It's Better To Have Nothing
Title: It's Better To Have Nothing [s/a]
Author: fearsgottahold
Rating: R
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
POV: Ryan's
Summary: Ryan doesn’t see him until Zack starts to pull over.
Disclaimer: not true
Beta: ericasaur
Author Notes: This is 7,040 words of pure angst. CONTAINS CHARACTER DEATH.
If you don't like that sort of thing, don't read it. If you do, read to your hearts content!
Ryan doesn’t see him until Zack starts to pull over. It's not his fault, not really, because it's dark and the rain is coming down so heavily that it's pretty difficult to see anything if you aren’t paying attention.
Still, Zack’s stopping the bus for a boy, a hitchhiker to be exact. He looks cold and wet, understandably, holding a sign with the words long washed off. The boy obviously hasn’t noticed. His other hand is curled into the universal sign of a hitchhiker.
“Dude,” Ryan says in a confused tone. “Dude, what are you doing?”
“Pulling over,” Zack snaps in a snarky tone. “What does it look like?”
“Well, yeah but-”
“Look at him,” Zack says. “He must be what? Fourteen? I'm not gonna just leave him there. ‘Sides, he might be going where we’re going anyway and he doesn’t look like he can kill us or anything so calm the fuck down.”
Ryan has to admit to himself that the kid is tiny, dressed in bedraggled and worn clothes. He doesn’t look like a threat. And when has Zack’s judgment ever been wrong?
“Fine. Whatever. Good Samaritan and all that shit,” he mutters and picks his way into the back of the bus where he can open the door for the kid.
Spencer looks up from his iPod. Jon and Brent are already asleep, the fucking lightweights. “Why are we stopping?” he asks, in an almost identical tone to Ryan’s just minutes earlier and Ryan shrugs.
“Zack’s feeling charitable,” the twenty year-old mumbles and he staggers a bit as the bus comes to a halt. He throws open the door and there’s the boy, looking even worse for wear than he did through the windscreen.
The kid jumps nimbly up the steps and stands dripping on the floor, eyes wide and hopeful behind dirty glasses. He has sunken in cheeks; sharp protruding cheekbones and eyes bruised from exhaustion. He’s wearing muddied and soiled clothes, holes badly patched up, and one leg of his vastly oversized trousers has been ripped off mid-calf, exposing a pale, skinny leg. All he has with him is one ratty backpack, with one of the straps torn off to leave a faded black fray. One of his shoes has a hole in the toe, and he isn’t wearing any socks.
“Oh, t-thank you so much!” the kid gushes as he dunks the waterlogged bag on the bus floor and allows Ryan to shut the door. “I thought I was going to have to sleep outside again, and it's really too wet for that. I'm Brendon, do you mind if I catch a ride?”
Ryan’s pretty much speechless so Spencer decides to step in and help him out, being the ever so intuitive best friend.
“Sure, we don’t mind, where you headed anyway? I'm Spencer and he’s Ryan,” he adds, pointing over at the man in question. Ryan waves vaguely, feeling totally uncomfortable.
“Err, well, I want to get all the way to New York eventually, but you can just drop me off along the route or something if you aren’t going that way and I'm sure I can catch another ride.” While Brendon talks the bus rumbles back to life and Ryan figures Zack doesn’t care where Brendon’s headed, he’s just gonna continue anyway.
“Well, we’re gonna get there eventually but we are stopping in various places first, so I guess if you want to get there quickly we can drop you off along the route but if not you’re welcome to like, I don’t know, hang around until we get there? When are we getting there anyway, Spence?”
Spencer makes some quick calculations in his head before frowning and saying, “Four days? I think. Four or five days, something like that.”
Brendon beams and shakes his head slightly. Ryan notices the boy’s shivering, but trying as hard as he can to hide the fact. “That sounds t-totally great; I'm not really pushed on time. Thank you s-so much! So, um, what do you guys do?”
