Irrevocably Combined
Title: Irrevocably Combined
Author: Telis (theaerosolkid)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
Summary: Wherein Ryan really just needs some time to figure a few things out.
Word Count: 3078
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake.
A/N: Another outtake from the spiritual agony longfic, ahaha. This one came about because I wrote the opening scene and really adored it, but kind of was fucked by the existence of canon. I liked it too much to toss out, so I looked for inspiration to keep going and sort of ran with it. For we_are_cities April 14. Thanks to softlyforgotten for the on-the-fly beta. We do it DIY here in bandom ;)
Ryan's sitting in the lounge, reading, when something tickles at the base of his spine, reminding him. Brendon, he thinks, wistful, and is suddenly a little uneasy. He drops his book and walks back to Brendon's bunk, where the curtains are drawn tightly shut. He stills his breathing and listens, straining with his whole body to hear. And just there, at the edge of awareness, he can hear soft choking sobs. He strokes his fingers at the material of the curtain, curls his hands around the hem, and hesitates.
There's a sudden harsh hitch in Brendon's breathing, and sharp exhale, and Ryan backs away, slowly, shaking his head. It's late. He should be sleeping, they both should be.
--
It's the next morning and Ryan's curled up at the kitchenette table when Brendon and Jon stumble from their respective bunks, both with red-rimmed eyes. He looks up from his bunk and can practically see the miasma of a hangover drifting up and away from Jon, blinks and shrugs internally. Brendon, though, he's in a different mess, he's sick from something that wasn't aged in an oak barrel.
He puts down his spoon, swallows thickly a few times, takes a heavy gulp of coffee to clear his throat and jolt his tongue, and pauses. Brendon pillows his head on his forearms and Ryan reaches out to stroke the short soft hairs at the base of his neck, and doesn't, held back by Jon's sharp glance, aware of a potential conflict even as his head is obviously pounding.
He draws his hand back and lets Brendon rest, instead, uneasy with the choice he's not making.
--
They get a hotel room for a change and Brendon doesn't say anything when they close the door, when Zack gives them a long-suffering grin and reminds them to call if they need anything. Ryan takes the first shower because he knows Brendon will want to curl up under the spray for close to forty minutes, they have a nice routine in place now. Ryan showers quickly, rubs his makeup away as best he can and doesn't even bother to dress, just slings a towel around his waist and opens the door, lets Brendon push in past him. Brendon is likewise unselfconscious and strips right there, steps into the water that Ryan didn't even bother to turn off.
Ryan moves to the counter and begins mechanically setting up face cleanser, moisturizer, toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss, mouthwash, contact lens cases and solution, everything superfluous and necessary. His eyes flick up to the mirror and he sees Brendon staring at him from behind the mist and the steam.
Staring is possibly the wrong word for it; it implies that there is force and intensity in the action, and that's wrong because it isn't even an action. He and Brendon are at an impasse, and have been for a while, now. They are the consummate inaction, the two of them, in everything they do. Ryan's throat constricts.
"Make a decision," Brendon says, eyes clear and voice even, and jerks the shower curtain shut, turns the cold water off and slides to his knees under the pounding heat. Ryan watches his silhouette and sleeps without his headphones that night so he can listen to Brendon's breathing.
--
"Guilt will get you nowhere," Brendon says philosophically, and Ryan looks at him.
"What?"
"Guilt," Brendon repeats. "It's pointless."
"All right," Ryan allows. "Okay."
--
When they get three weeks off, Ryan moves into his apartment and hates it. He liked the apartment lifestyle right after Brendon left home and he was always crashing with Brendon, sleeping on a creaky fold-out bed mattress, but now he's not so sure he likes the feeling of being totally alone in a compound of people who all know each other. Some of them have lived here for years, and he isn't sure what he's supposed to say when the older tenants ask him what he does for a living. Ryan doesn't want to tell them how many people know his face and his name and his words, but at the same time, he doesn't want to say musician and watch them nod indulgently, as though they're dismissing him.
Brendon comes over Friday afternoon to help Ryan get his new stereo set up and ends up staying the night, sleeping on the couch.
