Chapter Text
Brendon Urie ran away when he was sixteen and halfway to one year older. He was too old to be something worth pitying by the harsh population of New York city, was probably too old to be worth anything in any other city. He was old enough to work a menial job, should have a job, was a freeloader for not having a job, and an even stupider fucking idiot for not having, at the very least, a GED. Brendon knew that if he were to move past what had bruised his jaw and made his own home a nightmare to return to.
Hitchhiking to Chicago from New York had been a nightmare.
Brendon leaned how to suck cock along the way.
It was either suck that asshole trucker’s dick, or be pushed out onto the interstate at seventy-five miles per hour. Brendon had just shut his eyes and let the thing fuck his mouth. It only happened once, but once was enough.
And when he got to Chicago, he didn’t know who he was anymore.
The city looked the same as New York, but with less individuality and more hopelessness. At least, in New York, you could walk down Broadway, from 42nd to 53rd, and see someone who had ideas for their future. The second Brendon unloaded from the white, overcrowded van that had held a family of illegal Irishmen and women, he could see that everyone here felt dead. As dead and cold as the wind that slept through the city.
Brendon shouldn’t have ran away in fall. It would get into fifties in New York, same in Chicago, and only get colder. Brendon should have been smarter about this. He should have just bit his tongue, steeled his stance, gone to that fucking camp, and ran away when things were a bit warmer and he had a bit more money in his pocket. Because as of now, he had nothing. He barely had a jacket; the thing draped over his shoulders was his sister’s lavender jacket with sequined hearts on the breast, threadbare and an obvious hand-me-down. His shoes were fucking slip-ons and he didn’t even have a pair of socks.
Chicago could get twenty below, and Brendon didn’t want to die here, but it wasn’t looking like he had much of a choice.
Brendon stomped his feet to warm them up and walked in the direction that had the least amount of people. He found dampened cardboard, but didn’t even have a marker to make a sign so he could beg.
. . .
He got used to eating once a day, maybe two days.
He got used to being so cold that he could feel his breathing freezing in his throat.
He got used to the stares just as much as being outright ignored.
He got used to being a homeless piece of shit, spit on, kicked, thrown out of subways and stores and parks when he was just looking for a place to warm up. He was used to people crossing the street to avoid him. He was sixteen, but he sure as hell was dirty enough to look like a waste of life. The dirt would cover his age and he didn’t bother correcting anyone. He hadn’t stooped so low as to sell his body for food, but he was losing his sense of worth, and thusly, his sense of preservation. Or at least, other things seemed a bit more worth preserving than his white boy Mormon virginity.
But in early January, Brendon chickened out.
He’d advertised, given an idle suggestion to people who passed, hung out in the right alleyways, because he was four days starving and absolutely desperate. He’d sent businessmen the stares he’d seen been given by women and men of the night, had hidden his loyal, pink jacket to show off his skeletal body a bit more, tried to make himself somewhat desirable, something worth seeing twice, though not for horror of his starvation.
He’d gotten a taker at 3 AM and had tried his best, and gotten on his knees, then corrected and braced himself against the wall, head down, ass out, quiet and still. The man had gotten Brendon’s pants down his legs, hadn’t even stopped to stare at Brendon’s protruding hips, but Brendon fucking chickened out. He’d started crying inexplicably (even though he totally had an explanation, but he wasn’t going to admit it). He’d begged the man to stop, but the man almost hadn’t, had tried to hold Brendon still. He only let go once Brendon started screaming, and Brendon, he’d just…
He’d ran.
He’d ran, and ran, and ran.
Pulled his pants up first, of course, but he’d still ran.
Lost his pink jacket. Lost his blanket, the claim he’d made on his dumpster, lost the wooden crate he’d used as a shield from the snow, lost his stolen sneakers, the glass shard he kept at his side as a weapon.
(lost his lavender jacket)
Brendon had lost everything twice over. Now he was in the negative.
So when he was done running, he’d kept walking. He’d walked into a part of the city he’d never been to, though that wasn’t saying much. Upon arriving in Chicago in September, he hadn’t left the very first street he’d ever entered. He hadn’t seen a minuscule amount of Chicago. So he became very lost, very quickly.
