American Idol FF: Keep making faces all your life [Ryan/Simon; NC-17; RPF]
Title: Keep making faces all your life
Fandom: American Idol
Pairing: Ryan/Simon RPF (and a little Adam/Ryan UST)
Rating: NC-17 for angst and angry sex
Length: 1,600 words
Disclaimer: Ryan and Simon belong to themselves, American Idol belongs to Fox
Spoilers: For the finale, hence the cut summary.
Summary: Ryan wouldn’t mind so much if he didn’t think he knew why.
AN: I like Kris, but both Ryan and Simon express surprise/disappointment at the results in here. Views of the characters are not necessarily the views of the author etc etc. So that's warning one. Warning two is that this is not a happy fic. In fact, it's kind of the opposite of my own We are half of the equation and ignazwisdom's Breaking Point. This is not to say I've fallen out of love with my story, or that you shouldn't go read ignazwisdom's story right away (because it's awesome, and much sweeter than this!). But this one wanted to be written before I can go back to the much more cheerful AU-fic.
Ryan can’t remember the last time he was this drunk. Of course, by anyone else’s standards this is just a little intoxicated - he knows exactly what he’s doing when he walks over to Adam at the after-party. The world was just too sharp this evening and the alcohol dulls its focus a little.
Ryan puts his hand on Adam’s shoulder and leaves it there.
Adam is easy to touch and Ryan probably does it too often, certainly these last few weeks. Certainly tonight. They’re both tactile men, and when they’re in combination, the idea of personal space seems more like a theoretical concept. Ryan is very fond of Adam, but other than that, they’re pretty different guys. Adam is most of the things Ryan wanted to be at seventeen: confident and out and beautiful. But Adam is twenty-seven, and by that time what Ryan wanted to be more than anything else was successful. Adam will be, soon, but America has voted for the other guy. Ryan wouldn’t mind so much if he didn’t think he knew why.
Adam smiles at him. “Hey there, gorgeous.”
“Adam, I’m so sorry. I’m just-”
Adam shakes his head. “Ryan, man, no. I’m fine. I love Kris. He’s a great guy, and a great singer. We’re friends. It’s cool.”
“Kris is both of those things, but you should have won. You know that. Everyone knows that.”
Adam touches Ryan’s hand. “I think maybe you just like me better.”
He’s teasing, but they’re not on camera and Ryan says, “Yes.” He slides his hand up Adam’s shoulder, to the bare skin revealed by his collar. Ryan doesn’t do self-destructive behaviour, but this is coming very close. That’s not the reason not to do it though. Adam is the better man here. Ryan stops. “Sorry.”
Adam smiles again. “I told you that you didn’t need to say that.” He leans in and kisses Ryan’s cheek. “I think someone’s looking for you.” Adam pushes his shoulder, and disappears into the crowd.
Ryan turns. Simon is walking towards him. Of course it’s Simon.
“You were getting very cozy,” Simon observes.
Ryan sighs. “Not tonight.”
“Ryan.”
“Go to hell, Simon. I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re certainly in a mood. What on earth brought this on?”
“I’ve been smiling for three hours. Work it out.”
“Ryan. Only one of us can be disappointed in the American people at one time, and not being a member of that group, I think it should be me.”
“No, I think on this particular occasion it gets to be me. What the hell happened?”
Simon hisses and pulls Ryan away from the dance floor, where apparently there are people, and he shouldn’t be near them. In the dark, Simon puts his hand over Ryan’s mouth. He whispers in Ryan’s ear. “Don’t make a scene.”
When they get far enough away that Ryan can struggle free without it turning into a news story, he says, “You made a scene on camera. At least I waited until I was off-duty.”
“I didn’t cause a scene and you’re still on duty. I was surprised. You’ve had time to deal with the information.”
Ryan hasn’t dealt with the information so much as turn it over and over in his mind. He’ll never know exactly what happened, which is what kills him. All he can do is suspect, and that conclusion has settled unhappily in his stomach. He would throw up, but all he ate this evening was a salad, so it would be a sad effort.
“I was thinking about it,” Ryan says.
“What?”
Ryan looks at Simon until he gets a clue. Until he realises why Ryan, of everybody standing on that stage bar Adam himself, is taking this personally. Simon’s usually sharper than this.
Simon says, “Ryan.” His voice is serious now.
“If Adam had won,” Ryan says, “I could have thought about it. Maybe. In a while, at the right time, if I figured out the right thing to say.”
“There’s nothing stopping you. No one gets to vote for you.”
“They vote with their eyes.” He squawks that one, a little. Only because Simon is being wilfully moronic, and Ryan needs the other Simon for a minute. “With their remotes,” Ryan amends.
