together in the middle of their fucked-up world, and Brendon says, "Is that --"
He feels the words spit out between squeezed lips, like he can still take them back if he wants to enough. Ryan turns towards him, just a few degrees but they're so close on the couch, wrists still touching, knees and legs and shoulders and Brendon can't take it back, not with Ryan's eyes so carefully watching and waiting and this is a test, this is only a test.
"Is it like that?" Brendon says, and Ryan's lips twitch, like it's not what he was expecting, like he's quietly impressed. Brendon hears his words reverberate through his head and realizes what he's said, how it sounds, what it says he thinks about Ryan, what it says about him that he wants to know, what it --
"Yeah," Ryan says. His eyes are fixed on Brendon's sleeve like he didn't mean to say it out loud either.
Brendon can hear himself breathe, can hear Spencer rolling onto his back to look at them. Spencer says Ryan's name like a warning, like he wants to say Brendon's the same way but doesn't know how yet.
"It can be, yeah," Ryan says and Brendon's face is hot, his whole spine feels like it's shaking and he has to, he has to get out of here, he can't, he doesn't know how to be nonchalant in this moment but he tries anyway, says something stupid like cool or yeah or oh and counts every breath in and out through the last scenes and the credits and then stands up and fakes a smile and says, "Yeah, I should get home before my mom decides to call Brent's or something."
*
He barely gets his hand down his pants before he comes. He kicks off his jeans and pulls the covers back up and swallows down this noisy lump in his throat. It's a stupid rule but years and years of Sunday school and seminary and giving testimony and he can't act like he's unaware that even lusting violates the Law of Chastity, let alone acting on it, let alone like this.
When he's caught his breath he remembers that wet dreams were his first real intellectual win against the church. He was fourteen and freaked out and it wasn't like he was going to talk to his dad or the guys in Scouts and so he just did what he does now with the newspaper or the movies: he figured it out for himself. Because how could something completely unplanned and spontaneous and natural -- thank you very much, entire lack of sex ed, but Brendon does know how to use the internet -- how can something where your brain barely even cooperates with your body be enough to threaten your eternal soul? It just can't. Brendon Urie, 1; LDS, 0.
He falls asleep in the Edward Scissorhands t-shirt Ryan had casually complimented and wakes up proving his point, his mind full of long legs in silver pants and purple makeup smeared on white blouses and his body adding another stain to the sheets.
So he officially decides, screw this, it's his mind, he can think whatever he wants. It's his body, not God's, and he should make it feel as good as he knows how. He pushes off his shirt and slides his sticky boxers down his hips, shifts on the sheets and thinks about Curt and Arthur kissing on the roof. Touching Curt's long hair, his bony shoulders. His body's still catching up, so he lets his mind linger a little, lets his fantasy trip lazily along as they press their bare chests together, licking and moaning and reaching to feel more skin.
That's good, that's good, he's hard again now, so dizzy and tingly and what if instead, maybe it's Curt and Brian Slade on stage, Curt on his knees rocking his hips up at Brian and his guitar, Curt rising up to lick the strings, sucking Brian's fingers into his mouth around the frets, flashbulbs popping, people screaming and cheering, two fingers now in his mouth and a hand around the back of his neck as Brian shoves his guitar out of the way and holds Curt's mouth to the Y of his lace-up leather pants.
Brendon turns over, burying his open mouth in the pillow, breathing hungrily through his nose like all he can smell is that leather, that sweat, like he might open Brian's pants with his teeth and, God, put his mouth right there, right there on stage in front of everyone, in front of God and everyone and Brendon squeezes his eyes closed harder and jerks himself as slow as he can, hard and torturous and so fucking good, it's good like this, God it would be so good, it can be, it can be, Ryan said, and then he's kneeling at Ryan's feet and it's their show, it's their fans and their songs and Ryan rocks back on his heels and runs his fingers through Brendon's hair and pulls him forward and god, Ryan.
Brendon tries to moan into the sheets, into the sweaty curve of his own shoulder, swallowing his gasping breaths. He comes all over his stomach, his chest, up the inside of one arm. Finally he rolls over on his back, chest still rising and falling like the bellows of bagpipes, and stares open-mouthed at the ceiling. Jesus, Ryan. On his knees for Ryan or, God, Ryan on his knees for him and Brendon's dick gives a sympathetic shudder but fails to fully rise to the occasion. Way to keep up, Brendon wants to say, but he's only talking to his dick because he's strung out on adrenaline and freaked out and, fuck, kind of confused. His fingers are shaking as he tries to pinch the fabric of his discarded shirt and swipe things clean.
The knock on the door makes him wonder -- and sort of hope, for one long painful moment -- if it's possible he could be having a heart attack.
"Brendon, honey," his mom says, and he can hear her wedding ring clink against the handle.
No locks anywhere in the house, this is a family, not a jail, we don't have secrets here and he yanks his blanket up high, breathes through is mouth like if he doesn't smell it his room won't reek of spunk.
She doesn't come in though, just knocks again and says, "Church, honey, time to get up."
He wants to try coughing, or puking, or just crying and saying awful, unforgivable things until she goes away, until she leaves him alone forever. But she just wanders on down the hall, calling something out to his dad, asking about the taillight on the van. He slides out of bed and shoves his dirty boxers under the mattress, the smeared shirt, too. He grabs a towel, listens until it sounds like the coast is clear, and dashes across the hall to the bathroom. His legs are still shaky when he turns on the water.
*
He waits until the last minute to come down, wearing jeans and a pink and blue striped shirt he bought all on his own last week. His parents are drinking milk -- milk, Jesus, it's like a fucking mission pamphlet or something -- and his dad is spinning his keychain around the counter impatiently.
"I'm not going with you," Brendon says, voice even calmer than the dozen times he practiced in the shower.
"I ironed your white shirt," his mom says. "It's hanging above the washer."
"I'm not going," he repeats, and his mom goes a little pale, like she knows how serious he is, like she knows. He whispers, "I'm sorry," even though that wasn't part of the plan, that was on the don't list, don't apologize to her, don't give in to him.
Brendon's dad snatches up his keys. "Get dressed. We're going to be late."
"I have things to do. I -- I'm in a band. With Brent and these two guys he knows."
His dad says, "Brendon --" and good, you remember, you remember who taught me to play the goddamned guitar in the first place, this is your fault, this is on you.
"You're going to be late," Brendon says, and nods at the clock on the stove. His father looks down at his wristwatch like maybe Brendon's screwed that up, too.
They'll be late, everyone will notice, everyone will wonder, everyone will ask Where's Brendon? and if they go right now it'll be easier to blend, easier to slip right out at the end and let people assume he's sick, he's out of town looking at schools even though of course just like all their other boys he's going to UNLV and then his mission and then to BYU, hopefully, and of course he's fine, he's fine, he'll be here next Sunday.
