fic: Made of Silver, Not of Clay (1/2)

[unphoenix]

Title: Made of Silver, Not of Clay 
Word Count: 13,622
Rating: R
Pairings: Brendon/Ryan, Pete/Mikey
Disclaimer: The concept is mine, the boys are not.  More's the pity.
Summary: Brendon wakes up to a world devoid of people.  At least, most people.
Notes: So...this is only sort of an AU, in that in reality, it could not have happened (I think), but it is....kind of?...set in our universe.  At least....well, I suppose you'll see, if you're reading it.  MUCH thanks goes out to

monanoche, without whom there would be no cafe, no name for Mr. Fluffy, and no beta.  Possibly, no story, considering how much she told me WRITE IT.  So, thank you.<3  Now, without further ado:

Made of Silver, Not of Clay

Brendon stopped singing on the day that the world just…stopped.

That may have been slightly backwards. The world didn’t really stop, per se. It just stopped being the world that Brendon had always known it as.

He woke up to the realization that he’d forgotten to shut his blinds the night before, so the early morning sunlight was streaming in and flooding the room. Eyes still half-shut, he sat up, closed the blinds, and then burrowed beneath the covers again to go back to sleep.

When he woke up the second time, he rolled over and squinted at the clock. The digital screen was blank, and he was confused for a moment before deciding it must have somehow gotten unplugged. Since no one had come in to wake him for church yet, he shrugged, flopped back down, and shut his eyes again.

This time he couldn’t quite fall asleep, so eventually he shoved the covers down, figuring that he may as well get up and get ready, since it couldn’t be that early if he had woken up on his own.

Padding out of his room, he headed straight for the shower, calling over the stair rail, “I’m up, hope you’re making pancakes!” He couldn’t hear his mom respond, but he could imagine her rolling her eyes with fond exasperation, just like she always did when he was being particularly exuberant.

Despite being the only one of his siblings left at home, he felt awkward walking out of the bathroom with only a towel around his waist, so he pulled his pajama bottoms back on once he was out of the shower. After drying off he dropped his towel onto the floor and ran a comb through his damp hair, then opened the door.

Brendon still hadn’t gotten used to how quiet it was as an only child, even though he probably made enough noise to compensate for at least one or two siblings. He hummed obnoxiously as he headed for the kitchen without changing out of pajamas, figuring that if he managed to spill anything on himself, at least he wouldn’t be in his church clothes yet.

It was when he passed the window at the landing of the stairs that he realized something was off.

The sun was way too high for it to still be morning, which meant they should have been at church hours before. Brendon’s family never missed church. Tentatively, he called, “Mom? Dad?” as he jogged the rest of the way down the stairs.

There was no reply, and when Brendon got into the kitchen, it was empty.

“Huh,” he said, leaning against the doorframe to take stock of the situation. For a wild moment he wondered if they’d actually left without him-if the conversation from the previous night had actually stuck with them. It seemed unlikely, considering that his father had been pretty adamant when telling Brendon that it was church, or hell. Brendon was still proud that he’d refrained from answering that.

Just to make sure, he opened the door to the garage. The purple minivan was still securely in its place.

Maybe, he thought, there was some kind of emergency, and they had to be picked up. And they didn’t want to wake me up.

If that was the case, there would be a note somewhere to explain, even just something quick scribbled out, because Mrs. Urie wouldn’t have wanted Brendon to worry. Furthermore, for an emergency she’d want to make sure he was praying.

When he turned around, his attention was caught by the clock on the microwave.

It was dark, dead.

Stomach sinking, he tore his eyes away from the blank digital face. Despite the dawning realization that no, there wasn’t going to be any kind of note, he resolutely set to scouring every horizontal surface for some kind of sign indicating where his family had gone. Then he checked the doors for Post-its, as well as the home phone and his cell phone for messages on the answering machines.

There was absolutely nothing.

Fighting the panic that was threatening to set in, Brendon forced himself to think rationally. If something had happened, he needed to call someone. Flipping his cell back open, he found his parents’ number and tried that one first, even though he wasn’t really expecting an answer.

It rang seven times before going to voicemail, and Brendon didn’t bother to leave a message. Next he tried each of his siblings, his grandparents, his pastor, three of his “friends” from youth group, and then, to get outside the church, even called the guy in a few of his classes who he talked with music about on occasion. None of them picked up.

By the time he ended the call to Brent, Brendon was starting to feel sick. It was as if…

as if everyone else in the world had just disappeared.

The moment the thought took actual shape in his mind, Brendon wished he hadn’t let it. Still gripping his phone, he walked outside and over his mom’s poppies to the house next door. His mom would kill him. Brendon kind of hoped that her mom-radar would tell her that her son was being a delinquent and make her materialize there. He wouldn’t even mind the lecture about the flowers.

