Categories > Celebrities > Panic! At The Disco > Salvation
Salvation the Seventh
9 reviewsBrendon Urie was nothing but an average young man, working a 9-5 office job to pay the rent, until the day he met Ryan Ross, a prostitute on the streets of Chicago who turned his world upside down ...
1Original
"Hey! Come back here! I ain't your passenger bitch!" Brendon called after him, hurrying out the door after Jon and slamming it behind him.
There was nobody home, but somehow, those rooms had already begun to feel a little less lonely.
“So,” Jon said conversationally after they had been driving towards downtown Chicago for some minutes, “where exactly do you want to look? Where was it you said you met this guy?”
“Well,” Brendon began, glancing over at Jon for signs of disapproval before trailing off with, “…down some alley, actually.”
Jon nodded sagely, suppressing a grin. “Ah. An alley. That’s very helpful Bren.” The clicking of the blinkers did little to ease Brendon’s suddenly growing nerves as the realization hit him that he had absolutely no idea where to find Ryan now that he had decided that he was going to.
“It was on my way back from work that I ran into him, so maybe we should look around there. I mean, I doubt he actually lives in that area, but it’s the only lead we have, right?” Jon bit his lip thoughtfully and nodded, causing Brendon to relax slightly and lean back into the seat.
“So you’re saying the plan is to search the alleyways! Leave no pebble untouched! Scour the blacktop-” Jon began, getting more into his speech as he went and vaguely waving one arm about. Brendon eyed the steering wheel nervously and interrupted.
“-No. That was one night, like Ryan said. But if he was there that one night,” Brendon glanced at Jon before turning to gaze out the window, flicking it absently, “chances are he’d been there before. So… I think we should check everywhere in the area where someone like Ryan might go.” He pointed to the exit with a short “that one,” and Jon merged and got off the highway.
“You mean where people pick up prostitutes,” Jon said calmly, picking up the conversation where they had left off.
“No!” Brendon flinched. “Well…yeah, but don’t say it like that. It sounds bad.”
Jon snorted softly, keeping his eyes on the road. “So then, you’re thinking bars and nightclubs.”
“Something like that, right.” He reached up to tug on his hair, flattening it out of habit and nodding without knowing if Jon had seen the gesture. “I don’t go to those kinds of places unless it’s with you and Spence, so I guess we can just walk around and see what we see.”
“We’ll need a hell of a lot of luck to run into him with a plan like this one,” Jon sniffed, before glancing at Brendon and amending his comment. “But you never know. People get lucky.”
Brendon was rather mystified by this, but was too concerned with locating Ryan Ross to question it. When, at his instruction, Jon at last pulled over beside a rain-splattered sidewalk, he simply gestured to the first smoky, crowded building in sight and the search began in earnest.
At the end of an hour, Brendon was getting edgy. He and Jon decided to split up and cover more ground. By the end of two hours, he was downright nervous. But when at last he stepped out of the dampness and into a dimly lit green room, he caught his breath softly, gazing around at the people inside. Long, slender forms pressed languidly together in the haze; soft, chemically altered words drifting through the air to mingle with the smoke. They were wretched; fabulously wealthy or penniless he couldn’t tell, but if anything they were the kind of people who would know. Yeah… if anyone can help me find Ryan, that person would be here on a night like this.
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He crossed the room slowly, catching bejeweled, glittering creatures by the arm and allowing them a request and a hasty description, but received nothing in return but half-lidded gazes and detached shakes of the head. Music thudded softly within the confined space, reverberating off the walls and filling him with a panicked sense of urgency. He swayed in place and began to spin slowly, smoke dancing around him, faces beginning to blur and then become alike. And that was when the boy, Brendon, noticed something peculiar. Of all the bodies in the room, drugged and ecstatic and miserable and mindless, there was only one that was seated. And there he sat on a plush cushion at a low table, lazily smoking a cigarette and simply watching the endless display with a surprising clarity in his eyes.
Brendon crossed the room to him, pushing his way through the drifting mass of bodies, and as he reached the man he recovered his voice.
“You know where to find him.” It was not a question.
The man was young, although not as young as Brendon himself, with clipped inky hair and a rather small but sturdy frame. He said nothing at first, merely raising his eyebrows at this and taking a long drag, before blowing it out slowly in Brendon’s direction with a soft sigh, never breaking eye contact.
He glanced down, tapped the ashes onto the floor with a flick of his thumb, and spoke.
“I know where to find a lot of people,” he smirked, “so let’s suppose you’re going to tell me who you’re looking for.”
“His name’s Ryan,” Brendon murmured so softly as to cause the man to lean forward with a languid interest, “as for his last name, I don’t know it.” That was a gift that had been given to him, and was for him alone. “He’s tall and thin as a rake. He’s got brown hair, brown eyes, and he’s… I don’t know, maybe twenty years old. Oh, and he acts tougher than I think he really is. And for reasons I can’t explain I think you know where I can find him,” he finished, pausing with bated breath while he waited for a response.
The man eyed him critically now. “Assuming I have the information you’re looking for, what makes you think I would- or should tell you?”
