fic: We Are All Going Forward (None of Us Are Going Back)
Title:We Are All Going Forward (None of Us Are Going Back)
Author: saramir & @AO3
Fandom/Pairing: Panic at the Disco, Brendon/Ryan
Word Count: 7600
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 (explicit sex)
Disclaimer: False. Black bear.
Summary: "It's like we found each other when we were too young, Ryan thinks. They've made sense together in other ways, but they had to grow toward each other to finally get to this point." Sequel to Let the Future Come into Each Moment, which was my Jon/Spencer futurefic set in 2017.
Author's Notes: So, due to a number of reasons, I haven't kept up with post-divorce!Panic, but I do miss pre-divorce!Panic a lot, so writing this fic was comforting in a way. I started writing this while I was still working on my Jon/Spencer fic/love-letter-to-Panic back in pre-divorce 2009, and I meant to finish this that same spring, but life happens, other fandoms happen, and I never quite got around to reconnecting well enough with this 'verse to finish it until now. So, here: a fic born out of daydreaming about Brendon and Ryan on trains and playing The National's "Slow Show" on repeat because there's something about that song that’s always helped me to write these two more clearly.
I couldn't possibly have finished this fic without thismuchmore -- not only did she beta this, but I wrote Let the Future Come into Each Moment for her, and then this past week she wrote the best possible Jon/Spencer coda to it, No Other Place to Be, which was the final kick of motivation I needed to finally finish my own Brendon/Ryan sequel. xo
Title snagged from Richard Siken's "Snow and Dirty Rain."
We learn when and when not to say "I'm sorry," Ryan writes, his fingers sore from scribbling in his notebook during the entire flight home to Vegas. We grow up enough to know we'll never forgive ourselves, not completely.
The tour is over. Brendon is napping in the seat beside him, Spencer and Jon are on a flight to Chicago, and Ryan is writing longhand, as usual.
But we move on anyways-somehow-because what else can we do with our lives if we can't ever find the strength to hold onto someone who feels like home?
He looks at Brendon out of the corner of his eye.
Someone who makes home feel right.
The night that Jon and Spencer first got together, when Brendon had accidentally interrupted them at the door of their tourbus bathroom, Ryan had pulled Brendon back into the lounge with him, and Brendon had stopped in front of Ryan, stared him down, and said:
"Well?"
Ryan had swallowed, averted his eyes, edged around Brendon toward the couch. "I want to finish this movie."
He tried to ignore the sigh Brendon heaved behind him; he's been trying to ignore it ever since.
Once Jon and Spencer started fucking every chance they could get and doing disgusting things like kissing each other over granola bars in the morning and interrupting their own bickering sessions about god knows what by making out in the middle of dressing rooms and, like, fast food joints-
Well. Once that started up, Ryan figured it was inevitable that (finally) he and Brendon would hook up. Any day now.
That's how he thought of it in his head: "hook up." As if they were eighteen and nineteen again, rutting against each other in a hotel bed when Brendon drank a little too much beer and straddled Ryan in his underpants with an "okay, so maybe I like cock" and a sloppy, over-heated kiss, and they'd both come in no more than five minutes.
(They didn't tell anyone about it, not even Spencer. Brendon had woken up Ryan the next day with a freaked-out string of sorry, sorry, oh shit, I'm sorry and maybe we were just drunk and confused and horny? and I'm trying to figure myself out, you know? and Ryan had taken the out. He'd figured that doing more would probably fuck up the band anyhow, and Ryan wasn't even certain about his own sexuality back then, so that was that. If they stayed away from even innocently sitting beside each other during movies or video games for the next month or so, then, well, that's expected. They moved past it.)
But the thing is, the thing that's actually making this seem real and possible to Ryan: He and Brendon are not those kids anymore. Ryan thinks "hook up" because that makes it sound easy, makes it sound like their first time will be their only time; will be like any one-time messy blowjob in a bathroom stall or backseat with some random dude or girl - even though Ryan knows perfectly well that if Brendon and he did this? At this point in their lives? There would be no going back. It would be thirty times hotter and more intense and fucking alive than that time twelve years ago. It would be intimate, and it wouldn't stop at one, and that terrifies Ryan, because Ryan has never been good at monogamy, and Brendon- well, Brendon has. Sure, he does casual sex - did long lines of it in his early twenties when he came out to his closest friends - but when he's with someone, he's with only that someone. He has this weird sort of determined control over his body and his affections that Ryan's never been able to master quite right.
So, Ryan doesn't really know what to do except studiously ignore him now that Brendon keeps sneaking looks at him whenever Jon and Spencer are being particularly ridiculous over each other. He keeps looking at Ryan like, Now? Are we done waiting now?
When Ryan finally gets home from the airport, he crashes for almost an entire day.
The sun is down when he wakes up, but he salvages some old oatmeal from the pantry for a late-night breakfast and ends up shuffling up and down the hallway between the kitchen and his guitar room while he eats, thinking about how nice a little bit of quiet is after so long with nothing but music and noise.
After rinsing out his bowl in the sink, he drifts to the couch, intending to pick up whatever book he'd last left on the coffee table, but he ends up staring at the stacks of mail his housekeeper had thoughtfully piled into what appear to be four categories: Bills, Postcards, Trash, and Entertaining Trash. Seriously, she stuck post-it notes to the table where all the mail is stacked into neat columns. Ryan wonders just how bored she was. He ignores it all in favor of a return to television and conks out again in the middle of a docudrama about the Yellowstone supervolcano.
When he wakes up again, the digital seconds in the bottom left corner of the television are speeding closer to eight at night, and he actually feels rested this time. Rubbing his eyes, he forces himself off the couch and into his guitar room, where he spends the next few hours working through a new melody. He records every few bars and sends them in parts to Jon through their portables, until his buzzes with a text message from Spencer:
stop bothering jon, we're fucking busy
you mean busy fucking, Ryan types back.
A second later: you said it, holmes
Ryan rolls his eyes and leaves his phone on one of the amps. He doesn't much feel like writing music alone right now anyway, so he opts for an old notebook from the desk in his office. It's a notebook he's saved from years ago that is only half full, the first thirtysome pages all mediocre poetry and barely-coherent stoner babble about the relationship he was in at the time (his first and thus far only somewhat long-term relationship with a man).
He pours himself a tall glass of water, finds a pen in the silverware drawer and slides open the glass door to the cozy backyard. The late-summer darkness wraps around him, and he flicks on the red and orange paper lanterns that are strung up on trellises where nothing grows because he's not here for long periods of time to care for his yard. Ha, he's been writing pages and pages of songs about plants but can't sustain his own plantlife? The few self-sufficient cacti scattered around the yard cast strange shadows. The palm needs trimming, its lower branches an odd furry mess, not a picture-postcard sight.
Taking a seat at his little claw-footed white table and old milkcrate-for-a-chair, Ryan sets a nearby rock on his pages to keep the wind from rustling them away. A few lines for a song he thought about on the cab ride from the airport filter back into his mind and he starts scratching away: startlingly sentimental lines about being back home, tucked away in his modest suburban house, breathing the dry heat of another summer's end.
Arecaceae, more commonly known as the palm tree, is characterized in part by its fibrous roots, he remembers from some book he'd picked up near the beginning of the tour. Palm trees in childhood, palm trees in movies, palm trees outside the window of his old house in California, until he moved back to Vegas a couple years ago.
Time to stop running, time to stop fooling, time for the time to time itself home, he writes, then just stares and stares as his pen bleeds ink into an unnecessary period at the end of the line.
After he finds himself spacing out in the darkness longer than he's actually writing anything down, he thinks it's time for tea. He goes back inside and weighs out enough water for one cup, sets the kettle on the stove, turns on the burner. Chamomile tonight - he's a little jittery, like maybe he won't sleep for hours since he slept all day.
If he's going to have any human contact any time soon, though, he'll have to get himself on a normal person's sleeping schedule. Spencer and Jon are in Chicago indefinitely, Brendon is probably sleeping, and Ryan never really bothered to get in touch with any other friends in Vegas over the past couple years of living back here. When Ginger had a skin cancer scare, Spencer moved back with hardly any hesitation, and Ryan followed with none; it seemed natural. Just as natural to stick around even after her recovery, and soon enough Brendon was moving back into his own place, too, as they began to write the last album, Jon flying back and forth like usual. Brendon's always saying that the day that dude moves away from Chicago will be the first sign of the apocalypse; Ryan agrees.
He's absently sorting through boxes of tea in the pantry when the doorbell suddenly cuts through the silent house. His eyes dart to the clock over the stove: 1:03am. Perfectly normal when he lived in LA; odd for the here and now. He figures it's probably just Brendon, not sleeping after all.
"Dude," Brendon says casually, crossing his arms and leaning one shoulder up against the doorframe. "Your goose is looking grim."
He gestures at the granite goose statue on Ryan's front stoop. It's still wearing an Easter bonnet in late September, the green fabric fading, a bit tattered. Ryan had dated a sculptor for a few months last year. She worked mostly with metal and stone, and randomly made him that goose. Ever since, Brendon and Spencer have been teasing Ryan about it. The first time Spencer saw it, he immediately sent a photo of it to Jon, who replied that it looked like the "stoopgoose" his grandparents in Chicago always used to display in front of their house and dress seasonally. Of course this prompted Brendon to find a website that sold gear specifically for such animal sculptures.
"It needs a rain slicker or something," Brendon adds.
"Yeah, 'cause it rains so frequently here." Ryan wonders when they stopped greeting each other with anything along the lines of Hey, how's it going? and started to open their conversations with random observations instead.
Brendon rolls his eyes. "Irony, Ryan. Irony."
