perilous.
i'm makin' my way to a place that breaks love
and leavin' my goodbyes, so i can move on
without orchids in my pockets,
cushions for the soul
in search of somethin', always somethin'
catchin' up to the ghost
and i'm broke, but i look
good with my heart in my throat,
when it pulses i breathe what you don't
so i choke and make moans
what's in this heart in this throat
in a body that shakes when it knows
not which way to go
now i'm livin' in a building
the twenties built with alarm
kids from chicago are livin' next door
livin' proof there's a fire
spreading northward
to make ourselves heard
and pour our blood on the stars
perilously here,
swallowed down i fear
can taste who we are
so good, so far
and i look good with my heart in my throat
when it pulses i breathe what you don't
so i choke and make moans
what's in this heart in this throat
in a body that shakes when it knows
not which way to go
and i'm broke, but i look
good with my heart in my throat,
when it pulses i breathe what you don't
so i choke and make moans
what's in this heart in this throat
in a body that shakes when it knows
not which way to go
scott moffatt - perilously here.
+ + + + +
Running hurts his lungs, feels like drawing in mouthfuls of cold, wet sand, and he can feel the harsh jolt running up through his legs, into his bones, jarring his ribs like singing wind chimes, but he just keeps running. Pushes back against the burn in his legs and forces the air into his chemically treated lungs, listens to the rhythm of his sneakers smacking hard against the concrete, the counter thud of his bag against his hip, the in between stuttering grate of his breathing, a song of escape.
He doesn't have anywhere to go, and certainly no one to go with, only the mostly empty streets, trees, cars, houses flying by in a rush to keep him company, but there’re a million places he could be. A million places that aren’t here.
So he runs.
-
He loses track of blocks, of street signs, of neighbourhoods, and he's never been happier than when he stops, looks around, and says out loud to himself, to the dimming canvas of sky brushed with clouds, "Fuck I'm lost". The words are like breaking the surface of the water, that first breath, and he smiles.
The grass in the clearing past the last houses on the street is crackling and dry under his feet, growing in just sand, baked dry from the summer slowly fading into autumn, but under the lone tree, it thickens and velvets, a little desert oasis created by the shade. It's cold and chill damp under his back, through his sweater, smells sweet and a little warm, like when it rains and steams on hot asphalt in the summer.
Half a bottle of water later and the last quarter of a cigarette edging closer to his fingers, watching the sky turn plum around the edges, he's grinning to himself, hopelessly lost in a neighbourhood hes never seen before, and that he's not likely to ever see again, but that, for now, is the best place in the world to be lost.
When the sky finally tints itself navy, sun risen somewhere east of here, the air nipping at his exposed skin, he stretches his legs, aching and numb, and shoulders his bag.
Home is where you make it.
-
It's too quiet and too dark inside the front door of the house, so he scurries across the floor, up the stairs, into his bedroom before too much of a good thing becomes far in excess of an awful night.
His clothes still smelling like hay and dirt, he falls into bed, and it feels like he's asleep before he closes his eyes, dreaming vague about golden fields and green leaves, the moon outside the window.
-
He leaves in the middle of the night, two bags stuffed with everything he could think to bring and nothing that's of real importance. It's not like any of it, his clothes, his books, his candles, things that mean nothing, are going to make wherever he ends up feel like home. He doesn't leave a note, just an empty bedroom, a bare mattress, a few small things scattered around. His parents will understand, in their own way; he's always said the most with stormy silences, and this, the ultimate quiet, is the most racket he can ever really make.
If they don't listen when you talk, they'll listen when you walk, or ride the bus out of town, he thinks, painting designs in the frost from his breath on the cold glass window, listening to the thick hum of the engine running up through the floor into his shoes.
The bus is crowded and permeated with diesel fumes thick enough to make his head spin, but with the scenery flashing by faster than it ever could when he runs, his physical life stuffed into black plastic, the overhead luggage racks, he can’t help but laugh.
-
The bus is almost empty, a few people in the back going nowhere like him, and when it stops and the doors screech open, he's half expecting no one to walk on, the bus driver stopping for phantoms, swirls of mist. But the surprise, the boy, is about his age, a little shorter and with darker hair, blue duffle bag slung heavy over his back and a slow smile in his eyes. He looks up and down the aisle, seems to consider sitting alone at the front, until he catches his eye over the vinyl upholstered row of seats, smiles, all teeth. He ducks his head below the seat in front of him, presses his pen against the half-filled notebook page, feels the bus lurch and watches the trees start to flash by again outside the murky glass.
