Put my enemies to sleep (1/3)
Notes - Part One - Part Two - Part Three
--
"...Who?" Brendon asked finally. Ryan stared at him.
"Pete Wentz," he said, over-exact.
Brendon shrugged helplessly, bit back a retort when Ryan glanced over at Spencer and Brent with an incredulous look on his face -- the same stupid incredulous look he got every time Brendon said something unbearably dweeby. Like it was an offense to his actual person, that Brendon didn’t know who this Pete Wentz dude was.
"He plays bass in Fall Out Boy," Brent said, taking sympathy on him. "Ryan’s got, like, the most ridiculous homo crush on him."
"Fuck you," Ryan said automatically. "But -- seriously. People are saying that he's getting his own label, you know? And I know he reads the community and stuff. So I sent him a link to our purevolume page. And he listened, and he likes our stuff, so he's flying out to hear us play in two weeks."
"What?" Brendon said, jaw dropping.
"Yeah," Ryan said, shoulders set defiantly. "So you better be ready."
--
Of course it was just like that: Ryan sends off a demo to someone he says is significant, someone Brendon's never heard of -- he's heard of the band, kinda, he knows people who listen to Fall Out Boy, and he thinks he's maybe heard a few songs, but nothing sticks in his mind -- and then they're auditioning for a record deal.
You just don't join a teenage garage band and expect to come out with a record deal, or even a shot at one, Brendon thought.
And it was true that the point of being a band was to kind of, you know, be a band, which does in fact include touring and merchandise and live shows and fans and interviews and all that weirdo pseudo-famous, famous-as-a-unit stuff that seems to happen, but not to seventeen-year-olds stuck in the hilarious blender of Vegas and LDS.
The point was: Brendon wasn't going to say no to an audition of any kind, because if this Pete Wentz was going to give them a shot, then Brendon was going to briskly seize that opportunity.
--
The funny thing about two weeks was that it was the worst length of time, like, ever. Two weeks was just close enough for them to not have time to write another song ("One day, Ryan, one day, you will spend less time flipping through a thesaurus, and then we'll get a song written in under a month," Spencer said, and Brendon shoved at him, trying to reassure Ryan) but far enough away that Brendon really didn't have an excuse for not telling his parents, and, more importantly, the group had the opportunity to get tense and high-strung as fuck.
They'd settled on pre-recording some of the synth stuff, which meant that Brendon was going to have to spend some time poking away at his mother's keyboard.
"Hey there, kiddo," he heard faintly in a lull between notes. His fingers stilled over the keys, and he pushed the headphones down from his ears, looked up and saw his mother standing at the open doorway to his bedroom. "You were singing along."
"Sorry," Brendon said immediately.
"It's fine," she said, and sat down on the bed next to him. "What are you working on?"
"Oh," Brendon said, and felt his conscience kick viciously at his belly. "Just -- just some stuff, you know, for the band. We wanted to try some rhythm guitar stuff, but we wanted to keep the synth parts, so I'm pre-recording."
"Oh, that's cool," she said earnestly. "What's the song about?"
"Um," Brendon said. "I don't actually know?"
"Ryan didn't say?"
"I didn't ask," Brendon admitted. "It's kind of. It's not really my business."
"If he didn't want to talk about it, he probably wouldn't have written a song about it," she said, then reached over and mussed his hair.
--
At the last minute, something else went wrong, and neither Spencer nor Brent could be at the audition. Which probably didn't look too good, having half the band missing for an audition, but something about it being just him and Ryan made Brendon almost feel more confident. Impressing Pete was easier when he was already focused on impressing Ryan.
"We're gonna play just, um, three songs," Brendon said, settling down on a stool with his father's bass guitar, trying to angle himself close enough to the computer. The stupid keyboard wasn't working, so they had to use Ryan's laptop instead.
"Sounds good," Pete said with a quick grin. He had a nice smile, Brendon thought. Ryan's crush made sense, at least.
"So, yeah, this first one, this is, uh, 'Relax Relapse'," Brendon said nervously, leaning in and poking at the keyboard haphazardly. He hit the wrong key, apparently, because nothing happened. "Fuck."
They got through the mercifully brief set quickly enough, though, and Brendon figured they managed to not humiliate themselves too horribly. When it was all over, Brendon shrugged and glanced at Ryan, who didn't seem to be willing to look up from his guitar. Pete had an unreadable expression on his face.
"So, I'm on a pretty tight schedule, here," Pete said finally. "I'm going to head back to my hotel room, and I'll give you guys a call in the morning. Sound good?"
"Sure," Ryan said right away. Brendon stood up, awkwardly, holding his hand out to shake Pete's. "Brendon, go pick up Spencer and Brent, we can get some shit done today still."
Brendon saluted sharply before scurrying out.
--
Brendon slept in late the next day and woke up still tired, even though he'd crashed early the night before. He faked a stomach flu and breathed a sigh of relief when his parents indulged his histrionics and let him skip church. Right when Brendon was settling back into bed, his phone went off. It was Spencer.
"Hey, you need to come pick me and Brent up," he said right away.
"Why?" Brendon asked.
"Because Pete Wentz wants to talk to us, he and Ryan are at Del Taco, and he's waiting, so get your ass in gear."
"My parents think I'm sick, I can't just take off," Brendon said dumbly, and Spencer sighed on the other side.
--
"It's so awesome that we're late," Spencer said pointedly from the backseat as they pulled into the parking lot. Brendon rolled his eyes and parked next to Ryan's car.
Ryan and Pete were sitting on opposite sides of a booth on the far side of the interior, sucking at jumbo sodas. Pete looked up, smiling broadly. Brendon waved at them before getting a large drink for himself and sliding next to Ryan. Brent and Spencer were still puzzling over the menu, which was stupid, because they ate at Del Taco at least three times a week, and that was only as a group. Probably more on their own while Brendon was stuck at home because of his curfew.
Pete was tracing aimless designs on the sticky tabletop, deep in thought. Ryan wasn't looking at anyone, just chewing methodically on his straw.
"Here's the thing," Pete said at last, after Spencer and Brent had joined them. Brendon shifted awkwardly under the weight of Pete's gaze. Spencer was sitting next to Brendon, uncomfortably close on the meant-for-two booth, and Brent had pulled up a chair, leaving Pete enough room to kick his feet up next to himself on the booth. "You guys are probably too young for a record deal."
Brendon exhaled slowly, didn't say anything. Pete wasn't done talking. Clearly.
"I don't mean that I think you need more time or whatever, like, creatively," Pete continued. He was still staring at Brendon. "I just mean that you guys haven't toured and -- well, it's gonna be rough. You're gonna take a lot of shit from any band that you tour with, because you're doing this backwards. You're gonna have to be twice as good as you are now, because you've got a lot to prove."
"Fine," Ryan said. "We're already a million times better than we were a few months ago. We'll keep getting better."
"You have to graduate high school first," Pete said, finally tearing his eyes away from Brendon and glancing at Ryan instead. "All of you."
"Brent and I are going to be done in the spring," Spencer said.
"And Brendon?" Pete asked, glancing at him. Brendon cleared his throat.
"Can't," he said. "I have AP classes. They don't let you fast-track those, and my parents already paid for the exams. And my mom'll kill me if I don't have a graduation ceremony."
"Okay," Pete said. "That's the other thing. Parents. If it's gonna be a problem, tell me now."
"I'm good," Ryan said immediately.
"Same," Spencer said.
"I want to talk to my parents," Brent said carefully. "This is kinda happening fast. But they'll be fine."
Ryan looked at Brendon expectantly. "I think my parents will be okay with it," Brendon said.
"Well," Pete said. "Either they will or they won't, and they've only got a say until you're eighteen."
"Not 'til April," Brendon said.
"Then that's for you to figure out," Pete said, pointing his gnawed-up straw inexactly at Brendon. "I'll talk to any adult that needs talking to, I'll have execs from FBR send emails or whatever you need. But I'm not gonna be holding your hands."
"We'll work it out," Ryan said.
"So, how does this work?" Spencer asked.
Pete leaned back, rubbed at his jaw. "You guys keep practicing. You keep writing music. You play some local shows, keep getting the word out on the internet. I'll be in touch."
"When does this get official?" Brendon asked.
"After I talk with some of the FBR guys," Pete promised. "I haven't sent them any of your stuff. I wanted to wait until I saw you. And there's gonna be a shitload of red tape to fight through, because of your ages. They're gonna want your parents involved. Honestly, I'm disinclined to deal with all that shit. I'd rather just wait until you're all eighteen, but at the same time, I don't want you guys to be sitting around just doing nothing for a year. We need to get an album out by the end of oh-five."
Absurd, Brendon thought. This is the most surreal conversation of my life. We're talking parents and record deals and touring, what the fuck?
Ryan was asking, "How likely is that?"
"As far as I'm concerned, you guys have a record deal," Pete said. "But if you get cold feet before you sign on the dotted line, you better fucking tell me, because I'm putting my professional ass on the line for you guys."
"We won't," Ryan said, sounding sure.
"Good," Pete said, standing up. His gaze lingered on Brendon as he headed out the door. Brendon did his best to meet it directly. If Ryan could be confident, then Brendon could be, too.
--
Brendon figured that someday soon he should probably sit his parents down and say that he'd just made a life-altering decision, but, hey, there's always tomorrow.
--
The crazy thing, Brendon decided, was how close it seemed that Pete and Ryan were getting.
Everything was "Pete says" and "Pete thinks" and it was a little weird, kind of, that they didn't have an official record deal but that Pete was apparently investing what had to be roughly half of his waking hours to talking to Ryan.
The whole "unofficial" deal was actually a blessing in disguise: it was a great excuse for Brendon to not have to tell his parents what was going on. He was waiting until it was more concrete. Once there was something to sign, he was going to tell his parents.
Ryan had a tendency to get himself into trouble and then not know how to get out of it -- or so Brendon had surmised from whatever stories Brent and Spencer were willing to tell whenever Ryan was out of earshot, the man (boy? kid? guy?) himself was still a pretty much a total mystery to Brendon. He got the feeling that Ryan preferred it that way. But if this record deal thing didn't work out with Pete's label, then how was it going to end up between Ryan and Pete? Would Pete ditch Ryan if the higher-ups decided that Panic! At the Disco weren't a marketable band?
