Photography Verse Part One- Cyanotype i
Before there was ever anything else, there were his parents. His parents and Ryan.
His earliest memory is of a splash of brilliant blue sky floating past him as he’s being pushed down in a sandbox by a hazy bully, this scrawny kid rushing to help him up before his mom could even get off the bench five feet away.
This is how he met Ryan.
Their roles would reverse slowly over the years, but this first instance seared itself into his mind. Spencer would be forever trying to thank this stranger who would come to be as close as family - possibly closer.
That first day in the park would become the second, third - fourth - fifth - forever. Ryan was smaller but a year older, those numbers a gulf between them that didn’t really matter.
*
They grew up with and into each other. Spencer learned to carefully ignore blue and black and purple phantoms marked on Ryan and Ryan learned to trust Spencer to keep all his secrets.
Music pulsed like a second heart beat (the heart is nature’s drum - keeping everything in time) inside of him as he grew older: his fingers itching for a rhythm, his ears picking out layers and patterns in sounds jumbled together, his eyes watching the subtle movements around him. It rolled and roiled into his first drum set when he was twelve. He was never more relieved or euphoric in his life.
Ryan felt the music too. Spencer isn’t sure if they would (could) have been such close friends if music had passed by Ryan’s scope of interest.
Ryan parleyed the beats into observations, words and chords and E flat. The words were graceful and vicious, lancing through every topic they touched on. The chords ran through you and hooked you like a worm, slithering inside your bone marrow. At least, that’s how it was for Spencer.
Spencer isn’t sure when the close-like-family tie turned into something else, but he knows it was after middle school and before they started their first band.
If he wanted to, he could probably trace it to one of the first major alcohol poisoning scares Ryan’s dad went through.
He could, but he won’t.
(Ryan looked so brittle and small buried beneath the covers of the sleeping bag Spencer kept for him. Spencer wants to hold Ryan but he doesn’t know why.)
*
Summer League is just them, getting used to making covers of music instead of just listening to it. They’ve gone a long way from going to a Backstreet Boys concert at ten and eleven to Blink covers at sixteen and seventeen. Trevor and Brent were the only ones they told about it at first. Las Vegas is hell for local music trying to make it.
It was a way of proving to themselves that they could work together, Siamese twin in-sync with each other and not implode.
Brent though. Brent changed everything, was the catalyst for all that he would come to not be able to cope with.
Ryan’s lyrics came back to haunt Spencer: glitzy with razor edged truth. Truths too close for comfort. Truths Ryan had trusted Spencer to clamp down on; provide band aids to gaping chest wounds. It was a good thing they were too honest for Ryan to be able to say them, let out all the demons lurking in his mind and heart and soul.
Ryan’s voice was not made for singing - too throaty to be soothing, too high to be auditorily pleasing.
*
Brent went to another school than Spencer, than Ryan. He has this Mormon friend who had the perfect foundation for rhythm guitar, who had been learning about music forever, he told them. Ryan thought they could use a rhythm guitarist to even out the sound a little. It couldn’t hurt to let Brent’s friend tag along to a practice one time.
Brent brought this dorky Mormon kid to practice one day. Ryan cocked his head to side subtly, analyzing. Spencer reserved judgment, waited for Ryan’s litmus test results.
They had him learning the chords as he went. Ryan started to sing as best he could. But this kid - Brendon. Brendon started singing backup, since no one had said he couldn’t. When Spencer realized what was going on - the improvement - he stopped.
The song’s backbone collapsed. Brent kept the bass going weakly, waiting.
Ryan had turned and his eyes were indiscernibly fixed on Brendon. Or on the wall calendar a few feet away from Brendon. Spencer recognized that look. He had been on the business end of that gaze many times over the trickle of years past, and each time Ryan had won. It was the look Ryan got when he wanted something and was about to go for the jugular. Spencer doubted anyone else in the room would know what that look meant.
Brent had let the weak bass line go at this point and had let the bass hang by the strap on him, opting instead to watch the tableau unfold before him. He stayed silent along with Spencer as Ryan queried Brendon about his voice. Spencer wondered what Brent was thinking. It wouldn’t be the last time.
When Ryan was done, Brendon started singing by himself when they started back up. Spencer caught Brent smirking to himself, turned away from Ryan out of the corner of his eye. Spencer was smiling slightly, but he could bet their reasons were different. Spencer drummed their backbone, their heart beat back up.
*
When Ryan gained a vocal smokescreen, he took more risks with lyrical content. When his girlfriend cheated on and broke up with him, sarcastic observations on love and life, with his dad busy drinking himself into an early grave - all of this was fuel to his creative fire.
Spencer was there to turn vague chords and wrenching words into song - or so he thought.
