We Were Heading For The Sea for addictedkitten

[jae_w]

Title: We Were Heading For The Sea
Author: softlyforgotten
Recipient: addictedkitten
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "Across the kitchen table, I fired several rounds, but you were still sitting there when the smoke cleared." - Ani Difranco

Notes: Very slightly AU: Brendon and Spencer don't live together. Thank you to J., T. and V. for your betas.


Most stirring & strange is the affection in it - the romantic chorus, the idyllic melody, - because there's such a disconnect between this and the lyrics. "What's broken can always be fixed / what's fixed will always be broken"? That last part's not a banality. Or when he wakes in the hospital bed: "You're sitting next to me reading the paper / I put your arm around me." It's a broken relationship, one half more in love than the other.

And you could explain all this by calling the narrator deluded, blind to the nature of his own love affair. Or you could see the song as something else: a recollection. A snapshot & a story. The desire to go back to another time, to swim for a while there, and to cast it in rosy light. The doomed, daft act of revisiting a lost place and gilding it gold.

-- Sean Michaels

Brendon could see him from the beach. The house wasn't quite close enough that Brendon would be able to see anyone sitting on his back steps from the actual water but halfway up the sand he froze, surfboard tucked under his arm, eyes trained on the unmistakeable figure lounging on Brendon's steps.

For a moment he let himself not register things properly, thought instead about how awesome it would be if he could see Ryan on his back steps from the water, the sea surging up beneath him, the roll of the waves, standing on his board with his gaze fixed straight ahead as the world rushed to meet him. Then he groaned and rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck. He wished, stupidly and uselessly, that he wasn't wearing a wetsuit and dripping everywhere, that he had a little more advantage in the situation, or at least an even footing. Brendon had been waiting. He'd known that this would happen, ever since Spencer called him last Monday and said, "So, we went to lunch," but he'd thought that Ryan would postpone the inevitable confrontation a while yet.

Apparently not, though when he got to the house Ryan didn't look very angry at all. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and smiled, said, "Nice waves. It looks good out there."

"Uh, yeah," Brendon said, dumping his board and running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, it's pretty - it's alright." He stopped, but Ryan didn't say anything else, just nodded and smiled at him. Brendon shook his head, scattering water everywhere, and asked, "You want to come in?"

"Sure," Ryan said, shrugging, and Brendon shot him an incredulous look and then went up the steps, brushing past Ryan to open the door. Ryan followed him in as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

"I'm going to get changed, one sec," Brendon said, and darted down the hall to peel his wetsuit off, settled into jeans and a t-shirt instead. For one wild moment he considered calling Spencer and asking for help, or a rescue mission. He'd been in a good mood, having a good day, and dealing with Ryan didn't feature into that plan.

In the kitchen, Ryan was drinking a glass of soda and helping himself to Brendon's fridge, laying out ingredients for a sandwich. "You want one?" he asked when Brendon stared at him in disbelief, and didn't wait for an answer, just put out another two pieces of bread. Brendon watched him slice up a tomato with quick, easy movements, and wondered for a moment if he'd wandered into a different dimension by accident.

"Ryan," he said. "What are you doing?"

"Having lunch," Ryan told him. He cast Brendon a rueful glance. "I forgot to go grocery shopping again, there's seriously not anything in my fridge. And the only places I can find open are supermarkets - I still have no idea where the fuck anything is around here - and I had a craving for, like, good vegetables, so I came here. You should really give me a key," he added. "It gets boring watching you surf after a while."

Brendon swallowed. "I meant," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"You always have good food," Ryan said.

Brendon said, "Ryan."

"What?" Ryan was frowning now at least, which felt slightly more normal in terms of the whole damn thing. "Are you mad at me?"

Brendon gaped at him. "Are you fucking kidding me? Did you miss the part where you left the band?"

"But you wanted me to," Ryan said, suddenly anxious. "I mean. We wanted to make different music. Both of us. We were - it was the right thing to do, wasn't it?"

"I - yeah," Brendon said. "Yeah, but." He drew in a breath. "We haven't - we've barely spoken for three months, and before that we were busy yelling at each other, and-"

"I don't know," Ryan said. "It was weird. But it's better now, we worked out what we had to do, and it's, it's stupid to stop hanging out, or whatever. Don't you think?"

"Ryan," Brendon repeated, voice a little harder now. He could feel anger rising at the back of his throat, bitter like bile, because Ryan was doing the what had always infuriated Brendon more than anything, was being condescending and ridiculous, and skating over things that mattered. He hadn't expected Ryan to react like that, not for something this big. On the plus side for his intuition, he had expected Ryan to be a douche. "You know it isn't that easy. We're - you live in, like, a totally different world to me, now, and you wanna just waltz in and pretend everything's normal? You know it can never be that easy-"

"Hey," Ryan said, and he looked vulnerable, just a flash of it across his face. It made him look incredibly young, like he was seventeen again, asking Brendon to sing. It was hard to be angry at Ryan when he was looking at Brendon like that. Ryan touched Brendon's arm, very lightly and very quickly, but Brendon felt it linger. "Brendon," Ryan said. "I just want a sandwich. I just want to hang out."

"I - right," Brendon said uneasily. He felt shaky and unsure on his own feet, like something had knocked him completely off-balance but more importantly he didn't remember how to stand upright anymore. Ryan had gone back to smiling at him, quiet and settled and utterly at home in Brendon's kitchen. Brendon said, "Right - fine, okay."

"Good," Ryan said. "Do you have any pickles?"

---

They ate their sandwiches without plates in Brendon's living room, sprawled on the sofa. At first Brendon had sat stiffly upright on one end, but then Ryan had stretched out and dumped his feet in Brendon's lap, and Brendon had wriggled around and made himself comfortable, fitting his legs between Ryan's back and the couch. Ryan flipped around the channels aimlessly and Brendon still felt weird, tension prickling under his skin, but this was still a lot better than the fight he'd imagined them having. Also Ryan hadn't noticed the mayo dripping out the bottom of his sandwich and onto his shirt, which was always a good time.

"Will you just pick a fucking show and stick with it?" Brendon demanded as Ryan began the third loop round of all Brendon's TV channels (and Brendon had cable). Ryan shot him a faintly wounded look.

"It's an important task," he said. "I don't want to veg out in front of any old thing."

"You're a freak," Brendon said, and the way Ryan's eyes darted quickly, guilty to him meant that he knew Brendon wasn't just talking about the TV. Brendon sighed and poked his toes absently at Ryan's ribs, humming the jingle from a commercial even as Ryan skipped past the channel. Ryan closed one hand around Brendon's foot, stroked idly over the bone. Brendon stared at him.

"Aha," Ryan said, striking gold on a Family Guy episode, and Brendon hummed his approval around the last mouthful of his sandwich. Ryan didn't move his hand, thumb stroking across Brendon's skin in slow, soothing movements, and Brendon felt something loosen in him, uncoil and release. I am so pissed at you, he thought, but he'd stopped the mantra of reasons why in his head, a constantly revolving list ready for the moment Brendon got to throw it all in Ryan's face. Despite the weirdness, it was good to sit there and feel vaguely normal about the world again for a while. The sandwich was good, too. Brendon closed his eyes and listened to the squeaking of overexcited voices from the screen and the soft huff of Ryan's laughter.

