i lost myself - BBB - part two
masterpost
part one
In the morning, as soon as the memory surfaces in his mind, Ryan licks his lips - he hasn’t moved all night. There’s a sudden uproar of laughter from the back of the bus, a harsh spike in sound that wanes as quickly as it came; Ryan thinks they must be watching a movie, maybe they caught a punch line. He’s probably the last one to wake up like he’s been the past few days - he feels around with his eyes closed, searching for his phone in the folds of his sheets.
He squints one eye open to read the screen, trying to check the time; he has one new message sent at 10:13 in the morning, and all it says is sorry. The laughter starts up again from the lounge and Ryan can pick Brendon’s voice out from the rest without difficulty. He sighs.
Instead of joining the rest of the bus for their movie, Ryan takes his old laptop to the front of the bus and sits alone at the cramped kitchen table, eyelids still heavy from sleep. Before checking his email like he usually would, Ryan clicks through to his folder of pictures. There are over a thousand photos; he can’t remember where they all came from - some from Photobooth on his computer, some from his digital camera - but he wants to find out. He brings up the first picture and nearly changes his mind on the spot, fingers twitching to minimize it again.
It’s of Brendon. It doesn’t mean anything that it’s of Brendon - the files are organized according to name, and it starts with a zero, and it’s not a sign, but it sure as hell feels like one. The picture is small but the details are all there; Brendon’s smiling sleepily, stretched out by himself in the very back of the van they rode across the country in, from Nevada to Maryland. His glasses are askew, tilted on his face, and the tips of his fingers poke out from the sheet he used to cover himself, tucked under his body on both sides like a child ready to sleep. He’d just woken up, and he looks so young in the photo - he always looked young when he was sleepy, and when he was angry, and when he was sad. Especially when he was sad.
The original plan Ryan had - to browse through his old life - is fucked with just that one picture. He walks back to his bunk to grab the notebook from his pillowcase and settle at the table again, opening to the newest half-clean page.
Ryan uses the pages just to document things he remembers about the time in between - the things before he woke up here, and after Brendon got hit in the old life. There are some things in the book he hardly let himself think about when he was living it - things like how the crook of Alex’s neck is the only smell he remembers from the summer after the band split and he stopped speaking to Brendon and Spencer; like how Z loves having her legs touched, especially the insides of her knees, and how much that reminds him of Keltie but he never thinks about it like that; like how he knew the band wouldn’t make it after spending weeks in a cabin and hating every song. He writes about the in between time because he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it - at best he’d be considered crazy, and he doesn’t let his mind wander beyond that.
Today, though, Ryan realizes he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about this life--
That was the first time he ever kissed me.
--but he can’t find all that much to say about it, anyway.
--
He feels awkward that night, onstage.
It’s only the second show of a month-long tour, and Brendon’s pushing himself so hard Ryan can see him burning out already, voice crackling and sweat gliding down the sides of his neck. He can only take brief glances away from his guitar, still focusing hard on finding the chords - each time he looks up he remembers all over again how much of an act this is, how completely opposite everything feels, compared to what he’s gotten used to.
The freshest memory he has of this show is last night, and even that’s blurred and microscopic in his mind. Brendon’s monologue is sharp and biting, and even though Ryan can’t read him anymore, it feels like every phrase is intended to wound - he stalks forward with a determination Ryan can’t recall him ever having, yesterday or years ago. He feels torn between defiance and submission, gripping his guitar tightly, and when Brendon’s slick fingers dig into the back of his neck, he doesn’t nod like he thinks he’s supposed to, the signal for a quick cheek kiss. In the silence between words, Brendon swoops in like he’s going to take one anyway, for the show, but with his eyes closed all Ryan feels is the sting of nails against his skin and a rush of air when Brendon walks away.
--
“I think it’s bedtime,” Spencer says, stretching out the last syllable with a yawn. The lounge seems bigger than Ryan remembers - once Spencer stands up, his absence only accentuates the emptiness. He, Brendon and Jon are the only ones left, and no matter what he does he can’t shake off the thoughts of what happens next, what’ll happen in a few years. It’s weird to be thrown back to this - Brendon is curled toward Jon, head leaning against his shoulder, and Ryan thinks their arms are linked together. In his old life, Jon hasn’t mentioned Brendon for months.
The TV is playing softly, a buzzing sort of background noise this late into the night, when Jon says, “Think m’gonna head to bed, too.”
“Mm-mm,” Brendon mumbles, discontentedly. It sounds like his eyes are closed.
“Mhm,” Jon replies, taking his time in detaching himself from Brendon. Ryan keeps his eyes on his own thighs, pretending to count the threads of his pajamas, and tries not to watch them. In his peripheral vision, Ryan can see Brendon pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Seconds after Jon leaves, he hears, “I guess I’ll go, too,” but Ryan stops him with a “Wait,” before he can hold himself back.
The resulting stare he gets is nothing short of embarrassing, but Ryan’s thoughts didn’t make it farther than that interjection - after a few incredibly long seconds, he musters up a weak, “You didn’t have to apologize. For the-- you know.” He keeps staring at his thighs, but he can see Brendon’s head turned toward him.
“I obviously did,” he huffs, annoyed already, and Ryan bites his tongue. “I’m an idiot for thinking I could just... It was stupid, and I am sorry.”
In the time it takes for him to reply, the silence between them is practically palpable - Ryan can’t even hear the TV anymore. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Should probably tell me you don’t want me,” Brendon spits. It’s a juvenile snap reaction he might regret later, Ryan can hear it in the tone of his voice - he’s got his own snap reaction but he keeps it inside his head, you won’t want me later, either.
“That’s not what it is,” he half-lies, eyes still stuck on his lap, and Brendon sighs heavily beside him. When he speaks again, his tone is noticeably more defeated.
“I shouldn’t have, not in general but--” he cuts himself off, punctuating the pause with a softer sigh, “I shouldn’t have at all, but especially not now. It just seems like... you just seem different. Since the accident.”
The words sound so trite to Ryan’s ears - it’s like a movie, again, this is a fucking movie he’s living, some sci-fi drama, since the accident. It’s-- it makes him want to laugh, and he’s so tired of it he finally looks up and into Brendon’s eyes.
It’s a mistake.
For all his annoyance mere moments again, Brendon looks so earnest and concerned that Ryan wants to tell him everything he knows about what’s going on. It’s half because he’s desperate, needs to talk to someone, a person and not a spiral notebook that can’t talk back, and it’s half because Brendon is the only reason he ever got to where he was in his old life. He wants to cry. He wants to wake up where he left off, to this being some elaborate dream so he can give in to the fates and apologize to anyone he needs to apologize to. He wants to tell him.
Instead, he says, “I guess I am kind of different.”
--
Brendon changes. He hardly talks to Ryan, but he doesn’t stray far - his presence becomes near-constant and Ryan can feel in his glances that Brendon is nervous things are falling apart. They might be.
The company makes Ryan extra vigilant about keeping the notebook by his side. Though he knows anyone who might happen upon it wouldn’t understand much - they wouldn’t recognize most of the names, the descriptions - the idea of losing it is close to unbearable. He writes in it daily, multiple times - after mentioning the kiss, he forgets about writing in the present. It feels unimportant. The writing gets clearer and clearer as the days pass, with the most ragged scrawls in the beginning rewritten through the middle and end, words printed neatly. He writes hunched over, flipping between sheets methodically, desensitizing himself when it comes to the pages with oblong tear-marks, the paper curled from past moisture. Despite Brendon never asking - about the journal or anything else, anymore - Ryan always shields the words from view with his arm like a child.
After the tenth show he plays, the flickers of enthusiasm that came with the first few performances start melting rapidly - by the fifteenth, the numbness he felt sleeping in his father’s bed returns with an unexpected intensity. The crowds they encounter are practically inexhaustible; after another night of signing autographs, courteously and without much emotion, Ryan settles in his bunk and writes about how nice it felt to be rid of that.
Before can complete his thoughts on the paper, Spencer pulls back the curtain separating Ryan from the rest of the bus - “Okay, what’s up with you lately?” The words come out in a breathless burst, probably louder then Spencer intended them, like he’s been psyching himself up for this.
“Uh,” Ryan starts, purposely obtuse, “I’ve been writing?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” There’s no real excuse for him to use - no logical explanations, no reasons that would make sense. Ryan sighs, and Spencer pushes on, “You’re here all the time but I never even see you. What’s going on, what can we do, seriously?”
“Nothing’s going on, it’s--”
“Now you’re just lying,” Spencer interrupts, and Ryan sighs again, harshly - “We’re not blind, Jesus.”
“Okay, yeah,” Ryan agrees sarcastically, closing his notebook - Spencer’s eyes keep darting around, unsure of where to land - “What do you think you’re seeing?”
“Well, we’re seeing you sleeping all the time-- you hardly ever eat, you never talk to us. I don’t know, what else should we be seeing?”
“That sometimes people want to be alone?”
“Not all the time, Ryan,” Spencer says quietly - when Ryan looks at him, his face holds the same concern Brendon’s did days ago, noticeable in the set of his jaw and the fine lines of his forehead.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ryan says, increasingly frustrated.
“Just... I don’t know. I don’t like this.” Spencer leaves for the back lounge without waiting around for a reaction, defeat in his posture. Ryan jerks his curtain back into place, but before he can flip open the cover his notebook, Brendon peeks in through the crack of space left behind, “Hey,” and pulls the fabric aside again.
