Quartet
Title: Quartet
Author: Telis (theaerosolkid)
Rating: G
Pairing: Panic! At the Disco
Summary: we_are_cities, multiple prompts; introspection.
Word Count: 3177
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake.
*
presence.
Things get boring on the road.
As crazy as it is to think about, Jon Walker the Musician gets tired of listening to music. Because that's really all there is to do when you're staring out the window of a tour bus. If you've watched every DVD sixteen times over, and you've played each video game you've got until your fingers get sore or you just plain get stuck, there's always your iPod and the ever-changing view outside the window.
Jon's ears are tired every night when they get offstage - and if they head out to go sign things and meet the loyal fans, then it just gets louder. Sometimes, a little quiet is nice, but then he's stuck with the problem of being bored.
He wonders sometimes about what he's giving up to be in this band. For the others, the sacrifices are a little more clearly defined, because they're younger. This isn't something they fell into; Jon wasn't there when Decaydance sent that first contract over, when the album was being written and recorded. The only thing Jon's contributed to was the recording of 'This is Halloween', and even that wasn't something that was all them, it was mostly just Brendon's voice and Ryan's fascination with it. Jon thinks he could have handled college, could have been more involved in high school without music.
Maybe he could have been a photographer, for real. He knows that most people only see his photographs now because he's Jon Walker the Musician. Fans devour everything that comes from him, because he's Jon Walker the Musician. It's saddening, but at the same time he kind of likes the idea that people are waking up and loading the band's website each morning to see if he's written a blog or posted a picture. There's a sense of accomplishment that comes from clicking around the website that he never got from all the awards the band was nominated for or received.
It was strange, being onstage at the VMAs, accepting that award because he hadn't recorded the song, hadn't helped write it, and he wasn't in the video. But all the same, he got a moonman statue of his very own, and if anybody thought of the reality of the situation, they kept their mouths shut.
Sometimes it doesn't feel quite real.
It's at these times that Jon crawls into Ryan's bunk and presses his nose against the flat hard planes of Ryan's belly, and breathes in deep. He'll nuzzle at fabric until long, graceful fingers descend upon the back of his neck, stroking gently, the way you might comfort a kitten in the middle of the night, absentmindedly. Or he'll climb in with Spencer, where he'll be treated to strong hands scratching up and down his back in long lines, on the edge between pleasure and pain. Even still, he can snuggle up with Brendon, who's always warm and winds himself around Jon like an especially affectionate ball python, burying his face in the crook of Jon's neck and mumbling, always something Jon can ignore.
Jon will drift off to sleep with whoever he's been crammed in with, and when he wakes up, he'll hunt down his iPod and listen to some music, loud, usually.
*
admission.
"I think I'd break him," Brendon whispers. It's late. Late or possibly very early - he's not sure. They've probably crossed some line at one point or another, time zones. He wonders how weird that must be, to live directly over the delineations between today and tomorrow. It's random, it's weird, it doesn't make sense, but those sort of disconnected half-thoughts remind him of Ryan.
Everything reminds him of Ryan. iPods and sickeningly sweet pastries. Drinking and not drinking. Daytime, nighttime, dreaming, staring out the window. It's nice when they're all together, as a group, but Brendon lately has been aching for Ryan.
"I burn," Brendon whispers. This isn't strictly true, Brendon isn't consistent enough as a person to burn steadily. It's more like the ebb and flow of an ocean. High tide, low tide - sometimes he wants Ryan so badly it feels like his body is vibrating. Sometimes it's a dull throb in the back of his mind, a blur of glitter and angular black eyeliner.
He doesn't really miss Vegas, per se. He misses the easy, slow pace of their earlier practices, just getting to know them. Even better than that, right after Jon joined up. They all just fit so nicely, and Brendon loved them all; violently, passionately so, but, ohh, Ryan. He looked so delicate - looks can be deceiving. He's strong, he's powerful, and Brendon is so proud that Ryan considers him a good addition to this crazy insane project. Every time some kid said, I love your words, he never thought to say, They're not mine.