When he woke, the sun was much lower in the sky, heading slowly and steadily into the sea, and Ryan was crouching in front of Brendon's DVD cupboard, rifling through the pile. Brendon guessed it was around five-thirty.

"Hey," he mumbled, sitting up and stretching his aching back. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for something to watch," Ryan said. "Did you know you have two copies of West Side Story?"

"Shut up, it's awesome," Brendon said. He groaned, twisting his body into shape, and Ryan looked at him, clearly amused.

"Do you always crash after you've been surfing?" Ryan asked. "That's not so much with the cool image you've got going."

"I was up at seven this morning," Brendon said. "There was some animal going through my trash, I couldn't get back to sleep."

Ryan's eyes widened. "Did you go out and chase it?"

"Seriously?" Brendon laughed, short and surprised. "I'm too much of a coward for that. I was lying there thinking, holy shit, it's a bear and like, trying to work out what to do if it got in the house. I'm thinking I'd go up on the roof? But then, I'm pretty sure bears can climb, so maybe that's not such a good idea."

"Yeah," Ryan said, and frowned. "Is it bears who are scared of water?"

"No, they go fishing and shit," Brendon said. "Even if they were, though, I don't think jumping in the bath is going to stop one if it wants to eat me. Anyway, then I got up and Googled for a while and bears don't come near here, so that was cool. But I still couldn't sleep. And now I won't be able to sleep tonight, fucker, why'd you let me nap?"

"I'll keep you company," Ryan said. "Let's order pizza." He stretched, closing his eyes for a moment, and his shirt rode up. Brendon looked absently at the strip of skin, at the curves of his hipbones.

Ryan left around midnight. Brendon didn't walk him to the door or offer to let him stay the night, and they didn't hug, but Ryan ran his hand through Brendon's hair as he passed the couch, tugging lightly on a lock in some sort of goodbye. That night, Brendon managed to sleep for nearly ten hours, and woke to the insistent buzzing of his phone and Spencer wondering where he was.

Brendon picked up donuts and coffee on his way to the studio in apology, and Spencer laughed at his guilty face and shoved him into a recording booth. They were racing to finish the demo for Oh Glory, because Spencer wanted to put it out as some sort of hope for the fans, and because they were talking about getting the album out around Christmas. Secretly, Brendon thought there wasn't much of a chance of that at all, and that Spencer knew that, but they both had a sudden, reckless urgency in them, a sense that they had the go ahead now, that with the final affirmation they could push on as much as they wanted to, and both of them wanted to move. Brendon felt like he'd been waiting for this for a long time.

The most unsettling thing about it was how very normal it felt. Brendon leaned into the microphone and closed his eyes, and for a while it was frustrating, and nothing came out right, and that was normal, too, but didn't make it any less frustrating. He broke after about an hour, turned away and slammed his hand uselessly against the glass, not hard enough to do anything but sting his palm, and came out glaring.

Spencer looked at him, biting his lip. "What's going wrong?" he asked.

"I can't fucking get it," Brendon snapped. "It doesn't - sound right, I don't know how it's meant to sound-"

"Work it out," Spencer said, sounding a little bit exasperated himself. "Jesus, Brendon. It's your song."

"But how should it sound?" Brendon demanded. "I mean, I can do it - with, like, a swagger, or kind of, I dunno, more earnest, I can't think of how it should be-"

"Brendon," Spencer said. "Sing it how you want. You wrote it."

Brendon glared and bounced up on the heels of his feet and said, "You know, that really doesn't help me." Spencer shrugged and Brendon huffed out a breath, and then said, "Fine, I wanna do it a bunch of different ways."

Spencer's mouth twitched. "Fine," he agreed, and Brendon went back into the recording booth and came up with four or five characters in his head, most of them pinched from various movies - though no one ever had to know that - and sang it straight through six times in a row.

They were good. It was fun, to have variety, to stretch his voice around the words in a different ways, come up with ways to make lately it seems like everybody's sick, everybody's dying desperate or amused or knowing or cruel, and then he stuck his head out of the booth again and he and Spencer said at the same time, "Fifth one?" Brendon beamed.

When they were pretty much done for the day, and John had gone home, Spencer looked up from his laptop and asked hesitantly, "You want to do something real quick? Just - show we're not dead, or-"

"Yeah," Brendon said. He picked up his acoustic and played a few bars, and Spencer nodded, grinning. They didn't bother setting up all the equipment, just hooked up a couple of mikes, and Brendon sang with Spencer smiling at him. It was weird; he'd spent the last couple of months listening to this song on repeat, trying to believe it and mostly just feeling wretched and hopeless with all the anger building up in him. Now, he thought about today and singing things the way he wanted, about the first swell of breath when Spencer had gotten behind his kit and they'd started rearranging Camisado, and it had been weird, it had been, but he had turned around and played at Spencer and it was his fight, too, or he could turn it into that. His fingers were sore in his favourite way, and it wasn't very hard at all to sing every little thing is gonna be alright.

They sent it to Pete and Spencer looked at Brendon, who felt like maybe he was vibrating a little, and laughed, said, "You want to go somewhere?"

"I'm starving," Brendon said, and they went to some tapas bar and ordered the silliest sounding drinks on the menu (Brendon's had 'gay' in the description, but Spencer's came out frothy and pink, so he won that particular night).

"Right," Brendon said, and pulled a bunch of napkins out of the holder and stole Spencer's ballpoint from his jacket pocket. He wrote up lists of all the songs they had and said, "How are we going to order them? I'm thinking, like, through theme, maybe-"

"Brendon," Spencer said, sounding like he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Brendon, we haven't even written half of the songs."

"I'm just being organised," Brendon informed him. "Alright, but look, we could also do it by key, and then that might be - like, that's a theme all on its own, because the D minor ones, here, they're a bit more-"

"Brendon," Spencer said.

"Oh man, or," Brendon said, getting excited. "Or we could do it by the end, right, could we figure out a way with the last and the first chords, or even, like, fucking Hazards of Love, man, get the songs flowing into each other so you're like, wait, what, is that a new song? I mean, it'd mean a bit of playing around with what we've got, but I think if we just - you know?"

"Hmmn," Spencer said, looking drawn in all of a sudden. "Like - a little bit, with the last album, the end of Holy Spaces and then Northern Downpour?"

"Yeah," Brendon said. "Only more."

"Okay," Spencer said, leaning forward, gaze intent. "So, alright, carry the end of songs through - can we take Oh Glory into that one you were playing around with today, then? The uh," and he hummed a few bars, and Brendon nodded quickly.