Ryan wakes up the next morning in the warm circle of Brendon's limbs, mouth pressed wet and soft to his collarbone.
Sleepwalking's a bitch.
--
Brendon stays over Saturday, playing video games and talking but not conversing, and doesn't bother to shower after they eat a midnight dinner, uses Ryan's toothbrush and heads for the couch. Ryan contemplates the idea of not fighting the process for a change, thinks about joining Brendon on the couch or pulling Brendon to the bed, and reconsiders.
He still wakes up smelling Brendon's morning breath on his skin.
--
Sometime Sunday night, Brendon's mother calls to make sure he's still alive. She doesn't seem surprised when she asks him when he's coming home and he only shrugs. Ryan imagines she knew without asking, and sort of wishes he had the same ability.
--
Monday morning they wake up late, on the couch again, and Ryan goes to take a shower while Brendon starts mixing Bisquick in the kitchen. He's only in the water for a minute before Brendon steps in beside him, still wearing a too-tight pair of sweatpants borrowed from Ryan and an undershirt stolen from Jon.
"Hi," he says brightly. Ryan drops his head down to Brendon's shoulder, then stands back and lets Brendon shuck off wet clothing that isn't his.
"I just wish I'd managed to talk to him first," Ryan says, and Brendon nods sagely, reaches for Ryan's shampoo in a clearly labeled travel-size bottle. Ryan thinks that he is spoiled forever for real toiletries containers, he is always going to want smaller bottles in more convenient sizes. The odd ripples from touring, he supposes.
"I bet he did, too," Brendon says with his fingers rubbing lather into Ryan's scalp.
"I didn't know how," Ryan tries.
"Clearly he didn't, either," Brendon points out, and chucks Ryan under his chin, tipping his head back and rinsing his hair.
"He was the grown-up," Ryan says petulantly, eyes closed against the stream of water. Brendon chuckles and works conditioner into Ryan's hair.
"So are you," Brendon says before finding a tiny squeeze bottle of shower gel and rubbing it over Ryan's skin.
"No, I wasn't," Ryan says.
"Well," Brendon says thoughtfully. "You are now."
--
"Death is a stupid concept," Ryan says the next morning in the shower with Brendon's hands buried in his hair.
"Not really," Brendon says.
"It's too permanent," Ryan argues.
"I think that's kind of the point," Brendon tells him, and squirts the last of the shower gel into his palms.
--
"Hump day," Ryan says disconsolately to his waffle.
Brendon snickers.
"Shut up." Brendon snickers again. "Grow the fuck up."
"You first," Brendon says pointedly, and Ryan's jaw snaps shut.
--
"Why were you crying, that night?" Ryan asks finally when they're in a drugstore picking up soap and toothpaste.
"Crest or Aquafresh?" Brendon asks after a beat. Ryan points randomly. "I didn't think you would, and I thought somebody should."
"Hm?"
"Cry. For your dad, you know."
--
"According to the Catholic church, suicide is a sin because you're killing something God made. I don't think that's right," Ryan says when it'll be Friday again tomorrow. He isn't sure whether he believes the calendar or not.
"Do you think your dad committed suicide?" Brendon asks him, snapping a clean sheet over the mattress neither of them will be sleeping on.
"Not everything's about him," Ryan insists.
"Right now it is," Brendon maintains.
--
They get back from Spencer's, where they went to go plan for the next tour. They barely manage to catch a call from Brendon's mother, asking if Ryan's still alive.
"Do you mean Brendon?" Ryan asks, brow furrowed.
"No," she says. "Sweetie, I mean you."
--
"Why does everybody want me to mourn?" Ryan asks as he settles over Brendon on the couch, resting his head on Brendon's chest and twining their legs together, tired of waiting for sleepwalking, doing away with pretense - mostly.
"It's healthy," Brendon says sleepily.
"Who says?"
"People smarter than you and me, Ross," Brendon responds, quick as always. "Now either go to sleep or make a decision."
"It's sort of unfair for you to be here all the time and not expect it to be a weird influence," Ryan tells him.
"Fine, I'll leave," Brendon says, shifting Ryan gently to the side so he can roll to his feet, standing up to go sleep in Ryan's bed, no trace of malice in his voice or demeanor. "It's all up to you."
