Fade | Ryan/Brendon | Light R
Title: Fade
Author: fatal_overdose
Rating: Light R; mentions of rape, etc.
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Summary: There are red roses upon red roses upon red roses upon one pale yellow flower. AU.
Disclaimer: Never happened; don't own.
Notes: we_are_cities promts: 6.30.07 and 7.7.07
He’d been lying in the same spot since before the sun came up, metal warm and blunt under his back, pushing back against his skin where he lay. The train was right on schedule and would be coming around the corner in the next five minutes. He thought fleetingly about getting up and moving, walking away and going home for some extra rest before the spring ended.
There was a mist overhead, light and moist, but not thick enough to where he couldn’t see the sky, just to the point of turning blue as the sun came up over the hills. He thought about what would happen if the train did come before he had a chance to move; he wondered if the train driver would see him on the tracks through the fog, if the driver would know he’d just killed someone after the impact.
Trains take at least a mile to stop - this he knows. What he doesn’t know is if the train driver doesn’t see him and doesn’t know to stop as soon as possible, where will the train take his body? How far will be he dragged? When they find his corpse, mauled by metal and speed and hidden by the mist, will there be pieces of his flesh for miles and miles as he was torn apart, limb from limb, skin from bone.
He wonders if the train driver does stops and his body is in mostly one piece, will Brendon be able to look at the mangled pieces of flesh and say, “That’s Ryan.” or “That’s my boyfriend.” or “I love him.” or “I never loved him, anyway.”
According to the time on his watch, the train should turn the corner in two minutes. He still isn’t sure if he should waste his energy standing up and moving away. He thinks about Spencer and Jon and if they’d miss him. He thinks about playing guitar and creative writing and photography class. He thinks about the kid he tutors from the local high school and he thinks about the old lady at the flower shop who isn’t offended by his choice of dark clothing and just likes his company. He thinks about his CD and record and DVD collections in his one-bedroom apartment and he thinks about his cat. He thinks about Brendon.
The train is only fifty-seven seconds away, approximately. The tracks have started to vibrate, barely there, but enough to feel. Rocks are rattling against the dry sand and birds are leaving their roosts in the trees throughout the area. If the train ever gets close enough to see, he’ll be dead.
He thinks about Brendon.
He stands up, back aching and joints cracking, the back of his black t-shirt dirty with dust and when he looks down, there’s a yellow ladybug crawling across the knee of his jeans. It flies away when it senses his gaze and he looks back at the tracks when he’s far enough away to just be sightseeing. He can see the train, loud and noisy and it’s coming around the corner now, passing over the spot where he’d been lying.
He takes a deep breath and lets the sun guide him back to the city where he doesn’t quite belong.
-
He could have been another statistic. He could’ve been another of the yearly teenage suicides. The police could have gone through his things and decided that he’d been a hazard, anyway; that he’d been trying to kill himself for a while now. That maybe the prescription medications on his bathroom counter weren’t actually for his migraines and his lung problems, caused by smoke damage from a house fire when he was seven-years-old.
Maybe they would’ve just considered him an average nineteen-year-old and called it homicide. After his body had been mangled, they wouldn’t have been able to tell if the death was from the train or if he’d suffered from blunt force trauma and his body had been placed on the tracks for disposal and to cover the crime.
He could have been a lot of things for a lot of reasons, more than just statistics, but he and Brendon were supposed to have lunch together, anyway, so he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have stayed on the tracks.
-
Brendon’s holding his hand and they’re walking side-by-side, shoulders brushing. The streets are crowded with people trying to get through their daily shopping and kids are running through the sidewalks, dodging fruit stands and people and red lights. Everyone is rushed and Ryan doesn’t understand it, really. It’s Tuesday in the middle of spring and there’s no school and all the big-name companies are being slow today because the weather is nice and people just need a break sometimes.
He wants to tell people to stop hurrying and he wants to tell them to hang up their cell phones - their kids are pulling on their sleeves, asking for something to drink and some shelter from the sun and no one even stops to notice. He wants to remind people that the street market is for those who like to walk around and look at things and buy only what they need for the dinner table that night, not everything for the next two weeks.
