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“Hey, Ryan.”
“Spence? Hey. Uhm, how are things?”
“Good. Things are good.”
“That’s great man. Really, that’s great.”
“Thanks, that… that means a lot.” Spencer smiled at Ryan's words. It really did mean a lot to him.
“So, what—“
“Look, I’m calling because well, it’s Brendon.”
“Brendon? Is he… is he okay?” Ryan didn’t know what to say, what to ask. He didn’t think it would be right to ask about him, not after how he left things with Brendon after the split. He momentarily had images--images of Brendon sick, or hurt, or even lying on the floor—No, if something of that sort happened, Spencer would have told him right off. He sighed into the phone, realizing that he missed Spencer’s reply.
“Ryan? Ryan, you there?”
“Yeah man, sorry, I uhmm… what?”
“I said—“ Spencer sighed. Ryan could tell that he was annoyed. “Look, just listen.”
Ryan heard something scraping over the phone on Spencer’s end and then he heard it: Brendon’s nervous chuckles and some random claps and catcalls. Ryan deduced that he was on a stage of some sort. Ryan considered hanging up. He didn’t want to hear Brendon’s voice; it was much too soon. Sure, he had talked to him since after the official split. He had met with him on a few occasions after that, but it was all the same: the same conversations about the weather, food, movies, and everything else that was irrelevant.
Anything that was safe, they talked about it to fill the awkward silences.
How long have they been just going through the motions? He couldn't remember. It was since before their trip to Africa, that was for sure. Ryan hated what they’d become, which is why he couldn’t stomach hearing Brendon’s easy, familiar laugh, even if he could practically feel Brendon’s nervousness come in waves through the phone. Ryan briefly thought that maybe it wasn’t Brendon. Whatever happened to the Brendon that strutted down the stage, confident and never wavering, knowing full well he owned the crowd, whatever happened to him? Ryan shivered and pressed his ear closer to the phone.
Then he heard the first few notes. His mouth fell open. He couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. Brendon would never sing that song. Would he? He would.
Ryan thought about hanging up again, but Spencer’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Don’t hang up.”
“I don’t think he means for me to hear it,” Ryan said simply.
“The fuck he doesn’t.”
“Spencer— “
“Listen.”
…singing in the dead of night
Ryan remembered the first time he heard Brendon sing this song. They had been sitting in his backyard. Spencer and Jon had just left to buy some take-out to bring back for dinner. Brendon had taken his guitar and started strumming and began to hum random notes. Ryan had looked at him from the corner of his eye. “You could sing anything, Brendon.”
Brendon’s eyes widened. “What do you want me to sing?”
Ryan chuckled and shook his head and looked at the younger man square in the eye. “That’s not what I meant. I meant there is no song you can’t sing.”
Brendon laughed. “I know what you meant, Ry. I was being modest, obviously.”
Ryan rolled his eyes and turned to look up at the sky. “I was trying to be serious.”
A quiet moment passed between them: Brendon looking at Ryan and Ryan pretending to be interested in the starless night.
“I have something for you,” Brendon whispered.
“Oh, really?” Ryan said, sarcastically.
“I was trying to be serious.”
Ryan turned and caught Brendon’s gaze. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Why not?” Brendon cleared his throat and spoke again before Ryan could answer the question that wasn’t really a question. “I have a song for you.”
Ryan licked his lips, not knowing how to react to this moment between them. Thankfully, Brendon rambled on.
“I didn’t write it, but I wanted you to know that when the song comes on I think of you. When I find myself playing, humming or singing the lyrics... well, it’s you that I think about.” Brendon didn’t look at him as he said this. Rather, he focused on his fingers on the guitar. He started playing. And at the first few notes, Ryan instantly recognized the song. The song was written with the civil rights in mind; however, Ryan could understand why Brendon chose this song for him.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
Brendon would say that the song was about awaiting change. A song about hope. Brendon, of course, is right. And leave it to Brendon to find a song that would undo him.
Brendon was like that. He was much too sweet. Much too innocent and much too caring… He was too much for Ryan. Ryan didn’t think he deserved all the attention that Brendon seemed to give him. And yet, Ryan couldn’t walk away from it. He didn’t think he was strong enough to.
