For All the Right Reasons (1/2)
Title: For All the Right Reasons
Author: ivesia19 and takkatakkatakka
Rating: R
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
POV: 3rd person
Summary: High School AU. A look at a year in a relationship.
Disclaimer: We know that they aren't actually like this in real life, but that's their fault, not ours.
Beta: takkatakkatakka and ivesia19
Author Notes: This story is a prelude (of sorts) to this story, but you don’t have to read the other story to follow this. Special thanks to provetheworst for helping brainstorm May.
September
This is what happens: Ryan goes around Brendon’s house one afternoon in September a couple weeks after school starts up again, and they kiss.
No, well, okay. Some other stuff does happen before that.
They spend the summer together. It’s pretty unavoidable since Mikey goes to stay in New York with his creepy brother, and Spencer has a job at the music place in the mall, and Gabe gets weird in the heat, et cetera and so on, (thank god it all happened this way). There wasn’t anyone else for them to hang out with except each other.
Ryan ended up doubting anyone else would have wanted to be there, anyway.
The whole of summer was like one long Sunday afternoon in Ryan’s backyard with two guitars and a broken radio. It wasn’t precious and it wasn’t painful - it was just hot and stupid, long walks through the suburbs, arguing just for show on the cracked sidewalks and recommending books they hadn’t read. One time, Brendon decided they were going to sell homemade lemonade, and they sat out on the street all day, Brendon squeezing fruit and Ryan making models with the paper cups. There were a couple of parties (they left early and together) and a couple of movies (they left late and together) and a couple of concerts (together, together, always together.) And there was smiling. Ryan remembers a lot, a lot of smiling.
And then they got back to school and nothing changed. Ryan was expecting the shock of summer ending, of new restrictions, problems with homework and seeing other people and obligations. He’d been treating the summer, their summer, like something contained. A bottle, maybe. But an emptying one.
No one ever said anything about refills.
But then there’s today, for instance. They’re sitting in Brendon’s room, Brendon himself stretched out on the floor and Ryan curled over his guitar - it’s twenty times nicer than his own and neither of them will never admit it - and then Brendon stands up and Ryan kisses him even though summer’s over, so it isn’t really the right time. But somehow, it still is.
No, no, there’s more stuff that happens in between. Ryan goes home with Brendon that day without being asked, without needing an invitation. They spend half an hour in Brendon’s music room playing clunky piano to each other (shoulders touching, Ryan thinking holy fuck), Ryan fiddles a little with a thread on Brendon’s bedcover, Brendon says, “I think I like you like you,” and then, and then, Ryan kisses him.
Ryan is used to getting things across with ink and paper, with letters and words, shitty poetry in loose, open scrawl. It’s nice, the collected part of his brain decides, it’s nice for his mouth to be expressing his feelings for once.
Ryan is kissing. He’s kissing Brendon.
It’s soft and warm. Brendon’s a little hesitant and a lot pliant, and when Ryan leans forward, he can feel Brendon’s heartbeat through his stomach. They’re tilting their heads toward each other now, Ryan’s tongue feeling languid, lazy. It’s too easy, almost, the dry way they align, the way Brendon’s lips feel so nervous but ready and waiting. Ryan pushes their mouths together, gently gently, and he can hear Brendon breathing slowly through his nose, in and out, one two one two. Brendon’s palms appear like little fluttering birds on Ryan’s sides, pushing and pulling until they’re closer, closer. Ryan can feel his body and Brendon’s body and nothing else in between - those are Brendon’s teeth he’s tasting.
It ends when a kid outside yells something about his banana roadster and Brendon can’t stop himself from laughing, but that’s okay too, because this is a beginning, and Ryan can feel it, can hear it pulsing in his veins. He laughs a little too when some of the other kids join in.
“It sucks,” Brendon says later, walking his fingers across Ryan’s open palm, “that we didn’t do this at the beginning of the summer. I could’ve been your summer fling.”
His fingers are tickling up Ryan’s arm, light and roughly calloused, and Ryan, Ryan thinks back over a June of secret ice cream runs and shared speakers, a July of midnight discussions and swimming pools, and an August, oh god, an August of too-long drives and brushing hands and that one time where we almost -, and he blinks at Brendon and says, almost laughing, “You kind of were my summer fling.”
He was, but that doesn’t mean that Ryan wants it to end.
Brendon grins and kisses him again.
October
When Brendon was younger, he used to go Trick-or-Treating with his sister. She would always lead the way, her hand warm and dry in his own - comforting when the decorations seemed just a little bit too much like his nightmares. This was when Brendon was younger, though. Now, Brendon is a junior in high school. He’s far too old to go Trick-or-Treating, or at least that’s what his parents have been telling him ever since his voice dropped low and his thoughts started becoming more interesting (and coincidentally, often times filthy).
“Let’s go Trick-or-Treating,” Brendon says, pulling on Ryan’s sleeve as they sit next to each other on Brendon’s parent’s couch. They’re just doing homework, nothing else - they wouldn’t dare when a parental eye could be watching at any moment. Still, Brendon tugs at Ryan’s sleeve, the cotton pulling, and he shifts closer until their thighs touch. “I’ll make it worth your time.” He bats his eyelashes.
Ryan laughs, but he moves away from Brendon, and Brendon catches him throw a cautious look toward the door behind them. “Bren, we’re too old to celebrate Halloween. Besides, Gabe is having a party.”
“You’re contradicting yourself, Ryan,” Brendon points out sweetly, and if he weren’t paranoid about his mother coming in to ‘check on them’, he would be pressing against Ryan until the arm rest dug into Ryan’s back and he pressed back, grinding against Brendon, because they really, really haven’t done that enough times yet. Brendon wasted a whole summer not touching Ryan properly. He intends to make up for it now.
“What’s Gabe’s party if not a celebration? Besides, Trick-or-Treating is on Thursday, and Gabe’s party is on Friday.”
Shifting, Ryan still looks doubtful. “It’s weird. We’re too old.”
“You can do my make-up,” Brendon says, and that’s how he convinces Ryan out only two nights later.
Before they go, Brendon leads Ryan up to his room, closing the door even though he’s really not supposed to. Brendon wonders if his parents are ever going to actually approach the subject of him being gay - he’s sort of focusing on the dreamland where it won’t ever come up, and they’ll just live around the fact without having to mention it. It doesn’t matter now, anyway, because his parents are at a friend’s house for dinner.
They’ve already left out a bowl of candy for little Trick-or-Treaters that Brendon knows will be empty before nightfall.
Some kids have no decency.
(Though, to be fair, Brendon may have snuck a handful or so himself when he had let Ryan in.)
(Whatever. Collateral Damage.)
Ryan, though, Ryan fusses as he does Brendon’s make up. “Hold still,” he says, and his fingers are firm against Brendon’s face. “I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Brendon tries not to move, and to distract himself from the urge to bounce a little, he looks at Ryan. Ryan’s already done his own make up, the pale white and the bright red lips with the black rimmed eyes bringing to life his last minute mummy costume. “I had a bunch of Ace Bandages lying around,” Ryan had said, and Brendon had left it at that.
Beneath the caked on costume make up, Brendon can still see Ryan’s features. He can’t see the light splattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose or the tiny scar near his eyebrow, but when he looks at the boy in front of him, holding his chin between his fingers, Brendon still sees Ryan, the same Ryan as a month ago. The same Ryan as before, and that makes Brendon’s heart tingle in his chest, like it doesn’t know whether to race or stop.
“You make a sexy mummy,” Brendon murmurs, lips pursed, as Ryan transfers lipstick onto him with a small brush. “Hey, is this the same color as yours?”
“The lipstick?” Ryan asks, smoothing away a small clump of color. “Yeah. I only wanted to buy one, so-”
Brendon doesn’t care to hear the rest of it, though it is cute to think of Ryan standing in the local Rite Aid rummaging through rows of lipstick. But it doesn’t really matter, and since the colors won’t clash, Brendon surges forward and kisses Ryan. “It’d be lame if we didn’t at least make out a little while my parents were gone and we were in my bedroom alone,” he says when they part.
A little bit of lipstick has smudged up from Ryan’s mouth, but Brendon doesn’t tell Ryan that, he just kisses him again until Ryan relents and moves from his chair set in front of Brendon to straddle his lap.
Brendon arches up a little, just until Ryan moans, and then he pulls away to bite at the waxy white skin of Ryan’s neck. “Grrr, I’m a vampire,” he says, sticking his tongue out seconds later because wax actually doesn’t taste that great. It sort of ruins the moment.
Brendon thinks for a second about how he and Ryan are having moments. His heart, it just beats and beats.
Ryan laughs, but when he looks in the mirror, he frowns and fusses at his make up. “You fucked it up,” he complains. He still doesn’t really seem all that bothered.
They finally leave the house about an hour after Trick-or-Treating starts, and when they pass by the bowl that Brendon’s parents had left out for the children, there’s nothing left in it. Well, that’s not true - there’s a candy wrapper or two.
Brendon pulls Ryan down the street, ringing each doorbell that they come to, each of them holding plastic Jack-O-Lanterns that Brendon had picked up earlier at the Dollar Tree. They were a good bargain.
At every house, Brendon’s “Trick-or-Treat!” overshadows Ryan’s, but Ryan still says it, even though Brendon knows that he’s more than a little bit mortified.
Most people who open the door don’t seem too thrilled to have two seventeen year olds asking for candy, but some people give them double candy laughing, and one lady ruffles Brendon’s hair and called him a vampire with chutzpah.
They hit every house in the neighborhood, their plastic pumpkins heavy by the end of the night, and when they get back to Brendon’s room, they empty the candy out into piles on the floor, exchanging treats until they’re both happy.