And more to the point, why the hell had Pete even decided to sign them? Brendon wasn't an idiot. He knew what a good performance sounded like, and that set that they'd played for Pete wasn't one. It was actually pretty pitiful, typical stuff. Ryan's lyrics were good and Brendon's voice didn't suck in comparison to other garage bands, but there was nothing revolutionary contained in the short set they'd played.
Over-analyzing it seemed like a bad idea, but Brendon wasn't talking about the deal with anyone else, not even the rest of the band, and that meant that he spent pretty much all his time talking to himself.
--
Eventually, they reached the point that Brendon kind of had to tell his parents what was going on, because Pete wanted them to come out to LA and get an idea of how recording an album worked, and he wanted one of them to contribute, if possible.
The conversation itself wasn't actually so terrible. He'd waited until the last minute, and his parents wanted to talk to Pete, obviously, and Ryan's dad, and Spencer and Brent's parents, to confirm that everyone had the same story, and then they'd Googled Pete and found FBR's website, decided that he was safe enough, but made Brendon promise to call at several predetermined checkpoints. Which wasn't a bad deal, but Brendon knew it wasn't the end of it.
--
"Ryan?" Brendon whispered, starting awake. He'd been pretty sure that he wasn't going to be able to get to sleep on the floor of Fall Out Boy's apartment, but the drive and the hours in the studio had apparently exhausted him. Brendon had decided to lie down after everyone other than Pete and Ryan had turned in for the night. Watching Pete bask in Ryan's incredibly focused attention while pointedly ignoring Brendon as they all pruned in the hot tub wasn't really the highlight of Brendon's week.
Ryan sucked in a sharp breath. "Didn't mean to wake you up," he said, keeping his voice low. He was dripping all over the carpet, soaking wet and wearing only his boxers. Brendon heard him rummage for dry clothes in his backpack and change into them quickly.
"You didn't," Brendon lied. "What -- what were you guys doing out there, man?"
"Just talking," Ryan said right away.
"'Kay," Brendon said, burrowing deeper into his sleeping bag, covering his head.
"I'm gonna go brush my teeth," Ryan whispered.
When he got back to the living room area and got settled into his own sleeping bag, his breathing didn't level out for a long time. Brendon listened.
--
The thought came to Brendon slowly, while he was scrubbing listlessly at the floor of the Tropical Smoothie Café after closing.
There were stories about casting couches and rumours about pop princesses fucking their managers, about groupies and shit like that, but -- Ryan didn't really seem the type. Too quiet, too reserved, too intelligent.
But then, maybe he did seem the type: he needed the band in a way that the rest of them didn't. For whatever reason, he needed the escape, needed the possibility that they might really get out of Vegas and make music their actual real successful profession. And maybe being desperate and needing something lead to making bad decisions, to getting into the kind of trouble that you can't get out of.
Pete had no reason to sign us, he thought. We sucked out loud that day we played for him, and the demos weren't that much better than anything else in the hordes of unsigned bands out there. He's probably toured with unsigned bands better than we are.
Brendon shook his head, then, tried to clear it, but couldn't quite shake out the memory of Ryan telling Brendon to go on ahead without him. Like it was all planned.
--
Living alone sucked.
The first week it was really, really cool, and it felt really grown-up, but that lasted until the lock on his front door stopped working and he had to call the building manager, who apparently didn't give a shit about eighteen-year-olds who were terrified of being killed in their sleep. The building manager's advice was to prop a chair up under the doorknob.
The good thing was it appeared that Ryan hated living with his father as much as Brendon hated living alone, and had taken to spending several nights a week sleeping over.
The nights Ryan didn't sleep over were weird and uncomfortable. There were all kinds of noises; the building creaked and groaned and it wasn't really in a nice part of town, and people were coming and going at all hours, and Brendon wasn't actually getting a lot of sleep, not in between school and work and the band.
Insomnia was never something he'd had a problem with: typically Brendon fell asleep easily and swiftly, and woke up in much the same way. Recently, though, it was getting harder to fall asleep, and even harder to stay asleep.
Brendon figured that Ryan kind of living with him might have made communication a little easier, but no matter how simple it got for the two of them to work out songs for the album or for Ryan to talk about what the songs were about, or even to just talk like friends, like they'd known each other forever, like they were close enough to share blood and secrets, there was never going to be an easy way to say, "Hey, did you suck some dick for our record deal?"
--
A combination of not sleeping and subsisting on smoothies and veggie wraps, Brendon found, had a pretty radical effect on one's appearance. He was now rocking some intense dark circles under his eyes, none of his clothes were fitting right anymore -- too baggy -- and his skin was looking shockingly sallow. Good-bye, last vestiges of anything resembling a suntan.
"You're not looking too good," his shift manager told him one bright Saturday morning when he slipped and knocked a 32-ounce smoothie over, splashing some soccer mom's overpriced ballet flats.
"Just what I love to hear," he said dully.
--
It got to the point that Brendon was losing track of everything he did. He'd get home after practice and open his binder, bitch to Ryan about having history homework to do, only to hear Ryan tell him, No, Brendon, you did that while Spencer and Brent were fucking around with the extension cords; he'd get to school in the morning and fumble through his binder, trying to find the essay that was due next period and figure out that he hadn't done it. He went over on his texting because he didn't keep track of messages he was sending the rest of the guys, didn't even remember sending them.
Eventually, he kind of slipped into a rhythm, though, just let Ryan tell him when the rent on the practice space was due, let his shift manager tell him everything he had to do at work, let his teachers tell him what was due when, let his building manager tell him when he had to slip rent and utility checks under his door, just blinked a few times and stopped thinking.
Somehow, things got done, everything got done. Life, Brendon decided, was easier when you didn't look at clocks or schedules and just went with the flow. It was surprising how much more he could accomplish when he didn't pay attention to the time. He didn't always remember getting things done, didn't always remember specific practices or certain shifts at work or even whatever tests he knew he must have studied for, must have taken (there's that A-minus smiling beatifically up at him, right there on the Scantron with his name on it, in his handwriting), but everything was getting done, had to be, because nobody was calling him and screaming at him that they had a million things to do. He did have a million things to do, but without a to-do list, every last one of them got done on time, and pretty well.
--
"So, if we're leaving the day after Brendon graduates, then we need --" Spencer was saying, and Brendon's head shot up.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Brendon said. "When the hell was that decided?"
"Last Tuesday," Brent said impatiently.
"I don't remember that. Did we even have practice on Tuesday last week?" Brendon had to quash the urge to punch Brent as he rolled his eyes. He took a deep breath and said instead, "I'm not leaving the day after I'm done with school. No fucking way, it feels like I haven't slept since the last time we were in LA."
"Fine, we'll take a few days off," Ryan said. "We can leave a day or two after, it's not a big deal."
"Okay," Brendon said, mollified.
--
Brendon had gotten into the habit of not looking too closely at his work schedule, just put dates and times into his cell phone and let the specific ringer trigger some weird Pavlovian response that led him to driving to the mall and slaving away at whirring, grinding blenders until the next alarm went off and he headed over to wherever it was he needed to be next. It wasn't so hard -- Taking Back Sunday for work, Journey for school, and, as a concession to their bizarre benefactor, Fall Out Boy for practice.
One morning, though, he paused, glancing at the paper in his hand. He couldn't actually have a shift at the smoothie place that started at one pm on Thursday, because he was in school then. He squinted at the paper a bit more closely. It was hard to read his shift manager's handwriting sometimes. It probably said Saturday.
He shrugged and didn't put the time into his cell phone, because the ringer for school just went off, and he had really been hoping to look over the Calculus homework before he took the quiz in first period.
--
"We're ready to go, then," Brent said. The rest of the band had pulled up in the van just as Brendon's last shift at the smoothie place was ending. Earlier that day, Brendon had dragged everything out of his apartment, which, blessedly, wasn't much, and stopped by his house to hug his parents and accept a huge armful of conveniently available, pre-packaged leftovers. They'd wished him good luck, requested that he stay in touch, and waved him off cheerfully enough.
"I can't believe we're actually leaving," Brendon said with a sigh. He didn't bother saying so-long to anyone at the smoothie place. He'd mostly been a drone the last few weeks anyway.
"I know what you mean," Brent said quietly. Brendon glanced down at his phone and tugged the battery out.
"I'm gonna sleep in the backseat the whole way there," Brendon said dreamily. Brent laughed and threw his arm around Brendon's shoulders.
--
They'd left Vegas with an incomplete roster of songs, much to Brendon's annoyance. Ryan worked slowly -- thoroughly, but slowly, and Brendon wasn't comfortable with the idea of writing lyrics for the band. That was Ryan's thing. Brendon's thing was decoding the fucking songs, figuring out a base for them.
"Did you get the strip club song finished yet?" Brendon asked him as they pulled back onto the freeway. Spencer was driving, Brent navigating, which meant that they could hopefully get some work done.
"Don't call it that," Ryan said. "It's almost done, and I'm calling it 'But It's Better If You Do'."
"Do what?" Brendon asked, nonplussed.
"Dude, Closer," Ryan said.
"Whatever," Brendon said. "it still has to make sense, the title, it's stupid if it's just a quote or something."
"It makes sense," Ryan said indignantly.
"Then what is it that I'm doing, again?" Brendon asked.
"You're avoiding the pressure to succumb to -- to the temptation of illusion as a, uh, a hormone-based coping mechanism," Ryan told him.
"Yeah, right, okay, sure," Brendon said. "Talk to me when you're finished, I need to figure out a tempo. We don't have any fucking ballads, by the way."
"We don't need any," Ryan said.
"Our record will lack balance, and Spencer's arms will get tired at shows," Brendon shot back.
"Leave my arms out of it," Spencer called from the front seat. Brent sniggered.
"Somebody tell Ryan to write faster," Brendon said before rolling over and tugging his hood over his head.
"He's sleeping again," Ryan said with a sigh.
"You have, like, backwards insomnia," Brent said.
"Narcolepsy," Ryan supplied.
"Shut the hell up, I'm a growing boy," Brendon mumbled. Spencer laughed, and he sounded so giddy that Brendon had to join in before drifting off.
--
"This is the weirdest road trip ever," Brendon told Brent when he slid behind the wheel. Ryan and Spencer were sleeping in the backseat, heads together and mouths hanging open comically. Brendon could practically see the drool. Too bad all the cameras were packed up. Brendon briefly contemplated stealing Ryan's phone and going through all his conversations with Pete, but he knew Ryan had the screen lock set up, and Brendon didn't know his code.
