![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
behindthec) wrote2008-08-28 09:38 am
the present and the distance [4/19]
Author:
lolabRating: NC-17 overall
Pairings: Panic: Ryden-heavy, hints of everyone, eventual GSF, a bit of Brendon/Shane
POV: Third; varies
Warnings: Character death, violence, angst. Also, angst. Did I mention ANGST.
Disclaimer: They belong to
Summary: There is no way to summarize this that doesn't sound ridiculous, so I leave you with my original cheesy!blurb(tm): There are 17,508 islands in Indonesia, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. On August 31, 2008, returning from an Australian tour in the middle of the year's most violent storm to date, a plane carrying Panic at the Disco loses power, veers off course, and crashes into one of the remaining 11,508 islands. This is their story.
conquer_minds, for being my heterophobic LJ-wife. chachachainsaw, for THIS, which is made of ALL THE AWESOME IN THE WORLD. I will marry anyone who makes me a PWF macro. minus_four, for the flashback idea that I ended up using after all. ;)Please refer to the master post for previous chapters, notes, soundtrack listing, etc.
4.
The moon bred new Atlantic life tonight.the salt burned you right out of my eyes.and secrets we're not proud of were taken with the tide. We were all newborns with blurred vision and no sense of direction.
Today I saw cancer, cigarettes and shortness of breath.
this is why I walk to the ocean.swim with jellyfish.I may never get this chance again.
this is why if you want to kiss you should kiss.
If you want to cry you should cry, and
if you want to live you should live.
You don't have to love me. You already did. At least enough to keep me smiling from South Carolina to Virginia.it's for lovers (orjustfriends)
This is why I do it.
But this, this is kind of nice, he thinks before he's really thinking; it's nice being sense-aware like this without even seeing. Shane's warm beneath the half of Brendon that's draped over him; he's breathing even and slow and one of his hands is curled around Brendon's hip like always, familiar and predictable and safe: everything Brendon's come to love about Shane.
"Love you, puppy," he mumbles into the sleep-warm skin beneath his lips, shifting closer.
It's not instantaneous, but rather a few seconds' worth of progression, the way the heartbeat beneath his hand quickens, the breath shortness, and the entire body under his touch goes stiff.
It's then he notices the frame beneath him is too firm, too narrow to fit his presumptions; the skin softer; the fingers at his hip longer and slimmer -- and the scent, even beneath layers of ocean air and sand smells that have seeped in, triggers a recognition in Brendon even more familiar, more comforting, but worlds away from Shane, and the shock shakes the last sleepy haze off Brendon's mind as his eyes spring open.
Ryan's eyes seem bigger than ever this close, but maybe it's just been awhile, their homoerotic theatrics having mostly ended with Circus, and it's not as though many opportunities (excuses?) have presented themselves since.
"Sorry," Brendon says at once, automatic before his mind has fully caught up. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he repeats as he climbs off Ryan, seating himself a few feet away, legs folded and eyes fixed to the ground. "I thought you were -- I'm sorry."
And the unspoken name rings louder through his ears for not having been vocalized, his eyes threatening with a light prickle, but he shoves it back, refuses to let it go any farther. Not here, not with Ryan, not when Ryan will feel obligated to touch him when Brendon knows Ryan's not comfortable with affection like that.
Not with him, at least.
He looks back at Ryan bravely, hoping to catch a reaction, but Ryan's merely leaning back on his elbows, staring with a firm crease in his forehead, his face nothing close to upset.
Brendon can't read it, because he's not Spencer. He hates that, now more than ever. It's little things like this, recently -- last forty-eight hours recently -- that have sparked inexplicable anger in him: Brendon's always assumed, maybe a bit blindly, that the reason he can't read Ryan's face, especially when he most wants to, is because he's not Spencer.
It's never occurred to him that Ryan might have control over who can read him.
Brendon turns away before he can get any angrier, because Ryan sprawled out like that, bare-chested with wildly tousled hair and wearing nothing but his underwear is a really, really nice sight, and Brendon may not have the world's most refined sense of decorum, but he knows letting those kinds of thoughts swarm through his mind at a time like this is probably achieving a level of inappropriate that even he'd never before reached.
But there's a hand on his knee, and when he turns his head, Ryan has pulled himself up to sit beside him, still watching him with gentle eyes, and Brendon can't detect any sense of awkward obligation in his touch.
"I'm sorry," Ryan says, his voice an unfamilar echo of the deep, defined tone Brendon knows.