Brendon eats his weight in candy that night, and all of the Hershey Kisses seem to have disappeared, but the growing mound of silver aluminum near Ryan’s crossed legs is a good clue to where they all went.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Brendon says, leaning over to give Ryan a chocolate flavored kiss, and it’s so easy. “I know you didn’t really want to go.”
Ryan colors, the red barely visible even through the now fading face paint. “You wanted to go,” is all he says.
The next night, when they’re at Gabe’s party wearing the same outfits, Brendon and Ryan spend half the night in one of the abandoned bedrooms, and when they stumble out just as the party is dying down, Spencer laughs at the way that Ryan’s Ace Bandages trail behind him, red lipstick smeared at the edges.
November
The thing about Brendon’s family is that sometimes they can be a little overwhelming. Ryan appreciates that Brendon invited him over to Thanksgiving dinner, because it’s not like his house is going to be roasting a turkey (and a tofurkey especially for Brendon), but sometimes the sheer amount of noise and people is a little too much for Ryan.
There’s also that thing where no one in Brendon’s family knows that he and Brendon are dating.
Or that Brendon’s gay, but really, Ryan’s beginning to doubt Brendon’s parents’ sanity if they can’t see that their youngest son is about as flaming as the sun.
But Thanksgiving is a big step in terms of a relationship. At least, Ryan thinks it is. He’s been over to Spencer’s house for holidays before, but it’s different with Spencer’s family. For starters, having dinner with Spencer and his parents doesn’t make Ryan feel so nervous that he thinks he might throw up. Also, Ryan doesn’t particularly ever have the urge to throw Spencer against the nearest wall and stick his tongue down his throat like he does with Brendon.
But that’s beside the point. The point is that Ryan knows he needs to stop being stupid - because Brendon loves his family, and Ryan owes it to him to make the effort.
Ryan rings the goddamn doorbell.
“You’re right on time!” Brendon says when he opens the door approximately five seconds after Ryan had rung the bell, and the thought of Brendon waiting anxiously by the door for him makes Ryan want to kiss Brendon, but he knows that on the other side of the door there are more than a couple people who are likely to not appreciate that.
(Who knows, though. Everyone has secrets.)
Brendon’s hand reaches out, but Ryan watches as it falters a bit, opting to hold onto Ryan’s wrist to pull him inside the house instead of weaving their fingers together like he’s gotten used to doing.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Brendon says. His eyes are bright and his smile is wide, and Ryan knows that this is a big deal to Brendon. Even if his parents don’t know that they’re dating, Ryan knows that he views this dinner as a Step. With a capital S. After all, that’s how Brendon had written it in his math notes that Ryan had borrowed when he was sick one day last week. They haven’t talked about Brendon’s little list, though Ryan knows that Brendon must have realized by now that he’s seen it.
Ryan finds it sort of adorable that Brendon has everything planned out, impractical as it may be, but still. Seeing everything put out there in Brendon’s loopy scrawl - especially Step Nine - is a little intimidating.
“I’m famished,” Ryan says, leaning against Brendon a little, trying to get as much contact in as he can before they round the corner and are bombarded with Brendon’s family.
“I had my mom make scalloped potatoes just for you,” Brendon says, and he blushes a little bit. “She even bought some Coke.”
Ryan wants to run his fingers across the waistline of Brendon’s pants. He wants to ruffle Brendon’s too-neat hair that looks like he’s about to go to church. He wants to make Brendon make that whiny gasp he made last Thursday when Ryan had grinded his hips down against Brendon and bit his ear.
He doesn’t, of course. Not now, but he does lean in a bit and say, “After this, we should sneak away. I’ve missed you.”
It sort of sounds like a line from a Hugh Grant movie, because Ryan saw Brendon just yesterday, but he really has missed him. Missed the feel of Brendon’s skin, the weight of his body when they’re making out and Brendon decides to be bold and pin Ryan to the bed (Step Three).
It makes Ryan wonder just how far he’s fallen already.
Brendon’s face lights up even more than the glow from the promise of mashed potatoes and corn and pumpkin pie at Ryan’s words, and his grip around Ryan’s wrist loosens until his thumb is just making small circles at the pulse point. “When we’re done eating and everyone sits down to watch the family movie, you and I can escape.”
Brendon smiles, and Ryan allows himself to be pulled into the dining room, where a large table is already completely made up, dishes of food steaming from their strategic locations.
“We’re by the potatoes,” Brendon says, directing Ryan down to his chair, and when his mom comes in through the door, Brendon pulls his hand away from Ryan, and Ryan’s skin feels cold. “Hey, mom. Need any help?”
She commandeers Brendon to help gather all the relatives for dinner, but refuses to let Ryan help. “You’re a guest, sweetheart. You just sit right there and relax.”
Ryan sits down and tries to do as she says.
It doesn’t take long for all of Brendon’s relatives to come to the table - twenty people smooshing around a table that was probably built for twelve, and following the cue of everyone else, Ryan clasps his hands together and bows his head as Brendon’s father says a prayer.
Ryan keeps his eyes open, though, watching the way that Brendon’s eyelashes rest against his pale skin, but when he catches his thoughts going somewhere definitely not appropriate during prayer time, he closes his eyes, too.
He tries not to think about what he’s got himself into.
Mrs. Urie carves the turkey, and when plates are passed to her, she serves everyone, though Brendon eats the fake meat, and Ryan joins him out of solidarity. It’s not too bad. The rest of the food is mouthwatering, and Ryan cleans his plate twice before he thinks about slowing down.
He tries to be social, talking with Brendon’s family when they ask him a question, but he can’t help but feel a little awkward, especially with Brendon’s foot pushing up the leg of his pants.
When Mrs. Urie and some of the others clean the table and bring out the dessert, Brendon starts to jitter in his seat a little, and Ryan rests a hand on Brendon’s thigh. Brendon stills immediately, but Ryan pulls his hand away as Brendon’s sister walks up behind them and sets a piece of pie in front of each of them.
“Let’s give thanks,” Mr. Urie says as they all sit down again, and one by one, around the table, Ryan listens as everyone says what they’re thankful for: family, health, different successes.
When it’s Ryan’s turn, he doesn’t know what to say. Not because he doesn’t have things he’s thankful for. He does. He just doesn’t know if he wants to share them. “I’m thankful that you have all shared your holiday with me,” he finally settles on, feeling a little bit like he took the copout way, but at least everyone around the table smiles at him.
Next to Ryan, Brendon says, “I’m thankful that Ryan’s here, too,” and for some reason, it seems to be so much more truthful to Ryan, and he can’t help but slip his hand under the tablecloth and find Brendon’s palm with his own, pressing them together as they listen to what else everyone is thankful for.
December
Christmas catches up with them pretty fast, and it doesn’t really need saying that Brendon’s going to be tied to his family for the duration. Instead of sulking, Ryan plans some sort of hibernation involving outdated movies and a whole lot of ice cream, which, though it may seem a lot like brooding isn’t really that at all.
“It’s okay,” he says, when Brendon asks him. “Just Christmas.”
Brendon mumbles something quietly so that Ryan can pretend he doesn’t hear, and touches his arm lightly. Ryan shrugs again and nods, but he seems calmer after that.
It is over with pretty quickly though; Brendon spends most of it helping his grandma make cookies and trying to keep his cousins from actually killing each other. When Ryan calls, he manages to escape into the basement, and they just talk for a while - Brendon perches on their huge-ass freezer with one leg swinging next to him, toes wriggling in his Christmas socks, listening to Ryan’s lazy vision of a Grinch re-make, and Brendon dutifully makes the corny joke about something growing three sizes that day.
New Year’s, of course, is just another excuse for a party. There’s this big open space out on the outskirts of town and they’re gonna set a bonfire up, maybe fireworks at midnight. Plus Mikey’s coming, and he’s bringing his creepy older brother. Gerard goes to an art college in New York, and as such, has a ton of indie kid hipster friends that he’s bringing along, probably the kind that seriously debate poetry and grow goatees and wear berets and listen to ska.
Ska, seriously. Ryan is flipping a shit.
But New Year’s is also a family event, and that’s pretty much where Brendon’s outlook on the night ends.
New Year’s Eve at home is like a death sentence.
Brendon doesn’t really know how he’s going to find stuff to do all evening. He hangs around in the kitchen for a while, steadily drinking his body weight in orange juice. Ryan texts him halfway through dinner, something about Gabe’s outfit and the horror involved therein, but Brendon’s not quite brave enough to reply to him at the table, and anyway, it’s not like Ryan’s going to be checking his cell for updates of Brendon’s crazy night in.
It just kind of sucks, is all.
Mostly he plays game after game of Uno with one of his sisters, even when it gets so late that her head is drooping between rounds as she shuffles the cards. They turn on the TV around eleven. It’s quiet and drowsy and nothing much like Christmas at all - at least, nothing like the bad parts.
Because Brendon doesn’t hate his whole family, not really. He just wishes it were easier to pick and choose which parts of it he had - to be able to only have his mom on her easy and kindly days, her you-make-me-so-proud days. He wishes he could distil the good from all of his siblings into one person, one brother or sister to contend with, talk to, know. He wishes his dad could only ever want to teach him guitar, not ethics, and that he didn’t connect Being A Man directly with Being Like Me.
He wishes Ryan could fit in here somewhere.
Ryan doesn’t text him again until after ten, and even then, it’s only a quick I’m freezing, you should be here, as if Brendon didn’t know that all already. There isn’t much left to keep him awake except the TV now, and he’s trying not to think about Ryan beaming into a makeshift fire, Ryan talking poetry with a guy from New York, Ryan somewhere better, with someone better.
