We bleed the same
Title: We bleed the same
Author:
alles_luege
Pairing: Gerard/Ryan
Rating: R
Summary: Ryan really doesn’t know why Gerard’s words hurt, or maybe he doesn’t want to know.
Warning(s): Sex, angst, maybe some twisted imaginary
Author’s Notes: This is the fourth of seven fic(let)s with the Seven Sins theme. They are not connected, stand alone and with various pairings. If you’re not sure which sin inspired the story, just click ‘end’, if you want to know. *smiles*
Word Count: 1.768
Beta: tygermine (I blame her for this, because she shoved me in the direction of this G/R manifesto.)
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real.
“You should be more pissed,” Brendon says.
Ryan shrugs, maybe he should.
“Whatever,” he says and goes back to applying make-up around his eyes. It’s something to pass the time.
“Ryan,” Brendon stresses.
“Whatever,” Ryan replies again and Brendon shrugs and gives up on the conversation. It was, after all, over for Ryan a few minutes ago.
“I’m going with Jon to buy some Skittles, you want something?” he asks, looking at Ryan’s face in the mirror. Ryan seems to consider the offer, but shakes his head.
“No, I’m good,” he says.
“Liar,” Brendon answers with a soft smile, but lets it go. Ryan watches him leave, and as he closes the door, he throws his eyeliner on the table and stares frustrated into the mirror. He is pissed, it stinks, it shouldn’t but it does. He feels helpless and worthless and just…damn Gerard Way to hell, he thinks.
~+~
He throws a brush at the mirror and it breaks. Doesn’t shatter, just breaks; broken glass in an old-fashioned frame. If he used his fist, there would be blood on the glass and running down his fingers, he thinks. It would look good.
“Jesus, Ryan.” Spencer says. Ryan doesn’t turn to look at him, Spence’s face stares at him in the mirror, countless times and wrong, twisted. Just like he feels. Maybe…he feels more wronged than anything.
“I don’t deserve that,” Ryan says, barely a whisper, but vicious like anything Spencer has heard in a long time from Ryan.
“We,” Spencer corrects. Ryan doesn’t answer. “We, Ryan. He said it about us.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Spencer asks.
“Yes,” Ryan replies, his eyes are shut; he doesn’t want to look at Spencer when he lies. Besides it’s not really a lie, because his brain knows that, but his heart, his heart feels the pain to be wronged like that. It shouldn’t be like that.
“That’s not how it should be…” Ryan says. Spencer just looks at him, he can feel Spencer’s gaze on him, steady, calculating maybe.
“Not how you should be?” Spencer asks, but it’s not really a question. Damn Spencer, he knows Ryan just too well.
“Maybe…” Ryan lies.
“Ryan,” Spencer says and steps forward, Ryan can hear it on the bare floor and flinches.
“Don’t…” he whispers.
“Okay,” Spencer says.
~+~
“It’s…these things don’t matter,” Jon says. Ryan stares at him.
“I know,” Ryan replies.
“Not to the fans or the label,” Jon goes on, as if Ryan hadn’t said a word.
“I know,” he answers. It matters to him. It shouldn’t, but it does.
“Ryan…”
“I know.” Ryan says and Jon knows that voice, so he sighs and lets it go. Ryan is staring into the mirror again. His make-up is smeared. Sweat. Some tears. Frustration. He hates when he’s like this. He hates when he feels like this. He hates that someone else can make him feel like this, someone who isn’t related to him, someone he doesn’t even know personally. Someone who’s just a mocking voice, some printed words, nothing else.
He thinks, he looks tired. Maybe, he is. He should feel high on adrenalin but he doesn’t, he hates that too. That someone can take it away with some stupid words, that he lets him.
“Fuck,” he says frustrated and begins to remove his make-up.
~+~
If you don’t know him, you would never guess. Because Ryan looks so aloof all the time, as if nothing could shake him, touch him. So secure in himself. In his looks. The interviews he gives, all that.
He used to look into the mirror and see him. Just him, not anyone else. HIM. Perfect him, successful him, loved, adored him.
He sees that. Even now.
“You ready?” Spencer asks. Ryan glances one last time into the mirror before he nods.
“Yes,” he says.
The show gives him that feeling back, that feeling to be loved, adored, as if he’s the only person that matters in the whole world.
~+~
It’s a bit of a shock to see Gerard Way leaning against the counter. With Frank. And he’s with Spencer and Brendon. Ryan knows Spencer will give Gerard shit for talking like that about them as soon as he sees them. He grabs Spencer’s arm and squeezes tightly.
“Ryan…” Spencer begins.
“I know.”
“I will…”
“No, it’s okay.” Ryan says, Spencer looks pissed, ready to bitch about it. To defend Ryan’s honour or something.
“If they just so much as glance at you funny…I swear.” He says and Brendon takes Ryan’s other hand and squeezes it hard and reassuring.
“We will kick his ass,” he says and Ryan laughs out loud, because honestly, he doesn’t think they have a chance in hell against MCR. They just aren’t that hardcore at all. They’re like made of kittens and rainbows and candy, especially Brendon. Brendon is 70% candy inside.
