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1
“I’m going to kill him.”
Ryan had been pacing back and forth across the strip of empty floor space between Spencer’s bed and dresser for at least ten minutes, his pace growing faster and more intense with each turn. “I’m not kidding,” he said, although it seemed as if he were talking more to himself than to Spencer, who was watching him from the bed with a page of forgotten algebra homework, which he had given up on practically the second Ryan entered the room, and a binder sitting in his lap.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Ryan repeated for what was at least the twentieth time that night. However, this time, for whatever reason, he continued the threat, and something about his tone sounded more final than it had previously, as if he actually meant what he was saying. “I’m going to go to his house, and pull those goddamn sheets of his bed, or out of the dryer, or wherever the fuck they are…” The rate at which his footsteps were quickening accelerated as the volume and angry tone of his voice grew, and soon he was speed walking, moving repetitively from one side of Spencer’s line of sight to the other so fast that Spencer began to feel as if he were being hypnotized.
Something Spencer had figured out about Ryan over the years was that, at any given time, the speed at which his body moved was equivalent to that of his thoughts. Knowing this, he could only imagine the sheer magnitude of the chaos going on in Ryan’s head right then.
“I’m going to take those fucking sheets, the very sheets he fucked my girlfriend on, and I’m gonna…” Ryan trailed off again, but this time, since by this point it would be physically impossible for him to pace any faster without breaking into a run (and therefore defying the definition of pacing) he began to run his hands through his hair, one after the other. Like the pacing, the movement started out slow, but quickly accelerated to a point of near-violence. Soon, one hand didn’t even have time to leave his scalp before the next one chased it down the slope of his head.
“No, better. I’ll wait ‘till he falls asleep, and then I’ll spray him all over with one of those styling sprays she’s so obsessed with- those are flammable as hell, right? And then I’ll light it the fuck up, and hell, I’ll burn those goddamn sheets too, and the box of girls’ underwear he probably keeps in his closet, the desperate fucking perv, and then the rest of the fucking house, while I’m at it.”
By that point, he was literally tearing his hair out; Spencer could see the dark strands glinting in the yellow-tinted light of the lamp on his bedside table as they fluttered to the floor like the feathers of a diseased bird. “Ryan…” Spencer said, knowing he should intervene, but unsure as to how (after all, Ryan’s anger, though a bit excessive, was most definitely justified).
Ryan ignored him and continued on his tangent. “But first, I’ll make sure to take a bottle of his cologne, and I’ll go to her house and spray a plastic bag full of it, and that’ll be the last thing she ever inhales when I hold that bag over her pretty fucking face.” He halted suddenly in his frantic movements and let out a single, humorless laugh (which really sounded more like a bark than anything else), that sent a sharp jolt up Spencer’s spine. “It’s only fitting, you know,” he continued, spitting out the words as if they tasted as bitter as they sounded, “since she apparently loved it so much.”
He stood there for a few moments, panting and staring fixedly at the Star Wars calendar from two years ago that Spencer kept forgetting to take down. For a moment, it seemed as if the only sound in the entire world was the huffing and puffing of his breaths, which still sounded dangerously irate.
Then, as if some higher power had suddenly pressed “play” on the celestial equivalent of a TV remote, he was back at it, pacing and ripping out strands of his hair even faster than before, if such a thing was possible. He began to speak again, but the words tumbled out too fast all started to mush together to the point that all Spencer could register was a long string of random vowels, occasionally broken up by a consonant or two.
“Stop,” Spencer said suddenly, and the word seemed to cut through the growing cacophony as heavily and suddenly as a guillotine. In all honestly, the sudden command was almost as surprising to Spencer himself as it was to Ryan, who froze mid-step with one hand still entangled in his bangs.
Spencer cleared his throat and readjusted his position on the bed so he could sit up straighter. He swept his binder and homework to the floor, ignoring the sound of his pencil rolling under the bed and off to god-knows-where. “Stop,” he repeated. It was much quieter this time, but was still clearly an order, and had an authoritative quality that Spencer previously wouldn’t have thought himself to be capable of producing.
