Title: Infinity On High
Author: Kate (<lj user="lets_go_to_rome">)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nothing overt; Brendon/Ryan, Brendon/Spencer, Pete/Patrick, Spencer/Brendon, Spencer/Jon can be read into this, among others.
POV: Third.
Summary: Death and redemption, in a manner of speaking.
They get the results back from Ryan’s blood test. Worst fears confirmed: it is indeed AIDS. Spencer’s face is terrible and blank. His arm is around Ryan, who can’t stop staring at the floor. Brendon is trying to remember everything he can about RENT and still listen to the doctor at the same time so he can be Helpful when they get back to the bus.
Disclaimer: Very definitely not mine. Lyric belongs to the Panic! boys, and the Panic! boys themselves belong to Pete Wentz. As does practically everyone else mentioned. Not mine, you know? I'm just a slasher. None of this is true, to my knowledge. Et cetera.
Author Notes: This is about the third time I've tried to post this. I accidentally deleted it once and then my computer spazzed. In any case, this was only partially beta'd because my beloved Krista has rather a lot to worry about at the moment. So I kind of stuck this up without her going through this last draft. Therefore all screwups are mine. (Also: wtf? Aparrently "Girlfriend" is one of my comfort songs...? How the hell did that happen?)

( Let’s see, he thinks again, because Ryan is somewhat fond of the way the words sound, as if they’re some magical combination that will force everything that comes after it to make sense. )lets_go_to_rome 
Rating: PG for language. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist about.
Pairing: Ryden. Ish. Mentions of Ryan/Pete. (what's their cutesy pair name?) If you like Joncer then you may interpret it that way as well.
POV: 3rd, Ryancentric.
Summary: It's Ryan's 21st birthday and he's on the fricking bus. He just got over a fever. He can be maudlin and ramble-y and rant-y at Brendon, right?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot (or lack thereof). The boys own themselves. Probably. If they don't then they're at least not mine. I'm making this all up as I go; it is completely false.
Author Notes: This one is fluffy and really odd. So. Yeah. Don't kill me. My beta's sick and I really wanted to get this up so I had one of my friends look it over. Blame him. This is my first ever fic posted to LJ. Don't kill me, please. I've been writing for a couple of years now but only really on fanfiction.net and some very tiny sites. This is my first (completed) one about real people. Yay! Erm. Enjoy, and again, please don't slaughter me for the less-than-pwp fic I have here for you.

*

Ryan is just getting over a bit of a fever. He’s at that point where in theory he could move but would prefer not to. He’s also at that point where he can think something other than “NNN OMG PRETTY COLORS *sleep*” but not yet at the point where his thoughts are under his control.

It’s his birthday and it’s rainy and it’s the morning and he wants a muffin or—or something, and no one else is in their bunks and he’s feeling like a maudlin run-on sentence, emphasis on the maudlin. So he stares out the window for a bit and thinks deep thoughts.

Sometimes Ryan just wants to hide in his bunk, bury his head in the stale, comforting pillows and—

He wonders how this all got so big. It’s his birthday, his twenty-first birthday, and this is supposed to mean he’s an adult.

Like his twentieth birthday.

Or his eighteenth birthday.

Or his sixteenth birthday.

Let’s see, he thinks, because Ryan is hiding in his bunk and he does have his head buried in the stale, comforting pillows, pillows that he brought from home (Spencer’s house) that are thicker than the horrible thin pads in hotels, pillows that are covered in pillowcases also from home that have that minesafemybedsafemine sleep-scent on them with a grimy edge that comes from being in a bus for a months on end because Ryan tends to forget to wash it. He means to; he’s not a total slob, but there’s just so much going on and the pillowcase doesn’t smell bad, exactly, and there’s just no time.

Let’s see, he thinks again, because Ryan is somewhat fond of the way the words sound, as if they’re some magical combination that will force everything that comes after it to make sense.

Ha. He wishes.