Spencer tilts his head and Brendon gets the hint to go and sit down on one of the shit-coloured sofas, and he does so, perching at the very edge of the one closest the door. Spencer sits on the other sofa and Ryan goes and sits next to him, feet curled up by his ass, but not so tightly that he can't spring into action if Brendon does something completely weird and crazy. What? He’s never picked up a hitchhiker before.
“We’re a band? We’re like, currently on tour and stuff so… yeah,” Spencer says comfortably. He’s always had that quality that allows him to speak to complete strangers without feeling totally stupid and awkward and Ryan envies him for it.
The kid’s eyes shine and Ryan notes the colour of them. They’re… well, they’re a really pretty brown. Really nice. “A band? Oh wow. Wow, that’s so c-cool. I've always wanted to be in a band.” He blushes, faint red spreading over his face. He looks even younger with pink cheeks and Ryan has to wonder how old he really is. Fourteen? Fifteen? Sixteen at a pinch. Why isn’t he with his parents? “Wh-what are you called?”
“P-Panic. We’re um, we’re called Panic! at the Disco,” Ryan says, and curses silently when he stutters. He hates talking to strangers.
Brendon doesn’t seem to care. Instead, his eyes get impossibly wider and his lips part in a small ‘o’ of shock. So he’s a fan. Great.
“Panic? Holy mother, you g-guys are awesome! I love your stuff! Oh wow…” He trails off, obviously star-struck.
Ryan shifts uncomfortably. If that boy tries to exploit them or something he’s gonna be so pissed. Pissed at Zack as well, for letting him on the fucking bus in the first place.
Oh wait, the kid’s talking again.
“I love your old album, s-seriously. I was twelve when I got it three years ago and wow, I thought it was the best thing ever. If I had the money I would have bought the new one out but, you know,” he grimaces. Ryan notes the shivering hasn’t lessened in any way. In fact the kids practically juddering from the cold. Spencer notices as well.
“Yeah, um, Brendon? Do you want some like, dry clothes or something? You're dripping water everywhere and you look really um… cold,” Spencer says.
Brendon shakes his head, smiling widely, but with an undercurrent of panic. “What? N-no, I'm fine, honest.” He’s lying. They all know it.
Spencer just shakes his head. “Dude, you're shaking and dripping water over the sofa and that’s not cool. Let me just go get you a towel and some clothes.” Ryan also thinks Brendon’s lips are an unhealthy shade of blue.
Spencer gets up and disappears into the bunk area, leaving the two of them alone. Brendon has dropped the act by now and has his arms curled around his torso, curved into himself so he can conserve heat.
All Ryan can do is wonder why Brendon thought it necessary to hide the fact that he was feeling so freezing from them.
“Hey,” he says quietly in the direction of the boy, carefully unfolding himself from the sofa to make his way over to the shuddering boy. Ryan’s never been one for touching, but Brendon really needs to get warm as soon as possible before he gets some illness. How long was he standing out there in the rain for anyway?
Ryan slowly wraps an arm around the boy, who tenses, but then shifts closer, burrowing his head into Ryan’s chest. He’s soaking Ryan’s clothes, so Ryan nudges at the boy who lifts his head up.
“Your clothes are all wet,” he says quietly, like he’s talking to a fucking animal so it doesn’t get scared off. “I don’t want to make this sound pervy or anything,” -because it totally does- “but you really need to get your clothes off right now. Seriously, they’re soaking.”
Brendon freezes before nodding his head. He reaches clumsily for the bottom of his thread-bare jumper and pulls it off, taking a faded blue t-shirt with it. The pile of clothes drops with a wet splat on the floor, heavy with moisture.
Ryan can't help it, but he inhales sharply at the sight of the boy’s body. He’s so thin. It's not even thin like Ryan himself is- from a high metabolism and from performing most nights on stage. No, Brendon obviously hasn’t eaten properly in months.