On the neighbor’s porch he eyed the door, pounded on it, hard, then paused to listen for footsteps. There were none, and he knocked again, banging his closed fist against the unrelenting wood. Eventually he switched to kicking, which backfired, because he hadn’t bothered to put on shoes before he left the house.

Shoulders slumping in defeat, he walked out into the middle of the street, took a deep breath, and screamed as loudly as he could.

When his throat started to burn, he stopped, and was met with complete silence. That, more than anything, was so overwhelmingly disturbing that Brendon actually had to sit down, right there on the asphalt, and try not to hyperventilate.

After a few minutes he stood, calmer, and walked slowly back into his house, automatically locking the door behind him. It seemed bigger than he remembered, and he shivered involuntarily.

Without anyone to see him, Brendon didn’t bother getting dressed. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and started to reach for the orange juice, but then, on a whim, grabbed a Root Beer instead. He wasn’t ever allowed them in the morning, or late at night, but no one could tell him no.

Hands full, he wandered into the living room, where the curtains were still drawn, since no one was there to open them. Brendon wondered if this was the world he’d always lived in, with everyone else gone, or if he had been removed to somewhere completely different. Setting his food down on the coffee table, he ran a hand along the back of the piano in the corner, then pulled the coffee table close and started to play.

First he just warmed up, taking bites of cereal in between scales, and by the time he was done with his food he’d moved on to old, familiar songs, mainly from church. Once he ran out of those, he went onto rock songs. He liked those better anyway. He didn’t sing, though-it just didn’t seem right.

Sometime later (without clocks it was hard to judge time), he was hungry enough to get up again and put a tray of Bagel Bites into the oven. He ate them at the table, along with a glass of milk, and when he was done he put his dishes into the dishwasher. After clearing the table, he went back to the piano and slid onto the smooth bench, cracking his fingers and then bending them back before poising them over the piano keys again.

He’d gotten three-quarters of the way through his repertoire of Beatles songs by the time he decided to go to bed. The sun had been down for…awhile. Brendon really wasn’t sure. He’d never realized before how hard it would be to tell time without any clocks.

Since he’d never bothered to get dressed, he just walked upstairs and dropped into his unmade bed, burying himself under the covers. Twenty minutes later he got back out of bed and went to his closet, where he pulled out Mr. Fluffy, a ratty old teddy bear with a patched foot who Brendon only took out on really necessary occasions.

The situation at hand seemed like a necessary occasion, and Brendon fell asleep with Mr. Fluffy clutched in his arms.

Maybe he’d kind of expected the world to be back to normal the next morning, but when Brendon woke up, his house was just as empty as before. He hadn’t bothered to check the day before, but today he attempted to turn the computer on. It refused to start up. His phone was still working, but he hadn’t realized until now that the clock on it was no longer there.

The second day, he finished the Beatles and started in on the Beach Boys. The third day, it was Red Hot Chili Peppers. Then Christmas songs, because he knew them. Then a smattering of whatever he could think of. On the sixth day, he started in on classical music. Once he’d exhausted that, he started making things up.

Eventually, he realized that if he was going to survive, he needed to go and get more food, and possibly a few other necessities, like toilet paper and dish soap. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed since he’d woken up that first day, so he peeled off his pajamas and threw them straight into the washing machine. It still felt strange to walk through the house naked, but at the same time, it was oddly freeing.

He yanked on jeans and a T-shirt, combed his hair and brushed his teeth, and grabbed his wallet and keys on the way out the door. The radio wasn’t working and he hadn’t brought CDs, so he made the ten minute drive in complete silence. Radio silence, he thought to himself, and then laughed aloud, the sound startling him.

It was rare that he was able to park and not have to walk halfway across the parking lot, so he pulled up right in front of the store with a feeling of triumph. He took a cart when he went inside, pushing it up and down the rows as quickly as possible, because the empty supermarket was even more eerie than his empty house.

As Brendon prepared to leave, he went on autopilot straight to the check stands, and was halfway through pulling out his wallet when he realized there was no one there to pay. Still, it felt too much like stealing for his Mormon-influenced conscience to accept, so he pulled out several bills and stacked them neatly on the conveyor belt.

Out at the car, he reflected that he probably should have put the groceries into bags inside, to make it easier to pack the car. He’d gotten almost everything in when something occurred to him, and he slowly looked back around at the store again.

Five minutes later he was back at the van, two bottles of Coke and a can of instant coffee cradled in his arms. What good was living in an empty world if Brendon couldn’t even have a little caffeine?