Ryan stared at him for a few seconds, and that time, instead of it being panting that interrupted the silence, it was Spencer’s own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He held Ryan’s gaze unflinchingly, though, daring him to start pacing again, although internally it felt more like pleading.
Then, just when Spencer started to think the unofficial staring contest would never end, and the two of them would be forced to slowly wither away for all eternity right there in his bedroom, Ryan began to sink- no, melt - to the floor as if his body had suddenly become too heavy for him to hold upright, until he his entire body, ridiculously long octopus limbs and all, had been reduced to a ball no bigger than your average pillow as he buried his face between his knees, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
2
“I can’t let you leave, Ryan.”
“I have to!”
Spencer tiptoed down the stairs in order to get within better range of what he could tell was soon to be a metaphorical storm raging in the entryway of the Smith residence. He stopped just beside the open doorway leading into the room and flattened his back against the wall beside it, not having to strain to hear the argument raging on the other side.
“You left there barely an hour ago!”
“Yeah, and now I need to go back!”
Spencer peered discreetly around the corner, just enough to be able to observe the conflict. He saw his mother first, who was standing firmly in front of the door with her arms crossed. When she spoke, her tone sounded caring, but still strong and resolute. “I’m sorry, Ryan, but I can’t let you, a minor , go where I don’t think it’s safe.”
Leaning over a few inches more, Spencer caught sight of Ryan, who was standing to the left of Ginger, and, although his back was turned, Spencer knew exactly what fierce, fiery gaze he was staring her down with. He appeared to be halfway through putting on a hoodie, with one sleeve filled and the other hanging loosely at his back. “Bullshit,” he said, and, if the situation weren’t so dire, Spencer probably would’ve laughed, if only out of disbelief that anyone would dare to speak to Ginger that way (although, if anyone was going to, it would definitely be Ryan, as he’s never had much of a filter). “He’s never laid a hand on me in my life and you know it.”
Although Ryan’s tone was intense enough to make most anyone bend to his will, Ginger continued to stand unyieldingly between him and the door. “Neglect is still harmful, Ryan,” she said in a way that was somehow both gentle and assertive at the same time.
“I’m seventeen! Maybe when I was twelve, yeah, but I survived that, too! I can take care of myself.”
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should have to.”
Ryan was silent for a few seconds, which, if anything, only increased the apprehension that was already thick in the air. Spencer glanced over his shoulder, slightly paranoid that someone would catch him eavesdropping, and, sure enough, found Crystal and Jackie creeping carefully down the stairs, presumably to join him beside the doorway, with their eyes wide. Spencer narrowed his own eyes and waved them away. Surprisingly enough, it worked, and they scurried back upstairs.
Spencer returned his attention to the argument just as Ryan spoke again. His tone was much calmer and more even than before but somehow sounded even more forceful. “He’s my dad .” When Ginger didn’t react, he took a step closer to her and raised his voice. “ You’re not even my real mom!”
Even though the comment had nothing to do with him, Spencer winced at it, imagining just how hurtful it must’ve been to his mother. He recalled the no doubt thousands of times she’d cared for Ryan over the years, from removing splinters when he and Spencer were younger and tried to climb into a neighbor’s backyard over a particularly abrasive fence, to not questioning the countless times Ryan had shown up in the middle of the night, smelling faintly of liquor and carrying only his school backpack and a change of clothes and smelling faintly of liquor, to writing the notes he needed to excuse his absences when he was sick and his father was too hungover to call the school . Ginger may not have been Ryan’s biological mother, but, in a way, she was his mother all the same.
Before he could even register what he was doing, Spencer was stepping through the doorway and into the room. Ginger’s eyes landed on him immediately, but she didn't look incredibly surprised at his presence. “Ryan,” he said, willing his voice to be a steel wall ; a force field; an immovable, indestructible thing. “Stop.”
Ryan whirled around to look at him, staring him down with all the intensity of the sun beating down on the desert on a sweltering summer day, but Spencer remained straight-backed and still, refusing to back down, like a mirror reflecting that sun’s rays. Finally, Ryan looked back at Ginger, who was still standing, strong as ever, in front of the door with a determined expression on her face. Realizing that neither she nor Spencer was going to break, he narrowed his eyes and muttered, “Fucking fine,” before shaking his hoodie onto the floor, pushing past Spencer, and storming upstairs, back into the safety of the Smith household.
