Girl Power

By Melanie

 

 

Brent brings him to the band. Formed of members from a band that Brent had belonged to all along, ‘we’re just looking for a singer, maybe another guitarist’.

 

(Brendon will later wonder what had happened to their original singer. Had he made the mistake of flirting with Ryan, been killed by Spencer and was even now buried in the backyard? Brendon will not voice this thought though, as he doesn’t want to end up buried next to the boys that had dared flirt with Ryan without Spencer’s permission.)

 

Spencer and Trevor greet him with skeptical looks until they hear him sing, strumming along on a guitar, going through some random song that he’d heard on the radio on the way over.

 

Then Trevor’s face relaxes into a huge grin, Spencer’s expression doesn’t change. He just glances over at the corner of the garage and that’s when Brendon notices the girl.

 

She’s got a short pixie cut of sorts, long and spiky on top, short in the back. Her makeup is normal with the exception of the little red hearts going slant-wise down her cheek.

 

She’s studying him, he can’t tell if she finds what she’s apparently looking for but she must. Her mouth quirks slightly, her eyes dart over to Spencer’s and then her face takes on a bored expression and her attention goes back to the book in her lap.

 

“Okay then,” Brent rubs his hands together, Spencer twirls the drumsticks that Brendon hadn’t noticed before between his fingers. “Let’s show you what we’re working on.”

 

Brendon glances back over at the girl; she looks tiny curled up on the couch. She’s wearing faded blue jeans and a white hoodie over her pale pink t-shirt. She’s ignoring them, concentration fixed on the book in her hands.

 

He doesn’t even know her name.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Her name is Ryan Ross. “My parents were hoping for a boy,” she shrugs when Brendon looks at her in confusion.

 

“She goes by her middle name, don’t ask what her actual first name is, she’ll hit you and for a girl she’s got a surprisingly strong punch,” Brent advises at lunch one day.

 

Spencer is her best friend, she’s a year older then him and she’s brilliant (Spencer’s words, not hers. She in fact blushes when Spencer says that, which Brendon finds oddly endearing and totally adorable), she’s in her first year of college and she got scholarships to pay for it.

 

She doesn’t always come to practice; when she does Brendon hasn’t figured out why she’s even there. She doesn’t appear to listen to them; instead she’ll very pointedly put her headphones on and then spends the entire time they struggle through songs scribbling in her book.

 

“Her journal,” Trevor whispers during a break. “She’s got a lot to say.”

 

Once she doesn’t come for three days in a row, the longest that she’s ever not been curled up on the couch not listening to them, Brendon would ask but Spencer’s face is at its bitchiest and Brendon just isn’t that brave.

 

He doesn’t think Spencer would hit him, but he doesn’t want to test that fact either. Spencer’s face says that he’s just waiting for an outlet and Brendon doesn’t want to be it.

 

“She has a really bad relationship with her dad,” Brent says at school the next day, they’re outside at lunch and Brendon hadn’t even had to ask.

 

“Bad relationship?” Brendon doesn’t know what that’s like. He knows his relationship with his parents isn’t perfect, they don’t like the fact that he’s in a band. But it isn’t bad enough that he would hide out from his friends for days on end.

 

“I don’t know,” Brent sighs. His voice goes soft and Brendon leans close because he can barely hear him. “She used to show up at school with bruises, you know. Not on her face or anything, but her arms and stuff. She’d wear turtlenecks and hoodies even when it was hotter then hell.”

 

“Why hasn’t anyone…?” and Brendon can’t articulate it. Why hasn’t Spencer of all people said something? Or done something.

 

Brendon had tried to flirt with her for about twelve seconds, she’d just looked amused at his fumbling attempts and after practice, when she’d gone into the kitchen for a bottle of water, Spencer had gripped his arm and he hadn’t said a word but the glare had spoke volumes.

 

Spencer’s not romantically interested in her, Brendon knows this. But he is fiercely protective of her.

 

Brendon isn’t sure why. Ryan can kick all their asses.

