Splash! [3/3]
part ii
Waking up in a bed with two people is not quite as life-changing as Audrey had hoped, but it is pretty awesome. If a little constricting.
"So, uh," Brendon says, dragging a lazy finger up her arm. "What color is your hair, anyway?"
Ryan snorts, reaching up to ruffle his own, messy and uncut and prettyprettypretty. "You say that like she'd remember by now."
Audrey sits back a little, trying to pull out of the sheets just enough to give her room to stretch a little. She slopes back down on to Ryan, who bumps her shoulder lightly with his fist before leaning back a little, giving. "Brown?" she says, feels the ring in her nose dig in as she wrinkles it, remembering how it used to look.
Brendon laughs softly, and tilts his head, probably trying to imagine it. "I'm supposed to wear glasses," he says. "I got contacts when I was thirteen."
He says it like it's an offering, and it feels like even the buzz of the city has shut up for just a second, or at least calmed down, like maybe someone slipped the heaving skyline a valium just so they'd be able to relax, just for a second.
And then Ryan's chest jumps with laughter. "Sorry," he says, through quick breaths, "sorry, just, imagining both of you looking normal..." he shrugs, apologetically. Spiteless.
Brendon flips him off, and then leans in, smiling.
+
Her parents never explained why they didn’t get rid of the piano when she quit. It’s probably because it’s so impressive - tall and black and shiny, and god, do her parents love things that shine. Nobody in her house plays, though. Audrey isn’t particularly surprised that Brendon can play piano - because what good little rich kid growing up with school uniform and obnoxious parents doesn’t learn an instrument before they’re fifteen? Audrey’s parents started her out on the flute, moved her on to violin, piano, French horn, and piccolo, before finally giving up and accepting that her temperament didn’t really match with weekly hour of minor scales and daily practice.
Audrey knows from past experience, then, that they almost always find it easier that way. It’s not like she’s complaining.
Brendon obviously never had those same qualms with music. He sits at their stupid, pretentious piano and suddenly his fingers are moving and that's it. The room they're in is gone, to be replaced by their own private concert hall, their own little bubble of pitch and tone and timing. Ryan's sitting next to him on the piano bench, his eyes scanning the sheet music, figuring out which part Brendon's playing and when. They look good together. They look good.
Audrey watches them from the doorway, Brendon playing fluidly and nudging Ryan every so often. Ryan keeps giving him irritated glances and turning back to the notes on the page, hesitant.
After a few cautious moments, he joins in with the high part. He isn't as great, clunky and without the fluid running sound that Brendon's pulling off, but it sounds... good. Audrey watches and listens and doesn't fail to notice the tiny smile that creeps its way onto Ryan's face when he glances up at her.
+
Ryan announces it like he’s defying them, which is something Audrey’s got used to. She is surprised at what he’s said, though, and almost ready to tell him 'no' with one carefully placed wave of her hand, but he’ll hate her if she does that, and fun as that would be, it really feels like too much effort sometimes.
“I want us to go out,” Ryan says.
“We’ve been out,” Brendon replies, without looking up.
“No, but,” he pads across the room and comes to hoist himself up onto the counter next to Audrey. They swing their legs together. “Out out.”
Brendon’s in the next room across, but the doorway’s big enough that they can see the outline of his back, the cool slide of his fingers on the keys of the piano, his heavy-lidded eyes. He’s playing something simple and quiet, the tune crawling across the room.
Audrey curls her fingers over the edge of the counter, just in case she slips. “Out where?” she says. Something about Ryan’s pointedly sideways gaze is making her feel like a whole lot of people are staring at her. Brendon’s still playing the same song, something in a major key.
“I don’t know,” he shrugs, and his leg swings, up down up down, lazy. “You know the city better than I do.”
Audrey clutches the edge harder, likes the smooth dig on her knuckles. There. “I know,” she says. “I know, but-”
The music stops abruptly, and Brendon’s suddenly there, in front of her, so her knees are almost resting on his hips - god knows they jut out enough, the skinny piece of shit, and honestly, this is from Audrey, who lives by the rule that a low-fat bagel is really enough for a good day, because if you don’t draw the line somewhere…
“I think what Ryan means,” Brendon says, “is something more public.”
Ryan snorts to himself. "I thought you’d agree to something like that pretty quickly.”
It isn’t clear which of them he’s talking to. Audrey doesn’t look up to figure it out, she’s staring at the single kitchen tile she can see between Brendon’s feet, and her fingers are almost aching from their grip on the counter now.
There’s not a lot wrong with what Ryan’s asking for, really, she just… What would they do? Sit at a bar in a row, order drinks, talk over each other? What, feed each other peanuts? Who would buy the drinks? And dancing, oh god, what if they went to a club? The three of them, on a dance floor, with strobe lights and quick beats and so many eyes? It’s not like a movie theatre, dark and quiet, where no one can see, or that empty art gallery where they didn't touch anywhere except the elbows. What if they go to a restaurant, and the waiter doesn’t have any tables for three, because who goes out to dinner in threes? And what would they wear? Brendon and Ryan, both in suits? How stupid would that look? People would be laughing at them. They aren't ready for this yet. Audrey needs their grand entrance to be perfect, needs people to be jealous, needs all the scheming to be worth it, and -
“Okay,” Audrey says. Okay okay okay.
Brendon smiles at Ryan, winking, and as Ryan leans his head against Audrey's shoulder, Brendon kisses her softly. Audrey imagines them doing this on a picnic blanket in the park, holding hands strolling around a carnival, on a couch at a party, anything.
It doesn't work.
But, shut up, Audrey tells herself, leaning into them.
Fuck, Alicia managed it. How hard can it be?
+
It actually isn't that hard at all.
Date Night is Ryan's choice because he likes choosing things, and he picks a restaurant close to the place where Brendon and Audrey first - met? Talked? Negotiated? Argued? Audrey still can't put a name on the way they interacted that first time. She still can't really put a name on the way they interact now. She thinks there are words for it, for the way they work, the way they fit, and how their arguments and romanticisms seem to slide into place next to each other, but those words are tucked away tightly in Ryan's ugly messy notebooks, and she doesn't really care what they are. It's just nice knowing that they're there.
The maître d' is the highly trained type that doesn't even bother to raise an eyebrow when the three of them walk (sashay, saunter, parade) into the restaurant. Still, they get a table on the far side, in the corner and away from the windows. It's square, which is awkward, because what, should it be Audrey and Ryan opposite Brendon, or does that look too much like they're negotiating a business deal? Audrey and Brendon opposite Ryan, or does that look too much like they're firing him? Brendon and Ryan opposite Audrey - but that's an automatic no, because there's no way Audrey wants to look like the fag-hag to two pretty boys in dinner jackets.
Brendon solves the problem by huffing something under his breath and pulling his chair around so he's sat at the narrow end of the table, putting them in a triangle.
"Nice move," Ryan mutters.
Brendon grins, and says, "The shrimp here's pretty nice."
That's not strictly true. The shrimp here tastes like ass, and Audrey learns as much when she orders a whole plate of it on Brendon's recommendation, and promptly sends it back to be replaced with something edible. Ryan gingerly orders the closest thing they have to a burger, which is this weird little strip of lamb on some sort of flatbread with cute little lettuce leaves sprinkled on top. He pokes at it, apprehensive, until Audrey says, "That's food, Ryan."
He glances at her, and Brendon adds, "Normally, we eat it."
Ryan takes a second to glare at each of them in turn, before turning back to his meal. He takes the first couple bites with the appropriate amount of theatrical distaste, but by the end of the meal his plate is empty.
Brendon has something with chicken that looks good and smells good and, when Audrey steals some off of his plate, tastes pretty good too.
"Did you just-" Brendon says, blinking at her. "You stole food off of my plate."
"So?" Audrey asks. "That's what girlfriends do."
There's a sudden, teetering silence that reverberates across the table. Brendon is still looking at her, one eyebrow raised like a sideways parenthesis - open or closed, Audrey doesn't know. The word 'girlfriend' is projected on to the ceiling in bright red font, and one day, one day, Audrey is going to learn to think before she speaks.
And then Ryan laughs, cracking the tension easily, and says, "Dude, you are so whipped."
Brendon retaliates by stealing the rest of his drink. Ryan doesn't mind.
+
Ryan says, "We should go to a concert, next."
Audrey's toes are wrapped around the edge of the pool and she's standing, arms out, watching the pink blur of her reflection in the water.
"A concert," she repeats, slowly.
He's walking back around the pool, dragging the net through the water. Brendon's out on the other side, sloshing the mop around on the tiles. He, for some reason, enjoys helping Ryan clean. That's okay, because Audrey enjoys watching.
"Yeah," he says. "Next month. At that place near - I have a flyer somewhere."
"Maybe," Audrey says.
The thing is, she isn't really concert material. She likes personal space and being able to hear her own thoughts and music that doesn't burst her ear drums and room to breathe and what's scary is that she's here and it's now and she's looking at Ryan and she's thinking, not no, but maybe.
She is thinking maybe.
+
"You haven't called me in ages," Alicia says. She isn't laughing at anything, now.
"You haven't called me in ages, either." It's only been four days since they last spoke. You take things to pick on where you can find them.
"I tried," Alicia says, and then adds, "or maybe I didn't. I lose track, y'know."
"Of course," Audrey says, because she still has the little symbol on the top of the phone screen showing the two missed calls, both from Alicia. There aren't many things more satisfying.
