Things to Read Before You Die

fic - patd - you are as she was iii.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:44:24 GMT

previous

Things start to fall apart the next day, and even though they should have seen it coming, none of them are prepared for it. They get to the Astoria early because they’re doing some interview, backstage pass whatever with MTV. Bren doesn’t mind. The MTV shit’s the best because they don’t ask the annoying questions about family and what it’s like to have a girl in the band, to have a girl fronting the band, to have a girl singing Ryan Ross’ misogynistic lyrics. It’s just them and a microphone and a camera.

Brent doesn’t want anything to do with it, which he makes evident the night before.

“Come on,” he says, frowning, “I’ve got a cold and it’s not like you guys can’t handle it.”

“We’re a band,” Ryan says, and it sounds a little like he’s trying to remind someone of something important. “We do this stuff together. That’s the point.”

Brent’s always been stubborn, so it’s not like they aren’t all expecting it when he adamantly refuses to do it. The fact that he skips out of the soundcheck early to avoid it, though, leaves them floundering.

“Um,” Bren says, perched behind her keyboard, looking at the empty space Brent left when he disappeared to take a piss nearly fifteen minutes ago.

They’re running short on time, now, and nobody wants to say anything. They’re all just hoping Brent will come back and tell some story about how he was waylaid by groupies or abducted by aliens. He could say anything, but as long as he was sliding the strap of his bass over one shoulder and adding a “sorry, let’s finish up,” they would believe it.

“Guys,” the sound guy says, having come down to the stage to look at them with a tense glare, “any day now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ryan says, looking over to Spencer who looks over to Bren who shrugs helplessly.

It’s the movement sidestage that catches their attention. Spencer leans over his drum kit and yells, “Jon!” Bren and Ryan both follow his gaze and see Jon looking at them, a quizzical smile on his face. He wanders a little closer, nodding at the three of them.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Help us soundcheck?” Spencer asks. “We’re almost done.”

Jon says, “where’s Brent?”, but he walks forward and grabs the bass anyway.

“Not feeling well,” Ryan says, and the lie is too easy.

They finish up as quickly as they can and leave the stage sharing dark looks. Jon stops Bren on her way backstage with a hand to her elbow.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

His touch is warm and gentle and Bren wants to lean into it, let somebody hold her up for a few minutes. Instead she brushes her fingers over his and pulls away with a smile.

“Fine,” she says, “just have to get ready for MTV.”

She leaves before he can ask her any more questions because she’s a terrible liar as it is, but she hates it when she has to lie to Jon. She catches up to Spencer and Ryan and they stand in a tight huddle, silent and tense. At least the MTV thing goes off without anymore hitches. Cameramen show up, hand Bren a microphone and give the three of them some basic instructions.

“Show us around, tell us a little about life backstage, the usual,” some woman with a clipboard says.

“Can we have a grand entrance?” Bren asks.

The woman looks down her nose at her (and Bren wishes she were a few inches taller because she’s so tired of other chicks being able to do that). “I don’t know how you expect us to pull something like that off.”

Spencer says, “there was that door at the foot of the stairs.”

Even the woman’s cold eyes aren’t a match for Spencer’s even stare. He’s only eighteen and he’s more badass than anyone they’ve come across in the journalistic field. Bren beams at him and he smiles back, hiding it from everyone but the two of them.

By the time the cameras are rolling and Bren is bursting through a tiny door, all smiles with Ryan and Spencer at her heels, they’ve resolved to ignore the Brent thing. Ignoring the Brent thing also means ignoring Brent himself, who is sitting in the back of the dressing room like nothing is out of the ordinary, like he’s not even a member of the band. Ryan addresses Jack instead of Brent and Bren and Spencer keep their backs to the corner for the whole segment. It feels weird. Wrong. But it’s what Brent wants and they don’t have any other choice.

The cameramen and other assorted MTV people leave and they have to get ready for the show. It’s the last thing Bren wants to do because they’re on shaky ground. There are no cues coming from Brent about how this is going to go, none at all, and Bren doesn’t want to stop talking to him but she has no idea what the fuck to say, either. So she stays quiet and Spencer and Ryan and Brent stay quiet. Jack disappears, leaves the four of them alone, and they move silently around each other as they get ready, trying not to get too close or move too quickly in case it tips everything over the edge.

It’s so uncomfortable that Bren can’t stay in the dressing room. The atmosphere is thick and heavy and reminds her of the days before she left home, when she and her parents were barely speaking and everything was hanging by a thread. She mutters something to Spencer about going sidestage to watch The Academy, and he just nods at her. She catches Ryan’s eye on the way out and he looks upset, but she can’t think of anything to say to ease his mind.

She makes her way backstage and slumps against a wall, letting Bill’s voice and the guitars and bass and drums wash over her. She inhales deeply, reveling in the way the air thrums with sound in her lungs, and tries to get herself in an appropriate state of mind to perform. She should be finding a quiet corner for vocal warm-ups. She should be excited. She’s just a little drained and confused.

An arm slips around her shoulders and she looks up, fast, to see Jon staring down at her in concern.

“Hey,” he says, and she doesn’t feel any compulsion to shy away, so she leans in, instead.

“Hey,” she says back, trying out a smile.

“So, who pissed in your Cheerios?” he asks conversationally.

Bren can’t help the laugh that gusts out. “Um, nobody. Just general band stuff.”

Jon’s eyebrows go up and he pulls her closer to his side. Bren’s heart thumps hollow in her chest and she lifts a hand, hesitant, to curl into Jon’s t-shirt.

“That sounds pretty serious,” Jon says quietly, his words barely audible over the music.

“Yeah,” Bren says, “yeah, I think it is.”

She doesn’t say anything else, but Jon doesn’t move and she drinks it up, the heat of his body, the solid weight of him. She misses this, misses it so much, hugging and being hugged and having no anxiety attached to it. Jon’s the only one she can do this with, now, and she’s reluctant to let him go. They have to separate a moment later; someone is calling Jon away and Bren really does need to warm-up, but she doesn’t want him to go. His hand cups the back of her neck as he drifts away and Bren arches into the brief touch before steeling herself and leaving for the dressing rooms.

That night, the lights are as hot as ever, but everything feels like pulling teeth. Ryan’s mouth is set in an angry line as he plays, Spencer’s eyes are dark as he pounds away at his drums, and Brent is so distant it’s like he’s not even there. Bren sings, clutches desperately at Ryan’s hip and when she presses her forehead to his temple everyone thinks it’s the usual stage show, but it’s not. It’s the only thing keeping her grounded. Bren wants to collapse, crumble away just like everything else is because she can feel it now, the fissures in everything that they’ve been ignoring since getting on the plane to the UK. Ryan turns his head toward hers, mouths the words against the mic, meets her eye and encourages her to stay standing.

When Bren goes to her knees that night, she falls so hard the next note is a sharp, pained sound, and she looks up at Brent. She’s not sure what she’s looking for, what she’s asking him for. His eyes are closed, hair hanging in his face as he moves his head with the music, and he doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t look and she bends forward at the waist and sobs note after note into the microphone and beyond them, beyond this, the crowd cheers.

_._

Spencer calls a band meeting in the morning. Bren feels fuzzy-headed because she couldn’t sleep and she’s not sure how many hours it’s been since she actually got any rest. Ryan doesn’t look much more alert than she does, but his eyes are glittering with some emotion she can’t put a name to and she bites her lip, nervous and unsure.

“What the fuck was that about yesterday?” Spencer asks, and he sounds pissed but he’s keep his voice tightly controlled.

Brent, who looks more awake than all of them, but decidedly less interested, raises his eyebrows. “What was what about?” he asks, a little defensive but mostly (and this is the part Bren doesn’t understand) truly confused.

“You skipped out on soundcheck and the MTV thing,” Ryan says, his hands unusually still on his thighs.

A soft flush climbs up Brent’s neck and he looks conflicted. “I told you I didn’t want to do it.”

“So that makes it okay to fuck us over?” Ryan demands, and he isn’t bothering to keep his voice restrained. All of his anger and frustration bleeds out over the words, breaking his monotone and making Bren want to cover her ears.

“It’s not like I missed a show!” Brent says, throwing his hands up. “We were almost finished anyway. It’s seriously not a big deal!”

And the thing is, Brent really believes it’s not a big deal. Bren looks at him, catches his eye, and he’s trying so hard to make her believe what he believes that she has to jerk her gaze away. This isn’t a big deal to him.

“Brent,” Bren says softly, and it hurts to have to push the words out, but she manages, “are you. I mean, you still want this, right?”

She looks at him again, but now his eyes are glued firmly to the floor between his knees. Spencer and Ryan are holding their breath, waiting for the answer, but Bren feels like she already knows it. She doesn’t know how, she can’t possibly be certain if he hasn’t told her, but she’s almost positive he’s going to say no.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” is all he says, though.

And then he gets up and walks away, band meeting over, nothing resolved.

_._

Ryan and Spencer start having these secret conversations that Bren isn’t invited to. She’s pretty sure that if she poked her head in and asked what they were talking about, they’d tell her. Then again, she’s not actually sure if they’re talking about band Brent business (which isn’t going so well) or personal Brent business (which Bren has no real right to be involved in, considering she’s only known them a year and Brent’s known them approximately forever). She sees them, heads bent together, expressions grave, and takes a detour.

She finds Jon and Tom getting ready to go into town. They’re grinning at each other, the special smile that best friends share, and she feels suddenly, inexplicably lonely.

“Hey!” Tom says loudly when she turns to walk away.

Bren looks up and he’s grinning at her from underneath his hood, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie. Jon’s grinning too, videocamera in hand. She figures she could get away with a wave, maybe go mope by herself, but she’s never been very good at being alone and anyway, she could definitely use a distraction.

“What’s up?” she asks as she gets closer, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet and looking at them expectantly.

“Pick-up basketball game,” Jon says. “And by pick-up I mean, bands only. And by basketball I mean, Mike running around double-dribbling while Bill sinks three-pointers every time he sneezes with the ball in his hands.”

Bren laughs and looks at the camera. “TAI TV?” she asks, nodding at it.

Jon shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe I just want blackmail material.”

They share a long look and a smile, and when Bren glances over at Tom, he waggles his eyebrows at her.

“You should come with. You can be a cheerleader and bounce around and look cute,” he says.

Bren rolls her eyes but says she’ll tag along, offering to film because she’s really not sure she’ll be able to stop bouncing around if she starts. Jon agrees and they walk to the court, which doesn’t look like it’s seen much action lately. Bren figures most people around here are probably playing soccer in their spare time at the park down the street. It’s chilly out and no one on tour is particularly athletic, so they’re all in hoodies and girl-jeans instead of, like, sweatshirts and sweatpants. Bill’s huddled up under the basket wearing one of his disgusting, holey sweaters, Mike and Sisky gathered closely around.

Andy comes jogging up in a jacket and a pair of obscenely tight and ugly pants, all smiles.

“We’re going to kick so much ass,” he says when he draws even with Jon and Tom. “It won’t be legal how much ass we’re going to kick.”

They all bump fists and Bren rolls her eyes but she has to admit, she sort of likes it when the guys get all pumped up on testosterone. It’s fun to watch and gives her a little thrill.

“Okay, ladies” Bill calls, strutting forward, “are we gonna do this shit, or what?”

“Prepare to be toasted, Billvy,” Andy says. “Toasted, buttered, and eaten alive.”

“Toast isn’t even alive,” Sisky points out, “what the fuck? You suck at trashtalk.”

“And you suck at comebacks,” Jon teases.

Bren clears her throat and says, “you all suck at life. Can we play now?”

Someone says “your mom sucks!” and Bren flips him off (she’s pretty sure it’s Mike, but it could also be Sisky, it’s hard to tell when those two get together). They laugh, but at least everyone’s getting into position. Andy and Tom are doing ridiculous stretches while Jon jogs over to the sideline and helps her stand on a fairly sturdy bench.

“Okay,” he says from somewhere near her waist, one hand cupping her hip, “you think you can handle this?”

She looks down and nods. “Totally,” she says, holding out her hands for the videocamera.

He hands it over and leans close to give brief instructions. Bren listens as well as she can, but she feels a tightness in her stomach that’s painfully, gloriously familiar, and she’s more occupied with Jon’s clean smell than she is with which buttons to push. He pulls away, reaching out to ruffle her hair.

“You’re totally cheering for us, right?” he says, walking backwards.

Bren shrugs lightly and says, “I dunno, I think I have to pull for the underdog.”

Jon laughs. “You’ve clearly never seen Tom play basketball,” he says.

“What?” Tom yells, looking up at the sound of his name. “Stop flirting, Walker, and get your ass over here.”

Jon rolls his eyes at Bren and says, “he’s just jealous of our love.”

Bren winks at him and then turns to make kissy faces at Tom, who makes kissy faces back, and Butcher pouts because he doesn’t get any kissy faces, and then Bill runs over, kisses his fingers and lays them suggestively over Bren’s lips while Sisky calls him a traitor and Mike threatens loudly to hit the next person who even thinks the word ‘kiss’.

“This is basketball, not spin the bottle,” he says, dribbling the ball with both hands.

Bren tips her head back and laughs and it feels good. She’s still smiling as she lifts the camera and hits record.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, picking up a commentary as Bill checks the ball to Tom, “what you are about to witness may be too frightening a spectacle for the faint-hearted. Viewer discretion is advised.”

_._

They get back to the venue twenty minutes before soundcheck; Bill and his band rush to the stage while Bren stands back and watches Jon make a beeline for the guitars. She starts when a hand closes around her wrist. The fingers, thin and strong, are Spencer’s; she can tell without looking.

“What’s up?” she asks, carefully extracting herself from his hold.

He steps up next to her and says, “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.” They both watch the movement onstage quietly for a moment and then Spencer adds, “this whole situation’s pretty fucked up.”

Bren closes her eyes and nods sharply.

“You okay?” Spence asks.

She’s not sure if he’s expecting an honest answer. In the last few weeks, Bren’s done nothing but lie about her state of mind. It’s a habit she can’t seem to break, and she knows it frustrates Spencer and Ryan, but they ask anyway. They can’t seem to help themselves. Either that, or they’re just waiting until Bren’s ready to be honest and letting her know that they aren’t going anywhere in the meantime.

Bren opens her eyes and looks over at Spencer who looks back calmly and she thinks that’s it. That’s why they keep asking her how she’s doing, that’s why they never buy the lie. They’re just biding their time and waiting for Bren to be ready to give an honest answer. She’s not sure if that’s Ryan’s only motivation because there’s an edge to his questioning that’s softened but hasn’t been completely sanded away, but that’s definitely why Spencer’s standing in the dusty space backstage in no hurry to hear Bren’s reply.

She can see it in his eyes and it makes her stomach ache in a good way.

“Are you okay?” she asks and he shrugs.

“Not really,” he says, turning back to face the stage.

Bren sucks in a deep breath and says, “I’m scared.”

If Spencer’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. He just asks, “of what?”

Bren watches Jon as he hands guitars over to Mike and Tom and thinks about how he makes her feel. She remembers the look on Brent’s face when he practically begged Bren without words to believe him, not a big deal, not a big deal. She can hear Spencer and Ryan’s secret whispers, see their haunted eyes, and she’s scared of a lot of things. She’s scared of too much.

Her body goes rigid for a moment and then she relaxes, tentatively nudges her hip against Spencer’s and leaves it there.

“Everything but you,” she says with a crooked smile.

Spencer curves his arm loosely around her shoulders, and Bren leans into him, letting all the fight seep out of her body for just a minute. Or two. Or ten. Spencer doesn’t say anything, he just holds her up.

fic - patd - you are as she was ii.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:42:32 GMT

previous

Time in Vegas passes slowly for Bren, Ryan and Spencer, but when they meet up at the crack of dawn for their flight to England, Brent seems reluctant to leave. He doesn’t actually say anything, but his lips are soft in a pout and he drags his feet while they board. He didn’t really keep his promise after the band meeting they had. Bren’s hung out with Spencer and Ryan, had dinner with Spencer’s family, but she hasn’t seen Brent more than a few times, some of which were complete accidents.

The hollow feeling that Bren’s been trying to ignore for a while intensifies when she glances sideways. Brent’s eyes are closed, his head tipped back, his expression anything but peaceful.

The flight is painfully long, just like the last time. Bren dozes off a few times but spends most of it feeling caged in and restless. She’s been feeling more and more like herself in the last week, at least in terms of the giddy anticipation of a headlining UK tour, and she’s so ready for the whole thing to start that she can barely sit still. She twists in her seat to talk to Spencer and Ryan every few minutes, and they’re happy enough about their upcoming show that they don’t seem too annoyed by it. Spencer falls asleep eventually and it falls to Ryan to keep her entertained. They make up stupid games and argue about indie music and it's nice, but once or twice she catches him staring at her in that way he has, the one that makes her feel breathless and twitchy, and she has to turn around and collect her thoughts for a while.

Her energy has been ebbing and flowing for so many hours that Bren’s feeling a little crazed by the time the plane touches down. She’s one of the first ones off as soon as the captain gives permission to get out of seatbelts, and she waits impatiently for Brent, Spencer and Ryan to catch up.

“I think we’re all supposed to meet up outside,” Spencer says, and he would know, he keeps up with these things better than Bren does.

“Okay,” she says, heart beating faster because they’re in Europe and they’re headlining and it’s going to be her and her boys and the guys from The Academy and she wants to jump up and down and scream and sing for days, she’s so excited.

Everyone is, indeed, waiting outside. Bren spots Bill first, not that Bill is easy to miss, but she doesn’t get the chance to do more than wave and smile before Jon’s sweeping her up in a hug. Her breath hitches and she tries not to panic in the two seconds it takes to recognize the arms hauling her up against a body not much taller than hers, but Jon smells familiar and she’s so happy that she lets him squeeze her tight before he sets her down instead of squirming out of his hold.

“Jon!” she says happily, spinning around to beam at him.

He grins at her and then he’s turning to slap Ryan on the back and hug Spencer and smile hello to Brent.

“He’s been bereft without you,” Tom says, walking forward and grinning at them all. “Seriously, you should’ve seen him in Chicago.”

Jon nods. “It’s true. I’ve gotten used to having you guys around.”

Bren laughs and turns to greet everyone else. She avoids hugging anyone for too long but lets the adrenaline propel her into the arms of band members for a few almost-comfortable seconds. They pile onto their busses when their managers start getting serious about deadlines, and, of course, it’s not an ideal living situation. The spaces are all cramped, there’s nowhere for Bren to go to be alone except for her bunk; in a few days, they’ll be annoyed with each other and desperate for space.

For now, it’s perfect.

_._

The stage lights are hot, beating down on Bren, and she’s sweating more than any girl ever should. She can feel rivulets of it sliding down her spine, pooling between her breasts, and when she licks her lips she tastes salt and the Chapstick she hasn’t quite bitten off yet. She’s got new clothes in her bag, pants because her mom doesn’t want her flashing her underwear in front of an audience, but she’s wearing one of her dresses, the fabric swishing around her thighs, the air ghosting over her bare skin, cooling the sweat behind her knees but not doing much else.

Bren belts out songs, collects Ryan’s words in her mouth and gives them back to him, shares them with the audience. It’s day five of their tour, their fifth night in a row playing as the headliner, and everything feels different. It’s more electric than ever, there’s more freedom. From the moment Bren steps out onto the stage, she can see everything stretched out in front of her for miles and miles, reminding her that this is where she’s meant to be, right here, center stage, Ryan to her right and Brent to her left and Spencer behind but all of them all around, the music filling her up and sailing outoutout with her voice, Ryan’s words.

Up here, Bren feels alive again, like she did before. On stage she can touch, freely and with abandon. She takes advantage, pressing up against Ryan’s side, an arm around his waist, her lips nearly touching his as they share a mic. She strides over to Brent and holds him in place, a hand on his shoulder, singing and begging, maybe, for him to feel the way she does. She wishes she could touch Spencer. She settles for throwing him winks and blown kisses over her shoulder, body moving to his beat.

Everything has to end and she hates it, but she coasts on adrenaline from the final note to the dressing room, accepting pats on the back from techs and friends and other band members, giggling when someone calls Spencer a stud. She comes down slowly, the best way to crash, and it’s like a drug, the need to be on stage and performing and feeling. Somehow, by the next morning, she’s always desperate for more.

_._

It's a late bus call and they've gathered on The Academy's bus, but it's a little awkward. Usually William and his boys are pretty good about not being bitter over the fact that Bren and her boys are becoming kind of a big deal. But Bren's heard the whispers and she's seen the looks and tonight the crowd was chanting for Panic before The Academy even finished their set. Things aren't cold, exactly, just tense. Bren isn't entirely sure partying with them is a good idea, but she's here and so are Ryan and Spencer and Brent and Jon's across the lounge making funny faces at her so she's trying not to feel weird about it.

It's a little bit easy when Ryan's staring from a few feet away. That's a more pressing issue in Bren's book. She can handle Mike's smartass comments and Sisky's ignoring them in favor of dicking around with Bill on the other side of the bus. She can't really handle the way her skin feels hot and tight under Ryan's gaze.

She looks down at the cup of coke and whiskey in her hands and wills her heart to stop pounding in her ears. It's been the natural reaction to Ryan's eyes on her almost since the first time they met. She remembers being scared and frumpy in a sweatshirt and jeans sitting in Spencer's grandmother's living room with an acoustic guitar in her lap and she remembers that that was the first time she ever felt beautiful, when she played and looked up and the first thing she saw was Ryan staring at her like she was something important. Her heart skipped a beat and it hasn't stopped in the last couple years. It's a little scary, if she's being honest, that he has this effect on her and maybe that's why she's reacted so much more strongly to him. She doesn't feel the same way about anyone else and she doesn't know what that means, she just knows that she wants things she doesn't want to want and it's so confusing inside of her own head that she squeezes her eyes shut to block it all out.

A soft touch to her elbow makes her jump and she sees Ryan standing in front of her, looking concerned.

"Jesus!" she hisses out, pulling her arms in close to her body and frowning at him. "You scared me!"

He blinks and says, "sorry. We just wanted to see if maybe you wanted to go back to our bus and watch a movie? There's not a whole lot going on here."

She looks around and notices Spencer and Brent standing awkwardly apart from everyone else. Jon's talking to them like nothing's wrong, but that's just Jon. To him, Bren thinks everything's probably fine.

Ryan touches her again and Bren inhales sharply. She thought they were getting better but sometimes Ryan does this, gets into her space and forces a reaction. Bren sort of hates that no matter how hard she tries to guard herself, she always reacts to him. Always.

"Yeah," she says finally, a little twitchy and restless suddenly. "Yeah, we can go."

Ryan nods once. They go to file off the bus and Spencer hesitates before asking Jon if he wants to tag along. Jon glances around and ignores the look Mike shoots him, shrugging and taking one last swig of his beer.

"Sure, why not?" he says, smiling warmly.

_._

Everything's back to normal the next night, although the guys don't follow Bren onto The Academy's bus. Ryan's having one of his moody nights and Spencer's keeping him company while Brent does whatever it is he does when he hides in his bunk. Bren doesn't really want to think about that.

She finds herself sitting next to Jon, drinking a bottle of shitty red wine with him and Mike and William and it's like last night never happened. It's always like this, though. One night William's upset about the fact that they've been working their asses off for longer than Bren and her band and they're getting nowhere fast. The next night, William's jovial and friendly like always. It's enough to make Bren's head spin, but the alcohol helps a little.

"I really miss Chicago style pizza," Jon says, apropos of nothing.

Mike lets out an exaggerated groan. "Fuck, me too. Why'd you have to say that, Jon, now I'm craving."

Bren snickers and says, "I've never had it," before taking another sip.

Jon and William both look at her in shock.

"What?" Jon says, leaning forward and into her space. Bren's drunk enough not to mind. She just shrugs. "You've been to Chicago how many times and you've never had authentic pizza?" he continues.

William shakes his head. "That is sad, Little One."

"I have lived a very sheltered life," Bren tells them, voice light even though she can't help thinking about how true that is.

"That's no excuse," Jon tells her. "Next time you're in Chicago, I'm taking you out, okay? And you don't get to say no. Promise." He thrusts out his pinky and Bren laughs, linking her little finger with his.

They shake on it and Jon doesn't let go right away. His touch leaves her feeling warm and pleasantly dizzy and Bren thinks maybe she should have a problem with that, but she doesn't. She just keeps drinking, doing shots when they move on to tequila, and laughing almost non-stop, watching the guys play games with stupid rules before trying them out herself. She lets Jon drape his arm around her shoulders, lets William hold her hands, and doesn't shy away.

She ends up back on her own bus eventually and can't remember how it happened or when they stopped moving long enough for her to move from one bus to the other. She thinks maybe Jon and Butcher helped but then again maybe they didn't. She doesn't know because everything's a little jumbled up in her mind, an impression of sounds and sights that don't really coalesce into actual memories. So she sits on the couch in the lounge and stops trying to remember, debates the merits of stumbling to her bunk instead.

She must fall asleep because the next thing she remembers is drifting awake to fingers in her hair and lips pressed to her temple. Her stomach feels warm, her skin gently tingling. She blinks her eyes open and Ryan's there, soft-faced, in the hazy light of early morning.

"You're a mess," he says quietly, and Bren's still fuzzy-headed, with sleep and from the alcohol, so she just reaches up and clumsily taps the tip of his nose.

"You have no room to talk," she whispers.

Ryan says, "I know," and catches her hand and squeezes and she falls asleep before he lets go.

The next time she wakes up, she doesn't remember any of it at all.

_._

“Shhhhh,” Jon hushes when Bren steps up behind him.

He’s lying on his stomach near the back of the venue, camera sitting next to his left hand.

“Why am I being shushed?” Bren asks in a whisper, climbing over him and lowering herself to her stomach, settling in on his right side.

“Because it’s nice and quiet and I’m enjoying the moment,” he says, tipping a smile in her direction.

Bren grins back and rests her cheek on her folded arms. They’ve been going non-stop for the last six days, a rush of traveling and foreign shops and shows. Bren loves it, she knows that Jon loves it as much as she does, but there’s something comforting about the silence of a theatre because it’s never really silent at all. It’s only waiting for the next explosion of sound, just like Bren. Just like Jon.

They stay like that for a few minutes, Bren being quiet and still because she can totally be quiet and still when she wants, especially for Jon. Her eyes are closed and she thinks she could sleep here, really sleep, for the first time in what feels like months. When she opens them again, Jon’s staring at her, his gaze steady and a little dark. It’s not scary because it’s not threatening. Nothing like Ryan, Bren thinks suddenly, and her stomach does a slow twist.

“What?” she asks, making barely any sound.

Jon just shakes his head and reaches out, slowly. She watches his fingers come closer and closer and stays carefully still when he pushes her bangs behind her ears. When his touch lingers, she shakes it off, but she realizes as soon as he pulls his hand back that it was more reflex than anything. Her heart is beating fast, but not like it usually is after someone’s touched her. It’s beating fast the way it should be, in anticipation, a little in nerves.

She waits to see if Jon will touch her again, but he doesn’t, he just smiles, lifts his camera, and takes a picture.

next

fic - patd - you are as she was i.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:26:35 GMT

you are as she was
lady_deathangel ~*~ 9,579 words ~*~ PG-13 ~*~ implied Ryan/Bren, hints of Jon/Bren

||Disclaimer: Not true, not claiming it is, etc., etc., please don't hurt me (and for the love of god, don't read this if you think it might possibly be about you).

A/N: Part 4 is here! This fic is far from dead and we all have pressdbtwnpages to thank for that. She's gotten my ass into gear with this, inspiring me to revisit Bren and her boys and continue their story. She also looked this over for me and told me where it could be improved and assured me of all the places it doesn't suck, so thanks bb! I love you and couldn't have finished this without you! Because I'm immeasurably busy from now until the middle of December, don't expect the next part for a while, but there might be some more interludes. Who knows? Title from the Cute Is What We Aim For Song "Teasing to Please (Left Side, Strong Side)"||

Part One
Part Two
Interlude
Part Three

Spencer calls a band meeting after they’ve been in Vegas for a week. Bren isn’t surprised when she shows up at his house and he just looks blankly at her. She hasn’t so much as looked at her cellphone in seven days, let alone talked to him, Ryan or Brent. She’s sure they’ve called, but she hasn’t checked. She’s been too busy wallowing and trying to reclaim a normal sleep schedule and adjust to the awkwardness of being the daughter of parents who did a complete 180 when she wasn’t looking.

It’s obvious that Spencer’s pissed about her disappearing act. He’s probably been attached to Ryan’s hip since they got back to Vegas. The two of them have probably gone to movies with Brent and had him over for dinner. It was an unspoken agreement that the small break between the stateside tour and the UK tour would be for band bonding and for planning the summer tour. Bren’s thrown a wrench in the works by refusing to hang out with any of them.

She walks into Spencer’s living room and catches sight of the angry set of Ryan’s jaw. Her stomach pulls tight in something like shame and fear and anger and she’s never felt this way around any of them before. It leaves her unsettled and edgy and she sits next to Brent across the room, hands clasped tight in her lap, bottom lip held between her teeth.

“So,” Spencer starts, but Ryan interrupts with a sharply fired, “where the fuck have you two been?”

Bren blinks and looks over at to Brent who looks at her and oh shit. They’re both in trouble and that’s about ten times worse than if only one of them were.

“I’ve been catching up with my friends,” Brent says, turning his gaze over to Spencer and Ryan.

Bren doesn’t even bother answering. She can barely look Ryan in the eye and she hates when Spencer’s angry with her, hates it so much she can’t really function.

“Bren?” Spencer asks and there’s something in his tone that tells her he knows. He knows exactly why she’s been unable to drag herself out of bed for more than an hour or two at a time, and he knows exactly why she’s been avoiding Ryan like the Plague.

Bren lifts her head to stare at him and he just looks back, his eyes steady and empathetic. She feels another slow, slimy wave of shame and glares at Ryan.

“You asshole,” she says, eliciting a shocked look from Brent and a challenging one from Ryan. “You told him-”

“He was worried about you,” Ryan shoots back accusingly. “I had to tell him.”

“You had no right to say anything!” Bren says, sick to her stomach.

“Well maybe if you hadn’t checked out on us, I wouldn’t have had to say anything!”

“Um,” Brent says slowly. “Okay.”

Bren takes a second to frown at him before shooting to her feet. “Whatever, I’m going home.”

She’s halfway to the door before she feels a hand on her shoulder that she slaps away with a high-pitched, “don’t touch me!”

Behind her, Spencer sucks in a surprised breath; Bren winces and turns slowly. He’s staring at her like he’s never seen her before and over his shoulder, Brent is slack-jawed and obviously confused. She doesn’t want to look at Ryan, but when she slants a glance at him, his head is ducked and his eyes are obscured by a curtain of hair, so she has no idea what the hell he’s thinking.

“Spence,” she says quietly, turning back to him.

He just shakes his head and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Whatever, Bren,” he says, and he’s trying to keep his voice steady and cool but she can hear the uncertainty and hurt in the words.

“No,” she says hurriedly, hunching her shoulders and crossing her arms tight over her chest. “It’s not you, okay? I just. I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Spencer asks, voice caught somewhere between upset and curious, tone soft.

Bren glances over at Brent and Ryan again; it’s obvious that they both want to know the answer, too, and she swallows hard before blurting out, “I can’t touch.”

They stare at her like she just said something completely ridiculous and she figures that for them, it probably is. It sounds like the dumbest excuse, even to her own ears. She tightens her arms and forces herself not to look away.

“Nevermind,” she tells them, holding her voice steady. “It’s not a big deal, okay?”

Carefully, she makes her way back into the room, just to prove she can, and sits down next to Brent again. They all watch her closely and she wants to lash out, tell them that she doesn’t need them to keep an eye on her like she’s going to break. The more melodramatic parts of her are a little bitter over the fact that it’s too late for that.

Spencer follows her back into the room a moment later and the silence that falls then is awkward.

“So,” Brent says after a moment, “is that it? I promise I won’t be a stranger or whatever, but I’ve kind of got a thing later today.”

The look Ryan sends Brent could strip paint, but Brent just narrows his eyes back. They have a silent standoff, the kind that Bren hasn’t seen between them since they were recording the album. For once, Brent is the one who wins. Ryan just deflates after a couple of seconds and shrugs, slumping back against the loveseat.

“Yeah, fine. We’re getting together later this week to talk about the summer tour, though,” he says, the words almost like a threat instead of a heads-up.

Brent nods, offers them all a distracted smile, and is out of the house before any of them can say another word. Silence creeps back into the room and Bren isn’t exactly sure what happens next; she looks at Spencer and Ryan uncertainly, knee bouncing under her clasped hands.

“Are you okay?” Spencer finally asks, not as a bandmate, but as a friend.

It’s weird that there’s a difference, but Bren recognizes it easily and feels herself relax. Not much, but enough to be able to nod her head in something that isn’t quite a lie, but definitely isn’t the truth, either.

“If you need to talk-”

“No offense,” Bren cuts in, “but it isn’t something you just . . . talk about. Can’t we just pretend it didn’t happen? Please? I’m fine, promise.”

