Exactly What You Think It Is

Ryan finally remembered to check the mail for the first time in a week. The box was almost so full he could hardly get the things out, having to pull them out in sections. Bills and circulars, mostly. But at the bottom of it all, there was a thin package with an address in Santa Monica he knew all too well.

He climbed back up the apartment stairs, the package and his keys in one hand, the rest of the mail in the other. He was fairly certain he knew what was in the box and he'd been dreading this. He'd been secretly keeping up with the interviews and the things they've been saying about it. He really didn't want to hear in beautiful music how well Brendon was doing.

When he got inside, he opened it and, like he'd anticipated, it was a copy of the new album with a folded piece of paper on top.

Don't second guess it. It's exactly what you think it is.
Don't overanalyze and don't look too hard for metaphors.
- B.

Ryan put the CD into his laptop and skipped the first track. He already knew the words of the song and the images of the video by heart. While the first lines of the song he'd heard live via the internet played through the computer's speakers, he went to the kitchen to grab a beer and his bong. He had a feeling he'd need both quicker than he'd like to admit.

"Oh, fuck you," he whispered out loud during the second verse. And the music was gorgeous to boot, something he knew never would have been able to be created with him. That hurt more, he thought. How much Brendon could do without him. It would hurt more than any spat out lyric laced with acid.

He recognized the third song from the six minutes of acting that would have made him laugh if he weren't taking shot after shot just to try and blur out all the thinly veiled symbolism that even an elementary school student would have been able to recognize. He was never so obvious, was he?

"We're not a hurricane," Ryan said to the empty room, tapping the prescription bottle filled with ground marijuana into the bowl of the bong before slipping it back into the bong and lighting it. He was going to be so hung over the next day and he was supposed to go write with Alex. "That's not happening," he mumbled with half a laugh after he exhaled.

There was not enough of any drug to prepare him for the fourth track.

Ryan's eyes were staring at the screen, unable to tear them away, unable to move his fingers to change the track, to take a drink, to take another hit. Instead he stared, feeling the muscles in his body tighten as he heard the words that he knew were meant for him, the words that people were going to have memorized and not even know. They'd be singing words that they couldn't begin to possibly comprehend even if they thought they understood.

'They were fighting for their love . . .'

Ryan kicked his foot out and the beer bottle almost tipped over as the table shifted across the room. The bong was next to his feet or it certainly would have spilled.

His phone was next to the computer and he picked it up, dialing the number he still had memorized even though he rarely memorized numbers, just used speed dial or the address book. He could hear the notes of the next track vaguely starting as he stood up, listening more intently to the dial tone.

"Hello?"

"Fuck you," Ryan spat out. "Fuck you. You can't . . . you can't just . . . how could you do that?"

He heard some muffled words and some footsteps, a door closing. "Ry?" Brendon asked quietly. "What are you--"

The older boy was seething. "Oh, don't you play fucking innocent."

Brendon was in his bedroom and he leaned his forehead against the door, his fingers sliding down the doorframe. If he listened closely enough, he could hear his voice in the background, nearly muted under Ryan's heavy breathing. "You've done it," he murmured.

"Yeah, well at least I tried to hide it under metaphors," Ryan snapped. Another song was starting and it was all he could do not to scream but he wouldn't give Brendon the satisfaction.

"You know I've never felt the need to hide from you."

"And what the fuck was that note?" Ryan didn't want to have that conversation again. There was no point by this point anyway. "What are you trying to get out of me?"

Brendon sighed. The note had been Spencer's idea. Not the specific words, of course, but it had been the drummer who suggested Brendon slip a note in the package instead of just the CD case. So the boy had written down one of two things he wanted Ryan to know when he listened to it. The other thing would be evident by the third song, he'd hoped.

Acoustic music was drifting from Ryan's computer now and he moved a step closer, not sure why he was torturing himself with trying to hear.

"I just . . . you read into things too much. And I don't know what you'd hear if you over-listened." He could hear the other boy's breath growing quicker, not so hard, but more of it. He wasn't drawing in enough breath.

Ryan moved back to the couch, putting the bong back on the coffee table and taking another hit, coughing as he took too much of a hit and couldn't exhale properly because of his ragged breathing. Brendon didn't say anything, just waited while the other boy caught his breath. "People are going to sing these songs," he said. "They're going to sing these, Bren. And they won't know what they're singing. But we'll know. And . . . you just . . . God, you could have just held a fucking press conference. It would have hurt less."

Brendon felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "I . . . I didn't do it to hurt you."

"Well, you did." Ryan said shortly, leaning back against the couch, his hand moving to his face before pulling at his hair. He thought he could hear accordion as a new track started and he looked at the title. "This is the one you wrote for her?" he asked.

Brendon felt like a dirty liar. "It's about you."

"You got together with your girlfriend using a song you wrote for me?" Ryan laughed, harsh and broken. But if he wasn't laughing, he'd be crying and Brendon doesn't get to hear that right now.

"I can't write about anything else. I tried."

"How's Spencer feel about this?"

Brendon shrugged. "He likes the songs. We don't . . . talk about you much. Sucks too much."

"What did you think would happen, Bren?"

The younger boy had asked himself that question hundreds of times. While he was writing, while he was recording, while he wrote the note and when he sent the package. He didn't know the answer. "I . . . I didn't think . . ."

"Obviously."

"I don't know!" Brendon said, too loudly, wincing, bracing himself for footprints that didn't come. "Look, I just. I wrote it. And I hoped that, like, I don't know. I love you, okay? I don't know how else to say it anymore."

The song they had started in the cabin was playing now.

"We don't work. We tried," Ryan explained, hating how his chest literally ached as he said the words. "You have her now. I'm happy for you."

"Liar."

"I'm trying to be happy for you."

"I miss you everyday."

Ryan squeezed his eyes closed. "We can't, Bren."

"It's not going to change, you know. We'll just be miserable."

"We're miserable together." Ryan reached for his lighter and then thought better of it, reached for the beer instead.

"So we're miserable either way."

The beer was not going to be enough. "I'm going now."

"I could come over."

The CD started over and Ryan muted the volume. "Don't do that. Just . . . go make out with her or something."

"I'm coming over."

"This is a really bad idea, Bren," Ryan whispered. "You don't know what you're starting with this shit."

"I might have an idea."

"Your ideas usually end badly."

"I'm coming over."

This time Ryan didn't argue, just mumbled a good-bye and ended the call, setting the phone back down on the table as he took another hit from the bong. This was going to end in blood or tears and he was sick of crying. He finished the bowl, his eyes continuously flicking toward the CD cover. When he was done smoking, he changed and went into the bathroom to put on deodorant.

This was such a bad idea. But he was smiling.