Fic: The Florist
Title: The Florist (2/3)
Rating: PG
Fandom: P!atd (Brendon/Ryan)
For: ohemgeitsemuhle
“So, then,” Jon starts, and his gestures are getting away from him, he’s all big, swinging arms tonight, all raised, exasperated voice. “Then Cassie tells me that if I don’t go to the fucking thing with her, she will seriously reconsider my commitment to our relationship. I mean, what the fuck? Just coz I don’t want to go to some fucking charity ball!”
“That’s pretty crap,” Brendon says, but he’s finding it difficult to get too involved tonight, he’s too emotionally drained from over-thinking things, from over-thinking Ryan.
“What’s up with you?” Jon asks, and his brow furrows, and his palm finds its way to his forehead. “Usually I can’t shut you up at this point.”
“Ah,” Brendon says, and he shrugs, “work’s kinda shit at the moment.”
“The smoothie hut? Dude, you should quit.”
Brendon, he quirks a brow, looks at Jon with good humour. “And what would I use to pay rent, oh wise one?”
“I dunno, sue Rosie for rape or something, get her to pay damages and live the rest of your years on that.”
“Your plan, Jon Walker, it’s unflawed.”
Jon shrugs, but he’s smiling. “I could probably get you a job at the record store.”
“Cassie got you that job,” Brendon says, and he starts walking along the path. Jon, he doesn’t run to catch up.
“Yeah, but they like me!”
“No, they like Cassie,” Brendon calls back, and he can almost see Jon laughing in the worlds behind him.
The park here, it’s nice really, a nice place to be, to think, to walk.
When Brendon was very small, he and his brothers and sisters, they’d run races down the maze of dusty pathways, seek out the prize of the playground, and even now, even now, Brendon’s feet switch onto autopilot, and he’s at the slide, the monkey bars, the seesaw, before he can stop himself.
It’s empty, minus the little girl and her mother, minus that boy, the one on the swing.
Ah.
Ryan, he doesn’t hear Brendon’s feet plow through the leaf-litter, through the tiny mock-bark flooring. He only sees him when Brendon’s shadow kills the light and warmth on his skin.
“Isn’t it dangerous for you to be out on your own?”
Ryan stares up through his hair, and Brendon, maybe it steals his breath a little.
“You really can’t hear me, can you? It’s not just…it’s not just Spencer saying it to get me to leave you alone.”
Ryan’s pupils dart around his iris, trying to escape, his long, spidery fingers gesture to his ears, and he shrugs, smiles.
Brendon sits on the swing next to him. “I have enough trouble trying to understand people as it is, this kinda throws me on a loop.”
Ryan’s eyes are big and they’re staring long and hard; Brendon can see his useless ears straining.
“I’m sorry,” Brendon says, “but for what it’s worth, I still like you.”
*
The problem with the florist, Brendon thinks, is not so much the bell as it is the windows. Coz, you know, the windows, they’re too big and too bold, and really are only there for show. To imply the findings of the great indoors.
Spencer says, he says that they overgrow some of the flowers so they look big and pretty to everyone walking passed. They’re the flower, literally, and they’re trying to get some pretty young thing in a stripy vest to pop by and spread the word, the pollen.
Brendon, he kinda thinks it’s stupid.
He goes in the next Wednesday though, and he’s still wearing the ugly t-shirt from the smoothie hut, the black slacks and the name badge.
And Ryan, he…well, he’s not there. Spencer is though, Spencer with the grass-stained apron and the smile that would put even the most devoted dental model to shame.
“Where is he?”
Spencer sighs, and he’s pruning a set of overgrown magnolia bushes, clipping twigs and leaves and flower buds. He sighs again, inhales so hard that Brendon’s lungs ache in sympathy. “When you break his heart, Brendon,” he starts, and he’s turned around now, is staring Brendon in the eye, brandishing plant-clippers like you would not believe, “watch your back, coz I’ll be there. Probably with a knife or a gun or some weapon of mass destruction.”
“I think those clippers are more threatening,” Brendon says, and he really wishes he was kidding.
“Then I’ll bring these along too,” Spencer replies, and he’s turned around, has gone back to pruning poor Magnolia.
“Was that your blessing, Mr. Spencer?” Brendon tries, because it really sorta sounds like it. “Coz it means a lot to me, really.”
“Fuck off.”
