Beach Music, Brendon/Gerard AU R
Title: Beach Music 3B/12
Author: cloudlessclimes
Rated: R
Pairing:Brendon Urie/Gerard Way
Disclaimer: This is purely a product of my diseased mind and has no bearing on reality what so ever, I own no one, I know no one.
Summary: Brendon Urie is and has always been a girl. She meets Gerard Way. Things happen.
Feedback: Is a wonderful thing.
Notes: HET!!, what can be perceived as uninformed consent, underage drinking, drug use, romance, fluff, Tom Conrad and Jon Walker are not the nicest people ever, AU, liberal abuse of canon; this fic contains all of these things. If they're not your thing, don't read.
Title comes from a song of the same name by long defunct semi-obscure Canadian band The Watchmen. The odd and somewhat nonsensical lyrics can be found here
Written for gpbandom and x-posted there, at fueldbyunicorns, and in my own journal.
Thanks to the awesome queen_geek, tweedle_, fallingfortruth and lordgroovius for beta-ing, listening to me kvetch, holding my hand, and providing paperbags to breathe into, both virtual and actual.
1 2A 2B 3A 3B 4 5A 5B
Brendon is doing her level best to keep Travis McCoy’s hands in places appropriate for public viewing. Unfortunately her level best is hampered by the bottle of Corona in her hand and the pool table at her back. It also doesn’t help that they’re at a Pete Wentz party so what is or is not appropriate for public viewing is up for debate. Travis’s fingers have found the zipper to her grey and black striped hoodie and are now sliding it down, knuckles grazing over the tank top underneath. Laughing, Brendon ducks her head away from Travis’s mouth and tries to untangle herself from his sloppy embrace.
“C’mon Bren, baby. We need t’have fun!!” Travis is mumbling against her collar bone.
Brendon attempts to push him off with her knee, which only allows him to slide closer, one thigh between her spread legs. “I can’t right now, okay?” She attempts to push Travis gently away and is maybe a little more afraid that she can’t get herself out of this than she’s letting on.
“Hey man, Ry’s lookin’ for you.” Brendon actually heaves a sigh of relief when she hears Spencer’s low, friendly voice at her back.
“Dudes! I love that little man! You comin?” He stands up, arching an eyebrow at Brendon, who shakes her head, causing her hood to fall from her hair. Travis shrugs and turns to drunkenly weave his way through the crowd.
Spencer drops his arm, warm and comforting, around Brendon’s thin shoulders and smacks a kiss to her temple, “You okay there, Supergirl?” He leans one hip against the pool table and shoots her an appraising glance from beneath the fall of his hair.
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks.” Brendon squeezes Spencer’s hand and meets the clear blue of his gaze with a watery smile. “I’m just gonna go…you know…mingle” She flings out an arm towards the room, studded with groups of people dancing and talking. She blows a breath through her bangs and then squares her shoulders, eyes scanning the crowd for someone she knows. Okay, so she’s looking for Gerard. She can admit it, to herself anyway. And if she hadn’t cared to explain her distracted clock checking to the rest of her band, that was her business.
Hips swinging as she walks through the crowd smiling and saying hi, Brendon thinks maybe she’ll just duck into the bathroom to make sure she looks okay when she feels a gentle squeeze at her waist. Taking a deep breath she thinks that it will take a lot for her to not punch Travis and tell him to fuck off. She turns into the touch and feels her face splitting into a grin, “Gerard!”
“Hey,” Gerard reels her in close to him and brushes his cheek against hers. She’s a few inches taller than him so her looks down to check out Brendon’s shoes. She’s wearing fire engine red platform stilettos and Gerard returns her grin.
“So how was the show?” Brendon takes Gerard’s hand in hers leading them to a corner away from the blaring stereo and most of the noise. From somewhere in the crowd Frank’s voice announces “We fucking killed it man!!!”
Gerard and Brendon laugh and Gerard shrugs, leaning against the wall, “According to Frankie we killed it, and who am I to argue?”
