You were supposed to be above this kind of thing. You were too good for love. You were too cool for longing. Too macho glamorous fucking rock star to care.
You were George Ryan Ross, living with your glittery clothes and expensive shoes and colourful music in your little bubble, better than the world. You could be described as isolated, in a way. You had built a barrier made of cigarettes and guitar strings and nonchalance and foreign films that separated you from the rest of the world. From the rest of the band, "those guys", the fans and the paparazzi. From emotion. From that far fetched fairytale lie called love.
You were above it all.
And then some hyperactive dork in glasses and a Pokemon shirt, who, when bored on stage, whistled Nintendo songs, came and burst your little bubble?
No.
Impossible.
This insufferable four-eyed idiot was just helping your glitzy rock band make money. He didn't matter. Nothing 'mattered'.
He barely even knew you. He only ever talked to you onstage, he'd look over and smile at you as he sang, he'd mouth 'I love you' across to you making fans squeal and gossip, he'd share a mic with you and sometimes he'd lean over and kiss you.
But that was all for publicity. That was so Beautiful Freaky Gay Ryan Ross and Panic at the Disco could be a controversy.
Right?
Sometimes he'd manage to persuade you into his car and downtown. You'd let him buy you a drink. You'd let him talk to you about nothing at all. You'd let him worm his way into your allegedly impermeable barricade.
He held your hand in the tour bus when Mr. Ryan's Best Buddy Drummer and Hippie-Pothead-Bearded-Bassist-That-No-One-Cares-About-Jon weren't looking. He slipped into your bunk at night just to lay there and hold you. You played Mario Kart with him or broke out the band's beat-up Aladdin DVD when the two of you were bored.
You sat with him behind the bus one summer touring in Los Angeles with your designer sunglasses and lemonade that was really 90% tequila, and his jeans with holes in the knees and baseball cap. You kissed, and it wasn't in front of three thousand screaming people.
And then the days inched forward, leading you and him into September. The band and you weren't on tour anymore. You sat with them at Best Buddy's kitchen table and discussed what the next album would be like. You held hands with Brendon under the table. You and Hippie-Pothead-Bearded-Bassist agreed on one thing: a Beatles-esque approach to the music for the new record; Best Buddy and Nintendo Nerd agreed on something on the complete opposite side of the rock spectrum.
No one can have a band that wants to make different music from each other, so you split off into two groups according to musical interest: your best friend and lover moving to one city to continue Panic at the Disco, you and the bassist whom you couldn't even remember the name of moved to another.
Brendon promised you he would call and he didn't. You figured he was busy with his new album.
You and Hippie-Pothead-Bearded-Bassist figured he would put an H in his name, you would go by your first name, and your new band christened on a whim The Young Veins would embark on its quest to find some dudes called Paul and Ringo. You were happy in your expensive house, reading your French literature.
Right?
You started having dreams about baseball caps and lemonade and Mario Kart. You started caring less about the 60's. You drank more. You were less.
You were eventually nothing.
You had nothing except a bunch of fancy shit and a bearded beatnik spewing words of wisdom. Blowing smoke in your face. Telling you to write lyrics-oh, and music while you're at it-because he was too busy either buying weed or trying to get it legalized.
You wanted nothing, except nerdy-ass Brendon Urie. Who didn't call.
Of course, you didn't admit it-you were above want. Above missing someone. Above love, and idiot singers of your former band.
Right?
It was the night of your birthday, almost a year and a half since Panic broke up. Hippie Flake Bassist was off somewhere, some drug-induced escapade that probably involved talking to psychics or searching the streets for that ever-elusive exclamation mark. You were left alone in your big house with some books and liquor and loneliness. You mixed yourself a drink and played your guitar a little.
Someone knocked on the door of your big house, and you told them to fuck off. They instead stayed there, alternating between ringing the doorbell and knocking-what an asshole.
Driven crazy at last, you opened the door.
It was Brendon. You closed the door.
You went back to the couch and picked up your guitar again, tuning it in between sips of god knows what. He came uninvited into the house and stood there on the rug, looking at you worriedly. You glanced up, raising an eyebrow in what you hoped looked like mild annoyance. You continued to tend to your guitar until all the emotion you were internalizing caused you to turn one of the pegs a bit violently. The A string broke with a small strangled noise and you finally looked up at Brendon, face pale and expression hollow.
What, you asked him, what do you want with me?
He was bringing you a birthday present only he left it at the airport.
Why didn't you send it?
He wanted to come tell you he loves you.
You sure acted like it.
You watched him listlessly, not willing to believe one single goddamned word he said. He started to move towards you and you looked back down at the guitar, trying to get the broken string out of it.
He's sorry.
Okay.
He loves you.
Uh huh.
He misses you.
If anyone misses anyone, it's me, you blurted shamelessly. That was the first and last sign of weakness you would ever show to anybody. It killed you to tell people how you felt. To tell people that you felt.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to yours for one fleeting moment that seemed like it lasted the entire summer. You didn't try and fight him-you wanted him too much.
You finally pushed him away and fumbled with a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and bringing it up to your lips. You inhaled deeply, the hot smoke swirling into your lungs, warm and soothing. Your hands stopped shaking so badly. Brendon slipped an arm around you, and you reminded yourself of an important piece of advice you were once told: just keep smoking and everything will be okay.
You closed your eyes, slowly breathing in the cancer and letting it calm you. Brendon kept telling you he loved you, and, at last, you returned the words. You thought you'd never say that to anyone, let alone mean it.
You were above that.
Right?