“Well, that’s because-- it’s because… I don’t really know.” He looked down helplessly at the floorboards. “It’s just that I think he’s in trouble and I want to help him. The only reason he left in the first place was because of me.”
“You want to help him. Who could ever help a lost soul like Ryan Ross.”
A sharp intake of breath. Brendon’s head snapped up, eyes staring at the man before him. He knew… Ryan’s full name? Who was this man? And more importantly… how much more did he know? Brendon forced his breathing to slow before he replied.
“Tell me: where is he?”
The man smirked again and seemed to be deep in thought before he pulled an envelope and a pen from deep in his coat pocket. He tugged a napkin loose from the center of the table and scribbled a quick message on it, stuffing it into the envelope and sealing it quickly. On another napkin, he jotted down an address. “I’ll tell you what. You deliver this message for me, you get your information. The man’s name is William. He’ll tell you where to find the guy you’re looking for. Tell him Pete sent you. Now get the fuck outta here before I change my god damn mind.” All of this he said without a change in tone, and now he began once again to breathe in the pale smoke, exhaling calmly and eying Brendon sharply until he turned, envelope clutched tightly in his hands. He left the way he had come out through the wooden doors and onto the starry street.
Brendon pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Jon immediately.
“Any luck?” He heard his friend’s voice ask after the second ring.
“Yeah,” Brendon replied rather breathlessly, “but I don’t know if you’re going to like this.”
“Well… tell me what this is about, okay?”
“I found a guy who says he knows where Ryan is. But he wants me to take a letter to some guy named William who’s supposed to give me an address.”
“Hmm.” There was a short pause as Jon processed this information. “I dunno, Bren. The whole thing sounds kind of sketchy if you ask me.”
“Yeah, Jon, I know it does. But what else can I do?”
“This letter. What’s it about? He’s probably some drug dealer or pimp.”
“I don’t know, just meet me at the car, all right?” Brendon waited until Jon had confirmed this to hang up, making his way down the street toward Jon’s car and leaning against it wearily until the other arrived. Jon unlocked the door and climbed in, leaning over to open Brendon’s door. When they were both seated Jon opened the glove box and pulled out a box of envelopes next to some blank sheets of paper. He grinned.
“Always come prepared, I say. Now… before we do anything else let’s see what that letter says. I don’t want us getting into something deeper than we can handle.”
“But… wouldn’t that be dangerous? If it is some big illegal operation and they find out we read this, I mean.”
Jon snorted. “One envelope is as good as another. It’s worse going in unprepared.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Brendon mused, and with that he tore the flap off the envelope and pulled out the crumpled napkin, scanning it silently.
The tension rose with every moment that passed until Jon couldn’t stand it anymore. “Well?” he asked. “What’s it say?”
Brendon wordlessly handed him the paper, eyes clouded with confusion.
Where does the caged bird sing- find me underground.
There was nobody home, but somehow, those rooms had already begun to feel a little less lonely.
“So,” Jon said conversationally after they had been driving towards downtown Chicago for some minutes, “where exactly do you want to look? Where was it you said you met this guy?”
“Well,” Brendon began, glancing over at Jon for signs of disapproval before trailing off with, “…down some alley, actually.”
Jon nodded sagely, suppressing a grin. “Ah. An alley. That’s very helpful Bren.” The clicking of the blinkers did little to ease Brendon’s suddenly growing nerves as the realization hit him that he had absolutely no idea where to find Ryan now that he had decided that he was going to.
“It was on my way back from work that I ran into him, so maybe we should look around there. I mean, I doubt he actually lives in that area, but it’s the only lead we have, right?” Jon bit his lip thoughtfully and nodded, causing Brendon to relax slightly and lean back into the seat.
“So you’re saying the plan is to search the alleyways! Leave no pebble untouched! Scour the blacktop-” Jon began, getting more into his speech as he went and vaguely waving one arm about. Brendon eyed the steering wheel nervously and interrupted.
“-No. That was one night, like Ryan said. But if he was there that one night,” Brendon glanced at Jon before turning to gaze out the window, flicking it absently, “chances are he’d been there before. So… I think we should check everywhere in the area where someone like Ryan might go.” He pointed to the exit with a short “that one,” and Jon merged and got off the highway.
“You mean where people pick up prostitutes,” Jon said calmly, picking up the conversation where they had left off.
“No!” Brendon flinched. “Well…yeah, but don’t say it like that. It sounds bad.”
Jon snorted softly, keeping his eyes on the road. “So then, you’re thinking bars and nightclubs.”
“Something like that, right.” He reached up to tug on his hair, flattening it out of habit and nodding without knowing if Jon had seen the gesture. “I don’t go to those kinds of places unless it’s with you and Spence, so I guess we can just walk around and see what we see.”
“We’ll need a hell of a lot of luck to run into him with a plan like this one,” Jon sniffed, before glancing at Brendon and amending his comment. “But you never know. People get lucky.”
Brendon was rather mystified by this, but was too concerned with locating Ryan Ross to question it. When, at his instruction, Jon at last pulled over beside a rain-splattered sidewalk, he simply gestured to the first smoky, crowded building in sight and the search began in earnest.