It was Brendon who Ryan turned to when he wanted to create songs. It was Brendon who Ryan was spending time with so Brendon could understand how to sing the words with the right inflection.
Practice sessions went as well as they ever had, but now there were four personalities to juggle instead of three.
When Brendon was kicked out of his parents’ house, Spencer felt a pang of sympathy. Spencer helped as best he could, they all did. But this caused Ryan to spend even more time with Brendon, at his new crappy apartment.
If he wanted to, he could trace it (SpencerandRyan instead of Spencer and Ryan) to this near breaking point he could sense but not see.
He could, but he won’t.
(Ryan’s sleeping bag is empty. Spencer knows that Ryan is at Brendon’s apartment. Spencer knows what jealousy is. Denial as well.)
And then Ryan stepped up his internet-stalking of Pete Wentz. And then Pete Wentz im’d Ryan, asking for demos, pictures, all sorts of things Spencer feels nervy and jumbled about. And then and then and then and then. And then Panic! At the Disco has a record deal. Has to record an album in Maryland, of all places. Something in Spencer unfurls and contracts endlessly when he hears this.
*
Brent is handling RyanandBrendon as well as Spencer is, which tells Spencer something.
They talk about it in vague, couched phrasing. Spencer knows it wouldn’t have been hard for Brent, or anyone who isn’t Spencer or Ryan, apparently, to sense something about SpencerandRyan, but it comes as a surprise for Spencer that Brent would fall for this dorky ex Mormon kid with golden vocal chords. They become better friends after this.
Maryland is a clammy blur. Spencer isn’t sure he can believe they finished Fever on time.
Their faces are plastered on magazines, the internet and MTV, a confusing tornado that Spencer can’t make sense of.
*
Then it’s a hop, skip and a jump to touring with The Academy Is… who are a whirlwind of ambition, alcohol, and attractiveness.
It’s the alcohol that keeps Ryan on their own bus and Brendon to TAI’s for poker games with the band and tech crew where rumncokes and harder drink flows freely.
Spencer has no idea where Brent is when he isn’t onstage these days.
Spencer stays with Ryan, because. Because they came first. Because Spencer doesn’t know how not to be there for Ryan. Because it’s the best quality time they’ve had together in months. Because Spencer doesn’t have the taste for booze either. Because.
Ryan, to his credit, is apologetic that they’ve grown apart. They rewatch their favorite movies, saying the lines to each other. They play Blackjack. They even talk. Spencer feels like he’s gaining a new friend instead of relearning an old one. He refuses to let jealousy get to him. He was never a thirteen year old girl and he won’t start acting like one now.
It’s had an achingly slow build that made Spencer feel like he was being submerged in quicksand. But it finally slip slide tilts into something else entirely one night after a show when Brendon was with TAI and Brent had made himself sparse.
They were curled up watching Moulin Rouge on the couch. Ryan was breathing into Spencer’s neck. Their legs were intertwined like vines. Their arms were around each other. Ryan’s breathing was calm and even until he jerked; causing one of his legs to go further between Spencer’s and his arms away from Spencer’s back.
By the time Spencer could blink, Ryan was in the bunk area. He blinked again, agitation percolating.
He stopped the movie; got off the couch.
When he pulled back the curtain, Ryan was standing turned away from him, completely still. Spencer reached out to touch Ryan’s shoulder and Ryan understandably flinched.
“What’s wrong?” he wants to know now, instead of all the times Ryan hasn’t let him ask.
Ryan turned to him. “I can’t do that to you.”
This didn’t make any sense that Spencer wanted to have so he went to hug him. Ryan made to stop him but Spencer moved faster.
Spencer felt Ryan, or rather what Ryan meant, hot against his stomach.
“We’re too close for this to end well. You and your family help me so much; I can’t ask that of you all. It’s too selfish.” Ryan was saying this foolishness distantly, but Spencer was lost in a fog of joy.
Spencer came back to himself and narrowed his eyes. Said “That was the most ridiculous thing you have ever said. Including the time you said the ukulele was the perfect instrument” with as straight a face as he could manage.
Spencer said that and kissed Ryan, because even more ridiculous things were starting to be said.
Spencer kissed Ryan wetly and determinedly and Ryan kissed him like a man dying of thirst, all hands and teeth and tongue and then there was rubbing and moaning and then they stumbled into Spencer’s bunk.
Ryan’s pants were bunched up past his knobby knees. Spencer settled over him and shimmied down Ryan’s body to wrap his lips around Ryan and licked and sucked until Ryan was gibbering senselessly about God and please and yes and making sounds that drove Spencer crazy.
He wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, but figured he could learn along the way. Ryan gave him warning and he decided to swallow. It would make cleaning up easier, at least. And then he was, for what felt like forever. Spencer snaked up to Ryan’s face and Ryan slid his hand down around Spencer.
He blanks out after that and comes back when Ryan is licking Spencer’s come off of his hand. Spencer buries his face in Ryan’s neck, breathing in the scent of his life back in Vegas. Kisses the point where collar bone and shoulder meet.
“I’ve wanted to do that with you since I was fourteen. We can make this work. Trust me.” he tells Ryan. He’s never told Ryan to trust him before. It was always implied, like not talking about why Ryan favored long sleeves for that eight year stretch before high school.
Spencer has enough sense to pull the curtain closed.
*
In the morning, Ryan is curled against him protectively and he’s somehow between the wall and Ryan. He blinks and it’s a few hours brighter and Ryan is out of sight.
He finds new clothes from his duffel and wanders out to the ‘kitchen’ area.
Brent has smirking crows’ feet around his eyes. Brendon is blinking slowly, nursing a glass of water. He scowls, because Ryan has sold someone else’s soul because he’s managed to find some real bacon to cook on their rickety stove. Spencer chuckles.
“So who dragged your hung-over ass back to the bus this time?” Brent snips.
Brendon rolls his eyes. “The most awesome and glorious Jonathan Jacob Walker. And his close associate Thomas Conrad.” he says with mocking haughtiness, and then winces at the smell of fat frying.
They fall into a rhythm after that.
*
Brent doesn’t say anything because he’s not around most of the time, Brendon doesn’t exactly notice because he’s onstage or with TAI or hung-over from being with TAI, and so Ryan and Spencer explore each other’s bodies only when they’re alone on the bus because they can finally have this, whatever that is becoming. But it’s this winking secret they all keep, coiling around them like sunshine in the ether.
Spencer is walking around a venue one day and turns a corner before he realizes it was a mistake. It was a mistake because Brent has Brendon pinned to a wall, kissing him and Brendon is enthusiastically wrapped around him like a spider monkey. A spider monkey on crack.
Spencer turns around before he has to face getting an eyeful of whatever Brendon is doing with his hands for the rest of his natural life. He allows himself to fist pump out of a sense of victory.
Europe is a brisk, summery flash before his eyes with cigarette smoke and strange accents curling past him. Ryan gradually finds all the places on Spencer’s body that have them both gasping and arching into each other.
Spencer should know by now that optimism is for fools.
*
Brent turns dour in photo shoots and interviews. He gets quiet and anxious. If it were because of drink, Spencer would know what to do, but he’s never had to deal with problems that were intrinsic. Brent’s always been a private person, didn’t even have a MySpace when those meant something other than high school bs, didn’t have that many friends either.
But then he starts turning up late for practice. Late for sound checks. Late for shows. Then not at shows at all. They scramble and TAI bails them out by loaning them a guitar tech, Brendon’s Jon Walker.
Spencer grinds his teeth now. Maybe he picked it up from the few times Ryan told him about, when his father was angry instead of stressed. At any rate, his jaw hurts and nothing makes sense and he’s at his wits’ end because he’s the one who’s dealing with it.
Ryan is walking on eggshells and it’s exactly like that week in Ryan’s seventh grade when his father thought he was going to be fired. Spencer hates Ryan having to act like that.
But Brendon. Brendon looks like a kicked puppy, gets mean and vicious and won’t even speak, will only sing. Spencer hates that Brendon is acting like that even more, because this was a way for them to escape all the horrific things in Vegas, start fresh.
And then Brent doesn’t step off the plane. And he didn’t get on it either.
Spencer calls him, puts it on speakerphone.
Spencer calls him because Brendon won’t talk and Ryan never knew how to talk with Brent about anything of depth and Spencer and Brent got each other, were rooting for each other and it’s all muddled in his head.
He has Pete call Jon, because he can’t deal with any of this right now.
Jon flies out and it’s like a balm has been rubbed into all of them. Brendon becomes less angry, Ryan has some of that tensions Spencer hasn’t been able to massage out of his shoulders drip off. Spencer stops grinding his teeth.
The tour is salvaged and they all sleep easier.
*
Then.
Ryan gets a call, has to fly back to Vegas for his dad’s funeral. Spencer goes with him.
There is lying about what a great person Ryan’s father was, as if everyone there didn’t know he was a mean drunk. Ryan apathetically drops the dirt into the grave.
Ryan has a meeting with lawyers and comes back paler than when he left. He primly takes off his hat and coat and gloves and then marches into the hotel suite’s bathroom where he throws all of what little food he managed to eat that morning before the flight up in the toilet. He flushes and then gargles with Listerine.
Spencer watches him with guarded eyes. He’s always waiting.