"Why's that?" Brent asked.
"It's like. I don't know. It's weird. We're adults, or something. We planned it, we scheduled it, we're paying for it." Brendon shuddered, fiddled with the rearview mirrors.
"It's kind of cool," Brent said. "My family never did road trips. Spencer's parents tried once, but I think three kids is, like, two too many for something like that. Ryan never did a family vacation at all. He used to go to the lake with Spencer, though, when his family went."
"We had to do it, like, caravan-style," Brendon said. "We used to drive to Salt Lake a lot. I have a ton of family in Utah. There were reunions pretty much every year."
"I've never been to a family reunion," Brent said contemplatively. Brendon's brow furrowed, and he glanced at Brent out of the corner of his eye.
"I thought your family was really close," Brendon said.
"Yeah, immediate family," he said with a shrug. "But past first cousins, nah. Most of my family lives in Florida."
"Huh," Brendon said.
"So I bet your next family reunion's gonna be funny," Brent said.
Brendon rolled his eyes. "Can't wait."
--
They settled into a routine easily in Maryland. The weather was more humid, and it was cooler, but they weren't spending much time outside, especially not during the day, so it was hard to tell. There was a sandwich place that managed to make avocado and sprouts taste okay, and Brendon didn't have to look at a blender.
Possibly what was unsettling was how much control they were given. Matt Squire, their producer, had been selected based on a preference Ryan had expressed. They'd all agreed on him, but Ryan had told Pete, almost casually, "Yeah, we'd like Matt Squire, if you can get him," and a few days later, Pete had sent Ryan a text saying Squires all yours. It was that simple.
Matt wanted them to set their own schedule, and allowed them to do so with only minimal guidance. Brendon didn't want to ask for advice, didn't want to admit that they had no clue what they were doing, but he also just wanted someone to tell him what to do.
Luckily, Spencer and Ryan seemed willing and able to pretend that they knew exactly what they were doing. It made it easy for Brendon to focus on things like writing the damn songs, the way Spencer would say, We're tracking bass today, or, You need to sing tomorrow, get to sleep early.
The only real hitch was Brent's performance anxiety. He kept fumbling through recording the bass parts.
"Look," Squire said to Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer, gathered around the mixing board while Brent was on a sandwich run. Ryan kept glancing down at his phone. Brendon wanted to take a fucking sledgehammer to his stupid phone. "Is there anything we can do for him? I think he's just freaking himself out. But we're wasting time and we're wasting money. Should I be looking into hiring a sessions guy?"
Brendon sighed. "No, I can record his parts, it's not a big deal. I wrote them, anyway."
"Don't let him know, okay?" Spencer said. "I'd feel pretty shitty if I were him. If someone else had to record for me."
Brendon bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep himself from saying something he'd regret.
--
Recording was even harder work than Brendon had thought. Part of what made it so hard was how much he just wanted to bury himself in it -- he got impatient with the rest of the guys when they wanted to break for food or fresh air or even just the sake of not working. They didn't have that much time, and some significant budget restrictions, and there was a lot riding on this record. Everything, pretty much.
"Brendon," Ryan said tiredly. "You're not going to make it perfect tonight."
Brendon glanced up from the computer. He was plugged into GarageBand, fiddling with string arrangements. "It's not that late."
"It's two-thirty," Ryan pointed out. "We have to be in the studio at eight. You haven't showered. You reek, dude."
"Fuck you," Brendon said dismissively.
"I'm just saying, we have to smell you."
"Well, I have to look at you."
Ryan sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Sorry," Brendon said. "Come kick me in a few minutes, okay? Give me another fifteen, and then I'll shower and get some sleep."
--
"We're going to have to cut it off here," Matt said regretfully on their last day of recording. "We need to get started on mixing and mastering."
"What?" Brendon said, spinning around.
"Tempus fugit, man," Matt said, leaning over to the sound board.
"I swear there used to be more hours in a day," Brendon told the empty booth. It didn't have any answers.
--
Leaving Maryland didn't feel like leaving home, where it should have, maybe. It felt like moving on. Like graduation. Brendon had slept through his actual graduation. Literally, had stayed at his apartment and slept. He hadn't done it on purpose, but he'd been exhausted, and he was scheduled at the smoothie place right up until they left to record. Somehow, the subject hadn't come up with his family yet, though Brendon was kind of dreading it.
They drove back home, and the trip felt shorter that way. Brendon was so, so tired. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt actually well-rested.
"Exhausted, man," Brendon said to Ryan. "I need to sleep for, like, a month."
"You sleep too much," Ryan said disapprovingly.
"Whatever," Brendon said.
It was kind of true, though. No matter how much he slept, he still woke up feeling drained, like all he needed was a few more hours.
"You're supposed to drive in about two hours," Ryan said, glancing at his phone. "You better not fall asleep at the wheel, man, that'd be such a lame way for us to die."
"I'll take your shift," Spencer said from the front seat.
"You're the best," Brendon said fervently.
"I know," Spencer said, sounding unconcerned. Ryan scoffed. Brent sighed and turned the volume on the stereo up a bit.
--
Brendon woke up in the middle of the night to someone shaking him gently. His eyes worked open, fighting the haze of a deep sleep, before he sat up abruptly.
And promptly hit the hatch of the trunk.
"What the fuck are you doing sleeping in the trunk?" Brent asked, brow knotted in confusion.
"I have no idea," Brendon said in utter sincerity. "How long have I been back here? Where are we?"
"Gas station. Just outside Nevada," Brent said.
Brendon glanced at his watch. "Man, thank God Spence took my shift driving. I am so out of it."
Brent was looking at him oddly.
"What?"
"You drove," Brent said. "Last gas station stop, you took over from me, and then after a few hours, Ryan took over for you."
"I don't remember that," Brendon said.
"Well, it happened," Brent said, sounding irate.
"When did I have time to crawl into the fucking trunk, then?" Brendon sniped.
"Probably when we stopped for more Red Bull," Brent reasoned. "That's when you and Ryan switched."
"Whatever," Brendon said, rolling out of the trunk. He fell to his knees on hard gravel. "Fuck. Ow."
"Watch yourself," Brent said.
"Uh-huh," Brendon said, hobbling towards the convenience store in search of sustenance.
"Get me --"
"Chili Cheese Fritos, I know," Brendon yelled back. On his way in, he passed Ryan and Spencer.
"I got gas this time," Spencer said.
"Food," Brendon said, raising his hands. "I know what you guys want." He gathered up an armful of thoroughly nutritionally lacking foods before dumping everything on the counter.
"The machine's not working," the drone behind the register said. He pointed to the ATM machine in the far corner. "You'll have to use that. Cash only."
Fuck, Brendon thought. He hadn't worked in months, and their advances didn't come through for another week. His checking account was probably overdrawn and he was pretty sure there was nothing in his savings, either; he'd been planning to pay with his credit card and let Future Brendon deal with it.
He trudged over to the ATM machine anyway, stuck his card in and cursed at the little screen that was kind enough to remind him that he'd have to pay a convenience charge. Shit, shit, shit.
To his surprise, though, the machine not only let him withdraw sixty bucks without a hitch, the receipt told him that he had nearly a thousand dollars in his checking account.
The relief that flooded his system was so heady that he didn't think about where the money could possibly have come from until he was drifting back asleep, propped up on Spencer's shoulder in the backseat.
--
Brendon blinked, and the Take Cover tour was over.
--
Well, not really. It did kind of fly by, though, in a haze of sickness and tension and stress. Ryan had horrific stage fright, which Brendon thought was hilarious, given his professed life-long obsession with being in a band. Brendon wondered if Ryan was aware of the fact that being in a band and making music usually tended to go along with performing the music, but whatever. Not like their audiences could pick out a botched chord anyway.
The only part about the first tour that didn't kinda suck was the fact that Brendon's sense of time was at least less fucked up. He stopped sleeping so much, which also meant that he had to do more heavy lifting, which did mean that he slept more soundly. But, less, which was the point.
It was kind of ridiculous how often Brendon got sick, though. It felt like every time he woke up he had to take a moment to assess how sore his throat was before he sat up. It was possible that traveling around in their shitty van wasn't helping. Brendon had wanted to take the old reliable jellybean, but it couldn't tow the trailer. The 12-seater was a piece of crap, but at least it could pull their stuff around.
Brendon had developed discerning taste in cough drops and decongestants, which was probably not a widely-touted positive effect of being in a touring band, but then again, life was full of surprises.
--
"Yo, Ross," Brendon said, pressing his phone up against his cheek. There was a hole in his sock. He wiggled his toe through it.
"Hey," Ryan said quietly. "Can you hear me? Spencer keeps saying the call quality on the Sidekick's bad, but I think he's full of shit."
"He is certifiably full of shit," Brendon confirmed. "You're coming through loud and clear. Also, fuck it, I love this thing. My mom flinches every time I open the screen."
"How's that going?"
"It's goin'," Brendon said. "Living at home again is weird, man. Like, I have a countdown going in my head. Five days til liftoff."
"Why didn't you stay in the apartment? Or get a new one?"
"They do not, in fact, grow on trees."
Ryan didn't laugh.
Brendon sighed. "Anyway, I'm bored and I found some money in my jeans when I did the laundry. Incidentally, chores are more fun when you're getting an allowance. I want to be twelve again. I am totally moving out again after this tour's over. So. Yes. In the meantime, I am mall-bound, my friend. Want me to pick you up?"
"I have to take my dad to his meeting again," Ryan said.
"Oh," Brendon said. "Um, like. After?"
"Yeah, I guess," Ryan said. "I'm kinda supposed to call Pete, though. So, tonight, probably."
"Oh. Well, yeah, that works. I think I want new jeans, you know? Fall tour feels like back-to-school. Or something."
"I gotta go drive my dad," Ryan said after a pause.
"Yep. Say hi to Pete for me."
Click.
"Hasta la vista, baby," Brendon said, imitating Ryan's stupid drawl.
--
"So, the exciting thing about the Nintendo Fusion tour is that I feel like a sellout, but a justified one," Brendon said to Spencer, gesturing wildly. "Like, Nintendo, that's a product I can believe in. Mario's a fucking ninja."
"He's a plumber," Spencer said dryly.
"Yeah, yeah, let's talk about the Wii. That's some bull fuckin' shit, man," Brent said. "The PS3's gonna be insane. Kick the Wii's ass."
