Every Little Thing

They’re fighting, again. It’s no different from the others either; there’s still the same hurtful words, screamed out in curses, cutting straight to the bone. It’s the most common setting, on the bus with Spencer and Jon hidden in the back lounge. It’s almost as if their fights need an audience, someone to keep tabs. They always say that misery does loves company.

It’s just another fight that Brendon cant remember the beginning of. That’s how they all seem to be lately. They start with something small, something irrelevant like Brendon’s shirt getting left in the back lounge, until it's flung into something more, something deeper. Something that Brendon can never quite fully grasp.

Ryan’s face is red, his chest heaving, and they used to fight, but never this much. Brendon’s still trying to figure what went wrong somewhere along the road, whether it was something that could have been prevented or this was all inevitable. He wonders if it was something he had done wrong.

Brendon takes a deep breath, lets his shoulders drop and sag. “Look, Ryan, please, just tell me what I did,” he says, calm as he can manage, but his voice still shakes, just barely, from the adrenaline still running through his veins. “We can fix it. We can stop fighting, be like we used to.”

Something in Ryan’s expression changes, softens almost, and Brendon wants to move closer, to touch his arm, to hold his hand. Instead he stays still, waiting.

A minute passes, ten maybe, and Brendon can feel the steady pounding of his heartbeat in his fingertips as Ryan stares back at him, expression unreadable. Finally, Ryan shakes his head, raking his spidery fingers through curly tuffs of hair. “Brendon.” He sighs, exhausted, and stops short.

Brendon steps back suddenly, like he’s burnt. He closes his eyes, breathes through his nose and says, “Please. Don’t.”

“Brendon, I’m sorry,” he says, voice suddenly soft, tender almost, “but I just – I don’t love you anymore. Not like that at least.”

Brendon’s world stops for a moment, and Ryan’s still talking, his lips are moving as he grows closer, face pulled together in remorse. He thinks that he might hear, “Things have changed,” and “I’ve changed,” but he cant be for sure. He takes a step closer, until his hand is resting gently on Brendon’s forearm.

Brendon quickly snaps away from his touch, pulling his arm tight to his chest.

“Brendon,” Ryan repeats, tone distraught.

“Don’t” Brendon bites back, voice thick with venom. Part of him knew this was coming, eventually, and he couldn’t deny that. Things had been different with them these past few months, Brendon had been seeing less and less of Ryan, with him always out with Alex or his new friends that Brendon was never quite hip, never quite profound enough to be around. Then, there’s also the fact that Brendon cant remember the last time Ryan had even properly kissed him, where Brendon truly felt like he meant it, nevermind the last time they had actually made love. Even Spencer had been finding it hard to ignore the gradual but clear changes. “It’s Alex, isn’t it?”

Ryan pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and says nothing, but to Brendon, it’s more than enough.

“Christ,” he hisses. He knew that was coming too, ever since the Honda Civic Tour it’s been all Alex this and Alex that, and oh, did I tell you that hilarious thing Alex said today? Brendon is not blind, he saw the way Ryan looked at him, like he had single handedly hung the fucking moon. Brendon can remember wondering why Ryan never looked at him like that anymore. Sometimes, if he ever did.

“Bren, please, I never wanted to hurt you. You know that.”

Brendon almost asks how long this has been going on for, if they slept together, but in the end he doesn’t think that he needs to. It’s not like it matters anyway, because Ryan, he doesn’t love him anymore.

He steps back, stumbling towards the bunk area, and Ryan stays grounded in his spot, looking helpless. “I’m just – I cant – I just need to not be around you, right now,” he flounders.

Ryan looks like he might protest, but then he snaps his mouth shut at the last minute and nods solemnly. Brendon can feel his eyes on him as he disappears into the bunk area, and slides the door shut behind him.

In his bunk, he doesn’t cry, not right away, but he can feel the lump in his throat growing larger and larger until he’s not sure that his throat can even hold anymore. He stares at the wall in front him and tries not to think about Ryan, about Alex, or the coke he found in Ryan’s top drawer, buried beneath socks and underwear. He tries not to think about before, how they used to be. How Brendon used to wake up and think that all he ever really needed was Ryan.

Brendon’s still not crying when the door opens and closes, not able to find it in himself to tell them to go away. He listens to the footsteps shuffle across the tiny aisle, and Brendon breathes a silent sigh of relief when he realizes that they don’t belong to Ryan.

He feels the bed dip next to him, and then a warm, solid body curve along his back. There’s a hand on his waist, fingers at his hip, and then Spencer’s soft voice at his ear, singing gently, “don’t worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright.”

A single tear falls, and then another, until Brendon cant keep count anymore.

Spencer holds on tighter.