Fic: Time To Get Out Of The Desert (Bandom. Panic! Ryan/Spencer)
Title: Time To Get Out Of The Desert (And Into The Sun)
Fandom/Pairing: Bandom (Panic! at the Disco) Ryan/Spencer
Rating: PGish?
Disclaimer: Completely untrue. I don’t own these boys.
Warnings: Slash! Angst!
Summary: When Panic! finally call it a day, Ryan struggles to find himself
A/N: Written for rain_dances, because she said On Your Porch by The Format is a perfect Ryan/Spencer song, and she’s right and also I love her a whole lot. I hope this is the sort of thing she was thinking of. (Loosely) influenced by that song which you can download here. Title taken from lyrics in the song. Betaed by vampireranger. Thanks also to loveyouallwrong for not killing me despite being forced to read this approximately 17 million times.
It’s over, suddenly, and Ryan’s not ready for it to be. Not ready for it despite the months and months of long discussions and tidying up legalities and planning- how and when to break the news (to Pete, to the rest of the world), what to do next, where to go, who to be.
There’s suddenly so much for him to prove. And he has to do it all on his own.
~~~
“How’s Spencer?” Ryan asks.
“Spencer?” Brendon repeats. He sounds distracted, and he’s probably busy- Ryan’s call comes when Brendon is in the studio. Ryan feels a stab of both happiness and guilt that Brendon immediately drops what he’s doing to step out into the corridor and talk to him. They still mean something to each other then, which is good to know. But Ryan can’t help but think Brendon would have been better off if Ryan was out of his life completely and not providing him with distractions.
“He’s good,” Brendon says. “I saw him last week.”
“You went home?” Ryan asks and Brendon makes an ‘mmhmm’ noise.
“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is muffled like his mouth is full. “Family stuff.”
There’s a pause, then Brendon swallows audibly. “Sorry, eating lunch. Attempting to multitask. I don’t think it’s going well.”
There are a few seconds of hasty chewing and then Brendon speaks again. “I don’t think I’ll get a chance to get back for awhile, so I figured…go and see everyone while I have the chance. Things are- well, they’re really taking off for me, Ryan. I can’t believe it.”
Ryan forces a smile onto his lips, hoping it sounds more real than he knows it looks. He wants to be happy for Brendon, wants him to do well. It’s not Brendon’s fault Ryan doesn’t like change, never envisioned a life after the band. “That’s great,” he says, and he does mean it, somewhere. He just misses Brendon.
“You should come out and stay for awhile,” Brendon says, sounding genuinely pleased that Ryan is happy for him. “It’d be fun. Like old times.”
No it won’t, Ryan thinks. “Yeah,” he says. “Definitely. I’ll do that.”
He won’t though. He loves Brendon, loves him in a way that’s closer than family ever could be, loves him like he’s a part of himself. But for so long it’s been Ryan and Brendon and Spencer and then Ryan and Brendon and Spencer and Jon. And now… now just it’s just Ryan, and Brendon wouldn’t work, wouldn’t feel right, and it’s not something Ryan ever wants to try unless he really has to.
So he won’t get on a flight to LA. He won’t mean any of the acceptances to invitations Brendon makes. He won’t go anywhere near California. Not when it contains a piece of something that’s been broken and reformed, reshaped, sanded down, and altered into something that, one day, might not even be recognisable as part of the original.
“Maybe you should go home too,” Brendon suggests, and before Ryan can see how smooth his latest lie will come out of his mouth, he hears Brendon’s name being called somewhere in the distance and Brendon is up and moving again saying “Shit, sorry, I’ve got to go- we’re recording this amazing track- I’ll send you a demo when it’s done- but we’ve only got a little time- I’ll call you later, okay?”
Brendon won’t call. It’s not that he doesn’t mean it, it’s just that suddenly he’s the way he was eight years ago- young and wide eyed and impressionable, thrust into the spotlight. And now there’s no one else on stage with him- he’s got to be the whole show, the entire focus, and that’s a lot for anyone, even Brendon.
Maybe he should go home, Ryan ponders as he puts his phone away and stares with attempted disdain around his latest borrowed accommodation in the middle of nowhere in particular, but he can’t even seem to bring himself to turn his nose up at his lodgings. He’s been living like this for too long, the gypsy lifestyle, never putting down roots, never outstaying his welcome. ‘Home,’ he thinks, trying to imagine what that could mean. He snorts and starts to pack his bags. He’s been in this place too long already.
~~~
It’s autumn, and Ryan is at Spencer’s house. He’s curled up on the loveseat on the back porch and there are leaves all over Spencer’s backyard that once upon a time Ryan would have felt the urge to rake up (or at the very least, the urge to bitch about them at Spencer until he rakes them up).
