(no subject)
take your time (coming home) by whisperdlullaby
brendon/shane (mentions of past brendon/ryan) | pg | 2,924 words
brendon blinks, just as shane breaks the silence, asking, “you want another truth?”
written for clairejw 's prompt
title taken from fun. and thanks to the one and only, panic_smile and ssuukkii for listening to me whine.
oh, and it's been brought to my attention by my aussie friends that it's australian day \o/ ironic.
so, happy australian day to all you aussies! ♥
When the plane wheels touch Australian soil, Brendon doesn’t feel the same excitement that he usually does; instead, he mostly just feels lonely.
Spencer and Haley are to his right, backs bent and necks craned as they try to catch a glimpse out the window. It’s just an airport, the same as any others, with big buildings and planes and long strips of black asphalt, but Brendon appreciates their enthusiasm, anyway.
He wonders if maybe he should’ve waited to call it off with Sarah; brought her to Australia like Spencer did with Haley, have a little rendezvous of their own, where everything is backwards and upside down from what he knows. He could’ve pretended, he’s gotten good at playing it over the years, after all. But, no; he told himself he’s done being that guy, and he is.
On the cab ride to the hotel, Zack fiddles with the radio in the front seat, complaining about how for the land down under, they sure as hell don’t have any decent music. Through the small, oval rearview mirror, Brendon can see the driver shoot him annoyed glances, but keeps his mouth shut, taking in his sheer mass and muscles. Brendon can’t say he blames him; he remembers when their manager first introduced Zack, patting him on the back and informing them he was their new bodyguard against swarms of excited but surely crazy teenagers. Brendon took one look at him, tucked inside a XXL Metallica t-shirt, head shaved and face pulled into a menacing expression, and hid from him for a week. Now, Brendon doesn’t really see anything besides a big, squishy teddy bear that gives him piggyback rides or cuddles him when he can’t sleep.
It’s weird being able to fit everyone into one cab, and Brendon has to keep reminding himself that Jon and Ryan aren’t following in the one behind; that they won’t be there to meet them at the hotel, eyes red and swollen from the joint they had snuck along the way. He’s been on a few, short-legged tours since the split, and Brendon still finds himself wondering what they’re doing when he gets on stage every night, to see the empty spaces where they once were.
Spencer cups his shoulders and gives it a firm shake, grabbing his attention from where he stares blankly out the window. He raises an eyebrow, and says, “Cheer up! We’re in fucking Australia.” Haley nods in agreement from the other side of him, eyes sparkling with excitement.
Brendon smiles, but he can’t quite feel it reach his eyes. He thinks that maybe he just needs to get some sleep; sleep off the days where he was cramped in an uncomfortable seat, floor vibrating underneath his feet. “I know,” he says, “just tired.”
Spencer looks at him for a halting moment before nodding, seemingly accepting the answer. He turns back to Haley, pressing a kiss to her cheek and Brendon closes his eyes, breathing in the cool, salty air sweeping in through the open window.
Upfront, Zack changes the station to classical, and leaves it.
*
“You coming out with us?” Spencer asks from where he stands at the foot of Brendon’s bed, fiddling with the knot in his tie.
Brendon’s stretched out across the mattress like a starfish, the cool, ventilated air blasting from the air conditioner, soothing against his skin. It’s hot outside, hotter than some of the days he can remember as a kid in Vegas, and he mostly just wants to sit inside and not move. “No,” he says, keeping his eyes focused on the TV so he doesn’t have to face Spencer’s disapproving ones. “I don’t think so.”
“Brendon.” He sighs, exhausted.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” he insists, and begins mindlessly flipping through the channels as a news program comes on. “Just go out with Haley. You need the time.”
Things are just beginning to go back to normal between them, stronger even, since their falling out this time last year and Brendon doesn’t want to get in between that. And while he likes to see Spencer happier than ever, the extra shine in his eyes or the extra teeth in his grin, sometimes it just makes Brendon feel worse, and he realizes that’s more selfish of him than he’d ever like to admit.
Through all these changes, bands splitting and break-ups and new records, Brendon still feels like he’s in a rut he can’t seem to get out of, no matter how hard he tries to claw himself out. More layers are added on every time, piling onto him until Brendon accepts that he’s not getting anywhere anytime soon.
Spencer sighs again, shaking his head. “Suit yourself,” he says, heading towards the door that attaches their rooms together. “We’ll bring you back some food.” He pulls the door closed behind him, and Brendon tilts his head to look out the large window next to him, sun painting the horizon in an array of purples and pinks and golds.
It’s sometime in the early hours of the morning in California, and Brendon wonders if Shane’s in bed like a good boy or plastered in front of the monitor, working on his project and pouring cups of cold coffee down his throat. Knowing Shane, he assumes it’s the last.
Spencer and Haley laugh from the next room, and Brendon wishes he was there with him.