As it turned out, coffee was kind of disgusting, like drinking mud. Brendon sat on one of the kitchen counters, kicking his heels lightly against the milky brown wood and making a face at the dark liquid sloshing around in one of his mom’s huge white mugs.

“How do people drink this all the time?” he asked nobody, scrabbling between his legs until he had found the handle on the silverware drawer and pulled a spoon free. Then he heaped about five spoonfuls of sugar into the mug and tested it again. It was a lot better after that, and he even thought he might like to have some more, sometime. Possibly.

The Coke was a much more successful experiment, all in all.

After awhile, Brendon lost track of the days. They all fused together into one long span of time, slipping from sun to moon and back without Brendon really noticing. He wished that he’d started making marks on the calendar, or scratches in the wall, or something. He’d heard that people used to do that, a long time ago-put little chips into sticks to mark the passing of time. Here, now, every day was the same, with a clear, pale sky, and the sun making it warm enough to go out in short sleeves during the day.

“I wish it would rain,” he said, once, lying in bed at night.

A week later (give or take), it did, but it had been long enough that Brendon thought of it as more of a coincidence than anything that he had affected.

Either way, the rain brought a welcome respite, and Brendon walked outside for the first time in-hours? Days? Weeks?-and stood in the driveway, tilting his face up to catch the drops on his face. Rain ran in rivulets down his cheeks, the closest he’d come to crying since this whole thing began.

He didn’t go back inside until he was completely waterlogged, and just before he did, he told the clouds above him, “I still don’t believe in you.”

The next day, the clouds cleared up, and the weather was bright and beautiful again.

Brendon mostly just played the piano. He made things up all the time now, only playing music that he’d known before on rare occasions, but he never wrote down the songs that he created, because there was no one to show them to. When he wasn’t doing that, he read, all the books he could find in his house first. Sometimes he went grocery shopping, and didn’t leave money anymore. Mostly he just existed.

He wondered if he was eventually going to go insane. Then he decided that if he was, he may as well make the most of it.

Ten minutes later, he was walking up to the big, glass doors leading into the mall. Steeling his nerve, he pulled them open and slipped inside. The grocery store’s emptiness was nothing in comparison to the silence that stretched out in every direction around Brendon.

Determined to ignore it, he walked through Penney’s slowly, touching soft shirts and sweaters. None of it seemed appealing, and he kept going until he reached the girls’ department. Then he paused, tempted.

He’d cherished a secret wish ever since a concert he’d gone to in ninth grade to be one of those guys who could pull off tiny, tight jeans and baby doll T-shirts. His mother would have killed him if he’d ever tried, but now he had his opportunity. Slowly he pulled a pair of pants off the rack, holding them up to his hips.

Starting to turn towards the dressing rooms, he realized that there was no one to see anyway, so he unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants right in the middle of the department store, feeling daring. Then he stripped his shirt off over his head, for good measure, and grabbed the black girl jeans again.

Slowly he ran his thumbs over his sharp hipbones, unsure if they’d always been like that and he’d just never noticed, or if he’d lost weight. For the first time in a long time, he was tempted to jerk off, but he decided he’d have time for that later.

The first pair of jeans he tried on were too small, but the second ones he was able to squeeze into with some struggling and wiggling of his hips. He had to suck in his stomach a little when he buttoned them, and his boxers were a little bit bunched up, but when he looked in one of the full-length mirrors decorating the store, he smiled a little at the person reflected back at him.

Next he contemplated the shirts, settling on a simple white one that hugged his chest closely, and layering a purple hoodie on top of it with a fleeting grin. Finally he walked into the shoe section, already knowing what he wanted, and grabbed gray plaid Vans. As he headed towards the actual mall, he felt more like himself than ever before.

He knew that his eventual destination was Hot Topic (the Devil Store, as his mom used to call it), but he wasn’t in any hurry to get there. Instead he ambled along, weaving in and out of shops, and had just stopped speculatively in front of Sephora, thinking that maybe he could teach himself how to use makeup, just to round out the effect of the clothes, when he caught the sound of something moving, from just around the corner.

At least, that’s what he thought he’d heard. The noise, a slightly scraping, like someone scuffing their foot on the ground, didn’t come again, even though he strained his ears to hear. Heart in his throat, Brendon waited, counting to sixty twice before he let himself edge a little closer.

When he rounded the corner formed by a jutting shop wall, he stopped short, eyes going wide. He thought, Yeah, I’ve actually gone insane, because there was no way that now, now, he’d finally found another person.