My sixteenth birthday, he continues in his head, was five years ago. Half a decade. I turned sixteen on August 30th, 2002. Brent and Spence and I were still in high school. I hadn’t met Brendon. Panic! At the Disco wasn’t even a ghost of a shadow of a fever-dream. It still feels like that, Ryan thinks, sometimes.

How did he ever get to here? When did this all get so big?

It’s not that he doesn’t love it, because despite his ‘cripplingly shy’ personality there is a little part of him that curls and writhes in joy at the back of his head and the pit of his stomach, that warms and glows that George Ryan Ross II (I’m different, I’m first, I’m me) is getting this attention. Because Ryan does like attention, really. It just makes him uncomfortable earning it and dealing with it, but. But with Brendon and Spence and Brent and Jon it’s different, mostly.

(Ryan doesn’t really like confrontation. In fact, he tries to avoid it. That’s why he always went over to Spencer’s, that’s why he had Brendon talk Spencer into making the phone call to Brent, that’s why he hides out in Spencer’s room when Brendon comes in and it’s obvious he’s been drinking and Ryan can’t trust himself not to start some flaming row because he hates it when Brendon does that to himself and Brendon should--does--know that by now.)

Ryan sometimes tries to reconcile the ‘shy’ with the warm feeling of the spotlight and thinks that maybe the ‘shy’ only kicks in when he gets like this, stepping outside of himself to look. And then the outside-looking-Ryan realizes that everyone is looking at Ryan and that means outside-looking-Ryan is being looked at too and it makes Ryan quietly uncomfortable to be watched while he’s watching. Because then he might be missing something.

He buries his head further into the pillows, makes a small noise of helplessness and Ididn’tknowIdon’tknow in the back of his throat that rises up and pushes past his lips and escapes, dancing out into the world in a costume that is part moan and part whimper and part something else.

Ryan thinks all this, and for a fleeting moment considers writing some of it down. He discards the idea because he probably won’t be able to fit it anywhere anyway and in any case, it wasn’t that beautiful a thought after all.

Ryan likes having thoughts that sound beautiful. Ryan likes having songs that sounds beautiful. Ryan is a musician but Ryan is also a writer and sometimes Ryan wonders if it’s all right to be both, if it’s all right that he’s stealing the bits of both worlds that he likes best and fusing them together like some quirky, greedy god.

Ryan likes thinking big thoughts like this because he gets that quiet thrill of reaching for something you certainly can’t have

(likepetedidn’tithinkicouldn’thavepetebutihadpete, sudden flashbacks and snatches of memories when young Ryan jerked off furiously at the thought of being near THE Pete Wentz, what a god, how could anyone ever be so perfect and powerful and be in the eyes and hearts and minds of so very many people and now somehow there are people thinking the same things about him, how could that have ever happened, how could he ever be put on the same level as someone like Pete?)

but it also makes him want to curl up and turn his back on the universe because while he was in Vegas he wanted to get the hell out but now he’s out he wants to go back to the flat and dull and unbearable suburban streets because the world is so very, very huge and Ryan is so very, very small.

Ryan can’t think too deeply about fans because it gives him a slimy, sick, cold feeling of ‘this-almost-didn’t-happen’ as he contemplates the hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who know his face and name and favorite kind of cookie but will never actually know him. How he used to be like that and it still seems insane and completely surreal that he’s touring--actually fucking touring-- with bands that he’d listened to wistfully on the radio.

Ryan’s thoughts stop there, because suddenly the curtains to his bunk are being flung back and Brendon's singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and trying to get him to eat a cupcake that Brendon made his very own self in the miniature kitchen that’s so tiny you can barely fit food in it.

Ryan grumbles and waves an arm vaguely. He mumbles that he’s not hungry and that Brendon should get that poisonous slop out of his face before he dies. On his birthday.

Brendon puts on his best kicked puppy face. He resorts to poking Ryan’s unresponsive back, as Ryan is not looking at him. And, you know, obviously the kicked puppy face can’t work unless you’re looking at it. Even Brendon isn’t that good.

Ryan just hugs his pillow tighter, shaking his head ‘no’.

