Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap) | Jon Walker/Brendon Urie | Part 6/6
MP | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Extras
December 2007
It’s a Thursday night, and the diner gets hit hard. Brendon’s been working there for two weeks, and for the most part, he knows what he’s doing but that doesn’t mean he’s able to handle ten tables all on his own. It’s just him and Shane on, plus Barbra, the owner, making frantic calls to every single person ever employed - with no such luck so far.
Brendon’s customers are getting angry and bitchy, he can tell and he’s running back and forth getting drinks for his table of five when Shane comes flying into the kitchen, face red and perspiration running down his neck. “Table two is asking specifically for you.”
“Fuck!” Brendon curses, throwing an ice tea onto his loaded tray. He figures it’s either one of two, Katy or an otherwise grumpy, elder lady that comes in almost every single day whom, for some reason, decided to take favor to Brendon and no one else. Either way, he cannot, in anyway, handle another table - not when he can’t even handle the last six that have been given to him. “I can’t do this! I’m going to have a mental breakdown!”
“I know,” She agrees, shooting him a sympathetic look before rushing back out of the kitchen, a tray of steaming food in hand.
Brendon delivers his table their drinks, takes the meal orders for the next two, and gets shouted at by another over how long their food is taking. It takes everything in Brendon to stop himself from screaming out, “It’s been fifteen fucking minutes and you ordered a goddamn well-done steak!” and instead, forces on a large, cheesy smile, saying, “Sorry, sir, I’ll go check on that right away.”
By the time Brendon reaches table two, located all the way on the other side of the restaurant, he’s out of breath. He’s going through all the orders the other customers had shouted at him as he passed by, when he looks to see that table two is not, in fact, Katy, and definitely, definitely not little, old Mrs. Wordcrafter either. It takes Brendon a whole thirty-two seconds to get his brain back in functioning order again before he’s able to cry out, completely and one hundred percent floored, “Jon?!”
“Hi, Brendon.”
It takes another fourteen seconds of staring at his sheepish face before he’s going, “What are you doing here? How did - what? Why are you - I. What?”
“Katy told me you worked here.”
“But - ” Brendon pauses, spends a few moments with his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water before he’s going, “Why?”
“She said it was easier coming here than your house.” He shrugs, even though that’s not quite what Brendon had meant.
Brendon blinks, his brain not fully comprehending the situation in front of him. This, right here, cannot be happening. Brendon does not need Jon showing up at his work, unannounced, after going two months without seeing or hearing from him, while he’s on the verge of having a mental breakdown on top of it. “Jon,” he hisses. “I can’t do this right now. I’ve got ten tables of angry customers who are about five seconds from walking out, and I’m about this close,” he shoves his hand in front of Jon’s face, thumb and index finger a centimeter away, “from having a full-blown panic attack.”
Jon looks around, an expression appearing across his face like he’s only now realizing how busy it actually is. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing behind his ear, and if Brendon didn’t know any better, he’d think he was nervous. “I’ll just wait. You can just get me a tea or something, you know, whenever you have time.”
Brendon pulls himself to stand up straight, and blinks once more, another twenty- two seconds passing by. He doesn’t know how Jon’s acting so nonchalant over all of this, like him showing up at his work randomly one day is normal. Like the last time they talked hadn’t been the worst day of Brendon’s life, hands down. That seeing him right now isn’t making the air inside his lungs tumble and twist around painfully.
In the end, he lets out a long exhale of breath, running his hands through the top layers of his hair as he says, “Okay. Okay, this is okay. I can handle this,” more to himself than anyone before running off without another word.
His brain doesn’t catch up with him until he reaches the kitchen, and he realizes that every single order the customers had yelled at him have now completely vanished from his memory. Brendon braces himself against the counter, feeling his heart speed up way past what’s considered normal, and attempts to regulate his breathing before his fear really does come true.