Brendon walked for hours and hours, well through the day and into the next night.The temperature dropped to 21 degrees and that was when Brendon couldn’t walk anymore.
He was too hungry.
He was too cold.
He was too tired.
Brendon found a park bench across the street from a soup kitchen that he wasn’t going to enter because he didn’t want to be picked up by the police and taken home. He saw people inside stop and stare at him, but no one came out to help, and that was fine. He was used to feeling worthless now.
Brendon stopped hugging himself about an hour into sitting. He didn’t care anymore. He dropped his arms and sat with his head hung. He couldn’t feel his arms and legs. He couldn’t feel his hips or his shoulders or his face, couldn’t even feel is tongue or his eyeballs.
He was dying.
He was dying very, very slowly.
Brendon shut his eyes and let himself fall asleep.
. . .
“No, no, Pete, I, I can’t find a fucking heartbeat, I can’t find a heartbeat—”
“He’s just a fucking kid, I can’t, you have to—“
“I’m gonna take him to you, I don’t have room, are you ho—“
“The hospital will send him back, he doesn’t want to go—“
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
. . .
When Brendon woke up, he was surrounded by warmth, and was still freezing cold.
He hated it.
He wanted to be dead.
Brendon opened his eyes and hated the ceiling he was hanging above him. He hated the air vents and the marks in the plaster, the unmoving ceiling fan,and this green glob that he couldn’t explain. He hated all of it. He wanted to be on that bench, dead. He wanted to be frozen. He wanted to be another sorry attempt at Chicago street art, wanted to be the next Chicago Bean.
He wanted to be dead.
Not wherever he was now.
“Are you awake?”
Brendon turned his head and saw a small man with sharp cheek bones wearing a fedora.
He shook his head to be a snarky asshole.
The man snorted and stood. “Pete! He’s awake!”
Okay, that was the name Brendon had heard. He’d heard the name “Pete” has he’d died. God, he wished he’d died. He didn’t want to keep doing this. He didn’t want to keep living in the cold, nearly about to let some man fuck him for food. He didn’t want to be a waste of space. He just wanted to be dead.
He heard footsteps and another man rushed into view, a man Brendon assumed was Pete.
Pete’s name lit up in a wide smile, so bright that Brendon was thrown off guard. Pete’s teeth were straight and white and perfect and his hair was bleached blond, obviously fake because Brendon could see black roots. He had a tattoos up and down his arms, and Brendon thought he was crazy for wearing a t-shirt in this weather, but then again, Brendon was pretty sure he was wearing a t-shirt too.
But then Brendon took stock. He could feel softness brushing against his bare chest and legs and privates, soft and fuzzy and definitely not his worn, overused clothes that he’d had on his body since September.
Brendon paled and looked to Pete in disgust and fear. “What did you do to me?” he rasped. He’d had a raspy voice for about a week, would always get a raspy voice when he hadn’t had water or food or anyone to talk to for more than five minutes. And anyway, he was a lot more preoccupied by his lack of clothes in a stranger’s home to be really worried about his voice. “Where are my clothes?” he demanded as menacingly as he could while wrapped up in blankets, naked and afraid. “What did you do to me?” He really wished he had his glass shard. And his pink jacket.
“They’re in the wash,” Pete told him with an easygoing smile, seemingly unperturbed by Brendon’s panic. “They, they were really gross, kid. Really unhealthy for you to be wearing, so Pat and I are washing them for you.”
“Give them back,” Brendon ordered. “I want them back!”
Pete visibly faltered, his expression stuttering through several different thought processes. “They… they’re soaked.”
Brendon tried to sit up so he could be a little more menacing, but found he was too sore.
“You really shouldn’t move too much,” Pete told him. “A good friend of mine found you on a bench, nearly frozen half to death. He brought you here, but then he had to go to work.”
“Pat” snorted. Brendon was assuming fedora-man was Pat.
“Well, he didn’t have to go to work,” Pete corrected sheepishly. “But you know Ryan— he doesn’t like being still for too long.”
“He doesn’t know Ryan, Pete,” Pat told him.
Pete winced. “Sorry,” he told Brendon. “I’m bad at this. You, you were dead, really. You were so cold. We warmed you up as best we could with the clothes on, but they were soaked from the snow and it just wasn’t working. If it helps, Ryan was the one to undress you. He’s really clinical about that sort of thing, so it wasn’t, like, inappropriate. And he’s a good guy, he respects everyone’s privacy, so he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t felt like he absolutely had to.”