3
Ryan slammed his glass down on the bar, the force of it sending vibrations throughout his entire body. Or perhaps that was just his head throbbing; it was rather hard to tell by that point.
“More,” he grunted. Or, at least, that’s what he tried to say. It came out as more of a “moo”, like cow demanding whatever cows drank, which caused him the recall the time they’d driven through Coalinga, California earlier in the tour, and how they’d gotten stuck in traffic in a cloud of that noxious cow scent for so long that Brendon had started Googling how much it would cost to get Amazon to ship gas masks to the middle of a highway.
Recalling the unpleasant experience, Ryan frowned even deeper than he already had been, and tapped his glass expectantly. Instead of granting his request, however, the bartender, who appeared momentarily like an angel sent down from heaven, whisked Ryan’s glass away. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, “but I’m cutting you off for the night. You got a friend to call?”
Ryan rolled his eyes and fumbled around in his pocket until he found the wad of cash he’d shoved into it before leaving the bus. He extracted a few bills at random, which could’ve amounted to anything between five and fifty dollars, and slapped them down on the bar. “Just a couple more,” he slurred.
The bartender hesitated, tapping the backs of his nails against the glass in his hand. The sound seemed oddly loud, so much so that Ryan flinched and covered his ears in an attempt to dull it, which hardened the bartender’s resolve. He pushed the money back in Ryan’s direction. “Look, man, I’ll even drive you home if you need it. I’ll be closing up soon, anyway.”
“I don’t need to go home!” Ryan insisted, a sudden wave of frustration sending spots to his vision (or perhaps that was just the alcohol). He swept his arm across the bar in a wide arc, sending the crumpled bills fluttering to the ground in a shower that would probably be a younger iteration of himself’s dream.
“I really don’t want to have to call you in for public intoxication,” the bartender said apologetically, “but if you can’t even give me an address, I don’t have many other options.”
Ryan didn’t respond, and instead simply slumped over the bar, fixing his eyes vacantly on a particularly large knot in the wood. “My father is dead,” he said with sudden mental clarity, although his words still sounded slurred and too loud and somehow foreign as if he weren’t the one speaking them. “My father is dead, and I’m going to die just like him because the banana doesn’t fall far from the fucking vine.” He was pretty sure he got that idiom wrong, which kind of sucked because those would very likely be his last words. He tried to think of something poetic to say instead, but his entire brain seemed to have turned to jello, and all he could muster up the energy to do was lightly poke at it.
“Roses,” he said halfheartedly, “roses and… raindrops. And cat whiskers.” There, that was poetic. He was pretty sure he’d heard it somewhere before, or at least something like it, but no matter. Quotes could be good last words as well.
“Um,” the bartender replied, though the sound barely registered in Ryan’s heavy head, “Okay, you clearly need help. I’m-”
Just then, the door to the bar banged open, cutting off the bartender’s words, and in strode none other than Spencer Smith. Although his entrance was assertive and somewhat angry, the sharp look in his eyes softened as soon as he caught sight of his best friend. However, when he tried to reach for him, Ryan shrunk away like a vampire to Holy Water. “I need… more…” he slurred, reaching for the assortment of bottles lined up on a nearby shelf.
Spencer pulled him back by the waist. “Stop,” he said, “I know you can hear me. Hey.” He grabbed Ryan’s wrist, which had been dangerously close to knocking over an entire row of highball glasses, and shot the bartender an apologetic look before returning his focus to Ryan, who was still trying to wriggle out of his grip. “Stop.”
Less than a second later, Ryan collapsed into his arms in a sobbing mess of wiry limbs and tangled hair.
4
Spencer pushed the front door to Ryan’s house closed behind him, thanking whatever higher power may or may not exist that Ryan hadn’t protested the suggestion of Spencer having a copy of his house key. “Ryan?” he called into the house, which, if Spencer didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought to be empty.
