Trouble in Mind (Yes I'm Blue)

by miss_begonia

Summary:

Brendon thinks about being on the edge of things, about how long they’ve been driving. About wanting to jump just to see where he lands, if Ryan would follow.

Blues Song


Brendon watches the flies curl around the food in his hands, buzzing. He could write a song to this: make music to burn up guitar strings and jump along spines.

Sometimes he watches the sun tip below the horizon and wonders what his family’s doing, if they’re okay, if they think about him the way he thinks about them, early and late and often. He sees his mom and her bright dark eyes and her fluttering fingers and her careful smile. He sees her crying, saying,  Brendon, you can’t, you can’t do this.

Sometimes he thinks:  I can’t do this.

Sometimes he thinks he could write a song about anything.



In his pockets he carries: a pack of cigarettes, cheap; a pen; a guitar pick; gum. He washes his jeans every five days, and he doesn’t wear underwear. He buys t-shirts when he makes a little cash playing on street corners or sweeping up shops or washing dishes. He doesn’t eat much. He goes to bars sometimes but doesn’t drink, simply perches on the edge of stools and watches people talk just to hear their voices.

He can sleep anywhere. He likes sleeping outside, far from anything, by the road even, just out of sight. He knows it’s dangerous, but he’s got nothing for anyone to steal that he’s not prepared to give away.

Out here, nobody asks him to keep it down or to leave. He can play until his fingers hurt, his cheeks are numb, and his ears are licked red with blood. He can play and no one cares, no one but him, no one cares and no one tries to stop him. 

But no one listens, either.



It would be Ohio – with its flat, ugly brush and its nowhere cities, its straight roads and quiet, sullen people – where it happens. 

He runs out of cigarettes in the morning and he thinks, for the millionth time, that he needs to kick this stupid expensive habit, this slow march towards early death. But Brendon doesn’t care much about dying these days, and maybe every cigarette is worth waiting for, worth not eating for, worth dying a little for.

The boy at the store is bent over the dirty counter, peeling plastic laminate off the top with a Swiss Army knife. There’s nobody else around. The crossword’s spread out to his left, newspaper crinkled from the scratch of his pen. Smooth jazz plays over the speakers. The place smells like old coffee and marshmallows and lighter fluid.

“Cheapest cigarettes you’ve got,” Brendon says. “And a pack of Juicy Fruit.”

The boy looks up. His arms are covered with pen marks, narrow and precise. Brendon tilts his head and thinks: Lyrics. He’s written lyrics on his skin.

“You should roll your own,” the boy says. 

His brown hair falls in his eyes, and he reaches up and presses a long finger to the side of his own face.

“What?” Brendon asks. 

His throat hurts. He hasn’t had a good meal or night of sleep in three days, and the whole world’s a little fuzzy.

“You should roll your own,” the boy repeats. “Cheaper.”

The boy’s wearing make-up, Brendon realizes – or he was, anyway, and there’s a tiny bit left over, the memory of the press of kohl on skin around his eyes. 

“I’ll show you how,” the boys says.

Brendon swallows. He thinks,  I want , and he doesn't even know how to finish that sentence. He just thinks it.



The motel room is dusty hot and rents by the hour. Brendon thinks:  I don’t do this. I am not this sort of guy , but months ago Brendon wasn’t the sort of guy who’d take off on the road with nothing but his guitar and blind hope. Months ago Brendon wasn’t a lot of things he is today.

The boy pulls his shirt over his head in one smooth motion and drops it to the floor. He’s thin and bony, hip bones sharp slivers above the pockets of his jeans. 

“I’m Brendon,” Brendon says, and the boy turns to look at him over his shoulder. He doesn’t know why he said it; the boy didn’t ask, and his name is not what he’s offering.

The boy takes a small crumpled package and a little plastic baggie out of his jeans and places them on the bed. He settles onto the bedspread and scoots backwards until his back is against the headboard. 

“My dad taught me how to do this,” the boy says, and pulls out a thin rolling paper, resting it on his denim-covered knee. He pinches some tobacco from the plastic bag and sprinkles it onto the paper, then licks the edge. His tongue flickers out for just a moment, but Brendon’s stomach flickers with it, flickers and falls.