"I've been busy," Audrey says, and okay, there aren't many things more satisfying, except saying that. Audrey's been waiting for this moment since the beginning of the entire venture, and maybe a little before that as well. It's not that she needs to be better than Alicia, not really. It's more that she wants Alicia to be worse.
Alicia doesn't say anything, uncharacteristcally, and Audrey wants to high five someone. "With what?" Alicia asks finally.
"Oh, just guys."
"Guys?" Alicia repeats it curiously, alive and suddenly interested again. Audrey can almost feel her lean in closer to the phone, thinking in lipstick and scandal and gossip. Sometimes you just have to take a damn pigtail by the hand and pull.
"Yeah," Audrey says, "a couple. Brendon Urie. You've heard of him, right?"
That's the thing. Everyone's heard of Brendon Urie.
"I have, actually," Alicia says. "I think Pete and Brendon used to go to the same school - before Pete started going to that pretentious little art school for talented kids," and she adds a little laugh, ha ha ha.
"Really?" Audrey says, and it is not in any way a question. "That's funny - I think Ryan got offered a scholarship there. Turned it down, though. Something to do with artistic integrity, or whatever."
"Ryan?" Alicia repeats. The uncertainty in her tone sends fireworks shooting across Audrey's mind.
She pauses to make way for the grin that parades its way onto her face. "Ryan, oh god, Ryan. He's - well, me and him and Brendon - it's pretty embarrassing, actually. We all," (pause for a giggle), "adore each other. They're both so... attentive. Like you and Pete and Mikey, I guess, except, well."
Except better.
"So you..." Alicia says.
"Oh, yeah," Audrey says, and she is winning, winning, won. That's all that needs to be said. Oh, yeah.
Alicia says she has to go, but she'll call back later.
Audrey laughs as soon as she hangs up.
(Part of her wishes they could have talked about if for longer, wishes she could have actually spilled about it properly to Alicia like they do in sitcoms and chick flicks - but she's always hated those kinds of shows, and if she needs to talk she can check in with her mom's goddamned therapist.)
+
They do actually do the whole 'picnic blanket in the park' thing. Audrey even packs the basket herself, just because getting the staff to do it is number one on the (never ending) list of ways to send Ryan into a righteous frenzy of angry debate. And Audrey - well, it's just easier to pack the damn basket.
It feels strange, walking through the park with Ryan and Brendon either side of her. They're both taller than she is, but it's a bend and break sort of formation, with Ryan slouching, hands in pockets, and Brendon more upright, shoulders square. Audrey, with a careful spine and the walk she's perfected since childhood, feels like the happy medium. It's something she thinks she could get used to. Being the one in between.
They pick a spot next to, but not under, a tree. There are leaves and blossoms scattered out on the ground like forgotten confetti, everything looking suspiciously picture perfect.
"Alright, so," Audrey says, setting down the basket. "Is this 'out' enough for you?" She raises a careful eyebrow at Ryan.
Ryan considers her for a moment. He's sat with his back turned towards Brendon, their legs lining the corners of the blanket. Brendon is smiling, tie loosened and jacket discarded. Content. It's only when Audrey glances down that she realizes Ryan's hand is resting gently on top of Brendon's.
"Pass me an apple?" Ryan says, avoiding the question. Audrey stays still for a second full up with confusion and stubbornness, and then complies, leans forward with the apple red and waxy in her fingers. Like the witch with Snow White, she thinks, and then, except for how I wouldn't.
Except for how she just wouldn't, would she?
And suddenly his fingers catch around her wrist, messing up the balance until she feels her knees twisting beneath her, the ground rising up to meet her shoulders. She lands in between them, blinking up as Ryan smirks and Brendon grins and they both, they both just are.
"Yes," Ryan says decisively.
Audrey's forgotten what the question was, but she still agrees.
Yes.
+
The Charity Ball happens every year, near the end of August, and just like a fleeting summer fling or a vacation romance it normally ends in drunkeness, at least one fight, and at least one crying girl. Audrey gets the invite in the mail- “You’re invited to the annual Simpson Charity Ball! Bring your check-book and leave any stinginess at the door!”- and she shows it to them in some sort of effort to be glamorously amused.
“It looks even tackier than last year,” she says, tossing the invite at them in what she hopes is a careless sort of way.
Ryan picks it up. “Simpson. More rich asshole friends?”
Brendon’s lying on his back, playing idly with the unraveling string on her comforter. “They have this huge thing every year. Everyone who’s anyone goes.”
Meaning, even Brendon goes.
“So are you, uh. Are the two of you going?” Ryan's staring determinedly at a pillow.
And maybe, maybe this could be it. The big unveil. The final fuck you. The “I win, you lose.”
Because they have. They have won.
“We could-“ Audrey clears her throat- “we could all go. Together.”
The silence after that makes her want to reclaim that sentence, say oh ha ha my little joke, funny right? She’s just about to say that, say something for god’s sake, but Brendon interrupts her.
“Like Ryan has anything fancy enough to wear.”
She feels relieved.
“Fuck you,” Ryan says, playing with the card. “My wardrobe is totally hip enough for these guys.” He pauses. “I might need to borrow a jacket, though.”
Audrey breathes, in, and out.
+
“Everyone here looks ridiculous,” Ryan says in an undertone. “Fuck, I look ridiculous.”
“No,” she says. “You look good.”
There’s still imaginary pause, the is that okay, was that too much that she thinks probably only goes on in her head, but he does. He's wearing his own slacks, pinstriped ones, with a jacket of Brendon's. They picked it out yesterday, Audrey and Brendon collapsed on Brendon's bed and Ryan going through each tailored suit carefully, trying on each, sloppy smile on his face.
He chose a maroon waistcoat to go with it because he's Ryan.
“Come on, let’s go in.”
All three of them are holding hands, and when they walk in the room there’s a slight hush. Audrey’s feeling lightheaded a bit, her fingers tighten around Brendon’s wrist just a little, and she puts on her best diva grin.
Three, two-
And then it’s over, people go back to sipping champagne, nibbling phyllo squares, gossiping, perhaps, a bit more intensely than before. Because who cares, right? It's not like there's any money involved.
“Good, good,” she says out loud, softly. Brendon looks over at her but doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll get us drinks,” he says instead, walking off. People turn to look at him as he walks by and Audrey feels something warm in her chest.
Alicia joins them soon after Brendon leaves, wearing a chiffon dress that, okay, looks really good.
“Audrey, dear, so nice to see you! Oh, is this Ryan?”
Audrey smiles, feeling the edge she always feels when dealing with Alicia rise up slower, smoother than usual. “Yes, this is Ryan.” She feels a bit like a proud parent showing off a child, and when Alicia gives Ryan a once over and raises her eyebrows in approval, the feeling intensifies. Ryan, for his part, moves a bit closer to Audrey.
Alicia nods, “Interesting, interesting. And where’s the other one? Brendon, you said, right?”
There was something wrong about that sentence- Audrey feels Ryan tense up beside her and she can feel some sort of distant foreboding.She can't think about, can't remember what-
“Brendon went- well, there he is!” The mock cheer in her voice feels too sharp, too thin.
Brendon comes back with tall flutes of champagne and Audrey takes one, taking a sip. Ryan takes the soda Brendon hands him with a tight-lipped smile.
“So you did get two as well,” Alicia says, smiling. “Much better than one, I’d say.”
Brendon’s “What?” makes Audrey nervous. Shit, what’s-
“Audrey,” Alicia explains to the other two, “saw how happy I was with my two boyfriends- they’re over there, the tall skinny one in grey and the shorter one in blue- and she just had to get two of her own. She hates being outdone, you know. Loves attention. And, well.” She nods at Brendon, smirking. "You do seem very attentive."
The silence feels heavy on her skin, she can’t breathe through it, can’t-
“They're wonderful, Aud," Alicia says, glancing between them again and then leaning back. "Well done.”
She saunters off, smiling.
"What the fuck," Ryan hisses. "What the fuck, what the fuck."
And Audrey, Audrey can feel the end of everything as it slips and slides through her fingers.
"Ry-" she starts.
He turns to her, and the anger that used to light his eyes, the disgust and disdain and distrust, it's gone. He's blank, masked, closed. Audrey can feel her heartbeat loud in her ears.
"It had to be that, didn't it?" he says. "It had to be that."
Brendon is staring at her too. There are two pairs of eyes on Audrey, and she can't meet them all at once. She used to feel like she could.
"So was that the plan?" Ryan goes on. His voice is dangerously void of emotion - Audrey looks to Brendon, searching out a pillar to lean on, a wingman, but Brendon's eyes are glassy with disappointment.
"Plan?" she repeats weakly, knowing exactly what he means.
"Convince us both to - to be like that. Just so you didn't lose some stupid contest?"
"No," she says, and she can hear something foreign in her voice. "No, it was just. No."
Brendon's hand goes up to pinch at his collar. "Of course it was, Ryan, fuck."
Ryan glances at him, something flashing across his face too fast to trace, and then turns back to Audrey. "Fuck you," he says concisely.
"I'm not-" she says, and then thinks better of arguing. "I'm sorry," she says. It isn't even hard to make it sound like she means it.
"I don't think you should try," Brendon tells her. "I don't think you should say anything."
Ryan spits out a laugh. "You'd know, wouldn't you?" he says, fixing on Brendon. "You'd fucking know. You'd know."