"They are mine, they are," Brendon whispers. He's not expecting an answer.
Ryan and Brendon fit in a special way that nobody else really does. It's not to say that they're closer - they're not - they just have a different bond. They can read levels into each other that nobody else is ever going to be able to touch.
He's not actually whispering to anyone, but his thoughts need to be spoken, even if no one's listening.
Brendon's upbringing taught him guilt and shame, and though he's shed the other trappings, somehow he can't quite ever get away from that easy trap of punishing himself for things that are just simple human nature. He wants Ryan so badly, and Ryan's forbidden fruit. You don't sleep around in a band, you just don't, you just can't. Because breakups are never good, never easy; Brendon is young but he's learning this already, but how terrible would it be if Ryan broke up with him (Brendon is convinced that if they were a couple, and if someone had to do the leaving, then it would most certainly be Ryan), wrote a song about it, and then Brendon had to sing it? And if it became a hit single? What about the video? How the hell would he survive filming a music video about Ryan not being in love with him anymore?
"Please let this get easier," Brendon whispers, begging now. There is so much he feels, and ohh, he wishes he could express it, but he can't. He needs words, dammit, and he was never very good at putting those together. He writes some decent music, but he can never start on his own. Ryan is his catalyst; he needs narration and structure. There is so much inside him right now and Brendon feels sometimes like he can't contain it all.
There's the too-too pure beauty in Spencer's eyes, gazing calmly across a table or a room, seeing everything and always ready to fix what is broken or even flawed. There's the soft grace in how Jon takes care of all of them, even allowing them to take care of him; Brendon loves it when Jon crawls into bed with him and lets him entwine their limbs, tell him everything he's feeling. And then there's the connection he has with Ryan, sometimes he's certain that they really can read each other's minds. Ryan's probably just better at it, that would make sense.
"I'm ready now, I know I am," Brendon whispers. He's aching, straining, and it hurts but it's beautiful. He wishes he could just stop thinking about it all but his mind races at times like this, when he's the only one awake, the bus is gently rocking as they speed away to another place where they will burst in like Cinderella's little creature friends and make something that was ugly into something that is and will be pretty for a while, putting on a show and then leaving behind the smell of vanilla and sweat; innocence and experience.
Brendon's rubbing slow circles across his belly with calloused, guitar-worn fingers, trying to turn his mind off, trying to sleep, but God it's so hard when you're used to certain rhythms and then everything's become so monotonous; different towns and cities are starting to blur. He's traveling the world and not seeing anything at all but--
"You're thinking too loudly," Ryan says, voice throaty as always, sliding beneath the sheets, beside Brendon, quieting him easily.
*
wonder.
It's comfortable, is the thing.
Patterns are easy to fall into. Spencer knows this. Of course he knows this: a drummer should know about patterns, reproducible sequences of events. All the same, it's a little stunning how easily they all fall in (down?) with each other. With Brent, there was always this low, ungainly backbeat that kept them off-tempo.
'Just off the key of reason' is how Spencer likes to think of it, the way they existed before Jon. He's not too great with expressing things poetically, but accurate expression comes easily, and if you want to be accurate, sometimes you have to snitch a few words here and there. Pete wouldn't mind, anyway, and it's not like these thoughts are being publicized.
In a sense, cutting Brent loose so viciously was a mistake at the same time that it wasn’t a mistake. Spencer had to do it all. No help from anyone. Moral support, but how much comfort is symbolic support when you're doing one of the hardest things that can be done? Leaving someone behind hurts, both to the person being left but also to whoever has to do the leaving. Spencer doesn't regret it, though, not at all. Everything clicks with Jon in a way that it never did with Brent. What Spencer regrets was lying about it to the press. If he had it to do again, he would call a fucking press conference and stand up straight and tall and say, Yes. We kicked him out. We kicked him out because he wasn't in step with the rest of us. We kicked him out because he didn't care. We kicked him out because he was wrong and empty and he thought we were wrong.
