fic: So Perfectly Placed
So Perfectly Placed
Brendon/OFC, Brendon/Ryan
PG-13 // ~2000 words (every one of them patently untrue)
Thanks so much to everyone on my f-list who urged me to post this, and a special thank you to Heyjey, tip_painter, for the speedy beta.
i.
In the not too distant future, Brendon Urie caves to his parents’ pressures and gets married.
Her name is Julia. She’s a sweet girl who his parents set him up with after he brings home yet another tattooed, pierced, bottle-blond internet-vixen. Julia is brunette, Mormon, a virgin, and studying to become an interior decorator. He proposes six months into their relationship and she gets pregnant on the honeymoon.
She never does complete her diploma.
ii.
Brendon and Julia have three daughters.
Julia stays home with them to raise her children herself: wipe their snotty noses, help them with their homework, and pick up after them when they refuse to take their toys out of the living room. They could certainly afford a nanny, but Julia is an old-fashioned girl who hates the idea of someone else rearing her children. (She'd home-school them, too, if she didn't know that the best private schools will mean so much more on a college application.)
Brendon gallivants across the globe with his band, playing shows from New York to Tokyo to Johannesburg. He sends post cards from each new city he visits, though, and always remembers to bring home gifts for each of his girls when he gets off tour.
Sometimes Julia calls him when the girls are doing something particularly adorable and Brendon will drop whatever he’s doing to participate. She’ll put him on speakerphone as their daughters strut down the ‘Milan runway’ of the entrance hallway in ‘haut-couture’ fashions pulled off hangers in their mother’s closet. And even though Brendon is halfway around the world and can’t see them, at least they can laugh together as a family.
It’s maybe a selfish thought, but Julia sincerely hopes Brendon understands what he’s missing.
iii.
They grow apart.
Brendon is never home and, at thirty-something, Julia’s already lost herself in this thing called motherhood. It feels like she's no longer her own person, like she no longer has any control or direction over her own life. Brendon doesn’t understand; he thinks she’s just lonely and he’s guilty because somewhere along the line (in Crete at 12:04 am on a private hotel beach) he fell in love with someone else.
Julia doesn’t know yet, nor does she know how the sprawling summer home in Malibu Brendon's conscience purchases is going to solve any of their problems. But then one weekend, when the girls are camping with her sister-in-law’s family, she goes down to see it. It’s a beautiful estate. The house is smaller than their property in North Vegas, but it backs directly onto the beach, and when the window is open she can hear the soothing sound of breaking waves from the master bedroom. Yes, it certainly is a beautiful house.
It's also entirely empty.
Julia sends the girls to spend a couple of weeks with her parents in Utah and sets to work. Breathing life into this house is like filling her own lungs. She feels useful again - like she has more to offer the world than a warm breast and soothing lullaby. She pulls out her decade-old course books and arranges and rearranges until the house looks like something out of a magazine. Her favourite room is the study: the elegant rich woods of the paneling, the real Persian rug, and the regency-era vase that sits upon the table by the door below the antique gilded mirror.
iv.
Brendon’s supposed to be coming home in a few weeks and Julia's excited for him to see her handiwork, what she's done with his gift. But Brendon comes home with walls in his eyes and a smile on his lips that’s as fake as the dye in their Malibu neighbours’ hair. He walks around as if in a trance for a couple of days before approaching her one afternoon with his hands shaking, and Julia’s heart jumps into her throat.
Brendon wants a divorce.
Brendon’s having an affair.
She knows him, Brendon's lover. Him. Julia had always liked Ryan Ross. He was kind and sarcastic and would roll his eyes with her whenever Brendon did something particularly ridiculous. And yet somehow this man with the body of a twig and the morals of a streetwalker has stolen her husband.
She nods frigidly as Brendon cries into her arms, begging her forgiveness and telling her she has every right to hate him. And she does. She knows she does. In the morning when Brendon wakes up, he finds his drawers empty and his suitcases waiting for him by the door.
v.