The market isn’t going anywhere, he wants to say.
Brendon squeezes his hand and glances at him, worried a little because he’s being very quiet. He smiles and watches some birds flutter around the bakery sign, singing their songs and floating with the wind, carefree and simple. He waves at the lady in the flower shop as she gives a little girl a daisy, free of charge - a kind gesture - and the little girl runs to her mother and hands over the yellow flower for inspection.
The lady in the flower shop waves back.
“I want to show you something,” Brendon says. Ryan tilts his head away from the sun’s glare, bright over the roof of the café, and he nods and lets Brendon lead him away.
-
Brendon asks, “Do you trust me?” He has his hands over Ryan’s eyes, blocking his vision and keeping their location a secret.
Ryan’s mouth is dry, his throat tight, and he really just needs some water. He hasn’t said anything all day; Brendon has done all the talking. He knows Ryan well enough to tell what he’s thinking, anyway, so it’s not like Brendon would actually be able to make him do something he didn’t want to.
He quietly says, “Yes, of course. I trust you.”
Brendon moves and they’re standing in a field - at first glance, anyway. They’re not in a field, Ryan decides upon closer inspection. They’re in a garden. A rose garden. Everywhere he turns, there are roses and beyond those roses there are more roses, and beyond those, there are more. He doesn’t know where they are, but he doesn’t have to ask.
“There used to be a city here,” Brendon says. “Where we’re standing, there used to be a prison.” All the roses are in pots, controlled and healthy, fed purified water and fertilizer on a daily basis. All the plants bear red flowers except for one. “Ruins,” Brendon says, “Are sometimes more beautiful than the places they started as.” There is a yellow rose in front of his eyes, pointing up towards the sun, petals turned out, insides bared for all to see. “I brought you here,” Brendon continues, “Because sometimes, you can’t see how beautiful you really are.”
He reaches out with tentative fingers and brushes against the petals, soft like velvet and smooth like skin. His fingers curl in against his palm and he retreats, stepping backwards until his back hits Brendon’s chest. One of Brendon’s arms folds around his waist and holds him close.
Brendon says, “Life is fragile and I want you to know that. I just want to keep you safe.”
“I went to the train tracks today,” Ryan says, but Brendon already knows.
-
“I can see it in your eyes,” Brendon says. He’s leaning across the counter, barstool balanced on two legs, his elbows supporting his weight against the marble top. Ryan is measuring water into a glass, a precise amount that stops at the line in the side that Ryan chooses. He stands up straight and turns the tap off. He turns and pours the water into the coffee machine, then carefully sets down the glass and flips on the switch.
“What?” Ryan asks, back turned once more. He’s staring at the floor, at his hands, his head down as if Brendon doesn’t know what he’s doing, anyway. He says, “I’m fine.”
Brendon says, “You’ve been away for a while.”
He hasn’t, actually. He’s been right here in his apartment and he hasn’t left town in years. Every day, Brendon has stopped by and they’ve gone out and things have been normal. He doesn’t understand why Brendon thinks his silence is a problem. He talks to Brendon and Spencer and Jon and the lady at the flower shop and he even occasionally talks to the people that live across the hall.
Brendon says, “I still love you.”
He’s answered every phone call Brendon ever made and he’s only missed a call from Spencer once, and that was when he was in the shower and didn’t hear the phone. He calls Jon once a day at nine in the morning and then they sometimes even meet for coffee. He isn’t anti-social, like Brendon calls it on his bad days. He’s just cautious of new people and, sure, he would be, especially after having a gun held to his head.
Brendon says, “I’ll always love you.”
He blames himself sometimes when the lights are out and he’s home alone and he stops to think about it. Brendon always told him not to go out alone after dark, to always keep one hand on his cell phone in case he needed it, to not look vulnerable and to stay away from dark alleys. Brendon always told him to stay around large groups of people and to make sure he never looked alone. But, Brendon hadn’t been around then, so all those warnings came after.