This calculation, his parents' potential shame in the eyes of God and more importantly their bishop and ward, it's all key to the plan. Brendon's always thought more clearly in the shower, dreamed and planned and now actively plotted to make their worst worried prayers come true.
"We will discuss this when we get home," his dad says, like Brendon's a kid, like he colored on the tile floor or hid under his bed and wouldn't come out to brush his teeth.
"No," Brendon says, and makes himself stand up straight. "I'm not going back again."
"You will be here when we get back, and we will talk about it then." But this time there's a little bit of a shake to his dad's voice, a little bit of fear, and Brendon knows if he's committed any sin it's pride, the sheer fucking joy he feels in this moment at having scored a direct hit, at having pushed till it broke right where it hurt them the most.
His mom holds her purse white-knuckled and follows his father out. Brendon stares at the wall. He can't believe that actually worked. The car starts, the garage opener screams and lifts the door, closing again with a thunk a minute later. The house is silent.
Youngest Urie Breaks Mother's Heart, Pretends Not To Care.
*
He's not supposed to call Ryan before 11 on the weekends because Ryan's dad has made it pretty clear that after an electric guitar the telephone is his least favorite sound in the world. Luckily Brendon now has an unsupervised computer and Ryan is online and says, yeah, sure, I'll come get you, we can try talking that guy at the Orleans buffet into giving us the kid price again.
Brendon eats seven pancakes and sort of wants to puke as soon as he sets down his fork. Ryan leans back against the round booth and stretches one arm up along the back, tapping his fingers on the seam. "When do you have to be back sick in bed by?"
"I don't," Brendon says, and feels a smile break across his face before he puts any effort into it. He laughs then, throws his head back and fucking cackles in the busy buffet until Ryan gives in and chuckles, too. "I really don't," Brendon manages finally. "I'm not, I don't know, maybe I just won't go back at all."
"Wait," Ryan says, and stops smiling. "Seriously. What -- did something happen?"
"I told them." Brendon stabs what's left of a pancake with his cheap fork and the metal tines bend a little.
He looks up and Ryan is staring so carefully, so quietly, like a test, this is only a test.
"About the band," Brendon says, "uh, because I hadn't really before, they just thought Brent and I were working on something for class. But I'm totally over church, and I definitely don't want to go spend two years in, like, Lithuania or something and this isn't just -- we're not screwing around here, right, Ryan? We're really going to make this band work. Right?"
"Yes," he says, totally serious, looking Brendon right in the eye like they're making a deal, like it's a business deal, like maybe they should spit and shake hands. Brendon trusts the determined fervor in Ryan's voice, trusts that Ryan wants to get away from his dad and that house at least as much as Brendon doesn't want to be like all the other Urie boys. Ryan and Spencer have spent years planning out what kind of band they're going to be and now Ryan goes after anyone who will listen, emailing and posting about how great they are, how amazing they sound, how much kids are going to love them. Brendon just wants to make all that true, wants to be a guy like Ryan who says things worth listening to, or at least wants to be the guy who makes everyone clap and scream and holler for more.
"Okay," Brendon says, and puts both his arms up behind him even though weirdly it makes him wonder whether he looks like this obscene Christ figure and his knees are spread wide open and God, he's in a fucking casino buffet and all the blinking lights and clinking change aren't enough to distract him from the sudden flash of Ryan down on his knees, right there. "Uh," he starts, but doesn't have a clue what else to say.
Ryan slouches, biting his lip, and this would be the worst time in the world for him to do some weird psychic routine and know what Brendon's thinking, it would be so fucking embarrassing and it would be pointless anyway because it's just Brendon's hyperactive mind with all these new movies and books stuck in his brain and it's not a test, it's their band, and they're serious, and --
"Have you ever been on top of this place?" Ryan asks, kneeling on the seat as he digs in his pocket for a tip.
"Uh, no, I never even --" came here until you brought me last month. Brendon shoves another bite of pancakes in his mouth so he can't talk and takes a last swallow of melted ice water and gets up.
"Come on," Ryan says, and grabs Brendon's arm.
*
"It's cheaper than the Stratosphere," Ryan says, with a shrug that on anybody else would look shy. On Ryan it's mutely defiant, all I dare you not to be impressed. He'd led them from the last elevator stop around through a fire door and up a set of metal stairs and, yeah, Brendon was impressed.
He leans as far over the concrete wall as he can without losing his balance, the sun-bleached subdivisions stretched out in every direction and the desert wrapped around it all like a blanket. "I like this better anyway," he says, and Ryan smiles, slides towards him until their shoulders are so close that Brendon can sense the straight line where Ryan's t-shirt bares his bicep, a sharp equator between fabric and skin.
"We can talk about it," Ryan says, staring straight ahead, "if you want."
Brendon breathes into the wind, open-mouthed and thirsty and feeling somehow both tiny and explosive in his own skin, like a rocket, like a nuclear bomb in a shallow desert grave. He says, "I never even, uh --"
"Yeah, I kinda figured." Ryan's gentle, not smug, and his hair is blowing in all directions as he squints into the sun.
Brendon just turns towards him, leans in, closes his eyes right as their lips touch.
Ryan sighs, hot breath whispering across Brendon's face, and Brendon licks his way into Ryan's open mouth, sucking Ryan's tongue between his teeth. He pushes his hips against Ryan's and slides a hand down Ryan's back, pulling him closer.
He may be a seventeen-year-old mostly obedient Mormon but he has kissed people before and he knows how this goes, how he wants this to go anyway, he just knows.
"Brendon," Ryan says, breathing hard against his mouth, like he's genuinely surprised, like he can taste Brendon's own shock that somehow he managed to translate what he's imagined into what could be, Jesus, what could actually happen right here right now on this roof, they're even on a roof like in the movie and if Brendon had been smart enough to plan this part of his day this is exactly how it would have gone. He didn't even need a plan, though, because he had Ryan, Ryan who already knows what wanting this feels like.
The worn cotton of Ryan's shirt is smooth under Brendon's fingers and he kisses Ryan again, harder this time, skimming his palm down Ryan's spine and inside the tiny gap at the back of his jeans, sharp bones and scorching skin making Brendon's hand tingle, making him shiver all over. He drags his tongue up the side of Ryan's throat and shifts his weight until one thigh is pressed tight between Ryan's legs.
He groans, rocking a little and burying his face in Ryan's neck because this, God, he had no idea what this was going to really feel like, their hips so hot and their dicks, that's totally Ryan's dick, and they're so hard against each other. His mouth hovers above Ryan's skin and he moans, "Oh God, Ryan, you're so --"
He falls back, staggering on his heels, almost going over backwards onto the ground, and only because Ryan's hands are still held out in front of him does he realize he was pushed. Ryan pushed him, Ryan shoved him away and off and what the fuck, they were just getting to the good part, and --
"You can't just do that," Ryan says.