Spencer and Ryan share a look, one of those telepathic ones that make her feel about five-years-old and completely left out. Eventually they both nod; she senses the hesitation in the movement and thinks that they’re not quite lying, but they’re not telling the truth, either.

_._

Bren’s still not talking to Ryan because he’s an asshole and a bastard, but she ends up meeting him at Borders anyway. She figures it's a win-win because Spencer's supposed to be there, too, and she doesn't actually have a problem with him. Not only that, but it gets her out of the house and away from her parents which is never a bad thing. She's a little wary when she walks into the store, biting her bottom lip and keeping her eyes out for Ryan and Spencer.

She spots Ryan at the bestsellers rack near the front. His back is mostly to her, but she can still make out his profile, the soft set of his mouth, the fan of his lashes across his cheeks. His head is bent forward just a little and Bren catches herself staring at the sweep of hair at the bare back of his neck. It's not comfortable, the way it feels to notice these things. Bren's skin feels tight and her stomach clenches and she looks away quickly, searching for any sign of Spencer. There is none, and she's tempted to walk out completely and avoid this whole situation.

“Where’s Spence?” she asks, strolling forward instead and keeping her hands tucked inside of her pockets.

Ryan looks up, a book with a long, pretentious title printed across the spine clutched loosely in one hand. She spares it a glance and fights the urge to roll her eyes. It’s just like Ryan to pick a book with more words in its title than most of the songs on the album combined.

“Oh, he couldn’t make it,” he says casually. “Babysitting.”

If Ryan looked at all like this was something he'd planned just to get Bren to talk to him, she would hit him across the mouth and leave. She’s tired of his bullshit, tired of him constantly cornering her and pushing, like it’s his goal in life to make her admit that she’s not as fine as she says she is. But he’s looking at her like he wasn’t expecting this either, his shoulders hunched just enough to tell Bren that he’s feeling slightly awkward.

Well, she thinks, glancing away, that makes two of us.

“Bastard,” Bren mumbles, and Ryan laughs and reaches out, touching two fingers to her elbow and directing her toward the cafe nestled in the far edges of the bookstore.

Bren bites her lip and pulls her arm farther into her body, away from the touch. Ryan doesn’t say anything, but she can feel his eyes on her. It's been like this since the band meeting and Bren hates it. Ryan touches, always touches and looms and lingers in her personal space, waiting for her to pull away and tell him no. Pulling away is easy. Telling him no, isn’t. Bren doesn't like to think about it, but it's true. Even now, even after everything, she still wants Ryan in all the ways she shouldn't and that makes it complicated. As if they aren't already fucked up enough.

It would be easier of Bren wasn't still attracted to Ryan, if she wasn't so into him, but she is and she doesn't think Ryan's taking advantage of it on purpose, but he's definitely not pressing the issue on accident.

At least she knows why he’s doing it. He’s doing it because of the way she freaked on Spencer the other day and because of the way she refuses to let any of them in, even in small ways that used to come natural and easy. He’s doing it because they’ve hung out enough since then for him and Spencer to be able to notice that she really can’t touch and he’s doing it because the only thing Bren will say about it is that she’s okay. Ryan’s got this obsession with proving that she’s actually not and she doesn’t get why. It’s a power-play, maybe, or just some brand of crazy exclusive to Ross, but she hates it and it isn’t helping. It’s not like his insistent physical contact makes it magically better. If nothing, it’s making it harder for her to trust anyone with her body.

The anxiety that Bren’s been trying to live with for the last few weeks is so foreign it’s almost like being sick. Bren can handle the hugs that she sees coming, or even a hand on her skin if she can anticipate it. It’s the touches that come from behind as an unpleasant surprise that feel like a trap and make her body freeze up. It’s completely out of her control. She never makes the active decision to freak out every time someone hugs her from behind or wraps an arm around her waist. She never could make that decision; she loves to be touched and she loves to touch and this? This feels wrong in ways she can’t describe.

When she told Spencer I can’t, it hurt so badly and felt so real that she had to take it back, and maybe that’s what Ryan’s deal is. He knows she’s lying and she knows she’s lying and they both hate liars and fakes and cheats and hypocrites. But if he’s acting out on some kind of angry impulse to try and make her tell the truth, he needs to back off. This isn’t a lie she’s telling for the sake of fooling anyone but herself, and even that’s not working out so well.

As a result of everything, her own . . . problems and Ryan’s being an ass, hanging out is almost painfully awkward. They stand quietly in line for coffee, but that’s really the only chance Bren has to avoid talking to him. It’s easier when Spencer or Brent are around because she can make it very obvious just how much she isn’t speaking to Ryan. She can’t just ignore him here, so when they sit down for coffee she has to cast around for something safe to bring up. The summer tour is probably a good bet, or Pete. If Ryan starts talking about Pete he doesn’t stop for, like, an hour. Bren can just pretend to listen, smile and nod and secretly still be angrier at him than she’s ever been in her life. But before she can direct the conversation, Ryan speaks up in a low, almost confidential voice.

He says, “hey, are you okay?”

Bren catches his gaze which is as unreadable as ever. That doesn’t mean anything. He knows she’s not and that’s his whole fucking point. He doesn’t even have to know about the nightmares or the shame or the self-doubt. He was there, he called her on her shit right in the middle of a whole crowd of people. Stupid, he said, and it’s true. They both know it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bren says, as dismissively as she can manage.

Ryan rolls his eyes and rocks back in the rickety cafe chair. “Come on, Bren, are you seriously going to keep lying to yourself about this?”

Bren frowns and shrugs. “I’m not lying. It really, seriously doesn’t matter.”

“Uh-huh,” Ryan says, disbelieving. “And is it still not going to matter when we’re on tour and every five minutes somebody’s bumping into you backstage or grabbing you for a hug or trying to wrestle with you like normal?”

Just the thought makes Bren shudder; the smug look on Ryan's face means he probably noticed her reaction. And fuck, but she is fed up with Ryan, seriously. She is, if it’s possible, more fed up than when he kept getting on her about the lyrics to Lying and how her vocal interpretation wasn’t gritty and dirty enough. She’s more fed up than when they were recording and every fucking thing she did was never right or perfect or more than just ‘okay’. She’s so fed up, so fed up of him thinking he has any right to this or to her when it’s her problem and it’s her life and he wasn’t even the one who was attacked.

“Bren,” Ryan says slowly, and she realizes she’s shaking like she just shotgunned a can of Red Bull and inhaled a pack of Pixie Stix.

He reaches out to touch her, a hand on her sleeve or maybe her shoulder, he’s got a freakishly long reach, he could probably do it, but Bren leans back and shakes her head and says, “no, don’t.”

They stare at each other for a long minute, the ambient noise of their surroundings muted by the tension around them. Finally Ryan pulls his arm back and ducks his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and the words are quiet and sincere. “I’m sorry I told Spencer. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Bren thinks maybe he should be apologizing for something else, but then, it’s possible that he is. Ryan’s rarely straightforward. His words get lost; Bren’s seen it happen, the way he starts to ramble in circles and can’t find a way to say what he means, or the way he says one thing and means something else. She stares at him so long that he slants a glance up at her through his eyelashes and he looks . . . fuck, he looks hurt and scared, like she’s going to just tell him to fuck off forever.

For a minute, Bren thinks about it, about telling Ryan what a jerk he is and how much she wishes he would leave her alone for the next week and a half. It would make it easier if she didn't have to see him and feel her stomach clench with all of the feelings she's constantly at war with. Instead she looks away, watches a kid in baggy jeans and a faded t-shirt browsing the magazine racks.

She says, “I’m not.”

“Not what?” Ryan asks, and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m not okay, I promise.”

When she looks at Ryan again, his lips are twisted up in a grin. He raises his eyebrows and says, “way to drop a random My Chemical Romance reference into the conversation.”

Bren shrugs easily and says, “do I get any scene points?”

Ryan says, “yeah, five thousand scene points for you.”

The smile they share is a little painful, but it’s something.

_._

“So, did you two finally make up?”

Spencer’s not looking at Bren. He’s too busy carefully opening a bag of popcorn, trying not to burn his fingers. Bren shrugs from where she’s trying to figure out how to balance three soda cans, a bag of Doritos and a package of Oreos in her arms.

“I guess so,” she says.

The truth is, it’s been three days since Bren and Ryan reached whatever point they’d been struggling toward together. Bren’s pretty convinced it’s not over because sometimes Ryan still looks at her like he wants something, something she’s afraid to give, but at least they’re talking now. Bren is maybe even prepared to stop mentally referring to him as Ryan the Asshole or That Dick Ryan.

Spencer hums and pours the popcorn into a bowl.

“You know we don’t blame you or whatever,” he says, the words so off-hand they could be talking about anything.

Bren knows what he means, though, and exactly what he’s referring to. She wants to bang her head against the edge of the counter just to avoid having this conversation, or any permutation of this conversation, ever.

“It’s okay, Spence, really,” she says, staring at the items spread out in front of her so that she doesn’t have to look over at him.

“It’s not okay,” Spencer says, and he sounds so pissed that she has to glance over and make sure it’s not directed at her.

He’s glaring at the bowl in front of him, though, the empty bag hanging limp between his fingers.

“What-”

“It’s bullshit that you had to deal with that,” Spencer says, cutting her off and turning to stare at her. “And it’s bullshit that none of us were there to stop it. It’s just . . . it’s bullshit, Bren. It’s not fair.”

Spencer has little sisters. He has a mom who raised him to respect women, to love them, and it's never been a big deal before. He holds the door open for Bren all the time and pesters Ryan to treat his girlfriends like ladies even when they don't deserve it. His voice is high and cracks a little over the words like <i>he's</i> hurt over what happened and Bren feels her heart clutch in her chest. He gets it, she thinks, and that scares her more than she would have thought.

“Nothing happened,” Bren says slowly. “Okay, Spencer? I got away. Ryan showed up and I got away so it’s not a big deal.”

Spencer stares at her and then huffs out a sigh. “God, no wonder he’s pissed at you. Do you really believe that?”

Bren clenches her jaw involuntarily and turns back to the task of transporting unhealthy foods to the den. She doesn’t answer and Spencer doesn’t say anything else. He just picks up the bowl and walks past her, pausing to grab one can of soda. He’s just inside of her personal space bubble and for a moment Bren thinks of Ryan and hopes that Spencer isn’t going to start playing his game. He moves on, though, taking another step before speaking.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, okay? That’s all I’m trying to say. Ryan and I don’t blame you. We never would and if we ever did, you’d have my permission to kick us both in the balls.”

Bren’s eyes sting a little as she finally manages to figure out the best way to move everything downstairs without losing a can or the chips or the cookies on the way. She doesn't want to think about Ryan right now. Things are getting better between them. She looks at him and it still hurts, how confused he makes her feel, but it's getting better. If she has to think about him and about all of the things that are fucked up between them, it'll stop all their progress in its tracks. She sucks in a sharp breath and can't help the words that slip out anyway.

“Ryan called me stupid,” she says, carefully tucking the soda cans in the crooks of her arms and grabbing the bag of Doritos in one hand, the Oreos in the other. "Right after. He said I'm stupid."

“Ryan wanted to kick the shit out of that guy for hurting you,” Spencer tells her. “I think he was freaked out. And pissed. And an idiot.”

“And a dick,” Bren adds, turning and stepping next to him.

Spencer smiles and says, “yeah, that too.”

Bren smiles back and looks up to see Ryan poking his head into the kitchen. His hair is touseled from where he was probably lying on the couch and his lips look wet because he's currently obsessed with this vanilla flavored lipgloss he bought at Target. It sort of doesn't matter that they're slowly fixing everything. She still misses him so much it makes her ache all over.

“Did you two get lost or something, what the fuck, I’m hungry,” he says, and Bren snaps out of it, rolling her eyes and rattling the bag of chips.

“Help me carry some of this, asshole,” she says, catching Ryan’s eye and holding his gaze until his lips quirk up and he reaches out to take some of what she was holding.

“Pushy,” he says, and Spencer laughs and brushes past both of them.

“Whatever, you like it when girls boss you around,” he teases, and Ryan’s look of indignation is enough to make Bren laugh harder than she has in weeks.

fic - patd - wasn't prepared for this

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:58:49 GMT

wasn't prepared for this
lady_deathangel ~*~ 1,944 words ~*~ PG-13 ~*~ mentions of Bren/Audrey, past Ryan/Jac, vaguely implied Bren/Ryan

||Disclaimer: This is in no way real. Don't read if you googled yourself and this came up on the first page, you won't like it.

Whoo, so remember how I started writing this awesome 'verse where Brendon's a girl and shenanigans ensue? Well, this is an extension of that 'verse for the lovely pressdbtwnpages who I love muchly. I've been wanting to write more about Bren for ages and her prompt finally got me writing, so thanks sweetie! This takes place during all the wrong reasons - post Ryan and Jac's breakup, before Bren and Audrey's. Title from the Eisley song of the same name. ||

Right Where It Belongs
One
Two
Three

Ryan’s bent over his pedals again, face screwed up in an expression of sheer frustration. His fingers are gripping the neck of his guitar a little too hard and Bren can’t stop staring at the whiteness of his knuckles. He’s been tense for a while, short-tempered and a little hard to be around. Bren’s pretty sure it’s a combination of new tour nerves and residual anger over how things ended with Jac; Ryan keeps starting fights over possible covers and making thinly veiled comments about his ex so it’s not hard to figure out.

Bren just wishes she could help, but Ryan’s keeping her at arm’s length and she’s got her own problems to deal with, her own set of nerves and her own girlfriend.

Ryan sighs loud enough for Bren to hear from a few feet away, and she’s about to go over and see if she can help when a tech beats her to it. He doesn’t look like much, with his short hair and smallish frame. He doesn’t have any visible tattoos or piercings and he’s wearing flip-flops. Bren figures he’s probably with William and his band since a guy like this probably wouldn’t be caught dead doing tech work for anyone any more hardcore than that.

He smiles at Ryan with a wide-open, sweet face, and Ryan blinks back and offers a small smile of his own. Bren narrows her eyes and watches as the tech leans down over Ryan’s pedals, works some kind of magic, and fixes the problem. The tension immediately leaks out of Ryan’s thin body, his fingers relaxing a little, his forehead smoothing out.

The tech says something, a little quiet, and Ryan answers back. Bren wishes she could hear what they have to say, but they’re talking in near-whispers, like they’re sharing secrets or something. The tech just keeps grinning up at Ryan through his lashes, even when he gets to his feet, and Ryan’s smiling back. Actual smiles, even, not the thin-lipped shit he’s been gracing Bren with for the last couple weeks.

Bren knows she’s being unfair because it’s not like Ryan’s only been a jerk to her or Spencer or Brent for the last few weeks. He’s just been more noticeably prickly, harder to get to relax, way less fun to be around. And here’s some stranger doing something that takes a huge amount of effort from everyone but Spencer. Ryan’s still smiling, talking a little more animatedly. Bren can just pick up the even tone of his voice, can hear the tech’s answers in soft rises and falls.

She tears her eyes away and frowns to herself before stalking off stage to find Brent and Spencer for soundcheck.

_._

Bren isn’t one for irrationally hating anyone and she certainly doesn’t hate the guitar tech (whose name, apparently, is Jon). She’s just a little jealous, is all. Ryan talks about him in glowing tones, keeps telling the story of how “Jon Walker saved my life, can we keep him?”, and for the next two days keeps finding him backstage so they can talk about music or magazines or whatever it is Jon is so very knowledgeable about.

“I don’t like him,” Bren tells Spencer one afternoon.

She’s tuning her guitar, because she can do those things without the amazing tech’s help, and Spencer’s staring at her like she’s grown another head.

“Who? Jon?”

Bren shrugs and Spencer crouches down into her line of sight. She keeps her eyes determinedly on the frets of the guitar until Spencer pokes her in the nose and coaxes her gaze upward.

“What?” she asks, sounding a little petulant.

Spencer just raises his eyebrows in that way he has, and Bren feels herself flush a little self-consciously.

“He’s just so. I mean. I don’t see the appeal, that’s all,” she says, frowning.

“Maybe you should try talking to him,” Spencer says. “He’s William’s favorite guy ever and he’s Tom’s best friend and Ryan thinks he’s cool.”

Bren sighs and taps her fingers against the body of her guitar.

“He thinks you’re cute,” Spencer adds, his voice lilting in a little bit of a tease.

“Flattery will get him nowhere,” Bren announces haughtily, but Spencer just leans forward to bump their foreheads together.

“He’s really nice, Bren. And he’s not trying to steal Ryan, okay?”

Bren sputters but Spencer just smiles knowingly, straightens up, and walks away.

_._

Bren is a little drunk. Not much. Or at least, everyone else on The Academy’s bus has her beat by a lot. She’s just buzzed, her words a little thick in her mouth, her laughs tingling pleasantly in her tummy. She feels warm and weightless and happy and she likes the feeling a lot. She should do this more often, drinking with the guys.

“You’re always welcome here,” Tom says, and Bren realizes a few seconds too late that she was talking out loud.

Oh well.

“Good,” she says, smiling broadly and tilting the neck of her beer bottle in Tom’s direction. “That’s good.”

“What’s good?” someone asks from just outside of Bren’s line of sight.

She swivels her head around and sees Jon standing above her and Tom, bottle of whiskey in hand, smile in place. She blinks and tries to remember why this isn’t a good thing, but she can’t so she just shrugs and smiles back.

“I don’t know,” she says, giggling a little.

“You’re cute when you’re drunk,” Jon says, sitting next to her and she makes a face.

“I’m not drunk,” she says, and Tom nods.

“True. You’re not drunk until you let Andy talk you out of your clothes.”

Bren laughs loudly and claps a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Tom grins at her and she swallows the rest of her laughter.

“I need another beer,” Tom says, standing up.

He leaves and Bren can’t remember if she wants to be alone with Jon or not, but she is now and he’s just watching her with careful eyes. She twists her torso so she’s facing him on the small lounge sofa.

“So,” she says, and then forgets what she wanted to say.

“So,” Jon says back.

Bren, she’s really not that drunk so she doesn’t get why she can’t figure out how to talk right now, why her brain’s turned to Swiss cheese. She bites her lip.

“I don’t like you,” she blurts out, and Jon just blinks. “I mean,” she goes on, “I don’t not like you. I barely know you, you know? But Ryan really likes you. I think I’m jealous.”

It takes a moment for the words to catch up to her, and as soon as they do Bren wants to run away and hide. But Jon just looks thoughtful.

“Okay,” he says slowly.

Bren stares at him. “Okay?” she repeats, and he nods, turning to face her more fully.

“I think we should get to know each other. You can forget about Ryan for a second, can’t you?”

Bren shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think so,” she admits, and Jon smiles. It’s small, but it’s honest and warm.

“Well, try?”

For a moment Bren wants to be stubborn and insist that she can’t and she doesn’t want to know Jon, doesn’t want to see how awesome and amazing he is. But she nods anyway and thrust her hand out in front of her.

“I’m Brendoline Urie, I hate my first name, and I sing in a band,” she says. “I’m also a little drunk,” she adds.

Jon grins and takes her hand in his, giving it a firm shake.

“I’m Jonathan Walker, I have a cat named Dylan, I tech for a band, and I totally didn’t notice.”

Bren giggles for no real reason and it’s a few beats before Jon lets go of her hand. She blushes a little when she takes it back and Jon taps his fingers against her knee. The touch resonates in her bones even through the denim of her jeans. She’s beginning to wonder if Jon’s magic or something, the way he makes Ryan smile and takes away Spencer’s suspicions and has her tingling more sharply than the vodka she drank earlier.

“That’s a good start,” he says, and Bren nods in agreement.

“Yeah, yeah you’re not so bad,” she says with a sloppy wink.

_._

“I hear you like Disney,” Jon says, and Bren looks up from her Gameboy.

“Um,” she says, looking around for whoever might have spilled her secret.

She decides it was probably Spencer because of the way he won’t look up from the book he’s reading a few feet away.

“Do you have any on your iPod?” Jon continues, and Bren finally looks at him.

His eyes are the same warm color as always, his mouth relaxed and barely smiling. He’s not teasing. He’s serious, and from the way he’s tapping his hand against his thigh, Bren thinks he might be a little nervous. She doesn’t see why; they haven’t talked since the other night, but she’s pretty sure they bonded over Coronas with limes.

“Yeah,” she says slowly, scooting over to make room for Jon next to her.

She grabs her iPod from her hoodie pocket and starts scrolling through her music for the right folder. Jon leans in close, pausing before Bren angles her body toward him so he can lean in a bit more. He’s warm, a nice solid weight against her side. He smells nice, a little girly but it somehow fits. Bren frowns to herself and tries to ignore him long enough to pull up all of her Disney albums.

“I don’t have much,” she says but Jon doesn’t hear. He’s too busy making an excited sound, snatching the iPod out of her hands and selecting a song.

Bren raises her eyebrows when he carefully places the earbud in her ear and takes the other for himself. There’s a tiny moment of silence and then a familiar song starts up.

“This is my favorite!” Jon says when she looks over at him, wide-eyed.

In their connected ears the familiar strains of Aladdin’s soundtrack have started up and Bren can’t help the fact that she’s already bouncing in her seat.

“No shit! Mine, too!”

It’s hard to be self-conscious with Disney playing and Bren forgets where she is and who she’s with in favor of singing along and it takes her a few seconds to realize she’s not alone. Jon’s singing with her, voice a little more hesitant than hers until he catches her eye. And then he makes a ridiculous face and sings a little louder, exaggerating the words. Bren laughs and matches him word for word, wild gesture for wild gesture.

It isn’t until they’ve gone through the entire album (and “A Whole New World” twice), that Bren realizes she’s practically sitting in Jon’s lap. Jon doesn’t try and push her away, though. He just smiles, eyes crinkled at the corners, and says, “so, you’ve got the most awesome Disney soundtrack ever, but do you have any Beatles on here?”

Bren rolls her eyes. “Do I!” she exclaims, taking her iPod back and settling a little more loosely against Jon’s side.

He lets her nestle close without batting an eye or copping a playful feel and then he sings “Here Comes The Sun” in her ear when she picks the song out first. Bren doesn’t really get it yet, why Ryan loves Jon so much. But she’s maybe a little in love with him herself and it’s surprising but she smiles to herself and lets him pick the next song and thinks it makes a weird sort of sense.

A Million Ways To Fall - The Masterlisting

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:02:54 GMT

A Million Ways To Fall

lady_deathangel ~*~ 55,069 words ~*~ NC-17 ~*~ language, sexual situations, some drug use, mpreg ~*~ Brendon/Shane, Ryan/Brendon, Ryan/Brendon/Shane, Brendon/OMC, Spencer/Haley, Jon/Cassie, Ryan/Keltie, implied others

Disclaimer: This is absolutely and utterly false. Boys can't have babies. If you found this by googling yourself or your famous friends, you definitely don't want to read this. It will only scar you for life. I mean no harm. Please don't hurt me.

||Wow. That's about all I have to say about this. This is the longest thing I have ever written in my life and it was an absolute joy to complete. I enjoyed every single moment of working on this fic from start to i dotting, t crossing finish. And to think, it started as an impulsive paragraph that spiraled off into this monster of a story.

After almost four straight months of working on this fic, I don't even know what to say about it. I'm proud of myself for finishing it and I'm proud of it for what it is. I'd like to thank the organizers of this amazing Big Bang - airgiodslv, foxxcub, jocondite, maleyka, and shoemaster. You guys have been unfailingly fabulous in putting this together and I can't tell you how awesome I think you are for giving bandom it's very own Big Bang.

Thanks to ecarnation for a fantabulous beta. Without her, this fic would be a hot, hot mess and I would have been an even bigger mess trying to self-edit all on my lonesome. You're a life-saver my dear!

Thanks ever so to my Starshine, who was there from the first two paragraphs listening to me babble about this one time when Brendon has sex with this dude and gets pregnant, omg, should this be my big bang? She said yes, so I wrote and wrote and wrote and she was always there for me to post snippets to, to bounce ideas off of, and to keep me going when I was dragging ass. Without her, this experience would not have been nearly as fun and exciting as it was. Thanks so much, darling.

Thanks to the small handful of people who caught a glimpse of this ages ago when I posted a snippet unfiltered and then locked it up. I have exactly one comment and a couple of IMs from you that made me feel like maybe an mpreg wouldn't be a fruitless venture into crack-land. You all really tapped into the heart of this story immediately and inspired me to keep on keeping on.

Thanks to adorkable37 for the fanmix. It made me cry because of all the ways in which it is absolutely perfect and I'm so happy to have it as a soundtrack to Brendon's story.

I truly hope that this fic is more than just a tale about a pregnant boy, because it was much more than that to me as I wrote it. Thanks to everyone who reads these stories and who encourages us all to write. You're lovely and every word that you read and enjoy makes this even more worth it. It wouldn't be as fun without you. ||

The Fic

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI

The Fanmix

A Million Ways To Fall by adorkable37

A Million Ways To Fall - The Fanmix

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:06:51 GMT

Author's Notes (though the technical term may be GLEEFACE)

There are so many things that I adore about this mix, and I've listened to it so many times to try and pinpoint all of them.

On my first listen through, what I loved the most was the way the sound seems to mature from the first track through to the last, much like the characters in the story do. On subsequent listens through, I just loved the feeling that the different songs manage to evoke and how those feelings and those songs really do enhance the story. As I listen to it now, while I'm putting all of this together to post, I still love all of those things but I'm struck by how the songs can reflect the emotion of the story without all sounding exactly the same.

adorkable37 took some chances with this, I think, but they all pay off. I really do recommend not just downloading this mix for some great music (and there is some great music here), but to listen to along with the story. It's a lovely mix on its own, but as a part of A Million Ways To Fall, it's truly beautiful.

Thank you so much, hon, for putting this together for me. And thanks to everyone who listens! Don't forget to tell her it's fabulous if you think so.

The Show Must Go On - Queen
Intro Amelie J'y Suis Jamais Alle - Newfound Glory
Lover I Don't Have To Love - Bright Eyes
Hang Me Up To Dry - Cold War Kids
Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails
Perfect - The Smashing Pumpkins
You've Got to Learn to Live With What You Are - Ben Folds
Keep The Mood - Empires
Trouble - Coldplay
Same - Snow Patrol
Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
Strange&Beatiful (I'll Put A Spell On You) - Aqualung
The Beautiful Letdown - Switchfoot
Bad Dream - Ben's Brother
Wonder - Megan McCauley
Strange - The Feeling
Pioneers - Bloc Party
Tonite Reprise - The Smashing Pumpkins
Love Will Come Through - Travis
You'll Never Be the Sun - The Trio

Download includes all 20 tracks plus the cover art above! Click me.

A Million Ways To Fall - The Master Listing

or go straight to

A Million Ways To Fall - Part I

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. XI

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:03:54 GMT

Brendon had been tossing and turning for what felt like hours trying to get comfortable. On top of the increase in Things to Worry About, his body was aching and the baby was restless. Theresa and Dr. Pierson assured him this was normal, but as much of a relief as that was, it still sucked.

He eventually gave up trying to sleep and found Keltie in the lounge, nursing a cup of tea. She smiled softly when she saw him and patted the free bit of couch next to her. Brendon sat down and couldn’t think of anything to say in the quiet of morning, so he didn’t say anything. She sipped her tea and he rubbed his belly (finally his baby seemed to realize it was too early to be on the move) and they sat in companionable silence.

“Ryan told me he talked to you,” Keltie said after a moment.

Brendon blinked over at her. She didn’t look upset, exactly, just a little resigned.

“It was more of a fight than a conversation,” Brendon said and Keltie snorted.

“That sounds about right. He can’t ever say the important things unless he’s arguing about them.” She paused and added, “we broke up. Or went on a break. Or, you know, whatever the cool kids are calling it these days.”

Brendon flinched and fought the urge to curl into himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Keltie looked up quickly and shook her head. “Oh, hey, no. It’s not your fault. I mean, I was mad at you for a long time, I think. Or jealous. I don’t know. Just . . . it was always you. That’s not your fault.”

Brendon frowned and looked down at his hands on the gigantic swell of his stomach. “Still. I never meant for you guys to break up or anything.”

“Yeah, well, he needs the chance to figure some things out, you know? And I love him. I love him so fucking much it hurts sometimes. But that’s part of life, I guess.” She caught Brendon’s eye and smiled. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be okay.”

She looked sad but beneath that she looked like she always did: strong and optimistic and still happy, somehow. It made Brendon’s heart ache a little.

She hesitated before setting her cup of tea aside and nodding at Brendon’s belly. “Can I?” she asked, and Brendon nodded.

They shifted on the couch so that she could curl up with her head on his stomach. She curled one hand around the swell and spoke so softly Brendon could only make out a few sentences.

“I get it,” she said, “why he would love you.”

Brendon bit his lip and said, “I always knew why he would choose you.”

She looked up at him, eyes sparkling, and went back to murmuring quietly to the baby. After a while, it started to move, dancing, almost, to the cadence of Keltie’s voice.

That was how Ryan found them a bit later. Brendon looked up to see him standing in the doorway, his face open and lovely in spite of the way it made Brendon’s stomach hurt. He just stared at them for the longest time. Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought Keltie probably sensed him in the doorway. She didn’t look up, though, just kept talking in the same low voice. A moment later, Ryan turned on his heel and left. Brendon closed his eyes and let Keltie’s murmurs lull him to sleep.

_._

Exactly thirteen hours before Brendon officially went into labor, Shane came back. Nobody had seen him since January and they certainly weren’t expecting him to show up at the birth center. Brendon had pretty much given up hope that Shane was going to magically show back up period; he was mostly (but not really) okay with that.

He was playing cards with Spencer and Haley, trying desperately to get comfortable again, when they all heard Jon’s raised voice outside the lounge and coming closer.

The muffled words became clear just as the door swung open.

“- not kidding, get the fuck out,” Jon said and it took Brendon a handful of seconds to register the fact that Shane was standing in the doorway.

He didn’t look good. His hair was mussed, his eyes rimmed with circles of exhaustion. He stared at Brendon and Brendon stared back but neither of them said anything. Ryan and Keltie ran into the room but Brendon barely registered them.

“What’s he doing here?” Ryan asked Jon before spinning on Shane. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Jon said, voice hard, “but if he doesn’t leave soon I think we should call the police.”

“Nobody’s calling the police,” Spencer said with a soft sigh. “Come on, let’s give them a minute.”

He stood up, Haley on his heels, and ushered a reluctant Ryan and Jon out with Keltie’s help. Brendon and Shane still didn’t move and they didn’t say anything. There was too much to say, too many questions to ask, for it to be easy.

Eventually, Shane closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“You said that already,” Brendon pointed out, “and I told you it was okay.” He paused and added, “you didn’t come home.”

Shane nodded and didn’t respond. Brendon felt every single shred of hurt and anger and fear he’d suffered through since Shane had disappeared rush to the surface and he picked up the nearest solid object, a book of Ryan’s that was still on the coffee table, and threw it at Shane’s head. He missed, of course, because he had bad aim and wasn’t really trying that hard anyway.

Shane blinked, rapidly, when the book connected with the wall behind him.

Brendon glared and said, “you’re such an asshole.”

“I know,” Shane said a little desperately. “I was trying to fix it or make it better.”

“You didn’t need to do that. I was fucked either way, but . . . you should have come back. You should have stayed.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Shane said.

Brendon squeezed his eyes shut and said, “it’s too late for that.”

He opened his eyes again when he heard movement and frowned when he saw Shane heading for the exit.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going this time?” Brendon demanded.

Shane stopped in his tracks and turned around. Brendon held out a hand.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not glad that you came back,” he said, and Shane hesitated before taking a step forward, reaching out and fitting his fingers against Brendon’s palm.

Brendon tugged and Shane fell onto the couch next to him. They settled comfortably against each other and Shane tucked his face into the crook of Brendon’s neck. Neither of them moved for a while. They were too busy soaking up each other’s warmth, too busy breathing.

_._

The contractions started during the night when Brendon was asleep with Shane curled up behind him in a way that was painfully, wonderfully familiar. There was a tiny flash of pain and a tightness in his belly; the sensations jolted Brendon awake. He was almost asleep again, convinced it was a false alarm, when he felt it again. He swallowed hard before prodding Shane awake.

“I think you need to go get Dr. Pierson,” he said when Shane mumbled groggily at him.

Shane sat up quickly and looked down at Brendon in the dark of the room. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

Brendon nodded and winced at another low-centered spasm. “Yeah,” he said breathlessly, “I’m just, you know, having a baby.”

Shane bolted out of bed at that and Brendon got carefully to his feet. Walking helped a little, helped him remember to keep breathing even though he was pretty sure a panic attack would be pretty awesome right then.

“Hey,” Spencer panted, racing into the room with Jon and Ryan at his heels. “Shane woke us up.”

Jon walked over to Brendon’s side and paced with him for a few steps. “You okay?” he asked. Brendon slanted a glance up at him and Jon snorted. “Right, but other than going into labor are you okay?”

Brendon sucked in a breath and nodded. He was afraid to speak so he just kept walking around the room, rubbing his belly, while Jon, Spencer and Ryan watched him.

“What about you guys?” Brendon asked in a lull between contractions. He stopped in front of where they were all sitting on his bed, pressed close from shoulders to hips.

