bandom fluff, ahoy! [brendon/jon from the timestamp meme]
While I was doing that timestamp meme, cmonkatiekatie asked for 24 hours after this Brendon/Jon comment ficlet, so here it is. Fair warning: still self-indulgently schmoopy. Maybe even more so.
There are two of them. Of course there are two of them. Brendon likes symmetry, things in halves or in pairs. Jon can't decide which their hearts are-two halves that make up a slightly-off center whole, or two that beat in mostly perfect time-but their rings are definitely a pair: platinum and simple…and identical, but for the inscriptions.
That's the only thing that feels weird to Jon as he's lying in bed like this and trying not to stare at his ring even if Brendon's already developed the nervous habit of fiddling with his own. Brendon had bought himself a ring, too-"because I didn't want you to think you were the girl," he said jokingly; then seriously: "and I wanted them to match"- and though he'd had Jon's inscribed, he'd left his own a blank slate for Jon to do with what he will. It was a thoughtful and perfect gesture, but Jon still feels unaccountably weird knowing the matching ring to his is all smooth and blank against Brendon's finger.
Then again, maybe it's just some weird guilty, jealous, stupid thing about Brendon having been the one to do it-to say out loud what Jon's been thinking for so long now he'd sort of convinced himself it was already true. He's always thought of Brendon as a permanent fixture in his life, even when Brendon didn't know it, when he didn't feel permanent enough for himself much less anyone else. Now, of course, he's Jon's anchor, the way Jon's his. So, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter who said it first because it was already there. But it does seem to matter that Jon feels Brendon's words-well, Ryan's, actually, which became the band's, which is even better somehow-wrap around his finger, while Brendon's ring is just…blank.
He'd thought Brendon was drifting off for a nap, but he should've known better. Most of the time, Brendon does okay with Jon's insomnia. He's learned to sleep by himself when Jon finally gives up and leaves the bed, but that doesn't mean he doesn't notice that it happens. In bed or out, he always knows when Jon's restless and stewing over something. For some reason-and Jon would never tell him this-he stews the most when he's lying in bed after they fuck. It's as if he's been opened wide to not just Brendon but to everything, and it overwhelms him. And that's just on a normal day. Today is not normal, though. Today he's engaged. In two weeks, they'll be…
Maybe, he's a little unreasonably annoyed that Brendon doesn't seem scared anymore. After the guests went home-and after they talked and fucked and talked and talked until the sun came up and they finally fell asleep tangled up in each other's arms-when they woke up around lunch, Brendon was so calm. Not just happy but the sort of happy that pulls him inward, makes a smile settle into his face like it's always been there. All day he's been steady, his hand sure at the small of Jon's back, his gaze fixed and knowing. He's radiated something that should be making Jon calm, too, but at some point Jon started to feel distinctly the opposite. For a while there it was like the start of a panic attack, except Jon's been battling those back down for so long it didn't come to anything but a new and deep tension.
But the past hour or so like this, heartbeat to heartbeat and skin to skin, has helped. Brendon took his time, stretched him so carefully, fucked him slow and deep and just hard enough, and Jon stopped thinking for a while, just let himself be overwhelmed, but now…
As if on cue, Brendon rolls over from where he's been spooned back against Jon, and makes a Very Determined Face.
"I can hear you thinking," he says.
"You cannot."
Brendon just smiles. He's so warm, radiating heat and still sweating a little. He slides a leg between Jon's, but he doesn't pull any closer. Brendon's still studying his expression. It used to be he looked so closely into his eyes to try to puzzle him out; now he mostly just looks until he can confirm what he already knows. It would be annoying if it wasn't so comforting.
Jon slips his hand around the back of his neck, rakes his fingers through the hair there as he pulls him closer and buries his face against Brendon's collarbone.
Brendon just waits, his fingers skimming along Jon's hip and then back up to settle at his ribs.
Jon murmurs against his skin: "I wish your ring wasn't so bare."
"It's just like yours. I thought you liked-"
"No, I mean the inside."
"Oh." Brendon takes a long breath as his fingers tighten around his waist, then they slide down to his hip again and they keep moving, light but not casually. "We'll fix that soon. Tomorrow, if you want. That is, if you already know what you wanna do."