He lights another cigarette, turning a deaf ear to the pointed looks Spencer had given Ryan earlier when he’d produced the packet and gone out to sit on the back porch. It isn’t even like he really smokes them. He just enjoys the flare of the match when he strikes it, the solidity of the cigarette between his bare fingers and stuck between his lips, enjoys the way the smoke coils up above his head, forming pictures in the air that he is never quick enough to focus fully on. He wonders sometimes if the answers to all of the questions he wants to ask but can’t voice are written out in those curlicues or in the glowing ashes he crushes out under his heel.
Ryan shivers. Being maudlin and melancholy is just no fun anymore, not without Brendon trying to cheer him up by ridiculous means or Jon’s throaty laugh or Spencer’s…well, just Spencer.
He lights another cigarette, a brief flash of light in the growing darkness, and just holds it, watching until it burns down to the filter. The gentle breeze dies away and the smoke curls around him, sinks into his skin. Ryan knows his hair will smell in the morning, but he can’t bring himself to care.
He grinds the butt out on the porch step and goes inside to find Spencer.
~~~
Ryan can’t write anything. He’s got so many things swirling around in his brain right now, so many things that, if he could only channel it, would result in some hauntingly beautiful songs. But he’s got writer’s block or stage fright, maybe, and he’s sick of staring at a piece of blank paper, of holding his guitar uselessly in his hands. Every note he plays seems discordant, out of place.
At first he thinks it’s just nerves- it’s a new place, a new group of people, a new pressure without his usual distractions. After the third day, he can see people exchanging looks when he offers up something that he knows is rubbish. But he’s desperate now; trying to force what can’t be forced, what shouldn’t need to be forced. He’s supposed to be showing everyone that he’s more than a quarter of a band, that he’s a talented artist in his own right. And he’s failing.
After the forth week of nothing usable, a meeting is called and suddenly Ryan is free. He has nowhere to go so he goes to Pete’s place for a while, but even Pete seems different to him now.
~~~
They lie together on Spencer’s enormous bed, in his massive bedroom, in his sprawling house on the outskirts of town. It should maybe be a good sign, reminding Ryan of how far they’ve come, how much success they had that any of them could afford a place like this.
But instead, it only reminds Ryan of the way things used to be, of the dozens- hundreds, maybe- of times he’d slept over at Spencer’s house when they were kids. He always started out in a sleeping bag on the floor and at some point in the night slid in to press himself against Spencer in his tiny single bed so that in the summer months they’d both be too hot and irritable and tired to really talk much. They would just lie there together in silence, in Spencer’s tiny bedroom, with walls thin enough that sometimes they could hear his sisters arguing in the next room, in the modest house that was big enough to meet their needs and yet small enough to be cosy, comforting, what a family home should feel like, in a neighbourhood that isn’t bad and isn’t great but is just right.
“It’s weird,” Spencer says, flicking through the channels without looking at Ryan. “It’s weird to think it’s all over.”
Ryan nods, and Spencer puts on MTV, and there they are. There’s Brendon in that stupid top hat that he wanted to wear for days and days afterwards, and even though to Ryan it’s not them- because anything that was before Jon was never fully complete, not to Ryan at least- and even though it was so long ago, it makes Ryan’s heart clench painfully with longing and want.
“He’ll be okay,” Spencer says, motioning with the remote. “Brendon. I bet he’s shitting himself, but he’s going to be amazing, you know? One of the greats of our generation. Him and Patrick- people will talk about them for decades to come, even when Panic! is a faded memory than only a handful of people remember.”
Ryan looks away, and there’s a pause before Spencer flicks to a different channel, some wildlife programme that looks boring but also won’t make Ryan feel nauseous, so he doesn’t complain.
“What about Jon?” Ryan asks and Spencer’s face splits into a smile.
“Jon is an adult now,” Spencer says, as if that sums everything up, and maybe it does.
“And you?”
Spencer shrugs. “I don’t see why I won’t be. I’m…Brendon and his singing…you and your music…that’s who you guys are. Me…it was more about the band than the music, you know?”
Ryan thinks ‘for me too’ but the realisation comes too late, part of the whole ‘you don’t know what you’ve got 'til it’s gone’ revelation bullshit. And there’s nothing he can say or do to make Spencer understand that Spencer wasn’t the only one who felt that way, not when he never really showed it when there was still a band to belong to, not the way Spencer always had.
“So I’m going to enjoy just being myself without you guys around,” Spencer laughs, and bumps his shoulder against Ryan’s. “And it’s not like I can’t afford to not do anything for awhile. I’ll figure something out. I’m not worried.”
~~~
Ryan doesn’t have a home, not really. Not like Brendon and Spencer and Jon do, somewhere to retreat and hide and lick old wounds and steel yourself to face the new world out there.
He stays with Jon for a while, but Jon is a grown up now, with a wife and a kid and a sensible car and baby proofed house. He’s different to the image of Jon that Ryan keeps in his mind, and yet still the same and it grates on Ryan, this merging of old and new. Grates enough that after a couple of weeks he says his goodbyes, insisting he’s trespassed on their hospitality long enough and makes his escape.