Indeed, the space seemed eerily quiet as Spencer strode through the entryway and living room. Once he reached the hallway, though, his ears picked up the soft scratching noise of a pen against paper, and he followed it to the slightly ajar door leading to Ryan’s room. Pushing it open, he wasn’t surprised to find Ryan sitting cross-legged in the middle of his unmade bed, gripping a pen rather tightly and staring fixedly down at that notebook that rested on one of his shins.
Spencer sighed as he pressed the door closed with his foot before moving closer to the bed. “How long have you been at this?” he asked matter-of-factly, like a doctor questioning a patient for diagnosis criteria, though in a much more exasperated tone than any medical professional would probably use.
Ryan shrugged absentmindedly, the movement causing a thick lock of hair to fall into his eyes. He didn’t bother to push it out of the way. “Couple days, maybe.”
Spencer muttered a curse as he sat down on the bed beside Ryan.“You’re lucky they haven’t shut off your heat again,” he said, even though he knew that, by this point, Ryan was far too deeply buried in his own head to care about anything pertaining to the physical world.
“Mm,” Ryan hummed in agreement, a telltale sign that he wasn’t actually listening. He leaned in closer to the notebook “They’re just not coming out right!”
“Then staring at them probably isn’t going to change anything, is it?”
Ryan let out a frustrated growl and tossed the notebook aside. “I’ve been trying for months , Spence. We need to get an album out. The fans are waiting, the label is waiting, fuck, Brendon’s starting to get impatient.” “Brendon’s always impatient,” Spencer pointed out calmly. He reached over and moved the stray curl was still hanging dejectedly over Ryan’s forehead out of his eyes.
Ryan only sighed and let his head fall back against his white duvet, which was bundled up in a large heap near the pillows. “Maybe we shouldn’t’ve scrapped Cricket and Clover,” he says, staring at the ceiling in resignation.
“Ryan, those songs sounded like some sort of kids’ storybook on acid, and you know it.” Spencer was calm, just as he always was in these situations, because you can’t fight fire with fire and you can’t fight Ryan with Ryan. Perhaps that was why he was one of the only people in the world who’d ever maintained a lasting relationship with Ryan that didn’t involve fucking, constant shouting matches, or both.
“Thirteen songs! We’re a band with thirteen songs, one of which is thirty-six seconds long!” Ryan’s voice was almost pleading- he was practically begging for Spencer’s empathy, or at least trying to make it sound like he was (Ryan was an impressively good manipulator- so much so that sometimes even he himself didn’t seem to know when he was doing it). When Spencer didn’t budge from the bed, Ryan sighed and picked the notebook back up. “Look, just let me write. I’ll get something eventually.”
“And how likely is it that I’ll come back in a few days after you’ve gotten that something and end up having to drive you to the hospital?”
Ryan huffed incredulously, as if Spencer’s prediction were completely unfounded. “I’m taking care of myself!”
If Spencer weren’t such a levelheaded person, he’d probably be offended by how gullible Ryan seemed to think he was. “Have you had lunch today?” he asked (only to prove his point, as he already knew the answer).
Ryan faltered for a moment, and Spencer knew he’d won (though he’d sort of known that he would since the beginning of the conversation- when arguing with Ryan, if you went in expecting to lose, you probably would).
Ryan realized this, too, but still continued to defend his claim, because, well, he was Ryan . “I was planning on it,” he said, grabbing the notebook and crossing his arms over his chest.
“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Give me the fucking notebook.” As he spoke, Spencer reached out in an attempt to take the book, only to have Ryan pull it farther back and out of his reach.
They spent the next minute or so in a distinctly fifth grader-esque grapple for the notebook, which eventually culminated in Ryan, having rolled off the bed, lying on his stomach on the floor with the notebook wedged firmly under his chest, while Spencer peered down at him from the bed, extremely frustrated and attempting to recount the exact chain of events that had led him up to this point in life. “Ryan,” he said, and found that he was panting, though he still managed to muster enough strength to make his voice sound at least relatively forceful, “Stop.”
5
“I don’t get why this is such a big deal to you!”
“Because you’re so wrapped up in your pretentious-ass ego to even give me a fucking chance!”