Simon smirks. “Ryan-”
“You know what I mean, and I swear to God, if you laugh at me right now I’m going to punch you.” Ryan is leaning close to Simon, though he’s never been farther from slipping. Still, if anyone was to take a photograph…
Simon says, “I don’t think you would win that fight.”
“I don’t care. Look, if I… if I did it and then we lost ratings? I’d never recover from that. Not ever.”
“You, or your career?”
“It’s the same fucking thing, Simon. You and I both know what that’s like.”
“I do.” Simon touches Ryan’s arm, and Ryan’s whole body shakes. He might throw up after all. Or punch Simon. Those would be better for Ryan’s career than the third option. Tonight, he’s absolutely sure about that one.
Simon says, “Come upstairs. I’ve got a room.”
“Have you listened to anything I said?”
“I’ll get another room next to mine. I’ll rent out the whole bloody floor if it’ll make you happy. But you’re drunk, and I’m not leaving you down here on your own. God knows what sort of trouble you’d get into.”
Sometimes it’s just easier to follow Simon. Ryan doesn’t have to think about it: one step in front of the other, in Simon’s wake. There’s a concierge desk, and then an elevator, and a long hallway. Ryan has a key in his hand but doesn’t use it. Simon uses his, and Ryan follows him inside.
Ryan stops, a few steps into the room.
Simon is by the foot of the bed. He says, “Come here, darling.”
“I don’t want to be ‘come here darling-ed’. I want to be fucked hard and put away wet. You think you can manage that?”
“Ryan.”
“Tell me that what I think happened didn’t happen.”
“We don’t know what happened. The American public has surprised us before - try and remember that, please.”
“Funny, I’m having a difficult time with that at the moment. Now, do you want to distract me or not?” Ryan walks into the bathroom. He has a condom, but nothing to use as lube. Hotel bathrooms always come well stocked.
The lights in here are low and soothing. It’s all expensively anonymous. Ryan loves places like this.
The mirror is full length, and Ryan braces his hands on it. It’s going to be an exercise in balance, but then he didn’t fall down the stairs all season, did he? Ryan steps out of his jeans, and squeezes lotion onto one hand. He’s already got two fingers inside himself before Simon catches up.
“Jesus.”
Ryan catches Simon’s eye in the mirror. He says, “Condom on the counter-top.”
“Where’s the…?”
“Beside it, but you won’t need much.” Three fingers, and that’s enough prep.
Simon curses again, quietly. He stands behind Ryan, with his hands on Ryan’s hips. Simon says, “There are twenty or thirty more comfortable positions, but I suppose you know that.”
“Yeah,” he gasps, when Simon breaches him with three fingers, a little longer and broader than Ryan’s own.
“We don’t need to-”
“Fuck me. Please, just-”
Ryan’s hand slips on the mirror, but he catches himself. Simon pushes inside him slow, too slowly, but Ryan puts his other hand on the wall for leverage. He pushes back. It burns like the alcohol from the hours before, making the edges of the world curl up just enough.
He watches his own face in the mirror. No make-up, no smile. Sweat makes the hair at his forehead damp, but the style was already ruined. Ryan moans through his tightly closed lips, and when Simon thrusts in deeper, arches his neck and loses sight of himself.
Simon has one hand on the mirror, and the other wrapped loosely around Ryan’s cock. When Ryan says, “Please,” again, he tightens the hand, and jerks Ryan off in the same shallow-shallow-deep rhythm.
This is me, Ryan thinks. Fucking the man in the mirror. This is what I am, and this is what I can’t be. Can’t be Adam, with the eyeliner and the slinking hips, and can’t be this, pushing back helplessly against Simon.
He comes with another “please”, three long minutes before Simon does. When he opens his eyes, Simon is handing him a damp cloth.
“Stay a while,” Simon says.
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking you to.”
They lie beside each other in a bed large enough for four, and don’t touch. Simon turns onto his side, facing the wall, and Ryan does the same in the other direction.
In the darkness, Simon says, “You don’t know that was the reason.”
“No. But I’m always going to think it was just enough of one to tip it over. Before… we didn’t know, before. There was never anybody good enough that we could say one way or the other. The possibility was there. But now we know.”
“Ryan.”
“I wasn’t happy, before. But I was happier than this.”
“I know.”
Simon waits a long time for Ryan to say something else, but gives up in the end. His breathing evens out, and he sleeps. Ryan even follows him eventually.
* * *
Ryan wakes up curled towards Simon. His forehead is pressed to Simon’s chest, and Simon’s arm is resting on Ryan’s back.
Ryan gets out of the bed, and goes to the bathroom. He showers, and carefully wipes the unmatched sets of handprints off the mirror’s surface. He goes into the adjoining bedroom and messes up the perfectly made bed. In the other room, Simon is still asleep.