He listened as Brendon sang to him. He wanted to tangle himself into the lyrics and bury himself in the melody. He wanted Brendon’s gentle voice to carry him away.
And for the night it did.
Neither of them knew that it would be the last night they would share together.
And now, hearing Brendon singing hundreds of miles away from him, singing to a hundred different people, not knowing that he was listening through a static-y phone, Brendon managed to open him up and pull him back together all over again.
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
[not a week later]
“Yeah, Spence?”
“It’s uhm… Brendon.”
“Geez, Spence. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, you know? I never meant to go separate ways. It’s just music, ‘right? We’re all friends still, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, man. I’m not trying to get the band together.”
“Then why—“
“Ryan, there’s something we didn’t factor into the whole going-our-separate-ways-musically deal.”
Ryan sighed into the phone. “Look, it’s hard on me too, okay? People assuming things. People judging… mean people being mean. But I still want to try this.”
“I know. And that’s okay. We agreed, remember?”
“Then why—“
“Like I said, it’s Brendon. He’s not taking the split very well. And I know that 'Blackbird' was meant for you. Did you… uhh... did you check Brendon’s twitter?”
“Why? Did he eat something bad? You know you should keep him away from Red Bull in the morning.”
“No, it’s not that or anything of that sort, believe it or not. Just check it, will you?” And with that, Spencer hung up.
Ryan muttered under his breath and logged in on Alex’s computer.
“some peculiar things have happened tonight. kinda makes me want to build a fort, like the ol' days. don't ask me why.”
“Well, fuck.”
[two days later]
“Who is it?”
“Brendon, it’s me.”
“Ryan?”
“Yeah, let me in, will you?”
Brendon opened the door a crack. “What are you doing here?”
Ryan took in Brendon’s appearance, white dress shirt, black slacks, messy hair. He looked absolutely delicious, except for the hostility behind his gaze.
Ryan thought back to a time when he didn’t even have to knock on the door to enter and be welcomed into Brendon’s home. Now, it seemed, he wasn’t even welcomed.
Ryan stepped forward and Brendon muttered under his breath as he stepped back. “Aren’t you in New York or some other place where your other friends are at?”
“Look, Bren? I’m—“
“Don’t say you’re sorry, I don’t want to hear it.”
Ryan nodded. Brendon was turned away from him and didn’t see, but he didn’t think it mattered anyway. Why did everything between them become so difficult? Ryan sat himself onto the sofa.
Brendon turned around and looked as if he were about to say something, but ended up going to the kitchen instead.
“You want anything to drink?”
Ryan heard him call out. Ryan winced, that’s what people ask guests. Ryan hated that he became a guest in Brendon’s house. “No, I’m fine,” he replied back, although, he was anything but fine.
Brendon reappeared and Ryan looked up, expecting for Brendon to be Brendon and make everything okay again.
Instead, Brendon walked in and sat on the chair opposite him. He rolled a glass of water between his hands and didn’t say anything at all.
Ryan cleared his throat. “So, how are things?”
“Wonderful. Fantastic, really. Having the time of my life,” Brendon deadpanned.
Ryan winced. “Brendon—“
“Don’t tell me that you and Jon just wanted to explore different kinds of music because you could have done it just as well with us. Don’t you see, Ryan, I’d sing anything… anything you wanted me to, hell you could sing and I’d be back-up for all I care. We were supposed to stay together. You ruined everything.”
Ryan stood up. “No, it wasn’t just me. Don’t you pin this all on me. Not you too. Anyone else, but not you. You know we wanted different things. All of us. I couldn’t make you sing my words, not anymore. I don’t want you to, and I sure as hell don’t want you to sing back-up. You’re meant to take center stage, you sing lead, Brendon.”
Brendon placed his glass on the coffee table. The clink of glass on glass echoed in Ryan’s ears. He unconsciously rubbed the back of his neck.
"I know, okay? It's just..." Brendon trailed off and then: “Why are you here?” He whispered.
“Honestly, I thought it time that we straighten things out. Not about the split, but about you and me. That and I read your tweet.”
“What tweet—oh.” Brendon chuckled, but the sound didn’t fool Ryan. “That was just a joke, you know me, I do that.”