 

She’s taking a self-defense course, it’s a requirement and Ryan has complained about it endlessly.

 

It’s too hard; it’s fucking up my hands.

 

They’d all been suckers, because when she’d pouted and gotten them to let her practice on them, she’d still managed to flip Trevor twice and kick Brendon’s legs out from under him in less than two seconds, knocking him on his ass.

 

Brendon thinks next time they’ll just drop her off in a darkened alley and wait for the screaming.

 

Spencer had been immune to the pout; Brent had watched her flip Trevor and told her that she could attack him when he attacked her. Then had went and slouched against the garage next to Spencer.

 

Trevor and Brendon had been the only idiots to get suckered in. He hopes to build up immunity to the pout eventually, but Trevor has been friends with her almost as long as Spencer and Brent and he’d still been taken in by it so he’s not really holding out any hope.

 

******************************************************************************

 

She’s back at practice the next day, looking pale but there. Instead of jeans and a t-shirt she’s wearing track pants and a sweatshirt that Brendon recognizes as Spencer’s.

 

It’s the worst they’ve played since they started playing together. They can’t seem to get it together, Brent is always a half a second behind and Brendon’s voice keeps cracking.

 

Ryan looks bored but she doesn’t put her headphones on and she doesn’t pick up the journal in her lap. Brendon knows that she’s not paying any attention to them; she’s lost somewhere inside her own head.

 

Spencer watches her like a hawk and Brent gets her water when she makes a movement like she’s going to go get it herself. She doesn’t say a word, just sits there with her hands in her lap, finally puts her headphones on when normally she’d be bitching that she doesn’t need people taking care of her, that just because she’s a girl doesn’t mean that she can’t do things for herself.

 

Trevor is mostly silent and Brendon doesn’t know what to do with the undercurrents of tension.

 

He’s not one of them yet, not really. He’s only been in the band for a little over a month and with the possible exception of Brent they still view him as an outsider.

 

When she moves it’s obvious she’s hurt, she has a slight limp and she shifts uncomfortably like her stomach and side are in pain, the movements speak of injuries not on her arms but on her legs and stomach instead.

 

Brendon is irrationally angry and can’t figure out who exactly he’s angry at.

 

Ryan’s taking self-defense; she’s kicked his and Trevor’s asses. She can take care of herself. Why would she let anyone raise their hands to her? Even if that person is her father.

 

And maybe that’s it; maybe Ryan can’t protect herself from her father because she can’t figure out why she should need to.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“She’s staying with Spencer,” Brent says the next day at lunch. Brendon gets all his information about Ryan from Brent.

 

Not that he asks for it, maybe Brent can sense the futile crush that he can’t seem to squash.

 

Brendon won’t ever ask her out (he values his life too much) but if she were to ask him he’d enjoy the date before Spencer took him out behind his house and killed him.

 

“What happened?” Brendon takes a sip of his juice, tries not to look too interested but knows he’s failing.

 

Brent sighs, tears the crust off his sandwich and rolls it between his fingers before letting it fall to the ground, it’s littering but Brendon doesn’t say anything. They’re sitting on a picnic table outside, it’s a beautiful day. Brendon wishes he could enjoy it.

 

“I don’t know, Spencer says that his dad found out at work that Mr. Ross was in the hospital, his mom and him went to find out what was going on and Ryan had been there for like three days. Called the ambulance for her dad when he drank himself unconscious. He hit his head or something when he went down. I don’t think anyone even knew that she was hurt until they brought her home.”

 

Brendon scowls at his juice box.

 

“She used to play you know, her dad, he got drunk one night and destroyed her guitar. Smashed it to pieces.”

 

“I didn’t know that.”

 

“That’s why I leave my guitar out, why Trevor is so careless with his sometimes.”

 

“Trying to entice her back into playing?”

 

“Something like that,” Brent sighs again. “I’d tread carefully around Spence, he’s sort of pissed off at the entire world right now.”

 

Brendon knows the feeling.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He finds her livejournal by accident. He’s been checking his e-mail at Spencer’s because his computer privileges at home are restricted because of an incident at school involving Brendon and his grades in Math.

