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.

***

Brendon wakes up the next morning, naked and sticky, and Ryan's gone but there's a text on Brendon's phone. I had to leave ass-early to catch a plane. Hope I didn't wake you up.

Brendon grins to himself in the shower and sings loud even though he's sure his roommate can hear him through the walls. He doesn't care. Later he'll probably start thinking about how weird this is and how he doesn't even know *where* Ryan is touring or for how long or whether this is more than a one-night thing, but right now the emotion he's going with is 'fucking elated.'

It's Saturday, and he doesn't have classes or any work today. He takes a twenty-minute shower and calls Ryan when he gets out. Ryan doesn't pick up, he's probably in mid-air, so Brendon leaves a long rambling message that's not really about anything at all.

"Oh, and you didn't wake me up," he adds at the end. "I slept like a baby, in fact. Had the sweetest dreams. Uh. I'll talk to you later, I guess."

Ryan calls him back later that night and laughs as soon as Brendon picks up. Brendon shakes his head and smiles. "Dude, so where are you?"

"Getting ready to get on another plane," Ryan says, and it sounds like 'getting ready to attend my mother's funeral'.

"Right, yeah, for the tour. Where are you getting on a plane *to,* dumbass?"

"England," Ryan says.

"Um," Brendon says. "Wow, that's. You guys are touring Europe? That's amazing."

"Just the UK," Ryan says, like that's so much less impressive.

"Dude, that is across the ocean," Brendon says. "My parents took me to Canada, once? When I was ten? That's my international experience."

"So fly out and meet us here," Ryan says.

Brendon snorts. "Right, yeah. Spontaneous international flights to hang out with rock stars, that's just how I roll."

"I'm serious," Ryan says. "I'll fly you out. I'm going to be stuck on this side of the Atlantic for the rest of the month. When was the last time you saw Spencer and Brent, anyway?"

Brendon grips his cell a little tighter. "Um. I don't know if I can get the time off from the academy."

"Hello? Tell them that you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to England for free. I think you can probably work something out."

"I don't know," Brendon says.

There's hesitation on the other line, a few moments of dead air. "I want to see you," Ryan says, finally, and Brendon licks his lips.

"Okay."

The two weeks until Brendon's flight pass faster than Brendon is prepared for. Ryan is right that his teachers don't give him a hard time about taking a week off; there are more than enough students to cover his working shifts. It's a little scary, the knowledge that Brendon's life can be so easily walked away from.

Brendon has no idea what to pack for a trip to England. He calls Spencer the night before his flight, panicking, not thinking about the fact that it's like four am there, and Spencer grouchily tells him to pack clean underwear and socks and hangs up. Brendon is disconcerted by the implication that Spencer thought he *needed* to tell Brendon to pack clean underwear and socks--visions of obscenely smelly and unhygienic touring musicians dance in his head.

Spencer, Brent and Ryan meet him at the airport. Brent hugs him first, grinning into Brendon's collar and slapping him back. As soon as he lets go, Spencer's arm comes tentatively around his shoulders and Spencer's head tilts against his, leaning in. Brendon turns his face into Spencer's hair and blows a breath of air out, and Spencer laughs and hits the back of Brendon's head lightly.

When he lets go, Ryan is there, his hand rubbing the back of his neck and a half-smile on his mouth. He's got eyeliner on and his hair is very strangely styled; Brendon's fingers itch to make it right.

Ryan steps up to him and hugs him, his lips brushing Brendon's jaw only for a second. When they let go Spencer and Brent are both smiling in a way like they're determined to not let this be awkward.

Ryan stays close even after the hug, his hand brushing Brendon's arm and his hip bumping Brendon's. Brent nudges Brendon's other side. "Hey, you haven't met Corey yet, have you?"

Their new singer. No, Brendon berates himself, not their *new* singer--just their singer, period. He shakes his head. "Nah, man. I'm shivering in anticipation." Fuck, he totally missed an opportunity for a Rocky Horror joke there.

"He's waiting out by the car," Spencer says. "He would've come in to meet you, but you know. He's shy."

"Seriously shy," Brent says, rolling his eyes. "Like a deer or something, it's a little ridiculous."

"Yeah, we were worried you'd scare him away," Ryan says. His finger is hooked in one of Brendon's belt-loops.

"Because I strike fear into the hearts of men," Brendon says. He gives up resisting the urge and wraps a hand around Ryan's waist. "I'm so terrifying, it's a well-known fact."

"You're very intimidating," Ryan says, faking earnestness badly. "I've always thought so."

"See? Thank you, Ryan." Brendon turns his head and their lips meet, just for a couple seconds. A warm tingle starts at the base of Brendon's spine.