“Here,” Brendon says, sitting down on the bed and handing the boy his silver lighter – the least he can contribute to this whole process. Their fingertips brush when the boy takes the lighter and Brendon thinks,  where, where, where is this going?  

The boy inhales and the cigarette blooms red at the tip.

“You should tell me your name,” Brendon says, suddenly and irrationally bold. The boy looks at him from under a smudge of eyelashes. He’s too pretty to be a boy, but too sharp-edged to be a girl, and Brendon is so confused.

“Why?” the boy asks, exhaling around the words. He passes the cigarette to Brendon.

Brendon takes a drag on the cigarette. He can feel where it’s wet from the boy’s lips. He chokes a little on the inhale – partly from the strong, unfiltered tobacco taste, partly from something else entirely.

“I want to write a song about you,” Brendon says.

The boy’s eyes widen.

“There’s nothing to write about,” he says.

“Yes there is,” Brendon says, and climbs across the bed until he’s straddling the boy, cigarette still pinched between his fingers even as he pins the boy’s wrists with one hand. “There’s this.”

The boy’s hips buck, and Brendon can feel him for a fleeting second, hard against his inner thigh. He thinks:  Yessss.

“Ryan,” the boy breathes. “My name’s Ryan.”



Ryan presses the cigarette to Brendon’s lips, then kisses the smoke into his own mouth. Ryan tastes like dirty secrets, and he’s fearless. He nips at Brendon’s lower lip, tugs with his teeth on the tender flesh until Brendon’s gasping.

“You from around here?” Brendon asks, and Ryan laughs. It sounds strange, out of place, like giggling at a funeral.

“You don’t care about that,” Ryan says, and reaches down between Brendon’s legs, cupping him through his jeans. Brendon’s eyelids flutter. Ryan’s still holding the cigarette in one hand, and Brendon can smell the smoke, musty and careless.

“You don’t know what I care about,” Brendon says, and he wants to tell Ryan he doesn’t know either, that he’s been trying to figure that out. 

Ryan is so perfect like this, narrow and cool-skinned and flushed, pushing when Brendon pushes, meeting Brendon when he reaches for him. When he relieves Ryan of the cigarette he doesn’t complain, just turns his head to the side and muffles a sigh in the pillow as Brendon licks across his wrist. Ryan’s skin is so light it’s translucent. Brendon tongues along the surface of Ryan’s palm, thinking:  I want to read your future, I want to read mine, I want to know something no one else knows.

When they are both naked, Brendon holds Ryan’s wrists and thrusts against him, skin meeting slick skin. No hands. Ryan twists beneath him, soft sounds of frustration falling from his lips, and Brendon comes watching him try to hold back, biting his lip so as not to moan.



They wake to the sound of loud knocking on the door informing them their two hours are up. Brendon wants to sleep like this forever, tangled up in Ryan’s limbs, nothing between them but sweat and swallowed words.

“We have to go,” Ryan states.

“Yeah, we do,” Brendon says. He blinks sleep haze out of his eyes and tries to wrestle himself out of sweet slumber.

“No,” Ryan says.

Brendon can see where he bit his lip while they were kissing, remembers thinking,  I want him to remember, to feel where I’ve been.

“We have to go,” Ryan says.

Brendon sucks in a breath. Ryan’s not talking about leaving this room, right now. He’s talking about  leaving . 

Together.

He reaches out and presses his finger to Ryan’s wrist, feeling the pulse twitch beneath thin skin.

“Yeah,” Brendon repeats. “We do.”


Blues Song #2


Ryan doesn’t know what it is about Brendon: whether it’s the way his fingers flit across the frets of his battered guitar, pressing and leaving, pressing and leaving, or the tired rasp of his voice when he sings and smokes and sings, or the curl of his tongue around Ryan’s as they lie in a sleeping bag under the stars, the world hard everywhere but Brendon, everywhere he’s letting Ryan in.