 

Brendon has already filed an appeal but his parents seem undeterred. Still he’d rather they limit his computer access then have the band taken away from him.

 

Ryan is still living with Spencer’s family; her dad is in rehab forced upon him by the company he works for. She’s relaxed a little bit, and has taken to using Spencer’s computer for everything, homework, play… Spencer complains that he never gets to use it anymore and Ryan laughs at him and says he never used it in the first place then ruffles his hair and smacks a kiss against his cheek.

 

She’s gone to the kitchen for a snack and Brendon has taken the opportunity to sneak onto it and the page he finds up is her livejournal.

 

He doesn’t look at it, just opens a new session and does what he needs to.

 

He remembers the user ID though, and when he gets his computer privileges back he adds her to his friends list.

 

He likes reading her writing, and he wonders if what she types in her livejournal is what she’s filling the pages of her journal with.

 

Thinly veiled stories about her father and his abuse. About her mother and what she’d gone through when her mother had abandoned them. About school and about them.

 

Spencer and Brent and Trevor and himself and the band.

 

He smiles and touches the screen and her words sing to him.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The first time she sits and listens to their practice is the day that Spencer hands them the sheets of paper at the beginning of it.

 

Crisp white sheets, Relax, Relapse, typed in italics at the top. It’s the only source of information on the page besides the music and the words.

 

It takes willpower that he didn’t even know he possessed to not look over at where she’s curled up on the couch.

 

He knows these words; she typed them a week ago in her livejournal. He knows that they’re about her father and when he’d first read them he swore that he could feel the pain in every word that she’d typed slash and cut at him.

 

It doesn’t call for a piano, just guitars and Spencer’s relentless drums.

 

This one time though, Brendon wants a piano, wants a keyboard.

 

Wants to slow it down and play it with emotion and feeling that she won’t allow herself to feel but that she’ll pour out to anonymous friends on-line and pieces of papers that she hides from the world.

 

Spencer has a keyboard so Brendon improvises. He forces himself to stay focused on the paper in front of him, even though he knows the words.

 

He memorized them a week ago.

 

When they get to the chorus the second time through he looks up and she’s watching him sing, mouthing the words along with him and he sings louder, eyes locked on her. She bites her lip and blushes and Brendon tries not to grin.

 

He made Ryan Ross blush.

 

It’s almost worth imminent death, because he can feel Spencer’s glare at his back, but he focuses on Ryan and sings the words that she hasn’t been able to say out loud back to her.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The paper keeps coming, now that Ryan knows that he can sing the words that she wants him to, the papers seem to be never ending.

 

They’re all works in progress; Brendon sees them on-line and knows that within a week (sometimes less) they’ll be sitting in front of him with Ryan staring at him while he sings them to her.

 

They’ll play it through once and then sit in a circle, Ryan on the couch, Spencer next to her, the rest of them on the floor and they’ll make changes if they need to and then play them through again.

 

The papers never come directly from her (though they all know who’s writing them), Spencer hands them out at practice and they work steadily on them.

 

One day Brendon walks in to see Brent and Trevor over by the equipment huddled together trying to be invisible, Ryan and Spencer are by the couch and they’re fighting.

 

Brendon doesn’t think he’s ever heard them fight before.

 

But they are now, fierce words and there are no raised voices or hands but Brendon can still see that Spencer is pissed off and Ryan is infuriated. Red dots in the middle of her cheeks and she’s flushed and panting.

 

Brendon goes to join Brent and Trevor because no way is he getting in the middle of World War 3.

 

“What’s going on?” he asks, Brent hands him a water and he twists the cap off but doesn’t drink it.

 

“Ryan came in with new music I think, Spencer took one look at it and blew his top.”

 

They finally calm down; or rather Ryan walks out after shoving the papers at Spencer and crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.

 

Spencer is still furious; he’s clenching the paper in his hands and watching her stalk away.