He tries to concentrate on the inhale, one, two, three, the exhale, three, two, one, but his brain can’t seem to get past all the angry customers sitting just outside the kitchen, waiting for their drinks, meals, checks, and then Jon, to top it all off. Jon fucking Walker is sitting out there, like everything in the world is wonderful. Someone with anxiety issues should not be allowed to be in these type of situations.
Shane enters the kitchen while he’s braced against the counter, eyes closed and breath coming out in hard, heavy pants. “Brendon, what the - ” he starts, voice thick with frustration, like he’s ready to start screaming at him for slacking off in the middle of a huge rush until he realizes. “Oh fucking shit, this is exactly what we need! Barbra!” he yells before racing off into the next room to find the owner.
No one comes back into the kitchen for awhile, and Brendon’s left alone with the cooks, banging pots and yelling orders, and it’s really not helping to make the situation any better. Eventually though, breathing comes a little bit easier, and his chest feels lighter like a thousand pound brick is being lifted off.
Barbra comes in just as he’s chugging back a glass of ice, cold water, face hot from the lack of air. “Good, you’re okay again,” she says, surprisingly calm considering the war zone just outside of those doors. “Tracey just got here about five minutes ago, no new customers have come in for awhile and a few tables just left, so I think we’re going to be okay.” She grabs a tray from the window, and says, as if an afterthought, “Are you feeling okay?”
Brendon nods, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry. I just - I panicked.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, heading out of the kitchen, large tray perched on her shoulder, “you’re new.”
When Brendon heads back into the diner, it takes everything in him not to look over at Jon from across the room. He fails, multiple times.
*
Brendon doesn’t get off for another three hours, and Jon’s still sitting there in the exact same place, playing around on his sidekick, the only other customers in the diner being a teenage couple sitting on the other end of the room. Brendon sits down across from him, slurping some orange juice from his straw. He wait’s a moment, for Jon to say something, but after a minute passes and he doesn’t, Brendon does it for him by going, “So… what are you doing here again?”
Jon nibbles on his bottom lip, meeting Brendon’s gaze just briefly before staring down at the table, continuing to fiddle around with his sidekick. “I just - I wanted to see if you were okay.” He pauses, and then says, voice lowered, “I got your message.”
Brendon’s chest tightens, remembering the message he figured Jon had never received, the message he wished he had never sent in the first place. “Just now?” he asks, managing to keep his voice calm and collected.
He scratches behind his ear, looking almost embarrassed. “Well, in the beginning I told myself I wasn’t going to listen to it, but whenever I’d go to delete it I just couldn’t. Eventually, I ended up listening to it though, and um, well I’m glad I did. Well, I wouldn’t say glad, but you know, relieved that, uh. Fuck,” he curses, and shakes his head, running the palms of his hands over his face. “You know what I mean.”
Brendon nods nervously, swallowing the lump in his throat. He kind of just really wants Jon to drop it, because what happened that night at the bar is the last thing he ever wants to have a conversation with Jon about. “Look, it’s okay -”
“I freaked the fuck out after I got that message, Bren,” he says softly, and flicks his eyes up, thick with worry, to meet Brendon’s. “I tried calling but your phone had been disconnected, and then I tried calling a few people and none of them knew where you were. Then I got a hold of Pete and he told me you had gone home.”
Brendon shrugs, and stares down at the table, deciding to leave out the part where it was against his own freewill.
“Katy told me you’re living at your parents now.”
“Sure am,” Brendon replies with only a slightly bitter edge to his voice. “It’s a blast. I have a curfew, eleven o’clock.”
Jon gives him a sympathetic look. After a moment, he asks, a little cautiously as if he almost doesn’t want to know the answer, “But you’re doing okay, right?”
“Yeah,” Brendon nods. “It’s refreshing. I’m starting to feel like an actual person for once. I couldn’t keep going on like I was, especially after the - after what happened.”