"I'm going to have to blind myself now. Great. Thanks, guys," Spencer says.

Brendon reaches around Brent to punch Spencer's shoulder and Spencer cringes away from him. Brendon grins. He hasn't been around the three of them like this since--well. Since they stopped being a band.

Corey is leaning against the car when they get out to the parking lot, his head down. Brendon's seen him in pictures of the band, articles or whatever that Spencer and Brent have shown him. He's rubbing his foot on the asphalt, frowning at something on the ground. He's wearing the same kind of gray hat Ryan likes and his brown hair is sticking out over his ears. He looks up when they get near.

"Brendon, Corey, Corey, Brendon," Spencer says, gesturing between the two of them. "There. Now you know each other."

Corey smiles and waves, but doesn't move to shake Brendon's hand or anything. Brendon realizes, belatedly, that he still has his arm around Ryan. "Yo," he says, and feels like a moron.

Corey laughs. "Hi. Nice to meet you." His teeth are kind of large and he's wearing eyeliner, making his green eyes seem super-huge. He has a nice smile and now that they're closer, Brendon can see that he's way taller than him. Taller than Ryan, too. He's kind of a stork.

"Yeah," Brendon says, and doesn't move his arm from Ryan's waist. "I'm a big fan." And that's a really corny thing to say, but wow, Corey turns bright red. It's kind of entertaining, actually. This could be a great game, Brendon thinks.

Spencer catches Brendon's eye over Corey's shoulder and narrows his eyes, shaking his head a little. Damn, Brendon thinks. He forgot the way Spencer reads minds.

"C'mon," Brent says, moving past them to open the side door and get in; Brendon can see someone he doesn't know in the driver's seat. "Let's get out of here already. Brendon, we're going to make you eat fish and chips. And like, haggis."

"You're lying. Don't lie, Brent, that's wrong," Brendon says, getting in after him and ending up in the middle, squished next to Ryan, Corey on the other side. Spencer has shotgun all to himself.

"Oh, this is Zach," Spencer says, twisting around to talk to them and pointing at the driver. "Zach, Brendon, Brendon, Zach."

Zach smiles and nods at Brendon in the rearview mirror as he pulls away from the curb. Brendon's heard about him, he's pretty sure--he's their manager, maybe. Something like that. He waves back. "Hi Zach."

As soon as Brendon gets to the hotel they're staying at things get chaotic, Zach telling everybody where to go and coordinating with the other bands and Ryan, Spencer, Brent and Corey getting whisked off to prepare for the show that night. Brendon follows them blindly, snagging free food from green rooms and listening as people talk about microphones and set problems and how to coordinate with the venue staff. Brendon gets introduced to what feels like a million different people, the other bands on the tour and the techies and the other tour managers and it's all just. Wow.

And then Brendon is standing backstage, watching from the wings as the second opening band--The Academy, he thinks?--goes into their second song. The tall singer (Brendon knows they were introduced, but he can't remember the name) with the hair is going crazy already, kneeling in front of the crowd with his pelvis thrust out as he sings, one arm pumped up into the air with his fingers spread wide.

"Yeah, Bill's kinda nuts," a voice says beside him, and Brendon turns to see one of the guitar techs. Not Panic's, though, he doesn't think.

Brendon nods. Bill's the singer, he's guessing. "Yeah. It's, um, interesting. He always like this?"

"Pretty much. It's like his thing. I'm Jon, by the way, I do tech work for them, " the guy says, sticking out a hand.

Brendon grins and takes it. "Brendon. I don't do anything for any band. Ryan just brought me along to watch and annoy people."

"And I can see you're doing an excellent job of it," Jon says, straight-faced, and Brendon laughs.

Jon is really friendly, and he gives Brendon the names of the rest of the guys onstage when Brendon admits he doesn't remember. After a few minutes he has to leave and do his job, switching out guitars for the band and other stage-techy stuff that mostly just looks like incomprehensible magic to Brendon. It's cool to watch, though.

Ryan comes up behind him as the band plays their last song, his hand curving around Brendon's shoulder. "Hi."

"Hi back." Bill Beckett is bent in half. Wow.

"Do you like them?" When Brendon turns to look at Ryan, he has to do a double-take. He'd known that they were holed up in makeup, but uh, there are freaking blue and black stars on Ryan's cheeks.

"They're pretty good," Brendon says. "Dude, your face."

Ryan blinks at him. "What? --oh." He brings his hand up to almost touch the point of one star lightly, smirking. "Yeah. It's a stage thing. Sets us apart, you know?"