Something in Brendon tenses, boxed. His arms are straight lines. "What?" he says flatly.
"What did you do, meet up and plan it out to start? The next big plan to get noticed? Your fucking summer project?" Ryan's voice is sardonic, cold.
"No," Audrey says, "it wasn't like that, come on."
"So what was it like?"
Audrey's mouth opens and closes, but none of the usual words settle there. She stares at Ryan helplessly, because she knows he's going to let go.
"Had to be that," Ryan says again. "You're both as bad as each other."
Brendon gazes up at him, stony-faced. "I didn't plan this," he says simply. "I didn't."
"Whatever," Ryan says, "whatever. I don't care. Fuck."
And he turns his back on them.
Every footstep he takes is quieter, and his retreating figure starts to blur as something bitter hits Audrey's eyes. Her lids sting.
"I said I'm sorry," she says, and she can't look at Brendon. "I said I'm sorry, fuck, what else am I supposed to do?"
Brendon doesn't speak for a long time, and when he finally replies his voice is quiet, resigned.
"You're supposed to mean it," he says.
+
It’s not fucking fair, really. What, she just- she lies, maybe, and it all goes to shit? Is it really her fault that she’d wanted both of them?
No. No, it isn’t her fault and they went along with it so maybe they should just suck it up and grow a pair. Audrey considers calling Brendon and telling him this.
Grow up, she’d say, it’s not always about you. You think I’m really that selfish?
She doesn’t call, though. There are some questions she doesn’t want to know the answers to.
+
On second thought, maybe it was stupid to throw her mother’s favorite antique vase down the stairs.
+
Her house is empty, silent. Like a tomb in Technicolor. Like a tile floor after a leprechaun puked on it. She’d never really thought of it- this whole thing, this whole house- as a plea for attention, but echoing hallways and the click of heels against marble are making her think otherwise.
Fucking them, she thinks viciously. Fucking stupid, is what they are.
The sun is setting, dusty pinks and oranges spread out behind her pool and Audrey is not, is not thinking of sitting after dinner with a glass of wine out on the patio, listening to Ryan pick out melodies on his old, battered acoustic, watching Brendon sing under his breath, soulful and sweet. She isn’t thinking about the way he’d laughed when she came out, saying “Oh Audrey,” in his patronizing way, “oh Audrey you’re so elegant, look Ryan,” and turning Ryan’s head just so, pointing at her wine glass. She isn’t thinking about Ryan’s half smile, his snarky comments about over-priced alcohol, the way he pronounced names - Chardonnay, Merlot- exaggeratedly and leaned into her side for a moment. She isn’t.
Audrey’s drinking whiskey tonight, throwing back gulps from brand-new crystal shot-glasses. She likes the way it burns down her throat and makes her gasp, blink, cough. It’s fire in her lungs, fire of the best sort. It’s so not elegant, so fucking unclassy that it feels right, right now.
Ryan hates whisky, she thinks, and it feels good on her skin.
+
She wakes up the next day hungover and frustrated and then it hits her, again, how much she hates them and everyone ever, her mom, her agent, stupid fucking Alicia.
Her phone’s been lying useless on her table, not vibrating or ringing and she just needs to yell at someone, to use her claws.
She calls Pete.
“Audrey! What a pleasant surprise!” he says, picking up. She remembers, suddenly, why she’s never liked Pete much.
“I was wondering,” she says. There’s some part of her mind, the part that’s been growing recently, the part that thinks of happiness in real terms, not in the abstract way she’s always felt it, that part is telling her to hang up, take a deep breath.
The rest of her tells that part to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.
“I heard about your little episode last weekend,” Pete is saying now, something akin to laughter in his voice. Or maybe that’s just how his voice is.
“Yeah?” Audrey sits back against her pillows, looking out at the pool.
Ryan hasn’t come in for a week, now.
She Paypal-ed him his check anyway.
“Oh, definitely, definitely. You- what was it, I don’t remember what Alicia said- you fought, and they left? Without you? Didn’t you have to call a cab, oh jeez, poor you.”
Deep breaths, baby, just breathe.
“Has Alicia ever told you she’s just using you?” And okay, what, she didn’t mean to say that. “She doesn’t love you. She and Mikey just thought they should get an extra person, just for the heck of it. You do know, don’t you?”
There’s ice in her voice and a little something else, a little something desperate.
It surprises her how much she wants it to hurt him. She’s never felt more vicious than she feels now. Pete’s braying laugh startles her.
“She’s useful to me too, though,” he says, amusement clear in his tone. “We’re all useful to each other. So what if isn’t love?”
Audrey can’t think of anything to say to that, she just needs a minute to clear-
“Wait!” and Pete sounds so, so delighted she wants to scream, “you did love them, didn’t you? Sort of. Wow. Imagine that. Audrey Kitching, actually giving a shit.”
Audrey hangs up right then and bites her lip, hard, willing herself not to do something else stupid. Don’t cry.
Her heart is thudding a thousand beats per minute in her throat.
She’s thinking fuck Pete, fuck all of them, fuck everyone. She hates people. She hates them.
And then she sees the flyer Ryan left on her desk a month ago.
+
This is a fucking stupid idea. This is the worst idea Audrey's ever had. This is the biggest mistake she could possibly make, and just thinking about it sends thrills down her spine.
Audrey is going to the damn concert and it makes her laugh, almost, how she was so comforted at the time, so pleased with herself just for saying 'maybe.' She should've said yes. She could've said yes.
(She doesn’t want to do this. It isn’t going to be okay. She's going to mess up again and fail again and ruin everything even more than she already has, but she can't bring herself to stop - to turn the car around, to turn back from the venue. It's just not the right decision. And there are twenty different wrong decisions, but the ones she's making is the one that lets her see Ryan. It's not even a question of choice.)
Stepping inside, it's different in the same way everything associated with Ryan always has been, contrasting and clashing and brilliant. Audrey doesn't fit, she knows she doesn't - she doesn't even bother heading for the bar because there's no way they'll stock anything worthy of drinking, and anyway, she isn't here for alcohol. She's here for an entirely different kind of poison.
Audrey doesn’t know if the thick haze spread across the room is from the smoke of cigarettes or the steam from the heat of the people or if her eyes are just clouding - she just knows it’s misty, like bitter mornings and lilies, and she shouldn’t really be here. Audrey’s seen this band before, in white out silhouettes on the front of Ryan’s shirt with his legs dangling in the pool, frowning from behind those sunglasses at something she’d just said or done. It’s different seeing them here, real and moving, away from the soft cotton of Ryan’s chest.
Ryan is not an inconspicuous person. He's tall and bright and brilliant, a dragonfly, and Audrey sees him straight away.
Ryan is in the thick of the crowd, Ryan is holding a drink, and Ryan is wearing a jacket Audrey has seen before.
Ryan is not smiling, Ryan is not dancing, and Ryan is not alone.
He's with a girl.
And what a girl. Tall and blonde and skinny like some sort of emaciated fairy queen, and Ryan's hand is on her hip like it fits there.
Audrey tries not to throw up. Her ears feel plugged up and distorted, and she can't see much past the lights as she lets her mind-heart-feet decide, strides forward, pushing her way through person after person after art freak after scene kid after person. Ryan sees her straight away, and as their eyes meet, Audrey feels something reminiscent and lingering well up in her chest, bloom there. Because it doesn't matter. It just doesn't. She doesn't give a crap what he thinks or what he knows or what he feels, because he is Ryan, and when Audrey watches the sunset from her car on lonely evenings thinking about her childhood he and Brendon are the slow song on the radio that makes it feel less like an ending, and she's still angry with him and his stupid values and the way he never listens, but she can forgive, she can forget, they can -
Ryan blinks at her deliberately, once, and then leans down and kisses the blonde.
And now this bitch is the cow, and Audrey is the motherfucking abattoir.
"Seriously, Ryan?" she says, crossing her arms and twisting up her nose. "Seriously?"
The girl turns to her, barely managing to pop herself away from Ryan's stupid face, and says, "What the fuck?"
Audrey holds up a hand, dismissive, tells the girl, "Shut up. I'm talking to Ryan."
Ryan's lips, streaked with desperate looking transferred lipstick, are pursed in a thin line. "I don't want to talk to you," he says,
The blonde's grin is triumphant. "He doesn't want to talk to you," she tells Audrey. It is, all things considered, a very bad move on her part. That said, Audrey's learned from her past mistake(s), so she tries to keep cool, calm. She thinks about empty fields, sunny skies, the wispy way Brendon talks when he's tired.
"You're better than this," she tells Ryan.
"No," Ryan shakes his head, correcting her, "I'm better than you."
The blonde emits a shrieking cackle. Audrey is thinking happy thoughts.
"Okay, yes, you are," she says, "but I'm trying, okay? And I'm - fuck you, you know I'm sorry."
The sharp angles of Ryan's face give way a little, like a stupid hippy teepee with one of the poles missing.
"Who even are you?" the blonde asks, eyeing Audrey up and down. Mostly down.
"Shut up," Ryan says, not looking at her. Audrey sort of wants to see the look on her face, but - Ryan. He frowns again. "What do you mean, you're trying?"
She shrugs. There are bright lights and music all around, and there's no bubble around them now, no shield. Audrey wants to be able to talk, instead of just speaking. "Can we go?" she asks quietly.
The blonde straightens up, eyes icy and fully focused on Audrey. "Are you kidding?" she says.