"Yeah!" he said. "Yeah, just like that, and alright, if we decide to keep New Perspective for the record, and keep it in the single position, then what if we added thirty seconds or something to the end of it, so we could transition it into the next. Um, you know that one that John said we needed to redo? Maybe, if we could fit it onto the end of something-"

"-the rest of it might come easier," Spencer agreed, nodding. "Right, okay."

They continued on through the main courses, Brendon steadily getting more excited by the way things were working out, until finally Spencer cried, "No more!" and slammed his hands down dramatically on the table. "We've been playing all day, okay, if I hear you ramble about fucking minor versus major one more time I'm going to be forced to kill you-" Brendon gasped at him in outrage and Spencer burst out laughing, face bright and all lit up.

"Fine then," Brendon said. "I'm just trying to be professional, but whatever, clearly I am a - a lone wolf." He waited while Spencer laughed some more, and then asked, a little plaintively, "Are we going to the barbecue at Shane's this weekend?"

"Because we're attached at the hip," Spencer said, rolling his eyes, and then paused and grimaced. "Wait, okay, don't answer that. Do you think it would be too lame or just kind of awesome to shake up cans of soda before people open it?"

"Oooh," Brendon said, grinning. Then he sighed and said, "But like anyone's going to be drinking soda, anyway."

"Fair point," Spencer agreed, and took another swig of his beer, the discarded cocktail glass sitting forlornly in a corner.

Brendon watched him drink and then said, without really thinking, "I saw Ryan yesterday."

Spencer set his bottle down, eyed Brendon carefully. "Oh?"

"Yeah." Brendon laughed awkwardly and palmed the back of his neck. "It was pretty weird."

"Guess it would be," Spencer said. "Your voice is good, though, so presumably you didn't scream at each other for too long."

"We didn't scream at all," Brendon said. "I. It was weird. He acted like everything was normal, like there was nothing to even talk about. Like it was the definition of an amicable split, rather than-"

"The Diva Tempers Death Match," Spencer finished dryly.

Brendon thumped him lightly on the arm. "Shut up," he said, but he was glad, that Spencer had stepped in and said it like that, because it made him feel tired again if he thought about the real thing for too long, the fighting and then the endless, cold silence. He was glad Spencer had stepped in. "I don't know. It was - not at all what I expected." He shook his head and asked, "Have you spoken to him?"

"Not since last week," Spencer said. "I talked to Jon yesterday for a while. They're recording, too. I kind of thought - I would think that Ryan would take this hard, like, a pretty big thing, no matter that he was the one who initiated it. This is-"

"-weird," Brendon said, for the umpteenth time. He laughed again, for no real reason. "Still, it was better than having a patented Ryan Ross tantrum on my hands."

"Getting torn to death by wild dogs is, I imagine, a fair bit better than that," Spencer said, grinning. "Well, that's good then. Or could have been worse, at least."

"That's what I thought," Brendon said. "Anyway. Did you talk to Pete about getting Ian in?"

"Yeah," Spencer said, and they moved on, but Brendon called it a night soon after that and headed home still feeling unsettled. His throat was a little sore, and smoking with the drinks probably hadn't been such a good idea, so he fixed himself some honey and lemon tea when he got home and drank it in front of his laptop, scrolling through a bunch of unanswered emails and grimacing. Pete had forwarded on a whole bunch of interview requests, and Brendon made a face and then forwarded them on yet again to Spencer, with a hopeful smiley face in the body of the email. He checked a few blogs, too, but only skimmed past Twitter. He'd been ignoring those updates on his phone, too.

At three he finally went to bed, still awake enough to jerk off lazily before he went to sleep. He didn't think about anything or anyone in particular, just vague ideas about skin and hazy images. His dreams, if he dreamed at all, were unspectacular.

---

On Wednesday he pulled into his driveway at ten o'clock after another day of recording, got out of the car, and then blinked, taking an unsteady step backwards. For a moment, the disconnect of being in the studio all day and then coming home to Ryan waiting on his front steps seemed inconceivably, unalterably huge, and almost too much for Brendon to understand. He closed the car door slowly and walked forward, and everything seemed new and shockingly different and fragile, and Brendon wasn't sure he liked it at all.

"Finally," Ryan said, apparently unconcerned. "I've been waiting for ages. I mean it, you really should give me a key."

"Hi," Brendon said warily, and unlocked the door. Ryan pushed ahead of him, calling something about needing to piss over his shoulder, and Brendon ran his tongue along his teeth and went into the kitchen, turned the kettle on. He pulled some leftover pasta out of the fridge, too, and stuck it in the microwave. Ryan gave it an appreciative glance when he came back in.

"I'm starving," he said, getting it out of the microwave and spooning it haphazardly into two bowls. "Where have you been?"

"Recording," Brendon said. "We got two new tracks laid down."

"Cool," Ryan said. "You want to play some video games? I had a craving for, uh, old-school Mario Kart or whatever, but I don't even have a Wii."

Brendon shot him an incredulous glance. "You don't even like video games," he said. He wondered if maybe Ryan was being ironic. It seemed like something he'd be into.

"Yeah," Ryan said meaninglessly, and led the way into the living room, where he began shovelling pasta in his mouth at such a rate that he managed to spatter Brendon's couch with tomato sauce. He only laughed when Brendon scowled at him, and crooked his fingers imperiously for a controller.

They sat on the floor, backs against the couch, and after Ryan had finished his meal he crowded in close to Brendon, sat with his knee overlapping Brendon's, their jean-clad thighs pressed close together. Ryan was as bad at video games as ever, and he still drove with his whole body, veering to one side with his car, and practically collapsing across Brendon's lap when he took a sharp right. Brendon beat him easily, humming something jaunty and cheerful under his breath that clashed with the theme music and made Ryan glare at him. After a couple of hours, though, Ryan got better and Brendon got sleepier, half drowsing on Ryan's shoulder, and then they were a little more evenly matched.

At one point he blinked and realised that Ryan was playing solo, while Brendon was breathing steadily into Ryan's neck, his controller lax in his hands. He stirred, and Ryan stopped the game and turned to smile slightly at him, face blurry that close. Brendon blinked at him and Ryan laughed, said, "You should go to bed."

"M'awake," Brendon protested. It was kind of nice, propped up against Ryan's body like this. He couldn't remember the last time they'd been so close, though at least he'd spent most of his time since being too busy raging at Ryan to miss him. Ryan was warm and comfortable, though his fingers felt a little prickly where they touched Brendon's skin. Brendon was half-asleep, though, and it was hard to wonder about anything.

"You're a liar," Ryan said, and eased Brendon upright, slinging one of Brendon's arms around his shoulders and steering him down the hall into Brendon's room. He pulled back the covers and Brendon went to collapse onto the bed, but Ryan laughed again and said, "Uh-uh, pants first." He unbuttoned Brendon's jeans and pulled them down until Brendon could step out of them, which was, okay, maybe a little strange, but nothing they hadn't done for each other before. Only then did he let Brendon crawl into bed and pull the covers up and around himself.

"I'll let myself out," Ryan said. "Good night." Brendon mumbled some vaguely incoherent goodbye, and the last thing he heard was the door clicking closed, before everything was dark and peaceful.