"Did you do that yourself?" Brendon says. It's kind of pretty. There's red shading, too, which Brendon can see when Ryan tilts his face into the weak light backstage. Brendon kind of wants to touch it, but that would probably smear the paint.

"Yeah," Ryan says. Brendon is still staring, and Ryan raises an eyebrow. "So?"

"I didn't know you were so good at makeup, that's all," Brendon says, feeling kind of dumb.

Ryan opens his mouth to say something, Brendon doesn't know what, but then Bill Beckett finishes the song and they turn around to applaud as the band comes off the set. "I have to go," Ryan says.

"Yeah, yeah, get onstage," Brendon says, even though it'll be a while before they do--Ryan has to go handle preparing crap until Panic's set starts. "I wanna see you guys."

Brendon wasn't sure what he was expecting. He's had opportunities to see them in the past year, they've played Vegas shows and Spencer and Brent had dropped hints that Brendon would be welcome to come see them play, but Brendon had been too petty and pissed about Ryan refusing to even contemplate the idea that they could still be friends.

But he wasn't expecting them to look so *good.* They're all wearing the wacky makeup, although Corey is the only one with designs as elaborate as Ryan's (did Ryan do his makeup or just teach him how?), and they sound good together and Corey's voice works with Ryan's lyrics live a lot better than it did on the recordings Brendon has heard. And Corey's shyness drops away on the stage--it's like he's not even the same person. He flirts with the audience and has this charming grin on his face (he's wearing bright red lipstick) and rolls his hips when he sings. He doesn't bend himself in half or do acrobatics the way Bill Beckett did, but he does sing from his knees, to Brent and to Ryan. He's got one hell of a range, too, and even if he doesn't hit every note perfectly he uses the stage well enough to make up for it.

They look like a real band, not three kids Brendon met through Trig with Brent.

Jon shows up again a few songs into their set, smiling and nodding at Brendon and standing next to him to watch. Brendon doesn't know what to say, doesn't really know what to say, so he stays quiet, and Jon doesn't try to start up a conversation, either. He just watches, tapping his foot and his hand on his arm to the beat, humming a little under his breath.

"Do you play anything?" Jon asks suddenly, during a break in the set while Corey talks to the audience.

"Yeah," Brendon says. "Guitar and keyboards, mostly. Plus singing." He tells himself Jon didn't mean anything by it.

***

They don't actually have much time to see the English countryside, or English anything, actually. Brendon had known that touring was intense and crazy, and he hates himself a little for still being impressed by how crazy his friends' schedules are, but he really is. Brendon goes off by himself a couple times and manages to get a little tourism in, but that defeats the purpose of coming to see guys he hasn't spent time with in way too long.

Ryan is elated and sweaty after every show, and Brendon always kisses him in the dressing room before he has a chance to shower. Spencer and Brent groan and complain and make gagging noises about it, but Ryan always smiles into Brendon's mouth and gets makeup all over Brendon's face. It's pretty awesome.

Brendon's only there for a week, so of course they spend every night together--sex is practically the only time they can get alone. Brendon is pretty much okay with that. He loves this, loves learning Ryan's body and finding out what makes him sigh and twist and moan. He's never had sex with someone he knew well before, and it's like being introduced to Ryan in a whole different way.

Ryan is lying behind him on the second-to-last night (they've avoided talking about Brendon having to leave soon the entire day), and Brendon is almost asleep. Ryan's fingers drift up and down Brendon's side, tracing his ribs lazily. Ryan's voice is quiet when he speaks.

"We could use a keyboardist, you know. I think it would add a lot to our sound--we had someone else record the keyboard parts on the album, and we can't do those parts live. And you're so great at it, you know? Your hands--" Ryan's movement stills, and he stops.

"Or. Or a second guitarist--that was something we talked about from the beginning, you remember? How the songs we wanted to play would require two guitars. Corey can't really sing and play at the same time, so it's just me right now."

Brendon's eyes are closed. He doesn't reply, pretending to be asleep, and after a while Ryan settles behind him and Brendon hears his breathing change as he nods off.

***

Time seems to disappear on him, and it doesn't feel like seven days have passed by the time he's saying goodbye to them at the airport. Ryan has been moody the whole day, and Brendon keeps catching Ryan staring at him; Spencer has been a little snappier than usual, and Brent just looked sad.

Spencer and Brent hug him goodbye, and Brendon goes ahead and hugs Corey, too, even though they still don't really know each other. Ryan stays standing apart, and Spencer and Brent and Corey leave together, Spencer turning and giving Brendon one last wave before they head back out to Zach waiting with the car.