That didn’t help.
“You can’t touch me,” he choked out.
Pete nodded. “Are you.. hungry? Or thirsty?”
Brendon felt sick at the mention of food.
“We, we could count your ribs,” Pete told him cautiously. “I have some soup on the stove that we made for you. Soup and crackers and bread and butter. We’ve also got a bunch of water bottles, just to your right.” Pete pointed somewhere to Brendon’s left, and Brendon corrected Pete’s directional order internally. “You should drink as many as you can. As much as you can. I think you’re pretty well warmed up, since you’re awake, and you’re breathing okay, right? You sound like you’re breathing okay. All you need is some food and water and rest.”
“And then what?”
Pete shrugged. “We’ll figure that out later. But you have to know— my home is open for you to find your feet. Get a job, an apartment, a way to live and support yourself. You can stay here as long as you need.”
Brendon snorted. “I’m sixteen.”
Pete’s face was washed of everything and Brendon realized that Pete was the first person in Chicago to know his age. It felt significant. And scary.
“Look, I know you have no idea who I am, but—“
“Pete,” Brendon interrupted. “Your name is Pete. I heard him say it.”
“Who’s him?” Pete asked. “Patrick?”
Brendon shook his head. “The first guy.”
Pete paused. “… The man who found you?”
Brendon nodded.
Pete smiled fondly. “Ryan. Ryan Ross. The kid who saved you. He’s a good guy, you know. He’s a good person. You’d like him a lot.”
“You barely know me,” Brendon mumbled.
Pete winced again and stood. “I, I’ll get you some soup.”
Brendon was left with Patrick.
“I’ll get you some clothes in a second,” Patrick told him. “You really are welcome to stay. Wouldn’t be the first time we sheltered a kid from the world like this. Pete and I are happy to I've you a home.” Patrick stood and Brendon noticed he was walking with a limp.
. . .
Brendon was given a bed in a guest bedroom that was down the hall of Pete and Patrick’s lavish, huge and expensive high rise home. Pete and Patrick, apparently, lived in the Elysian on the fifty-eighth floor. Brendon figured that was a big deal, because the view from the guest bedroom was breath taking, and the guest bedroom was already huge enough. The bed was downey feather and all the sheets were in the seven hundred thread count. The dresser was antique, black oak, and the painting above the black oak headboard was authentic and dated back to the late eighteen hundreds.
Brendon had never seen this much money in thrown into one room. This single room looked more expensive than his church.
Pete had come in a few seconds ago with a huge bowl of cream of mushroom soup and a plate with saltine crackers on one side, buttered toast on the other, with two water bottles tucked under his arm. He’d placed all of that nourishment on the nightstand to the left of the bed, but Brendon refused to eat it.
Brendon curled up under the softest sheets he’d ever lied in and stared past the glass to the city outside. He’d never seen a view of Chicago from anywhere but the asphalt. He’d never actually seen the city in its entirety outside of postcards in gas stations he’d duck into for temporary shelter.
It wasn’t New York. That was for sure. It was dirtier and grimier and so much more dangerous. Three airedales had been murdered in the streets the first week Brendon had been a bum. He’d been lucky to last that first month, let alone the next four. Now it was a new year, new him, new ways to drive himself into the ground again and ruin his already ruined life.
The city gleamed back at Brendon, like it was affirming his hopelessness. It twinkled and mocked him. He knew the rich lived high above everyone else so they couldn’t be touched by the sordid hands of people like him. He knew that Pete and Patrick were talking big, maybe thinking about using Brendon to get a percentage off their taxes or whatever. He knew he was just another bottom dweller to them.
Brendon got up and snapped the curtains closed to all the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the entire left wall. He didn’t want to watch the city mock him. He didn’t want to look over the city that tried to kill him. He was bitter and irrational and cold, tired, so very hungry. Brendon reached over reluctantly and took one of the saltine crackers, eating it like it was causing him physical pain to do so. It wasn’t— he was just stubborn.