At the end of an hour, Brendon was getting edgy. He and Jon decided to split up and cover more ground. By the end of two hours, he was downright nervous. But when at last he stepped out of the dampness and into a dimly lit green room, he caught his breath softly, gazing around at the people inside. Long, slender forms pressed languidly together in the haze; soft, chemically altered words drifting through the air to mingle with the smoke. They were wretched; fabulously wealthy or penniless he couldn’t tell, but if anything they were the kind of people who would know. Yeah… if anyone can help me find Ryan, that person would be here on a night like this.
---------
He crossed the room slowly, catching bejeweled, glittering creatures by the arm and allowing them a request and a hasty description, but received nothing in return but half-lidded gazes and detached shakes of the head. Music thudded softly within the confined space, reverberating off the walls and filling him with a panicked sense of urgency. He swayed in place and began to spin slowly, smoke dancing around him, faces beginning to blur and then become alike. And that was when the boy, Brendon, noticed something peculiar. Of all the bodies in the room, drugged and ecstatic and miserable and mindless, there was only one that was seated. And there he sat on a plush cushion at a low table, lazily smoking a cigarette and simply watching the endless display with a surprising clarity in his eyes.
Brendon crossed the room to him, pushing his way through the drifting mass of bodies, and as he reached the man he recovered his voice.
“You know where to find him.” It was not a question.
The man was young, although not as young as Brendon himself, with clipped inky hair and a rather small but sturdy frame. He said nothing at first, merely raising his eyebrows at this and taking a long drag, before blowing it out slowly in Brendon’s direction with a soft sigh, never breaking eye contact.
He glanced down, tapped the ashes onto the floor with a flick of his thumb, and spoke.
“I know where to find a lot of people,” he smirked, “so let’s suppose you’re going to tell me who you’re looking for.”
“His name’s Ryan,” Brendon murmured so softly as to cause the man to lean forward with a languid interest, “as for his last name, I don’t know it.” That was a gift that had been given to him, and was for him alone. “He’s tall and thin as a rake. He’s got brown hair, brown eyes, and he’s… I don’t know, maybe twenty years old. Oh, and he acts tougher than I think he really is. And for reasons I can’t explain I think you know where I can find him,” he finished, pausing with bated breath while he waited for a response.
The man eyed him critically now. “Assuming I have the information you’re looking for, what makes you think I would- or should tell you?”
“Well, that’s because-- it’s because… I don’t really know.” He looked down helplessly at the floorboards. “It’s just that I think he’s in trouble and I want to help him. The only reason he left in the first place was because of me.”
“You want to help him. Who could ever help a lost soul like Ryan Ross.”
A sharp intake of breath. Brendon’s head snapped up, eyes staring at the man before him. He knew… Ryan’s full name? Who was this man? And more importantly… how much more did he know? Brendon forced his breathing to slow before he replied.
“Tell me: where is he?”
The man smirked again and seemed to be deep in thought before he pulled an envelope and a pen from deep in his coat pocket. He tugged a napkin loose from the center of the table and scribbled a quick message on it, stuffing it into the envelope and sealing it quickly. On another napkin, he jotted down an address. “I’ll tell you what. You deliver this message for me, you get your information. The man’s name is William. He’ll tell you where to find the guy you’re looking for. Tell him Pete sent you. Now get the fuck outta here before I change my god damn mind.” All of this he said without a change in tone, and now he began once again to breathe in the pale smoke, exhaling calmly and eying Brendon sharply until he turned, envelope clutched tightly in his hands. He left the way he had come out through the wooden doors and onto the starry street.
Brendon pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Jon immediately.
“Any luck?” He heard his friend’s voice ask after the second ring.
“Yeah,” Brendon replied rather breathlessly, “but I don’t know if you’re going to like this.”
“Well… tell me what this is about, okay?”
“I found a guy who says he knows where Ryan is. But he wants me to take a letter to some guy named William who’s supposed to give me an address.”
“Hmm.” There was a short pause as Jon processed this information. “I dunno, Bren. The whole thing sounds kind of sketchy if you ask me.”
“Yeah, Jon, I know it does. But what else can I do?”
“This letter. What’s it about? He’s probably some drug dealer or pimp.”
“I don’t know, just meet me at the car, all right?” Brendon waited until Jon had confirmed this to hang up, making his way down the street toward Jon’s car and leaning against it wearily until the other arrived. Jon unlocked the door and climbed in, leaning over to open Brendon’s door. When they were both seated Jon opened the glove box and pulled out a box of envelopes next to some blank sheets of paper. He grinned.
“Always come prepared, I say. Now… before we do anything else let’s see what that letter says. I don’t want us getting into something deeper than we can handle.”
“But… wouldn’t that be dangerous? If it is some big illegal operation and they find out we read this, I mean.”
Jon snorted. “One envelope is as good as another. It’s worse going in unprepared.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Brendon mused, and with that he tore the flap off the envelope and pulled out the crumpled napkin, scanning it silently.
The tension rose with every moment that passed until Jon couldn’t stand it anymore. “Well?” he asked. “What’s it say?”
Brendon wordlessly handed him the paper, eyes clouded with confusion.
Where does the caged bird sing- find me underground.
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