When Spencer met Jon, he knew. Ryan figured it out next and Brendon wasn't far behind, but Spencer got it first. It wasn't a seduction, either part of their joining with Jon. When he played with them in one sense, it was all his own choice, and when he played with them in another way, it was again his own choice.
It was Jon who would cup the back of Spencer's neck with warm, clean hands and murmur affectionate nothings in the morning over coffee. It was Jon who would keep Brendon in check, let him be himself but keep him from flying to pieces. It was Jon who would hold his hands up to Ryan's as if to say, You're not alone, not ever, not while I'm breathing. He did all this before Brent left.
If it was a seduction, then it was sweet. No malice, no corruption, no manipulation. Connecting with people is difficult at best, and when Spencer looked at Jon or Brendon or Ryan, it was like the rest of the world was static. Background noise. It was like that when Brendon started, too. Spencer imagines sometimes that he could hear a click, the moment Brendon's hand touched his. He can almost remember hearing the same sort of soft little comfort-noise when he met Ryan. Six years old is young to find your first soul mate, but Spencer's always been perceptive. And lucky.
Spencer is pretty sure he's got three soul mates. Some people would be upset, wondering how to maneuver with all those bodies in the way, but Spencer's good at multitasking. They're smart, they've got it figured out so far. There are just enough of them that there are no fights, really, when Brendon does something stupid and Ryan tries to sulk, Jon says something ridiculous and they all cry with laughter. When Jon misses something, Spencer fills him in and Brendon makes silly faces so that Jon will giggle and not miss out. When Ryan is frustrated because he can't get something to work the way he needs it to, Spencer sits with him and helps him try and see everything from a different angle while Jon and Brendon console him by the simple fact that they are, that they exist. There's no jealousy, even if Ryan's drawn more strongly to Brendon than anyone else, even if Brendon is greedy with Ryan's touch and taste, for some reason it's all right.
Maybe some day it won't be, but for now it's clean and almost perfect. Already people are whispering, One-hit wonder, and Spencer laughs at them a little, inside. Even if they end up like that, like all the other blink-and-you'll-miss-it bands, at least they were a wonder.
Spencer hasn't lost his sense of wonder, and neither have the rest of them. It's enough.
*
grace.
Ryan meant what he said, in that one interview (it's funny how most of his life can be traced back to "that one interview", these days, or at least that's how it seems, perception is reality, but he's getting carried away as usual) that he believed his father allowed himself to die because he considered himself done with life, now that he had finished raising Ryan.
He's not sure whether this is a good thing or not, the reason behind his father's death.
He spent his whole life fighting his father on everything - clothes, hair, school, music, ambition. His jeans were too tight, his hair was too weird, private school was supposedly a better place for him (steeped like a teabag in religious hypocrisy, the only sweetening was music, oozing like honey, never flowing, you can't let these things just come to you, you have to fight them a little, and they always leave some of themselves behind), and if he had to listen to another fucking whiny bitch over the same goddamn three guitar chords again, he was going to kill someone. Yes, yes, this we know.
At the same time, he knew on some level all along that his father really did think most of what he was doing was for Ryan's benefit. It's for this reason that Ryan can't ever truly hate him, not ever. Because he did it out of love. Ryan knows that there are limits to what you can forgive out of love, but the grace that is granted from love extends pretty damn far. Bitterness, anger, despair; these are things he learned at his father's knee. Sweetness, forgiveness, hope; these are things he learned at his father's grave.
Ryan's written a whole record about the seven deadly sins he inherited from his narrow definition of his father (alcoholic; worthless; the list goes on). Every single emotion he wrote a lyric about can be traced back to his fury and frustration with his father. Now that his father's gone, he doesn't know what he's going to write about. He could try writing a record about the seven virtues, but those are so much less known. He went to Catholic school for thirteen years and doubts he could name three of the seven virtues. He doubts anyone else in the band has even heard of them. He doubts anyone in their audience has heard of them.
