Find Your Own Way (Back Home)

“It’s not because I-”

“I know.”

“We just think, me and Jon, that-”

“I know.”

“We just don’t want the same things as you any more, that’s all,” Ryan says, awkward hands fiddling with the scarf twined so tightly round his neck that he'll choke himself if he tugs it any closer to his throat.

And Spencer should say “I know,” and smile and tell him it’s fine, really, it’s fine, but the words are stuck in his throat and the blank expression is frozen on his face and he just can’t.

Because it’s true. They don’t want the same things any more.

(Somehow, that realisation hurts one hell of a lot more than a juicy scandal or a secret affair or an awful row ever could. Spencer almost wishes it was like that, because at least then he could get angry, at least then he could start yelling, at least then he could justify the abject betrayal curling low in his gut that he just doesn’t know what to do with.)

“Spence, will you at least look at me?” Ryan’s voice is pleading, and it’s the unfamiliar inflection that raises Spencer’s gaze from the ground, forces him to meet Ryan’s liquid hazel eyes. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, guilt worming its way into the cracks between his words.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Spencer says, firmly, because this is their decision, all four of them, and he’s not going to let Ryan go all angsty on him and blame himself for something that is not his fault, no matter what the emptiness inside him says. “It’s fine, Ry. It’s fine.”

Ryan’s been Spencer’s best friend since he was five. Ryan knows him better than anyone else on the planet and he knows when Spencer’s talking shit but he doesn’t call him on it, not this time, he just steps forward and sticks out his arms and pulls Spencer into an awkward hug. Spencer doesn’t cling to him, not exactly, but he tugs him close and holds him tight and buries his head in Ryan’s neck and it’s a very, very close thing.

And it’s not goodbye – it’s not, dammit, Spencer won’t let it be – but when Ryan detaches himself from Spencer, offering a tiny smile and an even tinier wave before turning and walking away, it kind of feels like it is.

***

It is goodbye.

Technically speaking.

The first year after the split, they talk a few times, online or when they happen to bump into each other at parties of mutual friends. They hang out every so often but nowhere near as much as they pretend to, and it’s always awkward, always tense, always painful. Spencer doesn’t spend his birthday with Ryan for the first time he can remember.

And then things are said, awful things, hurtful things, mostly halfway true things, and there’s lots of yelling down phones and slammed doors in people’s faces and snide comments on Twitter that bleed out across the internet.

The second year after the split, they barely talk at all. They – Brendon and Spencer, because Brendon and Spencer are a ‘they’ now and it will never, ever stop being weird that Jon and Ryan are no longer included in their ‘they’ – bump into Ryan out of the blue. Spencer escapes after a few minutes of staring at the floor instead of each other, muttering excuses and willing Brendon with his eyes to just let him go. He does, but not without a sad smile tossed in Spencer’s direction that Spencer doesn’t quite catch.

A few months later, Jon and Ryan’s band, The Young Veins, announce an indefinite hiatus. Spencer would find it funny if he weren’t too busy worrying about Ryan.

(It says a lot about how long they were – are, have been, not were, never were – friends that Spencer knows how Ryan’s feeling even though they haven’t spoken to each other face to face in what feels like forever. Spencer likes to think it does, anyway.)

The third year after the split, well, that’s when everything happens at once.

***

The first important thing that happens is that Brendon and Spencer’s new album, Vices & Virtues, drops. It sells more copies in its first week than Pretty’s sold in three years.

(Brendon is stupidly pleased about that, because he spent a long time after the split convinced that he couldn’t do it, that there was no way he could even attempt to write anything approaching the poetry that seemed to come to Ryan, and to a certain extent Jon, so easily.

Spencer spent a long time telling him what an idiot he was being and how he was fine, they were fine, they’d always be fine. Spencer thinks people should stop being so surprised when he turns out to be right.)

The second important thing that happens is that Spencer asks Haley to marry him. They’ve been dating for years and Spencer’s never met anyone quite like her and with everything that’s happened recently, he thinks he needs to keep a tighter hold on the things he loves the most. She says yes, of course she does, and in that instant Spencer doesn’t think he’s ever been happier in his entire life.

He asks Brendon to be his best man. Brendon’s eyes are wide and Spencer can see the question in them, the question that won’t make it out of his mouth, because they made a silent agreement not to talk about Ryan a long, long time ago.

Spencer just shrugs, says, “You’re my best friend, who else would it be?” and Brendon hugs him, hugs him tight, and doesn’t let go until Spencer starts to squirm in his grip.

The last, but most certainly not least, important thing that happens is that Ryan comes home.

***

It’s not big and it’s not dramatic but it is unexpected and it is a shock when Spencer’s doorbell rings one day and he goes to answer it and it isn’t Ian standing there, or Dallon, or even Brendon, who has his own key but still insists on announcing his entrance before he actually enters.

It’s Ryan.