Fuck, Brendon’s not even supposed to be the jealous one.
When it gets to nearly midnight, he’s driven himself half crazy with thinking too many thoughts about too many people, and it’s an effort just to stay downstairs instead of crawling up to his bedroom and staring hard at the ceiling and wishing and wanting.
At three minutes to the New Year, his cell starts ringing.
When Brendon picks up, Ryan says, “I burnt my tongue.”
“Okay,” Brendon says.
“Not, like, badly or anything,” Ryan continues, “I just, they had hotdogs, and they were straight off of this mini-grill thing, so.”
“That’s good,” Brendon says. “It would be pretty shitty if you’d disfigured yourself with a hotdog.” Ryan laughs, and Brendon thinks I miss you. He sort of hates himself, a lot, but not in an entirely bad way.
“Also,” Ryan says casually, “I’m outside your house.”
Something flips in Brendon’s stomach. He feels it seep through him as his body gets the message that Ryan is close.
“Okay,” he says again, trying to keep that same casual tone that Ryan seems to have perfected - trying to pretend like his heart isn’t fucking bursting - and then, “Hang on.”
Brendon slips out of the house quickly, feeling young and free and just a little bit insane, because when he gets to the door, he can see Ryan’s stupid yellow car pulled up next to the van and Ryan himself leaning against it with the streetlights all around him.
“Hey,” Ryan says when Brendon gets close enough, and when he reaches out, it’s still a marvel to Brendon how easy it is to touch, to kiss. He smiles surprised against Ryan’s mouth and mumbles, “What about the party?”
Ryan slinks his hands down to curl them into Brendon’s fingers, and they feel cold and thin, fairy-like. “It -” he starts, and then stops. His eyelids look heavy, and Brendon remembers kissing them once before, how that felt. How it would feel if he did it again right now, with Ryan’s hair all messed and his breathing ragged, how that would work out.
Ryan takes another breath, slowly, and then says, “It sucked. Being there without you.”
Brendon feels himself nodding, carelessly, keeping tabs on all the places where they’re touching. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah, it sucked being here without you, too.”
There’s a pause that fills itself with exactly how much being without Ryan sucked. Brendon leans back into it, because he is maybe a little bit in love with Ryan and not scared of even that anymore.
“We’re fucked,” Ryan whispers, one hand steadying itself back on Brendon’s shoulder.
Brendon laughs, and it’s a strangely light sound, next to the darkness of the street. “Well said,” he replies eventually, thinking I know I know I know.
He feels the alarm on his phone vibrate in his pocket as they reach midnight.
He can’t think of a way to say Happy New Year without sounding corny, so he just kisses Ryan instead.
January
In January, Brendon says, “Hey,” and brings his hand around to cup Ryan’s dick through his jeans.
Ryan says, “Mmph,” and then breathes out, drinking in the warmth, the quiet TV in his empty house, their feet curling over each other on the couch.
And then Brendon slips his hand beneath the fabric of Ryan’s pants, and he whispers into Ryan’s ear, “So, I think we should have proper sex sometime soon.”
At the time, Ryan doesn’t really register it - he’s too intent on getting off by this point, so he just nods, yeah, okay, whatever, later, says, “Touch me,” and Brendon touches him, softly, and then harder.
It doesn’t take too long, of course it doesn’t, and after Ryan’s returned the favour they settle back down to the TV easily, barely watching it at all. It’s only after Brendon’s gone home and Ryan’s lazily fixing himself some coffee that he remembers what Brendon said, and he sets down his mug on the table very, very precisely and says, “Wait, what?”
--
"Proper sex"? Proper sex? The terminology makes Ryan uneasy. It sounds like something you can get tested in, graded on, like everything they've been doing up until now has been training - an obligatory build up. It sounds a hell of a lot like something that's way too easy to get wrong.
And, to make matters worse, Brendon is really not helping.
“So,” Brendon says, setting down his lunch tray opposite Ryan’s. “You’re gonna want to screw me pretty hard by the end of this conversation.”
Spencer spits his drink out onto the table. “Leaving now,” he mutters without looking at either of them, and Ryan doesn’t bother asking him to stay. Instead, he narrows his eyes and tries to look casually interested. Brendon’s wearing blue, and his freckles seem paler today, his eyes too-big and brown.
Fuck, he looks good.
“It’s pretty simple, actually.” Brendon grins, leaning in and resting his chin on his hands. Ryan feels small and big at the same time under his gaze, fluid.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, go.”
Brendon smirks again, leaning back, setting his hands on the table and saying, “My family.”
Ryan blinks, unsure, and then says, “Brendon.”
“No, seriously, I’m not done yet,” Brendon says quickly, cutting across questions Ryan doesn’t even know where to start asking. “My parents have this thing every January where they go, like, away for a weekend. It’s like their New Year’s tradition or whatever to skip town. And they used to take me with them, but they’re leaving me home this time.” Brendon waggles his eyebrows and adds, “They said I’m responsible enough to handle it.”
The knot on Ryan’s scarf is suddenly bigger, tighter, and he pulls at where it’s cutting too sharp into his throat. “Oh,” he says, and looks steadily at the space between Brendon’s eyes.
Brendon grins like a magician with a hat full of suggestions and continues. “So, my sister wanted to have a party, but her boyfriend’s got a game that night.”
Ryan swallows. It’s a lot more difficult than normal. “And that’s, uh -”
“She’s gonna go watch him play soccer or something,” Brendon nods, kicking Ryan under the table maybe a little too hard and smirking again. “Maybe baseball, I’m not sure.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, “okay. Baseball’s cool.”
“Yeah,” Brendon says, and takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing quietly and just, just looking. “So we have. A house.”
“Okay,” Ryan says, thinking about how Brendon’s collarbones meet just right, and how the shape that his shoulders make is maybe Ryan’s very favorite. “You’re right,” he says, setting down his drink. “I do want to screw you pretty hard right now.”
Brendon laughs.
--
Ryan doesn’t know how to think about it, so mostly he doesn’t.
Brendon, though, makes that pretty difficult. It's like he doesn't even have to try anymore, because he looks like sex whatever he does now. Grabbing books from his locker, poking Mikey during Biology, walking next to Ryan to the store, the cafeteria, anywhere - he's driving Ryan crazy without even meaning to. Just the way his fingers move, the curve in his spine, the groove in his lips. Ryan doesn't know where to begin, how to end.
He can't stop thinking about it.
If Brendon notices, he doesn't let it show, just acts the same as always, touching easily and catching all of Ryan's kisses.
It actually turns out that this girl in Ryan's French class is having a pretty decent sounding party this weekend, and when Gabe asks Ryan if he's going, he doesn't quite know what to say. He's going to be busy? Something came up?
Brendon solves the problem by answering for both of them. "Sorry," Brendon says, and that smirk, it's back, making Ryan feel warm and weightless. "Me and Ross have plans." He raises one eyebrow, evil, and Ryan finds himself smiling weakly.
"Are you sure?" Ryan asks Brendon later, trying to keep his voice calm and on his side. "We can just go to the party if you want."
"I'm sure," Brendon replies, but he doesn't sound all that surprised by Ryan's question. He looks up. "I want to spend my time with you," he says purposefully.
Ryan squeezes their fingers together because it's easier than saying "me too."
--
It feels too easy, at first.
Ryan pulls his shoes off at Brendon’s door and they go up and sit on Brendon’s bed and all of it - it’s too old and too easy. Ryan thinks that it should feel different. He’s not quite sure how, but it should.
Brendon says, “Hey,” and kisses him, and it feels just like kissing Brendon. The angle is awkward, and their noses knock, and Ryan sort of thinks he might be into that, just because of how good he feels right now. He knows for sure at least that he’s pretty damn into Brendon.
All things considered, it’s a nice thing to know.
“I’m-” Ryan says, and then pulls back, frowning.
Brendon frowns too, so their faces are matching, and in Ryan’s head, a dozen different starting lines scrawl themselves; intricacies, matching wavelengths, one plus one is one.
“This is good,” Ryan says. “This is good, right?”
Brendon nods, quietly, and says, “This is good.” He leans back a little, and his smile starts to break through again, brazen and sheer, and he says, “Move with me, Ross.”
Ryan huffs out a surprised laugh, feels delight course through him, across his fingertips and out over the whole room, and says, “Yeah, let’s do that.”
Februrary
Brendon knows that Ryan doesn’t drink, doesn’t like drinking. He also knows that he doesn’t think that alcohol should be any sort of an excuse, but in this case, Brendon doesn’t have any other choice than to use that explanation. So he explains for the fifth time this morning.
“I was really drunk!”
They’re sitting outside of Ryan’s house on the paint chipped porch, and Brendon just wishes that Ryan would be reasonable and forgive him so that they can go inside and get out of the harsh chill of the February air that burns his chest with each breath in.
Ryan just shakes his head, though, his hair falling in front of his face, and Brendon wishes that he could push it back, play with his hair a little bit and kiss him. He looks sad, vulnerable. Brendon knows that he must look terrible, too - hung over and miserable.
“Brendon,” Ryan says, but that’s all Brendon lets him get out, because he knows where Ryan is coming from. He knows about Ryan’s dad and the stale bottles and the locked doors. He’s heard about the half-hearted apologies that come the morning after, ones that Ryan’s always too sick to swallow. But it’s different, it is, because Brendon wouldn’t hurt Ryan. Not like that. Not on purpose.
“I thought he was you,” Brendon says. “I thought - Mikey looks like you.”
He sort of does, in a strange, gangly way, but Brendon doesn’t get into the logistics of the whole thing; he knows it won’t help. He just sighs, reaching out to rest a hand against Ryan’s knee, but Ryan jerks away.