But then the crackers tasted so good, and he began to devour them, two to a hand. They were soon gone, and Brendon went onto the slices of toast, and then the soup. The soup was the best part. It warmed his throat and insides and pooled deliciously in his stomach. He’d felt full halfway through the toast, but knew that when you starved, your stomach shrunk to accommodate the fucking nothing inside of you. Well, he was gonna pig out and stretch his stomach to the limits and never worry about going hungry again. When the soup was gone, Brendon dropped back onto the bed and rubbed his belly, smiling to himself when he felt how it had rounded out. He knew he’d be sick in a few minutes, maybe even throw it all back up, but it was worth it, for right now.
Brendon stared up at this ceiling and noted it wasn’t the same as the one in the living room. Aesthetically, it was a duplicate, but the patterns were different. He could find new shapes and faces and objects. He saw the shoreline of Africa and someone that looked like Matt Damon.
Brendon fell asleep when he found the sequined pattern that had been on his lavender jacket right above his head.
. . .
A knock at the guest bedroom door woke him up.
Brendon lurched into awareness, having lost his ability to sleep deeply and peacefully after the months he’d spent in the streets. He couldn’t stay asleep for more than a few hours, usually, but looking outside showed the sun was high above his head, meaning it was midday, at the very least. Brendon was shocked he’d slept so long.
“Kid? You in there?”
Brendon stood, eyeing the door warily. He was in Pete’s clothes. A pair of worn out, soft, plaid patterned sweatpants, and a baggy t-shirt that had a weird skull with eyeballs and a name that started with an “M” just above it, though the rest of the word was faded beyond comprehension. Brendon wasn’t sure what he was wearing, but it was clean and comfortable and he hadn’t been clean and comfortable in a while. He felt bad, though, because he’d dirtied up the expensive sheets.
“Kid…”
He opened he door. “My name is Brendon,” he told Pete. “I’m not telling you my last name.”
Pete looked very excited at knowing Brendon’s name.”Hi, Brendon,” he greeted with a toothy grin, offering his hand to shake. “My name’s Pete Wentz.”
Brendon took his hand and shook.
“Pattycake’s got a rotisserie chicken in the oven, ready to eat. Hungry?”
Brendon grimaced. “Always.”
Pete stepped out of the way and Brendon left the room, looking around the house for the first time.The walls were a pleasant off-white and there were colored photographs lining the wall in a perfectly straight line on either side. There were four more doors past the first one that Brendon was in, and one of them had a lock on it, but the lock wasn’t actually locked, so it seemed kinda pointless.
“What’s down there?” Brendon asked, though he gestured broadly so Pete would hopefully tell him what all the doors were.
“Main bedroom, music room, office, secondary bathroom,” Pete said. “And we’re heading to the kitchen that is next to the dining room that connects to the living room, which is where you enter the apartment. Sound good?”
“I don’t see myself every getting lost, so I think it’s okay,” Brendon said wryly.
Pete chuckled and stepped back for Brendon to go first. “Lead the way, then, since you’re such an expert by now.”
Brendon stepped forward and easily led Pete to the kitchen, mainly following his nose. The kitchen was huge, all black cabinets and cupboards with grey marble and stainless steel. There were two stoves, a double oven, a microwave built in over the oven, and a dishwasher with a fridge that was as wide as three people. Brendon’s mouth watered embarrassingly as he tried to estimate just how much food could be held in there. Hell, he could fit his whole body in there, and then a shit ton of food, and just live with the food forever.
“You hungry?” Patrick asked, pulling out a gorgeous rotisserie from the oven, golden brown and baked to perfection. It smelled like absolute perfection and his mouth watered even more. Brendon just kinda sat down at the table that seated four, unable to remember his manners in the face of his waning starvation. He’d have to eat for days to fix what he’d done to his body.
Pete giggled and went to cut the chicken while Patrick sat down across from Brendon at the table. Pete laid down plates and silverware and divvied up the chicken, along with green beans and slices apples. A weird combination, but Brendon was far too hungry to criticize. He wolfed down the chicken, the the apples, then the green beans in under ten minutes, stoping only when he started to choke.
“Probably shouldn’t have given him such substantial food so early on,” Patrick said.
Pete waved Patrick off. “He’ll be fine.”
. . .