Brendon laughs and clinks the neck of her beer bottle off of Gerard’s Diet Coke can. “I’m glad you came!” She straightens the hood of her sweatshirt back into place and watches Gerard take out his cigarettes and light up. “We actually managed to nail an entire song today. I think that’s a record. Of course Ryan will want to change it tomorrow but, it’s a start!” She takes a swallow of her beer.
Before Gerard can say anything in reply a loud voice behind them calls “Brenny! Oh Brenny! There you are! Come to the little girls’ room with me.” Ashlee Simpson totters into view and Brendon sighs and rolls her eyes. Gerard manages to stifle his snort with his soda can, and extends an arm to rest his hand, palm flat on Brendon’s hip, securing her in place as Ashlee hauls insistently on her arm.
Sighing and rolling her eyes even harder than before, Brendon smiles and says, “I’ll be right back.” Before allowing herself to be dragged away by Ashlee, she gives Gerard one last withering look and then trots off.
“Oh my God Bren! Brenny! I didn’t know you were here! Why didn’t you tell me you were here? Us girls got to stick together, right?” Brendon tries not to cringe too much at Ashlee’s use of us girls but doesn’t actually say anything either, only nods a little as the other girl directs her to the suite’s bathroom. “Are you having fun? Was that Gerard Way you were all cuddled up to back there? What are you doing with him? Isn’t he like, crazy or something? How do you two even know each other? Did you see Keltie’s dress? Oh my God she’s so pretty it kills me!” Brendon swallows and blinks, and isn’t sure which of Ashlee’s rapid fire questions to answer first. So she doesn’t answer at all, just smiles into the mirror as she takes out her lip gloss and brushes it across her full mouth.
Hauling herself up onto the vanity, Brendon kicks at the doors with her heels as Ashlee primps and preens and runs her hand through her hair, smiling at her own reflection. “So, wanna really get the party started?” Ashlee giggles as she digs a small plastic bag out of the front pocket of her denim miniskirt. She shakes it in front of Brendon’s face, and the white powder shifts inside it.
“Um, well, I mean…” Brendon shrugs awkwardly, tugging on the strings of her hoodie.
Ashlee giggles and she flips down the toilet seat lid, crouching in front of it. “It makes everything swirly! Just a line or two though, anything more and I turn into an asshole.”
“Er, you go right ahead. It doesn’t seem like there’s that much? And I wouldn’t want to take it from you.” Brendon shoves her balled up fists into the pockets of her hoodie, biting her lip. She watches, feigning interest as Ashlee dumps the powder onto the toilet seat and takes out a credit card, cutting the powder into three neat hillocky lines.
“See? Two for me, one for you!” And just like every clichéd coke scene in every movie, Ashlee takes out bill out of her wallet and rolls it up, then offers it to Brendon.
Feet still kicking four-four time against the wooden cabinet, Brendon motions with one hand, “Well you go first, it’s yours and all.” As Ashlee lowers her head, hair carefully held back and as Brendon continues to kick against the counter, chatting about some movie she just saw, the door to the bathroom burst opening, admitting the noise of the party. “Close the fucking door!” Ashlee screams, lifting her head up and glaring at the person in the door way, wiping at her nose.
Brendon turns towards the open door and freezes. Gerard is standing there, hand still on the door knob, mouth opening and closing, and eyes wide. “Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles and backs out of the room, slamming the door.
“Shit,” Ashlee crows at the mess she’s made of the drugs, neat lines now smeared all over the plastic, and attempts to straighten it, licking at her fingers.
Brendon hops down from the sink top. “Shit.”
Ashlee grabs Brendon, yanking her down beside her. “Oh my God, look at what that asshole made me do! You have to help me!”
Brendon shakes her head furiously, and manages to free herself from Ashlee’s panicked clutching, then tears open the door, bolting after Gerard. Her eyes scan the room and she silently curses under her breath, wondering when the fuck all these people packed themselves in here. All she can see is denim and t-shirts and hoodies and everyone looks like everyone else. She runs full force into Bob, who looks at her with a raised eyebrow. “Shit, Bob, have you seen Gerard?”