“Whe-”
“He’s out back. He’s fixing an order for someone, so if he looks busy, leave him alone.”
And Brendon, he’s never actually been behind the counter before, so he tries his best to creep, to keep his hands to himself.
Ryan, he’s hard to see straight away, lost in a hurricane of green and pastel-yellow plastic-paper. There’s endless gold ribbon that falls off the end of the table, rolls onto the floor, straight and narrow, a roman road. His fingers, those long, spidery things, they’re clutching a million stems, lilies and posies and magnolias.
Ryan, he’s…he’s engrossed, his eyes don’t stray, and Brendon, he calls out a little, but Ryan’s too focused, and his fingers are too busy, and, well, he’s deaf.
So Brendon, he just, he sits, and he watches and maybe, maybe he can’t help the smile that crawls across his face.
He’s never sat still for so long.
*
“Will you talk for me?”
Ryan stares at him, eyes squinting, face screwed up in concentration.
“I know deaf people can talk, coz they have weird accents. I won’t think yours is weird though, I’ll probably like it,” Brendon says, and his bangs really are getting too long, he fingers them a bit, before brushing them off his face.
Ryan, he just shrugs though.
“I still like you,” Brendon says, and it’s easier to say it now. Now that Ryan can’t hear.
It isn’t a surprise, the way Ryan doesn’t reply, but he finishes wrapping the petunias and piles them into Brendon’s ready arms.
“Thanks,” Brendon sighs, inhales till his heart aches in his chest. “Thanks,” he says, and he leaves. But, he’ll discover hours and hours later, there’s a card on it that he didn’t ask for.
I’m deaf, not blind and not mute. I think you forget that sometimes.
*
“You left me a note,” Brendon accuses sometime the next day. “You, Ryan…Ryan I-still-don’t-know-your-last-name left me a note.”
Ryan shrugs, and he’s all innocence, with the wide eyes and the delicate face, but his smile, the twitch of his lips gives him away.
“You left me a note, and you aren’t blind and you aren’t mute, so I want you to talk for me.”
Somewhere deep in the backdrop of the jungle, Spencer laughs aloud.
*
So Brendon, the way he figures, is that if Ryan can write notes then so can he. Of course, the fact that he is not a twelve-year-old girl is seriously put under question as a result.
“Three violets,” Brendon says, and Ryan nods a little, scribbles on a pad of paper and wanders out the back.
He comes back in a matter of minutes, a bouquet of three in his dainty arms. He looks like a grown flower girl, a bridesmaid, a maid of honour, a bride.
The paper he hands over says $8.98, and the money that Brendon gives back has a note on top.
Come out with me tonight? Check yes or no.
*
“Fuck,” Brendon says, “fuck.”
Mia’s lost amongst the sofa cushions, and maybe (there are no maybes about it) she’s laughing a little.
“Fuck,” Brendon says, and his fingers run races through his hair, he straightens his button up shirt, and maybe he kinda wonders why the hell he’s wearing a fucking blouse…thing.
“You’re too cute,” Mia says, and she’s on the playstation, Mario Racecarts too tempting for her fragile resistance.
“No,” Brendon says, and he collapses onto the sofa beside her, brushes at his bangs and yeah, he really does need a haircut. “I am a nervous wreck, I am a car crash waiting to happen. He’s gonna get in, and then I’ll say the wrong thing, and I’ll completely fuck everything up, coz-”
“Brendon,” Mia starts, and her eyes are glued to the screen, she’s Mario today, she’s always Mario. “Brendon, provided you haven’t been shamelessly lying to me, this kid’s fucking deaf. Makes sense, no one who values their ears would date you.”
“Shut up,” he says, and he picks up the second handset. “I have a beautiful voice.”
Mia laughs a bit again, ruffles his hair with a wayward hand. “You have a beautiful everything, Bren.”
“Damn straight I do,” he says, and it’s strange, them living here together. She was never the sibling he figured he’d shack up with. “And, Mia…”
“Yeah?” she asks, and she’s back to playing the game, turning corners too hard.
“Thanks for everything tonight, y’know, cooking dinner and shit.”
The game’s on pause, and Mia, she’s just smiling.
“I hate you a lot,” she says, and she rolls her eyes to the ceiling, to the light bulb that flickers above their heads, “but that doesn’t mean I stop loving you.”
“Yeah,” Brendon says, “ditto.”
