A Hotter Touch, A Better F... Than Any Girl You'll Ever Meet

Chapter 3

I got out of the taxi carefully so as to not upset my damaged ass even more and wobbled to the driver's door to pay him the money I owed.

I'd ended up stopping a random passer-by on the sidewalk a few hundred feet away from Brendon's apartment building, borrowing their cell phone and getting a cab for the remaining four blocks. It had taken the taxi about as long to get to where I was waiting as it usually took me to walk the distance and everybody knows taxis are overprized. Just goes to show what you get for not knowing what you're doing when you get fucked up the ass.

I walked carefully up the fire escape stairs and unlocked the door silently, creeping inside on my tiptoes. I wanted a shower before getting the third degree from my best friend, who'd no doubt want to know 'where the hell I'd been that night'.

And as thought, so done. I had all the clothes off in less than a minute and was in the shower after another one. I turned the water to scalding hot, hoping to rid myself of all the things that had happened to me within the previous sixteen or so hours, mentally as well as physically.

I kept washing and washing until the hot water was close to icy and several parts of my body were close to skin-less from my brutal cleansing of myself. Then I gave up. I had lost something, a part of my identity, part of the way I felt about myself as a guy the night before, and showering wasn't helping me getting it back. Apparently that was something that demanded a different approach. And right at that moment I couldn't think of one, so I got out with a sigh, dried myself off and went back into my bedroom to get dressed.

Stading in front of my closet, I started looking for something as Ryan as possible. Not Ryan Ross, guitarist, though, just Ryan from before Panic! became so big. Perhaps even Ryan before he ever met Brendon Urie? And I found what I was looking for in a pair of old, worn, tight, black jeans that I'd forgotten I still owned, a pair of ratty Converse, the same white belt I'd worn before - I'd owned that belt for years - and a black Third Eye Blind tee in extra extra small. Yeah, we've already established that I was thin, right? I put it all on followed by a random hat of mine that could hide half of my face. Then I exited my room, preparing to have to tell Spencer everything - I already said I can't lie to Spencer - and all the while wondering why I felt like a stranger to myself in the clothes I'd been used to wearing through the larger part of my teenage years.

Spencer was sitting tensely in front of the TV when I entered the living room. At the sound of my footsteps he jumped up, looking at me agrily. "Ryan! Where the hell have you been?!" he shouted.

I cringed at the high sound but was slightly cheered up by the fact that I really had managed to guess exactly what he'd say. "Brendon's," I answered casually as I wobbled to the couch, got a couple of the cushions and put them where I'd sit to soften the couch even more before I sat down, adjusting my weight so that it was as comfortable as it was in any way going to get. Then I suddenly got that feeling, you know, when you're absolutely sure someone is staring at you. Yeah, that's the one. I looked up to meet Spencer's icy blue eyes. "What?"

He looked so shocked it was ridiculous. And if the situation had been slightly different I'd have laughed my ass off at his face, but as it was... Well, not so funny. More of disturbing, really. "You're walking funny," he muttered. "You spent the night at Brendon's and Brendon's in love with you." He paused as he'd solved yet another mind puzzle. "You went out last night wanting to fix him. Oh shit, Ryan, you're stupid!"

Yeah, I've also sometimes wondered if Spencer was omniscient.

There was something about him knowing, having guessed, that made it completely real. It established the fact that it had really happened. I had really had sex with Brendon. I was really in too deep. And I couldn't handle it. I dropped my head into the palms of my hands, no longer needing to pretend anything. With Spence I never ever had to pretend. And so the tears started falling, a few pitiful, choked sobs making their way out of my mouth once in a while. "I just wanted him to be okay," I managed to get out as my best friend got back on the couch, sat right next to me and cradled me as if I were a baby. And at that moment I may as well have been.