The next morning he went out quickly before he headed off to the studio and got a copy made of his house key, hiding it in a shadowy little nook above the doorframe and texting Ryan with the location. Ryan didn't respond, and Brendon regretted it later, when he went to the studio and was met by Spencer rolling his eyes and saying, "Did you see them yet?" but by then it was too late, and Brendon opened his (unlocked, Jesus) door that night to Ryan singing along with the radio, fairly tunelessly, in the kitchen.

He grinned when Brendon came in. "Hey!" he said. "I ordered pizza. Are you vegetarian again? I got one half with no meat, just in case."

"I'm not," Brendon said, picking up a ham and pineapple slice and biting into that. Ryan shrugged, mouth twitching in the corner.

"You never know," he said. "There's always a chance, with you. Have you not seen Bambi in a while?"

Brendon bared his teeth, not entirely meaning it as a joke, and went to the fridge, helped himself to a beer. He didn't offer Ryan one. He wasn't particularly in the mood for Ryan's sense of humour.

"I saw the photos, dude," he said, settling down in a chair and resting his feet on the table. "Real classy."

Ryan laughed. "Bad timing, huh?" he said. "It's cool, though. I did an interview today and they asked, I said I didn't take any or know it was there or whatever."

"Seriously?" Brendon stared. "You're going to come across as either a moron or a dope fiend, there's no good there."

Ryan shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I'm not a cokehead or whatever, so." He smiled at Brendon and Brendon looked back at him blankly, thought, that's not me, it's my evil twin! Ryan said, "Don't worry about it, seriously. It's not a big deal," and stole a sip from Brendon's beer.

Brendon snatched it back, scowling. "So what was the interview like?" he asked.

"Oh, you know," Ryan said. "What you'd expect. Journalists, man." He rolled his eyes. "You want to go see a movie?"

"I'm tired," Brendon said automatically.

"Come on," Ryan said. "It's not so late. I want popcorn." He widened his eyes in what he probably thought was an enticing manner, but mostly just made him look a little rabid. "I'll pay."

"No," Brendon said. "I'm tired, Ryan."

Ryan opened his mouth, frowning, but Brendon set his jaw and stared, and after a moment Ryan turned away. "Fine," he said. He tried to pick up the conversation, turn the evening into something light, but Brendon thought about Ryan young and tight-lipped, staying in Brendon's apartment when his own house was too bad. Brendon tilted his head back easily and hummed, quick and vicious, the first few lines of Camisado. Ryan didn't say anything, but left pretty soon after that.

---

The interview, when it came out, kind of pissed him off. Not a huge deal; not as much as it did Spencer, and really, Panic split or not, Brendon didn't think he'd ever get over the uneasy feeling that came with seeing Spencer being angry at Ryan. It was the end of an unsatisfying day, Brendon itchy and unable to settle, Spencer's hands hurting from new calluses, and Spencer was flicking through emails on the sofa before they went home.

He read it quickly, skimming through it, and then shoved the laptop aside and went out of the room, slamming the door hard behind him. Brendon waited to follow him, could see through the window Spencer pacing up and down a corridor and then calling someone, probably Crystal or Jackie. He settled down with the laptop instead, and mostly surprised himself by just rolling his eyes and thinking again about what a douche Ryan was. He went out afterward and sat down next to Spencer, quiet in case Spencer needed to rant, but left feeling okay.

He was still annoyed enough that when he got home the last thing he felt like seeing was Ryan napping on his couch. The universe apparently wasn't looking out for him, because that's what he found, anyway, and Ryan didn't wake up even when Brendon stomped around the room loudly and put music on. In the end he gave up and went off to try and figure out a keyboard arrangement for the song he'd been stumped on all day.

He came up eventually with an arrangement that would do for now, and went off to reheat some leftovers from the other night for dinner. It was then, of course, that Ryan came in looking sleepy and curious, and he said he wasn't hungry but ended up eating half of Brendon's meal anyway, apparently impervious to the glare Brendon directed at him.

"You're kind of an asshole, you know," Brendon said, when Ryan passed the mostly empty bowl back to him.

Ryan blinked at him. "What did I do?" he asked, eyes wide and surprised. He looked young, his face soft like it was when he hadn't quite woken up yet, cheekbones sharp and outlined in shadows, and Brendon found himself just looking at Ryan, as opposed to glaring. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"I don't know, Ryan," he drawled, knowing he sounded like an asshole himself and kind of enjoying it. "What do you think you did?"

"I don't know," Ryan said. "You've been so bitchy lately, it's really annoying. Are you tired or something?"

Brendon gaped. "Are you fucking serious?" he spat, and then decided he didn't want to hear the answer, got up and walked out of the room. He went into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him, sprawling on the bed. It was pretty childish, slamming doors, but he didn't care, because fuck yes, he was tired, recording an album and preparing a tour at breakneck pace could kind of do that to you, and he'd sort of hoped one upside of the whole thing might be not having to put up with Ryan Ross's goddamn inscrutability, and now Ryan was going to the lengths of invading Brendon's home in order to be a weird jerk who never took anything seriously.

The door opened, letting in the hallway light for the moment it took Ryan to slip inside and close it, and Brendon resolutely rolled over on his side, didn't want to talk or look, just wanted Ryan to go away.

"Brendon," Ryan said, sing-song.

"Fuck off," Brendon said, and Ryan laughed softly. Brendon hated him for a moment, hated the stupid arrogance he carried himself with, hated his stupid refusal to admit anything important. He turned his face half into the pillow and felt the bed dip as Ryan climbed up onto it, lay next to Brendon and draped an arm over his chest. Brendon closed his eyes.

"Don't be mad," Ryan said. "Come on, Brendon, don't be a jerk."

Brendon rolled onto his back with an affronted sound. "You're the jerk, jerk," he said, and Ryan smiled crookedly down at him, propped up on his elbow. Brendon sighed and said, "Why are you hanging out here all the time, anyway? Aren't you recording too?"

"Yeah," Ryan said, meaninglessly. "You know."

"I don't," Brendon said.

"Whatever, it's just the normal stuff," Ryan said, and, as Brendon opened his mouth, reached down with one hand to slide his fingers along the side of Brendon's face, the curve of his cheek. Brendon snapped his mouth shut and stared, and Ryan tugged at a lock of Brendon's hair and grinned. Then he leaned down and kissed Brendon, soft and warm, nipping gently at Brendon's bottom lip until he opened his mouth on a shocked breath and let Ryan slide his tongue in, let Ryan hold Brendon's face in his hands and kiss Brendon slow and lazy, like he couldn't think of anything better to do.

Brendon pulled back sharply and stared at Ryan, felt his cheeks turn red. "What the fuck?" he said. "What are you doing?"