So fuck the happy thoughts, fuck meditation, and fuck skinny blondes with badly applied eyeliner. This is a two person conversation, there just isn't enough room for this bullshit, and Audrey is nothing if not happy to maintain the balance. Her fist clenches like it's just come alive, and apparently the first thing it wants to do with it's new found vivacity is smack this bitch right in her smug little face. The blonde hits the floor; it's a beautiful sight, actually - she's all neon and limbs splayed between other people's feet, long nails scratching on the sticky plastic and hair fanning out across beer stains and dirt. Ryan glances between her and Audrey for a quiet moment, and then says, "Out. Now."
Audrey knows, without really having to ask, that he isn't talking to the blonde. She takes that to mean she's won.
+
It’s hot and Audrey’s useless.
The bar is looming behind them, and Ryan is standing next to her with a litter of stamped on cigarette butts pooling at his feet. Audrey’s sat on the curb with her head in her hands, and she’s poking at the scratch on her foot where someone stood on her as Ryan wrestled her out.
Stuff isn’t great.
“I didn’t -” she starts, and hears Ryan huff. She can only see his shoes next to her in the dark, tattered sneakers like always. She missed that, the way he cherishes ugly things so determinedly. It kind of gave her hope.
She tries again. “I never knew you smoked,” she says.
Ryan’s staring across at the Chinese place opposite them, neon lights from the bar sign pooling at the hollows of his neck and turning him green and red and yellow, ethereal. He slides his gaze down to her face, and the lights go blue.
“Not often,” he says. “Just when I’m…”
Audrey guesses he means, ‘Just when I’m like this,’ and knows enough not to pursue it. She doesn’t care about Ryan’s lungs, anyhow. It’s the beating pulp of muscle that lies just between them that she’s focusing on, now.
“So, I’m sorry I hit your skank,” Audrey says quickly, and he’s sat down next to her roughly before she finishes the sentence.
“She wasn’t a skank, fuck,” Ryan says. He’s landed on one of his discarded butts, probably getting ash all over the ass of his jeans. Audrey would tell him, but - yeah, no. It’s the sort of thing that would make Brendon laugh.
“Sorry, though,” Audrey says, a little more deliberately.
He sighs so hard it’s like he’s trying to gust a raincloud across the city.
Audrey forgets everything else for a second and wonders how hygienic it is to be sitting here. Her dress is going to be gritty and grey by the time they leave, if they ever do. Ryan looks pained and pissed, his eyebrows knotting together like they’re afraid of something. Audrey’s arms are bare and pale, and there’s a curve in them tailored for Ryan’s shoulders, but it’s distorted as he turns away from her, gazing down the street. Audrey can’t imagine anyone looking at them and not feeling distinctly morbid. She suddenly wonders where Brendon’s mouth is right now.
Ryan points at the scratch on her foot, silently.
“Someone stood on me,” she says, tilting it to give him a better view - it’s actually pretty impressive, as scratches go. There’s something trapped inside her head about scratches and wounds and some things going deeper than others, something to do with pain and exposure, but she can’t capture it, and even if she could, Ryan would most probably be trying to silence her before she could spit out the first garbled sentence.
“Jesus, Audrey,” Ryan says quietly, and stretches his fingers out to the cut, but doesn't touch.
She really wants him to touch.
“You’re like a fucking…” he cuts off, thinking, hesitant. “A fucking voodoo doll.” He’s still glowering across the street, not looking at her and not looking at her, he just is not looking at her. “You’re hurting yourself to hurt me.”
Audrey stays silent, intact, and loveless.
Or well, she tries to, out of politeness, but she can’t bite it back. “That’s the dumbest metaphor ever,” she says.
Ryan looks relieved.
A car rushes past, reminding Audrey of their lack of one. They’re maybe a little trapped here together in the city, the music panting out of the club and the looks that passers-by are giving them getting colder and less sympathetic as the night wears on. They have no car and no money for a cab. Audrey is not the sort of person who gets seen doing things like this; Ryan is not the sort of person she gets seen doing them with. Audrey’s drenched in sweat and worry and actually, she can’t really focus on that tiny spectrum of problems labeled 'Appearance' right now, not really at all.
“So,” Ryan says, rubbing his eye.
“So,” Audrey says, watching him.
Ryan sighs, and digs out his battered cell, picking out another cigarette, the last in his carton, with a flourish.
You are such a theatrical loser, Audrey thinks, and pulls at a strand of her hair until it stings a little bit.
Ryan says into the phone, “Hey, so, I’m with Audrey.”
Brendon says he’ll be there in ten.
+
It gets awkward after Brendon unlocks the car because he isn’t looking at either of them and the interior seems almost as cold and isolated as the street.
They stand there hesitantly for a moment, waiting for Brendon to acknowledge them or smile at them or just tell them what the fuck to do, but then Ryan sighs and says, “Fuck this, I’m not the fucking bi-polar whore,” and climbs into the front seat.
Audrey stands swaying, blinking, thinking fucking bi-polar whore, and then she struggles into the backseat and tries to keep quiet.
Brendon’s car peels off slowly down the street.
It’s only around midnight now, so the real tomorrow is still far-off and loose, and the car is slinking through the city on a route Audrey can’t place. She’s spread out across the backseat so she can see through gap between the two front head rests. All of them are staring forward out the windscreen, Brendon’s hands calm on the steering wheel, Ryan’s darting nervously from his hair to his knees to his scarf (to all the places Audrey wants to be), and her own hands limp at her sides, opened out and crossed with dirt from the street.
No one’s talking.
They drive. Audrey doesn't even know where to put her eyes anymore; she is forty-five percent wordless, sixteen percent swinging noose, and thirty-nine percent stale aftertaste. She can feeling the beginning of a headache, building slowly, like a dense little ball just above her right eye.
"You've," Ryan says, tapping the window and sighing, "Brendon, we've already gone down this street."
Brendon doesn't look at him, just says, "So?"
Ryan frowns, but he doesn't seem to have a reply. Not one that he wants to say out loud, anyway.
After a while Audrey figures out the sort-of route that Brendon's taking - swerving across a couple of back alleys and avenues steeply shadowed by apartment blocks before turning back into the busier, brighter parts of the city, weaving through the late night traffic and lights before turning again down the cooler darker roads, and fuck knows how much gas this is costing him.
After a period of time as inconceivable to Audrey as her feelings, Ryan says, "Wait. Stop."
Brendon's hands stir on the wheel, and Audrey can tell he's surprised, but he scowls, shrugs, and turns the car in to the parking lot of a 24-hour grocery store. Ryan pushes his shoulder lightly, in a cold, simple gesture of thanks, before slipping out and into the store.
Brendon watches him leave. Audrey watches Brendon watching him. The air in the car is misty-dark, colorless and wound up tight.
"What happened?" Brendon says, without turning to look at her. Audrey notices that his hands are still clutched around the steering wheel. After that she just notices his hands.
"A little vodka got mixed in with a little emotion, I ran into Ryan, and then Ryan called you."
His shoulder twitches, like he's trying to shrug something off, and he finally turns to face her. "What did you do?" he asks. It sounds curious rather than accusatory, like Brendon doesn't really know what to expect, and like he doesn't care.
She raises a finger to twist into her hair. "Ryan was with some girl," she says.
Brendon searches out her face, searches for something he already knows is there, before his mouth lilts upwards, just a little. "And you - spoke to this girl?"
He looks less confused now, or tired; just interested.
"I communicated with her," Audrey says slowly. "But not with, uh. Words." He nods, motions for her to go on. "I just - she's probably going to be wearing sunglasses for the next three weeks."
"Fuck," Brendon says, rubbing his eyes. "You are... insane."
"Yes," Audrey replies, hissing on the 's', and Ryan slips back into the car holding a bag of candy and a can of Sprite and ignoring the fact that Brendon's half-twisted round in his seat.
Audrey laughs with closed teeth as he rips the bag open, takes one out to eat. He says blankly into the air ahead of him, "Well, if we're gonna be driving all fucking night."
"We are," Brendon confirms, starting up the car again. "We are."
Ryan sticks a tiny jelly dinosaur in his mouth and chews, looking ridiculously angry and angrily ridiculous. Brendon shifts a little in the driver's seat, but stays religiously on the same route. The wheels spin and the road unfolds and god damn, Audrey thinks. Well, here we are.
"Listen," Audrey starts. "I know I'm -"
"Shut up," Ryan says.
"But I need to tell you why I got so -"
"Seriously," Brendon says, "he's right. Shut up. This is our moment. Don't ruin it."
"Our moment," Ryan repeats, like the word tastes foreign in his mouth.
"Yes," Brendon says, determinedly. "So shut up."
Passing cars' headlights blink in and out of range, and in the slow strobe lights that they create, Ryan hunches a little further down in his seat, and mumbles, "This has not resolved anything, you know that, right? All you did was ruin my evening. That doesn't automatically mean -"
"Shut up," Audrey says.
Brendon snorts, and keeps driving.
Audrey leans back against the leather seats. If she closes her eyes a little, the silhouettes of Brendon and Ryan in front of her blur into dark shadowy shapes, and she feels a sudden rush of affection for them. Maybe tomorrow they'll get some sushi at that nice place downtown she found with Alicia, months ago. She knows Ryan would love sushi.
She presses her nails into her palm and thinks about them, her- well. Hers.