He isn't really expecting the guy to push his bag into the luggage rack one seat ahead and sit down, turning around and slinging an arm over the back.
"Hi. What are you writing?" he asks, voice too-loud in the eerie quiet of the bus, and when he looks up through his hair, the flash-flash of headlights shining through the window against the side of the boys face, his lips quirk up without his consent.
"Words," he mutters, raising his eyebrows, eyes flickering back down in disinterest, but his mask cracks off, barely revealing a smile, when the boy widens his eyes comically, leaning a little further over the creaking seat.
"You don’t say," he gasps, and then his voice drops again, smoothing out. “M’Brendon.”
"What?"
"I...am...Brendon," he drawls, word stretched out long, like talking to a child when they colour outside the lines. Ryan bristles.
"Oh," he snaps, edges his fingers into his sleeve and scratches his wrist.
"Yeah."
He draws a long, curving swirl around the corner of the page, filling it in with black ink, starting slightly when Brendon jumps up and steps backwards, sitting beside him, vinyl crackling.
"Uh, so you're supposed to tell me your name now, genius," he teases, poking one index finger into his bony shoulder, sending the pen skittering across the page messily and his arm into the metal wall of the bus. He rolls his eyes and pushes his hair off his face, staring down at the scribble and thinking of a way to make it look intentional, nice.
"M'Ryan," he finally says, and Brendon hums, putting his feet up on the back of the seat in front of him.
"Nice to meet you, Ryan."
"Sure."
"Do you, uh, talk? Since we’re pretty much alone on this bus, you know."
"I could be a douche bag right now and say nothing," he mumbles, tilting his head down to hide the grin infecting his mouth, and Brendon chuckles, low.
"You aren’t a douche bag, though," he says, shrugging, and leans forward to flick dirt off his (purple!) shoes.
"And you know this how?" Ryan retorts, pen shaping out more curls and edges, pressing into the page.
"I have a sense."
"Right."
"I do!"
"Mmhm."
"Yeah."
"...Okay."
"Really."
"Oh, jesus," Ryan groans, "you’re like a five year old."
Brendon grins and settles into the seat.
"Before this ride is over, you’ll love me."
"Mmhm."
"You will."
"Yeah."
"You will, you will, you will, you will," Brendon sings, voice buoyant and satin, and Ryan presses the pen harder into the paper, hard enough it tears a little.
"Bright Eyes does not impress me," he sighs, rolling his eyes again and kicking his legs up over the seat, and Brendon huffs.
"Fine, fine. Go back to your precious journal while I sit here and die slowly of boredom."
"I will, thank you," he mumbles, ignoring it when Brendon laughs again and mutters "Oh, you will," under his breath, pressing the end of his pen between his lips in place of the nicotine craving scraping along his veins, and writes 'you will. you. will you. will. you. will?' on the corner of the page, before boxing it in and scribbling it out with slow, concentric circles.
-
"Where are you going?" Brendon whispers, the world outside the windows pitch black, the otherwise empty bus rocking along some equally deserted highway.
"Nowhere," he whispers back, legs crossed on the seat, facing Brendon, fingers toying with the frayed edges of his jeans. "Anywhere that isn’t where I was, I mean."
"Why?" Brendon says, eyebrows furrowing, and he just shrugs, chin tucked to his chest.
"Why not?" he says, raising his head briefly, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "I mean, what’s to be gained by sitting in my bedroom at my parent’s house for the rest of my life?"
"True enough," Brendon says, tilting his head and working his finger into a tear in the upholstery, revealing the white padding underneath.
"What about you?" he says, leaning back to rest against the seat and the window, blinking slowly, eyes inching closer to closing. "Where’re you going?"
Brendon shrugs, pulling a piece of grey vinyl off and laying it on his knee, starting on another.
"Pretty much the same," he says, and then shifts his gaze to Ryan and suddenly reaches out, fingers making contact with his forehead, sweeping the long strands of hair out of his eyes.
"I fucking hate that I can't see your eyes," he mutters, going back to the vinyl, not seeming to notice the way Ryan's spine snaps rigid and his muscles freeze. "You shouldn't hide them. It's like...wearing a fucking blackout curtain on your whole self, if someone can't see your eyes."