“Fuck, have you just been waiting for your turn to bitch at me, too? Is Jon next?”
“Jon’s trying to sleep,” a muffled voice from the bunk across the hall mumbles.
Ryan raises his eyebrows expectantly and tries to shut his curtain again, “Better let him rest,” but Brendon tightens his grip to keep him from hiding.
“Is this because of what I did?”
The question causes an embarrassing spike in Ryan’s pulse that he tries to ignore - “Can we not do this right now?”
“If that’s it, if that’s what it is, fuck, we can just-- just forget about it, I won’t ever bring it up again. I’m tired of you ignoring me,” Brendon tries. He sounds exasperated, and it makes Ryan angrier.
“You’re around me all the time, I hardly think I’m ignoring you.”
“You tolerate it, you... You never look at me,” Brendon says, voice steadily rising, “you never fucking talk to me, you don’t acknowledge me, that sort of sounds like you’re ignoring me.”
“Why don’t you ever try talking to me, Brendon? Cause this lecture wouldn’t work out if you were the one to start conversation?”
“Fuck you, I feel guilty trying to talk to you.”
“Fuck you,” Ryan snaps back automatically, stuck on a reply - Jon sighs from his bunk, pointedly, but there’s no remorse in Brendon’s face when Ryan looks at him. “It’s not about that anyway, so you can drop it.”
“If it’s not about that, what’s it about?”
“If I were going to tell you, I would’ve done it already,” Ryan says. He attempts to make it sound final, closing off the last syllable with an air of completion, but Brendon stands his ground, unblinking. It almost feels like a staring contest.
Brendon breaks first and shakes his head, liar - he leaves without looking back again, just as Spencer did, but there’s nothing defeated in it.
--
Their first night with the luxury of a hotel finds Ryan face to face with the last page of his notebook. There’s room to fill on previous pages, he knows - spots where he stopped mid-sentence and abandoned thoughts, for whatever reason - but the very last page still feels like a solid ending. Like a brick wall.
He’s sharing the room with Brendon, supposedly, but the bed beside his own is vacant except for a single half-empty duffle bag. It’s not hard to decide what he should do with the privacy and his last page - he’s been searching for an opportunity for at least a week, waiting to be alone to avoid explanations, rolling the 10-digit numbers around inside his head lest he forget them.
There are only a few phone numbers he can remember. He prints Alex’s name first, on the top line of the paper, and fills the numbers in beside it. The list he manages to make is a short one - four names. From his entire future, four names. The longer he stares at the numbers, the more nervous he gets; his stomach twists painfully when he punches in Alex’s number, and as he hits the call button the feeling intensifies. Ryan’s keenly aware of how fast his breaths are coming, increasing with each ring, and when the answering machine finally picks up, he gasps without meaning to.
The disappointment is worse than the anxiety - the voice on the line is unfamiliar and female, and Ryan hangs up before his message begins to record. Next to the number beside Alex’s name, he neatly writes “No.” He has a nearly overwhelming desire to strike out every number, dig his pen into the paper and slice it in half - he leans his head back against the wall instead, trying to make sure he remembered the numbers correctly.
The middle two people are hardly important to him, and he doesn’t know what he’d say if they answered, but he hurriedly calls them anyway - at least they could bridge the gap. He could know, for sure, that his life might end up being like the one he’s left behind. The unease builds with each ring, but, like with Alex’s number, no one answers. The silence is disappointing and it makes him nervous, but their numbers only feel like a rushed prelude to the last name on his list - Z told him, the day they exchanged numbers, “I’ve had the same one since I was 13.” Ryan purposefully placed her name last; she’s the most logical chance he has to connect with his other life. He can’t tell if he’s skeptical or hopeful when he pushes the numbers into his phone, praying for a familiar voice but terrified he’ll get one. He has no plans beyond hearing her speak, no idea how he’ll respond, and the sheer possibility that Z might actually answer has his heart pounding quicker than it has since the accident.
His fingers are shaking when he starts the call. Inside his head, he can imagine her picking up her phone, hello?, and he hears her say it at the end of each empty ring, hello? hello? hello?, but no one answers. Ryan sinks his teeth into his lip to keep from making a frustrated noise, but he stays on the line to hear the voicemail message - “Hiii,” a girl says, and she sounds young, probably a teenager. “This is Emily’s phone, leave me a message. Bye!”
Ryan manages to hang up the phone just as the long, dreadful beep sounds in his ear. There’s a pause where all he can do is breathe, slowly and numbly - when the rage bubbles up, it’s so sudden he can’t stop it, and he flings his phone across the room before he knows what’s happening. It bounces off the edge of the hotel room’s TV and lands on the foot of the bed, and Ryan practically lunges at it to try again - the second time he throws the phone, against the thinly carpeted floor, the force breaks its hinges and he watches it snap in two.
“Fuck,” Ryan gets out, voice tight and hurt. The notebook is open to its very last page still, the numbers of strangers staring up at him, and he can’t stop himself from grabbing the book and ripping a handful of pages out, starting from the back, snatches of sentences catching his eye as he tosses the sheets on the floor. He tears off the front cover of the notebook and wrenches free another chunk of papers from the middle, crumpling them in his fist before throwing them to the carpet, hiding the mess of his phone with sheets of scrawled-on paper. The tears come when he drops what’s left of the notebook onto the floor as well, watching the loose sheets blow farther away from him with the miniature breeze the book made. He curls up instinctively on the bed and cries harder than he can ever remember crying, these painful, heaving sobs that make him choke and gasp for breath - for a few terrifying moments, he feels like he’s going to die, and it sounds like nothing but relief.
--
The slam of the heavy hotel door jolts Ryan out of sleep - his left arm is numb from being pinned underneath his body after crying himself out, and he doesn’t bother opening his eyes until Brendon speaks, “What the fuck happened in here?”
“Go away,” he says without thinking, sitting up quickly; his arm tingles in protest, but he scrambles onto the floor to try and gather up his scattered papers before Brendon can see them.
“Chill out, I can help you,” Brendon says, crouching down to gather the papers too far for Ryan to reach - he grabs a few sheets and scans over them with interest. Ryan’s heart is pounding.
“Put them down, I can-- I’ll do it, just stop it, come on,” he tries, holding a hand out insistently, but Brendon ignores him. “Please, just. Give them to me.”
Brendon only moves to pull the papers further out of Ryan’s reach - he’s reading quickly, brow furrowed, “What is this?”
“Stop it,” Ryan says, increasingly desperate - when another second ticks by with Brendon still reading, Ryan leans in to try to tug the papers out of his hand. They all come loose except for one, a corner caught between Brendon’s fingers that tears as he tries to tighten his grip.
“What the fuck, Ryan, what’s going on?”
“Go away,” Ryan says again, voice low and distracted as he tries to round up every leaf of paper lying around them.
“You’re leaving?” Brendon asks. Ryan knows exactly what he’s asking without reading the paper - the journal is full of pages about leaving the band. He can’t tell if Brendon’s voice is hurt or angry.
“I’m not-- I don’t know, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me, Jesus!”
Ryan ignores him. The papers are all crumpled and misshapen - he tries to shove them back inside what’s left of the notebook, sandwiching them between the attached pages and the torn-off cover, and the result is a bulky mess. He holds them to his body as he stands up, shakily, and turns his back to Brendon.
“Ryan.”
“I’m not supposed to be here,” he says. It’s quiet, but he knows Brendon can hear him - Ryan can feel his throat tightening up with the urge to scream.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re never going to understand, you--”
“I need you to tell me, I can’t un--”
“Shut up!” Ryan yells, without warning, “I’ve already done this, I’ve done all of this, I’m not supposed to be here!”
Brendon’s silent for a moment behind him, and when he speaks it’s in a maddening, parental tone, “Okay, Ryan, have you taken anything?”
“Fuck you,” he sighs, deflated. “Just-- read it. Read all of it, see if I give a fuck.”
“Ryan,” Brendon tries, reaching out for him, but Ryan drops his notebook on the ground and heads for the bathroom - Brendon calls his name again, emphatically, “Ryan,” but the latter half of the word sounds muffled from inside the small room.
--
“I don’t understand,” Brendon says later, quietly. He’s sitting outside the bathroom door, and sometimes Ryan can hear him flipping through pages. With his face pressed against the tile of the bathroom floor, Brendon’s knee is visible through the tiny crack below the door. “How long have you been writing in here?”
Ryan’s not sure if he’s expecting an answer - he hasn’t gotten one for any other question. After a pause, Brendon continues on, “Still awake?”
Instead of speaking, Ryan reaches out slowly to slip his index finger underneath the door in something like a wave. His throat still feels raw from crying. Outside, Brendon lets out a breath that could be a laugh - he brushes their fingertips against each other, and Ryan shivers when their nails click together before he pulls his hand back.
“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Brendon says softly. Ryan exhales this time, his own version of a laugh, and tries to breathe in - his head is swollen from exhaustion, and it throbs steadily with his heartbeat. “I’m gonna be pissed if this is some sort of joke.”
“I’m gonna be pissed if this is some sort of joke,” Ryan gets out - his throat is thick and dry.
Brendon doesn’t laugh like Ryan was expecting him to. “Will you tell me?”
“I don’t know much,” Ryan says, honestly.
“Let me in,” Brendon says - he gently knocks his knuckles against the door once and silences himself after that, waiting.