“Yeah, he just like, mumbled something about being wiped out and going back to his room.” Bob scratches at his shoulder and narrows his eyes in concern.
“His room? What’s his room number?” Brendon grabs at Bob’s thick biceps and gives him her best pleading look.
Bob pats reassuringly at her hand and says, “Uh, 1524.” And before the words are fully out of his mouth Brendon resumes her frantic run across the room and out into the hotel hallway.
Reaching the elevators, Brendon jabs impatiently at the up button, and takes the opportunity to toe off her shoes, kicking the high heeled Laboutins to the other side of the hallway. The elevator pings, announcing it’s arrival and Brendon bounces into the empty carriage, stabbing at the fifteen button. She rubs her arms and mutters “C’mon, c’mon!” under her breath. What seems an eternity later, the elevator arrives at the fifteenth floor and Brendon again bolts into the hallway, scanning the doors to make sure she’s headed in the right directions.
Once the brass 1524 is staring Brendon in the face she knocks timidly and waits for Gerard to open up. Seconds tick by, marked by the frantic beating of her heart, and she knocks again, louder this time. When no answer comes, she knocks louder and longer, and calls thought the thick door, “Gerard? Gerard answer the door, please? I need…I need to explain. It’s not…I didn’t. Please open the door?” She knocks louder again, pounding on the door, and her voice is choked with almost sobs. The person in the room across the hall pokes his head out to glare and tell her to shut the fuck up. Brendon glares back, gives him the finger and tells him to mind his own fucking business. Then she turns back to the door, still knocking.
Her knuckles are red and swollen, as are her eyes, and she slides to the floor, curled up in the doorway, her face pressed into the slope of her knees. “Please, please Gerard. I can explain,” Brendon cries quietly, her shoulders stuttering as she silently berates herself for her own stupidity.
She continues her half hearted knocking until a pair of well worn hiking boots come into view. “Brendon?” She looks up, and Bob flicks his hair out of his eyes, arms crossed over his chest.
Swiping her sleeve under her nose and sniffling, Brendon gets to her feet, twisting her bare toes in the pile of the carpeting, “Bob, just…just tell him I’m really sorry, okay?” She bites her lip and swallows the new wave of sobs rising in her throat, before taking off running down the hall.
* * *
Brendon watches the cab pull up to the gates of her condo complex. Gerard gets out, scratching his head and pulling nervously at the bottom of his hoodie. The street light throws him into shadow but across the lawn she can hear him punching buttons on the intercom.
“You’ll have a long wait.” She calls, not loudly, but projecting clearly, and she thinks maybe those voice lessons weren’t a total waste after all.
Jumping a little, Gerard turns to follow Brendon’s voice. He’s just a shadow now, as he shuffle-jogs across the small patch of grass and over to the swing set. “Hey,” he says softly, standing at Brendon’s side.
Looking up at him from her perch, she says, “Hey,” softly in return, before grabbing the chains in her fists and pushing off from the ground. She swings quietly for a minute or so, just the flex and pump of her long legs, street light flashing on the bright orange canvas of her sneakers' tongues.
“Brendon I…” Gerard starts. He’s moved behind her, and without even realizing it begins to push her, hand at the cool skin between her jeans and where her hoodie has bunched up, into a higher and higher arc.
Taking a deep breath Brendon says, “When I was a little girl, maybe seven or eight, my parents and my teachers convinced my doctor that I asked too many questions, laughed too much, didn’t pay attention like they thought I should…”
Gerard’s eyes are focused on the thick grey and black stripes of Brendon’s hoodie, just between her shoulder blades. “Brendon, you don’t have to explain. I shouldn’t have…”
But, she just keeps talking, in a quiet, calm voice. “So, they put me on Ritalin. And I hated it. I hated how it made me feel slow and stupid, and like I was trapped inside some kind of box. Like I was someone else, not the me I was supposed to be.”