Julia gives her lawyers very strict instructions: take everything.
Everything Brendon’s ever had, anything he’s ever held dear. She wants the girls. She wants the houses. She wants the cars, the furniture, the investments, the fucking clothes off Brendon’s back if she can get them. She wants her payment in full (and with interest) for giving up her heart, her dreams, the best goddamn years of her life to some ungrateful, cock-sucking son of a bitch and she doesn’t care, damn it. He should be suffering like she’s suffering. He should be miserable in a gutter somewhere for what he’s done, not lying in the caring arms of his lover in a penthouse apartment.
She cries herself to sleep at least three times a week for a month, and then often enough after that anyhow. Her mother flies out from Utah to help take care of the girls, although it’s not as though Julia needs the extra help with Brendon’s family constantly flooding the house. It’s a hollow comfort that they’ve taken her side.
The courts, however…
Brendon fights her tooth and nail for right to see his kids. Joint custody, he avers through gritted teeth and the finest lawyers money can buy. The judge awards Julia sixty percent of their assets and Brendon custody rights (a month during the school break and alternate holidays); apparently Brendon’s infidelity may make him a despicable person but not necessarily an unfit parent. The judge also awards Julia the family home in Vegas.
Brendon gets the house in Malibu.
vi.
Brendon’s kind enough to let a suitable amount of time pass before he sends out the invitations. He and Ryan are having a commitment ceremony for their friends and family in America before they jet off to England to get married.
Brendon actually shows up at her door the day after Julia hears the news from Kara. He’d like the girls to be there, he says, if not at his wedding, then at least at the commitment ceremony. And if she tries to deny him this, he’ll file an injunction to get it.
Julia doesn’t deny him.
She takes the girls to Malibu herself. She remembers her own wedding, how she didn’t even have time to think about her own hunger in the hubbub before the ceremony, let alone that of three other mouths. Plus, Brendon’s flying out with his ‘fiancée’ directly afterward; this only makes sense, she tells herself. She’s not here to see if Brendon’s really happier with another man, or to compare the size of the smile on his face to her own wedding photos.
The ceremony will be conducted on the beach behind the house as the sun sets over the water. When Julia drops off the girls, Brendon’s already dressed. He looks younger than she remembered in his khaki-coloured dress pants, flip-flops, and a loose white shirt. Happier too.
He’s already retreating with the girls up the front stairs when he turns back and invites her in. And maybe it’s out of courtesy or maybe he wants to rub his happiness in her face just a little bit more (or maybe, maybe part of him still treasures her friendship and would give anything to have it back), but Julia declines for only one reason: she’s not dressed. It isn’t an extremely formal function but she’d still look out of place in her mom jeans, ragged t-shirt and messy hair and… And she’d never let Ryan see her like this. Not when she’s certain that he’s somewhere inside powdering his face and agonizing over the tiniest strand of hair out of place.
She won’t let Ryan Ross pity her.
vii.
Julia paces her hotel room for a few minutes when she gets back before deciding to go out for dinner. She showers, dresses in that little black number which makes her feel like she's twenty-one again, and spends an hour perfecting her make-up and hair.
She chooses the ritziest restaurant she can find and when the host asks, she looks him straight in the eye and says, table for one. She flirts with the waiter at the table, sips on her over-priced white wine, and watches the sunset alone.
viii.
Fifteen minutes before the arranged pick-up time, she pulls her car over a block from their - no, Brendon’s - house to retouch her hair and reapply her lipstick and watch the clock tick until it’s fifteen minutes after. When she pulls into the driveway, however, her ex-husband and children are nowhere in sight.
The door is open, so she lets herself in. She can hear the swell of music and the chatter of excited partygoers. She’s about to turn around and go back to her car when a voice calls out to her from inside the study.
Ryan.