"What if that's the point?" he shoots back, and Brendon's fingers never stop with the vinyl, but his jaw sets and his eyes soften, refocus on his face without ever moving.
"That's fucked," he mutters, flattening another piece onto his knee, and Ryan just shrugs and settles further into the seat, hands settling in the space created by his crossed legs.
"Okay, then I'm fucked," he says, rolling his neck and closing his eyes. "Whatever."
"That's a shitty thing to just...submit to," Brendon says, and Ryan hears another piece of vinyl tearing away from its glue and padding.
"Life is a shitty thing to just submit to," he mumbles, venom draining from his voice, exhaustion crawling stealthy into his muscles, his eyes, "but we all do it."
He hears Brendon hum softly and mutter something, and then the dark haze of sleep washes over him in a wave, no hesitation, just quiet and warmth, the safety of unconsciousness.
"Shit," Brendon says to the window behind Ryan's head, his own reflection of a reflection of a reflection in the silent bus window like the kid on the cereal box, tearing off another piece of vinyl and watching Ryan's face from the corner of his eye, gone soft and unguarded in sleep. "That isn't always a bad thing."
But he's not listening, instead dreaming a memory he'll never quite remember afterwards, and the road keeps singing under the tires.
-
"Dude," Brendon mutters, prodding Ryan harshly until his head wiggles back and forth and his eyes blink, blink, focus. "Wake the fuck up, man, seriously."
"Where the hell are we?" he mumbles, sleep-thick, stretching until his legs disappear under the seat and his arms reach nearly to the ceiling, a long strip of barely tanned skin appearing from under his shirt, sharp hipbones, and then gone.
"I, uhh," Brendon says, up, standing, dizzy, shouldering his duffle bag and tossing Ryan's at his head. "I think he said we're somewhere in California, before, but I'm...I'm not really that sure."
Ryan frowns and pushes the bags off his face, rubbing blearily at his eyes and yawning.
"Well, fuck it, at least it ain't Vegas," he murmurs, and Brendon laughs.
"You aren't from fucking Vegas," he says, shifting down the aisle as Ryan stumbles into it, feet scratching on the corrugated rubber floor.
"And how the fuck would you know where I’m from?"
"'Cause I'm from Vegas?" he says, feet clanging down the steps onto the concrete, blinking in the sun, turning to face Ryan.
"You’re shitting me, right?"
"Hell no, man. Just outside of Summerlin."
Ryan almost drops his bags.
"Fuck you, I live in Summerlin."
"Lived," Brendon corrects, looking around and grinning. "We're in fucking California now. We could go anywhere, we could disappear."
And even without the burn in his legs and the ache in his lungs, Ryan finds himself smiling.
"Well, okay, but when did me running away become we?" he laughs, squinting and shielding his eyes, staring up at the blackened silhouette of a palm tree against the sky, and Brendon laughs.
"Well, if you want to go off on your own in a city you've never been in, be my guest."
Ryan sighs and fidgets with a ragged gash in the plastic bag, pushing his fingers into the clothes inside and tugging.
"Alright, so. What do we do now?"
Brendon grins.
-
The motel room is dinghy, overused, probably crawling with a thousand disgusting things that neither of them want to think about, but just because they're new, something different, the beds are the most comfortable in the world. The pizza is slightly burnt, tastes like cardboard, and it's stone cold by the time it gets there, overpriced and late, but with the taste of freedom lingering heavy in the air, nothing's ever tasted better.
"We know nothing about each other," Ryan muses, plucking at a stray piece of greasy, orange-stained pepperoni and popping it into his mouth, glancing around the dark, floral-patterned room. "How the fuck did this happen?"
Brendon shrugs and throws another piece of meat into the lid of the box, frowning.
"This is disgusting," he murmurs, wiping his hands on the grease-streaked napkin, cringing when Ryan shovels the abandoned pepperoni into his mouth. "And I told you, I just have a sense." He frowns, scooping up the abandoned crusts, and sighs. "Although sometimes, I wish I didn’t."
Ryan rolls his eyes and twists around to reach into his jacket, and Brendon does not, does not, stare at the way his shirt rides up and his pants twist around his thighs. He really isn't staring, either, when Ryan twists back around, lighter and cigarette palmed, smiling.
"Hey, uh, do you mind, or should I go outside?"
Brendon snaps his eyes away, back to the now cheese slice pockmarked with rings of heart attack resting on his knee, and shrugs.