"But -- what?"
"I said if you wanted to talk --" Ryan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and ducks his head down so his hair covers his eyes.
He doesn't mean that, no way, Brendon's not so new to the real world that he's confused about what someone looks like when they're enjoying something. He comes closer, reaching out to touch Ryan's belly with the back of his hand, gentle and easy like they're in a dream, like anything too strong or sudden will wake them both up.
Ryan slaps his hand away. "I said I don't want to."
"You --" Brendon hears his voice, all scratchy and throaty like he's trying to be sexy but he's not trying, not at all. His head is pounding and his whole body hurts, he aches everywhere and this makes no sense. Ryan is standing there with crossed arms and damp eyes and Brendon can't stop himself from saying, in that stranger's voice, "But you like it."
Ryan flinches, guilt and superiority flickering across his face. "Fuck you, Brendon," he spits into the wind. "You don't even know what you're doing."
Absolutely nothing, no question Brendon's ever asked himself, not one of the last hundred nights he's spent staring at his ceiling thinking of ways to get out of everything his parents had planned for him -- none of that has given him any fucking idea what is going on right now, what Ryan is mad about, what Brendon's supposed to say.
"Anyway," Ryan shrugs carelessly, "now you have. Now you know what it's like."
"Oh, thanks for that, Ryan. Thank you so much for making sure my need to figure shit out is tended to. That's so fucking selfless of you, Jesus, how can you possibly be such a martyr and not, you know, die of self-righteousness."
Ryan spins around and walks off, leaving him there.
*
Brendon doesn't try very hard to find a ride home because what's he going to do when he gets there, anyway, except fight with his parents, and he's pretty sure he's already had all the awful conversations he can handle for one day. He wanders around the casino floor, casually dodging security and practicing cover stories in his head. He's looking for his sister the cocktail waitress. He's in town with his card shark of a brother from Utah. He's lost and could they please page his boyfriend to come get him?
He goes to one of the restaurants and orders coffee and reads a copy of the Review-Journal someone left on the table. None of the articles have a single thing to do with him and he wonders what people pick up the paper and actually learn something they truly needed to know, like about life, about themselves.
He holds the gate at the guest pool for a couple of girls in bikinis and follows them in. He takes off his shoes, dangling his legs in the water as he tries and fails to mentally write a journal entry about the best-slash-worst day of his life. He finally gives in and calls Brent from a pay phone around five, except Brent's not answering his cell and Brendon's just not really sure what else to do, where else he can go.
He makes himself go outside and breathe in actual fresh air before he starts to cry or whatever would be worse than crying at how lamely desperate he feels. He collapses on a bench by valet parking and asks a stranger for a cigarette, but the guy wanders off before Brendon thinks to have him light it and it's not like he has matches on him or even knows how to smoke in the first place, so he just rolls the paper cylinder between his fingers until the tobacco all falls in little chunks onto the sidewalk.
Around seven a bellhop sits down next to him. Once he looks past the uniform Brendon realizes the guy isn't that old, maybe like 30. "Aren't you Kara's little brother?" he asks, smiling kindly, and Brendon just barely manages not to roll his eyes.
Great. He is so sick of everyone knowing the family he's trying to avoid. The Mormons are worse than the Mafia. He can't ever get away.
"Do you need a ride or something?"
"I was --" Brendon can feel his arm making this huge queeny wave and snatches it back, folding his hands together in his lap where they can't get him in any more trouble. "I'm just gonna take a cab," he says.
"Oh, no. Kara'd kill me if she heard I wouldn't drive her kid brother home. It's cool, I just got done working."
In the car Kyle tells Brendon that he and Kara went to high school together, that he's going to UNLV to become a pharmacist (which, seriously, what a weird thing to want to be, Brendon thinks as he stares dully out the window of Kyle's Toyota Tercel), that his little brother is four grades behind Brendon and maybe Brendon can recommend a good elective for him to take freshman year.
"I take guitar," Brendon says, and Kyle turns down his street without asking for directions. "But ninth graders have to do marching band first."
"Oh, great," Kyle says, like Brendon's actually been helpful, like sarcasm has been bred out of good Mormons generations ago. He squints between gaps in streetlights and Brendon points at his house. "Yeah, now I remember. Tell your mom and dad hi, okay? I haven't seen them since the ward got split up."
Brendon says yeah, sure, thanks as he reaches for the handle.
"Hey Brendon."
Brendon sighs and rests his knee against the door. Thus begins his night of lectures, differentiated from his afternoon of lectures by the religious themes and a total lack of kissing.
"You should -- be a little careful, all right? There's a lot of people who'd see a nice kid like you sitting all alone and, you know."
Kyle looks like he's trying to tell Brendon the truth about Santa Claus, like this hurts me more than it hurts you, kid.
"A lot of people out there aren't all that nice," Kyle says, and something in his worried eyes makes Brendon think of Ryan, of Ryan slapping his hand away, of Ryan's quiet wariness.
He just wants to go inside and crawl into bed and wake up tomorrow like today never happened, like he can just go to church with his family and not end up worse off than he started. Which is an even stupider fantasy than Santa Claus.
He walks in a straight line between perfectly edged halves of the front lawn, Disgraced Son Returns Home, Awaits Punishment And Inevitable Parental Condemnation.
Kyle doesn't drive off until Brendon opens the front door.
continued here
Panic! at the Disco, Brendon/Ryan, explicit
They called this tough love.
~25,000 words
Thanks to jae_w, runpunkrun, likeadeuce and miella.
ETA: Now also at AO3.
Disclaimer: Why should Ryan Ross be the only one stealing lines from Palahniuk?
For those just along for the ride: This is Brendon. This is Ryan. This is all of Panic!, back in their early years (so, 2005-ish), and here's an early preview of the Ryan & Brendon show. Then there's this. And this is the kind of trouble they were getting themselves into on stage by late 2006.
More specifically for this story: Here, have a live version of Time to Dance. It's a song Ryan wrote based on the novel Invisible Monsters. Maybe you already know that. I've been told not everyone has spent quite so much time comparing the two.
Oh, and: Brendon's not going to teach you about Mormons in his own POV.
You have to tell me about your future.
"What's that song?"
Brendon's mom sets a glass of juice on the counter right at the edge of the Living section. Concert reviews are his own reward for getting through the real news. The OJ is just a conversational bribe.
He's still stuck in Local News, reading about a subdivision planned on the edge of Red Rocks and artifacts that could indicate the site was a native burial ground. "That's what these activists always try as a last resort," said the lead planner on the project.
