zeegoeshere

Hahahahaha.

In The Sound
By Zee
Summary: "How could you walk away from it? Why are you still walking away?"
R, Brendon/Ryan. 17,544 words.
Disclaimer: Further away from reality than most things.

Notes: Begins in fall 2004. Thanks to the usual crew of aiders and abetters for helping this along, y'all are deeply awesome. ♥




The envelope with his paycheck is heavy in his pocket, an irregular shape, digging a little into his thigh. Brendon fingers the paper edge, rubs his thumb over the crease between the check and the pay stub. He's in line at the bank, an old man in overalls and a woman with a chihuahua in the cleavage of her zipped up jacket in front of him, and the check isn't enough for both his rent and his part of the performance space. He'd suspected it wouldn't be, considering that the manager at Smoothie Hut gave him only 25 hours last week (he'd been promised 35 a week when they moved him to full-time, when he moved out of the house), but seeing it on paper makes his stomach feel leaden.

It's not the end of the world. Spencer and Brent can pitch in enough to cover his share, probably, even Ryan might be able to help out. It won't be the first time this has happened. It's not the end of the world and he'll be able to scrape enough together next week to make up for it, he can even--he's seen 'now hiring' signs going up around town, he can pick up something else and fit it around high school. Plenty of musicians have done plenty worse than work two part-time jobs to help their band make it.

It isn't the end of the world, but it makes the graininess behind Brendon's eyelids feel worse as he walks up to the teller and slides the check and the deposit slip under the glass. He's already late for band practice.

***

"Shit," Spencer says. "Brendon, are you serious? Fifty dollars isn't going to cover it."

"Dude," Brendon says, spreading his hands wide and shrugging. "I told you, my fucking manager is screwing me on my hours. There's nothing I can do."

"Well--shit," Spencer says again. "And there's nothing else, you can't--"

"I could, but I sort of need a roof over my head," Brendon snaps. "My landlord is more demanding than you, sorry."

Spencer cringes, looking guilty, and Brendon feels bad for pulling the 'poor me, kicked out on my own' card, even if he's not really exaggerating.

"Hey, no big deal," Brent says, digging his wallet out and looking between Brendon and Spencer. Ryan takes his wallet out, too, and Brendon looks down at the ground as the lead feeling gets worse. It's not like Ryan has a better situation than his.

"Yeah, no big deal, sorry," Spencer says after a moment. "It's only fifty more dollars, between the three of us." He gives Brendon a thin smile and Brendon returns it.

The practice goes okay after that. The feeling Brendon gets when he closes his eyes and sings and hears his voice amplified through the microphone, hearing his words harmonizing with the guitar and the bass line and the drums, that used to be worth everything. It's still worth a lot.

They're really good, Brendon thinks as he looks around at them during a break. They're better than almost anything else going on locally, and they'll be even better once they can work out how to turn the lyrics Ryan has showed Brendon into actual songs.

They don't stop until it's dark, and Brendon hops on his bike as soon as they've got the equipment packed up. He still needs to write a three-page paper for history tomorrow (and do most of the reading he's supposed to write the paper about). "See you Friday!" Spencer yells after him, waving goodbye, and Brendon doesn't let go of the handlebars to wave back.

***

On Friday, Kelsey from work calls him and begs him to take her shift--she has the flu and no one else is willing to give up their Friday night. Kelsey knows how much Brendon needs the extra hours, too--she saw his face when they both got the schedule this week and Brendon only had four days again.

"Can't we do it tomorrow morning?" Brendon says, propping his cell between his shoulder and his ear as he changes into his work uniform. He'll have to do laundry this weekend: he only has one clean bright orange Smoothie Hut t-shirt left, and it'll be dirty after tonight.

"I don't know," Ryan sighs. "I'll call Spencer, but I think I remember Brent mentioning a family thing he has. You sure you can't make it?"

"Magic eight-ball says highly unlikely," Brendon says. "It's The Man's fault, Ryan. He's getting me down."

"Save the empire," Ryan says, voice flat, and Brendon snickers.

Brendon turns that over and over in his head on the way to work. The commute sucks because he has to pedal up two hills, and he's always sweaty before his shift even starts. Save the empire. How happy an ending did that movie have, really? No way could that store have survived very long with the changing market. If Music Town didn't get them eventually, they probably went out of business when a Circuit City opened up a block away, and A.J. probably dropped out of art school and started temping, and Deb probably tried to kill herself at least one more time.

Closing up takes forever because a group of teenagers lingers out on the patio long after the Hut officially closes. Brendon finally locks the place up at eleven-forty-five, his hands smelling like mop.

***

Brent can't make it Saturday, so the practice is rescheduled for Sunday. Waking up early for band practice feels a little bit like waking up early for church, except for how they're not the same thing at all. It's just that the schedule is familiar, and whenever Brendon sleeps till late on Sundays he finds that he's groggy and out-of-sorts for the entire rest of the day.

He knows that Brent and Spencer will be sleepy and yawning at the beginning, bitching a little about how wrong it is to wake up early on the weekend. Ryan will just roll his eyes and shake his head at Brendon, picking up his guitar and only rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when he thinks no one is looking.

He isn't even 100% sure on the bike ride over, but he is right before he opens his mouth. "Guys, I'm out."

Ryan's smile immediately freezes on his face, but Spencer doesn't even seem to hear him at first. "Huh?" he says, fiddling with something in his kit. Brent just blinks at him, eyebrows raised.

Brendon chews his lip and steps away from the bike. "The band. I'm out. I'm not going to do this anymore." He's not going to say 'can't,' no matter how much it feels that way, because that would be fucking dishonest and he *could* do this if he really truly wanted to, he knows he could make it possible. He hates himself a little bit.