He's got his red sunglasses hooked on the collar of his yellow t-shirt, although lord knows why the hell he even needed them since it's long past sundown. Ryan supposes Brendon's probably just been driving around the greater Las Vegas area for a good portion of the day and night, happy to be in control of his own transportation again. His hair is windblown from that stupid(ly awesome) blue convertible he bought last year, and Ryan knows from riding shotgun the way wind softens skin. He wants to reach out and feel the extra-smooth planes of Brendon's cheekbones, his forehead, the contrast of rough two-day stubble along his jawline, each short hair dark and specific in the porchlight.
The tea kettle whistles them into the kitchen. Brendon automatically pulls down two mugs from the cupboard and drops the tea sachets into them from the tin Ryan had set onto the countertop. Ryan pours the boiled water into each mug, a bit less than normal for each of them since he'd only measured enough for one.
Brendon picks an ice cube from the tray in the freezer and plops it into his mug. The hot and cold sizzle-crackle against each other for a few seconds before settling.
"You're still the only person I know who does that," Ryan comments, blowing over the surface of his own cup as the tea steeps.
"Yeah, well, it's quicker than blowing," Brendon says.
"That's . . . what she said?" Ryan tries with a smirk.
Brendon giggles a little to himself, looking down at his tea. "Ryan, I-" He's still smiling but it looks unsure, suddenly serious. He won't look away from his tea. "I came by to-"
"Hey," Ryan cuts in, heart quickening. "I was sitting out back earlier. Let's-" He tilts his head toward the sliding glass door.
Brendon closes his eyes for a moment, shoulders sagging. "Okay." He looks up at Ryan. "Let's."
They bring their mugs outside. Ryan drags another wooden milk crate to the rickety table, and Brendon scoots his crate forward so they're sitting at a right angle to each other. He wraps his hands around his mug, and they just sit for a moment, the two of them staring off into random points in the backyard.
There always seems to be less to say to each other immediately after a tour, Ryan thinks. As if they've given all of themselves to the road and it'll take a few more steps to find themselves again. It's a good sort of drained feeling though; they've spent nearly every waking moment together and don't need to speak just for the hell of speaking like Ryan feels a lot of people do when they're together.
"Y'know, I still expect to see the Pacific from our backyards," Brendon says once their tea starts to go cold. "I mean, not counting time on the road, I've been back here long enough that I should be used to being landlocked again, but." He shrugs. "Still."
Ryan nods. "Sometimes I swear I wake up smelling saltwater. It's really fucking weird."
"Ahh," Brendon affects what Jon refers to as his Wise Professor Voice, "the ubiquitous 'phantom smell syndrome'. Common in these parts."
Ryan reaches out and flicks him in the forehead, and Brendon cracks up, slouching a little on his crate. One of his legs has stretched closer to Ryan's, and Brendon hooks his ankle around Ryan's ankle, humming some old musical number into the rim of his mug. Ryan can feel Brendon watching him, but he can't bring himself to look up from the final words he'd been scribbling in his notebook, still open on the table: freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Apparently, he'd meandered onto copying other people's song lyrics instead of working on his own.
Brendon's foot moves against Ryan's, both of them free of flip-flops, bare and warm against each other, and Ryan feels how easy it could be to fall into this with Brendon, as if shifting their friendship into something else could be the most natural thing in the world, not something that makes Ryan worry over all of the ways he's fucked up every relationship in his past, how easily those things could happen this time.
Ryan looks across the small space between himself and Brendon and thinks it's all at once the farthest and closest they've ever been.
Then he thinks that's possibly the stupidest thought he's ever thought.
Brendon's looking at him through eyelashes that are neither particularly long nor short but which Ryan knows better than his own. He's applied eyeliner around and mascara to them numerous times in their teens and twenties, and he's looked into the eyes they frame more than anyone else's for a good half of his life. He looks into them now, and what he sees is: I know you, I know you, I know you.
"I, uh." Ryan pulls away quickly - his leg untangling from Brendon's, the table rattling a little - and hurries back inside. He dumps the dregs of his tea into the sink and starts to wash the mug. Brendon steps up behind him moments later while Ryan's rinsing the blue ceramic. Brendon sets down his own mug in the sink and waits for Ryan to set his mug in the drying rack, before he wraps his arms around Ryan's waist and hooks his chin over Ryan's shoulder.
Ryan's breath catches for a moment-so briefly that if Brendon wasn't currently wrapped around him, he might not have noticed the contrast to Brendon's steady breathing. As it happens, Brendon curls his fingers in Ryan's shirt, the hem bunching in his knuckles as he presses his palms against Ryan's ribs. Carefully, Ryan begins to breathe deeply into those palms, warm and solid and secure.
Touch has been as constant and natural as music between the four of them for as long as Ryan can remember-finger-pokes or easy hands on arms as reminders, hugs and high-fives of euphoria, shoulders to sleep on, shins to kick, hair to muss-but it has been far too long since Ryan has been touched like this. Like Brendon isn't holding anything back and he wants Ryan to know that he'll hold onto him until Ryan is ready to do the same.
Or maybe Ryan is already writing a song about this in his head, and he actually has no idea what is happening in this moment between them. Which, Ryan thinks, is bullshit: He knew as soon as the doorbell rang exactly why Brendon came over tonight.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one of us who's tired of waiting," Brendon murmurs into his shoulder, his lips dragging against the shore of collar and skin.
"So you're writing an old country song now, huh," Ryan says, dry as he can manage, trying to ignore how Brendon kind of reads his thoughts sometimes.
Brendon huffs a quiet laugh into the side of Ryan's neck and that more than anything makes Ryan's pulse quicken: that softness from Brendon. Where his laughter is usually uproarious and open, this is Brendon in the intimate space of their two bodies alone.
"No achy-breaky twangs," Brendon says. "I promise," he adds, and it's that promise, the slight tremor in his voice as he says it, that makes Ryan take one more deep breath, in and out into Brendon's palms, before he carefully turns himself around in Brendon's arms.
Ryan's always been distrustful of promises, the ones he makes and the ones made by other people, and yet when it comes to Brendon, no matter how else they've clashed over the years-in songwriting and personality, in belief and ego-he's never lost his trust in Brendon. There isn't a doubt in his mind that long after the band eventually dissipates and they're those old men with sword-canes and rocking chairs that they've joked about-long after it all ends, he can't imagine trusting to live his life with anyone else but Brendon. Or, rather, he can imagine what living his life without Brendon would be like, but that makes him feel ill and hollow, like his body means to vomit up all the empty spaces inside of him but can't.
He meets Brendon's eyes straight-on.
"It's all about timing," Brendon says.
"What is?" Ryan's heart pounds a little harder.
"Us." Brendon pauses to swallow, and Ryan knows that tell, knows that it's another sign of Brendon being nervous about this underneath his boldness pushing them forward. "It feels right this time, doesn't it? Like, we've never make sense with anyone else so it's about fucking time we've got each other."
"You make us sound like consolation prizes."
"You know that's not how I mean it."
"No, I know. We-" It's like we found each other when we were too young, Ryan thinks. They've made sense together in other ways, but they had to grow toward each other to finally get to this point. But Ryan can't bring himself to say that aloud; he thinks Brendon probably gets it anyway. "I think we'll work now, in a way we wouldn't have at any other time before," he settles on.
"Exactly." Brendon tucks one of his hands into Ryan's back pocket.
"But we still don't know if we'll work. We-"
"Since when does not knowing the outcome stop you from trying? Jesus Christ, Ross, this past year has fucked with all of us in a lot of ways, I know, but you-"
Ryan doesn't want to hear Brendon tell him again how much Ryan's let the criticism get to him this year, doesn't want to hear about any of it, so he tangles his fingers in Brendon's hair and pulls him closer. Their teeth clack together, Brendon mid-speech, but he recovers quickly, anxiously stumbling into Ryan, backing them against the kitchen counter, his mouth hot and lips full against Ryan's.
It feels warm and loose and right, like drinking red wine and fucking. It's only a kiss, but god, it's their first since they were just kids, and Brendon is holding onto Ryan like Ryan's fallen and Brendon promised to catch him, and Ryan isn't complaining, because he's holding onto Brendon in about the same way. They're kissing and sucking and biting and rubbing their hard, aching bodies against each other, and Ryan's never really understood that cliche of trying to climb into each other before, but it makes a little more sense now, the way their tongues reach inside and don't want to leave.
Time passes. Ryan doesn't care how much. At some point though, a thought occurs to him and he has to pull apart just enough to inhale deeply, look Brendon in the eyes, and breathe out:
"Goddamnit, I don't have any condoms."
Brendon bursts out laughing.
"Hey," Ryan says, smiling uncertainly. "I'm serious! Did you bring any?"
"Oh, absolutely I did," Brendon says, laughter dying down. "I just-" He shakes his head a little, disbelieving, and his voice lowers. "I'm just so happy we're finally happening."
Ryan's chest clenches, with worry or affection or lord knows what, and he can't do anything but kiss him again.
Apparently they've been moving away from the kitchen and into the living room as they've been making out, because the next step Ryan takes trips them both over the corner of an ottoman and onto the floor.
With a pronounced oof from them both, Brendon's teeth knock against Ryan's, their torsos aligned and limbs entangled.
"Remember-" Brendon starts to murmur, but Ryan can't stop kissing him, okay, this is no time for talking. "Mmm-'member the opening credits to The Dick-" Another long kiss, a bit of a grope up Brendon's shirt. "-Van Dyke Show when he trips over his ottoman and it's all-" Ryan tries to shove up Brendon's shirt but his arms are in the way. "-wacky?"
Ryan laughs a little against Brendon's mouth, their shared air warm and wet. "Yeah, what about it?"
