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the room smells like stale smoke and the kind of regret that sticks to the back of your throat.
ryan stands by the window, curtain half-pulled, watching los angeles pretend it’s still alive at 3:47 a.m. the city lights smear like wet paint. he is holding a cigarette he hasnt lit because his hands will not stop shaking.
brendon is on the bed, back against the headboard, knees drawn up. he looks smaller than he has any right to. the pretty odd jacket ryan used to steal is crumpled beside him like shed skin.
“you did not have to come,” ryan says. his voice is gravel. he has not used it much lately.
“you did not have to text me the room number,” brendon answers. flat. tired. like someone already read him the verdict.
ryan finally lights the cigarette. the click of the lighter is too loud. he exhales toward the glass so the smoke ghosts his reflection.
“i am leaving tomorrow,” he says. “for good.”
brendon does not flinch. he has been bracing for this sentence longer than ryan has.
“i know.”
ryan turns. brendon’s eyes are red-rimmed but dry. no tears. they both used those up months ago.
“you could have fought,” ryan says. the accusation tastes like copper. “you could have said something. anything. instead you just let spencer book the meeting with the label and sat there nodding like it wasn’t the execution of everything we built. everything we built together. ”
brendon laughs. it is a broken thing. “you think i wanted this? you think i wanted to watch you pack your notebooks and your secrets and walk out like i was just another verse you outgrew?”
ryan’s throat closes. “i did not outgrow you.”
“you replaced me.” brendon’s voice cracks on the last word. “new city. new songs. new people who don’t know what your hands feel like when you’re scared.”
the cigarette burns down to the filter. ryan doesn’t notice until it scorches his fingers. he drops it, grinds it under his boot. the carpet will hate him for it. good.
“i never replaced you,” he whispers. “i just could not keep bleeding for something you stopped needing.”
brendon stands. slow. like moving hurts. he crosses the room until they’re close enough that ryan can smell the whiskey on him, the faint mint of the gum he chews when hes trying not to cry in public.
“i needed you every fucking day,” brendon says. “i still do. that is the worst part. i am sitting here watching the only person i have ever really loved walk away, and i am too proud or too broken to beg.”
ryan’s laugh is ugly. “you think this is pride? this is survival. you were drowning me, bren. every time you smiled at the crowd like the show was yours alone. every time you touched someone else on stage and looked at me like i should understand. every time you said ‘we’ and meant the band and i heard ‘me and everyone but you.’”
brendon reaches out. his fingers brush ryan’s jaw gentle, like he’s afraid ryan will shatter. ryan doesn’t pull away. he wants to. he cannot.
“i loved you louder than i knew how to say,” brendon murmurs. “and you heard silence.”
ryan closes his eyes. a tear escapes anyway. traitor.
“i heard you leave,” he says. “every time the door clicked shut behind you after a fight. every time you chose the afterparty over coming home. every time you let the label whisper that maybe it was time to move on without me. i heard all of it.”
brendon’s hand drops. he steps back. the space between them feels like a grave.
“then go,” he says. quiet. final. “go be the poet who doesn’t need a mouthpiece anymore.”
ryan wants to scream. wants to grab brendon’s shirt and shake him until the truth falls out. wants to kiss him until they both forget how to breathe. instead he picks up his jacket.
at the door he stops. doesn’t turn around.
“if i stay,” he says, “we kill each other slower.”
brendon’s voice comes from the dark behind him.
“we are already dead, ry.”
ryan opens the door. the hallway light is merciless.
he steps through.
the door closes with a soft, polite click.
behind it, brendon sinks to the floor, back against the wood, forehead pressed to his knees. he does not cry. he is done with that. he just sits in the wreckage of what used to be them and listens to the silence that finally won.
outside, ryan walks toward the elevator. each step echoes like a coffin nail.
the band is gone.
the love is gone.
and the worst part, the part that will follow him into every new song, every new city, every new bed, is that neither of them ever stopped wanting the other.
they just ran out of ways to keep breathing the same poisoned air.