"I do. I just… I don't know," he murmurs, and he really doesn't. Doesn't know why this makes him feel so antsy, itchy, something dark inside him pushing up against the almost absurd level of happiness and contentment he feels, like what he wants most in this world isn't quite in his grasp yet.
"If it makes you feel better," Brendon says, "you've already left your mark on me, remember." Then he turns his forearm for a second before circling it decisively around Jon's waist.
Brendon has several tattoos now-two on his back, one on an ankle, one on his abdomen that his low-rise girl jeans just barely cover-but the piano and the flowers, that was his first. And it was Jon's, even before he was Jon's.
"You could design another," Brendon says as he wiggles a little closer. His voice in Jon's ear is buzzing low, half sleepy but ready again. So ready, even as he's trying to be patient and serious. "I mean, not instead of a ring, but along with it."
"Under the ring, then?"
Brendon grins and says, "That's so white trash." When Jon's face falls, he adds, "No, Fuck, God, I love it, actually.
Of course he does. There's not an important thing in Brendon's life that isn't on his body somewhere: his outlook on the world, his relationship with the band, his relationship with Jon. Jon lets his hand slip down between them, to that spot just against his hipbone where he'd gone and gotten himself tattooed without telling Jon, while they were apart for a few weeks over the holidays a couple of years ago. He just let him find it when they drifted back together. Brendon likes being branded, with ink and with Jon's teeth and even just with a lingering touch on his skin. Of course he'd want Jon's words burned into him. It just makes the choice all the more difficult, more permanent, but Jon's supposes that's the point.
"Anyway," Brendon says,"I sort of selfishly like how there's no inscription on mine. It's like everything's new and clean and pure and perfect and wide open, like the future's what we make of it."
Jon wants to reply, but for a second his breath catches. When he finally gets his voice back, he says quietly, tightly, "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Sure. I mean, if you want an inscription, I'll love it, I will, but if you don't, I'm cool. And totally up for getting a tattoo instead."
"On your finger?"
"Doesn't have to be," he says with a shrug, like it really doesn't matter. Not that it isn't important, but that there are so many ways of this being real and them that any will work. Jon shifts a little closer to him, holds him a little tighter.
"Well," Jon says, "I don't want to deprive you of your white trash dream, but maybe I want it where nobody but us can see it, like this one."
His hand has really never left Brendon's lower abdomen, but now his fingers swirl and circle over this bit of flesh he imagines even feels different to him, for all he knows what it is and what it means.
It doesn't take much prompting from Jon to get Brendon to climb on top of him, let him touch and admire. And it doesn't take even a stroke on his cock to get him hard again.
"Can I have you?" Jon says, and he wraps his palm around just the head of Brendon's cock, strokes slowly. Brendon's eyes flutter closed. They don't do it this way very often, with Brendon the one being taken, but when they do it's good. Brendon will be good, tight around him even as he opens his legs wider and wider to let him in.
Jon plants a kiss just under his jaw and adds, "I really need to be inside you."
Brendon just nods, and he arches into Jon's touch. Jon loves having him this close, so he can see all the skin he's touching and watch the way Brendon's muscles contract and shiver as he strokes him, long strokes now. His skin's always so white and smooth, but his cock flushes red, dark against pale, like his eyes and hair. Jon think he will never get tired of looking at him, noticing all the contradictions and how, in Brendon, they never seem like a problem. A wide open smile or a mischievous, mysterious grin. The panic with the ring box in the kitchen or the steady way he finally slid that ring on his finger.
The goofy, frenetic boy and the calm, solid man. Predictably, his ridiculous best friend, and, surprisingly, the love of his fucking life.
Soon, Jon will turn him over, prep him just as carefully as he prepped Jon earlier, but he'll fuck him fast and hard, until Brendon's gasping and swearing and they both shake when they come, and after. That's what he needs, he thinks, and once he thinks it--feels it--he can't stop his heart from beating so hard it almost hurts, the new certainty he has that there is no scary dark thing inside him, just a never-ending need to never let him go.
It doesn't make sense. He'd thought deciding to take this step would make it less scary-this love and devotion thing that stretches heavy between them, all the overwhelming feelings that sometimes work down into Jon's very soul-but it's maybe more so. He imagines it's the same for Brendon, though. Actually, he knows it is, but seeing all those emotions play out in Brendon's expression reminds him that it's also the lightest, best thing he knows, and it fits the way Brendon's narrow hips fit tight over his as he leans down and kisses him, kisses the breath right out of his body.