Brendon was bent over a toilet thirty minutes later, retching. The delicious taste of the chicken was gone, replaced entirely by stomach acid and horrible regret.
He hated his body.
It had done nothing but beg and beg for food, cripple Brendon when it didn’t get it’s way, and when it finally did, when Brendon finally fed his fucking body, what did it do? It threw it all up. Tossed it all into the toilet and made his stomach feel like it was inside out. His body was doing this, not Brendon. Brendon had tried to give it the food it wanted, but it just threw a fucking fit instead and made Brendon sick.
“I told you,” Patrick said from the doorway while Pete rubbed Brendon’s back to help him get it all out. “We should’ve stuck with soup. Ryan couldn’t eat solids for two weeks, remember? We had to take him to a doctor for some IVs at one point.”
“You’re not helping, Pat,” Pete sighed. He was watching Brendon with a guilty, apologetic expression, like he thought this was his own fault. It kinda was, actually. Pete should’ve listened to Patrick about feeding Brendon solid foods. Brendon couldn’t be blamed for eating the food set in front of him. He was starving. He was going to eat the warm food put in front of him because that was what starving people did.
Brendon heaved one final time, his entire body shaking with the effort, and he hated his fucking body once more. The fucking thing was going to be the death of his soul. He sat back and wiped the spit from his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling older and more worn down than he had in a long while. At least, on the streets, whatever he ate managed to never make him sick like this. What the fuck was his body for, anyways? It was supposed to take the food Brendon gave it and make him well again, god dammit.
“Hey, Brendon,” Pete said softly, his hand still on Brendon’s back, though he wasn’t rubbing it anymore. Brendon found his touch oddly comforting, even though Pete was an absolute stranger. “You feeling better?’
Brendon nodded because he didn’t want to be any actual trouble. “… Kinda hungry,” he confessed.
Funny that starvation made something as painful and revolting as vomiting still a gateway to more eating. If he’d been younger, he would’ve been too grossed out to eat for another few hours, or until someone baked something worthwhile.
“I’ve got some leftover soup I can nuke,” Patrick told Pete and Brendon. “Make some more toast, maybe put some jam on there instead of butter. That’ll probably make it a lot more tasty, and give you some sugar. Sugar can be good for you sometimes.”
“Am I really being adopted by you guys?” Brendon asked cautiously. It was an impromptu question, definitely something he hadn’t even expected to ask. It was weird to think these random strangers would just pick him up from the streets and take care of him like this.
Pete grinned and looked to Patrick, like a kid asking to keep a puppy, but a lot more hopeful and a lot more serious.
Patrick nodded. “We’re here to help. Our home is your home. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, so don’t worry— we know what we’re getting into, and we’re okay with it.”
“I want you to meet Ryan,” Pete said. “So badly.”
. . .
Brendon woke up, gasping for breath, negative images of hands reaching and taking everything from him burned into his retinas. It was a dream he’d had before, had at least once a week, but that didn’t make it any better. The ceiling spun and Brendon realized he wouldn’t be able to count the stars to ground himself like he usually would.
He reached over the lavender jacket, but remembered it was gone.
. . .
“Okay, so, we’re actually out here to go shopping and run a few more errands,” Pete told Brendon as he drove. It had taken about an hour or so to convince Brendon that it was safe to get in the car with Pete, partially because Pete was a stranger, and partially because Brendon knew Pete pretty well at this point and knew that he was rather reckless with everything except Patrick. Brendon hadn’t been sure about getting in a car with a man who got excited about showing Brendon a video where someone made a grape explode by putting it in the microwave. It had made Pete giggle for over half an hour, even after the video was over, until Patrick had walked into the room with shaking hands and a hallowed expression that made Pete put everything down and lead Patrick into the master bedroom and Brendon hadn’t seen them for the rest of the day. He’d wanted to ask questions, especially now that it was just him and Pete in the car, but figured it wasn’t his place to pry. It was only day four of being a freeloader. He wasn’t even sure if he was truly welcomed in the first place.
Though he was kinda really excited to get some new clothes, if that really was why they were here. Brendon had never worn new clothes, only things that didn’t fit his older brothers and sisters anymore. He hadn’t ever been shopping for new clothes. Everything old could be refitted and reused.
Hell, they could even have a new kid and forget Brendon had ever left.
