Fic: Poets Come To Life (2/3)
Title: Poets Come To Life. (2/3)
Rating: MA-15.
Fandom: Bandom. P!atd. FOB. THS. (Brendon/Ryan, Pete/Patrick, implied Spencer/Pete, Spencer/Ryan, Spencer/Greta, past-Pete/Ashlee)
*
A million years ago, when Peter believed in happy endings and happier beginnings, there was Ashlee.
Ashlee was a rock amongst the diamonds, a weed in a bed of roses and there was nothing about her that Peter didn‘t love. Ashlee, who sung her hallelujahs to false idols, to syringe and powder, cock and clit. Who would always look like she was waiting for her Christ, for her saviour aboard a white stallion and there was no part of Peter that didn’t wish he could fit the mould.
When they fucked, Peter began to believe in magic, and the afterglow would seep and settle in the space between his bones, crawl into his nerve cells and it was like being invincible.
It was like being in love.
She dies one day in late August, drowns in her own vomit outside a strip joint. Peter is not with her. No one will stop to help her.
*
“You need a plan,” Spencer says, and he leans back on the stool in the bar, props his elbows on the counter.
“What?”
“Like, what did the girl say to you when she, y’know, made you move?”
And Ryan, he remembers, can see the words where they run races past each other on the insides of his eyelids. “Good, she said, brave, kind and honest. She told me to love.”
Spencer purses his lips, leans his chin on the palm of his hand, “Maybe you should become a fireman or a police officer or something. A hero. They are all those things.”
“What do they do?”
“Save lives,” Spencer says, “like, every hour, minute, second. They’re paid to rescue people and cats.”
Ryan, he can feel the heat from Spencer’s skin, can feel the pulse through where their arms brush, can hear it, if he listens close enough.
“It sounds like prostitution,” Ryan mumbles, and this, he’s not sure where it’s coming from. “Paid to love.”
Spencer, he just shrugs, “You don’t know what a police officer is, but you know about prostitution?”
“I lived with Peter.”
Spencer laughs and the man behind the counter, he’s all dark eyes and sprawling sneer, rolls over to them and lets loose a deep, “ID, kids?”
“I know the boss-man,” Spencer says, and he does, delivers his milk, just doesn’t know him personally.
“Don’t give a shit, boys, I’m gonna need some ID.”
It’s too easy for Ryan not to curl into himself, not to retreat and not to be defensive, coz he reckons it’s a part of the living process. Supposes it’ll be an experience, being punched in the face by this guy, this angry, burly bloke. Spencer though, he’s too quick to placate, to compromise with icy eyes and tightly drawn lips. Ryan, he sighs, leans back but- There’s something there, something that catches his eye, a flash of light and he spins too quickly on the stool, so much that the guy, the bar-tender, he yells out and Spencer starts, but the thing is, the boy from the street, the thief, he’s in the corner, chatting up some girl with pink hair, decked out in fake, glittery jewellery.
This boy, who’s just given the girl an expensive looking locket and Ryan, the girl, his girl, she didn’t give him a heart, but she gave him a head and he knows what this implies.
He’s up and over, decking the boy straight across his jagged cheekbone before the guy can even get out of the way, before Spencer can stop him, but not quite quick enough for the bar-tender to miss it. All three of them, Spencer, him and the thief, are being kicked out before another word can be said.
*
The thief’s name is Brendon and all he is is quick fingers and doe eyes, big lips and a smile that consumes his face like the Mona Lisa consumes the Louvre.
Ryan, he doesn’t quite understand the kid, but something tells him that the guy’s all right and after breaking his nose, well, Ryan figures they’re even.
Spencer doesn’t.
“The guy stole from you.”
Ryan shrugs. “It’s not that hard to believe.”
Spencer grimaces and chokes out this growl that splices against his teeth. They both look back at Brendon who’s just sort of trailing them, kicking at the sidewalk and staring up at the sky.
“Hey,” he says, “hey, can I stay with you guys?”