Spencer's jaw drops and he looks at Brendon like he's crazy, but Ryan is the first one to speak. "No way," he says. "No fucking *way.*"

Then the three of them are speaking at once, Brent saying "But you're our lead singer!" and Spencer saying "You can't be serious" as he moves out from behind his drum kit and Ryan saying "Fuck *no* he's not serious" and Brendon rubs his palm over his jeans, makes a fist.

"I'm serious," he says. "The band is great, you guys are great, but I. I need to graduate high school, you know? I can't worry about this and school and paying rent on my own apartment *and* rehearsal space--"

"We can work around it if you can't pitch in for the space," Spencer interrupts him. "We can come up with the extra cash--"

"It's not just that. It's everything, it's--there's just too much," Brendon says, and he knows he sounds like a whiny ass. Like a kid.

"So you're, what? Just giving up?" Brent says, at the same time Ryan says "Fuck that, you're not leaving, forget it."

"Yeah," Brendon says. "Yeah, I'm giving up. I know I suck. Sorry."

"Wait, no, we can work something out," Spencer says, frowning. "We can take it easier for a while, have fewer practices or something, just don't. Don't *quit,* man."

"This is ridiculous," Ryan spits out. "I thought you actually cared about this band, about *music,* I didn't think you were the type to just pussy out like this."

Brendon takes a step back. "I care," he says. "I love it, it's just--"

"Just, what?" Ryan says, yelling. "Just, you'd rather sell out instead? Just, you're not willing to follow through, or make sacrifices or--"

"Fuck *you,*" Brendon yells back. "I've *made* sacrifices, okay, my parents kicked me out because of this stupid band!"

"Thanks for reminding me. I always forget that you're the only one with *problems,*" Ryan hisses.

Shit. "Ryan--"

"Yeah, no, fuck you *more,*" Ryan says, and Spencer puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Whoa, hey, can we calm down?" Brent says. "Let's just--we don't have to make any decisions, okay, we can just talk it over."

"No," Brendon says, shakes his head, because. No. No. "I've made my decision. It's. That's it."

"But you can't *mean* that," Brent says.

"Brendon, come on, it's the *band,*" Spencer says. "We can talk about this, seriously, come on."

"The precious band," Brendon says, and he can feel regrettable words coming before they leave his lips. "Because this is something so new and special, right? Because we're totally going to *make it,* right? Because every time four shitty musicians in high school form a band it stays together forever and makes it big and serves as a ticket out of town instead of crashing and burning, right?"

He doesn't want to see the looks on their faces and turns to fumble with his bike instead, swinging his foot over the seat to hit the pedal. "I gotta go. I'll--" he doesn't say 'see you later' because why would they want to see him?

"Wait," Brent says as Ryan says "Go to hell" and Brendon uses his other foot to push away from the pavement and give him momentum away.

***

Brent calls him a couple days later, after Brendon's shift finishes. Brendon answers on the first ring. "Hey, dude, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Brent says. "Do you still mean it? You're not going to kiss and make up and come back to the band?"

Brendon's shirt smells like mangoes and frozen peaches. He shucks it off and flops on his couch/bed. "I meant what I said about leaving, but uh. I said a lot of shit I didn't mean, you know? I came off like a major asshole, so you know. I'm sorry."

Brent is quiet for a few moments before he says. "Yeah. Okay. This sucks, man."

Brendon sighs. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing, man. You're not going to come back, so the 'sorry's are just, you know. Whatever."

"Right, yeah," Brendon says, and cuts himself off before saying 'I'm sorry'.

"We can still be friends, though," Brent says, and he sounds worried and hesitant like he's actually asking a question. Brendon smiles.

"Of course, man," Brendon says. "BF-motherfucking-F. Ryan and Spencer, too, if they ever start talking to me again."

"They'll come around," Brent says, laughing a little. "Seriously, just call them. It's been a couple days, we've all cooled down."

Brendon calls Spencer as soon as Brent hangs up. Spencer accepts his apology for acting like a jackass, but he's still pretty frosty. Brendon cringes up at the ceiling. He knows Spencer; Brendon will just have to suck up to him for a while. He'll forgive him eventually.

He calls Ryan, too, but gets the answering machine.

***

Brendon calls Ryan over and over and leaves too many voice messages, but he never calls back. Brendon never sees him when he's hanging out with Brent or Spencer, and by the time Brendon might have been desperate enough to just show up at Ryan's school or house, he's too angry to reach out anymore. Ryan will just have to come to him when he's over himself.

Brendon stays friends with Brent and Spencer and hears through them what happens with Panic. It hurts a little at first to hear about it, and they ask him if he doesn't want to know band-related-stuff, if it will just bum him out. But Brendon says no, he's interested, he's supportive. So when they find a new lead singer, Spencer calls him almost immediately after the first rehearsal, ecstatic in his own Spencer way. He babbles on about the new guy, a senior at Ryan and Spencer's high school named Corey, and after a while Brendon holds the phone away from his ear and just says "yeah" and "cool" in the pauses.

He works at the Smoothie Hut, he manages to pass his classes with pretty good grades, he pays his rent and even gets his tiny apartment not looking too shabby. Soon high school is over, just like that, and Brendon's parents show up out of the blue to his graduation. Brendon hasn't spoken to them directly since he moved out, didn't even tell them about quitting the band, and tears squeeze out the corners of his eyes when he hugs them tight after the ceremony.

Brendon drops down to part-time at the Smoothie Hut when he enrolls in Hair Design School, and quits when he starts getting clients through school. He's really good at hair stuff, it turns out, one of the top students, and it's way more profitable than food service.

He tries going back to church a few times to make peace with his parents, but really, it's not the same as it was. Brendon doesn't believe in it anymore. But he does join the choir, because singing in the shower really isn't enough, and it's actually really fun. He gets solos a lot. And he meets another kid in hair design school who plays guitar, and they get together and play sometimes.