All those warnings came after the gun and the brick wall and the hand on his hip (and in his pants and on his cock and in his body) and the scar across his stomach from the knife. Those all came after he was left writhing on the concrete with his pants pulled down around his ankles and his shirt hiked up over his back, the gash on his stomach bleeding into the pavement behind the dumpster.
He’d managed to get home and call Spencer and he’d cried - he’d cried a lot - and when Spencer finally got him to say what happened, he’d hung up and rushed to Ryan’s apartment and Ryan made him sit outside the locked door for two hours, asking questions about childhood secrets until he was satisfied that it was really Spencer outside his door.
It took a while for Spencer to convince Ryan that the gash was serious and it took even longer for Spencer to get Ryan to sit still while Spencer bandaged him up. By the time Spencer got the bleeding to stop, it had been six hours so none of the doctors on shift could stitch the wound shut. Ryan fell asleep against Spencer and woke up screaming for the next three months.
Brendon says, “I want you to come live with me.”
Ryan’s head snaps up and he stares at Brendon, skeptical. But, Brendon looks serious and he also looks sad, almost, his eyes glistening and his lips pressed together in a thin line. Ryan’s hands shake at his sides and his heart pounds in his ears, a headache spreading immediately from his temples. Brendon stays silent and he doesn’t take back the offer.
Ryan’s feet move before his brain works, and he walks around the counter to Brendon. Brendon lets his barstool fall back onto all four legs and then Ryan’s there, in his arms and his nose is pressed against Brendon’s shoulder. It’s real and time is frozen. Ryan pulls back and Brendon kisses him, lazy and slow, all lips and tongue and gentle moans. Brendon laces fingers through Ryan’s hair and Ryan steps closer, between Brendon’s spread thighs, one hand soft on Brendon’s knee.
The coffee maker bubbles and beeps and Ryan pulls back to breathe, and when he opens his eyes, his eyelashes mingle with Brendon’s, their foreheads touching. Light spreads through the curtains and floods the room with gold from the setting sun. Brendon catches Ryan’s hands and holds him still, and threads their fingers together. He’s smiling.
“Forever starts tomorrow,” Brendon says. “But, I’d like it if you could start being mine today.”
Ryan nods and says, “I don’t know what to say.”
Brendon says, “Just smile back.”
-
He traces a hand across Ryan’s cheek, slow and languid, back and forth. Their clothes form a trail from the kitchen to the bedroom, stopping in the doorway and revealing the moonlit room. Brendon’s hard against Ryan’s thigh and Brendon’s pretty sure Ryan’s hard too, but he hasn’t looked and Ryan hasn’t done anything about it.
Ryan says, “You can, if you want to.” and Brendon’s fingers trace down over Ryan’s neck, over his collarbone, down his arm. Ryan lets out a shaky breath and Brendon’s fingers continue down, over Ryan’s hand and across his hip.
“Really?” Brendon asks, whispering because there’s no need to be any louder. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His hand pauses over Ryan’s thigh, hovering.
Ryan says, “I want it. Please.” He lets Brendon shift over him, and then Brendon reaches for the bedside table. “You love me,” Ryan says, asks. It’s a question.
“Yes,” Brendon says. “Of course. I love you. Forever.”
Ryan says, “Okay.”
He says, “Forever.”
He says, “Nothing lasts forever, Brendon.”
Brendon nods, solemn. He says, “Nothing lasts forever, but the embers never fade.”
-
Ryan paints intricate swirls of red and purple, twists falling upon a bed of deep blue dotted with silver - stars. He outlines and shades, dips the brush again in one of the many gallon cans strewn across the room, and he goes back to work, wrist curling and brush flicking details boldly against the wall. The ceiling matches the canvas below, but with a different pattern - a different genre completely. The ceiling is green expanses below soothing blue skies and inside the meadow of paint there are roses. There are red roses upon red roses upon red roses upon one pale yellow flower.