Everything is changing. And Ryan is just standing still in the middle of it all, staying the same, not changing except for this feeling of loss and emptiness he’s never experienced before.
He tries Patrick’s place next- empty and with a layer of dust over all the surfaces that Ryan almost enjoys cleaning away. Patrick has been pretty much exclusively in LA for almost a year, and he still hasn’t returned months later when Ryan decides that Patrick’s place was nice, but it isn’t right, and it’s too close to Jon’s, necessitating frequent visits that are awkward purely because they aren’t awkward at all, and Ryan’s pretty sure they should have been.
Since then, he’s been moving around, place to place- staying with old friends, short term lets on grungy studio apartments and the occasional hotel room (although not too often- they may have made enough money from the band, but Ryan’s got his head screwed on tight enough to know that it’s completely possible that this money has to tide him over indefinitely until he can think of something to do with his life).
The only problem is, he’s running out of places to hide.
~~~
“And me?” Ryan asks later. It’s taken him some time to work up the courage to say the words out loud, to hear Spencer’s response.
Spencer laughs.
“You’ll be more than okay,” he says. “You’re…god, Ryan, you’re you. This was all you, pushing us along. You were the one with all the drive and determination. And they want you, Ryan, and that’s worth a whole lot.”
“What happens if it’s not right?” Ryan asks, and he needs Spencer to tell him everything’s okay, to reassure him. “What if I fail?”
“If you fail, then you fail,” Spencer shrugs, and it’s not what Ryan wanted to hear. “What more can you do than try?”
~~~
Ryan writes a lot now that there’s no deadlines, but it’s all emo shit that suicidal teenagers would be ashamed of, nothing that’s even remotely usable for a song. It makes Ryan’s skin itch, as if there’s something inside him trying to get out, searching for a way, and failing utterly. As if something is blocking the signals between his brain and fingers and the electricity is sparking uselessly inside him instead, leaving him restless and anxious and twitchy.
It makes his insides ache sometimes, makes his head ache with nightmares, makes his heart ache with longing and wistfulness and wishing he could go back, change things maybe.
Ryan doesn’t resent his friends their happiness. He knows that Brendon’s career is taking off, that Jon and Cassie are trying for another baby, that apparently (because he’s not spoken to him since that autumn night, and doesn’t know if he ever can) Spencer is loving his new found freedom, is teaching local kids how to play the drums, is enjoying being able to walk down the street and not really be recognised anymore.
Ryan tries not to wonder how often Spencer smiles these days, and who he’s smiling at.
He just wishes he could occasionally write melodies that weren’t in D minor.
~~~
The sunlight peeking through the curtains wakes Ryan early the next morning, and he stretches, tries to linger in that narrow moment between dreams and wakefulness where Ryan doesn’t exist, where real life doesn’t exist
Morning is cruel though, and he’s barely gotten back into the comfortable haze of nothingness before the birds are chirping loudly outside the window and the sunlight is bright enough that he’s getting sticky just from lying still. So he opens his eyes and stares at Spencer’s ceiling for awhile, thinking over what they’d talked about the previous night, all the old memories, all of the might have beens, all of the music they’d listened to and movies they’d seen and TV shows they’d watched, and also the ones they’d never gotten around to seeing and hearing. All of the people they’d met and befriended and grown to love or hate or maybe both. All of their futures, and how certain Spencer had been that they’d all be okay, how he was positive that Brendon would be a superstar and that Jon would be an amazing dad and that Ryan would blow everyone away with the amazing songs he would write.
Ryan doesn’t want to let Spencer down, not if he has that much faith in him still.
He rolls onto his side watches Spencer sleep for awhile, takes one of those stupid mental pictures he always mocks people mercilessly about- one of Spencer’s face, mouth half open over a pillow damp with saliva, his nose mashed into the hand half under his head, neck creased and red. It might not be Spencer at his most attractive, but it’s Spencer and this, this is something real enough, something Ryan’s seen so often that it’s a memory he takes with him as he slips out of bed and finds his shoes, goes to the bathroom, makes himself some toast in Spencer’s kitchen, and loads his bags back into his car.
Then he goes back up, finding Spencer flat on his back and snoring lightly. Ryan hesitates then brushes his hair off his forehead and kisses him lightly.
Spencer snorts in his sleep and Ryan frowns down at him and leaves, gets into his car and drives. Brendon’s not the only one who’s supposed to be making music in LA right now.
~~~
Spencer opens the door and Ryan watches as the welcoming smile on his lips fades a little.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Ryan says, and turns to leave, but Spencer’s too quick, reaches out and grasps his wrist and stops him.
“No, no,” Spencer says, and the smile that’s back on his face when Ryan turns back would seem real if Ryan didn’t know him so well.