Brendon doesn't understand, and doesn't want games, doesn't want Ryan's cryptic word mazes that only Spencer and Pete can ever seem to follow: Spencer because it's Spencer, and Pete because Pete works the same way, using hidden depths to language to say things he doesn't want to say directly, or because saying it with more wit will earn him more attention. Brendon's never been one to see much past words at face value; never been one to pick apart Ryan's elaborate dreamscape metaphors or Pete's mismatched, reinvented cliches. Over the years (the years since Ryan), he's learned to hide words that want to escape, the I-love-you's and I-should-tell-you's, but when the words do come, allowed or otherwise, they're direct enough that no one has to interpret.
He watches Ryan fruitlessly now, reading nothing but what looks like guilt, and now he's sure he's reading it wrong, because what on earth does Ryan have to feel guilty for?
"For what?" Brendon asks.
Ryan's expression slips, just a bit, intensifies, like he's trying to evaluate Brendon's emotional state. Brendon's not used to it; Ryan's usually too caught up in trying to evaluate his own emotional state -- which really sounds more self-absorbed than it is; the pain that goes along with it, Brendon knows, tends to hit Ryan harder than others. Brendon may be able to hide, but he's never doubted who he is, what he wants.
Ryan swallows, still watching him. "I'm sorry you -- that -- it's. It's so." Wrong, unfair, fucked up to hell and back. "If I could trade places with you, I would."
The good thing about Ryan is, he may not say a lot, but he never says anything he doesn't mean.
Brendon wants to say thank you, but words don't seem to fit here.
They're silent for a long time, until Brendon feels the hand on his knee disappear, and he glances up to see Ryan pressing his thumbs hard against his temples, eyes squeezed brutally tight.
"Does it hurt?"
Ryan nods.
"Do you... want me to..."
He doesn't expect Ryan to nod so readily, so easily; Brendon's got this kind of magic headache-vanishing massage-thing he learned from some roadie from some band he can't remember, years ago, and has been using it on his band since then, much to their gratitude. Ryan's always the last to accept, if he accepts at all. Brendon knows it's not because it doesn't work on him, but because Ryan doesn't like Brendon to touch him.
It's taken a good number of years, but Brendon's come to accept it, to let the easy touches and hugs and cheek-kisses from Jon, Spencer, William, Eric, Pete, everyone, convince him that he doesn't have some kind of disease, that he's not fundamently untouchable. That it's not him; it's just, it's Ryan. Even Ryan's tried to convince him, not so much in words but in pleading looks that Brendon's tried to ignore, because he grew quickly tired of Ryan not just saying things to him, but trying to make him figure things out on his own.
Maybe it's different here, because there's no one around to see. No one who will think Ryan is something he isn't, for accepting contact that supposedly means more to Brendon than it does to him.
Supposedly.
Brendon shifts so he's in front of him, placing his hands on either side of Ryan's head and easing into the patterns, finding the pressure points and trying to remember all the extra sweet spots exclusive to Ryan that he'd memorized from the few times Ryan had let him do this.
"I'm worried about you," Brendon says softly. "Your cut's not that bad, but you could've damaged something inside, and how the hell would we know?"
"'S just a headache," Ryan slurs, still sleepy and softening further from the touch, allowing his head to relax in Brendon's hands, his eyelids fluttering as they unclench. "Need coffee."
"Well, y'know, I think I saw a Starbucks through the trees, we can head over there if you want."
Ryan's quiet for several moments, and Brendon is beginning to suspect he's falling back sleep, when he whispers, "I love you, Brendon."
Brendon's only human, and it's Ryan, and the rhythm of his hands miss a beat but it's not like he can hide it. He only wishes it weren't so fucking hard to say it back -- not because he doesn't mean it, but because he does.
"I love you too." He trips a little over the words, but it's not noticeable enough to acknowledge. "If you ever scare us like that again, I." His voice starts to shake, and just, no, he can't do this right now. "Just don't, okay?"
They both know us means me, but Ryan nods all the same.
"Here." Brendon lowers his hands, grabbing for a water bottle and dumping it in Ryan's lap before reaching across the sand to one pile of snacks. He selects a bag of trail mix, the healthiest thing he can find, and works on tearing it open. "I think Jon and Spence are at the plane," he adds, handing Ryan the bag.
Ryan stares at it, and back to Brendon. That, that, Brendon can read.
"We have plenty," he lies, reaching for a bag of pretzels for himself. "Eat."
Ryan eats, slowly, the way he always eats, like he's evaluating the food's value to his physical being; and Brendon forces the pretzels into his mouth, because as far past hungry as he is, his appetite is still on hiatus. He eats slowly too, the way he never does, because as long as they're eating they don't have to talk, don't have to fill any awkward silence.