There are dark shadows around his collarbones and his ribs stick out so starkly that the hollows around them make it look like the bones are literally pushing themselves out of his skin. Brendon’s hips protrude out in a way that isn’t healthy at all, and his stomach isn’t so much flat as caved in, so that his ribs stick out far past where his stomach should be.
Brendon turns around in order to take off his trousers in relative privacy (if you can get privacy when someone’s staring at you) and Ryan inhales again, shocked out of any kind of sanity. His spine juts out his back, each vertebra clearly defined. His shoulder blades project from his back almost like fucked-up wings.
Brendon’s not thin, he’s skeletal.
A soft noise of disgust alerts him to Spencer’s presence, and Ryan’s pretty sure the look of horror and shock adorning his best friend’s face closely resembles his own features.
Spencer quickly hands the boy a fluffy towel and Brendon wraps it around himself still clad in his boxers, clutching the edges. He then silently makes his way back to where Ryan’s sitting and sits himself down on Ryan’s lap, leaning back into his body. With one hand Ryan starts frantically rubbing Brendon’s shoulder in an attempt to keep him warm and with the other he searches for a blanket to cover the rest of Brendon’s emaciated body. Spencer hands him the tartan monstrosity silently, clearly shocked by what he saw. Who wouldn’t be shocked?
Gratefully, Ryan shakes out the blanket and throws it over Brendon’s legs, tucking his feet in until he’s completely covered. Brendon’s shitty boxers are still wet, but Ryan doesn’t really care, he’s completely focused on getting the kid warm.
“Jesus,” he breathes. “When was the last time you fucking ate something?”
Brendon takes in a deep breath, and nuzzles his head further into Ryan’s chest. His hair is wet but Ryan doesn’t mind.
“Can't remember. Five days ago? Something like that.”
From the other sofa, Spencer mutters a quiet “shit.”
“What did you have?” Ryan presses.
“Tube of smarties,” comes the subdued reply. Brendon’s embarrassed by the fact that he can't get any food; and Ryan hates that.
“When was the last time you had a proper meal?”
“I can't remember. A while. Months ago.” It's like as soon as Ryan starts grilling him; Brendon retracts inside himself, going from a bubbly teenager to a scared reclusive wreck.
“Spence, will you get something for me? Look in the fridge or the cupboard, see what we’ve got. Holy shit, Brendon.”
Brendon whines and shakes his head. “I don’t want anything,” he says, and yeah, like Ryan’s gonna believe that. “I just want to sleep.”
The shaking has lessened by now and Brendon unwraps himself slowly and stands up, taking the folded pile of clothes on the side next to him. “Is there any where I can change into these?” he asks and Spencer points silently at the tiny toilet and shower combo by the door to the bunks.
With the towel clutched firmly round his shoulders Brendon holds his head high and makes his way over there, shutting the door firmly behind him.
“Shit. Fucking shit, Spencer, did you see him?”
Spencer has a lost expression on his face. It's eerily upset and blank at the same time. “He’s fifteen, Ry. He said he bought our first album three years ago when he was twelve. Shit. He’s fifteen. No fifteen-year-old should have to go through that. Oh, god.”
Ryan stiffens. Fifteen. He should be playing Call of Duty in his bedroom somewhere, getting pissed when his mother says he needs to lay the table before eating fucking roast dinners. He shouldn’t be standing on the side of a road at ten at night, in the goddamn rain. Does he even have a mother?
“I know what you're thinking.” Ryan’s head jerks up. What?
Brendon’s standing there in one of Jon’s t-shirts and a pair of pyjama bottoms that belong to Ryan himself. They slip down on Brendon’s hips but he pulls them back up defiantly.
“You're thinking I should be happy at home with my family, being a real teenager and having lots of fun and being loved. It was my own fucking choice to leave, okay? I hated it at home, and I wasn’t being loved there either, so better to be lonely and hungry than surrounded by people who only put up with you because you’ve nowhere else to go. My brothers and sisters? Oh they were fucking perfect, with their A grades and university scholarships and perfect friends and perfect faces and perfect lives and there’s me, with my braces and my ADHD and my love for ‘something that won't support me in later life’” He mimics the last part bitterly.