“I…jumped to conclusions…”
She keeps pumping her legs, eyes forward, watching the low rise of buildings beneath her as she swings, tilting her head back to look at the shadows of tree limbs and the distant pin picks of stars. “I never thought about not taking them--my pills. Never, in ten years. I took them like I was supposed to. But then, when I was seventeen and I moved out, it suddenly occurred to me that I could stop.” Without warning she flings herself from the swing’s rubber seat and through the air. She lands with a thump in a cat-crouch and stands up, dusting off her bottom and staring straight at Gerard. Her eyes are sad in her expressive face. “I never wanted to feel that way again. And I didn’t. I haven’t. Not until…like, a year ago.” She moves closer to Gerard, sliding her fingers up and down the cool metal of the chain. She sighs and says, “I was at a party and…there was coke. Surprise! I know,” she chuckles, “And…I tried it. And it made me feel like I felt when I was a kid. And that scared the shit out of me.”
Gerard leans in, his forehead against hers, “I over-reacted. I dunno…I just freaked out. You don’t owe me any explanations, Brendon.”
“You made me feel like I do. You made me feel like I’ve disappointed you.”
“Brendon…” Gerard traces the pad of his index finger down her cheek. “What about, what about drinking? Doesn’t that make you feel…”
“What about nicotine? What about caffeine?” She’s smiling, but it’s cold and her words are edged in anger. “I…realize we don’t know each other very well, Gerard. Maybe we don’t know each other at all. But, I guess you have a choice. You can believe me when I tell you I’m not a coked out party girl, or you can use what you think you saw as an excuse.”
“An excuse?” Gerard leans back from her and shoves his fists into his pockets, confused.
Brendon winds the chains around and around themselves, then lets go, setting the swing spinning. “Yeah, an excuse, because you’re too scared to figure out what this,” she pauses to motion with her hands between the two of them, “what this is, what we have, or maybe could have.” She leans into Gerard again, her breath ghosting warmly across his cheek. “I don’t need saving, Gerard.” She speaks quietly into his ear, then turns and runs towards her house.
Gerard doesn’t follow, just stands and watches Brendon go, one hand raised to touch where his cheek is still warm from her words.
Part 4
Author: cloudlessclimes
Rated: R
Pairing:Brendon Urie/Gerard Way
Disclaimer: This is purely a product of my diseased mind and has no bearing on reality what so ever, I own no one, I know no one.
Summary: Brendon Urie is and has always been a girl. She meets Gerard Way. Things happen.
Feedback: Is a wonderful thing.
Notes: HET!!, what can be perceived as uninformed consent, underage drinking, drug use, romance, fluff, Tom Conrad and Jon Walker are not the nicest people ever, AU, liberal abuse of canon; this fic contains all of these things. If they're not your thing, don't read.
Title comes from a song of the same name by long defunct semi-obscure Canadian band The Watchmen. The odd and somewhat nonsensical lyrics can be found here
Written for gpbandom and x-posted there, at fueldbyunicorns, and in my own journal.
Thanks to the awesome queen_geek, tweedle_, fallingfortruth and lordgroovius for beta-ing, listening to me kvetch, holding my hand, and providing paperbags to breathe into, both virtual and actual.
1 2A 2B 3A 3B 4 5A 5B
Brendon is doing her level best to keep Travis McCoy’s hands in places appropriate for public viewing. Unfortunately her level best is hampered by the bottle of Corona in her hand and the pool table at her back. It also doesn’t help that they’re at a Pete Wentz party so what is or is not appropriate for public viewing is up for debate. Travis’s fingers have found the zipper to her grey and black striped hoodie and are now sliding it down, knuckles grazing over the tank top underneath. Laughing, Brendon ducks her head away from Travis’s mouth and tries to untangle herself from his sloppy embrace.
“C’mon Bren, baby. We need t’have fun!!” Travis is mumbling against her collar bone.
Brendon attempts to push him off with her knee, which only allows him to slide closer, one thigh between her spread legs. “I can’t right now, okay?” She attempts to push Travis gently away and is maybe a little more afraid that she can’t get herself out of this than she’s letting on.
