FEVERISH [RYDEN] [REPOST]

ULTERIOR MOTIVES

"We need to kick Brent out of the band."

It came, breathless and tripping over itself, out of Brendon's lips as he collapsed over the back of the couch Spencer was sitting on.

"What?"

"Think about it." Ryan said, tilting over the couch next to Brendon, slightly breathless as well. Brendon was trembling, his entire world falling out from under his feet, and Ryan wrapped an arm around him to steady him. "We're going on tour, he's unreliable, he never shows up. Don't you remember some of the things he's said to us? Did he even help on the album?"

Spencer tilted back, tipping his head over the back of the couch to look at them from upside down.

"Are you sur-"

Both Brendon and Ryan nodded fervently, Spencer raising an eyebrow.

And then, Ryan delivered the final blow.

"Don't you remember what Pete said?"

Spencer paused, nodding slightly. Ryan slipped around the couch, sitting next to Spencer.

"Are you, are you sure?"

Ryan placed a forefinger on Spencer's wrist, dragging it up and down the way Spencer used to do to calm Ryan down after a particularly bad night with his dad.

"Yeah, we should."

Brendon obliged with a solemn nod.

"Who's gonna do it."

They both looked at Spencer, who nodded slightly in aggreement.

"Fine. I'll do it."

There was a pause.

"For the good of the band?"

"For the good of the band."

-!-

-!-

-!-

"You are a fucking dumbass!"

"Listen, it had to be do-"

"You go on tour in ONE DAY! One day! How do I find a bassist in one day? How do I do that, Brendon?"

"I-"

A heavy sigh escaped his lips.

"When Pete said I could be your band manager, I thought he'd found boys with a little common sense!"

"I'm so-"

"Goddamn."

Zach shot them an apologetic look from the back of the room.

"Do you know what? I'll see what I can do. I'll find you a bassist! I'll find you a goddamn-"

There was a hand on his knee.

Ryan looked up, following the hand from the wrist to the arm to the shoulder to the neck, until he made eye contact with Spencer Smith.

"You're doing it again." He hissed, pressing his thumb into the top of Ryan's knee.

The moon shone bright, reflecting through ten-year-old's Ryan's window. He sat, shrunk down on the other side of the door, his dad banging on the other side.

"Open the goddamn door, George! Open the goddamn door!"

Ryan quenched a sob, burying his head into his knees. The door shook on its hinges, the sound of the glass of a whiskey bottle being shattered against it.

"Get out here, you fucking pussy! What kind of wussy-ass pansy are you?"

There was a tap, once, twice on Ryan's window. His tear-stained face looked up, staring through, meeting nine-year-old Spencer Smith's widened eyes.