"Yeah, if you have more money than you know what to do with," Brendon said.
"Whatever," Brent said.
"Innovation, man," Brendon said, gesturing wildly.
"You're both insane," Spencer said. "Xbox 360, seriously."
"Microsoft is going under, they are going down, in their stupid ugly pants," Brendon said.
"When did you decide about Microsoft's pants?" Ryan asked as he appeared at Brendon's elbow. "Like, I don't think the company has a uniform."
"They do," Brendon said confidently.
"Uh-huh," Spencer said, sounding skeptical.
"Where'd you go?" Brendon asked Ryan.
"I went to the 7-11 with Pete," Ryan said. "We were thirsty. They don't have root beer at the catering table."
"Oh," Brendon said, and turned back to Spencer.
--
"Hey, pay up," Brent said, flopping next to Brendon in the back of the van. They didn't need the third bench, since it was just the four of them, so they'd laid down a bunch of pillows and stuck some thermal sleeping bags in the space where the bench had been. It was pretty comfortable.
"For what?" Brendon asked, flipping his Sidekick shut.
"The Cheetos, dumbass," Brent said.
"You bought me Cheetos? Fork 'em over," Brendon said. He held out his hand, tapping his toe against the window.
"You ate them, dude, during Fall Out Boy's set," Brent said. Which, actually, was not possible, because Brendon spent all of Fall Out Boy's set having the world's most boring, inane conversation with his father.
"You're crazy," Brendon said finally.
"It's like, three bucks, man, pay up already," Brent said, irritated.
"What the fuck, I'm not paying for imaginary food, weirdo," Brendon said.
"Fine, be an asshole, then," Brent snapped. He rolled out of the van and slammed the door shut.
"Freak," Brendon said, bemused.
--
November in New Jersey should be fucking illegal, Brendon decided. No, wait, just New Jersey itself should be illegal. Always. All year round.
In any case, the November weather was the actual definition of disgusting. It was somehow managing to be both humid and freezing outside, so that Brendon's sinuses were clogged up and nasty but his throat was dry from the icy temperatures. Jersey was just a gloomy, dreary, depressing place. The only good thing about being there was that it meant the Nintendo Fusion tour was over and Brendon was going to go back to not having to watch Pete and Ryan be their stupid Pete and Ryan selves every damn second of the day.
Brendon thought he should probably be nice to Pete, even in his thoughts, honestly; without Pete he'd be at BYU right now, slogging through GEs. Still. Pete didn't write their record. Pete didn't deal with Ryan at the height of his bitchy dictator phase during the recording. Pete didn't spend countless hours learning how to actually play as a band. Pete didn't do everything. They'd worked hard and Brendon firmly believed that they deserved whatever success they managed. They started from scratch and, yeah, Pete gave them a big leg up, but that didn't really give him permission to steal Ryan.
Brendon was never, ever, in a million years going to voice that, because, wow, sound six years old much, Urie? There was some truth to it, though. It felt like Brendon never saw Ryan unless they were onstage. Ryan rode on the Fall Out Boy bus practically every day, which was shitty of him to do because it meant there was one less person in his actual band's van to take driving shifts, and Brendon could really use the sleep. When Pete was otherwise occupied, Ryan usually holed up on his own with his iPod and a book. Brendon didn't have a problem with Ryan ignoring the rest of the tour in favour of getting some time to himself, but Ryan following Pete around with big wide eyes and carefully constructed nonchalance was kind of revolting to witness. Brendon was embarrassed for Ryan. He was so obvious. And Pete should know better, anyway. Yeah, Pete was a good friend and Pete was a mentor and Pete was great and all that, but at the end of the day, he was their boss, and it was honestly a little creepy that he spent all his time with Ryan.
The fact of the matter was that Pete gave Ryan a record deal but Brendon had given him a fucking home when Ryan'd had to move out of his father's house and his mother had flaked out for the millionth time. It was hard to not take it personally. They were supposed to be in it together, the four of them, and Ryan was just being an asshole.
--
Seven days off.
They got seven glorious, delightful, incredible days off from work of any kind. Seven days where they only had to see each other if they wanted to. They only had to play music if they wanted to. Seven days was a whole entire week, seriously.
There were two weeks between the last Nintendo Fusion date in Jersey and the first date with Forgive Durden (the "baby tour", Brent called it; could you really count a six-show tour as an actual tour? Brendon didn't think so, and Brent agreed with him, but Spencer and Ryan were insisting on referring to it as their third tour, which, whatever, fine), but you had to figure a day and half to get back to Vegas, and then write off the last night before the first show as a loss because of packing and nerves and all that shit, and then a few days to actually practice because they had a million more tours to plan and if they didn't do the work it was only going to fuck them over in the end.
But still. Seven days.
--
Brendon had planned on sleeping for approximately twenty-six hours straight, but his Sidekick woke him up, ringing shrilly. Note to self: buy new ringtones, because the default ones suck, Brendon thought to himself. He struggled upright blearily, hitting Answer before he even glanced at the screen.
"Haaaahh?" he mumbled. Close enough to 'hello'.
"Brendon," Ryan said.
"Hnn."
"Brendon, I need you to come pick me up."
"Wha?" Brendon snuffled, scrubbing at his face. "Huh? What?"
"I'm at the hospital," Ryan said impatiently. "My dad totaled the car. I'm stuck here. He's been admitted. You have to come get me."
"Spencer," Brendon said. He was working his way up to actual sentences. It was going to take a while, probably.
"No, he's got family shit," Ryan said. "Just come get me already."
He hung up. Brendon snarled at him and threw his Sidekick on his bed. It bounced and flipped itself open cheerfully.
"Fuuuuuuuck," Brendon moaned. He stumbled to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water before putting on a pair of Ryan's gross old basketball shorts and shrugging into a hoodie.
Driving to the hospital half-asleep was probably not the best plan, but it was the kind of shit you were supposed to do for your family.
--
Brendon leaned on the horn for the fifth time. "I am not getting out of this fucking car," he said to himself, and hit the horn again. Ryan, sitting barely thirty yards away on a bench with his legs drawn up under him, engrossed in his Sidekick and listening to his iPod, didn't look up. Of course not. Brendon smacked his head on the steering wheel a couple times for good measure before giving up and calling Ryan. He got some vindictive pleasure out of watching Ryan jump in surprise. He didn't actually answer the call, just grabbed his duffel bag from the ground at his feet and started trudging towards the van.
"So," Brendon said once Ryan had settled into the passenger seat. Ryan was taking his time meticulously wrapping his headphones' cord around his iPod.
"I'm hungry. Let's go to Port of Subs," Ryan said, lifting his head, leaning it against the window.
"Uh, sure," Brendon said. "Are you -- "
"I'm fine," Ryan said shortly. "His license got revoked but he's been driving anyway. Apparently. And today he decided to add bourbon to the commute. He plowed into a wall in some parking garage off the Strip. Nobody else got hurt but he's pretty banged up. I don't think he'll be out anytime soon."
"Did you get a hold of your mom?" Brendon asked after a pause.
Ryan snorted. "What do you think?"
"I'm sorry, man," Brendon said, reaching over to rub Ryan's shoulder. Ryan shrugged him off.
"It's just getting boring at this point, honestly," Ryan said, keeping his voice flat.
"You're so full of shit," Brendon said.
"Fuck off," Ryan snapped. He rubbed at his temples, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the dash. "God, I just want to get back on the road."
"Ten days," Brendon said helpfully. "Forgive Durden, man, it's gonna be a good time. Headlining. We don't have to end sets with introductions!"
"You all right if I stay with you until we get going?" Ryan asked, not looking at him.
"Yeah, sure, of course, mi casa, su casa, all that," Brendon said quickly. "You got everything you need in your bag?"
"Yeah," Ryan said. He sat up briefly to fold his arms onto the dashboard and then rest his cheek against his forearms. Brendon bit his lip and almost ran a red, watching Ryan try to keep himself together.
--
Being back on the road was something like relief. It felt like coming home, almost; but in a different way. Brendon wondered if the rest of his life was going to be like this, divided always between recording-touring-home, only ever getting to have one at a time, always missing the other two, always wanting whichever was farthest away.
It was four in the morning and Brendon couldn't sleep. It was the night before the baby tour's start, and they'd splurged on an unscheduled hotel stay. Brendon and Ryan were sharing a room, and two to a room was something of an unbelievable luxury. It was surprising he and Ryan were managing to share a room, after Ryan ended up spending the whole break at Brendon's apartment, but Brendon wasn't going to look that particular gift horse in the ass. Or however the saying went. Brendon was physically too tired to sleep. He'd spent most of the break napping, leaving Ryan to his own devices, and he still wasn't caught up on his sleep.
Anyway. Brendon blinked hard, staring at the ceiling. He couldn't even keep his eyes closed, so he was just lying there, listening to Ryan snuffle quietly, his noises too soft to be actual snores. Ryan had been a little subdued around Brendon, but it was the middle of winter and they were still driving a shitty van around and getting lost what felt like every ten minutes, still making everything up as they went along, and that probably wasn't helping his mood. He'd been happy enough back in Summerlin, letting Brendon hug him and invade his personal space whenever it was just the two of them hanging out in Brendon's apartment. Some part of Brendon wanted to know why, between Ryan's dad's house and Brendon's new and slightly nicer -- but still pretty sketchy -- apartment, they had stuck with Brendon's apartment, but he figured it was probably better to just not ask.
Suddenly, Brendon's Sidekick buzzed on the nightstand between the beds. Ryan twitched in his sleep but didn't sit up. Brendon glanced at the screen, sliding the phone close enough to read the screen. Pete was IMing him.
You up?
Y, Brendon sent after a moment's hesitation.
Get to the hotel ok. Brendon sighed, turning as far as he could away from Ryan, tethered by the cord.
Y.
How's ryan.
Were all doing good, Brendon sent pointedly, wincing a little at his own childishness. Pete had a right to know how they were doing. How Ryan was doing.
Hang in there.im here if you want to talk, Pete sent. Brendon bit his lip.
K, he sent.
Then, after another pause, Thanks. Brendon signed out of AIM quickly to avoid talking any more with Pete. He sighed heavily and crawled out of bed, bundled up, and shuffled down to the van, where he mummified himself in a thermal sleeping bag and tried to drift off to sleep through sheer force of will.