“Fine,” Ryan said, but his voice was a little thin.

“Good,” Jon said.

“This is really happening,” Spencer said, eyes wide.

He looked up at Brendon and maybe it hit them all at the same time that Brendon was having a baby because all of a sudden the room was tense. Ryan, Brendon was sure, was barely breathing. Someone had to do something about that, but before he could say anything, another contraction hit. Brendon picked up the pace again, muttering to himself that it would be fine, it would be okay, he could totally do this, he and his baby could so do this.

A few minutes later, Dr. Pierson and Theresa entered the room with Shane behind them. Shane peered over their shoulders worriedly and Brendon gave him a small smile.

“So,” Dr. Pierson said, clapping his hands together, “it’s baby time!”

Brendon and Jon shared a look and started laughing. It broke the tension a little and Brendon figured Dr. Pierson’s levity was a sign of confidence. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.

“Let’s get you to the birthing room,” Dr. Pierson continued, beckoning Brendon forward.

He looked over his shoulder at Jon, Spencer and Ryan. When he reached out behind himself, Ryan grabbed his hand and let himself be tugged to standing. Jon and Spencer followed. They made their way out of the room; Brendon grabbed Shane on the way and squeezed both of them tight when another contraction hit on the way. Keltie and Haley tacked on to their silly little parade halfway down the hall, smiling encouragingly at Brendon the whole time.

They had to separate; Brendon got settled in a bed surrounded by doctors and nurses and shiny, scary-looking equipment while everyone got into their scrubs.

Dr. Pierson stood at Brendon’s side and patted his shoulder. “Ready?” he asked.

Brendon shook his head and said, “yeah. Yes.”

Afterward, Brendon would remember everything moving in slow motion. He would remember pain and he would remember being terrified. He would remember the clinical, confident voices of the doctors and the calming, steady voices of Jon and Spencer. He would remember the feel of Shane holding one hand while Ryan held the other and he would remember the rest in bits and pieces that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense later.

It was scary. At times it was a little touch-and-go. It always, always hurt so bad that Brendon yelled and screamed and waited for it to be over. And in the end, it was worth it. Because in the end, Brendon gave birth to a baby boy who wailed incredibly loud, full of life from his first breath, and that was the only part Brendon would remember with breathtaking clarity: hearing that sound for the first time and then, after everything was finished and he’d been sewn up, holding his baby for the first time.

A nurse placed Brendon’s son carefully in his arms and Brendon had never felt more simultaneously powerful and useless in his life. He’d given birth to the tiny life in his arms, had somehow gotten them both through nine terrifying months, and he was so scared of fucking up that his throat got tight. All of that paled in comparison to the way his heart constricted when his baby’s wide, blue eyes blinked up at him. Brendon fell in love at first sight and he was never going to forget the way that felt, either, the rush of warmth, the weightlessness, the overwhelming strength of it.

He sat in the quiet of the room and basked in it, forgetting his soreness and his nerves, focusing just on his baby, his son, lying in his arms. Brendon kissed his baby’s cheeks and nose and didn’t even care that the nurses in the room could see him cry.

Ryan, Spencer and Jon were the first ones in a bit later. Brendon was humming quietly, a song he barely knew but that he remembered from when he had first heard Jon singing it. Jon looked a little surprised, but he couldn’t stop smiling, either, so it was hard to tell.

“He’s perfect,” Brendon said softly. “I already checked. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Everything present and accounted for.”

“And you?” Spencer asked, eyes darting from the baby’s quiet, peaceful face to Brendon’s.

“I feel kind of like I was hit by a truck,” Brendon answered. “But I’m pretty perfect, too.”

Spencer beamed at him, relieved, and sat in the chair next to his bed. Jon perched gingerly at the foot of Brendon’s bed.

“What’s his name?” he asked, eyes glued to the baby.

Brendon had been tossing around name ideas in his head for a while. He’d avoided learning the sex of the baby every time the option had come up, but he’d narrowed it down pretty easily even without knowing.

“Freddie Ellington,” he said, and Jon groaned.

“He is gonna get the shit kicked out of him every day for the rest of his life,” he said with a small laugh.

Brendon made a face at him. “Watch your language, heathen,” he shot back quietly.

Jon made a face back and Brendon laughed, looking up when Ryan walked to the head of the bed and stared down at the both of them.

“I think it kind of fits,” Ryan said, and Spencer said, “you would,” with a soft grin.

Ryan reached out with a hesitant hand to brush his fingers over Freddie’s forehead. The baby scrunched his face a little but didn’t stir any more than that. Brendon looked up at Ryan.

“Want to hold him?” he asked, and Ryan bit his lip before nodded.

Brendon transferred his baby to Ryan carefully. Ryan looked scared out of his mind to be holding such a tiny, fragile life, but he got used to it quickly and rocked Freddie gently.

“He’s so small,” Ryan breathed, and Brendon just smiled because yeah.

Eventually Spencer stood up and walked around to stand at Ryan’s side and gaze down at Freddie. He had the softest look on his face, the brightest, sunniest smile.

“He’s beautiful, Bren,” Spencer said, and Brendon felt like he was glowing with pride and joy and now that made sense, why his mom used to call him that.

My pride and joy, she used to say, and Brendon wondered if maybe one day he’d get to introduce the two of them.

After a moment, Ryan passed Freddie carefully to Spencer. Spencer held him for a while; his eyes were a little wide and locked on the baby in his arms, his hands steady and gentle. Then it was Jon’s turn. Jon cradled Freddie close, took one look at his face and sighed gustily.

“Oh,” he said softly, “oh, I am going to spoil you forever. We’re totally keeping you.”

Freddie made a small noise and Jon’s face softened like butter and he leaned forward to speak softly to the baby. Ryan perched on the bed next to Brendon’s head and Brendon leaned over, practically falling into Ryan’s lap; he was tired and so unbelievably happy he could barely stand it.

“You did it,” Ryan said quietly.

“Yeah,” Brendon agreed. “I wasn’t sure I would.”

Ryan shrugged and ran his fingers through Brendon’s sweaty, tangled hair. “I was,” he said.

_._

Brendon stayed at the center for another week. Recovering took him a bit longer than it took most women who had just given birth. His body had to make some new adjustments fast, not to mention the part where “giving birth” had actually meant “getting cut open”. He spent the next few days sore and tired, but slowly and steadily his energy began to increase. Without the baby inside, it was like his body realized it could go back to old habits, soon.

“Your ADHD should come in handy now,” Spencer teased. “You and Freddie can keep the same crazy hours.”

Brendon rolled his eyes and rocked Freddie and tried not to worry about things like 3 a.m. feedings. He was nervous enough about taking his son home; thinking about all the stuff that went along with it definitely didn’t help.

Spencer sat next to him and said, “you know you’re not on your own, right? Freddie’s got, like, four other dads to help with late night feedings and sh- stuff.” He glanced around and then added, “Ryan totally volunteers for diaper changing, by the way.”

Brendon relaxed a little and laughed. Freddie made a soft sound and scrunched up his face but, thankfully, didn’t start crying.

“He does not,” Brendon shot back.

Spencer shrugged. “Well I’m sure as hell not doing it,” he said, but they both knew he probably would and Ryan would get the job of testing bottles on the inside of his wrist or something.

It didn’t really matter, though. Jon, Spencer, Ryan and Shane all did their best to help Brendon out at the center and Brendon was pretty sure they already had lists of assigned tasks for when they got out. It was nice to constantly be reminded that he wasn’t in this alone, not by a long-shot.

There were a dozen messages of congratulations waiting for Brendon when he finally got home, including the balloons and cards that had been sent to the birthing center. Pete and Ashlee visited him on his first day back, all smiles.

“How’s fatherhood, dude?” Pete asked.

Freddie was sleeping, so in that moment it was actually pretty awesome. When Brendon answered, Pete and Ashlee shared a look and Pete said, “that’s good. You gonna be willing to give me advice when it’s my turn?”

Patrick showed up later that week with Travis, both of whom were total rockstars with Freddie; he loved them on sight and Ryan laughed, leaned into Brendon, whispered “just like his dad”. Singer, Marshall and Johnson dropped by one afternoon bearing enough caffeine to last Brendon a lifetime, and they came back the next day with Cash, Ian and what looked like half the Disney Store.

“Not all of this is for you, Brendon,” Cash said, waggling a small, plush Tramp in front of Freddie.

Brendon rolled his eyes good-naturedly and let them hold Freddie for a while. They were less panicky about it than Singer had been. The poor guy had nearly had a heart attack and worried the whole time he was going to drop and break Brendon’s baby. Cash and Ian were like pros, cradling Freddie close and making faces at him and cooing. Freddie took to them pretty fast, too.

Tom and Cassie flew out the weekend after Brendon got home (Freddie seemed to adore them which prompted Shane to wonder if there was a pair of arms and a smile Freddie didn’t fall for on sight, to which Ryan just smirked and said, “see? Just like his dad.”); The Academy and The Hush Sound recorded their congratulatory videos and posted them online. A few reporters called wanting the story, and there were insane and huge offers of money for the first baby photos, but Brendon wasn’t really interested in becoming the centerpiece of some gossip rag. Pete managed to hold them off.

It all settled down after a couple of weeks. The outside stuff, at least. Freddie did not settle down. If nothing, he gained momentum, and Brendon started getting less and less sleep. He was pretty much keeping the same hours he’d had before getting pregnant, usually less than that, actually, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t function; he just kind of missed sleeping through the night and those long naps he’d indulged in all the time.

Brendon thought he was pretty good about not complaining, though. He had Shane helping him out, and Ryan and Spencer and Jon who were pretty permanent fixtures around the house. And, most importantly, there was Freddie. It was insane that Brendon could be so in love with one tiny little human being, but it was epic. As harrowing as it got sometimes, as scary and hard to adjust to as the whole situation was, Brendon fell more and more in love every day.

He wasn’t the only one. Freddie had charmed everyone. Jon was constantly taking pictures and Shane was taking home videos that he promised to keep under lock and key this time (it was slow-going, but Ryan, Spencer and Jon were learning to forgive him and that had never been a problem for Brendon in the first place). Ryan and Spencer were both wrapped around Freddie’s tiny, adorable little finger already, buying him more stuff than he could possibly need and hogging him for naps and walks and cooing at him all the time.

Haley was over a lot, too, and she was just as bad. One memorable night in particular, she was holding Freddie close and eyeing Spencer even more closely. She said, “will you freak out if I say that I want one?” and Spencer choked on his own spit.

Keltie had gone back to New York a week after Freddie was born, but she had a few pictures of her own on her myspace. There was one that Brendon loved in particular, of Freddie’s small foot cradled in one of his own hands. The caption underneath it said ‘believe in miracles’ and it reminded Brendon, every time he saw it, of just what a miracle his son really was.

_._

Freddie was lying on his back, gurgling up at nothing, while Brendon and Ryan plucked out aimless melodies on their guitars. Brendon kept glancing over at his son and grinning, his smile widening whenever he caught Ryan doing the same.

“I want Jon’s lullaby on the new album,” Brendon said, stilling his fingers on the neck of the guitar.

Ryan nodded. “I like that one. I’ve been toying around with some lyrics. I don’t know, though, I want you to see them first.”

They shared a long look, Ryan’s gaze careful and earnest. Brendon glanced away and said, “I wrote a song, too. I mean, it’s not finished yet and it doesn’t have to go on the album but I thought you might want to hear it.”

“Does it sound like a showtune?” Ryan asked, voice light.

“Yes, Ryan, I wrote a musical number that I think will blow your face off,” Brendon shot back, deadpan.

Ryan snorted and set his guitar aside. “Alright then, Rockstar, let’s hear it.”

Shane walked into the room and scooped Freddie up into his arms. “New song?” he asked, sitting next to Ryan and bouncing Freddie in his lap.

Ryan glanced over with a soft smile and nodded.

“Spencer’s already heard it and he told me it doesn’t suck so if he lied, you have to let me know so I can kill him,” Brendon said.

“Yeah, yeah, just play it,” Ryan said, holding out his finger for Freddie to grasp and hold on to.

Brendon watched the two of them. There was a gentle look of awed affection on Ryan’s face and a carefree expression of adoration on Freddie’s. Brendon shared a warm smile with Shane over their heads and readjusted the guitar.

When he glanced up, his son beamed at him, bright and happy, tiny feet perched on Shane’s thighs, tiny hand clinging to Ryan; Brendon closed his eyes, still smiling, and played.

Previous

A Million Ways To Fall: The Fanmix

A Million Ways To Fall: The Masterlisting

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. X

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:01:43 GMT

It didn’t matter how much everyone told Brendon not to stress, it was a tense time for all of them. Jon didn’t go back to Chicago when he was supposed to and the closer they got to March and to Brendon’s due date, the less likely it seemed that he would leave at all. His presence was calming and welcome, but Spencer started dropping hints that maybe Jon should look into buying a place in Vegas, which spawned a few awkward silences and late-night phone arguments.

Ryan was reluctant to let Brendon start moving into his own house. He said there was no way Brendon could live alone, not now that he was edging on eight months pregnant. Brendon didn’t really want to leave, but he was afraid to stay, too. Everything was sitting on such a fine balance and he didn’t want to do anything to upset that. He just wasn’t sure if staying would be what tipped the scales, or if leaving would.

Outside of their intimate circle in Vegas, the whole world seemed to be completely obsessed with Brendon and his condition. The interview had printed two and a half weeks after the news first broke. Brendon was candid and honest and Dr. Pierson and Theresa had been available for comment and now that it was out that he was miraculously, seriously pregnant, everyone was paying attention. There were offers from different big-named journalists who wanted to sit down and get an exclusive and there were medical journals and doctors and hospitals and scientists constantly trying to get their hands on Brendon’s case.

The media had exploded in a flurry of speculation about who the father was (something Brendon was keeping secret), what Brendon’s future would consist of, how the band felt about it, how the label felt about it, and on and on. There were people in such a state of shock they were vocally in denial. There were either calling it a cry for attention or a publicity stunt. Others were saying Brendon was nothing but a freak of nature, paying the price for his sexuality.

Anything and everything that could be said was being said and even though Brendon was doing a good job of ignoring it, he couldn’t avoid it completely.

Brendon had unending support from friends and label-mates, which helped. Pete had blogged about how he’d been a dick once before and he wasn’t going to do it again, he was in complete support of Brendon’s decision to have and keep the baby. During an interview about the new album, Bill was asked about how he felt about the situation and he said, quite calmly, that it was really nobody’s business but Brendon’s and he was sickened by the media circus that had jumped on the story.

The Hush Sound and The Cab posted bulletins on their myspaces in support of Brendon and after a series of primetime television specials questioning the validity of Brendon’s condition, all of them bouncing between calling him an attention-whore and a mistake of nature, Travis posted a blog that told everyone to back the fuck off, it was none of their fucking business.

Brendon’s family called once or twice, but he didn’t answer and they didn’t leave messages. In the grandest scheme of things, maybe he shouldn’t have ignored them or they should have tried harder, but Brendon couldn’t bring himself to worry about it. Not with everything else going on and not with his real family doing their best to stand strong by his side.

While Spencer kept Brendon up-to-date on what was happening outside, Jon and Ryan did their best to keep him comfortable inside. It was a little claustrophobic, being trapped in Ryan’s house, but he had no choice; if he left, the chances of being tracked down by reporters and paparazzi increased by a hundred percent. The last thing Brendon wanted to contend with was a bunch of assholes following him around with cameras, selling worthless candids to websites for a profit.

Brendon tried to relax. With Ryan and Jon taking care of him, he didn’t have much to do. He’d been by to see his new house a couple of times, had paid an interior decorator to go wild and make sure it was baby-proofed, but other than that he couldn’t do a whole lot. With his giant belly getting in the way, it was impossible to do anything comfortably, and whenever Brendon sat down to chill out he automatically wanted to have an anxiety attack.

Ryan’s condo was beginning to feel like a prison and the kid gloves his bandmates were handling him with set him on edge. Brendon tried, he really did, to stay calm and zen but having Jon and Ryan worrying over him all the time, with Spencer showing up at random to join in, was getting annoying.

“I’m not gonna break!” Brendon snapped finally, and even though he wanted to tell Jon and Spencer and Ryan, it was only Ryan that he was yelling at because Spencer and Jon were gone on some mystery errand. “Stop smothering me!”

“I only asked if you wanted me to cook dinner or order something in. How is that smothering you?” Ryan asked, arms crossed and face blank.

Brendon frowned. “That’s not the only thing, Ryan. You won’t let me leave the room to take a fucking piss without asking if I’m okay. I can’t leave the house, you’re always right there telling me not to stress out, trying to hold my hand, I can’t take it anymore.”

Ryan blinked at him. “Since when have you had a problem with people invading your space? You’re the clingiest person I know.”

“Since it started to feel like this,” Brendon shot back.

Ryan threw his hands up in the air, his version of a yell, and said, “like what, Brendon, like what?”

“Like I’m a prisoner,” he answered, the closest he could come to nailing down the feeling.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed, that way he had when he was angry and about to say something he might regret, and said, “well that’s not my fault, is it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brendon asked harshly.

“I mean, my boyfriend isn’t the one who sold me out to the fucking media,” Ryan said, voice even.

Brendon sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck you,” he said in a jagged whisper. “He didn’t sell me out-”

“You don’t know that,” Ryan said, still completely placid. “You haven’t even heard from him since it happened, have you? Nobody has.”

It was true, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Brendon bit his lip and felt stupid, stupid for trusting Shane, stupid for still waiting for him, stupid for a lot of things.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Brendon insisted, because it was all he had to cling to right now.

“Why are you still defending him?” Ryan asked, and his calm façade cracked enough for Brendon to see how upset he was.

“Why are you so willing to right him off?” Brendon shot back instead of answering.

He and Ryan stared at each other for a moment and Brendon thought he saw something in Ryan’s eyes that he recognized, but Ryan was looking away before he could put a name to it.

“You know what? If you don’t want me smothering you then you can just get the fuck out of my house. I don’t care.”

Ryan turned and Brendon almost let him go, but his mouth opened before he could help it and he said, “liar.”

Ryan went perfectly, painfully still and Brendon could have stopped, should have stopped, but he was angry and he was hurting and he was so sick and tired of everything that he couldn’t.

“You’re a fucking liar, Ross,” Brendon said.

Ryan finally turned around and this time his eyes were sharp with fear and anger, his face more expressive than Brendon had seen it in a long time. “What do you know about it?” he demanded. When Brendon didn’t answer, he pushed forward. “What the fuck do you know about it, Brendon? Tell me, if you’ve got it all figured out.”

“I didn’t say that, I just said you’re a liar. You care. That’s why you’re doing all this.”

Ryan frowned. “I’m not the only one. Jon and Spencer-”

“It’s not the same,” Brendon said; from the way Ryan winced, he knew he was right. He’d only really been guessing up until now.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s never mattered because it’s not me,” Ryan said quietly.

Brendon blinked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

Ryan looked at Brendon like he was the most frustrating, stupid person he’d ever seen and when he spoke, the words were ripped from the back of his throat. “It’s not me, Brendon. It never has been. I’m not the one living with you and taking care of you. I’m not the one you’re in love with.” He took a step forward and reached out, pressing his fingertips to Brendon’s belly. “It’s not me and I wish it was. I don’t even know what-“ He cut himself off and ducked his head.

Brendon didn’t move even though he wanted to reach out. He felt fragile, like spun sugar, and Ryan looked just as brittle. They stood for a tremulous moment, Ryan’s touch hot even through layers of fabric. The baby rolled a little, resettling, and Ryan drew in a shaky breath.

“I wish it was me,” he whispered, lifting his head and looking at Brendon with everything out there for him to see.

It was a little like being submerged without warning, like someone had put their hand on his head and dunked him underwater and everything that he thought he knew, the way he’d seen and heard it, was suddenly completely different. Duller. Sharper. All at the same time. Ryan looked so vulnerable and there was anguish etched into every line of his face and he was scared, so obviously scared, but overshadowing all of it was the way he looked at Brendon.

That? That was love. And it made Brendon feel breathless and weak in the knees and even after everything he’d wondered and suspected, love like this (pure, unadulterated, powerful) had never been a part of it.

“Keltie,” Brendon said, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

“She knows,” Ryan told him, which drew Brendon up short. “It’s . . . it’s not anything new I just didn’t really get it before. But she did.” He glanced away and added, “you’re the fib tucked into the cookie jar.”

Brendon shook his head, more in disbelief than denial, and curled his fingers around Ryan’s wrist. “You should have said something,” he said.

Ryan lifted his eyes again and screwed up his face into an adorable little pout. “Said what? ‘Hi, I might be a little in love with you but I didn’t realize it until you got knocked up?’”

“Or,” Brendon corrected, “you could have said something before.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Ryan said, but he sounded a little unsure.

In reality, Brendon didn’t know if Ryan was right or not. There was just too much that made it hard to tell, too much between them and too much to them individually. Even now there was too much and they both knew it. It was why Brendon wasn’t pushing, away or forward or in any direction. It was why, Brendon suspected, Ryan wasn’t asking for anything.

“We don’t know that,” Brendon finally said, and Ryan shrugged but a little rueful smile was playing at the corners of his mouth. “I should probably think about moving into my own place,” he added.

Ryan sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Probably a good idea.”

It didn’t feel like it. It felt sort of hollow, really, but it was necessary. Brendon needed some room to breathe and he couldn’t get that here. That didn’t mean he wanted to push Ryan away, though. He wouldn’t ever be able to. They were more to each other than that. Brendon pulled Ryan close and the hug was a little awkward with Brendon’s belly between them, but Ryan tucked Brendon’s head under his chin and held on tight anyway.

Brendon closed his eyes and thought if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with, and then he thought, that never really fit us at all.

_._

It took three days to get Brendon ready to move into the cozy house that was only a couple blocks away from Ryan. It was big enough for Brendon and the baby and Dylan (and Shane, but Brendon was trying to ignore that part), with spacious rooms painted in warm colors. Brendon had fallen in love with it pretty much immediately and he was excited about moving in.

The morning that he and the last of his bags piled into Spencer’s car and drove over to the house was an adventure in and of itself because Ryan took an extra hour to get ready and Jon was sort of ridiculously hyper and wouldn’t stop singing to Brendon’s belly and Spencer was all smiles, which was kind of distracting.

Brendon really should have known something was up.

They pulled up into the driveway and got Brendon’s bags into the house. Everything else had already been delivered and there were boxes everywhere that Brendon wanted to go through and organize, but before his fingers could so much as twitch in their direction, Jon was pulling him upstairs.

“So, like, you know those errands Spence and I have been running?” Jon asked.

Brendon nodded slowly and let Jon tug him in the direction of the room he’d designated as the nursery early on. Jon didn’t say anything more, just grinned and nodded at Ryan and Spencer who skirted around him and threw open the door. There was a loud yell of “SURPRISE!” and everyone ever was standing in a room that had once been painted in a plain cream color but was now fully re-done in pastel purples and soft, delicate grays.

Brendon blinked, trying to take in what he was seeing, and jumped a little when Pete grabbed him in a one-armed hug and said, “you didn’t think you were going to get away without a baby shower, did you?”

It hadn’t honestly occurred to him. Baby showers were for, like, normal pregnancies, not for him. And yet the room was crowded with friends and girlfriends of friends and boyfriends of friends and there was a pile of presents in the middle of the room and there were stuffed animals in the crib that Haley had helped him pick out weeks ago and everyone was smiling at him.

They weren’t freaking out. They weren’t judging, or if they were they weren’t doing it to his face. They honestly didn’t care that he was pregnant and that he might be gay, that he was at least gay enough to have gotten knocked up in the first place. They only cared about him. It was an amazing feeling and Brendon thought, for a second, that he was going to cry. He settled for laughing exuberantly instead and making grabby hands at the presents.

_._

Jon moved in with Brendon, but not before being invited, first. There was a part of Brendon that didn’t want to do it, but things were starting to get a little scary again. He was far enough along in the pregnancy that the ability to predict what would happen and when was slimming down even further. It was stupid for him to live alone and with Keltie back in town for a while, Brendon felt like he ought to give her and Ryan some space.

It was, apparently, a good idea.

“Something’s up with those two,” Jon said on his first night in Brendon’s place. “You could cut the tension with a knife. Like, literally. You want a slice? Because I can go back and wrap one up for you.”

Brendon snorted and tried not to feel guilty. It was difficult. He felt like it was his fault and he hated that, hated that Ryan and Keltie couldn’t just be happy and carefree like before. He was afraid, too, of Ryan going back to the way he was before he allowed himself to be loved. He was afraid of what would happen if Keltie hated him for causing all of this. Brendon thought it was a little weird that he was so concerned about that of all things, but he couldn’t help it. He liked her a lot.

Eventually, because his moping was starting to make Jon drop hints about going to live with Spencer, instead, who was apparently the only one of Jon’s bandmates who wasn’t in the middle of some kind of crisis, Brendon spilled the whole story. From beginning to end, he told Jon about his crush on Ryan and about sleeping with Dan-or-Dave and about sleeping with Shane the first time and then the second time and finally about Ryan and their fight and how it hadn’t really resolved anything.

“So basically,” Jon said slowly, “it’s always been Ryan.”

Brendon nodded. That sounded about right.

“Until,” Jon added, “it was Shane.”

Brendon nodded again. That also sounded about right.

“You never told anybody,” Jon said.

“I wasn’t sure there was anything to tell,” Brendon told him. “I mean . . . I wasn’t gay. I’m still not sure if I am or if I’m bi or what. And, like, I couldn’t tell Ryan. I thought he would hate me.”

“Way to be a douche,” Jon said, and the words barely stung, they were so true.

“I know,” Brendon muttered with a sigh.

“So,” Jon said, sitting back on the couch and pulling Brendon’s feet into his lap. “What now?”

Brendon shrugged and groaned when Jon started to massage one foot. His ankles were so swollen they looked almost as ridiculous as the jeans with the elastic waistband sewn in. Jon’s fingers moving strong and sure over his instep felt like heaven.

“Are you in love with him?” Jon asked.

Brendon bit his lip and said, quietly, “I don’t know. I thought-” He squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t continue.

Jon hummed and paused before asking, “what about Shane?”

Thinking about it hurt a little too much, but Brendon didn’t know if he was in love with Shane. Almost, maybe, but he’d almost been in love with Ryan, too. It was a fucked up, confusing mess.

“I don’t know,” Brendon answered again.

Jon didn’t say anything else about it, and they dropped the subject completely. It didn’t come up again because there were more important things to worry about, like the fact that a week into March Theresa showed up on Brendon’s doorstep and told him he should consider heading to LA so they could monitor him closely in the weeks leading up to his due date.

“As soon as labor starts, we’re going to need to be able to act quickly and there’s no telling if you’ll actually make it to the twenty-second,” she said. “I’ll be with you the whole time and your friends can come to stay with you as well. Anyone you’d like to be present at delivery is welcome.”

Brendon didn’t really want to leave just yet because that made it feel real and he wasn’t prepared for that part of it, for the actual baby part of it. At the same time, he was sort of done with the pregnancy thing. He’d gotten progressively more miserable in the last couple of months and he was tired of feeling clumsy and heavy and achy and tired all the time.

“I think I’m pretty much ready for this baby to be born,” he groused while he packed his bags and watched Jon do the same.

“You say that now,” Jon teased.

They made calls to a few people, namely Pete and Cassie and Tom. Ryan, Keltie, Haley and Spencer met them at Brendon’s place and they packed themselves up into their respective vehicles and drove out to L.A. Spencer and Haley left Boba and Milo with Spencer’s parents; Ryan dropped Hobo off with Pete and Brendon took Dylan to Regan’s. He didn’t linger with her too long even though she looked like she wanted to talk. She didn’t ask about Shane and she didn’t mention that she hadn’t talked to him. She didn’t really need to.

It sucked, but Brendon was slowly forcing himself to get used to the idea that he probably wouldn’t be hearing from Shane for a long time. He wasn’t happy about it, but there wasn’t much he could do.

After getting their pets put up in temporary homes, it was off to the birthing center, Brendon’s home away from home until after he’d had the baby.

It was a cozy little place with rooms and beds for everyone and Dr. Pierson had apparently pulled all sorts of strings to make it safe for Brendon’s delivery.

“We’re taking a risk doing it here instead of a hospital,” he told Brendon when they arrived. “But we’ve taken every precaution and with the way the pregnancy has developed so far, we have every hope that it will go smoothly.”

It was a little nerve-wracking to think that he was so far from an actual hospital, but it was more comfortable at the birthing center and according to Dr. Pierson and the team of nurses he’d brought with him, they had everything and the kitchen sink required to successfully and safely deliver Brendon’s baby. He had no choice but to trust them; doing so was marginally easier than he would have expected.

Pete and Ashlee dropped by a couple of times over the course of the first week. Ashlee cooed over Brendon a lot which both amused him and made him nervous. Pete kept putting a hand on the small of her back and smiling in a way that either meant he wanted to have one of his own, or he liked the way Ashlee lit up whenever she started talking about babies.

Having the two of them visit was nice. Having Jon, Spencer, Ryan, Haley and Keltie around all the time was even better. They ate dinner together and hung out a lot. Brendon was pretty sure they all got high without him when he was taking naps or reading up on last-minute baby stuff. He didn’t mind. They would come back from wherever, giggly and loose, and they’d curl up around Brendon and pet his stomach and help him forget the fact that when he left the center, he’d have a baby with him. His baby, holy fuck.

Obviously Brendon couldn’t put it out of his mind completely. He’d read the books and talked to Theresa and Cassie was always offering advice but he knew he wasn’t ready. He didn’t know how anyone could possibly be ready. He was bound to fuck up and he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hurt or ruin his kid. He didn’t want his baby to ever feel like his parents had been able to make him feel, but Brendon wasn’t a miracle worker. He had no idea what he was doing.

The more he thought about it, the less prepared he felt and the more scared he got. It was hard to sleep, hard not to freak out, and all he could think when his baby kicked and rolled and made its presence known was that he didn’t want to mess up. Please, he thought every time, please don’t let me mess this up.

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. IX

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:51:34 GMT

In Brendon’s experience, life went to shit in one of two ways. It was either a gradual slip-slide into it or it was like a car crash. Brent, that had been a slip-slide, painfully sluggish and impossible to reverse. They’d all watched it happen and they hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. Brendon felt bad, occasionally, over the fact that he didn’t actually feel bad at all. The stress and the fear and the horrible feeling of losing a friend forever had been worth it in the end. It had brought them Jon.

Still, it was horrible to look back on and remember the helplessness that had stretched over the course of whole months while they watched everything fall apart.

Getting pregnant was more like a car crash, unexpected and disorienting. It had come out of nowhere, really, slamming into Brendon’s blindside and catapulting his life into a state of chaos. He was adjusting, but it was still difficult.

Brendon figured, after finding out he was pregnant, there wasn’t much else that could happen to make it worse. No more car crashes, at least not for a while. He was wrong. Of course he was wrong because if there was one other thing about life that he knew, it was that whenever something bad could happen, it did.

He was fighting off the sudden urge to alphabetize his dvd collection (definitely nesting, he thought, watching Dylan gnaw on a new bone) when someone started pounding on the door. He was off the couch and at the door in less than a minute, but Spencer was apparently feeling particularly impatient that day because he started yelling Brendon’s name before he could get the door yanked open.

“What the fuck?” Brendon asked, eyeing Spencer and, behind him, Ryan and Jon. “Not that I don’t love when you pound on my door but-”

“Are you gonna let us in?” Spencer demanded.

Brendon frowned and stepped aside so they could walk in. He didn’t know what was up. He’d planned to go to over to Ryan’s to spend some quality time with him and Jon later, but it wasn’t even noon yet. Usually surprise visits were a good thing, but Brendon was a little freaked out by the looks on their faces and he was pretty sure this wasn’t the usual kind of surprise visit.

“Where’s Shane?” Jon asked, his voice deceptively steady.

Brendon shrugged. “On his way back from that shoot in LA. What’s going on? You’re acting really weird.”

The three of them stood just inside the apartment, shoulder to shoulder, and stared at Brendon. It was beginning to feel a little like a horror movie or something when Ryan’s face softened and he looked away.

“It got out,” he said quietly, and at first Brendon didn’t know what he was talking about.

He glanced at Spencer and Jon for answers. Spencer’s face was carefully devoid of any telling emotion, but Jon’s jaw was clenched and he looked like he wanted to start hitting things. That was how Brendon figured it out, that when Ryan said “it” he meant “you”. Brendon was out. Brendon’s pregnancy was out.

“Okay,” Brendon said slowly, “but nobody believes it, right? It’s just a rumor or something.”

Jon shook his head tightly. “Your home movies leaked,” he said. “All that shit Shane filmed? It’s all over fucking youtube. He fucking sold you out.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Brendon said, and he was proud of himself for keeping his voice from shaking. “We know him. He wouldn’t.”

“Maybe we don’t know him as well as we thought,” Ryan shot back, and he had that look on his face, the one that said he didn’t want to believe what was happening, that his faith in the world had been shattered yet again. The one that he thought made him look resigned and jaded, but just emphasized the hurt.