He looks immaculate, smiles at her and jokes about having to escape from all of the well-wishers for a just minute to himself. He acts like maybe they’re still friends, like it was only yesterday he was sitting beside her at the Atlantic Records brunch catching her eye and grinning as her - his? Their? - husband hung twin carrot sticks from the sides of his mouth and pretended to be some sort of monster as the girls shrieked in terror and delight.
Then Julia spots the shards of porcelain on the floor. Her eyes dart to the table by the door and the empty space between it and the mirror. That vase, what happened to it? she asks. Ryan blushes and explains how he was waiting in here before the ceremony, pacing because of his nerves, and tripped on the corner of the rug. Julia isn't sure why, but she feels something inside her go numb at that.
And then it cracks.
ix.
Brendon and the girls are outside. Julia brushes right past them as she runs out of the house and down the steps, out to the beach, tears in her eyes which she refuses to let them see.
The waves crest and break angrily against the shore. Julia sheds her sandals and dips her feet into the refreshingly cold water. She closes her eyes and wades out until she has to hold up the hem of her skirt to keep it from soaking through.
She knows Brendon is standing on the beach behind her even before he calls out to her. To be honest, Julia has no idea what she’s doing herself, so she can hardly answer the question when he asks. She merely turns around to see Brendon there, staring at her, handsome and earnest. Their girls are a few yards further back, standing with Ryan who has a hand on one of their shoulders and is looking at her with the last emotion she ever wanted to see from him glassing over his eyes.
Julia tells Ryan to take the kids inside.
Ryan’s eyes widen and he looks to Brendon, but Brendon nods so Ryan takes the youngest by the hand and shepherds the girls away just as Brendon is kicking off his sandals and wading into the water himself.
He broke my vase, she tells him as Brendon wraps his strong arms around her. You let him break my vase.
And there isn’t anything Brendon can say to comfort her, only squeeze her a little more tightly to his chest. Because the way Julia’s saying vase sounds a lot more like heart, and both claims he knows to be true.
Story loosely based on (read: blatantly ripped off) the song Death of an Interior Decorator by Death Cab for Cutie.
Brendon/OFC, Brendon/Ryan
PG-13 // ~2000 words (every one of them patently untrue)
Thanks so much to everyone on my f-list who urged me to post this, and a special thank you to Heyjey, tip_painter, for the speedy beta.
i.
In the not too distant future, Brendon Urie caves to his parents’ pressures and gets married.
Her name is Julia. She’s a sweet girl who his parents set him up with after he brings home yet another tattooed, pierced, bottle-blond internet-vixen. Julia is brunette, Mormon, a virgin, and studying to become an interior decorator. He proposes six months into their relationship and she gets pregnant on the honeymoon.
She never does complete her diploma.
ii.
Brendon and Julia have three daughters.
Julia stays home with them to raise her children herself: wipe their snotty noses, help them with their homework, and pick up after them when they refuse to take their toys out of the living room. They could certainly afford a nanny, but Julia is an old-fashioned girl who hates the idea of someone else rearing her children. (She'd home-school them, too, if she didn't know that the best private schools will mean so much more on a college application.)
Brendon gallivants across the globe with his band, playing shows from New York to Tokyo to Johannesburg. He sends post cards from each new city he visits, though, and always remembers to bring home gifts for each of his girls when he gets off tour.
Sometimes Julia calls him when the girls are doing something particularly adorable and Brendon will drop whatever he’s doing to participate. She’ll put him on speakerphone as their daughters strut down the ‘Milan runway’ of the entrance hallway in ‘haut-couture’ fashions pulled off hangers in their mother’s closet. And even though Brendon is halfway around the world and can’t see them, at least they can laugh together as a family.
It’s maybe a selfish thought, but Julia sincerely hopes Brendon understands what he’s missing.
iii.
They grow apart.
Brendon is never home and, at thirty-something, Julia’s already lost herself in this thing called motherhood. It feels like she's no longer her own person, like she no longer has any control or direction over her own life. Brendon doesn’t understand; he thinks she’s just lonely and he’s guilty because somewhere along the line (in Crete at 12:04 am on a private hotel beach) he fell in love with someone else.