He watches as Panic! At The Disco gets signed and leaves to record their first album and starts touring. He gets to see Spencer and Brent less and less the busier they get, but Spencer calls him as often as he can. It's a dull shock every time Brendon hears of another sign of their success: all he can picture is the four of them fucking around in basements and bedrooms.

Ryan never calls him. Brendon tries to never think of him ever, which just results in thinking of Ryan more than he should.

The year ends and a new one begins, and Brendon moves into an apartment ten times nicer than his old one. He starts writing down the songs that form in his head, even puts snatches of lyrics to them, and it's exciting but he keeps them to himself. He moves to the next level at school and starts getting regulars, people that get haircuts when they don't even need to and request him specifically every time they come in.

On April 1st, Brendon's morning consists of an old man who needs his balding head shaved, a twelve-year-old who just needs her split ends trimmed off, and a fifteen-year-old punk-looking zitty asshole who wants a mohawk. Brendon gives him exactly what he asks for, but he doesn't like the way it looks (Brendon thinks he's just disappointed the cool-in-theory haircut didn't also remove his acne). He mutters 'faggot' under his breath as he pays the bill, and tips badly.

Brendon is chatting with Alexa, the receptionist, in the downtime. He glances up when he hears the annoying bell that signals someone walking in, glancing away before the image processes. He jerks back up to stare, his eyes wide and his mouth open and he knows he must look like a total dumbass, but. Ryan Ross just walked into Brendon's beauty school.

He meets Brendon's eyes, and there's a moment when Brendon thinks of yelling "Holy shit, Ryan!" and wrapping him into a hug, clapping a hand on Ryan's back and laughing like they're any two old friends who haven't seen each other for a year and a half, as if Ryan has spoken to him even once since Brendon quit the band. But Ryan's expression doesn't even change, and he looks away and the moment passes. Brendon doesn't really know what to say, so he doesn't say anything.

Ryan has a paper clipping in his hand, some photo, and walks right up to the front desk. He gives Alexa a small smile and says, "Can I have an appointment with Brendon Urie, please? Cut, no color."

"Uh," Alexa says, glancing at the two of them, clearly wondering what weird thing is going on. Brendon sorta hasn't stopped staring. "Yeah, okay, is now good? He's free, I think."

"Now's perfect," Ryan says. He turns to Brendon, eyebrows raised, every line on his face saying 'well?' and for a second Brendon just wants to hit him.

He shakes it off and gives Ryan as much of a smile as he can manage. "C'mon, back here," he says, and leads Ryan back to an available chair in the back of the room.

"So, um, what kind of cut did you have in mind?" Brendon says. He feels sort of like a dumbass for not saying hey, how are ya, it's been a while, but *Ryan* isn't saying anything like that so Brendon figures he'll stick with hair.

Ryan hands him the clipping--it's a photograph cut out from a magazine, a brunette girl with an uneven, spiky and stylized cut. It'd be amazingly fucking emo and ugly on a guy, and Brendon snorts and wants to ask Ryan if this is seriously what he wants, but Ryan has already grabbed a magazine and sat down in the barber's chair, twisting it back and forth a little and reading about celebrity hair fashion.

"You're sure you want exactly this?" Brendon asks, and Ryan just nods. He looks up for a second, meeting Brendon's eyes in the mirror, before looking down again.

"Ooookay," Brendon says. "Up, come on, shampoo first."

Washing Ryan's hair is deeply surreal. He keeps his eyes closed so that he doesn't look at Brendon, and Brendon is thankful that the spray of hot water is loud enough that he doesn't really have to make hairdresser small talk. He squirts too much shampoo into his hand and is sort of terrified that he'll fuck up and get shampoo in Ryan's eyes, even though he has yet to do that to anyone. It's nice, though, massaging the lather through Ryan's hair and into his scalp, rinsing it off, toweling most of the water off when he's finished. It's a lot of touching, and it's--it's just nice.

"So," Brendon says when he finally starts clipping. "What brings you back home? Last I heard from Spencer, you guys were in Chicago."

Ryan grunts and turns a page of his magazine.

Well, okay then. Brendon switches his clippers for the texturizer and tries again. "So you're, um, looking good. I've heard that Panic is doing... good." Well. Doing well, dammit, he sounds like a hick.

Another page turned. And fine, fuck him, Brendon was just being friendly but apparently Ryan is just going to wait until *he* feels like talking. Brendon presses his lips together and combs stray hairs off of Ryan's neck before going back to clipping.

Brendon cuts and waits and cuts but Ryan just keeps reading. Brendon stares at him in the mirror but the magazine is apparently fascinating and all Brendon can see is Ryan's eyelids and eyelashes. (Black eyeliner.) Brendon glares at him and sticks out his tongue, but Ryan doesn't notice.

When Brendon finishes and unclips the plastic smock from around Ryan's neck, Ryan still hasn't said a word to him. Brendon stares as Ryan stands up, tossing the magazine on the table and eyeing himself critically in the mirror, reaching up to touch his new emo bangs gingerly. He looks satisfied, the corner of his mouth twitching in almost a smile for a second before he walks to the front to pay. Brendon doesn't even try to keep himself from staring as Ryan signs the receipt, then walks out the door. Wow. Wow, what a dick move.

He calls Spencer that night, when he gets off work. "Your guitarist is an asshole."

"Okay," Spencer says. "You're talking about Ryan, right? Just to clarify."

"You only have the one guitarist, right? I thought you only had one. Yes, Ryan. What the heck, man." Brendon cringes. He's pretty much trained himself out of the 'heck' thing, one of the last lingering verbal ticks from the Church; it just comes out when he's distracted and upset.

"Huh. I thought each of you were pretending the other didn't exist. Hang on, hearing you admit you even know his name is a real shock. I need to take a minute to adjust."

"I'm not *that* bad," Brendon grumbles. "I just figured a while ago that I'd ignore *his* existence if he was going to ignore mine."