Ryan's hands are clasped behind him and he's standing with his toes turned in a little bit. He smiles slightly when Brendon shoves his shoulder.

"This flight is seriously going to suck," Brendon says. "What do you want to bet that I won't be able to sleep at all and end up spending, like, ten hours with my eyes wide open? Time goes so much slower that way."

Ryan shrugs. "You'll just have to find something to distract you from the dullness."

Brendon makes a face. "Still sucks, dude."

"We'll be back in the States soon," Ryan says, crossing his arms. "I'll find some time to come by Vegas. I'll--I don't know. Probably need another haircut."

"I can fix your hair, but not your face," Brendon says regretfully. "You'll need to see a plastic surgeon for that."

Ryan rolls his eyes and doesn't respond. Brendon touches his hand and tugs, unfolding Ryan's arms and bringing him in until he can touch his lips to Ryan's cheek and the corner of his mouth. He feels Ryan's sigh against his ear.

"See you soon," Brendon says before stepping back. Ryan squeezes his fingers and lets go, and Brendon thinks, okay. Come on, if you don't step through the security gate right now it'll just get harder. So he goes.

The flight is pretty much as shitty as Brendon expected. His ass starts to hurt two hours into it, and no matter what way he shifts to sit, eventually every possible place in his body he can sit on is uncomfortable. Brendon thunks his forehead against the window and closes his eyes even though, also as expected, he can't fall asleep.

***

Brendon goes back to his life, back to hair school and his apartment. Andrew is throwing a birthday party for one of his friends (Brendon's friend, too, but mostly Andrew's) the night Brendon's flight gets in, so that Brendon stumbles in to work the next day jet-lagged *and* hungover. Thankfully it's a day of mostly classes in the morning, with no paying clients until the afternoon when he's feeling more human.

He gets a short round lady in her sixties who's getting her hair cut short and dyed white, and all she has to do is smile and nod at him in the mirror and Brendon finds himself telling her everything about the past several weeks, meeting Ryan again and flying to England and following a rock band around. He babbles the whole time he's setting the dye in her hair, and by the time she's finished he's gone on to tell her about most of the rest of his life, too. When she stands up from the chair she pats his hand and tells him that she's sure it will all work out because he's such a nice boy. Brendon feels slightly dazed.

For a week and a half Brendon only gets the occasional text messages from Ryan, informing him that they're busy on tour but that Brendon is missed, and things feel settled. Normal again like it was before Ryan walked into his school for a haircut, and sometimes when Brendon wakes up in the morning, in that hazy time when his eyelids are stiff and his body is still clinging to sleep, he mistakes the whole thing for a dream.

Then Ryan calls him on a Saturday afternoon. "Guess where I am?"

"Gwen Stefani's house," Brendon says. "No wait, bad guess, I take it back. You're hanging out with Posh Spice and David Beckham."

"I'm at the Virgin Records superstore," Ryan says, and Brendon knows he means the one at the mall down the street from Brendon's apartment. "I'm having an Orange Julius. It's giving me a brain freeze."

"Meet you there," Brendon says, feeling the grin spread across his face.

Ryan is in the G-M aisle of the pop/rock section when Brendon gets there. He walks up behind him, pinching Ryan's side just to watch him jump. Ryan swats his hand away, giving him an annoyed look when Brendon giggles.

"You sound like a hyena," Ryan says. He has an Orange Julius in the hand that isn't flipping through CDs, and suddenly Brendon is thirsty.

"But a sexy hyena," Brendon says. "You getting anything?"

"Nah," Ryan says, offering the Julius to Brendon, who takes a large slip gladly. "I was just looking. I haven't been to this mall in forever."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't really change. Still commercialized and full of chains." The brim of Ryan's gray hat is tugged low on his head, covering his eyes a little, but Brendon can still see him smile. "Walk with me back to my place?"

Just hanging out together turns out to be a rare opportunity. It's interesting to see Ryan's lifestyle up close, seeing just how busy *everyone* in the band is. Brendon isn't sure whether Spencer and Brent's lives were always this hectic and he just now started paying attention, or if things are getting crazier for them the more successful they get. It seems like they always have to fly somewhere for a festival or an awards show or a music video shoot, or get up ass-early in the morning for an interview or a radio appearance, it's just. It's always something. Ryan comes over to Brendon's place at one in the morning and they stay up together all night because it feels like that's the only time they really have. It was like this during the tour, yeah, but Brendon had thought things would slow down once they were home.

"And you wonder why I didn't want to be a rock star?" Brendon says, laughing one morning because it's six am and Ryan is out of Brendon's bed and frantically hopping into his pants because he's late for some interview.