“We’re not here to fight about Shane,” Spencer said, “we just need to think about damage control at this point.”

“How bad is it?” Brendon asked.

Spencer and Jon shared a look. “Pretty bad,” Jon answered.

He wasn’t kidding. They were violently opposed to the idea of Brendon getting online and seeing for himself, but he needed to know what he was up against. It was all over the internet, links to videos, pictures, blurbs on major websites with quotes from doctors who called it a ‘hoax’ and eyewitnesses who claimed it was all true. The rumors were flying around, everything from Ryan being the baby’s daddy to Brendon having been a post-op transsexual this whole time which would explain away his alleged girlparts.

Brendon was pretty comforted by the fact that it was split 50/50 as to who believed it and who didn’t, but that didn’t change the fact that now that it was out there, the proof in the videos, they were going to have to do something about it.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked.

Brendon blinked and realized he’d been staring at his laptop’s screen for so long it had gone dim. He closed it with a shrug. He was feeling pretty calm about it. Or maybe he was feeling numb. He couldn’t tell.

“Did somebody call Pete?” he asked.

Ryan shook his head. “I’ve got, like, a hundred voicemails, though.”

“And Zack’s been calling me nonstop for the last twenty minutes,” Spencer added.

“Tom texted me earlier to ask why the fuck I didn’t tell him,” Jon said. “I’m guessing Nick talked to Pete who confirmed it.”

Brendon nodded slowly and bit his lip. “We should talk to Pete. And figure something out.”

Spencer, Jon and Ryan were quiet. When he glanced up, they were staring at each other, communicating silently between the three of them.

“Look,” Spencer finally said, reaching out to squeeze Brendon’s knee, “you don’t have to do anything, okay? We can always rent the cabin again, head out there for the next three months, let this blow over and see what happens.”

“We just don’t want you to stress yourself out again,” Ryan added.

Brendon looked between all of them and shook his head slowly. “I can’t run from this,” he said, even though he really wanted to.

“It wouldn’t be running,” Jon said, but it was more of a courtesy than anything.

Brendon shook his head again. “Let’s call Pete, figure out our options.”

_._

Pete was angry, but it was more or less balanced out by a shift into professional mode. He promised them that he’d be in Vegas in a few short hours and mentioned something about making some calls and doing what little damage control he could.

“I hate to say it,” he added before hanging up, “but the only way to head this one off at the pass might be to make a public statement.”

Brendon felt sick at the thought, but he also knew that it would probably be better to confirm some things instead of letting the rumor mill and Perez Hilton be in control of the details. He called Dr. Pierson and Theresa after Pete hung up, just to give them a heads up, and they told him that if he needed to make a statement, they would be willing to help him out with clearing up some of the medical questions that would definitely need answering.

After that, it felt like the four of them were on the phone for hours with different friends and friends of friends and label-mates and whoever else was calling to see what the fuck was going on, was Brendon really pregnant, was that even possible? They talked to some of the people who had already known; all of them offered support and solidarity and said they’d be there for Brendon however they were needed. The sentiment was more than appreciated, and Brendon knew they weren’t exaggerating, but aside from making him feel a little better it didn’t really help.

The whole time that Brendon was fielding calls and fending off an impending panic-attack, he couldn’t stop himself from watching the door like a hawk, waiting for Shane to come home and explain the situation and make everything make sense again. He didn’t. Cash showed up, Ian in tow, and they hung out for a little while.

“We figured you might need some company, what with the explosion of the interweb this morning,” Cash teased, and they were a pretty good distraction during a lull in the action.

They left well after the sun set. Brendon walked them to the door and caught Ian’s wrist before he could leave.

“You haven’t heard from Shane, have you?” he asked.

Ian caught Brendon’s eyes with his own and shook his head slowly. “No, man. If he calls, I will verbally beat his ass for you.”

Brendon huffed out a laugh that was more cursory than anything and Ian sighed before pulling him into a tight hug that Cash quickly jumped in on.

Haley showed up late, when the phones were quiet and the blogs had been reduced to a few tired comments on earlier entries.

“I come bearing sustenance,” she said, brandishing grocery bags. “Or it will be sustenance as soon as I cook it. How are you?”

She looked around at all of them when she asked, but her gaze stopped on Brendon, warm and concerned. Brendon shrugged in answer and watched Spencer roll to his feet and tug Haley into the kitchen, telling her about the day they’d been having and explaining some of the more recent developments. Jon was asleep on the floor, a pillow from the couch under one head and his sidekick resting next to one outstretched arm.

Brendon watched him for a moment and despite everything, he felt really fucking lucky to have his friends with him. He also felt like crying.

“Hey,” Ryan said, sitting down next to Brendon and curling an arm around his shoulders, “you’re handling this pretty well.”

Brendon shrugged and didn’t answer, just let Ryan keep him propped up for a little while.

_._

Nobody left Brendon alone that night. Jon and Ryan shared the couch, Spencer and Haley took Brendon’s bed, and Brendon locked himself in the master bedroom where he stared up at the ceiling above the bed he’d been sharing with Shane for almost a month, exhausted but unable to drift off.

His phone rang sometime in the dead of night, vibrating and lighting up on the nightstand. Brendon took one look at the number and scrambled to answer, but he didn’t know what to say once he got the phone up to his ear.

“Regan call you?” Shane asked, his words slurring just enough to let Brendon know he was either really drunk or really tired or maybe both.

“A little earlier,” Brendon answered.

She’d been worried, about Brendon and about Shane. He’d dropped by her place, early in the day when the shit was first starting to hit the fan, but he’d left before he could explain anything to her. According to Regs, he’d been in pretty bad shape and when Brendon had told her he’d never made it home, she’d been even more freaked out.

“I’m so sorry,” Shane whispered harshly. “I didn’t do it on purpose, you know that, right? It wasn’t me. I just, I had some of the tapes with me when I came out here and somebody got their hands on them and-”

“It’s okay,” Brendon soothed, because he’d been waiting all day to hear from Shane, to get some kind of explanation and even though he was still a little angry and hurt and going crazy over all of this, that was all he’d needed.

“It’s not,” Shane said. “It’s really not and I’m stupid, I’m so fucking stupid. I’m sorry, Brendon.”

Brendon opened his mouth to tell him it was going to be fine, but Shane hung up before he could. Brendon stared down at his phone and redialed, but it went straight to voicemail. He tried again even though he knew the result was going to be the same.

This time he left a message: “Don’t be an asshole, Shane, just come home.”

In the morning, Shane was still gone. And the next. And the next. Until the deal they’d made on the house before all of this had happened finally went through, until Brendon couldn’t stay in the apartment by himself much longer, until Ryan showed up one afternoon with Jon and said, “why don’t you come stay with me for a while?”

_._

Brendon got the call he’d been dreading on his first day at Ryan’s place. He was a little surprised that it hadn’t come sooner, but then, his parents probably had no idea what to say to him. Even the message they left on his phone was stilted and awkward, disbelief and hurt coloring their words. He didn’t want to have to call back. He definitely didn’t want to have to see them. But he had to tell them and it had to be in person.

“Maybe you can make them wait,” Ryan suggested quietly.

Brendon was sitting on Ryan’s bed staring down at his phone. Jon was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, and Ryan looked like he was waffling between standing protectively over Brendon and sitting next to him.

“I think I’ve made them wait long enough,” Brendon pointed out.

Ryan made a disgruntled sound and Jon huffed out a sigh. They obviously weren’t too happy about the prospect of Brendon talking to his family face-to-face about this. For the last few days they’d been doing their best to keep their stress levels from showing, all for Brendon’s sake, but this was apparently the last straw. Brendon could see Jon’s weary but no less potent anger in the set of his shoulders, and Ryan looked completely worn out. He felt bad about it, felt even worse that they were trying to shoulder all of this for him, but this wasn’t something he could run away from.

Brendon picked up his phone and bit his lip.

“This is the last thing you need to be dealing with right now,” Jon said from where he was standing.

“Jon,” Brendon said, looking up at him.

Jon frowned. “I’m just saying if anything happens to you-”

“It won’t,” Brendon interrupted. He looked quickly over to Ryan and said, “it won’t.”

He could tell neither of them believed him. He wasn’t really sure if he believed himself but he kept a strong face on through a cool conversation with his dad and he tried not to let the hurt show when his parents were reluctant to agree to see him. He would have done the same thing, he told himself. He would have reacted the same way.

He hung up and tried not to feel sick to his stomach.

The next day, Ryan and Jon offered to go with him to his parents’ house, but Brendon was pretty sure he needed to do this alone. He didn’t necessarily want to, but he didn’t want them to be there, either, for the inevitable . . . well, whatever (Brendon had an idea, he had a feeling, he just didn’t want to think it or say it or make it real before it actually happened).

Jon leant him an oversized and hideous sweater to hide inside and Ryan chewed his lip and didn’t say anything all morning, not until Brendon was on his way out the door. Then he reached out to grab Brendon by the wrist and pull him into a tight hug.

“We’ll be here,” he said into Brendon’s ear, the words low and steady despite the fact that Brendon could feel Ryan shaking (or maybe it was Brendon shaking, he couldn’t even tell). “No matter what, we’ll be here.”

Brendon wanted to tell him that he knew that, he wouldn’t have been able to do all of the things he’d done if he didn’t. But he also knew, and he wondered how Ryan could possibly know, that he was afraid that one day he wouldn’t have anyone. Not his family or his friends or his band. Having Ryan remind him that they weren’t going anywhere made it possible for Brendon to let go and walk out the door.

It didn’t make it any easier to face his parents, though. At least, Brendon thought when they opened the front door, it was just his mom and dad and not his brothers and sister and in-laws and nephews and nieces, too. That would have been too much. As it was, the way his mother’s eyes fell to the significant swell of his stomach, the look of horror and awe on her face, was almost enough to prompt Brendon to turn right around and pretend this had never happened.

“Get in here,” his dad said, reaching out to tug him inside.

He sounded pissed, which was a real role-reversal for his parents. Mom was the one who got mad. Dad was the one who stayed calm and reminded her that she was not allowed to kill her children. He was the one who laughed inappropriately at whatever mischief said children had gotten into.

He wasn’t laughing now.

“Oh, Brendon,” Mom said in a tiny voice, still staring at his belly. “What-” She cut herself off and pressed a hand to her mouth, finally lifting her eyes to his. They were wet.

“I’m sorry,” Brendon said, not exactly surprised at how breathy and scared his voice was.

“For what?” Mom asked, honestly curious.

Brendon opened his mouth to answer, but Dad beat him to it. “For making such a monumental mistake,” he said before turning to Brendon. “You’ve done some stupid things, but this is . . .” He trailed off and shook his head.

Their disappointment was palpable, as was their confusion and their anger and their hurt. Layered over that, thick and heavy and uncomfortable, was the fact that they were looking at Brendon like he was a stranger. They obviously didn’t know what to say or how to react, not just to the situation but to Brendon. It was like before only worse, and Brendon’s stomach cramped.

“Are you keeping it?” Mom asked, squaring her shoulders and blinking rapidly.

Brendon nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m moving into a bigger place and everything.”

Mom nodded and then said, “are you sure you want to do that?” When Brendon only stared she sighed. “I just mean you’re so young and what if . . . what if the baby isn’t healthy? It’s not normal for you to-” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m just concerned.”

Brendon could understand that, even if the words and the tone and the implication made him ache a little.

“I thought it through,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

Dad scoffed but didn’t say anything else and Brendon forced himself to breathe. So far it hadn’t gone so bad, but there was still a giant elephant in the room that none of them were addressing. He thought it was probably only a matter of time and sure enough, his dad was the one who asked.

“Who’s the father?”

Brendon swallowed and glanced away. “You don’t know him,” he said.

There was a moment of silence and then Mom said, voice deliberately steady, “well, we’d like to meet him.”

Brendon could have laughed. Of course his parents assumed that whoever this guy was, he and Brendon were still involved. And instead of making it easy, instead of telling him he needed to leave and never look back, they had to make an actual effort. It would have been okay if Brendon felt like he had anything to give them in return. Instead he had to lift his head and find a way to tell them that he didn’t even know the father’s last name, that he had no intention of bringing him or anyone else to meet his parents anytime soon.

“I can’t,” Brendon said.

His mother’s face pinched in and she looked pained, regretful. “We can’t . . . this isn’t natural, Brendon. You’ve given in to worldly influences and that’s something you’ll have to sort out with God but you’re our son. You’re my baby,” she said, her voice cracking over the last word. “We’re trying,” she whispered, tears slipping over her cheeks silently. “We’re willing to try.”

Brendon hated seeing Mom cry. It made his heart thump painfully against his ribs, made him want to hold her and make it better. He didn’t think he could make this better because he couldn’t take it back. He glanced over at Dad who was stoic and still angry and felt nauseas.

“It’s not that,” Brendon finally said. “I don’t see him anymore. It was just one time.”

Mom made a strangled sound and looked over at Dad, who was obviously shell-shocked.

“You should have known better,” Dad said, voice barely above a whisper.

“I know,” Brendon said, bowing his head.

“How- who’s been taking care of you?” Mom asked.

Brendon shrugged but couldn’t answer. They knew. They knew who Brendon’s second family was, knew whose hands he’d been holding for the last few years. They knew who supported him unfailingly, who loved him unconditionally in all the ways they sometimes struggled with. And maybe that was unfair because Brendon knew they loved him, that they could forgive him almost anything, but it wasn’t the same.

His parents were never going to welcome a boyfriend into the family like they had everyone his siblings had dated. They were never going to sit with him on the couch and rub his belly and talk about baby names and tell horror stories about the first twelve months like they had with the other pregnant women in the family. It wasn’t like that with them.

It hurt in a way that Brendon thought he’d braced himself for. He bit his lip and told himself he wouldn’t cry.

“I couldn’t tell you before,” Brendon said after a moment, glancing up at them. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I couldn’t.”

They didn’t ask why.

“I don’t know what to do, Bren,” Dad said, and Mom was silent at his side, trying not to cry out loud. “We don’t know what you’re expecting from us.”

Brendon didn’t know how to tell them he’d been expecting more and less than what they’d just given him. He straightened and shook his head.

“I’m not expecting anything,” he told them honestly. “I should probably go.”

Mom looked like she wanted to stop him but she nodded once. Dad just sighed and hesitated before walking out of the room. Brendon watched him go and didn’t say anything. He was a little surprised when Mom walked forward and pulled him into her arms. She smelled warm and soft like always and Brendon wanted to cling to her and let her tell him it would be okay, everything would work out.

“Mom,” Brendon said, and she made a soothing sound near his ear.

“You’re so good with your nephew,” she said quietly. “You’ll be fine, won’t you?” She paused and then said, “you will. You’ll be fine.”

She pulled away, kept her hands wrapped around Brendon’s arms. “We’re only a phonecall away. I promise.”

Brendon nodded and whispered, “I love you. Tell Dad, okay?”

She smiled weakly. “I will. We love you, too.”

Leaving the house and driving home happened in a blur. Ryan and Jon were waiting for him when he got inside. They both looked like they’d been doing nothing but worry for the last two hours. Brendon tried to smile reassuringly at them, but he thought he probably failed pretty miserably. Sure enough, Jon exhaled gustily and stood up, pulling Brendon into his arms.

He didn’t smell like Mom; he smelled like smoke and something suspiciously like cherry blossoms, but Brendon could cling to him and know he wasn’t going to let Brendon walk away without a fight.

“Hey,” Ryan said, stepping close and brushing his fingers over Brendon’s cheek.

He wasn’t crying, but he still felt a threatening lump in his throat. He swallowed a couple of times.

“It’s okay,” Brendon said softly.

Ryan cupped the back of his head and held on and Brendon didn’t have to let go and he didn’t have to walk away, not from this.

_._

Jon had a tragic addiction to Mexican telenovelas. Ryan denied sharing in the addiction, mostly because if it wasn’t French or German he liked to pretend he wasn’t interested, but he seemed pretty in-the-know about the lives of Consuela, Carlos and Carmen for someone who wasn’t at least a little obsessed.

Brendon didn’t actually care much for them usually, but every afternoon Jon would sit him down on Ryan’s plush couch and talk him through three hours-worth of soap opera goodness. Neither of them spoke Spanish, but it didn’t seem to matter. Jon had a decent grasp on what was going on and what he didn’t know, he made up. It was almost enough to take Brendon’s mind off of the downward spiral his life had hit in the last week and a half.

“Hey,” Jon murmured during a commercial, ruffling Brendon’s hair, “you okay?”

“Not looking forward to the interview tomorrow,” he admitted.

“Yeah, but we’ll be there. It’ll be fine.”

Brendon wasn’t so sure. Interviews were pretty touch-and-go under normal circumstances. This definitely did not qualify as a normal circumstance. Brendon was tempted to back out completely, but Pete had gone to the trouble of calling in a favor with his father-in-law to secure an interview with someone they could mostly trust. It had been a week and the furor hadn’t quite died down; the only way to make things a little better would be to clear the air.

That didn’t mean Brendon had to look forward to it.

“I’m sorry to put you guys through this,” Brendon muttered, burrowing further into Jon’s side.

The rumors about his bandmates were getting ridiculous. Fans and non-fans alike were hurling around assumptions about their character that made them sound at turns saintly and cruel. Brendon had always sort of expected that eventually his name would get dragged through the mud in some way and he was more than willing to take the fall. This was all his own fault. He hated that his best friends had been dragged into it, too.

“Whatever, dude, it’s not like we can’t handle it,” Jon said. “Just don’t worry about it too much, okay?”

Brendon nodded and was saved from having to reply by the end of the commercial break. Ryan wandered in just as Carmen was declaring her love for the priest Alejandro and claiming she was pregnant with his father’s child. At least that was what Jon and Brendon assumed was going on. Ryan sat down on Brendon’s other side, took one look at the screen and said, “what’s that crazy bitch up to now?”

They watched the rest of the episode in a warm pile on the couch and when the next one started, Ryan actually made a small sound of excitement and nestled further into the couch. Brendon fell asleep halfway through while Jon and Ryan argued over whether or not the couple on screen was fighting over an affair the husband had had or on the wife’s alcoholism. When he woke up he was alone, curled up on his side with a blanket tucked around his shoulders. It took him a moment to pinpoint what had pulled him out of his nap.

The baby was moving around, which wasn’t anything new, but the hands cupped around his belly and the mouth pressed close singing a wordless lullaby was. Brendon kept his eyes closed and listened intently to Jon’s voice. It wasn’t a melody that Brendon recognized, but it was simple and beautiful and Jon delivered every note with care and love. The baby rolled again and Jon’s voice hitched.

Brendon finally blinked his eyes open and reached down to press his fingers to Jon’s.

“Hey,” he said.

Jon looked up with a small smile. “Hey,” he said back.

Previous

Next

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. VIII

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:33:07 GMT

It was obvious that Ryan was pissed. Ryan, when he was pissed, was worse than Jon. Jon was bad enough, giving the silent treatment and ignoring the existence of whoever had gotten him mad (often so effectively Brendon would be even more annoying to Spencer or Ryan just so they would talk to him, just so he could remind himself that he was still there). Ryan, though, he never yelled and he never threw things, but he got mean.

He was trying not to be mean with Brendon, that much was obvious. But even more obvious than that was the fact that he was livid.

“You should have called me,” Ryan said, glaring at Brendon.

Brendon was supposed to be taking it easy so he was on the couch in a nest of blankets and pillows, a pile of Disney movies and comedies waiting to be watched, but Ryan was fucking with the plan. He’d shown up, unannounced like always, pushing past Shane into the living room where he was currently standing with his arms crossed and his mouth turned down in a vicious frown.

Brendon struggled to sit up. “I was a little occupied,” he shot back, and he knew the words were a little unfair but it was true and Ryan wasn’t exactly being fair himself.

Ryan winced and ducked his head, all the anger just seeping out of him like it sometimes did when somebody said the right thing at the right time. “What if something had happened to you?” he demanded.

“You would have heard from Spencer,” Brendon said slowly. “Isn’t that who you’d want to hear something like that from?”

Ryan shrugged and looked up at Brendon. “I want to be there if something goes wrong. I don’t want a goddamn 3 a.m. phone call from Shane or Spencer or whoever telling me you’re in the hospital and it’s ‘probably not serious so don’t worry’.”

Brendon sighed. He was still feeling pretty exhausted after last night and he didn’t want to have this conversation with Ryan. “Sometimes it won’t work that way,” he pointed out, “and you can’t freak out every time that happens.”

Ryan’s lips pushed out into what looked a lot like a pout but he wasn’t angry anymore, and that was all that mattered. They stared at each other for a moment and then Brendon shifted around on the couch, found a corner of the blanket he was wrapped in and lifted it.

“Get in here,” he told Ryan, glancing over at Shane who was hovering in the doorway and adding, “you, too.”

Shane quirked a small smile and they all piled onto the couch, moving around until they were comfortable, Brendon in the middle with Shane’s arms around his waist and Ryan’s head on his shoulder.

“What are we watching?” Ryan asked, reaching down to lace his fingers with Brendon’s.

Brendon shrugged, warm and content. “Aladdin.”

He could practically feel Ryan roll his eyes, but it didn’t matter because he hit play anyway. They went through a catalogue of Disney movies, Brendon humming along the whole time. When they got to The Little Mermaid, Brendon felt the baby move. It was more than a flutter now. Brendon flattened his hand over his belly and on screen, Sebastian started singing. The baby kicked again and Brendon heard Ryan gasp next to his ear.

“What?” Brendon asked, because Ryan liked this movie, but not that much.

Ryan skated his palm over Brendon’s bump and whispered, “I think I just felt something. I’m not going crazy, am I?”

The chorus swelled and the baby kicked again, at Ryan’s hand this time, and Brendon shook his head with a grin.

Ryan exhaled long and slow and shaky and Brendon curled his fingers around Ryan’s and pressed his hand in a little harder. The baby responded with a small nudge and Ryan smiled so bright, Brendon’s heart stopped for a second.

“What are you two doing?” Shane asked curiously, peeking over Brendon’s shoulder.

“I felt the baby kick,” Ryan answered, voice light with awe.

Before Shane could respond, Ryan was grabbing his hand and pressing it to Brendon’s belly. They all waited for a beat. The baby moved again when the song neared the end, kicking at Ryan and Shane’s joined hands once and then again and then one more time. Brendon winced a little at the sensation but was so transfixed by the look on Ryan’s face and the way Shane had completely ceased breathing to care much about the gentle beating his insides were taking.

“That’s amazing,” Shane breathed into Brendon’s ear, and he suddenly remembered that Shane hadn’t felt it yet, not quite like this.

Brendon leaned further back against him and looked down at Ryan who was staring at his and Shane’s hands with a wide-eyed expression that Brendon couldn’t quite interpret. Later, after Shane left to pick up dinner for the three of them, Ryan sat practically in Brendon’s lap with his face nuzzled up against Brendon’s belly.

“I wish,” he muttered, but he didn’t finish the thought.

Brendon was feeling fuzzy, comfortable and warm and relaxed, but Ryan’s tone made his chest feel a little tight. “What?” he asked, looking down the length of his body to Ryan’s downturned face. “Ryan?”

Ryan shook his head a little and glanced up at Brendon with a soft, heartbreaking smile. “Nothing,” he said.

_._

Ryan, Brendon decided, was acting a little weird. It hadn’t been a big deal when it was just his constant presence and his willingness to rub Brendon’s back or shoulders or play with his hair or do crazy food runs to satisfy insane cravings. Maybe it should have been, but Brendon was too busy enjoying the attention to care. It had been a long time since he’d had Ryan’s undivided affection, if he ever truly had.

Spencer always had it, of course, because he was the best friend. And Ryan had bestowed it on Pete for as long as Brendon could remember, and on Bill for a week or two while touring together, and on Jon since their days in the cabin and on Keltie practically since meeting her. It was always interesting to watch the way that Ryan responded to the people he loved like that, whole-heartedly and with a certain softness that he always seemed wary of sharing with the world.

Ryan loved Brendon and Brendon knew that, but it seemed a little different. Their relationship had always been complicated and lacking in the ease that came with others. Part of it was in Brendon being Ryan’s voice, but Brendon had always wondered if maybe the other part of it was his own fault. He’d had a crush on Ryan since the first time he’d seen him. Back then, back when Brendon was still going to church and when the band thing was new and when he was only just beginning to realize how much music meant to him, he’d played it off as a hero-worship kind of thing.

Brendon’s first clue that it was more than that was easy to ignore. He had a wet-dream about Ryan and maybe he should have figured it out then, but he was able to logic it away easily enough. He didn’t even feel particularly guilty about it, but the dream was quickly followed by fantasies that wouldn’t leave Brendon alone and those were quickly followed by moments after practice or while hanging out when he kind of wanted to reach out and hold Ryan’s hand or lean over and kiss him or cuddle up next to him and have it mean something.

It was never any other guy. It was always just Ryan, so Brendon was okay with saying he had a crush because for one thing, it wasn’t like wanted every guy he saw or came into contact with, and for another, it was never going to be anything. Brendon thought maybe it could. When Ryan would let Brendon get close on stage, or when he would return the favor, Brendon wondered. Sometimes Ryan would flirt and the longer he and Brendon knew each other, the more physically comfortable Ryan got.

Brendon figured out pretty quickly that it was just Ryan’s nature to be that way. He wasn’t exactly unselfconscious, but he wasn’t always completely aware of what he was doing, either. Brendon never said anything about the crush and when it changed, when Brendon started noticing guys outside of Ryan, he never mentioned that, either. He wanted to tell Ryan because no matter what, they were close friends. Brendon could never be Ryan’s best, but he’d sort of always thought of Ryan as his.

But Ryan bounced from being blithely unimpressed by the labels people tried to put on him and vaguely defensive about his heterosexuality and Brendon didn’t think it would go over well if he brought up his own sexuality issues.

It had gotten easier to deal with over the years. Brendon fucked who he wanted to fuck and he didn’t think about Ryan too much. Ryan was with Keltie, anyway, and he was happy and that wasn’t something Brendon could possibly feel bad about. And then sometime in the last six months everything had gotten all fucked up and twisted again.

“Ryan’s acting weird,” Brendon said in passing, watching Shane carefully wrap a few last minute Christmas presents.

“How?” Shane asked, tongue poking out in concentration as he tried to get the paper to flatten just right.

Brendon shrugged and stuck an errant bow on top of Dylan’s dozing head. She shook herself but it stayed put.

“I don’t know. Just . . . haven’t you noticed how nice he’s being about this?”

“Maybe he’s practicing. He and Keltie might want to have a baby or something,” Shane said.

That was a possibility, but that didn’t seem quite right. Keltie, when Brendon saw her, didn’t give off any baby-envy vibes. And she and Ryan were domestic, but not quite to that stage, yet.

“Maybe,” Brendon muttered.

Shane paused and then glanced up. “Could be something else. You like him, don’t you?”

It seemed like Shane only made it sound like a question to be polite. His eyes were steady, like they already knew the answer, and Brendon floundered for a moment.

“I don’t know!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.

And it was kind of the truth. Brendon had liked Ryan, but then Dan-or-Dave happened and then Shane happened. Brendon didn’t know anything anymore, about himself, about his sexuality, about how he felt. Shane stared at him and Brendon stared back and all he could think was that Ryan or no Ryan, he really, really wanted to kiss the man sitting in his living room with a roll of scotch tape in one hand and a half-wrapped Bowie cd in the other.

Brendon slid a little awkwardly to the floor and crawled over to Shane. Wrapping paper crinkled and ripped under his foot but he didn’t care. Shane sat still, watching Brendon carefully.

“Is it wrong if maybe I like you, too?” Brendon asked.

Shane blinked once and then again. He didn’t answer and the longer the silence stretched on, the more Brendon felt like he’d just monumentally fucked up. He was wondering if was too late to take it back when Shane sighed and reached out to cup Brendon’s cheek in one hand.

“Not if I’m the one who’s here with you right now,” Shane muttered before bringing Brendon’s lips to his.

The kiss was softer than any of the ones they’d shared before. Shane moved slow, taking his time, and Brendon let him. There was no real hurry, the urgency only simmering beneath the surface. Brendon gasped when Shane licked, slow and languorous, into his mouth. Shane smiled into the kiss and did it again, even slower this time.

They kissed for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Brendon’s knees and back started to hurt from being hunched over and when Shane broke the kiss to press his lips to the underside of Brendon’s jaw, he groaned, a little in pleasure and a lot in pain.

“We should seriously move to somewhere more comfortable,” Brendon said, his breath hitching when Shane scraped his teeth over the skin of his throat.

“Yeah,” Shane muttered, “yeah, okay.”

Getting up was a slow process, their hands getting caught in all of the dips and curves of bodies that they hadn’t touched in months and lingering there. When they finally got to their feet, Brendon felt a little awkward. He could only pull Shane so close with his belly sticking out as far as it was now and it made him feel impossibly round and heavy and strange in his own skin.

Shane kissed him lightly and whispered, “hey, stay with me, okay?”

He slid one hand up the inside of Brendon’s thigh and cupped his cock and it had been so fucking long since anyone else had touched Brendon like this, since Shane had touched Brendon like this. Brendon hissed out a breath and nodded, burying his face in Shane’s neck while his hips rolled into the touch. Shane rubbed his dick slowly. When Brendon reached between them to return the favor, Shane pulled away with a shake of his head.

“Wait,” he said, nudging Brendon back until he collided gently with the wall.

They’d barely made it inside of Shane’s room, closing the door on Dylan, and Shane didn’t seem interested in actually getting them to the bed. He dropped to his knees, his hands going to the waistband of Brendon’s sweatpants. He glanced up at Brendon briefly before tugging the clothing away.

Brendon had never been self-conscious about his body. He felt better when he was naked, more comfortable and completely at ease. That had changed recently, and Brendon felt himself flush just a little when Shane pushed Brendon’s t-shirt up and over his belly before leaning forward to kiss the inside of one thigh.

He wasn’t given a whole lot of time to feel uncomfortable. Shane didn’t hesitate, just gripped the base of Brendon’s cock in one hand and slid his mouth down the length a split-second later. Brendon’s head fell back against the wall with a thunk and he groaned. Shane sucked enthusiastically in response, the hot, wet suction of his mouth almost too much for Brendon to take. Just when Brendon thought this was going to be over embarrassingly fast, Shane pulled off to suck lightly at the head and tightened his grip on Brendon’s cock, holding him off.

Brendon’s knees shook and his breath came in fast pants. Shane licked over the slit and slid his mouth down again, farther this time. Brendon opened his eyes and looked down, but the swell of his belly obscured Shane’s mouth from view. It was obscene, bizarre, but it didn’t matter, not when Shane was sucking hard and making the occasional helpless noise, like he hadn’t ever wanted to be anywhere else. Brendon bit his lip and tried to keep his hips from thrusting forward, to keep from fucking Shane’s mouth like he desperately wanted to.

Shane wasn’t holding him back, but Brendon didn’t want to be rude. This wasn’t some girl he’d picked up with the express intention of fucking and leaving. This wasn’t a sure bet, either. This was Shane, Shane who Brendon was maybe a little in love with and Shane who still hadn’t said anything yet about how he felt. Brendon felt the need to be careful, to tread lightly, and even though his muscles quivered with the effort, he kept his hips mostly still.

Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe Shane rewarded him for his restraint when he cupped one of Brendon’s hips in his free palm and took Brendon in so far he bumped the back of Shane’s throat. Shane sucked harder and Brendon’s eyes fell shut, his hands gripping Shane’s hair, holding and not pushing, just seeking any kind of anchor at all.

It seemed to last forever, the sharp pleasure of being enveloped in Shane’s wickedly clever mouth. Brendon was moaning loudly, shapeless sounds punctuated by Shane’s name and a litany of curses. This time, when Brendon felt his orgasm begin to build low and fast, Shane didn’t try to put it off. He just sucked harder and when Brendon tugged on his hair to warn him, he didn’t move away.

Brendon bit down on his bottom lip and came with a strangled sound, his whole body shaking while Shane sucked him through it. Brendon’s knees felt like Jell-O when Shane got to his feet and swallowed. They stared at each other for a moment, both of them breathless, until Brendon realized Shane was waiting for him.

He reached out to grip the back of Shane’s neck and pull him in for a kiss that was wet and dirty and sloppy and perfect. Shane kept his body angled away from Brendon, like he didn’t want to scare him, but Brendon reached out and thumbed open Shane’s jeans easily. He pulled out of the kiss to lick his palm and then he was pushing his hand past Shane’s boxers to grip his cock.

It wasn’t the most coordinated Brendon had ever been, but he built up a hard, fast rhythm, twisting his hand on the upstroke and working Shane as well as he knew how. Shane had his mouth to Brendon’s shoulder, hips thrusting into the circle of Brendon’s fist. It didn’t last long; it was like Shane had been so worked up over blowing Brendon that it only took a few strokes before he was spilling into Brendon’s hand.

How Brendon remained upright after that, he couldn’t quite figure out. Between the wall at his back and Shane in his arms, he managed somehow. They stood, quiet, until their breathing evened out and then Shane tugged Brendon into the bathroom for a shower. It was strangely intimate, even moreso than what they’d just done, to let Shane wash his back and his hair and press wet, warm kisses to his belly.

