Lucidity

“What is your problem?”
“My problem?” Ryan repeated incredulously. “My problem? You’re fucking hanging off me!”
“You’re my boyfriend, Ryan!”
“I know that, but they don’t. You seem to forget that. All the time.”
Brendon rolled his eyes. “They would if you weren’t so fucking ashamed of me! Then we could be a normal couple!”
“We will never be a ‘normal couple’, Brendon!” Ryan shouted.
“Not if you keep acting like this!”
“It’s not my actions that make us abnormal, Brendon, you know that’s not what I meant!”
Brendon took a deep breath. He never liked losing his temper. He liked to feel in control. “Alright. I’m sorry for the PDAing.”
Ryan nodded, his volume decreasing significantly. “I know.”
“It’s just…ever since we’ve agreed to date you’ve changed! It’s like…like everything changed.” Brendon’s arms crossed across his body. “You’ve been shying away from me, you won’t be seen standing next to me in public. Before we got together, that was fine.”
“It’s not you! It’s just…back then their speculations were untrue. Now they are.”
“So you are ashamed of me?” Brendon asked.
It was Ryan’s turn to roll his eyes. “Seriously?”
“What am I supposed to think?!”
“I don’t know!” Ryan shouted back. “Don’t pin this all on me, alright? You and that tech guy stealing glances at each other behind stage, thinking I don’t see.”
Brendon’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t been expecting that. The glances were always subtle in his mind. “First off, I’m positive that if I were going to date him, he wouldn’t be ashamed of me! And anyways, it’s not like we’ve ever done anything!”
He was definitely taken aback about the statement about the tech guy. Was Brendon serious? “Whether you did or not, we’re both wrong!”
Brendon huffed in frustration.

There was a momentary pause in which they both stared in opposite directions, arms folded.
“We need to talk.” Brendon said.
“We are talking.” Ryan said almost mockingly.
“No, we’re arguing. We need to talk.”
“About what?”
He let his eyes slip shut. It was unbelievable to him that the words were escaping his lips. “I don’t think this is going to work. You acting like we’re not dating. If you don’t want to date me---“
“I do want to date you!”
“I think you need some time to figure out what you want. I think I do, too. Maybe…maybe we should take a break.”
Ryan froze. “A break?”
Nodding, Brendon opened his eyes. “Yeah.”
“You’re…breaking up with me?”
“No!” Brendon was quick to say. “Well…yes, but…don’t…don’t leave just yet?”
“Don’t leave?” Ryan repeated questioningly.
Twiddling his thumbs, Brendon shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to end up a couple who fell apart and never spoke again. I don’t want to be that couple. Can we be friends? Roommates? I mean…it’s not like I don’t like you, or anything. What if I…need you?” He admitted awkwardly and innocently.
Ryan chucked a little, an affectionate crooked smile on his face. “If you need me?”
“I’m being serious, don’t laugh!” Brendon whined childishly.
With another chuckle, Ryan pulled Brendon into a hug. “Yeah, I’ll stay. That way I’ll be here whenever you need me.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, promise.”
“No crossies?”
“No, no crossies.”
“Pinkie-promise?” Brendon suggested, holding out his pinkie finger.
Ryan laughed, wrapping his own finger around Brendon’s. “You’re such a dork.”
“Your dork.”
“My dork.”

At that moment, they both seemed wrapped in their own cocoon. Even though they’d just broken up, they were together, and that was enough to make everything else so inferior. Even the fact that Brendon would move on from Ryan to Jake, the tech guy, seemed inferior, and the fact that Ryan was going to have to sit back and watch Brendon date a total stranger. It all seemed so small. All that mattered in that moment was that Brendon was indeed Ryan’s dork.

-----

“We need to talk.”
Those four words felt like a stab in the back to Brendon. Ryan had spoken them almost mockingly.
“Oh.” Brendon whispered, “Okay.”
As he took off the jacket that Ryan had let him borrow, his nerves began to rise; he was worried that Ryan might catch a glimpse of the purple, blue and black splotches that were scattered on his pale, smooth skin.