It was a boy, standing several yards away. He had his head bent so that Brendon couldn’t see his face, brown hair falling in a sleek sheet around it, and a hat perched on top of it. From what Brendon could tell, he looked almost as if he was dressed up for some old-fashioned event, with tight gray slacks and boots, a darker peacoat layered over them. Brendon couldn’t see his shirt, but could see that the boy had on arm warmers and fingerless gloves, and when he moved a little, Brendon thought he caught a glimpse of a rosette on his lapel.

Something about him was mesmerizing, and Brendon stood still, just watching him. He was standing in the center of a sea of fabric, and when he held up another piece, Brendon realized that they were all silk scarves, knotted together in a long tail that wrapped around and around him. He fondled the fabric, touching a piece up to his cheek and giving a tiny sigh that wasn’t audible from where Brendon was standing.

After attaching this last scarf to the train, the boy gathered up the long rope into his arms and walked over to where the walkway he stood on overlooked the first floor of the mall. He began nimbly tying one end of the scarf rope to the banister, and it wasn’t until he started to loop the other end around his neck that Brendon suddenly realized what he was going to do.

“No!” he said, and his voice was jarringly loud in the otherwise grave-silent building. It had been…well, Brendon didn’t know how long, but at the least several days since he’d heard his own voice, and he rocked back a step at the same time that the boy’s head snapped around, shock flashing clear and bright in his eyes.

Now that Brendon could see him clearly, he could tell that the boy was beautiful. His face was delicate and angular, with high cheekbones and hazel eyes. He had eyeliner on, black around his eyes and spiderwebbing out from the corners, where it interlaced with red over the tops of his cheeks, and Brendon thought that it was probably supposed to make him look older, but didn’t.

Taking a few steps closer, slowly, as though the boy was a skittish colt (he looked it, long limbs and nervous eyes, despite his composed expression), Brendon said, “Wait. Don’t-don’t do that. Please.”

“You’re here.”

When the boy spoke, voice stale and rough, Brendon stopped his inching forward for a moment, confused until he realized that the words weren’t meant the way he’d originally taken them. It wasn’t “you’re here,” somehow recognizing Brendon, but rather, “you’re here,” in utter astonishment that there was anyone there at all.

Brendon could understand the feeling.

“Yeah,” he replied, holding out a hand now that he’d edged close enough, “I’m Brendon.”

The boy looked dubiously at his hand for a minute and then took it, his hold surprisingly firm for such a thin boy, who looked so breakable. He coughed a little, clearing his throat, and then said, “I’m Ryan.”

“Ryan.” Brendon rolled the word around in his mouth, and then broke into a delighted smile, unable to help himself. “Ryan. I can’t believe-I didn’t know there was anyone else left. Ryan! I wish I’d known…have you been here the whole time? The whole-what, couple months? Do you know how long it’s been?”

Words overflowed from him, rolling away into the silence, until he finally harnessed his mouth again and forced himself to slow down. Ryan just blinked, looking overwhelmed and a little bit vacant.

He let go of Brendon’s hand and examined his nails, which were carefully manicured, and when he looked up at Brendon again, Brendon thought he looked somewhat amazed. “I’ve been here…” He trailed off, waving a hand in the air to signify some indeterminate amount of time. Frowning, he continued, “I don’t know. Years, maybe. Almost forever. There was this before, once. But now it’s gone. I was going to…”

Brendon waited, but Ryan didn’t finish this time, just stared off into space at a point behind Brendon’s head. He spoke very slowly, as though he wasn’t quite sure how to talk anymore. Maybe, Brendon reflected, he isn’t. If he’s been here that long. He wasn’t sure what he thought of that, if Ryan could have been here-wherever here was-for longer than he had. He’d thought, up to this point, that everything else on Earth had disappeared. Maybe it was just Brendon-and Ryan-who were gone.

Ryan had picked up the tail end of the scarf chain again, and was rubbing it between his fingers, and then against his cheek. Abruptly he turned back to Brendon.

“I cut off the tips of them so I could feel,” he said urgently, and Brendon blinked.

“What?” he asked, not sure if he wanted to walk closer or step backwards, away.

Ryan held up one hand, spreading his fingers, and Brendon realized he was talking about his gloves. “I cut off the tips,” Ryan repeated, “I cut them off. They’re velour, but I cut them, because I wanted to feel the silk. I wanted to touch it and feel something before I.”

“Before you what?”

Without answering, Ryan looked over the rail again, lips pressed tightly together.

Swallowing hard, Brendon said again, “Please, don’t.”

When Ryan just gripped the edge of the rail more tightly, peering over at the smooth tiles a story below, Brendon stepped right up next to him, resting a hand on his arm. Ryan flinched like he’d been burned, curling into himself, and Brendon thought that he looked tiny despite being the taller of the two.