"Right, of course, the mature solution," Spencer says, and Brendon scowls. He knows that Spencer is Ryan's right-hand man and all, but seriously, a year and a half of stone-cold radio silence from one of Brendon's best friends was *not* Brendon's fault. "So why the sudden asshole epiphany?"

"He's in town, did you know that? Ryan Ross the rock star is back in Vegas." Brendon bites his lip and wishes that he'd made an effort to scale back the sarcasm in that statement. He didn't mean it to come out quite that way.

Brendon can hear Spencer's hesitation on the other line. "Yeah, he went back for the break before we do Europe," he says. "You ran into him?"

Brendon snorts. "Yeah, not so much. Dude, he walked into my school, made an appointment to get a haircut specifically from *me,* and then didn't say a single word to me the entire time. Not a single word, Spence."

"Huh," Spencer says. "That's weird."

"Yeah, seriously, what the *fuck?* What's he doing? If you know you have to tell me or we won't be friends anymore, I swear, I don't care what kind of stupid best-friend pact Ryan may have made with you to keep you from tell me. Spill."

Spencer laughs. "I have no idea what he's doing, I swear. He probably doesn't, either. I mean, that's--really weird."

"Has he been talking about me at all? Mentioned trying to make up or anything? Pretend I don't sound like a twelve-year-old girl."

"You sound like a fifteen-year-old girl. No, he hasn't said anything to me about it. He's just been, you know, normal."

"Yeah, normal for *him.* He's a freak. A whackjob. Total crazy freakshow." With a really lame haircut.

"I'm pretty sure he's missed you, too," Spencer says. "Don't stress about it. He's just being weird, he'll probably break the ice if he sought you out already."

"Screw you, I don't *miss* him," Brendon says. "Whatever. I don't care what he does."

***

Ryan doesn't come by the school, and he doesn't call, and he doesn't email. Brendon would like to think that he's not anticipating Ryan around every corner, behind every doorway he walks through, bracing himself for potential awkward impact everywhere he goes, but Ryan is *here* and he's already surprised Brendon once. Brendon doesn't want to be gullible to him again.

He wonders if Ryan just wanted to see his face. If it was just some stupid weird practical-joke-like thing: now that I'm a rock star, I'm gonna go back home and rub it in the face of the guy dependent on me tipping him for an ugly pretentious haircut. Like the CEO going to his high school reunion just to show up the jock assholes who stole his lunch money and are now all mechanics.

Brendon hadn't thought that Ryan saw him that way, but he supposes he could be wrong.

But Ryan doesn't seek him out, and they don't run into each other, either. Brendon catches himself going out of the way to swing by cafes and record shops he knows Ryan used to like back in high school, and that's the last straw, because Brendon remembers what it was like being so consumed by the band and the idea of the band, and Ryan was a pretty big part of that. Brendon doesn't know if he wants to have that kind of fever back in his life.

Brendon is not going to keep thinking about Ryan. He's not going to give him the satisfaction.

A week passes, then two, and Brendon figures that it was just a weird one-time thing on Ryan's part. He needed a haircut, and the psyching out of an ex-friend was just a bonus. It's weird and kind of fucked-up, and Brendon wishes things were different with them, but there's not really anything he can do about it. So Brendon just keeps on cutting people's hair, and he's in the middle of the finishing touches on a bleach job when Ryan walks in again, so he doesn't even look up when that annoying bell rings to signal another customer.

He does hear Ryan's monotonous voice at the cash register, flat and bored yet somehow audible above both the radio and the snip of every pair of clippers in the school. Brendon does *not* jump at the sound of it, and instead stares down at this lady's newly-blonde head, his hands moving the blow dryer and comb automatically.

"Do you want the same student as last time?" he hears Alexa say, and Ryan says "Yeah, if you could, that'd be great." Brendon wonders how long he could conceivably take finishing this woman's hair. Maybe he needs to condition it. Maybe he needs to add more toner. Maybe she wants her bangs trimmed a bit, they're getting kind of long.

He has to let the woman eventually, and then Ryan is there, standing next to the abandoned chair. Brendon sweeps up hair from the bleach job and doesn't look at him. "So? What do you want now? Am I dying your hair pink or something?"

"It's growing out kind of funny," Ryan says. "I just need it trimmed a little in the back."

And oh, hey, Ryan *is* physically capable of speaking to him. At him. "I thought you wanted the emo mullet."

When he looks up, Ryan just shrugs. "It just sticks up a bit. I only need a trim."

"Fine," Brendon says, putting away the broom and tossing a smock at Ryan. Shampoo time again.

Ryan still doesn't speak. Brendon had hoped for a minute, considering that Ryan managed to get out the words to instruct Brendon how to cut his hair this time, but no. Nothing, nada as Brendon massages shampoo into his scalp, zip as Brendon combs through his hair and locates the problem spots with the sticking-up hair. Brendon doesn't try to start any kind of conversation this time, just focuses on the back of Ryan's head and sometimes his face in the mirror.

He's wearing eyeliner again. Brendon remembers that Ryan was sort of experimenting with makeup the fall of their senior year, calling it subversive or something, but he's seen some of the magazine pictures and interviews that Spencer's sent him, and apparently it's a whole big thing now. The makeup never really made Ryan's face look different, though, at least not in the pictures Brendon saw.

Ryan starts tapping out a rhythm on his thigh after a while, looking bored, and Brendon wants to ask him if he's trying to reinvent himself. If the haircut Brendon is inflicting on him is part of the same thing as the eyeliner. There are a lot of questions he'd like to ask Ryan, starting with whether or not this is his forgiveness for Brendon.

The haircut doesn't last long, and Brendon doesn't say anything when Ryan stands up, brushing little hairs off his shoulders. He's looking down, avoiding Brendon's eyes, and Brendon has already moved to start sweeping again when Ryan goes to pay up with Alexa. Brendon has his back to the door when he hears Ryan call out, "Hey. Brendon."