Shockingly, a few days ago, Brendon had sat down with his mom and had the first heart to heart talk with her since he was eleven. They had talked about him falling down the wrong path, how he got mixed up in some things he should have never gotten into, and that now he was ready to be a person again. There had been some tears and some hugs, and Brendon had meant every last bit of it. If Pete were to call him up today and invite him back on tour, Brendon doesn’t think he’d want to - well, okay, maybe he would, but he’s still working on it, okay?
Jon nods, just barely, and turns to stare out the window, Adam’s Apple bobbing as he swallows. “Yeah,” he replies, hoarse. A few minutes pass in silence, and Brendon’s eyes sweep over Jon, trying hard not to notice the little things like how his hair is a little shorter from the last time that he saw him, but there’s still that tuff of hair that curls around his right ear. Or how there’s still those two eyelashes on his left eye that remain pointing straight while the rest curl up, or how his right index finger does this twitchy thing when he’s thinking.
Finally, Jon breaks the silence by letting out a long sigh. He says, “Look, Bren, I feel really bad about how things ended between us.”
Brendon shifts uncomfortably. “What are you talking about? I was the one who cheated.”
“I know,” he replies, voice coming out in a whisper. He stops, a confused expression coming over his face like he can’t quite remember what he was going to say. “I just,” he starts up again, “it could’ve ended a lot different, that’s all.”
Brendon shrugs. “I don’t know. You were upset and I deserved it, so. I don’t know. I don’t really expect much else.”
Jon doesn’t try to deny it this time, and Brendon’s glad. He’s sick of Jon attempting to deny things that he knows are true just to try and make Brendon feel better about himself. He doesn’t need that anymore, and maybe he never did.
They fall into silence again, and while it should feel awkward, Brendon doesn’t find it to be. He’s missed just being around Jon, basking in the warmth of his presence, and he knows he’ll be gone again soon, back out of his life, and Brendon knows he has to soak in every last inch of it that he can.
Brendon happens to catch a glimpse of the Mickey Mouse clock hanging above the door to the kitchen, and sees that it’s fifteen minutes until eleven. “Fuck,” he curses, running his fingers through his hair, angry that a stupid fucking curfew is what’s ending what could be the very last time he might ever see Jon. “I have to go home.”
“What? Why?”
“My curfew,” he explains, looking at Jon, deadpanned.
“Oh.” He nods, letting out a low chuckle as he follows Brendon, getting up out of the booth. “I can’t believe your parents gave you a curfew.”
“If you met my parents, it wouldn’t be so hard to believe,” he replies. He turns to face Jon, shoving his hands into his sweater pockets, trying to push away the disappointment flowing freely throughout his body. “Anyways, it was nice seeing you…”
“What, you’re not even going to let me give you a ride home?” he asks, quirking an amused eyebrow.
“You have a car?”
“Yeah,” he replies, then shrugs, a little bashful. “Well, no, it’s Spencer’s.”
Right, he thinks, feeling his heart sink slowly. That’s why Jon’s here, to visit Spencer and Ryan, not me. “Does Spencer know you used his car to see me?” he asks after a moment, once he manages to swallow the disappointment down.
“Yeah, sure,” he answers, but he seems a little off, and Brendon’s not quite sure whether he should believe him or not.
Either way, he shrugs, saying, “Sure, I wouldn’t mind a ride, it beats walking.” He lets out a small, nervous laugh, and it’s weird, he thinks, because he hasn’t felt this weird, nervous, floating-on-air feeling since back when he denied even having a crush on Jon. It’s stupid though, and hopeless because it’s not like he and Jon will ever be anything again. Brendon had that chance and he blew it.
The first half of the car ride to Brendon’s remains in silence except for the directions of 'turn right here' or 'turn left there' that Brendon spews out every few minutes. Jon keeps the radio off, and instead they listen to the rain that’s very slowly beginning to trickle down from the sky and onto the car. It almost never rains in Vegas, being in the middle of the desert and all, and he finds it fitting in a way.