“It was just for a second.”
He had been so drunk the night before - another one of Gabe’s party that quickly got out of control - and honestly, Brendon can’t remember much about it. He remembers Ryan’s exasperated looks in the beginning of the night as Brendon had gone shot to shot against Ryland, but after that, it gets a little fuzzy, a strange montage of Ryan Ryan Ryan when he looks back, his features blurred but beautiful even then.
This morning, however, Spencer had called him and told him everything. About how he had gotten drunk, and confused Mikey for Ryan, and done Stupid Things for twenty seconds before Spencer had pulled him off. “Ryan saw, though, dude,” Spencer had said, voice sounding tired like he had spent the whole night talking his best friend out of one of his jealous rants. “You need to get your ass over to his house.”
So, of course, Brendon had dragged his still half-drunk ass out of bed and thrown on a hoodie before jogging over to Ryan’s house, pounding on the door (in sync with the pounding in his head, and it hurt, and he did it anyway) until his boyfriend had opened it looking the definition of tired and pissed off.
“Ryan, it didn’t mean anything,” Brendon says now, because it really didn’t. Mikey is just a friend. He’s awesome. Of course he is. Brendon loves him, just not like he loves Ryan. And he would never do anything to hurt Ryan.
“Okay,” Ryan says, proving with one dead and empty word that things are not, not okay. He pulls his legs up to his chest, looking so damn small that Brendon wants to cry or scream or do something rash just to make the feelings in his chest stop hurting so much.
“Ryan,” Brendon pleads. “I - I love you.” He doesn’t want to go into the psychology of all of that, because Brendon knows that Ryan’s had more experience with people who love him hurting him, but sometimes Brendon wishes that Ryan would just learn to trust him and realize that he’s not Ryan’s father. “Come on.”
Brendon raises his hand toward Ryan, but Ryan slaps it away. “Whatever,” he says, voice icy and thin. “I don’t care, it’s okay.”
Brendon’s hand falls to his side like dead weight. “What?”
“It’s okay,” Ryan says again. “I mean, whatever makes you happy. Get drunk, kiss whoever, do what you like. It isn’t important.” He sounds resigned, trapped in his own truths, and suddenly, it hits Brendon that this little scene isn’t going to have a happy ending. Ryan is curled into himself, looking miserable. The sky behind him is gray, and the trees are bare. It’s the perfect backdrop for this - mirroring the sinking feeling in Brendon’s gut.
“This doesn’t make me happy,” Brendon says desperately. He can’t lose Ryan. He really can’t. He hasn’t been with Ryan that long, but Ryan’s always been a part of his life, and thinking of life without him makes Brendon’s breathing grow ragged. “You make me happy, I just - I don’t think sometimes, okay?” Brendon’s throat burns at the words.
Ryan bites his lower lip, that lip that Brendon knows so well, and Brendon finds hollow comfort when he sees the mask of Ryan’s face break a little, tear away. “I said it’s okay,” Ryan says. “I get it. We’re different people.”
“You - you’re fucking stupid,” Brendon says quickly, almost hysterically. “Is that really what you think this is about?”
“Isn’t it?” Ryan asks, and the question hurts Brendon more than he thinks a punch would. “I’m not stupid, Brendon.”
The air around Brendon seems to turn, if possible, even colder, and without the warmth of Ryan’s body pressed up against him, Brendon shivers through the gray morning.
March
So things are weird.
It takes Ryan three days to realize he’s been an asshole. There’s probably a whole treasure chest of issues strewn around in his brain about attention and ownership, but Ryan lost track of the balance, and underestimated a lot of things. He spends a lot of the time wondering who exactly let who down. The situation sucked, but still, Brendon didn’t deserve that.
He doesn’t know how to right it, though. He doesn’t even want to consider the hypocrisy involved in trying to tell Brendon he made a mistake, but just an apology would feel too small, too useless. Ryan doesn’t know how to say “Sorry I made you the bad guy when you never were” without saying “I’m the real bad guy” at the same time.
There’s probably a way of getting around it where they both get to be the good guys, but solutions like that are restricted to people like Spencer, and Ryan is not a person like Spencer.
No, he’s the type of person who fucks everything up and doesn’t do a goddamn thing to stop it from getting worse.
It’s when he’s flicking through the TV guide, though, that a maybe sort of good idea catches his eye. Fox is running a five hour Family Guy marathon to celebrate the beginning of March or whatever. Ryan doesn’t know why the beginning of March needs celebrating, but he doesn’t care, because that’s Brendon’s favorite show, and that’s an opportunity.
He writes the text message to Brendon very, very slowly, letter by letter by letter, because casual would be stupid but intense would be worse. It comes out a little clipped and unsure, but that’s how Ryan feels, so he guesses it’s okay. Just the show and the times and the subtext of sorry. It’s comforting - the uniform words on the screen. Words are something Ryan understands. It’s something he gets.
But Brendon doesn’t reply, and Ryan guesses he deserved that.
-
Monday morning is more of a problem because mornings is Brendon thing. Ryan’s supposed to pick him up, and they’re supposed to drive in together in Ryan’s stupid little car, and it’s supposed to be the best part of the day, and it is, but.
Okay. Ryan was an ass, but he’s not rude, and he knows Brendon hates catching the bus. Besides, it’s a gesture of sorts, and every little bit helps.
He gets to Brendon’s house a little early, actually, and sits out front, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. When Brendon’s door opens, Ryan doesn’t look up, maybe because he’s scared of what he’ll see. He hears the door open, though, and maybe the burning sound as Brendon’s stare hits his face.
“Um,” Brendon says eventually.
Ryan shrugs and sighs, and finally turns to look at Brendon and god, god. He shouldn’t have turned to look, because Brendon just looks good.
“Get in the car,” he says eventually, and it’s meant to sound commanding, but it comes out more like a question or a plea, and Ryan doesn’t know what to do with that, so he ignores it.
Brendon stays there, staring for a moment, and then slips into the car. “What’re you doing?” he asks after a long, silent moment, fiddling with the radio.
“Driving you in,” Ryan says, trying to make it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. Like he doesn’t have an ulterior motive to make this whole thing disappear or be close enough to accidently brush against Brendon when he shifts gears. He’s mostly failing.
“Okay,” Brendon says slowly, anyway. “I got your message yesterday.”
“Good,” Ryan says, and then Brendon settles on a station playing The Mountain Goats, and they drive.
Ryan tries not to think about how the music is covering up all that Brendon isn’t saying and all that Ryan wishes he had the nerve to.
-
March is as dead as ever. All of Ryan’s classes are dull, and there’re no good films showing, and none of the bands he likes are releasing new albums, and he hasn’t read a good book in ages, and he isn’t quite sure if he and Brendon are still dating or what.
It’s pretty much a shitty month, all in all.
On Tuesday, he picks Brendon up again, and Brendon doesn’t ask this time, just gets in the car and says, “So I just finished The Fountainhead,” and they talk about that for the rest of the drive.
They don’t have a lot of classes together, which is mostly a good thing. Ryan spends a lot of the day drifting around and wondering about things and remembering stuff he has to tell Brendon, and then not being sure if it’s okay to still want to tell Brendon stuff. He keeps the thoughts in the back of his mind, though, just in case.
He comes up with several different ways to apologize, a lot of them involving concert tickets or scented candles or a mixture of the two, but none of them seem appropriate, and Ryan still isn’t totally sure that apologizing is what he needs to do.
There are lines between right and wrong, yeah, but Ryan just doesn’t quite know where they are.
He’s beginning to think that it doesn’t really matter, though. He misses the easy way things were with Brendon before.
As he’s leaving school, he passes Brendon by the lockers and smiles uneasily. Brendon smiles back, their faces two matching masks, and Ryan doesn’t really know how it happens, but one second they’re standing next to each other and not saying a lot, and the next they’re in a booth eating ice cream and Brendon’s saying, “Oh my god, you have to try this,” and Ryan’s being spoon-fed and trying really hard to figure all of this out.
-
It’s just, like. Stuff. On Wednesday at lunch, Brendon doesn’t have enough cash for his pasta, so Ryan pays without really thinking about it. He isn’t even totally sure how he got next to Brendon in the line, anyway - they maybe ran into each other on the walk over and started talking, talking until they were there and Ryan was paying and Brendon was smiling and it made sense how it didn’t.
Thursday doesn’t go much better. It sort of goes worse. (Depending on how you define ‘better’ and ‘worse.’ Ryan has no idea.) He just finds himself making the wrong turn when he should be driving Brendon home, and all Brendon has to say is, “Oh man, that movie looks badass,” before they’re in the back row of this theatre and Ryan can taste Sprite sweet in his mouth (they get one cup, with two straws), can feel Brendon’s knee nudging his. It’s so familiar - a strange flashback to the muggy theater dates but not dates from their summer, and he thinks maybe he should say something, but Brendon gets there first, whispering a clumsy joke about the trailer that’s playing. Ryan’s laughing too hard to remember the problem.
On Friday evening over the phone, Ryan sort of mentions that he maybe could kill for a burger right now. Brendon hums out a reply and says he can probably swing that.
The place they hit is nearly empty by the time they get there, and Ryan feels skinny and nervous. He also feels like he really, really wants to kiss Brendon. And like he doesn’t deserve that.
And right then, yeah, he knows. “I - uh,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Brendon says easily. “I would say I’m sorry, too, but I did already.”
It’s true, it stings because it’s so true, but Ryan catches the fun in Brendon’s eyes, and relaxes into it.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, because there isn’t really anything else, and Brendon laughs high and delighted and leans over to kiss him.