Ryan closes the door, and walks away.
FIN
Bette Davis: “Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.”
Fandom: American Idol
Pairing: Ryan/Simon RPF (and a little Adam/Ryan UST)
Rating: NC-17 for angst and angry sex
Length: 1,600 words
Disclaimer: Ryan and Simon belong to themselves, American Idol belongs to Fox
Spoilers: For the finale, hence the cut summary.
Summary: Ryan wouldn’t mind so much if he didn’t think he knew why.
AN: I like Kris, but both Ryan and Simon express surprise/disappointment at the results in here. Views of the characters are not necessarily the views of the author etc etc. So that's warning one. Warning two is that this is not a happy fic. In fact, it's kind of the opposite of my own We are half of the equation and ignazwisdom's Breaking Point. This is not to say I've fallen out of love with my story, or that you shouldn't go read ignazwisdom's story right away (because it's awesome, and much sweeter than this!). But this one wanted to be written before I can go back to the much more cheerful AU-fic.
Ryan can’t remember the last time he was this drunk. Of course, by anyone else’s standards this is just a little intoxicated - he knows exactly what he’s doing when he walks over to Adam at the after-party. The world was just too sharp this evening and the alcohol dulls its focus a little.
Ryan puts his hand on Adam’s shoulder and leaves it there.
Adam is easy to touch and Ryan probably does it too often, certainly these last few weeks. Certainly tonight. They’re both tactile men, and when they’re in combination, the idea of personal space seems more like a theoretical concept. Ryan is very fond of Adam, but other than that, they’re pretty different guys. Adam is most of the things Ryan wanted to be at seventeen: confident and out and beautiful. But Adam is twenty-seven, and by that time what Ryan wanted to be more than anything else was successful. Adam will be, soon, but America has voted for the other guy. Ryan wouldn’t mind so much if he didn’t think he knew why.
Adam smiles at him. “Hey there, gorgeous.”
“Adam, I’m so sorry. I’m just-”
Adam shakes his head. “Ryan, man, no. I’m fine. I love Kris. He’s a great guy, and a great singer. We’re friends. It’s cool.”
“Kris is both of those things, but you should have won. You know that. Everyone knows that.”
Adam touches Ryan’s hand. “I think maybe you just like me better.”
He’s teasing, but they’re not on camera and Ryan says, “Yes.” He slides his hand up Adam’s shoulder, to the bare skin revealed by his collar. Ryan doesn’t do self-destructive behaviour, but this is coming very close. That’s not the reason not to do it though. Adam is the better man here. Ryan stops. “Sorry.”
Adam smiles again. “I told you that you didn’t need to say that.” He leans in and kisses Ryan’s cheek. “I think someone’s looking for you.” Adam pushes his shoulder, and disappears into the crowd.
Ryan turns. Simon is walking towards him. Of course it’s Simon.
“You were getting very cozy,” Simon observes.
Ryan sighs. “Not tonight.”
“Ryan.”
“Go to hell, Simon. I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re certainly in a mood. What on earth brought this on?”
“I’ve been smiling for three hours. Work it out.”
“Ryan. Only one of us can be disappointed in the American people at one time, and not being a member of that group, I think it should be me.”
“No, I think on this particular occasion it gets to be me. What the hell happened?”
Simon hisses and pulls Ryan away from the dance floor, where apparently there are people, and he shouldn’t be near them. In the dark, Simon puts his hand over Ryan’s mouth. He whispers in Ryan’s ear. “Don’t make a scene.”
When they get far enough away that Ryan can struggle free without it turning into a news story, he says, “You made a scene on camera. At least I waited until I was off-duty.”
“I didn’t cause a scene and you’re still on duty. I was surprised. You’ve had time to deal with the information.”
Ryan hasn’t dealt with the information so much as turn it over and over in his mind. He’ll never know exactly what happened, which is what kills him. All he can do is suspect, and that conclusion has settled unhappily in his stomach. He would throw up, but all he ate this evening was a salad, so it would be a sad effort.
“I was thinking about it,” Ryan says.
“What?”
Ryan looks at Simon until he gets a clue. Until he realises why Ryan, of everybody standing on that stage bar Adam himself, is taking this personally. Simon’s usually sharper than this.
Simon says, “Ryan.” His voice is serious now.
“If Adam had won,” Ryan says, “I could have thought about it. Maybe. In a while, at the right time, if I figured out the right thing to say.”
“There’s nothing stopping you. No one gets to vote for you.”
“They vote with their eyes.” He squawks that one, a little. Only because Simon is being wilfully moronic, and Ryan needs the other Simon for a minute. “With their remotes,” Ryan amends.