--
It's sort of stupid, what they're circling around. They've been skipping around the idea of it for so long now that Ryan can't remember a time that he wasn't in-between the two. Brendon wants him, this is not a necessarily simple concept; he wants Brendon, which is slightly simpler; Spencer and Jon want them both to be happy and this is simplest of all.
"Seriously," Spencer says over the phone. "It's not that difficult."
"It is for me," Ryan says, irritated.
"It is because you're making it," Spencer says and Ryan strongly contemplates hanging up on him.
"Don't hang up on me, you asshole."
Damn it.
--
For some reason, a lot of little things changed when his father died, for no good reason at all. They never talked about him when he was alive. He was a footnote on the album; he was important because he inspired two songs, if for no other reason. Ryan dutifully sent him merchandise when he asked for it, frequently signed by the whole band, sometimes only by himself, wondering spitefully if maybe his father was auctioning it on eBay or whatever for cash and purposely signed his name slightly differently on a brief series of albums. He watched the auctions on every corner of the internet for months before he gave up and figured that his father was probably just selling the shit out of the garage.
The day he had to go through the house and start boxing things up, he showed up late, just to irritate his mother, who for some reason thought she should be the one to spearhead that little operation.
"Even though you haven't been there for years," he sniped over the phone, unrelenting when she sighed, hung up after agreeing to meet her at the house. She let herself in, which annoyed him.
Going through the garage, he found three large banker's boxes crammed full of their merchandise, each box and item painstakingly labeled. Every single interview they'd ever given was either on tape or had a URL written down in a notebook, and every article or review was printed and clumsily pasted into another collection of notebooks.
Impasse, his brain tells him, and that's where he gets stuck. On the precipice.
--
Ryan wakes up Saturday morning on top of the sheets, a layer of musty fabric separating him from Brendon. Two nights now Brendon's slept in the bed and Ryan's followed him on both occasions.
"Your body wants me, Ross," Brendon says smugly, and it's the only thing he's said to Ryan so far about The Choice that hasn't just been telling him to make one.
"Yeah, well, my body is kind of stupid," Ryan says, and regrets it when Brendon's face closes off.
--
Brendon buys bar soap instead of shower gel and it makes Ryan uncomfortable, the feel of something in between Brendon's hands and his skin when they bathe. Brendon closes his eyes and lets Ryan scratch at his scalp when he's done rinsing the last slippery traces of conditioner from Ryan's hair.
"Hot oil treatments," Brendon says dreamily. "We should do hot oil treatments on our hair tonight."
"What?" Ryan asks, confused.
"It's this thing," Brendon says, waving his hands about with his eyes still closed. "My mom and I used to do 'em, 'cause you get two to a box and Kara hated it, so I always did 'em with her."
"What are they?" Ryan asks.
"These little tube things," Brendon explains, still gesturing. "You stick 'em in hot water for, like, a minute, then you pour it over your hair and work it in, and then you leave it on for a bit and then you wash it out. And then your hair's all shiny for a while."
"Oh," Ryan says, and that's how he ends up bent backwards over the edge of the bathtub that night with Brendon pouring hot oil onto his head. It isn't really hot, exactly, more pleasantly warm and it actually feels pretty nice, the pads of Brendon's fingers massaging the oil into his scalp tenderly. He opens his eyes and looks into Brendon's. "Ohh," he says again.
"Hm?" Brendon asks. Ryan blinks for a moment, considering.
"Oh," he says a third time, and sits up abruptly to kiss Brendon - or to try, anyway. His nose bumps into Brendon's chin and it takes them a moment of awkward positioning but they fit their mouths together and they're just kneeling there on the hard tile floor, kissing each other. They're kissing with trickles of hot oil sliding down the sweet curve of Ryan's neck and Brendon's slick hands tangling at his bare shoulders and suddenly that's just it; Ryan's looked across the chasm of where he was and where he could be and decided that where he was might be possibly getting a little boring.