Brendon wonders whether that's actually true or just an excuse given to the media. Maybe if he'd started reading the paper last year he'd be more sure. Project Brendon is a relatively recent development.
"The song you were humming just now," his mom says, leaning back against the sink. "And earlier, I heard you singing it in the shower."
What she really means is has he bought yet another album whose questionable themes and lyrics will feed her growing concern that Brendon Is Slipping; Steps Must Be Taken While Chance Of Eternal Salvation Remains Good.
Lately his mental Mom headlines are more dire than the paper's. She listens so carefully to his life that she should be able to hear him choking on every question.
Brendon Plans Insurrection, Secession, Abandonment Of Duties To Faith And Family. He thinks it loudly, carelessly, but she doesn't blink. If she can read his mind, he's already screwed.
"It's just this new thing I learned," he says, not lying, not lying yet. He shoves the last piece of toast in his mouth. "For band," he says around the food, and if there's a word missing from his answer that's not a lie either, exactly, he's just trying not to talk and chew at the same time.
*
So he's in a band now.
He says it again and again in his head. Yeah, he's a guy in a band. He's the kind of guy who's in a band.
Project Brendon is all about figuring out what kind of guy he is, and so far he's a guy who is skeptical that anybody on the news tells the whole truth, and a guy who is never going to eat meat again no matter how much the smell of bacon is the most unholy temptation in all the world. He's a guy who never should have tried Red Bull because he likes it way too much not to drink it every day the rest of his life, and a guy who caught a ride with Brent after school to go talk about his favorite records and screw around with a borrowed guitar.
He's a guy who got hit smack in the chest with how much he wanted two total strangers to like him and ask him to come back.
The drummer, Spencer, had licked his lips like he had something to say but wasn't sure it was worth the effort. Ryan, the singer, nodded and pushed his hair out of his face and said, "We have practice Thursday."
"Cool," Brendon said as Ryan stared steadily. Ryan was a little intimidating. He probably started Project Ryan when he was five. Brendon shrugged like it was no big deal, like people asked him to be in bands all the time, and said, "Thursday's cool with me."
*
He tells his mom he and a guy from guitar class are trying to write some music, maybe something for the school concert, not for sure but maybe if they can spend a lot of time getting it perfect. He'll probably get home kind of late a couple nights a week.
"Remember that song you wrote for your sister," she starts, but, God, he was, like, twelve, and it was just a couple of rhyming words and a -- okay, the melody was pretty good, but he was just a kid and he wishes she'd quit reminding him like it wasn't all that long ago. She stops, though, so maybe she remembers how last time she brought it up he threw a not-very-mature tantrum and said all those things out loud. He bites the inside of his cheek like he does every morning and every Sunday and every Family Home Evening.
He's in a band. He's in a band. If he's grounded he'll have to sneak out for practice and inevitably get caught by his mom or someone from the ward will notice and call his dad and he wants this, this band, his band, more than he cares about what his mom thinks in this moment.
"It's no big deal," he says, and she smiles and touches his nose before going upstairs.
He knows why he's lying, but he's not sure why he feels so shitty about it. He's not very invested these days in impressing the prophet or Heavenly Father or anybody at church. He quit praying last year, even before Project Brendon, because it's not fair to ask for something from someone he's pretty sure doesn't exist, especially when he doesn't want to feel obligated in any way to owe something in return.
Lying, though, feels like one of those things that shouldn't be about God. It's just wrong, and he keeps doing it anyway, keeps acting like a scared little boy. He doesn't want to be a guy who lies just because it's harder to say, hey, I'm ready for my life to start now, please prepare to be disappointed in how I've turned out.
*
One day during practice Brendon is playing around with the harmony, pushing it higher and lower and yeah, he's showing off a little what he can do but only because he really wants to contribute something more than rhythm guitar, something that will make these guys need him like he needs this.
Ryan twists sideways, still strumming, mouth open a little but not singing anymore. His chin tilts up a notch, like a nod, like keep going keep going and so Brendon drops down a third and takes over the melody, stretching it until his voice actually breaks.
Ryan's hand skids along the frets, screaming to a halt. Brent plucks his bass at half-strength and Spencer just stops, arm still flung up in the air, and says, "Shit."
Brendon coughs and swallows and Jesus, his voice hasn't broken like that in years, and of course it has to be now when --
"Yeah," Ryan says, laughing under his breath, but he's nodding. "Shit, no shit, why am I still pretending I should be the singer here?"
*
So now he's the lead singer in a band. He's his band's lead singer. He has a band.
He's the frontman.
He tries not to think too much about that part. It's still Ryan's band, Ryan and Spencer's really, Ryan's lyrics and Spencer's pulse and the two of them will be in bands together the rest of their lives no matter who else comes and goes. He and Brent talk about it once in the car, about being replaceable, but even Brent's known them since they first started playing.
Brendon still doesn't want to give them a good excuse to look for someone else, so for the first month of practice he tries hard not to be a total freak, to sound smart and like he knows what the hell he's talking about when it comes to anything but music, which he obviously does know more about than all the rest of them put together.
But Ryan keeps talking about books Brendon's never even heard of, writers and artists so far off the approved list of good little Mobot texts that Brendon can't begin to act like he knows what Ryan's talking about. Ryan and his tiny t-shirts from shows he went to when he was in, like, eighth grade, bands whose bass players remembered his name at the merch booth, bands on tours like Ryan says they could be playing, should be playing in a year if things go the way he's planned.
Brendon sits through every family dinner full of barely checked fury, full of envy and wrath and rage at his parents and their carefully constructed cell of righteousness designed to protect his eternal soul even if it leaves him fumbling blind. There's a whole fucking world out there full of words and music and people living their lives how they've decided is righteous and good, not just because some man who supposedly hears the word of God said so.
"So it's all about this, like, transsexual, you know, and she's --"
They're on the lawn outside Spencer's grandmother's house, waiting because she's making Spencer try on a suit for a wedding, and Ryan looks up from the grass he's tearing into long narrow strips.
"You should just read it," Ryan says. "I think you -- of anyone you would like it. Really it's about what happens when people hate themselves. When you let the world make you believe you should hate yourself."
Brendon sits up. "I don't hate myself."
Ryan ties two splinters of grass in a knot, his long fingers looping around and his lips pulled tight.
"I don't," Brendon says, and cringes at the whine in his voice. "No, really, I don't know what kind of guy you think --"
"I think," Ryan says, and puts his hand on the ground an inch from Brendon's leg. Brendon can feel his own kneecap tingling against his jeans, like he's some kind of bionic monster. "I think you want something new to believe in."
Ryan pushes up, brushing dirt off his pants like he hasn't just summed up the last year of Brendon's life in a heartbeat.
"C'mon," Ryan says, and holds out a hand. "Let's go save Spence."