"Don’t give a shit," he says, warily holding up the slice with two fingers. “My mom smokes, so.”
Ryan shrugs and flops backwards onto the bed, cigarette balanced precariously between his lips, and flicks the lighter, inhaling.
"Fuck," he drawls, breathing a cloud at the ceiling and closing his eyes. "Don't ever start smoking," he says, turning his head towards Brendon and laughing. "Such a bad fucking habit." In, exhale. He eyes the piece of pizza in Brendon's hand. "If you aren’t going to eat that shit, put it back in the box and leave it for me."
Brendon's eyes widen.
"You’re a bottomless fucking pit."
Ryan brings the cigarette to his mouth and inhales, shrugging again, and Brendon drops the slice back into the box with a plop.
"Fucking gross," he mutters, shaking his hands and wiping them on his jeans, and Ryan snorts. He looks around, at the two small beds, their entire lives piled in the corner, and sighs. "I'm going to sleep."
"Have at it," Ryan sighs, one arm resting across his stomach and the other hovering perpetually near his mouth, cigarette ready. "Me too, soon."
"Don’t fall asleep with that thing in your hand, you’ll catch us on fire," Brendon mutters, shucking his shirt and pulling back the thin blanket, sliding under it quickly and trying to fluff the lumpy pillow with one hand.
"Yeah, yeah," Ryan sighs, sliding up the bed and squishing out the butt in the shitty glass ashtray on the bedside table before kicking back the blankets and turning off the light. "Sleep."
"'Night," Brendon whispers, rolling over in the dark to stare at the Ryan-sized lump in the next bed, illuminated by the streetlights outside. Ryan hums and rubs his eyes, pushing further into the blankets.
"Yeah, 'night," he sighs, and Brendon can see him falling asleep, even like this, the way his body relaxes and loses its rigidity, boneless and pliant.
He spends the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, wondering how the fuck he ended up here with some boy he doesn't know. But, admittedly, it could be worse. He stares across the room at Ryan's profile, silhouetted in the dim light, and scrubs his face with one hand. Fuck. Way worse.
-
He leans over to tie his shoe, and the little golden cross his mother gave him when he was six falls out of his shirt.
"I never pegged you as a jesus type," Ryan says from the bed, reaching down and across to slide his fingers behind it, the gentle weight of the metal resting on his fingertips, and the heat from his skin radiates.
"I'm not," Brendon says to the carpet, and reaches up, tearing the thin chain from his neck and folding it into his palm, pressing hard enough that the edges leave imprints in his palm, before letting it slide from his hand and fall to the floor.
Ryan just nods and reaches for his jacket, and Brendon doesn't see him, doesn't hear him pause and lean down as he's following him out the door, slipping the broken chain into his back pocket.
-
The newspaper spread out on the bed in front of him, legs crossed into a pretzel, Brendon stares at Ryan's curved back, the constant cloud of smoke swirling up from his lips, the red marker in his hand (stolen from the front desk) squeaking and circling through the pages.
He keeps saying he didn't come out here to fuck up, he came out here to make a life, a life he couldn't find with his parents, and for the last three days he's been all newspaper ink fingertips, early morning phone calls, peppermint and nicotine.
"You're staring," he says, and the marker squeaks around again, the paper rustling as he fights to turn the page, eyes never leaving the black and white print, the coloured advertisements for call girls and casinos. Brendon blinks, darts his eyes away, slips his thumb into his mouth and gnaws.
"Daydreaming," he mumbles, stretching his legs across the bed and cracking his neck back and forth, slow. "Sorry." Ryan just hums, distracted, and the marker chases its tail around another ad, and Brendon really, really tries not to stare at the slow-revealing skin on Ryan's back, the valleys and peaks of his bones stretching his skin, and jesus fuck, he is so, so screwed, and Ryan just keeps circling and humming, circling and smoking, circling and cursing at the tangled pages of the paper.
-
The table lamps are dim, light orange through the peachy-pink crimped fabric shades, gold fixtures chipped and worn down, tacky and seventies like everything else in the room, but...watching the dust filter down like tiny flecks of silver glitter through the beams of light, watching the cigarette smoke dance and swirl and turn gold under the shade, noting the precise shades and shadows it creates on the boy on the bed across from him, that's not so bad.
"So?" Ryan says, lips quirking, shadows morphing, and flicks his ashes. "Is it your turn to be mute or what?"