Brendon turns and Ryan is in the doorway, half-turned towards him, looking like he wants to be gone. Brendon raises his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

One of Ryan's hands is shoved in his pocket and he looks hesitant, like he's arguing with himself over something, and then he walks back inside the school, stopping a few feet in front of Brendon.

"So I have to leave the day after tomorrow," he says. "More touring. But, if you wanted... I mean. We haven't talked in a long time."

"Yeah, actually that's been working out real well for me," Brendon says. And it's meaner than he feels, but it still feels good to say and he doesn't want to take it back.

Ryan's cheeks turn a little pink, the way they did the first time he ever played guitar in front of Brendon, and he mutters "Never mind" and leaves again. Brendon lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Brendon has a sour taste in his mouth the rest of the afternoon and iced coffee from the McDonald's next door doesn't get rid of it. Alexa offers him altoids, but that just changes it into minty sourness. And seriously, Brendon does not want this strange Ryan Ross aftertaste to ruin his dinner, so he's already flipping his phone out and calling Spencer as he walks out the door of the school.

"Tell your guitarist that if he wants to talk, I only have a half-day tomorrow and get out at one," Brendon says.

"Christ. What the fuck, do you want me to just give you his fucking phone number?" Spencer says.

Brendon licks at the back of his teeth. "No. That would imply that we are talking, which we are not. Trying to talk to him on the phone before we do this would be like--like bombing a country before you've even declared war."

"That is the most retarded metaphor I've ever heard. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Brendon shrugs. "He's just being a dick. Okay, so--so maybe both of us are dicks. I don't know, Spencer, that's why I want to have it out with him."

He hears Spencer sigh, crackly through the other line. "Sure. I'll tell him, but seriously, this thing where you use me as a go-between is not cute."

"It's *adorable,*" Brendon says. Spencer hangs up on him.

It's strange to get up with his alarm and take a shower and grab a banana for breakfast on the way to school the next day like everything is the same. Like Ryan Ross didn't walk right into his life, twice, and bring Brendon back to Friday night band practices and playing guitar and pages of sarcastic lyrics. A year and a half is a fucking long time, Brendon thinks as he makes the commute. It's the difference between high school and college (not that he's in college), the difference between working a shitty food service job and actually doing something that gives him money to eat and doesn't make him miserable, and apparently it's also the difference between fucking around in a shitty garage band and touring the country playing your own record.

He thinks about maybe possibly talking to Ryan in a few hours and suddenly every pair of scissors in the school seems sharper.

But Ryan doesn't show and doesn't show and one rolls around and Brendon finishes up styling the soccer mom in his chair. She gives him a warm smile when she stands, and Brendon can tell without her saying anything that he probably reminds her of one of her children. He also knows that she's going to tip well, and he gives her his goofiest grin back.

He sweeps up hair and cleans up his station and it's 1:12. When he walks out, Ryan is slouching against the wall to the right of the front door, squinting up at the neon sign advertising the school. Brendon stops.

It's kind of funny, he thinks, that Ryan is here to talk and Brendon has no idea what to say. He scratches the back of his neck. "Um, hi."

Ryan looks down at him as if he's utterly unsurprised by Brendon's existence. "Hey." He pushes off from the wall, making the movement look like it took a lot of effort. "So. Coffee?"

Coffee, sure. Okay. Brendon can roll with this. "Um, yeah. Um, where?" Brendon wishes he could cut out his own tongue.

Ryan shrugs. "Wherever you want. I've got a car."

"So do I." He wonders if Ryan thought that Brendon was still biking everywhere.

Ryan gives him a half-smile. "Maybe we should just walk. Save gas."

"Ha ha. Yeah." Shit, Ryan's smiling at him. This feels so freaking--this feels so two years ago. And okay, walking, what's within walking distance? Ryan probably doesn't want to go McDonald's. "There's a Starbucks a couple blocks from here."

Ryan nods, and they don't talk much while walking. They don't talk at all, really, and Brendon wonders if Ryan is going to clam up on him again. Oh, god, he can actually kind of picture that, sitting there drinking coffee in total awkward silence for hours until Ryan stands up and says he has to leave and Brendon nods and they don't see each other for another year and a half, if ever. Oh god.

Ryan orders a latte and Brendon gets a vanilla frappuccino and the comfy sofa chairs in the corner of the cafe are free for once, so they sit there. Brendon tucks his feet up on the chair, fitting them between the chair arm and his ass, and Ryan sits with his legs open, elbows on his knees, both hands holding his cup.

"So," Brendon says, mostly out of panic that they really *will* end up not talking at all, but Ryan is already saying "I know it must seem kind of weird, coming to see you like this."

Brendon blinks. "Just a *little.* Man, you just--" he has to laugh a little, rubbing his forehead. "Was there a reason you couldn't open your mouth *once* the entire time I was cutting your hair? The *two* times I cut your hair?"

"I'm shy," Ryan says, his voice perfectly flat and exanimate and it pretty much makes Brendon crack up. Giggling and snorting because he can't help himself, and he gets the half-smile again.

"You're shy," Brendon says when he calms himself down. "Whatever, dude, okay. Man. It's good to see you again." And he hadn't meant to just come out and say that, not when Ryan hasn't even apologized yet.

Ryan ducks his head. "I thought not talking to me was working out great for you."

Brendon takes two huge gulps of his frappuccino and gets a slight brain freeze. Damn. "You know I was just. You know. Saying that."

"Yeah, I know," Ryan says, taking a sip of his own drink. "It's good to see you, too."

Wow, great, pleasantries, Brendon thinks. He has no idea what they're even talking about.

Ryan straightens up and turns to look Brendon in the eye. "So what have you been up to?"