*
Spencer and Ryan take him shopping, with two hundred bucks of Brendon's carefully hoarded savings and a single-minded mission: "Buy Brendon better clothes." Spencer doesn't even apologize for how that sounds a little mean. It's worse because he's right. Brendon's mom says anything that didn't come down through his brothers is a luxury a family of five kids with one income can't afford. God forbid he doesn't actually want to dress just like them, if he has his own idea of what first impression he'd like to make.
"I'm sure you have a sense of style," Spencer says. "Somewhere."
Somewhere turns out to be Nordstrom's, even though Forever 21 has a rack of jeans in the doorway that Ryan flips his fingers through like he's shuffling a deck of winning cards.
Spencer touches Ryan's arm, shaking his head. "He's going to have to try them on. And we're probably going to have to help."
"I am capable of dressing myself," Brendon points out. "And also I'm standing right here. I'm practically in the same conversation you're having about me."
Ryan spares a predictably derisive glance for Brendon's outfit. "If that's what you call dressing yourself." Then he says, "Fine. Department store."
They pick out eleven pairs of jeans from the junior's section for Brendon to try on before Spencer leads them to the "more socially appropriate dressing rooms." A man in a shirt and tie frowns at their selection and starts to protest when Ryan follows Brendon into the cubicle. Brendon hears Spencer say, in this fake-pity voice, "We promised his mom we'd help, but he's so --" Huge sigh. "Special." Apparently shopping is Ryan and Spencer's idea of fun, which sort of makes sense given that they don't drink, like not at all. Brendon knows plenty of kids who spend Saturdays getting wasted and Sundays in church. This band is clearly a different kind of trouble.
Ryan shuts the door and perches on the edge of the bench. Brendon does okay until he tries to get the first pair fastened, and after a minute or two he bites his lip and throws up his hands. "Ross, for God's sake, how do you --" Ryan's hand darts out, yanking and tucking the tiny metal button inside its hole. If only he had a corset and a powdered wig and a small army of ladies-in-waiting Brendon would feel like a proper princess. It's the kind of off-kilter crazy idea he gets a lot around Ryan lately and he tries to suppress his giggle.
"Hmm," Ryan says, and leans against the wall. "Those fit okay. I guess. Let's show Spence."
He pushes Brendon out through the corridor of dressing rooms, past a half-open door where a man is folding the tail of a tuxedo shirt into shiny black pants. Brendon is presented to Spencer like a prize show dog and Spencer circles around him and goes, "Hmm," just like Ryan, and then shakes his head non-committally. "Try the other ones."
So he does it again, and again, Ryan trooping back with him every time until Brendon jokes, "What, are you scared to be left alone with creepy attendant guy?"
"No," Ryan snaps, but the next time out to Inspector Spencer, Brendon notices how carefully the guy watches Ryan, like he doesn't trust him, like somehow in his own skinny girl jeans Ryan's going to steal something or maybe already has. The guy keeps staring at Ryan's tiny back pockets, as if anything else could fit in there, could be smuggled out in the millimeter of space between his skin and pants.
"Creepy fuck," Brendon whispers to Ryan as they cycle back for the last round of tryouts.
"Sometimes," Ryan says, a low, suddenly serious warning, "they're worse."
Brendon's not really sure what that means. They're crammed together in this weird hushed confessional and he almost thinks he could get Ryan to explain for a change, but then they're confronted with a hard choice of washes and button flies and Brendon gives up and puts Spencer in charge of final selection and they end up spending every penny Brendon has on him.
"That's okay," Brendon jokes as they walk out to the car with just one little bag holding all his hard-earned jeans. "It's not like there's any room in them for money anyway."
*
They never have a conversation about it, but it's like Ryan discovers the top secret blueprints for Project Brendon and makes it his business to accelerate the takeover. He supplies a steady stream of books and blogs and zines written in Sharpie on duct tape and sold only in dingy skate stores. He says one day at practice, deadly dry and terrifying, "I'm just not sure I can be in a band with a guy who hasn't seen the special edition of Moulin Rouge."
Brent kicks the top of his case closed. "Again?"
Spencer rolls his eyes in Ryan's direction and says, "Yeah, how about tomorrow?"
Tomorrow's Saturday. Brendon's big plan consists of beginning to fake a cough in preparation for ditching church on Sunday.
"You can be excused," Ryan says, but only to Brent, which is okay because Brendon doesn't want to be excused, he almost pathetically wants to be included in this, in everything Ryan plans, in everywhere they're all going to go.
"What time?" Brendon asks.
*
Brendon watches Satine fly across a theatre and the world and is pretty sure that if required at this moment he too could dance to the moon and back. He tries to pay attention to everything on screen at once and then realizes he's just going to have to watch this again and again and again. Fuck family-friendly Disney musicals he's sat through with his nieces and nephews a million times. Those songs are good but they're not real, they're just cotton candy, fake and sugary watercolor paintings of a world with an impossibly perfect price of admission. This is real shit, real screaming and fighting and fucking and dying.
"No more Red Bull for Brendon," Spencer says after Brendon jumps a half-foot in the air at the first punch thrown in Fight Club. Ryan's walking in from the bathroom, still buttoning his pants, and he sits back down on the couch with Brendon. "Maybe your people avoid caffeine for a reason. Maybe you're genetically incapable of processing it."
"If you, Spencer James Smith the fifth, the man with the most Mormon name in all of Las Vegas, are referring to my devoted brothers and sisters in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints --" Brendon starts, and stops when Ryan laughs. He made Ryan laugh, Ryan and his utterly calm, cool stare like the world is only barely managing to keep him from dying of boredom. Brendon totally forgets what else he was going to say.
Spencer stretches out on his side on the carpet and yawns and says, "This is the part where Ryan tells you how the book is so much better."
Ryan totally does just that, but Brendon doesn't mind. He's got so many books he wants to read now that unless Ryan is waving his own crumpled copy with notes scrawled in the margins and talking about how it changed his fucking life, man, seriously, Brendon, you have to, it still goes on the end of the list. Occasionally the book-vs.-movie commentary is interrupted by Spencer talking about the Dust Brothers or a half-hearted debate about Helena Bonham Carter's hotness or Ryan changing his mind again which of Brad Pitt's fur coats he wants most.
When it ends, Brendon goes into Ryan's kitchen and calls his mom and tells her Brent's parents are dropping them at a movie. His Sunday cold is just going to have to be a sudden onset thing. He comes back and Ryan is leaning forward to talk quietly with Spencer. Spencer rolls his neck back on the couch and says, "I don't know, if you think so, it's your --"
Ryan turns to look at Brendon, blinks once slowly and sort of drags his eyes from Brendon's face down along the new pair of jeans Brendon finally had the balls to wear clear from his own room past his mother and her squinting eyes.