Part Two
Author: ivesia19 and takkatakkatakka
Rating: R
Pairing: Brendon/Ryan
POV: 3rd person
Summary: High School AU. A look at a year in a relationship.
Disclaimer: We know that they aren't actually like this in real life, but that's their fault, not ours.
Beta: takkatakkatakka and ivesia19
Author Notes: This story is a prelude (of sorts) to this story, but you don’t have to read the other story to follow this. Special thanks to provetheworst for helping brainstorm May.
September
This is what happens: Ryan goes around Brendon’s house one afternoon in September a couple weeks after school starts up again, and they kiss.
No, well, okay. Some other stuff does happen before that.
They spend the summer together. It’s pretty unavoidable since Mikey goes to stay in New York with his creepy brother, and Spencer has a job at the music place in the mall, and Gabe gets weird in the heat, et cetera and so on, (thank god it all happened this way). There wasn’t anyone else for them to hang out with except each other.
Ryan ended up doubting anyone else would have wanted to be there, anyway.
The whole of summer was like one long Sunday afternoon in Ryan’s backyard with two guitars and a broken radio. It wasn’t precious and it wasn’t painful - it was just hot and stupid, long walks through the suburbs, arguing just for show on the cracked sidewalks and recommending books they hadn’t read. One time, Brendon decided they were going to sell homemade lemonade, and they sat out on the street all day, Brendon squeezing fruit and Ryan making models with the paper cups. There were a couple of parties (they left early and together) and a couple of movies (they left late and together) and a couple of concerts (together, together, always together.) And there was smiling. Ryan remembers a lot, a lot of smiling.
And then they got back to school and nothing changed. Ryan was expecting the shock of summer ending, of new restrictions, problems with homework and seeing other people and obligations. He’d been treating the summer, their summer, like something contained. A bottle, maybe. But an emptying one.
No one ever said anything about refills.
But then there’s today, for instance. They’re sitting in Brendon’s room, Brendon himself stretched out on the floor and Ryan curled over his guitar - it’s twenty times nicer than his own and neither of them will never admit it - and then Brendon stands up and Ryan kisses him even though summer’s over, so it isn’t really the right time. But somehow, it still is.
No, no, there’s more stuff that happens in between. Ryan goes home with Brendon that day without being asked, without needing an invitation. They spend half an hour in Brendon’s music room playing clunky piano to each other (shoulders touching, Ryan thinking holy fuck), Ryan fiddles a little with a thread on Brendon’s bedcover, Brendon says, “I think I like you like you,” and then, and then, Ryan kisses him.
Ryan is used to getting things across with ink and paper, with letters and words, shitty poetry in loose, open scrawl. It’s nice, the collected part of his brain decides, it’s nice for his mouth to be expressing his feelings for once.
Ryan is kissing. He’s kissing Brendon.
It’s soft and warm. Brendon’s a little hesitant and a lot pliant, and when Ryan leans forward, he can feel Brendon’s heartbeat through his stomach. They’re tilting their heads toward each other now, Ryan’s tongue feeling languid, lazy. It’s too easy, almost, the dry way they align, the way Brendon’s lips feel so nervous but ready and waiting. Ryan pushes their mouths together, gently gently, and he can hear Brendon breathing slowly through his nose, in and out, one two one two. Brendon’s palms appear like little fluttering birds on Ryan’s sides, pushing and pulling until they’re closer, closer. Ryan can feel his body and Brendon’s body and nothing else in between - those are Brendon’s teeth he’s tasting.
It ends when a kid outside yells something about his banana roadster and Brendon can’t stop himself from laughing, but that’s okay too, because this is a beginning, and Ryan can feel it, can hear it pulsing in his veins. He laughs a little too when some of the other kids join in.
“It sucks,” Brendon says later, walking his fingers across Ryan’s open palm, “that we didn’t do this at the beginning of the summer. I could’ve been your summer fling.”
His fingers are tickling up Ryan’s arm, light and roughly calloused, and Ryan, Ryan thinks back over a June of secret ice cream runs and shared speakers, a July of midnight discussions and swimming pools, and an August, oh god, an August of too-long drives and brushing hands and that one time where we almost -, and he blinks at Brendon and says, almost laughing, “You kind of were my summer fling.”
He was, but that doesn’t mean that Ryan wants it to end.
Brendon grins and kisses him again.
October
When Brendon was younger, he used to go Trick-or-Treating with his sister. She would always lead the way, her hand warm and dry in his own - comforting when the decorations seemed just a little bit too much like his nightmares. This was when Brendon was younger, though. Now, Brendon is a junior in high school. He’s far too old to go Trick-or-Treating, or at least that’s what his parents have been telling him ever since his voice dropped low and his thoughts started becoming more interesting (and coincidentally, often times filthy).
“Let’s go Trick-or-Treating,” Brendon says, pulling on Ryan’s sleeve as they sit next to each other on Brendon’s parent’s couch. They’re just doing homework, nothing else - they wouldn’t dare when a parental eye could be watching at any moment. Still, Brendon tugs at Ryan’s sleeve, the cotton pulling, and he shifts closer until their thighs touch. “I’ll make it worth your time.” He bats his eyelashes.
Ryan laughs, but he moves away from Brendon, and Brendon catches him throw a cautious look toward the door behind them. “Bren, we’re too old to celebrate Halloween. Besides, Gabe is having a party.”
“You’re contradicting yourself, Ryan,” Brendon points out sweetly, and if he weren’t paranoid about his mother coming in to ‘check on them’, he would be pressing against Ryan until the arm rest dug into Ryan’s back and he pressed back, grinding against Brendon, because they really, really haven’t done that enough times yet. Brendon wasted a whole summer not touching Ryan properly. He intends to make up for it now.
“What’s Gabe’s party if not a celebration? Besides, Trick-or-Treating is on Thursday, and Gabe’s party is on Friday.”
Shifting, Ryan still looks doubtful. “It’s weird. We’re too old.”
“You can do my make-up,” Brendon says, and that’s how he convinces Ryan out only two nights later.
Before they go, Brendon leads Ryan up to his room, closing the door even though he’s really not supposed to. Brendon wonders if his parents are ever going to actually approach the subject of him being gay - he’s sort of focusing on the dreamland where it won’t ever come up, and they’ll just live around the fact without having to mention it. It doesn’t matter now, anyway, because his parents are at a friend’s house for dinner.
They’ve already left out a bowl of candy for little Trick-or-Treaters that Brendon knows will be empty before nightfall.
Some kids have no decency.
(Though, to be fair, Brendon may have snuck a handful or so himself when he had let Ryan in.)
(Whatever. Collateral Damage.)
Ryan, though, Ryan fusses as he does Brendon’s make up. “Hold still,” he says, and his fingers are firm against Brendon’s face. “I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Brendon tries not to move, and to distract himself from the urge to bounce a little, he looks at Ryan. Ryan’s already done his own make up, the pale white and the bright red lips with the black rimmed eyes bringing to life his last minute mummy costume. “I had a bunch of Ace Bandages lying around,” Ryan had said, and Brendon had left it at that.
Beneath the caked on costume make up, Brendon can still see Ryan’s features. He can’t see the light splattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose or the tiny scar near his eyebrow, but when he looks at the boy in front of him, holding his chin between his fingers, Brendon still sees Ryan, the same Ryan as a month ago. The same Ryan as before, and that makes Brendon’s heart tingle in his chest, like it doesn’t know whether to race or stop.
“You make a sexy mummy,” Brendon murmurs, lips pursed, as Ryan transfers lipstick onto him with a small brush. “Hey, is this the same color as yours?”
“The lipstick?” Ryan asks, smoothing away a small clump of color. “Yeah. I only wanted to buy one, so-”
Brendon doesn’t care to hear the rest of it, though it is cute to think of Ryan standing in the local Rite Aid rummaging through rows of lipstick. But it doesn’t really matter, and since the colors won’t clash, Brendon surges forward and kisses Ryan. “It’d be lame if we didn’t at least make out a little while my parents were gone and we were in my bedroom alone,” he says when they part.
A little bit of lipstick has smudged up from Ryan’s mouth, but Brendon doesn’t tell Ryan that, he just kisses him again until Ryan relents and moves from his chair set in front of Brendon to straddle his lap.
Brendon arches up a little, just until Ryan moans, and then he pulls away to bite at the waxy white skin of Ryan’s neck. “Grrr, I’m a vampire,” he says, sticking his tongue out seconds later because wax actually doesn’t taste that great. It sort of ruins the moment.
Brendon thinks for a second about how he and Ryan are having moments. His heart, it just beats and beats.
Ryan laughs, but when he looks in the mirror, he frowns and fusses at his make up. “You fucked it up,” he complains. He still doesn’t really seem all that bothered.
They finally leave the house about an hour after Trick-or-Treating starts, and when they pass by the bowl that Brendon’s parents had left out for the children, there’s nothing left in it. Well, that’s not true - there’s a candy wrapper or two.
Brendon pulls Ryan down the street, ringing each doorbell that they come to, each of them holding plastic Jack-O-Lanterns that Brendon had picked up earlier at the Dollar Tree. They were a good bargain.
At every house, Brendon’s “Trick-or-Treat!” overshadows Ryan’s, but Ryan still says it, even though Brendon knows that he’s more than a little bit mortified.
Most people who open the door don’t seem too thrilled to have two seventeen year olds asking for candy, but some people give them double candy laughing, and one lady ruffles Brendon’s hair and called him a vampire with chutzpah.
They hit every house in the neighborhood, their plastic pumpkins heavy by the end of the night, and when they get back to Brendon’s room, they empty the candy out into piles on the floor, exchanging treats until they’re both happy.