Brendon watches from the doorway, transfixed, his eyes following the curve of Ryan’s arm, the shadows on his wrists, the glow outlining his form from the sun through the window. He’s been watching since Ryan started eight hours ago. Eight hours isn’t a long time for something like this. Any normal person would need days, weeks to complete such a task. But, something Brendon had learned early on in his and Ryan’s relationship was that Ryan was anything but normal.
In the living room, Spencer and Jon sit close together on the sofa, talking quietly about unimportant things. They’d both known Ryan longer than Brendon, and three years wasn’t a long time for Ryan to get over something so terrible (the gun and the wall and the gash and the rape and the fear) and then fall in love. But, they also both knew Brendon well enough to say that this probably was for the best. Ryan hated living alone, anyway.
Brendon turns from the room and twists through the hallway, dodging extra brushes and tarps and gallons of paint. He stands in the doorway of the living room, the coffee cup in his hand nearly empty and no longer steaming. Spencer looks up, his fingers laced with Jon’s on the cushion between them. Brendon cocks his head to the side in the direction of the bedroom.
He says, “You guys should really come see this. He’s amazing. The paint fumes are a little strong, but the windows are open so it shouldn’t be that bad.”
When they’d met Brendon, he’d been a hyperactive nineteen-year-old who got off on the thrill of not taking his Ritalin when his mother told him to. He was bold and animated and eager to attempt the impossible. He was constantly overexcited and the tiniest amount of caffeine would send him bouncing off the walls. He was entertained by the smallest things and had an attention span that lasted only thirty seconds before he would bound off and find something else to dissect.
Now, Brendon was calm and collected (most of the time) and cared for anything and everything related to Ryan Ross (all of the time). He could detect a flaw in any of Jon’s plans before they appeared and he could avoid any situation that Ryan would be uncomfortable in by just looking out the window and inspecting the day’s weather. He knew how Ryan took his coffee and what flavor tea he liked best and he knew the one kind of cereal Ryan would blatantly refuse to eat. He knew Ryan’s favorite color and Ryan’s favorite clothing brand and he even knew which way Ryan wanted his clothes facing on the hangers in the closet.
Spencer gets to his feet and stretches, joints popping from the position he was in for so long. Spencer says, “Okay, show us.” Jon follows as they brave the minefield that is Brendon’s hallway. Brendon stops just outside the doorway and lets Spencer and Jon pass him, maneuvering silently into the room.
The room is completely covered; the only white visible is coming from the open door of the adjoining bathroom. Ryan is standing in the middle of the floor, surveying his work, the paintbrush he’d previously been using now lying discarded on the tarp-covered floor. Spencer and Jon turn in complete circles, scanning the entire room. When Spencer spots the ceiling, he points it out to Jon and they whisper between them about Ryan’s sheer talent.
Brendon swells with pride as Spencer says, “Wow.” and Ryan turns to look at them, face smeared with paint. He pauses, then a smile blooms on his face and he says, “What do you think?”
-
Ryan watches from the doorway until both Spencer and Jon are out of the driveway, their taillights fading in the distance. He shuts the door, locks it and bolts it, and reaches over to close the curtains on the windows. Brendon comes into the room behind him, already in his pajama pants with another cup of coffee. Ryan turns to him and remains silent, waiting.
Brendon takes a deep breath, exhausted. He says, “The bedroom looks amazing. We won’t be able to put the furniture back for a few days, but.”
Ryan smiles, tired but real, and he asks, “You really like it?”
Brendon sets his coffee mug down on the hall table and steps foreword, letting Ryan fall into his arms. He breathes, “Yes, of course; I love it.” into Ryan’s hair, freshly washed and smelling of pomegranates and peaches.
In the living room, Moulin Rouge is in the DVD player, ready to play, and there is a pile of blankets on the floor that could cover an army. There are two pillows and two mugs of hot chocolate and Ryan’s cat is considering coming out of hiding from under the table to inspect the bowl of marshmallows on the table. On the kitchen counter, Brendon’s long-haired black hamster is running on its wheel, stopping every few moments to sniff the air suspiciously for any sign of the cat.
In the front hallway, holding Ryan close, Brendon says, “Forever.”