Gently he pried the scarves out of Ryan’s hands. Ryan kept his fingers curled, but didn’t resist as Brendon took them. They were extremely soft, fine, and Brendon wondered how expensive they all were. A priceless death. The thought made him feel sick.

“I was just going to…” Brendon was starting to get the feeling that Ryan couldn’t quite say that he’d been planning to kill himself, so he just sighed and held up the string of fabric.

“Look,” he said, “The knots would’ve just come apart. It wasn’t going to hold together anyway. Come on, let’s…let’s go.”

This time, when he tried to touch Ryan, Ryan shied back before he could set a hand on his arm. He spun on his heel, stepping over the mess of silk, and then looked back at Brendon expectantly. Brendon wasn’t stupid. He knew an invitation when he saw one, and he wasn’t going to lose what was apparently the only other person left. He followed Ryan, smoothing his shirt and feeling self conscious, even though he wasn’t the one wearing roses and trying to kill himself.

“Where are we going?” he asked finally, unable to curb his curiosity.

Ryan didn’t look back, just jerked his shoulders in a shrug. Brendon took the hint and shut his mouth, following silently until they got to Macy’s. Ryan wove through racks of clothes until they reached the escalator down to the first floor, which was still running. They took it down, to where the Home section was, and Ryan looked back once to give Brendon the ghost of a closed-mouth smile.

He’s beautiful, Brendon realized, the expression on Ryan’s face making Brendon want to reach out to touch him.

In one of the far corners there were several racks of curtains that had been moved to section off an area, and Ryan pulled one of them back, gesturing for Brendon to go inside.

The fabric whispered back into place as they both stepped in, and Brendon stopped short in surprise. There was a lot more space behind the curtains that he’d initially thought, forming a kind of huge room.

It was, very clearly, Ryan’s room.

The room was structured around one of the huge, king-sized display beds, boasting about eight pillows. The comforter and pillows were a medley of coral, peach, and cream, with a lot of lace and beading. Brendon had a sudden flashing thought of Ryan curled up all alone in the middle of the bed, and it made his stomach clench.

In one corner was a guitar, but Brendon didn’t think it had been touched in a long time. He didn’t see any clothes, which made sense, considering that the entire mall was Ryan’s closet. He didn’t need one in his bedroom. In fact, other than the bed and guitar, the only other things there were spiral notebooks and books.

There were, quite possibly, hundreds of them. There were two bookshelves that were completely full, and books covering the floor in careful stacks all around them. They formed little walls all around the interior, with a single break where the two of them had entered. Brendon looked at them all with wide eyes, and then turned to back to Ryan.

“Do you-” he said, and then had to swallow hard because continuing, “Do you live here?”

Ryan nodded solemnly.

Weakly, Brendon asked, “How long did you say you’ve been…here?”

Ryan looked confused, and then he shrugged again, painting invisible designs in the air with his (very long, surprisingly graceful) fingers. “I-don’t know,” he said finally, “Not always. I don’t think. I think there was something before, but I don’t really remember. Sometimes,” and then his voice got even more melancholy, “I dream about this boy. I think we cared about each other. I think he is what missing someone means. But I don’t remember his name, or his face.”

That was far more than Brendon had asked, and he found himself saying, “I’ve only been here for a few months, I think. I used to live with my parents, and they were really strict Mormons. The last thing I said to them was that I hated their lifestyle, and that they were uptight jerks. I didn’t really mean it-or, well, I didn’t mean that I hated them-but then they were gone, and I miss them. I really do, and I didn’t think there was anyone else here until I met you.”

Lowering himself onto the edge of the bed, Ryan watched Brendon levelly and when he’d finished talking, replied, “I don’t believe in God either.”

Despite that, Brendon thought that Ryan had been listening.

They walked all over the mall together, with Brendon mainly telling Ryan stories about his life to fill the silence. Ryan didn’t seem particularly interested, but he didn’t seem uninterested either, so Brendon kept going.

When night rolled around, Brendon paused near one of the mall entrances and pointed the toes of his shoes in towards each other, saying, “I should probably go home now.”

Ryan didn’t reply, and Brendon took that as his cue to push the door open and call back over his shoulder, “I’ll be back tomorrow, probably, okay? Don’t, um…leave, or anything.” Don’t kill yourself.

The door was swinging shut slowly behind him when he heard Ryan speak, the words pulled abruptly from his mouth as though he wasn’t sure he should be saying them but couldn’t help it.

“You could stay,” he said, and Brendon spun around, catching the door.

“What?” he asked, “You want me to-”

“Stay, yeah,” Ryan repeated, “If you want to. I don’t mind.”