They drive on into the night.
head over heels mix
recently played mix
untitled art
Waking up in a bed with two people is not quite as life-changing as Audrey had hoped, but it is pretty awesome. If a little constricting.
"So, uh," Brendon says, dragging a lazy finger up her arm. "What color is your hair, anyway?"
Ryan snorts, reaching up to ruffle his own, messy and uncut and prettyprettypretty. "You say that like she'd remember by now."
Audrey sits back a little, trying to pull out of the sheets just enough to give her room to stretch a little. She slopes back down on to Ryan, who bumps her shoulder lightly with his fist before leaning back a little, giving. "Brown?" she says, feels the ring in her nose dig in as she wrinkles it, remembering how it used to look.
Brendon laughs softly, and tilts his head, probably trying to imagine it. "I'm supposed to wear glasses," he says. "I got contacts when I was thirteen."
He says it like it's an offering, and it feels like even the buzz of the city has shut up for just a second, or at least calmed down, like maybe someone slipped the heaving skyline a valium just so they'd be able to relax, just for a second.
And then Ryan's chest jumps with laughter. "Sorry," he says, through quick breaths, "sorry, just, imagining both of you looking normal..." he shrugs, apologetically. Spiteless.
Brendon flips him off, and then leans in, smiling.
+
Her parents never explained why they didn’t get rid of the piano when she quit. It’s probably because it’s so impressive - tall and black and shiny, and god, do her parents love things that shine. Nobody in her house plays, though. Audrey isn’t particularly surprised that Brendon can play piano - because what good little rich kid growing up with school uniform and obnoxious parents doesn’t learn an instrument before they’re fifteen? Audrey’s parents started her out on the flute, moved her on to violin, piano, French horn, and piccolo, before finally giving up and accepting that her temperament didn’t really match with weekly hour of minor scales and daily practice.
Audrey knows from past experience, then, that they almost always find it easier that way. It’s not like she’s complaining.
Brendon obviously never had those same qualms with music. He sits at their stupid, pretentious piano and suddenly his fingers are moving and that's it. The room they're in is gone, to be replaced by their own private concert hall, their own little bubble of pitch and tone and timing. Ryan's sitting next to him on the piano bench, his eyes scanning the sheet music, figuring out which part Brendon's playing and when. They look good together. They look good.
Audrey watches them from the doorway, Brendon playing fluidly and nudging Ryan every so often. Ryan keeps giving him irritated glances and turning back to the notes on the page, hesitant.
After a few cautious moments, he joins in with the high part. He isn't as great, clunky and without the fluid running sound that Brendon's pulling off, but it sounds... good. Audrey watches and listens and doesn't fail to notice the tiny smile that creeps its way onto Ryan's face when he glances up at her.
+
Ryan announces it like he’s defying them, which is something Audrey’s got used to. She is surprised at what he’s said, though, and almost ready to tell him 'no' with one carefully placed wave of her hand, but he’ll hate her if she does that, and fun as that would be, it really feels like too much effort sometimes.
“I want us to go out,” Ryan says.
“We’ve been out,” Brendon replies, without looking up.
“No, but,” he pads across the room and comes to hoist himself up onto the counter next to Audrey. They swing their legs together. “Out out.”
Brendon’s in the next room across, but the doorway’s big enough that they can see the outline of his back, the cool slide of his fingers on the keys of the piano, his heavy-lidded eyes. He’s playing something simple and quiet, the tune crawling across the room.
Audrey curls her fingers over the edge of the counter, just in case she slips. “Out where?” she says. Something about Ryan’s pointedly sideways gaze is making her feel like a whole lot of people are staring at her. Brendon’s still playing the same song, something in a major key.
“I don’t know,” he shrugs, and his leg swings, up down up down, lazy. “You know the city better than I do.”
Audrey clutches the edge harder, likes the smooth dig on her knuckles. There. “I know,” she says. “I know, but-”
The music stops abruptly, and Brendon’s suddenly there, in front of her, so her knees are almost resting on his hips - god knows they jut out enough, the skinny piece of shit, and honestly, this is from Audrey, who lives by the rule that a low-fat bagel is really enough for a good day, because if you don’t draw the line somewhere…
“I think what Ryan means,” Brendon says, “is something more public.”
Ryan snorts to himself. "I thought you’d agree to something like that pretty quickly.”
It isn’t clear which of them he’s talking to. Audrey doesn’t look up to figure it out, she’s staring at the single kitchen tile she can see between Brendon’s feet, and her fingers are almost aching from their grip on the counter now.
There’s not a lot wrong with what Ryan’s asking for, really, she just… What would they do? Sit at a bar in a row, order drinks, talk over each other? What, feed each other peanuts? Who would buy the drinks? And dancing, oh god, what if they went to a club? The three of them, on a dance floor, with strobe lights and quick beats and so many eyes? It’s not like a movie theatre, dark and quiet, where no one can see, or that empty art gallery where they didn't touch anywhere except the elbows. What if they go to a restaurant, and the waiter doesn’t have any tables for three, because who goes out to dinner in threes? And what would they wear? Brendon and Ryan, both in suits? How stupid would that look? People would be laughing at them. They aren't ready for this yet. Audrey needs their grand entrance to be perfect, needs people to be jealous, needs all the scheming to be worth it, and -
“Okay,” Audrey says. Okay okay okay.
Brendon smiles at Ryan, winking, and as Ryan leans his head against Audrey's shoulder, Brendon kisses her softly. Audrey imagines them doing this on a picnic blanket in the park, holding hands strolling around a carnival, on a couch at a party, anything.
It doesn't work.
But, shut up, Audrey tells herself, leaning into them.
Fuck, Alicia managed it. How hard can it be?
+
It actually isn't that hard at all.
Date Night is Ryan's choice because he likes choosing things, and he picks a restaurant close to the place where Brendon and Audrey first - met? Talked? Negotiated? Argued? Audrey still can't put a name on the way they interacted that first time. She still can't really put a name on the way they interact now. She thinks there are words for it, for the way they work, the way they fit, and how their arguments and romanticisms seem to slide into place next to each other, but those words are tucked away tightly in Ryan's ugly messy notebooks, and she doesn't really care what they are. It's just nice knowing that they're there.
The maître d' is the highly trained type that doesn't even bother to raise an eyebrow when the three of them walk (sashay, saunter, parade) into the restaurant. Still, they get a table on the far side, in the corner and away from the windows. It's square, which is awkward, because what, should it be Audrey and Ryan opposite Brendon, or does that look too much like they're negotiating a business deal? Audrey and Brendon opposite Ryan, or does that look too much like they're firing him? Brendon and Ryan opposite Audrey - but that's an automatic no, because there's no way Audrey wants to look like the fag-hag to two pretty boys in dinner jackets.
Brendon solves the problem by huffing something under his breath and pulling his chair around so he's sat at the narrow end of the table, putting them in a triangle.
"Nice move," Ryan mutters.
Brendon grins, and says, "The shrimp here's pretty nice."
That's not strictly true. The shrimp here tastes like ass, and Audrey learns as much when she orders a whole plate of it on Brendon's recommendation, and promptly sends it back to be replaced with something edible. Ryan gingerly orders the closest thing they have to a burger, which is this weird little strip of lamb on some sort of flatbread with cute little lettuce leaves sprinkled on top. He pokes at it, apprehensive, until Audrey says, "That's food, Ryan."
He glances at her, and Brendon adds, "Normally, we eat it."
Ryan takes a second to glare at each of them in turn, before turning back to his meal. He takes the first couple bites with the appropriate amount of theatrical distaste, but by the end of the meal his plate is empty.
Brendon has something with chicken that looks good and smells good and, when Audrey steals some off of his plate, tastes pretty good too.
"Did you just-" Brendon says, blinking at her. "You stole food off of my plate."
"So?" Audrey asks. "That's what girlfriends do."
There's a sudden, teetering silence that reverberates across the table. Brendon is still looking at her, one eyebrow raised like a sideways parenthesis - open or closed, Audrey doesn't know. The word 'girlfriend' is projected on to the ceiling in bright red font, and one day, one day, Audrey is going to learn to think before she speaks.
And then Ryan laughs, cracking the tension easily, and says, "Dude, you are so whipped."
Brendon retaliates by stealing the rest of his drink. Ryan doesn't mind.
+
Ryan says, "We should go to a concert, next."
Audrey's toes are wrapped around the edge of the pool and she's standing, arms out, watching the pink blur of her reflection in the water.
"A concert," she repeats, slowly.
He's walking back around the pool, dragging the net through the water. Brendon's out on the other side, sloshing the mop around on the tiles. He, for some reason, enjoys helping Ryan clean. That's okay, because Audrey enjoys watching.
"Yeah," he says. "Next month. At that place near - I have a flyer somewhere."
"Maybe," Audrey says.
The thing is, she isn't really concert material. She likes personal space and being able to hear her own thoughts and music that doesn't burst her ear drums and room to breathe and what's scary is that she's here and it's now and she's looking at Ryan and she's thinking, not no, but maybe.
She is thinking maybe.
+
"You haven't called me in ages," Alicia says. She isn't laughing at anything, now.
"You haven't called me in ages, either." It's only been four days since they last spoke. You take things to pick on where you can find them.
"I tried," Alicia says, and then adds, "or maybe I didn't. I lose track, y'know."
"Of course," Audrey says, because she still has the little symbol on the top of the phone screen showing the two missed calls, both from Alicia. There aren't many things more satisfying.