Author: fatal_overdose
Rating: Light R; mentions of rape, etc.
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Summary: There are red roses upon red roses upon red roses upon one pale yellow flower. AU.
Disclaimer: Never happened; don't own.
Notes: we_are_cities promts: 6.30.07 and 7.7.07
He’d been lying in the same spot since before the sun came up, metal warm and blunt under his back, pushing back against his skin where he lay. The train was right on schedule and would be coming around the corner in the next five minutes. He thought fleetingly about getting up and moving, walking away and going home for some extra rest before the spring ended.
There was a mist overhead, light and moist, but not thick enough to where he couldn’t see the sky, just to the point of turning blue as the sun came up over the hills. He thought about what would happen if the train did come before he had a chance to move; he wondered if the train driver would see him on the tracks through the fog, if the driver would know he’d just killed someone after the impact.
Trains take at least a mile to stop - this he knows. What he doesn’t know is if the train driver doesn’t see him and doesn’t know to stop as soon as possible, where will the train take his body? How far will be he dragged? When they find his corpse, mauled by metal and speed and hidden by the mist, will there be pieces of his flesh for miles and miles as he was torn apart, limb from limb, skin from bone.
He wonders if the train driver does stops and his body is in mostly one piece, will Brendon be able to look at the mangled pieces of flesh and say, “That’s Ryan.” or “That’s my boyfriend.” or “I love him.” or “I never loved him, anyway.”
According to the time on his watch, the train should turn the corner in two minutes. He still isn’t sure if he should waste his energy standing up and moving away. He thinks about Spencer and Jon and if they’d miss him. He thinks about playing guitar and creative writing and photography class. He thinks about the kid he tutors from the local high school and he thinks about the old lady at the flower shop who isn’t offended by his choice of dark clothing and just likes his company. He thinks about his CD and record and DVD collections in his one-bedroom apartment and he thinks about his cat. He thinks about Brendon.
The train is only fifty-seven seconds away, approximately. The tracks have started to vibrate, barely there, but enough to feel. Rocks are rattling against the dry sand and birds are leaving their roosts in the trees throughout the area. If the train ever gets close enough to see, he’ll be dead.
He thinks about Brendon.
He stands up, back aching and joints cracking, the back of his black t-shirt dirty with dust and when he looks down, there’s a yellow ladybug crawling across the knee of his jeans. It flies away when it senses his gaze and he looks back at the tracks when he’s far enough away to just be sightseeing. He can see the train, loud and noisy and it’s coming around the corner now, passing over the spot where he’d been lying.
He takes a deep breath and lets the sun guide him back to the city where he doesn’t quite belong.
-
He could have been another statistic. He could’ve been another of the yearly teenage suicides. The police could have gone through his things and decided that he’d been a hazard, anyway; that he’d been trying to kill himself for a while now. That maybe the prescription medications on his bathroom counter weren’t actually for his migraines and his lung problems, caused by smoke damage from a house fire when he was seven-years-old.
Maybe they would’ve just considered him an average nineteen-year-old and called it homicide. After his body had been mangled, they wouldn’t have been able to tell if the death was from the train or if he’d suffered from blunt force trauma and his body had been placed on the tracks for disposal and to cover the crime.
He could have been a lot of things for a lot of reasons, more than just statistics, but he and Brendon were supposed to have lunch together, anyway, so he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have stayed on the tracks.
-
Brendon’s holding his hand and they’re walking side-by-side, shoulders brushing. The streets are crowded with people trying to get through their daily shopping and kids are running through the sidewalks, dodging fruit stands and people and red lights. Everyone is rushed and Ryan doesn’t understand it, really. It’s Tuesday in the middle of spring and there’s no school and all the big-name companies are being slow today because the weather is nice and people just need a break sometimes.
He wants to tell people to stop hurrying and he wants to tell them to hang up their cell phones - their kids are pulling on their sleeves, asking for something to drink and some shelter from the sun and no one even stops to notice. He wants to remind people that the street market is for those who like to walk around and look at things and buy only what they need for the dinner table that night, not everything for the next two weeks.
