(no subject)
Next Boy
Brendon/Ryan, R, 1000 words.
For Susan. ♥
"You're a what," Ryan says tonelessly, in the thick silence after Brendon speaks.
"Um." Brendon looks pleadingly at Spencer, who just stares at Brendon, bewildered. Jon is no help, shifting on the sofa trying to get comfy, his feet up on the coffee table. Brendon's coffee table. He has a coffee table, here in Las Vegas in 2009.
"He's a time traveller," Jon says without looking up. Brendon looks up, surprised; he hadn't been sure Jon was even listening. "He travels through time and space and is like hundreds of years old even though most of the time he still acts like he’s four."
"Hey," Brendon protests weakly. He'd put more heat into it, but he knows staying put too long makes him jittery, antsy. He was never able to stay still very long.
"A fucking time traveller." This time Ryan's monotone has a dangerous edge of anger to it. His jaw is set hard, lips tight. Brendon doesn't have the heart to tell him this changes everything, but he thinks Ryan already knows.
"Yeah, I, uh. I got here in the 30s, when they were setting shit up, but I had to-- I had to go, but I loved it too much to go for good so I came back five years ago, and that's when Spence found me at the bus station. I hadn't just left home. I'd left Madrid in the 1480's. It's too fucking hot in Spain, man."
The joke falls flat, except for a slight quirk of Jon's mouth.
Brendon looks down at his hands. "Anyway, um, I'm sorry. You found me and I loved this and I don't want to go but I think maybe it's not up to me after all." He's never wanted to stay anywhere before, not for anything or anyone. Jon touches the back of his arm from his seat on the couch and Brendon's heart stops, then revs on at double-time.
He has to put more effort, these days, into feeling things like touches and love and guilt. He's already beginning to fade, already half somewhere else he doesn't want to go.
"Is there anything we can do to help you stay?" Spencer finally says, looking determined. Brendon's never been more thankful for Spencer's stubbornness. Ryan’s pretty hard-headed too, but he overthinks; Ryan's doing all the thinking for all of them right now, in fact. Brendon can tell by the way his hands -- wide and long, fingertips tapered, knuckles like pebbles when they dig into your back -- are curled up into fists against his thighs.
"I don't want to go," Brendon murmurs pitifully.
"What can we do?" Spencer asks again, stepping in front of Ryan, who still hasn't moved, still hasn't looked away from Brendon, gaze like a knife in Brendon's gut.
Nothing, Brendon thinks.
*
"Ryan, please."
He could've gone to Jon's or Spencer's or Shane's -- or to any number of kind people who've taken to caring for him during his stay here -- but instead he's here in his and Ryan's bed, in a house that feels worlds too big suddenly, even with Ryan within arm's reach. Might as well be miles away when all Ryan will show Brendon is his back, curved in as Ryan sits on the edge of the bed in his boxers.
Brendon reaches out and runs his fingers down the length of Ryan's back. Ryan shivers and shrugs him off, wordlessly.
Sitting up against the headboard, Brendon curls up, tucking his knees against his chest. It's a million degrees in here as usual, but Brendon's skin erupts in goosebumps, all along his arms.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs wetly, and watches Ryan's shoulders slump before hitching up again as Ryan reaches for the lamp on the nightstand. In the dark, Brendon watches Ryan slip under the covers, his back still to Brendon. He watches him until Ryan falls asleep.
He can't breathe.
*
"What are you afraid of?"
Brendon wakes up all at once, to Ryan's voice and Ryan's face against his hair, his ear, his face. When Ryan pulls back, Brendon thinks he can see the shine of tears on his cheeks, thinks he can feel the dampness of them on his own. Ryan's fingers are curled tight in Brendon's t-shirt and Brendon's about to speak when Ryan shakes him roughly, his breath hot on Brendon's face.
"What are you afraid of that you won't stay? That you can't stay anywhere, not even with me?"
Ryan's voice is the farthest thing from toneless now, modulated with the high peaks and low dips of desperation and, Brendon thinks, of resignation. Brendon pushes to sit up but Ryan pins him back down, mouth crashing into his, more teeth than not.
Ryan's hands are pushing Brendon's shirt up his chest, make it bunch under his armpits until Brendon lifts his arms over his head and lets Ryan pull it all the way off. Ryan's mouth and hands are everywhere: on Brendon's neck, on his nipples, along the tender skin of his stomach, around his cock. Brendon squeezes his eyes shut tight, hands fisting in the sheets, and tries to be in the here and now, tries to feel his own arousal as more than a distant twinge, tries to hear his own cry when he comes as more than an echo, like reverb in another room.
*
It takes hours, but Ryan finally falls asleep curled up around Brendon, his arm around him surprisingly strong. Brendon can’t move; he’s busy counting Ryan’s quiet exhales against the back of his neck, like a countdown.