how to kill a straight guy // ryden

step 3: share your drama

"Hey douchebag."

It always made his self-esteem drop a few points when he actually looked in the instance someone called him an insult instead of his name—because that meant you were agreeing with it, y'know? It was human habit that made his head turn in the direction of that boyish tone, but he found it better when it was someone you knew well affronted you, because now he could do this:

"Yes shitface?"

Ah, now he felt justified.

The man he had just insulted only grinned in response, that skinny form leaning against the back of the couch so Brendon had to tilt his head upwards to see him. "Read these," was the spoken reply he got, a notebook conjured up from behind Ryan's back and haphazardly thrown over the couch to plop in Brendon's lap. Looking down, he saw that black pen-ink spread like a virus around every space of white paper one could squeeze out. There were giant scribbles and 'x's, arrows and words scrawled so small that Brendon had to squint to interpret their meaning.

"What is it?"

"They're lyrics," Ryan started, stretching one leg up and over the back of the couch so he could crawl over it, plopping himself down on the cushion next to Brendon. "We've been just covering songs the whole time before you got here, and I thought that now, since all the positions are filled, we could try our own."

"Oh really?" Brendon looked down at the notebook in his lap once more before picking it up, holding it closer to his face. "So you wrote the lyrics," Brendon looked over at the boy beside him. "And you expect me to sing them? How you want me to?"

Ryan never got the underlying hint in Brendon's tone, just nodding with a small shrug. "Yep."

Brendon paused, gazing at Ryan a little longer in a form of incredulity before he let out a breath, sitting back into the couch and scanning his eyes back over the notebook in his hands.

'Watch your mouth

Because your speech is slurred

And I bet you just might swallow your tongue.

I'm sure you want

Want to give up the ghost with just,

A little more poise than that.

Or, was it God

Who chokes in these situations?

Running late, oh no he called in.'

Brendon's brow knitted together as he perused the writing in front of him. It was deep stuff—little too deep for an eighteen-year old. It sounded more like someone with a defective household should write this.

'The hospice is

A relaxing weekend getaway

Where you're a cut above all the rest.

Sick and sad patients

On first name basis with all the top physicians.'