Brendon pushes himself up so he's sitting across Ryan's thighs and pulls off his shirt, drops it beside them. "I was just thinking it would've been a waaay different show if he tripped over the ottoman because he and Mary Tyler Moore were having crazy after-work sex in the living room before Richie came home from school."
Ryan laughs, helpless to Brendon's scattered imagination, and pulls Brendon back down, kisses him long and hard and wishes it'll never end. Their kisses grow more languorous, tender even, as if lying down has brought reality into a closer focus. We're happening, we're happening, we're finally happening, choruses Ryan's brain, but Brendon shifts his groin against Ryan's and the rough slide of their cocks through jeans speeds up everything all over again and Ryan has no more room for coherent thoughts.
Brendon starts pulling at Ryan's shirt and Ryan tries to help him by wiggling against the carpet. It burns a little, the rough whorls rubbing his back, but when they stop kissing for a second only to come back together a moment later, this time they're bare-chested and so much closer.
Ryan thinks Brendon kisses not unlike he sings - a bit overly enthusiastic at sporadic moments but mostly with such a solid passion it makes Ryan's entire body tingle, like a long drink of bourbon that slinks into every vein in his body and he feels both vibrant and more relaxed with each moving second.
After they've spent some time getting to know each others' mouths and all the bare skin they've pressed together, Brendon tumbles off of Ryan and they both wriggle out of the rest of their clothes. Ryan just has to slip out of his loose pajama bottoms, while Brendon fumbles a bit with the fly of his jeans before shoving them and his briefs down past his hips and literally kicking them off his legs.
Ryan has only a moment's pause to take a couple deep breaths, choosing to stare at Brendon's cheekbones instead of his cock, before Brendon stretches his body against him again and whispers, "You're going to fuck me," into Ryan's neck, just below his earlobe.
"Right here," Ryan breathes, turning so their lips brush. He tugs on the hair at the nape of Brendon's neck and sucks at his bottom lip, making Brendon whimper a little and twist his hips against Ryan's so his cock slides along the V where Ryan's thigh meets hip. That's always been one of Ryan's favorite parts of men's bodies: a place where their cocks can slide in perfectly frustrating friction so their hands and mouths can focus elsewhere. Brendon sucks Ryan's tongue into his mouth and the pressure makes Ryan whimper too, anticipating a similar sensation around his cock.
Random thoughts start knocking in and out of Ryan's mind through the heat: memories of Brendon, arguing and laughing and dancing stupidly at his side. Snippets of melodies, their own and others. French verb conjugations from a book Jon had found for him when Ryan had been babbling about wanting to learn how to read poetry in another language. Brendon playing a nocturne with his eyes closed at the piano in his living room. The chorus to an old Smiths song about want. The verb désir . . .
Ryan, absurdly, feels like the two of them are conjugating desire with each touch: bucking his hips, trying to slide his cock along that dip where Brendon's thigh meets hip (I want); Brendon's hand sliding sweaty and perfect between their bodies to wrap around Ryan's balls, one rough fingertip just barely passing over his asshole (you want); their tongues arguing silently for space in each others' mouths, panting and sloppy and desperate (we want).
It's been so long since anyone's touched him like this, Ryan had almost forgotten what it's like to be touched by hands not his own. Brendon's fingers, their tips roughened by guitar strings, feel familiar and new, and for the first time Ryan's struck by how surreal this whole night has been so far, as if all their years of close friendship and fantasies need to take a moment to catch up to the reality they're creating now.
Another curious slip of Brendon's fingers behind Ryan's balls jolts Ryan out of thoughts and entirely into sensation.
"Y- you could fuck me instead, if you want," Ryan says, squirming for more contact.
Brendon smirks, says, "Maybe after breakfast," and lowers his mouth to the head of Ryan's cock, so Ryan's laugh is swallowed by a long groan as Brendon cradles his balls in one hand and suctions his lips into a deep pull of Ryan's cock.
"Always knew you'd be good at this," Ryan babbles.
He regrets admitting it the instant Brendon's lips leave his cock and grin smugly up at him.
"Oh, shut up," Ryan says, rolling his eyes, and tugs Brendon's hair. He's trying to nudge him back toward his cock, but Brendon presses his hands flat on the floor on either side of Ryan and pushes himself back up to kiss Ryan instead.
"Want your mouth," Brendon pleads. "Before you fuck me, please, I-"
Ryan wrestles them over and pins Brendon's hips to the carpet, reveling in Brendon's hiss of anticipation before he ducks down and aims a teasing lick at the nerves just below the head of Brendon's cock. As Brendon's breaths grow heavier, Ryan licks a lazy pattern up the shaft, gathers the precome on his tongue at the delicate slit of the head, and with a flat swipe of his tongue, paints it across Brendon's balls, sucking them gently enough just to make Brendon squirm anxiously.
"Ryan, your fingers, c'mon," Brendon says, an edge of urgency in his tone as Ryan's mouth moves lower, his tongue the barest tease against Brendon's hole.
"Dammit," Ryan mutters, his lips forming the word against Brendon's ass. "Hold that thought."
"Wh-" Brendon starts to ask, but he cracks up as Ryan tries to stand, stumbles over Brendon's jeans heaped nearby, and scrambles toward the bathroom.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Ryan teases over his shoulder, feeling his face heat up.
He can't help but grin to himself, rifling through the bathroom cabinets, as Brendon calls out, "I think I have a right to speak up when you suddenly awkward your way out of the room in the middle of us trying to have sex!"
"We're gonna need some of this, asshat," Ryan says, walking back to him and fiddling with an underused bottle of lubricant. He glances up in time to see Brendon swallow thickly.
"How do you want me?" Brendon asks, his voice low and rough all of a sudden, and it's got to be at least in the top five hottest things anyone's ever said to Ryan.
"Just like that," Ryan says, his voice going low and demanding. Brendon bends his knees and spreads his legs, shivers a little as Ryan drops to his knees and reaches out to stroke once down the inside of Brendon's thighs. "Actually," he says, interrupting himself to nip lightly at one thigh, his cheekbone brushing across Brendon's balls. "On second thought, get on your hands and knees."
Brendon obeys so quickly that Ryan would find it funny if he weren't so turned on by Brendon's eagerness; he's not sure he'd be able to draw enough breath to properly laugh at this point. Dropping the bottle of lube, he presses both hands to Brendon's ass and spreads him enough to find his entrance, then drives his tongue into him.
"Oh fuck, Ryan," Brendon curses, his forehead dropping to the floor. His thighs begin to tremble as Ryan repeats the motion, his tongue dipping in and out of him. "More," Brendon adds breathlessly.
Anxiously dribbling lube over his fingers, Ryan pulls his face away and adds a finger instead, slowly working himself into Brendon, adding a second finger, in and out, as Brendon's muscles gradually stretch and open for him.
"Oh, Jesus," Brendon gasps, and it sounds like the kind of prayer he'd go to hell for if they believed in it. "Your fingers-" he tries to say, breath hitching at the end as Ryan presses a third finger against the ring of tender muscle. "They reach so much deeper than mine."
It's unexpectedly fascinating for Ryan: watching the taut line of his own long fingers slipping deep inside of Brendon, past each knuckle, then reappearing again. If fucking him with his fingers is this thrilling, it'll be a wonder if he lasts very long once it's his cock inside of Brendon like this. His fingers begin to blur a little as he pounds them into Brendon. He gives the side of his ass an experimental spank, which makes Brendon moan like he'd been holding back, and he starts pumping his ass back into Ryan's fingers, trying to match up a rhythm between them.
"Wait, wait," Brendon says when Ryan reaches his hand around to Brendon's cock. "I don't want to come like this. I want you inside me."
"Are you going to write about it in your gournal afterward?" Ryan teases, not sure how his brain actually has room for Wet Hot American Summer references right now when his own untouched cock is aching and Brendon is writhing and open before him, but god he's glad he does, because he gets to feel Brendon laugh, his muscles contracting around Ryan's fingers, his body vibrating along Ryan's arm that's wrapped around his waist.
"Dear diary," Brendon mocks, dropping his hips so Ryan can let his fingers slide out of him, "I almost didn't let my best friend fuck me today because he made fun of the stupid things I said while trying not to come too soon."
Ryan laughs, keeps on laughing as Brendon turns around and tackles him to the ground, straddling his hips and sucking kisses along his collarbone. "Hey," he manages, dragging blunt nails up Brendon's spine, making him shiver and suck harder at the juncture of Ryan's collarbone and shoulder. "Go find us one of those alleged condoms of yours."
Brendon huffs a laugh into Ryan's chest then twists toward his jeans crumpled nearby. "Like this," he says, turning back to Ryan and opening the condom packet. Before Ryan can ask what he means, Brendon wraps his hand around the base of Ryan's cock and gives a firm pull. Rolling the latex down the shaft, he adds in a would-be-casual voice, "Is it okay if I ride you?"
"Is it- Jesus fucking Christ, who would say no to that?" Ryan grabs hold of Brendon's hips to steady him as he rises onto his knees and tries to align Ryan's cock with his ass.
Brendon gets that smug grin on his face again. "I just like seeing you all frustrated about something we both want."
Ryan mock-glares up at him and abruptly tilts his pelvis off the floor just as Brendon's starting to bear down on him.
"Oh fuck you," Brendon blurts out, the words so fast they're one word, and Ryan holds him steady, trying not to fill him all at once.
"Actually-" Ryan starts to correct him about the obvious (okay, so they both like to frustrate the other just to see him riled up sometimes).