Brendon and Ryan stood in the center of the sitting area of a hotel suite, lobbing arguments and counterarguments at each other like cannonballs at castle walls. Spencer and Jon stood off to the sides of the conflict, watching with apprehension, as they were unsure how or when to step in.
Ryan barked out a harsh laugh and crossed his arms. “Oh, so I’m the one with an ego problem?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“If you didn’t have an ego of your own, you wouldn’t be trying to insert yourself into my area of expertise!”
“ Your area of expertise? ” Brendon scoffed, “Has it never occurred to you that maybe I just genuinely want to write? And, for the record, I’m just as musically talented as you, if not more.” When Ryan simply rolled his eyes in response, Brendon’s tone continued to rise in anger. “You know, I bet if Jon or Spencer wrote a song, you’d at least consider it,” he spat, keeping his gaze locked on Ryan’s but still flapping his hand in Jon’s general direction, either as some sort of demonstration of his statement or a vague way of asking for backup in his argument. Either way, Jon threw his hands in the air, refusing to take a side.
“I did consider it! I read the sheet music, and your lyrics, and it’s not my fault that they’re cliche and barely make sense!”
“Oh, as opposed to yours, which are just crystal clear?” Brendon raised his voice in both pitch and volume more and more each time he spoke, so much so that Spencer began to imagine him lobbing insults at Ryan in a glorious falsetto, which would’ve been a hilarious thought if not for the context.
“To me they are! But yours aren’t, and I’m not putting a song on my record that doesn’t make sense to me.”
There were a few beats of silence after that statement, save for the audible panting emanating from both men. When Brendon did respond, his tone of voice had dropped at least two octaves, becoming almost a growl. “Your record?”
Oh, come on. None of this would be happening without me and you know it.” Ryan kept his posture straight and defiant as he spoke, even letting a little bit of perceived supremacy slip into his voice, which he knew always irritated Brendon to no end. Still, he stepped back ever so slightly as Brendon stared him down like a bull contemplating when to charge.
Brendon countered Ryan’s tiny retreat with a significantly larger step forward, putting the two in even closer proximity than before. His face was so red that it probably would’ve been humorous in any other context. “This band wouldn’t function without any one of us, not just you!” he shouted, using his (somewhat excessive) lung capacity to its full extent. Even Spencer found his hands flying to his ears, and the shout wasn’t even directed at him.
Miraculously, Ryan managed to appear unaffected and didn’t even flinch, despite being close enough to feel Brendon’s hot, angry breath of his face. “Oh yeah?” he said, his intransigent gaze boring straight into Brendon’s, “Prove it.”
Even the room itself seemed to suck in a shocked breath. Brendon stepped back, the blood draining from his face almost as fast as the intensity that had brought it there. “Are you… are you kicking me out?”
Ryan’s expression remained cold and resolute. “Why, do you want me to?” he asked in a tone that made it sound almost as if he were daring Brendon to say yes.
Brendon stared at him in disbelief, as he had been during most of the argument (even Spencer had to admit that most of the points Ryan had made sounded ridiculous and blatantly egotistical), though the anger in it had disappeared and been replaced with thinly-veiled shock, and perhaps even a little bit of fear. After watching him stand there for a few seconds, his fists clenching and unclenching as he contemplated what may very well have become one of the worst decisions of his life, Spencer realized that this was the time to step in. “Ryan,” he said, stepping forward slightly. The word was cautious, as Ryan was prone to unpredictability in his anger, even to those who knew him best.
Still, it was commanding, at least enough for Ryan to tear his gaze away from Brendon for a moment in order to glance sideways at Spencer. And although the look lasted less than a second, it was enough for Spencer to know he had cracked Ryan’s resolve. He took another step forward so that he was standing right beside Ryan and put a hand on his shoulder. “Stop.”
(“Folkin’ Around” was released on March 25, 2008 as the twelfth track on Pretty. Odd. , the second studio album by American rock band Panic! At The Disco.)
1
“Music isn’t supposed to be an industry!”