Ryan sits up to unlock the door.
--
“Maybe you should talk to somebody about this,” Brendon suggests gently. His voice is sweet - saccharin sweet, synthetically helpful - and Ryan swallows around a knot of resentment in his throat. “Like-- I’m not... I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s why I never told anybody to begin with,” Ryan says. “I already know you think I’m fucking crazy, don’t need another person telling me the same thing.”
“Ryan,” Brendon sighs, “I just. What the fuck would you say if I were telling you this? It doesn’t happen, people don’t time travel or whatever. You can’t.”
“It’s too detailed to be anything else,” Ryan says, fiercely. “I’ve got dates down for the most useless shit, I remember this stuff, do you think I just spent my time creating some fantasy future for myself?”
“No, I don’t, but I don’t think you traveled through time either. Sorry, I just-- maybe you dreamed some of it and filled in the rest after you woke up.”
“No,” Ryan says decisively, even as his stomach drops. “I-- no. I remember full names and places, addresses. I can tell you where I was living.”
“Okay,” Brendon says indulgently, resigning from his protest.
Ryan looks over at him - they’re sitting side by side, against the wall and on the cold bathroom floor, shoulders and knees knocking. Before Brendon looks back, his eyes are on his hands. He’s uncomfortable, Ryan knows, unsure of what to say - it all shows on his face, in the slight downward slopes of his brows and the tension in his jaw. His cheeks are rounder than Ryan remembers, and they look soft even through the dark stubble settling itself along his skin.
“I think I wanna go see the house,” Ryan says, looking away again. He mimics Brendon, glancing into his lap at his hands. “I bet somebody else is living in it, but. I just wanna see.”
“I could go with you,” Brendon says.
He’s still so young, eager in a way that fades in the next few years but doesn’t ever go away. Everything seems blurred and bogged down to Ryan, now, heavy and incomprehensible, but the lilt of Brendon’s voice is as telling as it always was.
“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “You could.”
--
“I want a summary,” Brendon says softly. “Too impatient to read all your notes.” It sounds playful, like he’s terribly curious but trying to downplay how nervous he is about the answers he might get - he talks to the ceiling and doesn’t bother to look over at Ryan. The half-full duffle is still laying abandoned on the other, empty bed and there’s long inches of space between them, but the side of his body closest to Brendon’s feels warmer.
“It’ll be short,” Ryan murmurs back.
“That’s the definition of summary.”
Ryan huffs out a quiet laugh and swallows, “I don’t know. We, uh... You got bottled at the show I did. No comas, though, you just got back up. Finished the whole set, actually. Then we did this tour-- I was with, um, I started dating a girl named Keltie around now, we met at the VMAs. There wasn’t much for a while... We went to a cabin to write an album and it didn’t work, tried again and it worked out better. Did a couple tours on that one, uh-- I broke up with Keltie, Jon and I left, I started dating somebody else, and then, you know...”
“I didn’t read about Jon leaving, too,” Brendon says. He sounds small.
“A lot of things happened between now and then, I dunno. Stuff changed.”
“I hope you didn’t actually, like, come from the future. Sounds like a pretty shitty one to me.”
“Don’t, Brendon,” Ryan sighs. “It wasn’t-- it was better for you.”
The statement settles heavily on Ryan’s chest after he says it - he has no idea if him leaving was better for Brendon. Having him around every day makes the idea of complete silence between them seem foreign, but months ago, that’s what it was - he hadn’t seen Brendon in nearly half a year, and hadn’t spoken to him in practically as long. When they talked - once - it was cordial and practically forced; they were wearing faces fit for strangers, and Brendon could’ve been thriving or half-dead inside for all Ryan knows. He has no idea.
“It was all music stuff,” he continues on, because this he knows, this is solid, accurate. “We were fighting all the time about songs, and you didn’t like what we had, that’s it. It was like making Fever-- worse, really, it was just constant. You and Spence got to write your own stuff.”
Besides a hum of acknowledgment, Brendon stays quiet - it makes Ryan anxious and sends uncomfortable itching jolts up his spine, words that he wants to say to fill the silence that usually Brendon would occupy, “You wrote some really good songs for our second record, too.”
“I think the worst part about that whole thing is that it doesn’t even matter what’s going on right now,” Brendon says, still quiet but with a dull bite to his words. “Like, no matter how this stuff got into your head, that’s the worst part. It’s in your head, and now, even if things go different, you’ll just be thinking about what you’re going to do eventually. I can’t imagine myself in a band without you.”
I couldn’t imagine myself in a band with you until I came back here, Ryan thinks.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he says instead, and, “I’m sorry I got you involved,” and, “This is so fucked up.”
When Brendon turns suddenly and wraps an arm around Ryan’s middle, pressing his face into the crook of his neck in an aimless hug, Ryan can’t garner enough energy to cry.
--
Before they leave the hotel in the morning, Ryan piles up all the sheets he ripped out of his notebook and shoves them into his bag while Brendon’s in the bathroom.
--
They have a list tacked up on the mini-fridge with the dates and cities of the tour, and every night somebody crosses off the one they just finished. Most of the time it’s Brendon, and a few lines have things beside them, “FUCK YEAH” or stick figures with sad faces. Today they’re in Oregon, ringing in the first of December - Ryan peeks through the blinds covering the bus window and stares up at the bleak, grey sky.
“There’s, um,” Brendon says, sliding his index finger down to the bottom of the list, “there’s three days between the last and second to last shows. Or no, two days, there’s two days. Is that enough time? Where did you say the house was?”
“That’s enough, it’s just in, uh...” Ryan trails off - Park he remembers, something Park - “I dunno, I have it written down. I had just moved in, so... It’s around LA, we can just drive there from San Diego.”
“Awesome,” Brendon says. He draws a thin, winding road on the paper, lines parallel with minuscule dots in the center for a passing zone.
“Brendon,” Ryan starts, chewing his lip - he waits until Brendon looks in his direction to continue, “don’t tell anybody where we’re going.”
“What do we say if they ask, though?”
“We’re just... going for a drive,” Ryan shrugs. It shouldn’t be too hard to pull off - the trip won’t take longer than a single day, there and back.
“And when Zack calls to bitch at us for being gone too long?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Brendon laughs and turns back to the fridge, drawing in guard rails for the curves on his mini-highway.
--
The wifi in the dressing room works in fits and starts, and it only adds to the panic coursing through Ryan’s body. “That’s stupid.”
“Why is it stupid? It would’ve been the first thing I did, you should try it. Didn’t you say the one girl was a dancer? There might be something on her.” Brendon crouches down beside Ryan’s chair and peers at his computer screen - the webpage is open to google.com but the screen itself is pure white.
“No, I don’t know, I... she wouldn’t have done much stuff yet,” Ryan shrugs. “It’s not loading anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Ah, wait,” Brendon says dramatically - on the screen, the page begins to load before suddenly showing the Google homepage, ready for a query. “Ha! Okay, do her first.”
“Nothing’s gonna show up,” Ryan says, bracing himself for just that. He obediently types Keltie’s name into the search engine and hits enter, clenching his jaw while the site loads. The results bring back exactly what he was expecting, a slew of random girls named Keltie and a few extraneous links, and he looks at Brendon, faking exasperation.
“Not yours?”
“Nope.”
“Try page two. Or what about the other ones?” Brendon asks. “There were other people with bands, right?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ryan repeats, swallowing. “I don’t feel like doing this right now, it’s-- there’s not much on them anyway. Maybe they’re doing different stuff now, too.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Brendon sing-songs, raising his eyebrows expectantly, but Ryan shuts his laptop.
“Want me to do your makeup?” he asks, diverting the attention to Brendon instead. Looking at him, Ryan can see the doubt in Brendon’s face that he’s trying to ignore in himself.
He’s terrified of what he won’t find if he types in another name.
“Yeah,” Brendon agrees. The doubt is replaced with compliance. “I wanna do the doll faced thing tonight.”
--
Seven hours later, sleep-drunk and with aching fingertips, Ryan can still see the makeup smudged messily around Brendon’s face and eyes. Their hotel room is finally empty for the night, Spencer and Jon ambling lazily down the hall to their own room after a too-long jam session, and with their absence comes Ryan’s near-constant uneasiness.
“It feels like I’m lying to them,” he says, his head pillowed against the unyielding headboard of the bed. It’s something he might’ve written in his notebook.
Beside him, mirroring his pose, Brendon sighs. Their legs are stretched out on the unmade bed, duvet thrown to the floor hours ago to make room for four people on one mattress. “You’re just trying to figure out what’s going on first. I wouldn’t tell anybody either.”
“I’m glad somebody knows,” Ryan says - then, more specifically, “I’m glad you know.”
Brendon replies with just a smile. There’s only one light on in the room, a lamp in the corner farthest from the door, and the wattage is low enough to make the walls glow golden.
“This makeup makes it look like you’re blushing,” Ryan murmurs. He reaches up slowly and intends to wipe at the rouge staining Brendon’s cheek, but his thumb is drawn to the thin, soft skin below his eye instead. Brendon watches him steadily, face pliant and unreadable - there’s black smeared along that stretch of skin, and Ryan’s thumb only spreads it further.
“I’m glad I know, too,” Brendon says slowly, belatedly, and Ryan watches his lips form the words. Brendon leans in closer - he does that slowly, too, more tentative than he ever is - and Ryan surprises himself by molding his hand to the shape of Brendon’s jaw and meeting him in the middle rather than shying away.