--
Notes - Part One - Part Two - Part Three
--
"...Who?" Brendon asked finally. Ryan stared at him.
"Pete Wentz," he said, over-exact.
Brendon shrugged helplessly, bit back a retort when Ryan glanced over at Spencer and Brent with an incredulous look on his face -- the same stupid incredulous look he got every time Brendon said something unbearably dweeby. Like it was an offense to his actual person, that Brendon didn’t know who this Pete Wentz dude was.
"He plays bass in Fall Out Boy," Brent said, taking sympathy on him. "Ryan’s got, like, the most ridiculous homo crush on him."
"Fuck you," Ryan said automatically. "But -- seriously. People are saying that he's getting his own label, you know? And I know he reads the community and stuff. So I sent him a link to our purevolume page. And he listened, and he likes our stuff, so he's flying out to hear us play in two weeks."
"What?" Brendon said, jaw dropping.
"Yeah," Ryan said, shoulders set defiantly. "So you better be ready."
--
Of course it was just like that: Ryan sends off a demo to someone he says is significant, someone Brendon's never heard of -- he's heard of the band, kinda, he knows people who listen to Fall Out Boy, and he thinks he's maybe heard a few songs, but nothing sticks in his mind -- and then they're auditioning for a record deal.
You just don't join a teenage garage band and expect to come out with a record deal, or even a shot at one, Brendon thought.
And it was true that the point of being a band was to kind of, you know, be a band, which does in fact include touring and merchandise and live shows and fans and interviews and all that weirdo pseudo-famous, famous-as-a-unit stuff that seems to happen, but not to seventeen-year-olds stuck in the hilarious blender of Vegas and LDS.
The point was: Brendon wasn't going to say no to an audition of any kind, because if this Pete Wentz was going to give them a shot, then Brendon was going to briskly seize that opportunity.
--
The funny thing about two weeks was that it was the worst length of time, like, ever. Two weeks was just close enough for them to not have time to write another song ("One day, Ryan, one day, you will spend less time flipping through a thesaurus, and then we'll get a song written in under a month," Spencer said, and Brendon shoved at him, trying to reassure Ryan) but far enough away that Brendon really didn't have an excuse for not telling his parents, and, more importantly, the group had the opportunity to get tense and high-strung as fuck.
They'd settled on pre-recording some of the synth stuff, which meant that Brendon was going to have to spend some time poking away at his mother's keyboard.
"Hey there, kiddo," he heard faintly in a lull between notes. His fingers stilled over the keys, and he pushed the headphones down from his ears, looked up and saw his mother standing at the open doorway to his bedroom. "You were singing along."
"Sorry," Brendon said immediately.
"It's fine," she said, and sat down on the bed next to him. "What are you working on?"
"Oh," Brendon said, and felt his conscience kick viciously at his belly. "Just -- just some stuff, you know, for the band. We wanted to try some rhythm guitar stuff, but we wanted to keep the synth parts, so I'm pre-recording."
"Oh, that's cool," she said earnestly. "What's the song about?"
"Um," Brendon said. "I don't actually know?"
"Ryan didn't say?"
"I didn't ask," Brendon admitted. "It's kind of. It's not really my business."
"If he didn't want to talk about it, he probably wouldn't have written a song about it," she said, then reached over and mussed his hair.
--
At the last minute, something else went wrong, and neither Spencer nor Brent could be at the audition. Which probably didn't look too good, having half the band missing for an audition, but something about it being just him and Ryan made Brendon almost feel more confident. Impressing Pete was easier when he was already focused on impressing Ryan.
"We're gonna play just, um, three songs," Brendon said, settling down on a stool with his father's bass guitar, trying to angle himself close enough to the computer. The stupid keyboard wasn't working, so they had to use Ryan's laptop instead.
"Sounds good," Pete said with a quick grin. He had a nice smile, Brendon thought. Ryan's crush made sense, at least.
"So, yeah, this first one, this is, uh, 'Relax Relapse'," Brendon said nervously, leaning in and poking at the keyboard haphazardly. He hit the wrong key, apparently, because nothing happened. "Fuck."
They got through the mercifully brief set quickly enough, though, and Brendon figured they managed to not humiliate themselves too horribly. When it was all over, Brendon shrugged and glanced at Ryan, who didn't seem to be willing to look up from his guitar. Pete had an unreadable expression on his face.
"So, I'm on a pretty tight schedule, here," Pete said finally. "I'm going to head back to my hotel room, and I'll give you guys a call in the morning. Sound good?"
"Sure," Ryan said right away. Brendon stood up, awkwardly, holding his hand out to shake Pete's. "Brendon, go pick up Spencer and Brent, we can get some shit done today still."
Brendon saluted sharply before scurrying out.
--
Brendon slept in late the next day and woke up still tired, even though he'd crashed early the night before. He faked a stomach flu and breathed a sigh of relief when his parents indulged his histrionics and let him skip church. Right when Brendon was settling back into bed, his phone went off. It was Spencer.
"Hey, you need to come pick me and Brent up," he said right away.
"Why?" Brendon asked.
"Because Pete Wentz wants to talk to us, he and Ryan are at Del Taco, and he's waiting, so get your ass in gear."
"My parents think I'm sick, I can't just take off," Brendon said dumbly, and Spencer sighed on the other side.
--
"It's so awesome that we're late," Spencer said pointedly from the backseat as they pulled into the parking lot. Brendon rolled his eyes and parked next to Ryan's car.
Ryan and Pete were sitting on opposite sides of a booth on the far side of the interior, sucking at jumbo sodas. Pete looked up, smiling broadly. Brendon waved at them before getting a large drink for himself and sliding next to Ryan. Brent and Spencer were still puzzling over the menu, which was stupid, because they ate at Del Taco at least three times a week, and that was only as a group. Probably more on their own while Brendon was stuck at home because of his curfew.
Pete was tracing aimless designs on the sticky tabletop, deep in thought. Ryan wasn't looking at anyone, just chewing methodically on his straw.
"Here's the thing," Pete said at last, after Spencer and Brent had joined them. Brendon shifted awkwardly under the weight of Pete's gaze. Spencer was sitting next to Brendon, uncomfortably close on the meant-for-two booth, and Brent had pulled up a chair, leaving Pete enough room to kick his feet up next to himself on the booth. "You guys are probably too young for a record deal."
Brendon exhaled slowly, didn't say anything. Pete wasn't done talking. Clearly.
"I don't mean that I think you need more time or whatever, like, creatively," Pete continued. He was still staring at Brendon. "I just mean that you guys haven't toured and -- well, it's gonna be rough. You're gonna take a lot of shit from any band that you tour with, because you're doing this backwards. You're gonna have to be twice as good as you are now, because you've got a lot to prove."
"Fine," Ryan said. "We're already a million times better than we were a few months ago. We'll keep getting better."
"You have to graduate high school first," Pete said, finally tearing his eyes away from Brendon and glancing at Ryan instead. "All of you."
"Brent and I are going to be done in the spring," Spencer said.
"And Brendon?" Pete asked, glancing at him. Brendon cleared his throat.
"Can't," he said. "I have AP classes. They don't let you fast-track those, and my parents already paid for the exams. And my mom'll kill me if I don't have a graduation ceremony."
"Okay," Pete said. "That's the other thing. Parents. If it's gonna be a problem, tell me now."
"I'm good," Ryan said immediately.
"Same," Spencer said.
"I want to talk to my parents," Brent said carefully. "This is kinda happening fast. But they'll be fine."
Ryan looked at Brendon expectantly. "I think my parents will be okay with it," Brendon said.
"Well," Pete said. "Either they will or they won't, and they've only got a say until you're eighteen."
"Not 'til April," Brendon said.
"Then that's for you to figure out," Pete said, pointing his gnawed-up straw inexactly at Brendon. "I'll talk to any adult that needs talking to, I'll have execs from FBR send emails or whatever you need. But I'm not gonna be holding your hands."
"We'll work it out," Ryan said.
"So, how does this work?" Spencer asked.
Pete leaned back, rubbed at his jaw. "You guys keep practicing. You keep writing music. You play some local shows, keep getting the word out on the internet. I'll be in touch."
"When does this get official?" Brendon asked.
"After I talk with some of the FBR guys," Pete promised. "I haven't sent them any of your stuff. I wanted to wait until I saw you. And there's gonna be a shitload of red tape to fight through, because of your ages. They're gonna want your parents involved. Honestly, I'm disinclined to deal with all that shit. I'd rather just wait until you're all eighteen, but at the same time, I don't want you guys to be sitting around just doing nothing for a year. We need to get an album out by the end of oh-five."
Absurd, Brendon thought. This is the most surreal conversation of my life. We're talking parents and record deals and touring, what the fuck?
Ryan was asking, "How likely is that?"
"As far as I'm concerned, you guys have a record deal," Pete said. "But if you get cold feet before you sign on the dotted line, you better fucking tell me, because I'm putting my professional ass on the line for you guys."
"We won't," Ryan said, sounding sure.
"Good," Pete said, standing up. His gaze lingered on Brendon as he headed out the door. Brendon did his best to meet it directly. If Ryan could be confident, then Brendon could be, too.
--
Brendon figured that someday soon he should probably sit his parents down and say that he'd just made a life-altering decision, but, hey, there's always tomorrow.
--
The crazy thing, Brendon decided, was how close it seemed that Pete and Ryan were getting.
Everything was "Pete says" and "Pete thinks" and it was a little weird, kind of, that they didn't have an official record deal but that Pete was apparently investing what had to be roughly half of his waking hours to talking to Ryan.
The whole "unofficial" deal was actually a blessing in disguise: it was a great excuse for Brendon to not have to tell his parents what was going on. He was waiting until it was more concrete. Once there was something to sign, he was going to tell his parents.
Ryan had a tendency to get himself into trouble and then not know how to get out of it -- or so Brendon had surmised from whatever stories Brent and Spencer were willing to tell whenever Ryan was out of earshot, the man (boy? kid? guy?) himself was still a pretty much a total mystery to Brendon. He got the feeling that Ryan preferred it that way. But if this record deal thing didn't work out with Pete's label, then how was it going to end up between Ryan and Pete? Would Pete ditch Ryan if the higher-ups decided that Panic! At the Disco weren't a marketable band?