After, they curled up in bed with Brendon on his side and Shane spooned up snugly behind him.

Shane said, “you’re not gonna have another crisis of sexuality and make me wake up alone again, are you?”

Brendon laughed and rubbed his face in his pillow before answering. “No, I don’t think so.”

Shane nodded, chin moving against the top of Brendon’s head. “What about Ryan?”

The question should have been more awkward than it was, but Shane had always been pretty in-tune with Brendon’s relationships with his band and their feelings for each other. Brendon was pretty sure that was part of the reason he always came back to them, because he found them interesting, because he got them on some level.

“That was never going to be anything,” Brendon answered.

Shane made a soft sound and they fell silent. Brendon was half-asleep and the words were soft, but he thought he heard Shane whisper, “I don’t know if anyone ever told him that.”

But by the time Brendon drifted off, he decided he’d made it up completely.

_._

Brendon got out of spending Christmas with his family by some kind of wacky luck. They’d made plans to go out of town and spend the holiday with one of Brendon’s brothers instead of sticking around and Brendon was invited, obviously, but that made it easier to feign sickness and opt to stay home. His parents called on Christmas morning anyway, and Brendon took the call while Shane made chocolate-chip pancakes.

It made his heart ache a little to not be with them, but it was for the best. Besides, Shane was here, and Spencer and Haley and Ryan and Keltie was in town, too. Brendon was, according to the calendar in the kitchen, officially six months and a few days pregnant. It was a little hard to believe, but he was beginning to feel almost confident about the next four months, like maybe he actually would make it and the baby would, too.

The day was pretty lazy as far as Christmases went. Brendon and Shane exchanged gifts and watched the Christmas movies that came on tv and were debating what to get for dinner when people started showing up. Spencer was first, Haley in tow, followed quickly by Ryan and Keltie. They’d all had Christmas dinner the night before with Spencer’s family.

“Tonight we’re all yours,” Spencer said with a smile. “What are we having?”

“General Tso’s Chicken,” Brendon said with raised eyebrows, “because I can’t pull a Christmas turkey out of my ass.”

They settled down in the living room with takeout menus being passed between them. While they decided what to order, Keltie sat next to Brendon and looked down at his belly. He was pretty obviously pregnant now, although when he wore his baggiest shirts he looked a little like he’d just gotten a really, really big beer-belly overnight. He was wearing a shirt that didn’t let him hide, though, because he didn’t really feel like he had to here.

“Can I?” Keltie asked softly, reaching out and stopping short of actually touching him.

Brendon nodded and grabbed her hand, pulling it the rest of the way. She touched him gingerly. The baby had been quiet most of the day, but Brendon felt a little movement when Spencer laughed loudly from where he was sitting. Keltie frowned a little, like she couldn’t quite feel anything, and Brendon smiled to himself, reaching down to press just the right spot and there, like it had been tickled, the baby moved again.

“Oh,” Keltie breathed, bringing her other hand up and flattening them both against Brendon’s belly. She pressed a little harder and there was more movement, a little roll, maybe, or a flip.

Her eyes were wide, her lips soft and parted, and when she looked up at Brendon her expression was completely open and overwhelmed.

“You’re beautiful. Can I take you home with me?” she asked.

“He’s kind of gassy,” Shane piped up, “so you probably don’t want to do that.

Brendon kicked out at him. “Shut up!”

“It’s okay,” Keltie said, leaning closer to him so that she was talking mostly to the baby. “I’ve spent the night with Ryan after he’s been to Taco Bell with the munchies. I can handle it.”

Brendon laughed and Keltie looked up. There was a curiosity in her eyes that Brendon had never noticed before and when he gazed back at her, it cleared and she smiled in some kind of understanding that Brendon didn’t quite get. She leaned back in and rubbed his belly once, breaking the moment, and Brendon let it slip to the back of his mind.

They called Jon in Chicago where it sounded like he was in the middle of a train station (“Just Walker Family Central,” he assured them.) and about ten minutes after the food arrived, there was a knock on the door. Shane rolled to his feet to answer and the entirety of The Cab piled in, bearing gifts and looking a little contrite. Brendon hadn’t talked to any of them since he and Shane had broken the news. It hadn’t gone over so well at the time. The only one who hadn’t said something stupid or reacted pretty violently to hearing about it had been Ian; Brendon figured that was probably because he knew Shane so well.

Ian was the first one through the door. He grinned at everyone in greeting wandered into the living room, finding a seat next to Ryan and peering into the endless array of food cartons.

“Oh, what’s for dinner?” he asked, reaching for Ryan’s plate.

“Yeah, no,” he said, leaning away, “nothing for you.”

Ian pouted at him and said, “I’ll get Spencer to feed me.”

Spencer snorted and tried to evade Ian’s gimme-grabby hands as the rest of the guys edged into the room. Cash and Singer were the two most reluctant to walk in. Brendon looked up at them and sighed, setting aside his food and getting to his feet. He walked over to where they were lingering on the outskirts of the room and let them stare in shock at his midsection.

“Crazy, huh?” Brendon said, stopping just in front of them.

“Yeah,” Cash said, voice low. He lifted his head slowly, heart on his sleeve like always, and said, “dude, I was such an asshole.”

It was the only kind of apology Brendon was going to get from him, but he took it for what it was and said, “whatever, it’s fine.”

Singer was biting his lip and when he finally spoke, it was a simple, “I’m sorry.”

And yeah, that was fine, too. They attacked Brendon with hugs when he smiled at them, careful of his belly but not so mindful of how tight they squeezed or where their chins and elbows ended up. It was nice. Brendon had missed them.

The night ended with all of them squished onto the couch and sprawled on the floor watching movies and picking up an eleven person commentary on whatever was on. It was a pretty unconventional Christmas, even for them, but it made Brendon feel more at home than he would have if he’d been stuck hiding his body away from his family.

It felt weird, sometimes, to think about but dozing off on Shane with Ryan and Spencer’s laughter warming the room and Ian and Johnson having some kind of tussle on the floor while Singer and Keltie mangled the lyrics of songs from A Chorus Line . . . having them all there, knowing Haley was pressed to Spencer’s side and that Cash and Marshall were close enough to touch and Jon was just a phone call away, it made Brendon realize he had more than one family. He always knew it, but in that moment it felt more real than anything had in a long time.

The baby gave a sleepy roll of agreement and Brendon pressed his smile to Shane’s shoulder.

_._

“Buying a house is fucking hard. How’d you do it?”

Brendon had the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear and stared down at the papers strewn across the coffee table. They were all marked in different sets of handwriting. Ryan’s scrawl was discernible once or twice. Spencer’s was on a majority of them, along with notes and comments in the margins of the listings. Shane’s was even more prominent than Spencer’s, showing up on every single ad with more notes and comments and, sometimes, stick figures.

He could practically hear Spencer’s shrug. “Found a place that fit all my requirements and bought it. It wasn’t that hard.”

Brendon rolled his eyes. Of course it had been easy for Spencer, Spencer who was organized and good at this shit. It had probably been easy for Ryan, too, to find a place that suited his strange and somewhat abstract tastes. They’d been shopping with a different mentality than Brendon. He had to find a place and it had to be big enough and it had to be warm and open and inviting and it had to be perfect.

Brendon wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he was in the early nesting stages.

“Do you think this is stupid?” he asked.

“Your place is kinda small,” Spencer hedged, even though they both knew it was more than big enough for two men to live in.

“You know what I mean,” Brendon said, eyeing one promising house in particular.

“I think it’s a good idea to keep your options open,” Spencer said slowly. “It never hurts to be prepared. But . . . you’ve already made your decision, haven’t you?”

Not really, Brendon wanted to say. Not at all. He felt like he hadn’t made a significant decision since telling everyone that there was no way in hell he was getting an abortion. But here he was, looking at houses instead of prospective, adoptive parents. He hadn’t told anyone, but he’d glanced at agencies and families and had spent a good two weeks on the road buried in his bunk, pretending to sleep but going over the option in his head.

Realistically, it was probably the best course of action, and certainly the least selfish. Brendon wasn’t qualified to take care of a kid. He was too young to know what the fuck he was doing and had no real experience with anything like this. He had his friends to help out, but none of them had a real clue, either. They were already flying blind, and Brendon knew that wasn’t going to change.

But he’d stopped looking at adoption as a viable option, making the excuse of avoiding having to make the decision, and now here he was, looking at houses with enough bedrooms and space and hunting down something with a fucking backyard because a kid had to have a backyard to play in and there was no way this was going to work out, but maybe Spencer was right. Brendon had made his decision.

“Clearly, I’m insane,” Brendon muttered.

“It’s all those baby-making hormones,” Spencer teased, pausing before adding, “is Shane moving in with you?”

Brendon flopped back on the couch with a gusty sigh. “We haven’t really talked about it but . . . yes?”

“Don’t ask me,” Spencer said.

It wasn’t something they’d discussed explicitly. Everything between them seemed to be largely unspoken, down to the part where Brendon had pretty much moved into Shane’s bedroom and they were . . . not quite dating, but not quite not-dating either.

Shane certainly seemed on board with keeping the current living situation. Brendon expected that would change eventually, when Shane realized what he was getting himself into. It was hard to imagine not living with Shane, though, especially after everything that had happened, and Brendon certainly didn’t want to be alone.

“Well, I’m pretty sure, yes,” Brendon said.

“That’s good,” Spencer said.

Brendon bit his lip and tapped his fingers against his knee. “Spence, if I told you Shane and I are kind of . . . together, what would you think?”

Spencer was quiet for a moment and then he said, “I wouldn’t freak out, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Brendon,” Spencer interrupted, “it’s not a big deal. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And I know Jon and Ryan would be with me on this.”

Brendon closed his eyes and nodded even though Spencer couldn’t see it.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” Spencer said, and that was that.

Previous

Next

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. VII

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:30:32 GMT

Halfway through the tour, Brendon started to look fatter. He got paranoid and constantly went around asking Zack and Ryan if it was obvious. Ryan always narrowed his eyes speculatively at Brendon’s baby bump and started to reach out before drawing his hand back with a shrug. Zack just ruffled Brendon’s hair and said, “it’s easy to hide. We planned for this, remember?”

Spencer and Jon rolled their eyes when Brendon freaked out in front of them.

“They’ll just think you gained some weight, Twiggy,” Jon said affectionately. “Don’t worry about it.”

It was stupid, but Brendon did worry. Not necessarily because of his figure, although yeah, there was the fact that he’d never been this unnaturally . . . convex in his life and he was a little weirded out by it. No, it was because he knew why the weight gain was happening and he was afraid that somewhere, someone would pick up on it. Fangirls were scarily discerning sometimes. No amount of flow-y shirts and steadily increasing pant-sizes could convince Brendon that his secret was safe.

“Nobody’s going to be able to tell,” Ryan assured him one night. “And Shane’s been watching the youtube videos. He says it’s not noticeable at all.”

Brendon slouched against the couch. “Somebody’s going to be able to tell, it’s fucking obvious.” And then the last part of Ryan’s statement caught his attention and he turned with a frown. “When did you talk to Shane?”

Ryan shrugged. “Last night.”

Brendon blinked. Ryan and Shane got along great, sure, and they hung out sometimes, but usually with Brendon present and they texted because Ryan had a very sad addiction to his sidekick. Rarely, if ever, did they call each other, though. Brendon didn’t know why it shocked him that they would pick up the habit now, but it did.

“I didn’t talk to him last night,” Brendon said, dangerously close to pouting.

“That’s because you were dead to the world,” Ryan said, pushing up off of the couch and rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry, your boyfriend isn’t gossiping about you behind your back. He just trusts me to keep him posted about whether you’re okay or not.”

There was something about the twist of the words in Ryan’s mouth that Brendon found odd, but he was too busy blushing and saying, “he’s not my boyfriend!” to pay much attention. Ryan waved a dismissive hand through the air and walked out of the lounge.

And okay, that was another thing. One of the things Brendon had tried to forget about on tour but that he hadn’t quite been able to put out of his mind. He and Shane hadn’t mentioned the kiss to each other, despite talking pretty much every day. Nothing was really different between them, but Brendon didn’t know if that was supposed to be a relief or more of a clue. He was pretty sure Shane wasn’t his boyfriend but . . . he couldn’t say he and Shane were just friends, could he?

The good thing was Brendon was usually too exhausted to linger on it much. It was more a buzz of awareness at the back of his mind than a constant worry. Eventually Brendon wouldn’t be able to put off thinking about it because eventually he would go home and have to figure some shit out. He was perfectly content to wait it out for the time being.

That didn’t stop the thought from hitting him at the strangest times, like in the middle of a Disney movie marathon or while pouring a cup of coffee or, most of the time, at night when he was in his bunk hanging heavy in that space between sleep and wakefulness.

Those nights, Brendon would rest a hand over the barely-there swell of his belly and close his eyes and think once upon a time.

Once upon a time there was a boy who was raised to love girls. Only he wasn’t very good at it. He fell in love with a boy, instead, but that boy was very good at loving girls and not so good at realizing the other boy loved him. The boy whose love went unnoticed tried and tried to love girls. No matter how much he practiced, he still wasn’t any good at it at all.

And then that boy met another boy who was also good at loving girls only maybe . . . maybe he was good at loving boys, too. And the boy who was raised to love girls but wasn’t very good at it didn’t know if he could love a boy who loved him back.

There was no ending, not yet. Brendon would fall asleep, hand curled over his belly, wondering if maybe there would be one he could tell his baby someday.

_._

Having girlfriends on tour always made their living space feel about ten times smaller than usual. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Brendon was always hyper-aware of the fact that not only was there less space, there was a girl around. He hadn’t lived with a girl since his sister had moved out when he was in high school, but he still remembered the protocol and it was always a weird adjustment.

It was weirder, still, when Brendon had Cassie sitting across from him in the lounge watching as he took his prenatal vitamins. Her eyes were more curious than anything else, but it still made Brendon shift uncomfortably after he swallowed.

“So, Jon didn’t tell me,” Cassie said into the following silence. “Who’s the daddy?”

Brendon choked on his own spit and looked around wildly. Jon walked in, eyebrows raised, and Cassie frowned a little.

“You don’t have to answer,” she said, at the same time that Jon patted Brendon on the back and told him, “don’t die.”

“No, it’s okay,” Brendon rasped as soon as he got his breath back.

It really wasn’t, but Brendon figured he’d have to get some practice saying it out loud. With everyone else he’d told, the question either hadn’t come up or someone else had fielded it. Jon went to sit next to Cassie, curling his arm around her body and tugging her close.

“I don’t actually know him that well,” Brendon said slowly.

Jon raised an eyebrow and Brendon shrugged a little helplessly.

“You mean you just met or . . . ?” Cassie trailed off, obviously unsure of what to say.

“No,” Brendon said. “It was kind of a one-night-stand.”

There was a heavy silence during which Jon looked at anything but Brendon and Cassie stared blankly at a spot on Brendon’s forehead.

“Oh,” she finally said. “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah,” Brendon muttered.

“Well that’s, um. Are you gonna tell him?” she asked.

Brendon didn’t have to think twice about the answer. This wasn’t Knocked Up. He wasn’t expecting for Dan-or-Dave to be at all interested in being involved in the pregnancy process. Hell, Brendon wasn’t even expecting for Dan-or-Dave not to freak the fuck out if he ever heard the news. Brendon definitely didn’t care to have him around.

“No,” Brendon said softly.

Cassie nodded slowly and then leaned her head on Jon’s shoulder.

“You don’t need him anyway. You’ve got all of us,” she said and Jon grinned.

He glanced down at her, expression softening into something that made Brendon’s heart ache. He got to his feet and smiled at them in thanks. Cassie smiled back and glanced at Jon before holding out a hand.

When Brendon just stared, Jon stretched out a hand of his own and said, “c’mere.”

Brendon walked forward and let out a small sound when they grabbed him by the wrists and tugged him onto the couch between them. There was some shuffling and moving around and when they settled, Brendon was nestled between Jon and Cassie. Their fingers were clasped over his chest, their bodies pressed tight to his.

Jon hummed quietly, lips pressed to Brendon’s hair, and Cassie hugged Brendon a little tighter.

“See?” she said, a smile in her voice. “You’ve got us.”

Brendon nodded once, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly.

_._

On stage, Brendon felt distant from himself some nights. His body reacted differently than he wanted it to, was more sluggish or sloppy than he intended. He learned to compensate on those nights. On other nights, when everything felt good, when it was the heat of the lights beating down on him and when it was the constant roar of the audience and when it was Ryan and Jon and Spencer around him and behind him and next to him, he let himself be.

They didn’t worry as much about Brendon falling down and hurting himself or the baby. Brendon didn’t give them much of a reason to. He didn’t have to bounce around like a maniac to exist in the moment and to let the energy fill him up and explode out of his body.

He let it happen in his voice, let it swell and soar in ways it never had before. He would glance sideways and see Ryan staring, lips parted, eyes rapt, fingers moving deft and confident over the strings of his guitar and that would fill Brendon’s lungs like oxygen. He would feel Jon’s baseline down to his toes and Spencer’s beat in the thump of his heart.

They were his spine, his core. The music was his blood, it wasn’t just in it.

Insane though it may have been, Brendon was always aware of the life inside of him, a life he couldn’t see or really feel yet, and he wondered if the music would fill that tiny body, too. He hoped so. Brendon closed his eyes and he sang and he hoped so.

_._

There were two more weeks of touring left and Brendon was due for a sonogram. He was also stuck somewhere on the east coast, thousands of miles away from Dr. Pierson. They were in New York for three days, with a day off and then two performance shows before moving on. The day off sounded like heaven and Brendon planned to take advantage. He and Jon collapsed onto their hotel beds with twin groans of pleasure and every intention of never moving again.

Zack had different plans. He walked into the room an hour after they’d gotten settled with Keltie, Ryan and Spencer in tow.

“You’ve got a doctor’s appointment to get to,” he told Brendon.

Keltie waved at him. “I found a doctor out here to look after you.”

Brendon tried not to look skeptically at her. Unfortunately, Keltie didn’t have the best track record for befriending or making acquaintances with people who weren’t going to fuck her and her loved ones over for some petty reason. He was a little worried about the doctor’s ability to keep his or her mouth shut.

“Dr. Pierson and Theresa checked off on her,” Zack assured him. “Let’s go.”

It was early in the afternoon, almost lunchtime, when they made their way through New York to an office near the outskirts of the city.

“You don’t all have to come with me,” Brendon said, eyeing his entourage, all of whom looked like they could use a decent day off, even Keltie. “You can hang out or whatever, it’s cool.”

Ryan rolled his eyes like that was a dumb suggestion and ushered Brendon into the elevator. They rode up to one of the top floors and exited in a line, following Zack like ducklings. He went straight to the receptionist sitting behind a large desk, leaving the rest of them to find free seats. There were only a few people in the waiting room. Most of them were trying not to stare at the group of youngsters piling into chairs and looking around disinterestedly.

“I’ll go in with you. Like a diversion,” Keltie whispered to Brendon, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “They all think I’m the one expecting anyway.”

“They probably think we’re part of your harem,” Ryan said in a low voice, lips tilted in a grin. “Any one of us could be the father.”

Keltie nodded. “They would be right about one thing. You’re my harem of pretty, pretty rockstars. Except for Jon. Jon’s rugged. And manly.”

Jon looked up from where he was flipping through Pregnancy magazine. “Damn straight,” he said.

“I know who the father is, though,” Keltie went on. “I hate to disappoint, but I’m pretty sure it’s Zack.”

Brendon snorted and Spencer leaned over Ryan to raise his eyebrows at Keltie. “Is he part of the harem?”

Keltie looked over at where Zack was signing them in and shrugged. “Only on odd numbered days of the month,” she answered.

“That makes sense,” Ryan said.

Brendon smothered his giggles into Keltie’s shoulder and when Zack came back, eyebrows raised, Keltie just smiled innocently at him while Jon said, “hey, stud.”

Zack shook his head, sat down in the chair across from Brendon and said, “I don’t want to know.”

There was no clock on the wall that Brendon could see, so he judged the wait-time based on the number of people who were called back before him. It wasn’t until the waiting room had been completely emptied that someone came out from the back and hesitated before saying Brendon’s name. She smiled at Brendon when he and Keltie stood up and introduced herself.

“I’m Dr. Ruiz,” she said, extending hands to both of them to shake.

She nodded at the others over Brendon’s shoulder and then turned to lead Brendon back. She asked a few questions about how he’d been feeling, if there’d been anything abnormal going on. He shrugged and glanced over at Keltie before mentioning that the morning sickness had pretty much disappeared and he felt better now than he had since the beginning of this whole thing. Dr. Ruiz beamed at him.

“That’s completely normal,” she told him.

The prospect of an ultrasound was still pretty daunting, the machine looming next to Brendon ominously. Keltie sat next to his head and leaned down to whisper to him.

“I’ve never actually seen one of these,” she said.

Brendon shrugged. “It’s not so bad,” he told her.

Despite the warning and the previous experience, the goop that Dr. Ruiz put on his belly was just as unexpectedly cold as the first time. She rubbed the wand over his stomach, so much different looking now than it had been before. Brendon stared up at the ceiling, still too nervous to actually look at the screen.

“There it is,” Dr. Ruiz breathed, sounding a little awed.

Keltie rubbed Brendon’s shoulder and he looked up. He was learning to discern the difference in the image between what looked like random squiggles and what was his baby. Dr. Ruiz turned to Brendon with a smile.

“Your baby looks perfectly healthy, Brendon,” she said.

“It finally looks a little like a baby,” Brendon breathed with a self-conscious laugh while Dr. Ruiz pointed out arms and legs and mentioned fingers and toes.

“You sure?” Keltie teased. “You might be giving birth to an alien.”

Brendon laughed again and they went back to staring at the screen. After a few minutes, Dr. Ruiz said, “are you ready to hear the heartbeat?”

Brendon looked up at Keltie. She bit her bottom lip. He took a deep breath and nodded.

_._

Keltie was still trying not to cry when they walked out, which made Brendon want to cry a little. She kept taking sharp breaths and looking down at Brendon’s belly before shaking her head. They stopped just short of the waiting room and she pulled him close.

“You’re a miracle, Brendon,” she said. “That baby’s a miracle.”

Brendon wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tight. Her breathing finally evened out but all Brendon could hear was the steady thrum of his baby’s heartbeat and Dr. Ruiz whispering under her breath, “perfect, everything sounds perfect.”

_._

They left touring behind with an announcement about working on a new album and taking a little time off. When interviewers asked if they were planning on taking as long with the new material as they had with Pretty. Odd., they just smiled benignly while Jon said something about not being able to rush the artistic process.

“We could never stay away from touring too long,” Brendon said on their last TRL appearance of the year. “We love what we do. But we’re not gonna hurry up and force out an album, either. We like to take our time.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Spencer added, leaning into Brendon with a grin.

They made it back to Vegas in one piece with a handful of songs they’d been working on while on the road, plus the songs they’d been sitting on since finishing the album. For the first week or so, with Jon back in Chicago and Spencer reconnecting with Haley and Ryan haunting Casa Urie-Valdes, Brendon couldn’t quite figure out what the next step was.

He had a baby on the way and he wasn’t entirely sure they could work on an album until after he’d actually had it. His due date wasn’t for another four months and two weeks. There was no telling how everyone else felt about that, if they were frustrated by it or not. All he knew was that he felt like he was in some kind of strange limbo, stretched taut between his condition and his career.

“We should figure something out,” Brendon said one night, his head pillowed in Ryan’s lap.

“Okay,” Ryan said affably. “What?”

“For, you know, recording an album or something. We can’t drag it out for a year again,” he said.

Ryan made a displeased sound and squirmed a little, resettling his body against the couch. “The fans can wait. The album can wait. There’s more important stuff to deal with.”

“Yeah,” Brendon muttered, glaring down the length of his body, “like my freak pregnancy.”

Ryan flicked Brendon across the bridge of the nose. “Knock it off. We’ve talked about this. We’re not going to rush anything and we’re not going to stress out about it, either. We’ve got songs, we’re just taking a long break. No big deal.”

It was a big deal. It was a big deal to Brendon who had been secretly living with the fear of losing his band since Ryan had first asked him what the plan was. He still hadn’t quite decided, although he hadn’t started looking into adoption; he had started looking into bigger places, so maybe that was a clue. Either way, Brendon’s stomach knotted up at the idea of not being able to record an album for months, like without the momentum everything would come to a screeching halt and then just . . . disappear.

“I’m freaking out,” Brendon said, and Ryan smoothed a hand over his forehead.

“Shane, tell Brendon to stop freaking out,” he said.

Shane craned his head around the camera and said, “stop freaking out, Brendon. It’ll be fine.”

Brendon sighed and shrugged and nestled further into Ryan’s lap. He wouldn’t stop freaking out. He couldn’t. But he let the subject drop, anyway, and made a valiant effort to stop thinking about it.

It only kind of worked, mostly because when he stopped thinking about that, his mind went to other subjects that were just as bad.

Like the situation with Shane. Shane was a source of added stress that Brendon didn’t quite know how to deal with.

They hadn’t talked about the kiss since Brendon had been back and there hadn’t been any repeat performances. Shane largely stayed behind his camera shooting ridiculous footage of Brendon playing with Dylan or of Brendon hanging out with his band or whatever. They talked, obviously, because they couldn’t not, but it was never about the important issue of what was going on between them. If there was even anything going on between them, which, currently, there was not.

It was confusing for reasons Brendon didn’t like to examine too closely. Sometimes he couldn’t help himself, though, couldn’t help wondering if Shane had only done it because he was worried about Brendon and the baby and now that they were back safe whatever had prompted the kiss was gone. Sometimes he wondered if it was his own fault. After all, Brendon had been the one to stop whatever they could have had going before it had really gotten started.

It wasn’t even that Brendon wanted to talk about it or that he wanted Shane to tell him what was going on. Brendon didn’t actually like talking about that kind of stuff ever and right now he was stretched thin enough that he didn’t want to deal with it. But Brendon had been a little disappointed when he’d gotten back to Vegas and things with Shane had gone back to normal. This was about the time he realized he wouldn’t have minded at all if Shane kissed him again; which was also about the time he started to have another sexuality crisis, which was getting a little old, even for him.

Most days, Brendon would watch Shane do something inane like make toast and think, we have to talk. But he never said the words. He didn’t know how to get them out, didn’t know what either of them would say to each other if he did. It was, maybe, a situation best left alone, even if it was driving Brendon crazy.

“Life’s fucking unfair,” Brendon told the camera one evening, because he couldn’t say it directly to Shane but he had to say it to someone.

He’d been thinking about the other man all day, hadn’t been able to stop wondering and wishing and waiting for some kind of sign or signal or something at all. Brendon had woken up and looked in his mirror and said, “you have a giant, stupid crush on your roommate, don’t you?” and it was true. Brendon had it bad. He was fucking . . . twitter-pated and he’d spent all morning with butterflies in his stomach and all afternoon with hearts in his eyes and now he just wanted Shane to put the fucking camera down and touch him.

Just as Brendon had the thought, accompanied by a flash of sensory memory that reminded him just how steady Shane’s hands were on his body, how perfect his touch was, he felt a flutter low in his belly. It wasn’t a crush-flutter, though. It wasn’t some random attack of nerves or anticipation. It was an actual, physical flutter.

Brendon went perfectly still and waited for a beat. He thought he heard Shane ask if he was okay, but he ignored that in favor of holding his breath and all of a sudden he felt it again. It was the weirdest sensation, not quite a kick, just a movement that Brendon couldn’t identify, but it was his baby moving and that was the most incredible part. He pressed his hands to his belly and waited and when he felt it again, the same flutter, a bit stronger this time, he laughed.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

“What-”

“Baby’s moving,” Brendon interrupted before Shane could finish.

He looked up at the camera with a smile so wide it hurt and said, “I can feel it. Holy shit.”

Shane paused and then asked, voice quiet, “what’s it like?”

Brendon closed his eyes and tried to find words. He wondered if Ryan could say it better, if someone more skilled with language than him could find a way to express it. Maybe, but then again maybe not. Maybe something this powerful was beyond description.

“I don’t know,” Brendon said finally. “It’s . . . amazing. I can’t really describe it.” He blinked his eyes open and held out a hand to Shane. “Come here.”

Shane turned off the camera and sat on the couch next to Brendon, holding his hands awkwardly in his lap. Brendon grinned and reached out, grabbing Shane’s wrists.

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to feel it,” Brendon said, settling Shane’s hands over his belly and pressing a little.

They waited, but the baby was quiet now and Shane looked up, eyes soft with disappointment.

“Nope,” he said.

Brendon sighed. “I wish you could,” he whispered, and Brendon hadn’t realized it, but they were sitting close together, their knees touching, their bodies sharing heat.

For a moment it seemed like Shane might lean in and kiss Brendon again, and Brendon sat still, trying not to hope for it and failing miserably. When Shane moved, though, it was away instead of near. He leaned back and his smile was a little forced but still warm.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Brendon blinked and then nodded in answer, feeling a little numb. Shane got to his feet and went into the kitchen without looking back. Brendon sat quietly for five whole seconds before he tipped over onto the couch, pressed his face into the nearest cushion and yelled, the sound muffled but no less satisfying. There was an answering flutter from the baby and, frustrated or not, Brendon couldn’t help but smile.

_._

On a dry, December night, Brendon woke up feeling out of sorts in a way he hadn’t done in a long time. It took him a moment to realize that the pain he’d had in his dream, sharp and persistent, wasn’t going away. It took him even longer to place the pain, centered low in his abdomen. He thought, oh shit and took a deep breath. And then another.

The cramping didn’t go away and it didn’t lessen. Brendon felt hooked to his mattress for a few long, interminable minutes and he was only vaguely aware of the fact that he was barely breathing, was too focused on the pain to care. He pressed palms to his belly, even bigger now, getting more and more impossible to hide, and he forced himself to take a few more deep breaths.

The pain ebbed just enough that he could sit up and climb out of bed, but it was back with a vengeance as soon as he got to his bedroom door. Walking the few steps it took to get to Shane’s door felt like torture, and Brendon barely managed to knock before he was hanging onto the wall for dear life. The pain was intense, there was no other word for it, and it was terrifying. Brendon was terrified.

Shane opened the door after a moment, hair sleep-mussed, eyes heavy-lidded, and said, “what’s going on?”

He stared at Brendon, eyes trying to focus, and Brendon sucked in a shallow breath. “Something’s wrong.”

In a flurry of movement, Shane tugged Brendon into the room and got him in bed. Brendon watched blearily as Shane grabbed his cellphone and a list of the emergency contact numbers. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear and rested his hands on Brendon’s shoulders, rubbing and reminding him gently to breathe, whispering that it would be okay.

Brendon closed his eyes and felt a little nauseas and he thought maybe the fear was starting to overtake the pain. Or maybe it was just making it worse. Shane was talking, to Theresa now and not to Brendon, his voice a low rush of consonants and syllables that Brendon couldn’t concentrate on.

“Brendon,” Shane said, giving him a gentle shake. Brendon looked up at him and Shane paused before saying, “you need to describe what you’re feeling, okay? So I can tell Theresa.”

It was hard to get the words out, even harder to tell if they made any sense at all, but Shane relayed everything Brendon said and waited a beat for Theresa’s response. He murmured some affirmatives and then said goodbye and scooted down the bed a little to curl against Brendon’s side. He grabbed one of Brendon’s hands and held on tight.

“She said it might not be anything serious but she’s on her way and then we’re going to go to the hospital. She knows some people who can help out there and she’s gonna call Dr. Pierson.” He tipped his forehead against Brendon’s temple. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered, “just keep breathing.”

They stayed like that until there was a knock on the apartment door. Shane’s presence was doing a lot to calm Brendon, but it still hurt and the terror that had gripped him earlier wasn’t going away. Brendon kept thinking he must have done something wrong, he kept going over the way every doctor he’d talked to had mentioned the strong possibility of him not being equipped to bring the baby to term and he wanted to scream or cry or something. Anything.

Shane just kept reminding him to breathe all the way to the hospital and then after being admitted and rushed to a curtained-off room. Brendon held on tight to Shane’s hand, afraid to let go, afraid of being alone. After what felt like an eon, a young doctor’s face popped into Brendon’s line of sight. It seemed to take him a lifetime to ask questions and rule out serious conditions, coming to the fantastic conclusion that it was “probably nothing serious”.

Brendon looked wildly to Shane and then Theresa, but neither of them said anything.

“We’re going to keep you here for a while just to make sure,” the doctor said, “but there’s no bleeding and no signs of preterm labor so it’s probably nothing.”

It didn’t feel like nothing, but Brendon didn’t want to jinx himself, either. So he stayed in the stiff hospital bed while Shane wandered outside to give Spencer a call. Theresa stayed at Brendon’s side and peered into his face.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she told him baldly, her eyes narrowed in concern and anger.

Brendon huffed out a sigh. “I scared the shit out of me,” he shot back, rubbing a hand over his belly.

The cramps weren’t so bad, now.

“You haven’t been stressing yourself out, have you?” Theresa asked, and Brendon glanced away.