"I've been busy," Audrey says, and okay, there aren't many things more satisfying, except saying that. Audrey's been waiting for this moment since the beginning of the entire venture, and maybe a little before that as well. It's not that she needs to be better than Alicia, not really. It's more that she wants Alicia to be worse.
Alicia doesn't say anything, uncharacteristcally, and Audrey wants to high five someone. "With what?" Alicia asks finally.
"Oh, just guys."
"Guys?" Alicia repeats it curiously, alive and suddenly interested again. Audrey can almost feel her lean in closer to the phone, thinking in lipstick and scandal and gossip. Sometimes you just have to take a damn pigtail by the hand and pull.
"Yeah," Audrey says, "a couple. Brendon Urie. You've heard of him, right?"
That's the thing. Everyone's heard of Brendon Urie.
"I have, actually," Alicia says. "I think Pete and Brendon used to go to the same school - before Pete started going to that pretentious little art school for talented kids," and she adds a little laugh, ha ha ha.
"Really?" Audrey says, and it is not in any way a question. "That's funny - I think Ryan got offered a scholarship there. Turned it down, though. Something to do with artistic integrity, or whatever."
"Ryan?" Alicia repeats. The uncertainty in her tone sends fireworks shooting across Audrey's mind.
She pauses to make way for the grin that parades its way onto her face. "Ryan, oh god, Ryan. He's - well, me and him and Brendon - it's pretty embarrassing, actually. We all," (pause for a giggle), "adore each other. They're both so... attentive. Like you and Pete and Mikey, I guess, except, well."
Except better.
"So you..." Alicia says.
"Oh, yeah," Audrey says, and she is winning, winning, won. That's all that needs to be said. Oh, yeah.
Alicia says she has to go, but she'll call back later.
Audrey laughs as soon as she hangs up.
(Part of her wishes they could have talked about if for longer, wishes she could have actually spilled about it properly to Alicia like they do in sitcoms and chick flicks - but she's always hated those kinds of shows, and if she needs to talk she can check in with her mom's goddamned therapist.)
+
They do actually do the whole 'picnic blanket in the park' thing. Audrey even packs the basket herself, just because getting the staff to do it is number one on the (never ending) list of ways to send Ryan into a righteous frenzy of angry debate. And Audrey - well, it's just easier to pack the damn basket.
It feels strange, walking through the park with Ryan and Brendon either side of her. They're both taller than she is, but it's a bend and break sort of formation, with Ryan slouching, hands in pockets, and Brendon more upright, shoulders square. Audrey, with a careful spine and the walk she's perfected since childhood, feels like the happy medium. It's something she thinks she could get used to. Being the one in between.
They pick a spot next to, but not under, a tree. There are leaves and blossoms scattered out on the ground like forgotten confetti, everything looking suspiciously picture perfect.
"Alright, so," Audrey says, setting down the basket. "Is this 'out' enough for you?" She raises a careful eyebrow at Ryan.
Ryan considers her for a moment. He's sat with his back turned towards Brendon, their legs lining the corners of the blanket. Brendon is smiling, tie loosened and jacket discarded. Content. It's only when Audrey glances down that she realizes Ryan's hand is resting gently on top of Brendon's.
"Pass me an apple?" Ryan says, avoiding the question. Audrey stays still for a second full up with confusion and stubbornness, and then complies, leans forward with the apple red and waxy in her fingers. Like the witch with Snow White, she thinks, and then, except for how I wouldn't.
Except for how she just wouldn't, would she?
And suddenly his fingers catch around her wrist, messing up the balance until she feels her knees twisting beneath her, the ground rising up to meet her shoulders. She lands in between them, blinking up as Ryan smirks and Brendon grins and they both, they both just are.
"Yes," Ryan says decisively.
Audrey's forgotten what the question was, but she still agrees.
Yes.
+
The Charity Ball happens every year, near the end of August, and just like a fleeting summer fling or a vacation romance it normally ends in drunkeness, at least one fight, and at least one crying girl. Audrey gets the invite in the mail- “You’re invited to the annual Simpson Charity Ball! Bring your check-book and leave any stinginess at the door!”- and she shows it to them in some sort of effort to be glamorously amused.
“It looks even tackier than last year,” she says, tossing the invite at them in what she hopes is a careless sort of way.
Ryan picks it up. “Simpson. More rich asshole friends?”
Brendon’s lying on his back, playing idly with the unraveling string on her comforter. “They have this huge thing every year. Everyone who’s anyone goes.”
Meaning, even Brendon goes.
“So are you, uh. Are the two of you going?” Ryan's staring determinedly at a pillow.
And maybe, maybe this could be it. The big unveil. The final fuck you. The “I win, you lose.”
Because they have. They have won.
“We could-“ Audrey clears her throat- “we could all go. Together.”
The silence after that makes her want to reclaim that sentence, say oh ha ha my little joke, funny right? She’s just about to say that, say something for god’s sake, but Brendon interrupts her.
“Like Ryan has anything fancy enough to wear.”
She feels relieved.
“Fuck you,” Ryan says, playing with the card. “My wardrobe is totally hip enough for these guys.” He pauses. “I might need to borrow a jacket, though.”
Audrey breathes, in, and out.
+
“Everyone here looks ridiculous,” Ryan says in an undertone. “Fuck, I look ridiculous.”
“No,” she says. “You look good.”
There’s still imaginary pause, the is that okay, was that too much that she thinks probably only goes on in her head, but he does. He's wearing his own slacks, pinstriped ones, with a jacket of Brendon's. They picked it out yesterday, Audrey and Brendon collapsed on Brendon's bed and Ryan going through each tailored suit carefully, trying on each, sloppy smile on his face.
He chose a maroon waistcoat to go with it because he's Ryan.
“Come on, let’s go in.”
All three of them are holding hands, and when they walk in the room there’s a slight hush. Audrey’s feeling lightheaded a bit, her fingers tighten around Brendon’s wrist just a little, and she puts on her best diva grin.
Three, two-
And then it’s over, people go back to sipping champagne, nibbling phyllo squares, gossiping, perhaps, a bit more intensely than before. Because who cares, right? It's not like there's any money involved.
“Good, good,” she says out loud, softly. Brendon looks over at her but doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll get us drinks,” he says instead, walking off. People turn to look at him as he walks by and Audrey feels something warm in her chest.
Alicia joins them soon after Brendon leaves, wearing a chiffon dress that, okay, looks really good.
“Audrey, dear, so nice to see you! Oh, is this Ryan?”
Audrey smiles, feeling the edge she always feels when dealing with Alicia rise up slower, smoother than usual. “Yes, this is Ryan.” She feels a bit like a proud parent showing off a child, and when Alicia gives Ryan a once over and raises her eyebrows in approval, the feeling intensifies. Ryan, for his part, moves a bit closer to Audrey.
Alicia nods, “Interesting, interesting. And where’s the other one? Brendon, you said, right?”
There was something wrong about that sentence- Audrey feels Ryan tense up beside her and she can feel some sort of distant foreboding.She can't think about, can't remember what-
“Brendon went- well, there he is!” The mock cheer in her voice feels too sharp, too thin.
Brendon comes back with tall flutes of champagne and Audrey takes one, taking a sip. Ryan takes the soda Brendon hands him with a tight-lipped smile.
“So you did get two as well,” Alicia says, smiling. “Much better than one, I’d say.”
Brendon’s “What?” makes Audrey nervous. Shit, what’s-
“Audrey,” Alicia explains to the other two, “saw how happy I was with my two boyfriends- they’re over there, the tall skinny one in grey and the shorter one in blue- and she just had to get two of her own. She hates being outdone, you know. Loves attention. And, well.” She nods at Brendon, smirking. "You do seem very attentive."
The silence feels heavy on her skin, she can’t breathe through it, can’t-
“They're wonderful, Aud," Alicia says, glancing between them again and then leaning back. "Well done.”
She saunters off, smiling.
"What the fuck," Ryan hisses. "What the fuck, what the fuck."
And Audrey, Audrey can feel the end of everything as it slips and slides through her fingers.
"Ry-" she starts.
He turns to her, and the anger that used to light his eyes, the disgust and disdain and distrust, it's gone. He's blank, masked, closed. Audrey can feel her heartbeat loud in her ears.
"It had to be that, didn't it?" he says. "It had to be that."
Brendon is staring at her too. There are two pairs of eyes on Audrey, and she can't meet them all at once. She used to feel like she could.
"So was that the plan?" Ryan goes on. His voice is dangerously void of emotion - Audrey looks to Brendon, searching out a pillar to lean on, a wingman, but Brendon's eyes are glassy with disappointment.
"Plan?" she repeats weakly, knowing exactly what he means.
"Convince us both to - to be like that. Just so you didn't lose some stupid contest?"
"No," she says, and she can hear something foreign in her voice. "No, it was just. No."
Brendon's hand goes up to pinch at his collar. "Of course it was, Ryan, fuck."
Ryan glances at him, something flashing across his face too fast to trace, and then turns back to Audrey. "Fuck you," he says concisely.
"I'm not-" she says, and then thinks better of arguing. "I'm sorry," she says. It isn't even hard to make it sound like she means it.
"I don't think you should try," Brendon tells her. "I don't think you should say anything."
Ryan spits out a laugh. "You'd know, wouldn't you?" he says, fixing on Brendon. "You'd fucking know. You'd know."