Brendon eats his weight in candy that night, and all of the Hershey Kisses seem to have disappeared, but the growing mound of silver aluminum near Ryan’s crossed legs is a good clue to where they all went.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Brendon says, leaning over to give Ryan a chocolate flavored kiss, and it’s so easy. “I know you didn’t really want to go.”
Ryan colors, the red barely visible even through the now fading face paint. “You wanted to go,” is all he says.
The next night, when they’re at Gabe’s party wearing the same outfits, Brendon and Ryan spend half the night in one of the abandoned bedrooms, and when they stumble out just as the party is dying down, Spencer laughs at the way that Ryan’s Ace Bandages trail behind him, red lipstick smeared at the edges.
November
The thing about Brendon’s family is that sometimes they can be a little overwhelming. Ryan appreciates that Brendon invited him over to Thanksgiving dinner, because it’s not like his house is going to be roasting a turkey (and a tofurkey especially for Brendon), but sometimes the sheer amount of noise and people is a little too much for Ryan.
There’s also that thing where no one in Brendon’s family knows that he and Brendon are dating.
Or that Brendon’s gay, but really, Ryan’s beginning to doubt Brendon’s parents’ sanity if they can’t see that their youngest son is about as flaming as the sun.
But Thanksgiving is a big step in terms of a relationship. At least, Ryan thinks it is. He’s been over to Spencer’s house for holidays before, but it’s different with Spencer’s family. For starters, having dinner with Spencer and his parents doesn’t make Ryan feel so nervous that he thinks he might throw up. Also, Ryan doesn’t particularly ever have the urge to throw Spencer against the nearest wall and stick his tongue down his throat like he does with Brendon.
But that’s beside the point. The point is that Ryan knows he needs to stop being stupid - because Brendon loves his family, and Ryan owes it to him to make the effort.
Ryan rings the goddamn doorbell.
“You’re right on time!” Brendon says when he opens the door approximately five seconds after Ryan had rung the bell, and the thought of Brendon waiting anxiously by the door for him makes Ryan want to kiss Brendon, but he knows that on the other side of the door there are more than a couple people who are likely to not appreciate that.
(Who knows, though. Everyone has secrets.)
Brendon’s hand reaches out, but Ryan watches as it falters a bit, opting to hold onto Ryan’s wrist to pull him inside the house instead of weaving their fingers together like he’s gotten used to doing.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Brendon says. His eyes are bright and his smile is wide, and Ryan knows that this is a big deal to Brendon. Even if his parents don’t know that they’re dating, Ryan knows that he views this dinner as a Step. With a capital S. After all, that’s how Brendon had written it in his math notes that Ryan had borrowed when he was sick one day last week. They haven’t talked about Brendon’s little list, though Ryan knows that Brendon must have realized by now that he’s seen it.
Ryan finds it sort of adorable that Brendon has everything planned out, impractical as it may be, but still. Seeing everything put out there in Brendon’s loopy scrawl - especially Step Nine - is a little intimidating.
“I’m famished,” Ryan says, leaning against Brendon a little, trying to get as much contact in as he can before they round the corner and are bombarded with Brendon’s family.
“I had my mom make scalloped potatoes just for you,” Brendon says, and he blushes a little bit. “She even bought some Coke.”
Ryan wants to run his fingers across the waistline of Brendon’s pants. He wants to ruffle Brendon’s too-neat hair that looks like he’s about to go to church. He wants to make Brendon make that whiny gasp he made last Thursday when Ryan had grinded his hips down against Brendon and bit his ear.
He doesn’t, of course. Not now, but he does lean in a bit and say, “After this, we should sneak away. I’ve missed you.”
It sort of sounds like a line from a Hugh Grant movie, because Ryan saw Brendon just yesterday, but he really has missed him. Missed the feel of Brendon’s skin, the weight of his body when they’re making out and Brendon decides to be bold and pin Ryan to the bed (Step Three).
It makes Ryan wonder just how far he’s fallen already.
Brendon’s face lights up even more than the glow from the promise of mashed potatoes and corn and pumpkin pie at Ryan’s words, and his grip around Ryan’s wrist loosens until his thumb is just making small circles at the pulse point. “When we’re done eating and everyone sits down to watch the family movie, you and I can escape.”
Brendon smiles, and Ryan allows himself to be pulled into the dining room, where a large table is already completely made up, dishes of food steaming from their strategic locations.
“We’re by the potatoes,” Brendon says, directing Ryan down to his chair, and when his mom comes in through the door, Brendon pulls his hand away from Ryan, and Ryan’s skin feels cold. “Hey, mom. Need any help?”
She commandeers Brendon to help gather all the relatives for dinner, but refuses to let Ryan help. “You’re a guest, sweetheart. You just sit right there and relax.”
Ryan sits down and tries to do as she says.
It doesn’t take long for all of Brendon’s relatives to come to the table - twenty people smooshing around a table that was probably built for twelve, and following the cue of everyone else, Ryan clasps his hands together and bows his head as Brendon’s father says a prayer.
Ryan keeps his eyes open, though, watching the way that Brendon’s eyelashes rest against his pale skin, but when he catches his thoughts going somewhere definitely not appropriate during prayer time, he closes his eyes, too.
He tries not to think about what he’s got himself into.
Mrs. Urie carves the turkey, and when plates are passed to her, she serves everyone, though Brendon eats the fake meat, and Ryan joins him out of solidarity. It’s not too bad. The rest of the food is mouthwatering, and Ryan cleans his plate twice before he thinks about slowing down.
He tries to be social, talking with Brendon’s family when they ask him a question, but he can’t help but feel a little awkward, especially with Brendon’s foot pushing up the leg of his pants.
When Mrs. Urie and some of the others clean the table and bring out the dessert, Brendon starts to jitter in his seat a little, and Ryan rests a hand on Brendon’s thigh. Brendon stills immediately, but Ryan pulls his hand away as Brendon’s sister walks up behind them and sets a piece of pie in front of each of them.
“Let’s give thanks,” Mr. Urie says as they all sit down again, and one by one, around the table, Ryan listens as everyone says what they’re thankful for: family, health, different successes.
When it’s Ryan’s turn, he doesn’t know what to say. Not because he doesn’t have things he’s thankful for. He does. He just doesn’t know if he wants to share them. “I’m thankful that you have all shared your holiday with me,” he finally settles on, feeling a little bit like he took the copout way, but at least everyone around the table smiles at him.
Next to Ryan, Brendon says, “I’m thankful that Ryan’s here, too,” and for some reason, it seems to be so much more truthful to Ryan, and he can’t help but slip his hand under the tablecloth and find Brendon’s palm with his own, pressing them together as they listen to what else everyone is thankful for.
December
Christmas catches up with them pretty fast, and it doesn’t really need saying that Brendon’s going to be tied to his family for the duration. Instead of sulking, Ryan plans some sort of hibernation involving outdated movies and a whole lot of ice cream, which, though it may seem a lot like brooding isn’t really that at all.
“It’s okay,” he says, when Brendon asks him. “Just Christmas.”
Brendon mumbles something quietly so that Ryan can pretend he doesn’t hear, and touches his arm lightly. Ryan shrugs again and nods, but he seems calmer after that.
It is over with pretty quickly though; Brendon spends most of it helping his grandma make cookies and trying to keep his cousins from actually killing each other. When Ryan calls, he manages to escape into the basement, and they just talk for a while - Brendon perches on their huge-ass freezer with one leg swinging next to him, toes wriggling in his Christmas socks, listening to Ryan’s lazy vision of a Grinch re-make, and Brendon dutifully makes the corny joke about something growing three sizes that day.
New Year’s, of course, is just another excuse for a party. There’s this big open space out on the outskirts of town and they’re gonna set a bonfire up, maybe fireworks at midnight. Plus Mikey’s coming, and he’s bringing his creepy older brother. Gerard goes to an art college in New York, and as such, has a ton of indie kid hipster friends that he’s bringing along, probably the kind that seriously debate poetry and grow goatees and wear berets and listen to ska.
Ska, seriously. Ryan is flipping a shit.
But New Year’s is also a family event, and that’s pretty much where Brendon’s outlook on the night ends.
New Year’s Eve at home is like a death sentence.
Brendon doesn’t really know how he’s going to find stuff to do all evening. He hangs around in the kitchen for a while, steadily drinking his body weight in orange juice. Ryan texts him halfway through dinner, something about Gabe’s outfit and the horror involved therein, but Brendon’s not quite brave enough to reply to him at the table, and anyway, it’s not like Ryan’s going to be checking his cell for updates of Brendon’s crazy night in.
It just kind of sucks, is all.
Mostly he plays game after game of Uno with one of his sisters, even when it gets so late that her head is drooping between rounds as she shuffles the cards. They turn on the TV around eleven. It’s quiet and drowsy and nothing much like Christmas at all - at least, nothing like the bad parts.
Because Brendon doesn’t hate his whole family, not really. He just wishes it were easier to pick and choose which parts of it he had - to be able to only have his mom on her easy and kindly days, her you-make-me-so-proud days. He wishes he could distil the good from all of his siblings into one person, one brother or sister to contend with, talk to, know. He wishes his dad could only ever want to teach him guitar, not ethics, and that he didn’t connect Being A Man directly with Being Like Me.
He wishes Ryan could fit in here somewhere.
Ryan doesn’t text him again until after ten, and even then, it’s only a quick I’m freezing, you should be here, as if Brendon didn’t know that all already. There isn’t much left to keep him awake except the TV now, and he’s trying not to think about Ryan beaming into a makeshift fire, Ryan talking poetry with a guy from New York, Ryan somewhere better, with someone better.