Halfway home, Brendon takes a deep breath, forces himself to look at Jon, and says, “Why did you come and see me?”
Jon sneaks a sideways glance at him, as if startled by the sudden question, before thinking it over, a thoughtful expression on his face. Finally, he repeats for the second time, “I wanted to see if you were okay.”
Brendon quirks an eyebrow, disbelieving. “You went through all that trouble to come and see me when you could’ve just called?”
Again, it takes Jon a little too long to reply, as if trying to find some reasonable answer, but in the end, he settles with just a shrug. “It wasn’t too much trouble,” he replies simply.
Brendon doesn’t press on, even though he wants to, and they fall back into silence. Three blocks later, Brendon attempts to ask how he’s doing, but that doesn’t go much further than the usual ‘good, you?’ and the ‘fine’ back from him. After that, Brendon can’t seem to rack up anything else in his mind to say, so the rest of the car ride is spent listening to the rain spatter against the window.
When they finally do reach his house, Brendon wishes they hadn’t. They might have not been saying anything, but Brendon doesn’t want to leave Jon just yet. A part of him would sit here forever if he could, just breathing in the same air as Jon. Maybe it’s over, for good, but Brendon doesn’t want to say goodbye to him just yet.
“Well…” Brendon drags on, picking at the loose thread on the sleeve of his sweater, “it was nice… seeing you.”
Jon nods, and Brendon can’t tell if he’s just imagining the hint of sadness to his eyes or not. “Yeah,” he agrees, and that’s that.
Brendon bites his lip, grabbing a hold of the door handle, but doesn’t go to open it quite yet. “I uh - I’m off tomorrow,” he says, attempting to sound casual, like he’s not hoping for Jon to come back and see him, even though he knows he fails epically.
“Oh,” Jon says, peering ahead at the road, “okay.”
Brendon looks at him, feeling his heart slowly begin to sink, and yeah, that’s okay. What did he even expect, anyway? That him and Jon would hang out, just like before? Of course they wouldn’t. Why would they? They ended for a reason, and Brendon knows that, he’s accepted it. They’re over, things have changed; Brendon’s changed.
“Thanks for the ride,” Brendon says softly.
Jon nods, glancing at him as he forces a small smile. “Yeah, no problem.”
“Okay…” He opens the door an inch, waiting for Jon to say something else, anything, but when nothing comes, he opens it the rest of the way, heart sinking. “Well, see you…”
Jon’s already looking back at the road now, looking eager and ready to go. “Yeah, see ya,” he echoes, and Brendon forces himself to swallow down the tears. He shouldn’t feel sad, he should feel relieved that they had finally gotten some kind of closure; isn’t that what Brendon’s been wanting this whole time since he’s come home?
Brendon lets the door close behind him, and Jon doesn’t waste a second before he’s speeding off down the street. He stays there, until the taillights disappear around the corner, and he’s not sure if the water running down his cheeks is just from the rain or not.
*
Later that night, Brendon calls Katy. He’s lying on his bed, staring up at tiny, glow-in-the-dark stars covering his ceiling when he says, “I don’t know what to think. A part of me wants him to come back tomorrow, for us to get back together, but then another part of me knows that it’s never going to happen - that it can’t.”
“Why can’t it?”
Because,” Brendon sighs, “what if I hurt him again? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“I don’t think you would,” Katy replies. “I think that you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I don’t know…” Brendon mumbles, unsure. He doesn’t think he’d hurt Jon, but he’s said that before, hasn’t he? “Even so, his lifestyle is everything I’m trying to avoid. I’d never be able to visit him on tour or anything.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, sounding torn, “I guess you’re right.”
“I almost wish he never came,” Brendon says after a moment of silence, “it just makes it harder. I was doing so good, you know? Moving on with my life, forgetting about it all.”
“I’m sorry, Bren,” she replies, guilt thick on her voice. “I shouldn’t have told him where you worked or anything. I should’ve at least told you that I had been talking to him.”