“What?” Spencer starts, swivels on the spot. “No.”
“Oh,” Brendon mumbles, but his brow’s furrowed and Ryan, he kind of can’t believe this is happening right now. “Why not?”
“You just met us! And you’re a thief.”
“Pickpocket,” Brendon replies. “Totally different.”
“Yes,” Ryan says and Spencer, he just casts him a disbelieving look. “You can stay with us.”
Later that night, when Brendon has crashed on the floor of the apartment, his heavy breathing rattling the walls, Ryan will lean over to Spencer and say, “I am being good.”
*
Peter wakes up to an empty till and an empty shop and he pretends to be surprised.
“Everyone leaves sometime,” he tells Hemmy, who’s up waiting for Ryan‘s sharp eyes and gentle fingers. “I kinda wish he hadn’t stolen the money though. We just need to hope that he remembers to eat and that he finds a roof and a bed. It’d be selfish otherwise.”
Hemmy, he sits by his bowl, tilts his head and lets loose a caged growl, a groan, a whine.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Peter says, “Ryan, he was a good kid, too good for us.”
The dog, he just whines again, nuzzles Peter’s leg with his nose.
“Really,” Peter replies, and there’s something in his tone that’s too resigned, too lost. “Too good for me.”
All Hemmy does is cry, collapse at Peter’s feet and lick at his sock-clad toes. Hemmy gets like this sometimes and this is why Peter doesn’t like meeting new people.
Peter, he sighs, “We’ll go look for him tomorrow.”
What Peter doesn’t say is, I can‘t.
*
It’s not like it’s been a long time, it’s just that it feels like it.
Spencer, he’s working all morning and Brendon clings to Ryan’s fingers, drags him to the park that separates this part of town from the rest of it. Ryan thinks it’s silly, this great divide, this desperate fracture and he wishes he could explain it to Brendon, but the kid just wouldn’t understand.
“The girl you saw me with the other night,” Brendon says, “her name’s Audrey and she’s like, the most materialistic bitch I’ve ever met.”
“Do you love her?” Ryan says, because Peter, he was only ever that bitter with people he’d been in love with.
“Maybe,” Brendon replies. “Like, she’s hot and I’ll lose my virginity to her next week. I’ve got it planned.” He pulls a piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans, unfolds it and holds it out to Ryan. “Awesome, huh?”
Ryan glances over the chicken scrawl that trails off the page, the diagrams and arrows and he wonders if sex is really this complicated. “I can’t read your writing.”
“Well, yeah,” Brendon says. “It beats having to invest in like, a safe, or username and password or whatever.”
“Right,” Ryan replies, but not really.
“So what about you?” Brendon asks, and he falls back onto the swing, wraps his fingers around the chain and leans as far back as can. “What is the great Ryan about?”
“Nothing,” Ryan shrugs. “Not yet. I am not alive.”
Brendon blinks, grins. “Well, you are an incredibly good-looking ghost.”
“Not a ghost.”
“Zombie? Vampire? It’s too bright for you to be a vampire, I mean, your skin would be burning off and stuff.”
“Doll,” Ryan says. “Puppet.”
Brendon, he doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it and this, it shouldn’t be surprising, shouldn’t upset him, but just, there’s this force, this thing that weighs down his chest, beats him down and he can’t explain it. He can’t explain why all of this, why it hurts. Ryan, he shoves Brendon’s fingers under and up the hem of his shirt, clenches them too tight against his chest, that spot where his heart should be. “Nothing,” he says, “I am not alive and I cannot love. A girl made me a functioning, breathing shell and I have to find a way to fill it. I don’t know. I have to live.”
Brendon, his eyes are darker than anything Ryan’s ever seen, the bleakest night sky and the deepest corners of the ocean, but he’s looking at Ryan like he means it. “Your heart…”
“Is not there,” Ryan says, “never was.”
It’s quiet for a moment, minutes, hours, but when Brendon smiles, it’s deadly, creeps across his face. “You want to live?” he asks. “Then Las Vegas is our first stop.”
