Ghost Towns In The Ocean ☀︎ Ryden

4 | cutting my fingers off

june 18th

- HEY there a bunny just ran down the street. i bet it's got somewhere important to go. i'm very happy rn i got to see my dearest, my bitchy scrap metal,, the love of my life, UNA yesterday and i'm HAPPY about it because i've sort of been waiting over a year for that

anyways this song is cutting my fingers off by turnover which is one of my favorite songs ever and also this lyric i love this lyric. a damn good lyric. 

━ you always said that every thought i had was geometric, i couldn't think outside my own lines

Being basically unemployed had its perks and its disadvantages, and Ryan wasn't sure which one Brendon was. It was odd to wake up to hear someone moving around downstairs, and Ryan had almost pissed his pants that morning when he thought someone had broken into his house, or something. Being the ridiculously forgetful person that he was, Ryan had fallen out of bed, hit his hip again, and scrambled downstairs with Dottie at his heels to end up yelling at someone who he recognized.

Ryan's voice had sort of started to yell but his voice had cut off in that weird choppy way and Brendon didn't even look at him because he was just that cool. And being just that cool meant that Brendon was sitting on the counter with a laptop on his feet and a bowl of cereal in between his knees, which were bent up near his chin. He had barely lifted his eyes when Ryan came crashing down the stairs, and was trying to type and eat at the same time. Ryan paused for a while, gathering himself while Brendon slowly and calmly ate his cereal.

"Hi." The word drifted off into outer space, barely acknowledged by the guy sitting on the counter. He nodded, maybe in recognition of Ryan's existence, giving the keyboard one final smack before slamming the lid down with an alarming aggressiveness that Ryan wasn't used to.

"Haven't you got a job?" Ryan asked it and it came out sounding rude and snotty, because Ryan himself didn't have a job and he felt stupid asking a question that was meant to be asked to him. Brendon was acting jumpy and twitchy; spilling his cereal and tapping his feet. It felt odd to not hear the regular pop and snap of his gum, but the chewing of the cereal seemed to fill in that space.

"Yes, I have." Brendon said, not elaborating as he finished eating the cereal. Ryan hesitated, waiting at the edge of the counter. Brendon finished and rinsed the bowl angrily in the sink, and slammed it back onto the counter with enough force to crack it.

"Hey-"

"I have many jobs. And I've got to get to one now." Brendon almost seemed embarrassed about that, which Ryan supposed he understood. Brendon was upset in some way, agitation showing through all of his movements. Almost embarrassed himself, Ryan felt like running back upstairs to pull out the god forsaken typewriter and pouring his sorrows into sheets of ugly paper, but he stayed only for the sake of getting more questions in.

"What do you do?" Ryan asked, the question coming off as more of a statement. Brendon didn't have anything to distract himself anymore, and stood clear in Ryan's line of fire, twisting his bracelets around and around his wrist.

"I paint nails. Among other things." Ryan's eyes immediately went to Brendon's nails, which, sadly, not painted. Clean and pretty average looking, but not painted. Ryan wondered if he wished that they were.

"Cool." Stupid.

"I've got to go." And he went, not even hesitating after he spoke his words. Ryan watched him go with wide, curious eyes. Obviously, he was stressed about something, though probably that something was not his nail painting job. Ryan wondered what it would be like to paint nails all day. It wasn't a topic that he considered writing about, but it was a topic nonetheless. It wasn't that Ryan didn't feel inspired, which, honestly, he didn't, it was just that his typewriter was falling apart and he was just sad. It was kind of unfortunate. He had never asked to be sad, no, he had never asked for William to abandon him, and he had never asked for Brendon to show up in his house. And for a split second he was terrified because he didn't know what Brendon's last name was. It felt sort of as though a stranger was living in his house. Well, there was a stranger living inside his house. Jon had probably gone into the tunnels that lead into the sewers and asked the guys down there if they wanted a place to live.