Since quitting the band? Since high school? "Well, I got into the hair design school--"

"Beauty school," Ryan interrupts, smirking.

"Fuck you," Brendon says, swinging his arm to knock his knuckles against Ryan's shoulder. "So I started school and that was last summer, after graduation--"

Ryan lets him go on and Brendon ends up telling him everything. He tells him about hair school and how he moved to a two-bedroom in a much better part of town than the old shitty apartment he used to have, and how his roommate is always over at his girlfriend's house so it's basically like having this big huge place to himself all the time, which is awesome. He talks about how he made up with his parents last fall and they gave him the old purple minivan as an apology so that he no longer uses his bike. He tells Ryan about dating Kara for two months over the winter, but not about the November thing with Matt (it only happened twice, and Brendon hasn't even told his parents yet, because he's not ready to burn that bridge again and he doesn't want to take that chance with Ryan either).

Brendon hasn't even finished his frappuccino by the time he's done. He thought it would take longer, explaining everything he's done and been through and coped with since Ryan told Brendon to go to hell that last practice, but apparently his life is summed up easily. He can't think of what else to say.

"So, you know, that's what I've been up to," he says after a pause.

"Huh," Ryan says. Brendon holds his breath, wondering if Ryan will come out and say you've been hanging out cutting hair like a loser when you could be headlining tours with me right now, jackass or if he'll just stick to thinking it.

"It sounds like you've been doing okay," Ryan says, his voice careful, and yep: definitely thinking it. Brendon feels a stiff smile paste itself onto his face.

"Yeah, things are pretty cool," Brendon says. "I'm happy." He knows it comes out stubborn and not really happy-sounding, even though it is the truth.

Ryan nods, and Brendon adds, "How about you? How's fame and fortune?"

Ryan snorts. "All right, I guess. It still doesn't feel exactly real, you know? I mean." He pushes his hand underneath his hat to scratch his hair before pulling the cap back down over his forehead. "It's all the stuff we talked about that summer, except it's actually happening to us. It's all so fast."

Brendon knows what summer he's talking about without having to ask: the summer that they got the band going, when they decided Brendon would be the singer and Ryan started showing him snips of lyrics, when they spent half of most practices talking about all their big plans and fantasizing about success. Brendon remembers it as the summer before he left home.

"Come on, don't tell me you're sooo over living the dream," Brendon says. "Seriously, come on, isn't it exciting?"

"It is, most of the time. We've been doing a lot of touring. It's... it's crazy, you know, being up on stage in front of so many people, people who actually know the words to your songs. It's crazy seeing the sales on your first record just go up and up. It's crazy to get to play with people I've been *fans* of." He stops and looks at Brendon for a long second, calculating or confused or lost in thought, or. Brendon doesn't know what's going on in his head.

"It's pretty much everything I've ever wanted or fantasized about," he says finally, looking down and away. "And it sucks. It all just really, really sucks for me because you're not up there with us."

Brendon feels his chest tighten and clench and twist, knotting and tangling itself. He can't look at Ryan, turns away to look out at the rest of the cafe. "Oh," he says, and god how moronic is he? He wants to sew his own mouth shut.

"Yeah, 'oh.' You know why I didn't talk to you until now? Because I fucking hate you. I hate that you're going to fucking beauty school instead of playing with us, that you're *stuck* here," Ryan says. His voice is caustic and seems like something physical, something that could slice open your skin if you weren't careful.

Brendon turns back to face his glare. "Maybe I am," he says, and a part of him takes time out to be proud that his voice doesn't shake or rise. "Maybe I'm stuck. But I'm not the loser who cut off his best friend for a year and a half."

Ryan meets his eyes for a beat, two, before they both break. Brendon waits for him to say something else, anything else, but when Ryan Ross doesn't want to talk to you, he is seriously not going to talk to you. Brendon doesn't have anything else to say, either.

They both stand and toss their drinks before leaving the cafe, hovering outside the doors. "So I guess...." Brendon doesn't know how to finish that sentence. He doesn't know what else they're going to do; it's still the afternoon, but Ryan is looking away from him purposefully and something stings under Brendon's sternum and he can't really see them hanging out for the rest of the night like old pals.

"So I guess we're caught up," is what he ends up saying, and Ryan stops looking at a point over his right shoulder and looks at the ground instead.

"Yeah," Ryan says, and his voice still sounds sulky and bitter, the same tone he had when he told Brendon he hated him for having an actual life, as opposed to a life with the band. Brendon wonders if they're going to go back to radio silence after this.

Brendon doesn't want to end on a fight again, but he doesn't really know how to fix it. He thinks about Ryan's face when he said how much everything sucked without Brendon. "It was good to see you again," he finally says, lamely, and then takes a step forward and kisses Ryan quickly and chastely on the mouth.

Ryan looks at him, his forehead wrinkling in confusion. "Brendon."

"Wow, sorry, I don't know why I just did that," Brendon says, and does it again.

There's only a split second before Ryan returns the pressure, warm dry lips sliding against Brendon's mouth and then opening slightly and Brendon feels Ryan's tongue slipping inside his mouth a little bit. Brendon feels his hand move of its own volition to touch the side of Ryan's face, his ear, his hair, then move to cup the back of his neck.

Ryan ends the kiss eventually, but he doesn't pull back. "I have an 8am flight to meet the guys in Chicago tomorrow," he says, breathing the words against Brendon's cheek.

"That's really early," Brendon says helpfully, but he's distracted by the soft fuzziness of the hair on the back of Ryan's neck. He swallows. "Do you want. Um. You could come back to my apartment." He realizes how that sounds, all 'hey baby, come back to my pad' cheesiness and feels himself turn red. What the hell, though, this is all improvised; Brendon still can't really believe that he and Ryan just swapped spit. Maybe it's a really disturbing and depressing dream.