The market isn’t going anywhere, he wants to say.
Brendon squeezes his hand and glances at him, worried a little because he’s being very quiet. He smiles and watches some birds flutter around the bakery sign, singing their songs and floating with the wind, carefree and simple. He waves at the lady in the flower shop as she gives a little girl a daisy, free of charge - a kind gesture - and the little girl runs to her mother and hands over the yellow flower for inspection.
The lady in the flower shop waves back.
“I want to show you something,” Brendon says. Ryan tilts his head away from the sun’s glare, bright over the roof of the café, and he nods and lets Brendon lead him away.
-
Brendon asks, “Do you trust me?” He has his hands over Ryan’s eyes, blocking his vision and keeping their location a secret.
Ryan’s mouth is dry, his throat tight, and he really just needs some water. He hasn’t said anything all day; Brendon has done all the talking. He knows Ryan well enough to tell what he’s thinking, anyway, so it’s not like Brendon would actually be able to make him do something he didn’t want to.
He quietly says, “Yes, of course. I trust you.”
Brendon moves and they’re standing in a field - at first glance, anyway. They’re not in a field, Ryan decides upon closer inspection. They’re in a garden. A rose garden. Everywhere he turns, there are roses and beyond those roses there are more roses, and beyond those, there are more. He doesn’t know where they are, but he doesn’t have to ask.
“There used to be a city here,” Brendon says. “Where we’re standing, there used to be a prison.” All the roses are in pots, controlled and healthy, fed purified water and fertilizer on a daily basis. All the plants bear red flowers except for one. “Ruins,” Brendon says, “Are sometimes more beautiful than the places they started as.” There is a yellow rose in front of his eyes, pointing up towards the sun, petals turned out, insides bared for all to see. “I brought you here,” Brendon continues, “Because sometimes, you can’t see how beautiful you really are.”
He reaches out with tentative fingers and brushes against the petals, soft like velvet and smooth like skin. His fingers curl in against his palm and he retreats, stepping backwards until his back hits Brendon’s chest. One of Brendon’s arms folds around his waist and holds him close.
Brendon says, “Life is fragile and I want you to know that. I just want to keep you safe.”
“I went to the train tracks today,” Ryan says, but Brendon already knows.
-
“I can see it in your eyes,” Brendon says. He’s leaning across the counter, barstool balanced on two legs, his elbows supporting his weight against the marble top. Ryan is measuring water into a glass, a precise amount that stops at the line in the side that Ryan chooses. He stands up straight and turns the tap off. He turns and pours the water into the coffee machine, then carefully sets down the glass and flips on the switch.
“What?” Ryan asks, back turned once more. He’s staring at the floor, at his hands, his head down as if Brendon doesn’t know what he’s doing, anyway. He says, “I’m fine.”
Brendon says, “You’ve been away for a while.”
He hasn’t, actually. He’s been right here in his apartment and he hasn’t left town in years. Every day, Brendon has stopped by and they’ve gone out and things have been normal. He doesn’t understand why Brendon thinks his silence is a problem. He talks to Brendon and Spencer and Jon and the lady at the flower shop and he even occasionally talks to the people that live across the hall.
Brendon says, “I still love you.”
He’s answered every phone call Brendon ever made and he’s only missed a call from Spencer once, and that was when he was in the shower and didn’t hear the phone. He calls Jon once a day at nine in the morning and then they sometimes even meet for coffee. He isn’t anti-social, like Brendon calls it on his bad days. He’s just cautious of new people and, sure, he would be, especially after having a gun held to his head.
Brendon says, “I’ll always love you.”
He blames himself sometimes when the lights are out and he’s home alone and he stops to think about it. Brendon always told him not to go out alone after dark, to always keep one hand on his cell phone in case he needed it, to not look vulnerable and to stay away from dark alleys. Brendon always told him to stay around large groups of people and to make sure he never looked alone. But, Brendon hadn’t been around then, so all those warnings came after.