Ryan shoots Brendon a sharp look, and Brendon thinks, oh, possibly I shouldn't joke about that. But then Ryan shakes his head and smiles, reaching for his shirt. "It's not always like this. Sometimes they actually let us sleep."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Brendon says, stretching out languidly and nakedly. Ryan glances over the line of Brendon's body as he does up his pants, eyes narrowing for a moment before he leans forward, pressing his mouth messily to Brendon's temple and reaching over him to grab his jacket, which had been cast on the other side of the bed the night before.

"Call me later," Ryan says as he leaves Brendon's room, and Brendon rolls over on his side to try and catch some shut-eye.

"It's just a busy summer, that's all," Spencer says when Brendon mentions the breakneck pace they're living their lives at. "We're planning that huge tour, there's more press coming our way, it's just. You know." He sounds like he's trying really hard to sound like he's not giddy about it all. Spencer is not nearly as talented at faking apathy as Ryan is.

Ryan surprises Brendon one day by showing up Sunday morning to watch Brendon in the choir. It makes Brendon flush through his solo, but he closes his eyes and sings louder than usual.

"I know the church thing is weird," Brendon says as soon as he meets up with Ryan as the service ends. Brendon's still in his choir robes. "I mean, I'm not really still in it, you know that, right? I just like singing with them. Oh man, you're so weirded out right now, I can tell."

"It's not that weird," Ryan says, shrugging. "You sound good. It was nice."

Brendon's family shows up then, and his parents act a little frosty towards Ryan. Not that Brendon has told them about the whole having-sex-with-guys-now thing, but they still associate Ryan with making their good Mormon boy throw away everything for a band. Brendon tries to make the polite chit-chat quick before dragging Ryan away.

"You haven't told them?" Ryan says as they leave. He doesn't sound judgmental, just curious.

"Oh, like you've told your dad?" Brendon shucks off his robe as soon as he can, already sweaty from dressing in another thick layer all morning in Vegas in the summer.

"That's different," Ryan says. "Telling him would require us to be on speaking terms."

Brendon looks at Ryan, but Ryan didn't say that in a way that was asking for empathy, so Brendon just nods. "I'm telling my family soon. I just have to, you know." Figure out what I could possibly say about you? Gather the courage? Brace myself? "I'll do it soon."

"No pressure," Ryan says, sliding into the front seat of Brendon's van as Brendon starts the engine. Brendon's grateful for it.

As it gets hotter, Brendon spends as many afternoons as possible with all four of them at the nearest community pool. Spencer and Brent spend all their time on the highest diving boards (Spencer always does perfect jack-knifes into the water, Brent just jumps), Corey swims laps and Brendon and Ryan sit on the steps in the shallow end, talking or just enjoying the way it feels to be perfectly still in cool water. Ryan always gets sunburnt at least a little, no matter how thorough he is with the sunscreen. Brendon calls him lobster-face.

Corey comes in for a haircut one morning when Brendon's working. He doesn't want anything fancy or emo, just plain short hair, and he looks like he wants things to be good and not-awkward so badly that Brendon takes pity on him and is even more friendly than he needs to be. When he's finished with the cut, Corey runs two hands over his hair, staring at himself in the mirror, smiling big. He meets Brendon's eyes in the reflection and Brendon grins back and sticks out his tongue. Corey laughs.

One day when the five at them are at the pool, a trio of fourteen-year-old girls approaches Ryan when he's sitting next to Brendon on the pool steps. "Oh, my god," one of them says. "You're him! You're Ryan Ross!"

"Oh my god, can you like--sign my bikini or something?" Another one says. "Oh, crap, um, I need a pen!" She turns around to dash back to her backpack on a pool chair, her face red.

"Um, hi," Ryan says, sounding surprised. The first two are still staring. A few feet away, a mom playing with her kids keeps glancing at them. Or at Ryan, really, Brendon might as well be invisible for this. Thank god. Ryan looks really uncomfortable. They don't go to the pool when it's most crowded, after that.

Sometimes, when the five of them are together and the conversation turns to band matters, Ryan looks at Brendon--different. Sometimes he looks angry, sometimes frustrated, sometimes wistful or just sad. Brendon doesn't want to ignore it, but he doesn't know what to say, so he just leans his elbow on Ryan's shoulder or sticks his nose in Ryan's hair or slides his arm around Ryan's waist until he looks normal again.

When Brendon hasn't seen Ryan for almost a week and a half because of his schedule, Ryan shows up at Brendon's school to wait for him to get out. Brendon grins at him over in the lobby and waves his scissors at him, snapping them open and shut for effect. Ryan pretends to be engrossed in a magazine.