Maybe they already had forgotten.
Pete pulled up in the valet parking for a huge indoor mall, filled with people, a few slipping on the ice that had gathered around the entrances from pileup of snow, melted snow, and rain. Pete led Brendon into the mall, making sure Brendon didn’t slip either, then brought him down the mall to a really, really nice clothing store that Brendon didn’t recognize. Even the mannequins in the windows looked better than Brendon did on Sunday morning. Brendon was envious of how good those mannequins looked, even if they didn’t have heads.
“What size are you?” Pete asked as he went into the young mens’ section. He was looking over some t-shirts that looked softer than the sheets in Brendon’s new bed, and that was a shocking observation.
Brendon wanted to answer, but suddenly his stomach felt off. He’d had cereal for breakfast, chicken noodle soup for lunch, but he still felt queasy. He stopped walking and held his stomach, frowning in confusion and nauseousness. Brendon found a stool that could also be a bench and plopped down, holding his stomach, brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what was wrong.
The cushion he was sitting on gave way and Brendon looked to his right to see Pete next to him.
“You okay, Brendon?” Pete asked softly.
Brendon shuddered. “Fine. I’m fine.”
Pete nodded. “Do you know what size you are?”
Brendon nodded.
“Okay,” Pete hummed. “Why don’t you tell me and I’ll just grab some things, swing them by you so we know you like them, and then you just try on one pair of pants, one shirt, and one jacket, so we know we got you the right size. Sound okay to you?”
Brendon just nodded and tried not to throw up on the nice floor. This one square foot of tile had to cost more than everything Brendon had ever owned. Pete showed him so many outfits that he lost count, but Brendon just nodded his head to all of them. He wasn’t going to be picky and he wasn’t going to be difficult. It all looked the same to him.
He just wanted his lavender jacket.
. . .
“I’m stopping by my office,” Pete told him. “You’re sixteen, right? Have you gotten a GED or should I look into getting you to finish some sort of education? I’m not sure if you can get a GED without parental permission, but I’ll bet I can swing something under the table if I have to. I’m not afraid of this fucked up educational system.”
Brendon just shrugged as he played with the fingerless gloves Pete had bought him. He ran his thumb over the hem and wondered why someone would make something so useless. Gloves were meant to keep your fingers warm. These were pointless.
Brendon pulled them onto his hands and found that he really liked the way they looked.
He glanced up, saw Pete was watching him with a smirk, and blushed. He looked back down to his hands and almost took off the gloves. He wasn’t above accepting charity. All his life, he had given aid to anyone who needed it because that was what his parents and god had taught him to do when he was met with people in need. And now he was one of those people, and he was so very tired. He didn’t mind accepting some help, so long as it didn’t go too far.
“What’s your job?” Brendon asked, partly curious, and the rest to be polite.
“I run a record label,” Pete replied. “Decaydance Industries, though now it’s been shortened to D-C-D-2. We sign musicians and bands and promote them and get their careers going. I have a team of composers and writers, too, because we’re in charge of writing songs for the bands that can’t write their own work.”
“That’s really cool,” Brendon mumbled. He’d never actually thought about his future, but he’d always dreamed of preforming. “Can you play any instruments?”
Pete nodded. “Bass guitar. A little guitar. I mostly write lyrics. What about you?”
“I play, uh…” Brendon looked down at his fingers, ready to count it out. “Piano, guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, and drums.” Five fingers, five instruments. Good job, Brendon, you remembered everything.
Pete let out a low whistle. “You know your stuff. You should really get to know Ryan. He plays a lot of instruments too. He could probably teach you more!”
Brendon felt his interest being peeked at the thought. “Learn more?”
“Ryan plays everything,” Pete sam with a grin. “I mean, he plays everything you play, and then some. Banjo, accordion, ukulele… He’s a virtuoso. He’s a great lyricist, too, and my best composer, next to Patrick. He’s some sort of wunderkind, you know? A complete natural. I’m talking him into recording a solo album for himself, even if he doesn’t, like, actually put it out there. He has these lyrics that he’s written that he refuses to show anyone, special stuff that I keep my hands off of just to respect him. I mean, technically, I own the stuff he writes in a certain place, in his office, on the main computer? But I gave him this special folder he can put his more sensitive stuff in, and I won’t touch it. I can respect that shit he has in his head.”