Brendon stops, and puts the cupcake down (on Spencer’s bunk, but Spencer won’t notice because he’s off with Jon trying not to get his ass completely handed to him in Super Smash Bros.) and hauls himself up to sit beside Ryan.

“Um, dude, can you move over a bit?” Brendon asks, because his kind gesture is somewhat ruined by that fact that Ryan has him crowded on the very edge of the bed. Ryan moves over a bit.

“Thanks,” Brendon says.

There is silence.

“So. Wanna tell me what’s got your panties in a twist?” Brendon begins in his legendarily tactful way.

Without looking, Ryan reaches up and whacks Brendon with a pillow.

“Unnecessary,” Brendon whines, nudging Ryan. “C’mon. It’s your birthday. You can’t be moping around on your goddamn birthday—“

Brendon’s cut off, sort of, by Ryan’s sudden movement. In the space of a few seconds, Ryan has relinquished his death grip on the pillow and flipped himself over, burying his face in Brendon’s side. He snakes his arms around Brendon as well, for good measure.

“Um.” Brendon says. Ryan starts to talk. His voice is understandably muffled but clear enough for Brendon to make out most of what he’s saying.

Ryan tells him about everything he’s been thinking. Ryan tells him about the let’s see and about his sixteenth birthday and about how everything’s gotten so huge so fast and it’s not that he’s not thankful, it’s just that he kind of misses when they were still just messing around and when the whole world (so it seems) wasn’t staring at their every breath.

Brendon is quiet (for once) and listens, running the fingers of one hand through Ryan’s hair in a way that Ryan enjoys much more than he’s willing to admit aloud. The fingers of Brendon’s other hand fiddle absently with a small rip in Ryan’s sheets.

Then Ryan starts thinking deeply again and only half-registers that his mouth is still moving. Brendon thus hears Ryan muse on how Ryan doesn’t mind change as such; it just takes a lot of adjusting and adjusting scares Ryan just a little.

Most of the change in Ryan’s life hasn’t been much to look forward to, either, Ryan continues. Maybe that’s why he’s bad at dealing with things. Not exactly bad, he supposes, but it’s probably not good for him to deal with things by not dealing with him. He just puts them in a box in his head and shuts it carefully and shoves it under the metaphorical bed.

It’s pretty crowded under Ryan’s metaphorical bed, but there’s always enough room for one more thing to be placed carefully under and never examined again.

It’s certainly not perfect and probably not healthy, but that’s how Ryan deals with things. So far it’s been working pretty well. After all, that’s how Ryan dealt with his mom, then his dad, and the stuff in high school, and Brent, and—

“But Ry,” Brendon interrupts smoothly. “The band changed things. You moved out, and that was a change. I came, and that was a change. Those are good changes, right?” There’s the quietest hint of pleading in the way he says it.

Yes, Ryan tells him, but those had things that had to go under the bed too. When they formed a band, playing guitar helped him put things under the bed. And he knew he wasn’t the right singer, and that did sting a little because he kind of likes his voice and they are his words and it frustrates him to no end sometimes because he can never actually say them, only pin them to the page and have them fly from someone else’s lips.

Staying at Spencer’s was a good change, but there were things about that that had to go under the bed too. Living in such close proximity to someone who was like a brother led to fighting like brothers, and because they knew each other so well they knew exactly what would hurt the most. They would make up later but they would never, ever bring up the fights. Ever. It was easier that way.

That’s yet another thing that’s screwed up about Ryan Ross, Ryan mumbles. Ryan doesn’t like putting things into words.

Ha, well, he does, but only in writing. That way he can go over things and decide exactly how much to say and exactly how much to give away and he can think about things before they’re laid bare for anyone to see.

That’s what was so difficult about Brendon coming, because there were so many things Ryan had to hide under the bed for the band’s sake.

—Brendon stops himself from asking “Like what?” because he figures he’ll get a better answer out of Ryan if Ryan’s still talking in his monologue-y trance. —

Ryan envies songs and books sometimes, because they are much more convenient than real life. In real life, you have your view and your view alone. You can’t help it. It makes situations incredibly confusing because all you have to go on is you.