By now, his voice is raised and the door to the bunks has opened, showing Jon’s tousled hair and Brent’s face.
They look shocked at the figure but they stay silent.
“Well fuck that. I left before they could kill me anymore. They didn’t love me. They didn’t want me. They didn’t even like me. I left for better places. I left so I could have everything that I couldn’t have before. All I wanted was for people to like me for who I was. I just wanted to be loved.”
The last line is said so quietly and brokenly that Ryan wants to grab the boy in his arms and tell him that he is loved, fucking shit, Ryan loves him and he’s only known him for half an hour. The room is silent.
Nobody says anything as a tear tracks down Brendon’s face.
“Can I sleep now please? I’m tired and I just want to sleep.”
Spencer and Ryan hastily evacuate their seats to obey Brendon’s quiet demand and give the room up to Brendon, who smiles wanly. Ryan goes into the bunks and grabs his duvet and pillow, handing it to Brendon before taking the tartan blanket for himself. Brendon takes the bedding and then lies down on the sofa, facing away from Ryan. He remains motionless until Ryan closes the bunk door, and then Ryan can't see him anymore. He takes the tartan blanket back to his bunk and tucks himself in, grimacing in distaste and the damp smell that permeates it. But he doesn’t mind that Brendon has his duvet, not at all.
Brendon deserves it more than he does anyway.
*
The next morning Ryan is roused by the smell of toasting pop tarts and coffee. He stumbles out of the bed, wrapping the blanket around himself and pushes open the door. Nobody else is up apart from himself and Brendon, who is currently placing toasted pop tarts on plates, presumably to give to the band? He counts four plates absently, as he makes his way over to the coffee, pouring a cup and slugging it back. He’s not awake enough yet for things such as pouring milk.
Brendon grins at him before going into the bunk area. Ryan looks on confusedly as one by one his band members emerge and settle down around the table each, with a plate, a mug of coffee and a sleepy groan.
“There you go, Ryan!” Brendon says brightly and Ryan opens his eyes to see Brendon offering him a plate, with a perfectly toasted tart on it.
“Thanks?” he mumbles, still not completely awake. Then his eyes crack open completely. “Wait, where’s your plate?” he asks and Brendon shifts uncomfortably.
“Well, you know, I made this because I'm sorry about how I acted last night and it isn’t my place to eat before you so I was going to wait until you said I cou-”
Shit. “You haven’t eaten yet because you didn’t want to disrespect us or something?”
Brendon nods and Ryan is dumbfounded. “Are you telling me you haven’t eaten for five, no six days and you still haven’t taken anything for yourself because you were worried about how we would take it?”
Behind Brendon Ryan can see Spencer and Jon look down at their plates in horror.
“Well I-”
“Take it!” Ryan interrupts, shoving his pop tart at Brendon. “Jesus, you can eat any food you want any time. Shit, we’ll buy stuff for you if you want something particularly. You deserve it more than us.”
“I'm not a charity case,” Brendon mumbles indignantly, but he takes the pop tart anyway and bites into it. It's hard to ignore the tiny whine of total delight that Brendon gives, and to his horror Ryan finds the little noise a total turn on.
Holy shit.
Ryan shakes his head to try and clear it and by the time he’s looked up again, Brendon’s finished the pop tart and is looking slightly bereft still.
“Take another,” Ryan urges and Brendon eagerly pops another in the toaster.
Brendon also pours himself a mug of coffee and he puts in four spoonfuls of sugar and what seems like half a pint of milk before setting back and sighing contentedly.
“Thank you very much, guys,” he says happily. “I'm glad you decided to pick me up off the road.”
Jon, who didn’t even hear the whole story last night speaks up gruffly. “We are too, Brendon.”
Ryan thinks Brendon’s smile is beautiful.