Spencer doesn’t remember exactly when or how this argument started; he doubts any of them do. All he knows is that Ryan is standing a few feet in front of Jon in a horribly decorated, sort of faux-vintage hotel room in Cape Town, South Africa and shouting loud enough to turn his face red, while Spencer stands helplessly off to the side, hoping it’ll all blow over.
Brendon is standing directly in front of Ryan, as the shouting is directed towards him. Instead of shrinking away from it, though, he’s standing tall, with his back straight and shoulders squared. “Like you would know what music is or isn’t!” he fires back. Ryan only scoffs, but Brendon keeps going. “Face it, Ryan, you’re a wannabe. You can be twenty-two and a rockstar but you’ll still always be a teenager on Myspace with a couple of Blink-182 CDs and a bad haircut!”
“You know what, Brendon?” Ryan took a step forward, and Spencer didn’t have to see his eyes to know of the intensity of the fury that sparked within them. “I don’t fucking care if you wanna be a whore and sell yourself to a fucked up industry, but I’m not going to go down with you.”
Brendon scoffed. “Oh, what, are you gonna leave the band?” His voice is strong, confident, cocky , even, because why wouldn’t it be? Ryan’s obviously bluffing him, because he can’t leave the band, because they’re Panic! At The Disco, and they’re all Best Friends™, and splitting up doesn’t fit that narrative.
But Ryan’s never held much regard for the rules, and he squares his shoulders and holds chin just as high as Brendon’s as he says, “Yeah, maybe I will.”
Brendon raises an eyebrow at him and lets out a short, amused laugh, like the noise a parent makes when their teenage son or daughter claims to know everything there is to know about the world. “Yeah, right,” he says, and, fuck , Spencer knew they should’ve told him. He should’ve gone to Brendon the second he realized what Ryan was considering, or at least when he’d confronted him and found out that Jon was in on it as well.
Ryan takes a step back, closer to where Jon is standing with a guilty look on his face. Ryan’s expression, though, isn’t apologetic at all, which is to be expected. Sometimes, Spencer thinks that, despite all his accusations of Brendon having “literally the emotional capacity of a five year old” (in fact that was one of his reasons for not telling Brendon about the planned split until he absolutely had to), Ryan’s actually the most childish one out of the four of them, with all his signature stubbornness and inclination towards holding grudges. It’s not his fault, though- Ryan never got to experience much of a typical childhood, which is when most people learn to become functioning adults. Spencer supposes that the term “childhood” is a bit contradictory in that way. Perhaps there’s really no such thing as a childhood- only a journey to maturity, and the rougher that journey was, the longer it takes to complete.
Spencer chooses to halt that train of thought right there, because it’s not his job to question societal constructs, and returns to the current scene, in which he finds that he can count the seconds down to when Brendon’s overly-confident smirk vanishes from his face. Five, four, three, two…
When he speaks, Ryan’s voice is so smug (and therefore contradictory) in its careful nonchalance, Spencer would’ve laughed if he weren’t so busy watching the world as he knows it implode. “Jon and I have been planning it for the last few months.”
One.
The smile doesn’t fall, but slides out of Brendon’s expression, like a little kid trying to climb up the slide at a playground while wearing socks. It’s almost worse that the reaction is slow, because it gives Spencer time to identify every single emotion that crosses his face. It’s sort of a curse to be good at reading people- which Spencer, of course, is a master of, since Ryan never fucking says anything about himself except in song, where it’s all projected onto some made-up character and mixed in with just enough other made-up traits and emotions to make it nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction, and God , Spencer has to stop thinking about Ryan as if they’re joined at the hip.
“You’re bluffing,” Brendon says first, and he’s in denial- fuck, he’s gonna go through the first three stages of grief right there in that goddamn hotel room, and Spencer’s gonna be the one left to guide him through the fourth. That first stage doesn’t last long, though; Brendon may be eccentric, but he’s not stupid, and it only takes one glance at Jon’s face to know that Ryan isn’t making this up.
He turns his head slowly to look at Spencer, probably expecting to see an expression of shock similar to the one on his own face. Spencer, though, can only press his lips into a grim line and fix his eyes on the carpet, which is, of course, bright orange (honesty, fuck these goddamn boutique hotels they keep ending up at).