"Shut up, shut up," Brendon snaps, but his face is practically glowing - from being that turned on or that happy, Ryan couldn't say, but if they're at all on the same page, it's a bit of both. "Just-" Brendon slowly settles himself down onto Ryan's cock, Ryan's hands holding onto Brendon's hips helplessly as he tries not to come just from this. When his ass meets the tops of Ryan's thighs, Brendon releases a shuddering sigh, his eyes blinking shut, and Ryan tries to steady his own breathing. It's not that he doesn't believe there will be more times after this, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to draw out this first time as long as they can both last.
When he begins moving again, it feels like Brendon's seating his ass against Ryan's hips like they're a comfortable chair where he's trying to find just the right spot to rest, pulsing back and forth.
Ryan snaps his hips forward.
"Fuck," Brendon chokes out at the new depth of angle, curling his spine and stumbling against Ryan's chest, so only the head of Ryan's cock is still inside of him. He's breathing heavily against Ryan's jaw when Ryan frames Brendon's face with his hands and fits their mouths together again, letting his cock drop out of Brendon and slap heavily against Ryan's belly, the condom slick and his cock blood-hot beneath it. Brendon's cock rubs up alongside his as they kiss, and it feels like the sort of perfect frustration that Ryan can see unraveling along many nights ahead of them, but not tonight. Not tonight, with Brendon arching his back and reaching between them so he can slide back onto Ryan's cock.
This time, Brendon feels desperate on top of him, their skin slapping together. His eyelids lower to half-mast, his tongue peeks out pink between kiss-swollen lips, and his jaw relaxes open. Wanting more contact, Ryan slips two fingers past Brendon's lips, making him hum a pleased sound around them as he clenches his muscles around Ryan's cock. The rhythm of their hips stuttering, Ryan lets his fingers slip all spit-glossed out of Brendon's mouth, and he swipes them teasingly across the head of Brendon's cock just to hear him utter a ridiculous squeak, then wraps his hand around the shaft and gives a couple of tight pulls.
"Fuck, Ryan," Brendon gasps, changing their angle again. "I knew this would be good, but this-this is-" Brendon's breath is shuddering uncontrollably against Ryan's neck.
"Yeah, I-oh fuck-" And then Brendon is biting down painfully good on his tongue and moaning deep in his chest, and Ryan has to concentrates on not coming until he’s done watching Brendon come. He wraps his hand back around Brendon's cock and pumps him in time with the way Brendon is frantically hitching back and forth on Ryan's cock, until quite suddenly he's spilling all over Ryan's hand, a few warm flecks spattering their chests. As his cock stops twitching in Ryan's hand, Ryan lifts his fingers to his mouth and licks, his eyes never leaving Brendon's where he's still perched across Ryan's lap, his own hands gripping his thighs as if sure he'll topple over if he doesn't.
His muscles are still clenching, unclenching around Ryan's cock, making Ryan gasp at the stifling dry air, dropping his head back against the carpet. He can feel the moment right on the edge of his own orgasm, that thrill of almost, the same sort of thrill he's been feeling in small dosages for the past fifteen years with Brendon but all condensed into one intensified moment of-
"Please," he hears himself choke out, and when he lifts his gaze back to Brendon's, Brendon arches forward, plunges his tongue between Ryan's lips, then pushes back so hard on his cock that Ryan - yes, there, that.
When Ryan's brain starts functioning properly again, Brendon's lying on the carpet beside him, breathing evenly. Ryan eases off his condom and tosses it in the nearby wastebasket, feeling a small protest in his back when he sits up.
"What the fuck, I am not too old to fuck on the floor," Ryan mutters, and Brendon snorts a laugh and rolls toward him, pressing his forehead against Ryan's thigh for a moment, before sitting up as well.
"How about on the couch?" Brendon says, smirking, and hoists himself up onto it, then grabs Ryan's hand and tries to pull him up. Ryan lets himself be pulled. He settles into the cushions and the warmth of Brendon as he straddles Ryan again, but this time apparently only to sit back against his thighs and grin goofily at him.
"So," Ryan says, feeling relaxed and startlingly happy. He rests one palm against Brendon's stomach, sort of just because he can now. It's a little sweaty around the bellybutton, and Ryan smiles, remembering a couple years ago when Brendon had finally seen the first signs of the absolute slightest beer belly forming, and he'd complained for a total of ten seconds before Spencer had begun to chuck entire bags of chips and empty bottles at his head.
"So," Brendon echoes, gazing sleepily at Ryan's lips and wrapping his arms around Ryan's shoulders.
"Well, um. I just think there should be a few rules from now on."
Brendon laughs, and Ryan can't help but notice it's sounds a lot like his Ryan, you're an idiot laugh. "Dude, I think we need to just take things as they come now that we're finally doing this."
"Number One," Ryan says, ignoring him.
Brendon rolls his eyes. "Okay, fine, lay it on me."
"You cannot use blowjobs as a method for getting your way while we're writing together."
Even more laughter, but this time it's bright and sudden. "Not even a little bit?"
"A little bit of a blowjob? What'd be the point of that?"
"My sexual wiles work in mysterious ways."
Ryan presses his lips together hard, trying not to smile. He shakes his head and says fondly, "Sometimes the things you say, I swear."
"Totally compatible with your own weirdness, weirdo," Brendon comments, distracted by running his hands through Ryan's hair trying to make it do god-knows-what.
"Yeah, well." Ryan slides one hand up the smooth curve of Brendon's back.
"So's that all? I can't use blowjobs to get my wicked way?"
"No."
"Well, if I can't do that, then you can't do that nibbly jaw thing of yours just to get your way."
"'Nibbly jaw,' huh?"
"Yeah, that thing you were doing before where you-" Ryan swipes his tongue across Brendon's rough jawline, then grazes his teeth across the same stripe of saliva. "Umm," Brendon sighs and then squeaks a tiny, "Yeahthat," when Ryan bites the tender skin just beneath Brendon's jawbone. "Mm, hey," Brendon says, "we should use the phrase 'nibbly jaw' as a lyric in something, I don't kn-" Ryan sucks harder at the pulse point on Brendon's neck. "Nnnggh, okay, okay, or not."
"Next rule," Ryan says, after swiping his tongue across the bruise blooming on Brendon's neck. "This-" He gestures between their bare chests. "-does not fuck with the band."
"Of course not."
"Just so we're clear."
Brendon levels his gaze, voice dropping into seriousness. "Always."
"It's just-" Ryan doesn't know how to say it, how to find the words to tell Brendon why he's been so terrified of getting involved with him in this way, for so long. "I don't want to fuck this up, okay?"
"Isn't it worth it though?"
"What worth what?"
"This-" Brendon lunges forward into a fierce kiss, then breaks away just as abruptly. "That-" He gestures behind him at their mess of clothing and the plain floor where they'd just fucked. "Here-" He pulls their foreheads together and they stare cross-eyed at each other. "Isn't finally having something more between you and me worth all those what ifs that might come next?"
Ryan swallows. "I might fuck it up."
Brendon makes a frustrated noise deep in his throat and pulls his face away just enough to be able to look Ryan in the eyes without having to cross them. "We both might fuck it up, Ryan. So what. We'll fix it."
"And if we don't?"
"Then we'll deal."
Ryan is suddenly weirdly comforted by the idea of being with someone who is just about as bad at long-term relationships as he is. "But," he starts slowly, knows he's kind of beating this into the ground, "what about the band?"
"What about it," Brendon says, narrowing his eyes, and Ryan can tell he's intentionally being a pain in the ass now.
"So we might fuck up the band, dickwad."
"I told you, we won't."
"You don't-"
"I do know that, so shut up and listen. We are going to make this work. And if somehow we can't stay together, if we eventually need to break up, then that'll just mean we'd have to bear through a period of time when we can only write music with Jon and Spence as intermediaries, okay?"
"They would hate us. Spencer would kill us with his bare hands."
"Jon would be able to stop him." Brendon waves a hand carelessly. "Listen to me: I want you, and I want the band, so dammit, Ryan, I'm going to have both. What else are we going to do with our lives, seriously?"
"You could go solo, and the rest of us could, I don't know, we c-"
"Fuck that."
"I'm serious, you idiot! You could. You have the talent and drive and you know it. Hell, you've even suggested it before."
"But I've never actually been serious, are you kidding me? Why would I want to write my own shit and tour alone, when I can spend hours cooped up on a bus that smells like ass with three of my best friends and bicker with you over everything we write and then get to fuck you too? I could probably make a living by myself, but I don't want to. Got it?"
"I think I do." And Ryan thinks, okay, maybe he can trust this. After all, he trusts Brendon with the music they create - no matter how much they disagree over things - maybe he can trust this creation as well.
"Good. Any other 'rules' for this thing we've got going on now?"
"Well," Ryan says thoughtfully. "I love you."
"That's . . ." Brendon's lips move soundlessly for a moment, forehead smooth and eyes wide. ". . . not exactly a rule."
"No, I guess it's not. But it's been true for a long time. You know, even when I don't like you very much."
"Ross." Brendon's face breaks into a smile and he rolls his eyes. "Not that I don't get exactly what you mean, but gosh, you really know how to sweet-talk a guy."
"Oh like you're such a romantic."
"Mm, right, fuck this, we could be fucking again right now," Brendon says, his eyes lighting up, amazement in his tone.
"See, this is why I love you."
Brendon beams. "Yeah?"
"Well, one of the reasons, yeah."
"I don't have time to list all the reasons why I love you."
"Oh god, have you been buying those shitty romance novels at convenience stores again?" Ryan says, but his hand in Brendon's holds on way more tightly, and he suddenly feels more whole than he has in years, filled inside all his old empty spaces.
"I don't have the time because I'm about to blow you, shut up."
"Oh, uh."
"Yeah. But," Brendon's gaze turns serious again. "I do, y'know. Love you."
Ryan swallows thickly. "Good."
"Good." And instead of pushing Ryan down onto the couch and tucking his face between Ryan's legs, as promised, Brendon simply holds on for a little while longer, his body warm and right.