Ryan watches him through it, though, looking away when Brendon catches his eye, and the lack of stealth is so unlike Ryan that Brendon really does start to worry about head injuries. He worries more, though, about the way Ryan's watching him, like he's waiting for the ball to drop; for Brendon to suddenly realize something and freak out, and it doesn't make any sense.
Brendon's done his freaking out. Maybe Ryan wasn't around to see it, wasn't there to hear Brendon screaming at Jon and pushing Spencer off or clawing at sand for hours on end, crying until his body nearly dried up. But he must know, from how quiet Brendon is now, that the worst is over.
Without thinking, Brendon chomps down on a pretzel and accidentally bites the inside of his cheek, and remembers last week when he bit his tongue and whimpered and Shane took his hand, raised an eyebrow, and offered to kiss it better.
...But no.
No, he's not freaking out. His eyes can sting all they want and his breath can catch until it breaks, but he's not freaking out.
He looks up. "Do you want to go for a walk?"
Ryan nods slowly.
"We need to find water."
Another nod.
Brendon stands, brushing sand and crumbs off his lap before offering his hand to Ryan, who accepts it, but Brendon over-aims a bit as he hoists Ryan up, always underestimating Ryan's lack of body mass, and Ryan stumbles forward a step and they're face to face, again, too close and Ryan's still fucking watching him.
Brendon wants to say What, WHAT, but he doesn't think he has the energy for an answer.
"You shouldn't -- " Ryan starts on his own, looking exasperated. "You shouldn't be -- I -- I should be taking care of you, you're the one who -- "
And there's just no way, none, that that sentence could be finished.
Brendon wishes there were a safe way to tell Ryan that taking care of him comes as easily to Brendon as breathing. Instead, he gives the hand still clasped in his a gentle squeeze before releasing it, turning and starting for the forest behind camp.
He's not too keen on retracing yesterday's path: too many blurred, chaotic memories, none good and several bad, and besides, Spencer's already started beating down some of the plants to make a path, where he'd been collecting leaves and vines. And, Brendon suspects with a slight sinking in his stomach, where Spencer and Jon had probably taken off looking for him, for god only knows how long.
There's too much to see, to watch for, to wade through, for them to speak, and Brendon's grateful, because perhaps for the first time in his life, he doesn't think he could string together enough words to make logical sentences, or even his more traditional illogical sentences. It's taking all his mental energy to keep his thoughts off Shane, off Zack and Tom and reality and how much it's everything reality shouldn't be, ever. Ryan's silence is nothing uncharacteristic, but somehow, it seems more silent -- like it's not that he doesn't have anything to say, but rather that he can't say it.
For twenty minutes the silence remains easy, and Ryan follows, keeping up well and not once complaining about the floppy, low-hanging branches and eccentric plants in their way, the uneven ground, or the steadily uphill trek -- and it's yet another warning to Brendon that the Ryan who woke up last night may not quite be the Ryan who sat on the plane merely two days ago, posture and scarves and dignity intact, tapping his stupid thirty-dollar pen on the edge of his knee as he stared fussily at the open page of his notebook.
This bit of the forest looks much like all the other bit, and Brendon's just starting to wonder how many identical miles of forest they might have to breach, when Ryan's hand reaches from behind and clamps down over Brendon's wrist.
Brendon's half a breath away from a What, what, are you okay, but an unfamiliar impulse silences him, letting him simply study Ryan's face, and as he does, he reads. He reads, just like Spencer does.
Ryan's eyes say, Listen.
Brendon goes so far as to hold his breath, focusing on Ryan's eyes instead of the distractions around him, desperate to learn if there's anything else he should be reading, but he's jolted from his focus when something collides with his ears, something new that isn't the sound of their own footsteps, crunching unknown surfaces beneath them. Something that isn't insects or birds, something that isn't life, but somehow, greater.
It's nothing he's used to hearing, and at first it sounds like traffic, the far-off rush of a single car along a highway, but this sound doesn't crescendo and fade; it's steady, neither approaching nor departing, and --
Oh.
Ryan releases his hand and steps forward, beginning to lead the way, and Brendon's more than a little wary of letting him go first, worried he won't be able to protect him, but Ryan seems set on it. The sound grows louder but never deafening, and Brendon is somehow expecting it to be both more and so, so much less than it is.
It's a fucking waterfall.
Like, a real one, the kind in pictures, and movies, a waterfall in the middle of the forest, their forest, right fucking here, twenty feet high and spilling lazily into a shallow pool about fifty feet across, blue as Spencer's eyes and trickling off into a stream on one side that drizzles southwest of where they came. They watch it, dumbfounded, from a mossy plateau some thirty feet up from the bank, overlooking a rocky patch at one edge of the pond.