There’s a song on the radio in Ryan’s car about running. It sounds like a prayer. Ryan touches his fingers to Brendon’s neck to feel the vibrations as he hums. Brendon shifts until the vibrations become kisses. 

Ryan thinks he could lie under these stars until they go out, lie here with Brendon until sleep takes them both away from wherever they are.



Back when Ryan had friends in Ohio, they used to laugh at him whenever he’d talk about how music was like fucking –  that there was a progression, see, a building of intensity.  They’d say:  way to make it boring, Ross,  and Ryan would twist himself up like a lanyard, bite his lip and look away.

But Brendon – Brendon understands what Ryan means, understands without Ryan ever having to explain it. In the backseat of Ryan’s car, Brendon licks around Ryan’s nipples, teasing, thumb circling the head of his cock. He watches Ryan’s face with saucer eyes, flushes when Ryan moans. It’s a call-and-response, verse-chorus-verse, his tongue his lips his hands his wicked-nervous smile. Ryan moves underneath him and Brendon breathes against his neck, flicking his tongue over soft, sweaty skin again and again, repeating the motions until Ryan gasps and arches, digs his fingernails into the upholstery, fades out to the sounds of  yes, God, Jesus, fuck, yes.



One night they go to a bar in Indiana and start a fight. They don’t mean to start one – it happens because Brendon’s angry, pissed off about something Ryan doesn’t understand. 

Ryan’s ordering a drink and some idiot drunk reaches across the bar and tugs on his sleeve and says, “yeah, yeah, you’re a fucking cunt.”

Ryan is used to walking away – he’s done it enough that he doesn’t even look back anymore, but Brendon sees this guy and he can’t deal. He shoves the guy in the shoulder and says, “You should take that back.” 

Sometimes Brendon talks in  shoulds  and Ryan wonders how he survived Vegas, a town as bitter and acidic as bile. Then again, Brendon is here. Brendon is here because he didn’t want to be there, and some guy is going to punch him in the face.

The drunk lurches to his feet. He’s still holding onto Ryan’s shirt, bunching the fabric between his fat fingers, and Brendon is seething next to him, teeth set in a hard jaw. Ryan doesn’t think. He pushes the drunk with all his might, which isn’t much, it’s true, but it’s enough to make the guy lose his balance and fall.

“Holy shit,” Brendon whispers, and the bartender is yelling at them to get the fuck out, and he catches Ryan’s hand in his and pulls and they run.

Ryan jams the key into the ignition and twists until the engine crunches to life, and they pull out of the parking lot spraying gravel and burning concrete. They don’t even know if anyone is following them but it doesn’t matter, not to the thump-thump of Ryan’s heartbeat or Brendon’s panting breaths as he whispers, “Goddamn, Ryan, that was—”

“I know,” Ryan cuts him off, and they drive in silence for long minutes, Brendon’s fingers twitching against his thighs.

Ryan wrenches the steering wheel to the right and pulls onto the shoulder. 

“You know I don’t need—” Ryan starts to say, but Brendon’s not listening to him because he’s climbing into his lap, tugging his hands through Ryan’s hair, licking his way between Ryan’s lips.

“I know,” Brendon says. “I know you don’t need me to defend your honor, but that guy was a prick.”

“I like it when we run,” Ryan murmurs. “I don’t like being chased.”

Brendon closes his eyes, dark hair like streaked ink across his sweaty forehead. Ryan watches his throat move. Brendon reaches out and touches his thumb to Ryan’s lips, eyes still closed, tracing Ryan’s face. Ryan inhales and lets him.



In Atlantic City Brendon wins a couple hundred dollars and takes Ryan out to dinner despite his protests and admonitions,  you should save the money, we need it for gas.  Brendon just tosses him a lopsided grin and pokes a finger into his ribs and says, “You’re looking skinny. I want to put some meat on those bones.”

It’s amazing to eat something that doesn’t come in a greasy wrapper or flimsy cardboard box, even more amazing when Brendon leans across the table and presses a strawberry between Ryan’s lips, watches Ryan lick the juice off his fingers with dark eyes like smoldering ash. That night they fuck on a bed for only the second time, Brendon slow and languid, touching and tasting, sketching the curves of Ryan’s hipbones with his hands, kissing him until he arches and bucks helplessly underneath him, gasping  please, please, there, please.