Author: saramir & @AO3
Fandom/Pairing: Panic at the Disco, Brendon/Ryan
Word Count: 7600
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 (explicit sex)
Disclaimer: False. Black bear.
Summary: "It's like we found each other when we were too young, Ryan thinks. They've made sense together in other ways, but they had to grow toward each other to finally get to this point." Sequel to Let the Future Come into Each Moment, which was my Jon/Spencer futurefic set in 2017.
Author's Notes: So, due to a number of reasons, I haven't kept up with post-divorce!Panic, but I do miss pre-divorce!Panic a lot, so writing this fic was comforting in a way. I started writing this while I was still working on my Jon/Spencer fic/love-letter-to-Panic back in pre-divorce 2009, and I meant to finish this that same spring, but life happens, other fandoms happen, and I never quite got around to reconnecting well enough with this 'verse to finish it until now. So, here: a fic born out of daydreaming about Brendon and Ryan on trains and playing The National's "Slow Show" on repeat because there's something about that song that’s always helped me to write these two more clearly.
I couldn't possibly have finished this fic without thismuchmore -- not only did she beta this, but I wrote Let the Future Come into Each Moment for her, and then this past week she wrote the best possible Jon/Spencer coda to it, No Other Place to Be, which was the final kick of motivation I needed to finally finish my own Brendon/Ryan sequel. xo
Title snagged from Richard Siken's "Snow and Dirty Rain."
We learn when and when not to say "I'm sorry," Ryan writes, his fingers sore from scribbling in his notebook during the entire flight home to Vegas. We grow up enough to know we'll never forgive ourselves, not completely.
The tour is over. Brendon is napping in the seat beside him, Spencer and Jon are on a flight to Chicago, and Ryan is writing longhand, as usual.
But we move on anyways-somehow-because what else can we do with our lives if we can't ever find the strength to hold onto someone who feels like home?
He looks at Brendon out of the corner of his eye.
Someone who makes home feel right.
The night that Jon and Spencer first got together, when Brendon had accidentally interrupted them at the door of their tourbus bathroom, Ryan had pulled Brendon back into the lounge with him, and Brendon had stopped in front of Ryan, stared him down, and said:
"Well?"
Ryan had swallowed, averted his eyes, edged around Brendon toward the couch. "I want to finish this movie."
He tried to ignore the sigh Brendon heaved behind him; he's been trying to ignore it ever since.
Once Jon and Spencer started fucking every chance they could get and doing disgusting things like kissing each other over granola bars in the morning and interrupting their own bickering sessions about god knows what by making out in the middle of dressing rooms and, like, fast food joints-
Well. Once that started up, Ryan figured it was inevitable that (finally) he and Brendon would hook up. Any day now.
That's how he thought of it in his head: "hook up." As if they were eighteen and nineteen again, rutting against each other in a hotel bed when Brendon drank a little too much beer and straddled Ryan in his underpants with an "okay, so maybe I like cock" and a sloppy, over-heated kiss, and they'd both come in no more than five minutes.
(They didn't tell anyone about it, not even Spencer. Brendon had woken up Ryan the next day with a freaked-out string of sorry, sorry, oh shit, I'm sorry and maybe we were just drunk and confused and horny? and I'm trying to figure myself out, you know? and Ryan had taken the out. He'd figured that doing more would probably fuck up the band anyhow, and Ryan wasn't even certain about his own sexuality back then, so that was that. If they stayed away from even innocently sitting beside each other during movies or video games for the next month or so, then, well, that's expected. They moved past it.)
But the thing is, the thing that's actually making this seem real and possible to Ryan: He and Brendon are not those kids anymore. Ryan thinks "hook up" because that makes it sound easy, makes it sound like their first time will be their only time; will be like any one-time messy blowjob in a bathroom stall or backseat with some random dude or girl - even though Ryan knows perfectly well that if Brendon and he did this? At this point in their lives? There would be no going back. It would be thirty times hotter and more intense and fucking alive than that time twelve years ago. It would be intimate, and it wouldn't stop at one, and that terrifies Ryan, because Ryan has never been good at monogamy, and Brendon- well, Brendon has. Sure, he does casual sex - did long lines of it in his early twenties when he came out to his closest friends - but when he's with someone, he's with only that someone. He has this weird sort of determined control over his body and his affections that Ryan's never been able to master quite right.
So, Ryan doesn't really know what to do except studiously ignore him now that Brendon keeps sneaking looks at him whenever Jon and Spencer are being particularly ridiculous over each other. He keeps looking at Ryan like, Now? Are we done waiting now?
When Ryan finally gets home from the airport, he crashes for almost an entire day.
The sun is down when he wakes up, but he salvages some old oatmeal from the pantry for a late-night breakfast and ends up shuffling up and down the hallway between the kitchen and his guitar room while he eats, thinking about how nice a little bit of quiet is after so long with nothing but music and noise.
After rinsing out his bowl in the sink, he drifts to the couch, intending to pick up whatever book he'd last left on the coffee table, but he ends up staring at the stacks of mail his housekeeper had thoughtfully piled into what appear to be four categories: Bills, Postcards, Trash, and Entertaining Trash. Seriously, she stuck post-it notes to the table where all the mail is stacked into neat columns. Ryan wonders just how bored she was. He ignores it all in favor of a return to television and conks out again in the middle of a docudrama about the Yellowstone supervolcano.
When he wakes up again, the digital seconds in the bottom left corner of the television are speeding closer to eight at night, and he actually feels rested this time. Rubbing his eyes, he forces himself off the couch and into his guitar room, where he spends the next few hours working through a new melody. He records every few bars and sends them in parts to Jon through their portables, until his buzzes with a text message from Spencer:
stop bothering jon, we're fucking busy
you mean busy fucking, Ryan types back.
A second later: you said it, holmes
Ryan rolls his eyes and leaves his phone on one of the amps. He doesn't much feel like writing music alone right now anyway, so he opts for an old notebook from the desk in his office. It's a notebook he's saved from years ago that is only half full, the first thirtysome pages all mediocre poetry and barely-coherent stoner babble about the relationship he was in at the time (his first and thus far only somewhat long-term relationship with a man).
He pours himself a tall glass of water, finds a pen in the silverware drawer and slides open the glass door to the cozy backyard. The late-summer darkness wraps around him, and he flicks on the red and orange paper lanterns that are strung up on trellises where nothing grows because he's not here for long periods of time to care for his yard. Ha, he's been writing pages and pages of songs about plants but can't sustain his own plantlife? The few self-sufficient cacti scattered around the yard cast strange shadows. The palm needs trimming, its lower branches an odd furry mess, not a picture-postcard sight.
Taking a seat at his little claw-footed white table and old milkcrate-for-a-chair, Ryan sets a nearby rock on his pages to keep the wind from rustling them away. A few lines for a song he thought about on the cab ride from the airport filter back into his mind and he starts scratching away: startlingly sentimental lines about being back home, tucked away in his modest suburban house, breathing the dry heat of another summer's end.
Arecaceae, more commonly known as the palm tree, is characterized in part by its fibrous roots, he remembers from some book he'd picked up near the beginning of the tour. Palm trees in childhood, palm trees in movies, palm trees outside the window of his old house in California, until he moved back to Vegas a couple years ago.
Time to stop running, time to stop fooling, time for the time to time itself home, he writes, then just stares and stares as his pen bleeds ink into an unnecessary period at the end of the line.
After he finds himself spacing out in the darkness longer than he's actually writing anything down, he thinks it's time for tea. He goes back inside and weighs out enough water for one cup, sets the kettle on the stove, turns on the burner. Chamomile tonight - he's a little jittery, like maybe he won't sleep for hours since he slept all day.
If he's going to have any human contact any time soon, though, he'll have to get himself on a normal person's sleeping schedule. Spencer and Jon are in Chicago indefinitely, Brendon is probably sleeping, and Ryan never really bothered to get in touch with any other friends in Vegas over the past couple years of living back here. When Ginger had a skin cancer scare, Spencer moved back with hardly any hesitation, and Ryan followed with none; it seemed natural. Just as natural to stick around even after her recovery, and soon enough Brendon was moving back into his own place, too, as they began to write the last album, Jon flying back and forth like usual. Brendon's always saying that the day that dude moves away from Chicago will be the first sign of the apocalypse; Ryan agrees.
He's absently sorting through boxes of tea in the pantry when the doorbell suddenly cuts through the silent house. His eyes dart to the clock over the stove: 1:03am. Perfectly normal when he lived in LA; odd for the here and now. He figures it's probably just Brendon, not sleeping after all.
"Dude," Brendon says casually, crossing his arms and leaning one shoulder up against the doorframe. "Your goose is looking grim."
He gestures at the granite goose statue on Ryan's front stoop. It's still wearing an Easter bonnet in late September, the green fabric fading, a bit tattered. Ryan had dated a sculptor for a few months last year. She worked mostly with metal and stone, and randomly made him that goose. Ever since, Brendon and Spencer have been teasing Ryan about it. The first time Spencer saw it, he immediately sent a photo of it to Jon, who replied that it looked like the "stoopgoose" his grandparents in Chicago always used to display in front of their house and dress seasonally. Of course this prompted Brendon to find a website that sold gear specifically for such animal sculptures.
"It needs a rain slicker or something," Brendon adds.
"Yeah, 'cause it rains so frequently here." Ryan wonders when they stopped greeting each other with anything along the lines of Hey, how's it going? and started to open their conversations with random observations instead.
Brendon rolls his eyes. "Irony, Ryan. Irony."