Brendon listened to Pete with dull attention, enjoying the soft rise and fall of Pete’s voice when he became impassioned, however mildly, by what he was speaking off. Pete had a lot of admiration for Ryan, and Brendon wanted to find out why. Especially since Ryan had been then to find him. Maybe he’d help Brendon find the lavender jacket.
Pete pulled up in front of a gate in front of a huge building and the guard didn’t need his ID, just waved Pete through with a greeting of, “Have a good day, Mr. Wentz.” Brendon’s eyes went wide as it dawned on him that, not only was Pete really rich, but he was also important. Like, recognizably important.
Pete parked in a parking spot marked “DCD2 President,” and turned off the car. He got out of his seat and waited, expecting Brendon to follow. Brendon faltered, but eventually climbed out of the car. He was led inside the building, where Pete had to pass two security checkpoints that included him swiping an ID, and then they were in an elevator, leading to one of the top floors that you could only get to once an ID was swiped again. Brendon was wide eyed and shocked this whole ordeal, wondering why music was so closely guarded.
“A few years ago, someone broke in and stole the works of one of our best,” Pete told him after Brendon asked the right question. “Produced the whole album in a week and debuted it. We couldn’t prove it was stealing because the work wasn’t copyrighted to us, it was a private project, but it did the trick. Made me move the building. The safety and peace of mind of my employees is worth the extra cost.”
Brendon paused. “Was the stolen work Ryan’s?”
Pete just grimaced and nodded tightly.
“Is he okay?”
“It was years ago,” Pete repeated. But that didn’t answer Brendon’s question, so he asked again:
“Is he okay?”
Pete sighed. “… He’s getting better. He keeps most of his work in a book at this point. A little leather thing that he hides in the bag he keeps with himself at all times. I’m pretty sure he has a go-bag in his car.”
“A what?” Brendon asked as the elevator dinged to show it was five floors from their destination.
“A go-bag.” Pete smiled quirkily. “It’s a bug-out bag, too. In case he has to leave or run away again, he has a bag pre-packed and ready to go. I have one, too, for me and Patrick, just in case. You should too. Especially since you’re staying with us.”
“Are all of you that paranoid?”
“No,” Pete said. The elevator doors opened and Pete stepped out. “We’re just realistic.”
Brendon became distracted by the music that floated through the speakers surrounding him. There were cubicles laid out front, but all the cubicles were the size of, like, four cubicles kept together. They were huge, and all of them were decorated individualistically, probably because different people had their own thing going.
“I have my own office, between Patrick’s and William’s,” Pete said. “Ryan is next to William because he liked the windows in that office. I kinda wanted him close by, so we could tap messages through the walls like we would when he lived with us, but the windows were apparently a lot more appealing than camaraderie, so whatever.”
Brendon giggled. “You seem upset by that.”
Pete paused. “… I like you laugh, kid. Make sure to do that more often.”
Brendon blushed.
“I’m gonna introduce you to Ryan. We’re, like, thousands into this, and you still haven’t met your hero!”
“Hero?” Brendon repeated as he was led through the halls. “How is he my hero?”
Pete shrugged. “I mean, he just is. You should’ve seen him, Brendon, when he brought you to me. Should have heard him over the phone. He was terrified. He was shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold. He was holding you in his arms, and honest to god, it looked like his world was ending. Like he was watching himself die.”
Brendon found he couldn’t respond to that.
Pete rapped his knuckles on the door of an office that had a simple black slate engraved with white letters that read, “ROSS, R.” It was oddly stiff and professional, and when Brendon glanced down at the other office doors, he saw they all had decorated name tags that were pretty and personalized and friendly.
Ryan’s was blank. Almost like he didn’t want you to know him.
There wasn’t an answer, so Pete knocked again.
Brendon could suddenly hear a crash, like papers being knocked over, and maybe a few books scattering. There was a sudden explosion of sound, a stunted drum beat against some sort of chiming bells. Then they were shut off and the door was flung open.