He wanted to lie and say that he hadn’t, but he knew she wouldn’t buy it. How could anyone buy it? His future was hanging by a thread and he had no idea where he was going to land when it snapped. He was pregnant by some kind of scientific fluke or miracle or whatever and he worried every day and every night that he wasn’t going to make it the full nine months. He didn’t know what was going to happen to his band, he had to keep lying to his family, he wasn’t going to be able to hide the swell of his stomach for much longer, and he was maybe halfway in love with his roommate, which made him about fifty percent more gay than he was supposed to be.

Yeah. Brendon was a little stressed.

“Look,” Theresa said, leaning forward and catching Brendon’s eye. “This is scary for all of us. Scarier for you, most definitely, but Dr. Pierson and I are just as concerned with seeing you and your baby through this healthy and whole. If you don’t find a way to focus on yourself and on the life you’re carrying, you’re only going to make things worse. Stress isn’t good for you or the baby and any external complication could have effects that we can’t see coming. We’re all in this blind.”

Her words weren’t exactly encouraging, but Brendon got the gist of it. He tipped his head back and sighed.

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“Okay, what?” Theresa asked.

Brendon tilted his head and looked at her. “Okay, I’ll stop stressing myself out.”

Theresa nodded. “It’s easier said than done.” She paused. “How are you feeling?”

Brendon closed his eyes. The cramping was mild now, barely noticeable. He was exhausted and wanted to sleep for a few days now that everything seemed to be going back to normal, but other than that he thought he was probably going to be okay.

“Better,” he answered, and Theresa smiled.

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. VI

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:26:15 GMT

Brendon had lived through hell once before. Losing his family, trudging through days that never seemed to end between school and work and practice and homework. At the end of that particular tunnel had been a light, and that light’s name was Pete Wentz. Pete was the light in a broader sense, though, because he was what brought all of them through that time. Maybe for Spencer and Brent it hadn’t been as big a deal, but for Brendon and Ryan who were putting it all out on the line for this one shot? It was everything.

Looking back, Brendon didn’t think of it as hell so much as he thought of it as That Time When Shit Was Rough. Or at least, when everything settled, when he had a career starting in music and when his family forgave him and when things were looking bright and damn near perfect, he was able to look back and think it hadn’t been so bad at all, really.

Then he fucked Dan-or-Dave, which prompted a downward spiral of an identity crisis, and then he got pregnant and all of a sudden thoughts of That Time When Shit Was Rough were more intimidating and scary than ever.

Brendon didn’t want to go back to that, to the fear and the uncertainty and the loneliness. He tried to convince himself it would be different now because he had Ryan and Spencer and Jon, especially Jon, in a way he hadn’t quite had them before. He had their girlfriends who were his friends, too. He had Pete and Patrick, Singer and Marshall and Johnson, Ian and Cash, Shane . . . but that didn’t change the fact that this was still a journey that, inevitably, he had to embark on alone.

Jon went home to Chicago for a while before the fall tour was slated to start. In the two weeks he was gone, Pete got in touch with most of their trusted friends on the label to let them know what was going on, what to expect, and to ask for a little help with damage control. So far so good, considering the fact that other than the brief flare-up of concern from fans following Brendon’s collapse, no one had been questioning much about him lately. Well, other than curiosity about his relationship with Jon and Ryan, but that was still kind of old news. Just in case, everyone was on board to help with some underground PR.

Bill got in touch first, probably because of anyone he knew what it was like to have to keep a grave secret. Brendon didn’t want to talk to him, so he let the call go to voicemail. He didn’t check it, but he added the name to his list. After that, Brendon got calls from Patrick, Joe and Travis, and then Bob McLynn and a few others. Brendon refused to answer his phone every time and he refused to check his messages, but the list kept growing.

There were a few reasons to be avoiding all of them. Part of it, Brendon knew, was because he didn’t want the situation to be any more real than it already was. Having people call to offer their support and whatever, that made it more real. Most of it, though, was that Brendon was spending a lot of his time trying to figure out how the fuck he was supposed to let Zack and the guys in The Cab know what was going on.

“This must be what rocket science feels like,” Brendon groused one day.

Haley hummed on the other line and said, “it won’t be that bad.”

“I have to tell some of my closest friends that I’m pregnant.”

Shane looked up from where he was flipping through a new script and gestured to the camera at his side. Brendon shrugged and Shane picked it up, adjusted his hold and started recording.

“I can see your problem,” Haley said, but there was a smile in her voice so she was at least partly teasing.

“I’m glad this is amusing to someone,” Brendon said, and Haley sighed.

“Your hormones are going to be a real pain in the ass, aren’t they?” she said, going on before Brendon could retort. “Look, I know it’s going to be hard but you can do it. You’re one of the strongest guys I know. Other than my amazing boyfriend.”

“And his equally amazing best friend,” Brendon added with a sigh, because fucking Ryan Ross was, without a doubt, the strongest person Brendon knew.

“And him,” Haley said. “You’ll be okay. Is anyone going with you?”

Brendon slanted a glance up at Shane, looking past the lens to the man behind it, and said, “I don’t know yet.”

“Spencer will go if you need him,” she said. “Or if you want him. Or if you vaguely hint that it might be nice to have some support.”

Brendon laughed. He had no doubt about that, but he felt a strange and pressing need to do this on his own. He glanced up at Shane and amended that thought to doing it mostly on his own.

“Anyway,” Haley went on, “even if they don’t believe you, give it a few more months and you’ll have proof. Big belly, swollen ankles . . .”

“As if the morning sickness and sensitivity to smells isn’t enough,” Brendon said, and Haley laughed.

“I hate to say it,” she said, the smile evident in her voice, “but it is kind of vindicating. I mean, that you’re pregnant. Now you know how it feels.”

Brendon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, now feminists everywhere can rejoice.”

Haley giggled. “I know I am.”

“I hate you,” Brendon muttered.

Haley made a soothing sound. “It’s okay, I still love you.” There was a pause and when she spoke again, her words made Brendon’s stomach knot up. “So, I’m guessing the pregnancy is the only thing you’re planning on coming out about?”

Brendon looked down at his lap and scratched idly between Dylan’s ears. She uncurled a little and lifted her head to rest on his thigh.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, trying to be casual.

Haley scoffed. “I’m talking about the fact that Spencer and Ryan both told me that you’re still feeding everybody this line about not being gay.”

“I’m not!” Brendon shot back even though even he knew how weak that was.

“Okay!” Haley said. “But, like, if you were-”

“Haley.”

“I’m just saying. If you were, they wouldn’t freak out on you about it. I mean, you’re already pregnant. The other part is kind of a given.”

She sounded matter-of-fact and like she believed what she was saying. Haley wasn’t a liar and Spencer and Ryan always told her the absolute truth. If they mentioned that they wouldn’t freak about Brendon’s possible non-heterosexuality, they weren’t just saying it to sound accepting. They meant it. Brendon chewed on his bottom lip and glanced up at Shane.

It wasn’t something Brendon spent a lot of time thinking about. He didn’t want to. But maybe he owed it to his band, at least, to try and figure some things out. Not that it mattered. As soon as he had the kid, unless he gave it up, his life would be over. It would be diapers and fucking kindergarten and shit. He wouldn’t be able to date and especially not other guys.

Besides, who would want to sleep with such a freak of nature anyway?

“Brendon?” Haley asked.

“Yeah,” he said, slumping back against the couch. “Yeah, okay.”

“If you need someone to talk to about it,” she said, “you know I’m here, right?”

Brendon smiled a little to himself. “I do,” he said.

They wrapped up the call pretty quickly after that. Shane stopped filming and set aside the camera again. He dropped onto the couch next to Brendon, lining them up from shoulder to knee. Brendon melted into the warmth of his body and tilted his head to rest on Shane’s chest. Dylan didn’t wake up from her nap at the movement, just settled more heavily against Brendon’s other side.

“If you want, I can come with you to tell Ian and you know you won’t have to tell Zack by yourself.”

Brendon shrugged and snuggled closer. “We’ll see,” he muttered. “I just don’t want to think about it right now.”

Shane nodded and curled an arm around Brendon’s body. “I think that reality show you like is on.”

Shane grabbed the remote control and flipped on the tv. They watched the show together in silence until the people on the screen became white-noise and Brendon drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

_._

Brendon added Cash, Singer and Ian’s names to the list on a Wednesday in early September before locking himself in his room, hiding under his comforter and refusing to come out for hours. Eventually, Shane had to play dirty and send Dylan to scratch and whine at the door to get Brendon to leave his room. He also asked Ryan over to make dinner.

“You like his soup,” Shane said casually when Brendon raised an eyebrow at the spectacle of Ryan humming happily in the kitchen.

Brendon sighed and watched Dylan trot over to Ryan’s feet and plop down, tail wagging and nose sniffing interestedly at the air.

“You don’t get any,” Ryan said without looking down.

Dylan barked once, ears pricked, and didn’t move. Brendon figured they would have to watch the two of them carefully; Ryan was notorious for being unable to tell a cute animal “no”.

Shane patted Brendon on the back and walked into the living room, whistling for Dylan on the way. She hesitated, head swinging from Ryan to Shane and back, before she got up and ran out, nails clicking on the floor.

“So,” Ryan said quietly. He turned away from the stove, took one look at Brendon and walked forward.

“Hi,” Brendon said, letting himself be pulled into a tight hug.

“I heard you had a rough day.”

Brendon huffed out a laugh and tucked his face into the crook of Ryan’s neck.

“I’ll live,” he said, and Ryan hummed softly, tightening his hold.

On a Saturday morning, Brendon woke to a text message from Jon, rolled out of bed and added Cassie’s name to the list. Jon actually called him later and said, “Cass wants you to know she’s got so much experience with babies it’s ridiculous.”

Brendon pulled his feet up onto the couch and scratched Dylan behind the ears. “Tell her I might have to take advantage of that.”

Jon laughed and asked how Brendon was holding up and he said fine. It wasn’t quite a lie, but he didn’t think he was being perfectly honest, either. If Jon picked up on it, he didn’t say anything. He just said he’d see Brendon when he got back into Vegas in a few days and they hung up.

On Monday, Brendon walked in on Shane adding Regan’s name to the list. He looked unhappy when he lifted his head and Brendon crossed his arms over his chest, unsure how he felt about Shane’s ex knowing he was pregnant. They hadn’t actually talked about telling her.

“It kind of slipped,” Shane said.

Brendon raised his eyebrows and tried not to look pissed. Based on the way Shane wrinkled his nose in a tiny wince, Brendon figured he hadn’t quite managed it.

“What’d you say to her?” Brendon asked, voice tight.

“She knew you were sick and I mentioned that you went to the hospital and she freaked out so I had to tell her it wasn’t anything serious and then it . . . slipped.”

Shane’s eyes were a little wide, appealing, no doubt, to the softer side of Brendon’s newfound hormonal nature.

“It just slipped,” Brendon repeated.

Shane nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t mean to say anything but then I did and so I had to explain it.” He paused before adding, “the first thing she asked was if I was your baby-daddy.”

Brendon frowned. “Funny,” he said, and Shane held his hands up in front of his body.

“I’m totally serious. I think she was, too. I don’t know if she believed me when I told her it was somebody else.”

There was a tense moment after that, not just because Shane was trying to gauge how pissed Brendon was, but because Brendon was thinking about the somebody else in question. The thought made his stomach tense up. He didn’t like to consider it much, didn’t like the idea of having to cite some nameless dude as the father of his baby. It was a little embarrassing.

Shane stared at Brendon for a moment longer and then said, “I should have talked to you about it. I’m sorry.”

Brendon glanced at the list and shrugged. “Whatever, we would have told her eventually.”

He walked out of the kitchen, curled up on the couch and was relieved when Shane didn’t follow him. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but he wasn’t in the mood to leave, either. He was just in the mood to mope, something he was becoming increasingly good at.

The middle of September was all about the whirlwind of preparations for the fall tour, including some interviews and shows specifically for fan club members where they fielded questions about the band’s dynamic and rushed to reassure everyone that no, Brendon did not hate Jon and Ryan and no, Jon and Ryan were not trying to control Brendon and yes, the band was as close as ever thank you very much.

Amid all of that plus the non-stop fine-tuning, Brendon added Zack’s name to the list. He paused, pen still poised over the paper, and scribbled a smiley face after it.

That one, at least, had gone better than expected.

_._

When they had still been on the Honda Civic Tour, Shane decided he needed a break from touring life to shoot a short film he’d been sitting on for a while. The plan had been for him to stick with the band through the summer and then go off and do his own thing in the fall. The night before Brendon left, Shane had to be talked out of going back on his plans to leave with them.

“First of all,” Brendon said, trying to stuff one last pair of shoes in his bag, “it’s not a long tour. You’ll barely have time to miss me. Second of all, when was the last time you worked on your own stuff instead of our stupid band shit?”

He successfully wedged the last sneaker in and managed to close everything up. With a triumphant sigh, he shoved the bag off of his bed and sat down. Shane lingered in the doorway looking entirely unconvinced.

“I wouldn’t do it if I thought it was stupid band shit,” he shot back. “You guys are like . . . I dunno.”

Brendon raised his eyebrows and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Aw, Shane! Are we your muses?”

Shane rolled his eyes at Brendon’s teasing tone. “Whatever. You’re good subjects, that’s all.”

Brendon grinned and reached out, making grabby hands until Shane walked forward. As soon as he was close enough, Brendon wound his arms around Shane’s waist and pulled him close.

“It’ll be fine,” Brendon insisted, pressing his forehead to Shane’s belly. “I’ll be fine, too, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Shane made a small, noncommittal noise and draped his arms across Brendon’s shoulders. They stayed like that, quiet in the soft light of Brendon’s bedroom until Brendon could feel himself nodding off. Shane shifted and laughed when Brendon nuzzled his stomach sleepily.

“You’re so clingy,” he muttered, but he didn’t seem to mind.

He maneuvered Brendon onto the bed and they fell asleep together, curled up under Brendon’s comforter.

The next morning, Brendon did his usual last-minute scramble, making sure he had everything he needed, making a list of the things he could always buy on the road if necessary, and saying extended goodbyes to Dylan. She wasn’t too receptive to Brendon’s affection; she’d probably figured out what was going on and wasn’t too happy about being left. She was smart like that.

Still, she wagged her tail when Brendon got his bags to the door and licked his cheek when he leaned in to kiss the top of her head. He straightened and raised his eyebrows at Shane, who was looming a little.

“Dude,” Brendon said, “you’re looming.”

Shane had the decency to look chagrined about it. He shook his hair out of his eyes and said, “sorry.”

It was a little weird to think about being without Shane for a whole tour; Brendon hadn’t left him like this since they’d moved in together. Shane had gone to the cabin with Brendon, had flown to different shows with Brendon, had gone through the whole recording process and then on a gigantic tour with Brendon. It felt weird to think about him not constantly being around or constantly on his way over.

Maybe it was the flux of hormones that was driving Brendon crazy and making it hard for him to walk out the door. Then again, Brendon couldn’t blame everything on the pregnancy, no matter how much he wanted to. He knew, deep down, that his reluctance to leave Shane had nothing to do with anything but the way Brendon felt about him. What that was he still couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t really matter. Not compared to everything else.

Brendon opened his mouth to say goodbye and made a startled sound instead when Shane reached out to clasp the back of his neck and drag him forward.

“See you,” Shane breathed, the words brushing Brendon’s lips.

They were close enough that Brendon had to go a little cross-eyed to keep eye contact; he couldn’t really read Shane’s expression, but it stole his breath and made his heartbeat quicken anyway.

“Bye,” Brendon whispered back.

He had a split second to think about how inane that sounded, and then Shane was kissing him. It was nothing like the first time they’d kissed, the haze of alcohol and the residual fear of the unknown absent this time around. Shane licked the corner of Brendon’s mouth and slid his tongue forward when Brendon parted his lips on a gasp. They kissed hard and fast and deep enough to leave Brendon breathless and reeling.

When Shane pulled back, Brendon’s pulse was pounding in his ears and his fingertips and his toes and he thought so that’s what being kissed within an inch of your life feels like.

Shane grinned, sharp and crooked at Brendon and ushered him out of the door. Brendon stood, bags at his feet and heart in his throat, for a long time before he managed to get going.

_._

The first week on tour was always the most difficult. There was the rush of excitement that went along with being back on the road, but there was also the fact that as soon as it came time to step onstage, there was no real telling what would happen. It was seven days of getting used to constantly being on the move all over again and it was seven days of performing at night waiting for the inevitable glitches and screw-ups to be worked out.

Brendon spent most of the first week going strong, but he crashed hard on a Saturday night with his head in Spencer’s lap and his legs hooked over Jon’s thighs. He was asleep and dreaming of something weird, pixies and drum cadences maybe, when someone started to shake him awake.

He flailed his hand out at them and made a soft noise of protest. Spencer was warm and comfortable, as was Jon, and Brendon had no intention of moving.

“Hey,” Ryan’s voice said, his face so close Brendon could feel the wash of breath over his face. “Hey, Brendon, wake up.”

Brendon shook his head and said, “no, Ross, m’sleeping.”

There was an amused huff of breath and then the heavy weight of Ryan’s head on his chest.

“Brendon,” Ryan wheedled. “Breeendon.”

Brendon shook his head again and squealed when Jon seized one ankle and dragged a fingertip along the arch of his foot. He knew how ticklish Brendon was, bastard. Spencer laughed when Brendon’s eyes shot open and he didn’t stop even in the face of the glare being directed up at him.

“I hate you,” he complained without much heat.

Ryan nuzzled his chest and then lifted his phone and said, “okay, he’s awake.” He handed it to Brendon and added, “Keltie wants to say hi.”

Brendon took the phone with fingers that felt heavy and clumsy with sleep and said, “isn’t it really late wherever you are?”

Keltie laughed. “Since when do I have regular sleeping hours?” she asked, and this was very true. She stayed up as late as Ryan did and slept as little as Brendon. She was bionic.

“True,” Brendon said, and he could practically feel the warmth of Keltie’s smile over the line.

“So, I just wanted to call and say Happy Trimester Day! I just made that up, I don’t think it’s an actual day but technically it is, right? Anyway, congratulations!”

Brendon’s eyebrows flew up and he looked quizzically at Ryan who just grinned softly back. “Um,” he said, “okay.”

Keltie sighed, a fast gust of breath, and said, “you’ve officially made it into your second trimester, Brendon! That means you’re one-third of the way through and you’re still healthy and the baby’s still healthy! It’s totally a big deal.”

“Oh,” Brendon said quietly.

He hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t realized what today was, hadn’t even paid much attention when Dr. Pierson had talked about trimesters and milestones. Brendon felt suddenly, strangely invincible which was a far cry from the vulnerability and fear he’d been struggling with for weeks.

“Congratulations, Bren,” she said again, voice gentle and sincere.

Brendon thanked her and handed the phone back to Ryan who murmured a quick goodbye. He hung up and looked expectantly at Brendon. Brendon stared blankly back before pushing himself into a sitting position. His head swam a little bit.

“How are you feeling?” Spencer asked, and Brendon shrugged and looked down at his lap.

“Good,” he answered after a moment, lifting his head to share smiles with Ryan and Jon and Spence. “Really good.”

_._

Touring was what it always was: being stuck in confined spaces with the same people for days on end and long, draining hours and performances that were good and some that were bad and some that were fucking amazing. Brendon was pretty used to it. What he was not used to was doing it pregnant. Everything seemed to require more stamina now and instead of falling into the routine of sleeping a few hours a day and going strong the rest of the time, Brendon was constantly taking naps and falling asleep on his bandmates.

They didn’t mind. They encouraged it, even. Zack, in particular, kept a careful eye on Brendon and made sure he was eating right and getting enough rest. It was like having a team full of midwives instead of just the one; it kind of made sense. Zack and gotten in contact with Theresa ten minutes after Brendon had given him the news and he now had his own sets of lists and numbers to call. He was, as Spencer liked to say, totally and completely prepared. Like a boy scout.

Performances were the most exhausting and after every one, Brendon had to force himself out to sign autographs and say hello even though he just wanted to curl up somewhere and pass out. A few of the more observant and bold fans mentioned his recent lack of energy after one show.

“I’m fine,” Brendon assured them. “Just fighting off a cold.”

They seemed to buy it and Brendon freaked out a little because he didn’t want the stage show to suffer because of his condition. Ryan assured him it wasn’t.

“They’re probably just talking about all the pictures of you looking like your grandma died,” he said while they watched Spencer and Jon attempt an epic Halo tournament (it was fruitless; Jon was too good for Spencer and they all knew it).

“I can’t help it,” Brendon whined, slumping sideways into Ryan’s lap and sighing softly when long fingers started sifting through his hair. “Being pregnant is hard, Ryan,” he whispered.

The words felt harsh in his throat even though he’d meant them lightly. They hung in the air for a shaky moment and then Ryan bent at the waist and kissed Brendon’s temple. He didn’t reply. There wasn’t much he could say to that, but he scratched lightly at Brendon’s scalp and shared his bodyheat and that was enough.

A few times, tour took an emotional toll on Brendon. Like when he and Jon got into a horrible fight that lasted almost three days, during which Jon didn’t talk to Brendon at all and Brendon refused to apologize for whatever stupid thing he’d said and it became evident that maybe neither of them were handling the whole pregnancy thing as well as they liked to pretend. The night after a particularly shitty show during which Brendon crowded Ryan’s space and Jon sang like every word was a well-formed weapon and everything felt off-balance, Ryan went after Jon in the bunks and Spencer cornered Brendon in the back lounge.

“So,” Spencer said, looking at Brendon who was tucked into a corner of the couch, idly watching the menu screen of one of Ryan’s weird-ass French films.

“What?” Brendon snapped.

He could see Spencer’s jaw clench out of the corner of his eye and bit back an apology. He was pissed and he was so fucking tired all the fucking time and Jon was an asshole and Brendon didn’t want to say he was sorry. He didn’t even feel sorry, not for anything. Not really. Or maybe he was so sorry he couldn’t figure out how to say the words and mean them.

He bit down hard on his bottom lip and flinched away when Spencer sat close to him on the couch.

“You want to talk about it?” Spencer asked, and Brendon shook his head. “Too bad,” he continued. “What the fuck is going on?”

Brendon didn’t know. He’d been getting into little fights with Spencer and Ryan and Jon for weeks now, tiny verbal skirmishes that were over before they’d even really gotten started. They’d all grown to accept his moodiness, even if it was inconvenient for all of them. Nothing had been like this, though, with stony silences lasting endless hours.

It had started with the stupidest thing, too, something so stupid Brendon could barely remember it. All he could remember was Jon yelling at him about how fucking stupid he always was, how irresponsible, and Brendon yelling back that at least he wasn’t fucking useless and Jon had spit out a venomous “fuck you” and stormed out and Brendon had locked himself in the bathroom and spent an hour determinedly not crying.

“Look,” Spencer said quietly, “we know it’s hard, okay? It’s hard for us, too. I mean, it’s different, but it’s hard. “

Brendon frowned at the television screen and didn’t look up until Spencer gripped his shoulder and shook him gently.

“You’re not even four months pregnant yet,” he said. “You’ve got to live with us and we’ve got to live with you until you have this baby. You can’t keep pulling this shit and expect it to be smooth.”

“I wasn’t the only one present for the fight,” Brendon pointed out.

“Don’t worry, Ryan’s probably lecturing Jon’s ears off as we speak,” Spencer said with a small smile.

Brendon made a face and turned back to the TV. “I didn’t mean what I said,” he muttered.

“So tell Jon,” Spencer said.

It took Brendon a good three hours to get up the courage. It was well past his bedtime but he sat up in the lounge anyway, staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out a way to apologize to Jon without sacrificing every inch of his already non-existent dignity.

When no answer was forthcoming and Brendon had already fielded about six threatening texts telling him to get some sleep or else, he rolled to his feet and stumbled back to the bunks. He hesitated outside of Jon’s bottom bunk for a brief moment before kneeling down and whispering, “knock, knock.”

He was pretty sure Jon was asleep, but the curtain twitched open a moment later and Jon whispered, “what do you want, Brendon?”

So he was still pissed. Brendon sighed and it was ridiculous but he felt like crying again. He hated hormones, fucking hated them.

“I didn’t mean it,” he murmured. “You’re not useless and I’m sorry I’m so stupid, I really am, but when the fuck are you going to forgive me instead of just pretending? You’re not a liar so stop fucking lying to me.”

Jon didn’t say anything and Brendon sucked in a sharp breath, leaning half into Jon’s bunk.

“You’re not useless, Jon, okay? Forgive me?”

“Shit,” Jon said harshly before reaching out and tugging Brendon into the cramped space.

Jon buried his face in Brendon’s neck and his lips were moving but Brendon couldn’t hear the words. He clung to Jon, though, and tried to make out the shape of them.

He thought he caught them, the “you’re not stupid” and the “I’m sorry, too” and, most importantly, “I forgive you, I forgive you, fuck”. He wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter.

A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. V

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:23:13 GMT

In lieu of band practice for a few days, Spencer, Ryan and Jon made the executive decision to drive up to LA with Brendon for his meeting with the mysterious Dr. Pierson. Jon was calling it a band-bonding experience, Spencer was calling it a way of making sure Brendon’s potential doctor wasn’t a psycho, and Ryan wasn’t calling it much of anything. He just looked at Brendon and said, “I’m coming with you,” and that was that.

They met at Spencer’s place early Friday afternoon, stuffed their bags into the trunk of his car (all but the one carrying Hobo, which Ryan pulled into his lap as soon as he climbed into the front seat), waved goodbye to Haley and started on their way.

“I feel like I should warn you guys that I’ll have to piss, like, every twenty minutes,” Brendon said as they pulled out onto the street.

“Luckily there are some empty water bottles under the seat,” Spencer teased.

The drive wasn’t all that long. It was made longer by the numerous stops Brendon needed for them to make, and by the fact that a few times Jon and Ryan wanted to stop to check out really crazy tourist traps that Brendon had forgotten even existed since the last time he’d made this trip. After one particularly long stop, Jon and Ryan came back from wherever they’d disappeared to, giggling to each other over nothing, and Brendon felt a pang of jealousy.

“You guys are so high,” he said morosely, and they looked at him a little guiltily. He couldn’t get high anymore. He couldn’t drink anymore, either. His friends were going to have amazing times together and he was going to be getting fat and even more pregnant.

He was barely even a month into this thing and already he was sick of it. But Jon cuddled with Brendon in the backseat and Ryan sang softly along with the radio for the rest of the drive and that made it all a little better.

Eventually they got to Pete’s place. They weren’t staying with him, but they wanted to say hi and drop Hobo off before going to their hotel. He answered the door with a smile that dimmed a little when he caught sight of Brendon. He hadn’t apologized for being a dick, not yet, and he probably wouldn’t. He looked contrite, though, and held on a little too long and a little too tight when Brendon moved forward to hug him.

They hung out with him for a while and he told them everything he knew about Dr. Pierson, which wasn’t much. Eventually the conversation shifted, heading in a more normal direction. Pete babbled a little bit about married life while Jon and Spencer shared amused and significant looks, and then he mentioned some of his upcoming projects and gushed about Patrick’s and mentioned plans for a new album. It was nice and easy until Pete asked if they had any idea what they were doing about the band yet; that wasn’t a subject any of them were ready to address.

“We haven’t talked about it,” Ryan said quickly.

“But we’re not breaking up,” Brendon added, more for his own reassurance than for Pete’s.

“Well, of course not!” Pete said loudly, forcing a grin, and they changed the subject quickly.

Maybe it was Brendon’s imagination, but after that a little bit of tension settled over him, Jon, Ryan and Spencer. Back at the hotel, Brendon hesitated to say anything to the guys for fear of prompting another fight or another slide into the awkward stage they had found themselves in right after getting the news. They all stood a little uncomfortably in the hallway between their rooms, exchanging looks, poised to go their separate ways but unmoving all the same.

Pete’s question had aroused some of the worry Brendon hadn’t been able to shake that maybe this was the beginning of the end. But, he thought, glancing at Ryan’s downcast eyes and Spencer and Jon’s placid expressions, they were here. They weren’t running, they were sticking by him. Brendon wasn’t going to push them away and they weren’t going anywhere and that eased the concern.

Brendon said, “I’m glad you guys are here,” ducking his head and chewing on his bottom lip.

“Like we could be anywhere else,” Spencer said. “Like we’d want to be anywhere else.”

Brendon flashed him a grin and then let himself be pulled forward into a hug that started with Spencer’s arms around him and ended with Jon squished against his left side and Ryan fitted half against his right and half against his back. Someone, Ryan, pressed his lips to Brendon’s temple and someone else, Jon, said, “we love you, don’t forget it.”

That night, Brendon slept fitfully, nervous about meeting the doctor, worried about what they might find out. He was up in the middle of the night to throw up, like usual, and when he walked out of the bathroom feeling wan and worn out, Ryan made a big deal of moving his comforter aside.

“Get in here,” he said, when Brendon ignored the hint.

Brendon crawled into bed with him and sighed softly when a long, spindly arm gathered him in and tugged him back against a strong chest. Ryan tucked Brendon’s head under his chin and didn’t say anything, just rubbed slow circles into the hot flesh of Brendon’s belly until Brendon finally, finally eased into a deep and quiet sleep.

The next morning consisted of breakfast, quietly freaking out and watching Jon and Spencer not so quietly freaking out, although they kept their concerns mostly to each other. Brendon was watching them exchange rapid-fire whispers instead of paying attention to the Saturday morning cartoons on the TV. Spencer and Jon were way more entertaining, even if the occasional look of fear or confusion was making Brendon’s stomach twist tighter. Ryan was the only one who seemed cool, calm and collected, but he was completely absorbed with texting someone, probably Keltie, so there was no real way of telling.

By the time they were piling into Spencer’s car and making their way to see Dr. Pierson, Brendon was ready to turn right around and go back home. He didn’t need a doctor. No doctor meant that if there were any complications, he, at least, wouldn’t know about it. Brendon was beginning to believe firmly in the whole ‘ignorance is bliss’ thing. But Spencer was driving and he didn’t turn around and when they got to the hospital, Ryan didn’t let Brendon hesitate next to the car for very long.

“It won’t be that bad,” Ryan told him, a hand wrapped firmly around his wrist.

Brendon didn’t know if that was entirely accurate. The last time he’d been in the hospital he’d come out of it pregnant, so fuck only knew what was going to happen this time. But he let himself be tugged inside and into the elevator. Spencer and Jon had gone from whispering to sharing unreadable looks. Ryan glared at them a couple of times, like he could tell that the cryptic silence was wreaking havoc on Brendon’s nerves, but that didn’t stop them.

Pete was already there when the doors slid open. They could see him sitting in the otherwise empty waiting room just down the hall. He was thoroughly engrossed in one of the magazines from the side-table next to him but he looked up suddenly, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth.

“Hey,” he said when they got into the waiting room. He rose to his feet and led Brendon to the receptionist’s desk where he had to sign in and fill out paperwork.

The nurse at the desk, at least, was nice. She didn’t seem phased by Brendon’s presence. Brendon thought that maybe she had no clue what he was there for, but as soon as she took the papers from him she was rambling about how they’d started to prepare for Brendon’s case and he was in good hands.

“These are some of the best doctors in the world,” she told him. “They deal with abnormal pregnancies every day.”

“Not this abnormal,” Brendon said, crossing his arms over his chest.

She just smiled at him and said, “I’ll be right back.”

She left with the paperwork and Brendon sat in the uncomfortable seat in between Ryan and Spencer, waiting. Spencer kept one hand in between Brendon’s shoulders, steady and warm, and told Jon to read to him from Sports Illustrated. Jon rolled his eyes but obliged, his voice low and quiet while he read about draft choices and predictions for the upcoming football season. Brendon leaned his head against Ryan’s shoulder and didn’t move except to answer Shane when he started texting to ask how it was going.

Eventually the nurse came back out and said, “okay, Brendon.”

Brendon hesitated. He felt glued to his chair, frozen in his seat, and he probably would have refused to stand up at all if Ryan hadn’t gotten to his feet first.

“Come on, I’m coming with you,” he said, reaching down and tugging at Brendon’s elbows.

Brendon let Ryan pull him up and, amid encouraging looks from Jon, Spencer and Pete, they went back.

_._

The meeting wasn’t actually that bad. Ryan was kind of embarrassing, since he actually took notes, but Dr. Pierson was a nice, strange old man who didn’t seem intimidated by the fact that he was working with a pregnant boy. He didn’t exactly calm Brendon down, but he didn’t scare him off, either. He just rattled off some facts and statistics and other scientific shit about pregnant males in the animal kingdom (most of them having been inseminated and observed in labs, so Brendon was still an anomaly since he’d done this the natural way).

Dr. Pierson also talked about possible explanations for Brendon’s condition, most of which made Brendon’s head hurt. It was all told in the kind of medical jargon that Brendon only vaguely recognized from his biology class sophomore year; most of it still managed to sound like a foreign language. At the end of it, Dr. Pierson was straight-forward about the risks inherent in Brendon’s pregnancy and let them know that he would do everything he could to make sure Brendon and baby made it out healthy and whole.

Brendon couldn’t lie and say he didn’t greatly appreciate the sentiment.