Words strike Brendon, but again, become jumbled in the mess of his head and never quite make it out.
Ryan doesn't turn around, just keeps staring out over it, but Brendon is at once prodding around to find a way down to the pond. At one edge close to the forest he locates a drop that looks safe enough to tackle, not too steep or slippery. He looks back to ensure Ryan's following him, a quick glance he's only half-focused on, until --
"Ryan -- what the -- Jesus fuck, Ryan! -- "
He's a scant fifteen feet from where Ryan's standing, but it feels like he's in a dream, moving in slow motion and unable to control it or speed it up, the way he clambers back up the plateau to where Ryan is perched at the edge, the tips of his shoes just hanging off the cliff, his arms limp and loose at his sides. Brendon grabs one, jerks Ryan around and doesn't think twice about the spark of fury that he knows must show in his eyes with the panicked, heaving breaths shuddering through his lungs.
"What the fuck are you doing?!"
It's hardly the first time he's raised his voice to Ryan, but possibly the first time Ryan hadn't raised his first.
It's no longer the scene that terrifies Brendon, the image pounding against his eyes of seeing Ryan standing there, so close, so fucking close -- but rather, the fact that Ryan isn't fighting him, isn't jerking away with a fuck off, isn't shooting daggers with his eyes. In fact, the only life Brendon can detect in his eyes right now is a glimmer of tears. The rest of Ryan's face is calm, relaxed, eerily so.
"The fuck?" Brendon repeats, but it's weak this time, choked and scared-sounding and followed by an all too familiar sting in his eyes. He adjusts his grip on Ryan's arm so it's not deathly tight, carefully pulling him back until a solid ten feet of ground is between them and the edge. Ryan follows like a puppet, a well-trained dog, not protesting one inch.
Ryan is watching him still, not angry, merely blank, and Brendon isn't surprised that he can't read a thing.
"What the fuck was that?" he whispers, voice weaker than ever from pounding in his heart, exhausting him. "You almost -- Ryan, please."
"Nothing," Ryan says, quiet and unaffected, like it really is nothing. "It's nothing. I was just looking. I'm sorry."
Brendon focuses as hard as he can, wills his eyes to speak, I don't believe you and talk to me, please. He holds his breath and waits, waits for Ryan's eyes to say something back, but they don't.
"Come on," Ryan says, gently peeling Brendon's fingers from his wrist. "Let's go down."
Brendon lets him lead the way, if for no other reason than so he can keep an eye on him. It's an easy trek down, and Ryan's on his knees at the shore before Brendon can even blink, scooping up a handful of water and lifting it to his lips.
"Ryan -- dude! We don't -- we don't know if it's -- it could be -- "
Ryan looks up and shrugs, "Only one way to find out," and slurps some through his lips, swallowing easily.
Brendon holds his breath, and when in god's name did their roles reverse like this, cautious tight-ass versus mindlessly careless daredevil? In some corner of his mind, he suspects it has something to do with necessity. If Ryan's going to abandon his rightful role, someone's got to fucking take it up.
Ryan looks at him, testing the taste with a few licks over his lips. "Seems fine."
Brendon nods absently. "Let's go."
It takes the trek back up the slope for his heartbeat to return to normal, for him to remember to breathe, and they're halfway back into the woods when a return to relative mental normalcy causes Brendon to stop in his tracks and turn around, taking in the sight before them.
He wonders what Ryan saw when he crept to the ledge; wonders what his eyes were chasing, drawn to. He's not sure about Ryan, but for Brendon, it hits him at once.
It's nothing new, really, but it's the first time his mind's let him think it.
The sight is maybe, a little bit, completely perfect.
It's perfect in the way the sunset was perfect, in that sickening way where nothing should be perfect.
It's perfect in a photographer's way.
It's.
Yeah.
Brendon swallows the lump in his throat, quick and efficient. He's getting good at that.
He hadn't realized how lost he'd been in his thoughts until he feels Ryan beside him, slipping still-damp fingers into Brendon's.
"Isn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" he whispers sadly, like its beauty is cursed.
Brendon doesn't answer, because Ryan is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
"We'll take a picture," Ryan says. "Before we leave, we'll take a picture. For Shane, and Tom."
Brendon still doesn't answer, because this time the lump in his throat is too big to swallow.
The walk back is silent, not forced but natural, and Brendon lets himself breathe.