He could write about the poetry in Spencer's capable hands, whether they're pounding out a steady, strong beat or holding Ryan close, near and dear. He could write about the real picturesque score here, Brendon's erratic, fascinating rhythms as he makes love sweeter and life more layered for everyone around him. He could write about Jon's unerring solidness, how he never seems to go away at all. He could write about the four of them, all together, real and warm and damp with tears and sweat, stretching and intertwining, settling and curing restlessness - but he doubts anyone would understand.
How could they, though? Ryan barely understands it, how they can go from being just four guys who hang out and maybe cuddle a little more than your average group to four guys who sleep together and make love together, all of them at once, sometimes; but not always, which is just fine, because as a rule they're never stingy with their affections.
Ryan knows that to a certain degree, no matter what they do next, the follow-up record will be criticized based on anything than what's actually on the next record. They'll be judged by their flamboyant style, by their youth, by their unorthodox but undeniable good looks, by their previous MTV "sellout" (Bullshit! his mind cries in protest) success, or by their fans. Ryan sometimes thinks that the last pure criticism they ever got was the first few reviews that came out, before the video; some said the album was exciting and new, some said it was another rung down on the ladder of mediocrity. But can Ryan blame them for criticizing this first record at all? Because it's deeply flawed for the simple reason that Jon isn't there.
Ryan isn't sure yet that he believes in God. He knows that he cannot believe in the God he was raised on, the God who plays with people and tests people for the sake of just doing it; the God who demands faith and gives sparingly in return. Until a few months ago, he was a firm atheist.
Jon saved him from an utter lack of faith. He had started to take Brendon and Spencer for granted; Brent was dragging them down, and then Jon came along, and ohh, it was so beautiful, even before the physical expression; so perfect, so wonderful that Ryan thought he might want to reconsider his strict policy on denying divinity.
Even still, every night when they play, Ryan feels a twinge in his heart whenever he looks at Jon, because these songs belong more to his father than to Jon, and that's a tragedy (apparently he does write those, after all, huh).
It's heartbreaking, but Ryan is lucky enough to have learned the art of forgiving oneself.
*
Author: Telis (theaerosolkid)
Rating: G
Pairing: Panic! At the Disco
Summary: we_are_cities, multiple prompts; introspection.
Word Count: 3177
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake.
*
presence.
Things get boring on the road.
As crazy as it is to think about, Jon Walker the Musician gets tired of listening to music. Because that's really all there is to do when you're staring out the window of a tour bus. If you've watched every DVD sixteen times over, and you've played each video game you've got until your fingers get sore or you just plain get stuck, there's always your iPod and the ever-changing view outside the window.
Jon's ears are tired every night when they get offstage - and if they head out to go sign things and meet the loyal fans, then it just gets louder. Sometimes, a little quiet is nice, but then he's stuck with the problem of being bored.
He wonders sometimes about what he's giving up to be in this band. For the others, the sacrifices are a little more clearly defined, because they're younger. This isn't something they fell into; Jon wasn't there when Decaydance sent that first contract over, when the album was being written and recorded. The only thing Jon's contributed to was the recording of 'This is Halloween', and even that wasn't something that was all them, it was mostly just Brendon's voice and Ryan's fascination with it. Jon thinks he could have handled college, could have been more involved in high school without music.
Maybe he could have been a photographer, for real. He knows that most people only see his photographs now because he's Jon Walker the Musician. Fans devour everything that comes from him, because he's Jon Walker the Musician. It's saddening, but at the same time he kind of likes the idea that people are waking up and loading the band's website each morning to see if he's written a blog or posted a picture. There's a sense of accomplishment that comes from clicking around the website that he never got from all the awards the band was nominated for or received.
It was strange, being onstage at the VMAs, accepting that award because he hadn't recorded the song, hadn't helped write it, and he wasn't in the video. But all the same, he got a moonman statue of his very own, and if anybody thought of the reality of the situation, they kept their mouths shut.
Sometimes it doesn't feel quite real.