“I…should have called,” Ryan apologises. “You’re probably busy, this is probably a bad time-”
“I’m never too busy for you,” Spencer says, giving Ryan a hard look that makes the fact that he’s driven for more hours than he cares to remember and that he probably smells and hasn’t seen a hairbrush or a toothbrush or any sort of foodstuff that doesn’t contain caffeine for days, completely worthwhile.
~~~
Ryan briefly wonders if this was how Brent felt, cast adrift with no purpose when they all moved on with their lives, following their paths, and left him behind. He’d phone and ask, maybe, but he doesn’t have Brent’s number, and when he mentions it to Brendon during one hurried phone call, Brendon says he’d lost it years and years ago. Which means Spencer’s the only one who might know and there’s no way Ryan’s going to phone Spencer, because there’s no way of having a conversation that wouldn’t involve Ryan’s complete and utter failure at doing what he supposedly was meant to do.
~~~
Ryan will never, ever, ever tell anyone about this, unless one day he’s old and grey and writing his memoirs and then, depending on how the rest of his life turns out, then maybe he’ll tell this story.
He has a dream, one night in a motel somewhere in the middle of Canada, where he’s staying for no other reason than a friend of a friend mentioned it was cold and peaceful and empty and pretty much the antithesis of Vegas.
It’s not a particularly weird dream, no swirling colours or flying through the sky or talking hamsters or clowns.
Ryan has gone back in time, five years or so and they’re in the middle of a show and Brendon is pressing himself into Ryan’s space, like he always used to do, and Jon has his eyes closed as he plays and Spencer is banging away at the drums with his mouth slightly open and sweat soaking through his shirt and then the music fades away and Brendon lets himself fall back into the waiting arms of the screaming audience, and suddenly Jon’s holding a baby, not a bass, and Spencer grasps both his drumsticks in one hand, hard enough that Ryan can hear them break and splinter. And as the pieces fall from his fingers, Spencer looks straight at him and says, “You’re missing me.”
Ryan wakes up, sheets tangled around his legs and stares up at the ceiling and rolls his eyes because, duh, of course he’s missing Spencer.
And then his breath catches in his throat and he bites his lip and exhales slowly because, yes, he’s missing Spencer, Spencer is what’s missing from him, missing from everything he thought he could do but suddenly can’t and it’s Spencer, Spencer who’s that constant factor that was always there and now-
As soon as dawn breaks and he’s paid his bill, Ryan gets into his car and drives and drives and drives until his choice is stopping or having an accident and even then he sleeps curled in the backseat so he can get going early in the morning.
~~~
Ryan hates, every so often, remembering that he’s never really travelled without the others before. So it feels wrong now to wander around a strange new town or city or wherever without them. Sometimes it feels like they’re there with him, the way that Ryan looks at things with the eye of a photographer, imagining the angles Jon would want to capture with his camera; the way he looks at things and tries to see the silver lining, like Brendon always did, turning even the dampest, coldest, dirtiest places into a place of wonder and adventure; the way he looks at things with Spencer’s critical eye, picking at holes and unravelling lose threads and secretly loving the place despite its faults.
~~~
“Are you happy?” Ryan asks once he’s inside Spencer’s house and the door is shut and Spencer is leading the way through his house and out onto his back porch.
There’s a blanket on the loveseat, and a mug of something that’s steaming in the chill, early winter weather, and what looks like an Agatha Christie novel beside it.
When Spencer looks at him, his face is carefully moulded into that indifferent look he used for years and years before Ryan learnt that it was the look he used whenever he was hiding what he was thinking.
“Of course,” Spencer says, but his eyes say he’s a liar, and Ryan lets out the breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
“Because I’m not,” Ryan says, and Spencer’s eye twitches a little.
“I can’t do this,” Ryan says. “I’ve done everything I can and…I’ve failed, and I think I know why. You had all this…this faith in me, this belief that I’d actually do something worthwhile, but it’s been over a year and I’ve got a pile of empty notebooks and a guitar that’s gathering dust and a head that’s missing any of the tunes that I got used to being in there.”
Spencer unfurls his hands and places them, palms down on his own knees. He looks like he could be about to say something or be about to bolt, and so Ryan rushes on.
“I feel like I’m not even me anymore, that everything I was, everything I could do stopped the moment Panic! ended. And I know that’s not right and that I was still around, somewhere, and that’s why I came home. I’ve got nothing left to prove anymore, not to anyone else. Just to myself. And maybe to you.”
Ryan pauses and meets Spencer’s gaze. “So I figured…what have I got left to lose?”
And then he presses his lips to Spencer’s.
~~~
Ryan is an awkward teenager and Spencer is his best friend and life before Spencer was his best friend is a messy haze, like puzzle pieces that don’t fit, won’t form a picture at all. They decide to form a band, and it’s possibly the best idea that either of them has ever had.
Spencer turns to Ryan and says, “This is going to change our lives. I can just feel it.”
And Ryan slides his hand into Spencer’s and smiles.