 

When he finally realizes that the rest of the band is there he takes a deep breath, then another. He tosses the papers at Brendon and he fumbles his water before Brent takes pity on him and takes it.

 

He sees the words then, Ryan names all her songs. Typically long rambling titles that are not included in the lyrics itself, Brendon swears that one day he’ll figure out her system but that day has not yet come.

 

It may just be as simple as she’d liked the line and it didn’t fit with the rest of the song.

 

Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off, stares back at him. He looks up at Spencer in confusion and sees Spencer staring at him with an unreadable expression.

 

He looks back down and reads the lyrics and can feel anger burn through his veins, he can see why Spencer is so pissed off.

 

The song is about a cheating lover, the pronouns all changed because Brendon is singing it and yeah they’re emo and punk but…

 

“Please tell me you killed him and buried him out in the backyard.”

 

“I wish.”

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ryan is the one that convinces them to record a few of the songs.

 

They’ve all been distracted by other things so they all agree without realizing what they’re agreeing to.

 

Brent and Trevor are distracted with life and school and girlfriends and trying to fit the band in there.

 

Spencer is distracted with still trying to figure out who the cheating ex-boyfriend was (‘she doesn’t date, not at all’ ‘not that you know of’) and the looming return of Ryan’s father and her return to her own home.

 

Brendon is distracted by Ryan and helping Spencer, and helping Spencer by talking to Ryan. Spencer has even promised to not kill him if he finds out who the ex-boyfriend was and whether or not Ryan actually slept with him. Brendon is trying not to think about why Spencer is so pissed off at the thought of Ryan dating and sleeping with the people she’s dating.

 

He has to keep reminding himself that Spencer is not interested in her; he has to bite his tongue from telling Spencer that he might be taking the over-protective big/little brother routine too far.

 

The others are out front playing basketball, Brendon has begged off, there’s a tricky chord progression in one of the songs that he’s having trouble with and if Ryan is serious about recording some stuff up he wants to make sure that he has it all perfect.

 

He may be singing the songs and playing the instruments but they’re Ryan’s words and life and he wants to make sure he does her justice.

 

“You don’t flirt with me anymore,” Ryan says from her spot on the couch.

 

Since she’s been giving them her songs she’s listened to all their rehearsals. She hasn’t picked up a guitar or played any other instrument, but she’ll come stand next to him and mouth the words at Brendon’s side if she’s feeling particularly bored (Brendon can always feel Spencer’s glare at his back during those times).

 

Brendon’s fingers stutter on the strings and Ryan winces at the sound.

 

He takes a breath and looks over at the door, sure that any minute Spencer is going to come leaping through it with a knife or a gun. They’re probably not playing basketball at all, Spencer has Brent and Trevor digging a grave for him in the backyard, while he lurks and listens for the right moment to kill him.

 

He wonders if Ryan is in on it.

 

“Well I kind of like not being dead,” he says, he strums an idle melody against the strings. Something different and raw and he sees Ryan tilt her head, eyes narrowing and there’s a thought going on there. In a few weeks whatever he just played will make its way into a song and Brendon will remember it as the moment after Ryan tried to make him have a heart attack.

 

“Spencer can be kind of over-protective,” she says distantly, she leaves her position on the couch and walks over to him. Dragging a stool and sitting down in front of him.

 

Understatement, Brendon thinks.

 

“Brent said that you used to play,” Brendon says out loud instead. He’s changing the subject he knows and she lets him. Besides he’s been wanting to hear her play since he found out that she used to.

 

She shrugs. “Not for a while.”

 

He jerks his head at the guitar that Trevor has left leaning against a wall. No one has given up on her picking up an instrument again, not even him and he’s never even heard her play.

 

“I’m not as good as you,” she demurs, her eyes lowered. She looks shy and uncomfortable, Brendon almost lets it go and changes the subject again but he sees her eyes dart over to Trevor’s guitar and the longing when she looks at it…

 

He sets his own aside, stands and walks the few steps to pick it up, then presents it to her with a flourish.