*
When Brendon comes off stage, handing his acoustic off, Shane is standing next to the black, sweeping curtains, blocked off from the crowd, a familiar goofy grin on his lips and a black beanie on his head, pushing the fringes of his hair in front of his eyes. Brendon has to do a double take, just to make sure it’s him.
“Shane! What the fuck?!” he cries, and launches himself at him, wrapping his arms around his neck and squeezing tight. Shane laughs, hugging him despite the sweat dripping from his pores. “What are you doing here?” he asks, pulling back to look up at him with a curious expression.
“Like I’d really miss a trip to Australia.”
“I thought you had a project to do,” he points out.
Shane shrugs. “I took a break.”
Brendon grins, and leans forward to hug him again, closing the space between them. Shane smells like home.
*
Sometimes, Brendon will look at Shane, whether he’s behind a camera or playing with the dogs, and get flashes of the night they drank too much rum and smoke too much weed, and subsequently landed with their tongues in each other’s mouths and their hands shoved down each other’s pants. They laughed about it the next day, awkwardly and uncomfortably, neither of them remembering too much, but it took Brendon a week to realize the sudden lingering gazes and the thrumming underneath his skin every time Shane looked at him meant that he might’ve liked it a bit more than he should’ve.
“Spencer says you were being a whiney, pain in the butt again.” Brendon doubts those were Spencer’s exact words, but he appreciates Shane trying to spare his feelings, anyway. Whatever the words were that came out of Spencer’s mouth, he’s sure he deserves them. He’d be the first to admit he’d been a pretty huge dick ever since they arrived.
“Maybe. Probably.” Brendon grins, and pops a nacho into his mouth, covered with melted cheese and salsa. He’s always happy to see that even bar nacho’s are the same, even on opposite sides of the world. He takes a certain comfort in it. “But I’m not the third wheel anymore.”
Shane shoots him a look, like he doesn’t buy it, and Brendon knows it was a feeble excuse anyways. He’s spent plenty of time around Spencer and Haley, or Shane and Reagan, even Jon and Cassie, and never had a problem with it before. But alas, he figures it was worth a shot anyways.
“Fine.” Brendon sighs in defeat. “Maybe it’s weird not having them around,” he admits.
“You mean Ryan?” Shane asks, raising an eyebrow.
“No, not Ryan,” Brendon replies, shaking his head, earnestly. He doesn’t know when or how, but one morning he had waken up and suddenly Ryan wasn’t on his mind anymore. It had been a long time coming, too long, and it had taken a certain amount of weight of his shoulders he didn’t know he was carrying. “Both of them. The band.”
Shane looks over him, a skeptical gleam to his eyes, and Brendon can’t really blame him; for a long time, he didn’t even believe it himself. He stares back at him, unwavering.
Shane drops his eyes as he sits back in his seat, making the liquid crash against the beer bottle as he turns it back and forth in his hands. “You want to hear my truth?” he asks after a moment.
Brendon nods, and swallows, curiosity running through him.
He lifts his gaze up to his, and says, with a certain air of finality, “Me and Reagan broke up.”
“Shit, man, I’m so sorry,” Brendon says automatically. It’s like a pre-recorded message in his head, a censor that goes off when someone tells of something bad, whether his brain has caught up to it yet or not.
Shane shrugs, and his gaze pulls from Brendon’s again, drifting off across the sparsely populated bar. There’s a soccer game on TV mounted on the wall beside them, the announcers voice wrapped in a thick Australian accent. “Don’t be,” he mumbles. “I was the one to call it off.”
Brendon’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, unsure of what to say as Shane shifts in his seat, eyes downcast and avoiding his. As far as Brendon knows, Shane and Reagan were the perfect couple, complimenting each other in ways others wish they could. Brendon knew Shane loved Reagan, he saw the way he looked at her and the way he filled with immense guilt after that night with him and Brendon and too much alcohol. Brendon probably should’ve felt guilty too, but after years and years of experience of being the other one, it’s skimmed down to being no more than a soft ache in the back of his head. “But - why?” he asks, finally.
“I just - ” he starts, then shakes his head. “It wasn’t the same anymore.” He says, “I don’t love her anymore. Not in that way.” He inhales, and forces himself to look up at Brendon, a sliver of desperation in his eyes. “That doesn’t - that doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?”
“No,” Brendon replies, honestly, “it doesn’t. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
Something flashes across Shane’s eyes, something so quick that Brendon can’t read it, and then he’s nodding, slowly. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
Brendon shrugs, darting a tongue across his bottom lip, the chapped skin like sandpaper. “Well, then. You can’t be a bad person for telling the truth.”
Shane looks at him for one long moment, so heavy that Brendon has to look away for a moment. “Yeah?”
Brendon swallows, nodding. “Yeah,” he echoes.
*
At night, the weather becomes slightly more tolerable, and Brendon agrees to go for a walk with Shane down the pier, overlooking the vibrant lights of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the lit-up city as a perfect backdrop. They stop to get ice cream in one of the shops along the way, and Brendon tries not to think about how insanely romantic this is; about how this is the first time since they’ve known each other that they’re both entirely single, no strings or coveting bandmates in the way.