Ryan stretched, pushing his hips down and arching his back up, and said, "It's just kissing, dude. Don't freak out." Brendon made an incredulous face and Ryan rolled on top of him, legs on either side of Brendon's hips, tightening slightly around him, and letting himself down on top of Brendon, nuzzling at Brendon's chin. "Hey, Brendon," he mumbled. "It's just me." He bit, lightly, on Brendon's pulse point and something flared red and black in front of Brendon's eyes, made him gasp and drag Ryan in closer, clenching his hands in Ryan's shirt and lifting his mouth to meet Ryan's, biting and licking at his mouth, smothering Ryan's huff of delighted laughter.

You freak, Brendon thought, but it made him smile and Ryan felt it, murmured, "What?" against his mouth. Brendon shook his head and Ryan sank down closer, pinning Brendon to the bed, curling his fingers in Brendon's hair just tight enough for it to hurt a little, and Brendon groaned and pushed up, not trying to get away, just wanting the friction. He bit Ryan's lip, hard, demanding, and Ryan reached down and pinched Brendon's hip where his t-shirt had ridden up, hissed something that Brendon didn't catch.

"Hey," Brendon mumbled, and Ryan pulled away a little, their faces still very close, Ryan's eyes huge in the dark. Brendon wasn't sure what he wanted to say, really, and after a moment Ryan kissed Brendon again, slow and insistent, and Brendon closed his eyes and sank back onto the mattress, slipped a hand up the back of Ryan's shirt and let it rest on the narrow strip of warm skin before Ryan's trousers. He was half hard, and could feel that Ryan was too, but a little of the urgency had gone. Brendon felt suddenly nervous.

"That kind of came out of nowhere," he said, breaking away enough to speak. His heart was racing too fast in his chest; since when did Ryan kiss guys, he wondered vaguely. Since when did Ryan kiss him. Ryan gave him an exasperated glance and pulled back again, looking at Brendon like he was some sort of curiousity Ryan didn't quite understand.

"At least you're not mad anymore," Ryan pointed out, and Brendon bit back the urge to snarl. Fuck you, he thought, and wondered if this was what Ryan did with his hipster friends these days, if this was the way Ryan solved everything. He sort of wanted to punch Ryan in the face. He also sort of wanted to kiss him again.

Instead, he said, "I'm kind of beat."

Ryan huffed. "If you didn't spend obnoxiously long hours out of the house every day," he said, and clambered off Brendon's lap. "You just had a weekend, how the fuck are you tired already?

Brendon looked at him, letting out a startled, incredulous huff of air. "We're recording, dude," he said. "We didn't stop this weekend. You know what it's like."

"Yeah, yeah," Ryan said. "Alright, so go to sleep, then." He unbuttoned his fly and arched his hips, pushing his trousers down until he could kick them off. Brendon stared, couldn't help it, Ryan's long legs and the line of his cock through his underwear, and Ryan caught him at it and grinned, quick and dirty. He rolled over and unbuttoned Brendon's jeans for him, dragging them down too slowly to be natural, making Brendon hiss when he grazed Brendon's cock with the back of his hand. Then he tossed Brendon's jeans aside.

"Just kissing," Brendon said, slowly. Ryan looked down at him for a moment, and it felt like they were hung in space, neither of them moving, neither of them giving an inch. Ryan was still leaning over Brendon, their bare legs brushing very, very slightly. Brendon stared up at him, felt his cheeks flushing and his head reeling, but on the surface everything was very, very still, and his breathing was almost even. Ryan cocked his head to the side and half-smiled, and then moved aside. Truce, Brendon thought.

"Just sleeping, now," Ryan told him, and crawled under the covers. After a moment's hesitation, Brendon followed him, and kicked insistently when Ryan tried to press his cold feet against the backs of Brendon's legs.

"You stay on your side," Brendon warned, and Ryan bared his teeth in an almost vicious grin in the dark. Brendon rolled over onto his side, back to Ryan, and watched the red numbers of his digital clock shifting, until he forgot to watch and fell asleep.

He woke earlier than usual, taking a while to adjust to his surroundings. He was sweating more than usual, which was weird until he took in the fact that he was still half-clothed and that Ryan was plastered up against his back, face tucked against Brendon's neck, hand resting just above Brendon's dick with his pinkie finger tucked under the waistband of Brendon's underwear, boner pressed against Brendon's ass. It was too soon after waking up to be able to deal with anything reasonably or in a thoughtful manner; Brendon reached down to squeeze his own hard dick and rubbed back against Ryan, humming something sleep-warm and content. He had a song stuck in his head, but he couldn't remember any of the words. It was going to bug him for ages, now.

Ryan groaned, mouth open and wet against Brendon's skin, and then stirred a little more, shifting his hand down into Brendon's underwear and curling a hand around Brendon's cock, stroking him lazily. Brendon sighed and tried to push simultaneously back against Ryan's cock and up into Ryan's hand, and Ryan laughed softly at his failure, waking up impressively quickly behind him. Brendon blinked slowly and yawned, and then, decisively, rolled over, jostling Ryan's hand and taking Ryan's cock in his own hand.

Ryan gasped and then slid forward and kissed him in a rush, hot and a little sloppy, and they both had morning breath, so who gave a shit. Brendon forgot to keep jerking Ryan off, brain fuzzy, and after a moment Ryan pushed his hand away impatiently and climbed up on top of Brendon again, rocking their hips together and pulling Brendon up into a sitting position so they could kiss, wet and messy and awesome.

"Fuck," Brendon said, and Ryan shoved closer to him, grinding down and winding long arms around Brendon's neck. Brendon dug his fingers into Ryan's shoulder blades, breaking away from his mouth to suck a line down his neck, looking up to watch Ryan tilt his head back, baring his throat. He got distracted by Ryan's mouth again, and caught it hard and off balance so that their teeth knocked and Ryan laughed harsh and breathless, panting into Brendon's mouth.

Brendon slid his hands down Ryan's back and anchored them around his hips, pulling him closer and down, and Ryan dragged his hips in a rough, dirty circle. It wasn't really comfortable with their underwear still on, trapping his dick, but Brendon couldn't make himself take his hands off Ryan, and a second later he stiffened and came anyway, hips jerking up involuntarily. Ryan wasn't very far behind him; another moment and he collapsed on top of Brendon, breathing raggedly against the corner of his mouth.

"Um," Brendon said. He still couldn't remember that goddamn song. "Good morning."

Ryan blinked down at him and stretched, slow and languorous, shirt riding up and baring a strip of stomach and a line of dark hair that Brendon's gaze followed automatically, eyes dark. Ryan climbed off him and gave a disgruntled look at the clock radio before sliding back under the covers.

"Why the fuck did you wake me up?" he grumbled. He made a face and, after some enthusiastic wriggling under the blankets, pulled free his dirty underwear and chucked them over the side of the bed. Brendon tried not to think about how Ryan was mostly naked under there.

"I've got to go," he said instead. "We're still laying down demos."

Ryan glared at him. "It's the weekend."

"It's Tuesday," Brendon corrected, smiling. "You hang out, though. I'll see you later, maybe."

