Fic: Grace - Chapter 4
Title: Grace - chapter four
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: P!atd (Bden/Ryro)
Half an hour later, I read it again.
Not intentionally, I’d put it down with the strong, kinda unshakable belief that I would never pick it up again. I would let that wayward chicken scrawl fall out from behind my eyes, out of my head and mind and thoughts. I had no intention of ever looking at the bizarrely unfocused and out of place ramblings of R. Ross again.
Only, maybe a part of me really did want to see what Loretta and Pete and everyone saw, feel what they felt. Maybe I genuinely wanted that rush, that hit, that uncontrollable yearning for more.
Or maybe, more likely really, it was my ego talking. My huge sense of self-worth that somehow called everything to a stop, called a ‘wait-a-minute, what the fuck, I should get this. I will get this.’ This is, of course, more likely.
So half an hour after I finally got around to reading it for a first time, I read it again.
I still don’t get it. Huh.
I tossed the wad on the table beside me, letting out a growl from the deep recesses of my chest. It’s not like I cared or anything, not like it truly mattered, so without further adieu, I wandered to my kitchen suite, and busied myself with lunch. Hoping adamantly for Jon’s return from wherever the hell it was that he’d gone.
It was only twenty minutes this time, before I found myself sitting down to read it again. I honestly can’t answer as to what exactly kept forcing me back down into that leather sofa, what kept compelling me to pick the papers up again. I can’t say if it was truly Loretta and Pete and Jon’s influence, if it was my ego, or if maybe the words had already, completely unwittingly on my half, been sprinkled with powder-cocaine.
Maybe I was already addicted.
Already lusting after these people that were painted so perfectly and so intricately by the writer that my head couldn’t quite wrap itself around them. Not quite capable of understanding these brain-children that R. Ross had given birth too.
I remember flicking through the pages that third time, eyeing off the tiny letters scrawled furiously, there were arrows everywhere, scribbles, and every so often there would be a tiny little sketch, a character or scenario. Names were littered everywhere, Scarlet, Jelena, Paul, Mihai, Timothy. People were everywhere.
Finishing it off with a sigh, I readied myself to throw it back down on the coffee table, only maybe I hadn’t seen the back of the last page before, hadn’t seen the tiny, tiny R.Ross and…and a phone number.
Phone number?
Loretta had told me that they hadn’t found a way to contact Ross yet, were still searching the LA databases for any hint of an address or a…a phone number.
Was I the first to notice this? Why was I the first to notice this?
Without a second thought I picked up the phone, dialled the first couple of numbers, only…only I stopped, because honestly, what the hell was I thinking?
Grade A-actors don’t call sleazy little nobody concept writers. That was Pete’s job.
“What are you doing?” A voice was breathed out, crawling down the back of my neck. The stench of a half-consumed taco wafted through my nostrils, and a hand ruffled my hair in an almost affectionate gesture.
“Nothing, Jon.”
He shrugged, stuffing the last half of the taco in his mouth, and making his way down the hall to my half-a-million dollar entertainment room.
*
I saw Audrey that night.
Audrey who was all bleached hair, and hoop nose-rings and short-shorts and long legs and a sort of beautiful that made the cameras happy as they snap-snap-snapped all around her.
Audrey was Audrey Kitching, not an actress, not a musician, not a model, just the sort of pretty face who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time with the right people. With me.
We weren’t dating, weren’t an item as far as we were both concerned, we’d fuck around a bit, but really, it wasn’t all that much more. It wasn’t like I was her only attachment in the sky-high kingdom of fame.
Audrey was Audrey and I was me, and to this day she remains a series of happy memories.
Audrey was one of the people who in any other universe I could’ve fallen in love with.
She was slouched on her bed amongst a million soft toys by the time I opened the door to her small LA apartment.
“Audrey.”
She waved me off, but quickly retracted it, gesturing instead to the bed beside her. Conversation clearly fell down the list of priorities when Fashion House was on the wide-screen television in front of her.
I collapsed beside her, allowing my lips to latch onto her neck.
“Not now, Bren, Maria Gianni is about to be shot.”
I moaned, wrapping an arm around her tiny waist, “ngh, sex.”
She shoved me off the bed, along with half of her hideous stuffed animals.
This results in what normally happened when I’d go over to Audrey’s, we’d rough house a little, I’d pull her hair, she’d bite me. We’d giggle and laugh and flush and grope. And then we’d have sex. Utterly mind-blowing sex.
Some 25 minutes later, Audrey lets out a content sort of sigh, pulls the sheet up over her bare chest and throws herself over my skinny frame.
“So, what’s up?”
“Huh?”
“Yea, you’re more pouty and horny than normal.”
This probably increases the pouting, as I lean into her slight body.
The problem with my relationships with people I had known for too long was that I ended up never knowing what to say to them. Often I would say something that I didn’t mean, just to make them happy, to make them smile at me with a glow and a warmth and a sincerity that I could latch onto.
This is why I would tell Audrey I loved her.
“’love you, ‘Drey.”
I didn’t, but I loved how she looked that evening, sprawled beside me, all hair and eyes and feather light-heart.
“’Love you too, Bren.”
She didn’t, but maybe she loved how I looked beside her too.
“But I’d still like to know what’s up.”
I leant over, didn’t kiss her, just placed the shadow of my lips over hers.
“Work-stuff.”
“Yea?”
“Yea.”
“Specifically…” She asked, running dainty fingers over my cheeks.
“Problems with a script.”
I didn’t say anything else about it, and she didn’t ask, just kept petting my cheeks, my neck, my back.