They stop once their foreheads are resting together and Brendon sighs, breathes out, “Did anything like this happen before?”
For a moment, his other life feels so distant that Ryan takes an unusually long second to understand the question. He answers as simply as he can, “There was never a chance for it to happen,” before he tilts his head forward to kiss Brendon’s lips.
It’s different.
The kiss is only their second, but it seems so much more familiar. Each time they pause to suck in quiet breaths, Ryan can feel Brendon’s body trembling softly through the connection of their lips, but it’s nothing like the paralyzing fear of the first time. He gets nervous only as their bodies move closer - Brendon surges forward all at once, suddenly and briefly courageous, and Ryan’s pulse speeds up as a hand lands on his neck and their thighs overlap.
Brendon pulls back first after a long stretch of gentle, lazy kisses, like they’re exploring, learning each others’ mouths. He kisses Ryan’s again once more, sweetly, like he did the first time - when he slinks down underneath the sheets, still fully clothed, Ryan follows wordlessly.
They end up facing each other, shoulders practically touching, and Ryan’s dick throbs faintly - he finds himself watching Brendon’s face after his eyes are closed, tracing the lines of his lips with his eyes.
Brendon is asleep long before he is, his breath coming in shallow bursts against Ryan’s cheek.
--
Neither one of them apologizes in the morning. They’re still yawning and stumbling by the time they need to check out, bumping into each other as they gather their things. On the way out the door, Brendon surges forward like he did the night before and kisses Ryan’s mouth. He overestimates the tilt of his head - their noses push together awkwardly and Ryan laughs, correcting the angle, holding his bag in one hand and Brendon’s arm with the other.
--
The remains of the notebook are tucked between the wall of the bus and the mattress in his bunk, and Ryan spends his time staring at them sometimes, shoving them deeper into the crevice, wondering. Two nights before he and Brendon plan to drive north from San Diego to search for his old - future? - house, he eases a loose sheet out from the mess and sighs and swallows and reads.
The page he chooses has a long paragraph on the band and Keltie - it reads more like a journal entry and less like the account of the past that he wanted the notebook to be. Details fizzle out around the edges, and the reasons for fights make less sense upon revisiting than they did upon writing, but there’s one story scrawled in the margins that exemplifies what he wants to keep from the notebook. It’s brief, telling how the song Pas De Cheval got it’s name - Keltie heard the demo and compared the rhythm to galloping horses, a ballet move, “step of the horse,” fitting at the time.
Now, though, Ryan can’t remember what the steps of those horses sounded like.
He tugs another sheet loose from its hiding place and holds it together - the paper is nearly ripped in two, torn from his carelessness. It’s equally disappointing in terms of facts, full of his feelings instead. The entire page speaks only of Ryan wishing to wake up at home, in 2010 - he reads about himself weeks ago wanting so desperately to be away from Brendon’s condensed sympathetic energy, and thinks about himself now crawling into Brendon’s bunk to carefully kiss him awake.
--
“If you die, I am not responsible,” Zack says - Ryan smiles to himself, head tilted back against the couch in the lounge.
“I’ll sign papers stating that fact,” Brendon agrees.
Their voices are barely muffled through the thin bus walls, audible over the sound of Jon plucking his acoustic on the opposite couch. He gently claps his hand over the strings to stop their vibrations and nods at Ryan, “Where’re you guys going?”
“Dunno,” Ryan replies. “Food, I guess. Check out some sights, maybe. I’m tired of being in this bus,” he half-lies. They will get food, probably, and he’s definitely tired of being on the bus, and there’s a sight they’re after in particular - still, the omission feels like a lie. Chasing my crazy dream, he could say, something that might not--
“Mm,” Jon hums. He picks out a few more notes on his guitar, something jaunty and quiet, “I’m glad you’re feeling better now.”
The words could sound cordial and cold, but the lazy way Jon says them makes Ryan smiles again - he kicks out and pushes his toes against Jon’s knee, friendly, as Brendon comes through the doorway.
“Ross,” he says, before adopting a terrible accent that’s aiming for dignified, “Mr. Ross, your chauffeur awaits your presence.”
“My chariot,” Ryan amends, and Brendon laughs on his way back out of the lounge, bright and piercing.
“Don’t get killed,” Jon calls leisurely after them, “I already quit my day job for you bastards.”
--
Ryan grabs the entire wad of papers from the inside of his bunk and stuffs them into his jacket, laughing indulgently when Brendon says he looks like he’s smuggling drugs - after he settles into the passenger seat and pulls out the sheets, “I’ve gotta find the address,” he reads and keeps silent.
The things he wrote feel foreign at times - phrases he doesn’t remember, lyrics, maybe, words that don’t make any sense with or without context. There are endless pages of him rambling on about unhappiness, about missing Keltie and his new band and Z and Alex, but not much about them - he knows Alex had long hair for a while, and he knows Z had a deep voice, and he knows Keltie was a dancer, but most of their features blend together, quietly and unobtrusively.
He doesn’t know if Keltie had dimples in her cheeks or if Alex’s ears were big or if Z’s skin was tanned, but Brendon’s got a scar running straight through his right eyebrow that Ryan can see even in the dim, greying light of mid-morning December sunshine.
--
“It only says park,” Ryan announces suddenly. They’re the first words he’s said the entire trip. “There’s not even-- there’s nothing. Just park.”
The sheet took him by surprise, sliding around in the middle of the pile - it’s one of the final sheets he wrote, with all the dates he could find re-printed neatly. There are rows of birthdays, some people from before he woke up and some people since, just for completion - some of them only have numbers beside them, for days, and some only have months. None have years, but he can remember the years of everyone from after he woke up, anyway. There are only two from before he woke up with both a month and a date - and there are only a handful of people from before, anyway, the few he cared about - Keltie and Z. January 28th and June 28th. The only reason Ryan can remember those dates entirely - barring the year - is the coincidence of them being six months apart.
“Well,” Brendon sighs, belatedly, “don’t you remember anything about the house? We can ask around, didn’t you say there was something like-- a waterfall? Or something?”
“A moat,” Ryan answers, staring at the ‘address’ on the page - ??? Park ? The quest feels dismal all of a sudden, completely useless. They’ll never find a house on Park Street - or Drive, or Avenue, or Circle - in all of LA with only a few hours and no more information to work on. Brendon drives on, though, face as blank as before, hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel.
“Does, um,” Ryan starts, taking in a breath - “Does January 28th mean anything? Like, did anything happen that day?”
“What?”
“Or maybe June 28th?” Ryan adds - he holds onto the pile of paper in his lap and looks over at Brendon, heart palpitating nervously. No.
“Uh, don’t make fun of me for remembering,” Brendon says, already laughing ashamedly at himself, “but Audrey and I broke up in January. The 28th, yeah.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, swallows. He draws the papers closer to him and reaches into his pocket with one hand for his phone, flipping it open to look through his text messages, and he doesn’t even-- he doesn’t know why he’s searching, he already knows what he’s going to find. In Brendon’s thread of texts, the very first message is from January 28th, 2006: wouldn’t have worked out anyway. No.
“My turn for a question,” Brendon says. Ryan holds back an urge to sob that comes over him so suddenly he almost chokes. “You said I wrote songs, right? For the album, for the one we did after this one?”
No. Ryan nods.
“Do you remember any of them?” His voice is quiet, curious but almost accusing. Almost cruel. He keeps his eyes on the road, and his knuckles look whiter than the rest of his skin. He knows.
Ryan exhales sharply and clenches his eyes shut, mirroring the motion with his fists. No. “Pull over, please,” he says.
Brendon turns to look at him, questioningly, but Ryan is holding his breath against a crashing feeling of nausea. As soon as Brendon veers off the highway, emergency lights flashing and tires rumbling over indents in the side of the road, Ryan tries to tear off his seatbelt and get outside, pushing open the door before the car’s completely stopped.
“Ryan, what the fuck,” Brendon says, louder than he means to, probably - he slams on the brakes suddenly and it gives the car a jolt, making Ryan stumble painfully onto his knees when he gets out.
Some of the sheets of his notebook pour out onto the gravel with him, stuck underneath his legs and shoes as he dry heaves on the side of the highway.
“Ryan,” Brendon repeats, crouching down. He doesn’t touch Ryan but his presence is nearly palpable as it is, heavy-handed and well-intentioned. Ryan’s bad leg aches from the fall - the leg he landed on late in the summer, after getting hit square in the temple with a full bottle.
The dry heaves turn into tearless sobs, shaking his whole body with the effort from the inside out - not unlike the day he tried calling the phone numbers of strangers, numbers he pulled out of his own head. Ryan remembers the day he made the calls, sitting in the bathroom with Brendon, “Sorry, I just-- maybe you dreamed some of it and filled in the rest after you woke up.”
He slams his fist down suddenly, wedging sharp pebbles into his skin. Brendon says his name again, softer this time. Gently. “Ryan,” he says. “I know.” It’s more of a murmur, a defeated murmur, against the loudness of everything around them. He knows.
Ryan cries noiselessly and nearly crumples on the pavement, half into Brendon’s waiting body. Cars pass continuously, almost in a solid rhythm, but no one stops.