"Maybe," Ryan grunted, yanking the covers up over his shoulders and rolling away from Brendon. Brendon rolled his eyes and went off to shower, and even Ryan's bitchiness couldn't stop his good mood, not after - okay, a variation of - morning sex. Everything seemed very light, his chest buzzing and full of air.

He greeted Spencer and John with a grin and said, "I wanna do New Perspective, first. Then we can rehearse, yeah?"

"Sure," Spencer said, shrugging. He laid down the drum parts first, to go with the guitar that Brendon had done on the weekend, and Brendon stood by him and kept time with his feet, his hands tapping on the bench, bobbing his head, until it felt like it had filled his whole body, this song, their song, a new kind of their. Brendon was still surprised by how little it hurt.

He felt impatient and almost ready to burst with it when it came to his turn. He clutched the lyrics page in his hand but barely looked at it, and everything was growing inside him, that perfect moment of clarity when he sang the first line, and he thought, oh, fuck yes. It felt like he sang it for hours, but it was only one take, and when he stopped and looked up, Spencer was laughing with his head thrown back, while John was grinning at him.

"Fuck yeah," he said, and pumped his fist into the air, first fucking take.

The weird joy and strength of the song filled the rest of the day, and they moved fast, racing through songs and covers, trying new things. Brendon wondered if there was something about being on shaky ground that he loved that could explain all of this, the way the restlessness inside him felt like it was going somewhere, finally.

They actually finished recording at a reasonable hour, for once, but Ryan was still long gone by the time Brendon went home.

--

Brendon didn't see much of Ryan for the rest of the week, and he thought uneasily about pushing boundaries, how they'd seriously messed up this time. On Friday evening, though, Ryan was sitting on Brendon's couch watching the first Indiana Jones movie as though it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be doing. When Brendon came in he offered the bowl of popcorn without looking up and Brendon took a handful as he toed off his shoes, and lay down on the other end of the couch, draping his legs over Ryan's.

"Hello," he said, "I just want to know, right, are you going to jump me, or am I safe?"

Ryan gave him a slightly annoyed look, and Brendon flushed, felt stupid and small and put in his place. Then he snuck a glance at Ryan, who was, seriously, staring in rapt attention at Indiana driving a jeep, and rolled his eyes. It was all too easy to forget, sometimes, how nerdy Ryan could be, in the face of how seriously Ryan took himself.

"Indiana Jones?" he asked, wiggling his toes into Ryan's ribcage until Ryan passed him the popcorn.

"I forgot how awful the first ones were," Ryan said, voice hushed and awed. "How did Harrison Ford ever get the reputation of a good actor, seriously?"

"That's blasphemy," Brendon informed him, but they were pretty hilariously bad movies, especially with Ryan repeating some of the Doom and Gloom lines of dialogue after the characters in a quiet, delighted voice, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Brendon sprawled on his side so that he could drum along on the coffee table during the really ominous bits of music, warbling in high, melodramatic lines over the top of them that made Ryan laugh. After the first one ended Ryan put on the second, and Brendon was just starting to think about making some toasted sandwiches when Ryan moved up the couch and kissed him.

"Anyway, I thought I'd blow you now," he said, and Brendon choked.

"Um," he said, and Ryan gave him a fondly indulgent look, as if Brendon was a little kid who was being stupid - and wow, could Brendon have come up with a more inappropriate analogy? - and then shuffled down between Brendon's legs, popped the button on his jeans. He pulled jeans and underwear down and took Brendon's cock in his warm, dry hand, stroked him once, twice, before ducking his head and licking a stripe up the underside of Brendon's cock. Brendon let his head fall back against the couch, stared mindlessly up at the ceiling, fully hard now, and Ryan tongued at the slit for a moment before bobbing down properly, mouth hot and wet around Brendon's cock.

Ryan was good at this, which Brendon hadn't expected. As far as Brendon knew, Ryan had never been with a guy before, all teenaged kisses at parties and crushes on Pete Wentz aside. He did this well, though, eyelashes dark against his skin, cheeks hollowed, face smooth and intent, and he didn't jerk away when Brendon reached down and curled his fingers in Ryan's hair; instead, he hummed a little and pushed back against Brendon's touch for a moment. When Brendon made himself focus, he could see Ryan's hips rutting shallowly against the couch, Ryan palming himself with his free hand.

"Ryan," Brendon panted, and his hips jerked up involuntarily. He sucked in a breath and said, "Sorry, sorry," and Ryan pulled off for a moment, looking up at him.

"It's okay," he said, voice thick. "It's alright, I like it."

Brendon stared but Ryan just swallowed him down again, and this time he went deeper, until Brendon could feel his cock brushing the back of Ryan's throat. He groaned and thrust up again despite himself, felt Ryan forcibly relax his throat and take it all, every helpless, stuttered push of Brendon's hips, Brendon's cock.

"Ryan," he said. "I'm gonna," and Ryan hummed around his cock and pulled back enough that when Brendon came, he swallowed it all neatly.

"Holy shit," Brendon managed to say, and Ryan laughed softly and licked Brendon clean, petting Brendon's hip soothingly when he whined and jerked away instinctively, cock twitching and oversensitive. "C'mere," Brendon said, and Ryan crawled up and kissed him, traces of Brendon still on his tongue. Brendon pushed his hand into Ryan's pants and said, hot against Ryan's ear, "I'll do you, if you want," and Ryan jerked up into his hand and came, gasping soundless words into Brendon's neck.

Brendon blinked at him again and Ryan slumped on top of him, nose tucked against Brendon's jaw, both of them still half-undressed and out of breath. "That was, uh, quicker than expected," Brendon said, and Ryan smiled against him.

"I like it," he said, "I like doing that," and Brendon thought, I like you, eyeing Ryan uneasily and wishing it was just that, wishing he had a clue what was going on in Ryan's head. After a moment he nudged Ryan up, and Ryan made a plaintive noise but shifted away enough for Brendon to tuck himself back into his pants, following suit. Then he sagged back on top of Brendon, humming something idle in his ear and tapping his fingers on Brendon's shoulder along with the melody. His rhythm was off.

It was comfortable, Ryan having adjusted his weight so that he wasn't squashing the breath out of Brendon or anything, and it was kind of nice to just lie there, the two of them like they hadn't been in months. Brendon thought again, this was the right thing to do, and he said, "Hey," and turned his head. Ryan knew him, like Ryan had always known him, and he caught Brendon's mouth in a slow, lazy kiss. It was light at first, their mouths brushing like wings, and then Ryan sighed and sank closer, sucking Brendon's bottom lip into his mouth, and it was hot in a subdued way, everything in dim light. Brendon felt like it should be afternoon, the sun spreading warm over him, and Ryan got distracted stroking some of Brendon's hair behind his ear, repeated the motion after the need for it was gone, nails scratching gently over his skin. Brendon hummed, and pushed back against him.

"Hey," he said, quietly, breaking away. "You've done this before, huh?"

Ryan blinked at him. "Does it matter?"

Brendon considered. "Not really," he said. "I just. I thought you were straight."