In the doorway was a tall, skinny man with beautiful, golden eyes and fluffy, curly brown hair that covered his whole face. He was wearing a baggy, argyle sweater and black skinny jeans with bright red trucks. He had clunky, blue headphones covering his ears, but the headphone cord lead to an empty jack. Brendon wondered if he’d had the headphones plugged in, but had forgotten and yanked them out and that was where the music came from. Brendon loved just past Ryan and saw that there were books and papers all over the floor like a second carpet.
Beautiful boy blinked owlishly up at Pete, then looked down to Brendon. When he saw Brendon, his eyes went wide, and he gasped.
“Fuck, fuck, it’s you!” he exclaimed, lurching backwards, holding the door open. “Fuck, hi, uh…” Beautiful boy glanced to Pete, then asked, more than stated, “Brendon? That’s what Pete said you name was.” He smiled shakily. “It, it’s so good to see you. Especially like this. Not cold and blue a-and…” A visible shudder ran through beautiful boy’s body, and Brendon was entranced with how easy he was to read.
Fuck, Brendon was sixteen. Love was hormones and bad decisions, and beautiful boy was the worst decision he could ever make. Brendon dug his nails into his wrist, wanting it to hurt, wanting to make himself bleed. What he was feeling was wrong. He knew that for a fact. He wasn’t going to let himself fall deeper and deeper into the sin that had ruined his life once already.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” the bland boy said.
“Brendon, this is Ryan,” Pete said with a prideful grin. “My number one composer and lyrical genius. He’s got more talent in his left pinky toe than nearly every musician you’ll find in the top fifty combined. Also the prettiest doll in the business.”
Bland boy flushed and frowned, but Brendon didn’t find the frown in the least bit intimidating, like he was sure it was meant to be. Brendon was mostly upset with the anxiety roiling in his gut.
He couldn’t believe this. He couldn’t believe it had happened like this.
Living in the streets had made it so easy to forget why he’d even ran away in the first place, had made it easier to ignore the horrible thoughts in his head. His dick hadn’t made an appearance in a fucking long time, because when you’re dying, you can’t really get it up. He hadn’t even had the dreams that drove him to the priest, to his parents, to redemption that didn’t exist. He didn’t have to worry about being a messed up piece of shit.
But now?
Staring him down?
Temptation.
Brendon didn’t walk into the office at first when regular boy stepped aside to let Pete in. Bland boy’s hair drifted into his face, brushing his button nose that was pink with cold even though Brendon could feel the heat was on. There was a slight tint to bland boy’s cheeks, too, and his lips were shiny and slick with spit, like he’d been gnawing on his lower lip.
Brendon scowled to himself.
Bland boy saw the scowl and probably assumed the wrong thing. Regular boy looked away quickly, glancing to Pete like he was trying to pick up on a cue that didn’t even exist. Brendon was getting pissed, but he wasn’t sure if it was at bland boy or himself.
“So, uh, what happened?” bland asked. “I just, I-I got you in the car, got you to Pete… I couldn’t stay long. I had to be home because my roommate was coming back from the hospital and I had to get everything ready for him. Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” Brendon asked, a tone of harshness spoiling the question. Pete and Bland noticed, and Pete frowned, looking a bit upset. Brendon was a glass wall. You could see right through him, but never change what he’d done. Walls protected actions, even if you could see everything.
“I, uh…” Bland looked away. “I, I have a lot of work to do. Pete? I’ll get that sheet music on your desk by Monday. Uh, the, the demo is gonna be finished soon, just have mix it right. Something’s iffy with the vocals, and…” He whipped his head left and right really quickly like he was thinking, hair bouncing and hitting his neck. Brendon dug crescents into his skin and grit his teeth.
“No problem,” Pete said softly. “Look, hey— me and Pat are making a big dinner this Saturday, something big because we want to get rid of all the stuff in our fridge before the next session, where we’ll have to change his diet. You’re invited, as always. It’ll be nice to have you. The house misses you.”
Bland glanced to Brendon, then just shook his head. “I’m busy that night. Sorry, Pete. Talk to you later.”
Bland didn’t usher them out of the room, but he got close. Pete turned to Brendon with a completely bewildered expression, and asked, “what the hell was all that for? Why’d you treat Ryan like that? He’s a good guy, he saved you! Why would you do that?”
Brendon just shrugged and looked down to make sure that he wasn’t actually bleeding.
Fortunately, he was.