Mutely, Brendon nodded. Yeah, he wanted to stay. At that, Ryan gave him that little half smile again, and they walked side by side back to Macy’s.

When Brendon woke up, Ryan was still asleep, and Brendon was burrowed in next to him, one arm slung over Ryan’s waist. It was the way that he normally slept with Mr. Fluffy, so it didn’t surprise Brendon at all. He didn’t bother to move away, and a few minutes later, Ryan stirred, rolling over to look at him.

For a moment Brendon thought that Ryan was going to be angry, or frightened, but instead he just sat up, looking at Brendon with something like interest. His makeup was all smudged across his face, and Brendon thought, yet again, that Ryan was really gorgeous.

“Good morning,” Brendon said, his voice breaking a little on the last syllable from morning hoarseness.

Ryan kept staring, and then he leaned in a little closer. Confidentially, he told Brendon, “Your hair is kind of long.”

Surprised, Brendon reached up to run a hand through his hair. He hadn’t bothered with trimming it since before the world had become….this, and Ryan was right, it was shaggy. The back was long enough to touch his collar and curl up a little, and his bangs were almost obscuring his eyes. “Yeah,” he admitted, “I guess it is. I haven’t really had any motivation to cut it, you know?”

Eyes bright, Ryan offered, “I could do it for you. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

Brendon didn’t really care whether Ryan was good at it or not, if it was going to make him look like he still cared about something in the world. “Sure,” Brendon agreed.

Ryan led them back upstairs, stopping among racks of clothes to change. Brendon wasn’t sure if he was supposed to look away or not, because Ryan didn’t seem shy at all about just stripping down to completely naked with Brendon standing right there. Awkwardly Brendon said, “I guess I should…uh…I guess I should too.”

Halfway into a fresh pair of boxers, Ryan just blinked at him and shrugged. Brendon quickly averted his eyes and found a different shirt, yanking it on with his back to Ryan. The jeans could go another couple days.

They stopped by the bathroom next, where Ryan washed the smudged makeup off of his face and ran a comb through his hair. Then they continued on, back to Sephora. In the back of the store was a small chair, and Ryan gestured for Brendon to sit there. Brendon watched as Ryan produced a small pair of scissors from a drawer, and came back over to position himself behind Brendon, looking over his shoulder at both of them reflected back by the large mirror.

When Ryan finally started actually cutting his hair, his hands were gentle but firm, combing and then clipping slowly. He kept raking his fingers through Brendon’s hair, apropos of nothing, but it made Brendon want to push against them and fall asleep, or maybe purr. It took nearly a half hour (by Brendon’s estimate) before Ryan was done, but once he was, Brendon wanted him to start back up immediately.

“Wait here,” Ryan instructed, and Brendon shifted a little, but did as he was told.

Ryan moved off, and Brendon watched in the mirror as he disappeared into one of the rows of makeup. He kind of knew what was coming, but he didn’t protest when Ryan reemerged with eyeliner and several colors of eye shadow clutched in his hands.

The only thing that Brendon wasn’t expecting was for Ryan to come back around to the front of him and think for a moment before seating himself directly in Brendon’s lap, dumping the makeup onto their laps. He cradled Brendon’s face between his hands, thumbs right at the corners of Brendon’s eyes as he studied him.

Clearly while he’d been gone, Ryan had done his own makeup, simpler than the day before, but still lovely, with green blossoming out around his eyes and eyeliner trailing off into small curls at the corners. Brendon stared at the green, grateful when Ryan slipped his thumbs over to press Brendon’s eyes shut.

His hands were sure and steady when he started actually applying the makeup, gentle touches with the eye shadow brush, and bold sweeps of the eyeliners. When Brendon’s eyes were open, he could see that Ryan’s expression was completely impassive, not flickering at all when he reached between them for a new color and his knuckles brushed over Brendon’s increasingly obvious hard-on.

“There,” he said eventually, sliding backwards off of Brendon’s lap so that Brendon could stand and walk closer to the mirror, admiring the work Ryan had done.

The primary colors were white and gray, delicate swirls against a background of purple that started at his eyebrows and moved all the way down over his cheeks. The last little curl of gray nearly touched the corner of his lips on the right side. Around his eyes, Ryan had done something to overlay the purple with shimmery gold that sparkled every time Brendon turned his head at all.

“Wow,” he breathed, “That’s…Ryan, that’s amazing.”

Ryan didn’t completely smile, but Brendon thought it was a close thing.

They fell into a pattern, one where Brendon didn’t actually go back home, and Ryan didn’t have to ask him to stay anymore. During the days they sometimes walked around the mall, talking softly, or sometimes just stayed in the bedroom and read, or (in Ryan’s case) wrote. Once in awhile Brendon would play the acoustic guitar, but he couldn’t convince Ryan to.