Ryan stared at the coffee table before them intently, his gaze focused. “I know…I know I told you I’d always be here for you but…I can’t. I can’t do it anymore.”
Something tightened in Brendon’s chest as the words were spoken. It was an indescribable feeling, something that couldn’t be defined by a cause. It was just a bare, throbbing ache. “Wh-what do you mea-“
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” Ryan said with a slight bitter laugh laced through his words. “I know you’re accident prone, but…no one falls down the same set of stairs three days in a row and then accidentally runs into the door the next day and slips in the shower after that. It doesn’t happen.”
Brendon froze. He had tried so hard to keep it a secret, mainly because he didn’t want to admit it to anyone, Ryan of all people. Along with the fact that he wanted to make it seem like he was mature and that he could make his own wise decisions, he also knew it would hurt Ryan the most.
Ryan continued when Brendon didn’t respond. “Sometimes…sometimes I can hear you. I have to listen really close though, since you’re a few doors down. The walls are thin though. It’s always late at night, too, but I suppose you know that already, you’re kind of there. I…I can hear you screaming.” Ryan’s face contorted into something that almost looked like pain. “I can hear you asking someone to help you, asking him why he’s doing it to you, asking what you did wrong. You never do anything wrong. I can hear all the awful, corrupted things he puts in your head. All the lies. Knowing that I can’t help you, no matter how much I want to, it…it kills me. I want to save you, I-I-I want to help you and I can’t! I could be in there, helping you, and I’m stuck sitting up in my bed, alone, waiting. I told you I’d always be here for you but what good am I doing if I’m just sitting back and watching you depreciate?”
“You’re here when I get back though!” Brendon was quick to respond, feeling hot tears rush to his eyes. “You are here when I need you-“
“And how often is that? An hour every night?”
“You won’t take me back!”
“And you won’t leave him!” Ryan was almost shouting at that point, but his eyes remained on the wooden table. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Brendon. “It wouldn’t matter. You’re so fucking stuck on him, just because he was the one there when I left you.”
His eyes narrowed into a hard glare. “What else was I supposed to do? You dumped me on my ass-“
“Don’t you dare say that!” Ryan said, voice rising. “I’m still here. I stayed. I agreed to at least try and pull through as your friend, your roommate at best! Brendon, I told you when we first got together that I wanted to protect you. I wanted to be your angel, because you were mine. I felt like you needed me. I had the will power back then, but keeping me here is breaking me to the core, I feel like I’ll have nothing left if I stay. This isn’t…it’s not your fault.” Ryan’s voice shook a little.
“Then why are you leaving me?” Brendon’s chocolate orbs were wet, his voice quivering shamelessly. This was tearing his insides apart.
“I’ve already left you, Brendon! Don’t do this. Don’t act like the last time we had this conversation didn’t count. You love him.”
“An-And what if I don’t?”
“Don’t give me that! Please, just…” His own eyes grew watery. “Understand where I’m coming from. Do you see this?” Ryan lifted a hand to grab Brendon’s arm and he caught him flinch, breaking one of the very last strands his heart was dangling from. He instantly retracted his hand. “I wasn’t g-going to hurt you. I would never h-“
“You’re being hypocritical.” Brendon cut him off. “You can’t say you’d never hurt me. Especially not now.”
“I meant hit you.”
“It hurts the same.”

There was a moment of silence in which both boys stared at the table, not saying a word.
Then, Brendon broke it. “So.”
“So.”
“You’re leaving?” Brendon gulped nervously, swallowing back his tears.
Ryan paused before nodding. “Yeah.”
“You have your stuff?”
“Mhm.”
Brendon nodded, for lack of a better response. He remained still and silent as Ryan quietly stood and made his way across the tan-carpeted floor, grabbing a single suitcase and a notebook and carrying them out into the living room.
“Where will you go?” Brendon asked.
“I don’t know.”
Once again, Brendon nodded.

Without another word, Ryan left, shutting the door behind him.

It was quiet, except for the sound of Ryan’s car cutting through the fall air and disturbing the silence. Brown eyes scanned the room until they fell upon a certain jacket. Everything holding Brendon together came undone, allowing him to fall to pieces. He cried for hours, more than he’d ever cried at his boyfriend’s mercy. This hurt far worse than any beating he’d ever received. This hurt from the inside out.

-----

Months had passed without words between the two.

Ryan had started work at a small coffee shop on the strip and rented a room in a new apartment building. Things were quiet for him. Things were melancholy.
Of course there were opportunities for him to get out and meet someone new, he was often invited to parties and such, but he always declined.
He’d withdrawn from many things. He hardly spoke to Spencer, hardly spoke to anyone for that matter. He hardly watched television, hardly listened to music, hardly left his apartment. The largest shock of all was that Ryan had even stopped writing. He’d come down with a horrible case of writer’s block soon after that day. It was either writer’s block or he’d simply lost the will.

Spencer noticed. He’d watched Ryan turn his mind off, turn his emotions off, and turn his heart off. He watched as the outlet overloaded and eventually everything that was plugged in ceased to work. Spencer had tried to help Ryan and to make him realize that Ryan was disconnecting, but he was unsuccessful.
Nonetheless he’d still visit Ryan sometimes, and they’d talk. It was one of Spencer’s most treasured times, since Ryan never seemed to speak outside of those nights. They’d talk of everything except for one subject that Spencer knew never to bring up. Every time something relevant to it was brought up, Ryan’s eyes would start to get watery and he’d sink into a state of selective mutism.

Brendon had tried to keep things positive. He tried to make it look like he and Jake were a couple made in heaven, and that they were happy. He’d fight back tears when Jake would insult him, and he’d fall to pieces when he’d hit him. Every night after sex that he was forced into, he’d cry himself to sleep, thinking of arr-why-ay-en.

Eventually Jake got a new job bartending that kept him away from home. Hours were sporadic and his time with Brendon decreased. Whenever they were together though, it was not what Brendon had hoped. He had really begun to try with Jake, but every time they saw each other, Jake didn’t want to cuddle or make love. He wanted sex; quickies before he took off again.
To say the least, Brendon felt used.
Jake promised to start spending more time with him, so they kept arranging dates. Dates that Jake was always late to, and dates that Jake always missed.

