It had gotten dark out by the time Jon woke up again, and Dylan had deserted him. He stretched out across the big empty bed and realized that nothing hurt--no there-is-such-a-thing-as-too-much-sex twinge anywhere--no dimly aching elbows or knees banged on headboards or bunk sides. He could probably still find a few marks on his skin if he looked for them, feel them if he pressed his fingers down hard, but the evidence was fading already.

For a second he felt like he couldn't breathe, like all the empty space around him was weight instead, pressing down on his chest. All he could think about was the time they'd all crammed into a single bunk--he'd been on the bottom and at the back, Spencer pressed up tight to his side and hanging half out the opening, Brendon and Ryan stacked on top of them--and Jon had closed his eyes and breathed and breathed, ribs and lungs laboring under Brendon's weight, Ryan's hand curling around his shoulder. The air had been warm and the smell of that many bodies in that tiny space had been like a solid thing that crawled down his throat and into him.

But he'd kept breathing, listening as Spencer's protests died down, and Brendon's I-told-you-so's went quiet. For a while after the point was proven that it was possible, they'd all just stayed there, compressed into each other. Breathing in time.

Jon turned over. He pressed his face flat into his pillow and forced himself to inhale through it, again and again until he had to turn his face aside and gasp in cool air.

He was alone, because he'd left them, because he'd come here to be alone. Because...

Because this was what it would be like when they got tired of him--when Jon fucked this thing up--and they kicked him to the curb. It was his to fuck up, after all. He was still the new guy, even seven months in, and he'd had the hang of last hired, first fired since he was wearing a green apron at Starbucks.

The worst part was that he wasn't sure if he could survive the alternative, either. If he didn't fuck it up, if he actually made it work, he might just sink into them and disappear like a moth snapped up in a bonfire, not leaving so much as a trace of ash behind. He wasn't at all sure he was ready to be Jon-from-Panic, a quarter of Brendon-and-Ryan-and-Spencer-and-Jon, one more guy in a crowded bed, forever and ever and ever amen.

So he'd flown away to Chicago instead, to catch a cold breath and make up his mind about what to do next.

Jon stared at the ceiling as it faded into the deepening darkness. He wouldn't have to make up his mind if he just kept doing exactly what he was doing; this was him fucking it up right here, and he knew that. This was all he had to do--just do nothing--and he could stay alone for good. Maybe it would all fall apart without him--not the band, but this other thing, this Brendon-and-Ryan-and-Spencer-and-Jon thing that wasn't Panic! at the Disco. There was a reason the other three hadn't gotten together before he came along. He was responsible for the rest of them and for what they were doing together, oldest and calmest and sanest, and still the one who'd said, "I don't know, why not give it a try?" while the other three twisted themselves into knots.

Only now he was the one who wasn't trying, and that was hardly fair. He was letting them down, breaking their unspoken deal. Jon was supposed to be the reliable one--the one who showed up where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there--and here he was lying in the dark in Chicago alone, leaving them dangling in Vegas without him.

But maybe they'd be fine. If he left Spencer and Brendon and Ryan in Vegas without him long enough, maybe they'd realize they didn't even need him--needed him to play bass and hold down that fourth controller on Mario Kart, sure, but not for anything else--and that would be that. No more worrying about fucking it up or getting sucked in forever. He'd just be a guy doing a job again, alongside some friends of his who he didn't have sex with. His life would be kind of simple again--or simpler than it had been any time in the last month, at least.

It sounded awful. All the possibilities Jon could imagine sounded awful. He closed his eyes and tried not to see any of them, tried to sleep again, but some part of his body knew it was late afternoon despite the dark, and he was wide awake now.

Jon got up and dressed on autopilot. He checked that Dylan had water, made sure that there was film in his camera, and then he went for a walk. For a long time he just wandered, bare fingers going stiff and then numb on his camera. He wasn�t looking where he was going--barely seeing--but it didn't matter. He was home, he would be able to find his way back.

Every time he looked around, trying to frame a shot, all he could think was Nothing to see here, move along. Chicago was full of people and lights, Christmas shoppers and the inevitable tourists, music and the cacophony of cars, trains, and people. It was cold and dark and gray, and his home felt like a ghost town.

Jon went back to his apartment without taking a single shot. He put on a DVD and watched the artificial California glow on the screen, trying not to think of neon and the photogenic sharpness of the desert.

"I'm not afraid," Jon said, hands still clasped behind him, and even before Ryan looked up he knew it was a mistake.

"You think that means you're fucking better than me?" Ryan said. "You think that means you're all brave or something, and I'm -- you know what that means? It only means that you could never -- that you'd never --" He stopped suddenly, folding his lips together tightly like he thought a word might escape without his knowing it.

"What does it mean?" Jon said. Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and looked at him. "Tell me, tell me what it means." Ryan didn't say anything. "Fuck you, Ryan, are you afraid of that too? Tell me --"

"You don't understand," Ryan said, the words clipped and precise like it hurt him to say them, like he couldn't risk saying one extra word. It was all the answer Jon needed. He knew what he had to say.

While he tried to gather his courage to say it, Ryan looked back in the mirror and caught Jon's eye. "I told you," he said, and this time there was no satisfaction in it at all.

"I was lying," Jon said.

"What?" Ryan said.

"I was lying," Jon said. "When I said I wasn't afraid, I was lying."

"I don't believe you," Ryan said.

"Look," Jon said as he spread his hands out in front of them. They were shaking, just a little, and Ryan's eyes narrowed.

"What are you afraid of?"

Ryan said it like a demand, like a dare, like a bet he didn't think Jon could win. Jon had been expecting that, but that didn't make it any easier. He said it fast, before he had a chance to think better of it, before he had a chance to back himself out of it.

"I'm afraid you won't want me as hard, as fierce as -- I'm afraid you won't want me, not for real, not like you want -- I'm afraid," Jon said. "I'm afraid you won't want me."

Ryan looked down at the floor. Jon would have thought it would be easier to say without meeting Ryan's eyes, but he was wrong.
"I'm afraid, but I still -- I'm afraid," Jon said. "I'm afraid, but I'm still here."

Ryan put his hand over his mouth and kept it there for a long time. Then he took it away and looked at Jon in the mirror. "It doesn't get easier," he said. "Wanting -- I thought, I thought it would, that it would have to, but it doesn't -- "

Ryan didn't say anything for a long time. Jon wanted so much to fill the silence, to tell Ryan something, anything. He wanted to say, "I know," but more than that he didn't want to say anything right then that wasn't true. He didn't say anything. It was harder than he thought it would be.

"It's just -- it's so hard, to want �" Ryan said finally. He took a deep breath. "It's harder now, it's harder because --"

"Why?" Jon said. He couldn't help it. He wanted so much to know.

Ryan looked at him. "Because I can always lose it now," he said, and Jon caught his breath. That wasn't what he'd been expecting. "Because whatever I want I know I can always lose it."