He's got his red sunglasses hooked on the collar of his yellow t-shirt, although lord knows why the hell he even needed them since it's long past sundown. Ryan supposes Brendon's probably just been driving around the greater Las Vegas area for a good portion of the day and night, happy to be in control of his own transportation again. His hair is windblown from that stupid(ly awesome) blue convertible he bought last year, and Ryan knows from riding shotgun the way wind softens skin. He wants to reach out and feel the extra-smooth planes of Brendon's cheekbones, his forehead, the contrast of rough two-day stubble along his jawline, each short hair dark and specific in the porchlight.
The tea kettle whistles them into the kitchen. Brendon automatically pulls down two mugs from the cupboard and drops the tea sachets into them from the tin Ryan had set onto the countertop. Ryan pours the boiled water into each mug, a bit less than normal for each of them since he'd only measured enough for one.
Brendon picks an ice cube from the tray in the freezer and plops it into his mug. The hot and cold sizzle-crackle against each other for a few seconds before settling.
"You're still the only person I know who does that," Ryan comments, blowing over the surface of his own cup as the tea steeps.
"Yeah, well, it's quicker than blowing," Brendon says.
"That's . . . what she said?" Ryan tries with a smirk.
Brendon giggles a little to himself, looking down at his tea. "Ryan, I-" He's still smiling but it looks unsure, suddenly serious. He won't look away from his tea. "I came by to-"
"Hey," Ryan cuts in, heart quickening. "I was sitting out back earlier. Let's-" He tilts his head toward the sliding glass door.
Brendon closes his eyes for a moment, shoulders sagging. "Okay." He looks up at Ryan. "Let's."
They bring their mugs outside. Ryan drags another wooden milk crate to the rickety table, and Brendon scoots his crate forward so they're sitting at a right angle to each other. He wraps his hands around his mug, and they just sit for a moment, the two of them staring off into random points in the backyard.
There always seems to be less to say to each other immediately after a tour, Ryan thinks. As if they've given all of themselves to the road and it'll take a few more steps to find themselves again. It's a good sort of drained feeling though; they've spent nearly every waking moment together and don't need to speak just for the hell of speaking like Ryan feels a lot of people do when they're together.
"Y'know, I still expect to see the Pacific from our backyards," Brendon says once their tea starts to go cold. "I mean, not counting time on the road, I've been back here long enough that I should be used to being landlocked again, but." He shrugs. "Still."
Ryan nods. "Sometimes I swear I wake up smelling saltwater. It's really fucking weird."
"Ahh," Brendon affects what Jon refers to as his Wise Professor Voice, "the ubiquitous 'phantom smell syndrome'. Common in these parts."
Ryan reaches out and flicks him in the forehead, and Brendon cracks up, slouching a little on his crate. One of his legs has stretched closer to Ryan's, and Brendon hooks his ankle around Ryan's ankle, humming some old musical number into the rim of his mug. Ryan can feel Brendon watching him, but he can't bring himself to look up from the final words he'd been scribbling in his notebook, still open on the table: freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Apparently, he'd meandered onto copying other people's song lyrics instead of working on his own.
Brendon's foot moves against Ryan's, both of them free of flip-flops, bare and warm against each other, and Ryan feels how easy it could be to fall into this with Brendon, as if shifting their friendship into something else could be the most natural thing in the world, not something that makes Ryan worry over all of the ways he's fucked up every relationship in his past, how easily those things could happen this time.
Ryan looks across the small space between himself and Brendon and thinks it's all at once the farthest and closest they've ever been.
Then he thinks that's possibly the stupidest thought he's ever thought.
Brendon's looking at him through eyelashes that are neither particularly long nor short but which Ryan knows better than his own. He's applied eyeliner around and mascara to them numerous times in their teens and twenties, and he's looked into the eyes they frame more than anyone else's for a good half of his life. He looks into them now, and what he sees is: I know you, I know you, I know you.
"I, uh." Ryan pulls away quickly - his leg untangling from Brendon's, the table rattling a little - and hurries back inside. He dumps the dregs of his tea into the sink and starts to wash the mug. Brendon steps up behind him moments later while Ryan's rinsing the blue ceramic. Brendon sets down his own mug in the sink and waits for Ryan to set his mug in the drying rack, before he wraps his arms around Ryan's waist and hooks his chin over Ryan's shoulder.
Ryan's breath catches for a moment-so briefly that if Brendon wasn't currently wrapped around him, he might not have noticed the contrast to Brendon's steady breathing. As it happens, Brendon curls his fingers in Ryan's shirt, the hem bunching in his knuckles as he presses his palms against Ryan's ribs. Carefully, Ryan begins to breathe deeply into those palms, warm and solid and secure.
Touch has been as constant and natural as music between the four of them for as long as Ryan can remember-finger-pokes or easy hands on arms as reminders, hugs and high-fives of euphoria, shoulders to sleep on, shins to kick, hair to muss-but it has been far too long since Ryan has been touched like this. Like Brendon isn't holding anything back and he wants Ryan to know that he'll hold onto him until Ryan is ready to do the same.
Or maybe Ryan is already writing a song about this in his head, and he actually has no idea what is happening in this moment between them. Which, Ryan thinks, is bullshit: He knew as soon as the doorbell rang exactly why Brendon came over tonight.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one of us who's tired of waiting," Brendon murmurs into his shoulder, his lips dragging against the shore of collar and skin.
"So you're writing an old country song now, huh," Ryan says, dry as he can manage, trying to ignore how Brendon kind of reads his thoughts sometimes.
Brendon huffs a quiet laugh into the side of Ryan's neck and that more than anything makes Ryan's pulse quicken: that softness from Brendon. Where his laughter is usually uproarious and open, this is Brendon in the intimate space of their two bodies alone.
"No achy-breaky twangs," Brendon says. "I promise," he adds, and it's that promise, the slight tremor in his voice as he says it, that makes Ryan take one more deep breath, in and out into Brendon's palms, before he carefully turns himself around in Brendon's arms.
Ryan's always been distrustful of promises, the ones he makes and the ones made by other people, and yet when it comes to Brendon, no matter how else they've clashed over the years-in songwriting and personality, in belief and ego-he's never lost his trust in Brendon. There isn't a doubt in his mind that long after the band eventually dissipates and they're those old men with sword-canes and rocking chairs that they've joked about-long after it all ends, he can't imagine trusting to live his life with anyone else but Brendon. Or, rather, he can imagine what living his life without Brendon would be like, but that makes him feel ill and hollow, like his body means to vomit up all the empty spaces inside of him but can't.
He meets Brendon's eyes straight-on.
"It's all about timing," Brendon says.
"What is?" Ryan's heart pounds a little harder.
"Us." Brendon pauses to swallow, and Ryan knows that tell, knows that it's another sign of Brendon being nervous about this underneath his boldness pushing them forward. "It feels right this time, doesn't it? Like, we've never make sense with anyone else so it's about fucking time we've got each other."
"You make us sound like consolation prizes."
"You know that's not how I mean it."
"No, I know. We-" It's like we found each other when we were too young, Ryan thinks. They've made sense together in other ways, but they had to grow toward each other to finally get to this point. But Ryan can't bring himself to say that aloud; he thinks Brendon probably gets it anyway. "I think we'll work now, in a way we wouldn't have at any other time before," he settles on.
"Exactly." Brendon tucks one of his hands into Ryan's back pocket.
"But we still don't know if we'll work. We-"
"Since when does not knowing the outcome stop you from trying? Jesus Christ, Ross, this past year has fucked with all of us in a lot of ways, I know, but you-"
Ryan doesn't want to hear Brendon tell him again how much Ryan's let the criticism get to him this year, doesn't want to hear about any of it, so he tangles his fingers in Brendon's hair and pulls him closer. Their teeth clack together, Brendon mid-speech, but he recovers quickly, anxiously stumbling into Ryan, backing them against the kitchen counter, his mouth hot and lips full against Ryan's.
It feels warm and loose and right, like drinking red wine and fucking. It's only a kiss, but god, it's their first since they were just kids, and Brendon is holding onto Ryan like Ryan's fallen and Brendon promised to catch him, and Ryan isn't complaining, because he's holding onto Brendon in about the same way. They're kissing and sucking and biting and rubbing their hard, aching bodies against each other, and Ryan's never really understood that cliche of trying to climb into each other before, but it makes a little more sense now, the way their tongues reach inside and don't want to leave.
Time passes. Ryan doesn't care how much. At some point though, a thought occurs to him and he has to pull apart just enough to inhale deeply, look Brendon in the eyes, and breathe out:
"Goddamnit, I don't have any condoms."
Brendon bursts out laughing.
"Hey," Ryan says, smiling uncertainly. "I'm serious! Did you bring any?"
"Oh, absolutely I did," Brendon says, laughter dying down. "I just-" He shakes his head a little, disbelieving, and his voice lowers. "I'm just so happy we're finally happening."
Ryan's chest clenches, with worry or affection or lord knows what, and he can't do anything but kiss him again.
Apparently they've been moving away from the kitchen and into the living room as they've been making out, because the next step Ryan takes trips them both over the corner of an ottoman and onto the floor.
With a pronounced oof from them both, Brendon's teeth knock against Ryan's, their torsos aligned and limbs entangled.
"Remember-" Brendon starts to murmur, but Ryan can't stop kissing him, okay, this is no time for talking. "Mmm-'member the opening credits to The Dick-" Another long kiss, a bit of a grope up Brendon's shirt. "-Van Dyke Show when he trips over his ottoman and it's all-" Ryan tries to shove up Brendon's shirt but his arms are in the way. "-wacky?"
Ryan laughs a little against Brendon's mouth, their shared air warm and wet. "Yeah, what about it?"