As each day had passed, the temperature dropped. Christmas was drawing near.

Ryan had decided to get out of his house for a while and take a walk. The cold winter air bit at his skin, leaving his cheeks pink with cold.
It was dark, fresh from the setting sun. He kept his black jacket wrapped tightly around his thin frame.

As he walked, the glow of the streetlights illuminating his path, his eyes settled on a boy sitting on a bench.
As he drew closer, his eyes came to recognize the boy.
He sat with his head hung low, his hands wringing each other’s nervously. He was worrying his full bottom lip with his neat, white teeth as a resistance to shivering. The expression on his face read as anxious, sad, regretful. His dark brown hair had grown a bit since the last sighting of him, now wavy. It was attractive. His posture seemed tense; like he was waiting for something he was keen on happening. It also seemed like he’d been waiting for it for a while.
“Mind if I sit here?” Ryan asked, voice low and quiet.
Brendon jerked his head up, “Yea-…oh.” He, too, recognized the other’s face. It was dull, worn, depressed, monotone, with just a hint of curiosity. Brendon nodded. “Yeah.”
Ryan took his spot on the bench, one hand resting at his side and the other playing with the hem of his jacket. “So…who’re you waiting for?”
“Jason.” He replied bitterly. “He was supposed to meet me at Madeline’s for dinner.”
“Oh.” Ryan mumbled, his eyes falling onto the cold, gray pavement. Hearing that they were still together caused a sinking feeling in his chest.
“Three hours ago.” Brendon added. “Again.”
Eyebrows rising, Ryan’s voice took an apologetic tone to it. “I’m sor---“
“No, no, it’s fine.” Brendon stopped him before he could begin. “Why’re you here?”
“Thought I’d take a walk.” He replied. “Haven’t left the apartment in a while.”
“How’s that going for you? The apartment, I mean.” Brendon asked.
He shrugged. “It’s…it’s a little pricey. I get by.”
With a glance to Ryan’s hands, Brendon noticed something. His eyebrows furrowed. “Where’s your notebook?”
Ryan cracked a sad smirk. “I haven’t exactly written anything in a while.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Not in three months.”
Brendon knew what he meant by ‘three months’. He had been counting, too. “Oh.”

Silence fell over the two. They were both thinking.
Both were dwelling over how their lives were, how they’d been lately. Their thoughts then traced over what they used to be. How beautiful they used to be, back when Ryan wasn’t afraid and Brendon wasn’t impatient. When both of them were on the same page, and when both of them could sleep. That was back when they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Each kiss seemed like an eternity ago, like stars against a cloudy night’s sky, like the background music that was the calm rush of an ocean’s waves to a busy beach. Things so simple, yet so significant. Beautiful enough to take your breath away. Without the simple things that had composed their existence, the simple things they found in each other and in what they’d created, it seemed as though both had lost their will.
Brendon’s eyes had grown watery. He’d been broken. He missed how strong Ryan used to make him feel, how Ryan made him feel like he was on top of the world. It was always a pleasant feeling to know that you were the center of someone’s universe, that you weren’t just another comet.
Ryan’s throat ran dry and he felt his blood rush to his face. He’d lost his inspiration. He missed how Brendon almost put a blindfold on him, how nothing else mattered when Brendon was there. He’d lost his imagination and his belief that anything could happen, and his creativity above all.

“Ryan, I-“
Ryan leant in and grabbed the back of Brendon’s neck, pulling his lips against his.
Brendon let out a light sob, melting under Ryan’s touch.
Pressing a series of chaste kisses to Brendon’s lips, he whispered to him. “Sh, babe, it’s okay.”
The loose strings that had Brendon’s heart dangling slowly began to thread together again, and it hurt like hell. He felt the tears spill over his eyes as he bit his bottom lip to silence himself out of habit.
Ryan wrapped his arms around Brendon, pressing a kiss to the cold skin of his rosy and tear-stained cheek.
“I m-miss you. Please come b-back.” Brendon choked out. “He hurts me, Ryan. So bad. I n-need you. I love you.”
“Sh, calm.” Ryan pressed another kiss, but to his soft brown hair now.
“Please.”
The pleading tone in Brendon’s voice was slicing through Ryan’s façade, tearing down the walls of the cell he’d built over the duration of the past three months. “Of course.” He whispered in response, his voice quiet and soothing. “Of course.”
“Thank you.” Brendon mumbled, his tears beginning to subside.

They sat there under the late night city lights, savoring all the contact that they’d missed during their time apart.
After Brendon had calmed, he turned his head to press a trail of kisses to Ryan’s jaw line, leading up to his lips. They kissed, slow and passionate. It wasn’t just skin-on-skin, it was heart-to-heart. It was raw emotion at it’s truest, it was the re-ignition of a flame reduced to ashes, it was the solution to end all nostalgia, it was simple and pure and beautiful. It was love.