“Hey man, Ry’s lookin’ for you.” Brendon actually heaves a sigh of relief when she hears Spencer’s low, friendly voice at her back.
“Dudes! I love that little man! You comin?” He stands up, arching an eyebrow at Brendon, who shakes her head, causing her hood to fall from her hair. Travis shrugs and turns to drunkenly weave his way through the crowd.
Spencer drops his arm, warm and comforting, around Brendon’s thin shoulders and smacks a kiss to her temple, “You okay there, Supergirl?” He leans one hip against the pool table and shoots her an appraising glance from beneath the fall of his hair.
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks.” Brendon squeezes Spencer’s hand and meets the clear blue of his gaze with a watery smile. “I’m just gonna go…you know…mingle” She flings out an arm towards the room, studded with groups of people dancing and talking. She blows a breath through her bangs and then squares her shoulders, eyes scanning the crowd for someone she knows. Okay, so she’s looking for Gerard. She can admit it, to herself anyway. And if she hadn’t cared to explain her distracted clock checking to the rest of her band, that was her business.
Hips swinging as she walks through the crowd smiling and saying hi, Brendon thinks maybe she’ll just duck into the bathroom to make sure she looks okay when she feels a gentle squeeze at her waist. Taking a deep breath she thinks that it will take a lot for her to not punch Travis and tell him to fuck off. She turns into the touch and feels her face splitting into a grin, “Gerard!”
“Hey,” Gerard reels her in close to him and brushes his cheek against hers. She’s a few inches taller than him so her looks down to check out Brendon’s shoes. She’s wearing fire engine red platform stilettos and Gerard returns her grin.
“So how was the show?” Brendon takes Gerard’s hand in hers leading them to a corner away from the blaring stereo and most of the noise. From somewhere in the crowd Frank’s voice announces “We fucking killed it man!!!”
Gerard and Brendon laugh and Gerard shrugs, leaning against the wall, “According to Frankie we killed it, and who am I to argue?”
Brendon laughs and clinks the neck of her beer bottle off of Gerard’s Diet Coke can. “I’m glad you came!” She straightens the hood of her sweatshirt back into place and watches Gerard take out his cigarettes and light up. “We actually managed to nail an entire song today. I think that’s a record. Of course Ryan will want to change it tomorrow but, it’s a start!” She takes a swallow of her beer.
Before Gerard can say anything in reply a loud voice behind them calls “Brenny! Oh Brenny! There you are! Come to the little girls’ room with me.” Ashlee Simpson totters into view and Brendon sighs and rolls her eyes. Gerard manages to stifle his snort with his soda can, and extends an arm to rest his hand, palm flat on Brendon’s hip, securing her in place as Ashlee hauls insistently on her arm.
Sighing and rolling her eyes even harder than before, Brendon smiles and says, “I’ll be right back.” Before allowing herself to be dragged away by Ashlee, she gives Gerard one last withering look and then trots off.
“Oh my God Bren! Brenny! I didn’t know you were here! Why didn’t you tell me you were here? Us girls got to stick together, right?” Brendon tries not to cringe too much at Ashlee’s use of us girls but doesn’t actually say anything either, only nods a little as the other girl directs her to the suite’s bathroom. “Are you having fun? Was that Gerard Way you were all cuddled up to back there? What are you doing with him? Isn’t he like, crazy or something? How do you two even know each other? Did you see Keltie’s dress? Oh my God she’s so pretty it kills me!” Brendon swallows and blinks, and isn’t sure which of Ashlee’s rapid fire questions to answer first. So she doesn’t answer at all, just smiles into the mirror as she takes out her lip gloss and brushes it across her full mouth.
Hauling herself up onto the vanity, Brendon kicks at the doors with her heels as Ashlee primps and preens and runs her hand through her hair, smiling at her own reflection. “So, wanna really get the party started?” Ashlee giggles as she digs a small plastic bag out of the front pocket of her denim miniskirt. She shakes it in front of Brendon’s face, and the white powder shifts inside it.
“Um, well, I mean…” Brendon shrugs awkwardly, tugging on the strings of her hoodie.