He moves his hands down to Brendon's hips and pushes his sweatpants down, tugs insistently at the hem of Brendon's shirt until he pulls back briefly, panting, and yanks it up over his own head, mussing his hair. Ryan lifts his hips helpfully, enough for Brendon to remove his own pajama pants, and kick the pair of them to the corner of the bathroom. Brendon leans in and kisses the hollow of Ryan's throat, licks his collarbone, bites gently. Ryan tilts his head back and sighs when Brendon starts kissing at his neck, nipping lightly. Brendon's dropping sharp little wet kisses to the damp skin, ignoring the taste of the oil, working his way down to flick his tongue at a nipple before sucking briefly at Ryan's stomach, tilting his head to the side enough to kiss his hipbones.
Brendon flicked his gaze up to Ryan, hesitating with warm breath ghosting over his cock. "Is this-"
"I want," Ryan says quickly. "I do, I want you, I want us, I want-" and is cut off when Brendon sucks the tip into his mouth, lips curling over the ridge and tonguing at the slit. He gasps, hard, reaching down to twist his fingers into Brendon's hair, pulling as lightly as he can. "Brendon, Brendon, I need-"
Brendon nudges his legs farther apart, pushes him back a little until his shoulders are braced against the hard ceramic lip of the bathtub, lifting his hips up again and wrapping long legs around Brendon's waist. Brendon kisses his sternum, teases at his hole with oil-slick fingers before working him open carefully. "Am I-" he asks with his voice husky, and clears his throat before trying again, "Is this okay? I'm doing this right?"
"Yeah," Ryan breathes, and arches into it a little. "Yeah, ohh, Brendon, please," and Brendon positions himself, sucking in a hard breath as he pushes in and Ryan throws his head back, flings his arms up in a desperate hunt for a place to push against, bearing down against the intrusion, adjusting.
Brendon pulls out slowly, a harsh drag on Ryan's insides. He whimpers and Brendon pauses. "Okay?"
"Better," Ryan gasps, and Brendon pushes back in, a little harder. Ryan rocks his hips down, and Brendon gets the idea, thrusts a little more roughly, working into a faster rhythm, fucking him with sharp, precise jerks. Ryan sobs slightly beneath him, and Brendon slips an arm around Ryan's shoulders, draws him up, curls his other hand around Ryan's cock and starts stroking him clumsily, barely in time with his thrusts.
Ryan cries out then, bucks his hips and is almost humiliated at how long he didn't last, pinned by Brendon to the cold edge of the bathtub, and Brendon tries to pull out. "Don't!" he says, tightening his legs around Brendon's waist.
"I can-" Brendon starts, and Ryan clenches around him, grinds down on Brendon's cock, welcomes the instinctive roll of Brendon's hips within the cage of his thighs.
Brendon swears under his breath and lets go, pounds into Ryan, slamming him into the bathtub, and Ryan knows there will be bruises in the morning, and doesn't care, just does his best to weather the onslaught as Brendon buries his face in the crook of Ryan's neck, kissing and biting and sucking hungrily until he tenses, gripping Ryan to him and Ryan feels him slick and hot inside. Some of the oil, cooled down rather a lot, is trickling down the side of his cheek and when Brendon pulls out and away he smears at it with his thumb, still breathing heavily.
"You okay?" Brendon asks, and Ryan nods and smiles at him, and means it.
They climb into the shower and Brendon rinses the oil from Ryan's hair, lathers up the shampoo and lets the spray wash away all the suds before filling up the bathtub with scalding hot water. He sits, back pressed up to Brendon's chest, and lets his head roll back to rest against Brendon's collarbone, sighing, content.
--
They fall asleep in the water, and laugh about it when they wake up, because it's gone cold and their fingers and toes are wrinkled and pruned.
"He kept all that stuff I sent him," Ryan said suddenly while Brendon was brushing his teeth with Ryan's toothbrush Sunday night. They'd gone to the store twice for bath supplies but neither trip had involved a new toothbrush for Brendon. "He cared, and I didn't even know."
"Story of your life," Brendon agrees, and leans in to give him a foamy, minty kiss. It's a little gross but Ryan allows it, because it's Brendon and he's kissing Ryan - and ignoring all definitions of what could be and what is, that is what should be, which is nice even if it's actually not simple at all. "We'll figure it out," he promises, and Ryan believes him.