“See,” Ryan said absently as they left the doctor’s office with a list of prenatal vitamins for Brendon to take and the name of the midwife in Vegas who was going to be working with them, “that wasn’t so bad.”

Brendon glanced sideways to see Ryan studying his notes carefully. It was a pretty bizarre sight because Ryan was not a note-taker. He wasn’t particularly concerned with semantics at any time, which was why he couldn’t remember to pay his bills and he constantly forgot what he was supposed to be doing halfway through doing it. Brendon figured Spencer had probably put him up to the task, possibly under threat of death, and it was a little sweet that Ryan had tried so hard.

“Guess not,” Brendon answered, even though Ryan was right.

Ryan hummed in acknowledgement but didn’t look up until they got out into the waiting room. Pete, Jon and Spencer all jerked to their feet. Their faces were shaped in nearly identical expressions of worry, like they expected Brendon to have bad news.

“It’s okay,” Brendon said, holding his hands up, “I think I’m gonna live.”

Spencer rolled his eyes but his body relaxed. Ryan walked over to hand him the notes and Brendon shared a small smile with Jon.

A second later, the whole world tilted as Brendon was pulled into an impossibly tight hug. Pete buried his face in Brendon’s neck and didn’t move, which wasn’t so much unusual for Pete as it was awkward for Brendon.

“Jesus, Pete,” Brendon gasped, shifting in the arms around him until he could make it into a proper hug.

“Dude,” Pete said quietly, “you’re gonna have a fucking baby.”

Brendon tightened his hold on Pete and wanted to laugh. It was the closest thing to an apology that Pete was going to give and it was completely sincere. The awe in Pete’s voice settled warm and thick in Brendon’s belly and he thought yeah, yeah I am gonna have a fucking baby. And then he did laugh because he couldn’t help it.

Pete gripped Brendon even tighter (which was practically impossible), and muffled his own giggles into Brendon’s skin.

_._

Being pregnant didn’t make Brendon fragile and it didn’t make him a girl, but he couldn’t convince anybody else of that. They were playing another festival in Europe, one in Japan, and then it was off to Australia for a few tour dates. Now that Brendon knew what was going on with his body and could take care of himself better, he didn’t feel like he needed everyone worrying about him.

It didn’t matter what he said, though, nobody seemed willing to let him out of their sight. Spencer harped about the vitamins in London, Jon harped about the diet in Japan and Ryan was constantly draping his scarves around Brendon’s neck to keep him warm (in the middle of fucking summer, Jesus) and putting him to bed early in Australia.

They watched him like hawks onstage and whenever Brendon decided to bounce around even a little, Ryan or Jon were right there beside him, herding him back to the microphone with their shoulders. Brendon spent more time staring at them in exasperation than any kind of fondness, and he wasn’t surprised when Shane mentioned the reaction it was getting.

“The crazies are starting to think you hate Ryan and Jon,” Shane said. “Also, there might be some theory floating around about, like, BDSM but that could just have been the fanfiction.”

Brendon was sitting cross-legged on his hotel bed in Perth, watching Spencer flip through channels and text at the same time. It was an amazing feat.

“Spencer has really dexterous fingers,” Brendon said absently, adding, “and what the fuck, why are you reading the fanfiction?”

“To inform myself,” Shane said vaguely. “Shut up, I was bored. Anyway, do you hate Ryan and Jon? Is the band breaking up? Are you their pet? Wait, wait, here’s the big question: do they make you wear a collar and call them ‘sir’?”

Brendon laughed and almost rolled off the bed. Spencer looked up sharply and Brendon waved a hand at him.

“What?” Brendon said, still giggling.

“Inquiring minds want to know, dude,” he said, and Brendon rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, they’re just trying to make sure I don’t, like, fall and break my neck on stage or something,” he said.

“That’s nice of them,” Shane said, but in a way that indicated he was in full agreement with Jon and Ryan’s plan and wouldn’t be on Brendon’s side if he complained about how they were totally smothering him and his baby. “How are you, anyway? Like, with the you-know-what?”

Brendon glanced at Spencer, who was now fully absorbed in his sidekick with a ridiculous Haley-smile on his face. He lowered his voice and fell back against the pillows.

“You can call it a baby,” he said, and even though he was keeping his voice down, Spencer glanced up again.

His eyes darted down to Brendon’s midsection, which his t-shirt was clinging to rather unattractively, and Brendon watched his smile soften into something a little confused and a lot awed. It was the way his whole band was looking at him nowadays. It was way better than a few weeks ago, when they could barely look without staring openly, trying to make sense of something that so obviously didn’t make any sense at all.

It was still a little unnerving, though. Every so often, backstage or on the way to the venue or during soundcheck, Brendon would catch a pair of eyes on him and they were just . . . gazing. That was the only way to describe it. When they were caught they all looked away quickly, like they hadn’t realized they were doing it. Brendon kind of knew how they felt. He’d added an extra thirty minutes to the time it usually took him to get ready, and not because he needed it but because he always ended up staring into the mirror for a while, shocked and afraid and confused.

Brendon watched Spencer’s eyes move back to the screen of his phone, albeit a little slowly, and realized that Shane hadn’t said anything in response.

“Shane?” Brendon said, and there was a sharp gust of air over the line, a sigh.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “That’s just kind of weird, still.”

Brendon laughed a little self-consciously. “What, the baby?”

“I dunno, it’s more the word. You don’t say it much,” he said.

This was actually true, which Brendon hadn’t really considered until now. Sometimes it slipped out, and he made himself think the word every day, but he really didn’t say it all that often and nobody else said it around him much. Not in everyday conversation. Not even in the increasingly frequent ‘are you taking care of yourself?’ conversations.

“Anyway,” Shane said, jerking Brendon’s attention back to the phone, “how are you and baby?”

The words came a little awkwardly and Brendon could feel himself blushing. He wondered if he’d ever stop feeling so weird about it and decided that he probably wouldn’t.

“Good. We’re good,” he said.

He was only assuming; it wasn’t like his baby was all that big yet, but he would be able to tell if something was wrong, he was sure. He didn’t know how he was sure, but he was.

“Good,” Shane said. “So, quick question.”

“Shoot.”

“What would I have to do to get you to let me film you in the family way?”

Brendon blinked up at the ceiling. “Um, what? Like . . .” He trailed off, unsure of how to even finish that sentence.

“Like a documentary, dumbass,” Shane said affectionately, “that’s all. And it wouldn’t be for anybody or, you know, I’m not planning on selling it to the Discovery Channel or something. I just want to. I think it would be cool to have later. Video evidence of the most bizarre nine months of your life.”

“I’m pretty sure the actual baby will be enough evidence,” Brendon pointed out, but he was thinking about it and Shane was quiet on the other line while he considered.

It wasn’t a problem of not trusting Shane. Brendon knew Shane wouldn’t do anything with the tape to hurt him or incriminate him. It was more a matter of having this on tape at all. Brendon wasn’t really in denial about it, but that didn’t mean he was ready to embrace the idea, either. Everything he did, he did for the health of the baby and because Dr. Reid had told him to. It wasn’t . . . he wasn’t excited about it. He wasn’t running out looking at paint colors for a nursery or, hell, even thinking about the fact that his apartment with Shane didn’t actually have one. It was the consequence of a mistake Brendon had made and he was living with it.

Having it immortalized on film would only make it harder.

“Come on, Brendon,” Shane wheedled, “please? It’ll be totally awesome. My masterpiece.”

Brendon sighed and figured he could suck it up and besides, he kind of liked it when Shane was behind the camera. He got this crazy focus that was fun to watch, and he was great at what he did.

“Fine,” Brendon said, “why not?”

Shane crowed and Brendon rolled his eyes, but that didn’t stop him from smiling fondly. When he glanced up, Spencer was staring at his face, eyebrows raised. Brendon raised his own back and Spencer smirked, the look of someone who knew something someone else didn’t, and went back to the TV.

_._

Things calmed down once they got back to Vegas. Brendon spent the first two days back alternating between sleeping, playing with Dylan, and letting Shane film him doing really boring shit.

“I’m not that entertaining,” Brendon pointed out as he made a peanut butter and sugar sandwich (he blamed Keltie for his sudden and painful addiction to them, and Shane for being a midnight-grocery-store-running enabler).

“You’re pregnant,” Shane shot back. “I think that’s enough to hold anyone’s attention.”

Brendon shook his head and licked peanut butter off of his finger. “Yeah, no, you’re seriously filming the world’s most boring home videos.”

Shane didn’t seem to mind, but Shane was an artist behind a camera and he saw the world differently. What Brendon thought was inane, Shane probably thought was some kind of magical moment that could be intercut with another to make something interesting and engaging to watch. Brendon wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he liked being Shane’s favorite subject so he didn’t really mind, although sometimes he tried to liven up the days and Shane would roll his eyes and tell him not to worry about it.

Shane was all about Brendon just being himself. Brendon wasn’t sure how to tell him that with everything that was going on, he didn’t know exactly who that was anymore.

There wasn’t much time for Brendon to figure it out. He wasn’t busy anymore; there was a tour to plan and the VMAs to prepare for, but beyond that Brendon’s days were pretty wide-open. It was more the pressing issue of who to tell that was consuming Brendon’s thought process. It was a tough question that Brendon didn’t have enough energy to focus on himself.

There was a list on the refrigerator that Shane got a nice, close-up shot of on the Wednesday that Brendon stuck it up.

“These are the people who know about Brendon,” Shane said, picking up the pregnancy-video narration. “Tell us about the list.”

Shane swung the camera toward Brendon, who shrugged and stared at the slip of paper on the fridge.

“It’s going to get a lot longer ,” he said.

It was quiet for a moment. When Shane spoke, his voice was soft and serious. “Are you gonna tell your parents?”

Brendon sighed and avoided glancing over. “I’m gonna have to eventually. I just . . . don’t really want to.”

Brendon didn’t say anything about how he was pretty sure that would be the last conversation he’d ever have with his parents. Gay or not, he wasn’t going to be repentant about what he’d done. He wasn’t going to fall on their mercy and let them tell him all about how this pregnancy was a punishment from God and all he had to do was ask for forgiveness and never take another dick up the ass again and it would all be okay.

That was bullshit. Maybe getting pregnant was some kind of punishment for Brendon’s stupidity, and maybe he wasn’t ready to even think the word ‘gay’ and claim it, but there was no way in hell Brendon was going to be able to ask a God he was pretty sure he didn’t believe in for forgiveness. Mistake or not, fuck up or not, Brendon couldn’t do it.

There were rules in the Church about the gay thing. Brendon knew what they were and he knew that Shane knew what they were. Shane was the first and only person Brendon had ever explained them to. He didn’t have to tell the camera that when he told his parents he was pregnant and explained the situation to them, he was as good as saying goodbye.

They both already knew it.

“Pete mentioned telling some of our friends,” Brendon said eventually, changing the subject. “And, like, Jon wants to tell Cassie because they tell each other everything. And we’ll have to tell Zack before the next tour starts.”

Brendon sighed and stared at the list, at the names on it, and hated to imagine it growing. He didn’t want people to know, but he was going to have to tell some of them and Pete had promised to handle the rest.

Shane walked forward and rested his hand on the back of Brendon’s neck, the camera off and set aside for the moment. He didn’t say anything, just stood close to Brendon and offered quiet support. Brendon melted into the touch and tried not to think of how the words were bound to stick to the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat. His stomach twisted and he focused on the warmth of Shane’s touch until he could breathe easily again.

_._

Ryan and Jon and Spencer were stoned. They were so, so very stoned and Brendon couldn’t smoke up, probably wouldn’t be able to smoke up for a very long time, and he was not happy about it. They were sitting in some small Italian restaurant that Ryan had discovered and while his friends were busy being high and loading up on carbs, Brendon was picking at a salad and thinking morosely of the meeting with his midwife earlier that week.

All in all, it hadn’t gone badly, but Brendon now had multiple lists of acceptable foods and beverages, helpful websites and books, numbers to call in case of an emergency, tips on baby-proofing the apartment (which, according to her, was much too small for a family, anyway; somewhere between her rummaging through the fridge and cupboards and rattling off scary information about hormones and What To Expect Over the Next Eight Months, Brendon didn’t quite get across to her that there was no ‘family’ to speak of, just him and the baby, if he kept it, which was still not something he was ready to think about) and other things.

Brendon had to eat healthy and he knew that. He wasn’t stupid. The problem was, apparently the fruits and vegetables he occasionally nibbled on, the ones that Haley and Spencer and Ryan were keeping him stocked up on, weren’t enough. It was like being eleven-years-old all over again with all of the rules about keeping his body a clean temple of the Lord, except now he was keeping it clean for an entirely different reason.

Theresa the Midwife (as Shane called her), wasn’t actually that bad. She was a massively tall and wide woman, but she had soft eyes and a warm smile. She was strict, though, and doubly-so with Brendon who was already some kind of ticking time-bomb.

“With all of the unknown factors surrounding your pregnancy, one of the only ways we can really work to ensure your safety and the safety of your baby is to keep you both healthy,” she’d said.

So, an even more regimented diet it was with no caffeine and no alcohol and no smoke and that was why Brendon couldn’t help eyeing Jon and Ryan’s wine glasses enviously, and that was also why he couldn’t help but hate them for smoking up when they knew he couldn’t.

Brendon poked at a crisp piece of lettuce and then speared it with his fork. “I hate being knocked up,” he said.

Spencer leaned into Jon and giggled. “Dude, you’re barely even pregnant yet. What are you gonna do when you’re, like, the size of a barge?”

Jon started humming low under his breath while Brendon glared at Spencer and Ryan picked up the tune easily enough, adding his own voice to it. Even without the words, the song was distinctly recognizable. Brendon glared at both of them, too.

“Is that ‘Gaston’? Are you humming ‘Gaston’?”

Brendon loved that song. He was trying to be pissed off here, but he loved that stupid song and his stupid stoned friends were grinning at him like they knew he couldn’t stay mad when there was Disney to be sung.

Ryan warbled, “no one fights like Gaston,”

“douses lights like Gaston,” Jon joined in.

Spencer grinned and sang, “in a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston.”

They stared at Brendon, they always left him the fucking girl parts, and he crossed his arms and tried to ignore their wagging eyebrows and wide-wide eyes. Ryan leaned forward, elbows on the table like the wicked heathen he was, and said, “Brendon.”

Brendon closed his eyes and scuffed his toe against the floor and sighed.

“For there’s no one as burly and brawny,” Brendon sang flatly, and Jon, Ryan and Spencer smiled.

“As you see I’ve got biceps to spare,” Jon sang, flexing his biceps.

Ryan nodded gravely and reached across the table to squeeze the muscle.

“Oh, hey,” Ryan said. “You are pretty burly and brawny, Jon,” he said, squeezing again.

Jon’s eyes twinkled. “I know, right?”

Spencer laughed, his head falling to Jon’s shoulder. Brendon watched them and rolled his eyes but he couldn’t stay annoyed for long. He loved them too much, loved them whether they were sober or not, but mostly he loved them when they could be like this. Dorks in arms.

“This isn’t gonna change, is it?” Brendon asked before he could stop himself.

Three pairs of painfully familiar eyes looked up at him. Ryan nudged their shoulders together.

“I don’t know. Change happens,” he said slowly.

Brendon sighed and rolled a cherry tomato around the edge of his plate. “But us. This.”

“Does it matter?” Jon asked, and Brendon looked up to see him with his serious face on, eyes grave, mouth set. “Does it? I mean, you know we’re not going anywhere. So does a little change really matter in the long run?”

Having a kid was a pretty big change and they all knew it, but Brendon looked around the table at his best friends and realized that as long as he had them, he would be okay. Spencer smiled his brightest smile and plucked a cucumber from Brendon’s plate with his fingers.

“Stop killing our buzz, Brendon,” he said, extending the food with raised eyebrows, “and don’t worry so much.”

Brendon leaned forward to take the cucumber slice into his mouth. “I can’t help it,” he said around his chewing.

Ryan tipped his head over onto Brendon’s shoulder and said, “we’ll be here to worry with you. That’s not going to change.”

Jon and Spencer nodded and Brendon bit his lip and looked back down at his salad.

“Eat,” Ryan said without lifting his head.

“Oh, hey, you know what we should do?” Jon said, lighting up and dispelling the tension hanging over the table with natural ease.

“What?” Spencer asked.

“Ice cream and Spinal Tap.”

Brendon grinned and said, “we do that all the time.”

Jon smiled back and flicked a stray strip of napkin at him. “I know.”

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A Million Ways To Fall - Pt. IV

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:20:40 GMT

Ryan called Pete; Brendon wasn’t surprised. He kind of had to. He called Pete and then he walked into Brendon’s curtained-off room with Pete still on the phone to say, “we’re cancelling the show tomorrow.”

Brendon blinked up at him and shook his head frantically. “We are not,” he said, and Ryan glared at him.

“We are. You’re fucking . . .” he trailed off and waved a hand through the air to indicate ‘you’re pregnant’ and continued, “we need to figure some shit out. And where the fuck is your fucking doctor?”

Brendon hesitated to call Doctor Reed his doctor. He didn’t like the woman, he barely knew the woman, and he hadn’t seen her since Dr. Kuhn had left with the machine, which had been almost an hour ago. His head was hurting worse than ever and he wanted to sleep and wake up and realize this had all been a nightmare. A vivid and ridiculous nightmare brought on by too much weed and pizza before bed.

“We don’t have to cancel anything,” Brendon insisted, “I’m not dying.”

Ryan made a small, disgruntled sound, growled “talk to him,” into the mouthpiece, and then strode forward to shove the phone up to Brendon’s ear.

“Brendon, listen to your guitarist and get the fuck back to Vegas, okay? We’re getting a second opinion on this shit,” Pete said. He sounded more pissed off than Brendon had ever heard him.

“Because technology is so advanced doctors can fake sonograms now,” Brendon shot back, and Pete was eerily quiet for a long moment.

“Fuck,” he finally said, “just get your ass back here so we can figure out what the hell to do next.”

Brendon felt a little torn because on the one hand, he wanted for Pete and Ryan and Spencer to figure this whole thing out for him. They could tell him, “get an abortion, it’s for the good of the band,” and Brendon would do it because morals or no morals, he was good at pushing them aside if it was for a valid and particularly selfish reason. On the other hand, who the fuck did Pete think he was? Or Ryan, for that matter? It was Brendon’s body and Brendon’s fucking fetus or baby or whatever and it wasn’t their problem.

He thrust the phone back at Ryan and glared at him until he turned on his heel and left. It was a little unfair of him to have barged in anyway, especially when no one else seemed capable of coming back to see Brendon. They were all staying put on the other side of the curtain. Haley had joined them a while ago to give them an update since nobody had checked in after Dr. Kuhn left. Ryan was the first one to come in and actually talk to Brendon. If what had just happened between them could be called talking, which was actually stretching it quite a bit.

“I want to go home,” Brendon said, curling up on his side and facing Shane.

Shane nodded and leaned forward, brushing a hand through Brendon’s hair. “Yeah, I know. Soon, though.”

Brendon sighed and closed his eyes and the next time he opened them, Doctor Reed was walking in with Ryan, Spencer and Jon at her heels. She looked disgruntled and shaken, the least stoic she’d been all night, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“We need to discuss your options,” she said, cutting straight to the point.

Ryan, Spencer and Jon gathered around Brendon, careful not to look at or touch him, and Brendon bit his lip against another onslaught of completely random and pathetic tears as he sat up.

“Because this is such a . . . unique occurrence, we have no idea of knowing whether or not your body is capable of bringing this baby to term. You have a functioning uterus and what appears to be some kind of cervix, but no birth canal and so if you were to bring the baby to term, there would be serious complications in labor.”

“What kind of complications?” Brendon asked.

“Your body has provided no natural way for you to give birth. We could do a C-section and that would take care of it in theory, but as I said, there’s no real way of knowing.”

Brendon’s tongue felt thick in his mouth and he couldn’t make himself ask the question, but he didn’t have to. Jon did it for him.

“What about an abortion?” he asked curiously.

“There would still be some complications. We can’t give you a simple abortifacient because your body has no way of expelling the fetus. Any other traditional ways of performing an abortion wouldn’t work, either. We’d probably have to perform a surgical procedure.”

She said all of this matter-of-factly and Brendon felt cold and light-headed. He pressed a hand to his abdomen and thought about hands in latex gloves cutting him open and slicing away the little life he’d seen just minutes before on that black screen and he felt his shoulders tense.

“No way,” Spencer said, taking one look at Brendon’s face and shaking his head. “No way are you cutting him open for that.”

The doctor’s lips pursed and she said, “it would probably be a much safer procedure than to go through a high-risk pregnancy.”

She was just stating the facts, laying it all out there, but Brendon suddenly felt defensive.

“I think I’ll take my chances,” he said, and she blinked at him.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “if you’re sure, we’re going to need to assign a team of specialists to you. We’d like to keep you under observation and record every step of the pregnancy. We’ll also need to do some more tests so we can start to figure out how this happened.”

Her voice was clinical and it made Brendon uncomfortable. Everything about this doctor was focused on the science and as if Brendon didn’t hate shit like science enough already, he definitely wasn’t interested in being somebody’s experiment for the fucking fair.

He sat up straighter and said, “I let a guy fuck me, I got pregnant, end of story. I don’t think you need to know anything else.”

“I don’t think you understand the magnitude of this-”

Brendon swung his legs over the side of the bed and shook his head. “I don’t want to understand. I don’t give a fuck. I’m not letting you do a bunch of tests on me and I’m not living the next eight months under a microscope.”

He stood up, mostly steady on his feet, the sonogram clutched in one hand.

“You don’t know what kind of problems could arise during your pregnancy,” she reasoned. “You’ll need a team of doctors there to make sure that you and the baby stay healthy.”

“We’ll take care of him,” Ryan said, stepping in between the doctor and Brendon. “I just have one question: it’s safe for him to fly home, right?”

Doctor Reed hesitated before nodding, and Ryan curled an arm around Brendon’s shoulders and ushered him through the curtain. The doctor called after them once, but nobody looked back. They just walked right out of the hospital and into the hot, humid night.

_._

They got back to the hotel late and Brendon went to sleep immediately, glad for the first time that night that nobody seemed to know what to say to him. He was up in the middle of the night, like clockwork, throwing up in the small hotel bathroom. It was weird to know why, to rest a hand low against his belly and think baby. Brendon wasn’t sure he was ever going to get used to it because it was impossible, it was fucking ridiculous, and yet it was true.

He stood up and stared at himself blearily in the mirror and wondered just how his genes had gotten this fucked up. And then he wished desperately that he’d avoided that party in June, that he’d gone home with a girl instead of letting himself be played and fucked over by a guy. A guy whose name he didn’t even know. Brendon was like some kind of cautionary teenage pregnancy tale with the added bonus of “this is what happens if you have gay, unprotected sex” attached to the usual moral of the story.

It was stupidly ironic, Brendon thought, that he’d had sex with guys twice and both times he’d managed to brush it off and pretend it had never happened and now he didn’t have that option. There was no going back. He, Brendon Urie, had been fucked up the ass and now he was having some other dude’s baby. Maybe it was a strange Mormon curse, a way of knowing who was gay in the church, a way of weeding them out. It was certainly effective. Now anyone would be able to look at Brendon and know and all the work he’d done to hide it and ignore it and pretend it wasn’t there had been for nothing.

A sharp stinging in his palms brought Brendon back to the present, into the sour smelling bathroom with its harsh lighting, and he realized he’d been clenching his fists so hard his nails had cut into his skin. There were raw crescent moons in his palms when he uncurled his fingers, only two of them actually bleeding. He stared until his stomach stopped aching and until his head stopped swimming and forced himself to walk back out into the hotel room.

He made his way back to the bed he was sharing with Shane in the dark and buried himself under the blankets. He was curled up on the far side of the bed, but a hand snaked out and tugged him so that he rolled into Shane’s body.

“Hey,” Shane said, his voice sleepy and slow, “you okay?”

Brendon inhaled shakily and rested his head on Shane’s chest. “No,” he whispered.

Shane pulled him in tighter. “You know we’re gonna figure this out, right? We’re gonna take care of you.”

Brendon wrapped an arm around Shane’s midsection and didn’t say anything. They fell asleep that way and Brendon had nightmares, weird dreams that left him shaking and terrified when he jerked himself awake.

The next morning passed mostly in silence. It took Brendon about five minutes to figure out that Jon wasn’t talking to him, not just because he didn’t know what to say but because he was pissed. Brendon had been on the receiving end of the Jon Walker Silent Treatment often enough to know what it felt and looked like, and he was relieved when Jon didn’t linger in their hotel room for long before making himself scarce. It was just one more thing that Brendon didn’t want to deal with.

But that set the pattern for the rest of the morning. The others communicated with Brendon mostly through Shane. Brendon tried to be understanding; they didn’t know how to react to him and that made perfect sense. If Brendon had been in their shoes he would have done the same thing, probably. It still hurt, especially when they were all forced into the same space on the way to the airport and they still wouldn’t talk to him. They seemed to have gotten over their inability to look, though, and Brendon could feel their eyes on him all the way into the airport terminal.

Keltie was the first one to break the silence. She pulled away from Ryan’s side and sat next to Brendon, offering him a small smile.

“So,” she said slowly, “I’ve already got a game plan, Mr. Mom.”

Brendon snorted, some of the tension leaking from his shoulders, and raised his eyebrows. “Do share.”

She pulled out a sheet of hotel room note paper and snapped it in front of her dramatically.

“First things first, we need to get you a doctor who isn’t a cold, opportunistic bitch,” she said, her smile widening when Brendon nodded emphatically. “Second, prenatal vitamins. Those are really important for you and baby. Third, we are going to shop the hell out of Whole Foods. Fourth, we are demolishing the Ben & Jerry’s section at the grocery store. Are you having any weird cravings yet? Because that’s number five: satisfying your wacky pregnant cravings.”

Brendon said, “why does the game plan revolve around food?”

“I was kinda hungry when I wrote it,” she answered, eyes twinkling, and Brendon laughed for what felt like the first time in days even though it had only been hours. “Actually,” she said, folding the list and tucking it into the pocket of her jeans, “I didn’t come up with it on my own. I called my mom and told her a friend’s pregnant, what the fuck do we do now? So, it’s kind of the mommy list. She also suggested buying baby books? Like, What to Expect When You’re Expecting but that’s kind of the thing, right? We don’t know what to expect.”

Her eyes flickered down to Brendon’s belly which didn’t look all that different underneath his hoodie. It felt different, though. It was probably all in Brendon’s head because the baby, fetus, whatever, was too tiny to be felt. It had been making its presence known for the last few weeks, but anything could have made him puke and given him headaches and fatigue. This was different. Brendon was now hyperaware of his body in ways he’d never been before; he felt like there was a sixth sense growing, one that was attached to the life nestled deep inside of his body.

“This is so fucking crazy,” he said with a sigh.

“Well, yeah,” Keltie said, reaching out to rub his shoulder. “It’s . . . well, it takes a lot of getting used to.”

Brendon glanced at her sideways because if she was having a hard time, how did she think he felt? Her mouth twisted in sympathy.

“Of all the pregnancy scares I’ve gone through,” she said, “this is definitely the scariest.”

Brendon huddled deeper in his hoodie and tried not to think about it that way. It wasn’t a pregnancy scare anymore, it was an actual pregnancy. It was still fucking terrifying, but it would be okay. Right? He just had to keep telling himself that it would be okay.

_._

Pete was in Ryan’s condo when they got back to Vegas. Brendon seemed to be the only one who was surprised to see him sitting in the living room with Hobo in his lap. It wasn’t actually that unexpected in retrospect.

“Okay,” Keltie said, looking from Pete to Ryan to Brendon and back, “I think we’re going to run out and do some shopping.”

Haley nodded on Keltie’s other side and the two of them left the room quickly. Shane lingered awkwardly for a minute before following their lead, leaving Brendon alone with his band and his boss.

Pete said, “I’m really hoping this is an elaborate joke you guys are playing on me. If it is, you’re all fired, but that’s what I’m hoping.”

Brendon could feel everyone’s gaze swing to him and he winced, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to make himself as small as possible.

“It’s not a joke, Pete. It’s not fucking funny.”

Pete stared at him for so long Brendon started to feel himself shrinking, and then he said, “you can’t be fucking pregnant, dude, it’s fucking fifth grade science.”

“Yeah, well apparently fifth grade science doesn’t apply to me,” Brendon shot back.

Pete’s eyes widened and Brendon almost felt bad. And then Pete said, “okay, so how do we get rid of it?”

“What?” Brendon said, too shocked to believe what he’d just heard.

Pete flailed his arms a little and stood up. “Well, you can’t have it. You’re barely old enough to drink, let alone having a fucking baby. Not to mention the fact that you’re in a band,” he added, ticking the items off on his fingers, “you’re supposed to be going on tour in a few months, you know jack shit about babies, and, oh yeah, you’re a fucking dude.”

“Pete,” Ryan said slowly, but Pete held up his hand to hold him off.

“I’m talking to Brendon,” he said. “How do we get rid of it?”

Brendon was getting really tired of the fucking we that kept getting thrown around. Shane and Ryan had said we’ll take care of you, but so far nobody could even stand to look him in the eye. Pete was asking how we were going to get rid of the baby, but as far as Brendon knew, he was the only one pregnant.

“We don’t,” Brendon said quietly, and Pete’s jaw dropped.

“We- we what? What do you mean we don’t?”

“I mean,” Brendon told him slowly, “we don’t get rid of it. I’m not killing my fucking baby.”

“It’s not a baby, it’s a fucking fetus and chicks do it all the time,” Pete said, and Brendon was pretty sure he didn’t mean to be an asshole, but that was definitely what he was accomplishing in that moment.

“I’m not killing it,” Brendon said again, more steel in his tone this time.

“This is a fucking Mormon thing, isn’t it?” Pete said incredulously, and Brendon had never wanted to hit somebody so hard in his life.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s my fucking body, it’s my fucking baby, and nobody’s cutting me open to kill it. End of story.”

“Well then you’d better figure out what the future of your band is. I didn’t sign you so that you could fuck up and get yourself pregnant and then be an idiot about it later.”

Brendon could feel his cheeks heating up and he swallowed hard. He opened his mouth, unsure of what to say to that, but Jon cut in.

“Jesus, Pete, could you be a bigger asshole right now?” he asked, voice loud and with an edge to it that Brendon had never heard.

Pete glared at Jon and then looked back at Brendon and whatever he saw there caused him to deflate. His shoulders sagged and his head fell back until he was staring at the ceiling. Brendon chewed on his lip and jumped when Jon turned to him.

“And you! Fuck!” he said, yelling now. “How could you be so stupid?”

Brendon blinked. “I . . . oops?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed and his voice dropped about sixty degrees below zero. “You are so fucking lucky you’re pregnant because if it was HIV I would kill you. Wear a goddamn condom next time, you dumb shit.”

There was a moment of ringing silence and then Jon made a frustrated sound and turned on his heel to stalk off. Spencer reached out to stop him but he just jerked his arm away and said, “I need a minute.”

Brendon watched him go, his whole body cold and his back tensed to the point of pain.

“He has a point,” Spencer said softly.

His tone was misleading; when Brendon looked up, he was glaring just as hard as Jon had been.

“What do you want me to say?” Brendon asked, a little desperately.

“Maybe you could start with telling us when you started fucking guys in the first place,” Spencer told him, tucking his hands in his pockets, “because I don’t know about anyone else but that one was a surprise for me.”

Brendon sighed and ducked his head. “I don’t know, it was just the once,” he said, because he wasn’t going to tell them about Shane. That was totally irrelevant and none of their business. “I’m not gay,” he added.

Pete scoffed and Brendon lifted his head to frown at him.

“Well, you’re kind of pregnant,” Pete said, “so, I mean, sorry if I’m not buying the ‘I’m not gay’ line.”

“Okay,” Ryan said, “seriously, Pete, knock it off. Can we talk to Brendon alone?”

He made it sound like a question, but the way he looked significantly from Pete to the door indicated that it wasn’t so much a request as an order. Brendon didn’t breathe any easier when Pete left the room; he had a feeling that Pete was probably eavesdropping anyway, but at the very least he didn’t want the guy in charge of his band’s future making things any more tense than they already were.

The three of them stood in the middle of Ryan’s living room for a few minutes, not saying anything, not meeting each other’s eyes, and eventually Ryan asked, “are you going to keep it?”

Brendon hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Just deciding to have the baby was scary enough; trying to decide whether or not to give it away to somebody else was almost too much to handle thinking about.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

“Well,” Ryan told him, voice calm, “you need to figure it out, because if you don’t keep it we just have to hold on for nine months. If not . . . we’ll have to see what happens with us.”

It was Ryan’s careful tone that told Brendon how scared he was. Ryan only ever spoke that cautiously, that matter-of-factly, when he thought something was going to be taken away from him. It was how he’d sounded when he first suggested that maybe they were going to have to accept the fact that Brent needed to be kicked out, like maybe that would be the last decision they ever made as a band. It was how he had told them about the biggest fight he and Keltie had ever had, like he was just waiting for her to call and tell him they were over.

Brendon had known Ryan long enough to recognize that it was his way of steeling himself for the inevitable heartbreak that he assumed was coming his way.