Spencer takes a few seconds to gape at him. Ryan’s skittish like Brendon when he hasn’t had any sleep and he’s skinnier than before, if such a thing were possible, and his hair is longer and messier than it’s ever been, even during the age of the Ryhawk.

But it’s still Ryan, it’s still undeniably George Ryan Ross III standing on Spencer’s doorstep, and Spencer has no idea what to say to him.

Ryan opens his mouth and for a wild, crazy moment Spencer thinks he’s going to apologise.

Instead, Ryan says, “You’re getting married,” and he sounds the furthest thing from apologetic.

“What?”

“It’s all over the internet,” Ryan continues, ignoring him. “Your fans are going crazy. Why didn’t you tell me, Spin?”

Spencer’s mouth drops open. “Seriously? I haven’t spoken to you in, like, a year, and the first thing you say to me is you’re getting married?!”

“And you asked Brendon to be your best man? Brendon?” Ryan’s voice cracks on Brendon’s name, but Spencer hardly hears it through the blood pounding in his ears.

“Well who the fuck else was I going to ask?” he retorts, eyes narrowed. “You?”

Ryan flinches as if Spencer’s slapped him. “You never even told me,” he says quietly. “I had to find out from the internet. The fucking internet. Do you know how that-” He cuts himself off with a frustrated sigh. “I was your best friend, Spencer.”

(Spencer doesn’t bother correcting him; it doesn’t feel like it warrants correcting, not any more.)

He narrows his eyes. “If you’re just here to have a go at me for not upholding the sacred rules of bestfriendhood or whatever-”

“Brendon called me,” Ryan says flatly, “told me to come see you.”

Spencer narrows his eyes. “Why would he do that?”

Ryan surveys him with his blank, emotionless stare, says, “He thinks we should talk. Properly.” Spencer mutters something disparaging about Brendon and thinking, and Ryan laughs softly. “Normally I’d agree with you, dude,” he says, shaking his head, “but Brendon’s right. We do need to talk. Can I, uh, can I come in?”

Spencer hesitates. Part of him wants to slam the door in Ryan’s face and tell him to fuck off and never come back but another part, a stronger part, wants to pull him in close and never let him go and make him promise to never, ever leave him again.

“Yeah,” Spencer says, stepping aside to let Ryan pass. “Come in.”

They arrange themselves on his sofa, Spencer curled up at one end and Ryan perched on the other. Spencer wants to reach out and touch him, but there’s too much between them pushing them apart.

“How’s Haley?” Ryan asks, eyes fixed on the floor.

“Good, yeah,” Spencer nods, grateful for an excuse to talk. “She’s out doing wedding stuff right now, so.” Ryan nods too, still avoiding Spencer’s gaze. “There’s a lot of stuff to get sorted, you know?”

“No, actually,” Ryan says evenly, “I don’t.”

Spencer glances away, swallowing the retort that’s dying to jump off his lips. It won’t help, he knows it won’t. “I wanted to tell you,” he says instead, voice soft. “I just- I didn’t think you’d want to know. I didn’t think you’d care.”

Spencer sees Ryan stiffen out of the corner of his eye. “Why the fuck would you think that?” he asks, voice steady and calm.

Spencer barks out a laugh. “Come on, Ryan. It’s not like we’re even really friends any more, is it?”

Ryan’s not looking at the floor any more. He’s staring directly at Spencer, eyes narrowed and intent. “And whose fault’s that?”

“You walked out on me.”

“You could have come with me.”

“You didn’t want me to.”

Ryan’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You didn’t even try and keep in touch.”

“I did!” Spencer’s being defensive, he knows he is, hates it, but he can’t help it. “It was just- it was just harder. It’s not like you tried all that hard to talk to me either.”

Ryan shrugs again. “I didn’t think you wanted me to,” he says quietly. “I didn’t think you cared any more.”

Spencer looks away, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. “Of course I did,” he mutters, blinking hard. “I still do. I’ve fucking missed you, you dick, how could you think I wouldn’t?”

Ryan smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I missed your stupid face too, dude.”

And then he shuffles down the sofa and drops his head onto Spencer’s shoulder and wraps his arms around his waist, quashing everything that was pushing them apart. His hip is digging into Spencer’s thigh and he has a face full of his ridiculous hair but Spencer doesn’t even care, he just clings to Ryan like he hadn’t let himself do two years ago and tries not to think about what complete idiots they’ve been.

“Hey Ryan?” Spencer says, soft, quiet, and the other boy looks up at him. “Do you think I can have two best men?”

“Spence,” Ryan says seriously, biting back his smile, “you can have as many best men as you want.”

And Spencer just grins and hugs him tighter because it wasn’t goodbye, it was never goodbye, and he was an idiot to ever believe it was.

(Maybe they won’t be best friends again. Maybe too much has happened for them to just go back to the way they were. But right now, Ryan’s here, with Spencer, and he’s having trouble caring about anything else.)