In books, Ryan explains, you get more than one point of view. You know what’s going on, and that’s great. Everybody’s on equal footing, and has some idea of what’s going on. In songs, you get less than one point of view. Everybody’s slightly confused and not sure what’s going on, and that’s all right too. But in real life it’s really quite unfair, that some people know what’s going on and other people don’t,

For example, Brendon probably knew what was going on. Despite his immature, hyperactive ways he can be vexingly accurate in his observations. And it wouldn’t do for the guitarist to be wanting the singer, especially the singer he was sort of jealous of and sort of proud of at the same time. That would lead to either fighting or fucking and no matter which way it went it couldn’t be good for the band.

They couldn’t lose focus, Ryan explained. Not if they wanted to get out of Vegas. But they did stay focused and they are out of Vegas and Ryan sort of wants to pull that bit out from under the bed but he’s not sure he can find it and even if he knew he could he’d still be more than a little scared to go down there.

Brendon pushes Ryan away, very gently. Ryan freezes, acutely aware of the sap he’s been spewing for god-knows-how-long. He keeps his eyes down, insides curling in on themselves, trying to prop himself up after such kind rejection.

The bunk shifts as Brendon lets himself down. He picks up the discarded cupcake and says brightly, I’m going to try and get Jon to try this, all right? Make sure my cooking’s ok.

Ryan smiles wanly, the incident already being placed carefully inside a mental box.

Brendon studies him carefully. Ryan has to look away from the intense scrutiny. Eventually Brendon comes to some sort of a decision and leans forward, giving Ryan a quick peck on the nose.

“I’ll bully Spence into making you some chocolate chip cookies, okay? Go back to sleep so you’re all better when everyone comes by with your presents.”

“Everyone? Where? Presents?” Ryan shoots up in bed, deeply interested. Brendon grins fondly at Ryan and ruffles his hair.

“You are so adorable when you’re out of it.”

Ryan pouts but Brendon is busy gazing at his own fingers, which have trailed from Ryan’s hair to skirt his eye. They move slowly down to trace his cheek and then they’re moving along Ryan’s bottom lip and then Brendon licks his own lips and takes a breath to say—

“Is the birthday boy up yet?” Jon calls loudly, stumbling into the sleeping area with Spencer. They’re laughing and exchanging jibes about the latest virtual bout.

Brendon whips his hand away from Ryan’s mouth like it’s burned him.

Brendon still fools around with Ryan for the rest of the day, but they’re never alone and Ryan doesn’t get the chance to ask what Brendon was going to tell him.

Ryan wishes sometimes that his life was like a song, because then even if it wasn’t the best it would still sound pretty. Ryan sometimes wishes that his life was like a book, because maybe then he wouldn’t be this confused about everything.

Ryan thinks Brendon is a book disguised as a song, because Ryan feels like he should be able to tell what Brendon means but all he can hear are his own words bounced back at him to the tune of Brendon.
*
Yeah. Erm. Sorry. I just wanted to post this one in time for Ryro's birthday. Happy birthday! Yet another story suggesting that he's gay for a bandmate is probably not what he'd want, but that's ok. That's what he's getting from everyone here. Hope you liked it! And dammit, can someone please explain to a poor noob how in the hell I can do the nifty cut thing so I don't have to post the story like this? Bugger it all...

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Yeah. So. Been trying all evening to post a oneshot. Am a total noob at lj. Am failing miserably and am extremely vexed.

And for some reason I feel silly if I tell people about my life when I have nothing to give them. So. Here is an odd story with Ryden in it. A gift.

Happy birthday, Ryan Ross!

....despite the fact that, you know, we'll probably never meet.

Still, it's the thought that counts, yeah? Yeah.

Fuck, I'm tired. And I have to get up in six and a half hours. And I have eight minutes to post this bitch so I'll get my ass in gear. Woo! Then I'll read more slash because I am up anyway and I need a pick-me-up.

I think I may be addicted.

Oh well!