“Maybe,” he says. “I hope so.”
~~~
Spencer kisses him back.
Fandom/Pairing: Bandom (Panic! at the Disco) Ryan/Spencer
Rating: PGish?
Disclaimer: Completely untrue. I don’t own these boys.
Warnings: Slash! Angst!
Summary: When Panic! finally call it a day, Ryan struggles to find himself
A/N: Written for rain_dances, because she said On Your Porch by The Format is a perfect Ryan/Spencer song, and she’s right and also I love her a whole lot. I hope this is the sort of thing she was thinking of. (Loosely) influenced by that song which you can download here. Title taken from lyrics in the song. Betaed by vampireranger. Thanks also to loveyouallwrong for not killing me despite being forced to read this approximately 17 million times.
It’s over, suddenly, and Ryan’s not ready for it to be. Not ready for it despite the months and months of long discussions and tidying up legalities and planning- how and when to break the news (to Pete, to the rest of the world), what to do next, where to go, who to be.
There’s suddenly so much for him to prove. And he has to do it all on his own.
~~~
“How’s Spencer?” Ryan asks.
“Spencer?” Brendon repeats. He sounds distracted, and he’s probably busy- Ryan’s call comes when Brendon is in the studio. Ryan feels a stab of both happiness and guilt that Brendon immediately drops what he’s doing to step out into the corridor and talk to him. They still mean something to each other then, which is good to know. But Ryan can’t help but think Brendon would have been better off if Ryan was out of his life completely and not providing him with distractions.
“He’s good,” Brendon says. “I saw him last week.”
“You went home?” Ryan asks and Brendon makes an ‘mmhmm’ noise.
“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is muffled like his mouth is full. “Family stuff.”
There’s a pause, then Brendon swallows audibly. “Sorry, eating lunch. Attempting to multitask. I don’t think it’s going well.”
There are a few seconds of hasty chewing and then Brendon speaks again. “I don’t think I’ll get a chance to get back for awhile, so I figured…go and see everyone while I have the chance. Things are- well, they’re really taking off for me, Ryan. I can’t believe it.”
Ryan forces a smile onto his lips, hoping it sounds more real than he knows it looks. He wants to be happy for Brendon, wants him to do well. It’s not Brendon’s fault Ryan doesn’t like change, never envisioned a life after the band. “That’s great,” he says, and he does mean it, somewhere. He just misses Brendon.
“You should come out and stay for awhile,” Brendon says, sounding genuinely pleased that Ryan is happy for him. “It’d be fun. Like old times.”
No it won’t, Ryan thinks. “Yeah,” he says. “Definitely. I’ll do that.”
He won’t though. He loves Brendon, loves him in a way that’s closer than family ever could be, loves him like he’s a part of himself. But for so long it’s been Ryan and Brendon and Spencer and then Ryan and Brendon and Spencer and Jon. And now… now just it’s just Ryan, and Brendon wouldn’t work, wouldn’t feel right, and it’s not something Ryan ever wants to try unless he really has to.
So he won’t get on a flight to LA. He won’t mean any of the acceptances to invitations Brendon makes. He won’t go anywhere near California. Not when it contains a piece of something that’s been broken and reformed, reshaped, sanded down, and altered into something that, one day, might not even be recognisable as part of the original.
“Maybe you should go home too,” Brendon suggests, and before Ryan can see how smooth his latest lie will come out of his mouth, he hears Brendon’s name being called somewhere in the distance and Brendon is up and moving again saying “Shit, sorry, I’ve got to go- we’re recording this amazing track- I’ll send you a demo when it’s done- but we’ve only got a little time- I’ll call you later, okay?”
Brendon won’t call. It’s not that he doesn’t mean it, it’s just that suddenly he’s the way he was eight years ago- young and wide eyed and impressionable, thrust into the spotlight. And now there’s no one else on stage with him- he’s got to be the whole show, the entire focus, and that’s a lot for anyone, even Brendon.
Maybe he should go home, Ryan ponders as he puts his phone away and stares with attempted disdain around his latest borrowed accommodation in the middle of nowhere in particular, but he can’t even seem to bring himself to turn his nose up at his lodgings. He’s been living like this for too long, the gypsy lifestyle, never putting down roots, never outstaying his welcome. ‘Home,’ he thinks, trying to imagine what that could mean. He snorts and starts to pack his bags. He’s been in this place too long already.
~~~
It’s autumn, and Ryan is at Spencer’s house. He’s curled up on the loveseat on the back porch and there are leaves all over Spencer’s backyard that once upon a time Ryan would have felt the urge to rake up (or at the very least, the urge to bitch about them at Spencer until he rakes them up).
