Cancer

AMAZINNNNGGGGG banner by manygreatsurprises, aka the now-infamous Pam. She's the reason Ryan Ross is engaged in this story. Release the hounds!

Still brooding and thoughtful, Brendon placed his hands flat on the table, palms down; I hadn't noticed until then, but he was probably the only one here without a drink in his hand. This was reassuring, and I somehow found the nerve to reach up and touch the back of one of his hands carefully.

"It's good to see you," I said earnestly. "You look better."

He wouldn't look at me. He just kept staring off to the side, up at the cloud of smoke that had condensed just below the ceiling, a shimmering haze that turned red and green and blue under the searing lights of the club.

I sighed. "If you don't want to talk, I understand. I just--"

"Why did you come here tonight?" He turned to look me straight in the eyes so quickly that my hand slid off of his and I straightened up in surprise. His expression was suddenly unbearably intense as he waited for an answer.

"I don't...know," I mumbled lamely. I shrugged. "Ryan...invited me..."

Brendon seemed to visibly deflate, the vitality in his face fading to stone anger. "Ryan..." he muttered bitterly, chuckling without humor. "He would invite you. He probably picked you up and drove you here and everything, didn't he?"

I stared, the sympathy I'd felt for him a moment ago rapidly dwindling. "Yes, he did," I said with dignity. "I thought it was very kind of him. Very polite."

"Yeah," Brendon laughed, grimacing hideously at the same time. "Yeah, he's real kind and polite, that Ryan is."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I snapped.

"I don't know, Kelsey! What do you think it means?" All at once, he was yelling, and curious heads were turning in our direction. "Excuse me if I just don't appreciate my best friend moving in on you."

For a moment, I could only gape at him and splutter incoherantly at such an accusation. "Moving in on me?!" I repeated shrilly, absolutely indignant. "Brendon, Ryan is my friend, okay?! That's all."

Brendon glared resentfully. "Tell him that," he sneered.

"No, I don't have to tell him," I ranted, "because he understands me, and he knows I'm not--I mean, look, we're just friends, okay?! And it's none of your business anyway. I don't ask you about your girlfriend--"

It was a mark of just how upset I was that I was even able to think of Brendon's girlfriend at all (much less mention her out loud), and he stopped me there.

"Girlfriend? What girlfriend?"

"The one you were talking to on the phone at your parents' house," I replied matter-of-factly. I was too angry to feel the prick of pain at the memory and wince.

"What makes you think that was my girlfriend?" he said stubbornly.

"Ryan told me."

"Oh, really? Did he, now?" Brendon straightened up again, his temper flaring sharply; he was practically seething as he snarled, "Did Ryan tell you that I dumped her over the phone the first night I knew you were back? Did he tell you I've spent every day since then holed up in my room, trying to think of some way to get you back, trying to work up the nerve to call you or write you a letter? Did he tell you I missed the signing in L.A. last week because I was too fucking miserable to get out of bed?"

I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. My heart pounded away irregularly in my chest, its beat staggering unevenly with the weight of all these new conflicting feelings.

"I didn't--" The words got stuck in my throat, my thoughts flying around in my brain too quickly to be processed. "I--no, I--"

Brendon leaned towards me across the table, until he was so close that I could feel his warm breath on my face. His dark eyes, glittering with the intensity of a million different emotions, bore into mine, and I couldn't escape him.

"And he didn't tell you why I did it, either, did he?" he breathed, so quietly that I wouldn't have heard him if he hadn't been so close. "He didn't tell you because he didn't want you to know. He didn't want you to forgive me. He wanted to keep you for himself."

My eyes narrowed at that. "Don't be ridiculous, Brendon," I hissed. "He would never... He's not like that--"

"You don't know, Kelsey," Brendon insisted, jealousy raging fiercely in his eyes. "You don't know him like I do. He's not the angel you think he is. He--"

"Oh, stop it, Brendon!" I half-shouted, jumping up from the table with disgust. "Just stop it! Don't try to push this off on Ryan! All he did was clean up the mess you made, and now you're trying to blame him for your mistakes--"

"What mistakes?!" he bellowed as he got to his feet as well. "What mistakes, Kelsey?! The only mistake I ever made was loving you!"

For a moment, I was too stunned to say or do anything. And then abruptly, before I could stop the words from coming out, before I could even consider them first, they tumbled out of their own accord.

"You're the one who left!" I yelled, suddenly angry with him. It was his fault, too. It was my fault, Brendon's fault, Pete Wentz's fault, Audrey Kitching's fault--it was fucking Ryan Ross's fault. It was everyone's fault. "You're the one who said we should break up!"

"No, I didn't! I didn't say you should fucking leave, Kelsey!" He was hysterical with rage, despair, and then he lowered his voice and said softly, evenly, "I didn't know you would leave. I came back to Vegas and you were just gone. I looked for you everywhere, Kelsey. Everywhere. I didn't even have a phone number, or an address, or a goodbye note... Nothing. You took everything from me."

I stared at him blankly for a moment, struggling to collect my thoughts. It was all so much to take in--so much blame, so much hurt... "What did you expect me to do, Brendon? Wait around until you came back and hope that if I kissed your feet enough once you got off the plane, you'd take me back?" I said coldly. The rage was building up inside of me steadily as I remembered those bleak days, and I wanted to scream at him, but all I could manage was to whimper pathetically, "You didn't want me anymore."

The look on Brendon's face then was unlike anything I have ever seen, before or since.

It wasn't pain. It wasn't happiness. It wasn't hope, exactly. It was a strange combination of all three, blinding in its intensity.

"Of course I wanted you," he breathed, his face awed and sad and exulting and excited and careful and absolutely adoring. He blinked at me a few times as if he couldn't quite believe I was real, and then said, with the ease of truth, "I always wanted you. I always will."

He took a step towards me, and I couldn't think anymore. My heart kept on beating sporadically. I was surprised it was keeping up as well as it was.

Brendon reached up to touch my face tenderly, the palm of his hand fitting itself to the curve of my cheek. "Don't you understand?" he whispered, the tiniest smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "I did it for you. I was never around when we were together. You were stuck here in this city you always hated, all by yourself. It wasn't fair to you."

The smile faded, and he dropped his hand slowly. "I saw how unhappy it was making you--us being on tour all the time--and I knew it would only get worse. I didn't want to make you wait for me forever. You deserved to keep living your life while I was out living mine. That's why I wanted to take a break."

I could only stare at his face through the hazy dark as I struggled to comprehend the realigning of my past.

"I tried so hard..." He squeezed his eyes shut, and for a moment, I was terrified that he might cry again--I wasn't sure I could handle that. But then he opened them again, and his eyes were such a clear, pretty shade of brown, and he went on. "I tried so hard to work it out, but I just couldn't. I couldn't fix it. I let you down, Kels, and I'm so sorry..."

He took a deep, shuddering breath and found the strength to keep going.

"So I tried to distance myself from you," he explained sadly. "And then I told you I wanted a break. It wasn't because I got tired of you, or didn't want you anymore. I just wanted better for you. I just wanted to make you happy." He swallowed hard and made his final confession: "I left you because I love you, Kelsey."