 

She looks up at him, eyes bright and she holds it awkwardly before she relaxes. Fingers strumming over the strings hesitantly. He sits on his stool again and picks up his own guitar.

 

Eyes locked on her face and he picks out a simple tune, something that any novice could pick up and it takes a few seconds before she joins in.

 

Each adding their own flair and she’s good, it surprises him that Spencer and Brent and Trevor have let her languish and haven’t forced the issue sooner.

 

It hits him suddenly that she was their singer, their guitarist, the one that they’d needed a replacement for… he fumbles and regains and Ryan just looks at him like he’s given her something precious and remarkable and he flushes.

 

He sees Spencer standing at the door, carefully out of Ryan’s view but watching her. Brendon knows that he can see the pure joy on her face and he steps back and lets Brendon have this moment with her because he was the one that had managed it.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Ryan is like a force of nature. Like a blizzard or a hurricane, something catastrophic. Once she has an idea in her head she pushes and pushes until that idea is a reality even if she destroys things in her wake.

 

Within a week they have four of their songs recorded, Ryan links them to Pete Wentz’s livejournal and shit starts to happen.

 

Shit like Pete Wentz calling Ryan and wanting to hear them. Wanting to see them play. Wanting to meet them.

 

It would probably be easier for Brendon to stomach Pete coming to see them if he hadn’t seen Ryan go all moony-eyed and girly when recounting the conversation she’d had with him for the fifth fucking time.

 

He’d forgotten that Ryan had actually met Pete once.

 

And Brendon wants to like Pete; he does, because if Pete likes them he could make things happen for them but he doesn’t want that to happen at the expense of Ryan. And he knows that it’s irrational and unlikely as hell but there’s some small caveman part of him that keeps muttering that Pete doesn’t get to have Ryan when Brendon can’t.

 

He says as much to Spencer (without the him getting to have Ryan instead part) and he can see that Spencer is in perfect agreement.

 

“Maybe we could just tell him that Ryan has a boyfriend,” Brent offers from where he’s sitting on the ground.

 

Ryan has gone to the bathroom, she’s been gone for almost 30 minutes, not that Brendon is timing her or anything, he’s just hoping that she’ll stay gone for another couple until they come up with a plan that won’t cause her to kill them when she discovers it.

 

“Isn’t he gay anyway, I thought I read somewhere that he was gay,” is Trevor’s input.

 

“He’s not gay,” Brendon hopes he is, he’s seen some grainy YouTube footage that would probably support that fact, Pete seems really close to his lead singer.

 

“We could just have Spencer kill him,” Brent says.

 

“Ryan made me promise that I wouldn’t threaten him,” Spencer twirls a drumstick, the expression on his face says that he was tricked into promising that and is not in any way pleased.

 

“So someone has to pretend to be her boyfriend,” Brendon decides. It sounds better in his head and the room seems to agree as everyone is now staring at him with varying degrees of disbelief.

 

“Why are we even worried about this? It’s not like Ryan’s in the band,” Trevor mutters. She’s playing again; but she won’t play any of her own music, won’t practice with them and certainly hadn’t allowed herself to be tricked into playing Trevor’s parts when they were recording.

 

“No she’s not, so while we’re sitting up here playing, she’s going to be sitting down there on the couch with Pete Wentz sitting next to her and…” Spencer’s face is getting red; Brendon would find it amusing if he didn’t think his face was that red when his thoughts went in that direction.

 

“So I’ll just pretend to be her boyfriend, touch feely, jealous. I’ll warn Pete off and it’ll all be fine,” Brendon says in a rush.

 

Brent and Trevor stare at him and turn to look at Spencer.

 

“I think Spencer is a better choice, he’s got the glare down and everyone’s already scared of him…” Brent says.

 

Brendon pouts.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Pete arrives with far less fanfare then Brendon would have thought.

 

He appears in their rehearsal space, Ryan leading him along silently. When she walks up next to Brendon and casually puts her arm around his waist he almost chokes but manages to, just barely, not embarrass himself.

