Dream Catcher

It's sad 'cause Ryan thinks it was never meant to turn out this way.

His neck aches, in this dark alley, and the pressing dampness of the air around him causes him to curl inwards on himself, tugging his leather jacket close and sucking heavily on the cigarette hanging from his mouth. Marlborough. What else?

The show ended two hours ago and Ryan wishes he had the guts to leave, then. Out of the hundreds of fans filtering past him, not one recognized the former guitar player. Starved and bathed in his own distaste as he was, he was not a figure to be associated with the successful band metres away, tucked behind backstage.

It was taken to be a good thing, Ryan would like to think. No teenage girls hounding him, no boys saying they looked up to him. No-one thanking him for having an abusive children hood and thus producing the lyrics they so dearly held to. Ryan doesn't talk about the pain anymore, the scars on his side. He's got pretty ones on his wrists and his legs now; and one, big, cancerous one striking through his heart.

Or brain.

Ryan's not sure what he believes anymore.

The smoke curls through his hair, scenting it in something other than the smell of himself. He'd be happy if he could bath in unknown scents all his life; familiar, but not him. He'd give it all a way to be no-one, anyone but him.

Hell; isn't that what he did?

He laughs hollowly to himself, dropping his fag to the ground. He's a shell. He's pathetic. He wanted to be no-one, original, unique. He wanted anonymity, and when he got it. Well.

Friends are funny things. Ryan's always been wary of them, holding only those around long enough close. It's not friends Ryan had the problem with, though; it was families. With fame he got to forget about his dear, dying daddy. It made him forget the look on someone's face when you meant nothing to them. He forgot what it was like when people were pretending. When they didn't really like you.

He knows, now.

He's alone, now.

"Ryan?"

Brendon thinks he knows, too. But Ryan never explained.

"Is that you?"

Ryan fumbles for another cigarette, fingers numb with cold and neck bent in pain. His thumb is cut from the metal of the cheap lighter and as he ignites blood runs down his pale thumb; pooling gently in the basin of his hand. He's been waiting for this. For Brendon.

"Fuck, Ryan, you..."

"You played a great set." Ryan smiles like it doesn't hurt his frozen cheeks, cutting off Brendon's mumbled silence fillers. Brendon pretends to worry when he doesn't know what to say. Ryan doesn't want to fall for it (again).

Brendon just stares. He looks good, Ryan thinks, hair tousled like that. His shirt is sticking to him and Ryan can tell he toned up, put on some muscle. Ryan's happy he's doing well. He really is. He wants Brendon to be happy, to be okay. To have control of his band. Because it was always his; Panic at the Disco. Ryan just had to stop pretending it wasn't.

"What are you doing here, Ryan? We both know it wasn't to watch a set." Brendon leans on the wall beside him and Ryan can feel the heat radiating off him in waves. Brendon was always so, so warm and Ryan doesn't think about the nights he took advantage of that fact. The nights where Brendon let him.

"I just, I..."

He gulps, throat dry from smoking. He wishes the water in the air could wetten his throat; that nature would help him out, for once. He coughs instead. Brendon flinches and Ryan is reminded of how vulnerable he always made Brendon. The shouting and the lies and all those little half truths that built a wall of ice brick by freezing brick. He ran away when he finished with that wall, and Brendon didn't even scramble for the pieces.

"I wanted you to know that... that Panic was - is - one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and" another gulp, his hand grasp at his jeans, thumb throbbing "I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry I left like that. I would explain but I... I don't think I could if I tried."

He doesn't look at Brendon. Doesn't think he could; with eyes like that.

"I'm happy you made it. I'm happy you've get Panic going, hell, I'm happy you kept Spencer happy and I..." Brendon shuffles next to him and Ryan doens't want to listen to the sounds of his life without him.

His throat aches too much and he brings a hand up to massage it, ignoring the red spreading out over his fingers. His thumb bled more than he thought, but he can't bring himself to care. He stopped that a long time ago.

"Why're you saying all this, Ryan? Are you okay?" Ryan pretends not to hear the concern in his voice, the false pitches of worry. He knows it all by now. He got this at first from his friends. The fake worry, the helpful hand on his shoulder. They all left when he was out of money and out of dreams and Ryan really can't blame him.

Dreams were all he ever really had.

"I want you to keep Panic alive, Brendon. It's all I really had." He echoes his thoughts, voicing breaking steadily.

Ryan knows it's cheesy and Ryan knows it's everything the movies taught him, everything Brendon used to cry at, but it's the truth. Everything Ryan had he poured into that band since he was god knows how old. In letting it go he let go of a part of himself, the only part he ever liked.

He doesn't stick around for Brendon's high pitched responses and he doesn't react to the hand on his harm, digging into his bone. It hurts, but the realisation of what was to come hurt so much more in so many different ways that it was a wonder Ryan could even register the small touch.

There's pills, at home, and Ryan could never really do goodbyes.