"You like Bowie, right?" Ryan asks, and Brendon says yes, he always says yes to Ryan's questions like that, especially when it's actually true. Ryan shrugs at Spencer, like why not, and Spencer gets up and puts in another DVD.
"Velvet Goldmine is a freaky mind-fuck of a movie," Ryan says, low, leaning in to talk in Brendon's ear. "Just look at those pants, Jesus," he says later, and then, dismissively, "Arthur's such a fan." Once, a little louder: "I think you're right, Spence. This movie can't actually get any gayer."
This is a test, Brendon realizes with a sharp snap when Ryan's wristbone bumps his again. This is only a test. If this were an actual meaningful moment in his actual life it would be louder, it would be more obvious. This is only a test.
This is his test, Ryan and Spencer's test for him, for the Mormon, for the new guy.
It's just a movie, a movie about these guys obsessed with each other in different ways at different times and for a few minutes Brendon thinks maybe he's gotten the hang of it, thinks maybe he'll stop flinching inside every time a guy licks another guy's shoulder or runs a hand down his body and squeezes the crotch of his silver pants.
But then it's down to two guys on a roof, Curt the rock star and Arthur his biggest fan and they're so, so sweet almost, touching each other's faces gently and smiling at each other, so happy to have this tender quiet moment together in the middle of their fucked-up world, and Brendon says, "Is that --"
He feels the words spit out between squeezed lips, like he can still take them back if he wants to enough. Ryan turns towards him, just a few degrees but they're so close on the couch, wrists still touching, knees and legs and shoulders and Brendon can't take it back, not with Ryan's eyes so carefully watching and waiting and this is a test, this is only a test.
"Is it like that?" Brendon says, and Ryan's lips twitch, like it's not what he was expecting, like he's quietly impressed. Brendon hears his words reverberate through his head and realizes what he's said, how it sounds, what it says he thinks about Ryan, what it says about him that he wants to know, what it --
"Yeah," Ryan says. His eyes are fixed on Brendon's sleeve like he didn't mean to say it out loud either.
Brendon can hear himself breathe, can hear Spencer rolling onto his back to look at them. Spencer says Ryan's name like a warning, like he wants to say Brendon's the same way but doesn't know how yet.
"It can be, yeah," Ryan says and Brendon's face is hot, his whole spine feels like it's shaking and he has to, he has to get out of here, he can't, he doesn't know how to be nonchalant in this moment but he tries anyway, says something stupid like cool or yeah or oh and counts every breath in and out through the last scenes and the credits and then stands up and fakes a smile and says, "Yeah, I should get home before my mom decides to call Brent's or something."
*
He barely gets his hand down his pants before he comes. He kicks off his jeans and pulls the covers back up and swallows down this noisy lump in his throat. It's a stupid rule but years and years of Sunday school and seminary and giving testimony and he can't act like he's unaware that even lusting violates the Law of Chastity, let alone acting on it, let alone like this.
When he's caught his breath he remembers that wet dreams were his first real intellectual win against the church. He was fourteen and freaked out and it wasn't like he was going to talk to his dad or the guys in Scouts and so he just did what he does now with the newspaper or the movies: he figured it out for himself. Because how could something completely unplanned and spontaneous and natural -- thank you very much, entire lack of sex ed, but Brendon does know how to use the internet -- how can something where your brain barely even cooperates with your body be enough to threaten your eternal soul? It just can't. Brendon Urie, 1; LDS, 0.
He falls asleep in the Edward Scissorhands t-shirt Ryan had casually complimented and wakes up proving his point, his mind full of long legs in silver pants and purple makeup smeared on white blouses and his body adding another stain to the sheets.
So he officially decides, screw this, it's his mind, he can think whatever he wants. It's his body, not God's, and he should make it feel as good as he knows how. He pushes off his shirt and slides his sticky boxers down his hips, shifts on the sheets and thinks about Curt and Arthur kissing on the roof. Touching Curt's long hair, his bony shoulders. His body's still catching up, so he lets his mind linger a little, lets his fantasy trip lazily along as they press their bare chests together, licking and moaning and reaching to feel more skin.
That's good, that's good, he's hard again now, so dizzy and tingly and what if instead, maybe it's Curt and Brian Slade on stage, Curt on his knees rocking his hips up at Brian and his guitar, Curt rising up to lick the strings, sucking Brian's fingers into his mouth around the frets, flashbulbs popping, people screaming and cheering, two fingers now in his mouth and a hand around the back of his neck as Brian shoves his guitar out of the way and holds Curt's mouth to the Y of his lace-up leather pants.
Brendon turns over, burying his open mouth in the pillow, breathing hungrily through his nose like all he can smell is that leather, that sweat, like he might open Brian's pants with his teeth and, God, put his mouth right there, right there on stage in front of everyone, in front of God and everyone and Brendon squeezes his eyes closed harder and jerks himself as slow as he can, hard and torturous and so fucking good, it's good like this, God it would be so good, it can be, it can be, Ryan said, and then he's kneeling at Ryan's feet and it's their show, it's their fans and their songs and Ryan rocks back on his heels and runs his fingers through Brendon's hair and pulls him forward and god, Ryan.
Brendon tries to moan into the sheets, into the sweaty curve of his own shoulder, swallowing his gasping breaths. He comes all over his stomach, his chest, up the inside of one arm. Finally he rolls over on his back, chest still rising and falling like the bellows of bagpipes, and stares open-mouthed at the ceiling. Jesus, Ryan. On his knees for Ryan or, God, Ryan on his knees for him and Brendon's dick gives a sympathetic shudder but fails to fully rise to the occasion. Way to keep up, Brendon wants to say, but he's only talking to his dick because he's strung out on adrenaline and freaked out and, fuck, kind of confused. His fingers are shaking as he tries to pinch the fabric of his discarded shirt and swipe things clean.
The knock on the door makes him wonder -- and sort of hope, for one long painful moment -- if it's possible he could be having a heart attack.
"Brendon, honey," his mom says, and he can hear her wedding ring clink against the handle.
No locks anywhere in the house, this is a family, not a jail, we don't have secrets here and he yanks his blanket up high, breathes through is mouth like if he doesn't smell it his room won't reek of spunk.
She doesn't come in though, just knocks again and says, "Church, honey, time to get up."
He wants to try coughing, or puking, or just crying and saying awful, unforgivable things until she goes away, until she leaves him alone forever. But she just wanders on down the hall, calling something out to his dad, asking about the taillight on the van. He slides out of bed and shoves his dirty boxers under the mattress, the smeared shirt, too. He grabs a towel, listens until it sounds like the coast is clear, and dashes across the hall to the bathroom. His legs are still shaky when he turns on the water.