Ashlee giggles and she flips down the toilet seat lid, crouching in front of it. “It makes everything swirly! Just a line or two though, anything more and I turn into an asshole.”
“Er, you go right ahead. It doesn’t seem like there’s that much? And I wouldn’t want to take it from you.” Brendon shoves her balled up fists into the pockets of her hoodie, biting her lip. She watches, feigning interest as Ashlee dumps the powder onto the toilet seat and takes out a credit card, cutting the powder into three neat hillocky lines.
“See? Two for me, one for you!” And just like every clichéd coke scene in every movie, Ashlee takes out bill out of her wallet and rolls it up, then offers it to Brendon.
Feet still kicking four-four time against the wooden cabinet, Brendon motions with one hand, “Well you go first, it’s yours and all.” As Ashlee lowers her head, hair carefully held back and as Brendon continues to kick against the counter, chatting about some movie she just saw, the door to the bathroom burst opening, admitting the noise of the party. “Close the fucking door!” Ashlee screams, lifting her head up and glaring at the person in the door way, wiping at her nose.
Brendon turns towards the open door and freezes. Gerard is standing there, hand still on the door knob, mouth opening and closing, and eyes wide. “Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles and backs out of the room, slamming the door.
“Shit,” Ashlee crows at the mess she’s made of the drugs, neat lines now smeared all over the plastic, and attempts to straighten it, licking at her fingers.
Brendon hops down from the sink top. “Shit.”
Ashlee grabs Brendon, yanking her down beside her. “Oh my God, look at what that asshole made me do! You have to help me!”
Brendon shakes her head furiously, and manages to free herself from Ashlee’s panicked clutching, then tears open the door, bolting after Gerard. Her eyes scan the room and she silently curses under her breath, wondering when the fuck all these people packed themselves in here. All she can see is denim and t-shirts and hoodies and everyone looks like everyone else. She runs full force into Bob, who looks at her with a raised eyebrow. “Shit, Bob, have you seen Gerard?”
“Yeah, he just like, mumbled something about being wiped out and going back to his room.” Bob scratches at his shoulder and narrows his eyes in concern.
“His room? What’s his room number?” Brendon grabs at Bob’s thick biceps and gives him her best pleading look.
Bob pats reassuringly at her hand and says, “Uh, 1524.” And before the words are fully out of his mouth Brendon resumes her frantic run across the room and out into the hotel hallway.
Reaching the elevators, Brendon jabs impatiently at the up button, and takes the opportunity to toe off her shoes, kicking the high heeled Laboutins to the other side of the hallway. The elevator pings, announcing it’s arrival and Brendon bounces into the empty carriage, stabbing at the fifteen button. She rubs her arms and mutters “C’mon, c’mon!” under her breath. What seems an eternity later, the elevator arrives at the fifteenth floor and Brendon again bolts into the hallway, scanning the doors to make sure she’s headed in the right directions.
Once the brass 1524 is staring Brendon in the face she knocks timidly and waits for Gerard to open up. Seconds tick by, marked by the frantic beating of her heart, and she knocks again, louder this time. When no answer comes, she knocks louder and longer, and calls thought the thick door, “Gerard? Gerard answer the door, please? I need…I need to explain. It’s not…I didn’t. Please open the door?” She knocks louder again, pounding on the door, and her voice is choked with almost sobs. The person in the room across the hall pokes his head out to glare and tell her to shut the fuck up. Brendon glares back, gives him the finger and tells him to mind his own fucking business. Then she turns back to the door, still knocking.
Her knuckles are red and swollen, as are her eyes, and she slides to the floor, curled up in the doorway, her face pressed into the slope of her knees. “Please, please Gerard. I can explain,” Brendon cries quietly, her shoulders stuttering as she silently berates herself for her own stupidity.
She continues her half hearted knocking until a pair of well worn hiking boots come into view. “Brendon?” She looks up, and Bob flicks his hair out of his eyes, arms crossed over his chest.