--
Author: Telis (theaerosolkid)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
Summary: Wherein Ryan really just needs some time to figure a few things out.
Word Count: 3078
Disclaimer: Fake, fake, fake.
A/N: Another outtake from the spiritual agony longfic, ahaha. This one came about because I wrote the opening scene and really adored it, but kind of was fucked by the existence of canon. I liked it too much to toss out, so I looked for inspiration to keep going and sort of ran with it. For we_are_cities April 14. Thanks to softlyforgotten for the on-the-fly beta. We do it DIY here in bandom ;)
Ryan's sitting in the lounge, reading, when something tickles at the base of his spine, reminding him. Brendon, he thinks, wistful, and is suddenly a little uneasy. He drops his book and walks back to Brendon's bunk, where the curtains are drawn tightly shut. He stills his breathing and listens, straining with his whole body to hear. And just there, at the edge of awareness, he can hear soft choking sobs. He strokes his fingers at the material of the curtain, curls his hands around the hem, and hesitates.
There's a sudden harsh hitch in Brendon's breathing, and sharp exhale, and Ryan backs away, slowly, shaking his head. It's late. He should be sleeping, they both should be.
--
It's the next morning and Ryan's curled up at the kitchenette table when Brendon and Jon stumble from their respective bunks, both with red-rimmed eyes. He looks up from his bunk and can practically see the miasma of a hangover drifting up and away from Jon, blinks and shrugs internally. Brendon, though, he's in a different mess, he's sick from something that wasn't aged in an oak barrel.
He puts down his spoon, swallows thickly a few times, takes a heavy gulp of coffee to clear his throat and jolt his tongue, and pauses. Brendon pillows his head on his forearms and Ryan reaches out to stroke the short soft hairs at the base of his neck, and doesn't, held back by Jon's sharp glance, aware of a potential conflict even as his head is obviously pounding.
He draws his hand back and lets Brendon rest, instead, uneasy with the choice he's not making.
--
They get a hotel room for a change and Brendon doesn't say anything when they close the door, when Zack gives them a long-suffering grin and reminds them to call if they need anything. Ryan takes the first shower because he knows Brendon will want to curl up under the spray for close to forty minutes, they have a nice routine in place now. Ryan showers quickly, rubs his makeup away as best he can and doesn't even bother to dress, just slings a towel around his waist and opens the door, lets Brendon push in past him. Brendon is likewise unselfconscious and strips right there, steps into the water that Ryan didn't even bother to turn off.
Ryan moves to the counter and begins mechanically setting up face cleanser, moisturizer, toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss, mouthwash, contact lens cases and solution, everything superfluous and necessary. His eyes flick up to the mirror and he sees Brendon staring at him from behind the mist and the steam.
Staring is possibly the wrong word for it; it implies that there is force and intensity in the action, and that's wrong because it isn't even an action. He and Brendon are at an impasse, and have been for a while, now. They are the consummate inaction, the two of them, in everything they do. Ryan's throat constricts.
"Make a decision," Brendon says, eyes clear and voice even, and jerks the shower curtain shut, turns the cold water off and slides to his knees under the pounding heat. Ryan watches his silhouette and sleeps without his headphones that night so he can listen to Brendon's breathing.
--
"Guilt will get you nowhere," Brendon says philosophically, and Ryan looks at him.
"What?"
"Guilt," Brendon repeats. "It's pointless."
"All right," Ryan allows. "Okay."
--
When they get three weeks off, Ryan moves into his apartment and hates it. He liked the apartment lifestyle right after Brendon left home and he was always crashing with Brendon, sleeping on a creaky fold-out bed mattress, but now he's not so sure he likes the feeling of being totally alone in a compound of people who all know each other. Some of them have lived here for years, and he isn't sure what he's supposed to say when the older tenants ask him what he does for a living. Ryan doesn't want to tell them how many people know his face and his name and his words, but at the same time, he doesn't want to say musician and watch them nod indulgently, as though they're dismissing him.
Brendon comes over Friday afternoon to help Ryan get his new stereo set up and ends up staying the night, sleeping on the couch.