The wind stays low and teasing, slowly drawing pages filled with dreams out of Ryan’s open car door, carrying them down the highway.
part one
In the morning, as soon as the memory surfaces in his mind, Ryan licks his lips - he hasn’t moved all night. There’s a sudden uproar of laughter from the back of the bus, a harsh spike in sound that wanes as quickly as it came; Ryan thinks they must be watching a movie, maybe they caught a punch line. He’s probably the last one to wake up like he’s been the past few days - he feels around with his eyes closed, searching for his phone in the folds of his sheets.
He squints one eye open to read the screen, trying to check the time; he has one new message sent at 10:13 in the morning, and all it says is sorry. The laughter starts up again from the lounge and Ryan can pick Brendon’s voice out from the rest without difficulty. He sighs.
Instead of joining the rest of the bus for their movie, Ryan takes his old laptop to the front of the bus and sits alone at the cramped kitchen table, eyelids still heavy from sleep. Before checking his email like he usually would, Ryan clicks through to his folder of pictures. There are over a thousand photos; he can’t remember where they all came from - some from Photobooth on his computer, some from his digital camera - but he wants to find out. He brings up the first picture and nearly changes his mind on the spot, fingers twitching to minimize it again.
It’s of Brendon. It doesn’t mean anything that it’s of Brendon - the files are organized according to name, and it starts with a zero, and it’s not a sign, but it sure as hell feels like one. The picture is small but the details are all there; Brendon’s smiling sleepily, stretched out by himself in the very back of the van they rode across the country in, from Nevada to Maryland. His glasses are askew, tilted on his face, and the tips of his fingers poke out from the sheet he used to cover himself, tucked under his body on both sides like a child ready to sleep. He’d just woken up, and he looks so young in the photo - he always looked young when he was sleepy, and when he was angry, and when he was sad. Especially when he was sad.
The original plan Ryan had - to browse through his old life - is fucked with just that one picture. He walks back to his bunk to grab the notebook from his pillowcase and settle at the table again, opening to the newest half-clean page.
Ryan uses the pages just to document things he remembers about the time in between - the things before he woke up here, and after Brendon got hit in the old life. There are some things in the book he hardly let himself think about when he was living it - things like how the crook of Alex’s neck is the only smell he remembers from the summer after the band split and he stopped speaking to Brendon and Spencer; like how Z loves having her legs touched, especially the insides of her knees, and how much that reminds him of Keltie but he never thinks about it like that; like how he knew the band wouldn’t make it after spending weeks in a cabin and hating every song. He writes about the in between time because he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it - at best he’d be considered crazy, and he doesn’t let his mind wander beyond that.
Today, though, Ryan realizes he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about this life--
That was the first time he ever kissed me.
--but he can’t find all that much to say about it, anyway.
--
He feels awkward that night, onstage.
It’s only the second show of a month-long tour, and Brendon’s pushing himself so hard Ryan can see him burning out already, voice crackling and sweat gliding down the sides of his neck. He can only take brief glances away from his guitar, still focusing hard on finding the chords - each time he looks up he remembers all over again how much of an act this is, how completely opposite everything feels, compared to what he’s gotten used to.
The freshest memory he has of this show is last night, and even that’s blurred and microscopic in his mind. Brendon’s monologue is sharp and biting, and even though Ryan can’t read him anymore, it feels like every phrase is intended to wound - he stalks forward with a determination Ryan can’t recall him ever having, yesterday or years ago. He feels torn between defiance and submission, gripping his guitar tightly, and when Brendon’s slick fingers dig into the back of his neck, he doesn’t nod like he thinks he’s supposed to, the signal for a quick cheek kiss. In the silence between words, Brendon swoops in like he’s going to take one anyway, for the show, but with his eyes closed all Ryan feels is the sting of nails against his skin and a rush of air when Brendon walks away.
--
“I think it’s bedtime,” Spencer says, stretching out the last syllable with a yawn. The lounge seems bigger than Ryan remembers - once Spencer stands up, his absence only accentuates the emptiness. He, Brendon and Jon are the only ones left, and no matter what he does he can’t shake off the thoughts of what happens next, what’ll happen in a few years. It’s weird to be thrown back to this - Brendon is curled toward Jon, head leaning against his shoulder, and Ryan thinks their arms are linked together. In his old life, Jon hasn’t mentioned Brendon for months.
The TV is playing softly, a buzzing sort of background noise this late into the night, when Jon says, “Think m’gonna head to bed, too.”
“Mm-mm,” Brendon mumbles, discontentedly. It sounds like his eyes are closed.
“Mhm,” Jon replies, taking his time in detaching himself from Brendon. Ryan keeps his eyes on his own thighs, pretending to count the threads of his pajamas, and tries not to watch them. In his peripheral vision, Ryan can see Brendon pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Seconds after Jon leaves, he hears, “I guess I’ll go, too,” but Ryan stops him with a “Wait,” before he can hold himself back.
The resulting stare he gets is nothing short of embarrassing, but Ryan’s thoughts didn’t make it farther than that interjection - after a few incredibly long seconds, he musters up a weak, “You didn’t have to apologize. For the-- you know.” He keeps staring at his thighs, but he can see Brendon’s head turned toward him.
“I obviously did,” he huffs, annoyed already, and Ryan bites his tongue. “I’m an idiot for thinking I could just... It was stupid, and I am sorry.”
In the time it takes for him to reply, the silence between them is practically palpable - Ryan can’t even hear the TV anymore. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Should probably tell me you don’t want me,” Brendon spits. It’s a juvenile snap reaction he might regret later, Ryan can hear it in the tone of his voice - he’s got his own snap reaction but he keeps it inside his head, you won’t want me later, either.
“That’s not what it is,” he half-lies, eyes still stuck on his lap, and Brendon sighs heavily beside him. When he speaks again, his tone is noticeably more defeated.
“I shouldn’t have, not in general but--” he cuts himself off, punctuating the pause with a softer sigh, “I shouldn’t have at all, but especially not now. It just seems like... you just seem different. Since the accident.”
The words sound so trite to Ryan’s ears - it’s like a movie, again, this is a fucking movie he’s living, some sci-fi drama, since the accident. It’s-- it makes him want to laugh, and he’s so tired of it he finally looks up and into Brendon’s eyes.
It’s a mistake.
For all his annoyance mere moments again, Brendon looks so earnest and concerned that Ryan wants to tell him everything he knows about what’s going on. It’s half because he’s desperate, needs to talk to someone, a person and not a spiral notebook that can’t talk back, and it’s half because Brendon is the only reason he ever got to where he was in his old life. He wants to cry. He wants to wake up where he left off, to this being some elaborate dream so he can give in to the fates and apologize to anyone he needs to apologize to. He wants to tell him.
Instead, he says, “I guess I am kind of different.”
--
Brendon changes. He hardly talks to Ryan, but he doesn’t stray far - his presence becomes near-constant and Ryan can feel in his glances that Brendon is nervous things are falling apart. They might be.
The company makes Ryan extra vigilant about keeping the notebook by his side. Though he knows anyone who might happen upon it wouldn’t understand much - they wouldn’t recognize most of the names, the descriptions - the idea of losing it is close to unbearable. He writes in it daily, multiple times - after mentioning the kiss, he forgets about writing in the present. It feels unimportant. The writing gets clearer and clearer as the days pass, with the most ragged scrawls in the beginning rewritten through the middle and end, words printed neatly. He writes hunched over, flipping between sheets methodically, desensitizing himself when it comes to the pages with oblong tear-marks, the paper curled from past moisture. Despite Brendon never asking - about the journal or anything else, anymore - Ryan always shields the words from view with his arm like a child.
After the tenth show he plays, the flickers of enthusiasm that came with the first few performances start melting rapidly - by the fifteenth, the numbness he felt sleeping in his father’s bed returns with an unexpected intensity. The crowds they encounter are practically inexhaustible; after another night of signing autographs, courteously and without much emotion, Ryan settles in his bunk and writes about how nice it felt to be rid of that.
Before can complete his thoughts on the paper, Spencer pulls back the curtain separating Ryan from the rest of the bus - “Okay, what’s up with you lately?” The words come out in a breathless burst, probably louder then Spencer intended them, like he’s been psyching himself up for this.
“Uh,” Ryan starts, purposely obtuse, “I’ve been writing?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” There’s no real excuse for him to use - no logical explanations, no reasons that would make sense. Ryan sighs, and Spencer pushes on, “You’re here all the time but I never even see you. What’s going on, what can we do, seriously?”
“Nothing’s going on, it’s--”
“Now you’re just lying,” Spencer interrupts, and Ryan sighs again, harshly - “We’re not blind, Jesus.”
“Okay, yeah,” Ryan agrees sarcastically, closing his notebook - Spencer’s eyes keep darting around, unsure of where to land - “What do you think you’re seeing?”
“Well, we’re seeing you sleeping all the time-- you hardly ever eat, you never talk to us. I don’t know, what else should we be seeing?”
“That sometimes people want to be alone?”
“Not all the time, Ryan,” Spencer says quietly - when Ryan looks at him, his face holds the same concern Brendon’s did days ago, noticeable in the set of his jaw and the fine lines of his forehead.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ryan says, increasingly frustrated.
“Just... I don’t know. I don’t like this.” Spencer leaves for the back lounge without waiting around for a reaction, defeat in his posture. Ryan jerks his curtain back into place, but before he can flip open the cover his notebook, Brendon peeks in through the crack of space left behind, “Hey,” and pulls the fabric aside again.