It's at these times that Jon crawls into Ryan's bunk and presses his nose against the flat hard planes of Ryan's belly, and breathes in deep. He'll nuzzle at fabric until long, graceful fingers descend upon the back of his neck, stroking gently, the way you might comfort a kitten in the middle of the night, absentmindedly. Or he'll climb in with Spencer, where he'll be treated to strong hands scratching up and down his back in long lines, on the edge between pleasure and pain. Even still, he can snuggle up with Brendon, who's always warm and winds himself around Jon like an especially affectionate ball python, burying his face in the crook of Jon's neck and mumbling, always something Jon can ignore.
Jon will drift off to sleep with whoever he's been crammed in with, and when he wakes up, he'll hunt down his iPod and listen to some music, loud, usually.
*
admission.
"I think I'd break him," Brendon whispers. It's late. Late or possibly very early - he's not sure. They've probably crossed some line at one point or another, time zones. He wonders how weird that must be, to live directly over the delineations between today and tomorrow. It's random, it's weird, it doesn't make sense, but those sort of disconnected half-thoughts remind him of Ryan.
Everything reminds him of Ryan. iPods and sickeningly sweet pastries. Drinking and not drinking. Daytime, nighttime, dreaming, staring out the window. It's nice when they're all together, as a group, but Brendon lately has been aching for Ryan.
"I burn," Brendon whispers. This isn't strictly true, Brendon isn't consistent enough as a person to burn steadily. It's more like the ebb and flow of an ocean. High tide, low tide - sometimes he wants Ryan so badly it feels like his body is vibrating. Sometimes it's a dull throb in the back of his mind, a blur of glitter and angular black eyeliner.
He doesn't really miss Vegas, per se. He misses the easy, slow pace of their earlier practices, just getting to know them. Even better than that, right after Jon joined up. They all just fit so nicely, and Brendon loved them all; violently, passionately so, but, ohh, Ryan. He looked so delicate - looks can be deceiving. He's strong, he's powerful, and Brendon is so proud that Ryan considers him a good addition to this crazy insane project. Every time some kid said, I love your words, he never thought to say, They're not mine.
"They are mine, they are," Brendon whispers. He's not expecting an answer.
Ryan and Brendon fit in a special way that nobody else really does. It's not to say that they're closer - they're not - they just have a different bond. They can read levels into each other that nobody else is ever going to be able to touch.
He's not actually whispering to anyone, but his thoughts need to be spoken, even if no one's listening.
Brendon's upbringing taught him guilt and shame, and though he's shed the other trappings, somehow he can't quite ever get away from that easy trap of punishing himself for things that are just simple human nature. He wants Ryan so badly, and Ryan's forbidden fruit. You don't sleep around in a band, you just don't, you just can't. Because breakups are never good, never easy; Brendon is young but he's learning this already, but how terrible would it be if Ryan broke up with him (Brendon is convinced that if they were a couple, and if someone had to do the leaving, then it would most certainly be Ryan), wrote a song about it, and then Brendon had to sing it? And if it became a hit single? What about the video? How the hell would he survive filming a music video about Ryan not being in love with him anymore?
"Please let this get easier," Brendon whispers, begging now. There is so much he feels, and ohh, he wishes he could express it, but he can't. He needs words, dammit, and he was never very good at putting those together. He writes some decent music, but he can never start on his own. Ryan is his catalyst; he needs narration and structure. There is so much inside him right now and Brendon feels sometimes like he can't contain it all.
There's the too-too pure beauty in Spencer's eyes, gazing calmly across a table or a room, seeing everything and always ready to fix what is broken or even flawed. There's the soft grace in how Jon takes care of all of them, even allowing them to take care of him; Brendon loves it when Jon crawls into bed with him and lets him entwine their limbs, tell him everything he's feeling. And then there's the connection he has with Ryan, sometimes he's certain that they really can read each other's minds. Ryan's probably just better at it, that would make sense.