 

“This is Brendon,” her hand is in his back pocket and Brendon can feel Spencer’s glare prickling against the back of his neck, he wants to turn and say he had nothing to do with it but that seems like it would defeat whatever Ryan is hoping to accomplish.

 

She leans her head against his shoulder and Pete smiles at him in greeting.

 

“Spencer on drums back there scowling, Trevor and Brent,” she cuddles close, her other arm looping around him so she’s hugging him now.

 

Brendon wonders when he fell into the twilight zone and hopes he’s not asleep and dreaming, because he’s got his arm over her shoulder, cheek resting against her hair.

 

Hey if he’s going to die when this is done, he’s getting cuddles in first.

 

Though he’s also wondering what the hell is going on, they’d opted to not go the boyfriend route because no one wanted to explain it to Ryan.

 

“I look forward to hearing you play,” Pete’s white teeth make an appearance, then his smirk.

 

Ryan distracts him by pressing a kiss to his cheek and then she’s leading Pete to the couch and Brendon is turning to see Trevor mouthing ‘what the hell’ and Brent shaking his head and Spencer glaring at him like he had anything to do with it.

 

They get their act together and go into their first song; Ryan had chosen their play list. Choosing three of the songs that they’d recorded and posted, and the fourth something that Pete wouldn’t have heard before.

 

He can see Ryan perched on the couch, a distance between her and Pete and they both appear to be watching and listening so Brendon closes his eyes and loses himself in the song and hopes for the best.

 

******************************************************************************

 

They get signed, Ryan crowing that she’d known they would and hugging everyone tightly. Bouncing and giggly and every inch the girl that she doesn’t let them normally see.

 

Spencer tugs her away and Brendon knows that he’s demanding explanations and from the expression on his face he’s getting them.

 

Brendon doesn’t care, he’s got the memory of Ryan pressed up against him, arms wrapped around him and her lips kissing his cheek.

 

He can die a happy man.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Things happen really, really fast. Pete has them signed and recording and touring before Brendon can blink.

 

Brendon’s parents are pissed, convinced that he’s ruining his life.

 

Ryan’s dad returns home and Ryan goes back to her own house. The sobriety seems to be sticking though; there are no more cryptic songs about her father and his abuse of either her or alcohol.

 

They spend the week of spring break recording in a dusty, smelly studio. Ryan doesn’t make the trip with them. Instead she stays in Vegas and school.

 

Brendon misses her fiercely and cons Spencer into letting him ask her to go to prom with him.

 

He’s pretty sure that Spencer only agrees because he thinks that Ryan will say no. Instead she says yes, and he almost dies.

 

Or rather Spencer almost kills him.

 

They have a long talk the day before the prom where Spencer explains the difference between good touching and bad touching and if ‘I even hear you tried anything with her they’ll never find you Urie’.

 

They need to find Spencer a girlfriend, someone to calm him down before he strokes out from trying to protect Ryan from threats that aren’t there.

 

Because Brendon adores her and wouldn’t do a damn thing to hurt her.

 

He gets the limo because it’s not a prom without a limo; they’re sharing it with three other couples. Brent and his date and two other friends from school and theirs.

 

When he goes to her door to get her she’s a vision, a white dress, off the shoulder. Minimal make-up and she’s just beautiful. For a minute he doesn’t think she’s real and then she smiles at him, shyly and she is.

 

He forgets all about the corsage in his hand and just stares at her.

 

She has gloves on her hands and her father is standing just inside the door, watching and Brendon doesn’t know what to do.

 

When she holds out her hand he takes it, holding it gently and he nods at her father before he leads her to the car.

 

Brent is staring when they get in, his girlfriend is rolling her eyes and the other two couples just seem confused about the fuss.

 

Brendon would need pictures and diagrams to explain the change that Ryan has gone through to be the girl that is on his arm tonight.

 

Ryan takes the corsage from him, has Brent’s girlfriend help her pin it to her dress.

 

Brendon is still staring.

 

******************************************************************************

 

They convince Ryan to come on tour with them because it’s not like she’s going to be doing anything else.