All those warnings came after the gun and the brick wall and the hand on his hip (and in his pants and on his cock and in his body) and the scar across his stomach from the knife. Those all came after he was left writhing on the concrete with his pants pulled down around his ankles and his shirt hiked up over his back, the gash on his stomach bleeding into the pavement behind the dumpster.
He’d managed to get home and call Spencer and he’d cried - he’d cried a lot - and when Spencer finally got him to say what happened, he’d hung up and rushed to Ryan’s apartment and Ryan made him sit outside the locked door for two hours, asking questions about childhood secrets until he was satisfied that it was really Spencer outside his door.
It took a while for Spencer to convince Ryan that the gash was serious and it took even longer for Spencer to get Ryan to sit still while Spencer bandaged him up. By the time Spencer got the bleeding to stop, it had been six hours so none of the doctors on shift could stitch the wound shut. Ryan fell asleep against Spencer and woke up screaming for the next three months.
Brendon says, “I want you to come live with me.”
Ryan’s head snaps up and he stares at Brendon, skeptical. But, Brendon looks serious and he also looks sad, almost, his eyes glistening and his lips pressed together in a thin line. Ryan’s hands shake at his sides and his heart pounds in his ears, a headache spreading immediately from his temples. Brendon stays silent and he doesn’t take back the offer.
Ryan’s feet move before his brain works, and he walks around the counter to Brendon. Brendon lets his barstool fall back onto all four legs and then Ryan’s there, in his arms and his nose is pressed against Brendon’s shoulder. It’s real and time is frozen. Ryan pulls back and Brendon kisses him, lazy and slow, all lips and tongue and gentle moans. Brendon laces fingers through Ryan’s hair and Ryan steps closer, between Brendon’s spread thighs, one hand soft on Brendon’s knee.
The coffee maker bubbles and beeps and Ryan pulls back to breathe, and when he opens his eyes, his eyelashes mingle with Brendon’s, their foreheads touching. Light spreads through the curtains and floods the room with gold from the setting sun. Brendon catches Ryan’s hands and holds him still, and threads their fingers together. He’s smiling.
“Forever starts tomorrow,” Brendon says. “But, I’d like it if you could start being mine today.”
Ryan nods and says, “I don’t know what to say.”
Brendon says, “Just smile back.”
-
He traces a hand across Ryan’s cheek, slow and languid, back and forth. Their clothes form a trail from the kitchen to the bedroom, stopping in the doorway and revealing the moonlit room. Brendon’s hard against Ryan’s thigh and Brendon’s pretty sure Ryan’s hard too, but he hasn’t looked and Ryan hasn’t done anything about it.
Ryan says, “You can, if you want to.” and Brendon’s fingers trace down over Ryan’s neck, over his collarbone, down his arm. Ryan lets out a shaky breath and Brendon’s fingers continue down, over Ryan’s hand and across his hip.
“Really?” Brendon asks, whispering because there’s no need to be any louder. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His hand pauses over Ryan’s thigh, hovering.
Ryan says, “I want it. Please.” He lets Brendon shift over him, and then Brendon reaches for the bedside table. “You love me,” Ryan says, asks. It’s a question.
“Yes,” Brendon says. “Of course. I love you. Forever.”
Ryan says, “Okay.”
He says, “Forever.”
He says, “Nothing lasts forever, Brendon.”
Brendon nods, solemn. He says, “Nothing lasts forever, but the embers never fade.”
-
Ryan paints intricate swirls of red and purple, twists falling upon a bed of deep blue dotted with silver - stars. He outlines and shades, dips the brush again in one of the many gallon cans strewn across the room, and he goes back to work, wrist curling and brush flicking details boldly against the wall. The ceiling matches the canvas below, but with a different pattern - a different genre completely. The ceiling is green expanses below soothing blue skies and inside the meadow of paint there are roses. There are red roses upon red roses upon red roses upon one pale yellow flower.