Julia doesn’t know yet, nor does she know how the sprawling summer home in Malibu Brendon's conscience purchases is going to solve any of their problems. But then one weekend, when the girls are camping with her sister-in-law’s family, she goes down to see it. It’s a beautiful estate. The house is smaller than their property in North Vegas, but it backs directly onto the beach, and when the window is open she can hear the soothing sound of breaking waves from the master bedroom. Yes, it certainly is a beautiful house.
It's also entirely empty.
Julia sends the girls to spend a couple of weeks with her parents in Utah and sets to work. Breathing life into this house is like filling her own lungs. She feels useful again - like she has more to offer the world than a warm breast and soothing lullaby. She pulls out her decade-old course books and arranges and rearranges until the house looks like something out of a magazine. Her favourite room is the study: the elegant rich woods of the paneling, the real Persian rug, and the regency-era vase that sits upon the table by the door below the antique gilded mirror.
iv.
Brendon’s supposed to be coming home in a few weeks and Julia's excited for him to see her handiwork, what she's done with his gift. But Brendon comes home with walls in his eyes and a smile on his lips that’s as fake as the dye in their Malibu neighbours’ hair. He walks around as if in a trance for a couple of days before approaching her one afternoon with his hands shaking, and Julia’s heart jumps into her throat.
Brendon wants a divorce.
Brendon’s having an affair.
She knows him, Brendon's lover. Him. Julia had always liked Ryan Ross. He was kind and sarcastic and would roll his eyes with her whenever Brendon did something particularly ridiculous. And yet somehow this man with the body of a twig and the morals of a streetwalker has stolen her husband.
She nods frigidly as Brendon cries into her arms, begging her forgiveness and telling her she has every right to hate him. And she does. She knows she does. In the morning when Brendon wakes up, he finds his drawers empty and his suitcases waiting for him by the door.
v.
Julia gives her lawyers very strict instructions: take everything.
Everything Brendon’s ever had, anything he’s ever held dear. She wants the girls. She wants the houses. She wants the cars, the furniture, the investments, the fucking clothes off Brendon’s back if she can get them. She wants her payment in full (and with interest) for giving up her heart, her dreams, the best goddamn years of her life to some ungrateful, cock-sucking son of a bitch and she doesn’t care, damn it. He should be suffering like she’s suffering. He should be miserable in a gutter somewhere for what he’s done, not lying in the caring arms of his lover in a penthouse apartment.
She cries herself to sleep at least three times a week for a month, and then often enough after that anyhow. Her mother flies out from Utah to help take care of the girls, although it’s not as though Julia needs the extra help with Brendon’s family constantly flooding the house. It’s a hollow comfort that they’ve taken her side.
The courts, however…
Brendon fights her tooth and nail for right to see his kids. Joint custody, he avers through gritted teeth and the finest lawyers money can buy. The judge awards Julia sixty percent of their assets and Brendon custody rights (a month during the school break and alternate holidays); apparently Brendon’s infidelity may make him a despicable person but not necessarily an unfit parent. The judge also awards Julia the family home in Vegas.
Brendon gets the house in Malibu.
vi.
Brendon’s kind enough to let a suitable amount of time pass before he sends out the invitations. He and Ryan are having a commitment ceremony for their friends and family in America before they jet off to England to get married.
Brendon actually shows up at her door the day after Julia hears the news from Kara. He’d like the girls to be there, he says, if not at his wedding, then at least at the commitment ceremony. And if she tries to deny him this, he’ll file an injunction to get it.
Julia doesn’t deny him.
She takes the girls to Malibu herself. She remembers her own wedding, how she didn’t even have time to think about her own hunger in the hubbub before the ceremony, let alone that of three other mouths. Plus, Brendon’s flying out with his ‘fiancée’ directly afterward; this only makes sense, she tells herself. She’s not here to see if Brendon’s really happier with another man, or to compare the size of the smile on his face to her own wedding photos.