He lights another cigarette, turning a deaf ear to the pointed looks Spencer had given Ryan earlier when he’d produced the packet and gone out to sit on the back porch. It isn’t even like he really smokes them. He just enjoys the flare of the match when he strikes it, the solidity of the cigarette between his bare fingers and stuck between his lips, enjoys the way the smoke coils up above his head, forming pictures in the air that he is never quick enough to focus fully on. He wonders sometimes if the answers to all of the questions he wants to ask but can’t voice are written out in those curlicues or in the glowing ashes he crushes out under his heel.
Ryan shivers. Being maudlin and melancholy is just no fun anymore, not without Brendon trying to cheer him up by ridiculous means or Jon’s throaty laugh or Spencer’s…well, just Spencer.
He lights another cigarette, a brief flash of light in the growing darkness, and just holds it, watching until it burns down to the filter. The gentle breeze dies away and the smoke curls around him, sinks into his skin. Ryan knows his hair will smell in the morning, but he can’t bring himself to care.
He grinds the butt out on the porch step and goes inside to find Spencer.
~~~
Ryan can’t write anything. He’s got so many things swirling around in his brain right now, so many things that, if he could only channel it, would result in some hauntingly beautiful songs. But he’s got writer’s block or stage fright, maybe, and he’s sick of staring at a piece of blank paper, of holding his guitar uselessly in his hands. Every note he plays seems discordant, out of place.
At first he thinks it’s just nerves- it’s a new place, a new group of people, a new pressure without his usual distractions. After the third day, he can see people exchanging looks when he offers up something that he knows is rubbish. But he’s desperate now; trying to force what can’t be forced, what shouldn’t need to be forced. He’s supposed to be showing everyone that he’s more than a quarter of a band, that he’s a talented artist in his own right. And he’s failing.
After the forth week of nothing usable, a meeting is called and suddenly Ryan is free. He has nowhere to go so he goes to Pete’s place for a while, but even Pete seems different to him now.
~~~
They lie together on Spencer’s enormous bed, in his massive bedroom, in his sprawling house on the outskirts of town. It should maybe be a good sign, reminding Ryan of how far they’ve come, how much success they had that any of them could afford a place like this.
But instead, it only reminds Ryan of the way things used to be, of the dozens- hundreds, maybe- of times he’d slept over at Spencer’s house when they were kids. He always started out in a sleeping bag on the floor and at some point in the night slid in to press himself against Spencer in his tiny single bed so that in the summer months they’d both be too hot and irritable and tired to really talk much. They would just lie there together in silence, in Spencer’s tiny bedroom, with walls thin enough that sometimes they could hear his sisters arguing in the next room, in the modest house that was big enough to meet their needs and yet small enough to be cosy, comforting, what a family home should feel like, in a neighbourhood that isn’t bad and isn’t great but is just right.
“It’s weird,” Spencer says, flicking through the channels without looking at Ryan. “It’s weird to think it’s all over.”
Ryan nods, and Spencer puts on MTV, and there they are. There’s Brendon in that stupid top hat that he wanted to wear for days and days afterwards, and even though to Ryan it’s not them- because anything that was before Jon was never fully complete, not to Ryan at least- and even though it was so long ago, it makes Ryan’s heart clench painfully with longing and want.
“He’ll be okay,” Spencer says, motioning with the remote. “Brendon. I bet he’s shitting himself, but he’s going to be amazing, you know? One of the greats of our generation. Him and Patrick- people will talk about them for decades to come, even when Panic! is a faded memory than only a handful of people remember.”
Ryan looks away, and there’s a pause before Spencer flicks to a different channel, some wildlife programme that looks boring but also won’t make Ryan feel nauseous, so he doesn’t complain.
“What about Jon?” Ryan asks and Spencer’s face splits into a smile.
“Jon is an adult now,” Spencer says, as if that sums everything up, and maybe it does.
“And you?”
Spencer shrugs. “I don’t see why I won’t be. I’m…Brendon and his singing…you and your music…that’s who you guys are. Me…it was more about the band than the music, you know?”
Ryan thinks ‘for me too’ but the realisation comes too late, part of the whole ‘you don’t know what you’ve got 'til it’s gone’ revelation bullshit. And there’s nothing he can say or do to make Spencer understand that Spencer wasn’t the only one who felt that way, not when he never really showed it when there was still a band to belong to, not the way Spencer always had.
“So I’m going to enjoy just being myself without you guys around,” Spencer laughs, and bumps his shoulder against Ryan’s. “And it’s not like I can’t afford to not do anything for awhile. I’ll figure something out. I’m not worried.”
~~~
Ryan doesn’t have a home, not really. Not like Brendon and Spencer and Jon do, somewhere to retreat and hide and lick old wounds and steel yourself to face the new world out there.
He stays with Jon for a while, but Jon is a grown up now, with a wife and a kid and a sensible car and baby proofed house. He’s different to the image of Jon that Ryan keeps in his mind, and yet still the same and it grates on Ryan, this merging of old and new. Grates enough that after a couple of weeks he says his goodbyes, insisting he’s trespassed on their hospitality long enough and makes his escape.