~
There are two of them. Of course there are two of them. Brendon likes symmetry, things in halves or in pairs. Jon can't decide which their hearts are-two halves that make up a slightly-off center whole, or two that beat in mostly perfect time-but their rings are definitely a pair: platinum and simple…and identical, but for the inscriptions.
That's the only thing that feels weird to Jon as he's lying in bed like this and trying not to stare at his ring even if Brendon's already developed the nervous habit of fiddling with his own. Brendon had bought himself a ring, too-"because I didn't want you to think you were the girl," he said jokingly; then seriously: "and I wanted them to match"- and though he'd had Jon's inscribed, he'd left his own a blank slate for Jon to do with what he will. It was a thoughtful and perfect gesture, but Jon still feels unaccountably weird knowing the matching ring to his is all smooth and blank against Brendon's finger.
Then again, maybe it's just some weird guilty, jealous, stupid thing about Brendon having been the one to do it-to say out loud what Jon's been thinking for so long now he'd sort of convinced himself it was already true. He's always thought of Brendon as a permanent fixture in his life, even when Brendon didn't know it, when he didn't feel permanent enough for himself much less anyone else. Now, of course, he's Jon's anchor, the way Jon's his. So, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter who said it first because it was already there. But it does seem to matter that Jon feels Brendon's words-well, Ryan's, actually, which became the band's, which is even better somehow-wrap around his finger, while Brendon's ring is just…blank.
He'd thought Brendon was drifting off for a nap, but he should've known better. Most of the time, Brendon does okay with Jon's insomnia. He's learned to sleep by himself when Jon finally gives up and leaves the bed, but that doesn't mean he doesn't notice that it happens. In bed or out, he always knows when Jon's restless and stewing over something. For some reason-and Jon would never tell him this-he stews the most when he's lying in bed after they fuck. It's as if he's been opened wide to not just Brendon but to everything, and it overwhelms him. And that's just on a normal day. Today is not normal, though. Today he's engaged. In two weeks, they'll be…
Maybe, he's a little unreasonably annoyed that Brendon doesn't seem scared anymore. After the guests went home-and after they talked and fucked and talked and talked until the sun came up and they finally fell asleep tangled up in each other's arms-when they woke up around lunch, Brendon was so calm. Not just happy but the sort of happy that pulls him inward, makes a smile settle into his face like it's always been there. All day he's been steady, his hand sure at the small of Jon's back, his gaze fixed and knowing. He's radiated something that should be making Jon calm, too, but at some point Jon started to feel distinctly the opposite. For a while there it was like the start of a panic attack, except Jon's been battling those back down for so long it didn't come to anything but a new and deep tension.
But the past hour or so like this, heartbeat to heartbeat and skin to skin, has helped. Brendon took his time, stretched him so carefully, fucked him slow and deep and just hard enough, and Jon stopped thinking for a while, just let himself be overwhelmed, but now…
As if on cue, Brendon rolls over from where he's been spooned back against Jon, and makes a Very Determined Face.
"I can hear you thinking," he says.
"You cannot."
Brendon just smiles. He's so warm, radiating heat and still sweating a little. He slides a leg between Jon's, but he doesn't pull any closer. Brendon's still studying his expression. It used to be he looked so closely into his eyes to try to puzzle him out; now he mostly just looks until he can confirm what he already knows. It would be annoying if it wasn't so comforting.
Jon slips his hand around the back of his neck, rakes his fingers through the hair there as he pulls him closer and buries his face against Brendon's collarbone.
Brendon just waits, his fingers skimming along Jon's hip and then back up to settle at his ribs.
Jon murmurs against his skin: "I wish your ring wasn't so bare."
"It's just like yours. I thought you liked-"
"No, I mean the inside."
"Oh." Brendon takes a long breath as his fingers tighten around his waist, then they slide down to his hip again and they keep moving, light but not casually. "We'll fix that soon. Tomorrow, if you want. That is, if you already know what you wanna do."
"I do. I just… I don't know," he murmurs, and he really doesn't. Doesn't know why this makes him feel so antsy, itchy, something dark inside him pushing up against the almost absurd level of happiness and contentment he feels, like what he wants most in this world isn't quite in his grasp yet.