“Fuck, have you just been waiting for your turn to bitch at me, too? Is Jon next?”
“Jon’s trying to sleep,” a muffled voice from the bunk across the hall mumbles.
Ryan raises his eyebrows expectantly and tries to shut his curtain again, “Better let him rest,” but Brendon tightens his grip to keep him from hiding.
“Is this because of what I did?”
The question causes an embarrassing spike in Ryan’s pulse that he tries to ignore - “Can we not do this right now?”
“If that’s it, if that’s what it is, fuck, we can just-- just forget about it, I won’t ever bring it up again. I’m tired of you ignoring me,” Brendon tries. He sounds exasperated, and it makes Ryan angrier.
“You’re around me all the time, I hardly think I’m ignoring you.”
“You tolerate it, you... You never look at me,” Brendon says, voice steadily rising, “you never fucking talk to me, you don’t acknowledge me, that sort of sounds like you’re ignoring me.”
“Why don’t you ever try talking to me, Brendon? Cause this lecture wouldn’t work out if you were the one to start conversation?”
“Fuck you, I feel guilty trying to talk to you.”
“Fuck you,” Ryan snaps back automatically, stuck on a reply - Jon sighs from his bunk, pointedly, but there’s no remorse in Brendon’s face when Ryan looks at him. “It’s not about that anyway, so you can drop it.”
“If it’s not about that, what’s it about?”
“If I were going to tell you, I would’ve done it already,” Ryan says. He attempts to make it sound final, closing off the last syllable with an air of completion, but Brendon stands his ground, unblinking. It almost feels like a staring contest.
Brendon breaks first and shakes his head, liar - he leaves without looking back again, just as Spencer did, but there’s nothing defeated in it.
--
Their first night with the luxury of a hotel finds Ryan face to face with the last page of his notebook. There’s room to fill on previous pages, he knows - spots where he stopped mid-sentence and abandoned thoughts, for whatever reason - but the very last page still feels like a solid ending. Like a brick wall.
He’s sharing the room with Brendon, supposedly, but the bed beside his own is vacant except for a single half-empty duffle bag. It’s not hard to decide what he should do with the privacy and his last page - he’s been searching for an opportunity for at least a week, waiting to be alone to avoid explanations, rolling the 10-digit numbers around inside his head lest he forget them.
There are only a few phone numbers he can remember. He prints Alex’s name first, on the top line of the paper, and fills the numbers in beside it. The list he manages to make is a short one - four names. From his entire future, four names. The longer he stares at the numbers, the more nervous he gets; his stomach twists painfully when he punches in Alex’s number, and as he hits the call button the feeling intensifies. Ryan’s keenly aware of how fast his breaths are coming, increasing with each ring, and when the answering machine finally picks up, he gasps without meaning to.
The disappointment is worse than the anxiety - the voice on the line is unfamiliar and female, and Ryan hangs up before his message begins to record. Next to the number beside Alex’s name, he neatly writes “No.” He has a nearly overwhelming desire to strike out every number, dig his pen into the paper and slice it in half - he leans his head back against the wall instead, trying to make sure he remembered the numbers correctly.
The middle two people are hardly important to him, and he doesn’t know what he’d say if they answered, but he hurriedly calls them anyway - at least they could bridge the gap. He could know, for sure, that his life might end up being like the one he’s left behind. The unease builds with each ring, but, like with Alex’s number, no one answers. The silence is disappointing and it makes him nervous, but their numbers only feel like a rushed prelude to the last name on his list - Z told him, the day they exchanged numbers, “I’ve had the same one since I was 13.” Ryan purposefully placed her name last; she’s the most logical chance he has to connect with his other life. He can’t tell if he’s skeptical or hopeful when he pushes the numbers into his phone, praying for a familiar voice but terrified he’ll get one. He has no plans beyond hearing her speak, no idea how he’ll respond, and the sheer possibility that Z might actually answer has his heart pounding quicker than it has since the accident.
His fingers are shaking when he starts the call. Inside his head, he can imagine her picking up her phone, hello?, and he hears her say it at the end of each empty ring, hello? hello? hello?, but no one answers. Ryan sinks his teeth into his lip to keep from making a frustrated noise, but he stays on the line to hear the voicemail message - “Hiii,” a girl says, and she sounds young, probably a teenager. “This is Emily’s phone, leave me a message. Bye!”
Ryan manages to hang up the phone just as the long, dreadful beep sounds in his ear. There’s a pause where all he can do is breathe, slowly and numbly - when the rage bubbles up, it’s so sudden he can’t stop it, and he flings his phone across the room before he knows what’s happening. It bounces off the edge of the hotel room’s TV and lands on the foot of the bed, and Ryan practically lunges at it to try again - the second time he throws the phone, against the thinly carpeted floor, the force breaks its hinges and he watches it snap in two.
“Fuck,” Ryan gets out, voice tight and hurt. The notebook is open to its very last page still, the numbers of strangers staring up at him, and he can’t stop himself from grabbing the book and ripping a handful of pages out, starting from the back, snatches of sentences catching his eye as he tosses the sheets on the floor. He tears off the front cover of the notebook and wrenches free another chunk of papers from the middle, crumpling them in his fist before throwing them to the carpet, hiding the mess of his phone with sheets of scrawled-on paper. The tears come when he drops what’s left of the notebook onto the floor as well, watching the loose sheets blow farther away from him with the miniature breeze the book made. He curls up instinctively on the bed and cries harder than he can ever remember crying, these painful, heaving sobs that make him choke and gasp for breath - for a few terrifying moments, he feels like he’s going to die, and it sounds like nothing but relief.
--
The slam of the heavy hotel door jolts Ryan out of sleep - his left arm is numb from being pinned underneath his body after crying himself out, and he doesn’t bother opening his eyes until Brendon speaks, “What the fuck happened in here?”
“Go away,” he says without thinking, sitting up quickly; his arm tingles in protest, but he scrambles onto the floor to try and gather up his scattered papers before Brendon can see them.
“Chill out, I can help you,” Brendon says, crouching down to gather the papers too far for Ryan to reach - he grabs a few sheets and scans over them with interest. Ryan’s heart is pounding.
“Put them down, I can-- I’ll do it, just stop it, come on,” he tries, holding a hand out insistently, but Brendon ignores him. “Please, just. Give them to me.”
Brendon only moves to pull the papers further out of Ryan’s reach - he’s reading quickly, brow furrowed, “What is this?”
“Stop it,” Ryan says, increasingly desperate - when another second ticks by with Brendon still reading, Ryan leans in to try to tug the papers out of his hand. They all come loose except for one, a corner caught between Brendon’s fingers that tears as he tries to tighten his grip.
“What the fuck, Ryan, what’s going on?”
“Go away,” Ryan says again, voice low and distracted as he tries to round up every leaf of paper lying around them.
“You’re leaving?” Brendon asks. Ryan knows exactly what he’s asking without reading the paper - the journal is full of pages about leaving the band. He can’t tell if Brendon’s voice is hurt or angry.
“I’m not-- I don’t know, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me, Jesus!”
Ryan ignores him. The papers are all crumpled and misshapen - he tries to shove them back inside what’s left of the notebook, sandwiching them between the attached pages and the torn-off cover, and the result is a bulky mess. He holds them to his body as he stands up, shakily, and turns his back to Brendon.
“Ryan.”
“I’m not supposed to be here,” he says. It’s quiet, but he knows Brendon can hear him - Ryan can feel his throat tightening up with the urge to scream.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re never going to understand, you--”
“I need you to tell me, I can’t un--”
“Shut up!” Ryan yells, without warning, “I’ve already done this, I’ve done all of this, I’m not supposed to be here!”
Brendon’s silent for a moment behind him, and when he speaks it’s in a maddening, parental tone, “Okay, Ryan, have you taken anything?”
“Fuck you,” he sighs, deflated. “Just-- read it. Read all of it, see if I give a fuck.”
“Ryan,” Brendon tries, reaching out for him, but Ryan drops his notebook on the ground and heads for the bathroom - Brendon calls his name again, emphatically, “Ryan,” but the latter half of the word sounds muffled from inside the small room.
--
“I don’t understand,” Brendon says later, quietly. He’s sitting outside the bathroom door, and sometimes Ryan can hear him flipping through pages. With his face pressed against the tile of the bathroom floor, Brendon’s knee is visible through the tiny crack below the door. “How long have you been writing in here?”
Ryan’s not sure if he’s expecting an answer - he hasn’t gotten one for any other question. After a pause, Brendon continues on, “Still awake?”
Instead of speaking, Ryan reaches out slowly to slip his index finger underneath the door in something like a wave. His throat still feels raw from crying. Outside, Brendon lets out a breath that could be a laugh - he brushes their fingertips against each other, and Ryan shivers when their nails click together before he pulls his hand back.
“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Brendon says softly. Ryan exhales this time, his own version of a laugh, and tries to breathe in - his head is swollen from exhaustion, and it throbs steadily with his heartbeat. “I’m gonna be pissed if this is some sort of joke.”
“I’m gonna be pissed if this is some sort of joke,” Ryan gets out - his throat is thick and dry.
Brendon doesn’t laugh like Ryan was expecting him to. “Will you tell me?”
“I don’t know much,” Ryan says, honestly.
“Let me in,” Brendon says - he gently knocks his knuckles against the door once and silences himself after that, waiting.