Everything is changing. And Ryan is just standing still in the middle of it all, staying the same, not changing except for this feeling of loss and emptiness he’s never experienced before.
He tries Patrick’s place next- empty and with a layer of dust over all the surfaces that Ryan almost enjoys cleaning away. Patrick has been pretty much exclusively in LA for almost a year, and he still hasn’t returned months later when Ryan decides that Patrick’s place was nice, but it isn’t right, and it’s too close to Jon’s, necessitating frequent visits that are awkward purely because they aren’t awkward at all, and Ryan’s pretty sure they should have been.
Since then, he’s been moving around, place to place- staying with old friends, short term lets on grungy studio apartments and the occasional hotel room (although not too often- they may have made enough money from the band, but Ryan’s got his head screwed on tight enough to know that it’s completely possible that this money has to tide him over indefinitely until he can think of something to do with his life).
The only problem is, he’s running out of places to hide.
~~~
“And me?” Ryan asks later. It’s taken him some time to work up the courage to say the words out loud, to hear Spencer’s response.
Spencer laughs.
“You’ll be more than okay,” he says. “You’re…god, Ryan, you’re you. This was all you, pushing us along. You were the one with all the drive and determination. And they want you, Ryan, and that’s worth a whole lot.”
“What happens if it’s not right?” Ryan asks, and he needs Spencer to tell him everything’s okay, to reassure him. “What if I fail?”
“If you fail, then you fail,” Spencer shrugs, and it’s not what Ryan wanted to hear. “What more can you do than try?”
~~~
Ryan writes a lot now that there’s no deadlines, but it’s all emo shit that suicidal teenagers would be ashamed of, nothing that’s even remotely usable for a song. It makes Ryan’s skin itch, as if there’s something inside him trying to get out, searching for a way, and failing utterly. As if something is blocking the signals between his brain and fingers and the electricity is sparking uselessly inside him instead, leaving him restless and anxious and twitchy.
It makes his insides ache sometimes, makes his head ache with nightmares, makes his heart ache with longing and wistfulness and wishing he could go back, change things maybe.
Ryan doesn’t resent his friends their happiness. He knows that Brendon’s career is taking off, that Jon and Cassie are trying for another baby, that apparently (because he’s not spoken to him since that autumn night, and doesn’t know if he ever can) Spencer is loving his new found freedom, is teaching local kids how to play the drums, is enjoying being able to walk down the street and not really be recognised anymore.
Ryan tries not to wonder how often Spencer smiles these days, and who he’s smiling at.
He just wishes he could occasionally write melodies that weren’t in D minor.
~~~
The sunlight peeking through the curtains wakes Ryan early the next morning, and he stretches, tries to linger in that narrow moment between dreams and wakefulness where Ryan doesn’t exist, where real life doesn’t exist
Morning is cruel though, and he’s barely gotten back into the comfortable haze of nothingness before the birds are chirping loudly outside the window and the sunlight is bright enough that he’s getting sticky just from lying still. So he opens his eyes and stares at Spencer’s ceiling for awhile, thinking over what they’d talked about the previous night, all the old memories, all of the might have beens, all of the music they’d listened to and movies they’d seen and TV shows they’d watched, and also the ones they’d never gotten around to seeing and hearing. All of the people they’d met and befriended and grown to love or hate or maybe both. All of their futures, and how certain Spencer had been that they’d all be okay, how he was positive that Brendon would be a superstar and that Jon would be an amazing dad and that Ryan would blow everyone away with the amazing songs he would write.
Ryan doesn’t want to let Spencer down, not if he has that much faith in him still.
He rolls onto his side watches Spencer sleep for awhile, takes one of those stupid mental pictures he always mocks people mercilessly about- one of Spencer’s face, mouth half open over a pillow damp with saliva, his nose mashed into the hand half under his head, neck creased and red. It might not be Spencer at his most attractive, but it’s Spencer and this, this is something real enough, something Ryan’s seen so often that it’s a memory he takes with him as he slips out of bed and finds his shoes, goes to the bathroom, makes himself some toast in Spencer’s kitchen, and loads his bags back into his car.
Then he goes back up, finding Spencer flat on his back and snoring lightly. Ryan hesitates then brushes his hair off his forehead and kisses him lightly.
Spencer snorts in his sleep and Ryan frowns down at him and leaves, gets into his car and drives. Brendon’s not the only one who’s supposed to be making music in LA right now.
~~~
Spencer opens the door and Ryan watches as the welcoming smile on his lips fades a little.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Ryan says, and turns to leave, but Spencer’s too quick, reaches out and grasps his wrist and stops him.
“No, no,” Spencer says, and the smile that’s back on his face when Ryan turns back would seem real if Ryan didn’t know him so well.