“No, don’t worry about it. I mean, I got closure, that was nice.”
“Yeah,” she murmurs, “I guess so.”
“How long have you been talking to him for anyways?”
There’s a pause, and Brendon listens to the sound of her soft breathing on the other line. Finally, she says, “Look, please don’t get mad at me, okay?”
Brendon’s the one to initiate the pause now, feeling his heart jump into his throat. Once he manages to swallow it back down, he asks a cautious, “What?” even though he’s not quite sure whether he wants to know or not.
“Jon got a hold of me almost two weeks ago,” she explains. “He wanted to know if you were okay, and I told him that you were. He told me not to tell you that he called, and I didn’t really want you to know anyways, because I knew that it’d just throw you off if I did, with your new job and everything.” She stops, as if waiting for Brendon to say something, but he can’t seem to form any words in his brain, so she continues, voice soft, “He called almost every day, Bren.”
Brendon presses his face into his hands, and god, why does this have to be happening? He was moving on, ready to be a normal person again. Jon and him were over and he had accepted it. So why did he have to come and throw it all off again?
“He still loves you,” she adds after a few moments of silence, “think about it, why else would he be so concerned with how you are?”
Brendon swallows, letting it sink in. “I - I gotta go,” he mumbles after a moment, and hangs up before Katy has a chance to reply.
He doesn’t sleep that night.
*
The next day Brendon has bags the size of planets under his eyes. He’s torn between wanting Jon to come, to hoping he doesn’t so he never has to see him again, so that he can move on for real this time. Maybe Jon still does love him, maybe that’s why he came here, but Brendon’s trying to tell himself that, that doesn’t matter. They’re over. Still, even then, he finds himself perched on the living room couch all day, turning to check out the front window every few minutes that pass, just in case.
Two o’clock hits, no Jon.
At three o’clock, his mom and sister come through the door, chatting animatedly, and there’s still no Jon. His mother asks what he’d like for supper, and Brendon shrugs, a sinking feel in his stomach, and tells her he doesn’t care.
By four o’clock, his dad comes home, and still, no Jon. He can smell garlic wafting in from the kitchen where his mom cooks.
Five o’clock, nothing.
Six o’clock, no Jon and Brendon finally decides to give up. His father tells him over the dinner table that he looks exhausted and should go to sleep, and Brendon, grudgingly, agrees, figuring there’s no point in staying up anyway.
Eight o’clock, Brendon wakes up to the sound of his mother calling his voice. “Brendon,” she says, “someone’s here to see you. A Jon, I think he said.” She looks a little worried, like she doesn’t know if she should trust him or not.
Brendon flies up into the sitting position, almost head-butting his mother in the process. He tries to tell himself that it doesn’t matter, that if Jon ends up confessing his love, telling him they should give it another shot, Brendon will tell him no. He just can’t do that right now, he’s not ready for a relationship, especially with Jon. Sure, he loves him, but he’s not strong enough for that - not now, at least (“You can’t heal if you’re attached,” his therapist says).
He doesn’t bother changing out of his pajama’s - it’s not like Jon hasn’t seen him in them before - but he does throw on a sweater before he’s racing down the stairs to see none other than Jon standing at his front door, hands shoved sheepishly in pockets. “Hey,” he breathes, cursing himself once he realizes he sounds just a tad bit too excited. At least he hopes his cheeks aren’t as red as they feel.
Jon shifts his eyes from Brendon, over to his mom, then back to him again. “Hey.” He shoves his hands further into his pockets, and his eyes shift once more, this time to look around the living room in almost a nervous matter. “Sorry I woke you,” he murmurs.
“No,” Brendon says, rubbing at his eyes, “it’s fine.”
“I was just wondering if maybe we could talk?”
“Yeah,” he nods, “of course. We could go outside, if you’d like.”