*
He waits until the last minute to come down, wearing jeans and a pink and blue striped shirt he bought all on his own last week. His parents are drinking milk -- milk, Jesus, it's like a fucking mission pamphlet or something -- and his dad is spinning his keychain around the counter impatiently.
"I'm not going with you," Brendon says, voice even calmer than the dozen times he practiced in the shower.
"I ironed your white shirt," his mom says. "It's hanging above the washer."
"I'm not going," he repeats, and his mom goes a little pale, like she knows how serious he is, like she knows. He whispers, "I'm sorry," even though that wasn't part of the plan, that was on the don't list, don't apologize to her, don't give in to him.
Brendon's dad snatches up his keys. "Get dressed. We're going to be late."
"I have things to do. I -- I'm in a band. With Brent and these two guys he knows."
His dad says, "Brendon --" and good, you remember, you remember who taught me to play the goddamned guitar in the first place, this is your fault, this is on you.
"You're going to be late," Brendon says, and nods at the clock on the stove. His father looks down at his wristwatch like maybe Brendon's screwed that up, too.
They'll be late, everyone will notice, everyone will wonder, everyone will ask Where's Brendon? and if they go right now it'll be easier to blend, easier to slip right out at the end and let people assume he's sick, he's out of town looking at schools even though of course just like all their other boys he's going to UNLV and then his mission and then to BYU, hopefully, and of course he's fine, he's fine, he'll be here next Sunday.
This calculation, his parents' potential shame in the eyes of God and more importantly their bishop and ward, it's all key to the plan. Brendon's always thought more clearly in the shower, dreamed and planned and now actively plotted to make their worst worried prayers come true.
"We will discuss this when we get home," his dad says, like Brendon's a kid, like he colored on the tile floor or hid under his bed and wouldn't come out to brush his teeth.
"No," Brendon says, and makes himself stand up straight. "I'm not going back again."
"You will be here when we get back, and we will talk about it then." But this time there's a little bit of a shake to his dad's voice, a little bit of fear, and Brendon knows if he's committed any sin it's pride, the sheer fucking joy he feels in this moment at having scored a direct hit, at having pushed till it broke right where it hurt them the most.
His mom holds her purse white-knuckled and follows his father out. Brendon stares at the wall. He can't believe that actually worked. The car starts, the garage opener screams and lifts the door, closing again with a thunk a minute later. The house is silent.
Youngest Urie Breaks Mother's Heart, Pretends Not To Care.
*
He's not supposed to call Ryan before 11 on the weekends because Ryan's dad has made it pretty clear that after an electric guitar the telephone is his least favorite sound in the world. Luckily Brendon now has an unsupervised computer and Ryan is online and says, yeah, sure, I'll come get you, we can try talking that guy at the Orleans buffet into giving us the kid price again.
Brendon eats seven pancakes and sort of wants to puke as soon as he sets down his fork. Ryan leans back against the round booth and stretches one arm up along the back, tapping his fingers on the seam. "When do you have to be back sick in bed by?"
"I don't," Brendon says, and feels a smile break across his face before he puts any effort into it. He laughs then, throws his head back and fucking cackles in the busy buffet until Ryan gives in and chuckles, too. "I really don't," Brendon manages finally. "I'm not, I don't know, maybe I just won't go back at all."
"Wait," Ryan says, and stops smiling. "Seriously. What -- did something happen?"
"I told them." Brendon stabs what's left of a pancake with his cheap fork and the metal tines bend a little.
He looks up and Ryan is staring so carefully, so quietly, like a test, this is only a test.
"About the band," Brendon says, "uh, because I hadn't really before, they just thought Brent and I were working on something for class. But I'm totally over church, and I definitely don't want to go spend two years in, like, Lithuania or something and this isn't just -- we're not screwing around here, right, Ryan? We're really going to make this band work. Right?"
"Yes," he says, totally serious, looking Brendon right in the eye like they're making a deal, like it's a business deal, like maybe they should spit and shake hands. Brendon trusts the determined fervor in Ryan's voice, trusts that Ryan wants to get away from his dad and that house at least as much as Brendon doesn't want to be like all the other Urie boys. Ryan and Spencer have spent years planning out what kind of band they're going to be and now Ryan goes after anyone who will listen, emailing and posting about how great they are, how amazing they sound, how much kids are going to love them. Brendon just wants to make all that true, wants to be a guy like Ryan who says things worth listening to, or at least wants to be the guy who makes everyone clap and scream and holler for more.
"Okay," Brendon says, and puts both his arms up behind him even though weirdly it makes him wonder whether he looks like this obscene Christ figure and his knees are spread wide open and God, he's in a fucking casino buffet and all the blinking lights and clinking change aren't enough to distract him from the sudden flash of Ryan down on his knees, right there. "Uh," he starts, but doesn't have a clue what else to say.
Ryan slouches, biting his lip, and this would be the worst time in the world for him to do some weird psychic routine and know what Brendon's thinking, it would be so fucking embarrassing and it would be pointless anyway because it's just Brendon's hyperactive mind with all these new movies and books stuck in his brain and it's not a test, it's their band, and they're serious, and --
"Have you ever been on top of this place?" Ryan asks, kneeling on the seat as he digs in his pocket for a tip.
"Uh, no, I never even --" came here until you brought me last month. Brendon shoves another bite of pancakes in his mouth so he can't talk and takes a last swallow of melted ice water and gets up.
"Come on," Ryan says, and grabs Brendon's arm.
*
"It's cheaper than the Stratosphere," Ryan says, with a shrug that on anybody else would look shy. On Ryan it's mutely defiant, all I dare you not to be impressed. He'd led them from the last elevator stop around through a fire door and up a set of metal stairs and, yeah, Brendon was impressed.
He leans as far over the concrete wall as he can without losing his balance, the sun-bleached subdivisions stretched out in every direction and the desert wrapped around it all like a blanket. "I like this better anyway," he says, and Ryan smiles, slides towards him until their shoulders are so close that Brendon can sense the straight line where Ryan's t-shirt bares his bicep, a sharp equator between fabric and skin.
"We can talk about it," Ryan says, staring straight ahead, "if you want."
Brendon breathes into the wind, open-mouthed and thirsty and feeling somehow both tiny and explosive in his own skin, like a rocket, like a nuclear bomb in a shallow desert grave. He says, "I never even, uh --"
"Yeah, I kinda figured." Ryan's gentle, not smug, and his hair is blowing in all directions as he squints into the sun.
Brendon just turns towards him, leans in, closes his eyes right as their lips touch.
Ryan sighs, hot breath whispering across Brendon's face, and Brendon licks his way into Ryan's open mouth, sucking Ryan's tongue between his teeth. He pushes his hips against Ryan's and slides a hand down Ryan's back, pulling him closer.