Brendon pushes himself up so he's sitting across Ryan's thighs and pulls off his shirt, drops it beside them. "I was just thinking it would've been a waaay different show if he tripped over the ottoman because he and Mary Tyler Moore were having crazy after-work sex in the living room before Richie came home from school."
Ryan laughs, helpless to Brendon's scattered imagination, and pulls Brendon back down, kisses him long and hard and wishes it'll never end. Their kisses grow more languorous, tender even, as if lying down has brought reality into a closer focus. We're happening, we're happening, we're finally happening, choruses Ryan's brain, but Brendon shifts his groin against Ryan's and the rough slide of their cocks through jeans speeds up everything all over again and Ryan has no more room for coherent thoughts.
Brendon starts pulling at Ryan's shirt and Ryan tries to help him by wiggling against the carpet. It burns a little, the rough whorls rubbing his back, but when they stop kissing for a second only to come back together a moment later, this time they're bare-chested and so much closer.
Ryan thinks Brendon kisses not unlike he sings - a bit overly enthusiastic at sporadic moments but mostly with such a solid passion it makes Ryan's entire body tingle, like a long drink of bourbon that slinks into every vein in his body and he feels both vibrant and more relaxed with each moving second.
After they've spent some time getting to know each others' mouths and all the bare skin they've pressed together, Brendon tumbles off of Ryan and they both wriggle out of the rest of their clothes. Ryan just has to slip out of his loose pajama bottoms, while Brendon fumbles a bit with the fly of his jeans before shoving them and his briefs down past his hips and literally kicking them off his legs.
Ryan has only a moment's pause to take a couple deep breaths, choosing to stare at Brendon's cheekbones instead of his cock, before Brendon stretches his body against him again and whispers, "You're going to fuck me," into Ryan's neck, just below his earlobe.
"Right here," Ryan breathes, turning so their lips brush. He tugs on the hair at the nape of Brendon's neck and sucks at his bottom lip, making Brendon whimper a little and twist his hips against Ryan's so his cock slides along the V where Ryan's thigh meets hip. That's always been one of Ryan's favorite parts of men's bodies: a place where their cocks can slide in perfectly frustrating friction so their hands and mouths can focus elsewhere. Brendon sucks Ryan's tongue into his mouth and the pressure makes Ryan whimper too, anticipating a similar sensation around his cock.
Random thoughts start knocking in and out of Ryan's mind through the heat: memories of Brendon, arguing and laughing and dancing stupidly at his side. Snippets of melodies, their own and others. French verb conjugations from a book Jon had found for him when Ryan had been babbling about wanting to learn how to read poetry in another language. Brendon playing a nocturne with his eyes closed at the piano in his living room. The chorus to an old Smiths song about want. The verb désir . . .
Ryan, absurdly, feels like the two of them are conjugating desire with each touch: bucking his hips, trying to slide his cock along that dip where Brendon's thigh meets hip (I want); Brendon's hand sliding sweaty and perfect between their bodies to wrap around Ryan's balls, one rough fingertip just barely passing over his asshole (you want); their tongues arguing silently for space in each others' mouths, panting and sloppy and desperate (we want).
It's been so long since anyone's touched him like this, Ryan had almost forgotten what it's like to be touched by hands not his own. Brendon's fingers, their tips roughened by guitar strings, feel familiar and new, and for the first time Ryan's struck by how surreal this whole night has been so far, as if all their years of close friendship and fantasies need to take a moment to catch up to the reality they're creating now.
Another curious slip of Brendon's fingers behind Ryan's balls jolts Ryan out of thoughts and entirely into sensation.
"Y- you could fuck me instead, if you want," Ryan says, squirming for more contact.
Brendon smirks, says, "Maybe after breakfast," and lowers his mouth to the head of Ryan's cock, so Ryan's laugh is swallowed by a long groan as Brendon cradles his balls in one hand and suctions his lips into a deep pull of Ryan's cock.
"Always knew you'd be good at this," Ryan babbles.
He regrets admitting it the instant Brendon's lips leave his cock and grin smugly up at him.
"Oh, shut up," Ryan says, rolling his eyes, and tugs Brendon's hair. He's trying to nudge him back toward his cock, but Brendon presses his hands flat on the floor on either side of Ryan and pushes himself back up to kiss Ryan instead.
"Want your mouth," Brendon pleads. "Before you fuck me, please, I-"
Ryan wrestles them over and pins Brendon's hips to the carpet, reveling in Brendon's hiss of anticipation before he ducks down and aims a teasing lick at the nerves just below the head of Brendon's cock. As Brendon's breaths grow heavier, Ryan licks a lazy pattern up the shaft, gathers the precome on his tongue at the delicate slit of the head, and with a flat swipe of his tongue, paints it across Brendon's balls, sucking them gently enough just to make Brendon squirm anxiously.
"Ryan, your fingers, c'mon," Brendon says, an edge of urgency in his tone as Ryan's mouth moves lower, his tongue the barest tease against Brendon's hole.
"Dammit," Ryan mutters, his lips forming the word against Brendon's ass. "Hold that thought."
"Wh-" Brendon starts to ask, but he cracks up as Ryan tries to stand, stumbles over Brendon's jeans heaped nearby, and scrambles toward the bathroom.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Ryan teases over his shoulder, feeling his face heat up.
He can't help but grin to himself, rifling through the bathroom cabinets, as Brendon calls out, "I think I have a right to speak up when you suddenly awkward your way out of the room in the middle of us trying to have sex!"
"We're gonna need some of this, asshat," Ryan says, walking back to him and fiddling with an underused bottle of lubricant. He glances up in time to see Brendon swallow thickly.
"How do you want me?" Brendon asks, his voice low and rough all of a sudden, and it's got to be at least in the top five hottest things anyone's ever said to Ryan.
"Just like that," Ryan says, his voice going low and demanding. Brendon bends his knees and spreads his legs, shivers a little as Ryan drops to his knees and reaches out to stroke once down the inside of Brendon's thighs. "Actually," he says, interrupting himself to nip lightly at one thigh, his cheekbone brushing across Brendon's balls. "On second thought, get on your hands and knees."
Brendon obeys so quickly that Ryan would find it funny if he weren't so turned on by Brendon's eagerness; he's not sure he'd be able to draw enough breath to properly laugh at this point. Dropping the bottle of lube, he presses both hands to Brendon's ass and spreads him enough to find his entrance, then drives his tongue into him.
"Oh fuck, Ryan," Brendon curses, his forehead dropping to the floor. His thighs begin to tremble as Ryan repeats the motion, his tongue dipping in and out of him. "More," Brendon adds breathlessly.
Anxiously dribbling lube over his fingers, Ryan pulls his face away and adds a finger instead, slowly working himself into Brendon, adding a second finger, in and out, as Brendon's muscles gradually stretch and open for him.
"Oh, Jesus," Brendon gasps, and it sounds like the kind of prayer he'd go to hell for if they believed in it. "Your fingers-" he tries to say, breath hitching at the end as Ryan presses a third finger against the ring of tender muscle. "They reach so much deeper than mine."
It's unexpectedly fascinating for Ryan: watching the taut line of his own long fingers slipping deep inside of Brendon, past each knuckle, then reappearing again. If fucking him with his fingers is this thrilling, it'll be a wonder if he lasts very long once it's his cock inside of Brendon like this. His fingers begin to blur a little as he pounds them into Brendon. He gives the side of his ass an experimental spank, which makes Brendon moan like he'd been holding back, and he starts pumping his ass back into Ryan's fingers, trying to match up a rhythm between them.
"Wait, wait," Brendon says when Ryan reaches his hand around to Brendon's cock. "I don't want to come like this. I want you inside me."
"Are you going to write about it in your gournal afterward?" Ryan teases, not sure how his brain actually has room for Wet Hot American Summer references right now when his own untouched cock is aching and Brendon is writhing and open before him, but god he's glad he does, because he gets to feel Brendon laugh, his muscles contracting around Ryan's fingers, his body vibrating along Ryan's arm that's wrapped around his waist.
"Dear diary," Brendon mocks, dropping his hips so Ryan can let his fingers slide out of him, "I almost didn't let my best friend fuck me today because he made fun of the stupid things I said while trying not to come too soon."
Ryan laughs, keeps on laughing as Brendon turns around and tackles him to the ground, straddling his hips and sucking kisses along his collarbone. "Hey," he manages, dragging blunt nails up Brendon's spine, making him shiver and suck harder at the juncture of Ryan's collarbone and shoulder. "Go find us one of those alleged condoms of yours."
Brendon huffs a laugh into Ryan's chest then twists toward his jeans crumpled nearby. "Like this," he says, turning back to Ryan and opening the condom packet. Before Ryan can ask what he means, Brendon wraps his hand around the base of Ryan's cock and gives a firm pull. Rolling the latex down the shaft, he adds in a would-be-casual voice, "Is it okay if I ride you?"
"Is it- Jesus fucking Christ, who would say no to that?" Ryan grabs hold of Brendon's hips to steady him as he rises onto his knees and tries to align Ryan's cock with his ass.
Brendon gets that smug grin on his face again. "I just like seeing you all frustrated about something we both want."
Ryan mock-glares up at him and abruptly tilts his pelvis off the floor just as Brendon's starting to bear down on him.
"Oh fuck you," Brendon blurts out, the words so fast they're one word, and Ryan holds him steady, trying not to fill him all at once.
"Actually-" Ryan starts to correct him about the obvious (okay, so they both like to frustrate the other just to see him riled up sometimes).
"Shut up, shut up," Brendon snaps, but his face is practically glowing - from being that turned on or that happy, Ryan couldn't say, but if they're at all on the same page, it's a bit of both. "Just-" Brendon slowly settles himself down onto Ryan's cock, Ryan's hands holding onto Brendon's hips helplessly as he tries not to come just from this. When his ass meets the tops of Ryan's thighs, Brendon releases a shuddering sigh, his eyes blinking shut, and Ryan tries to steady his own breathing. It's not that he doesn't believe there will be more times after this, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to draw out this first time as long as they can both last.