“Um,” he starts, then glances up to where Mrs. Urie’s still standing beside her son, looking between them with a curious, yet hesitant expression, like she’s torn between stopping Brendon or not. “Sure.”
“Okay,” he says, trampling down the stairs to stand beside Jon. When he goes to open the door, his mother’s voice stops him.
“Hold on, Brendon,” she says, and Brendon looks up at her with round eyes, praying that she won’t try to stop him. “Are you just staying here?”
rendon looks over at Jon, and after a moment, once he realizes he’s looking for an answer from him, Jon nods quickly.
“Okay, yeah,” Brendon answers, and before he slides out the door completely, he says, “we’ll be in the backyard.”
It’s chilly outside for Vegas, but it’s nothing he can’t bear. He wraps his arms tighter around himself, and leads Jon to the backyard where he takes a seat on the porch swing, knowing that here, there’s no possible window in the house that his parents could use to spy on them. Jon follows, and takes a seat next to him but leaves a few, good inches between them.
Neither of them says anything for a few minutes as they listen to the crickets and the faint barking of the dog a few houses down. Finally, Brendon says, voice low, “I didn’t think you were going to come.”
Jon looks at him, forehead scrunched together in genuine confusion. “Why would you think that?”
Brendon shrugs. “I don’t know. Because it’s nine o’clock, and after the way you just left yesterday… I just figured, well, I don’t know. That yesterday was it.” He pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around them in an attempt to keep the goose bumps from sprouting up all over his skin.
“I didn’t come all the way to Vegas to see you for a half an hour,” he replies.
“You’re not here to see Spencer and Ryan?”
He shakes his head slowly, almost as if he’s not sure he should be admitting it or not. He looks off into the space in front of him, not meeting Brendon’s eyes as he says, “No, I just got off tour.”
Brendon’s not quite sure what to say to that, so he settles with nothing. Jon slowly begins to push his feet against the ground, causing the swing to rock back and forth slightly. After a moment, he sighs. “Ryan doesn’t understand why I’m here. He thinks I’m being an idiot.”
Brendon, he can’t say he hadn’t expected that one, but for some reason, he still finds it to hurt a little, a dull ache spreading throughout his chest. “What about Spencer?” he asks carefully.
He shrugs. “He’s more understanding than Ryan, that’s for sure.” He doesn’t say anything else, and Brendon doesn’t ask him to. He sucks at the ends of his sweater strings, anxiously, waiting for Jon to say something else. Eventually, Jon takes a deep breath, and says, “Part of me thinks that maybe Ryan’s right, you know? That maybe I’m just being stupid for being here, ‘cause you really hurt me, and I shouldn’t be coming to you. And I wasn’t going to either, I was just going to call Katy that one time and see if you were okay, and once she told me that you were, that was going to be it, but -” he stops, and shakes his head, like suddenly he had forgotten what he was trying to say.
Brendon closes his eyes, listens to the steady beats in his chest, trying to calm his nerves as Jon continues to speak, “but, I couldn’t. I tried, I did, but I just kept thinking about you. I kept thinking about that message; you drunk and crying, and saying those things. I kept thinking about what it was like when we were together - even before. Like that morning you helped me with my crossword, or the day in Ireland when we sat by the river. I was thinking about you meeting my mom, and my friends, and staying at my house, and how those were the best two weeks of my whole entire fucking life. And it’s stupid, you know? Because you cheated on me. You cheated on me, and broke my fucking heart and I should hate you, but yet I don’t. I can’t. Yet I’m still here, in Vegas, sitting in your backyard on your swing telling you all of this.”
Jon’s face is in his hands now, his fingers rubbing small circles into his temples, and slowly, Brendon manages to reach forward, delicately resting the palm of his hand on his arm. “Jon -” he starts, a little breathless, but Jon cuts him off.
“Ryan told me you’re just going to hurt me again,” he says, voice muffled in his hands.
“I don’t know what to say,” Brendon admits, lip in between his teeth. “I’d like to say I won’t, but when has my word ever been good for anything?”