 

She’s off from school for the summer and they all want her there, they wouldn’t be on the road they’re traveling without her and her words. She deserves to bask in some of the glory with them.

 

They’re honest from the beginning about where their songs come from, Spencer even brings Ryan out in the middle of an interview, setting her down between him and Brendon and forcing people to see her.

 

The songs people are singing along to, the songs they’re relating to are her life, her words and they want everyone to see that without her they would still be doing cover songs and maybe they would have eventually moved to writing their own music but Ryan propelled them there much faster.

 

They get her on stage once to perform with them and it’s not even a trick, Trevor comes down with food poisoning and there’s no one else that knows all the songs and all the music and the entire stage show that can do it in such a short time.

 

She fills in, she’s so nervous the hours leading up to the concert that she doesn’t even question where Spencer got a costume in her exact size on such short notice.

 

She’s amazing on-stage, Brendon wants her playing at his side forever.

 

That’s one of the few concerts that Pete makes it to and Brendon can see him off to the side of the stage, head bent close to Patrick’s as they watch their show closely.

 

Brendon isn’t jealous of Pete anymore (sometimes he can even make himself believe it, but then he’ll see Pete and Ryan with heads bent close together talking about writing in cryptic words that he doesn’t know how to decipher), him and Patrick are ‘a little more then friends, I sometimes call him my little woman’ as Pete puts it, Patrick just rolls his eyes and hits him when Pete says that.

 

And Ryan is his, sort of. She reclines next to him on the bus and she kisses him softly on the lips every morning. She doesn’t do that with anyone else, not even Spencer (though she does recline against Spencer if Brendon is busy playing video games with Brent and Trevor).

 

They aren’t dating; at least Brendon doesn’t think they are. Spencer hasn’t tried to kill him so he’s pretty sure they’re not.

 

******************************************************************************

 

She makes friends with the guys from The Academy Is…

 

Brendon finds this out when they stumble on the bus after a show and find her sitting on the couch beside Jon Walker laughing at something he’s saying.

 

They try to put a stop to it, because they don’t really know those guys that well but Ryan just rolls her eyes and ignores them.

 

She gets bored Brendon knows, and as much as they’d like her to she doesn’t watch every single one of their shows.

 

Instead she talks music with Jon and, well they never get her to tell them what she and William Beckett talk about. As William is decidedly closed mouthed about it Brendon doesn’t think it has anything to do with sex. (Brent thinks they talk about clothes and makeup and boys, Trevor concurs and Spencer thinks that it wouldn’t be an invasion of privacy to bug TAI’s bus.)

 

It takes time but they get used to finding Jon on their bus, their heads bent close together as they talk about music or videos or a movie they’d both seen, or even once classes that they’d both already taken.

 

They get used to seeing her disappear with William and Brendon doesn’t even have panic attacks when she doesn’t come back exactly at curfew (she’d laughed at them when they’d said they were instituting it but she’s almost always back on the bus by the designated time, Brendon thinks she just doesn’t want them to worry about her).

 

They get used to it, so the only thing that’s odd about the scene on their bus when they stumble on it hot and sweaty from an early afternoon show is the fact that Jon is right next to her and he’s holding her hand and Ryan looks like her world is crumbling around her.

 

Brendon stops, Spencer slams into his back and it’s a chain reaction because Brent bumps into him and Trevor utters a loud ‘hey!’ from outside the bus.

 

Spencer sees her face and edges past where Brendon is still not moving.

 

“Ryan?” he asks softly.

 

“My dad…”

 

Ryan doesn’t cry, Brendon knows this. But her face is crumpling and he can tell she wants to go to one of them but she’s afraid if she chooses Spencer for comfort that Brendon will be pissed and vice versa.

 

Instead they both go to her, kneeling in front of the couch and Jon lets go of her hand as she wraps long arms around their necks and doesn’t cry against their shoulders.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Returning to Vegas is like an inning of baseball; one, two, three strikes you’re out.

 

Ryan is stoic and calm and her mother makes a rare appearance for the funeral. Ryan stands between Spencer and his parents, Brendon and Brent and Trevor behind her.