Something in Brendon tenses, boxed. His arms are straight lines. "What?" he says flatly.
"What did you do, meet up and plan it out to start? The next big plan to get noticed? Your fucking summer project?" Ryan's voice is sardonic, cold.
"No," Audrey says, "it wasn't like that, come on."
"So what was it like?"
Audrey's mouth opens and closes, but none of the usual words settle there. She stares at Ryan helplessly, because she knows he's going to let go.
"Had to be that," Ryan says again. "You're both as bad as each other."
Brendon gazes up at him, stony-faced. "I didn't plan this," he says simply. "I didn't."
"Whatever," Ryan says, "whatever. I don't care. Fuck."
And he turns his back on them.
Every footstep he takes is quieter, and his retreating figure starts to blur as something bitter hits Audrey's eyes. Her lids sting.
"I said I'm sorry," she says, and she can't look at Brendon. "I said I'm sorry, fuck, what else am I supposed to do?"
Brendon doesn't speak for a long time, and when he finally replies his voice is quiet, resigned.
"You're supposed to mean it," he says.
+
It’s not fucking fair, really. What, she just- she lies, maybe, and it all goes to shit? Is it really her fault that she’d wanted both of them?
No. No, it isn’t her fault and they went along with it so maybe they should just suck it up and grow a pair. Audrey considers calling Brendon and telling him this.
Grow up, she’d say, it’s not always about you. You think I’m really that selfish?
She doesn’t call, though. There are some questions she doesn’t want to know the answers to.
+
On second thought, maybe it was stupid to throw her mother’s favorite antique vase down the stairs.
+
Her house is empty, silent. Like a tomb in Technicolor. Like a tile floor after a leprechaun puked on it. She’d never really thought of it- this whole thing, this whole house- as a plea for attention, but echoing hallways and the click of heels against marble are making her think otherwise.
Fucking them, she thinks viciously. Fucking stupid, is what they are.
The sun is setting, dusty pinks and oranges spread out behind her pool and Audrey is not, is not thinking of sitting after dinner with a glass of wine out on the patio, listening to Ryan pick out melodies on his old, battered acoustic, watching Brendon sing under his breath, soulful and sweet. She isn’t thinking about the way he’d laughed when she came out, saying “Oh Audrey,” in his patronizing way, “oh Audrey you’re so elegant, look Ryan,” and turning Ryan’s head just so, pointing at her wine glass. She isn’t thinking about Ryan’s half smile, his snarky comments about over-priced alcohol, the way he pronounced names - Chardonnay, Merlot- exaggeratedly and leaned into her side for a moment. She isn’t.
Audrey’s drinking whiskey tonight, throwing back gulps from brand-new crystal shot-glasses. She likes the way it burns down her throat and makes her gasp, blink, cough. It’s fire in her lungs, fire of the best sort. It’s so not elegant, so fucking unclassy that it feels right, right now.
Ryan hates whisky, she thinks, and it feels good on her skin.
+
She wakes up the next day hungover and frustrated and then it hits her, again, how much she hates them and everyone ever, her mom, her agent, stupid fucking Alicia.
Her phone’s been lying useless on her table, not vibrating or ringing and she just needs to yell at someone, to use her claws.
She calls Pete.
“Audrey! What a pleasant surprise!” he says, picking up. She remembers, suddenly, why she’s never liked Pete much.
“I was wondering,” she says. There’s some part of her mind, the part that’s been growing recently, the part that thinks of happiness in real terms, not in the abstract way she’s always felt it, that part is telling her to hang up, take a deep breath.
The rest of her tells that part to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.
“I heard about your little episode last weekend,” Pete is saying now, something akin to laughter in his voice. Or maybe that’s just how his voice is.
“Yeah?” Audrey sits back against her pillows, looking out at the pool.
Ryan hasn’t come in for a week, now.
She Paypal-ed him his check anyway.
“Oh, definitely, definitely. You- what was it, I don’t remember what Alicia said- you fought, and they left? Without you? Didn’t you have to call a cab, oh jeez, poor you.”
Deep breaths, baby, just breathe.
“Has Alicia ever told you she’s just using you?” And okay, what, she didn’t mean to say that. “She doesn’t love you. She and Mikey just thought they should get an extra person, just for the heck of it. You do know, don’t you?”
There’s ice in her voice and a little something else, a little something desperate.
It surprises her how much she wants it to hurt him. She’s never felt more vicious than she feels now. Pete’s braying laugh startles her.
“She’s useful to me too, though,” he says, amusement clear in his tone. “We’re all useful to each other. So what if isn’t love?”
Audrey can’t think of anything to say to that, she just needs a minute to clear-
“Wait!” and Pete sounds so, so delighted she wants to scream, “you did love them, didn’t you? Sort of. Wow. Imagine that. Audrey Kitching, actually giving a shit.”
Audrey hangs up right then and bites her lip, hard, willing herself not to do something else stupid. Don’t cry.
Her heart is thudding a thousand beats per minute in her throat.
She’s thinking fuck Pete, fuck all of them, fuck everyone. She hates people. She hates them.
And then she sees the flyer Ryan left on her desk a month ago.
+
This is a fucking stupid idea. This is the worst idea Audrey's ever had. This is the biggest mistake she could possibly make, and just thinking about it sends thrills down her spine.
Audrey is going to the damn concert and it makes her laugh, almost, how she was so comforted at the time, so pleased with herself just for saying 'maybe.' She should've said yes. She could've said yes.
(She doesn’t want to do this. It isn’t going to be okay. She's going to mess up again and fail again and ruin everything even more than she already has, but she can't bring herself to stop - to turn the car around, to turn back from the venue. It's just not the right decision. And there are twenty different wrong decisions, but the ones she's making is the one that lets her see Ryan. It's not even a question of choice.)
Stepping inside, it's different in the same way everything associated with Ryan always has been, contrasting and clashing and brilliant. Audrey doesn't fit, she knows she doesn't - she doesn't even bother heading for the bar because there's no way they'll stock anything worthy of drinking, and anyway, she isn't here for alcohol. She's here for an entirely different kind of poison.
Audrey doesn’t know if the thick haze spread across the room is from the smoke of cigarettes or the steam from the heat of the people or if her eyes are just clouding - she just knows it’s misty, like bitter mornings and lilies, and she shouldn’t really be here. Audrey’s seen this band before, in white out silhouettes on the front of Ryan’s shirt with his legs dangling in the pool, frowning from behind those sunglasses at something she’d just said or done. It’s different seeing them here, real and moving, away from the soft cotton of Ryan’s chest.
Ryan is not an inconspicuous person. He's tall and bright and brilliant, a dragonfly, and Audrey sees him straight away.
Ryan is in the thick of the crowd, Ryan is holding a drink, and Ryan is wearing a jacket Audrey has seen before.
Ryan is not smiling, Ryan is not dancing, and Ryan is not alone.
He's with a girl.
And what a girl. Tall and blonde and skinny like some sort of emaciated fairy queen, and Ryan's hand is on her hip like it fits there.
Audrey tries not to throw up. Her ears feel plugged up and distorted, and she can't see much past the lights as she lets her mind-heart-feet decide, strides forward, pushing her way through person after person after art freak after scene kid after person. Ryan sees her straight away, and as their eyes meet, Audrey feels something reminiscent and lingering well up in her chest, bloom there. Because it doesn't matter. It just doesn't. She doesn't give a crap what he thinks or what he knows or what he feels, because he is Ryan, and when Audrey watches the sunset from her car on lonely evenings thinking about her childhood he and Brendon are the slow song on the radio that makes it feel less like an ending, and she's still angry with him and his stupid values and the way he never listens, but she can forgive, she can forget, they can -
Ryan blinks at her deliberately, once, and then leans down and kisses the blonde.
And now this bitch is the cow, and Audrey is the motherfucking abattoir.
"Seriously, Ryan?" she says, crossing her arms and twisting up her nose. "Seriously?"
The girl turns to her, barely managing to pop herself away from Ryan's stupid face, and says, "What the fuck?"
Audrey holds up a hand, dismissive, tells the girl, "Shut up. I'm talking to Ryan."
Ryan's lips, streaked with desperate looking transferred lipstick, are pursed in a thin line. "I don't want to talk to you," he says,
The blonde's grin is triumphant. "He doesn't want to talk to you," she tells Audrey. It is, all things considered, a very bad move on her part. That said, Audrey's learned from her past mistake(s), so she tries to keep cool, calm. She thinks about empty fields, sunny skies, the wispy way Brendon talks when he's tired.
"You're better than this," she tells Ryan.
"No," Ryan shakes his head, correcting her, "I'm better than you."
The blonde emits a shrieking cackle. Audrey is thinking happy thoughts.
"Okay, yes, you are," she says, "but I'm trying, okay? And I'm - fuck you, you know I'm sorry."
The sharp angles of Ryan's face give way a little, like a stupid hippy teepee with one of the poles missing.
"Who even are you?" the blonde asks, eyeing Audrey up and down. Mostly down.
"Shut up," Ryan says, not looking at her. Audrey sort of wants to see the look on her face, but - Ryan. He frowns again. "What do you mean, you're trying?"
She shrugs. There are bright lights and music all around, and there's no bubble around them now, no shield. Audrey wants to be able to talk, instead of just speaking. "Can we go?" she asks quietly.
The blonde straightens up, eyes icy and fully focused on Audrey. "Are you kidding?" she says.