Fuck, Brendon’s not even supposed to be the jealous one.
When it gets to nearly midnight, he’s driven himself half crazy with thinking too many thoughts about too many people, and it’s an effort just to stay downstairs instead of crawling up to his bedroom and staring hard at the ceiling and wishing and wanting.
At three minutes to the New Year, his cell starts ringing.
When Brendon picks up, Ryan says, “I burnt my tongue.”
“Okay,” Brendon says.
“Not, like, badly or anything,” Ryan continues, “I just, they had hotdogs, and they were straight off of this mini-grill thing, so.”
“That’s good,” Brendon says. “It would be pretty shitty if you’d disfigured yourself with a hotdog.” Ryan laughs, and Brendon thinks I miss you. He sort of hates himself, a lot, but not in an entirely bad way.
“Also,” Ryan says casually, “I’m outside your house.”
Something flips in Brendon’s stomach. He feels it seep through him as his body gets the message that Ryan is close.
“Okay,” he says again, trying to keep that same casual tone that Ryan seems to have perfected - trying to pretend like his heart isn’t fucking bursting - and then, “Hang on.”
Brendon slips out of the house quickly, feeling young and free and just a little bit insane, because when he gets to the door, he can see Ryan’s stupid yellow car pulled up next to the van and Ryan himself leaning against it with the streetlights all around him.
“Hey,” Ryan says when Brendon gets close enough, and when he reaches out, it’s still a marvel to Brendon how easy it is to touch, to kiss. He smiles surprised against Ryan’s mouth and mumbles, “What about the party?”
Ryan slinks his hands down to curl them into Brendon’s fingers, and they feel cold and thin, fairy-like. “It -” he starts, and then stops. His eyelids look heavy, and Brendon remembers kissing them once before, how that felt. How it would feel if he did it again right now, with Ryan’s hair all messed and his breathing ragged, how that would work out.
Ryan takes another breath, slowly, and then says, “It sucked. Being there without you.”
Brendon feels himself nodding, carelessly, keeping tabs on all the places where they’re touching. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah, it sucked being here without you, too.”
There’s a pause that fills itself with exactly how much being without Ryan sucked. Brendon leans back into it, because he is maybe a little bit in love with Ryan and not scared of even that anymore.
“We’re fucked,” Ryan whispers, one hand steadying itself back on Brendon’s shoulder.
Brendon laughs, and it’s a strangely light sound, next to the darkness of the street. “Well said,” he replies eventually, thinking I know I know I know.
He feels the alarm on his phone vibrate in his pocket as they reach midnight.
He can’t think of a way to say Happy New Year without sounding corny, so he just kisses Ryan instead.
January
In January, Brendon says, “Hey,” and brings his hand around to cup Ryan’s dick through his jeans.
Ryan says, “Mmph,” and then breathes out, drinking in the warmth, the quiet TV in his empty house, their feet curling over each other on the couch.
And then Brendon slips his hand beneath the fabric of Ryan’s pants, and he whispers into Ryan’s ear, “So, I think we should have proper sex sometime soon.”
At the time, Ryan doesn’t really register it - he’s too intent on getting off by this point, so he just nods, yeah, okay, whatever, later, says, “Touch me,” and Brendon touches him, softly, and then harder.
It doesn’t take too long, of course it doesn’t, and after Ryan’s returned the favour they settle back down to the TV easily, barely watching it at all. It’s only after Brendon’s gone home and Ryan’s lazily fixing himself some coffee that he remembers what Brendon said, and he sets down his mug on the table very, very precisely and says, “Wait, what?”
--
"Proper sex"? Proper sex? The terminology makes Ryan uneasy. It sounds like something you can get tested in, graded on, like everything they've been doing up until now has been training - an obligatory build up. It sounds a hell of a lot like something that's way too easy to get wrong.
And, to make matters worse, Brendon is really not helping.
“So,” Brendon says, setting down his lunch tray opposite Ryan’s. “You’re gonna want to screw me pretty hard by the end of this conversation.”
Spencer spits his drink out onto the table. “Leaving now,” he mutters without looking at either of them, and Ryan doesn’t bother asking him to stay. Instead, he narrows his eyes and tries to look casually interested. Brendon’s wearing blue, and his freckles seem paler today, his eyes too-big and brown.
Fuck, he looks good.
“It’s pretty simple, actually.” Brendon grins, leaning in and resting his chin on his hands. Ryan feels small and big at the same time under his gaze, fluid.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, go.”
Brendon smirks again, leaning back, setting his hands on the table and saying, “My family.”
Ryan blinks, unsure, and then says, “Brendon.”
“No, seriously, I’m not done yet,” Brendon says quickly, cutting across questions Ryan doesn’t even know where to start asking. “My parents have this thing every January where they go, like, away for a weekend. It’s like their New Year’s tradition or whatever to skip town. And they used to take me with them, but they’re leaving me home this time.” Brendon waggles his eyebrows and adds, “They said I’m responsible enough to handle it.”
The knot on Ryan’s scarf is suddenly bigger, tighter, and he pulls at where it’s cutting too sharp into his throat. “Oh,” he says, and looks steadily at the space between Brendon’s eyes.
Brendon grins like a magician with a hat full of suggestions and continues. “So, my sister wanted to have a party, but her boyfriend’s got a game that night.”
Ryan swallows. It’s a lot more difficult than normal. “And that’s, uh -”
“She’s gonna go watch him play soccer or something,” Brendon nods, kicking Ryan under the table maybe a little too hard and smirking again. “Maybe baseball, I’m not sure.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, “okay. Baseball’s cool.”
“Yeah,” Brendon says, and takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing quietly and just, just looking. “So we have. A house.”
“Okay,” Ryan says, thinking about how Brendon’s collarbones meet just right, and how the shape that his shoulders make is maybe Ryan’s very favorite. “You’re right,” he says, setting down his drink. “I do want to screw you pretty hard right now.”
Brendon laughs.
--
Ryan doesn’t know how to think about it, so mostly he doesn’t.
Brendon, though, makes that pretty difficult. It's like he doesn't even have to try anymore, because he looks like sex whatever he does now. Grabbing books from his locker, poking Mikey during Biology, walking next to Ryan to the store, the cafeteria, anywhere - he's driving Ryan crazy without even meaning to. Just the way his fingers move, the curve in his spine, the groove in his lips. Ryan doesn't know where to begin, how to end.
He can't stop thinking about it.
If Brendon notices, he doesn't let it show, just acts the same as always, touching easily and catching all of Ryan's kisses.
It actually turns out that this girl in Ryan's French class is having a pretty decent sounding party this weekend, and when Gabe asks Ryan if he's going, he doesn't quite know what to say. He's going to be busy? Something came up?
Brendon solves the problem by answering for both of them. "Sorry," Brendon says, and that smirk, it's back, making Ryan feel warm and weightless. "Me and Ross have plans." He raises one eyebrow, evil, and Ryan finds himself smiling weakly.
"Are you sure?" Ryan asks Brendon later, trying to keep his voice calm and on his side. "We can just go to the party if you want."
"I'm sure," Brendon replies, but he doesn't sound all that surprised by Ryan's question. He looks up. "I want to spend my time with you," he says purposefully.
Ryan squeezes their fingers together because it's easier than saying "me too."
--
It feels too easy, at first.
Ryan pulls his shoes off at Brendon’s door and they go up and sit on Brendon’s bed and all of it - it’s too old and too easy. Ryan thinks that it should feel different. He’s not quite sure how, but it should.
Brendon says, “Hey,” and kisses him, and it feels just like kissing Brendon. The angle is awkward, and their noses knock, and Ryan sort of thinks he might be into that, just because of how good he feels right now. He knows for sure at least that he’s pretty damn into Brendon.
All things considered, it’s a nice thing to know.
“I’m-” Ryan says, and then pulls back, frowning.
Brendon frowns too, so their faces are matching, and in Ryan’s head, a dozen different starting lines scrawl themselves; intricacies, matching wavelengths, one plus one is one.
“This is good,” Ryan says. “This is good, right?”
Brendon nods, quietly, and says, “This is good.” He leans back a little, and his smile starts to break through again, brazen and sheer, and he says, “Move with me, Ross.”
Ryan huffs out a surprised laugh, feels delight course through him, across his fingertips and out over the whole room, and says, “Yeah, let’s do that.”
Februrary
Brendon knows that Ryan doesn’t drink, doesn’t like drinking. He also knows that he doesn’t think that alcohol should be any sort of an excuse, but in this case, Brendon doesn’t have any other choice than to use that explanation. So he explains for the fifth time this morning.
“I was really drunk!”
They’re sitting outside of Ryan’s house on the paint chipped porch, and Brendon just wishes that Ryan would be reasonable and forgive him so that they can go inside and get out of the harsh chill of the February air that burns his chest with each breath in.
Ryan just shakes his head, though, his hair falling in front of his face, and Brendon wishes that he could push it back, play with his hair a little bit and kiss him. He looks sad, vulnerable. Brendon knows that he must look terrible, too - hung over and miserable.
“Brendon,” Ryan says, but that’s all Brendon lets him get out, because he knows where Ryan is coming from. He knows about Ryan’s dad and the stale bottles and the locked doors. He’s heard about the half-hearted apologies that come the morning after, ones that Ryan’s always too sick to swallow. But it’s different, it is, because Brendon wouldn’t hurt Ryan. Not like that. Not on purpose.
“I thought he was you,” Brendon says. “I thought - Mikey looks like you.”
He sort of does, in a strange, gangly way, but Brendon doesn’t get into the logistics of the whole thing; he knows it won’t help. He just sighs, reaching out to rest a hand against Ryan’s knee, but Ryan jerks away.