 

She doesn’t talk to her mother.

 

Two days after the funeral Trevor tells them that he’s leaving the band, he’d never planned on being in it for the long haul and he kind of wants to go to college and he’s ‘so unbelievably sorry guys’.

 

A day later Brent announces that he and Sarah are getting married and that she’s pregnant and he’s going to have to quit too because Sarah won’t go on the road with them like Ryan and it isn’t fair to ask that of her when she’s going to be having a baby anyway.

 

Brendon pats himself on the back for not asking how Brent’s girlfriend is three months pregnant when they’ve been gone for three and a half.

 

Instead Brendon and Spencer spend long hours on the phone with Pete trying to come up with workable scenarios that don’t mean the band dissolving totally.

 

“I can probably get you a bassist to replace Brent, there’s a couple on the scene that are good that aren’t tied to actual bands at the moment,” Brendon can hear what Pete’s not saying.

 

Off the top of his head he can think of one bassist that isn’t tied to a band that Pete would know about.

 

He doesn’t know how he feels about performing and touring with Jon Walker, he can vividly remember walking into the bus the day that they found out about Ryan’s dad and seeing her clutching his hand.

 

“But Trevor,” Pete sighs.

 

Brendon and Spencer exchange a look.

 

“Why haven’t you asked Ryan to do it?” he finally asks. “I know she can play his parts, she wrote his parts… why?”

 

“She won’t do it,” Spencer says softly. They don’t know why either, they can’t give Pete an explanation as to why Ryan won’t stand up on stage with them all the time when they know that she misses performing like she’s lost a limb.

 

******************************************************************************

 

They ask her anyway.

 

“The worst she can do is say no and then you’re just back at square one,” Pete advises.

 

So they ask her and she looks at them and then down at her hands, then out the window and Brendon wonders if she’s just not going to say anything at all.

 

“Okay,” she says quietly, a whisper actually and Spencer makes a sound deep in his throat and Brendon just stares at her.

 

“Really?” he asks. Just to be sure.

 

She nods once. “I just… I didn’t want something else that my dad could destroy,” she says softly and Brendon understands.

 

Brendon lays his hand over hers; she takes Spencer’s in her other and squeezes it.

 

“Okay.”

 

She smiles at them.

 

******************************************************************************

 

She looks like she’s going to pass out, Spencer is standing next to Jon and Brendon knows that he’s keeping up a steady stream of nonsense because Jon is looking less like he might throw up and more like he might throttle Spencer if Spencer doesn’t stop talking.

 

That leaves Ryan to him and he nudges her with his hip as they lean against the wall.

 

She looks over at him and her eyes are wide, she licks her lips and looks back out towards the stage.

 

They can hear the audience screaming and Ryan shudders a little.

 

Brendon rolls his shoulders and then moves so he’s standing in front of her, he fixes the lapels of her coat, brushes her shoulder of imaginary lint, touches the cheek not lined with stars and a moon.

 

“How are you doing Ryan Ross?” he asks quietly.

 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she says honestly, and she looks it to. Her face is kind of white and Spencer hasn’t threatened him in a good week or so…

 

He kisses her, soft, like she used to do to him. Surprise kisses before she’d flit away and hang out with Jon or William, talking about music or boys.

 

She smiles at him and he smiles back, she’s here with them now. In a few minutes they’re going to go out on that stage and they’re going to perform her songs and he’ll sing for the audience like he used to sing for her and…

 

Her hand is at the back of his neck and she’s pulling him forward.

 

“Brendon,” she murmurs. Right before she kisses him, a real kiss and he can hear Spencer choking behind them and Jon laughing. He wraps his arms around her and keeps her close for as long as he can.

 

She pulls away and smiles at him, a real smile like they don’t often see, happy and carefree. She draws a finger down the side of his cheek and kisses him again.

 

“I think you’ll do just fine Brendon Urie,” she whispers against his lips and she twirls away and walks towards the screams.

 

And they follow.