Simon smirks. “Ryan-”
“You know what I mean, and I swear to God, if you laugh at me right now I’m going to punch you.” Ryan is leaning close to Simon, though he’s never been farther from slipping. Still, if anyone was to take a photograph…
Simon says, “I don’t think you would win that fight.”
“I don’t care. Look, if I… if I did it and then we lost ratings? I’d never recover from that. Not ever.”
“You, or your career?”
“It’s the same fucking thing, Simon. You and I both know what that’s like.”
“I do.” Simon touches Ryan’s arm, and Ryan’s whole body shakes. He might throw up after all. Or punch Simon. Those would be better for Ryan’s career than the third option. Tonight, he’s absolutely sure about that one.
Simon says, “Come upstairs. I’ve got a room.”
“Have you listened to anything I said?”
“I’ll get another room next to mine. I’ll rent out the whole bloody floor if it’ll make you happy. But you’re drunk, and I’m not leaving you down here on your own. God knows what sort of trouble you’d get into.”
Sometimes it’s just easier to follow Simon. Ryan doesn’t have to think about it: one step in front of the other, in Simon’s wake. There’s a concierge desk, and then an elevator, and a long hallway. Ryan has a key in his hand but doesn’t use it. Simon uses his, and Ryan follows him inside.
Ryan stops, a few steps into the room.
Simon is by the foot of the bed. He says, “Come here, darling.”
“I don’t want to be ‘come here darling-ed’. I want to be fucked hard and put away wet. You think you can manage that?”
“Ryan.”
“Tell me that what I think happened didn’t happen.”
“We don’t know what happened. The American public has surprised us before - try and remember that, please.”
“Funny, I’m having a difficult time with that at the moment. Now, do you want to distract me or not?” Ryan walks into the bathroom. He has a condom, but nothing to use as lube. Hotel bathrooms always come well stocked.
The lights in here are low and soothing. It’s all expensively anonymous. Ryan loves places like this.
The mirror is full length, and Ryan braces his hands on it. It’s going to be an exercise in balance, but then he didn’t fall down the stairs all season, did he? Ryan steps out of his jeans, and squeezes lotion onto one hand. He’s already got two fingers inside himself before Simon catches up.
“Jesus.”
Ryan catches Simon’s eye in the mirror. He says, “Condom on the counter-top.”
“Where’s the…?”
“Beside it, but you won’t need much.” Three fingers, and that’s enough prep.
Simon curses again, quietly. He stands behind Ryan, with his hands on Ryan’s hips. Simon says, “There are twenty or thirty more comfortable positions, but I suppose you know that.”
“Yeah,” he gasps, when Simon breaches him with three fingers, a little longer and broader than Ryan’s own.
“We don’t need to-”
“Fuck me. Please, just-”
Ryan’s hand slips on the mirror, but he catches himself. Simon pushes inside him slow, too slowly, but Ryan puts his other hand on the wall for leverage. He pushes back. It burns like the alcohol from the hours before, making the edges of the world curl up just enough.
He watches his own face in the mirror. No make-up, no smile. Sweat makes the hair at his forehead damp, but the style was already ruined. Ryan moans through his tightly closed lips, and when Simon thrusts in deeper, arches his neck and loses sight of himself.
Simon has one hand on the mirror, and the other wrapped loosely around Ryan’s cock. When Ryan says, “Please,” again, he tightens the hand, and jerks Ryan off in the same shallow-shallow-deep rhythm.
This is me, Ryan thinks. Fucking the man in the mirror. This is what I am, and this is what I can’t be. Can’t be Adam, with the eyeliner and the slinking hips, and can’t be this, pushing back helplessly against Simon.
He comes with another “please”, three long minutes before Simon does. When he opens his eyes, Simon is handing him a damp cloth.
“Stay a while,” Simon says.
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking you to.”
They lie beside each other in a bed large enough for four, and don’t touch. Simon turns onto his side, facing the wall, and Ryan does the same in the other direction.
In the darkness, Simon says, “You don’t know that was the reason.”
“No. But I’m always going to think it was just enough of one to tip it over. Before… we didn’t know, before. There was never anybody good enough that we could say one way or the other. The possibility was there. But now we know.”
“Ryan.”
“I wasn’t happy, before. But I was happier than this.”
“I know.”
Simon waits a long time for Ryan to say something else, but gives up in the end. His breathing evens out, and he sleeps. Ryan even follows him eventually.
* * *
Ryan wakes up curled towards Simon. His forehead is pressed to Simon’s chest, and Simon’s arm is resting on Ryan’s back.
Ryan gets out of the bed, and goes to the bathroom. He showers, and carefully wipes the unmatched sets of handprints off the mirror’s surface. He goes into the adjoining bedroom and messes up the perfectly made bed. In the other room, Simon is still asleep.
Ryan closes the door, and walks away.
FIN
Bette Davis: “Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.”