And more to the point, why the hell had Pete even decided to sign them? Brendon wasn't an idiot. He knew what a good performance sounded like, and that set that they'd played for Pete wasn't one. It was actually pretty pitiful, typical stuff. Ryan's lyrics were good and Brendon's voice didn't suck in comparison to other garage bands, but there was nothing revolutionary contained in the short set they'd played.
Over-analyzing it seemed like a bad idea, but Brendon wasn't talking about the deal with anyone else, not even the rest of the band, and that meant that he spent pretty much all his time talking to himself.
--
Eventually, they reached the point that Brendon kind of had to tell his parents what was going on, because Pete wanted them to come out to LA and get an idea of how recording an album worked, and he wanted one of them to contribute, if possible.
The conversation itself wasn't actually so terrible. He'd waited until the last minute, and his parents wanted to talk to Pete, obviously, and Ryan's dad, and Spencer and Brent's parents, to confirm that everyone had the same story, and then they'd Googled Pete and found FBR's website, decided that he was safe enough, but made Brendon promise to call at several predetermined checkpoints. Which wasn't a bad deal, but Brendon knew it wasn't the end of it.
--
"Ryan?" Brendon whispered, starting awake. He'd been pretty sure that he wasn't going to be able to get to sleep on the floor of Fall Out Boy's apartment, but the drive and the hours in the studio had apparently exhausted him. Brendon had decided to lie down after everyone other than Pete and Ryan had turned in for the night. Watching Pete bask in Ryan's incredibly focused attention while pointedly ignoring Brendon as they all pruned in the hot tub wasn't really the highlight of Brendon's week.
Ryan sucked in a sharp breath. "Didn't mean to wake you up," he said, keeping his voice low. He was dripping all over the carpet, soaking wet and wearing only his boxers. Brendon heard him rummage for dry clothes in his backpack and change into them quickly.
"You didn't," Brendon lied. "What -- what were you guys doing out there, man?"
"Just talking," Ryan said right away.
"'Kay," Brendon said, burrowing deeper into his sleeping bag, covering his head.
"I'm gonna go brush my teeth," Ryan whispered.
When he got back to the living room area and got settled into his own sleeping bag, his breathing didn't level out for a long time. Brendon listened.
--
The thought came to Brendon slowly, while he was scrubbing listlessly at the floor of the Tropical Smoothie Café after closing.
There were stories about casting couches and rumours about pop princesses fucking their managers, about groupies and shit like that, but -- Ryan didn't really seem the type. Too quiet, too reserved, too intelligent.
But then, maybe he did seem the type: he needed the band in a way that the rest of them didn't. For whatever reason, he needed the escape, needed the possibility that they might really get out of Vegas and make music their actual real successful profession. And maybe being desperate and needing something lead to making bad decisions, to getting into the kind of trouble that you can't get out of.
Pete had no reason to sign us, he thought. We sucked out loud that day we played for him, and the demos weren't that much better than anything else in the hordes of unsigned bands out there. He's probably toured with unsigned bands better than we are.
Brendon shook his head, then, tried to clear it, but couldn't quite shake out the memory of Ryan telling Brendon to go on ahead without him. Like it was all planned.
--
Living alone sucked.
The first week it was really, really cool, and it felt really grown-up, but that lasted until the lock on his front door stopped working and he had to call the building manager, who apparently didn't give a shit about eighteen-year-olds who were terrified of being killed in their sleep. The building manager's advice was to prop a chair up under the doorknob.
The good thing was it appeared that Ryan hated living with his father as much as Brendon hated living alone, and had taken to spending several nights a week sleeping over.
The nights Ryan didn't sleep over were weird and uncomfortable. There were all kinds of noises; the building creaked and groaned and it wasn't really in a nice part of town, and people were coming and going at all hours, and Brendon wasn't actually getting a lot of sleep, not in between school and work and the band.
Insomnia was never something he'd had a problem with: typically Brendon fell asleep easily and swiftly, and woke up in much the same way. Recently, though, it was getting harder to fall asleep, and even harder to stay asleep.
Brendon figured that Ryan kind of living with him might have made communication a little easier, but no matter how simple it got for the two of them to work out songs for the album or for Ryan to talk about what the songs were about, or even to just talk like friends, like they'd known each other forever, like they were close enough to share blood and secrets, there was never going to be an easy way to say, "Hey, did you suck some dick for our record deal?"
--
A combination of not sleeping and subsisting on smoothies and veggie wraps, Brendon found, had a pretty radical effect on one's appearance. He was now rocking some intense dark circles under his eyes, none of his clothes were fitting right anymore -- too baggy -- and his skin was looking shockingly sallow. Good-bye, last vestiges of anything resembling a suntan.
"You're not looking too good," his shift manager told him one bright Saturday morning when he slipped and knocked a 32-ounce smoothie over, splashing some soccer mom's overpriced ballet flats.
"Just what I love to hear," he said dully.
--
It got to the point that Brendon was losing track of everything he did. He'd get home after practice and open his binder, bitch to Ryan about having history homework to do, only to hear Ryan tell him, No, Brendon, you did that while Spencer and Brent were fucking around with the extension cords; he'd get to school in the morning and fumble through his binder, trying to find the essay that was due next period and figure out that he hadn't done it. He went over on his texting because he didn't keep track of messages he was sending the rest of the guys, didn't even remember sending them.
Eventually, he kind of slipped into a rhythm, though, just let Ryan tell him when the rent on the practice space was due, let his shift manager tell him everything he had to do at work, let his teachers tell him what was due when, let his building manager tell him when he had to slip rent and utility checks under his door, just blinked a few times and stopped thinking.
Somehow, things got done, everything got done. Life, Brendon decided, was easier when you didn't look at clocks or schedules and just went with the flow. It was surprising how much more he could accomplish when he didn't pay attention to the time. He didn't always remember getting things done, didn't always remember specific practices or certain shifts at work or even whatever tests he knew he must have studied for, must have taken (there's that A-minus smiling beatifically up at him, right there on the Scantron with his name on it, in his handwriting), but everything was getting done, had to be, because nobody was calling him and screaming at him that they had a million things to do. He did have a million things to do, but without a to-do list, every last one of them got done on time, and pretty well.
--
"So, if we're leaving the day after Brendon graduates, then we need --" Spencer was saying, and Brendon's head shot up.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Brendon said. "When the hell was that decided?"
"Last Tuesday," Brent said impatiently.
"I don't remember that. Did we even have practice on Tuesday last week?" Brendon had to quash the urge to punch Brent as he rolled his eyes. He took a deep breath and said instead, "I'm not leaving the day after I'm done with school. No fucking way, it feels like I haven't slept since the last time we were in LA."
"Fine, we'll take a few days off," Ryan said. "We can leave a day or two after, it's not a big deal."
"Okay," Brendon said, mollified.
--
Brendon had gotten into the habit of not looking too closely at his work schedule, just put dates and times into his cell phone and let the specific ringer trigger some weird Pavlovian response that led him to driving to the mall and slaving away at whirring, grinding blenders until the next alarm went off and he headed over to wherever it was he needed to be next. It wasn't so hard -- Taking Back Sunday for work, Journey for school, and, as a concession to their bizarre benefactor, Fall Out Boy for practice.
One morning, though, he paused, glancing at the paper in his hand. He couldn't actually have a shift at the smoothie place that started at one pm on Thursday, because he was in school then. He squinted at the paper a bit more closely. It was hard to read his shift manager's handwriting sometimes. It probably said Saturday.
He shrugged and didn't put the time into his cell phone, because the ringer for school just went off, and he had really been hoping to look over the Calculus homework before he took the quiz in first period.
--
"We're ready to go, then," Brent said. The rest of the band had pulled up in the van just as Brendon's last shift at the smoothie place was ending. Earlier that day, Brendon had dragged everything out of his apartment, which, blessedly, wasn't much, and stopped by his house to hug his parents and accept a huge armful of conveniently available, pre-packaged leftovers. They'd wished him good luck, requested that he stay in touch, and waved him off cheerfully enough.
"I can't believe we're actually leaving," Brendon said with a sigh. He didn't bother saying so-long to anyone at the smoothie place. He'd mostly been a drone the last few weeks anyway.
"I know what you mean," Brent said quietly. Brendon glanced down at his phone and tugged the battery out.
"I'm gonna sleep in the backseat the whole way there," Brendon said dreamily. Brent laughed and threw his arm around Brendon's shoulders.
--
They'd left Vegas with an incomplete roster of songs, much to Brendon's annoyance. Ryan worked slowly -- thoroughly, but slowly, and Brendon wasn't comfortable with the idea of writing lyrics for the band. That was Ryan's thing. Brendon's thing was decoding the fucking songs, figuring out a base for them.
"Did you get the strip club song finished yet?" Brendon asked him as they pulled back onto the freeway. Spencer was driving, Brent navigating, which meant that they could hopefully get some work done.
"Don't call it that," Ryan said. "It's almost done, and I'm calling it 'But It's Better If You Do'."
"Do what?" Brendon asked, nonplussed.
"Dude, Closer," Ryan said.
"Whatever," Brendon said. "it still has to make sense, the title, it's stupid if it's just a quote or something."
"It makes sense," Ryan said indignantly.
"Then what is it that I'm doing, again?" Brendon asked.
"You're avoiding the pressure to succumb to -- to the temptation of illusion as a, uh, a hormone-based coping mechanism," Ryan told him.
"Yeah, right, okay, sure," Brendon said. "Talk to me when you're finished, I need to figure out a tempo. We don't have any fucking ballads, by the way."
"We don't need any," Ryan said.
"Our record will lack balance, and Spencer's arms will get tired at shows," Brendon shot back.
"Leave my arms out of it," Spencer called from the front seat. Brent sniggered.
"Somebody tell Ryan to write faster," Brendon said before rolling over and tugging his hood over his head.
"He's sleeping again," Ryan said with a sigh.
"You have, like, backwards insomnia," Brent said.
"Narcolepsy," Ryan supplied.
"Shut the hell up, I'm a growing boy," Brendon mumbled. Spencer laughed, and he sounded so giddy that Brendon had to join in before drifting off.
--
"This is the weirdest road trip ever," Brendon told Brent when he slid behind the wheel. Ryan and Spencer were sleeping in the backseat, heads together and mouths hanging open comically. Brendon could practically see the drool. Too bad all the cameras were packed up. Brendon briefly contemplated stealing Ryan's phone and going through all his conversations with Pete, but he knew Ryan had the screen lock set up, and Brendon didn't know his code.