When he begins moving again, it feels like Brendon's seating his ass against Ryan's hips like they're a comfortable chair where he's trying to find just the right spot to rest, pulsing back and forth.
Ryan snaps his hips forward.
"Fuck," Brendon chokes out at the new depth of angle, curling his spine and stumbling against Ryan's chest, so only the head of Ryan's cock is still inside of him. He's breathing heavily against Ryan's jaw when Ryan frames Brendon's face with his hands and fits their mouths together again, letting his cock drop out of Brendon and slap heavily against Ryan's belly, the condom slick and his cock blood-hot beneath it. Brendon's cock rubs up alongside his as they kiss, and it feels like the sort of perfect frustration that Ryan can see unraveling along many nights ahead of them, but not tonight. Not tonight, with Brendon arching his back and reaching between them so he can slide back onto Ryan's cock.
This time, Brendon feels desperate on top of him, their skin slapping together. His eyelids lower to half-mast, his tongue peeks out pink between kiss-swollen lips, and his jaw relaxes open. Wanting more contact, Ryan slips two fingers past Brendon's lips, making him hum a pleased sound around them as he clenches his muscles around Ryan's cock. The rhythm of their hips stuttering, Ryan lets his fingers slip all spit-glossed out of Brendon's mouth, and he swipes them teasingly across the head of Brendon's cock just to hear him utter a ridiculous squeak, then wraps his hand around the shaft and gives a couple of tight pulls.
"Fuck, Ryan," Brendon gasps, changing their angle again. "I knew this would be good, but this-this is-" Brendon's breath is shuddering uncontrollably against Ryan's neck.
"Yeah, I-oh fuck-" And then Brendon is biting down painfully good on his tongue and moaning deep in his chest, and Ryan has to concentrates on not coming until he’s done watching Brendon come. He wraps his hand back around Brendon's cock and pumps him in time with the way Brendon is frantically hitching back and forth on Ryan's cock, until quite suddenly he's spilling all over Ryan's hand, a few warm flecks spattering their chests. As his cock stops twitching in Ryan's hand, Ryan lifts his fingers to his mouth and licks, his eyes never leaving Brendon's where he's still perched across Ryan's lap, his own hands gripping his thighs as if sure he'll topple over if he doesn't.
His muscles are still clenching, unclenching around Ryan's cock, making Ryan gasp at the stifling dry air, dropping his head back against the carpet. He can feel the moment right on the edge of his own orgasm, that thrill of almost, the same sort of thrill he's been feeling in small dosages for the past fifteen years with Brendon but all condensed into one intensified moment of-
"Please," he hears himself choke out, and when he lifts his gaze back to Brendon's, Brendon arches forward, plunges his tongue between Ryan's lips, then pushes back so hard on his cock that Ryan - yes, there, that.
When Ryan's brain starts functioning properly again, Brendon's lying on the carpet beside him, breathing evenly. Ryan eases off his condom and tosses it in the nearby wastebasket, feeling a small protest in his back when he sits up.
"What the fuck, I am not too old to fuck on the floor," Ryan mutters, and Brendon snorts a laugh and rolls toward him, pressing his forehead against Ryan's thigh for a moment, before sitting up as well.
"How about on the couch?" Brendon says, smirking, and hoists himself up onto it, then grabs Ryan's hand and tries to pull him up. Ryan lets himself be pulled. He settles into the cushions and the warmth of Brendon as he straddles Ryan again, but this time apparently only to sit back against his thighs and grin goofily at him.
"So," Ryan says, feeling relaxed and startlingly happy. He rests one palm against Brendon's stomach, sort of just because he can now. It's a little sweaty around the bellybutton, and Ryan smiles, remembering a couple years ago when Brendon had finally seen the first signs of the absolute slightest beer belly forming, and he'd complained for a total of ten seconds before Spencer had begun to chuck entire bags of chips and empty bottles at his head.
"So," Brendon echoes, gazing sleepily at Ryan's lips and wrapping his arms around Ryan's shoulders.
"Well, um. I just think there should be a few rules from now on."
Brendon laughs, and Ryan can't help but notice it's sounds a lot like his Ryan, you're an idiot laugh. "Dude, I think we need to just take things as they come now that we're finally doing this."
"Number One," Ryan says, ignoring him.
Brendon rolls his eyes. "Okay, fine, lay it on me."
"You cannot use blowjobs as a method for getting your way while we're writing together."
Even more laughter, but this time it's bright and sudden. "Not even a little bit?"
"A little bit of a blowjob? What'd be the point of that?"
"My sexual wiles work in mysterious ways."
Ryan presses his lips together hard, trying not to smile. He shakes his head and says fondly, "Sometimes the things you say, I swear."
"Totally compatible with your own weirdness, weirdo," Brendon comments, distracted by running his hands through Ryan's hair trying to make it do god-knows-what.
"Yeah, well." Ryan slides one hand up the smooth curve of Brendon's back.
"So's that all? I can't use blowjobs to get my wicked way?"
"No."
"Well, if I can't do that, then you can't do that nibbly jaw thing of yours just to get your way."
"'Nibbly jaw,' huh?"
"Yeah, that thing you were doing before where you-" Ryan swipes his tongue across Brendon's rough jawline, then grazes his teeth across the same stripe of saliva. "Umm," Brendon sighs and then squeaks a tiny, "Yeahthat," when Ryan bites the tender skin just beneath Brendon's jawbone. "Mm, hey," Brendon says, "we should use the phrase 'nibbly jaw' as a lyric in something, I don't kn-" Ryan sucks harder at the pulse point on Brendon's neck. "Nnnggh, okay, okay, or not."
"Next rule," Ryan says, after swiping his tongue across the bruise blooming on Brendon's neck. "This-" He gestures between their bare chests. "-does not fuck with the band."
"Of course not."
"Just so we're clear."
Brendon levels his gaze, voice dropping into seriousness. "Always."
"It's just-" Ryan doesn't know how to say it, how to find the words to tell Brendon why he's been so terrified of getting involved with him in this way, for so long. "I don't want to fuck this up, okay?"
"Isn't it worth it though?"
"What worth what?"
"This-" Brendon lunges forward into a fierce kiss, then breaks away just as abruptly. "That-" He gestures behind him at their mess of clothing and the plain floor where they'd just fucked. "Here-" He pulls their foreheads together and they stare cross-eyed at each other. "Isn't finally having something more between you and me worth all those what ifs that might come next?"
Ryan swallows. "I might fuck it up."
Brendon makes a frustrated noise deep in his throat and pulls his face away just enough to be able to look Ryan in the eyes without having to cross them. "We both might fuck it up, Ryan. So what. We'll fix it."
"And if we don't?"
"Then we'll deal."
Ryan is suddenly weirdly comforted by the idea of being with someone who is just about as bad at long-term relationships as he is. "But," he starts slowly, knows he's kind of beating this into the ground, "what about the band?"
"What about it," Brendon says, narrowing his eyes, and Ryan can tell he's intentionally being a pain in the ass now.
"So we might fuck up the band, dickwad."
"I told you, we won't."
"You don't-"
"I do know that, so shut up and listen. We are going to make this work. And if somehow we can't stay together, if we eventually need to break up, then that'll just mean we'd have to bear through a period of time when we can only write music with Jon and Spence as intermediaries, okay?"
"They would hate us. Spencer would kill us with his bare hands."
"Jon would be able to stop him." Brendon waves a hand carelessly. "Listen to me: I want you, and I want the band, so dammit, Ryan, I'm going to have both. What else are we going to do with our lives, seriously?"
"You could go solo, and the rest of us could, I don't know, we c-"
"Fuck that."
"I'm serious, you idiot! You could. You have the talent and drive and you know it. Hell, you've even suggested it before."
"But I've never actually been serious, are you kidding me? Why would I want to write my own shit and tour alone, when I can spend hours cooped up on a bus that smells like ass with three of my best friends and bicker with you over everything we write and then get to fuck you too? I could probably make a living by myself, but I don't want to. Got it?"
"I think I do." And Ryan thinks, okay, maybe he can trust this. After all, he trusts Brendon with the music they create - no matter how much they disagree over things - maybe he can trust this creation as well.
"Good. Any other 'rules' for this thing we've got going on now?"
"Well," Ryan says thoughtfully. "I love you."
"That's . . ." Brendon's lips move soundlessly for a moment, forehead smooth and eyes wide. ". . . not exactly a rule."
"No, I guess it's not. But it's been true for a long time. You know, even when I don't like you very much."
"Ross." Brendon's face breaks into a smile and he rolls his eyes. "Not that I don't get exactly what you mean, but gosh, you really know how to sweet-talk a guy."
"Oh like you're such a romantic."
"Mm, right, fuck this, we could be fucking again right now," Brendon says, his eyes lighting up, amazement in his tone.
"See, this is why I love you."
Brendon beams. "Yeah?"
"Well, one of the reasons, yeah."
"I don't have time to list all the reasons why I love you."
"Oh god, have you been buying those shitty romance novels at convenience stores again?" Ryan says, but his hand in Brendon's holds on way more tightly, and he suddenly feels more whole than he has in years, filled inside all his old empty spaces.
"I don't have the time because I'm about to blow you, shut up."
"Oh, uh."
"Yeah. But," Brendon's gaze turns serious again. "I do, y'know. Love you."
Ryan swallows thickly. "Good."
"Good." And instead of pushing Ryan down onto the couch and tucking his face between Ryan's legs, as promised, Brendon simply holds on for a little while longer, his body warm and right.