“It was just for a second.”
He had been so drunk the night before - another one of Gabe’s party that quickly got out of control - and honestly, Brendon can’t remember much about it. He remembers Ryan’s exasperated looks in the beginning of the night as Brendon had gone shot to shot against Ryland, but after that, it gets a little fuzzy, a strange montage of Ryan Ryan Ryan when he looks back, his features blurred but beautiful even then.
This morning, however, Spencer had called him and told him everything. About how he had gotten drunk, and confused Mikey for Ryan, and done Stupid Things for twenty seconds before Spencer had pulled him off. “Ryan saw, though, dude,” Spencer had said, voice sounding tired like he had spent the whole night talking his best friend out of one of his jealous rants. “You need to get your ass over to his house.”
So, of course, Brendon had dragged his still half-drunk ass out of bed and thrown on a hoodie before jogging over to Ryan’s house, pounding on the door (in sync with the pounding in his head, and it hurt, and he did it anyway) until his boyfriend had opened it looking the definition of tired and pissed off.
“Ryan, it didn’t mean anything,” Brendon says now, because it really didn’t. Mikey is just a friend. He’s awesome. Of course he is. Brendon loves him, just not like he loves Ryan. And he would never do anything to hurt Ryan.
“Okay,” Ryan says, proving with one dead and empty word that things are not, not okay. He pulls his legs up to his chest, looking so damn small that Brendon wants to cry or scream or do something rash just to make the feelings in his chest stop hurting so much.
“Ryan,” Brendon pleads. “I - I love you.” He doesn’t want to go into the psychology of all of that, because Brendon knows that Ryan’s had more experience with people who love him hurting him, but sometimes Brendon wishes that Ryan would just learn to trust him and realize that he’s not Ryan’s father. “Come on.”
Brendon raises his hand toward Ryan, but Ryan slaps it away. “Whatever,” he says, voice icy and thin. “I don’t care, it’s okay.”
Brendon’s hand falls to his side like dead weight. “What?”
“It’s okay,” Ryan says again. “I mean, whatever makes you happy. Get drunk, kiss whoever, do what you like. It isn’t important.” He sounds resigned, trapped in his own truths, and suddenly, it hits Brendon that this little scene isn’t going to have a happy ending. Ryan is curled into himself, looking miserable. The sky behind him is gray, and the trees are bare. It’s the perfect backdrop for this - mirroring the sinking feeling in Brendon’s gut.
“This doesn’t make me happy,” Brendon says desperately. He can’t lose Ryan. He really can’t. He hasn’t been with Ryan that long, but Ryan’s always been a part of his life, and thinking of life without him makes Brendon’s breathing grow ragged. “You make me happy, I just - I don’t think sometimes, okay?” Brendon’s throat burns at the words.
Ryan bites his lower lip, that lip that Brendon knows so well, and Brendon finds hollow comfort when he sees the mask of Ryan’s face break a little, tear away. “I said it’s okay,” Ryan says. “I get it. We’re different people.”
“You - you’re fucking stupid,” Brendon says quickly, almost hysterically. “Is that really what you think this is about?”
“Isn’t it?” Ryan asks, and the question hurts Brendon more than he thinks a punch would. “I’m not stupid, Brendon.”
The air around Brendon seems to turn, if possible, even colder, and without the warmth of Ryan’s body pressed up against him, Brendon shivers through the gray morning.
March
So things are weird.
It takes Ryan three days to realize he’s been an asshole. There’s probably a whole treasure chest of issues strewn around in his brain about attention and ownership, but Ryan lost track of the balance, and underestimated a lot of things. He spends a lot of the time wondering who exactly let who down. The situation sucked, but still, Brendon didn’t deserve that.
He doesn’t know how to right it, though. He doesn’t even want to consider the hypocrisy involved in trying to tell Brendon he made a mistake, but just an apology would feel too small, too useless. Ryan doesn’t know how to say “Sorry I made you the bad guy when you never were” without saying “I’m the real bad guy” at the same time.
There’s probably a way of getting around it where they both get to be the good guys, but solutions like that are restricted to people like Spencer, and Ryan is not a person like Spencer.
No, he’s the type of person who fucks everything up and doesn’t do a goddamn thing to stop it from getting worse.
It’s when he’s flicking through the TV guide, though, that a maybe sort of good idea catches his eye. Fox is running a five hour Family Guy marathon to celebrate the beginning of March or whatever. Ryan doesn’t know why the beginning of March needs celebrating, but he doesn’t care, because that’s Brendon’s favorite show, and that’s an opportunity.
He writes the text message to Brendon very, very slowly, letter by letter by letter, because casual would be stupid but intense would be worse. It comes out a little clipped and unsure, but that’s how Ryan feels, so he guesses it’s okay. Just the show and the times and the subtext of sorry. It’s comforting - the uniform words on the screen. Words are something Ryan understands. It’s something he gets.
But Brendon doesn’t reply, and Ryan guesses he deserved that.
-
Monday morning is more of a problem because mornings is Brendon thing. Ryan’s supposed to pick him up, and they’re supposed to drive in together in Ryan’s stupid little car, and it’s supposed to be the best part of the day, and it is, but.
Okay. Ryan was an ass, but he’s not rude, and he knows Brendon hates catching the bus. Besides, it’s a gesture of sorts, and every little bit helps.
He gets to Brendon’s house a little early, actually, and sits out front, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. When Brendon’s door opens, Ryan doesn’t look up, maybe because he’s scared of what he’ll see. He hears the door open, though, and maybe the burning sound as Brendon’s stare hits his face.
“Um,” Brendon says eventually.
Ryan shrugs and sighs, and finally turns to look at Brendon and god, god. He shouldn’t have turned to look, because Brendon just looks good.
“Get in the car,” he says eventually, and it’s meant to sound commanding, but it comes out more like a question or a plea, and Ryan doesn’t know what to do with that, so he ignores it.
Brendon stays there, staring for a moment, and then slips into the car. “What’re you doing?” he asks after a long, silent moment, fiddling with the radio.
“Driving you in,” Ryan says, trying to make it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. Like he doesn’t have an ulterior motive to make this whole thing disappear or be close enough to accidently brush against Brendon when he shifts gears. He’s mostly failing.
“Okay,” Brendon says slowly, anyway. “I got your message yesterday.”
“Good,” Ryan says, and then Brendon settles on a station playing The Mountain Goats, and they drive.
Ryan tries not to think about how the music is covering up all that Brendon isn’t saying and all that Ryan wishes he had the nerve to.
-
March is as dead as ever. All of Ryan’s classes are dull, and there’re no good films showing, and none of the bands he likes are releasing new albums, and he hasn’t read a good book in ages, and he isn’t quite sure if he and Brendon are still dating or what.
It’s pretty much a shitty month, all in all.
On Tuesday, he picks Brendon up again, and Brendon doesn’t ask this time, just gets in the car and says, “So I just finished The Fountainhead,” and they talk about that for the rest of the drive.
They don’t have a lot of classes together, which is mostly a good thing. Ryan spends a lot of the day drifting around and wondering about things and remembering stuff he has to tell Brendon, and then not being sure if it’s okay to still want to tell Brendon stuff. He keeps the thoughts in the back of his mind, though, just in case.
He comes up with several different ways to apologize, a lot of them involving concert tickets or scented candles or a mixture of the two, but none of them seem appropriate, and Ryan still isn’t totally sure that apologizing is what he needs to do.
There are lines between right and wrong, yeah, but Ryan just doesn’t quite know where they are.
He’s beginning to think that it doesn’t really matter, though. He misses the easy way things were with Brendon before.
As he’s leaving school, he passes Brendon by the lockers and smiles uneasily. Brendon smiles back, their faces two matching masks, and Ryan doesn’t really know how it happens, but one second they’re standing next to each other and not saying a lot, and the next they’re in a booth eating ice cream and Brendon’s saying, “Oh my god, you have to try this,” and Ryan’s being spoon-fed and trying really hard to figure all of this out.
-
It’s just, like. Stuff. On Wednesday at lunch, Brendon doesn’t have enough cash for his pasta, so Ryan pays without really thinking about it. He isn’t even totally sure how he got next to Brendon in the line, anyway - they maybe ran into each other on the walk over and started talking, talking until they were there and Ryan was paying and Brendon was smiling and it made sense how it didn’t.
Thursday doesn’t go much better. It sort of goes worse. (Depending on how you define ‘better’ and ‘worse.’ Ryan has no idea.) He just finds himself making the wrong turn when he should be driving Brendon home, and all Brendon has to say is, “Oh man, that movie looks badass,” before they’re in the back row of this theatre and Ryan can taste Sprite sweet in his mouth (they get one cup, with two straws), can feel Brendon’s knee nudging his. It’s so familiar - a strange flashback to the muggy theater dates but not dates from their summer, and he thinks maybe he should say something, but Brendon gets there first, whispering a clumsy joke about the trailer that’s playing. Ryan’s laughing too hard to remember the problem.
On Friday evening over the phone, Ryan sort of mentions that he maybe could kill for a burger right now. Brendon hums out a reply and says he can probably swing that.
The place they hit is nearly empty by the time they get there, and Ryan feels skinny and nervous. He also feels like he really, really wants to kiss Brendon. And like he doesn’t deserve that.
And right then, yeah, he knows. “I - uh,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Brendon says easily. “I would say I’m sorry, too, but I did already.”
It’s true, it stings because it’s so true, but Ryan catches the fun in Brendon’s eyes, and relaxes into it.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, because there isn’t really anything else, and Brendon laughs high and delighted and leans over to kiss him.
Part Two