*
part 2
Author: fearsgottahold
Rating: R
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
POV: Ryan's
Summary: Ryan doesn’t see him until Zack starts to pull over.
Disclaimer: not true
Beta: ericasaur
Author Notes: This is 7,040 words of pure angst. CONTAINS CHARACTER DEATH.
If you don't like that sort of thing, don't read it. If you do, read to your hearts content!
Ryan doesn’t see him until Zack starts to pull over. It's not his fault, not really, because it's dark and the rain is coming down so heavily that it's pretty difficult to see anything if you aren’t paying attention.
Still, Zack’s stopping the bus for a boy, a hitchhiker to be exact. He looks cold and wet, understandably, holding a sign with the words long washed off. The boy obviously hasn’t noticed. His other hand is curled into the universal sign of a hitchhiker.
“Dude,” Ryan says in a confused tone. “Dude, what are you doing?”
“Pulling over,” Zack snaps in a snarky tone. “What does it look like?”
“Well, yeah but-”
“Look at him,” Zack says. “He must be what? Fourteen? I'm not gonna just leave him there. ‘Sides, he might be going where we’re going anyway and he doesn’t look like he can kill us or anything so calm the fuck down.”
Ryan has to admit to himself that the kid is tiny, dressed in bedraggled and worn clothes. He doesn’t look like a threat. And when has Zack’s judgment ever been wrong?
“Fine. Whatever. Good Samaritan and all that shit,” he mutters and picks his way into the back of the bus where he can open the door for the kid.
Spencer looks up from his iPod. Jon and Brent are already asleep, the fucking lightweights. “Why are we stopping?” he asks, in an almost identical tone to Ryan’s just minutes earlier and Ryan shrugs.
“Zack’s feeling charitable,” the twenty year-old mumbles and he staggers a bit as the bus comes to a halt. He throws open the door and there’s the boy, looking even worse for wear than he did through the windscreen.
The kid jumps nimbly up the steps and stands dripping on the floor, eyes wide and hopeful behind dirty glasses. He has sunken in cheeks; sharp protruding cheekbones and eyes bruised from exhaustion. He’s wearing muddied and soiled clothes, holes badly patched up, and one leg of his vastly oversized trousers has been ripped off mid-calf, exposing a pale, skinny leg. All he has with him is one ratty backpack, with one of the straps torn off to leave a faded black fray. One of his shoes has a hole in the toe, and he isn’t wearing any socks.
“Oh, t-thank you so much!” the kid gushes as he dunks the waterlogged bag on the bus floor and allows Ryan to shut the door. “I thought I was going to have to sleep outside again, and it's really too wet for that. I'm Brendon, do you mind if I catch a ride?”
Ryan’s pretty much speechless so Spencer decides to step in and help him out, being the ever so intuitive best friend.
“Sure, we don’t mind, where you headed anyway? I'm Spencer and he’s Ryan,” he adds, pointing over at the man in question. Ryan waves vaguely, feeling totally uncomfortable.
“Err, well, I want to get all the way to New York eventually, but you can just drop me off along the route or something if you aren’t going that way and I'm sure I can catch another ride.” While Brendon talks the bus rumbles back to life and Ryan figures Zack doesn’t care where Brendon’s headed, he’s just gonna continue anyway.
“Well, we’re gonna get there eventually but we are stopping in various places first, so I guess if you want to get there quickly we can drop you off along the route but if not you’re welcome to like, I don’t know, hang around until we get there? When are we getting there anyway, Spence?”
Spencer makes some quick calculations in his head before frowning and saying, “Four days? I think. Four or five days, something like that.”
Brendon beams and shakes his head slightly. Ryan notices the boy’s shivering, but trying as hard as he can to hide the fact. “That sounds t-totally great; I'm not really pushed on time. Thank you s-so much! So, um, what do you guys do?”