"Why's that?" Brent asked.
"It's like. I don't know. It's weird. We're adults, or something. We planned it, we scheduled it, we're paying for it." Brendon shuddered, fiddled with the rearview mirrors.
"It's kind of cool," Brent said. "My family never did road trips. Spencer's parents tried once, but I think three kids is, like, two too many for something like that. Ryan never did a family vacation at all. He used to go to the lake with Spencer, though, when his family went."
"We had to do it, like, caravan-style," Brendon said. "We used to drive to Salt Lake a lot. I have a ton of family in Utah. There were reunions pretty much every year."
"I've never been to a family reunion," Brent said contemplatively. Brendon's brow furrowed, and he glanced at Brent out of the corner of his eye.
"I thought your family was really close," Brendon said.
"Yeah, immediate family," he said with a shrug. "But past first cousins, nah. Most of my family lives in Florida."
"Huh," Brendon said.
"So I bet your next family reunion's gonna be funny," Brent said.
Brendon rolled his eyes. "Can't wait."
--
They settled into a routine easily in Maryland. The weather was more humid, and it was cooler, but they weren't spending much time outside, especially not during the day, so it was hard to tell. There was a sandwich place that managed to make avocado and sprouts taste okay, and Brendon didn't have to look at a blender.
Possibly what was unsettling was how much control they were given. Matt Squire, their producer, had been selected based on a preference Ryan had expressed. They'd all agreed on him, but Ryan had told Pete, almost casually, "Yeah, we'd like Matt Squire, if you can get him," and a few days later, Pete had sent Ryan a text saying Squires all yours. It was that simple.
Matt wanted them to set their own schedule, and allowed them to do so with only minimal guidance. Brendon didn't want to ask for advice, didn't want to admit that they had no clue what they were doing, but he also just wanted someone to tell him what to do.
Luckily, Spencer and Ryan seemed willing and able to pretend that they knew exactly what they were doing. It made it easy for Brendon to focus on things like writing the damn songs, the way Spencer would say, We're tracking bass today, or, You need to sing tomorrow, get to sleep early.
The only real hitch was Brent's performance anxiety. He kept fumbling through recording the bass parts.
"Look," Squire said to Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer, gathered around the mixing board while Brent was on a sandwich run. Ryan kept glancing down at his phone. Brendon wanted to take a fucking sledgehammer to his stupid phone. "Is there anything we can do for him? I think he's just freaking himself out. But we're wasting time and we're wasting money. Should I be looking into hiring a sessions guy?"
Brendon sighed. "No, I can record his parts, it's not a big deal. I wrote them, anyway."
"Don't let him know, okay?" Spencer said. "I'd feel pretty shitty if I were him. If someone else had to record for me."
Brendon bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep himself from saying something he'd regret.
--
Recording was even harder work than Brendon had thought. Part of what made it so hard was how much he just wanted to bury himself in it -- he got impatient with the rest of the guys when they wanted to break for food or fresh air or even just the sake of not working. They didn't have that much time, and some significant budget restrictions, and there was a lot riding on this record. Everything, pretty much.
"Brendon," Ryan said tiredly. "You're not going to make it perfect tonight."
Brendon glanced up from the computer. He was plugged into GarageBand, fiddling with string arrangements. "It's not that late."
"It's two-thirty," Ryan pointed out. "We have to be in the studio at eight. You haven't showered. You reek, dude."
"Fuck you," Brendon said dismissively.
"I'm just saying, we have to smell you."
"Well, I have to look at you."
Ryan sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Sorry," Brendon said. "Come kick me in a few minutes, okay? Give me another fifteen, and then I'll shower and get some sleep."
--
"We're going to have to cut it off here," Matt said regretfully on their last day of recording. "We need to get started on mixing and mastering."
"What?" Brendon said, spinning around.
"Tempus fugit, man," Matt said, leaning over to the sound board.
"I swear there used to be more hours in a day," Brendon told the empty booth. It didn't have any answers.
--
Leaving Maryland didn't feel like leaving home, where it should have, maybe. It felt like moving on. Like graduation. Brendon had slept through his actual graduation. Literally, had stayed at his apartment and slept. He hadn't done it on purpose, but he'd been exhausted, and he was scheduled at the smoothie place right up until they left to record. Somehow, the subject hadn't come up with his family yet, though Brendon was kind of dreading it.
They drove back home, and the trip felt shorter that way. Brendon was so, so tired. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt actually well-rested.
"Exhausted, man," Brendon said to Ryan. "I need to sleep for, like, a month."
"You sleep too much," Ryan said disapprovingly.
"Whatever," Brendon said.
It was kind of true, though. No matter how much he slept, he still woke up feeling drained, like all he needed was a few more hours.
"You're supposed to drive in about two hours," Ryan said, glancing at his phone. "You better not fall asleep at the wheel, man, that'd be such a lame way for us to die."
"I'll take your shift," Spencer said from the front seat.
"You're the best," Brendon said fervently.
"I know," Spencer said, sounding unconcerned. Ryan scoffed. Brent sighed and turned the volume on the stereo up a bit.
--
Brendon woke up in the middle of the night to someone shaking him gently. His eyes worked open, fighting the haze of a deep sleep, before he sat up abruptly.
And promptly hit the hatch of the trunk.
"What the fuck are you doing sleeping in the trunk?" Brent asked, brow knotted in confusion.
"I have no idea," Brendon said in utter sincerity. "How long have I been back here? Where are we?"
"Gas station. Just outside Nevada," Brent said.
Brendon glanced at his watch. "Man, thank God Spence took my shift driving. I am so out of it."
Brent was looking at him oddly.
"What?"
"You drove," Brent said. "Last gas station stop, you took over from me, and then after a few hours, Ryan took over for you."
"I don't remember that," Brendon said.
"Well, it happened," Brent said, sounding irate.
"When did I have time to crawl into the fucking trunk, then?" Brendon sniped.
"Probably when we stopped for more Red Bull," Brent reasoned. "That's when you and Ryan switched."
"Whatever," Brendon said, rolling out of the trunk. He fell to his knees on hard gravel. "Fuck. Ow."
"Watch yourself," Brent said.
"Uh-huh," Brendon said, hobbling towards the convenience store in search of sustenance.
"Get me --"
"Chili Cheese Fritos, I know," Brendon yelled back. On his way in, he passed Ryan and Spencer.
"I got gas this time," Spencer said.
"Food," Brendon said, raising his hands. "I know what you guys want." He gathered up an armful of thoroughly nutritionally lacking foods before dumping everything on the counter.
"The machine's not working," the drone behind the register said. He pointed to the ATM machine in the far corner. "You'll have to use that. Cash only."
Fuck, Brendon thought. He hadn't worked in months, and their advances didn't come through for another week. His checking account was probably overdrawn and he was pretty sure there was nothing in his savings, either; he'd been planning to pay with his credit card and let Future Brendon deal with it.
He trudged over to the ATM machine anyway, stuck his card in and cursed at the little screen that was kind enough to remind him that he'd have to pay a convenience charge. Shit, shit, shit.
To his surprise, though, the machine not only let him withdraw sixty bucks without a hitch, the receipt told him that he had nearly a thousand dollars in his checking account.
The relief that flooded his system was so heady that he didn't think about where the money could possibly have come from until he was drifting back asleep, propped up on Spencer's shoulder in the backseat.
--
Brendon blinked, and the Take Cover tour was over.
--
Well, not really. It did kind of fly by, though, in a haze of sickness and tension and stress. Ryan had horrific stage fright, which Brendon thought was hilarious, given his professed life-long obsession with being in a band. Brendon wondered if Ryan was aware of the fact that being in a band and making music usually tended to go along with performing the music, but whatever. Not like their audiences could pick out a botched chord anyway.
The only part about the first tour that didn't kinda suck was the fact that Brendon's sense of time was at least less fucked up. He stopped sleeping so much, which also meant that he had to do more heavy lifting, which did mean that he slept more soundly. But, less, which was the point.
It was kind of ridiculous how often Brendon got sick, though. It felt like every time he woke up he had to take a moment to assess how sore his throat was before he sat up. It was possible that traveling around in their shitty van wasn't helping. Brendon had wanted to take the old reliable jellybean, but it couldn't tow the trailer. The 12-seater was a piece of crap, but at least it could pull their stuff around.
Brendon had developed discerning taste in cough drops and decongestants, which was probably not a widely-touted positive effect of being in a touring band, but then again, life was full of surprises.
--
"Yo, Ross," Brendon said, pressing his phone up against his cheek. There was a hole in his sock. He wiggled his toe through it.
"Hey," Ryan said quietly. "Can you hear me? Spencer keeps saying the call quality on the Sidekick's bad, but I think he's full of shit."
"He is certifiably full of shit," Brendon confirmed. "You're coming through loud and clear. Also, fuck it, I love this thing. My mom flinches every time I open the screen."
"How's that going?"
"It's goin'," Brendon said. "Living at home again is weird, man. Like, I have a countdown going in my head. Five days til liftoff."
"Why didn't you stay in the apartment? Or get a new one?"
"They do not, in fact, grow on trees."
Ryan didn't laugh.
Brendon sighed. "Anyway, I'm bored and I found some money in my jeans when I did the laundry. Incidentally, chores are more fun when you're getting an allowance. I want to be twelve again. I am totally moving out again after this tour's over. So. Yes. In the meantime, I am mall-bound, my friend. Want me to pick you up?"
"I have to take my dad to his meeting again," Ryan said.
"Oh," Brendon said. "Um, like. After?"
"Yeah, I guess," Ryan said. "I'm kinda supposed to call Pete, though. So, tonight, probably."
"Oh. Well, yeah, that works. I think I want new jeans, you know? Fall tour feels like back-to-school. Or something."
"I gotta go drive my dad," Ryan said after a pause.
"Yep. Say hi to Pete for me."
Click.
"Hasta la vista, baby," Brendon said, imitating Ryan's stupid drawl.
--
"So, the exciting thing about the Nintendo Fusion tour is that I feel like a sellout, but a justified one," Brendon said to Spencer, gesturing wildly. "Like, Nintendo, that's a product I can believe in. Mario's a fucking ninja."
"He's a plumber," Spencer said dryly.
"Yeah, yeah, let's talk about the Wii. That's some bull fuckin' shit, man," Brent said. "The PS3's gonna be insane. Kick the Wii's ass."