They head to the nearby Barnes & Nobles, and Brendon is the one who finds the article, flipping through the magazine rack while Ryan goes through the nearby best-sellers. He's not expecting to find anything worthy of his attention in Spin, paying almost more attention to the ads than the articles, but then whoa. Hey.

He pokes Ryan in the shoulder and shows them the picture of the four of them and the accompanying article, grinning. Ryan snorts and shakes his head a little, because of course he knows that Panic has an article in Spin: he's quoted in the interview.

Brendon pokes him again. "Come on, you have to admit that it's pretty cool that I can just find stuff about you guys in a random magazine when I wasn't even *looking* for it. That's like. Come on, that's cool."

"That could be you with us on the page," Ryan says, staring at the picture.

"Um, I know. I know I quit a band that went on to make it big, Ryan, I was there." Wow, bitter much? Brendon cringes at himself.

"No, I mean." Ryan looks up, staring at Brendon intently. "You could be with us in that picture. Or the next one. You could be with us, *now.*"

Brendon sighs and puts the magazine back on the rack. "Oh."

"I'm serious," Ryan says, and Brendon wants to say, I know, this would be a lot less awkward if you *weren't.* "I want you to come back. With you *and* Corey, we can--we can take over the fucking world, seriously." Ryan's hand is on Brendon's arm and other people in the bookstore are glancing at them.

"I don't want the world. It wouldn't go with my interior decorating," Brendon says, and he knows that joking is a bad idea right now the second the words come out of his mouth.

Ryan presses his lips together. "And here I thought you'd be more concerned with how it would fit with your all-important career plans."

"Oh my god! Oh my god, you mean cutting people's hair isn't as glamorous as being a rock star? I hadn't realized," Brendon says. "*Thanks* for letting me know." He turns away to walk out the door, because seriously, if Ryan is going to make them have this fight then no way is he doing it in a chain bookstore.

Ryan follows him, walking quickly. "I've talked to the other guys about this, okay? We've discussed it. They're all for it, they want you back in."

"Oh, yeah? Even Corey? Even Pete Wentz? Isn't he, like, your boss?"

Ryan makes an impatient noise, like he realizes that Brendon's stalling for time before giving him a real answer. "Pete doesn't control everything. And yes, even Corey. I told you: I'm serious."

Ryan is serious about everything when it comes to the band, and when it comes to Brendon. Brendon sighs and turns around to face him. They're still in public, on the sidewalk. "I'm serious, too. No. I'm not coming back."

Ryan just looks at him for a few seconds. Brendon can't read his face at all. "Why not?"

Because I made this decision in 2004. "Because I have my own god damn life! And yeah, it includes hairdresser's school and not doing anything huge with my music and driving a purple minivan. Do you just not even grasp the concept that I might *like* not being in a huge famous band?"

"It's not a huge famous band, it's me! --and Spencer, and Brent, and this used to be *yours,* fuck, how could you walk away from it? Why are you still walking away?" Ryan's voice is rising.

"You didn't even hear a word I just *said.* Listen to yourself! You're so--so *convinced* that what you've got is better than anything I could possibly have here."

"That's because you don't have anything here! You're singing in a fucking church choir! You write songs that no one gets to hear! How can you even--" Ryan stops, and his mouth shuts with a click; when he talks again, he's quieter. "Not being with us, fine, but music is who you are. I don't. I don't understand."

"No," Brendon says. "You really don't." He feels tired. He doesn't know how to explain this. He doesn't think Ryan will ever really listen.

"You're so full of shit," Ryan says, every word dripping with venom. Brendon swallows. Ryan's looking at him like he wants Brendon to come back with something equally biting, but Brendon doesn't have anything to say. He just looks back.

Eventually Ryan shakes his head and looks away, turns away. "Whatever," he mutters, and Brendon watches him go. He'll probably take a taxi back to his hotel. He doesn't need a ride from Brendon's minivan.

Brendon goes home and tries not to think about Ryan Ross or Panic! At The Stupid Disco. He makes himself mac and cheese for dinner and flirts with the idea of cleaning his room or watching TV--just, something. Something to occupy his hands and that doesn't require thinking.

He ends up driving to the church. It's Saturday evening, so of course it's locked up, but Brendon's known a secret way in through the roof window (one of the chapel walls is easy to climb) since he was a kid. No one's in the chapel; the piano is covered up.

Brendon uncovers it and sits down. He spends a couple seconds just running his fingers over the keys, light at first and then heavy enough that some of the keys plunk down, pinging sound in the silence. He leans his elbow down on a random spot, creating a discordant mash of notes. Again when he rests his forehead against the keys.