Jon looks at him, blinks, like he was expecting him to beg instead of agree. Brendon, himself, is even a little surprised.
“Look,” Brendon says, placing his chin in his hands as he kicks dirt around with his foot, “I still love you, I can’t lie about that and part of me wants no more than for us to get back together. But then the other part of me is telling me that we broke up for a reason. I really don’t think that I’d hurt you again, but who knows? I told myself I wouldn’t before and look what happened.” He takes a tiny breath, and continues, “Plus, I mean, I’m trying to be a better person, and so far, I think it’s working pretty okay, but Jon. I mean, what if we get back together? Three-quarters of your life is spent exactly where I’m trying to get away from. I’d never be able to visit you or anything, at least not for awhile, not until I’m - you know, strong enough. And I mean, you can’t even trust me, how could a relationship ever work if you can’t trust half the things that come out of my mouth?”
“You’re thinking about all the bad things,” Jon says. “What about all the good?”
Brendon catches Jon’s eyes, and chews on his bottom lip, unsure. “I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“Then don’t let yourself. You said yourself you’re getting better. You’re not on the road anymore, there’s nothing to tempt you.” He wait’s a moment before he’s letting out a small chuckle, shaking his head. “Listen to me,” he says, “shouldn’t you be the one convincing me not the other way around?”
Brendon laughs softly. “Yeah, probably.”
Jon smiles, a wistful hint to it. He waits until Brendon meets his eye again before he’s saying, “I missed you, Brendon.”
"I missed you too.”
“What’s the harm in giving it a try?” he asks.
“I don’t know, Jon…” Brendon says uneasily, and he wants to. He wants to so bad, but like he said, he will never, ever be able to forgive himself if he completely screws up for the second time. He can’t see Jon hurt again because of him.
"We can start from scratch, take it slow - real slow. We’ll figure out the tour thing, I know lots of guys whose girlfriends or wives can’t ever come on tour because they’re too busy with their careers and stuff.”
Brendon laughs, pressing his hand against his forehead in amusement. “God, I never would’ve thought you would be the one trying to convince me to give it another shot.”
Jon scoots closer, until his thigh is pressed against Brendon’s and his scent fills his nose. He smells the same, like smoke, cologne and grapefruit, and it fills Brendon with warmth, spreading tingles throughout his body. “Ironic, huh?”
“Yeah,” he smiles, “I guess so.” Brendon looks up, meeting Jon’s eyes, wide and hopeful. Brendon slides his hand along Jon’s arm, before slowly, he reaches his hand, and slides them together, intertwining their fingers one at a time. Brendon feels his heart skip a beat, three, four, inside his chest.
“Slow though,” Jon asserts. “Real slow. Even slower than before.”
Brendon bites his lip, but nods, a tiny smile slowly creeping across his lips. “Yeah, I know,” he replies.
“And I can’t just - I won’t be able to trust you right away, either.”
“I know.”
Jon keeps his gaze, staring him straight in the eyes, now looking suddenly hesitant, like he’s only realizing now what he just did. “Fuck, Ryan’s going to kill me,” he says after moment, but he smiles anyway.
Brendon laughs, and leans forward, bumping his nose against Jon’s throat. His lips brush against his skin, just briefly, and he’s missed it, a lot. He closes his eyes; takes in Jon’s scent, letting it consume him as he whispers, “Thanks for giving me a second chance.”
*
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost
The following day Brendon buys a tiny tree sapling from the nursery down the street. He digs a hole near the edge of his yard, away from any shade, fills it with fresh fertilizer and plants the sapling inside. It’s nothing big, but at least it’s something.
A month later, when he returns from Chicago, the sapling is still there, but larger now, sprouting up from the soil, proud and all but two feet tall, emerald leaves stretching out against the tiny branches. Brendon smiles to himself and thinks that maybe, he just might be doing it right for once.