Ryan sits up to unlock the door.
--
“Maybe you should talk to somebody about this,” Brendon suggests gently. His voice is sweet - saccharin sweet, synthetically helpful - and Ryan swallows around a knot of resentment in his throat. “Like-- I’m not... I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s why I never told anybody to begin with,” Ryan says. “I already know you think I’m fucking crazy, don’t need another person telling me the same thing.”
“Ryan,” Brendon sighs, “I just. What the fuck would you say if I were telling you this? It doesn’t happen, people don’t time travel or whatever. You can’t.”
“It’s too detailed to be anything else,” Ryan says, fiercely. “I’ve got dates down for the most useless shit, I remember this stuff, do you think I just spent my time creating some fantasy future for myself?”
“No, I don’t, but I don’t think you traveled through time either. Sorry, I just-- maybe you dreamed some of it and filled in the rest after you woke up.”
“No,” Ryan says decisively, even as his stomach drops. “I-- no. I remember full names and places, addresses. I can tell you where I was living.”
“Okay,” Brendon says indulgently, resigning from his protest.
Ryan looks over at him - they’re sitting side by side, against the wall and on the cold bathroom floor, shoulders and knees knocking. Before Brendon looks back, his eyes are on his hands. He’s uncomfortable, Ryan knows, unsure of what to say - it all shows on his face, in the slight downward slopes of his brows and the tension in his jaw. His cheeks are rounder than Ryan remembers, and they look soft even through the dark stubble settling itself along his skin.
“I think I wanna go see the house,” Ryan says, looking away again. He mimics Brendon, glancing into his lap at his hands. “I bet somebody else is living in it, but. I just wanna see.”
“I could go with you,” Brendon says.
He’s still so young, eager in a way that fades in the next few years but doesn’t ever go away. Everything seems blurred and bogged down to Ryan, now, heavy and incomprehensible, but the lilt of Brendon’s voice is as telling as it always was.
“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “You could.”
--
“I want a summary,” Brendon says softly. “Too impatient to read all your notes.” It sounds playful, like he’s terribly curious but trying to downplay how nervous he is about the answers he might get - he talks to the ceiling and doesn’t bother to look over at Ryan. The half-full duffle is still laying abandoned on the other, empty bed and there’s long inches of space between them, but the side of his body closest to Brendon’s feels warmer.
“It’ll be short,” Ryan murmurs back.
“That’s the definition of summary.”
Ryan huffs out a quiet laugh and swallows, “I don’t know. We, uh... You got bottled at the show I did. No comas, though, you just got back up. Finished the whole set, actually. Then we did this tour-- I was with, um, I started dating a girl named Keltie around now, we met at the VMAs. There wasn’t much for a while... We went to a cabin to write an album and it didn’t work, tried again and it worked out better. Did a couple tours on that one, uh-- I broke up with Keltie, Jon and I left, I started dating somebody else, and then, you know...”
“I didn’t read about Jon leaving, too,” Brendon says. He sounds small.
“A lot of things happened between now and then, I dunno. Stuff changed.”
“I hope you didn’t actually, like, come from the future. Sounds like a pretty shitty one to me.”
“Don’t, Brendon,” Ryan sighs. “It wasn’t-- it was better for you.”
The statement settles heavily on Ryan’s chest after he says it - he has no idea if him leaving was better for Brendon. Having him around every day makes the idea of complete silence between them seem foreign, but months ago, that’s what it was - he hadn’t seen Brendon in nearly half a year, and hadn’t spoken to him in practically as long. When they talked - once - it was cordial and practically forced; they were wearing faces fit for strangers, and Brendon could’ve been thriving or half-dead inside for all Ryan knows. He has no idea.
“It was all music stuff,” he continues on, because this he knows, this is solid, accurate. “We were fighting all the time about songs, and you didn’t like what we had, that’s it. It was like making Fever-- worse, really, it was just constant. You and Spence got to write your own stuff.”
Besides a hum of acknowledgment, Brendon stays quiet - it makes Ryan anxious and sends uncomfortable itching jolts up his spine, words that he wants to say to fill the silence that usually Brendon would occupy, “You wrote some really good songs for our second record, too.”
“I think the worst part about that whole thing is that it doesn’t even matter what’s going on right now,” Brendon says, still quiet but with a dull bite to his words. “Like, no matter how this stuff got into your head, that’s the worst part. It’s in your head, and now, even if things go different, you’ll just be thinking about what you’re going to do eventually. I can’t imagine myself in a band without you.”
I couldn’t imagine myself in a band with you until I came back here, Ryan thinks.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he says instead, and, “I’m sorry I got you involved,” and, “This is so fucked up.”
When Brendon turns suddenly and wraps an arm around Ryan’s middle, pressing his face into the crook of his neck in an aimless hug, Ryan can’t garner enough energy to cry.
--
Before they leave the hotel in the morning, Ryan piles up all the sheets he ripped out of his notebook and shoves them into his bag while Brendon’s in the bathroom.
--
They have a list tacked up on the mini-fridge with the dates and cities of the tour, and every night somebody crosses off the one they just finished. Most of the time it’s Brendon, and a few lines have things beside them, “FUCK YEAH” or stick figures with sad faces. Today they’re in Oregon, ringing in the first of December - Ryan peeks through the blinds covering the bus window and stares up at the bleak, grey sky.
“There’s, um,” Brendon says, sliding his index finger down to the bottom of the list, “there’s three days between the last and second to last shows. Or no, two days, there’s two days. Is that enough time? Where did you say the house was?”
“That’s enough, it’s just in, uh...” Ryan trails off - Park he remembers, something Park - “I dunno, I have it written down. I had just moved in, so... It’s around LA, we can just drive there from San Diego.”
“Awesome,” Brendon says. He draws a thin, winding road on the paper, lines parallel with minuscule dots in the center for a passing zone.
“Brendon,” Ryan starts, chewing his lip - he waits until Brendon looks in his direction to continue, “don’t tell anybody where we’re going.”
“What do we say if they ask, though?”
“We’re just... going for a drive,” Ryan shrugs. It shouldn’t be too hard to pull off - the trip won’t take longer than a single day, there and back.
“And when Zack calls to bitch at us for being gone too long?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Brendon laughs and turns back to the fridge, drawing in guard rails for the curves on his mini-highway.
--
The wifi in the dressing room works in fits and starts, and it only adds to the panic coursing through Ryan’s body. “That’s stupid.”
“Why is it stupid? It would’ve been the first thing I did, you should try it. Didn’t you say the one girl was a dancer? There might be something on her.” Brendon crouches down beside Ryan’s chair and peers at his computer screen - the webpage is open to google.com but the screen itself is pure white.
“No, I don’t know, I... she wouldn’t have done much stuff yet,” Ryan shrugs. “It’s not loading anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Ah, wait,” Brendon says dramatically - on the screen, the page begins to load before suddenly showing the Google homepage, ready for a query. “Ha! Okay, do her first.”
“Nothing’s gonna show up,” Ryan says, bracing himself for just that. He obediently types Keltie’s name into the search engine and hits enter, clenching his jaw while the site loads. The results bring back exactly what he was expecting, a slew of random girls named Keltie and a few extraneous links, and he looks at Brendon, faking exasperation.
“Not yours?”
“Nope.”
“Try page two. Or what about the other ones?” Brendon asks. “There were other people with bands, right?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ryan repeats, swallowing. “I don’t feel like doing this right now, it’s-- there’s not much on them anyway. Maybe they’re doing different stuff now, too.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Brendon sing-songs, raising his eyebrows expectantly, but Ryan shuts his laptop.
“Want me to do your makeup?” he asks, diverting the attention to Brendon instead. Looking at him, Ryan can see the doubt in Brendon’s face that he’s trying to ignore in himself.
He’s terrified of what he won’t find if he types in another name.
“Yeah,” Brendon agrees. The doubt is replaced with compliance. “I wanna do the doll faced thing tonight.”
--
Seven hours later, sleep-drunk and with aching fingertips, Ryan can still see the makeup smudged messily around Brendon’s face and eyes. Their hotel room is finally empty for the night, Spencer and Jon ambling lazily down the hall to their own room after a too-long jam session, and with their absence comes Ryan’s near-constant uneasiness.
“It feels like I’m lying to them,” he says, his head pillowed against the unyielding headboard of the bed. It’s something he might’ve written in his notebook.
Beside him, mirroring his pose, Brendon sighs. Their legs are stretched out on the unmade bed, duvet thrown to the floor hours ago to make room for four people on one mattress. “You’re just trying to figure out what’s going on first. I wouldn’t tell anybody either.”
“I’m glad somebody knows,” Ryan says - then, more specifically, “I’m glad you know.”
Brendon replies with just a smile. There’s only one light on in the room, a lamp in the corner farthest from the door, and the wattage is low enough to make the walls glow golden.
“This makeup makes it look like you’re blushing,” Ryan murmurs. He reaches up slowly and intends to wipe at the rouge staining Brendon’s cheek, but his thumb is drawn to the thin, soft skin below his eye instead. Brendon watches him steadily, face pliant and unreadable - there’s black smeared along that stretch of skin, and Ryan’s thumb only spreads it further.
“I’m glad I know, too,” Brendon says slowly, belatedly, and Ryan watches his lips form the words. Brendon leans in closer - he does that slowly, too, more tentative than he ever is - and Ryan surprises himself by molding his hand to the shape of Brendon’s jaw and meeting him in the middle rather than shying away.