Ryan wakes up the next morning in the warm circle of Brendon's limbs, mouth pressed wet and soft to his collarbone.
Sleepwalking's a bitch.
--
Brendon stays over Saturday, playing video games and talking but not conversing, and doesn't bother to shower after they eat a midnight dinner, uses Ryan's toothbrush and heads for the couch. Ryan contemplates the idea of not fighting the process for a change, thinks about joining Brendon on the couch or pulling Brendon to the bed, and reconsiders.
He still wakes up smelling Brendon's morning breath on his skin.
--
Sometime Sunday night, Brendon's mother calls to make sure he's still alive. She doesn't seem surprised when she asks him when he's coming home and he only shrugs. Ryan imagines she knew without asking, and sort of wishes he had the same ability.
--
Monday morning they wake up late, on the couch again, and Ryan goes to take a shower while Brendon starts mixing Bisquick in the kitchen. He's only in the water for a minute before Brendon steps in beside him, still wearing a too-tight pair of sweatpants borrowed from Ryan and an undershirt stolen from Jon.
"Hi," he says brightly. Ryan drops his head down to Brendon's shoulder, then stands back and lets Brendon shuck off wet clothing that isn't his.
"I just wish I'd managed to talk to him first," Ryan says, and Brendon nods sagely, reaches for Ryan's shampoo in a clearly labeled travel-size bottle. Ryan thinks that he is spoiled forever for real toiletries containers, he is always going to want smaller bottles in more convenient sizes. The odd ripples from touring, he supposes.
"I bet he did, too," Brendon says with his fingers rubbing lather into Ryan's scalp.
"I didn't know how," Ryan tries.
"Clearly he didn't, either," Brendon points out, and chucks Ryan under his chin, tipping his head back and rinsing his hair.
"He was the grown-up," Ryan says petulantly, eyes closed against the stream of water. Brendon chuckles and works conditioner into Ryan's hair.
"So are you," Brendon says before finding a tiny squeeze bottle of shower gel and rubbing it over Ryan's skin.
"No, I wasn't," Ryan says.
"Well," Brendon says thoughtfully. "You are now."
--
"Death is a stupid concept," Ryan says the next morning in the shower with Brendon's hands buried in his hair.
"Not really," Brendon says.
"It's too permanent," Ryan argues.
"I think that's kind of the point," Brendon tells him, and squirts the last of the shower gel into his palms.
--
"Hump day," Ryan says disconsolately to his waffle.
Brendon snickers.
"Shut up." Brendon snickers again. "Grow the fuck up."
"You first," Brendon says pointedly, and Ryan's jaw snaps shut.
--
"Why were you crying, that night?" Ryan asks finally when they're in a drugstore picking up soap and toothpaste.
"Crest or Aquafresh?" Brendon asks after a beat. Ryan points randomly. "I didn't think you would, and I thought somebody should."
"Hm?"
"Cry. For your dad, you know."
--
"According to the Catholic church, suicide is a sin because you're killing something God made. I don't think that's right," Ryan says when it'll be Friday again tomorrow. He isn't sure whether he believes the calendar or not.
"Do you think your dad committed suicide?" Brendon asks him, snapping a clean sheet over the mattress neither of them will be sleeping on.
"Not everything's about him," Ryan insists.
"Right now it is," Brendon maintains.
--
They get back from Spencer's, where they went to go plan for the next tour. They barely manage to catch a call from Brendon's mother, asking if Ryan's still alive.
"Do you mean Brendon?" Ryan asks, brow furrowed.
"No," she says. "Sweetie, I mean you."
--
"Why does everybody want me to mourn?" Ryan asks as he settles over Brendon on the couch, resting his head on Brendon's chest and twining their legs together, tired of waiting for sleepwalking, doing away with pretense - mostly.
"It's healthy," Brendon says sleepily.
"Who says?"
"People smarter than you and me, Ross," Brendon responds, quick as always. "Now either go to sleep or make a decision."
"It's sort of unfair for you to be here all the time and not expect it to be a weird influence," Ryan tells him.
"Fine, I'll leave," Brendon says, shifting Ryan gently to the side so he can roll to his feet, standing up to go sleep in Ryan's bed, no trace of malice in his voice or demeanor. "It's all up to you."