He starts out with Bach's first praeludium in C Major. It's one of the first songs he ever memorized, at age nine, and he likes the pattern of it. The simplicity. The way every measure is constructed the same and the predictability in the way it moves linearly from major to minor and back again.

He moves through a few jazz standards, a few half-songs he's been thinking of himself, a couple of Elton John songs. Ryan doesn't get it. Ryan doesn't get it and that fucking hurts, because Brendon feels like he really *should.* He needs Ryan to get it.

Honestly, does Ryan think Brendon is an idiot? Does he think that Brendon never, in the whole time since he rode his bike away from rock-stardom, thought about going back? Of course Brendon did his share of kicking himself, of regretting everything. But music has always been with Brendon and it always will be, famous rock band or no. He doesn't need to share it with the world.

And Ryan's the same way. Brendon's always going to have him next to his heart like a shard that's worked its way in, and it doesn't matter whether they're performing together or not. He wonders if Ryan doesn't feel the same way, and maybe that was the reason for the year and a half communication gap: maybe Ryan really can't hold on to Brendon if they're not in a band together, not the way Brendon can hold on to him.

The thought makes Brendon stop playing. Fuck. He really, really hopes that isn't true.

Brendon fucks around on the keys for a little while longer before closing the piano's top, covering it up again and leaving. He walks around the block a few times, blowing off the rest of his steam, before driving back up to his apartment and staring at his bedroom ceiling until he falls asleep.

He sings in choir the next morning and it helps. Closing his eyes and letting sound out of his lungs, and it's all about the person next to him letting out the same sound and everything ringing off the rafters, not about Ryan. Today's one of the days that he actually listens to the words the bishop is saying, tries to find meaning again in someone else's faith, but like every time he tries these days the words leave him dry. It's not something he can connect with anymore, and that realization shouldn't feel new every time, he thinks. Eventually he tunes out the words and stares at his lap and thinks about Ryan, and only pays attention to the cue to stand and sing.

He goes to work the next day and realizes half-way through giving someone a caesar-cut that he doesn't even know if Ryan's still in town. He could be at a photoshoot in L.A., or back on tour, or. Brendon's forgotten his schedule, if he even knew it in the first place. Crap.

He calls Ryan on his lunch break, but hangs up after the first ring. He calls Spencer instead. "Did you guys really want me to come back to the band?"

"What? Oh. Hmm. That's right, he asked me the other day and I said that might be cool. Why, are you going to?"

Brendon smiles to himself. "No. Ryan asked me, that's all."

"Huh," is all Spencer says. "It's cool if you did, though. I mean. It'd be good to have you, even if you weren't even a part of the band and just decided to hang out with us on tour and stuff."

"Uh-huh. Right." Brendon remembers hearing about Fall Out Boy and Dirty. Corey had sounded pretty traumatized, telling those stories. "Don't think so."

Brendon takes out his phone to call Ryan two more times that day, but always puts it away again. He wants Ryan to call *him,* he wants--he wants some proof that this won't turn into another prolonged-possibly-endless silence.

He doesn't call him the next day, and again the next day. He doesn't call him period, and every time his phone rings it's not Ryan's voice on the other end.

Fuck you, Brendon thinks every time he drives past that Barnes & Nobles. And every time he goes into their Starbucks. And every time he hears Panic on the radio at work. Fuck you fuck you fuck you if you want to do this again.

He doesn't hear from Ryan for two weeks. And then as he's eating dinner in front of the TV one night, the buzzer for his apartment goes off, signifying someone at the front door of the building. Brendon makes pitiful faces at Andrew until Andrew gets up to answer it, grunting, "Yeah?" into the speakerphone.

There's a pause. Then a voice Brendon recognizes says, "Um. Is Brendon there? This is Ryan."

And shit. Shit. Brendon is almost mad enough to leave him standing out there, but Andrew is already saying "Yeah, sure, one sec," and motioning for Brendon to come talk. Brendon glares at him.

"Hey," Brendon says. "I'm coming down, okay?" and hangs up.

Ryan is waiting outside the glass doors to the lobby, his thumbs hooked in his pockets and staring at Brendon through the glass when Brendon comes out of the elevator. Brendon steps outside and leans against the side of the building, away from Ryan. Neither of them speak for a while.

"You're such an asshole," Brendon says, talking first. "You--god. Is that how you take care of every problem in your life? By just, just not talking to people? Was I supposed to just assume we were broken up because you gave me the cold shoulder?"

"We're not broken up," Ryan says, the words sounding rushed. "Or. Um. I hope we're not."

Brendon hopes they're not, too. "Okay. Fine. Great."