During this time, Brendon learned that Ryan’s parents were divorced and he had lived with his dad. He learned that Ryan thought that he had step-siblings, but couldn’t remember for sure, and that Ryan felt like his dad didn’t like him, but couldn’t remember why he thought that. Mostly, he didn’t remember things from Before, as he called it, acting like it was a place instead of a time.

For his part, Brendon told Ryan just about everything, except that he thought that Ryan was beautiful. That he kept for himself, a secret that he kept tucked away for later.

Ryan’s favourite store (after the bookstore) was an antique clothing shop, confirming Brendon’s suspicions that Ryan’s clothing was often not from a department store. It was also the shop where he’d gotten all the scarves that were no longer in a pile on the second floor of the mall, but now hung all over the “walls” of their bedroom. Ryan liked to go into the store and just touch the delicate lace gloves and satin vests, sometimes for hours. Brendon liked to watch Ryan, mesmerized by his soft expression when he was looking at the clothes.

On occasion Ryan would dress Brendon in starched jackets and silk shirts, looking as proud when he finished as if he’d created a work of art.

Next door, there was a little café-type shop that they pretty much ignored. Even though the café was indoors, outside of it were little awnings, and black wrought-iron tables and chairs. In fancy writing the windows proclaimed that the store was called Tea au Lait. It looked like just the kind of place that Ryan would love, so Brendon was shocked when he asked and learned that Ryan had never been inside.

“We have to go, now,” Brendon insisted, and Ryan shrugged, then nodded.

Brendon was right, and Ryan fell in love with it immediately. The best way to describe the inside was “quaint.” Brendon hopped over the counter and found delicate china cups and saucers, painted with butterflies and flowers. The same designs started showing up on both their faces the next day, when, for the first time in awhile, Ryan put more into their makeup than just eyeliner and mascara.

There were probably sixty different kinds of tea offered, and Ryan proclaimed, face dreamy, that they had to try each of them. Brendon didn’t argue.

Since Ryan was the one who figured out how to work the tea press, he was usually the one who made the tea, carrying two steaming cups to wherever Brendon had chosen to sit and slipping in across from him, reverently explaining what the tea was, and what it reminded him of. Brendon pretty much always took his tea with copious amounts of sugar, or sometimes honey, but Ryan considered each new type seriously before adding a little sweetener.

He was so solemn about it, as though adding in the correct amounts of sugar or cream was a matter of life and death. Maybe it was, in his mind. Brendon wasn’t sure. He just knew that he liked watching as Ryan drizzled in cream and then told him, eyes wide and framed by thick lashes, that he wasn’t going to stir it because he preferred to watch the colors blend until you couldn’t tell which of them was taking over the other.

After Brendon moved into the mall (if showing up and never leaving counted as moving in), he was always the one to go get them more food from the market across the parking lot. Once he’d learned it was there, Ryan’s ability to subsist and rarely leave made more sense.

There was a day shortly after they finished all of the (sixty three) kinds of tea that Brendon got back to the bedroom with a bagful of groceries, looked at Ryan sitting in the middle of the bed with his legs folded and his head bent, and announced, “Let’s go somewhere.”

Ryan looked up, startled. “What?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. Brendon still couldn’t do that, and it frustrated him.

“Let’s go. I don’t know where. We’ll just get in the car and drive, get out of this empty city. What’s the point of staying?”

It looked like Ryan was seriously considering asking what the point of going was, but instead he said, “I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”

“Okay,” Brendon agreed, “We’ll see the ocean. We can go to California.”

Already shaking his head, Ryan said, “East. The Atlantic. Let’s go to the East Coast.”

Anything, Brendon thought, and nodded. “Alright, then. The East Coast. We can leave in the morning.”

Turning around, he slipped out of his shirt, and then his jeans, pulling on pajama pants instead. From behind him, he could hear Ryan undressing also. He always slept just in boxers. When Brendon faced back around to mention something else about their trip, he nearly jumped out of his skin, because Ryan was standing less than a foot away.

“Um,” he said, and Ryan reached out to place a hand on either side of his face, just like the first day before the makeup.

Even though they shared a bed, and woke up tangled together more often than not, during the day there was an unspoken agreement to not touch one another. Really, it was Ryan’s rule, because Brendon was a tactile person, but Brendon respected it. Besides, the distance helped a little to quell the want that rose up every time Ryan was nearby. It amazed Brendon how much having the world empty made it possible to not panic over the thought of wanting a boy.