Brendon watches from the doorway, transfixed, his eyes following the curve of Ryan’s arm, the shadows on his wrists, the glow outlining his form from the sun through the window. He’s been watching since Ryan started eight hours ago. Eight hours isn’t a long time for something like this. Any normal person would need days, weeks to complete such a task. But, something Brendon had learned early on in his and Ryan’s relationship was that Ryan was anything but normal.
In the living room, Spencer and Jon sit close together on the sofa, talking quietly about unimportant things. They’d both known Ryan longer than Brendon, and three years wasn’t a long time for Ryan to get over something so terrible (the gun and the wall and the gash and the rape and the fear) and then fall in love. But, they also both knew Brendon well enough to say that this probably was for the best. Ryan hated living alone, anyway.
Brendon turns from the room and twists through the hallway, dodging extra brushes and tarps and gallons of paint. He stands in the doorway of the living room, the coffee cup in his hand nearly empty and no longer steaming. Spencer looks up, his fingers laced with Jon’s on the cushion between them. Brendon cocks his head to the side in the direction of the bedroom.
He says, “You guys should really come see this. He’s amazing. The paint fumes are a little strong, but the windows are open so it shouldn’t be that bad.”
When they’d met Brendon, he’d been a hyperactive nineteen-year-old who got off on the thrill of not taking his Ritalin when his mother told him to. He was bold and animated and eager to attempt the impossible. He was constantly overexcited and the tiniest amount of caffeine would send him bouncing off the walls. He was entertained by the smallest things and had an attention span that lasted only thirty seconds before he would bound off and find something else to dissect.
Now, Brendon was calm and collected (most of the time) and cared for anything and everything related to Ryan Ross (all of the time). He could detect a flaw in any of Jon’s plans before they appeared and he could avoid any situation that Ryan would be uncomfortable in by just looking out the window and inspecting the day’s weather. He knew how Ryan took his coffee and what flavor tea he liked best and he knew the one kind of cereal Ryan would blatantly refuse to eat. He knew Ryan’s favorite color and Ryan’s favorite clothing brand and he even knew which way Ryan wanted his clothes facing on the hangers in the closet.
Spencer gets to his feet and stretches, joints popping from the position he was in for so long. Spencer says, “Okay, show us.” Jon follows as they brave the minefield that is Brendon’s hallway. Brendon stops just outside the doorway and lets Spencer and Jon pass him, maneuvering silently into the room.
The room is completely covered; the only white visible is coming from the open door of the adjoining bathroom. Ryan is standing in the middle of the floor, surveying his work, the paintbrush he’d previously been using now lying discarded on the tarp-covered floor. Spencer and Jon turn in complete circles, scanning the entire room. When Spencer spots the ceiling, he points it out to Jon and they whisper between them about Ryan’s sheer talent.
Brendon swells with pride as Spencer says, “Wow.” and Ryan turns to look at them, face smeared with paint. He pauses, then a smile blooms on his face and he says, “What do you think?”
-
Ryan watches from the doorway until both Spencer and Jon are out of the driveway, their taillights fading in the distance. He shuts the door, locks it and bolts it, and reaches over to close the curtains on the windows. Brendon comes into the room behind him, already in his pajama pants with another cup of coffee. Ryan turns to him and remains silent, waiting.
Brendon takes a deep breath, exhausted. He says, “The bedroom looks amazing. We won’t be able to put the furniture back for a few days, but.”
Ryan smiles, tired but real, and he asks, “You really like it?”
Brendon sets his coffee mug down on the hall table and steps foreword, letting Ryan fall into his arms. He breathes, “Yes, of course; I love it.” into Ryan’s hair, freshly washed and smelling of pomegranates and peaches.
In the living room, Moulin Rouge is in the DVD player, ready to play, and there is a pile of blankets on the floor that could cover an army. There are two pillows and two mugs of hot chocolate and Ryan’s cat is considering coming out of hiding from under the table to inspect the bowl of marshmallows on the table. On the kitchen counter, Brendon’s long-haired black hamster is running on its wheel, stopping every few moments to sniff the air suspiciously for any sign of the cat.
In the front hallway, holding Ryan close, Brendon says, “Forever.”