“Dude,” Brendon said, “this isn’t going to end the band. It’s not going to be over just because I have a baby,” he said as earnestly as possible. Ryan just looked at him and Brendon turned to Spencer imploringly. “It’s not,” he said again.

Their silence was more placating than anything, like they knew Brendon believed that and they didn’t want to tell him he was wrong. It was just way too much. Between Pete and Jon and now this, not to mention the part where he was pregnant, Brendon just couldn’t handle it anymore. He sat down heavily on Ryan’s couch, head in his hands.

“I can’t lose you guys,” he said, his eyes burning with frustrated tears. “I’ll give it away, okay, I promise, but this can’t be over yet.”

Brendon sat there, his head pounding, blinking back tears, terrified down to his bones that his fuck up was going to result in the end of his band, scared of what would happen if he couldn’t make music, couldn’t tour, couldn’t be with these guys nearly every day. He was trying so hard not to cry that he didn’t hear Jon come back in.

“What’d you do to him?” he asked, and he sounded overly casual so he was still pissed, but when Brendon lifted his head, Jon actually looked at him and there was warmth in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Brendon said softly, and then he said it again, looking at Ryan and Spencer, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Jon crossed his arms and sighed, “don’t beat yourself up about it, okay? I hear wallowing in guilt isn’t good for unborn babies.”

Brendon smiled weakly. “You’re making that up.”

Jon just shrugged and looked pointedly at Ryan. They had developed this weird ability to look at each other and communicate without words, which had annoyed Brendon initially but he was getting used to it. Whatever they were saying to each other, it prompted Ryan to sit next to Brendon on the couch and nudge him with his shoulder.

“We’ll come up with a plan. In the meantime, you just need to take care of yourself and, you know, the baby.” He paused and then added, voice soft and uncertain but definitely determined, “you’re right. This isn’t going to be over. We’re not going to be over.”

Spencer sat on Brendon’s other side and tangled his fingers in Brendon’s hair. “Yeah. I mean, if Gwen Stefani can do it, you can too, right? She’s only got Gavin. You’ve got all of us.”

Brendon tilted his head until it was resting on Ryan’s shoulder and they all looked at Jon who finally, finally smiled.

“We’re gonna be uncles,” he said. “That’s kind of awesome.”

He sat down on Ryan’s other side and they all huddled together on the couch, arms tangled together, and for the first time since he’d gotten the news, Brendon felt like he could breathe.

_._

“Hey, did you know there’s a website called ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’?” Shane asked.

Brendon peeked into the living room to see him hunched over his laptop staring wide-eyed at the screen.

“You already bought the book,” Brendon pointed out, going back to searching the kitchen for something sweet and salty and maybe a little crunchy.

“Yeah, but the site’s interactive,” Shane said. “You totally need to register, though. Should I register you? You can have a pretty girl’s name. You can be Lola.”

Brendon laughed and rolled his eyes to himself. So far, Shane was handling this whole thing pretty well. He wasn’t the only one, but he was the only one who didn’t continually freak out and either call Brendon in the middle of the night to make sure he was still alive and well, or sit and stare at his midsection for awkwardly prolonged amounts of time. Shane claimed it was because he was good at compartmentalizing, whatever that meant. Brendon figured it was because Shane had smoked a lot of weed in his day and this was probably not the wackiest situation his brain had ever come up with.

“I don’t want to pretend to be a girl on a website,” Brendon said, and Shane made a small disappointed noise.

There was the distinct sound of fingers flying over computer keys and Brendon could only hope Shane was doing a new search and not trying to come up with a last name complimentary to Lola. Brendon left Shane to it and continued his fruitless search, turning up pudding cups, celery sticks, some other organic shit that Keltie and Ryan had insisted on buying for him, a ton of saltine crackers (the morning sickness wasn’t letting up and those were Brendon’s favorite way of making it bearable), and other assorted snacks but nothing that was, at once, sweet, salty and crunchy.

“I would kill for some pretzels,” Brendon groaned, leaving the kitchen and flopping onto the couch next to Shane. “Like, really salty pretzels and chocolate icing. Do you know what I would do for those?”

“Um,” Shane said, glancing up from his laptop, “since you just said you’d kill for some, I’m going to guess it involves homicide.”

“Really violent homicide,” Brendon agreed. “Or, oh shit, you know what would be even more awesome than that? Tortilla chips and chocolate frosting.”

“I was cool with the pretzels, the pretzels sounded good, but you are really grossing me out, now.”

“No, no,” Brendon said, leaning forward to try and get Shane to see what an amazing idea it was, “it would be like fucking nachos, but with chocolate. And for toppings there could be, like, sprinkles. Oh, and honey roasted peanuts.”

Shane raised his eyebrows and said, “what, no jalapeños?”

Brendon wrinkled his nose. “Don’t be disgusting.”

Shane laughed and Brendon would have felt a little awkward about it except for the fact that he wasn’t really being laughed at, not in any way that made him self-conscious. Shane was actually really hard to feel self-conscious around which had always been the case. Despite the fact that he was cooler than Brendon would ever be in so many ways, he’d never made Brendon feel like less of a person, or whatever. It wasn’t like high school when Brendon always knew he was never going to be able to compete with other boys his age. It wasn’t even like with Ryan and Spencer and Jon where Brendon knew he was always going to be the immature spaz.

Shane just let Brendon be himself and he didn’t ever seem to have a problem with it. Somehow he was carrying that over into this, the being pregnant thing, and Brendon was both grateful for it and awed by it. Not even his bandmates had made him feel this comfortable in his own skin. Truth be told, Brendon felt more comfortable about the whole thing when he was with Shane than when he was by himself. By himself he wanted to freak out, with Shane he was okay with just . . . living with it.

Brendon rested his head on Shane’s shoulder and watched him google baby names. It was way too early to be thinking of those, and Brendon had already expressly stated that he wasn’t going to even consider naming the baby until much, much further down the line, but Shane liked looking at them anyway. He wasn’t the only one; Ryan liked them, too, and Brendon was pretty sure they’d been texting possible names to each other for the last week. He couldn’t prove it, but he was almost positive.

“Pete said he found a doctor,” Brendon said quietly.

Shane paused and then closed his computer and leaned back against the couch. “Yeah?”

“Yep,” Brendon said, following him and resettling against his side. “He called this morning to tell me about this doctor he found who did some work with abnormal pregnancies and stuff. He’s supposed to be really good. And discreet.”

“When are you gonna meet him?” Shane asked.

“This weekend.” He paused and then added, “What if he tells me I can’t do this? What if he can’t help?”

Brendon waited, eyes glued to the blank screen of the television, for Shane to either tell him his worries were useless or to tell him it was entirely possible. Instead, Shane just squeezed him once.

“Why don’t you try not to freak out about it until you actually meet him?” he asked reasonably.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Brendon muttered and Shane nodded sagely.

“I know. I’m a goddamn genius.”

He shifted a little, rising to his feet and leaving Brendon curled halfway into the back of the couch. Brendon was too lazy to move, even if he did already miss the warmth of his Shane-shaped pillow, so he just watched the other man move around the room, toeing on a pair of shoes and grabbing his keys and wallet off of the table.

“Where are you going?” Brendon asked curiously.

“You said you wanted chocolate nachos, right?” Shane said, lips curved up in a soft smile.

Brendon grinned and shook his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, oh my God, those still sound amazing.”

“Then give me twenty minutes.” He grinned one more time before leaving.

Brendon bit his lip and stared after him for a long time.

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A Million ways to Fall - Pt. III

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:18:24 GMT

It felt much later when Brendon jerked awake to the familiar realization that he was about to puke and he had about thirty seconds to get to a bathroom, but he knew it had to be between 3:30 and 3:45 in the morning. This had become pretty routine in the last few days. Brendon squirmed out from under the arm that Shane had thrown over his chest and scrambled for the adjoining bathroom. He was able to offer up a vague thank you to whatever had made him decide to give Shane the master bedroom back when they’d first moved in together, and then he was preoccupied with throwing up.

He was pretty sure his vocal chords were never going to be the same after the amount of bile he’d been bringing up over the last week. His throat felt like it had been raked over with jagged pieces of steel and he wished it was because of the blowjob he’d given, but no, it was because he couldn’t seem to shake whatever scary sickness this was that he’d contracted.

It lasted a little longer than normal; Brendon barely had the presence of mind to turn on the sink to mask the sounds of his vomiting but he was glad that he did. It was embarrassing enough to have to puke like this in the middle of the night; it was even worse to spend what felt like hours at it. The alcohol probably hadn’t helped and he felt fucking miserable as everything he’d put in his stomach in the last twelve hours made a technicolor reappearance. Eventually his stomach stopped seizing up and he was left shaking on the tile, forehead pressed to the rim of the bathtub. It took what felt like forever to drag himself to his feet and only then did he become aware of the tapping at the door.

Brendon could barely remember kicking it closed behind him and he blinked at it dumbly as it opened. Shane stood in the doorway, hair a mess, Brendon’s boxers pulled on hastily. He was frowning but he didn’t say anything as Brendon splashed his face and rinsed out his mouth. It wasn’t until Brendon turned the tap off that he spoke.

“You’re still sick?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine. I just drank too much,” Brendon lied with a shrug, shouldering past Shane.

“Bullshit,” Shane said, closing the bathroom door and turning with his arms folded across his chest. “You definitely didn’t drink enough to warrant that. You should get your ass to a doctor, Brendon.”

He was naked, he’d just spent fifteen minutes either throwing up or waiting to throw up again, and his head was killing him. He didn’t want to have this conversation, not now. He just wanted to go back to sleep, with Shane or not, he didn’t know or care.

“I just drank way too fucking much, Shane, okay?” Brendon said carefully, the words heavy with a meaning that Shane picked up before Brendon did.

Shane’s expression closed off and for a second, Brendon couldn’t figure out what he’d said to earn that reaction. When it hit him that he was passing off the whole night as the result of too much alcohol, he felt a little sick again.

“I-”

“Whatever, Bren,” Shane interrupted before he could take it back or make it worse. “If you’re really that drunk you should probably sleep it off.”

Brendon was getting tired of all of these little arguments with Shane. He hated fighting with anyone period, but this was starting to take its toll. He wanted to apologize and make it better, but there was a small part of him, a cowardly part, that insisted this was probably for the best. For the sake of their friendship and for the sake of Brendon’s own sanity, maybe pretending it had been nothing more than a drunk encounter was the smartest thing to do. Brendon knew that was bullshit, even in his own mind, but he didn’t take it back even though a part of him wanted to.

“Um,” Brendon said, hesitating for a brief moment, “I’m just gonna . . .” He trailed off and nodded his head in the direction of the door.

Shane eyed him closely and then said, “yeah, alright.”

Brendon ducked his head and turned to leave, halting when Shane sighed and said, “hey, wait a sec.”

It was hard to turn around; Brendon just wanted to get the hell out of the room, but he forced himself to face Shane.

“It wasn’t that bad, right?” Shane asked with a half-smile, and Brendon swallowed a relieved sigh of his own; this was his easy out, his way of making sure their friendship didn’t suffer.

“Nah,” Brendon said, “you rocked my fucking world, dude.”

Shane laughed. “I aim to please.”

Brendon’s smile felt small, but honest, and he said, “well, you totally did.”

Shane nodded once and he and Brendon shared a long look that felt a lot like apologies and forgiveness and a little bit like hey, man, we’ll be okay, shit like this happens all the time. Brendon left the room, a little unsteady, a little confused, but mostly kind of okay.

_._

Brendon didn’t tell Haley this time even though he thought about it. She was the only one who knew about the first time and Brendon really needed some advice or maybe just a hug. The only problem was that Brendon didn’t actually want just any advice. He wasn’t sure what kind of advice he wanted, to be honest, he just knew that if it involved him telling his bandmates that he was very probably gay, he wasn’t going to take it.

“You have what is called a very serious case of denial,” Haley would probably say sagely, and Brendon knew it.

He tried it the morning after, his body sore and buzzing with sense-memory; he looked at his reflection in the mirror and thought I’m gay. His eyes just stared back, the same as always, unchanged. But he was sure he looked different. His shoulders were thinner, maybe, his mouth fuller; was it possible to look gay? He didn’t know, but his lungs seized up and he couldn’t breathe again until he shook his head frantically and took it back.

Not gay, not gay, not not not.

The morning after that Brendon didn’t even bother trying it out. He just looked at his body and willed it to seem the same, despite the fading bruises at his hips from where Shane had held on too tight, despite the sudden awareness that seemed to sing in his blood and cry out for more. Brendon ignored it and focused on other things, making faces at himself in the mirror while he combed his hair, running a hand over the weirdly convex curve of his abdomen.

“Am I getting fat?” Brendon asked, walking into the kitchen.

He and Shane had fallen into a pretty comfortable pattern since having sex, which probably should have been weird but they were best friends for a reason. Brendon didn’t generally get close to many people and they didn’t get close to him. He was too much all the time and he knew he’d lucked out with Ryan, Spencer and Jon. He’d lucked out with Shane, too, though, because Shane knew Brendon almost better than they did. He knew when to indulge him and when not to, he knew how to fight back, and he apparently knew how to make sure the days and mornings after hooking up weren’t awkward.

Shane looked up from where he was scrambling eggs and squinted at Brendon’s stomach.

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re finally balancing out your BMI, you skinny bitch,” he said.

Brendon stuck his tongue out and grabbed a bottle of water and that was that.

Life picked up a faster pace that didn’t allow for much time to actually think about his big gay crisis or whatever. There were practices and in between that there was hanging out with Jon and Spencer and Ryan at every available opportunity. And then it was time to pack for the festival and the exclusive fan club set they were playing. There was no real need to rush, but Brendon liked feeling like everything was urgent when there was a plane to catch and a show to prepare for.

Shane laughed at him because he was already pretty much packed, except for all his video stuff.

“Shut up, just because you’re one of those assholes who never procrastinates,” Brendon muttered, stuffing clothes into a small suitcase.

“You’re just jealous,” Shane said with a small smile, and Brendon grunted at him and did a mental checklist while he wandered out to order their dinner.

The next day they all met up at the airport, Haley and Keltie in tow. The girls immediately claimed seats next to each other and started chatting in low, chipper voices while Jon hooked an arm around Brendon’s shoulder and dragged him away.

“What’s up?” he asked in a lazy voice.

Brendon peered into his face and then shook his head. “You all got high without me, didn’t you?” he said accusingly.

Jon just smiled, slow, and called Ryan over so they could tell some story about their cooking escapades the night before, which mostly involved Keltie burning bread while Ryan failed epically at making sauce for the spaghetti.

“Because you kept spicing it,” Ryan shot back, and Spencer walked up behind them, hooking his chin over Ryan’s shoulder.

“You do tend to do that,” Spencer said with a nod, and Jon looked affronted.

“Because this isn’t, like, the wilds of Africa or something. I say, if you have salt, don’t be afraid to use it,” he said.

“Yeah, but paprika, Jon? Really?” Ryan said, eyebrows curving in a look of honest confusion.

Brendon snorted and rested his head on Jon’s shoulder. When Spencer shifted, Brendon caught a glimpse of Shane with his videocamera. Brendon waved and then said, “say hi to the camera guys,” and, as one, Spencer, Jon and Ryan turned and gave a ridiculous looking thumbs up and middle finger combo.

_._

The flight was more miserable than usual; the altitude change made Brendon’s head ache more fiercely than it had the last few days and his stomach was unsettled the entire time. It was hot when they landed which wasn’t such a change from the Vegas summer weather, but the added humidity was enough to make Brendon want to roll over and die. He spent the hours leading up to their show sucking down bottles of water and pissing every twenty minutes.

Backstage, Shane stuck the camera in his face and Brendon pouted.

“I’m a miserable diva,” he told the lens. “I’ll be in my trailer.”

And then he wandered off to sit with his head in Spencer’s lap and catch the tail-end of a story Keltie was telling about a recent disastrous audition.

“I fucked up the choreography so bad,” she said with a sigh, brushing her hair out of her face and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her feet pigeon-toed.

Haley rubbed her back and said, “there’ll be other auditions,” because there would be. They all knew that the life of a dancer was non-stop, auditions and rehearsals and workshops. Keltie never made a big deal about it, but she didn’t gloss it over, either. Ryan mentioned how hard it was for her, sometimes, but with an edge of pride, like he knew how strong his girlfriend was and how talented and dedicated.

“Yeah,” Keltie said before reaching out to poke Brendon in the shoulder. “So hey, how are you feeling, anyway? I heard you caught the plague.”

Brendon nodded and made a face. “Mostly better,” he said.

Spencer squeezed him a little. “Poor baby’s still recovering,” he told Keltie over Brendon’s head, and Keltie giggled.

“Well, I’ve got this herbal tea you should try. It totally boosts your immune system. It’ll kick your sick in the ass.” She grinned brightly and Brendon laughed.

He sort of loved Ryan’s dorkass girlfriend, he couldn’t lie.

Brendon tried to conserve as much energy as he could before they went on stage, but he still didn’t feel particularly good when he stepped up to the mic. There was a rush of adrenaline and nerves that he could focus on, though, and that carried him through most of the set. The crowd was awesome, which always made Brendon feel good about himself, and as a band they were completely on, even if Brendon didn’t have as much manic energy as usual.

Things got shaky about halfway through. Brendon started to feel lightheaded and his body got heavy. He pushed through the songs, but eventually he felt more like he was going through the motions than like he was actually in the moment. Ryan and Jon kept looking at him sideways, and during one break between songs, while Jon charmed the crowd Ryan wandered over and asked if he was okay in a low voice.

Brendon took a sip from his bottle of water and waved a hand through the air. “Fine, I’m good.”

Ryan didn’t look convinced and Brendon didn’t believe his own lie, but there wasn’t much else to be done about it. They had a show to finish, songs to play, a crowd to please. The rest of the set slowly congealed into one mass of bright lights and crowd noise and songs that he’d played a million times but could barely remember the names to. No one moment was distinguishable from the next, and keeping upright was becoming a serious issue.

They closed out the show, Brendon singing his fucking lungs out to make up for whatever was going on in his body and head, and the crowd went crazy. He lifted his hands in a perfunctory wave, tried out a smile, and then edged offstage where Ryan was already waiting.

“You’re not fine,” he said, and Shane appeared at his shoulder with a concerned set to his mouth.

“You look really pale, dude, do you want to sit down?”

The world tipped dangerously on its side and Brendon nodded, murmured, “yeah, that’s a good idea,” and then everything went black.

_._

Brendon woke up surrounded by EMTs. They looked like the same guys who had looked him over after he took the bottle to the face at Reading, but he knew they weren’t. It was just a trick of the mind or something like that. He didn’t know, he didn’t even know where he was for a full minute before it all came back to him.

“Fuck,” he whispered, and one of the EMTs hooked an arm around his shoulder and helped him sit up.

The room started spinning almost immediately, and Brendon slammed his eyes shut, taking deep, slow breaths and trying not to freak out.

“You’re okay,” the EMT said, keeping him steady and grounded. “You wanna tell me when the last time you ate was?”

Brendon thought about it carefully and jumped when Jon’s voice said, “about noon? That was when we had lunch.”

Brendon opened his eyes to see Jon crouched next to him. He looked worried, but he offered Brendon a small smile of reassurance despite it.

“Anything since then?” the EMT asked, and Brendon shook his head.

“Okay, and have you been drinking a lot of water?”

“I’ve been drinking a lot, yeah. I was sick for a couple of weeks.”

The EMT nodded and there were a lot more questions after that: what were you sick with, what were your symptoms, how have you been recovering, and on and on. All so that, while Ryan freaked out in the corner with Keltie’s arm around his waist and Spencer hovered, keeping a careful watch on every move that the EMTs made and Shane kept glaring at Brendon like this was somehow his fault, the EMT could say, “well, we think you’re severely dehydrated and we need to get you on an IV.”

That was it. Even Brendon, who wanted nothing more than to be well again, thought that was bullshit.

“He’s been sick for a long time,” Shane said, stepping forward. “He hasn’t stopped throwing up since he started a couple weeks ago, he’s got zero energy . . . he hasn’t been dehydrated that whole time.”

“He needs to see a doctor,” Ryan added, finally stepping toward them and stopping at Spencer’s side. Brendon made a small sound of annoyance and Ryan caught his eye. “You need to see a doctor,” he said slowly.

“Yeah, dude, you should be better already,” Jon said.

Spencer said, “And you just passed the fuck out. You’re going to a doctor or I’m making the executive decision to kick you out of the band.”

Brendon laughed weakly and said, “on what grounds?”

“The grounds of you being really fucking stupid, now how soon can we get him in to see somebody about this?” Spencer asked the EMT.

The medics looked at each other, their gazes long-suffering like they hated having to deal with these high-maintenance musicians. They eventually called an ambulance, though, hooking Brendon up with an IV to at least start getting him hydrated. The whole situation was humiliating but Brendon knew his friends weren’t going to back down. More than that, deep down he knew he needed someone to tell him what the fuck was going on with his body, even if he was terrified of the answer.

Shane rode with him on the way to the hospital and didn’t blink when Brendon reached out to grab his hand. He just squeezed gently and said, “now this I wish I could film,” which prompted Brendon to smile a little weakly.

In the hospital, Brendon’s fear spiked. He hated hospitals; maybe not as much as Ryan or Spencer who both had very valid reasons to despise them, but he didn’t like the unpredictability of them. You went in for a check-up, you walked out with an incurable disease or at least that was how it felt. He stayed as calm as possible, though, and when he started to freak out Shane tangled their fingers together and shook his arm a little, whispered, “hey, you’re gonna be fine, it’s just so we can figure out what the fuck kind of cold you managed to catch.”

Brendon didn’t have the heart to tell Shane that he knew it wasn’t some kind of freak cold. He had no idea what it was, but he was pretty sure it was more serious than that and, if he was being honest, he’d always kind of known. His body felt different, everything about him was just . . . off. He’d had colds and he’d had the flu and it had never been like this. He bit his tongue because he was worried enough himself, he didn’t want Shane to worry with him.

They were ushered back to a doctor’s office where Brendon sat on a cushioned table with an IV still in his arm and Shane in the chair next to him. They didn’t say anything into the cold quiet of the room; there wasn’t much to do except make small talk and neither of them were really in the mood for that. Eventually the doctor came in, petite with blonde hair that was dark at the roots and lines of age around her mouth; the nametag on her coat said Nancy Reed but she didn’t introduce herself. She took one look at Shane and Brendon’s entangled fingers and one eyebrow twitched. Her expression was bland, though, as she took a seat and rested a clipboard on her lap.

“Okay, Brendon? Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

He shared a look with Shane and then sighed and said, “um, I’m not sure. I’ve been pretty sick the last few weeks.”

She nodded and said, “what does it feel like? A cold? The flu?”

Brendon took about five minutes to describe the headaches, the backaches, the cramps, the fatigue and the nausea. Dr. Reed nodded some more and jotted a few things down. When Brendon got to the part about throwing up pretty much every day for the last two weeks, she frowned and looked at him sharply.

“You’re not keeping anything down?”

“Well,” Brendon said slowly, thinking about how he’d gone from throwing up every few hours to only throwing up once or twice a night, “not exactly.”

He felt weird explaining the fact that he was vomiting pretty much on the clock; the only time he’d ever heard of that happening was for a pregnancy and it felt suddenly awkward to explain he had what pretty much amounted to morning sickness. The doctor eyed him closely.

“That would explain some of the dehydration,” she mumbled, before standing up. “Okay, I’m going to give you a quick check-up but I think we might have to do some blood-work to figure out what’s wrong.”

Brendon’s breath hitched and Shane said, “do you think it’s serious?”

Dr. Reed leveled them with an unreadable look and said, “that’s what we’re going to find out.”

It took another ten minutes for her to give him a physical and decide there was nothing wrong with his heart or his lungs or his ears, eyes and reflexes. After that, they waited what felt like hours for Brendon’s blood to be drawn. The entire time, Shane held Brendon’s hand and Brendon tried not to panic. After Brendon had his blood taken, Dr. Reed came back and said it would probably be a while before they had the results.

“We’re gonna keep you on the IV for another hour or so to make sure you’re rehydrated,” she said.

“Yeah, but when will we know what’s going on with me?” Brendon asked, his voice smaller than he meant for it to be.

Doctor Reed’s face softened with the first sign of sympathy and she said, “within the next four to six hours, possibly sooner.”

It was a relief, at least, that it wouldn’t take days and Brendon was feeling distinctly calmer when he and Shane were moved down the hall to a small curtained off area where Brendon could lie in a small, uncomfortable bed and wait it out.

“You should probably try and rest,” Shane said, pulling a chair up next to the bed, but Brendon shook his head.

“I’m not really tired,” he said, which was true.

He was drained, physically, but his body was thrumming with something that would probably have made it impossible for him to fall asleep. Besides, he didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in a hospital. So he sat up and listened as Shane told him the show hadn’t actually been bad at all.

“I mean, you sounded good even if you looked like you were going to fall over,” Shane said, and Brendon grinned.

“Well, as long as my voice doesn’t fail me,” he said, and Shane grinned back.

They found little things to talk about for the next hour, stupid shit like cartoon shows from the early ‘90s and weird magazine articles – the usual. Brendon was relaying some story about Rocko’s Modern Life and his only summer camp experience when the curtain fluttered and then parted to admit Spencer, Ryan, Jon, Haley and Keltie.

“Those fuckers didn’t want to let us back here,” Ryan said, glaring over his shoulder at no one.

“Yeah, you should have seen him laying into the nurses,” Keltie said. “He was a total rockstar.”

Ryan shrugged but looked a little smug and Brendon grinned.

“So, what did you find out?” Spencer asked, settling in the chair on Brendon’s other side and tugging Haley into his lap.

“They’re doing some blood tests,” Brendon said, doing his best to ignore the looks of horror and concern that flickered across their faces. “We should get the results in a few hours.”

“Okay,” Spencer said slowly, and everyone else stood still for a moment before finding chairs of their own and settling in to wait.

_._

It was, quite possibly, the longest five-and-a-half hours of Brendon’s short life and eventually he did nod off, too tired to stay awake worrying any longer. A nurse came in at one point to remove the IV and told him it shouldn’t be too much longer, but it felt like forever before Doctor Reed walked through the curtain, clipboard in hand and an inscrutable look on her face.

“Okay, Brendon,” she said, “I’m sorry that took so long. We ran into some abnormal test results and wanted to make sure we were reading them right.”

Brendon’s stomach clenched tight and he sat up straight. “What kind of results?” he asked.

She looked at him for a long moment and then rolled her shoulders back and straightened her spine, preparation, Brendon assumed, to give bad news.

“We double and triple checked,” she said slowly, “and either you have some kind of disease that we’ve never heard of or you’re pregnant.”

No one said anything. Brendon couldn’t really hear past the sudden rush of blood in his ears, and he was very distantly aware of Haley making a strange choking sound, like she was either trying not to laugh or couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Maybe both. It was definitely that kind of situation, and Brendon would have laughed himself if he’d had the breath for it.

“We’ll have to perform a sonogram to be sure,” she told him. “If it does turn out that you’re . . . pregnant, we’d like to perform some more tests. I’m sure you have some idea of how unprecedented this is.”

Brendon just stared at her and she squared her shoulders again and tapped her fingers against her clipboard. “We’ve got an ultrasound technician on her way down,” she said. “Most of you are going to need to clear out of the room. Two of you can stay.”

She paused for a moment and a look of incredulity crossed her face as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying, and then she was gone and Brendon was left alone with his best friends and two of their girlfriends and a giant elephant in the room that no one really wanted to address.

“So,” Shane said quietly, so that only Brendon could hear, “are we hoping it’s a weird, as yet unheard of disease or are we hoping it’s a . . . you know?”

Brendon swallowed and shared a long look with Shane. “I don’t even know,” he said.

Shane nodded and Brendon tore his eyes away, glancing around the room at the others. Ryan was pale next to Keltie, who had a frown marring her brow. Spencer was staring at Jon, communicating something quietly, and Haley was the only one who seemed able to look Brendon in the eye. Then again, Brendon realized, she was the only one who had any clue that Brendon was interested in putting himself into situations where another guy could get him pregnant. Other than her and Shane, everyone else assumed Brendon was perfectly straight, at least not having gay sex of any kind.

Brendon waited for someone to ask the obvious question, but they all seemed reluctant to speak. He tried not to let that scare him and turned to Haley.

“Will you stay back?” he asked.

She looked a little surprised and glanced at Spencer who didn’t say anything, although his eyebrows had inched up in a shocked expression.

“Please?” Brendon added, and Haley looked over at him again and nodded, reaching out to squeeze his arm.

“Yeah,” she said, “yeah, I’ll stay.”

They all lapsed into silence after that. A few times Brendon caught Ryan or Jon or Spencer opening their mouths to say something before snapping their jaws shut. Brendon was willing to convince himself that they, like him, didn’t want to say anything out loud until after the sonogram. There was no use jinxing it if it really was just a horrible disease. Distantly, Brendon was a little darkly amused at the fact that he would rather have been struck by some mystery illness than be pregnant. Mostly he was scared out of his mind and trying his hardest not to show it.

They all jumped when the curtain was pulled back and a small woman with dark hair entered, wheeling a large machine in front of her. She smiled kindly at them all, a nice contrast to the brusque and unfriendly manner of Doctor Reed.

“Don’t look so scared,” she said, her voice gently teasing, “this doesn’t hurt, I promise.”

Brendon tried to smile but he thought he failed pretty miserably, and the technician offered him an empathetic look before turning to everyone else.

“Okay, I hate to do this but there won’t be room in here for all of us. If some of you could wait just outside, this’ll be done in a few minutes.”

Ryan, Keltie, Jon and Spencer obediently got to their feet and trooped out, barely glancing at Brendon on the way. It hurt, a little, to know they were unable to look at him, but Brendon couldn’t blame them. He probably couldn’t have done it, either.
“I’m Dr. Kuhn, by the way,” she said, still smiling as she shooed Shane to Haley’s side of the bed and started setting the machine up.

Brendon introduced himself even though he probably didn’t have to. Dr. Kuhn just nodded at him and finished setting things up.

“Alright, I think we’re just about ready here,” she said, sitting down in the chair Shane had vacated and reaching out to tug Brendon’s shirt up around his chest.

Brendon glanced down his own body and suddenly the little weight he’d gained around the middle was the scariest thing he’d ever seen in his life. He took in a shuddering breath and blinked when Haley grabbed his hand. He looked over at her and Shane, both of whom were staring raptly at the screen of the ultrasound machine.

“Could you pull your pants down for me?” Dr. Kuhn asked.

Brendon flushed and extracted his hand from Haley’s hold, unbuttoning his jeans and nudging the waistband down until Dr. Kuhn nodded.

“This is going to be cold,” she warned, before squirting some kind of gloppy looking mess onto Brendon’s abdomen.

The shock of it made his muscles twitch and he bit back a small sound of surprise. He’d barely gotten used to the sharp chill before she was pressing a weird looking probe to his skin, spreading the goo around. Dr. Kuhn hummed gently under breath as she moved the wand and Brendon slammed his eyes shut. Haley and Shane sucked in deep breaths, but Brendon was afraid to look. He was too busy hoping that if he didn’t, it would just be some weird illness.

“Well, Brendon,” Dr. Kuhn said gently, “you’re pregnant,” and Brendon felt a little sick to his stomach.

“You should see this,” Haley breathed.

“Look, Brendon,” Shane added when Brendon still didn’t open his eyes.

He finally blinked them open and stared at the screen, at the weird white on black outlines that shouldn’t have made any sense, but Dr. Kuhn lifted a hand and pointed out something small and hardly discernible and said, “there’s your baby,” she moved the wand again and added, “and there, it’s too small to hear yet, but you can see the heartbeat.”

It was just the tiniest flicker in the chest of the tiniest human being Brendon had ever seen in his life and all of it was inside of him somehow. He stared so hard and so long that his eyes stung when he finally remembered to blink.

“I’d say you’re about five weeks along,” she went on, “and everything looks normal. Well, as normal as can be expected. You appear to have a perfectly adequate womb for a developing fetus.”

She moved the wand again, taking careful note of everything that the screen picked up but always coming back to the baby. The fetus. The mutant or the miracle or whatever the fuck it was that shouldn’t have been there.

“Fascinating,” she whispered finally. “You’re really quite the medical miracle.”

Brendon swallowed hard and took the tissues she handed him with numb fingers, wiping up the mess on his stomach idly as she pressed a few more buttons on the machine. He didn’t know what to feel, not as he pulled his shirt down, not as he buttoned up his jeans, not as she handed over the sonogram to him, a glossy page of black with white squiggles and it was glaring up at him, the little life inside of him.

“Okay, Brendon, I’m going to send Dr. Reed back,” she said, and Brendon barely had the strength to nod.

She smiled warmly at him one more time before leaving, wheeling the ultrasound machine behind her. Brendon stared blankly at the picture in his lap and didn’t even notice he was crying until Haley brushed her knuckles over his cheeks to catch the tears.

“What the fuck?” Brendon whispered, the words thick and reflecting the confusion that was twisting his throat and pressing hard at his stomach. “What the fuck?”

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