Give Me Envy, Give Me Malice, Give Me Your Attention *Ryden*

Velvet Lips & the Eyes to Pull Me In, We Both Know You'd Already Win

Zack's arm shot out to catch the phone in midair, but he didn't bother looking at it. He'd already seen it.

"THIS!! This is exactly what I was talking about. This is why we can't be seen together. Jesus Christ, it's been almost 10 years of this and I'm so fucking sick and tired of it!!" Brendon stomped over to snatch his phone back, scrolling through once more.

The video was obviously recorded by a guest's cell phone, and it was grainy because of the dim lighting. Whoever captured it had been standing a good distance away, but still, there was no mistaking that it was Ryan and Brendon in the video. It started with Ryan's shove and ended with Brendon's hand fisted in his Ryan's shirt and his other hand gripping his hair. Thank Christ that kiss hadn't happened, although he was well aware that people would doctor the images to make it look like it had.

Some of the pictures had been captioned. "Ryden, back at it!", "Fucking or Fighting?", "Just do it, boys." The comments beneath most of them were even more offensive and rude. "Ryan tops." "I'm a straight dude, but I'd fuck Brendon Urie in the ass too." "These two are nothing without each other. Stop doing each other and start making music again, you faggots."

The video had been made into still-shots and gifs, and all the different formats were being tweeted and retweeted by thousands of people. It didn't surprise him; he'd been in the business long enough to know the nature of the beast. But this time, it stung. He'd been careful for so long, being sure not to give the fans and media more ammo. Hell, he stopped following Ryan on Twitter (although Ryan still followed him, which irked Brendon), he'd cut off all contact with him for years, and whenever he was asked about him in interviews, he gave a quick, perfunctory answer, usually delivered in a monotone, and then changed the subject. When he realized that wasn't making a difference, he decided to try a new approach and joke about it to the fans. He recorded a vine about the infamous Milk Fic, rapping to the tune of Kelis' "Milkshake". The fans loved it, but the end result (and one that he should have anticipated) was that more of them ended up Googling the fic and reading it themselves.

The next time he live-streamed on Periscope, he noticed that the Ryden comments in the chat had nearly doubled. Annoyed, he finally decided to answer the next one outright. "Is Ryden real?" he read the comment out loud. "If you're referring to, were Ryan Ross and I ever in a relationship...NO. We were FRIENDS. And, uhhh...I haven't talked to him in years. Um, but Ryden was not real. Sorry to kill your fantasies," he paused, then laughed. "You fuckin' losers."

The fallout from that message was worse than the reaction to the Vine. This time, fans didn't think it was funny; instead, they were hurt and sad. They fixated on the statement he made about not talking to Ryan in years. They rewatched the video again and again, overanalyzing his body language, his tone of voice, his facial expressions. ("He said, 'uhhhh' and 'um', that means he's lying!" "Look, he touched his nose, that means he's lying!")

To make matters worse, a couple of months after that, Ryan had made a joking reference about the Milk Fic on his Facebook account (although it could have been written by Shane; Brendon wasn't sure if Ryan was still being "managed" by that asshole). And then Gerard Way had changed his Twitter name to Milk Friend, unwittingly sending fans into a tizzy because they assumed he was referencing the story. He wasn't, but out of curiosity, he then went and read it, tweeting a few updates on his thoughts about it. And then Dallon - (et tu, Dallon?) - had to add even more fuel to the fire by commenting under Gerard's post with a photo of two glasses filled with milk, with some splashing into the air and forming a heart shape. Later that night, Ryan had taken to Facebook to make a joke about Gerard wanting to be in the sequel.

Brendon had to admit that it could be funny at times, but it was also getting old. Ten years of making music, meeting fans, and touring the world had provided him with a wealth of experience and amazing stories to share, so it was incredibly disheartening that the only thing the majority of fans and media really wanted to know was "Were you and Ryan fucking?"