If I had stayed with Audrey just a few more hours that day, maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe my life would’ve been different. Maybe I would never have left, stayed with her forever, married her, had a family with her, set up house somewhere in Illinois (Jon loved growing up there), complete with white picket fence and numerous Labradors.
Only I didn’t stay for the next few hours, and I definitely didn’t stay forever. Instead I went home, and dialled that goddamn number.
*
Five rings in, and it was answered by a tired, almost monotonous voice.
“’llo.”
“Uh, hi, uh, I’m…I’m Brendon, is this...is this, R. Ross, or-“ Why was I so fucking nervous?
“Yea.”
“Right, uh, well-“
“Wait, Brendon Urie?”
“Yea.”
“Are you…” His voice had dropped a few notches in volume, he was quiet before, but now he was almost inaudible. “Are you calling about ‘Build God’?”
“Yea, I guess…Uh, I’d like to…discuss it with you. If you’re willing or whatever.” This was getting out of hand, he should be asking me this, not vice versa. That’s why this is Pete’s job, Loretta’s job, Jon’s job (to be honest, I have no idea who normally does this, how it normally works).
“Uh, yea, yes.” The voice sounded genuinely surprised, and suddenly very, very young. “Uh, do you…do you know the Starbucks on - on Central Avenue?”
“Sure, uh, when?”
“Now…is, uh, now good?”
“well,” No, now wasn’t good. I needed to call Loretta, Pete, one of them needed to come with me, so I didn’t make a total fucking ass out of myself in front of this kid. So this kid didn’t make a mockery out of me. I didn’t even get the thing, didn’t even necessarily want it, but even then something was screaming at me not to fuck this up.
“What the hell.”
*
So suddenly I’m sitting at Starbucks, glaring down at my hands and wondering when the fuck this guy is gonna get here. I’ve had three skim-milk lattes, and a full-fat cappuccino by the time some skinny, fragile little thing slips through the crack in the door. A box quite possibly bigger than him hiding everything other than a pair of spindly arms that have somehow wrapped themselves around it.
It’s almost half past twelve in the morning by this point, and the night-shift staff have been trying to close up around me for the last two hours.
The box is placed as carefully as possible in the chair opposite me, and I cast eyes on a face that is sort of, maybe familiar, only completely not. He looks even skinnier this close, and I lose all the terrifying possibilities of being bashed or something. I think Paris Hilton’s fucking Chihuahua could’ve taken him down.
He casts me a shaky smile, all badly concealed fragility as he thrusts a long, quivering hand at me.
I shake it, and don’t bother introducing myself. I don’t realise until later that neither does he.
“Hi.” He says, in one slightly heaving sort of sigh.
“Hi.” I say, and his shaky little smile maybe grows a little more steady.
Maybe this kid is excited.
He’s giggling nervously now, collapsing a stack of papers onto the table, rifling through them so quickly that I doubt he’ll find what he’s looking for.
Scratch the maybe, and excitement has always been contagious, especially to someone as ADD as me. Soon we’re both grinning like maniacs, and I sure as fuck have no idea why.
“It’s not…I’ve never…I don’t want to write about bullshit, Brendon, I don’t want this film to be about how many fucking car crashes, shoot outs and sex scenes I can fit into ninety minutes, y’know? I want, this whole thing, it’s just…it’s people, and…”
He’s so nervous, so…shy, and already I can tell its taking all he has to not pass out, collapse into a quaking mess in front of me.
“I’m not very good at this.” He says, running his endlessly spidery fingers through his scruffy hair.
“That’s ok,” I say, “to be honest, neither am I.”
He nods, and casts me another hesitant smile, before glancing around the room. “Is it just you?”
“Uh, yea, I guess.”
“Isn’t that…dangerous?”
I shrug, “Probably.”
Ross gives me a strange look, “Aren’t you worried I’m gonna scam you or something?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, well that’s good…coz I’m not and…Do you have any questions?”
“More of a statement, really.”
“Yea?”
“I don’t get it.”
His eyes widen, and his mouth opens a bit. I don’t think he was expecting that. Years later, he’ll tell me that those four words made his admiration for me as an actor go down about four notches. Apparently I’m supposed to be capable of adapting to any and all situations, able to understand every plausible character, script and scenario.
“Oh. Uhm, anything particular.”
“Uh, well, mostly, all of it.”
“Oh.” He’s taken aback, all that previous excitement that made him go a mile-a-minute is gone, and he’s almost withdrawn into himself. His cheeks flushed and his voice stammers even more than it did before. He’s tired and embarrassed and maybe a little teary.
“Look, I don’t…It’s- it’s not intentional, it’s just…wait.” The way his hair is falling over his face right now, the way he tucks those strands of hazel threads behind his ear, it’s all so, so fucking familiar. The muttering, the long, lanky, bony form, that…that everything.
“Is it George or Ryan now?” I say, before I can even comprehend what I’m saying.
His head bounces up so fast, I’m convinced it’ll snap off. He stares at me a second, before the most natural grin I’ve seen all night spreads across his face. “Always been Ryan, really. You still God, or just Brendon, now?”
And yea, that just confirmed everything, and how the fuck do I remember him, and why the hell isn’t he still waiting tables in no-where land?
“A lot happens in three years.” He said, and I hadn’t realised that I’d asked that question out loud.
“Yea.” I say. “Yea.”
And I don’t know what makes me do it, say it, don’t know why or how or anything, just before I can stop myself, before I can even begin to think about taking my eyes off that tiny, honest grin, my mouth has opened and I say the five words that is really quite high on my list of regrets.
“Hey, you wanna come over?”