"I'm ready now, I know I am," Brendon whispers. He's aching, straining, and it hurts but it's beautiful. He wishes he could just stop thinking about it all but his mind races at times like this, when he's the only one awake, the bus is gently rocking as they speed away to another place where they will burst in like Cinderella's little creature friends and make something that was ugly into something that is and will be pretty for a while, putting on a show and then leaving behind the smell of vanilla and sweat; innocence and experience.
Brendon's rubbing slow circles across his belly with calloused, guitar-worn fingers, trying to turn his mind off, trying to sleep, but God it's so hard when you're used to certain rhythms and then everything's become so monotonous; different towns and cities are starting to blur. He's traveling the world and not seeing anything at all but--
"You're thinking too loudly," Ryan says, voice throaty as always, sliding beneath the sheets, beside Brendon, quieting him easily.
*
wonder.
It's comfortable, is the thing.
Patterns are easy to fall into. Spencer knows this. Of course he knows this: a drummer should know about patterns, reproducible sequences of events. All the same, it's a little stunning how easily they all fall in (down?) with each other. With Brent, there was always this low, ungainly backbeat that kept them off-tempo.
'Just off the key of reason' is how Spencer likes to think of it, the way they existed before Jon. He's not too great with expressing things poetically, but accurate expression comes easily, and if you want to be accurate, sometimes you have to snitch a few words here and there. Pete wouldn't mind, anyway, and it's not like these thoughts are being publicized.
In a sense, cutting Brent loose so viciously was a mistake at the same time that it wasn’t a mistake. Spencer had to do it all. No help from anyone. Moral support, but how much comfort is symbolic support when you're doing one of the hardest things that can be done? Leaving someone behind hurts, both to the person being left but also to whoever has to do the leaving. Spencer doesn't regret it, though, not at all. Everything clicks with Jon in a way that it never did with Brent. What Spencer regrets was lying about it to the press. If he had it to do again, he would call a fucking press conference and stand up straight and tall and say, Yes. We kicked him out. We kicked him out because he wasn't in step with the rest of us. We kicked him out because he didn't care. We kicked him out because he was wrong and empty and he thought we were wrong.
When Spencer met Jon, he knew. Ryan figured it out next and Brendon wasn't far behind, but Spencer got it first. It wasn't a seduction, either part of their joining with Jon. When he played with them in one sense, it was all his own choice, and when he played with them in another way, it was again his own choice.
It was Jon who would cup the back of Spencer's neck with warm, clean hands and murmur affectionate nothings in the morning over coffee. It was Jon who would keep Brendon in check, let him be himself but keep him from flying to pieces. It was Jon who would hold his hands up to Ryan's as if to say, You're not alone, not ever, not while I'm breathing. He did all this before Brent left.
If it was a seduction, then it was sweet. No malice, no corruption, no manipulation. Connecting with people is difficult at best, and when Spencer looked at Jon or Brendon or Ryan, it was like the rest of the world was static. Background noise. It was like that when Brendon started, too. Spencer imagines sometimes that he could hear a click, the moment Brendon's hand touched his. He can almost remember hearing the same sort of soft little comfort-noise when he met Ryan. Six years old is young to find your first soul mate, but Spencer's always been perceptive. And lucky.
Spencer is pretty sure he's got three soul mates. Some people would be upset, wondering how to maneuver with all those bodies in the way, but Spencer's good at multitasking. They're smart, they've got it figured out so far. There are just enough of them that there are no fights, really, when Brendon does something stupid and Ryan tries to sulk, Jon says something ridiculous and they all cry with laughter. When Jon misses something, Spencer fills him in and Brendon makes silly faces so that Jon will giggle and not miss out. When Ryan is frustrated because he can't get something to work the way he needs it to, Spencer sits with him and helps him try and see everything from a different angle while Jon and Brendon console him by the simple fact that they are, that they exist. There's no jealousy, even if Ryan's drawn more strongly to Brendon than anyone else, even if Brendon is greedy with Ryan's touch and taste, for some reason it's all right.
Maybe some day it won't be, but for now it's clean and almost perfect. Already people are whispering, One-hit wonder, and Spencer laughs at them a little, inside. Even if they end up like that, like all the other blink-and-you'll-miss-it bands, at least they were a wonder.