Now, Ryan ran the pads of his thumbs up and down Brendon’s jaw line, and Brendon shivered involuntarily. Ryan took another step closer, and when he tilted his head slightly, the pressure of his lips stole Brendon’s breath. Eyes shut, Brendon blindly reached to settle his hands on Ryan’s waist.

Ryan pulled back slightly, murmuring, “You want this, right?”

“God. Yes,” Brendon answered, pulling Ryan closer so that their bare chests were pressed together, and covering Ryan’s mouth with his own again.

This time the kiss was deeper, though still slow and languid, so that Brendon felt like he was hovering in the air, watching himself and Ryan. One of Ryan’s hands had found its way into Brendon’s hair, tangling and tugging, and the other was still cupping his jaw. Brendon had had no idea that Ryan wanted this, but he didn’t question it, just rode the moment blissfully.

Then Ryan started walking forward, pushing Brendon back until they reached the edge of the bed. Just before Brendon’s knees buckled and he couldn’t turn back, he held up a hand, saying, “Whoa, whoa, Ryan, are you sure?”

Ryan curled his fingers over Brendon’s shoulders and shoved him down onto the display comforter, climbing up to straddle him. “Yeah, I’m sure. I want this-you,” he said, and he looked down at Brendon and smiled brilliantly.

When Ryan finally settled on top of him, Brendon couldn’t help gasping, dragging his hips up in a slow grind that had both of them panting and writhing. Despite that, Ryan seemed content just to kiss for now, taking his time as though he’d never felt anything like it before. With a start, Brendon realized that it was probably the first time for both of them. Ryan didn’t even remember most of his life Before, so he’d probably been young enough to have never had his first kiss, let alone anything else, and Brendon had been too sheltered.

Reveling in the fact that he was the one to give this to Ryan, Brendon slowly reached a hand between them to palm Ryan’s cock through his boxers. Ryan’s breath stuttered, and he said, “Ah…Brendon…” before giving up and contenting himself with Brendon’s mouth.

Brendon gave himself over to the task at hand, helping Ryan kick off his boxers before rolling them over and continuing in earnest. They were silent except for the harsh little pants filling the air, until Brendon whispered, “You are gorgeous, Ryan. F-fucking gorgeous.” He stumbled a little over the swear word, still not quite comfortable using it.

Ryan licked his parted lips, hips coming off the bed, and said, “Brendon,” just before he came.

They lay together for a few minutes, Ryan’s dry lips against Brendon’s neck, and Ryan petting absently at Brendon’s hip. Brendon held himself still, even though the light touches made him want nothing more than to thrust hard against the thigh that Ryan was pushing between his legs.

“Hey,” Ryan said, “Hey, it’s okay.” He pushed at Brendon’s shoulder until Brendon rolled sideways, wrapping his long fingers around Brendon’s cock. As he started to stroke, a little too loosely, Brendon bit his lip and moaned. It was so clichéd, but everyone was right that it was so much better than when you touched yourself. This way, he didn’t know what to expect, when Ryan would speed up or slow down, when his hand would trail lower, between Brendon’s balls, or swipe a thumb over the head.

It was only minutes before Brendon was panting, babbling, “Ryan, Ryan, could you do that just a little bit harder?”

Ryan nodded, furrowing his brow as he squeezed his hand tighter, looking less aimless and more purposeful about his motions than before. He ran his free hand through Brendon’s hair, hand inadvertently moving in time with the one jacking Brendon so that the hand that was petting moved a little bit jerkily. “You too, you know?” he said, and it took Brendon’s sex-addled mind a minute to figure out that Ryan was replying to Brendon’s early comment about Ryan being gorgeous.

“Thanks,” he tried to say, but it came out too high, almost keening, and Ryan sped up his hand in response. He wasn’t great at it, but Brendon didn’t mind, because it wasn’t like he had any other experience either. It still felt amazing to have Ryan actually touching him, and bending it to press a kiss to Brendon’s chest.

It was only another minute or so before he came, and Ryan didn’t even seem to mind that some got on the bedspread. Brendon supposed it didn’t matter, since they were going to be leaving anyway.

Still hovering over him, Ryan looked down at Brendon and brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead. In a tone of absolute amazement he said, “Spencer.”

Brendon’s eyebrows shot up, but before he could say, No, Ryan, I’m Brendon. Brendon, Ryan bent down and kissed him again, all precision and warmth. When he pulled back, he said, “I remember. His name was Spencer, and we were best friends.” Scooting down and wrapping himself around Brendon, he nuzzled his face into Brendon’s shoulder and sighed contentedly.

After Brendon could actually function again, they moved under the covers and cuddled there together until they both drifted off.

Part 2