Spencer tilts his head and Brendon gets the hint to go and sit down on one of the shit-coloured sofas, and he does so, perching at the very edge of the one closest the door. Spencer sits on the other sofa and Ryan goes and sits next to him, feet curled up by his ass, but not so tightly that he can't spring into action if Brendon does something completely weird and crazy. What? He’s never picked up a hitchhiker before.
“We’re a band? We’re like, currently on tour and stuff so… yeah,” Spencer says comfortably. He’s always had that quality that allows him to speak to complete strangers without feeling totally stupid and awkward and Ryan envies him for it.
The kid’s eyes shine and Ryan notes the colour of them. They’re… well, they’re a really pretty brown. Really nice. “A band? Oh wow. Wow, that’s so c-cool. I've always wanted to be in a band.” He blushes, faint red spreading over his face. He looks even younger with pink cheeks and Ryan has to wonder how old he really is. Fourteen? Fifteen? Sixteen at a pinch. Why isn’t he with his parents? “Wh-what are you called?”
“P-Panic. We’re um, we’re called Panic! at the Disco,” Ryan says, and curses silently when he stutters. He hates talking to strangers.
Brendon doesn’t seem to care. Instead, his eyes get impossibly wider and his lips part in a small ‘o’ of shock. So he’s a fan. Great.
“Panic? Holy mother, you g-guys are awesome! I love your stuff! Oh wow…” He trails off, obviously star-struck.
Ryan shifts uncomfortably. If that boy tries to exploit them or something he’s gonna be so pissed. Pissed at Zack as well, for letting him on the fucking bus in the first place.
Oh wait, the kid’s talking again.
“I love your old album, s-seriously. I was twelve when I got it three years ago and wow, I thought it was the best thing ever. If I had the money I would have bought the new one out but, you know,” he grimaces. Ryan notes the shivering hasn’t lessened in any way. In fact the kids practically juddering from the cold. Spencer notices as well.
“Yeah, um, Brendon? Do you want some like, dry clothes or something? You're dripping water everywhere and you look really um… cold,” Spencer says.
Brendon shakes his head, smiling widely, but with an undercurrent of panic. “What? N-no, I'm fine, honest.” He’s lying. They all know it.
Spencer just shakes his head. “Dude, you're shaking and dripping water over the sofa and that’s not cool. Let me just go get you a towel and some clothes.” Ryan also thinks Brendon’s lips are an unhealthy shade of blue.
Spencer gets up and disappears into the bunk area, leaving the two of them alone. Brendon has dropped the act by now and has his arms curled around his torso, curved into himself so he can conserve heat.
All Ryan can do is wonder why Brendon thought it necessary to hide the fact that he was feeling so freezing from them.
“Hey,” he says quietly in the direction of the boy, carefully unfolding himself from the sofa to make his way over to the shuddering boy. Ryan’s never been one for touching, but Brendon really needs to get warm as soon as possible before he gets some illness. How long was he standing out there in the rain for anyway?
Ryan slowly wraps an arm around the boy, who tenses, but then shifts closer, burrowing his head into Ryan’s chest. He’s soaking Ryan’s clothes, so Ryan nudges at the boy who lifts his head up.
“Your clothes are all wet,” he says quietly, like he’s talking to a fucking animal so it doesn’t get scared off. “I don’t want to make this sound pervy or anything,” -because it totally does- “but you really need to get your clothes off right now. Seriously, they’re soaking.”
Brendon freezes before nodding his head. He reaches clumsily for the bottom of his thread-bare jumper and pulls it off, taking a faded blue t-shirt with it. The pile of clothes drops with a wet splat on the floor, heavy with moisture.
Ryan can't help it, but he inhales sharply at the sight of the boy’s body. He’s so thin. It's not even thin like Ryan himself is- from a high metabolism and from performing most nights on stage. No, Brendon obviously hasn’t eaten properly in months.