“I love you like this,” Brendon says as Ryan bunches the sheets and moans. “Not so quiet anymore.”

And Ryan wants to say that is what it means to make music: to let sound go so it can find a home, to let it drive and drive and drive until it finds what (who) it’s looking for.


Blues Song #3


His parents probably think they raised him better than this – to be smarter than picking up some lonely kid in a far away fly-over state. Ryan is Brendon’s ride now (in more ways than one, Brendon thinks, and bites his lip) and yeah, Brendon knows better than this. Brendon knows better.

If it was just about the sex, it might be easier. Brendon knows how to say no to sex, has said no to it for years, pushed those desires down and down until he could feel them nowhere but under his fingertips, pressing, pressing, aching. He knows about swallowing that want until it melted into fury, climbed up his spine and out of his mouth in the form of the words  I hate you, I hate you, you don’t understand.

It’s not about the sex – not only about the sex, though Brendon could spend many hours watching Ryan’s mouth fall open as he touches him, could write a song to the rhythm of Ryan’s strangled breaths and hitching moans. 

For the first time in his life, Brendon feels like he’s running toward something rather than running away from it. He doesn’t think his parents would understand that, though, and he’s done trying to explain.



“I don’t know anything about you,” Brendon murmurs into the sweaty dip of Ryan’s lower back. Ryan makes a frustrated sound and thrusts against the sheets. His spine is curved like a bass clef. 

“What do you want to know?” Ryan asks.



Brendon writes a song for Ryan and plays it for him to help him sleep, trembling guitar chords telling the story of a boy who’s strung so tight but eases, eases, eases his mind.

“You’re cheesy as hell,” Ryan mumbles, eyelids fluttering as sleep beckons him closer.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Brendon whispers, but he doesn’t know if Ryan hears.



At a bar in Louisiana an old guy with a bad hip and wrinkles everywhere climbs up on the low platform in the corner, settles into a rickety chair and starts playing a Robert Johnson song.

This is what Brendon likes about the blues – how if you listen to enough of it, you always know what comes next. It’s inevitable. He watches Ryan run his finger around the rim of his shot glass, fingertip sliding over the smooth curve, and blushes when Ryan looks up at him, lower lip caught between his teeth.

And then Ryan’s moving, pushing past Brendon and out the door. Brendon’s still caught up in the previous measure, the way the song tripped up the blues scale and back down again like a little kid in his first pair of shoes. He feels like he missed something.

Outside it’s warm and muggy and the night buzzes with unseen mosquitos. Ryan lights a cigarette and Brendon finds him in the dark, walks until he can see the familiar crackling red glow.

Close up Ryan’s face is still a mass of shadows. Brendon reaches out and Ryan bats him away.

“Fuck you,” Ryan breathes.

“What did I—”

“Nothing,” Ryan says. “Just—”

Brendon wraps his hands around Ryan’s knobby wrists and squeezes.

“Don’t mess with me, Brendon, don’t—”

Ryan is breathless, shaking, and Brendon realizes that he’s crying, cheeks shiny with slick.

“I miss it too,” Brendon says. “I miss home too sometimes.”

Ryan looks away. He pulls Brendon closer so he can take a drag of the cigarette, and ashes it onto Brendon’s shoe. 

Brendon doesn’t move. 

Ryan grinds out the cigarette, ash spreading on pavement. The smoke lingers in the air like the notes of a blues song, still slinking out that door, still there, still there,  lord I’m standin’ at a crossroad, babe, I believe I’m sinkin’ down.


Blues Song #4


Tuesday nights were the worst – he’d be so angry when he came home from work, and he’d growl and spit and throw things. Ryan said his father had taught him to roll his own cigarettes. He didn’t say that he used to take those same cigarettes and light them with a cheap Bic and put them out on the skin just above the inside of his own elbow, watch it burn until it didn’t hurt anymore, until he couldn’t feel anything.

