Flexible--Rydon--11

"We could call ourselves The Winter League," Brent suggests with a stupid grin.

"No," Ryan says flatly, giving him a pointed glare. "I'm being serious here."

Spencer scratches his head. "The … League?" he says, then shakes his head. "Or, maybe … Pyromania?"

"Sounds too reckless," Ryan says, and Spencer resists the urge to point out that Ryan is quite possibly the most reckless person he knows.

"What about … Synergy?" Brendon says tentatively. "It means to work together."

Ryan glares him down, silently telling him that he may be the front man, but he's in no way the leader.

"I'll come up with something," he says decisively. "See you all on Saturday, for next practice."

"Oh! That reminds me!" Brendon exclaims and moves to rummage through his guitar case. "I brought a CD as a … thank-you gift?"

Spencer meets Ryan cynical gaze and asks the question for him. "How'd you know you'd get in?"

Brendon shrugs. "Just in case," he says and shoves a CD into Ryan's hands. "Thank you," he whispers fiercely under his breath. "You have no idea what this means to me."

Startled, Ryan nods slowly to show his gratitude and acceptance of the gift.

"Maybe it will help you think up a name," Brendon suggested with a cheerful wink. "The band named themselves Name Taken after learning that their original name had already been taken."

"Oh, um, thank you," Ryan says and looks down at the CD in his hands. Name Taken. Hold On. "I'll, uh, listen to it when I get home."

"No problem," Brendon says and packs his guitar up. "See you guys later! And thanks for everything." With a final smile, he bounces out of the room, so full of energy and life that he simply blows Ryan's mind.

Ryan slowly packs his guitar, clutching the CD to his chest, uncertain of what just happened. "I need to go home now," he mutters and takes off, trying to hold back the desperate tears that suddenly sting his eyes.

Name Taken, he muses, flopping down his bed once he gets home. It's too bad that name is taken. And with a frustrated sigh, he inserts the CD into his stereo and presses the play button.

Listening, but not really paying attention, Ryan idly examines the CD case.

1. Control
2. Hold on for Your Dearest Life
3. A Year Spent Cold

That would make a cool band name, he thinks, skipping directly to the third track. He taps his toes against the headboard of his bed in time to music and listens to the end of the song. A Year Spent Cold, he thinks. Yeah. Maybe.

Then the next song starts and Ryan freezes.

"So, now you hear what took you years to listen for," sings the voice on the CD. "But still, I can't make out the words. It's the message that makes you miserable. But still … burning alive from the inside. Burning down. Sleep now, you've fallen out of face."

This is me, Ryan thinks, staring wide-eyed at his stereo, and he scrambles for the CD case. Panic, he silently reads off the back. I am panic.

"Panic at the disco, sat back and took it so slow. Are you nervous? Are you shaking?" the voice asks and Ryan sits, shaking on his bed, and nods his head as if in a daze. "Save compliments to praise completion. We don't have to feel we fit in. We can move back. We can leave them."

He listens, rapt, to the entire song and once it finishes, he goes back and replays it. Panic, he thinks. I am panic. We are Panic!

And then a crooked smile crosses his face.

We are Panic! at the Disco.