He may be a seventeen-year-old mostly obedient Mormon but he has kissed people before and he knows how this goes, how he wants this to go anyway, he just knows.
"Brendon," Ryan says, breathing hard against his mouth, like he's genuinely surprised, like he can taste Brendon's own shock that somehow he managed to translate what he's imagined into what could be, Jesus, what could actually happen right here right now on this roof, they're even on a roof like in the movie and if Brendon had been smart enough to plan this part of his day this is exactly how it would have gone. He didn't even need a plan, though, because he had Ryan, Ryan who already knows what wanting this feels like.
The worn cotton of Ryan's shirt is smooth under Brendon's fingers and he kisses Ryan again, harder this time, skimming his palm down Ryan's spine and inside the tiny gap at the back of his jeans, sharp bones and scorching skin making Brendon's hand tingle, making him shiver all over. He drags his tongue up the side of Ryan's throat and shifts his weight until one thigh is pressed tight between Ryan's legs.
He groans, rocking a little and burying his face in Ryan's neck because this, God, he had no idea what this was going to really feel like, their hips so hot and their dicks, that's totally Ryan's dick, and they're so hard against each other. His mouth hovers above Ryan's skin and he moans, "Oh God, Ryan, you're so --"
He falls back, staggering on his heels, almost going over backwards onto the ground, and only because Ryan's hands are still held out in front of him does he realize he was pushed. Ryan pushed him, Ryan shoved him away and off and what the fuck, they were just getting to the good part, and --
"You can't just do that," Ryan says.
"But -- what?"
"I said if you wanted to talk --" Ryan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and ducks his head down so his hair covers his eyes.
He doesn't mean that, no way, Brendon's not so new to the real world that he's confused about what someone looks like when they're enjoying something. He comes closer, reaching out to touch Ryan's belly with the back of his hand, gentle and easy like they're in a dream, like anything too strong or sudden will wake them both up.
Ryan slaps his hand away. "I said I don't want to."
"You --" Brendon hears his voice, all scratchy and throaty like he's trying to be sexy but he's not trying, not at all. His head is pounding and his whole body hurts, he aches everywhere and this makes no sense. Ryan is standing there with crossed arms and damp eyes and Brendon can't stop himself from saying, in that stranger's voice, "But you like it."
Ryan flinches, guilt and superiority flickering across his face. "Fuck you, Brendon," he spits into the wind. "You don't even know what you're doing."
Absolutely nothing, no question Brendon's ever asked himself, not one of the last hundred nights he's spent staring at his ceiling thinking of ways to get out of everything his parents had planned for him -- none of that has given him any fucking idea what is going on right now, what Ryan is mad about, what Brendon's supposed to say.
"Anyway," Ryan shrugs carelessly, "now you have. Now you know what it's like."
"Oh, thanks for that, Ryan. Thank you so much for making sure my need to figure shit out is tended to. That's so fucking selfless of you, Jesus, how can you possibly be such a martyr and not, you know, die of self-righteousness."
Ryan spins around and walks off, leaving him there.
*
Brendon doesn't try very hard to find a ride home because what's he going to do when he gets there, anyway, except fight with his parents, and he's pretty sure he's already had all the awful conversations he can handle for one day. He wanders around the casino floor, casually dodging security and practicing cover stories in his head. He's looking for his sister the cocktail waitress. He's in town with his card shark of a brother from Utah. He's lost and could they please page his boyfriend to come get him?
He goes to one of the restaurants and orders coffee and reads a copy of the Review-Journal someone left on the table. None of the articles have a single thing to do with him and he wonders what people pick up the paper and actually learn something they truly needed to know, like about life, about themselves.
He holds the gate at the guest pool for a couple of girls in bikinis and follows them in. He takes off his shoes, dangling his legs in the water as he tries and fails to mentally write a journal entry about the best-slash-worst day of his life. He finally gives in and calls Brent from a pay phone around five, except Brent's not answering his cell and Brendon's just not really sure what else to do, where else he can go.
He makes himself go outside and breathe in actual fresh air before he starts to cry or whatever would be worse than crying at how lamely desperate he feels. He collapses on a bench by valet parking and asks a stranger for a cigarette, but the guy wanders off before Brendon thinks to have him light it and it's not like he has matches on him or even knows how to smoke in the first place, so he just rolls the paper cylinder between his fingers until the tobacco all falls in little chunks onto the sidewalk.
Around seven a bellhop sits down next to him. Once he looks past the uniform Brendon realizes the guy isn't that old, maybe like 30. "Aren't you Kara's little brother?" he asks, smiling kindly, and Brendon just barely manages not to roll his eyes.
Great. He is so sick of everyone knowing the family he's trying to avoid. The Mormons are worse than the Mafia. He can't ever get away.
"Do you need a ride or something?"
"I was --" Brendon can feel his arm making this huge queeny wave and snatches it back, folding his hands together in his lap where they can't get him in any more trouble. "I'm just gonna take a cab," he says.
"Oh, no. Kara'd kill me if she heard I wouldn't drive her kid brother home. It's cool, I just got done working."
In the car Kyle tells Brendon that he and Kara went to high school together, that he's going to UNLV to become a pharmacist (which, seriously, what a weird thing to want to be, Brendon thinks as he stares dully out the window of Kyle's Toyota Tercel), that his little brother is four grades behind Brendon and maybe Brendon can recommend a good elective for him to take freshman year.
"I take guitar," Brendon says, and Kyle turns down his street without asking for directions. "But ninth graders have to do marching band first."
"Oh, great," Kyle says, like Brendon's actually been helpful, like sarcasm has been bred out of good Mormons generations ago. He squints between gaps in streetlights and Brendon points at his house. "Yeah, now I remember. Tell your mom and dad hi, okay? I haven't seen them since the ward got split up."
Brendon says yeah, sure, thanks as he reaches for the handle.
"Hey Brendon."
Brendon sighs and rests his knee against the door. Thus begins his night of lectures, differentiated from his afternoon of lectures by the religious themes and a total lack of kissing.
"You should -- be a little careful, all right? There's a lot of people who'd see a nice kid like you sitting all alone and, you know."
Kyle looks like he's trying to tell Brendon the truth about Santa Claus, like this hurts me more than it hurts you, kid.
"A lot of people out there aren't all that nice," Kyle says, and something in his worried eyes makes Brendon think of Ryan, of Ryan slapping his hand away, of Ryan's quiet wariness.
He just wants to go inside and crawl into bed and wake up tomorrow like today never happened, like he can just go to church with his family and not end up worse off than he started. Which is an even stupider fantasy than Santa Claus.
He walks in a straight line between perfectly edged halves of the front lawn, Disgraced Son Returns Home, Awaits Punishment And Inevitable Parental Condemnation.
Kyle doesn't drive off until Brendon opens the front door.
continued here