Brendon looks at Ryan sidelong with sad, crumbling eyes, and it makes Ryan want to punch something. He never should have let him see him cry. He never should have taken that drink. Drinking is a part of Ryan – under his skin like an unwanted tattoo.

All Ryan wants Brendon to understand is music – how it drowned out the raised voices and clattering and blaring television and covered the silence of being alone in an empty house when his dad worked late into the night. All he needs to know is that eventually Ryan stopped putting out cigarettes and started writing, imprinting his skin with words, words sung and shouted and growled and screamed.

When Brendon held his wrists, fingers pushing against Ryan’s pulse, Ryan almost told him everything, let it spill out at Brendon’s feet.

But there are things Brendon doesn’t need to know.



Some guys in Kansas smoke them up for free. One of them – long and lanky with greasy black hair – eyes Brendon like he’d make for a tasty snack. Ryan nearly hurts himself wrapping his arm around Brendon’s waist, becoming his personal spider monkey. Brendon laughs and passes the joint to Ryan and soon the world is moving more slowly, a dizzy disco ball, and hey, who knew Kansas could be so beautiful.

“You guys are…” the shorter one trails off meaningfully. He doesn’t look like he’s aiming for a fight, just curious.

“Fucking?” Ryan finishes, and Brendon pokes him in the side, giggling. Brendon’s so silly when he’s stoned, happy and graceless and always smiling.

The tall one keeps his eyes trained on the ground. The other takes the joint from Brendon and stubs it out even though there’s an inch left, plenty still to smoke. They don’t ask any more questions. 



Car rides are spaces between one place and the next, but when you’re on the road it’s like everything’s reversed. It’s so confusing, this permanent in-between. Ryan wakes up curled in the backseat and thinks he’s still driving, feels the road move even though they’re parked. The interior smells like old cigarettes and sweat and the sugary candy Brendon eats constantly. 

“Do you think…” Brendon says as they cross the Colorado state line.

“Yeah?” Ryan says, flicking his turn signal before he changes lanes, even though there’s no one else around.

“We should maybe have a plan?”

Brendon sounds like he’s scared to ask, like Ryan will think he’s lame just for suggesting it. But Ryan loves plans and adores certainties. He loves them in the way you love anything you’ve never had very much of in your life.

“Sure,” Ryan says.

Brendon looks at him with surprise.

“I like plans,” Ryan says.

Brendon breathes out through his mouth, a shuddering exhale.

“Next city mentioned in a song,” Brendon says. “That’s where we go.”

He leans forward and turns up the volume on the radio. It takes a few minutes, but then it comes:  I'm leaving Las Vegas, lights so bright, palm sweat blackjack on a Saturday night.

Brendon’s fingernails cut into the fabric of his jeans, and his knuckles turn to ice.



Ryan’s never been to Las Vegas. Brendon tells him there’s nothing to see. Ryan disagrees. They drive out of the desert and the Strip unrolls in front of them, sparkling like a sky cut open and bleeding stars.

Ryan’s always been pretty good at cards. He wins a few hands at the Rio, enough to afford to stay the night. Brendon backs him into the room, hands everywhere, lips hot at Ryan’s throat. He licks and sucks Ryan’s fingers until Ryan’s shaking, hard against the zipper of his jeans. He pushes Ryan down on the bed and unbuttons his pants, fingers rough and sloppy and urgent.

Ryan shrugs off his shirt and yanks Brendon up until he’s on top of him, grinding down. They kiss with open mouths, mostly just breathing against each other. Brendon licks Ryan’s collarbone and shoves his hand into Ryan’s jeans, and Ryan makes a sound like he’s dying.

“Hey,” Brendon whispers, “what’s this?”

He’s tracing a circle of light brown flesh on Ryan’s arm, just above his elbow.

Ryan sucks in a breath and closes his eyes. 

“Nothing,” he whispers.