Ryan pulls back to look at Brendon, and Brendon feels a small sharp-clawed animal in his throat kind of choking him painfully until Ryan says "Okay, yeah. That'd be cool." And when Brendon kisses him again, he makes a small sound into Brendon's mouth and his hand grabs the side of Brendon's hip and thigh and Brendon has no idea what they're doing.

"Isn't this your mom's minivan?" Ryan says when he sees Brendon's car, and Brendon snorts and nods.

"I know, man, but it's better than a bike."

As Brendon starts the car, Ryan twists in the front seat to look behind him at the rest of the car, shaking his head in exaggerated disbelief. "Wow, dude."

Brendon laughs. "Whatever, man, it is so uncool that it *becomes* cool again. You know, in like an ironic hipster way."

Ryan just looks at him, his lips twitching a little in a way that says he could be laughing, maybe, and it's at you not with you. "It's a purple minivan," he says. Brendon sticks his tongue out at him.

His roommate, Andrew, is not home like Brendon had hopefully predicted, and Brendon breathes a sigh of relief. He walks into the apartment ahead of Ryan, gesturing to its vastness.

"So, this is where I live now," he says. "As you can see, this is the living room, or the Guitar Hero Station as it has been recently renamed, kitchen's through there, bathroom's down the hall and Andrew's pit of despair is at the end of the hall. My much cleaner room is on this side, over there." He turns around to look at Ryan.

"It's nice," Ryan says, and he sounds like he means it. Brendon wonders if he's staying at a hotel while in Vegas, or with his dad.

Brendon shrugs. "Yeah, you know, I like it. It's messy, but."

Ryan smiles and perches on the back of the couch. "You should have seen our tourbus, man. Trust me, this is is not 'messy.'"

Brendon should have seen. Right. He swallows. "Yeah."

Ryan toes off his shoes. "Seriously. It's a nice place," he says, looking up, and Brendon wonders if he's ever heard Ryan sound so sincere. He also wonders if this is Ryan apologizing, again.

"Thanks," Brendon says, smiling. Ryan's foot comes up to kick at Brendon's leg, his toes brushing Brendon's knee, and Brendon takes the hint and comes closer. He sits next to him on the couch and Ryan kisses his cheek. When Brendon turns his head, Ryan kisses his mouth.

Brendon's hand wraps around Ryan's waist and he can feel gravity tugging on him so he just goes with it, and they both slump slowly backwards onto the couch, until they're both sitting on it upside down with their feet pointing up at the ceiling. It makes kissing awkward, and Ryan's mouth sort of slides down to kiss Brendon's chin and then his neck.

His nose is bumping Brendon's ear and the top of Brendon's head is against the carpet. This is going to become an uncomfortable and painful position pretty soon, but Brendon doesn't want to move. He pulls Ryan in tighter against his side and feels the muscles in his stomach jump when Ryan's tongue touches just beneath Brendon's jaw.

Brendon twists so that he can kiss Ryan's mouth, and okay yeah, painful and uncomfortable. The side of his face is pressed against the carpet, which is kind of gross. "Um," he says, and Ryan laughs at him.

"Wanna try actually sitting on the couch?" Brendon says, and Ryan swings his legs down and flops and rolls until he's sitting up on his knees. His face is flushed from hanging upside down. Brendon wriggles down until his ass is on the floor, then sits up as well.

Ryan's looking at him. "My neck kind of hurts now."

Brendon touches his own kind-of-in-pain neck, and his fingers graze the spot where Ryan's mouth had been. "Ha. Yeah."

He sort of feels like he should talk about this, give some kind of explanation for his behavior or ask for an explanation of Ryan's. But every time Brendon meets his eyes he has no idea what to say, and he can't help but notice that Ryan is breathing hard and that his eyes are wide when he's looking at Brendon.

Brendon has no idea how the guy who sat while Brendon cut his hair and read a magazine and didn't say a word is even remotely the same person as the guy in front of him whose lips are red and puffy from kissing. Ryan licks his lips as Brendon stares at his mouth, and Brendon feels a tiny explosion in his brain.

Brendon opens his mouth and "I really missed you" is what comes out. And wow, has he really not said that yet? Why didn't he say that first?

Ryan smiles, a full smile that shows his teeth. "I missed you, too," he says.

Brendon climbs up on the couch and pats the space next to him. Ryan follows and then they're kissing again. He really likes kissing Ryan, which is maybe kind of a stupid thought to have, but he *does.* Not that Brendon has all the experience in the world, but Ryan seems to be a good kisser and his breath isn't bad and he puts his hand on Brendon's thigh and it's pretty much just great. Brendon could make out with Ryan Ross for hours, for days on end it feels like, and maybe eventually he'd have to stop to eat or get water or whatever, but still.

They don't need to talk about this, Brendon thinks as he sucks Ryan's bottom lip into his mouth. They don't need to discuss it because this has just always been there, buried under the band and high school and lyrics and Smoothie Hut and playing guitar and leaving the band and all the time in between. And it's only just surfacing now but it's not a surprise, not *really,* and Brendon doesn't think he's ever going to hide it away again. He hopes Ryan doesn't, either.

After a while they stop and Ryan rests his forehead against Brendon's. Brendon has no idea how much time has passed; the sky looks darker from what he can see when he turns his head to look out the window. The sun's gone down, he's pretty sure.

"Hey," Ryan says, a little breathless. He laughs and Brendon giggles too. He kisses Ryan's forehead and that makes Ryan laugh more.

"I need food or something," Ryan says into Brendon's shoulder. "Man cannot survive on coffee alone."

"Food, yeah." Brendon tries to think of what he has around the apartment. Neither he nor Andrew has gotten groceries in forever so they're mostly down to just boxes of mac and cheese, but he's pretty sure there's some frozen stir-fry left. And eggs, he thinks they have eggs.