"Nah," Brendon mutters, staring distracted at the cigarette burning in his hand, an answer to both questions. "You can’t shut me up that easy, no luck for you there." Ryan rolls his eyes and inhales. "And uh, no, no girlfriend."
"Me either." Ryan shrugs. "Girls are, uh, weirdly not into me."
"That wasn’t exactly it," Brendon says, inhales, nerves prickling, and drops the butt in the ashtray. Ryan doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even call him out on how fucking cocky that sounded, just raises one eyebrow and follows suit, exhaling one last time. Brendon listens intently to the ticking of the wall clock, and exactly three minutes and fourteen seconds go by before Ryan clears his throat.
"I take it you're not going to elaborate." Brendon just swallows and drums his fingertips against his stomach, and Ryan shifts, coughs. "Hey, man, if it's...what I think you're going to say, if that's it, it's not...I really don't give a shit."
"Okay," Brendon says to the stucco ceiling, "so, then, I'm definitely a fag." Silence. He closes his eyes and digs his nails into his wrist. "And if that's not what you thought I was going to say, I'm going to go and hang myself in the shower."
Ryan laughs, sudden and bright and musical, and Brendon cracks an eye open.
"No, that was it," he says, still laughing under his breath, and turns his head to look across the valley between the beds. "It’s cool, honestly."
Brendon opens the other eye and smiles, barely, before announcing he's tired and watching Ryan’s long arm reach out to click off the light, a flick of his wrist. Laying in the dark, listening to the rise and fall of their breathing, sleep drifts up like a thief, slow and grey and warm, chloroform darkness, before his eyes snap open, ceiling blurring into focus.
"Hey, fuck, am I that obvious?" he asks, half asleep and half incredulous, and Ryan laughs that laugh again, the hair on the back of Brendon’s neck prickling.
"No, I just have a sense," he teases, and then sighs, sleep-heavy. "Go to sleep, idiot."
He does.
-
The first time, he doesn't know what he's thinking, or if he's thinking at all, really. He can't really blame himself, he thinks, because he was so high, so warm and needy and fucked up, and Ryan was just there, soft skin and body heat, and he didn't even try to stop him, just sat there and let him lean over and press their lips together, a little messy and so, so good. Just, he let him touch, slip his fingers up under his t-shirt, tipped his head back and opened his mouth, let him, and. It just, it wasn't his fault. It was no one's fault. It just...happened.
But, waking up tangled together, still in their clothes, Ryan moves away from him a little too fast, says that it's fine, it was just the drugs, just a little too often and a little too loud, and after that, he gets way too silent about it.
And the fact that Brendon never brings it up again, never asks? That? That is all his fucking fault.
-
"I called my mom today," he says, arms crossed over his stomach, and Ryan shifts against the sheets, turns to face him.
"And?"
"She, uh. Hung up on me."
"Shit," Ryan murmurs, "I’m sorry, man. Really. That’s harsh."
"Yeah," he breathes, counting specks on the ceiling. "You talked to yours?"
"Few days ago."
"And?"
"She cried, and then my dad told me if I ever called again he'd find me and kick my ass." A pause. "Nothing's changed, really."
"Shit, eh?"
"Yeah."
Brendon gets up and crosses the space between the beds, crawling beside Ryan and resting an arm tentatively across his stomach, exhaling when Ryan doesn’t flinch, stays still and soft beside him.
"It's going to be alright, I think," he whispers, and Ryan nods, blinks hard.
"I fucking hope so."
-
The apartment isn't much better than the motel room, mattresses and take-out cartons on the floor, working way too much overtime for way too little money and way too little space, but it's...he thinks ours, and then takes it back, sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking at Brendon across from him, picking deftly through his food with chopsticks. Ours? he thinks again, and then shakes his head, because 'ours' implies there's a 'we', and there...isn’t. Not like that.
He flashes back to blurry vision, floating limbs, warm hands, open mouths, drifting, but he forces himself back into the present, biting hard on the inside of his cheek. There is no 'we'.
-
The second time, it's less of a drug-induced accident and more of a drunken incident, which may or may not equate out to the same thing in the long run, when he thinks about it. But it's just, he trips, and the next thing he really knows Ryan's pressed against the wall and he's pressed against Ryan, kissing like fighting, hands pushing and pulling and everywhere, and oh, oh god, ohgodohgodohgod. He pulls back, eyes vague, lips kiss-red, and Ryan slumps his head against the wall.