"Yeah, well," Ryan said, and pushed back against Brendon. He was half-hard, and Brendon was too, but he didn't feel any particularly urgent need to deal with it. "Everyone's like, flexible and stuff, you know, so it doesn't even-"

"Ryan, seriously," Brendon said, rolling his eyes. "I asked if you'd done something before, not to give me your new hipster theory on the nature of existence and sexuality."

"Whatever," Ryan grumbled, and kissed him again, and Brendon wound an arm around him and stopped talking for a while, until another thought occurred to him.

"Weekend tomorrow," he murmured against Ryan's mouth. "You wanna crash here?"

Ryan smiled at him, eyes dark. "Are you gonna molest me in my sleep again?" he asked, and Brendon leered at him.

"Only if you want," he said, and Ryan laughed, pushing his face against Brendon's neck, breath light against his collarbone.

"I want," Ryan said, quietly. I don't understand you at all, Brendon thought, but he felt for once like he didn't mind so much.

He yawned into the next kiss and Ryan laughed again, sitting up. "Bed?" he suggested, and his eyes were dark enough that Brendon had a feeling sleep wasn't the only thing on offer. He let Ryan pull him up and they walked together, not touching, but enough that Ryan was warm in his space.

They paused in the hallway when Ryan pressed Brendon up against the wall and kissed him again, and Brendon whispered, feeling stupid with slow, warm happiness and honest with that, "This is good, this is - I'm glad everything happened the way it did."

Ryan took an abrupt step away. "What?" he said, frowning.

Brendon frowned back at him. "What what?"

"Are you serious?" Ryan snapped. "All the stuff - everything, everything is good? Are you fucking serious?"

Brendon clenched his hands into fist. "Are you talking to me about the band splitting up, Ryan?" he asked coldly. "Because I kind of got the impression that you were too busy enjoying your new life and ignoring anything of any sort of importance to even think about that."

"Don't turn this on me," Ryan snarled. "You're the one who said, who said - you're glad that like, whatever happened, because now we can fuck?"

"I'm glad," Brendon said, slowly, deliberately, "that you left the band because we can't make music together anymore. The fact that you're still talking to me is a side bonus."

"Fuck you," Ryan said, and walked out. He slammed every door behind him.

---

Brendon tried to calm down and just go to bed, but he was shaking with fury and too confused to think his way through it properly. After an hour he got in his car and drove around to Spencer's, even though Spencer had closed down the studio early today with the promise that he'd stay out of Brendon's face for "a whole forty-eight hours, imagine that", smiling kind and delighted at Brendon. Spencer was still up, anyway, and when Brendon stepped forward tentatively he opened his arms and gave the hug Brendon needed, firm and tight and with a comfortable shoulder to bury his face again.

Brendon breathed in deep and said, "Ryan's an asshole."

"Hold the front page," Spencer said, and pushed Brendon through the doorway. He'd made some sort of stew that tasted amazing and Brendon wolfed it down, suddenly reminded that he hadn't eaten much besides popcorn yet. Spencer asked, "So what did he do?"

"I don't even know what goes on in his head," Brendon said, rage bubbling up in him again. "He freaked about - whatever, I don't get it. I said that it was good we could still hang out after the band thing, and he freaked out. He doesn't act like he gives a shit about the band most of the time! He doesn’t act like he gives a shit about anything, and I don't think he does, but it suits him to get all morally self-righteous about shit when he feels like it. Like he wasn't the one who broke it up in the first place!"

"That's a bit unfair," Spencer said quietly, and Brendon let out a shuddering breath and attempted a smile. It didn't work very well.

"I know," he said. "Sorry. I'm. It gets so fucking tiring hanging out with him. It's like you always have to be on your guard. I don't understand why he does anything."

"Maybe you need a break," Spencer said. Brendon shook his head miserably.

"If I don't talk to him now," he said, "he'll never talk to me again."

Spencer looked at him and bit his lip, looking a little frustrated. "I don't know what you want me to tell you," he said. "Ryan's a prick a lot of the time. If you want to talk to him, you've gotta deal with that."

Brendon went to sleep in Spencer's spare room, curled up with the covers pulled tight all around him. He had uneasy, frightening dreams full of danger and the dark all night, and woke thinking it was Thursday and Ryan was pressed up against him. It took a moment for him to adjust to where he actually was, staring up at the ceiling and cataloguing the places where the plaster flaked.

He called Ryan when he woke up again, around eleven. Ryan didn't answer so he left a rambling message, said, "Anyway, you're still an asshole but I pissed you off somehow and I don't know why, and I don't want to fight, so, whatever." On a whim, he took a breath and added, "Shane's having a barbecue thing this afternoon, it'd be cool if you came." Ryan didn't call him back, though, and he didn't respond to the texts Brendon sent him through the course of the day.

"You alright, man?" Shane asked, and Brendon looked up at him and smiled, rolling his eyes and pushing his phone back in his pocket.

"Yeah," he said. "Sweating the small stuff. It doesn't even matter, sorry, dude."

"S'cool," Shane said. "When are you going to invite me back into the studio?" He raised his hands and took an exaggerated mimed picture; Brendon tossed his head back and preened, then laughed.

"Soon," he promised. "Maybe you should come on tour with us, you know? It'd be cool to have, like, a record of it."

"Maybe," Shane said, and touched Brendon's arm. "You're having fun, huh?"

Brendon bit his lip and tilted his head to the side. "It feels like it should be weirder than this," he said, low. "It feels like it shouldn't be so - I kind of feel like it's a, betrayal or something ridiculous, to be just."

"Yeah?" Shane prompted, and Brendon laughed again, couldn't stop the smile spreading over his face.

"I'm having so much fun," he confided. "So, so much." Shane laughed at that, too, and pulled him into a hug, and Brendon took over the barbecue, and returned home late to find his house undisturbed.

Sunday was a slow day. He'd made vague plans to go out with Eric and some other guys but ended up passing on them in favour of wandering aimlessly around his house. He went down to the beach for a while, but the surf wasn't very good and Brendon wasn't in the mood, anyway. He went back to his house instead and tried calling Ryan again, but Ryan was still being a douche and not answering his phone, and Brendon was starting to get pissed about that again.

He went to sleep ridiculously early, drifting off around eleven with the vague idea that he could wake up at eight and head straight into the studio. Instead he slept until eleven, and went in to apologise still feeling lethargic and sluggish.

"Hey," Spencer said. He was already at his kit when Brendon came in, face flushed and sweaty, hair falling in his eyes. He looked at Brendon and then frowned. "You alright?"

Brendon made a face. "Do I look that bad?"

"Just kind of pale," Spencer said, and John laid a palm against Brendon's forehead. He had a slight temperature, apparently, but no real symptoms besides the tiredness. Spencer said, "Let's just do keyboard parts, we need them anyway," though, and Brendon was kind of relieved. His voice felt stuck in his throat.