*
Spencer comes home from work and Ryan’s not there.
Spencer, he sighs. He isn’t as surprised as he should be, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
*
There’s a word for this, the psychologist said, and she was slow to speak, slow to move, as if any sudden jerk would send Peter reeling. He just quirks a brow, gestures for her to keep going and she just, she tries to smile, she does.
Agoraphobia, she said and Peter‘s stomach, it catches on his ribcage, but he figures it kinda makes sense.
*
Brendon says that Las Vegas is alive and Ryan, he gives the guy the benefit of the doubt, but he’s just, he’s not too sure. Las Vegas is all booze and whores, gamblers and seedy men who slur out words from under their tongues and it’s in these seconds that Ryan isn’t reminded so much of living as he does of some sort of glorified dying.
He doesn’t say anything to Brendon who giggles deliriously at the bronzed woman who presses herself against his leg, cups his crotch and her grin, it’s not real and all Ryan can see is the way her lipstick taints her teeth, her lips strain at the edges.
This woman has eyes the size of empty saucers and Ryan, he’s not alive, but he’s nowhere near as dead as Vegas.
*
The busker, he pulls out his guitar, tightens the strap over his shoulder and when he opens his mouth, music pours out. “He’s a real nowhere man,” he sings, “sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.”
*
Peter can’t pinpoint the moment when the idea of Outside became less of a promise and more of a threat.
Ryan’s been gone for onetwothreefour days and Pete, he hates company because it promises more than it follows through on and he just, he can’t handle that anymore. He didn’t love Ryan, but he loved not being so alone, he loves words and eyes, voice and fingers.
Peter, he misses Ryan, misses familiarity and he hates having tasted that, tasted company and then just letting it slip through his fingers. Pete, he’s in a sieve, clotting up cheese cloth, blotting paper. He’s the clump and everyone else is the liquid.
Hemingway, he moans at the door every morning and Peter, today, day five, he reaches for the handle, reaches for Outside, grasps at threads, straws, air and he just, he can’t.
*
The thing about the Vegas strip is that it rolls, clinks, whispers. It’s loud and desperate and every thought, person, concept, they’re scattered, fragments, nothing here is whole, nothing is real and Ryan, he can’t love here, he can’t be good and this, it’s a life, but it’s not a life meant for him.
Here, Brendon drinks like he’s falling; like a parachute, a hand, net is waiting at the bottom of the bottle, like there’s something there that’ll save him and he presses it to his lips and moans, the last sound of a dying animal as the dogs get to its flesh and Ryan, he hates this.
They book into a hotel where the light bulbs flicker overhead and the beds are never made, where the stains lack any creativity and Ryan, he can see blood in the cracks in the tiles.
Brendon vomits all night long and Ryan, he tucks his long fingers into Brendon’s hair, wraps them behind his ears as the boy heaves booze and guts and parachutes and hands straight back into the toilet bowl.
“Sorry,” Brendon mumbles, and he leans back on his heels, wipes the sweat off his face and reaches a hand around to grab at Ryan’s wrist, pulls him forwards and round until they’re both sitting on the hard, cold floor.
“I just lose myself sometimes,” he whispers, but he moves forwards, presses sweaty lips onto Ryan’s and kisses him like the world is ending, like this is the apocalypse and Ryan, like Ryan’s Jesus Christ.
Brendon’s lips are hot, bile stained and the taste, it churns Ryan’s stomach, bites at the edges and coils his intestines, but Brendon’s lips, they’re soft and chapped, bitter around the edges, like this kiss, it’s the last and Ryan wonders how come he can feel this, but he can’t feel it.
This, it should mean something.
*
Peter wakes up and all he can see is blue. Sky balled up, forced into shape, twin circles and they’re hovering, just above his face. “Jesus,” he cries out and flings himself backwards on the chair, hits his head too hard on the back wall.