"Uhm?" he murmurs, fingers tracing circles over Ryan's hip, brushing the hair from his eyes, thighs dangerously close, and when Ryan opens his mouth, no sound comes out, and he feels himself nodding, yesyesohfuckyes, without his brain giving the signal.
And he wants to say its all downhill from there, but that's the furthest thing from his mind with teeth in his neck and hips against his, and he forgets that he isn't supposed to want this, forgets he isn't supposed to do this, not with Ryan, not like this, but, when Ryan comes, back against the wall and hips pressing forward, he forgets his fucking name and all he is, for one little second, is alive.
-
Ryan's cross-legged on the floor, long fingers knitted together in a vain attempt to keep from biting his nails or picking the skin raw, feet jiggling against his knees, and Brendon sighs, paces, sighs again.
"I’m -- " he tries, and then stops, stands still for a long moment, and resumes pacing.
"Look," Ryan says, reaching off the side of the mattress for his lighter, cigarette shaking between his fingers. "It's, I just. I don’t know what to do, or to say to you, I've never..." he stops, inhales hard and exhales, breath catching in his throat. "It's never happened, I've never even thought about if I...I could be. I don't know, Bren."
Brendon rubs at his eyes, hard enough that it hurts, aches, and sits down on the floor, reaching for the smokes.
"I'm...I know. I'm sorry, it isn't...it wasn't supposed to happen like this, it, it just wasn't.”
Ryan nods and turns his head, staring at the wall, plastered over with posters from shows, movies, covering the grey drywall.
"You shouldn't be sorry, I mean. I just, I shouldn't have let you, I..." he takes a deep breath, voice dropping, and stares at the floor. "But, I wanted to, Brendon, I really...I did." He stops, swallows, inhales. "Fuck, do," he finally whispers, and Brendon holds his breath, counts off the seconds in his head, just makes it to sixty-two before Ryan closes the distance and kisses him, nicotine and peppermint.
Third time's definitely a charm.
-
Brendon finds the broken necklace in a box of Ryan's things, chain knotted, the cross dangling from the clasp end, stuck, when they're packing to move into the new place ("Somewhere that'll be...ours?" Ryan had said, bottom lip held firmly between his teeth, eyes flashing), the two-bedrooms-and-a-giant-bathroom-and-a-tiled-kitchen-and-a-high-ceiling apartment downtown.
It hangs from his fingers, long and sparkling in the dim light, cold and glittering, and he doesn't say anything when he hears Ryan walk into the room, feet shuffling on the floor, just folds it in his hand and smiles, and for the first time in a long time, he flits his eyes towards the ceiling in silent thanks.
-
"Yeah, mom, my...yes, that’s what I said." Ryan hears Brendon's mothers' voice, tinny and squiggly through the receiver, shouting, and Brendon sighs.
"Hey," Ryan whispers, stretching his hand out and wrapping it around the phone. "Let me? Just for a second?" He grins, tugging, and Brendon laughs, almost silently, and swats at his hand before Ryan gets it away, and he hears her: What in god’s name are you laughing for, boy?
"Mrs. Urie?" he says into the phone, and she goes quiet for a long moment, only her breathing on the other end.
"You take care of him, you hear me?" she whispers, breaking on the vowels, and Ryan just nods, looking at Brendon, its okay.
"I promise," he says, voice soft, and he can hear her crying, low, when he hands the phone back.
-
His dad hangs up on him as soon as he says 'roommate' and 'Brendon' in the same sentence, which isn’t even half of what he was calling to say, really, but, he must have got the gist.
"Fucker," Ryan mutters, clunking the phone in the receiver, and turns to face Brendon. "That was..."
And when Brendon steps forward and hugs him, Ryan doesn't even try to pretend that he isn't crying.
-
"Where are we going?" Ryan asks, laughing, twisting around in his seat, trying to get a better view of the road, find a marker.
Brendon smiles and speeds up, just a little, fingers twisting around the steering wheel.
"Nowhere," he murmurs, and leans down to press play on the stereo.
-
Oh you will, you will, you will, you will...
+ + + + +
possible snapshot from something bigger, yet again, and if you understand what i was maybe, possibly, sort of getting at, yay! un-beta'ed, as per usual. feel free to concrit me. posted mostly just so you don't think i'm dead. =]
♥