“That was the first real thought that you tweeted,” Ryan said as he fell back onto the couch again.
“I sang for you on your Birthday,” Brendon blurted out. “The birthday song, you know?”
“I know. I replied you back.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t, not really,” Brendon mumbled.
“Look, how can I…” Ryan trailed off, not knowing how to fix this, this broken relationship. “Let’s make a fort.”
“We’re not kids, anymore,” Brendon said, dryly.
“We weren’t kids the first and last time we made a fort, Bren. We met when we were in High School, remember?” Ryan raised an eyebrow and started pulling cushions off the couch. He threw a pillow at Brendon. “Now fucking help me make a fucking fort.”
Brendon didn’t reply right away, but after a few seconds of Ryan piling cushions, Ryan heard the younger man shuffling behind him.
“Fine, but only because you’re doing it wrong.” Brendon threw the pillow back at Ryan, who caught it.
It didn’t take long for them to build a fort; they used all the cushions and pillows they could find in the living room area. They only talked in matters of which wall needed more support, which side would they enter in and if it could really fit both of them in it. Ryan considered it a small success that it was, at least, no longer awkward between them.
After a little argument over who got to sit on the side with the small window, they crammed into the fort.
They sat side-by-side, their legs touching and their breaths passing between them. Ryan squinted in the darkened space and managed to see a ghost of a smile on Brendon’s face.
“I miss this,” Ryan whispered.
A few seconds passed before Brendon replied, it felt like hours for Ryan. “I missed… I missed you.”
Ryan lifted his hand and gripped Brendon’s shoulder. “Come here.”
And with that single touch, Brendon exhaled a shuddering breath and wrapped his arms around Ryan.
Ryan buried his head in the crook of Brendon’s shoulder. Several minutes passed as they sat unmoving, except for the occasional circle rubbed in the other’s back.
“I heard you sing.”
Brendon pulled back but kept his arm around the older man’s waist. “When? Where?”
“I wasn’t there, I heard you over the phone.”
“Over the phone?”
Ryan nodded. He could see Brendon’s face now, after his eyes had adjusted to the darkness in the fort. “You sounded like home.”
Brendon chuckled. “That was cheesy, Ross.”
Ryan smiled. “It’s true, you know.”
Brendon smiled back, and Ryan thought that that was it. That was what he came for.
“You know, that’s not what your friend thinks.”
Ryan raised his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”
“Alex, he—“
“He didn’t mean it like that. I read the message too. The reason why he put that out there was because he was just… I dunno… I uhh I said some things about you and well I kind of got worked up over it and he was just trying to be a friend and tell me that maybe I didn’t have to, you know, be so worried, or whatever.”
“That’s just stupid.”
“No, it’s not.” Ryan swatted Brendon’s thigh. “Okay, maybe it is, just a little.”
Brendon laughed and moved his other hand to play at the back of Ryan’s neck. “Your hair is so long, I kinda like it.”
“Kinda? You know you wanna run your hands through it, don’t lie.” Ryan joked.
“Okay, maybe I do,” Brendon whispered. And the next thing Ryan knew, Brendon had leaned in and it could only possibly mean one thing; they were Ryan and Brendon again.
As their lips met and moved together, Ryan breathed Brendon in and leaned back, forgetting that they were sitting in a fort of pillows, and fell back with the walls collapsing around them.
Brendon smiled against his lips.
“You know this doesn’t mean I’m coming back to Panic. Not yet anyway.”
“I know.”
“So okay, with that settled, can we uhm… Can we fast-forward to go down on me?” Ryan said in all seriousness.
Brendon laughed. “Now that, that song, I wrote that.”
“Gonna tell me who was the dream about?”
“Maybe.” Brendon waggled his brow.
“Tease.” Ryan said as he swatted at Brendon’s arm, and then lifted a finger to Brendon’s face. He traced the smile on perfect lips and touched the swell of his cheek up to the crinkle that formed at the corner of the younger man’s eye.
Brendon was leaning on his arms, hovering above Ryan.
And Ryan couldn’t think of another place he’d rather be. He smiled, realizing that he was only waiting for this moment to arise.
The End