Brendon is silent for a few moments as he realizes Spencer’s betrayal. In that moment, Spencer really, truly hates himself for not telling him, but Ryan hadn’t wanted to, and, well, his first instinct has always been to stay loyal to Ryan.
At least, that’s what he’d always thought, until he refused the invitation to leave with him.
When Brendon finally speaks, his voice is low and furious- here was stage two, bearing its poisoned teeth. “I supposed you’ll be leaving as well, then?”
Spencer opens his mouth to respond, because at least he can say that no , he’s not abandoning him.Ryan gets there faster. though, and Spencer lets him speak because that’s what he’s always done. “No,” Ryan says, and now he’s glaring at Spencer too. “Spencer’s decided to stay on this sinking ship with you .”
With that, he pushes past Brendon and strides towards the door, beckoning for Jon to follow him, and suddenly he’s fourteen and practically drowning in one of Spencer’s sweatshirts because he hasn’t had his growth spurt yet, and he’s standing on Spencer’s bed and triumphantly holding up some new CD that looks bigger than his entire face, and he needs a haircut even more than twenty-two-year-old Ryan does, and Spencer can’t let him go.
Once, when they were in high school, Ryan ran off into the desert with no intention of coming back, and when Spencer finally tracked him down (despite all his attempts to be mysterious, Ryan was predictable at the core, and once, a few years back, some kids from Ryan’s school had celebrated the Fourth of July by setting off fireworks out at a certain spot beside the road, and he’d had his first kiss out there, with some skinny blonde girl in the back of someone’s truck), Ryan pushed him away and said, “If you love something, Spence, you’re supposed to set it free.”
In that moment, Spencer came to the conclusion that, well, maybe that meant he couldn’t love Ryan, and maybe that was okay if it meant Ryan wouldn’t end up starving and having his remains eaten by coyotes out in the middle of nowhere. And so quite literally dragged Ryan into the car- grateful, for once, for Ryan’s perpetual skinniness- and drove him back to the city, back to the Smith’s house, back to reality , and all the while he most definitely hadn’t loved Ryan at all, because, well, if you love something, you have to set it free.
And that’s how Spencer feels right now, and maybe it really is awful and selfish, because this time Ryan isn’t in danger of dying alone in the middle of the desert, and maybe it means Spencer can’t love him but he also can’t let him walk out that door and become just another face on the cover of a shitty magazine.
“Stop,” he says, and it’s somehow both the weakest and strongest word he’s ever spoken. He knows it’s selfish and wrong but it feels right, it feels like Panic! At The Disco is something bigger than all of them (and most certainly bigger than just him and Ryan) and, hey, maybe it’s actually selfless of him to give up his own morality for the greater good of the band and all the potential they have together. Deep down, he knows he’s surrendering, but it’s his own emotions he’s surrendering to, and maybe that’s what strength actually is. Everyone always learns, Spencer thinks, that displaying your true emotions makes you weak, but, arguably, doesn’t that mean that the choice of showing them is actually a very strong one, since you are willingly making yourself vulnerable? Isn’t that the moral of, like, every young adult book ever written?
Spencer doesn’t know, because he’s never been one for philosophy. That’s what he needs Ryan for- yes, he needs Ryan. His whole life, he’s operated on the assumption that Ryan needs him, but maybe it’s the other way around, or maybe it’s a two way street and this moment is when their metaphorical cars are finally reaching each other, and they’re either going to pass like ships in the night or collide in a catastrophic explosion of crunched glass and flattened metal, and Spencer doesn’t know which outcome is worse.
Ryan pauses in his angry strides towards the door. He looks over his shoulder to meet Spencer’s gaze, and Spencer is on the verge of doubling over in relief, because Ryan can’t possibly leave now, and they’re all going to figure out their issues and write some new, damn good album about it and tour the world as best friends living out their dream, just as they always planned to.
But when Ryan opens his mouth, the words that come out are not an apology or surrender. It isn't words at all, actually, but a word, singular, one word that brings down everything they’ve built in the past five years, or maybe even the past sixteen.
“No.”