There are dark shadows around his collarbones and his ribs stick out so starkly that the hollows around them make it look like the bones are literally pushing themselves out of his skin. Brendon’s hips protrude out in a way that isn’t healthy at all, and his stomach isn’t so much flat as caved in, so that his ribs stick out far past where his stomach should be.
Brendon turns around in order to take off his trousers in relative privacy (if you can get privacy when someone’s staring at you) and Ryan inhales again, shocked out of any kind of sanity. His spine juts out his back, each vertebra clearly defined. His shoulder blades project from his back almost like fucked-up wings.
Brendon’s not thin, he’s skeletal.
A soft noise of disgust alerts him to Spencer’s presence, and Ryan’s pretty sure the look of horror and shock adorning his best friend’s face closely resembles his own features.
Spencer quickly hands the boy a fluffy towel and Brendon wraps it around himself still clad in his boxers, clutching the edges. He then silently makes his way back to where Ryan’s sitting and sits himself down on Ryan’s lap, leaning back into his body. With one hand Ryan starts frantically rubbing Brendon’s shoulder in an attempt to keep him warm and with the other he searches for a blanket to cover the rest of Brendon’s emaciated body. Spencer hands him the tartan monstrosity silently, clearly shocked by what he saw. Who wouldn’t be shocked?
Gratefully, Ryan shakes out the blanket and throws it over Brendon’s legs, tucking his feet in until he’s completely covered. Brendon’s shitty boxers are still wet, but Ryan doesn’t really care, he’s completely focused on getting the kid warm.
“Jesus,” he breathes. “When was the last time you fucking ate something?”
Brendon takes in a deep breath, and nuzzles his head further into Ryan’s chest. His hair is wet but Ryan doesn’t mind.
“Can't remember. Five days ago? Something like that.”
From the other sofa, Spencer mutters a quiet “shit.”
“What did you have?” Ryan presses.
“Tube of smarties,” comes the subdued reply. Brendon’s embarrassed by the fact that he can't get any food; and Ryan hates that.
“When was the last time you had a proper meal?”
“I can't remember. A while. Months ago.” It's like as soon as Ryan starts grilling him; Brendon retracts inside himself, going from a bubbly teenager to a scared reclusive wreck.
“Spence, will you get something for me? Look in the fridge or the cupboard, see what we’ve got. Holy shit, Brendon.”
Brendon whines and shakes his head. “I don’t want anything,” he says, and yeah, like Ryan’s gonna believe that. “I just want to sleep.”
The shaking has lessened by now and Brendon unwraps himself slowly and stands up, taking the folded pile of clothes on the side next to him. “Is there any where I can change into these?” he asks and Spencer points silently at the tiny toilet and shower combo by the door to the bunks.
With the towel clutched firmly round his shoulders Brendon holds his head high and makes his way over there, shutting the door firmly behind him.
“Shit. Fucking shit, Spencer, did you see him?”
Spencer has a lost expression on his face. It's eerily upset and blank at the same time. “He’s fifteen, Ry. He said he bought our first album three years ago when he was twelve. Shit. He’s fifteen. No fifteen-year-old should have to go through that. Oh, god.”
Ryan stiffens. Fifteen. He should be playing Call of Duty in his bedroom somewhere, getting pissed when his mother says he needs to lay the table before eating fucking roast dinners. He shouldn’t be standing on the side of a road at ten at night, in the goddamn rain. Does he even have a mother?
“I know what you're thinking.” Ryan’s head jerks up. What?
Brendon’s standing there in one of Jon’s t-shirts and a pair of pyjama bottoms that belong to Ryan himself. They slip down on Brendon’s hips but he pulls them back up defiantly.
“You're thinking I should be happy at home with my family, being a real teenager and having lots of fun and being loved. It was my own fucking choice to leave, okay? I hated it at home, and I wasn’t being loved there either, so better to be lonely and hungry than surrounded by people who only put up with you because you’ve nowhere else to go. My brothers and sisters? Oh they were fucking perfect, with their A grades and university scholarships and perfect friends and perfect faces and perfect lives and there’s me, with my braces and my ADHD and my love for ‘something that won't support me in later life’” He mimics the last part bitterly.