Spencer hasn't lost his sense of wonder, and neither have the rest of them. It's enough.
*
grace.
Ryan meant what he said, in that one interview (it's funny how most of his life can be traced back to "that one interview", these days, or at least that's how it seems, perception is reality, but he's getting carried away as usual) that he believed his father allowed himself to die because he considered himself done with life, now that he had finished raising Ryan.
He's not sure whether this is a good thing or not, the reason behind his father's death.
He spent his whole life fighting his father on everything - clothes, hair, school, music, ambition. His jeans were too tight, his hair was too weird, private school was supposedly a better place for him (steeped like a teabag in religious hypocrisy, the only sweetening was music, oozing like honey, never flowing, you can't let these things just come to you, you have to fight them a little, and they always leave some of themselves behind), and if he had to listen to another fucking whiny bitch over the same goddamn three guitar chords again, he was going to kill someone. Yes, yes, this we know.
At the same time, he knew on some level all along that his father really did think most of what he was doing was for Ryan's benefit. It's for this reason that Ryan can't ever truly hate him, not ever. Because he did it out of love. Ryan knows that there are limits to what you can forgive out of love, but the grace that is granted from love extends pretty damn far. Bitterness, anger, despair; these are things he learned at his father's knee. Sweetness, forgiveness, hope; these are things he learned at his father's grave.
Ryan's written a whole record about the seven deadly sins he inherited from his narrow definition of his father (alcoholic; worthless; the list goes on). Every single emotion he wrote a lyric about can be traced back to his fury and frustration with his father. Now that his father's gone, he doesn't know what he's going to write about. He could try writing a record about the seven virtues, but those are so much less known. He went to Catholic school for thirteen years and doubts he could name three of the seven virtues. He doubts anyone else in the band has even heard of them. He doubts anyone in their audience has heard of them.
He could write about the poetry in Spencer's capable hands, whether they're pounding out a steady, strong beat or holding Ryan close, near and dear. He could write about the real picturesque score here, Brendon's erratic, fascinating rhythms as he makes love sweeter and life more layered for everyone around him. He could write about Jon's unerring solidness, how he never seems to go away at all. He could write about the four of them, all together, real and warm and damp with tears and sweat, stretching and intertwining, settling and curing restlessness - but he doubts anyone would understand.
How could they, though? Ryan barely understands it, how they can go from being just four guys who hang out and maybe cuddle a little more than your average group to four guys who sleep together and make love together, all of them at once, sometimes; but not always, which is just fine, because as a rule they're never stingy with their affections.
Ryan knows that to a certain degree, no matter what they do next, the follow-up record will be criticized based on anything than what's actually on the next record. They'll be judged by their flamboyant style, by their youth, by their unorthodox but undeniable good looks, by their previous MTV "sellout" (Bullshit! his mind cries in protest) success, or by their fans. Ryan sometimes thinks that the last pure criticism they ever got was the first few reviews that came out, before the video; some said the album was exciting and new, some said it was another rung down on the ladder of mediocrity. But can Ryan blame them for criticizing this first record at all? Because it's deeply flawed for the simple reason that Jon isn't there.
Ryan isn't sure yet that he believes in God. He knows that he cannot believe in the God he was raised on, the God who plays with people and tests people for the sake of just doing it; the God who demands faith and gives sparingly in return. Until a few months ago, he was a firm atheist.
Jon saved him from an utter lack of faith. He had started to take Brendon and Spencer for granted; Brent was dragging them down, and then Jon came along, and ohh, it was so beautiful, even before the physical expression; so perfect, so wonderful that Ryan thought he might want to reconsider his strict policy on denying divinity.
Even still, every night when they play, Ryan feels a twinge in his heart whenever he looks at Jon, because these songs belong more to his father than to Jon, and that's a tragedy (apparently he does write those, after all, huh).
It's heartbreaking, but Ryan is lucky enough to have learned the art of forgiving oneself.
*