Brendon’s sudden change of heart - or that’s what Ryan interpreted it to be, anyway - wasn’t unfounded at all, and actually when he was finally able to look at the situation in retrospect, Ryan found that he felt sort of the same. Not all the time, and not deeply enough to initiate a breakup himself, but there were rare occasions where he got scared. They were virtually [i]just[/i] out of high school, even more true for Brendon than it was for him. The overwhelming success of the band was one thing. Usually it was a good kind of terrifying, exhilerating, unless he spent too long thinking about how total strangers knew him and recognized him and made assumptions about him. But a relationship that appeared as serious as his and Brendon’s was becoming was a different story - they could continue to stay together until so much time had passed that breaking up would prove to be way more crushing than it had to be, or they could stay together, no breakups involved. The prospect of committing to something like that when he couldn’t even commit to attending university was daunting.

The difference was still that Ryan wasn’t affected by that fear frequently enough, or for long enough periods of time, to end things. That didn’t mean he wasn’t totally an idiot the entire time Brendon was working through his little speech; Ryan ignored his valid reasoning and instead got stuck in his own head, thinking maybe Brendon just didn’t want to commit to [i]him[/i] rather than at all. Or, on a smaller scale of suspicion, that Brendon was coming up with a more civil-sounding reason to end things and he was actually just over Ryan. That was a quickly ignored insecurity. After all, Brendon was fairly obvious about the fact that he did love Ryan, even if he eventually got intimidated by it or fell out of love altogether. Ryan was pretty sure both of them still loved each other at the end, too. Unfortunate, but he had no control over how Brendon felt, so he didn’t bother mentioning that when it was all happening.

And, admittedly, Ryan kept those feelings for the longest time, and they were buried over the months enough for him to ignore it, sort of. When he was face to face with Brendon like this, and felt the slide of his fingers along his suit jacket, it was hard to pretend he only felt anything platonic towards Brendon. From the looks of things, Brendon was at least reciprocating - but he was so open and unguarded about it that Ryan wasn’t sure whether to admire his everlasting confidence or be suspicious about his intentions. The latter option was unfair as hell and didn’t speak to Brendon’s character, so he brushed it off easily. [i]Hopefully not the last.[/i] Okay - so they were definitely on the same page. Ryan’s mouth went dry, his smile fading when he realised Brendon’s was gone, and suddenly he was sick of screwing around, circling the subtext without addressing it directly. He had the patience the first time it was like this between them, but now with the knowledge of how well they worked together, he wasn’t as afraid.

[i]Lucky you.[/i] Very fucking lucky. Ryan was pretty resigned to the fact that he had few other redeeming qualities. [i]Are you kidding? When I first met Dallon-[/i] Ryan instantly followed his gaze and the gesture towards the Dallon in question. Keeping his cool as best he could on his face, Ryan let the internal tantrum over how attractive the new bassist actually was ensue. [i]I had the hugest crush on him, mostly because he’s, like, 6’4.[/i] Ryan laughed a little, managed it, but not much more because he was apparently [i]this[/i] prone to jealousy. It’s not like there was anything to be jealous of - he said ‘had.’ And also here Brendon was, with him and not the bassist, yet Ryan couldn’t squash the spark of completely irrational jealousy that arose. Whatever; Spencer would probably object to another inter-band relationship after his last experience with it.

[b]”Understandable, actually,”[/b] he said after a pause, because even if he was being ridiculous, he could admit that Dallon was cute as hell. He turned with Brendon, finding it increasingly easy to ignore the sounds of the party around them when they were this close. [i]Nothing’s changed, then.[/i] Ryan pursed his lips, knowing that there was more meaning to that response than the sound of it implied, and he considered what could happen if he actually confronted what was happening head-on. Maybe he should wait longer than, like, ten minutes to tell Brendon he was still interested, but what was the point? They wouldn’t stay in contact after this party if they ended on a ‘we’ll keep being friends’ note, just because that was too hard, at least on Ryan. And [i]everyone[/i] said that when they broke up - it never held true.

Despite the double meaning, Ryan smiled fondly at Brendon’s words, wondering at the contrast between how quickly things changed with them when they started dating, and when they stopped, nothing changed. A little backwards, but they tended to be that way, anyway. [b]”Hey,”[/b] he said, suddenly with complete clarity, and stepped closer with a hand on Brendon’s shoulder so he didn’t have to speak quite as loudly. [b]”I missed you. A lot.”[/b] It wasn’t sad sounding or anything - in fact it looked like he was more focused on the positive circumstances where they’d connected again. [b]”It’s been weird without you. It was worse in the beginning, but it’s like everything’s kind of... off.”[/b] And he’d initially thought the ‘world thrown off balance’ thing would eventually go away. No such luck. [b]”You’re here, and I feel a little normal again.”[/b]