--
It's sort of stupid, what they're circling around. They've been skipping around the idea of it for so long now that Ryan can't remember a time that he wasn't in-between the two. Brendon wants him, this is not a necessarily simple concept; he wants Brendon, which is slightly simpler; Spencer and Jon want them both to be happy and this is simplest of all.
"Seriously," Spencer says over the phone. "It's not that difficult."
"It is for me," Ryan says, irritated.
"It is because you're making it," Spencer says and Ryan strongly contemplates hanging up on him.
"Don't hang up on me, you asshole."
Damn it.
--
For some reason, a lot of little things changed when his father died, for no good reason at all. They never talked about him when he was alive. He was a footnote on the album; he was important because he inspired two songs, if for no other reason. Ryan dutifully sent him merchandise when he asked for it, frequently signed by the whole band, sometimes only by himself, wondering spitefully if maybe his father was auctioning it on eBay or whatever for cash and purposely signed his name slightly differently on a brief series of albums. He watched the auctions on every corner of the internet for months before he gave up and figured that his father was probably just selling the shit out of the garage.
The day he had to go through the house and start boxing things up, he showed up late, just to irritate his mother, who for some reason thought she should be the one to spearhead that little operation.
"Even though you haven't been there for years," he sniped over the phone, unrelenting when she sighed, hung up after agreeing to meet her at the house. She let herself in, which annoyed him.
Going through the garage, he found three large banker's boxes crammed full of their merchandise, each box and item painstakingly labeled. Every single interview they'd ever given was either on tape or had a URL written down in a notebook, and every article or review was printed and clumsily pasted into another collection of notebooks.
Impasse, his brain tells him, and that's where he gets stuck. On the precipice.
--
Ryan wakes up Saturday morning on top of the sheets, a layer of musty fabric separating him from Brendon. Two nights now Brendon's slept in the bed and Ryan's followed him on both occasions.
"Your body wants me, Ross," Brendon says smugly, and it's the only thing he's said to Ryan so far about The Choice that hasn't just been telling him to make one.
"Yeah, well, my body is kind of stupid," Ryan says, and regrets it when Brendon's face closes off.
--
Brendon buys bar soap instead of shower gel and it makes Ryan uncomfortable, the feel of something in between Brendon's hands and his skin when they bathe. Brendon closes his eyes and lets Ryan scratch at his scalp when he's done rinsing the last slippery traces of conditioner from Ryan's hair.
"Hot oil treatments," Brendon says dreamily. "We should do hot oil treatments on our hair tonight."
"What?" Ryan asks, confused.
"It's this thing," Brendon says, waving his hands about with his eyes still closed. "My mom and I used to do 'em, 'cause you get two to a box and Kara hated it, so I always did 'em with her."
"What are they?" Ryan asks.
"These little tube things," Brendon explains, still gesturing. "You stick 'em in hot water for, like, a minute, then you pour it over your hair and work it in, and then you leave it on for a bit and then you wash it out. And then your hair's all shiny for a while."
"Oh," Ryan says, and that's how he ends up bent backwards over the edge of the bathtub that night with Brendon pouring hot oil onto his head. It isn't really hot, exactly, more pleasantly warm and it actually feels pretty nice, the pads of Brendon's fingers massaging the oil into his scalp tenderly. He opens his eyes and looks into Brendon's. "Ohh," he says again.
"Hm?" Brendon asks. Ryan blinks for a moment, considering.
"Oh," he says a third time, and sits up abruptly to kiss Brendon - or to try, anyway. His nose bumps into Brendon's chin and it takes them a moment of awkward positioning but they fit their mouths together and they're just kneeling there on the hard tile floor, kissing each other. They're kissing with trickles of hot oil sliding down the sweet curve of Ryan's neck and Brendon's slick hands tangling at his bare shoulders and suddenly that's just it; Ryan's looked across the chasm of where he was and where he could be and decided that where he was might be possibly getting a little boring.