“Sorry.” The voice, it’s quick to placate, quick to ease, but Peter, he can hear the hesitation. This guy, he’s got his hand on Hemmy’s head, is petting behind his ear and the dog, he just groans happily, smiles and Peter, he grimaces in response. “I didn’t like, I didn’t mean to surprise you or anything, just the door was open and-”
“And okay,” Peter replies, tilts his head just right, can feel the sun blaze through the window, heat buries beneath his skin like he’s resting on the stove top, it burns his face.
“Right,” the guy says. It’s the busker and this is the first time Pete’s seen him close up, first time that he hasn’t been on the street corner, behind glass, just, impersonal. This, it’s too much and Peter’s not sure what to say.
“There’s this song,” the guy says, “and maybe I just…” His guitar’s slung over his shoulder and he pulls it around, clings it tight to his chest and flashes Peter a half-grin that doesn’t quite match what Peter can see in his eyes.
“This song…” And he strums a few chords that echo in Peter’s hollow ears, bury in the lining of his head, erupt behind his eyes. “I’ll just…” And the guy, he doesn’t just anything, because right now, he opens his mouth and Peter doesn’t think that the sound that pours (slinks, bursts, drowns the room, fills Peter’s head and lungs and heart and he doesn’t, he can’t breathe with it all around him, but doesn’t think the rest of him will be able to keep going when the guy stops) is anything inadequate enough to refer to as ‘just‘.
“There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made,” he sings, hums, slurs and Peter, he knows this. “No one you can save that can’t be saved, nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time, it’s easy.” The guy, who’s all blue eyes and a voice that Peter drowns in, he stares and stares and just, he sings. “All you need is love.”
"And, yeah,” the guy mumbles, flushes deep to the roots of his hair. “So here’s the thing,” the clock churns somewhere overhead, “I’m not normally this forward, but maybe this…” And he gestures around the shop, at Hemmy, himself. The guy, he can’t make eye contact anymore. “Maybe this is me making the first move.”
Peter, he’s not sure what happened to the rest of the world, but this, it’s suddenly just him and this guy, this beautiful man with a voice that erupts up Peter’s spine and shivers beneath his skin. “I’m Pete,” he says, and Jesus, he’s out of practice, can’t think, can’t plan, can’t do.
“Patrick,” the guy says, and he smiles, holds out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
*
The casino that night is bright lights and shrill rings that whistle through Ryan’s ears, graze against the hair, bury in the wax and Ryan has to clench his eyes shut, has to put either hand to his ears and just, shake, but there are fingers against his elbow, tentative on his arm.
“You alright?” Brendon asks, and he’s half distracted, half eyeing the girl towards the other end of the room and half too focused on Ryan. It’s a part-intensity that Ryan can’t connect with, can’t hold on to.
“Fine,” Ryan says, and he’s ready to move away, to head outside to fresh air and new sounds and different pulses, but Brendon turns around, eyes dancing and legs jittering and he smiles like, he really, really smiles at Ryan and it’s the first time anyone’s ever done that before.
Ryan can’t pinpoint it, but something in his chest flutters, heaves and moves and he has to put a hand on Brendon’s arm to steady himself, has to breathe too deep until it passes and when he looks back up, Brendon’s frowning and the thing in his chest, it’s gone.
*
The bar light flickers over head, wavers, glows and Spencer orders another shot, another gin and tonic, another whiskey. The bar-tender, this guy, he doesn’t ask for ID, but he shoots out glares, cutting words and Spencer, he should care a lot more than he does.
Spencer doesn’t so much drown his sorrows as much as he looks for love at the bottom of a bottle.
There’s a blonde girl who sits in a booth three rows behind where Spencer is and maybe he’d recognise her if he bothered to look.
The point is that here, right now, this girl, she bothers to look, bothers to watch and Jesus, she just, she gives a shit, and all she wants in these seconds, moments, all she wants for in this entire lifetime is for him to just turn around and look at her, really look.
The point is, he doesn’t.
*
Continue to part 3.