The ceremony will be conducted on the beach behind the house as the sun sets over the water. When Julia drops off the girls, Brendon’s already dressed. He looks younger than she remembered in his khaki-coloured dress pants, flip-flops, and a loose white shirt. Happier too.
He’s already retreating with the girls up the front stairs when he turns back and invites her in. And maybe it’s out of courtesy or maybe he wants to rub his happiness in her face just a little bit more (or maybe, maybe part of him still treasures her friendship and would give anything to have it back), but Julia declines for only one reason: she’s not dressed. It isn’t an extremely formal function but she’d still look out of place in her mom jeans, ragged t-shirt and messy hair and… And she’d never let Ryan see her like this. Not when she’s certain that he’s somewhere inside powdering his face and agonizing over the tiniest strand of hair out of place.
She won’t let Ryan Ross pity her.
vii.
Julia paces her hotel room for a few minutes when she gets back before deciding to go out for dinner. She showers, dresses in that little black number which makes her feel like she's twenty-one again, and spends an hour perfecting her make-up and hair.
She chooses the ritziest restaurant she can find and when the host asks, she looks him straight in the eye and says, table for one. She flirts with the waiter at the table, sips on her over-priced white wine, and watches the sunset alone.
viii.
Fifteen minutes before the arranged pick-up time, she pulls her car over a block from their - no, Brendon’s - house to retouch her hair and reapply her lipstick and watch the clock tick until it’s fifteen minutes after. When she pulls into the driveway, however, her ex-husband and children are nowhere in sight.
The door is open, so she lets herself in. She can hear the swell of music and the chatter of excited partygoers. She’s about to turn around and go back to her car when a voice calls out to her from inside the study.
Ryan.
He looks immaculate, smiles at her and jokes about having to escape from all of the well-wishers for a just minute to himself. He acts like maybe they’re still friends, like it was only yesterday he was sitting beside her at the Atlantic Records brunch catching her eye and grinning as her - his? Their? - husband hung twin carrot sticks from the sides of his mouth and pretended to be some sort of monster as the girls shrieked in terror and delight.
Then Julia spots the shards of porcelain on the floor. Her eyes dart to the table by the door and the empty space between it and the mirror. That vase, what happened to it? she asks. Ryan blushes and explains how he was waiting in here before the ceremony, pacing because of his nerves, and tripped on the corner of the rug. Julia isn't sure why, but she feels something inside her go numb at that.
And then it cracks.
ix.
Brendon and the girls are outside. Julia brushes right past them as she runs out of the house and down the steps, out to the beach, tears in her eyes which she refuses to let them see.
The waves crest and break angrily against the shore. Julia sheds her sandals and dips her feet into the refreshingly cold water. She closes her eyes and wades out until she has to hold up the hem of her skirt to keep it from soaking through.
She knows Brendon is standing on the beach behind her even before he calls out to her. To be honest, Julia has no idea what she’s doing herself, so she can hardly answer the question when he asks. She merely turns around to see Brendon there, staring at her, handsome and earnest. Their girls are a few yards further back, standing with Ryan who has a hand on one of their shoulders and is looking at her with the last emotion she ever wanted to see from him glassing over his eyes.
Julia tells Ryan to take the kids inside.
Ryan’s eyes widen and he looks to Brendon, but Brendon nods so Ryan takes the youngest by the hand and shepherds the girls away just as Brendon is kicking off his sandals and wading into the water himself.
He broke my vase, she tells him as Brendon wraps his strong arms around her. You let him break my vase.
And there isn’t anything Brendon can say to comfort her, only squeeze her a little more tightly to his chest. Because the way Julia’s saying vase sounds a lot more like heart, and both claims he knows to be true.
Story loosely based on (read: blatantly ripped off) the song Death of an Interior Decorator by Death Cab for Cutie.