So fuck the happy thoughts, fuck meditation, and fuck skinny blondes with badly applied eyeliner. This is a two person conversation, there just isn't enough room for this bullshit, and Audrey is nothing if not happy to maintain the balance. Her fist clenches like it's just come alive, and apparently the first thing it wants to do with it's new found vivacity is smack this bitch right in her smug little face. The blonde hits the floor; it's a beautiful sight, actually - she's all neon and limbs splayed between other people's feet, long nails scratching on the sticky plastic and hair fanning out across beer stains and dirt. Ryan glances between her and Audrey for a quiet moment, and then says, "Out. Now."
Audrey knows, without really having to ask, that he isn't talking to the blonde. She takes that to mean she's won.
+
It’s hot and Audrey’s useless.
The bar is looming behind them, and Ryan is standing next to her with a litter of stamped on cigarette butts pooling at his feet. Audrey’s sat on the curb with her head in her hands, and she’s poking at the scratch on her foot where someone stood on her as Ryan wrestled her out.
Stuff isn’t great.
“I didn’t -” she starts, and hears Ryan huff. She can only see his shoes next to her in the dark, tattered sneakers like always. She missed that, the way he cherishes ugly things so determinedly. It kind of gave her hope.
She tries again. “I never knew you smoked,” she says.
Ryan’s staring across at the Chinese place opposite them, neon lights from the bar sign pooling at the hollows of his neck and turning him green and red and yellow, ethereal. He slides his gaze down to her face, and the lights go blue.
“Not often,” he says. “Just when I’m…”
Audrey guesses he means, ‘Just when I’m like this,’ and knows enough not to pursue it. She doesn’t care about Ryan’s lungs, anyhow. It’s the beating pulp of muscle that lies just between them that she’s focusing on, now.
“So, I’m sorry I hit your skank,” Audrey says quickly, and he’s sat down next to her roughly before she finishes the sentence.
“She wasn’t a skank, fuck,” Ryan says. He’s landed on one of his discarded butts, probably getting ash all over the ass of his jeans. Audrey would tell him, but - yeah, no. It’s the sort of thing that would make Brendon laugh.
“Sorry, though,” Audrey says, a little more deliberately.
He sighs so hard it’s like he’s trying to gust a raincloud across the city.
Audrey forgets everything else for a second and wonders how hygienic it is to be sitting here. Her dress is going to be gritty and grey by the time they leave, if they ever do. Ryan looks pained and pissed, his eyebrows knotting together like they’re afraid of something. Audrey’s arms are bare and pale, and there’s a curve in them tailored for Ryan’s shoulders, but it’s distorted as he turns away from her, gazing down the street. Audrey can’t imagine anyone looking at them and not feeling distinctly morbid. She suddenly wonders where Brendon’s mouth is right now.
Ryan points at the scratch on her foot, silently.
“Someone stood on me,” she says, tilting it to give him a better view - it’s actually pretty impressive, as scratches go. There’s something trapped inside her head about scratches and wounds and some things going deeper than others, something to do with pain and exposure, but she can’t capture it, and even if she could, Ryan would most probably be trying to silence her before she could spit out the first garbled sentence.
“Jesus, Audrey,” Ryan says quietly, and stretches his fingers out to the cut, but doesn't touch.
She really wants him to touch.
“You’re like a fucking…” he cuts off, thinking, hesitant. “A fucking voodoo doll.” He’s still glowering across the street, not looking at her and not looking at her, he just is not looking at her. “You’re hurting yourself to hurt me.”
Audrey stays silent, intact, and loveless.
Or well, she tries to, out of politeness, but she can’t bite it back. “That’s the dumbest metaphor ever,” she says.
Ryan looks relieved.
A car rushes past, reminding Audrey of their lack of one. They’re maybe a little trapped here together in the city, the music panting out of the club and the looks that passers-by are giving them getting colder and less sympathetic as the night wears on. They have no car and no money for a cab. Audrey is not the sort of person who gets seen doing things like this; Ryan is not the sort of person she gets seen doing them with. Audrey’s drenched in sweat and worry and actually, she can’t really focus on that tiny spectrum of problems labeled 'Appearance' right now, not really at all.
“So,” Ryan says, rubbing his eye.
“So,” Audrey says, watching him.
Ryan sighs, and digs out his battered cell, picking out another cigarette, the last in his carton, with a flourish.
You are such a theatrical loser, Audrey thinks, and pulls at a strand of her hair until it stings a little bit.
Ryan says into the phone, “Hey, so, I’m with Audrey.”
Brendon says he’ll be there in ten.
+
It gets awkward after Brendon unlocks the car because he isn’t looking at either of them and the interior seems almost as cold and isolated as the street.
They stand there hesitantly for a moment, waiting for Brendon to acknowledge them or smile at them or just tell them what the fuck to do, but then Ryan sighs and says, “Fuck this, I’m not the fucking bi-polar whore,” and climbs into the front seat.
Audrey stands swaying, blinking, thinking fucking bi-polar whore, and then she struggles into the backseat and tries to keep quiet.
Brendon’s car peels off slowly down the street.
It’s only around midnight now, so the real tomorrow is still far-off and loose, and the car is slinking through the city on a route Audrey can’t place. She’s spread out across the backseat so she can see through gap between the two front head rests. All of them are staring forward out the windscreen, Brendon’s hands calm on the steering wheel, Ryan’s darting nervously from his hair to his knees to his scarf (to all the places Audrey wants to be), and her own hands limp at her sides, opened out and crossed with dirt from the street.
No one’s talking.
They drive. Audrey doesn't even know where to put her eyes anymore; she is forty-five percent wordless, sixteen percent swinging noose, and thirty-nine percent stale aftertaste. She can feeling the beginning of a headache, building slowly, like a dense little ball just above her right eye.
"You've," Ryan says, tapping the window and sighing, "Brendon, we've already gone down this street."
Brendon doesn't look at him, just says, "So?"
Ryan frowns, but he doesn't seem to have a reply. Not one that he wants to say out loud, anyway.
After a while Audrey figures out the sort-of route that Brendon's taking - swerving across a couple of back alleys and avenues steeply shadowed by apartment blocks before turning back into the busier, brighter parts of the city, weaving through the late night traffic and lights before turning again down the cooler darker roads, and fuck knows how much gas this is costing him.
After a period of time as inconceivable to Audrey as her feelings, Ryan says, "Wait. Stop."
Brendon's hands stir on the wheel, and Audrey can tell he's surprised, but he scowls, shrugs, and turns the car in to the parking lot of a 24-hour grocery store. Ryan pushes his shoulder lightly, in a cold, simple gesture of thanks, before slipping out and into the store.
Brendon watches him leave. Audrey watches Brendon watching him. The air in the car is misty-dark, colorless and wound up tight.
"What happened?" Brendon says, without turning to look at her. Audrey notices that his hands are still clutched around the steering wheel. After that she just notices his hands.
"A little vodka got mixed in with a little emotion, I ran into Ryan, and then Ryan called you."
His shoulder twitches, like he's trying to shrug something off, and he finally turns to face her. "What did you do?" he asks. It sounds curious rather than accusatory, like Brendon doesn't really know what to expect, and like he doesn't care.
She raises a finger to twist into her hair. "Ryan was with some girl," she says.
Brendon searches out her face, searches for something he already knows is there, before his mouth lilts upwards, just a little. "And you - spoke to this girl?"
He looks less confused now, or tired; just interested.
"I communicated with her," Audrey says slowly. "But not with, uh. Words." He nods, motions for her to go on. "I just - she's probably going to be wearing sunglasses for the next three weeks."
"Fuck," Brendon says, rubbing his eyes. "You are... insane."
"Yes," Audrey replies, hissing on the 's', and Ryan slips back into the car holding a bag of candy and a can of Sprite and ignoring the fact that Brendon's half-twisted round in his seat.
Audrey laughs with closed teeth as he rips the bag open, takes one out to eat. He says blankly into the air ahead of him, "Well, if we're gonna be driving all fucking night."
"We are," Brendon confirms, starting up the car again. "We are."
Ryan sticks a tiny jelly dinosaur in his mouth and chews, looking ridiculously angry and angrily ridiculous. Brendon shifts a little in the driver's seat, but stays religiously on the same route. The wheels spin and the road unfolds and god damn, Audrey thinks. Well, here we are.
"Listen," Audrey starts. "I know I'm -"
"Shut up," Ryan says.
"But I need to tell you why I got so -"
"Seriously," Brendon says, "he's right. Shut up. This is our moment. Don't ruin it."
"Our moment," Ryan repeats, like the word tastes foreign in his mouth.
"Yes," Brendon says, determinedly. "So shut up."
Passing cars' headlights blink in and out of range, and in the slow strobe lights that they create, Ryan hunches a little further down in his seat, and mumbles, "This has not resolved anything, you know that, right? All you did was ruin my evening. That doesn't automatically mean -"
"Shut up," Audrey says.
Brendon snorts, and keeps driving.
Audrey leans back against the leather seats. If she closes her eyes a little, the silhouettes of Brendon and Ryan in front of her blur into dark shadowy shapes, and she feels a sudden rush of affection for them. Maybe tomorrow they'll get some sushi at that nice place downtown she found with Alicia, months ago. She knows Ryan would love sushi.
She presses her nails into her palm and thinks about them, her- well. Hers.
They drive on into the night.
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