"I've been." Ryan sighs, a big one that moves his whole chest, and looks out at the sidewalk. "I've been trying to deal with your decision. Thinking about what you said."

"For *two weeks?*" Brendon says, and Ryan gives him a dirty look.

"This is hard, okay? I said I'm trying."

"I know you are," Brendon says. "Do you need me too, I don't know. Explain my reasoning again? I can use smaller words."

"Fuck off with your sarcasm," Ryan says, and okay, maybe Brendon should do that. "No, I think I grasp your concept. It's just." He scowls. "You suck a whole lot for quitting. You really do."

"You know it has nothing to do with you, right? I mean. Ryan." Brendon pauses, because he needs to get what he's trying to say exactly right. "The way I feel for you, that has nothing to do with whether or not we're in a band together. It never did. It's not about you."

"Thanks, way to make me sound self-centered," Ryan says, smiling a little, and Brendon snickers.

"Just thought I'd spell it out for you." He wants them to be made up now, he wants things to be okay. All of a sudden he really doesn't give a shit that Ryan waited two weeks to talk to him.

"I didn't mean to put down your life here. I mean, you're happy, I guess. You seem happy." Ryan takes a couple steps towards Brendon.

"I am. And I'm happy for you," Brendon says. "I think what you guys have is great, it's amazing. I just don't need it for myself." He wants to beam the concept into Ryan's brain, he wants to see the lightbulb moment of Ryan getting a clue. "I don't want fame, I don't want to have to play the same songs every night, I don't want to wear makeup and talk to journalists and all of that stuff you guys put up with. I don't want music to be a *job.*"

Ryan is right in front of him now, and he reaches up to touch Brendon's mouth, hushing him. "I don't get it," he says. "But I can deal with it."

"Fine," Brendon says, feeling the dry pads of Ryan's fingers against his lips. Ryan moves his hand to cup Brendon's jaw and they stay like that, neither of them moving to close the distance.

"I'm still going to hate it, every time I get up to play and you're not there too," Ryan says after a while.

"Yeah, but I'll be cheering from the sidelines," Brendon says, cracking a smile, and Ryan leans in close to kiss him.

***

Ryan and the rest of the band stay in Las Vegas until they have to leave for their next tour. It's a big deal, headlining in the U.S., and Brendon knows a lot of the shows are already sold out. He can feel their excitement getting more and more palpable with each day: Spencer talks with his hands a lot more, Brent's laugh gets louder and more raucous, and Corey keeps smiling for no apparent reason. Ryan just touches Brendon even more than usual, always having some part of his body in contact with him, even if it's just the tips of his fingers resting on Brendon's hip as the four of them sprawl in Brendon's room. (Brendon always invites Corey to hang out, too, and sometimes he does, but more often than not when Brendon's there it's just the four of them.)

Brendon's with them when it's time for them to load up the tour bus and leave for Arizona. Ryan gets his belongings packed quickly and then comes to stand outside next to Brendon, watching, his shoulder knocking against Brendon's.

"You guys are gonna knock this out of the park," Brendon says. "You're gonna make girls in the audience faint and shit, just like Elvis. Guys, too," he adds as an afterthought.

"We really are," Ryan says, a note of smugness in his voice. "This is going to be fucking amazing."

Brendon smirks and wraps an arm around Ryan's waist, squeezing. He already has tickets to fly out to see several dates, and of course the Vegas show. "Fucking amazing," he echoes. "I knew you when, huh?"

"You still know me," Ryan points out as Spencer and Brent and Corey come out of the van, walking over to meet them.

"Zach says it's time to go," Brent says. He's practically bouncing with anticipation.

"Joy. Here's to cramming ourselves into bunks for a whole summer," Spencer says, but he can't even fake cynical detachment. Brendon laughs.

"Rock out with your cocks out, you guys," he says, and laughs again when Corey turns crimson.

Zach yells at them to hurry things up, and Brendon knocks fists with Spencer, Brent and Corey before they turn to board the bus. Ryan leans further into him.

"Wow," Ryan says. "Wow, we're really. Wow."

"Yep," Brendon says, and removes his arm from around Ryan to give him a full-on hug. "Like I said. Rock out."

Ryan snorts. "I'll do my best." He pulls back to kiss Brendon on the mouth, briefly, before stepping back. He turns around to walk but looks over his shoulder at Brendon, and Brendon theatrically blows him a kiss.

Brendon doesn't stay until the bus leaves. He turns away when Ryan disappears into it, and gets into his own car. He can hear the bus sputtering and starting as he drives away, and watches it get smaller and smaller in his rearview mirror before he turns around a corner and it's gone.