Brendon polishes off his double-fudge chocolate pecan cone before Shane’s halfway through his strawberry. He cracks up once they pass under a streetlight, and Brendon looks up at him, frowning, while Shane’s pulling his sleeve over his hand, wiping it over Brendon’s mouth. “You have ice cream all over your mouth, dumb-ass,” he says, a fondness to it, and Brendon feels his cheeks light up.
Shane’s hand drops back to his side, and Brendon rubs at his own mouth, paranoid, until Shane stops near the railing, overlooking the water. The lights from above reflect against the small trickles of current, different colours and shapes and swirls, and Brendon thinks of all the creatures underneath the surface. The turtles and sharks and dolphins. He thinks of Finding Nemo, and smiles childishly to himself. He might even giggle, just a little bit.
Shane takes the last bite of his cone, and looks at Brendon sideways, the corners of his lips turned up in amusement. “You’re thinking of Finding Nemo, aren’t you?” Brendon’s still trying to decide if Shane’s random bursts of mind-reading are comforting or just plain creepy. Then again, he figures it may have a little bit more to do with him being overly predictable than psychic abilities.
“Maybe.”
Shane chuckles, and throws an arm around his shoulder, pulling him so their sides are flush together. Shane’s been doing things like this ever since he met him; running his hand through his hair affectionately, pulling his feet under his thighs when they’re watching TV and Brendon complains that his feet are cold. It’s nothing new or out of the ordinary, and Brendon has to remind himself of this, every time his chest constricts or gut jumps in his belly.
Brendon stares out at the ocean, listening to the soft lap as the small waves hit the surface of the rocks below. Shane’s arm loosens, and there’s a few halted minutes before he’s letting out a long breath. “Do you - ” he starts, so quiet Brendon has to strain to hear him, “Do you ever think about that night?”
Brendon tightens his grip on the metal rail, muscles tensing as his brain catches up with the words. “What night?” he asks, even though he knows.
Shane’s arm slips from around his shoulder, but he doesn’t move away as he turns a bit to the side, looking down at Brendon. “You know,” he says, softly, and his eyes tell something that Brendon can’t quite read.
He swallows, feeling his heart skip a bit, and then another. “Yeah,” he admits, finally, voice coming out in a careful whisper.
There’s a long pause, Shane’s eyes searching his but expression unreadable, and Brendon wants to huff and shake him and ask him what he’s thinking. Why he’d ask him something like that, so serious, and then leave him hanging, starving like a fish out of water. Brendon blinks, just as Shane finally breaks the silence, asking, “You want another truth?”
“Yeah,” Brendon says through a shallow intake of breath, and he presses his palm to his gut, just to see if he can feel the obnoxious butterflies through his t-shirt.
Shane eyes drift across the water, and he takes a deep breath before bringing them back to Brendon, looking at him through thick eyelashes in an almost bashful way. “I’m kind of in love with you,” he admits, quietly, an vast openness to his voice.
Brendon’s brain stops functioning for a moment, maybe two, before his face is splitting into a large grin, so wide he’s afraid it might splinter. He feels giddy and a little bit unstable, looping his arms around Shane’s neck and bringing their lips together without a second thought. He wonders if this is what the feeling was all along.
He breathes in through his mouth, tasting strawberries and Shane on the tip of his tongue, and murmurs, “Me too.” When he leans in to kiss him again, deeper this time, he can feel Shane’s grin against his.
Brendon wonders if this was his plan from the beginning, to surprise him in a foreign country, bring him for a walk and buy him ice cream, seduce him under the Australian stars. Shane kisses him back, earnestly and wholeheartedly, and he hopes so.
He moves his hands up, splaying against Shane’s bicep and presses forward until Shane’s front is curved along his side. The only memory Brendon has to compare to this is hazy, blurred around the edges, barely able to pick up anything tangible out of it, no matter how hard he’s tried, but he thinks that it’s okay, because he thinks a first kiss overlooking the ocean on the opposite side of the planet is better, anyway.
He pulls back, hand sliding down to rest on Shane’s chest, his heartbeat steady against his fingertips. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he asks, licking his lips just to taste him.
“There was always someone in the way.” He shrugs, a soft pink flourishing against his cheekbones. “Ryan, Reagan, Sarah…”
Brendon bites down onto his lip, and knows he’s right. It’s never something that had stopped Ryan, or he guesses even himself, and maybe this is exactly the change he needed. Brendon’s sick of being the other one, the one that almost reaches the finish line but never quite.
He leans forward to kiss him again, and he feels a rush of warmth spread down to his toes. This isn’t Ryan, this is someone entirely different, this is Shane. It’s Shane with his camera and beanies and goofy smile and adorable lisp; the one he owns a house with, dogs, one he could spend days with doing nothing and never get bored. He realizes that maybe they’ve been together all this time, but never stopped to open their eyes long enough to notice.
*
When the plane wheels leave Australian soil, Shane at his side, he doesn’t feel lonely anymore.