The Impossible is Possible (Ryden)

Chapter 5

"Time is never time at all, you can never, ever leave..." Brendon begins, feebly. His voice is shaky and weak, and he hates how much he's slaughtering the song, but he can't help it because he's just so damn nervous. Ryan raises an eyebrow at the sound of his voice, but otherwise shows no reaction, instead carrying on with the melody.

As they make their way through the song, Brendon realises that he's not really singing anywhere near as well as he can. He's too afraid to let it all out, to actually sing the song, rather than to murmur the words, and now Ryan is probably cursing Mrs. Harris to hell for giving him such an untalented partner for the project.

He reaches the last verse, the climax of the song, and decides to hell with it. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and decides to give it all he's got. Anything is better than the terribleness of his current voice.

"We'll crucify the insincere tonight, we'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight," he sings, actually sings, and he knows that he's giving it his absolute best. "We'll find a way to offer up the night, tonight, the indescribable moments of your life, tonight. The impossible is possible -"

He cuts off, suddenly, as a loud bang echoes through the room and Ryan's guitar playing abruptly stops. Brendon opens his eyes, startled, to see that the guitar has slipped off of Ryan's knee straight on to the floor, and that the boy is staring at him with wide, dark eyes.

"Are you okay?" Brendon asks, overly concerned.

Ryan, to his alarm, goes red, and hastily picks the guitar up. "I'm fine. Yeah. I just, uh, dropped it by accident."

Brendon can't tell if he's being sincere or not, but he's not about to question it. "Um, okay then," he shrugs, feeling beyond awkward having just sang as loudly as possible, and spins slightly in his chair to distract himself from meeting Ryan's eye. "Do you think I should sing for the project? I'm sorry if I was really bad. I've never sung in front of anyone before. It probably shows."

Ryan shakes his head, fervently. "No, it's. You're actually, well. I don't know. Good, really good."

Brendon looks down at his feet, unable to keep a smile from forming. "Really? Thanks. I actually thought that I'd kind of fucked the song up a bit, especially at the beginning. You're really, really good at guitar, though, better than I could ever be, so I think our project will actually be pretty good if we get good lyrics. I don't think mine are anything special, though, but if you don't want to --"

"I write some lyrics," Ryan replies, and Brendon looks up. The boy is back to his usual self, seemingly having recovered from whatever was wrong with him, and he's looking expressionless again. For some reason, that disappoints Brendon, slightly. "I guess you could sing some of them."

They spend the next half hour discussing melodies and lyrics and singing, and Brendon is beginning to feel oddly at home with Ryan. Even though he's still nervous as hell about offending him, he no longer has any worry about being knifed - and, he hopes, they might even be close to friends. Of course, just as he thinks he's safe to talk about stuff other than their project, he accidentally ends up saying, "Thanks for getting Timothy away from me, again. He was probably going to punch me."

Ryan looks up from his guitar, an almost disapproving expression on his face. "I didn't do shit."

Brendon blinks. "You pushed him, didn't you?"

"It was nothing," Ryan shrugs, dismissively. "Anyway, you shouldn't have let him get anywhere near to punching you. The moment he threatened you, you should have just punched him, or told him to fuck off."

"Well, I would have, but he's a lot bigger than me, and I didn't really want --"

"Oh, don't give me that," Ryan scorns, eyes blazing. "Do you know why none of them ever say anything to me? Because I stand up for myself. That's all you have to do."

Brendon's rather indignant at this, and he blurts out, before he can tell himself that it's a really, really stupid thing to say, "I heard that nobody says anything to you because you tried to stab somebody."

Ryan stands up, the guitar sliding onto the bed, and he shakes his head. "Fuck you. Fuck this. I'm going home."

With an odd feeling of déjà vu, Brendon jumps off the chair, and bites his lip. "Don't. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up, I just --"

"I don't want to hear any of your rambling excuses," Ryan growls, looking thoroughly disgusted. "You're just one of them. You come to a new school and immediately follow everybody else, and can't form your own opinions. I haven't got time to deal with anything like that right now."

Brendon reaches out to take Ryan's arm, to stop him leaving so soon, but Ryan snaps his arm out of reach, eyes narrow. "I'll see you tomorrow at school, then."

He turns and slams out of the room, before Brendon can do anything more to stop him. However, Brendon feels a strange adrenaline rush, and he opens the door, following the retreating boy. "Wait, Ryan, fuck. I didn't mean anything bad by it, okay? There's no need to --"

Ryan stops, halfway down the stairs, causing Brendon just about to run into him. "Don't tell me what I don't need to do, okay? You don't know me. We're just partners for some stupid little project. That's all."

Brendon draws up short, the energy slipping away. "Fine. Whatever," he mutters, not wanting to press somebody into friendship who seems to really not want it. He's made a fool of himself, he knows, so he turns on his heel and heads back up to his room.

He can't help but wince as the front door slams. Sinking onto the bed, he lets out a heavy sigh, and gazes at the floor.

Maybe he's misjudged Ryan, and the boy really is just some moody, arrogant kid who doesn't need to be solved. But part of Brendon - a large part, really - doesn't believe that. He just wants to be able to crack Ryan's head open and see what's inside, because he's sure there's something tender underneath the moodiness.

But maybe he's just not the right person to find out.