He moves his hands down to Brendon's hips and pushes his sweatpants down, tugs insistently at the hem of Brendon's shirt until he pulls back briefly, panting, and yanks it up over his own head, mussing his hair. Ryan lifts his hips helpfully, enough for Brendon to remove his own pajama pants, and kick the pair of them to the corner of the bathroom. Brendon leans in and kisses the hollow of Ryan's throat, licks his collarbone, bites gently. Ryan tilts his head back and sighs when Brendon starts kissing at his neck, nipping lightly. Brendon's dropping sharp little wet kisses to the damp skin, ignoring the taste of the oil, working his way down to flick his tongue at a nipple before sucking briefly at Ryan's stomach, tilting his head to the side enough to kiss his hipbones.
Brendon flicked his gaze up to Ryan, hesitating with warm breath ghosting over his cock. "Is this-"
"I want," Ryan says quickly. "I do, I want you, I want us, I want-" and is cut off when Brendon sucks the tip into his mouth, lips curling over the ridge and tonguing at the slit. He gasps, hard, reaching down to twist his fingers into Brendon's hair, pulling as lightly as he can. "Brendon, Brendon, I need-"
Brendon nudges his legs farther apart, pushes him back a little until his shoulders are braced against the hard ceramic lip of the bathtub, lifting his hips up again and wrapping long legs around Brendon's waist. Brendon kisses his sternum, teases at his hole with oil-slick fingers before working him open carefully. "Am I-" he asks with his voice husky, and clears his throat before trying again, "Is this okay? I'm doing this right?"
"Yeah," Ryan breathes, and arches into it a little. "Yeah, ohh, Brendon, please," and Brendon positions himself, sucking in a hard breath as he pushes in and Ryan throws his head back, flings his arms up in a desperate hunt for a place to push against, bearing down against the intrusion, adjusting.
Brendon pulls out slowly, a harsh drag on Ryan's insides. He whimpers and Brendon pauses. "Okay?"
"Better," Ryan gasps, and Brendon pushes back in, a little harder. Ryan rocks his hips down, and Brendon gets the idea, thrusts a little more roughly, working into a faster rhythm, fucking him with sharp, precise jerks. Ryan sobs slightly beneath him, and Brendon slips an arm around Ryan's shoulders, draws him up, curls his other hand around Ryan's cock and starts stroking him clumsily, barely in time with his thrusts.
Ryan cries out then, bucks his hips and is almost humiliated at how long he didn't last, pinned by Brendon to the cold edge of the bathtub, and Brendon tries to pull out. "Don't!" he says, tightening his legs around Brendon's waist.
"I can-" Brendon starts, and Ryan clenches around him, grinds down on Brendon's cock, welcomes the instinctive roll of Brendon's hips within the cage of his thighs.
Brendon swears under his breath and lets go, pounds into Ryan, slamming him into the bathtub, and Ryan knows there will be bruises in the morning, and doesn't care, just does his best to weather the onslaught as Brendon buries his face in the crook of Ryan's neck, kissing and biting and sucking hungrily until he tenses, gripping Ryan to him and Ryan feels him slick and hot inside. Some of the oil, cooled down rather a lot, is trickling down the side of his cheek and when Brendon pulls out and away he smears at it with his thumb, still breathing heavily.
"You okay?" Brendon asks, and Ryan nods and smiles at him, and means it.
They climb into the shower and Brendon rinses the oil from Ryan's hair, lathers up the shampoo and lets the spray wash away all the suds before filling up the bathtub with scalding hot water. He sits, back pressed up to Brendon's chest, and lets his head roll back to rest against Brendon's collarbone, sighing, content.
--
They fall asleep in the water, and laugh about it when they wake up, because it's gone cold and their fingers and toes are wrinkled and pruned.
"He kept all that stuff I sent him," Ryan said suddenly while Brendon was brushing his teeth with Ryan's toothbrush Sunday night. They'd gone to the store twice for bath supplies but neither trip had involved a new toothbrush for Brendon. "He cared, and I didn't even know."
"Story of your life," Brendon agrees, and leans in to give him a foamy, minty kiss. It's a little gross but Ryan allows it, because it's Brendon and he's kissing Ryan - and ignoring all definitions of what could be and what is, that is what should be, which is nice even if it's actually not simple at all. "We'll figure it out," he promises, and Ryan believes him.
--