Blues Song #5


Brendon wakes up in Vegas with a dry mouth and Ryan’s hand still down his pants. He shifts on the bed and the sheets cling like gauze to his back, sweaty and over-washed. Ryan shudders as he breathes out through his mouth, and Brendon thinks:  tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow . He knows the future is a dirty word around here, but he can’t stop thinking about it. He wants—

Ryan moves in his sleep, and his hand slips on Brendon’s stomach. Brendon has to concentrate on breathing. This could be his whole life, right here – silences filled with swallowed anticipation as he waits for Ryan to make his next move. Check, no mate.



They decide to drive west until they hit water. It doesn’t take long, but the beaches of L.A. are crowded with moving hard-bodied tans and cars. 

“Until they’re empty,” Ryan says, and Brendon watches his wrists twisting on the steering wheel.

They drive up coiled switchback roads until they’re on the Lost Coast. Brendon swallows his queasiness. The ocean expands underneath them as if they’re flying over an irrationally blue, glittering carpet. Brendon thinks about being on the edge of things, about how long they’ve been driving. About wanting to jump just to see where he lands, if Ryan would follow.



“I don’t know,” Ryan says. “This isn’t like any beach I’ve ever seen.”

It’s pebbly and rough and windy, and the water feels as cold as barely melted ice. Ryan shivers and Brendon rubs his bare arms, fingers lingering on the inside of his elbow. He thinks:  Tell me.

“You wanted us to be alone,” Brendon says. “There’s nobody here because nobody wants to be here.”

“I want to be here,” Ryan says.

He laces his fingers through Brendon’s. The wind whips sand around them, and Brendon’s skin stings everywhere but where they’re touching.

“I want to be here too,” Brendon whispers.

“I want you to know that I—” Ryan says. “I don’t know if I can say it. But I mean it. I think about it.”

Ryan’s eyes are dark and hot. He leans forward and kisses Brendon, tongue sweeping out to trace Brendon’s lower lip.

“I think about it a lot,” Ryan murmurs.



Ryan smokes under the stars, wisps of exhaled tobacco snaking around his fingers. He is even more quiet than usual, and Brendon can’t seem to stop talking.

“Did you ever, like, think about college?” Brendon asks. “Going somewhere after high school?”

“I did go to college,” Ryan says. “I dropped out.”

Brendon deflates like a flat tire. “Oh.”

“I just couldn’t pretend like I cared about all that shit,” Ryan says.

“What do you care about?” Brendon asks.

Ryan blinks, eyelashes casting spidery shadows on his pale cheeks.

“I don’t know,” Ryan says. “I always wanted to start a band.”



They fuck in the backseat with the doors open, cold air chilling their feet. Ryan holds Brendon still when he bucks his hips, trying to take Ryan deeper, his hands cool on Brendon’s heated, sweaty skin.

“I want you,” Ryan whispers. “Brendon—”

“I love you,” Brendon says. “I love you, say it, say you—”

Ryan pulls back so fast Brendon gasps. He is suddenly freezing. Ryan is still hard, not breathing, head lowered, his hands shaking.

“Why can’t you—”

“How can you say that?” Ryan bursts out. “How do you know? You don’ t know me.”

Brendon sits up, grabbing Ryan’s wrists. Ryan exhales, skinny arms moving with the motion, but Brendon holds on.

“There’s nothing anybody can do to you that you can’t do to yourself,” Brendon says. “Right?”

Ryan doesn’t say anything, just holds perfectly still like he’s playing dead.

“Don’t tell me what I know,” Brendon whispers.



Back on Highway One, Brendon fiddles with the radio as Ryan navigates the curves and turns and slopes. The sun hits the water and makes it shift and shimmer, an ever-changing mirage.

“I think I want to stay here,” Ryan says.

Brendon squints into the light, tries to remember where they’re going. He can still feel the way Ryan kissed hiim last night – deliberate, methodical, slow, with a lilting rhythm that went on for hours. His fingers smell like the clove they shared, passed back and forth between them. Ryan cupped Brendon’s hands in his and rubbed them until they weren’t numb anymore, until Brendon could feel him there again.

He’s not quite sure what Ryan means, or where “here” is today, but he thinks he knows what he cares about now.

“Yeah,” Brendon says. “Me too.”