“We could. We totally could!” Brendon says, as he drags Ryan with him, after Spencer. Ryan sees Frank nudge Gerard out of the corner of his eye. Ryan looks back, just a glance and a quick smile. He is Ryan Ross after all. Nothing can bring him down…okay, he will not listen to Brendon singing Christina again. He smiles into Brendon’s shoulder as he thinks it. Life is good after all.
~+~
He thinks he should have been prepared for the mocking voice, but he really isn’t. So he just stops mid step as Gerard’s voice says, “Hey, Ross!” It isn’t loud in the alley outside the club, where he just wanted to catch some air and get away from Brendon for a little while. He turns around. Gerard is leaning against the wall, cigarette in hand. Smoke curling around his fingers. But maybe that’s just Ryan’s imagination.
“Saving lives?” Ryan asks, his tone mocking, a little sharp, but bordering on boredom. He’s pleased with himself.
“Here?” Gerard asks.
“Plenty lives to save in a club like this,” Ryan shrugs. They’re still a few feet apart. Ryan isn’t sure why, but he’s damned if he makes the first move here.
“But you’re the only one out here,” Gerard answers, taking a drag from the cigarette. It looks cool somehow, not many people can look cool while poisoning their bodies.
“I don’t need saving.”
“You sure? You look a bit lost…”
“Lost?”
“In yourself.” Gerard clarifies, flipping the butt of his cigarette on the ground.
“I’m not,” he answers a bit too defensive for his own liking.
“I think you are. And I’m almost always right…”
“You’re wrong now,” Ryan says and wishes he could add ‘and how does that feel?’, but he doesn’t.
Gerard smiles, as if he knew, but doesn’t comment on it, just goes back inside. Ryan takes a deep breath and stays where he is.
~+~
He breaks his mirror the following day. Because he can’t stand his own reflection. Just can’t deal with the perfection that stares back at him. He breaks it with his hand. The cuts aren’t deep, but he is dripping blood all around the place anyway.
~+~
It’s a week later that he sees Gerard again. Outside a club. It’s like a déjà vu.
“Where did you get them?” he asks pointing to the bandages around Ryan’s hand.
“Accident with a mirror.” Ryan answers.
“Accidentally on purpose?” He lets smoke out of his lungs, his lips curled into a half smile. Ryan really wants to kiss him or slap him. Maybe both.
“What makes you think that?” he asks instead. Gerard shrugs.
“Just a feeling?”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Ryan says, a bit angry.
“You’re so full of yourself, Ross…it was just a matter of time you realise you’re not that perfect.” Gerard says and now Ryan knows that he wants to hit him, hard, badly. He shakes with the need, with the control; he curls his hands into fists.
“Why do you think you know anything about me?” he spites.
“I watched you.” Gerard says simply.
“Why?” Because, honestly, WHY?
“Because I wanted to, because I could? What does it matter?”
It matters, it matters, because you make me miserable, make me hate myself, make me hate my reflection so I break my mirror with my fist, he thinks.
“I hate you so much…” he says instead.
“You don’t.”
“There is no one I could possibly hate more.” Ryan says flatly.
“There is. You.”
And that’s just too close for comfort, so he lunges at Gerard, and it’s stupid, and childish, and of no use at all. Before he can as much as blink his back connects with the wall. The pain lets him moan softly and he bites his lip. He is no stranger to rough behaviour. He can deal with that. Gerard’s body is pressed against his; he can feel every point of connection hot and powerful. His eyes are shut and his body tense with anticipation.
“Hey,” Gerard says softly, Ryan can feel his breath on his face, it smells like smoke and something sweet, “I’m not going to hit you.”
Ryan opens his eyes slowly. Gerard’s hands are instead curled into his shirt.
“Why not? Is it my pretty face?” Ryan says in a whisper. He feels shy and breakable, but also vicious and a bit self-destructive.
“Yeah…it is.” Gerard says softly against his lips, they are sharing air, but their lips aren’t touching. Just an inch, Ryan thinks. And then he leans forward and presses his lips against Gerard’s. Softly and hesitating. Gerard kisses back. He kisses Ryan like he thinks Ryan would break apart any minute. Maybe, he will.
“It’s okay not to feel okay,” Gerard says, his hands on both sides of Ryan’s face, thumbs stroking softly Ryan’s skin.
“You preach that in your fucking songs…” Ryan breaths out and Gerard laughs.
“It’s still true.”
~+~
And not an hour later Ryan really breaks apart. Under Gerard’s hands, and lips, and tongue, and fingers in a hotel bed, on pale blue covers. Arching his back as he comes, his neck a perfect line, his mouth open in a silent scream, his hands fisting the covers so hard his knuckles are white; something Gerard would sketch later.
Gerard is a warm presence beside him and the soft smoke of his cigarette curls around Ryan like a vine, but maybe that’s just his imagination too.
Ryan is a trembling mess. Between self-hatred and euphoria. He knows now, he knows he’s attractive, beautiful maybe, but he doesn’t know if he is special at all. He doesn’t ask, because it’s something he doesn’t want to know for sure.
~end~