They could go out, but Brendon doesn't really want to leave now that he has Ryan here. He hopes Ryan feels the same.

Ryan watches him cook, if frozen food improvised with scrambled eggs counts as cooking. He leans against the kitchen doorway and Brendon says, "So, Spencer told me you got your label through Fall Out Boy or something? Dude, you must have pissed your pants with joy." Ryan kicks at him and rolls his eyes but he starts talking about Fall Out Boy and the label and Pete Wentz, and Brendon internalizes it while he watches the eggs change from clear-ish liquid to orange-y yellow solids. Ryan's life has been pretty amazing the last year and a half, it's clear, and Brendon wonders how much Ryan even realizes it. He wonders how much he talks to anyone else he knew before the band got big.

"Seriously, it's not glamorous," Ryan says when Brendon makes impressed noises. "That first tour in the van was fucking hell on earth. Brent and I almost killed each other."

Brendon doesn't ask how the singer they got to replace Brendon worked out (it must have worked out great, obviously, because hey success) and Ryan doesn't make any snide comments about how Brendon could have been a part of everything he's describing. Brendon guesses that they've called a--probably temporary--truce on any of that stuff. Good.

They eat, and Ryan compliments Brendon's cooking. Which Brendon thinks is pretty hilarious, because it's eggs and frozen veggies. It's barely a step above canned soup. But he accepts the compliment anyway, and then they eat mostly in silence. Ryan keeps looking around at Brendon's kitchen and out the window next to the table they're eating on. Brendon doesn't see what's so interesting--it's just a dirty, small-ish kitchen. The only view they have out the kitchen window is the parking lot.

Brendon finishes first and fiddles with his fork, pushing the last few bits of egg around his plate. "Gourmet, huh?" he says, and Ryan snorts.

"Do you still sing?" he says abruptly, still staring out the window. "Or play guitar or piano or anything?"

Brendon puts his fork down. "Of course I do."

Ryan looks at him and takes a couple more bites of his stir-fry. "Are you... I mean. Do you write any songs? Or--"

"I'm not in another band, Ryan." Brendon can't help but roll his eyes a little. "I sing in the church choir. There are these guys at school, I jam sometimes with them. It's not like I stopped doing music, you know? I mean, I could never."

"You just stopped doing it with us." Ryan's voice sounds cool and matter-of-fact, not bitter. He's given Brendon an even look across the table as he chews.

"Yeah," Brendon says carefully. "But not *because* of you guys. It was just. Being in the band, it turned music into something that was just adding stress. I hated that. That's not what it is to me."

Ryan nods and pushes away his plate. Brendon waits for him to push the issue, but he doesn't. He's chewing on his lip and scratching at the back of his neck and after a while it clicks, what Brendon knows he wants to ask.

"We could jam a little, if you wanted," Brendon offers. "I only have an acoustic, but you know. You can borrow my roommate's guitar."

Ryan shrugs. "Sure."

The only Panic songs that Brendon knows even a little bit are the ones that they had before Brendon left, so they mostly stick to covers. Blink 182 and Green Day, and then Ryan bursts out laughing when Brendon starts playing Dance,Dance.

Brendon grins and keeps playing. "It's totally the same as hearing it from backstage, right?"

"Totally," Ryan says, snickering. He picks up his guitar and starts playing the rhythm part, shaking his head.

Brendon starts singing, garbling the lyrics as much as the Fall Out Boy singer does, and makes his voice girlier on purpose. Ryan throws his head back and laughs as his fingers pick out the chords.

It reminds Brendon of the way it was in the very beginning, fucking around with guitars in Brent's room while Brent's mom made them snacks. Except that Ryan really has toured with the band that wrote this song; he's played on the same stage as Pete Wentz. And yet Ryan's here, in Vegas, in Brendon's messy room listening to him do a crappy acoustic imitation. Brendon can't quite fit those two realities together in his mind--can't quite believe that the Ryan Ross in front of him is the same one that leaves for a tour tomorrow.

Brendon shakes his head when the song finishes. "This is a little weird."

Ryan narrows his eyes at him. "Weird how?"

"Just." Brendon laughs a little and starts fucking around with a few riffs he made up himself. "Just, I hear that song on the radio and you toured with them. All of you guys did. And I mean--that's awesome, really, I'm. I hope you know that I'm really proud of the band, of what you guys have done."

"But?" Ryan says, watching Brendon's fingers.

"But nothing, I don't know," Brendon says and laughs again. Awkwardly. "It's just crazy, that you're back here. After that."

"I've been back to Vegas plenty of times since the band took off," Ryan says.

"Yeah, but that was when you weren't talking to me," Brendon says. He tries to say it casual, like he's not angry or hurt or anything. It's just a fact: Ryan didn't talk to him for a year and a half. The sky is blue. "So it's different now."

"Um," Ryan says. "I guess."

Brendon starts playing the riff from Float On. "Yeah," he says, not sure where he's going with this. "But not bad-weird, okay? It's not--I'm glad you guys are successful and I'm glad you're back, too--"

He doesn't get out the rest of whatever he was going to say. Ryan has dropped his guitar and squished Brendon's hands against his own instrument because he's kissing him, wrapping his arms around Brendon's shoulders and pulling himself in close, muffling the strings.

Brendon pushes him away long enough to get the guitar out from between them, setting it on the ground before he cups Ryan's jaw and kisses him, licks at Ryan's teeth and pulling him onto his lap. Brendon was sitting onto his bed, so they end up just falling back onto it, Brendon on his back and Ryan propping himself up over him.

"Glad to be back," Ryan says quietly, mostly into Brendon's chin. Brendon's hands clench a little bit on Ryan's hips and he pushes up against him.

Ryan's mouth covers his before Brendon can reply. Ryan's body is moving slowly against his and Ryan's hands are braced on Brendon's pillow, and Brendon thinks, yes. Just like this.

*

Continued here.