Where You'll Find Me

Ryan curled up in his blankets, wanting to die. Sick again. He felt hot everywhere, and the room was still spinning.

His life seriously sucked. He just wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t because of the awful migraine he had. How pathetic could he possibly get? All his friends were off singing karaoke somewhere, and he had been left to suffer alone.

He heard a knock on the door, and he groaned. Alex probably forgot something. “It’s open!” he shouted, his voice cracking at the end.

Footsteps sounded toward him, and Ryan asked sarcastically, “What, did you forget your cape?” and popped his head out of the blankets.

“Uh, no?” Brendon replied uncertainly.

Blinking, Ryan stared at Brendon, who had a messenger bag on his shoulder. “What are you doing here?” he questioned. Ryan hadn’t seen Brendon in at least a month, with both of them working so much lately. It was hard to make time to hang out these days.

“Well, I know you wanted to see ‘Where The Wild Things Are’, so, I. Ya know. Hold on,” Brendon instructed. He set his bag on the floor and bent over to rifle through it briefly. He finally pulled out a CD case and tossed it on the bed.

Ryan sat up to retrieve it. On the CD, it read “WTWTA rip” in Pete’s messy scrawl. “How did you--?”

“He’s Pete,” Brendon shrugged, “He’s got connections.”

Staring down at the disc, Ryan muttered, “But how did you--”

Brendon raised an eyebrow. “Know you’ve been dying to see it? I’m a magical wizard, Ross, what can I say? Now, do you wanna watch it or not?”

“Twitter,” Ryan mumbled, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you hopped on a plane all the way to New York just to watch this with me.”

“Well,” Brendon stated, “That’s what friends do for each other.” He got this nostalgic look on his face, but quickly brushed it away with, “So shut your gob and let’s watch this motherfucker. It looks amazing.”

“Oh my god, I know, right?” Ryan grinned. “We can watch it in the living room. Hold on.” He grabbed some random blankets and pillows and followed Brendon out into the front room. Brendon plopped down on the couch while Ryan bent over to put the disc into the DVD player. He was pretty sure that Brendon was staring at his ass, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. That ship had long since sailed anyway. He grabbed the remote and sat next to Brendon, twisting himself up in the blankets and resting his body flush against Brendon’s.

Brendon didn’t show that he was bothered. He just looked at Ryan and asked, “Can I have a pillow?”

Ryan chucked one at his head.

“Ow!” Brendon protested. “I’m the one who brought you the movie of epic; you’re supposed to be nice to me.”

Batting his eyes, “But I’m always--” Ryan was cut off by a hacking cough.

Scrunching up his nose, Brendon observed, “You really are sick.”

Coughing a few more times, Ryan deadpanned, “No shit.”

“Hey, just saying,” Brendon said defensively.

Ryan raised his eyebrows a bit and his play on the remote.

The movie began, and Ryan was instantly laughing so hard that there were tears in his eyes. Brendon was in a similar state, his chiming laugh filling Ryan’s ears pleasantly.

No, he told himself.

As they soon discovered, it was a fairly decent rip. It wasn’t fuzzy, and there were no random people going in and out of the shot. Ryan found himself enamored with the adventure of Max. He was a pretty funny kid: smart too. He felt sorry for him when he had to eat frozen corn.

The rest of the movie passed, and Ryan found himself hating nearly every monster except K.W. and Douglas. Because the rest of them were basically assholes. Yeah, he said it. He somehow managed to grip Brendon’s hand when Carol began to chase Max, but quickly let go when he realized what he was doing.

The credits began to roll, and Ryan was smiling. It was even better than he thought it’d be. He looked over and saw that Brendon had tears streaming down his face. When Ryan gave him a look, he replied, “What? It was cute!”

Ryan shook his head. “You always get so emotional,” he stated.

“Well,” Brendon retorted, wiping his face, “I can help that I’m a sensitive-- Oh, I love this song! L-O… V-E! It’s a… mystery!” he sang.

Laughing, Ryan joined in. “Where you’ll find all is love! Is love! Is love! Is love!”

They continued with gusto. “Ooooooooooh ooooooh ooooooh all is love!”

Doubling over in laughter, Ryan told Brendon, “We should so do a cover of this song.”

Brendon freezed, the smile dropping off his face almost instantly. “Ryan, we’re not in the same band anymore,” he said.

“Oh. Yeah,” Ryan mumbled. “Never mind then.”

The silence between them was more than awkward.

“Brendon, listen--” Ryan started.

“I should go,” Brendon cut him off.

Ryan felt his throat tighten. “No,” he argued, “Stay. I didn’t mean to--”

“Coming here was a mistake,” Brendon stated. He laughed bitterly. “I don’t know what I was expecting.” He stood and grabbed his bag from the floor. “It was nice seeing you, Ryan. You look good.”

“No, no, no, fucking no. You are not going to--” Ryan stood up and grabbed Brendon’s arm. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can go back to how it used to be.”

“You want things how it used to be, Ryan? Then give up your hipster life and come back home,” Brendon suggested.

“No. I don’t want to go back,” Ryan responded. “I like where I’m at now. I just--”

“Gave up your real friends for ones who couldn’t give two shits about you? I’m tired of waiting for you, Ryan. I’m tired of waiting for you to come to your senses and stop fucking around,” Brendon bit back. “I just can’t even remember who you are anymore.”

“Just stop!” Ryan cried. “Do you think this is easy for me? I want you so badly sometimes, but I can’t have you.”

“Oh, cut the crap,” Brendon snaps. “You had me, and you let me go. Which was fine. But just stop thinking that I’m going to wait forever.”

Ryan launched forward and kissed him. “Give me another chance.”

“I can’t do this again.” Brendon shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve had my heart broken by you so many fucking times, Ryan.”

Ryan kissed him once more. “Please. I need you.”

Brendon shook his head harder this time. “You don’t know what you need. Maybe we can try again when you have your shit together. But not right now.” With that, he walked out the door, leaving Ryan staring after him.

Coughing, Ryan sat down on the couch alone. He didn’t know what to do now, so he watched “Where The Wild Things Are” again and cried this time.