When he’s composed himself, Ryan opens the brief case he brought back with him.
He sets the papers on the table, motions for Spencer to come over.
Spencer reads the legalese documents with words he can’t pronounce on a good day, looks closely at the rich paper between his fingers. He blinks, willing the words to change into anything else.
It’s a birth certificate. It’s his birth certificate, but his parents’ names aren’t on it. Instead, Ryan’s are.
“Brothers.” Ryan says it like a death sentence.
Spencer makes it five seconds before he rushes to the bathroom to throw up like Ryan did. When he’s done, Ryan hands him the Listerine.
“We’re not going to hold a press conference. We’re not going to tell anyone, actually.” Ryan is telling him. Ryan’s eyes are imperceptibly fixed on him. Or on the painting several feet away from Spencer. Spencer feels his stomach drop out under him. He knows that look. He didn’t win when Ryan wanted the ice cream cone Spencer had, or the PS2 controller or a Backstreet Boys concert ticket or Coke Zero and he knows he won’t win now.
“These papers say the Smiths don’t know where you came from exactly, don’t know the family that put you up for adoption in the first place. But other than that, no one knows anything.” Ryan tells him.
Spencer wants to say ‘but I am a Smith’, wants to say a lot of things. Wants to shout and rant and yell and throw things. However, yelling won’t solve the problem they in part caused with an absent … mother and a dead, abusive father by years of secrets and legal red tape and growing up as best friends who love each other.
The practical part of him knows they can’t tell their band, because Brendon knows in an offhand sort of way and Jon isn’t stupid enough to miss carefully placed hickies before stage makeup can hide them.
He grimaces, thinking of all that they’ve done with each other.
The practical part of him kicks in again moments later. They can’t stop their old relationship, not without a reason why, one that they could tell Brendon and Jon and have them believe it.
“We can’t just stop making out while Jon and Brendon pretend to watch the OC, because they’ll want to know why we’ve broken up and there will be Talks About How This Could Ruin The Band which Brendon will gleefully go on and on about.” Ryan continues. Spencer idly wonders if mind reading is now an inherited trait he has.
He manages to batter down the roll of nausea that threatens to bowl him over at this thought.
The flight took most of the morning, and the funeral took the rest of the day. The lawyers ate up what there was left of the evening. Spencer would be exhausted if this were within spitting distance of a normal trip. But now, with all of this slipping around them like an anaconda, he feels bone tired. He can guess Ryan feels it even more.
He’s in his night clothes and goes to one of the beds. Ryan puts the papers back into the briefcase. Spencer wants to burn everything in it. Ryan grabs some things from his bag and goes to change in the bathroom. Spencer pulls back the covers, gets in.
Ryan comes back out, gets in the other bed after turning off the lights.
They sleep uneasily.
*
In the middle of the night, Spencer wakes up to realize Ryan is in the bed with him, arms curled around him, crying softly, tears and snot and spit getting their clothes and sheets wet. Spencer rubs at Ryan’s back, ignoring the way his face gets wet even though Ryan isn’t at eye level enough to face him.
In the morning, they wake up in the harsh light of filtered day through green curtains tangled together in legs and sheets and blankets, dried tears and snot clinging to them. Spencer feels morning wood, his own and Ryan’s. Ryan looks at him clearly as he jerks off, daring Spencer to push him away in any shape or form.
Spencer takes a deep breath. He slides of out the bed, snatches some of his clean clothes from his bag and goes to take a shower. It feels like admitting defeat, both when he runs from Ryan and when he jerks off under the lukewarm water.
When he gets out fully dressed, Ryan looks immaculate.
They pack and spend the day at their old haunts. Pop into a music store. Eat bad tacos for a lite lunch. The highlight of the day is a strained early dinner they have at Spencer’s parents’ house.
Spencer’s … mother is being maternal in the face of tragedy, Spencer’s … father is doing the best he can. His sisters are being chipper and jovial and snotty brats, bless them. Ryan is tense and vaguely snappish and Spencer himself is tinged with the edges of hysteria.
*
Compared to those two days, a red eye to O’Hare is a trip to Disney World.
The flight to O’Hare seems unnaturally long and nerve rackingly tedious. The flight attendants are militantly cheerful. Spencer moves his jaw because his ears are popping. Ryan hands him a stick of their favorite gum. He takes it unthinkingly, but the brush of fingers shocks him. The curl of unease about favorite, shared flavors stays with him even after his ears stop pulsing from the change in air pressure.
Spencer starts cataloguing all of their similarities and differences, interrogating himself. As if any of this were his and Ryan’s to be accountable for.
He feels like a vicious, wanted killer leaving the airport.
*
Part One- Cyanotype ii