By dinner, he was feeling better, though he hadn't played very well today, music fuzzy in his head. They ate at a Mexican place that had opened just down the road, almost devouring their quesadillas whole. Spencer was humming one of the demos they'd recorded last week and Brendon beamed across the table at him, and stole some of his nachos. Spencer was laughing too much to care.

He got home still in a good mood, singing softly to himself. It took him a moment to notice the lights on in his house, another to realise the door was open, and he'd barely opened his mouth in the hallway to call out before Ryan appeared out of the dark and kissed him.

Ryan's mouth tasted hot and pleasantly bitter like coffee, and Brendon thought he could taste smoke under that, licking out the traces of it. Ryan pressed closer and Brendon's bag slid down his arm and onto the floor, letting Brendon curl his arm around Ryan's waist and pull him in closer, sliding a hand into Ryan's back pocket. Ryan made a small, appreciative sound and Brendon took it for permission, palmed Ryan's ass and used his grip to drag Ryan up closer, their cocks brushing rough against each other through layers of material.

"So I guess you got over yourself," Brendon said, breaking away to breathe. Ryan grinned at him. It didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Yeah, well," Ryan said. "You're an asshole, what else is new."

Brendon arched his eyebrows, glad to be kissing Ryan but ready to launch into an argument if he had to. He wasn't going to take responsibility for the fight. "Seriously?" he said. "You're the one who got pissed off in the most hypocritical way ever."

Ryan just shrugged, looking rueful. "Well," he said. "You make me an asshole."

Brendon stared at him, not quite sure what that meant in Ryan's head, and Ryan shrugged again and leaned back in. "Anyway," he said. "I missed this."

"A whole weekend of this," Brendon said, waggling his eyebrows. "Your bad."

"Uh-huh," Ryan said, and dragged Brendon's shirt up over his head, dropping it on the floor. "Hi," he said, and pushed Brendon up against the wall, stooping to suck kisses into Brendon's throat, mouthing a path down over Brendon's collarbones and nipples until Brendon was panting, cock straining in his jeans.

"Ryan," he said, when he couldn't take it anymore, needed something more substantial than Ryan's hot breath against his sternum. Ryan came up eagerly, letting Brendon tug him into another kiss, tongues sliding together with a sharp, warm shock in Brendon's chest, Ryan's mouth hot and swollen on his own. Brendon clenched his hand in Ryan's - totally unnecessary, what the fuck - tie, and twisted it around his fingers before stepping to the side, pulling Ryan after him.

"C'mon," he said. "S'fucking cold here."

He meant to lead Ryan to the bedroom, but Ryan was impatient and stopped him in the living room, pushing him down on the sofa and straddling him easily, looking down at him with dark eyes. Brendon drew Ryan in by his tie and Ryan followed willingly. Brendon thought that he would never get sick of kissing Ryan, that he could do it forever, blood roaring in his ears, cock almost painfully hard in his jeans, with Ryan's slim, bony weight settled on top of him and his hands clutching at Brendon's shoulders, then sliding past to loop around Brendon's back, hot against his back skin.

Brendon broke away and said, "Shirt?"

"If you hadn't messed up the knot in my tie," Ryan said crossly, but moved back to pick with long, slender fingers at the tightened knot, eventually loosening it enough to pull over his head. Brendon was already there with the buttons, pushing his shirt back over his shoulders, and they exchanged a quick grin.

"Teamwork," Brendon said, and Ryan laughed. Brendon bent to nip sharply at one of Ryan's nipples, and Ryan's laughter cut off quickly in a groan low in his throat, hands fluttering wildly in the air for a moment, as if unsure where to settle. Then he was kissing Brendon again, and everything was hot and hazy, the world rushing past them.

"Hey," Brendon said, when Ryan bit hard on his lip, almost viciously. Ryan pulled back enough to lick at it soothingly, but Brendon tightened his hold in Ryan's hair and tugged his head up, made him meet Brendon's gaze. "You alright?"

"Sure," Ryan said, smiling brightly down at him. "Wanna fuck?"

Brendon blinked and said, "Here?" but Ryan was already laughing again and pushing down his pants, first rummaging in his pocket and pulling out lube and a condom. Brendon drew in a sharp breath, thought about Ryan showering this morning (or afternoon, which was probably more likely), Ryan showering and getting dressed, all with this in mind, this intent, to come here and wrestle off Brendon's jeans and boxers and sink between Brendon's spread legs to the floor. He put the condom on over Brendon's cock and then slid his mouth down quickly, not bothering to be neat, getting Brendon wet and ready.

He pulled off grimacing. "Latex," he said, making a face and crawling back onto Brendon's lap, their cocks brushing and making them moan in unison. Brendon picked up the lube and got his fingers slick, and Ryan looked grateful. He spread himself out over Brendon, their cocks trapped together between their stomach, Ryan's knees still pressing on either side of Brendon's hips, ass lifted slightly in the air, and he pressed his face into Brendon's neck, breathing shallowly, when Brendon pushed the first finger in.

"Alright?" Brendon asked.

"Yeah," Ryan said breathlessly, "yeah, yeah, just - give me more," and Brendon did what he was told. "Ah, fuck," Ryan gasped, and lifted his head to kiss Brendon, making tiny, breathless sounds every time Brendon twisted his fingers; these small, guttural "uh, uh, uh" noises stuttering out of him that Brendon had never heard before, not even on the inevitable occasions in vans and buses when they'd heard each other jerk off. Brendon stared, wide-eyed. Seriously, he thought, what have you been doing, where have you been, without me. He wasn't quite ready for the possessive surge in his chest, dark and fierce, and he leaned up slightly to suck at Ryan's pulse point, making Ryan groan.

He kept it at two fingers for a while, fucking them in and out of Ryan, feeling Ryan's muscles clench around him every time he crooked them inside, and Ryan moaned something that sounded like please. Brendon added a third and kept watching in dark-eyed fascination as Ryan rocked back onto his fingers, rubbing his cock against Brendon's. Brendon turned his head and caught Ryan's mouth in a kiss, pushing his fingers in at once, a little harder than before, searching for the right spot, and Ryan cried out and came over their stomachs in a hot rush.

Brendon was caught off-guard, but after a moment he started to laugh despite himself, stroking his free hand over Ryan's back and nuzzling in at Ryan's hairline, Ryan's face hidden in Brendon's shoulder. "Hey," he said, singsong. "Ryan. Want to help me jerk off?"

He began to ease his fingers out, gently, but Ryan moved so fast that Brendon didn't have time to think before Ryan had a hold of Brendon's wrist, keeping him where he was. "Don't," he said, raising his head. His cheeks were slightly red, but mostly he just looked satisfied, and maybe a little smug.

"You kind of beat me to it there," Brendon said, and Ryan shifted back onto Brendon's fingers again, humming slightly. He leaned down and kissed Brendon, and Brendon shivered and arched up against him, drawing him in closer with his free arm.

"Just," Ryan said. "Give me a minute," and yeah, Brendon thought, as Ryan rocked his hips down cautiously, stomach slick against Brendon's cock, yeah, he could do that.

---

[Part 2/2]