“I…should have called,” Ryan apologises. “You’re probably busy, this is probably a bad time-”
“I’m never too busy for you,” Spencer says, giving Ryan a hard look that makes the fact that he’s driven for more hours than he cares to remember and that he probably smells and hasn’t seen a hairbrush or a toothbrush or any sort of foodstuff that doesn’t contain caffeine for days, completely worthwhile.
~~~
Ryan briefly wonders if this was how Brent felt, cast adrift with no purpose when they all moved on with their lives, following their paths, and left him behind. He’d phone and ask, maybe, but he doesn’t have Brent’s number, and when he mentions it to Brendon during one hurried phone call, Brendon says he’d lost it years and years ago. Which means Spencer’s the only one who might know and there’s no way Ryan’s going to phone Spencer, because there’s no way of having a conversation that wouldn’t involve Ryan’s complete and utter failure at doing what he supposedly was meant to do.
~~~
Ryan will never, ever, ever tell anyone about this, unless one day he’s old and grey and writing his memoirs and then, depending on how the rest of his life turns out, then maybe he’ll tell this story.
He has a dream, one night in a motel somewhere in the middle of Canada, where he’s staying for no other reason than a friend of a friend mentioned it was cold and peaceful and empty and pretty much the antithesis of Vegas.
It’s not a particularly weird dream, no swirling colours or flying through the sky or talking hamsters or clowns.
Ryan has gone back in time, five years or so and they’re in the middle of a show and Brendon is pressing himself into Ryan’s space, like he always used to do, and Jon has his eyes closed as he plays and Spencer is banging away at the drums with his mouth slightly open and sweat soaking through his shirt and then the music fades away and Brendon lets himself fall back into the waiting arms of the screaming audience, and suddenly Jon’s holding a baby, not a bass, and Spencer grasps both his drumsticks in one hand, hard enough that Ryan can hear them break and splinter. And as the pieces fall from his fingers, Spencer looks straight at him and says, “You’re missing me.”
Ryan wakes up, sheets tangled around his legs and stares up at the ceiling and rolls his eyes because, duh, of course he’s missing Spencer.
And then his breath catches in his throat and he bites his lip and exhales slowly because, yes, he’s missing Spencer, Spencer is what’s missing from him, missing from everything he thought he could do but suddenly can’t and it’s Spencer, Spencer who’s that constant factor that was always there and now-
As soon as dawn breaks and he’s paid his bill, Ryan gets into his car and drives and drives and drives until his choice is stopping or having an accident and even then he sleeps curled in the backseat so he can get going early in the morning.
~~~
Ryan hates, every so often, remembering that he’s never really travelled without the others before. So it feels wrong now to wander around a strange new town or city or wherever without them. Sometimes it feels like they’re there with him, the way that Ryan looks at things with the eye of a photographer, imagining the angles Jon would want to capture with his camera; the way he looks at things and tries to see the silver lining, like Brendon always did, turning even the dampest, coldest, dirtiest places into a place of wonder and adventure; the way he looks at things with Spencer’s critical eye, picking at holes and unravelling lose threads and secretly loving the place despite its faults.
~~~
“Are you happy?” Ryan asks once he’s inside Spencer’s house and the door is shut and Spencer is leading the way through his house and out onto his back porch.
There’s a blanket on the loveseat, and a mug of something that’s steaming in the chill, early winter weather, and what looks like an Agatha Christie novel beside it.
When Spencer looks at him, his face is carefully moulded into that indifferent look he used for years and years before Ryan learnt that it was the look he used whenever he was hiding what he was thinking.
“Of course,” Spencer says, but his eyes say he’s a liar, and Ryan lets out the breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
“Because I’m not,” Ryan says, and Spencer’s eye twitches a little.
“I can’t do this,” Ryan says. “I’ve done everything I can and…I’ve failed, and I think I know why. You had all this…this faith in me, this belief that I’d actually do something worthwhile, but it’s been over a year and I’ve got a pile of empty notebooks and a guitar that’s gathering dust and a head that’s missing any of the tunes that I got used to being in there.”
Spencer unfurls his hands and places them, palms down on his own knees. He looks like he could be about to say something or be about to bolt, and so Ryan rushes on.
“I feel like I’m not even me anymore, that everything I was, everything I could do stopped the moment Panic! ended. And I know that’s not right and that I was still around, somewhere, and that’s why I came home. I’ve got nothing left to prove anymore, not to anyone else. Just to myself. And maybe to you.”
Ryan pauses and meets Spencer’s gaze. “So I figured…what have I got left to lose?”
And then he presses his lips to Spencer’s.
~~~
Ryan is an awkward teenager and Spencer is his best friend and life before Spencer was his best friend is a messy haze, like puzzle pieces that don’t fit, won’t form a picture at all. They decide to form a band, and it’s possibly the best idea that either of them has ever had.
Spencer turns to Ryan and says, “This is going to change our lives. I can just feel it.”
And Ryan slides his hand into Spencer’s and smiles.
“Maybe,” he says. “I hope so.”
~~~
Spencer kisses him back.