It's so silent, so trance-like with the repeated rhythms of the forest's sounds, that the moment they hit the beach, their feet colliding with sun-baked sand, the noise that greets them, far from the harmony of insect choruses they'd come to tune out, nearly scares them out of their fucking skin.
"FUCK!"
By the time Brendon's blinked, Spencer has flung himself at Ryan, lifting him off his feet and holding him as tight as if someone were threatening to rip Ryan from his arms. Ryan simply goes with it, gripping back just as tight like he'd been equally worried about Spencer, wrapping his legs around Spencer's waist like a kid and burying his face in Spencer's neck. Brendon can hear Spencer spitting out halfheartedly angry nonsense like "off by yourself" and "not telling us" and "don't ever again," and Ryan just clings silently, never once looking up while allowing Spencer to carry him the few feet back to camp.
Jon isn't quite as ravenous. He watches their scene until Ryan's safely back at camp with Spencer shoving snack packs at him, before turning to Brendon, standing alone at the edge of the forest.
Jon steps forward. "We were worried."
"Sorry, I'm sorry, we just -- "
"Jesus fuck, Bren, shut up," Jon sighs tiredly before closing the distance between them and scooping Brendon into a bear hug. "Just promise you won't take off again without telling us, okay?"
Brendon nods, holding Jon tight against him.
Jon lets him go after a moment, holding him at arm's length. "Where'd you go?"
"We found water."
"You -- fuck. Seriously?"
Brendon nods, staring at his shoes, still guilt-ridden for having driven Spencer into such a fit.
"Fuck, Bren, you're awesome."
"Ryan found it."
"Then you're both awesome." Jon smiles, squeezing Brendon's shoulder.
Brendon nods a brief acknowledgment, not looking up as he starts toward camp, but Jon catches his hand.
"Um. Hey. Um, we -- Spence and I were talking." He waits for Brendon to meet his eye, but when he does, he looks like he's lost his nerve to continue. "Um, we want -- we want to have a burial."
Brendon doesn't breathe, because it doesn't seem necessary, if even possible, right now.
"We -- there's, um. Some parts of the plane, we could use to dig. Me and Spence. And -- there's a place, a little ways into the forest, where's there's some flat ground. And. You wouldn't have to -- we -- Spence -- we could do it, you wouldn't need to see, I mean -- and then. If you wanted to, after. Y'know. You could be there."
The working parts of Brendon's mind tell him to nod, but somehow he can't.
"You don't -- we don't have to," Jon quickly adds.
"No," Brendon says to the ground. "We should. I want to."
"Are you sure?"
He nods, unthinking. "Thanks."
The word feels obligatory, not right, because he shouldn't be thankful for anything right now, what's to be thankful for, with everyone gone? But Jon's so earnest, so fucking sincere and desperate that Brendon couldn't say no, couldn't deny him this, couldn't let him think this is unappreciated, because it's really not.
It's just hard. Or whatever is a thousand times beyond hard -- having to be reminded, of everything.
He tells himself Shane would want this, and so would Tom, being immortalized in the most beautiful place on earth, an artist's paradise. And Zack, Zack would want this too, would want it to be them, the four of them, the ones he's protected for so long, now protecting him.
He tells himself all this to convince himself he can handle it, but really, none of it is hard to believe. It makes enough sense that it stops feeling like bullshit, and when he looks up at Jon, he nods again, this time conscious and solid, and virtually speechless at Jon's strength through it all.
"Jon, I."
"I know."
When he tries to read Jon's face, it's the easiest thing in the world.
Almost as easy as loving him.
+++
no subject
WANT TO READ. hhhmph
no subject
no subject
because i totally thought i missed chapter 4. BUT OH HERE IT IS. and OH HEY I GOT FC.
and the totally lost it. faiiil.
no subject
no subject
*runs off to read*
no subject
no subject
no subject
I finished this before school, I know what I'll be zoning out thinking about. :]
This was so amazing and each chapter just keeps getting better and better.
Haha thank you for making my school day much better today.
no subject
no subject
(all except Jon and Spencer, who are too busy poking at a crab and leaping back like six-year-old girls when it lunges at them intermittently).
That part made me laugh so hard and smile really wide because I can just see them doing that along with them giggling and giving each other huge grins.
I loved this now on to part 2.........
no subject
no subject
(Anonymous) 2008-08-29 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)HIS butt?
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
i should be studying for my german and world history tests tomorrow.
but i can't stop reading!!
i'm going to fail because of you. D:
no subject
not to be confused with my monstrous cock, obv.no subject
i prolly did fail my history test, but not because of you.
i just fail at that class in general xDD
ok, naaoo imma go try to read part 2 of four and chaptahh 5 :DD
no subject
no subject