"Yeah, if you have more money than you know what to do with," Brendon said.
"Whatever," Brent said.
"Innovation, man," Brendon said, gesturing wildly.
"You're both insane," Spencer said. "Xbox 360, seriously."
"Microsoft is going under, they are going down, in their stupid ugly pants," Brendon said.
"When did you decide about Microsoft's pants?" Ryan asked as he appeared at Brendon's elbow. "Like, I don't think the company has a uniform."
"They do," Brendon said confidently.
"Uh-huh," Spencer said, sounding skeptical.
"Where'd you go?" Brendon asked Ryan.
"I went to the 7-11 with Pete," Ryan said. "We were thirsty. They don't have root beer at the catering table."
"Oh," Brendon said, and turned back to Spencer.
--
"Hey, pay up," Brent said, flopping next to Brendon in the back of the van. They didn't need the third bench, since it was just the four of them, so they'd laid down a bunch of pillows and stuck some thermal sleeping bags in the space where the bench had been. It was pretty comfortable.
"For what?" Brendon asked, flipping his Sidekick shut.
"The Cheetos, dumbass," Brent said.
"You bought me Cheetos? Fork 'em over," Brendon said. He held out his hand, tapping his toe against the window.
"You ate them, dude, during Fall Out Boy's set," Brent said. Which, actually, was not possible, because Brendon spent all of Fall Out Boy's set having the world's most boring, inane conversation with his father.
"You're crazy," Brendon said finally.
"It's like, three bucks, man, pay up already," Brent said, irritated.
"What the fuck, I'm not paying for imaginary food, weirdo," Brendon said.
"Fine, be an asshole, then," Brent snapped. He rolled out of the van and slammed the door shut.
"Freak," Brendon said, bemused.
--
November in New Jersey should be fucking illegal, Brendon decided. No, wait, just New Jersey itself should be illegal. Always. All year round.
In any case, the November weather was the actual definition of disgusting. It was somehow managing to be both humid and freezing outside, so that Brendon's sinuses were clogged up and nasty but his throat was dry from the icy temperatures. Jersey was just a gloomy, dreary, depressing place. The only good thing about being there was that it meant the Nintendo Fusion tour was over and Brendon was going to go back to not having to watch Pete and Ryan be their stupid Pete and Ryan selves every damn second of the day.
Brendon thought he should probably be nice to Pete, even in his thoughts, honestly; without Pete he'd be at BYU right now, slogging through GEs. Still. Pete didn't write their record. Pete didn't deal with Ryan at the height of his bitchy dictator phase during the recording. Pete didn't spend countless hours learning how to actually play as a band. Pete didn't do everything. They'd worked hard and Brendon firmly believed that they deserved whatever success they managed. They started from scratch and, yeah, Pete gave them a big leg up, but that didn't really give him permission to steal Ryan.
Brendon was never, ever, in a million years going to voice that, because, wow, sound six years old much, Urie? There was some truth to it, though. It felt like Brendon never saw Ryan unless they were onstage. Ryan rode on the Fall Out Boy bus practically every day, which was shitty of him to do because it meant there was one less person in his actual band's van to take driving shifts, and Brendon could really use the sleep. When Pete was otherwise occupied, Ryan usually holed up on his own with his iPod and a book. Brendon didn't have a problem with Ryan ignoring the rest of the tour in favour of getting some time to himself, but Ryan following Pete around with big wide eyes and carefully constructed nonchalance was kind of revolting to witness. Brendon was embarrassed for Ryan. He was so obvious. And Pete should know better, anyway. Yeah, Pete was a good friend and Pete was a mentor and Pete was great and all that, but at the end of the day, he was their boss, and it was honestly a little creepy that he spent all his time with Ryan.
The fact of the matter was that Pete gave Ryan a record deal but Brendon had given him a fucking home when Ryan'd had to move out of his father's house and his mother had flaked out for the millionth time. It was hard to not take it personally. They were supposed to be in it together, the four of them, and Ryan was just being an asshole.
--
Seven days off.
They got seven glorious, delightful, incredible days off from work of any kind. Seven days where they only had to see each other if they wanted to. They only had to play music if they wanted to. Seven days was a whole entire week, seriously.
There were two weeks between the last Nintendo Fusion date in Jersey and the first date with Forgive Durden (the "baby tour", Brent called it; could you really count a six-show tour as an actual tour? Brendon didn't think so, and Brent agreed with him, but Spencer and Ryan were insisting on referring to it as their third tour, which, whatever, fine), but you had to figure a day and half to get back to Vegas, and then write off the last night before the first show as a loss because of packing and nerves and all that shit, and then a few days to actually practice because they had a million more tours to plan and if they didn't do the work it was only going to fuck them over in the end.
But still. Seven days.
--
Brendon had planned on sleeping for approximately twenty-six hours straight, but his Sidekick woke him up, ringing shrilly. Note to self: buy new ringtones, because the default ones suck, Brendon thought to himself. He struggled upright blearily, hitting Answer before he even glanced at the screen.
"Haaaahh?" he mumbled. Close enough to 'hello'.
"Brendon," Ryan said.
"Hnn."
"Brendon, I need you to come pick me up."
"Wha?" Brendon snuffled, scrubbing at his face. "Huh? What?"
"I'm at the hospital," Ryan said impatiently. "My dad totaled the car. I'm stuck here. He's been admitted. You have to come get me."
"Spencer," Brendon said. He was working his way up to actual sentences. It was going to take a while, probably.
"No, he's got family shit," Ryan said. "Just come get me already."
He hung up. Brendon snarled at him and threw his Sidekick on his bed. It bounced and flipped itself open cheerfully.
"Fuuuuuuuck," Brendon moaned. He stumbled to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water before putting on a pair of Ryan's gross old basketball shorts and shrugging into a hoodie.
Driving to the hospital half-asleep was probably not the best plan, but it was the kind of shit you were supposed to do for your family.
--
Brendon leaned on the horn for the fifth time. "I am not getting out of this fucking car," he said to himself, and hit the horn again. Ryan, sitting barely thirty yards away on a bench with his legs drawn up under him, engrossed in his Sidekick and listening to his iPod, didn't look up. Of course not. Brendon smacked his head on the steering wheel a couple times for good measure before giving up and calling Ryan. He got some vindictive pleasure out of watching Ryan jump in surprise. He didn't actually answer the call, just grabbed his duffel bag from the ground at his feet and started trudging towards the van.
"So," Brendon said once Ryan had settled into the passenger seat. Ryan was taking his time meticulously wrapping his headphones' cord around his iPod.
"I'm hungry. Let's go to Port of Subs," Ryan said, lifting his head, leaning it against the window.
"Uh, sure," Brendon said. "Are you -- "
"I'm fine," Ryan said shortly. "His license got revoked but he's been driving anyway. Apparently. And today he decided to add bourbon to the commute. He plowed into a wall in some parking garage off the Strip. Nobody else got hurt but he's pretty banged up. I don't think he'll be out anytime soon."
"Did you get a hold of your mom?" Brendon asked after a pause.
Ryan snorted. "What do you think?"
"I'm sorry, man," Brendon said, reaching over to rub Ryan's shoulder. Ryan shrugged him off.
"It's just getting boring at this point, honestly," Ryan said, keeping his voice flat.
"You're so full of shit," Brendon said.
"Fuck off," Ryan snapped. He rubbed at his temples, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the dash. "God, I just want to get back on the road."
"Ten days," Brendon said helpfully. "Forgive Durden, man, it's gonna be a good time. Headlining. We don't have to end sets with introductions!"
"You all right if I stay with you until we get going?" Ryan asked, not looking at him.
"Yeah, sure, of course, mi casa, su casa, all that," Brendon said quickly. "You got everything you need in your bag?"
"Yeah," Ryan said. He sat up briefly to fold his arms onto the dashboard and then rest his cheek against his forearms. Brendon bit his lip and almost ran a red, watching Ryan try to keep himself together.
--
Being back on the road was something like relief. It felt like coming home, almost; but in a different way. Brendon wondered if the rest of his life was going to be like this, divided always between recording-touring-home, only ever getting to have one at a time, always missing the other two, always wanting whichever was farthest away.
It was four in the morning and Brendon couldn't sleep. It was the night before the baby tour's start, and they'd splurged on an unscheduled hotel stay. Brendon and Ryan were sharing a room, and two to a room was something of an unbelievable luxury. It was surprising he and Ryan were managing to share a room, after Ryan ended up spending the whole break at Brendon's apartment, but Brendon wasn't going to look that particular gift horse in the ass. Or however the saying went. Brendon was physically too tired to sleep. He'd spent most of the break napping, leaving Ryan to his own devices, and he still wasn't caught up on his sleep.
Anyway. Brendon blinked hard, staring at the ceiling. He couldn't even keep his eyes closed, so he was just lying there, listening to Ryan snuffle quietly, his noises too soft to be actual snores. Ryan had been a little subdued around Brendon, but it was the middle of winter and they were still driving a shitty van around and getting lost what felt like every ten minutes, still making everything up as they went along, and that probably wasn't helping his mood. He'd been happy enough back in Summerlin, letting Brendon hug him and invade his personal space whenever it was just the two of them hanging out in Brendon's apartment. Some part of Brendon wanted to know why, between Ryan's dad's house and Brendon's new and slightly nicer -- but still pretty sketchy -- apartment, they had stuck with Brendon's apartment, but he figured it was probably better to just not ask.
Suddenly, Brendon's Sidekick buzzed on the nightstand between the beds. Ryan twitched in his sleep but didn't sit up. Brendon glanced at the screen, sliding the phone close enough to read the screen. Pete was IMing him.
You up?
Y, Brendon sent after a moment's hesitation.
Get to the hotel ok. Brendon sighed, turning as far as he could away from Ryan, tethered by the cord.
Y.
How's ryan.
Were all doing good, Brendon sent pointedly, wincing a little at his own childishness. Pete had a right to know how they were doing. How Ryan was doing.
Hang in there.im here if you want to talk, Pete sent. Brendon bit his lip.
K, he sent.
Then, after another pause, Thanks. Brendon signed out of AIM quickly to avoid talking any more with Pete. He sighed heavily and crawled out of bed, bundled up, and shuffled down to the van, where he mummified himself in a thermal sleeping bag and tried to drift off to sleep through sheer force of will.
--
Notes - Part One - Part Two - Part Three