*
Continue to Part 3.
Rating: PG
Fandom: P!atd (Brendon/Ryan)
For: ohemgeitsemuhle
“So, then,” Jon starts, and his gestures are getting away from him, he’s all big, swinging arms tonight, all raised, exasperated voice. “Then Cassie tells me that if I don’t go to the fucking thing with her, she will seriously reconsider my commitment to our relationship. I mean, what the fuck? Just coz I don’t want to go to some fucking charity ball!”
“That’s pretty crap,” Brendon says, but he’s finding it difficult to get too involved tonight, he’s too emotionally drained from over-thinking things, from over-thinking Ryan.
“What’s up with you?” Jon asks, and his brow furrows, and his palm finds its way to his forehead. “Usually I can’t shut you up at this point.”
“Ah,” Brendon says, and he shrugs, “work’s kinda shit at the moment.”
“The smoothie hut? Dude, you should quit.”
Brendon, he quirks a brow, looks at Jon with good humour. “And what would I use to pay rent, oh wise one?”
“I dunno, sue Rosie for rape or something, get her to pay damages and live the rest of your years on that.”
“Your plan, Jon Walker, it’s unflawed.”
Jon shrugs, but he’s smiling. “I could probably get you a job at the record store.”
“Cassie got you that job,” Brendon says, and he starts walking along the path. Jon, he doesn’t run to catch up.
“Yeah, but they like me!”
“No, they like Cassie,” Brendon calls back, and he can almost see Jon laughing in the worlds behind him.
The park here, it’s nice really, a nice place to be, to think, to walk.
When Brendon was very small, he and his brothers and sisters, they’d run races down the maze of dusty pathways, seek out the prize of the playground, and even now, even now, Brendon’s feet switch onto autopilot, and he’s at the slide, the monkey bars, the seesaw, before he can stop himself.
It’s empty, minus the little girl and her mother, minus that boy, the one on the swing.
Ah.
Ryan, he doesn’t hear Brendon’s feet plow through the leaf-litter, through the tiny mock-bark flooring. He only sees him when Brendon’s shadow kills the light and warmth on his skin.
“Isn’t it dangerous for you to be out on your own?”
Ryan stares up through his hair, and Brendon, maybe it steals his breath a little.
“You really can’t hear me, can you? It’s not just…it’s not just Spencer saying it to get me to leave you alone.”
Ryan’s pupils dart around his iris, trying to escape, his long, spidery fingers gesture to his ears, and he shrugs, smiles.
Brendon sits on the swing next to him. “I have enough trouble trying to understand people as it is, this kinda throws me on a loop.”
Ryan’s eyes are big and they’re staring long and hard; Brendon can see his useless ears straining.
“I’m sorry,” Brendon says, “but for what it’s worth, I still like you.”
*
The problem with the florist, Brendon thinks, is not so much the bell as it is the windows. Coz, you know, the windows, they’re too big and too bold, and really are only there for show. To imply the findings of the great indoors.
Spencer says, he says that they overgrow some of the flowers so they look big and pretty to everyone walking passed. They’re the flower, literally, and they’re trying to get some pretty young thing in a stripy vest to pop by and spread the word, the pollen.
Brendon, he kinda thinks it’s stupid.
He goes in the next Wednesday though, and he’s still wearing the ugly t-shirt from the smoothie hut, the black slacks and the name badge.
And Ryan, he…well, he’s not there. Spencer is though, Spencer with the grass-stained apron and the smile that would put even the most devoted dental model to shame.
“Where is he?”
Spencer sighs, and he’s pruning a set of overgrown magnolia bushes, clipping twigs and leaves and flower buds. He sighs again, inhales so hard that Brendon’s lungs ache in sympathy. “When you break his heart, Brendon,” he starts, and he’s turned around now, is staring Brendon in the eye, brandishing plant-clippers like you would not believe, “watch your back, coz I’ll be there. Probably with a knife or a gun or some weapon of mass destruction.”
“I think those clippers are more threatening,” Brendon says, and he really wishes he was kidding.
“Then I’ll bring these along too,” Spencer replies, and he’s turned around, has gone back to pruning poor Magnolia.
“Was that your blessing, Mr. Spencer?” Brendon tries, because it really sorta sounds like it. “Coz it means a lot to me, really.”
“Fuck off.”