Swiping her sleeve under her nose and sniffling, Brendon gets to her feet, twisting her bare toes in the pile of the carpeting, “Bob, just…just tell him I’m really sorry, okay?” She bites her lip and swallows the new wave of sobs rising in her throat, before taking off running down the hall.
* * *
Brendon watches the cab pull up to the gates of her condo complex. Gerard gets out, scratching his head and pulling nervously at the bottom of his hoodie. The street light throws him into shadow but across the lawn she can hear him punching buttons on the intercom.
“You’ll have a long wait.” She calls, not loudly, but projecting clearly, and she thinks maybe those voice lessons weren’t a total waste after all.
Jumping a little, Gerard turns to follow Brendon’s voice. He’s just a shadow now, as he shuffle-jogs across the small patch of grass and over to the swing set. “Hey,” he says softly, standing at Brendon’s side.
Looking up at him from her perch, she says, “Hey,” softly in return, before grabbing the chains in her fists and pushing off from the ground. She swings quietly for a minute or so, just the flex and pump of her long legs, street light flashing on the bright orange canvas of her sneakers' tongues.
“Brendon I…” Gerard starts. He’s moved behind her, and without even realizing it begins to push her, hand at the cool skin between her jeans and where her hoodie has bunched up, into a higher and higher arc.
Taking a deep breath Brendon says, “When I was a little girl, maybe seven or eight, my parents and my teachers convinced my doctor that I asked too many questions, laughed too much, didn’t pay attention like they thought I should…”
Gerard’s eyes are focused on the thick grey and black stripes of Brendon’s hoodie, just between her shoulder blades. “Brendon, you don’t have to explain. I shouldn’t have…”
But, she just keeps talking, in a quiet, calm voice. “So, they put me on Ritalin. And I hated it. I hated how it made me feel slow and stupid, and like I was trapped inside some kind of box. Like I was someone else, not the me I was supposed to be.”
“I…jumped to conclusions…”
She keeps pumping her legs, eyes forward, watching the low rise of buildings beneath her as she swings, tilting her head back to look at the shadows of tree limbs and the distant pin picks of stars. “I never thought about not taking them--my pills. Never, in ten years. I took them like I was supposed to. But then, when I was seventeen and I moved out, it suddenly occurred to me that I could stop.” Without warning she flings herself from the swing’s rubber seat and through the air. She lands with a thump in a cat-crouch and stands up, dusting off her bottom and staring straight at Gerard. Her eyes are sad in her expressive face. “I never wanted to feel that way again. And I didn’t. I haven’t. Not until…like, a year ago.” She moves closer to Gerard, sliding her fingers up and down the cool metal of the chain. She sighs and says, “I was at a party and…there was coke. Surprise! I know,” she chuckles, “And…I tried it. And it made me feel like I felt when I was a kid. And that scared the shit out of me.”
Gerard leans in, his forehead against hers, “I over-reacted. I dunno…I just freaked out. You don’t owe me any explanations, Brendon.”
“You made me feel like I do. You made me feel like I’ve disappointed you.”
“Brendon…” Gerard traces the pad of his index finger down her cheek. “What about, what about drinking? Doesn’t that make you feel…”
“What about nicotine? What about caffeine?” She’s smiling, but it’s cold and her words are edged in anger. “I…realize we don’t know each other very well, Gerard. Maybe we don’t know each other at all. But, I guess you have a choice. You can believe me when I tell you I’m not a coked out party girl, or you can use what you think you saw as an excuse.”
“An excuse?” Gerard leans back from her and shoves his fists into his pockets, confused.
Brendon winds the chains around and around themselves, then lets go, setting the swing spinning. “Yeah, an excuse, because you’re too scared to figure out what this,” she pauses to motion with her hands between the two of them, “what this is, what we have, or maybe could have.” She leans into Gerard again, her breath ghosting warmly across his cheek. “I don’t need saving, Gerard.” She speaks quietly into his ear, then turns and runs towards her house.
Gerard doesn’t follow, just stands and watches Brendon go, one hand raised to touch where his cheek is still warm from her words.
Part 4