"If it makes you feel better," Brendon says, "you've already left your mark on me, remember." Then he turns his forearm for a second before circling it decisively around Jon's waist.
Brendon has several tattoos now-two on his back, one on an ankle, one on his abdomen that his low-rise girl jeans just barely cover-but the piano and the flowers, that was his first. And it was Jon's, even before he was Jon's.
"You could design another," Brendon says as he wiggles a little closer. His voice in Jon's ear is buzzing low, half sleepy but ready again. So ready, even as he's trying to be patient and serious. "I mean, not instead of a ring, but along with it."
"Under the ring, then?"
Brendon grins and says, "That's so white trash." When Jon's face falls, he adds, "No, Fuck, God, I love it, actually.
Of course he does. There's not an important thing in Brendon's life that isn't on his body somewhere: his outlook on the world, his relationship with the band, his relationship with Jon. Jon lets his hand slip down between them, to that spot just against his hipbone where he'd gone and gotten himself tattooed without telling Jon, while they were apart for a few weeks over the holidays a couple of years ago. He just let him find it when they drifted back together. Brendon likes being branded, with ink and with Jon's teeth and even just with a lingering touch on his skin. Of course he'd want Jon's words burned into him. It just makes the choice all the more difficult, more permanent, but Jon's supposes that's the point.
"Anyway," Brendon says,"I sort of selfishly like how there's no inscription on mine. It's like everything's new and clean and pure and perfect and wide open, like the future's what we make of it."
Jon wants to reply, but for a second his breath catches. When he finally gets his voice back, he says quietly, tightly, "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Sure. I mean, if you want an inscription, I'll love it, I will, but if you don't, I'm cool. And totally up for getting a tattoo instead."
"On your finger?"
"Doesn't have to be," he says with a shrug, like it really doesn't matter. Not that it isn't important, but that there are so many ways of this being real and them that any will work. Jon shifts a little closer to him, holds him a little tighter.
"Well," Jon says, "I don't want to deprive you of your white trash dream, but maybe I want it where nobody but us can see it, like this one."
His hand has really never left Brendon's lower abdomen, but now his fingers swirl and circle over this bit of flesh he imagines even feels different to him, for all he knows what it is and what it means.
It doesn't take much prompting from Jon to get Brendon to climb on top of him, let him touch and admire. And it doesn't take even a stroke on his cock to get him hard again.
"Can I have you?" Jon says, and he wraps his palm around just the head of Brendon's cock, strokes slowly. Brendon's eyes flutter closed. They don't do it this way very often, with Brendon the one being taken, but when they do it's good. Brendon will be good, tight around him even as he opens his legs wider and wider to let him in.
Jon plants a kiss just under his jaw and adds, "I really need to be inside you."
Brendon just nods, and he arches into Jon's touch. Jon loves having him this close, so he can see all the skin he's touching and watch the way Brendon's muscles contract and shiver as he strokes him, long strokes now. His skin's always so white and smooth, but his cock flushes red, dark against pale, like his eyes and hair. Jon think he will never get tired of looking at him, noticing all the contradictions and how, in Brendon, they never seem like a problem. A wide open smile or a mischievous, mysterious grin. The panic with the ring box in the kitchen or the steady way he finally slid that ring on his finger.
The goofy, frenetic boy and the calm, solid man. Predictably, his ridiculous best friend, and, surprisingly, the love of his fucking life.
Soon, Jon will turn him over, prep him just as carefully as he prepped Jon earlier, but he'll fuck him fast and hard, until Brendon's gasping and swearing and they both shake when they come, and after. That's what he needs, he thinks, and once he thinks it--feels it--he can't stop his heart from beating so hard it almost hurts, the new certainty he has that there is no scary dark thing inside him, just a never-ending need to never let him go.
It doesn't make sense. He'd thought deciding to take this step would make it less scary-this love and devotion thing that stretches heavy between them, all the overwhelming feelings that sometimes work down into Jon's very soul-but it's maybe more so. He imagines it's the same for Brendon, though. Actually, he knows it is, but seeing all those emotions play out in Brendon's expression reminds him that it's also the lightest, best thing he knows, and it fits the way Brendon's narrow hips fit tight over his as he leans down and kisses him, kisses the breath right out of his body.
~