They stop once their foreheads are resting together and Brendon sighs, breathes out, “Did anything like this happen before?”
For a moment, his other life feels so distant that Ryan takes an unusually long second to understand the question. He answers as simply as he can, “There was never a chance for it to happen,” before he tilts his head forward to kiss Brendon’s lips.
It’s different.
The kiss is only their second, but it seems so much more familiar. Each time they pause to suck in quiet breaths, Ryan can feel Brendon’s body trembling softly through the connection of their lips, but it’s nothing like the paralyzing fear of the first time. He gets nervous only as their bodies move closer - Brendon surges forward all at once, suddenly and briefly courageous, and Ryan’s pulse speeds up as a hand lands on his neck and their thighs overlap.
Brendon pulls back first after a long stretch of gentle, lazy kisses, like they’re exploring, learning each others’ mouths. He kisses Ryan’s again once more, sweetly, like he did the first time - when he slinks down underneath the sheets, still fully clothed, Ryan follows wordlessly.
They end up facing each other, shoulders practically touching, and Ryan’s dick throbs faintly - he finds himself watching Brendon’s face after his eyes are closed, tracing the lines of his lips with his eyes.
Brendon is asleep long before he is, his breath coming in shallow bursts against Ryan’s cheek.
--
Neither one of them apologizes in the morning. They’re still yawning and stumbling by the time they need to check out, bumping into each other as they gather their things. On the way out the door, Brendon surges forward like he did the night before and kisses Ryan’s mouth. He overestimates the tilt of his head - their noses push together awkwardly and Ryan laughs, correcting the angle, holding his bag in one hand and Brendon’s arm with the other.
--
The remains of the notebook are tucked between the wall of the bus and the mattress in his bunk, and Ryan spends his time staring at them sometimes, shoving them deeper into the crevice, wondering. Two nights before he and Brendon plan to drive north from San Diego to search for his old - future? - house, he eases a loose sheet out from the mess and sighs and swallows and reads.
The page he chooses has a long paragraph on the band and Keltie - it reads more like a journal entry and less like the account of the past that he wanted the notebook to be. Details fizzle out around the edges, and the reasons for fights make less sense upon revisiting than they did upon writing, but there’s one story scrawled in the margins that exemplifies what he wants to keep from the notebook. It’s brief, telling how the song Pas De Cheval got it’s name - Keltie heard the demo and compared the rhythm to galloping horses, a ballet move, “step of the horse,” fitting at the time.
Now, though, Ryan can’t remember what the steps of those horses sounded like.
He tugs another sheet loose from its hiding place and holds it together - the paper is nearly ripped in two, torn from his carelessness. It’s equally disappointing in terms of facts, full of his feelings instead. The entire page speaks only of Ryan wishing to wake up at home, in 2010 - he reads about himself weeks ago wanting so desperately to be away from Brendon’s condensed sympathetic energy, and thinks about himself now crawling into Brendon’s bunk to carefully kiss him awake.
--
“If you die, I am not responsible,” Zack says - Ryan smiles to himself, head tilted back against the couch in the lounge.
“I’ll sign papers stating that fact,” Brendon agrees.
Their voices are barely muffled through the thin bus walls, audible over the sound of Jon plucking his acoustic on the opposite couch. He gently claps his hand over the strings to stop their vibrations and nods at Ryan, “Where’re you guys going?”
“Dunno,” Ryan replies. “Food, I guess. Check out some sights, maybe. I’m tired of being in this bus,” he half-lies. They will get food, probably, and he’s definitely tired of being on the bus, and there’s a sight they’re after in particular - still, the omission feels like a lie. Chasing my crazy dream, he could say, something that might not--
“Mm,” Jon hums. He picks out a few more notes on his guitar, something jaunty and quiet, “I’m glad you’re feeling better now.”
The words could sound cordial and cold, but the lazy way Jon says them makes Ryan smiles again - he kicks out and pushes his toes against Jon’s knee, friendly, as Brendon comes through the doorway.
“Ross,” he says, before adopting a terrible accent that’s aiming for dignified, “Mr. Ross, your chauffeur awaits your presence.”
“My chariot,” Ryan amends, and Brendon laughs on his way back out of the lounge, bright and piercing.
“Don’t get killed,” Jon calls leisurely after them, “I already quit my day job for you bastards.”
--
Ryan grabs the entire wad of papers from the inside of his bunk and stuffs them into his jacket, laughing indulgently when Brendon says he looks like he’s smuggling drugs - after he settles into the passenger seat and pulls out the sheets, “I’ve gotta find the address,” he reads and keeps silent.
The things he wrote feel foreign at times - phrases he doesn’t remember, lyrics, maybe, words that don’t make any sense with or without context. There are endless pages of him rambling on about unhappiness, about missing Keltie and his new band and Z and Alex, but not much about them - he knows Alex had long hair for a while, and he knows Z had a deep voice, and he knows Keltie was a dancer, but most of their features blend together, quietly and unobtrusively.
He doesn’t know if Keltie had dimples in her cheeks or if Alex’s ears were big or if Z’s skin was tanned, but Brendon’s got a scar running straight through his right eyebrow that Ryan can see even in the dim, greying light of mid-morning December sunshine.
--
“It only says park,” Ryan announces suddenly. They’re the first words he’s said the entire trip. “There’s not even-- there’s nothing. Just park.”
The sheet took him by surprise, sliding around in the middle of the pile - it’s one of the final sheets he wrote, with all the dates he could find re-printed neatly. There are rows of birthdays, some people from before he woke up and some people since, just for completion - some of them only have numbers beside them, for days, and some only have months. None have years, but he can remember the years of everyone from after he woke up, anyway. There are only two from before he woke up with both a month and a date - and there are only a handful of people from before, anyway, the few he cared about - Keltie and Z. January 28th and June 28th. The only reason Ryan can remember those dates entirely - barring the year - is the coincidence of them being six months apart.
“Well,” Brendon sighs, belatedly, “don’t you remember anything about the house? We can ask around, didn’t you say there was something like-- a waterfall? Or something?”
“A moat,” Ryan answers, staring at the ‘address’ on the page - ??? Park ? The quest feels dismal all of a sudden, completely useless. They’ll never find a house on Park Street - or Drive, or Avenue, or Circle - in all of LA with only a few hours and no more information to work on. Brendon drives on, though, face as blank as before, hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel.
“Does, um,” Ryan starts, taking in a breath - “Does January 28th mean anything? Like, did anything happen that day?”
“What?”
“Or maybe June 28th?” Ryan adds - he holds onto the pile of paper in his lap and looks over at Brendon, heart palpitating nervously. No.
“Uh, don’t make fun of me for remembering,” Brendon says, already laughing ashamedly at himself, “but Audrey and I broke up in January. The 28th, yeah.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, swallows. He draws the papers closer to him and reaches into his pocket with one hand for his phone, flipping it open to look through his text messages, and he doesn’t even-- he doesn’t know why he’s searching, he already knows what he’s going to find. In Brendon’s thread of texts, the very first message is from January 28th, 2006: wouldn’t have worked out anyway. No.
“My turn for a question,” Brendon says. Ryan holds back an urge to sob that comes over him so suddenly he almost chokes. “You said I wrote songs, right? For the album, for the one we did after this one?”
No. Ryan nods.
“Do you remember any of them?” His voice is quiet, curious but almost accusing. Almost cruel. He keeps his eyes on the road, and his knuckles look whiter than the rest of his skin. He knows.
Ryan exhales sharply and clenches his eyes shut, mirroring the motion with his fists. No. “Pull over, please,” he says.
Brendon turns to look at him, questioningly, but Ryan is holding his breath against a crashing feeling of nausea. As soon as Brendon veers off the highway, emergency lights flashing and tires rumbling over indents in the side of the road, Ryan tries to tear off his seatbelt and get outside, pushing open the door before the car’s completely stopped.
“Ryan, what the fuck,” Brendon says, louder than he means to, probably - he slams on the brakes suddenly and it gives the car a jolt, making Ryan stumble painfully onto his knees when he gets out.
Some of the sheets of his notebook pour out onto the gravel with him, stuck underneath his legs and shoes as he dry heaves on the side of the highway.
“Ryan,” Brendon repeats, crouching down. He doesn’t touch Ryan but his presence is nearly palpable as it is, heavy-handed and well-intentioned. Ryan’s bad leg aches from the fall - the leg he landed on late in the summer, after getting hit square in the temple with a full bottle.
The dry heaves turn into tearless sobs, shaking his whole body with the effort from the inside out - not unlike the day he tried calling the phone numbers of strangers, numbers he pulled out of his own head. Ryan remembers the day he made the calls, sitting in the bathroom with Brendon, “Sorry, I just-- maybe you dreamed some of it and filled in the rest after you woke up.”
He slams his fist down suddenly, wedging sharp pebbles into his skin. Brendon says his name again, softer this time. Gently. “Ryan,” he says. “I know.” It’s more of a murmur, a defeated murmur, against the loudness of everything around them. He knows.
Ryan cries noiselessly and nearly crumples on the pavement, half into Brendon’s waiting body. Cars pass continuously, almost in a solid rhythm, but no one stops.
The wind stays low and teasing, slowly drawing pages filled with dreams out of Ryan’s open car door, carrying them down the highway.