By now, his voice is raised and the door to the bunks has opened, showing Jon’s tousled hair and Brent’s face.
They look shocked at the figure but they stay silent.
“Well fuck that. I left before they could kill me anymore. They didn’t love me. They didn’t want me. They didn’t even like me. I left for better places. I left so I could have everything that I couldn’t have before. All I wanted was for people to like me for who I was. I just wanted to be loved.”
The last line is said so quietly and brokenly that Ryan wants to grab the boy in his arms and tell him that he is loved, fucking shit, Ryan loves him and he’s only known him for half an hour. The room is silent.
Nobody says anything as a tear tracks down Brendon’s face.
“Can I sleep now please? I’m tired and I just want to sleep.”
Spencer and Ryan hastily evacuate their seats to obey Brendon’s quiet demand and give the room up to Brendon, who smiles wanly. Ryan goes into the bunks and grabs his duvet and pillow, handing it to Brendon before taking the tartan blanket for himself. Brendon takes the bedding and then lies down on the sofa, facing away from Ryan. He remains motionless until Ryan closes the bunk door, and then Ryan can't see him anymore. He takes the tartan blanket back to his bunk and tucks himself in, grimacing in distaste and the damp smell that permeates it. But he doesn’t mind that Brendon has his duvet, not at all.
Brendon deserves it more than he does anyway.
*
The next morning Ryan is roused by the smell of toasting pop tarts and coffee. He stumbles out of the bed, wrapping the blanket around himself and pushes open the door. Nobody else is up apart from himself and Brendon, who is currently placing toasted pop tarts on plates, presumably to give to the band? He counts four plates absently, as he makes his way over to the coffee, pouring a cup and slugging it back. He’s not awake enough yet for things such as pouring milk.
Brendon grins at him before going into the bunk area. Ryan looks on confusedly as one by one his band members emerge and settle down around the table each, with a plate, a mug of coffee and a sleepy groan.
“There you go, Ryan!” Brendon says brightly and Ryan opens his eyes to see Brendon offering him a plate, with a perfectly toasted tart on it.
“Thanks?” he mumbles, still not completely awake. Then his eyes crack open completely. “Wait, where’s your plate?” he asks and Brendon shifts uncomfortably.
“Well, you know, I made this because I'm sorry about how I acted last night and it isn’t my place to eat before you so I was going to wait until you said I cou-”
Shit. “You haven’t eaten yet because you didn’t want to disrespect us or something?”
Brendon nods and Ryan is dumbfounded. “Are you telling me you haven’t eaten for five, no six days and you still haven’t taken anything for yourself because you were worried about how we would take it?”
Behind Brendon Ryan can see Spencer and Jon look down at their plates in horror.
“Well I-”
“Take it!” Ryan interrupts, shoving his pop tart at Brendon. “Jesus, you can eat any food you want any time. Shit, we’ll buy stuff for you if you want something particularly. You deserve it more than us.”
“I'm not a charity case,” Brendon mumbles indignantly, but he takes the pop tart anyway and bites into it. It's hard to ignore the tiny whine of total delight that Brendon gives, and to his horror Ryan finds the little noise a total turn on.
Holy shit.
Ryan shakes his head to try and clear it and by the time he’s looked up again, Brendon’s finished the pop tart and is looking slightly bereft still.
“Take another,” Ryan urges and Brendon eagerly pops another in the toaster.
Brendon also pours himself a mug of coffee and he puts in four spoonfuls of sugar and what seems like half a pint of milk before setting back and sighing contentedly.
“Thank you very much, guys,” he says happily. “I'm glad you decided to pick me up off the road.”
Jon, who didn’t even hear the whole story last night speaks up gruffly. “We are too, Brendon.”
Ryan thinks Brendon’s smile is beautiful.
*
part 2