“Whe-”
“He’s out back. He’s fixing an order for someone, so if he looks busy, leave him alone.”
And Brendon, he’s never actually been behind the counter before, so he tries his best to creep, to keep his hands to himself.
Ryan, he’s hard to see straight away, lost in a hurricane of green and pastel-yellow plastic-paper. There’s endless gold ribbon that falls off the end of the table, rolls onto the floor, straight and narrow, a roman road. His fingers, those long, spidery things, they’re clutching a million stems, lilies and posies and magnolias.
Ryan, he’s…he’s engrossed, his eyes don’t stray, and Brendon, he calls out a little, but Ryan’s too focused, and his fingers are too busy, and, well, he’s deaf.
So Brendon, he just, he sits, and he watches and maybe, maybe he can’t help the smile that crawls across his face.
He’s never sat still for so long.
*
“Will you talk for me?”
Ryan stares at him, eyes squinting, face screwed up in concentration.
“I know deaf people can talk, coz they have weird accents. I won’t think yours is weird though, I’ll probably like it,” Brendon says, and his bangs really are getting too long, he fingers them a bit, before brushing them off his face.
Ryan, he just shrugs though.
“I still like you,” Brendon says, and it’s easier to say it now. Now that Ryan can’t hear.
It isn’t a surprise, the way Ryan doesn’t reply, but he finishes wrapping the petunias and piles them into Brendon’s ready arms.
“Thanks,” Brendon sighs, inhales till his heart aches in his chest. “Thanks,” he says, and he leaves. But, he’ll discover hours and hours later, there’s a card on it that he didn’t ask for.
I’m deaf, not blind and not mute. I think you forget that sometimes.
*
“You left me a note,” Brendon accuses sometime the next day. “You, Ryan…Ryan I-still-don’t-know-your-last-name left me a note.”
Ryan shrugs, and he’s all innocence, with the wide eyes and the delicate face, but his smile, the twitch of his lips gives him away.
“You left me a note, and you aren’t blind and you aren’t mute, so I want you to talk for me.”
Somewhere deep in the backdrop of the jungle, Spencer laughs aloud.
*
So Brendon, the way he figures, is that if Ryan can write notes then so can he. Of course, the fact that he is not a twelve-year-old girl is seriously put under question as a result.
“Three violets,” Brendon says, and Ryan nods a little, scribbles on a pad of paper and wanders out the back.
He comes back in a matter of minutes, a bouquet of three in his dainty arms. He looks like a grown flower girl, a bridesmaid, a maid of honour, a bride.
The paper he hands over says $8.98, and the money that Brendon gives back has a note on top.
Come out with me tonight? Check yes or no.
*
“Fuck,” Brendon says, “fuck.”
Mia’s lost amongst the sofa cushions, and maybe (there are no maybes about it) she’s laughing a little.
“Fuck,” Brendon says, and his fingers run races through his hair, he straightens his button up shirt, and maybe he kinda wonders why the hell he’s wearing a fucking blouse…thing.
“You’re too cute,” Mia says, and she’s on the playstation, Mario Racecarts too tempting for her fragile resistance.
“No,” Brendon says, and he collapses onto the sofa beside her, brushes at his bangs and yeah, he really does need a haircut. “I am a nervous wreck, I am a car crash waiting to happen. He’s gonna get in, and then I’ll say the wrong thing, and I’ll completely fuck everything up, coz-”
“Brendon,” Mia starts, and her eyes are glued to the screen, she’s Mario today, she’s always Mario. “Brendon, provided you haven’t been shamelessly lying to me, this kid’s fucking deaf. Makes sense, no one who values their ears would date you.”
“Shut up,” he says, and he picks up the second handset. “I have a beautiful voice.”
Mia laughs a bit again, ruffles his hair with a wayward hand. “You have a beautiful everything, Bren.”
“Damn straight I do,” he says, and it’s strange, them living here together. She was never the sibling he figured he’d shack up with. “And, Mia…”
“Yeah?” she asks, and she’s back to playing the game, turning corners too hard.
“Thanks for everything tonight, y’know, cooking dinner and shit.”
The game’s on pause, and Mia, she’s just smiling.
“I hate you a lot,” she says, and she rolls her eyes to the ceiling, to the light bulb that flickers above their heads, “but that doesn’t mean I stop loving you.”
“Yeah,” Brendon says, “ditto.”
*
Continue to Part 3.